Seth Horst sits down with James Mitchell and Mike Gillis, both former full-time SWAT guys from Henderson, NV PD to discuss the rise in Active Assailant incidents in the US and what we can do to help mitigate these cowardly acts. Mitch and Mike share several of their own stories involving active assailants while they were on the job, including the infamous Route 91 Massacre. Mitch and Mike are both part of Panacea, a company dedicated to providing critical training to schools, churches, and corporations, so they can harden their facilities and develop the mindset and preparedness to overcome an assailant intent on doing harm. This is an action packed episode with some incredible real stories that may not be suitable for younger listeners. 

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Today I sit down with Mike and James two retired SWAT guys, we’re going to talk about active assailant response and several stories from their own career. These are pretty intense, so hanging Idaho home. Welcome to the north Idaho experience. Boy, alright, well, we’re live. Well, you know, live. Okay, so I’m excited about this conversation today. Welcome to the north Idaho experience. My I think was like 11 years, Swat. And then I went to instructor for the department and all the departments in the Valley for seven and then went back to the road as a sergeant after that for I went a little different route I tried to get on you had to have a certain amount of time on so volunteered for a couple of years and then got on. We had an alternate program. So we had a part Okay, so safe to say you guys have had some experience. You’re working in a large department. How many people in that department? Roughly? About what four or 5450? Yeah, that’s pretty. That’s pretty big. I’ll be more now. Yeah. population wise of Henderson like 400 We send me Yeah, I was born I bet the time it was less than that. But it was the fastest one of the fastest growing cities in the country. And then you’re right next to Vegas. So yeah. Which obviously we all know Vegas, huge populations. Are you guys doing? Working together with Vegas Metro design? Yeah, they had, they had two to three teams. North Las Vegas had one and we had one. So altogether, there were probably four to five teams in the valley. And we everyone stayed pretty busy. But where ever being full time SWAT sounds pretty damn fun. It was we I mean, it was great. It was honestly the time. Give me a little info on like the training and the deployment. Like how often are you guys? Are you busy? Yeah, we, when I when I started to get in there. You guys were went from like 100 operations a year, we jumped in there to like tripled, like three to 400 Wow. You know, and metro was, we used to be training with their teams and like our our breach teams would train with them. And we got to the point where we would do these raids and it would be Metro Henderson Metro Henderson. So we would I can’t that that tempo is pretty hard to imagine. Is this mostly search warrants, arrest warrants kind of stuff? Well, and barricades Vegas. So I mean, sometimes we’d have you know, those barricades and things like that going on or hostage situations that would I mean, my longest one, at one time was 28 hours that was a fun one. I think it was the 19th our metro showed up to help us out relieve us I had shot 136 rounds of gas into this guy’s house. It was that when that one was on national TV, he had 14 Is that a 40 millimeter 37 Or was Yeah, I was 37. Okay, and actually, that was the time we were starting to switch. I think metro was switching to the 40 but we still had they came in brought me a whole case around so I’m so happy because we’d run That’s a good time right there. Yeah, it was. It was That was crazy. I hit shot at me during the night in the front yard. And he had barricaded his house pretty well. So it was just a long standoff. There was a fun one we had a we didn’t have a Bearcat at that time. We had one of the old peacekeepers, sometimes we tow it to the scene. And Mike and I would always get stuck in the thing which is La Flintstone style. You Put your feet through the bottom. Pretty much it died. We were on a national hostage rescue in a bank. And it literally died in the parking lot and couldn’t get up this little hill. And then all of a sudden it started and left the whole into the kitchen. And no pickles were harmed in the operation or there’s 14 of them. And he took everything he had furniture wise put it in the stairs, so there’s no way we were getting entry. So been in the back for a while well, they’d already gone through the lateral waiting for him in the living room about how that one and in the Peace peaceful he was hard to find because by the time he got in, we got in there he had been hiding between the first and second levels of the houses. So that sub floor that’s maybe 12 inches from tweakers are amazing. If they would just harness that energy to useful things. They could rule the world he had done he had gasoline and he was ready to give us ready to rock for a while we i None of us figured it was going to be it was going to end like that. We were glad it did. But we were I mean it was we there except dogs and they were some holes to be bigger for for dependents. Some guys? Yes, that’s true. You know. See your mom’s been talking about again. That’s a whole nother story another another been so it was a naked? No, he was in short to remember. Even in shorts because I remember we had to get so much you know CS gas. You know when you go through your SWAT school that’s like one of the things like guys hate CS gas because you get gassed. Oh, helicopter right there. She knows like, because that was about it. You know, make sure he wasn’t gonna keep fighting. And he had so much gas just on him. Because I had taken my mask off. My eyes think the general public realizes how many people are naked when you arrest them on like an arrest warrant. I, I swear it’s 80 80% of the search warrants, arrest warrants. I went on there naked in proper term. Sexual devices always always been. There’s so filthy. Yeah, they’re like, regular colored like it can be orange at the base. But it goes all the way to black. Yeah, at the tip that’s but you know, well, his, his eye would naturally be drawn to that. Right. So it’s things like that. I was very observed. That’s the rumor. So yeah. And Crown Royal bags, right. Yes. Every car has those objects in it every time. Well, if you walked into a house, or when we entered a house, if you saw a computer half taken apart, and porn on it or sex toys, you’re like, Okay, there’s ductus drugs here. Yeah, no, no, they seem to go hand in Yeah, yeah. 100% have tactics changed now, because I know they were on our department. As far as now people are going surrounding call outs and not entries. Back in the old days, we actually did do a lot of just dynamic entries, dynamic entries, but we had three different speeds bass dynamic for mostly what you call HRT, hostage rescue technique, which is still going to be even mix it a couple where you do it in a dynamic entry then hold then slowly go methodical from room to room, especially if somebody’s hiding the cleverest one time I had a 30,000 square foot call comes out. And it’s a sounds like a burglary. So my guys are just going on to go check it out and all sudden I hear one of my guys, I see a guy in there a guy in there. So okay, we lock it down hear. By the way, long story short, it took me probably four hours with two different dogs. I’ve used several different guys to clear this three story building twice. Because first time we couldn’t So but that’s that’s kind of where the little kid in your kicks in. Because you’re like, Oh, well, he’s in here. He doesn’t know we wouldn’t we know. Yeah, yep. Yeah. So yes, but there’s also like the element of why does he have a gun? Right. It’s cool. We found him and we kind of expected Yeah, he’s right clear and the whole time so you’re you’re you know if you if you’re you’ll know when you find him, you know dependent on your clearing technique, whether he tiles, so you have to get up there through their ceiling to answer the first one is the worst. You’re like, got it. Somebody’s got to get it right. Isiah Well now it usually was me back in the Brady’s gonna lose and come back out. Like so what was the score? Oh, you should have seen he came back and and won the game. I’m like, Are you kidding me. And now you guys have already told me so I it. And for those listening. I had these guys come on, because we wanted to talk about active active assailant not gonna use the shooter word right. But active assailant response? You guys have both put it? Yeah, I’m one of the partners in that with panacea. When he goes to my star lead instructor. He’s going to be in charge of like all the instructors coming in and training and all that. Well, what’s the goal with the overall goal with the company? So, so panacea? What what are what are our goal is to try to get to every school we can we can’t get the schools fast enough. But when we talk about school safety, you know, and you and I’ve had this you know, they just had that red flag exercise up here in quarter lane, and they were at the school and they were practicing the response for an active assailant. And, and the reason why we say active kill mass people, right, systematically without any thought process just kill as many people as they can get good versus evil. So the way this company came about, and this idea came about is, again, time, one of the things we used to do is I would go to schools and go meet with the principals. And my job as a preacher, I was explosive guy, and I was a preacher. So I was on the ramp, and you know, work, they do this, what’s our secondary to? How do we get on the roof? How do we can make do there, which are counter sniper locations, all these kinds of things? And so when we were doing these, and for, especially for someone like him, you know, it’s got to be something that’s, that’s righteous, you know, to try to come back as tired as the guys. Were thinking, man, we just have to reverse school, when this evil comes to hurt them, teachers, who’s helping the teachers who’s helping these poor kids, who’s developing a plan for them, who’s teaching them the mindset of one, how to avoid they’re very happy to learn. But there’s that stigma of an active assailant that is so scared, people don’t want to talk about it, you know, especially in the schools. By the time we get done assailant, and then we go over them what their real role is in that, and what we’ve come up with to, you know, we have the you know, we all know the term first responder, if you think about a teacher, off with 2030 kids, you got to protect them, right? You become that protector. So what we’re developing is a layered approach. Not only are we helping them harden their facilities, and develop somebody’s trying to approach the door and they see it and they go into a lockdown. Imagine that entire school locking down in a moment. And at the same moment, every individual classroom starts a if your kid, let’s say is in their homeroom, and they happen to be walking down the hallway, and they’re a couple halls over because they’re going to lunch or they’re going into a different room, teach them how to talk on the radio, radio etiquette, you know, the important things they understand about communication between 911 each other, they are basically giving real time information to law going towards the you know, the 30 Hall or whatever it is. How great is that for us? Because seconds or lives, so you get over there and use, you just shaved off two more minutes, because you’re those trainings scenarios, we’ve had it where we’ve had 100 role players in there. And it’s chaos, you know, because now you you know, nobody wants to try to take a shot like that with a bunch of So I have a question. The Do you have a hard time and I’ve taught, you know, as like a volunteer level on my kids, schools and a few other schools. And I’ve noticed, it’s, it’s a real eye opening that? We? Well, obviously, yes, because at first, they’re not even thinking of these scenarios. But what the whole thing is, is scenario based training. So we’re given a classroom classroom, and we’re smoke, you’re gonna hear smoke alarms, you’re gonna probably have sprinklers going off, you’re gonna have children screaming, you’re gonna have people around you screaming, you’re going to see carnage, the academy, we had the academy was instruction, then we had actually, you know, training with another officer. And the whole time we’re doing stuff, he’s talking you through this. And obviously, And then we sit around afterwards, and we talk about it. And then we do it again and debrief each one are comfortable with it. And they love it. Yeah. I’m amazed. I was surprised when we when when we did one of our first ones, you know, we didn’t know what to expect. And I had a good friend of ours who’s a teacher. And want to know well, why is this you know, and I felt like saying, because we’ve got seven years of experience between the three of us just do what we’re saying. But get it because knowing the why always got in trouble because we were under the table. And we that’s when we could talk with our buddies next next to it right. And then you got to go out in the in the Imagine that in the field, it. So if you guys want to make it fun with them, so all you need to do because it will be an intense situation. But if you do it right, and the school locks down, right, in PD, response it It’s like a fire drill friend. Yeah. So what we’ve discovered as the more we share with them about mindset, they love it. Because again, like I said it now they go to the market, they pull into a parking lot. They’re looking around in for a minute. Take cover and then make you know, assess and then make a plan. Don’t Don’t stop next to the creepy man. Yeah. Most people doing what they’re pulling in in their, in their phone, seeing it out what they’re gonna do or you’re like, so you’re creating, you’re creating the mental pathway and the physical pathway. So they have a plan when something happens. And it’s super important, by the way, if you’re out there was laser at the time law enforcement, active shooter emergency response. So I would, I was part of a team and we would go and teach classes to other cops. And even seeing that people, I was often times, and, and, you know, win the day at the end and build their confidence. And now they have a plan. It’s super empowering. You know, I think what was what was, for me as an instructor in that, and just, you know, one of the guys who kind of recreated this program, you know, like the Alice was the federal program, you know, it’s we give them videos and stuff to show, hey, this is really what it really looks like. We want to take that stigma out of there. But we also want to show them, hey, no one’s saying that this is 100% what you don’t know. And that’s what we do, we come in and we teach them that mindset. The nice thing about what we do, too, is again, like there’s some companies that go out there and they teach second one is all advanced more scenarios and scenarios and scenarios, the teachers or the students and the teacher will pick a teacher senior year, the teacher, the rest of you put on best you guys give them a little hint like, oh, yeah, do this to turn your phone down, or whatever it might be Yep. Then we start every time we do a scenario that gets a little bit more, just a little bit more the radio. Someone’s talking really fast because we all had that guy in the department. There was always one guy that would talk like a three year old girl super fast. And then you always had the What do you have speaking marbles out of your mouth? Yeah. Because, think about it. Someone gets on that radio, every teacher in every classroom is listening. So even if a guy is on one side of the school, the other people know where they’re at. But if you call a watchdog or a parent control program, a pop program, and it’s a lot of schools in Vegas do that. So you got grandparents, you know, moms, dads that have some time, uncles, aunts, and they their kids, or we teach the faculty to have a couple of teachers that can or, or, or just faculty to make sure they’re doing those checks. And then you have after school, right, because after school is the teachers role. We help them and we usually will have a law enforcement representative, we can’t come and also speak. But we explained to them the role of PD, the role of EMS and what’s going to responding fast, there’s a plan, they’re already there, you’re gonna get in the way, when in fact, you might be become a victim yourself, you know, right? That, hey, there’s going to be reunification because I’m hurt. And you’re still, you know, in a fight right now. So same, same, same mindset. So we get with the parents, which helps that relationship between the parents and the school. So they to be scared after this whole incident, because they’re going to be moved over by law enforcement. Yeah, we also teach the teachers what to expect when PD arrives, we go over the role of law could be hours in school. So one classroom might be out in 20 minutes, another classroom might be there for two hours. So they have an expectation of what could happen. They also understand the PD It’s sucks that we live in a world that we have to worry about that. But we do. And that’s just the reality of it. Right? I would love to be out of a job at that. Yeah. And then, you know, I’d love to tie this into a story that, Mike one of my stories, because sometimes these incidents occur, like right outside the school, and I know you had a shooting. Sure. Yeah. And the last thing on that is we do threat assessment. So we do threat assessment and evaluation with the building destructor. So where their weaknesses are what they could best do at different that’s probably even, like maybe the most important thing right off the bat. Well, and that’s the other thing I want to mention, too, is we have a nonprofit foundation. Oh, yeah. And, you know, we’re actually we’re getting ready to do a big event in October, the fall our foundation come in, and let’s say we’ve got some schools, there’s a school there in Spokane, that some of the doors I mean, you could put the devices in a nice device in there, that’s going to apartment that needs some help, and some equipment and things like that, because it’s part of their community. So we we really, truly want to partner with with the departments, the school districts in I want to link that. I’ll link it in the in the show notes because I want people to be able to actually learn more delineation on that. Yeah. Love that. Yeah, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be October 17. It’ll be at national north. And the singer of Jesse Kwan is going to be there. said, the silent auction stuff. It should be really good night goal and just work what a great cause. Oh, yeah, huge. So yeah, I’ll definitely link that because that would be great if people can find a way to donate, especially in our local communities where they can, you know, set a lot of these destroyers ticket come have a great night, too, you know, yeah. So absolutely. Well, we’ll put that out there so people can find it. Mike, you want to dive into that story? Sure, sure. So kind of a long story short, and I was back and swap full time that during that this day, in particular, I was headed out to the range. And I could, I was probably the last person there because at one of the junior high or in elementary school. Fe Galloway, he was once the elementary school, elementary school, and all but I think so it turned it up. And I’m listened to a little more because I can tell the guys on there normally is really calm, but he could be stressed. And it sounded like her off, and she goes in the building. And he walks up in shooting shoots the driver of that car, which is a co worker. And then he’s going into school now and he’s looking. And what we found out we had at the time kind of a sop of waiting for patrol to handle it. If they couldn’t handle it, then they’d get SWAT SWAT call. And if SWAT called then we were allowed to go and intervene and seat with a gun. And there was a guy that in the driver’s seat and the taillights of brake lights run. So we couldn’t tell if they were speaking together. When guys arrived. If they were if this guy And you’ve got kids in the school at the moment. Yes, save Okay, there. So it goes from this active, silent situation. And then this guy runs out as patrol starting to arrive into to clear the school. But now he comes out the side goes into this car that so it turns out into a barricade, okay. But again, we’re we have barricades in your back sailings. But there’s one, there’s probably two. So we’re planning for that. So there could be somebody still and so you get a situation like this. I mean, you’ve already done in training, right? And it’s pretty rare. You know what I mean? I never had that call when I was I never trained for that either. But you’ve already done it. Yes. In training in training many times. And so fortunately, it was just one of those Hey, which technique we need out of our one of the pockets. Yeah, and this is one we’re agencies need green lights, but they’re trying to slow it down from the situation but guys are there are realizing, hey, we need to either act, right because it’s a hostage or go to guy with the gun bit same officers he got there was dealing with him was one of our hostage negotiators. Anyway, so he was just negotiating, and things were just not working out. He just kept on waving the gun and their their view is not perfect. They are they’re like we don’t have the shot. And so the decision was made go ahead and make that make it Yeah, and right. It’s it’s right up to that point. And just before that, too. I remember melters up on the roof there too. And basically what what also prompted and help that was having the sniper in the full containment negotiations broke down to turn it into an exigent circumstance. And looking back at it now, because at the time, you know, here we are as operators, operators, and you have admin, you train and admins aware of training that they’re doing and how they they work is so many departments for the admin doesn’t understand the protocols that their TAC teams are doing. And when that we’ve consumed lately in the news. Yeah, letters a lot administrators probably have never even gone out seeing what their people are capable of doing. Yeah. So so, you know, so the fact that like, you know, what we just saw happened here, it was great. You know, I’m not sure if Norris is out there with them. And you know, talking about it. And I mean, were when they were getting ready because there was a you know, for their tactic, they had a certain amount of guys we’re gonna actually make the assault and the rest of us were obviously position that’s where it came from. So it’s one guy that so I mean, obviously I was up front number one guy and I just reminded everybody since I was also the trainer for our team, telling every repeating to everybody real quick, remember that time, I was just like, hey, this isn’t working. I’m just gonna go toss it. So I switched to handguns. And so said obviously took a second set of quick prayer the execution call was made just do that just means go right. Yeah. And then just just just a formal clear returns and so obviously when as we’re going up there guy has plenty of time to make decisions for what he wants to do. He could either have his hands up and give We know you were walking up on that side could he see you in the mirror he distraction made it a distraction, distraction to get out there and they’re starting to get dark but and we had obviously light coverage from other cars behind it to try to protect us as much as possible. But by the time I got going by, he’s already got a Beretta 92 Fs pointing right in bed. I mean, I could told you that was the type of gun, what color was looking red down the barrel. He’s only like this. Yeah, so he’s like saw everything turned to furniture. So he was actually pulling the trigger back. And you could see the hammer on the gun had started to pull back and we’re stuck in that position with his finger on already passed away that he had suspected. Luckily, one of the guys in the team two we call them the Oracle Big just big guy, big strong guy with a you know what we didn’t realize now the cars in Drive. And when he had shot the point, we’re all trying to come in support because they got the car moving and everything and getting people out of there. And you know, but it that was quick. I had video of it. And there was two guys across the street. We call it the Beavis and Butthead video because they were like, Oh, here they go, you know, and oh, they just shot him. But we they told me that I only fire two rounds. And I was like, Oh, I fired three. So there was a little bit of a disagreement there on what happened. But on the autopsy, I had found that I had shot him So did was that your first shooting? That was my first okay. What? Like walking up on that car? I mean, you’ve done that plenty of times, like how do you maintain your heart rate? I just I guess I you know what it was? It was everything was for me everything was real calm. It’s one of those weird things that they say athletes find him. I’ve talked to a lot of guys and shootings and stuff like Compared to his not even getting one round off, or maybe almost getting one round off. And after several other shootings that kept on happening, and excited situations where that goes, and it’s Yeah, you can. That’s fine. This is my this is my 30 seconds before for running V brake. So something kind of funny with, with Mike on this, too. He couldn’t hear him. I was saying it. But you know, being his brother homicide detective protocols later because Mike almost beat him up. So same with me and then we almost got in trouble for that because he was just being ridiculous. Here’s a guy who just got into like this and in his cargo pants, he’d pull out a burrito. So it’s eating those guys are the best I’d be starving looking at him like, yeah. And then you know, about 10 minutes later you look at it it happened. I’m like, damn it, you gotta get around. And he’s just not feeling because he’s adrenalized. Well, it’s when we calm and everybody, your body starts to relax. That’s when you can it’s so it goes my you know, when it comes the, you know, homicide going, hey, you need to sit in that car. And I’m like, no, he’s he go away, you know, right, right. You can’t be talking to him and you’re like, alright, that’s over where we, you know, and it’s, and it’s not a disrespect thing. It’s just because that’s how you deal with stress. Sometimes, you know, and some cops like to eat so we talked a bunch of shit while you’re basically telling me you were so calm. And when I ran over I was grabbing you and pat you down. Make sure you weren’t trying to tell you you’re like rubbing on my well. Yeah, that’s because I was looking for those burritos in your pocket. Because you were you were more hungry wanted to eat the Jerry what kit did you have on walking up? Like are you armored up pretty had the or heavy vests on I had a helmet on. We had ballistic shin guards. And then obviously I carried about 275 rounds at a time and then I always carried to HK USP 40s. And then you had a your in your vehicle? Is that the Calibri shotgun with 40? Cal afforda. California. And so I mean, I’ve had been in shootings with the 556. And I’m just not impressed with really, really what it actually does. Yeah, compared to like a 40 Cal or 45 and stuff like that. So but most I will we talked about the other hostage rescue we did, where the lady was going to shoot me coming out. You remember that one? Where you do it? This this? This is a good one too. So what was it Tiger they were you know, we got the house around and they were talking to her. We finally the whole team arrives we get there and assess it. Okay, this is legit. This isn’t just talking like she’s got her right at the garage right there. In in, it’s one where the doors inland, you gotta come to come out the door and you go where the garage is out. So the garage is in front of the house kinda so we were the door. And they had heard her say something like Hello. And she was in and out of opening the door kind of cracking it and yelling at them. And what happened there was a big the way it was when she’s gonna do it. So as we do that, well, at that time, he leans over to the other guy who I think was on a 37 parkmore. Yeah. So Kirk’s on the 37 and they just happen to look each other like hey, and he’s got he’s got his is 556. And he just one arm just, you know, reactionary. Yeah. And next thing, it’s like the movies that you see her go like this, and she goes flying backwards. And then the spleen. The other one went right down the side of the Glock took off your thumb. Oh, so it was a pretty legit. Yeah, you know, as far as that, that made me an easy win, you know, argue in that? and clearing the house and securing the guy, or sergeants dragging her back, exactly. I joke around with you. Okay, so this guy did so just dragging her and yelling, why did you? Why did you try to shoot our officers? Why it was so funny. And everybody in the neighborhood? That’s all they ever heard. You I wish I could you could plan on shooting it. But what she survived that one? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she hadn’t walked around with a bag for a long time. She I think she was in a colostomy bag. She lost her thumb and one of her breasts or something like that. And that but was you I actually had green green tips in my gun. So that was when it was super hot. Oh, yeah. him. I said, you got your 37 millimeter for the dog, which we don’t have to kill somebody stop, right, we hit it. Maybe it’ll take off and run. Yeah. And just as I leaned over do that. I remember the first round hit that hit that gun. So wish I could take credit for it. But I wasn’t even aiming. That’s a lot of trust, because I just remember being here. Yeah, knowing he was going to handle it. But I just remember kind of we all saw her because she came out so fast. And I remember just they had a split knowing your area of response your role, and then knowing that someone’s gonna have your back. Yeah, yeah, that was the ultimate thing right there. You know. So, yeah, but she did. And that’s why I think she did fly back as well was because of hitting the clock, and all the shrapnel came off. So all those pieces was what made her actually do that. Because in real flying out of her hand. So I lowered that down and didn’t fire that last round. And then I remember kind of sitting there and looking at me like she goes and she said, You shot me. And I’m like, what that was after the entire team stepped over or stepped on her property. Yep. And we had to get I’m just wondering if it if she has a good relationship with her husband now or worse. I heard she actually cooperates with the police. She’s very cooperative. You know, we believe in community and working partnering with our our citizens. So yeah, thumbs up. We really usually like to do it in a peaceful way with coffee. But you know, it was So she brings cookies down every year now because we don’t need them. Yeah. Probably good idea. Can we dive into the route 91 story a little bit? Sure. I got some questions about that. And maybe you Route 91 festival was a large mix of country bands that came to Las Vegas, kind of like that love concert were in Chicago in different places. So it was a few 100,000 People went to an arena across the time, so we knew how to get around that way, which which is not unbelievable, because if you just go down the stairwells, there’s usually an elevator back there and it doesn’t take a key to go and jet fuel tanks were, which would have been where we would have responded immediately first, because that’s where cross street from big substation was. And so as he believed as as people would car that generate Yeah, that would be a big one. Yeah. So that was his overall plan, besides taken out people at the concert while it was going on, so he had all that in place, so we continue to keep shooting. Thing that screwed it up was in 1978, the Lowe’s picked up a sledgehammer, they still have the receipt for the sledge hammer on him, and came back up. And when he cut the windows, he broke one window, went into the next week, broke that like a hunter would be and so he got pissed at that point. And he had already screwed his door shut with longer screws and put a camera in camera in the door in case someone is trying to get in. And high powered rifle. Right. Interesting to the Sweet did he had about two weeks before that. My wife and I had we had a friend that worked there and got us a suite there and the suites are massive. And they ever seen the I was I was your brother in lighting and the invite. Yeah, I didn’t. That’s hurtful. been, you know, Dick. Yeah. You don’t put out as much so anyway, so interestingly enough, the suite that we were in, we actually if we would have been there that day, it was two floors above but we to actually I got I got a personal call. And that it had been when that was going on. And so immediately I text my squad was the closest area to it. So I tell told them a guy say just drop taken out. Yeah. And so we ended up grabbing, you know, meeting up grabbing some gear and guys jumping in the pack on the way out there and we all just had this combo line of police cars showing What do they call that? Because you were you were that sorry. So was I every squad every day shift between shifts, you know, and graveyard had one of the squads and the different air commands one was But I don’t know I they obviously you know, apartment I was not a it was a head start so they didn’t they right but it was a special term so like his squad was that my high school I was basically your you were the squad that if Metro, something like that happened on the strip, we were the immediate don’t remember I remember I forgot there’s a turnover I can’t remember. Was able to go swing. But as most guys do savours right and going down there and I remember one kid sitting next to me at the on every rooftop. And this was just like a terrorist incident. So we were there just to take out terrorists and and stop everything. But there was just people were leaving the concert and going to been shot they’ve been shot 500 people shot you know, so massive, massive Yeah, of steak and information all over the place. So, you know, long story short, another team ended up going to that floor because I didn’t even know what floor he was on in the this incident at the casinos. But yeah, so that’s what happened and we just got our assignment of what area and we need to go and handle and take care and we just locked places down and then how long was he actively shooting up there? Doesn’t even know it’s it’s just probably just under 15 minutes. I’m thinking okay, which is an eternity in knowing that because I would drive by that place all the time. You know, nothing’s a parking lot now but being up there and looking down it’s it’s people no chances and and they’ve been treaded run just like we saw in the video. So this week of what happened. They stayed in place and or they just kind of go down because they’re down and just coming There were Metro officers that were down in the concert that they were calling out that they were shooters, multiple shooters in the concert. So they were they were looking on the ground trying to at the point so we’re not even supposed to be on for another few hours. And I’m like rally up we’re going in so I call our dispatch and said hey, you know what, what’s the what’s the plan? They said come into Vegas, they’re on the south side. We’ve come in from California. Well, all the way down to downtown there were people just jumping in the back of trucks, people getting in cars, taxis just there. And and so there was a little bit of chaos. So I mean, I think there was even at a point where LA County Sheriff’s were were mobilizing to come help because you know, initially to come help have their choppers of Sikorski’s and I ran into a chief and talk to him and they were mobilizing their guys. Well, they had actually come out for the concert a bunch of them. And several women got there are some serious heroes and there there was there was one meta officer that went back in three or four times after rescuing people and he was killed by the third or fourth time and you know, they we’re, like, condition read pretty much all night. And I mean, we literally we’re still we’re looking trash cans. People were getting out of there so much that people are leaving suitcases behind. So now every suitcase is then on top of that is being neighbors with them. Obviously, we want to send them as many people as we could. But we also had to protect the Anderson. How do we know they’re not? Because we got So as a testament to actually the training that they that all the agencies have in Las Vegas, how they would all train together for mass casualty, either active assailants or mass casualty. was that was, I can’t even imagine how the hospitals handle that kind of influx of people. It would be Did either of you get into the room at any point? I know, because I’ve heard like, he’s not a Matt was Metro homicide at the time. So that might be a better podcast one day when we get him up here. Yeah, you can tell that story. Stuff ended up disappearing and stuff like yeah, and a lot of things. I understand that there is conspiracy theorists things with it. And I believe that there’s a lot of times more to the AI that everything was because mostly because of the lawsuits from everybody on all the casinos. So I think they money honey shut things down quite a bit, waiting for all those lawsuits to go through. And You know, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, you still hear about Harrison cleavable, you know, from the original, you know, that happened, and you don’t hear much about him. It was kind of weird. Yeah. so much video. And what happened last week? Yeah, you’re seeing things within a day. Now you’ve got videos that you would never have seen before. Right? Yeah. Have you know, you see good things and you know, the problem with that is they really started to lean towards Oh, well, there must be good, it must be a conspiracy. Right? So, you know, it’s I wouldn’t say it’s more of a lack of information hard to imagine but at the same time like I can’t imagine it yes even with a semi auto you could throw a lot of rounds if you’re just if you’re just shooting it dump and match put another 30 on in wasting that and another drum shooting hundreds you shooting 10 and 15 minutes how many could you if you were alive What do didn’t You didn’t you know reload them he had multiplayer? Yeah multiple so he was just dropping one at the end of that drone was done and picking up another so he never even had to reload he just the door shot. And then everyone went into ADS, I believe what was explained was, as they were making an entry, he shot himself, at least I mean, even them showing up, stopped whatever he was doing on the other side of the room. So Right. And that’s kind of like that’s, again, why we talk about what the the active assailant training. Yeah, if you can lock your school down, if someone does get into a school, and it’s kind one? Yeah, exactly. I don’t even know him being them, you know, evil person. That, you know, the actual school did a good job of clearing those hallways, he could see that person walking around there was another school that person had gone to and it was like wide open. Like there was kids playing in the playground, they had no idea she walked in, in him and shot through the glass, just I think that’s a key detail, right? Like these people. They’re not, they’re not like, terrorists. They’re not soldiers. They’re not. They’re cowards, and cowards. Yeah. And they’re going to take the after 15 minutes, fame, and unfortunately, the media gives it to him by by putting their name out there and to them that in the end, unfortunately, all restaurants think how is that success for you? yeah, now you’re a coward forever. Known for that mental illness? It is mental illness. Yeah, it is. And it’s, to me, it’s good versus evil. You know. So, you know, I look at what we’re doing, we want to prepare that school for fit is that wanted us to just really up armor their school, but didn’t want any training. And I look at that as that is the same. And it’s funny, our chief operations guy had had a greatest quote on ego. we’re not teaching them. So they they spent a lot of money on on up our, in our in the school, and we got, I mean, 30 $40,000 in security film, and they all these beautiful gates and everything. So I the, you know, the stuff that we’d put in to make sure. And I just said, I say cool. So as soon as you guys actually lock your facilities, you’ll be a lot safer, you know, right. But I walked right. have to lock down right? It’s the same thing with our country, if we don’t have a ability of early warning, how do we protect ourselves, right? So that’s why we look at that approach from the school what are your thoughts on arming teachers? That’s a big topic right now. Well, you want me to lie. You want my honest opinion? I want the honest opinion. Well, I’ll start with this. Both of us had been instructors. He was got a range instructor so he got to see every from the you know, very highly trained SWAT officer to that patrol officer that only you worst thing they could ever do is be in a hallway full of kids trying to take a turn to take that shot. When we were training all the time, that’s still a nightmare, right? You can imagine that teachers aren’t, we don’t teach them to go out there and be a lone wolf, that does no good. If you miss or shoot through it, don’t understand your background and you shoot a kid doesn’t matter what have the ability to go there and handle that. However, if they will, what we train is when they lock that room down, the good news is if they are armed, whether it be with bear spray, which is a great you have a hard enough time with with cops doing the right thing being armed off duty and when the carry right and you have people that like to carry, concealed or carry open carry. Unless you are right? Even in the classrooms are like, Hey, where’s your phone at? Because they’re supposed to turn off all I left my phone in the other room? But what are you gonna do with your gun? Do you have a in the stall at McDonald’s. And you can’t make that mistake in school, you just do the thing, right? So you imagine that happening? What would happen if one teacher did that, and a kid shot another kid port of where their barricade in their rooms and how they do that. And those protocols, we’re going to we’re going to work with that teacher a little more about angles, percentages, where they’re armed teacher in this room is armed, you know, I mean, and that’s a lot more work. That’s a lot more communication, you have to have the communication skills, but that’s on the teachers to train, train through that door, that one person that did and take into account that the the likely fact is they’re not going to get through that door. Yeah, because this is what we teach. However, if they do to be a better training. I like the SRO programs, but the SROs have also got to be trained, we’ve seen SROs that have failed miserably, too and a lot of people go there to retire on duty. Right. that team just to have that ability. So they’re getting rounds and reps, you know, rounds downrange and getting reps because what more important position would it be to protect your kids you know, in going to do with Dutchess the SRO, and if we’re going to hold that kind of standard, what are we thinking about putting, you know, the average teacher armed with that, you know, whatever, if are clueless if they really think that’s the reality, because even if you aren’t them, they’re not going to do that. Yeah. So, gentlemen, we’re at an hour and a half. That was a good time. It was a good time. It was a good time. So panacea, that’s the name of the company up here. And I will put the website and all the links to that in the show notes so that people can find you guys yeah. And we love coming out and doing assessment, having a conversation cool. And, you know, we look at things differently than most people. And we’ll give them you know, the reality check of, Thank you guys once again. Thank you, man. Great seeing you. Yeah, absolutely. Always, always pleasure. All right, catch you next time. This podcast is brought to you by your North Idaho agent. We are a full service Real Estate Team serving all of North Idaho. Our team is comprised of former first responders and veterans and we learn more about North Idaho. So if you’re looking to move right now, or 12 months from now, give us a call text or email. We don’t just sell homes, we sell the North Idaho experience. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, the greatest compliment you can pay us is to like, subscribe and share