Welcome to Vancouver, True Crime. I'm with a very honored guest sad, little boy, who was a police officer, the RCMP for over 20 years, he retired in 2021 as a divisional, sergeant major, for E division, in British Columbia. His career revolved around RCMP, specialize in elite units. A flight safety officer. Also known as an air marshal before moving on, as a full-time member of the BC Lower, Mainland Emergency Response Team He was both a breacher and a team leader.
In this conversation, we're going to talk about situational, awareness, his career, as an RCMP officer. Polarizing politics of the city of Vancouver is a city more violent, is it perception? Philosophy on mindset is background in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. He's currently a black belt, travels around, as a motivational speaker, and many more things. So, let's please introduce him. Thank you for Coming to Vancouver. True Crime. Hey man thanks for having me. I really appreciate you coming.
On the rank that you reach before you retired and kind of. What does that rank mean? I'm not sure it means I'm it means a lot theoretically speaking. My career was based upon not caring about rank so much and wanting to do the things that I wanted to do. So if the job that I wanted was associated with a rank, then all the better but if it wasn't then it wouldn't stop me from doing it. And inversely I would never have taken a job that I didn't want to do on account of getting a
promotion. And so this was, you know, a rule that I live by during my career. And it certainly worked out it's magic because I ended up three ranks higher than I ever wanted to and and doing jobs that were very important jobs on the on account of the collective, so to
speak. So yeah, this was an opportunity was given to me when I was still a team leader on the team on the Emergency Response Team and I was approached by the den seal or commanding officer of the division here in British Columbia Brenda Butterworth car who moved on to. From the the director of policing in British Columbia that's at the Province level, a few months a few months after I
took office really? But yeah she approached me and you know for for a reason that remains a bit of a mystery to me she had made up her mind that I was the right person to come over and bridge. The gap between the executive officers and the the rank-and-file. So people of Other ranks such as Constable. Corporal Sergeant, such etc, etc. And so I you know was on the tail end of my year, T careers.
I if I'm being honest after 12 years on the team, I was starting to consider that perhaps it was time to move on even though I had no particular plan of doing so. But after the offer took me about eight weeks to make up my mind. And finally, leave the place that I'd worked so hard to be at in that was my soul.
Purpose for coming in the outfit and first place, which was Emergency Response Team. But I was provided this golden opportunity and I felt like I could make a change and I did just that and join the commanding officers office as a sergeant major, for the division. And I spent two years in that role, I maybe talk about for the Emergency Response Team and maybe break that down for, again, for someone who's never heard of it, or maybe only seen
it on on television. In shows and Hollywood Netflix. What's that lake? Is that it kind of an accurate perception of what you see on Hollywood. Yeah. No, it's nothing. Like all it would I mean some of it obviously sometimes reality can exceed fiction but the reality is the way tactical teams are portrayed in the in the, you know, Hollywood sort of context is almost always incredibly stupid and skewed, right? And so, And this is this is my
opinion on that. But essentially our task is to respond to calls for service that are beyond the capacity of Patrol officers and this is not doesn't mean to be their regulatory in nature, but we're talking by way of training and equipment and and so it is an elite unit that uses those tools and those tactics techniques and procedures, as well as the equipment, as well as a training to problem-solve, is Issues
critical issues. I might I might want to say and and prevent an escalation of violence, whatever that is. So sometimes, yes, we maybe ask a leading violence in order to deescalate a situation. Everything is done in a controlled fashion. Everything is done with a articulated, rationale and everything is done under the tutelage. In the end, the oversight of a critical incident command Group, which is generally comprised of
negotiators. Psychologists bomb squads and dog squads and variety of different units that can provide inside. The helps us problem solve effectively that. In addition to the Emergency Response Team ground thiel's and the element leads on the ground. That can provide direct input from where the weight, where the wheels meet the pavement. And then we can formulate plans of action based on the totality of the circumstances that is in
a nutshell. What this looks like as time went on On in that like because again I smell a hundred, the amount of training for the different types of scenarios and there is a lot of variety of a situations that can happen like
a even were last conversation. We talked about you know like say a domestic violence situation that gets out of control guys drunk and he's arguing and it gets more and more and more violent or really bad people with explosives and guns and they're holding someone for hostage. So you feel like the variety of training that you had to do. It was for constantly, did you, did you find that?
You don't just have to kind of almost reinvent the wheel because it's because situations are all constantly evolving weapons or changing. You know, tactics are changing and people looking on the mental illness factor to, you know, they had that that that's a always a big question mark when you're walking into a very volatile situation like that. Yeah, we as you mentioned we we treated emotionally.
Third persons, or people with documented, mental health issues, a lot differently than we would, you know, a robber that's taken somebody hostage inside a house and this is a
criminal barricade now, right? And so, yes, there are, there's a lot of complexities around changing even one variables on a call that changes the entire course of action or the response, but having a base framework to work from so having Focus. On the things that we can control, like our training and tactically, having our equipment available, having are equipment being trained on the equipment, understanding her, legal statute, their authorities, understanding what the offense is.
Having the right briefing format. All those things we can control. And then, once we've control all those things, we're able to adapt and overcome whatever situation might be regardless if it's different or Exactly the
same as another one. And once we conducting a risk assessment, once we're looking at the totality of the circumstances were able to, we're able to pick exactly where this call differs from the previous one from the one after and how we are going to bridge that Gap and use Innovative tactics techniques and procedures to problem solve those calls. So, yeah, it's consistently keeping you on your, on your toes. So to speak. And and it takes, it takes a lot
of flexibility. From an operational standpoint to be able to problem-solve, a variety of different dilemmas all with different set of circumstances the personal. But the decompressing from after that, like you're just like, you know, that would take a toll over time, you know, even post-traumatic stress issues, things like that, because it's this constant, you're thrown into almost like a meat grinder and then expected to solve it in course of anything goes wrong.
Then yeah, you know, I think it's really interesting. We we, as a Unit and and we've made our fair share of mistakes when it came to Wellness and mental and emotional Wellness of
our operators. But over the years we developed, you know, several key principles that were going by and some, some procedures to deal with and enable our people to not only remain healthy, but also go back to work and face another call, and then come back and then return and face another call, because the calls are not coming or not, they Stop coming late. So having a way to deal with this was it was a critical piece and I was I was semi instrumental in developing this
for this specific team. Although I certainly wasn't the only one that was invested and in doing so. And many of our people did that now you there's a lot of complexities around occupational stress injuries PTSD, who gets it, who doesn't who have, who it affects?
And to a certain extent, the job affects everybody. to a certain extent and is just varies and scoop you know, how impacted is someone should somebody else and it all depends on individual factors, such as resiliency, you know, adversity written life or not you know, selection all those things but it but in a context of a tactical units like like the one I was on because by way of selection and way of testing by way of everything, we were able to mitigate perhaps some of these Some of the
effects or the after-effects of tactical operations, we weren't able to eliminate them but certainly mitigate mitigate is, is as good as it's going to get. And ultimately, at the end of the day, there is a sacrifice associated with service, right? And that's, that's a big part of it. So, trying to mitigate it and trying to keep it as manageable as humanly possible mostly through leadership and the rest of it is kind of out of our out of our hands.
So, too, Speak right breacher, maybe explain to the audience. What does that mean? Yeah, it's bent. I want to say five years of the breacher which is the person that gained entry to the stronghold. So that's the person that is responsible for getting the team from outside a building, or a house or a garage, or whatever. The case may be into inside and do so, in a timely fashion and in a safe manner so that they may go in and problem solve, whatever issue is is occurring inside.
Because we, we can have the best team in the world on the outside, but if we can get them inside with a problem is, then we're having bigger problems, right? So, I, my job was essentially to use either mechanical mechanical means, or ballistic means or or explosive means to get inside a building, so that the team could go problem solve issues side of the door waiting for you like that.
Just yeah, that would be pretty intense, I can imagine my question is that You ever get into a situation where it's I say the doors completely barricaded and that and that is the, that is the reaction they want. And they this is their, their big moment or, you know. Yeah. I mean, yes, I've encountered plenty of barricades. I've been counted, I've encountered plenty of people wanting a negative interaction with Oodles of people that decided afterwards.
They really didn't want an interaction with police. Once once they go once, they got the team to deal with, Certain things. But yeah, those are those are, you know, humans are complex creatures men. The people do things for various reasons and it's not always logical and it's not always common sensical as far as everybody else is concerned. No, there there's another podcast he I listen to he's quite a fascinating character. He has podcast is called Ed Manifesto.
He was a cop in Mexico. And, and he talks a lot about intention. There's there's nothing you can do now. There's no training. There's nothing you can. As far as someone's intention, you know, someone's intentions are so crazy in the on yours that there's there's no preparation to prepare for it and and I think that's what makes situations is so volatile because it's like, wait, what are their intentions are?
They just so crazy that they don't know what they're doing or is this is the thing that they've been planning for a long time, right? How How mentally do you prepare yourself for that and how they can know, how do you balance? I guess there must be important. Really talk about work-life balance and yeah, I would, I wouldn't, I don't know if I would describe my 12 years on the team as balanced quite, you know, to make it to Anna to a unit like this.
You need a certain level of obsession, right? That you need to be obsessed with certain degree. And yes, work-life balance is an important is an important part of this. Once you are active on a team. But also, I think understanding that the team is the last last
line of defense. And so, at the end of the day, you know, there are going to be sacrificed or that are going to occur such as, you know, leaving birthdays and Christmas and whatever because you get called out on these calls and sometimes leaving for extended period of times, do all this stuff.
So, but I would say that what makes this easier is, as we as it stands right now, there's a lot of People that don't have much of a work-life balance, but they also working in a miserable job that they absolutely hate, right? Whereas, whereas it's generally speaking on the teams that the boys just love what they're doing and our people love what they're doing. And when you love what you're doing easier to to maintain the perspective, it's easier to
maintain. Yes, a certain level of health and wellness. It's easier to look at things from a purpose standpoint. Gives you a lot of tools. You know if you if what you're doing feels purposeful and meaningful it does a lot to alleviate some of the issues and some of the stressors stressors associated with this type of work. So for me personally, I never really had. I never really was an overly emotional person in the context of my work.
And I also never sort of strive to strive for perfection in the sense that that I understood the limitations from an emotional fundamental and emotional standpoint says, annotations that, you know, human beings are on an individual basis. I should say, I should qualify this on an individual basis. What my own limitations were and what some of the limitations of the people working for me, were and understanding and knowing your people and caring for them really helps with that.
And so we had, you know, systems and subsystems and and pillars. In place to help them ground themselves outside of the outside of the work capacity and that often is what's missing and what's lacking. When the job starts defining, you and it defines everything. You stand for anything, that happens at interferes with a smooth operation of that creates
issues. And so we are trying to alleviate this as much as we could, and that was one way that we had to manage the stress associated with the job. So furry, someone like yourself, you're on one end of the spectrum. Um, you know, personal responsibility or athletic, you work out a lot, your training, you know, been on these very elite teams and then on the other end of the spectrum where we find ourselves and we have kind of a culture of victimization.
Everyone's a victim, professional victims and then, almost an industry of, and enabling these people. And then course, this is created a massive social problem. There has been this new kind of movement, and I need all you.
Myself, I've had some bizarre run-ins with them on my platform, you know, the a cab people and they seem to have the year of like politicians, you know, doing Cuts in the budget cuts and they kind of want to paint a picture that all societies problems is because we have cost but yet they don't have a solution of how you replace that. So here's a person like yourself who's been on, probably some
pretty pretty scary. Violent calls that the average person would even And it and then there's someone on the other side screaming that you know, your job shouldn't exist. So what's your thoughts on lick this political polarizing environment that we find ourselves in? Yeah, well I think it's a small minority who's really, really loud. I don't believe at all that.
That's a majority of people. So the majority of people are very supportive of law enforcement and supportive of us. There are the quiet majority, so to speak. And then you have your super loud minority, which, you know, You call your movement, a cab or whatever, whatever you want to call it. You yes, far as I'm concerned, you've already discredited your intent. You've already discredited your thought process and you definitely negated your critical
analysis capacity. I'm not even concerned. These types agree with those types of groups. You know, sometimes an academic utopian way of dealing with things. Sometimes I don't even have the academic behind them, so they're even worse. They're just in Utopia, but they actually don't have an education to back it up. So from a leadership standpoint, this it's Clear and evident there that we as a country are failing and it's not just us as the United States as well and
others. We're failing in the leadership Department, to establish what the reality is, and what the root causes of some of the issues are, but look at the states that have defunded the police right now, like New York City, Chicago, the the murder rates are optic, 200, something percent, it is just completely insane. What's going on over there right now? And in fact, a lot of the politicians that were pushing to
defund the police age agenda. And they're actually the in the opposite direction and asking for additional support so that they may the stats in their own state with respect to violent crimes and and so on. So now what we're seeing is a we want to go that way 100%. Oh wait this doesn't work. It just backfired on us and let's go to complete opposite way all along. I could have told you exactly what was going to happen with this.
If anything, the police forces needed more money, more training more, call it, whatever you want. But if you're taking it away, And they're still out there doing the job. How can this come across as a good idea? How is this? Come across commonsensical? Because it certainly isn't and it was always doomed to fail. And we're continuing to here in the country and Canada. If we were to compare with the state's, our stats are not nearly as sort of catastrophic
as they are in the state. So one could look here and say, how do you actually quantify, what isn't, and what didn't happen? Because that's a very difficult part of policing is to try to prove. What you prevented because most of your job and if you're doing it correctly things are not happening, right? And so and so it's very difficult, you have, your Ambush type scenarios where things are happening in would happen.
Anyways. And then you have your other, the other side of the spectrum, where if you have prevented a whole bunch of things then you can't, you can no longer prove that those things would have interfered with everybody's well-being, right? And so it's really difficult to
quantify. What isn't and it's Extremely difficult to keep track of what is yeah and also too on top of it. I truly believe that we live in a more dangerous volatile Society currently, you know, like the random we talked before random violence, you know, people mentally ill, probably on hard drugs and in the state of psychosis attacking people, right? That seems to be on the rise especially interested in the
downtown. In my opinion, I really believe that the courts and the judges have a have a Vaughan civilian this because they just seem to let them out, let them out and let them out. The guy that smashed up the TD Bank. I wrote, it saw us yesterday, always back out again, he's probably guessing not must be frustration. You take a bad person off the street, just to have them released again, you know, that, that machete attack or, you know, talk to some tourists.
And back out on the street, can't find them Police Issue a bulletin, you know, please keep your eye out for him, right. I think they arrested him again but you know, in my opinion a person willing to wave around a machete and actually use it at term a menace to society. Right. Seems like the courts are never really countable of why they make a decision or don't make a decision. And of course, the and lot of the cases that I researched and talked about and did on the Podcasts.
I talk about the crown prosecutor staying charges and to Americans, that doesn't make any sense to them. While the dino, we mean they stayed the chart, they don't know what that means. And I explained that a lot. So I think our system is very different and it doesn't really, I don't think it's helps the situation either. There's an uptick in violence that you think that they would be more proactive of trying to mitigate it but it just stays
been treated very differently. I guess that's a different conversation but be Is in what your thoughts are? Mmm. Yeah, I mean, the system itself, needs them an overall rate, it needs an overhaul, it just, it just does. I mean, there's so many interrelated and interconnected pieces that need to work together and those pieces need to be pulling in the same direction as I as it stands right now.
We're absolutely not doing that. And the reason why we're successful in none doing that, Is because there isn't as much happening that makes us pay for our faulty Behavior. So to speak, right? And so, I'll give you an example of this and try to exemplify this a little bit more
concretely. But if you're looking at 9/11, for example, if you looking at 9/11 and the way, the agencies were not communicating, with each other, they were building, you know, Empires. They had different communication systems, they work on different radios. They had different shift schedules.
They You know, and everybody was concerned concerned with you, no problem solving their own set of issues and not necessarily interacting with others or using others in the, in the pursuit of doing that, or whatever, the case may be until the planes hit, right? And when the, when the planes hit, New York and in Pennsylvania, and, and all this good stuff during 911, it forced everybody to work together.
Better more seamlessly more. Ali and it forced everybody to look and overall their processes. So that they may be integrating other people and agencies and they in a realizing there was such a duplication of work that was, that was being a causality of some of the issues that they that they had. But we're no different here with respect to the criminal justice system, I mean it starts at this legislation, right? So legislative The legislation
goes through. And if it's not if it doesn't, if it doesn't have the teeth to give the judges and lawyers and and and people in the position to actually operationalize or weaponize, those legislations, we're having issues.
And and then once decisions are made say at the Supreme Court level or whatever, if those decisions are seemingly say in favor of That guy's or offenders rather than victims, then there has to be an extrapolation of what exactly transpired here and what what why was the decision that was made by the Supreme Court was made on account of and a lot of this stuff is legal mumbo-jumbo than the leap. The laborers and win really understand anyways so how can we articulated?
So that the lay person can understand what this entails in a variety of different Rabbit Hole you go, you can go down up. Right? But at the end of the day, we definitely definitely need to look at recidivism that we have, in this country, which respect to, and I think Vancouver. And in the documentary, I think he will think over is dying. Don't they speak about, you know, six thousand arrests, like, or 6,000? People being responsible for 50,000 calls or something. I can't remember.
I can't remember where the numbers were, but I mean I've experienced, I've experienced it myself where we had someone when I was on patrol that we We essentially was intoxicating a public place, pretty much every day sometimes two or three times a day and some of these guys would have to re-400 apprehension, you know? And and and spend the night in jail and that wasn't somebody that had a propensity for violence. But imagine if somebody did, somebody had a propensity for violence.
In addition to what they're already having as a set of issues and then you allow them to be back on the street. Again, re-victimizing other people in the same can be said about or doing sexual. Salts. A morsel two years. I've seen this, just from again, running a platform falling news, you know, looking at what's going on in the city. I have this from from my point of view. I've seen a real uptake in specifically in the random violence of unprovoked attacks,
right? And some of them are this horrific, like, just like, just like there was one where a woman made an improvised taser and she was going around tasering people for know, like, you know, yeah. Just like, like that's just insane cases. It seems like there are also under the influence of usually, a hard drug, meth defend amine,
or something like that. And, and for the people that contact me that who have been victims of and mostly women, you know, their testimonies are terrifying, like, you know, pull me, but her neighbor. She got hit in the head from behind, will walk in the seawall and she woke up and st. Paul's Hospital citizen more. So now Lot less than safe than they used to. So baby, let's break down.
You know what you feel is one of the most important tools to possess situational awareness, and maybe talk about what that means and how why that's an important thing to to utilize when you're out and about in public? Mmm. Yeah, absolutely. I mean situation awareness. Is just essentially having the awareness that. Yes, there are people out there that are wanting to do bad things to good people and that you may be one of those good people.
So you simply it's a, it's an assumption of risk that when you leave your house and you open that door and you walk out, there's a variety of things that will expose you to potential dangers. And so you have two choices, you can put your head in the sand and pretend they don't exist and
wish that you don't get caught. You know, if you're lucky and then we know that Wishes the last dying wish of those, who believe that winning Can Happen by accident, or you can literally take your fate into your own. Ends and start looking critically at how you were conducting business. How you were doing things, how to you are approaching your car where do you park?
What time do you do it at which? Which route you take home, which route you go to work on, you know, those types of things. So having really having and also, you know, remake staying in a semi state of alertness and I'm not talking about like being in the red State here, where you're completing on high alert waiting for them to come out of everywhere, but I'm talking
about simply you. You know, if you're if you're proceeding through an airport and intersection or whatever the case may be, are you on your phone? You know, with all looking around, do you scan around the, you know, generally speaking, who standing around you with their demeanor is like what kind of threat, they might pause.
If somebody approaches you, do you have the knowledge skills and ability to look at their hands, to make sure they cannot deliver a threat because they don't necessarily have something in their hands or if they do creating some distance like you know, there's there's there's two things, there's a situation situation, awareness piece, And then there's the associated actions that you're going to take.
Once you realize what's going on, so understanding what's happening, and what you need to be doing to sort of lessen or mitigate the risk associated with a certain event is critical in ensuring that you are safe and, and that needs to be done on an individual basis, is no questionnaire. Right, of course. So what if you not necessary
you're in the situation? Like, I mean, you're more of a witness but let's say you're like out with your spouse or friends or loved ones, or whoever you're only saying the restaurant Pub or somewhere a bit crowded. There's lots of people in like a big fight breaks out or there
was a video. I think I sent you a copy was a stabbing just before Halloween, pretty horrific videos, a big dude, he fought awful four or five guys, he end up getting Stabbed but you know chairs are being kicked over tables or being kicked. Over is pretty, you know, pretty dramatic stuff. Right? What would you say the best thing to do in a situation like that if you're with a loved one though if you know what I mean. Mmm Yeah. Well there's there's a variety
of different scenarios right. They need all depends who you are and what your skills knowledge and abilities are. But I would I will say this generally speaking things just don't come out of nowhere. Generally speaking there's a there's a build up to those things.
So I'm going to surmise That during or before the fight, in the case of the video you sent me there there there has to have been a, an escalation sorta between, you know, the parties and and and something that could have been easily picked off proper, probably if somebody was paying attention. And so for me, it starts there. Like, is there a my sitting next to a group that I anticipate, my have some issues, and my, are they starting to interact adversely with another group?
And if that's the case, how how do I go about getting my wife myself and the kids moved, you know, by speaking to one of the waiter or whatever the case may be? So there are actions that you can take before it blows up. Then this might include you picking up your stuff and heading out, like, we're gonna we're gonna take it to go, like I don't like the current situation that the climate in here. I don't like the crowd in here.
I don't like what's unfolding in here and I suspect it will Escalade Let's grab our, let's grab our food and head out, you know, those are, those are all viable options. As far as I'm concerned. I have, you know, certain things that I'm not prepared to do one of those things. Is, I'm not prepared to let the collective, the, the innocent Collective sustained injuries, or, or being hurt by somebody that's actively looking to hurt people but not in the context of
a specific conflict. So you have two people that disappear consensually decide to fight. That's their prerogative man. I'm not getting involved in this and less and less, you know, evidently one person is now, you know, on the ground unconscious and the other one is going to kick him in the head so to speak.
But I'm not. This is those are not the types of scenarios that I generally would get involved in the involved in. Unless there is an actual victim like somebody is actually being victimized by a criminal
offense. Like for me, the priority is always to get the family out of there and they can do they can We can generally will have those conversations before like this where the exit, the emergency exit is, this is, this is where we can link up. If something goes up and if I'm in a restaurant and something starts escalating and we're making some moves, I might be telling the people I'm with like look if something happens. This is this. What I'd like you to do, you know?
And and we generally we generally get you know kind of kind of do this and the bit of a plan B. He's failing to have a plan is no plan. Yeah, for sure. I do know I have a large female audience, so I looked like safety tips for them as well, women for a good general, safety tips for women are out by themselves, you know, like just doing their thing shopping.
Because what this, again these random attacks lot of times, it's like a woman downtown shopping guy hits her in the head with a hammer, you know, just as well. The worst thing I could possibly imagine, you know, thinking things out That's for like what? Over some advice? Would you give them perilous? Yeah, I mean exactly the same as we just discussed, right? Having your wits about you, keeping your eyes open, understanding that again.
As I said earlier, that, that bad things happen to good people and that you are not exempt from that. You you are going to have your time, something is going to happen. It's almost guaranteed if you live in an urban center specifically and and and and your tools to prevent those things from happening are hinging primarily in your ability to recognize the threat before it starts. And if you don't have that, you're going to be reactive when you are reactive, you're always
behind. You can never, you can never sort of beat somebody to the punch so to speak. If they are, if they're the initiator and you weren't prepared for whatever it is, that's coming. And so again, in the spirit of every We just discussed, it's a critically important for women and men to actually be paying attention, to their surroundings, to pay attention to the environment, to pay attention to the people walking towards them, to make sure that they use physical obstacles in
between them and somebody else. If they, if they can switch, you know, Streetside if they have to whatever the case may be, so that they may create some distance and have more time to react to anything in one of the, one of the critical piece that I think we Would we need to mention? Is that the people that are victimizing people in random
Fashions? Like this is, generally not so Random. It's random in that there's no known affiliation between the victim and the person, that's obviously assaulting them more or doing something to them, but it's not random in the sense that the person that's selected that victim, picked them for a reason.
And generally, that reason is the perceived factors of them not having the ability to Physically overpower the person that's delivering the threat or the or the, you know, the assault or that the risk of getting caught is very low. So ability to fight back is a big thing.
If the person doesn't think that you have the ability to fight back and just could be completely erroneous, you may you may you know mistakenly fall on the person that actually doesn't look like they can fight back for very capable and now you're in a bad place but generally bullies will select our I get very carefully, they will select their target so that their own safety is not jeopardized by whatever actions
that they're taking. They're also used surprise and violence of action to prevent somebody from that even potentially could have the place the the, the ability to defend themselves. But because they were surprised they were ambushed. They, they haven't had an opportunity to do it. So so there are trying to control the parameters, around, whatever criminal Behavior,
they're exhibiting. And so the best way to alleviate any of that is to actually Harden the target, which is a concept in which if a person is looking at you, are they going to think this is something? This is somebody I could con right now, they're not paying attention, they're not doing this. They're not doing that.
They're completely exposed or Baxter and everybody there buried in their phone and also they're out of shape, they don't have the ability, it looks like they don't have the ability to fight whatever and is there. No. Is there anybody around that? Can that can Have me caught if the answer is no to all of those questions then that person is a perfect candidate. Conversely.
If the person looks like they're paying attention that they're scanning that their safety conscious that potentially are in good, physical condition with an ability to run fight, or scream or whatever the or combination of all of those things and and is generally aware of your presence in the area and looking at you in a sort of suspicious, you know. Way, like they're looking at you like, knowing that you're up to no good. And then that person now has to
make a choice. Am I going to take that person or the next person that actually doesn't give me any of those signs? And the answer is always the same. They will pick the person that has the less likelihood of getting him hurt or cut every single time. Well, that makes sense totally. So you're a martial arts instructor, you're also a co-owner of a martial arts studio. What's the name of your studio? Essential martial arts, and you're currently a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu for women.
Men who are interested in learning martial arts. Maybe. Tell them more why you believe. Brazilian jiu-jitsu is better martial arts and say karate or the other ones. Well it's not so much as better in terms of its application. It's not necessarily better on all aspects and we've discussed this last time but it's not necessarily better for disciplines and their silly better for, you know, mental and emotional Wellness.
All those things, you can get a lot out of any martial arts and doing that, but I think when it comes to the wheels, hitting the pavement, what we have seen and this became quite obvious in 3, when the UFC first started, and everybody was expecting these striking Arts to be dominating and really, it was never the
case hardly ever. And it was mostly some skinny ground fighter that used, you know, you know, leverage and angles, and techniques and, and fulcrums and levers and to be able to overcome natural strength, power and athleticism of an opponent, right? And so, one of the biggest One of the biggest concern is that you're always at the mercy of somebody that has a better physical gift for violence.
So sighs, you know, speed power, all those things are very concerning and so, having an art that whole premise, they called it, the gentle art. And the whole premise is to have the ability to defend yourself by using techniques tactics procedures, things that are science-based, that are helping you alleviate. And negate some of the tools that the other person might have such as speed, power and status is MM. And so that is essentially the basic premise of Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
So it makes it a very effective art. However, it also has to be combined with an ability to protect against strike, because if you have no ability to protect against strike or you don't have any tag down cap abilities. Now, you are looking at not being able to impose your will with your Jiu-Jitsu because you simply cannot That close enough for you can get the person to the ground or whatever the case may be.
And so if you were to look at it from a self-defense perspective, the actual best way to do it is to kind of go with a mixed. Martial art Roots, which gives you a comprehension and an understanding of the basic mechanics of stand-up fighting striking and then also of the mechanisms that you can use and will use to bring the person where you want to bring them which is in the case of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu on the And so that you may enact tactics and techniques that you have in
the ground fighting realm. And so, having the ability to marry up those three things ability to sustain and survive, an assault and initial, and initial Onslaught having the ability to control the fight and bring the fight where you want it. And then impose your will with your Technique and your, and your angles, and your and your leverage. When on the ground with the person is, is critical. And so there is no magic pill in
all of those things. You just need to put the time in and you need to, you need to be acquainted to a reasonable level so that you may perform under stress, but it's important thing that you bring up too. Because a lot of these situations are very volatile and the average person who may not even been in a fight before, men never been in a violent
encounter. It's a real different thing when you're in that moment and it's, you know, adrenaline is going and it's a, you know, for a lot of people, very frightening. So even the ability to try to stay calm in these situations are very helpful and stuff so that the training for that is
important, right? And then even, I even look at as a confidence booster, if you take someone, even regardless of the martial arts, they choose fight them dedicating themselves, and they're getting more physical fed confidence goes up. They may not just this for that alone. They, as we were talking about won't appear to be an ideal Cleo victim, as much as say, someone who doesn't That training and that ability to kind of stay calm under a very scary situation.
Let's talk about the teen violence because that's something that does concern me. And I do see that this is seen something that's on the rise. It seems like teens are more violent and what's carry with them is that they do swarming attacks that used knives, they use up bear spray and they do these horrible coordinated attacks on their victims, regardless if they're male or female, it, which is really You really disturbing it's almost something like that of Lord of
the Flies or something. What's your thoughts on this phenomenon? Yeah, I mean there is some there is some empirical data that's being collected as we speak and I can't, I can't Source it right now, but I'm sure if your listeners are listening to this, they'll be able to kind of look it up. But there is, there is some empirical evidence suggesting that the, the brain size of the current teenagers of actually shrunk and it's taken and one of the one of the part of the brain.
That's Really shrunk is the part that's responsible for empathy. So I don't know if the prefrontal cortex or I believe it might be and then so they would be resorting more to the monkey brain or that a mandala amigdala to basically respond to certain stimuli eyes. It sounds like, it sounds like an innocuous thing, but think about taking empathy of humans. Like I can't think of anything more catastrophic than that.
I mean, if you don't have that in your dehumanizing humans, I mean, the sky's the limit on what it is that I'm willing and able and capable of doing to other people. And so I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case on account of electronics and having your entire world and thrall, didn't it having such a part, polarizing social media landscape, and having having some some such political
division and whatever. So, all those things are feeding into some of the, some of the things that might be compounded by the fact that there are some physiological. Associated with all the things that we're living with nowadays.
So, it seems as though they have the ability experts, have the ability to kind of put their fingers on some of the main contributors, and that's both concerning and elating at the same time because if we can point a finger on it, then can we do something to, you know, turn this around? And the answer generally is yes, but it has to be it.
Has to be identified first. So I would say that with all that, and the dissent, a desensitization to violence perpetrated by, you know, video games and and, and, and trust me, I where I played video games and video games, I'll make Killers. But if Killers have, if people have propensity for certain violent crimes and they're spending their entire time being rewarded on a whether it's on a consumer Tori, you know, reward system or some other types of
Reward as a result of their actions such as kicking an old lady in the head and in some video games they're playing, then it reinforces some some key and very terrifying behaviors. And so, again it's this is for a long-winded people that much smarter than me also but at the end of the day, we know that there is contributing factors several of them and All of them are in peace and parcel. Responsible, for what we are seeing today is quite frightening and stuff.
You know, I've have, you know, I have a stepson who's 22 and, you know, the really had a huge, you know, I say you he's on a violent kid or anything like that, but in the saying he had this massive big screen TV. You know, we're playing Call of Duty full blast and just bored what we do for him. He's fine. He's playing a game before. Some kid, maybe little know why. Wired the right way and he's just in his submersible into this violent World being around teenage. So they're doing a lot more
drugs, taking like dick. Like it's going out of style and popping this and popping that drinking energy drinks and monsters and things like that. So very different, they're
jacked up stuff. And then you know, again we're not talking about, you know, where, when I was 14, I probably didn't have the most common sense either, but the level of violence is on a different level, it's just, it's quite, it's quite Frightening. And I, hopefully that's a, that's a trend that will go down because it's pretty ugly.
And in, even for them to look, we're saying before, they don't understand that you're going on committing violence to people, you're going to run into a dog way more vicious than you, and it's just a matter of time. And these 14 year old kids without their bear, spray won't have a chance. And honestly, it's almost like it's like, you know, Lord help them. If they ever run into a real real wolf, you know, it's it's a troubling time for parents. Right. So yeah.
So hopefully, you know, things will change. So for teenagers as I think, you know, in my opinion, to be great for teenagers, that go into martial arts and stuff like that. Do you have a lot of teen programs things like that? Your studio? Oh yeah, absolutely and teenagers I would say is probably our biggest demographics but it seems to be it seems to be consistent across the Lower Mainland.
The majority of Studios as you know, Oodles of Is that are out there doing the things, which is good news, you know, but but the entire conversation here, it kind of brings up another point, which is the age of criminal responsibility raised like. And, and it's so interesting how the United Nations despite having conversation with States and key players and people within the un's, you know, talk about or is that trying to establish a Anibal Miss in terms of age of criminal
responsibility yet. Here we are. You have places like Switzerland that I think it's six years old or something like that and then you have other places, which is where it where it's 18 writes, the Spectrum goes anywhere from five to literally 20, you know, in the world age of criminal responsibility yet. We know for a fact medically speaking and physiologically speaking that the brain does not is Fully developed until the mid 20s.
And so having the about the ability and the capacity to sort of have consequential thinking with respect to the actions that you are taking is coming later in age. And so those are all things that we need to be. That we need to kind of be looking at also from a societal standpoint. Yeah it is. It's very troubling because again it's like what does the future hold for them right? For our society.
Are they going to get More violent as they get older, or is this like unfortunate is like a really terrible Trend. I hope it's a terrible Trend, I hope it doesn't, it's not something that's going to continue getting worse, you know, I wishful thinking but you know, one can hope, right? Let's talk about then we're going back to Vancouver. So the bank were dying documentary, a multiple things going on with them, you know, from mental illness drug
addiction and homelessness. How do we get these people so where they're off the street, getting the proper help, in my opinion, them being treated in a kind of look at an open-air psychiatric, kind of facility with the public, to, in my
opinion, it doesn't work. You know, II, don't know what the answer to this is. I mean, as it's and I'm sure it's a multi-prong answer and I'm sure it's way above my pay grade or, or even, you know, to a certain extent intellectual capacity but I think and evidently what needs to happen. So if you look at the base model for managing the drug sort of pandemics in Vancouver had been established initially on four different pillars right out of those four pillars.
Three were not used at all. So all's that was the entire work was done on one of the four pillars, which was to rid, the harm reduction pillar, right? And and harm reduction only offers so much if you refuse to touch the rest of it. And so it's not so much that the academic precedent that was sort of the solutions that were worked out by academics before in relation to the drug crisis in Vancouver wasn't adequate. Is that the application of? It wasn't right.
And so, it's not to say that the plan wasn't good, but the the interpretation and enacting on that plan was erroneous. So, the question now is, We have new leadership leadership coming into the city. They will have to look at the evidence to critically and not worry so much about sort of the narrative polarizing narratives that are going around from one side or the other and and have that measured approach problem
solving this. But also be very honest with what's actually occurring, you can sugarcoat things and then try to address them. You need to expose things so that you may address them. So expose them, and don't don't worry so much about shaming this and that. And this other person, focus more on. How do we address this stop being a victim of your circumstances? We have a drug problem. Drugs isn't good. It's not about shaming, a not
shaming. It's about the people that are actually doing it and that are addicted or lives are completely at the mercy of those substances. It's almost like in the past, they've been they've been forgotten. Nothing about.
So this is what your predicament is and you will never get out of it. So let's just make sure that we don't change them you know instead of like hey man you can you can do a lot better for yourself and you can have a lot better in way you have currently and those are some of the ways that we can do this and but as long as we are catering to a sentence of controlling the Optics, if I if I can sort of phrase it phrase it this way it's not going to work in order
for us to change things. We need to address things and We need to address all their seriousness far as like the criminal aspects of drugs, you know, the trafficking, the exporters the, you know, the Smugglers and that kind of stuff but I'm talking no 4 on the end user. How many of them would you say in your career as a police officer when you get into these volatile situations where the person was either under the influence of alcohol or drugs?
Like what would you say? It was a pretty high percentage. Oh yeah, it was at least 95%. Wow, unbelievable. Yeah, I thought Bhai, I was getting my head, I was actually guessing about fifty percent. So that's that's incredible. The job is seems to have like, so many nuances that are not really in the best of the definition of the, the handbook of what a police officer is, where do you go from there?
Right? If you can't even get to the point where it's saying, like, hey, this person was drunk and did all this violence, and therefore, they shouldn't be removed off the street. And then you have these people that kind of intervene on their behalf. Well, it's not their fault, they have this, they have that. You know, it's a strange situation. We find ourselves in it really, is it is and it and they can
blurs the lines. And then again it just keeps the problem to where it has and if anything, it's growing worse,
right? It's I've been aware of the downtown Eastside for about 30 years, has been working in close proximity, even had friends and ended up there, it is beyond worse than I've ever seen now it is it's at the end of the day, if people are, doesn't matter if they're in poverty or whatever they are and they deserve a Life with dignity and life that they, they should be able to get out of it if they want to. And it seems like, for whatever it is.
It seems like they're trapped in this horrible cycle is the cycle. That just keeps continuing continuing, so there we are. Right. Mmm. So why do you tell people what you're currently doing? Your, you have a new business now you're retired. You're not RCMP anymore. So what do you do now? Yeah, I do a variety of different. When things but Consulting security or otherwise, I do performance coaching.
So this is primarily I would say, life coaching, you know, like goal said and increasing performance in whatever field of endeavor you're in. So I do a lot of one-on-one Zoom type meetings and coaching on that. Do women person also, I do overseas work again in the security field primarily and I would say Dangerous areas.
I currently I'm doing my masters in global counterterrorism, so I won't also in school at, you know, at the moment at the moment, which is taking a lot of time, taking a lot of my time and what else I got going on? I'm doing that content creation and and and documentaries style projects that I have going on. And do I have I have a Book. I'm writing on what I'm working on that may end up being motivational videos, we don't
know yet. It might actually, you know, go from being a book to to being another medium by which we're going to deliver our material. I do resilience training, I do leadership training with law enforcement and non-law, enforcement agencies, and bring my experience to bear in some of those and some of those circles. So, yeah, so that's essentially what I'm doing, what I have been doing for two years, but the name of your business Raven TJ. And how does one thing they're
listening? How do they get in touch with you if they wanted to learn, Brazilian Jiu, Jitsu mindset or any of the other many things that you offer? Yeah, like Brazilian jiu-jitsu, they can go straight to the Ascension, Martial Arts, website, and send us an email, and we'll set up a special, you know, consultation where they can come and we're doing an introduction to Brazilian
jiu-jitsu. If they've never seen it, if they've done it before, and they want to just start, they can just send us a message and we can make that happen when it comes to the performance coaching side.
I'd and anything related to me. My Instagram is probably the best way to do it my Instagram, I'm sure you'll have linked to your to the podcast here but well I really appreciate you taking the time honestly as with its honor to interview you and I want to thank you for your 20 or service and I really appreciate everything that you've done and really done a lot of stuff and just really incredible story. So thank you so much for coming on, Vancouver. True Crime.
Absolutely. Thanks for having me, man. All right. You take care of. You have a wonderful day. Sounds good YouTuber.