Only Two NYPD Cops Went to Afghanistan - He Was One of Them | Tom Smith | Ep. 379

Retired NYPD detective Tom Smith joins the show to recount three decades on the force — from the crack epidemic and 9/11 to counterterrorism and major international cases. He shares raw stories of trauma, resilience, and redemption, and reflects on the mental toll of policing, the evolution of the job, and his new mission through the Gold Shields podcast. Check out Tom's podcast Gold Shields here: https://thegoldshieldshow.com/ https://www.carryimpact.com/ Today's Sponsors TrueWerk ⬇️ https://truewerk.com/house use code "HOUSE" for 15% off! GhostBed⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 25% off sitewide! For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics... JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouse To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video -early access to shows -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Support the show here:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse ___________________________________________________ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured __________________________________ Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ —————————————————————— Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: ⬇️ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 00:00 – Early Career & NYPD Beginnings 09:11 – Policing Through the Crack Epidemic 13:40 – Anti-Crime Unit & First Shootout 30:11 – Assigned to Robbery Squad & 9/11 Strikes 39:12 – Joining the Joint Terrorism Task Force 45:11 – Afghanistan Kidnapping Case 52:18 – Preventing a School Shooting 55:46 – Saving an Infant & Memorable Cases 59:03 – Retirement & Mental Health Reflections 1:10:49 – Gold Shields Podcast & Closing Thoughts Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:55Speaker 02

  The Team House. With your hopes, Jack Murphy and David Park.

• 1:02Jack Murphy?

  Hey, everyone. This is episode 379 of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy, here with our guest tonight, Tom Smith, who served as an NYPD detective for decades, working anti-crime units, narco, anti-gang, robbery squad, and then was tasked to the FBI for a number of different types of assignments, including counterterrorism. We'll get into all of this stuff, but Tom, first, I just want to say thanks for joining us on the show tonight.

• 1:36Speaker 04

  No, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

• 1:39Jack Murphy?

  So, the question I usually ask is about the person's origin story. If you can tell us a little bit about sort of like your upbringing. I remember you telling me your dad was a NYPD cop, too, and sort of how that, you know, took you into service.

• 1:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, uh, and that's what it was. He was, you know, my hero, my mentor. He was my best friend. And I grew up in that world. You know, I watched him go to work, have that great gold shield on his belt when he would get home, uh, which is the only shield I ever wanted. Uh, from the time I was probably eight years old, I wanted to be a member of the NYPD and that's all I ever wanted to do. Uh, you have an influence when, you know, you go into the precincts before Yankee games and you're meeting all his partners and his friends. Even after he retired, we would go to Fort Apache. We'd go to the 4-4, you know, and visit everyone.

• 2:35Speaker 04

  So I got really entrenched in that world of watching that friendship and the, you know, partnerships that he had, which meant so much to him and me. Uh, even to this day, Jack, I still talk to one of my dad's old partners' families, you know, that he worked with in the 60s and we're still very tight and very good friends with them. So that gives you an idea of just what that bond was like to me and wanting to be part of it. And luckily in 1990, uh, I got the opportunity to join the NYPD and had a very fortunate, good career with, uh, my dad next to me for probably most of it, for sure.

• 3:19Jack Murphy?

  So I, I mean, there's a couple of things I'd like to ask you about. I guess one of the, since we're here right now, what do you think was the difference between your dad's service and NYPD going back to the 60s and yours, which started in 1990?

• 3:34Speaker 04

  Wow, that's a great question. You know what it was? It's the, it's what was going on in the city at the time, you know, in the, in the 50s, 60s and 70s, especially the 50s and 60s, you know, New York was what it was. It was kind of booming. It was a good place. Yes, you had the crime, but the respect factor that civilians had for the police was dramatically different than in the 70s, 80s, and then what I went through and even today. But back then, you know, they were... People waved at them, people talked to them on the street, you had that beat cop.

• 4:08Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 4:08Speaker 04

  That everyone knew in your neighborhood. Uh, and that did go on, you know, when I got on, but not as much and, and much of a respect factor that he dealt with. Uh, but I remember, you know, being around him during that and getting the stories of, of people really respecting what the NYPD was. But then when I got on in 1990, the city was completely different. You know, you had, you know, we were dealing with almost 3,000 homicides a year and 125,000 robberies. You know, in the early nineties, uh, I worked in a command in the 3O precinct, which was one of the smallest precincts in the city, but one of the most dangerous and violent and busiest.

• 4:50Speaker 04

  You know, in one year, in one square mile, we had 88 homicides.

• 4:56Jack Murphy?

  Holy shit.

• 4:56Speaker 04

  In one square mile in the city. That's how, that's what New York City was. And, you know, that was a dramatic difference from back in the fifties, obviously. But it was something that we had to deal with and get, you know, trained for and be ready for once we got on. We knew what the city was like in the nineties when we were all getting hired. So it was something you just prepare for. But I had kind of an ace in the hole with that at home to get some good advice from, that's for sure.

• 5:22Jack Murphy?

  And I, I guess the follow-up to that is I'd like to ask you, when you came on the force in 1990, what is it like specifically trying to work as a cop in New York City? What are the particular challenges that you face in New York, which I think now we have 8.5 million people in the city? It was probably a little bit less than that in 1990, but nonetheless, I mean, a major metropolitan area.

• 5:43Speaker 04

  Oh, it was enormous. And, and the precinct that I worked in was so diverse. You had Dominicans, you had blacks, you had whites, you had, you know, a whole ton of different people that were there. But I think the biggest challenge was being ready for what was ahead of you. And being prepared, uh, for what was lying in the street, waiting, waiting for you. And, you know, a lot of training, you know, takes place, obviously, but a lot of instinctive things gets, gets put into your head really quick, especially when you're busy. And it's learning from, you know, other officers who've been there. And that was one of the dramatic differences, Jack, from when I got on to what they're facing today.

• 6:21Speaker 04

  When I got on and I was in uniform, you had cops on in uniform on patrol with 12, 15, 17 years on the job that you learned from. You know, kids are getting out of the academy today and relying on someone that's got four or five years on the job, you know, to train them and to show them or to mentor them into what the job's all about. And I think that is a dramatic difference in what is being faced today and what I do.

• 6:48Jack Murphy?

  Why do you think that is, Tom? Does that have to do with like early retirement or career stuff? Why, why don't we have these old school guys still around?

• 6:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think it's a little of both. I think it's, it's people moving on and going to other departments, but I think it's also that other units within the NYPD want that experienced officer to be part of their unit. So, you know, a lot of experienced cops were going to narcotics and going to gang unit and going to detective squads because they had that experience that maybe some of these units were lacking. So they were pulling them off of patrol to backfill these other units and, and that was to the detriment of patrol when you had the new kids coming in.

• 7:29Jack Murphy?

  So 1990, you go through the process. I, I assume you had to take a New York City entrance exam of some type to get in and then go to the academy. Anything from that period of time you want to lay on us before we jump into your first assignment?

• 7:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know what? I'm going to blow everyone's mind. You think of, of how revered the NYPD was back then. It was the job to have. And here's the number. We had 85,000 people took the test that I was on.

• 8:00Jack Murphy?

  Wow.

• 8:01Speaker 04

  Think about that. I mean, now there, there, there's a couple of hundred, there's a thousand, is this 85,000 people took that exam. So that shows you just what that job meant to a lot of people, including myself. And, you know, you did, you went through the written test, you got batched into kind of a bundle of people and you went through medicals and psychologicals. And then you got appointed and that was the, that was the start of, of a long, long career that went really fast, if that makes any sense.

• 8:34Jack Murphy?

  So your first assignment, you're a patrol cop, a beat cop. Where, where did you get assigned?

• 8:40Speaker 04

  The 30th precinct, which was in the west side of Harlem and some of, and the lower half of Washington Heights, on the west side of Manhattan.

• 8:47Jack Murphy?

  Okay, yeah.

• 8:48Speaker 04

  Yep, and it was a great place to work, you know, it was small, but it was busy and you had no choice but to learn really quick, you know, what was going on in the street and how to be a cop.

• 9:00Jack Murphy?

  What was that experience like for you, being a beat cop and now you're out on the streets?

• 9:05Speaker 04

  It was everything you wanted, you know, like I said, from the time you're eight years old to stepping out on the street, you waited for that moment. So being there, I loved every part of it and I tell people all the time, in order to be successful, especially in the NYPD, you have to love it. You can't like it. If you just like it, you're not gonna like, you know, be successful in it. So I loved every part of it and just, I wanted to be busy, I wanted to make a lot of arrests, I wanted to make some sort of impact in my career and learn really quick. Probably maybe too much, too quick sometimes, but that's just how I was wired and wanting, you know, everything I could possibly do as quick as I could.

• 9:48Jack Murphy?

  Yes, you're immersing yourself in all of this. I mean, what was sort of the, the crime and the policing situation like in Harlem in 1990?

• 9:57Speaker 04

  Oh, it was wild. And my command in Washington Heights was drugs, drugs, drugs, which deals with now robberies and guns and, and everything like that. We were the, you know, narcotics center of the world. It was the direct line from the south up the 95 corridor up to Washington Heights. And that was why we were so absolutely busy with, with drugs and everything fueled narcotics. You know, like you said, we had shootings because of narcotics and robberies were because of narcotics. And in 1990, we were still living through the crack epidemic, you know, so you still

• 10:37Speaker 04

  had the crack effect going into the 90s when I started from the mid 80s, you know, so that was still around. So, you know, it was a very violent time in, in New York City from 1990 to the time I got on until 94, when the political scheme in New York changed with Rudy Giuliani getting elected and Bill Bratton coming in. So the department went through a dramatic change at that point.

• 11:05Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, tell us more about that. What changed in 94?

• 11:09Speaker 04

  Well, we were allowed to be cops again. You know, you had Bill Bratton came in and got his team together, which we called the dream team of Louis Anamone and John Timoney and, and, you know, a number of others who were old school cops, all from the seventies, who just knew what policing in New York City was all about. And they had our back and told us, hey, go out and be cops again. This is why you got hired. This is why you took this job to go out and clean the city up. But here was the biggest dramatic difference in, in why it worked, Jack. It wasn't just the cops going out there doing their job. Giuliani and Bratton had a deal with the DA's offices throughout the city. And they had a big sit down one time and said,

• 11:54Speaker 04

  listen, if we're gonna send our cops out there to do their job, the DA's better damn well do theirs. And keep these people in jail and have high enough bails that they don't get out and it's not a revolving door. So we all worked together, which then allowed the federals, the feds to come in and start Trigalock programs and enhancement programs, which now had regular criminals facing federal charges, which dramatically changed how crimes were being committed and what we could do even after arrests with enhancing arrests to make sure they go federally, or even just get boosted up a little bit. But the DA's office was so on board with what we were doing,

• 12:36Speaker 04

  and that's why we were able to get the crime down, starting in 1994.

• 12:42Jack Murphy?

  And I, I mean, did you see during this timeframe, like a pretty dramatic shift? I mean, being a cop and walking the streets every day, you can like feel the vibe, right? I mean, did, did you start to see it both like empirically, but also just how you felt about the neighborhood?

• 12:57Speaker 04

  Oh, 100%. You know, and, and the thing was, we may have been, might have been in a, in a crime riddled area. Washington Heights might have been kind of a, you know, New York City war zone. But you had so many good people there that understood what had to be done. And then once we started to clean up these streets and lock up the groups of people that were just creating this mayhem, you had the support of all these neighborhoods and these, these community centers and everything like that were always on board with us because they saw the hard work we were doing and what we were putting into it.

• 13:32Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, and I mean nowadays Harlem's actually a pretty nice place.

• 13:36Speaker 04

  Oh, I drive through, I drive through my old command now and they got dog parks, you know, and all that. And it's a, it's a big difference from when I was there, that's for sure.

• 13:46Jack Murphy?

  I mean, today the complaint is that it's getting gentrified, right?

• 13:50Speaker 04

  Yep. You know, you have people sitting on their, their, you know, stoops with their laptops, you know, Riverside Drive and, and on Amsterdam Avenue, which, I mean, back then that was a, you didn't walk through that neighborhood back then. You know, that's how bad it was. And now you see just all types of people. You know, a lot of kids from Columbia University are now moving up to that area because it's not too far away. And the neighborhood did change dramatically. You're right about that.

• 14:18Jack Murphy?

  It's, it's just on the other side of Morningside Park. You go down the steps and you're right there.

• 14:24Speaker 04

  Absolutely right. Yep.

• 14:25Jack Murphy?

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• 15:10Jack Murphy?

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• 16:24Speaker 05

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• 16:39Speaker 06

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• 16:54Speaker 07

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• 17:01Speaker 05

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• 17:20Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 17:48Speaker 01

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• 18:17Jack Murphy?

  And so, pretty shortly around this timeframe, you ended up in a anti-crime plainclothes unit. You want to tell us about that job?

• 18:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was, that was an awesome unit to work in because you go from patrol and you get selected to go into anti-crime, which was a plainclothes unit within the precinct. And we were responsible for the robbery patterns. We would respond to the in-progress calls, either shots fired job or a man with a gun, or the robbery or burglary calls. We had unmarked cars, we dressed in the street clothes. Small unit, there was only five of us in the unit. We had two different teams, there were five of us on each unit. And that was just a great opportunity. I had my sergeant, who was one of my best friends, had picked me up to be part of that unit. And that was, you know, the beginning of what you want, what I wanted to do in the job.

• 19:11Speaker 04

  I kind of had a checklist in my head, which I tell young cops today and I tell college students today when I go and speak to them, to always have a plan, have an agenda, what you want to do in this job and make sure no one stops you from doing it. You want to achieve it, go get it. And being part of an anti-crime unit was on, you know, the top of my list. So, once I got to that, then I could start really planning out the rest of my career, where I wanted to go.

• 19:38Jack Murphy?

  Were there any particular calls that stand out in your mind from that time of your life?

• 19:43Speaker 04

  Oof, how much time we got?

• 19:46Jack Murphy?

  As much as you want.

• 19:47Speaker 04

  I mean, you think about it, you know, back then, we were, we were handling 100 jobs a night, you know, in an eight-hour tour, it was insane. I mean, I was involved in 1993, a pretty bad shootout that me and my partner were in and one of our cops got shot during it. He survived, he was shot in the leg. We, we ran across three individuals who just robbed a supermarket. And they were actually wanted, we found out later, they were wanted for 17 supermarket robberies throughout the city. And we got into a pretty good gun battle with them and shot all three of them. They lived, we caught. Three of them and they spent about a hundred years each in jail.

• 20:32Jack Murphy?

  Holy shit.

• 20:33Speaker 04

  The officer who was shot was shot in the leg about ten feet from me when when it happened. But he was he got three quarters because it blew out his hamstring when he got shot. But you know, you you think about being a young cop. I was only on the job for three years when that happened. And talk about a wake up call, you know of, okay, you know, hopefully that's it. Put that in your pocket, you know, we got that part of your career over with. Which was the case, I I didn't get another one, so one was enough for sure.

• 21:05Jack Murphy?

  What I mean, could you tell us a little bit about like what that moment was like? I imagine like something at the OK Corral where it's like three cops meet three robbers. And like you guys are looking at each other like who's going to pull first?

• 21:17Speaker 04

  Well, it was it was in a car and we were outside the car. What had happened was they went into the supermarket, robbed it. And while they were leaving, someone came up to us because we just happened to be right across the street in our car. Waiting for an officer to cash his check in the bank, which was right across the street. And someone had told us, hey, you know, something's going on in the supermarket. So we did a quick U turn and we encountered one of the employees who told us, hey, there's three guys in a car. They just robbed us, they tied up the the security guard and they're coming up 144th Street in a car. They just carjacked. So we went to 144th Street and cut them off. And they just leaned out the window and started shooting at us.

• 21:59Speaker 04

  We shot back, the car took off, we ran actually behind the car. Until Ralph came out of the bank and stopped the car. They leaned out the car and shot him. So we had a actual gun battle with them in the backseat of a car because we blew out the back windshield. With them in the backseat of the car and us at the trunk. So that was that was how close we were to having a gun battle with them. In the middle of the afternoon, right on Broadway on a Friday afternoon at 113 in the afternoon.

• 22:31Jack Murphy?

  Oh, my God.

• 22:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:34Jack Murphy?

  And they each got a hundred.

• 22:35Speaker 04

  You know what? It's not, it's not the movies.

• 22:38Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 22:39Speaker 04

  It's not TV. It is the most, it was the oddest thing to go through, Jack, because we fired, I think, I'm, I'm guesstimating now from what I remember, like forty seven shots were fired in, in that battle. I think I heard two of the shots. The rest were just really echoes, like you were in a, you know, a pillow. Uh, everything's in slow motion. Your tunnel vision kicks in. It was a very, very bizarre situation to go through, but it was amazing how much your training just absolutely kicks in. Uh, to get cover, get behind something, you know, make sure you don't run out of bullets.

• 23:20Speaker 04

  Uh, cause at the time we had this, we only had thirty eights. We didn't even have nine yet.

• 23:25Jack Murphy?

  Oh, man.

• 23:26Speaker 04

  Uh, so when I get to the number of fifty, forty something rounds, they were with thirty eights. Uh, so.

• 23:33Jack Murphy?

  So you guys were having to use like speed loaders on your thirty eights?

• 23:37Speaker 04

  Speed loaders, yep. Uh, I actually got to reload once and then had to pull up my off duty off, uh, out because I didn't have time to reload again. It's at that time, they were all getting out of the car. Uh, which ensued another gun battle. So this was, like I said, at, at one o'clock in the afternoon on Broadway. So you can imagine that scene, uh, when that was taking place and to make things worse, uh, on the family side, it was a month after I got married. So you can imagine what my wife was thinking of watching the news.

• 24:12Jack Murphy?

  Well, I mean, I guess everything worked out. Okay. I, I mean, I'm amazed. It's such, at such close range that, you know, you guys didn't get hit. You know, the one officer did, but not you two.

• 24:22Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. You heard them. They were certainly going by, you know, you heard the, the zings going past you. Uh, but there happened to be thankfully a box truck that was right next to me that I was able to get behind. Uh, you know, to cover, you know, while they were getting out of the car, then a foot pursuit took place after that down in the subway and, and around the corner. So it was a, uh, a big, dramatic, uh, day for sure.

• 24:48Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. You say it's not like in the movies, but it sure sounds like a law and order episode right there.

• 24:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, if I played it back, I'd probably look at it and go, wow, that was pretty cool. But at the time, you know, you're not, you're just making sure you're okay. And thankfully Ralph was, you know, once we got up to the hospital and saw him, you know, he was okay, which was the main thing and we got all three and, you know, the trials took place later on. So that all worked out. But, but like you said, if you could rewind it and watch it from kind of a thousand feet up in the air, you'd probably think it was pretty cool.

• 25:23Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I mean, those guys shot a cop. They're going away for a while.

• 25:26Speaker 04

  Yeah. And they were career criminals. They were, they were just bad, bad guys. You know, just, just the number of robberies they were wanted for, just other crimes that they committed. One of them was wanted for a rape and a homicide up in Boston. You know, so they were, they were bad, bad guys.

• 25:44Jack Murphy?

  Shit. And your next assignment was, was it narco or anti-gang?

• 25:50Speaker 04

  Narcotics. Narcotics was first. Yep. And then my narcotics team actually became the first gang unit in the gang team in the Bronx. But narcotics was, let me tell you, other than JTTF, which was another world, you know, which we'll get into, but narcotics was the most, I say this all the time, the most quote unquote fun I ever had on the job because it was just non-stop all the time. And I had a phenomenal team that I was on. We were busy, me and my partner, I still talk to my partner from narcotics today. We're still tight and very good friends. And we were actually partners again in the robbery squad

• 26:31Speaker 04

  in the Bronx. But, you know, Carlos taught me what being a detective is all about, what doing casework was all about and, and never stopping or never giving up, you know, in pursuit of, you know, locking the bad guys up, especially when it came to narcotics and he was so good at it. And, you know, we, we did. Not that we didn't bother, but we wanted those big cases. We wanted those, those wiretaps, those large seizures. Search warrants, we did constantly, you know, over and over again. And we got very, very good at it. But we had a just absolute great team who always had each other's back. When we would do a warrant, we did, you know, we were all had the same role

• 27:12Speaker 04

  each and every time. So we knew where each of us was going to be. Uh, I actually, you know, again, my wife loving it that I was the ram guy, you know, hitting the door, which she, you know, loved every time. Hey, we're going to do a warrant, you know, so, uh, but it was just, you know, it, it fit in what we were doing. But that was a, a great time in my career. We were so successful in what we did. It was, it was a lot of fun.

• 27:37Jack Murphy?

  And I, I think you mentioned, so this is in the Bronx and it's sort of at the tail end, I guess, of the crack cocaine epidemic?

• 27:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, I got in, uh, crack was still around, but not now it was becoming more weight. And even heroin now in 1996 is when I got there. Heroin was really starting to come back into a full force, especially in the Bronx. We did a number of, of very large heroin cases, uh, in the Bronx that, you know, we, we did one case that, uh, encompassed doing eight search warrants and one shot on three different streets in one neighborhood. Uh, and ended up locking up about 15 people. One of them was wanted by the DEA. Uh, so that was, that was one of the big heroin cases that we had done.

• 28:24Jack Murphy?

  And, uh, you said earlier, I think you were involved in like some record-setting bust during this time.

• 28:32Speaker 04

  Yeah. Uh, my partner Carlos started a case, uh, that ended up being, uh, ended up at the time being the, the largest kilo seizure in the Bronx narcotics history. We ended up getting 128 kilos of cocaine, which came up from Venezuela.

• 28:50Speaker 04

  Up through Miami and then a tractor trailer up to the Bronx, which we knew all that was going on. We even had the two locations, there were two garages that we were up on, uh, different sections of the Bronx. That we knew they were going to one of them and it ended up on, uh, Memorial Day of 1997. You know, all our beepers go off and everything goes crazy, but everyone happened to be at a barbecue on Memorial Day. So we all had to stop doing that, get in the car, fly down to work. And ended up, uh, getting all the kilos and getting, uh, seven individuals that we locked up from Venezuela and the Bronx, uh, as being part of this crew.

• 29:33Jack Murphy?

  Uh, I mean, I don't know if it was the situation in this case, but I've had like DEA guys and ATF guys describe to me. That yeah, sometimes they'll be tracking the shipment down in South America and track it all the way to the United States. And they'll let it, let it get to, you know, kind of the endpoint before it gets distributed. So you can bust everybody involved up and down the chain.

• 29:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was, that was pretty much this. We were working with, uh, one of the DEA task forces in this case. So we knew, uh, you know, we got told later they were monitoring it. We knew it was coming. And then once it went in one direction in the Bronx, we knew the garage it was going to end up in. So that was all set up and we were ready for that. Uh, and that was, that was a really good one. Because when you're, when you're a Bronx narcotics team, to get a case like that up and running and work with the DEA team wasn't the norm. You know, a lot of cases were buy and bust and doing search warrants and getting a certain amount, you know, of weight when you locked up the people. But doing a case like this was, was great because no one think we, no one thought we could.

• 30:39Speaker 04

  You know, we got a lot of, oh, you guys are chasing a kilo fairy and nothing's going to happen and nothing, you know, you guys don't get anything like this. So once it all happened, yeah, that was a good feeling walking into the office the next couple of days.

• 30:53Jack Murphy?

  Was that kind of like a, a shift in approach? Like you said, like before it was search warrants and buy and busts. Where it was kind of the idea of doing long-term, like undercover work and things like that starting to percolate?

• 31:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, we we had a lot of that and and we were fortunate to have two incredible undercovers that were on our team that would actually start cases on their own from doing B and B. They were that good. Uh, you know, and the long time case is what everybody wanted to do because it was just more focused, more exciting. You know, you got to do more things and you were you were involved in a larger case. So you could get that that mill or that distributor or where's it coming from, you know, mentality than just the street guy who's, you know, slinging a couple of ounces or a couple of, you know, glass scenes of heroin. So it was just a a bigger case to work on and always, you know, hoping that the success was what we had felt.

• 31:53Jack Murphy?

  And next, uh, you guys became the counter gang squad?

• 31:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, it got, uh, the gang unit just started kind of getting up because we saw more and more gangs, you know, coming into the Bronx. So they wanted to start focusing on the gangs that were, you know, really taking over, you know, but the gangs were, we didn't change our mentality because the gangs were involved in the same thing just the street narcotics guys were involved in. They were selling dope, they were selling drugs to finance their other parts of their gang activity. They were doing robberies. So it wasn't a big dramatic change of what we were doing, but it was just more of a focus to go after, uh, you know, the gangs and and we got one case up and running, uh,

• 32:40Speaker 04

  that we worked with the FBI with and we ended up locking up and arresting the head of the East Coast Bloods, uh, O G Mack, who is now a guest at the federal penitentiary in Florence, Colorado for the rest of his life. Uh, so that case was was a really big case to do, getting him and his entire crew, uh, that was stationed in the Bronx, uh, off the street and and in jail for a really long time.

• 33:08Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, out of curiosity, I'd like to ask a bit more about that. Like, who were the the drug gangs and the street gangs? Like, who who were kind of like the organized crime of the time?

• 33:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, the the Bloods were a big part of it. You had the Latin Kings, you had the Nietas. Uh, the Nietas were kind of an enforcement unit from, uh, the Latin Kings, but they were involved. And then you had, you had. Five or six guys who would name themselves something, you know, that that you had to kind of you work through, but they weren't the Bloods, the Crips. There were not that many Crips around, but there were people who just identified as them. But you had to kind of filter through the five idiots standing on the corner with a red handkerchief in their pocket to the actual Blood Gang, you know, who had a absolute hierarchy and put together,

• 34:01Speaker 04

  like you said, like an organized crime contingent of, you know, you had the boss, you had lieutenants, you had captains, you had enforcers, you know, and the Bloods were set up that way where, you know, the street kids, just to identify with someone would come up with some stupid name that, you know, we had to run down every once in a while, but but that was all right.

• 34:22Jack Murphy?

  And and then you got assigned to the robbery squad?

• 34:26Speaker 04

  Uh, yep. Uh, how we got that was, you know, like I mentioned before, my partner had got assigned to the 52 precinct robbery squad. He's like, hey, we got a couple of openings, put in for it, you know, let's get back together and and, you know, work together again. And we were always just great friends and we worked so well together that that was kind of a no brainer. So, uh, you know, I put in for it, you know, did a couple of interviews and got picked up on his team and we were working together again, focusing on, you know, robberies, the patterns, everything that had to do in that command for anything that had to do with robberies. And, you know, we had a great time, but while we were there

• 35:06Speaker 04

  is when 9/11 happened. So, you know, in one 102 minute episode, the world changed and our careers changed.

• 35:14Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I want I was about to ask you that. Um, but but for the the robbery squad, I imagine these weren't cat burglars rappelling from the skylights you were looking for. It's more like people holding up liquor shops?

• 35:27Speaker 04

  Oh yeah, there were anything, any robbery, strong arm robberies, street level, uh, commercial robberies, they were all part of it. You know, we handled them all, which was, which was great. Cause it just kept you busy and you were just bouncing from one to another. And, you know, some of the strong arm robberies, uh, ended up being robberies, but people just owing people money.

• 35:46Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 35:47Speaker 04

  You know, but then, then it becomes a robbery. Uh, so we had to deal with that on top of, you know, like you said, the, the group going into a store. Uh, you know, and doing a, a armed robbery, you know, with weapons and, and things like that. So it was a combination of a lot of different things.

• 36:04Jack Murphy?

  So tell us where you were on nine 11 when you came into work that day?

• 36:09Speaker 04

  So on nine 11, I was actually off that day, uh, and I was home and I happened to be in the car with my daughter, uh, who's only uh, about 18 months old at the time. And my parents had planned on coming up to the house to have lunch that day. So we were running to the store pretty early just to get some things, you know, some snacks and, and dessert and things like that. And I'm sitting in my car at a red light and I happened to look at the radio and noticed that there was no music playing. It was just somebody talking, which was odd at eight 30 in the morning. So I turned it up and the DJ was talking to this woman.

• 36:51Speaker 04

  And she's describing a plane hitting one of the towers in the World Trade Center. So the very first thing I did, like everyone did that day, I looked out my windshield and just said, all right, how'd they screw that up? Because it was a gorgeous day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. So the very first thing I thought of was, you know, what, what happened and, and thinking it was just one of the tourist planes that fly around Manhattan all the time. Or maybe it's a helicopter and they're saying it was a plane, you know, so I wasn't too concerned about it, uh, because, you know, they're just having a conversation about it. Then I pull into the parking lot of the store I was gonna go in. And the woman on the radio starts hysterically screaming on the radio.

• 37:34Speaker 04

  And I stopped my car and you're kind of staring at your radio going, man, what, what is she doing? Why is she screaming? And the DJ can't get her to stop. Cause he doesn't know what's going on. And then she finally got the words out that another plane just hit the other building, the other tower. So I right there knew something was wrong. This was some sort of an attack. So I, I just did a U-turn in the parking lot and I called my partner. Carlos, who I was working with at the time. And I didn't even get a word out. He just said, where are you? I said, listen, I'm with Nikki. What's going on? I'm not home. I'm not near a TV. What's going on? And he said, we're being attacked. Come drive, take care of the kids. That Carlos knew my whole family. So he knew my wife, he knew everybody. He's like, listen, get them settled. Come and pick me up and we'll get down there.

• 38:19Speaker 04

  Uh, so I did that, got the family all settled, went and picked him up and we had to take a really wild, long way into the city because at that point, everything was shut down. Uh, so we found a way down there and got right down to ground zero. Uh, had to park on the FDR drive and run through the tunnel. You know, up to the west side, uh, because you couldn't get near it. And let me tell you. It was the most dramatic scene. Obviously anyone ever saw, but it looked fake. It just looked like it was plastic. Uh, it looked like a movie set, you know, with the lights that were there.

• 39:01Speaker 04

  And the couple of things that always jumped out, Jack, and I get asked this all the time were, were two main things. One was the smell of burning cement. Uh, that smell I'll never forget. Uh, that you smell just for days and days and days of that just odd smell of cement. And jet fuel, you know, and all that, which was just all over the, the area. And the other thing was having military fighter jets bank around Manhattan. You know, that was, that was a scene that you just went, all right, the world just changed.

• 39:37Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 39:38Speaker 04

  And everything about, everything in the world is going to be different. And watching these fighter jets just buzz around Manhattan. Uh, was, was some scene to, uh, remember.

• 39:50Jack Murphy?

  And I mean, that must have been a really long day for you and your partner.

• 39:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, we were down there. We got down there after they collapsed. But I don't think we left until probably around 5 a.m. And you left, you went home, you changed your clothes, you got something to eat, and we went right back down the next day. And that went on for a couple of days, and then things started to kind of settle in of of having specific assignments of what was going to go on. And one of the worst assignments that you could get, but but desperately needed was going out to the landfill in Staten Island, where all the debris that they were taking out of ground zero was being brought to a landfill in Staten Island where we had to go through every part of it.

• 40:39Speaker 04

  And let me tell you, that was worse than being down in ground zero. What we had to go through and sift through and find and categorize and all that. And the Fresh Hill landfill was was not talked about a lot on the news within the department because of what we were doing out there. And that was a really hard place to go to because there is where you really felt and understood the impact of what just happened because you were going through everything and finding IDs and purses and other stuff that you can use your imagination about what, you know, we were finding in these piles,

• 41:22Speaker 04

  which you'll never unsee, you'll never forget, whether it's 25 years later or or 80 years later, you know, it doesn't matter. Those images that we had to go through, we'll never forget.

• 41:36Jack Murphy?

  One of the things that I sometimes try to communicate to people, younger people, who were born, you know, around that timeframe, you know, these Gen Z'ers or whoever they are, people who are like our kids' age, frankly. I don't think they understand like how terrified the entire country was after that happened.

• 41:57Speaker 04

  Absolutely not, not even, not even close. Uh, that's why I, whenever I go to an academy or I go to a college to speak, I implore them to go down to the nine eleven museum. Because that's when you'll see what actually took place that day and, and really feel it when you walk into that museum. But, you know, that's a lot with the schools, you know, they just got away from teaching what went on that day. And I can't tell you the number of college kids, Jack, that I'll talk to that have no idea what happened that day.

• 42:29Jack Murphy?

  That's wild.

• 42:30Speaker 04

  You know, they don't understand it, you know, and I'll ask them all the time and this blows their mind. I'll ask them, how long do you think all those attacks took? And you'll get, oh, a day, two days, you know, nine hours, you know, whatever. And they have no idea. Then when I tell them that every event that happened on nine eleven took a hundred and two minutes, they cannot believe it because they were never taught that. And I don't know why it's not taught or, or shown the reverence of, of other attacks that took place in other wars that took place in this country, but it's part of our history that certainly should be taught much more than it already is.

• 43:10Jack Murphy?

  And as you point out, I mean, it changed the entire country and the entire world in a way.

• 43:15Speaker 04

  Mm hmm. Yeah, it did. Uh, everything changed. Every, I mean, we're still 25 years later doing things that we didn't do on September 10th. Uh, you know, so that just shows you the, the cost of it and what that, what that attack did to this, this whole world, not just the country, but around the world.

• 43:34Jack Murphy?

  And so this changed, obviously this had an immense personal impact on you, but it also impacted your career professionally, right? Did it, did it sort of change your, the trajectory that you were on, that you started going into the counterterrorism direction?

• 43:48Speaker 04

  Oh, no doubt. I would have been, listen, like I mentioned in the beginning of this, you know, my dad was a homicide cop in the Bronx. That is all I wanted to be. I would have been extremely happy with the rest of my career being a Bronx homicide detective. That was what I wanted to do. That was my goal. That's where I wanted to end up, and that was it. And it just shows you how you have to be ready for anything when you join this department, when you join any department, to be ready for your career and your life to change in one day, which is did. You know, after nine eleven, I got contacted by a sergeant that I used to work with when I was in the three O and said, hey, where are you? I said, I'm in the five two RAM,

• 44:33Speaker 04

  which was short for robbery squad. And he said, all right, get down to twenty six Federal Plaza tomorrow. I'm gonna hand you a bunch of paperwork, fill it out and get it back to me because I need you to get down here to the task force. And with that, you go, okay.

• 44:51Speaker 04

  That was as simple as it gets. And I met Mike the next day and he handed me a stack of papers about this big, you know, with with everything that conceived your your life from high school to college to every neighbor you have, because it was a national security clearance packet that we had to fill out in order to get down there. And that took about almost a year to finish your background check in order to get all the TS clearances and everything else you need to be down there, working there. And as soon as that got all cleared, I was down at the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which the FBI ran. And the New York office is the largest in the country and for good reason, obviously.

• 45:36Speaker 04

  But that was a game changer and life changing detail when I went down there for sure.

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• 49:18Jack Murphy?

  And when you got to the JTTF, what kind of assignments did they give you?

• 49:24Speaker 04

  What kind of what?

• 49:25Jack Murphy?

  What kind of cases did you end up?

• 49:27Speaker 04

  Oh, you were working, you know, I was on one of the international teams. So we were working international cases that, you know, impacted New York or other parts of the United States, but mostly anything that impacted New York, we were working on. So you had different teams that worked, different groups. You had Al Qaeda teams, you had Hezbollah teams, you had homegrown teams, domestic teams. So, you know, it was an enormous undertaking. You know, before I tell everyone, on September 10th, there were 11 NYPD detectives assigned to JTTF. After nine eleven happened, we had the largest JTTF in the country. We had about one hundred and twenty-five NYPD officers, detectives and sergeants

• 50:11Speaker 04

  assigned to the task force. And we ran that with the FBI, obviously, because it's our city. And we had the resources and connections and all that to to play a big, major role in the task force. Uh, and you know, you you switch gears quite dramatically from doing a narcotics case in the Bronx to now doing an international terrorism case with someone who wants to blow the world up. So, you know, what I did, and I discussed it with you earlier, my mindset was to make it and keep it as simple as possible. Don't overblow it. Don't make it more than it is. It's a case and run it just like a case.

• 50:53Speaker 04

  And, you know, that worked for me, but, you know, as an NYPD detective, Jack, you're you're happy if you take a day trip to Jersey. You know, that that's a big deal for the day. Uh, and now you're getting on a plane, going anywhere in the world that you need to go. You know, in a moment's notice, hey, I need to go to Germany because this guy's there. I need to talk to him. Okay, book it, you know, do the proper paperwork, you're good to go. Uh, you know, so you had to get in that that mindset as well, that the resources that were available were limitless. Uh, you know, we had to go to do anything we needed to do to make sure nine eleven didn't happen again.

• 51:34Jack Murphy?

  Mm hmm. And you got involved in a a large scale investigation around this time, right? That that was driven by the nine eleven attacks?

• 51:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, I did. I was running a very large, uh, international case, which unfortunately I would love to get into, but but can't right this minute, but maybe maybe one day soon. Uh, we're we're keeping our fingers crossed that more about what we're working on comes out, uh, more and more, but. It it was a lot, you know, when you when you're dealing with cases that especially involve nine eleven. You know, it was a big responsibility to make sure it didn't happen again. And we all felt that our city got attacked. Our cops got killed, our firemen got killed, our civilians got killed. And we took it very personally in J T T F. To make sure that we could do whatever we needed to do and we had the okay to do it.

• 52:30Speaker 04

  Uh, so when you started running these large scale cases, especially the one I was running, which touched. Five or six different cities in the United States on top of. A bunch of international countries that we had to travel to. You know, it was good to know that you had the resources to do it, you had the backing to do it. Uh, because everyone understood what was at stake.

• 52:52Jack Murphy?

  This is a case that hasn't been prosecuted yet.

• 52:56Speaker 04

  No, it's still uh not prosecuted and. Out there a little bit, but again, hopefully one day uh we'll talk about it even more. Uh, but everyone's gonna realize what it is once it comes out.

• 53:10Jack Murphy?

  Okay, I got you.

• 53:13Jack Murphy?

  Uh, and let's see, let's let's get into Afghanistan.

• 53:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, uh, you know, one of those other things that you damn well better be ready for anything because you don't know what's gonna happen. Uh, walked into the office one day. And got grabbed by my supervising special agent, uh, who's a great guy at the time. And when he told me to come in his office, I fully anticipated talking about the case I was running. And walked in and kind of sat on his couch in his big office, went, oh, okay, what's up? What do we got this? And I actually just start briefing him. On my case of any new information that I had, and he went, whoa, hold on a minute. It's not about that. And he told me about a kidnapping that took place in Afghanistan with a New York Times reporter. And I was gonna run it with one of the other detectives.

• 54:06Speaker 04

  So again, you kind of sit back a little go, okay. You know, now you're running a case in a war zone. And we had to prepare to go there. Jim was one of the guys I was doing it with and and we had made the decision. That he was gonna shoot out there first and I was gonna be back here. Coordinating the numerous. Agencies that we had to have on board with us in order to do this properly. And to try to track down where he was again. You're not in the Bronx, you're not following someone in Brooklyn, you're talking about Afghanistan where there's a war going on, much less. The enormity of of Afghanistan and the size of it.

• 54:49Speaker 04

  And the mountainous terrain and and all that. Is what you have to, you know, deal with. So we had to have every agency possible on board with us. To assist us in that. Which we did, everyone was great. So running it here, you know, for a couple of months and then. Switching. So now I'm a New York City detective who now has to go to Afghanistan for three months. And try to track down somebody and. You know, you had to be ready for that, you know, I knew Jack I was gonna be tactically okay, cuz I was just a tactical guy and I and I knew. Tactically, it was gonna be okay, but I had to get into the proper mindset of.

• 55:31Speaker 04

  You know, like I said before, I'm not going to the Bronx, you know, you're going into a war zone and I'm not in the military. You know, so had to be prepared for being armed with. An M four and a sidearm and a heavy vest and an armor plated car and tracking devices. So everyone knew where you were. You know, all day long and being seriously on point when you're trying to drive around there. Because that's when you're most vulnerable. To snipers, to IEDs, to suicide bombers. Is when you're in your car and one of the things that we learned very quickly. Was you didn't stop your car for anything. Not a light, not traffic, not a person. You kept that car moving, so there were there were traffic circles in and around Kabul when I got there.

• 56:16Speaker 04

  That we would actually push cars out of the way. To make sure we didn't stop our car and drive up on a sidewalk or whatever it might be. But. That was a, a time in my life and, and in my career that was a lot different because the stakes were really high, uh, not just for the person we were looking for, but for me. Uh, you know, leaving my family for that amount of time is not the norm. I was only one of two NYPD detectives to be in Afghanistan. And the other one I knew very well, he was a good friend of mine, a coworker, and he was there before me. Uh, so we were the only two that had ever been there and, and being there was, was dangerous and you tried not

• 56:59Speaker 04

  to think about it too much, uh, because you couldn't have it encapsulate your brain. You had to work, you had to, you had a mission, you had to focus on that and that's what I did.

• 57:10Jack Murphy?

  So I, I gotta ask, like, when we think of, you know, this New York Times journalist who's been kidnapped in Afghanistan, my mind thinks, well, this is like a SEAL Team Six or a Delta Force hostage rescue mission, but you're coming, a New York Police Department guy coming to Afghanistan and running it as sort of a kidnapping case. Like, what is that like inter-agency process like?

• 57:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, they were great. We worked with every agency over there, every three-letter agency you can think of, we were involved with on top of special operations up in Bagram. Uh, and they were on us, on our side. What do you need? We're here. Uh, you know, we had dedicated teams assigned to us that were on call 24/7. If we got some information or some intel about a location or someone who could provide information to us, they were right there with us and, uh, it couldn't have worked out any better. You know, everyone coordinated the right way, was always on the same page. If we had to drive up to Bagram for a meeting, we were there, you know, that was a dangerous trip. No one ever liked doing that.

• 58:19Speaker 04

  But you know, it had to be done, or we would take one of the Blackhawks up there if they were available. Which, uh, again, as a New York City detective is, is, is different. You know, you're not jumping into a Blackhawk in Manhattan, uh, but you have to do it there just to get a ride, uh, up to a military base. So the coordination was, was key to this because intel changed by the minute, by the hour. So everyone always had to be in communication with one another and it worked out great. And it worked out to a point where, uh, it was a successful ending to this and we got them home.

• 58:57Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about how the case was resolved?

• 59:01Speaker 04

  Well, it just, it evolved just by getting a lot of intel, uh, throughout this time of, of sources and information and, and just great work with, uh, Hume's stuff and Siget's stuff, you know, all that. So all of it came to a conclusion and, and, you know, there's some things that I just still can't get into because it's just the classifications of some of the operational stuff that we went through. But it was a, uh, a great and, and highly coordinated effort with a lot of departments that just, like I said, continuously stayed on top of each other and timelines were set up and locations were set up and, and the, the proper time to, to end this took place.

• 59:45Speaker 04

  And we were, uh, successful in doing that.

• 59:48Jack Murphy?

  And, and he was released like through nonviolent means, right?

• 59:52Speaker 04

  Correct. Right.

• 59:53Jack Murphy?

  So good, good situation for everyone. Everyone comes home.

• 59:57Speaker 04

  For everyone. Absolutely right. And, and that's what I meant. It was just, it was the, the timing of it and what was worked out was perfect. That, uh, no one got hurt, no one got injured, no one was even put in harm's way when the conclusion of this took place.

• 1:00:14Jack Murphy?

  I look forward to hearing the rest of that story sometime.

• 1:00:18Jack Murphy?

  And so when you came home, you continued on the other larger investigation. But there's also a school shooting, a potential school shooting that you guys got involved in.

• 1:00:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was a big case that that came to about, you know, came about in in where I was working. I was at a, I moved to a satellite office in upstate New York outside the city. That I was fortunate enough to be asked to go to, so I wasn't commuting into the city anymore. And it was pretty close to my home, so that was a tough offer to turn down. You know, so I started working up here and we got wind of an individual who was planning a school shooting on social media and we were assigned to it, me and my partner. And she did a phenomenal job with what she had to do with with the internet stuff and social media stuff and getting into that.

• 1:01:13Speaker 04

  And it ended up being a school that that hit close to home with my family. Scary situation with balancing that of just being a dad and having to stop, you know, this individual from committing a school shooting, which all of us have had way too much of. But luckily, a couple of days before he was planning to do this, we were able to get enough evidence and enough probable cause and got the DA's office on board with the search warrants that we needed that we conducted and ended up arresting the individual for the threats and stop the attack from happening,

• 1:01:57Speaker 04

  which would have happened on the last day of school.

• 1:02:02Jack Murphy?

  And how did, did he end up getting convicted?

• 1:02:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, we ended up actually arresting him three different times. The last time was on a federal charge and he ended up doing five years in a federal prison.

• 1:02:15Jack Murphy?

  So you guys even, you know, I can understand these cases are very difficult to prosecute, but you say he was arrested three times. Were they having trouble making the charges stick?

• 1:02:25Speaker 04

  No, it was, you know, the great criminal justice system in New York. You know, we locked him up one time and they let him go home and he continued the threats and we locked him up again and they let him out again and we ended up getting enough on the federal level to put him, you know, through the federal system the last time we got him. So that was, that was what put him away.

• 1:02:50Jack Murphy?

  Call me crazy.

• 1:02:51Speaker 04

  Were exactly what we're still facing in New York right now.

• 1:02:55Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I mean, call me crazy.

• 1:02:56Speaker 04

  Let him go home of, you know, a $250 bail, you know, all things like that.

• 1:03:03Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, a guy who's threatening to shoot up a school.

• 1:03:05Speaker 04

  And kept staying on top of, we didn't let the case go because we knew, you know, he wasn't done and, and we were right, you know, the threats kept coming and, and just the arrests kept coming. And then finally, like I said, we had enough on the federal level to, to go that route.

• 1:03:21Jack Murphy?

  Thank God. Any other big cases that you want to talk about before we move on?

• 1:03:29Speaker 04

  Uh, big cases. Well, you know, there was one, I get asked all the time, you know, Jack and I, and I'll tell you, what was a memorable, memorable night that you had, you know, and to put it in a 30-year career is hard with the number of places I was lucky enough, you know, to be involved with. But there was a night back in the early 90s, mid 90s that we ended up saving an eight-day-old baby who we got thrown in our arms by his mother that wasn't breathing, that was unresponsive, you know, on the sixth floor of a building and had to run down to the car.

• 1:04:12Speaker 04

  And do a hundred miles an hour up Riverside Drive with the lights and sirens and and other cops shutting streets down while we're doing CPR on an eight day old baby in the front seat of a car. Uh, with my partner breathing in his mouth and me pumping his chest while I'm trying to drive the car. Uh, and then slid kind of sideways into the emergency room at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. And as I did that, the baby started crying. Uh, so that was, that was one of those memorable nights that, you know, I'll never forget. Uh, a crying baby was the, was the best sound in the world I heard that night.

• 1:04:52Speaker 04

  Uh, you want, you know, it's funny, you want it to happen, but when it does, you get shocked.

• 1:04:58Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:58Speaker 04

  Like, oh my God, you know, everything we got trained to do and everything that we thought was a waste of time sitting in a classroom, listening to CPR classes and first aid classes that you want to just go eat or go home. All paid off, uh, because everything they taught us, we did and it worked perfectly. And, uh, that baby became a, uh, healthy, you know, toddler and, and adult. And right now is probably thirty five years old right now.

• 1:05:30Jack Murphy?

  Wow. I mean, I, I think it's really interesting that, you know, you, you have these great stories about the robbery squad and getting into shootouts with robbers and going after Al Qaeda. Um, that, that's, that is kind of the movie stuff, but there's like so much else that goes into being a cop.

• 1:05:49Speaker 04

  Oh God, there, there's so much and that's a big part of, you know, when I go into classes and speak and I go into the criminal investigation course down the NYPD academy with new detectives, when I go and speak in there. There's so much that, that goes into this, you know, and I tell people all the time, I tell new cops all the time. That one of the biggest things I get asked all the time is how do you become a good cop? How do you, you know, how do you get, how do I get the career you had? Uh, you know, and I tell people probably the number one thing that, that cops need to do today is get their communication skills in order. Cause if you can't talk to people, you're not going to be successful.

• 1:06:30Jack Murphy?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:06:31Speaker 04

  And you have to be able to communicate with the CEO of a company or the lowest crackhead that's on a corner. You know, or interview someone in a, you know, nice setting in a precinct detective squad or speak to a bad guy in a cave in Afghanistan. You have to have those skills communication wise in order to do that. And if you don't, if you don't get out there and talk to people and learn about people and their cultures and what they like and what they don't like, you're not going to be successful at this job, no matter where you are. And I tell young cops that every single time I'm in front of them.

• 1:07:09Jack Murphy?

  No, that's awesome. Um, so at this point, I, I mean, I guess I want to ask you about retirement. Like when, do, do you reach mandatory retirement age at NYPD? Or does there just come a time for you, you're like, I'm ready to move on?

• 1:07:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, I did, you know, I did 30 years in the NYPD and you know, that wasn't the plan. You know, when I got on in 1990, you know, 20 years was the mark. You know, get to 20 and, and then start kind of a second career. But being in JTTF, I was in such a, you know, good rhythm and, and, and cases that I was doing, I was still enjoying it. You know, and that was the other thing I mentioned before in the beginning of this. You have to love what you do. And I loved my job to the day I stopped and I still love it. I'd do it again tomorrow. Uh, but there comes that time that you just go, you know what? What else am I going to do? I'm still young enough. I'm still healthy. I still got my brain going. Uh, there's other things I can do.

• 1:08:09Speaker 04

  And 30 was a nice round number, uh, to call it a day. And that's what I did in, uh, in 2020. You know, on March 6th was the end of, of a really good run that I had.

• 1:08:23Jack Murphy?

  So what has the last five years been like for you then? Like, what has it been like transitioning from being a career detective to civilian on the streets?

• 1:08:33Speaker 04

  To just a regular person?

• 1:08:34Jack Murphy?

  Just a regular dude, getting parking tickets like the rest of us.

• 1:08:39Speaker 04

  What, it's different. It's just, you know, it's, it's something that I tell people all the time and I, and this is the way I equate. It's like someone telling you, you know, you're walking forwards for 30 years and then someone telling you you gotta walk backwards. You know, you'll, you'll get used to it. It's going to be rough at times, but you know, you'll get used to it, but it's, it's weird. And you know what the one thing is, when you start looking back on your career, Jack, you don't, when you're going through things, you don't realize what you're going through because you're just doing it and it's a reaction and it's one day at a time, one day after another, one day after another. And, you know, it's just a normal, you know, craziness that you're doing.

• 1:09:21Speaker 04

  But when you're all done and you look back and you kind of take stock in what you did, you go, wow.

• 1:09:27Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:27Speaker 04

  You know, that was, that was a heavy 30 years. And, you know, just as much of a physical part of it is, is a mental part as well. You know, and I had my, my little things come out in 30 years and my big, you know, my big mental thing was nightmares. You know, I went through.

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• 1:11:39Speaker 04

  Through a lot of years of having really violent, nasty nightmares, the one good thing about me is I never drank, I never smoked, so I didn't have that to lean on or be worried about because it wasn't just something I did. But people have to realize the mental toll that goes into being in law enforcement, and it's a dramatic hit that your psyche takes. And a lot of times while you're going through it, you don't realize it. Especially back then, when we were told, when we first got on the job and it was wrong, but at the time we didn't know it was wrong, when you get told, "Hey, just shut your mouth,

• 1:12:22Speaker 04

  you're a cop, deal with it," what did you expect to happen to you? And you take that as a young cop, go, "Okay, I won't tell anyone I'm having dramatic nightmares." Or, "Not me, but other people, I have a drinking problem, or I have this kind of problem, or I'm having a domestic problem." Because back then, there was no questions asked. You got your gun, your shield, take it from you. You got put on a midnight tour, on a desk watching a parking lot, and that was the end of your career. You know, so people and guys and girls didn't talk about it. And and that's a dramatic difference in today's policing that there's so many private avenues and and organizations that have the backs of law enforcement officers that they can talk to now

• 1:13:08Speaker 04

  and get the help that they need uh in order to just go on with their life, even, you know, when you retire. Uh, you know, because it it doesn't go away. You know, I still every once in a while, not as many as I had, but there's still, you know, nightmares that pop up of of past events and stuff. And it's just something that, you know, you you fight through and you go through. But it's something that that people have to realize law enforcement officers go through every day.

• 1:13:35Jack Murphy?

  You, one of the things I think about in regards to this issue is, you know, when we talk about mental health or PTSD with uh with military veterans, with soldiers, they are doing their training in the United States, getting ready to go. And then they're getting on an airplane, flying to another country, doing their job, coming back home. So at least there's this like separation. But if you're a police officer, you're out there sometimes seeing really horrible things all day. And then that night, you're home in your house with your family. And I that has got to be like a very uh dramatic and very difficult thing to to juggle those two um things uh in in your psychological life, I guess.

• 1:14:19Speaker 04

  Oh, you nailed it. You absolutely nailed it. You know, yes, there's a big correlation between what goes on in military lives and and law enforcement lives. There is, but in law enforcement, it's every single day. And like you said, you know, you're going out, you're leaving the house, and everyone in that house is hoping to God you walk back through that door later on that night. But while you're out there, like you said, you're dealing with people's worst days. You know, there's no good things that police are showing up to. You know, they're calling us for a reason. And sometimes they're they're life changing events of of people losing their lives or or children being hurt and so on and so forth.

• 1:14:59Speaker 04

  You know, the most dramatic stat that I throw out there all the time, Jack, and this blows people's minds that the average person in a lifetime Will go through two or three traumatic events in their life. Two or three. I could do two or three in an hour when I was on the street. You know, now, now, take that over an eight hour period and now times that by thirty days in a month. I mean, you know, what we had to go through in certain situations and then like you said, hit a switch and go home and be dad. You know, that, that's really hard to do and there's some people that, that could do it.

• 1:15:38Speaker 04

  I was fortunate enough that I had, I loved the, the longer ride home I had, you know, to kind of decompress and turn the radio on and open a window and just kind of, you know, calm down a little before I got home and I think that was a big, big benefit that I had in my career in order to do that, living outside the city and having that ride home at night to kind of, you know, calm down and get back to neutral before you walked in the door. That, did that happen every night? No. And, you know, thankfully, you know, I got thirty-three years of the best wife in the world that I walked in the door and she knew the night I had, uh, immediately.

• 1:16:23Speaker 04

  You know, whether to, hey, are you okay? Or, hey hon, what's up? You know, she knew right away and that dictated what happened the first few minutes that I was home of, of let's talk it out, you know, she's a guidance counselor. So, so talking to her and her realizing what, what was wrong with me was pretty easy for her. Uh, you know, but I had that, that fortunate outlet to have her. Uh, and there were some nights that, you know, hey, let's hear it. What happened? What'd you do? Because you can't keep it inside you.

• 1:16:53Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:53Speaker 04

  Because the more you do that, there's, there's a point it's not going to stay in anymore. And that's when it explodes and really, really bad things happen.

• 1:17:03Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I, I was thinking about how, you know, difficult that it's got to be to work that job and then come home at the end of the day and like, well, I'm going to mow my lawn now and sit down and have dinner with the kids. But it's actually really amazing though, that you had a wife that you were able to come home and have that conversation with every day if need be.

• 1:17:23Speaker 04

  Oh, I was I was lucky as hell, you know, uh, to have her because she got it. You know, uh, after dealing with what I went through in my career, you know, she understood what the job was all about. Uh, I have, you know, she was lucky too that, you know, my mom and her had a great relationship. So my mom would talk to her about what she went through with my dad. Uh, my four older sisters would talk to her about what how they dealt with my father's, you know, schedule. You know, so she had a lot of resources in in educating herself into what this job was all about. But then on top of her being, you know, uh, the best in the world and I gotta throw a prop to her. Uh, she is, uh, I don't know if I'd be here sitting here without her.

• 1:18:06Speaker 04

  Uh, you know, and I tell her that all the time and I'm I'm lucky. But like you said, to have someone that I was lucky enough to walk in the house and have someone to just grab me by my shirt and go, nope, sit down. What happened?

• 1:18:18Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:18Speaker 04

  Uh, was a big difference in that and, you know, she was the one laying in bed next to me when I had the nightmares and and got got poked and punched a couple of times, uh, unfortunately, and her hair grabbed a couple of times. So, you know, she she lived through that, uh, that mental part of it as well.

• 1:18:38Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah, I also wanted to ask you nowadays, is it a little bit better for cops out there, especially, I guess NYPD cops, but others as well? As far as the mental health stuff, are there more avenues for them to pursue?

• 1:18:53Speaker 04

  Oh, there's a ton of avenues. There's still that stigma, though, that that we're still fighting through and still wanting to break through. But that comes from leadership of these departments. And that's where it starts because these leaders have to instill in their officers that it's okay to not be okay. And they have to tell them, I got your back. No matter what it is, I will be here supporting you. This department will be here supporting you and cops need to hear that because cops don't trust anyone. All right, let's be honest, they don't. You could have someone standing in front of them going, hey, you're fine, I got your back. Well, maybe not. You know, and the next thing is you're sitting at that desk on a midnight watching a parking lot, like I said before.

• 1:19:37Speaker 04

  And that filters down. You know, people hear about it. Law enforcement communities are big, but they're very small. Into how, you know, information gets out there about how cops are being treated when they admit to having difficulties and the leadership of these departments have to be in these cops' corner. But just to answer your question, Jack, there's so many good avenues out there with these, these groups and these counseling groups that are out there now compared to what we used to have. I mean, it's a dramatic difference. And these cops today, I think, are very fortunate to have these, these organizations out there that they can lean on. Just make a phone call. We tell people all the time on the

• 1:20:20Speaker 04

  show, you know, we can help one person, one cop save themselves, it's all worth it. And if you have to pick the phone up and have a five-minute conversation with someone on one of these phone, you know, banks that, that are armed and, and held by, by cops and retired cops to get you just over a hump that you're okay for a five-minute conversation, then it's all worth it.

• 1:20:44Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, it is. Absolutely. And, and some of the things that you've gotten into since your retirement from the police force, tell us about this podcast that you run.

• 1:20:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, Dan, Dan Murphy and I, Dan was my partner in, he's my partner and my sergeant in the gang unit, and then again in, in JTF. We've been friends for 25 years and we thought of doing a podcast almost four years ago now. And, and the, the purpose of it was to get these high-profile stories out there from law enforcement, from the military, from victims, from survivors, that people might have heard about but not heard the whole story about what happened. You know, I know about the Night Stalker, but having the detective on who actually locked him up, people don't hear. So that's what we do on Gold Shields

• 1:21:38Speaker 04

  and, and we get these stories out there that even at times, you know, surprise Dan and I, because we have kind of one rule with our guests that we have on our show that we don't want to hear the whole story before we do the show.

• 1:21:53Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:54Speaker 04

  Because we like our, you know, our reaction to be authentic. And when we look in the camera and go, holy crap, that's legit, that we didn't know something about the case. And, and we do that specifically and intentionally. And it's been a great run. You know, we look at going into season four. With a hundred and, you know, forty something, hundred fifty shows that we've done. When we had seven shows scheduled in the beginning of it and had no idea what number eight was gonna be. Uh, you know, looking at each other, we're up to like episode six, like, alright, we, uh, we, we gotta book somebody else. And then it just hit a point where it took off and, uh,

• 1:22:36Speaker 04

  is being, you know, viewed around the world now, which still freaks us out a little bit that, you know, someone on the other side of the world's driving around the car, listening to us. You know, that, that's a little weird still, but it's so much fun and the people, the best part of it, Jack, and, and you're gonna say the same thing because you do, you know, what we do. The friendships that we have now and the people who are friends of ours, we would have never imagined, you know, four years ago, and, and we hold them very close to us. Uh, because they're, they're airing their, their stories out to us and, you know, our, our listeners. And we, you know, we respect them so much for that. I mean, who in their world four years ago would have thought that,

• 1:23:21Speaker 04

  you know, right now I can pick the phone up and call Taya Kyle, you know, and just say hello and, and what's going on and have the kids and, you know, all that. Which I would have never thought of years ago and now she's a dear friend of ours.

• 1:23:36Jack Murphy?

  To hype the show a little bit, can you give people like your top three podcasts that like people's jaws are gonna hit the ground that they should go check out right now?

• 1:23:46Speaker 04

  Uh, you put me on the spot, bro, with three. Uh, you know what? We did a show, uh, there's a Netflix series called The Vatican Girl. Uh, that's out there. Okay, so we interviewed the brother, Pietro, on our show.

• 1:24:05Jack Murphy?

  Holy shit.

• 1:24:05Speaker 04

  And he was the first, we were the first interview he did in the United States about his, his sister, Emanuela. Uh, so that was a big show. We had an interpreter and it went awesome. It went so well. Uh, we were so happy with that episode. We're actually gonna do a follow-up. Because once we did the episode, whether we had an impact in it or not. Three of the investigations reopened into looking for Emanuela.

• 1:24:33Jack Murphy?

  Because yeah, that one's still, that's one was never solved.

• 1:24:37Speaker 04

  No, it's still open in, in three different agencies are running investigations into her disappearance. And so Pietro's been asked a lot of new information. So we're actually going to have him back on the show as a follow up or kind of a part two to the Vatican girl.

• 1:24:57Speaker 04

  Another one we've done, I mentioned it, we had Gil Correa on, who was one of the detectives who locked up the Night Stalker. Uh, who was incredible, uh, his account of the manhunt for this, this maniac going on when he was told by every department in LA, you're out of your mind, you're nuts, you're wasting everyone's time. It's not a, a serial guy. It's a group of people and he would not budge from it and then got another detective on board with him. And linked it all together that it was one guy and, and, uh, ended up locking up Richard Ramirez. Uh, but his interview was, was absolutely amazing and I give you the last one.

• 1:25:40Speaker 04

  Uh, we'll switch it from detective to a victim. We had Kathy Kleiner Rubin on, who was one of the survivors of a Ted Bundy attack.

• 1:25:49Jack Murphy?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:25:50Speaker 04

  She was one of the students at Florida State University who survived being attacked by him. Uh, he broke her jaw, uh, he was just about to kill her. When he just finished killing two of her sorority sisters down the hall from her. Uh, got into her room, attacked her roommate, knocked her unconscious. Then jumped on Kathy and started to strangle her after hitting her with a two by four across the jaw. And broke her jaw and the only thing that saved her life was where her room was backed up to the parking lot of the building. And a car happened to pull into the parking lot and the headlights shined into the room. And it scared him and he took off and ran.

• 1:26:35Speaker 04

  Talking to Kathy about that account and her firsthand account of living through that was an amazing interview, uh, that we had the opportunity to do.

• 1:26:46Jack Murphy?

  That's, yeah. Okay. Those are pretty good ones.

• 1:26:50Jack Murphy?

  And the other thing that you're involved with is Impact Solutions. What's going on there?

• 1:26:57Speaker 04

  Yep, Dan and I developed a alternative to pepper spray for law enforcement officers, security departments throughout this country and also civilians because we found that pepper spray was just not good in what's going on in society today because of the blowback, because of the cross-contamination of you worrying about spraying it and then you getting affected by the spray and being incapacitated when you're trying to save your own life or help yourself. So we developed a spray called Impact. And Impact is an extreme eye irritant. It's sprayed directly in the eyes and you cannot open your eyes. Your eyes burn and it's like

• 1:27:40Speaker 04

  broken glass in your eye. You cannot open your eye and it gives you the amount of time you need to either take a perpetrator into custody or get out of that situation if you're a civilian. And the best parts about our spray is there's no cross-contamination. A police officer can spray a bad guy and jump right on him and nothing's getting on him whatsoever. Our bottles are nitrogen-propelled, so it's a targeted stream that is good for about 10 to 12 to 14 feet away. So you don't have to wait for that perpetrator or criminal to be on top of you. You can get him beforehand. Our spray, you can also use inside, in an elevator, in a car, in a stairwell, and

• 1:28:24Speaker 04

  you are not going to be affected by just the bad guy. And one of the best parts about it, we have an invisible UV dye marker in it. So if you spray the individual and get the hell out of there and call 911, your officers can come back later with a black light and spray and flash it on them, which is good for identification in court and apprehend him later on.

• 1:28:48Jack Murphy?

  So I don't know if this is like the secret formula of Coca-Cola, but can you talk about what your proprietary blend is for this spray?

• 1:28:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's made up, believe it or not, of three acidic acids: citric acid, acidic acid, and another hydrogen nitroxy, which just balances the pH of it out. And it's made up of 70% water. So all those combined give you a vinegar-type hit.

• 1:29:18Speaker 04

  In the eyes, uh, just imagine, you know, or, or pouring a, a glass of orange juice in your eyes. Right, right. Is basically what it is. And the three combined ingredients, along with the water, is a powerful, powerful punch. Uh, I've been sprayed, actually, you know, because I'm the, the vice president of the company, so when we were developing it, had to be sprayed numerous times to test it out, which was not the thrill of my life, but, you know, we had to go through it, uh, but it is highly effective and there's so many departments that we're in touch with right now that are switching to it because, you know, a lot of the departments carry pepper spray, but they don't use it because they don't want to hurt their partner, they don't

• 1:30:00Speaker 04

  want to hit an innocent bystander, they don't want to blow them back in their face. So our stuff eliminates all that and gets it in the hands of these officers who, who drastically need it before just jumping to the next, you know, continuum of, of a taser or your firearm. You have that, that middle option, uh, to take someone into custody, which is, which is really important these days. Uh, Dmitri, do we have any questions other than this one you handed me?

• 1:30:26Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:30:42Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:30:53Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you, you're not alone.

• 1:30:57Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:31:04Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 1:31:24Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down rather than giving teens the answer. Study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 1:31:51Speaker 01

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• 1:32:19Jack Murphy?

  Okay. We've got one question here for you from the audience. Was there friction between NYPD officers and FBI agents in the JTTF?

• 1:32:30Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And not in a vicious way, but the FBI and NYPD are two completely different mindsets. They're two different personalities. There are two different ways that they work. The FBI is very methodical in what they do and building cases that takes sometimes years to do, whereas if you take the just regular NYPD guy, it's immediate. Get a bad guy, he's behind the door, kick the door and go get him. So there was a lot to work out in the days after 9/11, even a couple of years after

• 1:33:13Speaker 04

  9/11, to get the proper balance of who you want to work with, how squads were conducted or constructed, I should say, in getting the right personalities together. And when I was there, you saw that happen. And after, like I said, the beginning stages were kind of rough, but then became a very well, good working machine between the two agencies.

• 1:33:38Jack Murphy?

  Before we get going tonight, Tom, is there anything else you want to talk about? Anything that I didn't ask that you'd like to discuss? Or put out there?

• 1:33:45Speaker 04

  No, you know what? One of the things I love saying is, you know, when it comes to law enforcement, you know, don't jump to conclusions of what you see on TV, you know, on the news and all that. You know, a lot of times that's not the case. And that's why I was so glad, and I was a big proponent of body cams. Because if you've noticed over the last few years, when more and more departments are getting these body cams, there's less crap on the news about cops being wrong. Because most of the time they're right. You know, are mistakes made and things happen on the street? No doubt about it, absolutely. And those are, you know, accountable.

• 1:34:28Speaker 04

  But if you've noticed in the news, there's many stories that don't come out anymore because people are realizing how fast situations occur, how quickly law enforcement officers have to make life-changing decisions, both for themselves and others out there. And I'm glad that there's shows like All Patrol Live that people get to watch how quick things happen and how fast police officers need to make decisions. And like I said, 90-plus percent of the time, they're right. And I think society is getting that now, which is very welcomed in the law enforcement community.

• 1:35:09Jack Murphy?

  I don't think I've met a police officer who didn't at least eventually come around to the body cams. Because like, yeah, like 90, 95%, like the complaints kind of get thrown out right away.

• 1:35:22Speaker 04

  Right. Yep, absolutely. And I always said that, they're going to protect the police officer more than hurt them. And you know, like I said, if things go wrong and the police officers are wrong and it's shown, then those departments will take that into hand. You know, but I always thought they were going to show the right things and, you know, get people to really look at it differently and go, oh, wow. You know, I couldn't do that, or I couldn't make that decision that quick.

• 1:35:52Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:52Speaker 04

  And I think that's where the change in the view of law enforcement is coming today.

• 1:35:59Jack Murphy?

  Well, Tom, thank you very much for spending a evening with us here and sharing your story with us.

• 1:36:06Speaker 04

  Oh, I really appreciate it. I had a great time. Thank you for asking me.

• 1:36:09Jack Murphy?

  It's so, folks, go out and check out the Gold Shields Podcast. A lot of interesting episodes up on there already. You're going into season four and we'll have some links down in the description to it. So people who are viewing this on YouTube or whatever can click on that and get to it real easy.

• 1:36:27Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, Tom, thank you again. And everyone else out there, we'll see you again next week. Hey, guys. I want to tell all of you today about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both the Team House Podcast, the Eyes On Podcast, and the High Side News Outlet, which I run with Sean Naylor. The newsletter is going to be once a week. It's going to come into your inbox and you're going to get the most current podcasts on Eyes On and the Team House and whatever's topical or current on the High Side. So it's another way for us to get the information out to you as social media algorithms are pretty iffy and you never really know what you're going to get. So this is a once a week email.

• 1:37:09Jack Murphy?

  It'll slide into your inbox and it will have, you know, the greatest hits of that week. It's really good. I'm checking it out. The website for it is teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join. Teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join. Go there and you enter into your email list or you enter your email into the little thing on the website and you're good to go. And that'll be it. So we really appreciate your support and hope you'll consider signing up. Where's the link? The link will also be down in the description if you're looking for it there. And that's Team House Podcast.

• 1:37:47Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:38:01Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:38:12Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:38:18Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:38:24Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 1:38:43Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

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  Hi, I'm Jenna Ushkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At The Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:40:03Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:40:14Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:40:19Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:40:25Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 1:40:44Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

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• 1:41:49Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:42:04Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:42:14Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:42:20Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:42:26Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:42:45Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down rather than giving teens the answer. Study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 1:43:13Speaker 10

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• 1:43:53Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:44:08Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:44:19Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:44:24Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:44:30Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:44:50Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 1:45:17Speaker 10

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:45:52Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:46:07Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:46:18Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:46:23Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:46:29Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

• 1:46:49Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down rather than giving teens the answer. Study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 1:47:16Speaker 10

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• 1:47:55Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:48:09Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:48:20Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:48:25Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:48:31Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:48:51Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down rather than giving teens the answer. Study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 1:49:19Speaker 10

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's Small Business Line of Credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:49:58Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:50:13Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:50:24Speaker 05

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:50:29Speaker 07

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:50:35Speaker 05

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:50:55Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 1:51:22Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:51:50Speaker 11

  She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

• 1:52:03Speaker 12

  Zolair 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair. Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolair.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolair.

• 1:52:46Speaker 12

  This is an advertisement for Zolair, paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

• 1:52:50Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down rather than giving teens the answer. Study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 1:53:17Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.