Podcasts
Episode 12: National Security ft. Prof. McWeeney (Part 4)
In this episode of the MAG-TAC Podcast, Professor Thomas McWeeney, who teaches leadership and strategic planning at Cal State San Bernardino, laments that lack of action that is taken to prevent mass shootings even when the clear evidence is there that something is likely to happen and that the person in question is a threat. More often than not, it comes down to a failure of courage and leadership.
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Episode 11: National Security ft. Prof. McWeeney (Part 3)
In this episode of the MAG-TAC Podcast, Professor Thomas McWeeney, who teaches leadership and strategic planning at Cal State San Bernardino, takes son the challenge of answering how we stop mass shootings in the United States specifically. Because it is highly improbable that a mass shooting in one particular place organizations are loathe to put in the effort to stop it, in other words because it is not a likely occurrence people simply refuse to focus on it and plan for it.
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Episode 10: National Security ft. Prof. McWeeney (Part 2)
In this episode of the MAG-TAC Podcast, Professor Thomas McWeeney, who teaches leadership and strategic planning at Cal State San Bernardino, discusses the struggles he has had getting organizations to focus on and plan for events that have not happened yet and preventing them. His solution was to force these organizations to confront these possible catastrophes as if they were imminent dangers and plan for them in real time.
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Episode 9: National Security ft. Prof. McWeeney (Part 1)
In this episode of the MAG-TAC Podcast, Professor Thomas McWeeney, who teaches leadership and strategic planning at Cal State San Bernardino, describes his work with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the days after 9/11 in changing the mindset of the organization to one of prevention of terrorist attacks and other violent incidents and not just apprehension of the perpetrators after the fact. The theories presented in his teaching and his upcoming book applies directly to stopping mass shootings which are increasingly being recognized as terrorism.
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Episode 8: Practical Defense ft. Bryan McKenrick (Part 4)
Bryan McKenrick, the leader and owner of American Tactical Defense, LLC., an Active Shooter Training Company, has spent a career in law enforcement doing drug interdiction operations with the Coast Guard and other law enforcement agencies. Bryan now trains law enforcement personnel on active shooter events and joins the MAG-TAC Podcast for Four (4) episodes. In this episode, Bryan talks about improvised weapons and the reality of facing someone with a gun. There is a difference throwing a stapler at someone and introducing serious pain with a Maglite flashlight. MAGLITE: 00:07 Welcome to the next episode here of MAG-TAC podcast (by Maglite Tactical). We're going to be joined by Bryan (McKenrick) from American Tactical (Defense) again. Maglite (Maglite Tactical) wants to keep you safe, they want to help keep your family safe. That's what this series is all about. This is why we're putting this information out there and we want you to know that we care enough to do this and put this together and it's important to us. And there's a whole line of Maglite Tactical products that you can check out as well. Joining us here, Bryan (McKenrick) from American Tactical (Defense), Bryan, we're going to be talking about improvised weapons and I thought it was interesting when you sent me the subject matter that you wanted to talk about. It was misconceptions of how to use improvised weapons and I wasn't sure what you meant by that and I'm fascinated to find out. So let's get right to it. BRYAN MCKENRICK: 00:54 Absolutely. So I appreciate you bringing that up. You know that there's a lot of folks out there training a lot of different sites, schools, and whatnot. Folks, I'm going to put it to you like this for all of you. If you think that throwing an object at a person with a gun is going to stop that person from continuing to shoot, good luck. Because me in law enforcement, I will never go against those odds. What we do like to bring up is the fact that there's fire extinguishers in every class and I've seen it out there to where folks are actually getting the fire extinguisher and being trained to spray somebody with a gun and they're standing right in front of him. Now, common sense tells me if that person keeps pulling the trigger, that cloud of fire extinguisher powder is not going to stop the bullet from entering your body. So, even down to staplers and chairs and cue balls to any object, I was a pitcher for the Brewers farm team, when I was in high school, and today if I picked up a baseball and I were to try to throw it at a shooter and stop him from shooting, I'm gonna miss or I'm just gonna piss him off. Excuse my language. Now, with that being said, you have to think about what is going to be an effective measure, improvised weapons? Anything that is long and controlled or heavy and hard, such as a Maglite flashlight, you can block. You can temporarily blind them. But the biggest part is you want to set yourself up to where the person's distracted. And you want to be able to smash that person in the face, cause him pain. Guess what? These little, these folks are cowards. They're coming in, they're coming in with not understanding that they're the dominant factor. They have the gun, but as soon as they're introduced with pain, they're going to stop. They're not expecting pain. And if you use an improvised weapon in control with an effective measure, it's gonna destroy his plan and now you have an opportunity rather than trying pick up a chair. I mean, can you imagine some teachers trying to pick up an actual desk chair and trying to harm that person for good, either potentially knock them out or stop them all together? It's just doesn't fit the bill. And I want to clarify some of that. MAGLITE: 03:16 Well, I've been through a training or two with you previously and one of the things that you teach people to do is introduce pain preferably into their face, which will tend to get people focused on the pain in their face. And that gives you the opportunity to then get over the top of that firearm and pull it downwards away from them. Correct? BRYAN MCKENRICK: 03:39 Right. W that, that biggest thing is exactly that. I want to ask you this, you ever been hit or punched or nicked in the nose by accident? I mean, MAGLITE: 03:50 Well, yeah, yeah. I got sucker punched coming out of a bar one time when I was in my twenties. I went right to the ground. BRYAN MCKENRICK: 03:57 There you go. Now if you're not even into that scene and you're accidentally hit, or somebody accidentally touched your nose on accident, I mean it lights your world up and you stop doing what you were doing because now your eyes are watering. This sensation of pain just stopped everything. And that's your opportunity to do exactly what you mentioned. You want to get that gun down and out of that individual's hands because that is allowing him to be the dominant factor and he's the one pulling the trigger, making that gun go. So you gotta get it from him. MAGLITE: 04:26 So again, to go back to the very beginning, treat the situation. Don't assume it's firecrackers. Get away from it. Run... If you can't run anymore, Hide. And the difference between Concealment and Cover is important to understand. And we covered that in an earlier episode. You can go back and listen to that. It's about two episodes ago. And then barricading pros and cons. Do you barricade? Do you not barricade? It depends on what kind of group you're with, who you have with you, exactly what the situation is. And here we are finally to fight, which is improvised weapons are not throwing a stapler at somebody's head's not going to stop somebody with an AK-47, but you can, if you're able to introduce significant pain, get enough of a distraction to give you a chance. Right Bryan? BRYAN MCKENRICK: 05:18 Absolutely. I trust something in my hands, like a, an object that is small enough. And to be able to target the face area, very accurately, much more than trying to throw something and hope for the best that it knocks him out because otherwise it's not a good day. MAGLITE: 05:37 Bryan (McKenrick), American Tactical Defense...We've done four episodes over the last few weeks. I'm so glad to have you join us here and I really appreciate it and we'll have you back some more, Okay. BRYAN MCKENRICK: 05:47 Thank you. Appreciate it Lou. MAGLITE: 05:49 Bet you Bryan from American Tactical Defense. Thank you for listening everybody. We'll be back with another episode soon...from the MAG-TAC podcast (by Maglite Tactical).
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Episode 7: Practical Defense ft. Bryan McKenrick (Part 3)
Bryan McKenrick, the leader and owner of American Tactical Defense, LLC., an Active Shooter Training Company, has spent a career in law enforcement doing drug interdiction operations with the Coast Guard and other law enforcement agencies. Bryan now trains law enforcement personnel on active shooter events and joins the MAG-TAC Podcast for Four (4) episodes. In this episode, Bryan discusses the tactics and practice of upping the Hide part of Run, Hide, & Fight, into barricading. How do you barricade? When do you barricade in a tactical situation, when you don’t and why? MAGLITE: 00:07 It's another edition of the MAG-TAC Podcast (by Maglite Tactical) where you're going to learn all sorts of things about keeping you and your family safe. It's all about safety and security, especially today... Things are going a little bit crazy out there and more than ever you need to be aware of your safety, your surroundings. If you're going to keep you and your family safe, unfortunately, in just about any situation, whether you’re at church, whether you're at a shopping mall, whether you are at an office, where you work. These things are happening everywhere now and anywhere. Joining us here, Bryan (McKenrick) from American Tactical Defense. Bryan, good to have you back. BRYAN MCKENRICK: 00:43 Hey, thank you very much. Looking forward to it. MAGLITE: 00:46 So we're going to talk on this podcast about the Pros and Cons of Barricading. What we've been going through with you is what you train people for, which is active shooters. You do a great job with local school districts. You've done businesses, you've done other places and all of it comes back to the basics of Run, Hide, (and) Fight. Hide, we talked about last time, it could be behind what is actual cover, or it could be behind just concealment. There's a difference between those two things. Go back, listen to the last episode of the podcast if you missed it to talk about those and how it's important to know the difference. But before we get to the pros and cons of barricading in the Hide part, Brian everyday carry. I have a certain pack that I carry with me that I think I need to have. What's in your everyday carry arsenal? BRYAN MCKENRICK: 01:44 Well, for me, in law enforcement, obviously, I'm in one, I have a gun, extra magazines and all that fun stuff. Well, ever. For everybody out there, you know, it's always a good idea. Like I'll carry, medical supplies because although I might not be there right at the scene, it might be over cause no matter, matter of seconds, sometimes they're done. I'll carry some extra medical supplies like a tourniquet and some chest seal pack material, all things that could potentially prolong someone's life to get him to the hospital, including my own. Really. That's why I do carry those. MAGLITE: 02:18 Gotcha. So, me, I have a little pack that I carry that has obviously a Maglite (flashlight). I've got a little tactical Maglite (flashlight) that I carry with me everywhere I go. I have a Gerber multi-tool, I have a nice Gerber knife and I have sort of an off-brand tactical pen that I really like. And unlike a lot of them, instead of being blunt, it is actually rather pointy. I could see it going through somebody's eyeball or ear easier than some of the other ones that I've seen. And that's just what I carry it. And the tactical pens, you know, don't talk to the FAA, but I basically carry it everywhere if you know what I'm saying. And I usually don't get stopped with. So that's sort of my last line of defense is that all right, let's talk about barricading. So, you haven't been able to run from the situation, you're caught in it or you have like that heroic police officer that stopped to help those kids in the mall when all the parents had apparently fled, or family members and you can't run anymore. You have a responsibility to protect these kids or you're just stuck where you are. You've tried to find concealment. Now let's talk about barricading pros and cons. BRYAN MCKENRICK: 03:29 Okay. So, barricade and yourself always, this training on lock the doors, lock the doors, lock the doors. Let's go to a school situation. When I asked you to do is think about this… If you're a teacher out there being in, you're teaching pre, well kindergarteners, first, second, third, fourth graders, maybe even fifth graders. At this point, if you start barricading your door in a school, I mean really with a desk with all these heavy bookshelves, and yet you have an active shooter on their shooting rounds through that wall, which could potentially end up in your classroom and potentially into you, for that matter. If that were to happen or any other children were injured or you're entered in the middle of it, who else is going to remove those barricades for fire, to respond, to get in or to help? So, what you have, is you just lock yourself into a safe and your folks are hurting side. It's just not gonna go real well. That's one thought. So now if you have barricading going on into a high school where other kids were able to get, you know, remove that stuff or move all the heavy items, that may work, but we always train to get ready to get on the offensive. So, we have different measures that we use. MAGLITE: 04:45 So barricading, although in some situations make sense. Again, this is something where people have to think this through and it's... I keep going back to this because this is difficult. You are in a place where most people's brains are going to vapor lock and you're asking people to think through the end of the situation where, okay, you may now be injured. All you've got is a bunch of little kids. They can't move the barricades and then you're going to bleed out because people don't know you're in there. BRYAN MCKENRICK: 05:17 Exactly. You got to think about it. Unfortunately, with this going on, it's a reality, I'll shoot it straight with you. If any person gets shot and it's an arterial bleed, which happens quite a quite a lot. You literally have anywhere from one minute to three minutes before you bleed out and that's it. So, we're always encouraging in our training, training the folks in medical, but if they get the tourniquet on and sort of slowing down the blood, you want fire(men) to get in there. Basically, you want them to get in and get you out to a hospital where they can work on you and save your life, basically. Law enforcement is at least a couple of minutes out, Fire, they're going to wait most likely for the scene to be clear, and that's going to be from 20 to 30 to 40 minutes. MAGLITE: 05:59 So, you're on your own, you're on your own. It's what I always tell people when seconds matter between life and death, help is only a few minutes away. right? BRYAN MCKENRICK: 06:08 Yeah, absolutely. It's all up to you. It really is. MAGLITE: 06:12 Yeah. Okay, well, that's as far as we're going to go. It's an interesting thought on barricading, here on this episode of the MAG-TAG Podcast (by Maglite Tactical), joined from Bryan (McKenrick) from America Tactical Defense. On the next episode, we're going to something that I think is really, really interesting, w
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Episode 6: Practical Defense ft. Bryan McKenrick (Part 2)
Bryan McKenrick, the leader and owner of American Tactical Defense, LLC., an Active Shooter Training Company, has spent a career in law enforcement doing drug interdiction operations with the Coast Guard and other law enforcement agencies. Bryan now trains law enforcement personnel on active shooter events and joins the MAG-TAC Podcast for Four (4) episodes. In this episode, Bryan discusses hiding, the importance of distinguishing from concealment and cover, and the tactics of using both. MAGLITE: 00:07 Welcome back to the MAG-TAC Podcast. We're all about personal safety, keeping your family safe, and you're going to get a good dose of information about weapons, non-weapon defense, hiding, running, personal security, family security, and of course a lot about Maglite and how Maglite (flashlights) figure into your personal security. Joining us here on the MAG-TAC Podcast today, again for his second edition here on the MAG-TAC Podcast, we have Bryan (McKenrick) from American Tactical Defense. Bryan, how are you sir? BRYAN MCKENRICK: 00:45 Doing great Lou. Thanks for having me back. MAGLITE: 00:47 Great to have you back. You know, I have a personal favorite new Maglite (flashlight) and I don't know if we've gotten one into your hands. I know the ML150 the rechargeable, you've seen the 4-Cell and the smaller version as well. The Maglite (brand) has a new product, which is a flashlight that will stay on for over two weeks of continuous use. So this is we're billing as the ultimate survival lights. And if you are someone who's going to need a reliable Maglite that you can call on at any time and you're going to be sure it's going to work, this is the ultimate survival light and you're going to want to check it out @ maglite.com . All right, Bryan. So let's talk about hiding because the process we've learned in a tactical situation run first, hide if you can't run. So let's talk about hiding. What's covered, what isn't covered, how do you find it? Let's go through it. BRYAN MCKENRICK: 02:06 Right? (Inaudible) You find yourself having to hide. You got to think about Cover and Concealment. Basically now. Cover is anything that will stop a bullet while Concealment is just simply hiding where your location is. So, if you are behind walls within a home, for example, that's the only dry wall and that is only as good as concealment, so don't let that false sense of security feel safe because bullets do travel through walls. If you're behind a large concrete wall, barrier, anything like that in-between, that's good cover. So ideally you want to get out of the scene, out of the area view for sure and you want to make sure that if you have kids with you in classrooms, you want to get them off to at 90 degree offset away from that what we call a fetal funnel, which is the opening of the doorway and anything that he can see or spray bullets at. MAGLITE: 03:04 Okay. So to recap that, just go through that one more time to make sure people heard it and understood it clearly. BRYAN MCKENRICK: 03:11 Yeah, absolutely. So if you're a teacher and you have kids in a classroom, you're out in the mall ...you're going to have to hide somewhere, get away from the doorway off to the side, get down under in a low position and you want to get under something that is solid, like a solid wall. If you're out in a parking lot, which has this happened in a Walmart, they'll pass a shooting. If there's shooting going on out there and get behind engine blocks, get behind rims of wheels, stuff that is steel and heavy that should stop a bullet. MAGLITE: 03:41 So you have to think about Concealment vs Cover and just to go over this again, concealment is just, yeah, you're hiding behind something. But if it's plywood or it's an aluminum store shelf that's not stopping a bullet. Concealment is one thing, but Cover means being behind something that's got some heft that's going to stop a bullet. BRYAN MCKENRICK: 04:04 Exactly. You don't want to be hiding behind a piece of paper when somebody's just randomly firing into one of those, bullets could travel right through it. Even like you said, just then pieces of wood it'll go through. We've tested them at the range. We tested various objects. MAGLITE: 04:17 So this situation is one where people have to again, be more aware. You have to be thinking about things. How do you train people to think, Bryan, in a panic situation? What, how do people get good at that? BRYAN MCKENRICK: 04:38 Yes. Good point. How do you train yourself to react in a proper way? You don't want hesitation. So with that being said, you have to live through like an experience. You have to go through it. If you banged your car up against somebody else's in a fender bender, you're more likely to know what to do when cards breaks all upset instead of freak out. Same thing with this. If you run through reality based training scenarios where you have someone portraying the shooter and you run through it, you're going to get that adrenaline rush and guess what? It's going to personalize you, with that situation. Therefore, you will always remember from there out on what you need to do. You'll get past the hesitation and you'll react according to training and training takes reps. You have to do it over and over, MAGLITE: 05:21 And this is why I read a book called "Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why" (by Laurence Gonzales) many years ago. I don't ask me why I'm a freak about survival situations. I just enjoy reading about them and so this, I'll never forget them saying, pay attention when you're getting on an airplane and they're pointing out where the exits are. Pay attention to any safety stuff that you're being told when you're on a cruise ship, when you're on something that you're unfamiliar with because the people that die are the people that didn't listen and they weren't prepared and they didn't go through it in their head and that's basically what you're saying is a much more advanced version of that which is, you have to go through it, which is why you guys do the reality based training that you do at your American Tactical Defense. BRYAN MCKENRICK: 06:03 Yeah, absolutely. You always want to think about stuff ahead of time. What if, what if? We don't want him to compare it. However, with that being said, Be Alert. You know, don't walk out aimlessly out of your car without looking around, you know, just think of things that will put you in a better situation. MAGLITE: 06:21 All right, that's Bryan from American Tactical Defense here on another episode of the MAG-TAC podcast (by Maglite Tactical). By the way, ML300L LED (4D) is the Maglite (flashlight) I was talking about earlier and give you over two weeks of continuous light. Got to check it out, ML300L 4-Cell LED. All right. We're going to talk about next time we have Bryan on the podcast. Next week we're going to be talking about Barricading: Pros and Cons of that. Why you do it, why you don't, how to do it, how not to do it. This has been the MAG-TAC podcast (by Maglite Tactical). Thanks for listening. Talk to you again soon
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Episode 5: Practical Defense ft. Bryan McKenrick (Part 1)
Bryan McKenrick, the leader and owner of American Tactical Defense, LLC., an Active Shooter Training Company, has spent a career in law enforcement doing drug interdiction operations with the Coast Guard and other law enforcement agencies. Bryan now trains law enforcement personnel on active shooter events and joins the MAG-TAC Podcast for Four (4) episodes. In this episode, Bryan talks about the importance of reacting to what is happening. Discusses not hoping for the best, but being ready for the worst. He then covers the basics of safety and the theory of Run, Hide, & Fight. MAGLITE: 00:07 Welcome to the MAG-TAC podcast. I'm your host Lou and joining us today, we're going to have a veteran police officer and a gentleman who has trained thousands of people in the use of firearms, active shooter, including SWOT, military and actively/currently he is training personnel in California Law Enforcement and others in avoiding mass shootings and what to do when they happen. Joining us here, Bryan McKenrick from American Tactical Defense. Bryan, how are you sir? BRYAN MCKENRICK: 00:42 Doing great, Lou. Thanks for having me on. MAGLITE: 00:44 Give us 30 seconds of your background my man, cause you're kind of a badass. So… I want people to know that. BRYAN MCKENRICK: 00:49 Yeah, don't like to think of it that way, but I appreciate the words. Little about me. I mean, I work in an agency, can't really, you know, dictate which one. MAGLITE: 01:01 I gotcha. MAGLITE: 01:02 However , we run our active shooter thing throughout all their officers, over thousands run. We have three active shooters in our jurisdiction, so we had to get really good, really fast. On a side of that prior military US Coast Guard for seven years. And at this point I'm looking over 20, looking back at all the years, feeling pretty darn old. MAGLITE: 01:25 When you say coast guard, I don't want people thinking, you know, you're wearing a white uniform and swabbing decks, you were doing drug interdictions, correct? BRYAN MCKENRICK: 01:34 Yeah. Thanks for making that delineation. Absolutely so. Yeah, we did narcotics OPS and Search and Rescue was the other side, but law enforcement took me by the hand and I went with it. So yeah, so American Tactical, we started this because, you know, I'm tired of seeing folks not being told what to do, not being shown what to do and running and hiding and hoping for the best. Hoping for the best is not a good option for anyone. Doesn't suit, but I don't feel any confidence with that forum. So, we started this whole deal, in that realm, in the school districts it is very important to get ready and get trained. MAGLITE: 02:16 Okay, so let's talk about the basics of Run, Hide, Fight. This is the philosophy that has been adopted in these mass shooting scenarios, especially in the school setting. Explain what it means and how you go through the progression if you're caught in one of these situations. BRYAN MCKENRICK: 02:34 All right, so if an active shooter happens, which are happening all the time, obviously, most people will always be trained by police departments or others to Run, Hide, Fight. And usually it's a presentation and usually, you know, all of us know what to do as for running and hiding. And we've been doing it since we were children. I mean, we played hide and seek, we played tag. So that's a natural given for anyone. That's good. But now what do they do in the classrooms, when they go on a lockdown? What we do, is we come in and teach those teachers how to fight and in effective measures, because there's a lot of different ways that are going to get the teachers hurt and it's going to be an ineffective, basically. So we have methods that we use. MAGLITE: 03:16 Well, let me go back to the basics just so that people were clear. Active shooter, you hear ... I hear this all the time and it makes me crazy. Well, I thought we heard fireworks or firecrackers. No. You know what? Assume it's gunshots, right? I mean, don't wait to find out, right Bryan? BRYAN MCKENRICK: 03:33 Yeah, I mean, absolutely. If it's an in and around the school grounds and it's during school hours, you know, you gotta think about it, even if it's on the 4th of July. Is that normal? Is that really gonna happen to the schools? Is it that close? You have to react. These days it's just happened. MAGLITE: 03:49 And the first thing you do is try to get away from wherever the sound is coming from, Right? BRYAN MCKENRICK: 03:55 Thats the number one goal, if you have the means and the capabilities...Get out of there, you don't want to be the fish caught in the bowl. MAGLITE: 04:01 And if you can't, that's when you hide. BRYAN MCKENRICK: 04:04 Right? And if you can't, for example, you have little preschoolers and you can't round up 30 of them in your arms. So with that being said, you've got to do something. You want to, you have to go bury yourself into a locked room, set it up for a war. You have to be ready to attack. MAGLITE: 04:20 So be aware of your surroundings. If something strange is going on, assume the worst. Don't assume the best. Run first. Try to get out of there and get away from the noise. Hide secondarily. And the third option is going to be to Fight. Now we're going to cover each of these things in an individual podcast. We're going to discuss improvised weapons, hiding behind cover versus hiding under desks, which isn't really cover. And the pros and cons of barricading in upcoming episodes of the MAG-TAC Podcast with Bryan at American Tactical Defense. The recap here, Bryan, is be aware, Run first, right? BRYAN MCKENRICK: 05:07 Run first. And if you can't run, get yourself behind some cupboard and get ready for war. It's you against them. MAGLITE: 05:15 All right. And quickly, your relationship with Maglite, do you want to characterize how that is and how you use Maglite's (flashlights) in your training? BRYAN MCKENRICK: 05:22 Absolutely, So with Maglite, we partnered up with them and they have great products. Their (Maglite) flashlights are nice and they're hard. And for a nice solution, for anyone that has a plan, like a shooter coming in to shoot up people, they always have this plan. And I want to go with it. Well, you know what, like Mike Tyson says, everybody has a plan so you get punched in the face. These flashlights here, if everybody knows they've had them in her hands, everybody's had a Maglite at some point in her hand, they heard if you were to get smashed in the face with it. So that being said, they have a wonderful product. The brightness of their flashlights, the consistency, all of these different things will bring up in the other (MAG-TAC) Podcast, as you mentioned so. MAGLITE: 06:00 All right, well that'll wrap it up for this segment of the MAG-TAC Podcast and we will be back later next week with more with Bryan from American Tactical Defense.
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Episode 4: Law Enforcement ft. Dave Shearman
In this episode of the MAG-TAC Podcast by Maglite Tactical, Dave Shearman who received a Law Enforcement Hero Award from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund and Maglite - Mag Instrument, Inc., shares his story of being a volunteer law enforcement veteran who served with the armed forces during the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, following 9/11. Shearman and his friend and fellow officer James “JT” Taman, who also served and grievously wounded in an IED attack, wrote the book Outside the Wire in Blue about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. MAGLITE: 00:06 Welcome back to another MAG-TAC podcast. I'm your host Lou and we have a very special guest here on this program that I'm very excited to bring in. He is a true American hero and is a recipient of a recent law enforcement hero award awarded by the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund and Maglite as part of their National Law Enforcement Hero Program. Without any further ado, let me bring him in. This is David Shearman. David, how are you sir? DAVE SHEARMAN: 00:32 I'm doing great Lou. Thank you for having me to here today. MAGLITE: 00:36 I'm so glad to have you on the program coming all the way to, it's all the way across the country from, Kansas, so thank you for being here. DAVE SHEARMAN: 00:42 Outside Kansas City. That's right. Well, let me preface something, here. Go ahead. I'm not a hero and I want to make that perfectly clear. There's a lot of guys out there that, deserve that label and that I've not one of them, but thank you for the accolade anyways. MAGLITE: 00:58 All right. I promise not to use it again the rest of the show. So you are the co-author along with JT James Taman, otherwise known as JT. You have a book called Outside the Wire in Blue, this book details a little-known Department of Defense Civilian Law Enforcement Advisory Program. Now, tell us where this was born out of and how you became involved in it. DAVE SHEARMAN: 01:23 Right, so you might remember back in 2006, 2007 in Iraq, particularly in Fallujah, the Marine Corps and, the army were fighting and badly now Al-Qaida in that area. We're kind of having a real tough time of it. As you may recall, house-to-house fighting, Al-Qaida was using non-conventional methods on the battlefield and, at the same time, they were introducing IEDs onto the battlefield, which was having a devastating effect on our soldiers and Marines who costing a lot of lives. And so, because the enemy alcaide at that time was that acted more like an organizational crime entity, a gang, bunch of gang members, a lot of them, not even true believers. They were just there for criminal conduct. General (David) Petraeus and his staff put together an idea, hey, who can help us come combat these guys? And they came up with the idea of, employing big city cops, federal agents, so I'm bringing their skillsets to the battlefield. MAGLITE: 02:33 So this was like fighting gangs or organized crime more than it was fighting another military force. DAVE SHEARMAN: 02:41 Exactly. You know, just conventional war fighting as the army and the Marine Corps that has done over decades. But we saw guerrilla warfare and so on and so forth at Vietnam, Al-Qaida and many, transnational terrorist organizations are not conventional. They fight by all different types of means and the IED was really killing a lot of our soldiers at that time. They had to come up with some other way to look at the battlefield, because there was, a lot of different asymmetrical tactics being used. And on top of that, at that time we were, if you recall, we were trying to work with the host government, (inaudible), government of Iraq after it was dismantled. And, we're trying to also bring, insurgence that we captured on the battlefield and other evidence on the battlefield. We tried to utilize that in the judicial system as well as another avenue to take insurgences off the battlefield. So police officers obviously with their intrinsic investigative skills, came into play that, in that regard as well. So it was a multipronged, multifaceted approach towards utilizing, the skills of the American police officers. These are tenured 20 year plus, coppers (police officers) and brought that to the battlefield. MAGLITE: 04:07 So this was no desk duty. I'm reading the book Outside the Wire in Blue, David Shearman joins us, co-author of that book, and you law enforcement professionals weren't in some desk setting. You are embedded directly with combat troops. And in fact, five of your compatriots of this force of several hundred of these volunteers from police departments across the United States were killed in combat. And your compatriot, JT was very badly wounded in an IED insurgency attack. So this was no easy days right? DAVE SHEARMAN: 04:45 No, this was not a desk job. This was not 511 polos type of contractor position. LEPs (Law Enforcement Professional) were deployed either pre-deployment with the military units, brigades, combat brigades and so on and so forth, or they were joined military units, joint military units in country. Two LEPs were two a unit and we advise, we were part of everything from the core, from the general level all the way down to the company level. And, but we were embedded, we are dressed, we are outfitted, we're weaponized, just like any other soldier. And we were treated just as such, given the rank of a major, so we'd be on a staff... staff level meetings. But, yeah, as you mentioned, we ate, slept, cried and unfortunately, five police officers were killed in combat and those were Joe Morabito (Joseph Anthony Morabito), Norm Spruill (Norman Maurise Spruill), Kevin O’Rourke, Tom Boyle, and Paul Protzenko, wonderful guys and did a hell of a job for the program. MAGLITE: 06:00 So David, before you were in this program, you had a decades long career as a police officer. You ever carry a Maglite? DAVE SHEARMAN: 06:09 Well, it's funny because JT and I were talking about that the other day and I think we may even sent out an email about that. You know, we're kind of old. I mean the guys in this program over there were 47, 50, 55 year old coppers. So we're not, we weren't, the young 21, 22 year old soldiers. So you are talking about some old school coppers involved in this program and yes, Maglite was an essential item when we're patrol on the main streets of America as I wasn't in LAPD. And, I can say I had a have plenty of flashes by disposal even in Afghanistan when I worked undercover there. So I always, always at a tool at my belt MAGLITE: 06:53 Multi-use is that Four D-cell MAG (MAGLITE)? DAVE SHEARMAN: 06:56 Absolutely. Multi. Yeah, you're right about that. MAGLITE: 06:58 All right. David Shearman, co-author of "Outside the Wire in Blue", thank you so much for joining us here on a MAG-TAC podcast. We really appreciate it, and congratulations on the Law Enforcement Hero Award from the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund and Maglite. We really appreciate your service. DAVE SHEARMAN: 07:14 No, we really thank Maglite and the National Law Enforcement Memorial Foundation/Fund and it's a pleasure. And, if they want to learn anything more about the program or the book, they can go to our website OutsideTheWireInBlue.com MAGLITE: 07:30 Thank you so much. DAVE SHEARMAN: 07:31 Alright, thanks again. MAGLITE: 07:33 That's a wrap on this MAG-TAC podcast. We'll be back next time with more. Thanks for listening.
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