Speaker Identification

Speaker 1 - Chip DeBlock, Host. The speaker introduces himself as the host of Leo Roundtable and guides the discussion throughout the episode.

Speaker 2 - Dr. Travis Yates, Panelist. The host introduces him as Dr. Travis Yates, a retired major from the Tulsa Police Department. He provides commentary throughout the episode.

Speaker 3 - Andrea Cassell, Panelist. The transcript alternates between “Andrew,” “Andrea,” and similar renderings, but the host and comments describe the panelist as female and refer to her as Andrea. The exact spelling of the last name requires verification.

Speaker 4 - Galls Advertisement Voice. This is a prerecorded commercial segment for Galls and first-responder apparel.

Speaker 5 - Compliant Technologies Advertisement Voice / Host-Read Promo. This is a sponsor message for Compliant Technologies and its CD3/glove product.

Speaker 1 - Chip DeBlock, Host:
Welcome to Leo Roundtable at leoroundtable.com. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I am your host for a group of law enforcement professionals who talk about today’s news and issues from the law enforcement perspective.

Let me introduce the crew. We have someone who has returned. Let me start with Dr. Travis Yates, retired major from the Tulsa Police Department, and his sidekick today, Officer Andrea Cassell. Andrea is no stranger to the show. During the school year season, Andrea is tied up because she is trying to spread that wealth of knowledge that she has gained over her young 27 years, or whatever it is. I know my wife used to say she was 27 years old, and she forgot how old she was. She could not remember.

Andrea is in school, but she is out of school right now. She is not playing hooky, and she did not get suspended or anything. School is out for the summer, so hopefully we will have her a little bit during the summer. I did not ask: have you two been on the show together before? You have? Perfect. Thanks for being on the show.

Also, a shout-out to our sponsors. We have Galls, our title sponsor, at galls.com. Do not forget the discount code radio15 to get 15% off your next purchase. We also have Compliant Technologies, our satellite sponsor, helping us get from Westwood One satellite radio to SiriusXM satellite radio, so we will keep you posted on that. We also have GunLearn.com, MyMedicare.live, and 2Bells.com. They are all in the new online store at leoroundtable.com, so please check that out.

I also want to shout out all the people helping make the show happen, especially Travis Yates here, who owns LawOfficer.com. He is helping us tremendously with getting our content out there. We also have Ray Dietrich at FormerLawman.com and Brian Burns with the Tampa Free Press at TampaFP.com.

The best way to watch the show is to go to leoroundtable.com. We have all the outlets listed there, all the radio stations, and we are up to 47 stations right now. We also have TV, podcast outlets, and social media. We hired a new company that is getting us out on all the podcast platforms. We are definitely on Spotify and Apple iTunes, two of the top podcast platforms, and also Rumble, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, formerly X, and Truth Social. We are pretty much all over the place, so please check that out.

To whet the appetite and let you know what we will be talking about, I did not have to throw this in. My wife, if she knew I was talking about it, would give me a hard time because she would say it has to be law-enforcement related. But someone told me to cover this because it is going to be fun and because we need to cover it.

The Trump administration asked a judge to reject a bid to stop the White House UFC fight. They have a fight scheduled for this big 250th celebration for the United States. It is going to be a short one. We are going to cover that and what is going on with it. It is pretty much exposing the lengths that liberals will go to in order to ruin a good thing for everybody.

Then we have Louisville Metro. We were just talking about this among ourselves and trying to figure out where the next police conference is going to be, because it was just in Dallas a couple of weeks ago. I am predicting Louisville. This article is about a Louisville Metro Police Department officer who shot an unarmed naked man and ended up resigning. We covered the shooting, and now the officer has already resigned, so we are going to cover that.

We have a San Francisco police officer involved in a body-camera video. There is a shootout following a pursuit, and an officer gets injured. The robbery suspect does not fare too well either. We also have an Indiana sheriff charged with stealing campaign signs in Jennings County. We have Baltimore PD releasing body-camera footage of a shooting of a 35-year-old. We have Kash Patel axing FBI staffers behind the controversial Catholic extremism memo. Then we have two more: a robbery suspect is shot by an Albuquerque police officer when he raises a gun in an attempted carjacking, and a New Jersey sergeant is charged with stealing a journalist’s $10,000 camera equipment. That is going to be interesting. We are going to cover all of that, so stay tuned.

If you guys are ready, we will start with the first main topic. It will be quick. JustTheNews.com is the source. The Trump administration asked a judge to reject the bid to stop the White House UFC fight. This took a lot of people off guard because Trump and UFC love each other. When Trump goes in, they just go crazy. Right, Andrea? When Andrea used to fight, I did not even tell them about one of your fights. Andrea, when you went in for the smackdown, you tried to take him and said, “I am going to get you on the ground and go for the knees,” or something.

Anyhow, the Trump administration this week asked a federal judge to reject a challenge to a planned UFC fight at the White House after two Virginia residents sued to stop the event. They are not identifying these Virginia residents. I can already tell that Travis is wondering, and he can probably sketch a pretty good picture of what they look like.

The UFC fight is one of the keynote events for the celebration of the United States’ 250th birthday. They have even got a name for this event: UFC Freedom 250. It will feature seven fights across different weight classes. It is supposed to take place on June 14. So, not July 4, but June 14.

The Trump administration, in its filing, insisted that it was too late to alter the plans for the event, according to The Hill. It goes on to say that all these hopes could be dashed at the very last moment, however, by the whim of two people who believe that they have superior taste and want to spoil the event for everyone else, according to the DOJ. It is pretty sad that the DOJ has to weigh in on a planned UFC fight.

The suit comes from two Virginia residents who argued that the administration did not conduct an environmental review and failed to secure congressional approval through the proper channels. That is what we have. Travis?

Speaker 2 - Dr. Travis Yates:
Mental illness remains a huge problem in this country. These two Virginia residents did not do this on their own. They are useful idiots for whatever political person or political group wanted to try to throw a wrench in this. We will spend money trying to defend this, and I cannot express just how ridiculous politics has become.

This has nothing to do with making decisions about right or wrong. It is just about playing on a sports team. If your team is the left, you are going to do whatever the left tells you to do. You are not going to think about it. There is some aspect of that on the right as well, but with the problems in this country right now, this just shows that President Trump is never going to be able to do anything without opposition.

I want to warn people, and I have said this before on the show: this is not about President Trump. From a political standpoint, he is the most liberal Republican who has ever been in office. He is probably just left of middle on the political spectrum. He was a Democrat for decades, so it is not about politics. It is about team sports and tribe.

When Trump is out of office, whoever the next Republican is, they will do the exact same thing. Do not get caught up in thinking this is all about Trump and that it will be over when Trump is out of office. This is the way it is. Do not forget that we turned Mitt Romney, a good Mormon, into this evil, chauvinistic pig for a few years when he was running for president.

It does not matter. Democrats just play this game. Republicans do it to some extent, but I do not remember everybody losing their mind with a Democratic president. I was not a big fan of a couple of guys I can think of, but I did not wake up every day with some obsession to file lawsuits and get on Twitter, X, and everything else.

There is this weird obsession. I think there is an aspect of it that has to do with mental illness. There has been systematic research showing that people on the left have a higher level of mental illness. That is not me. You can look the literature up on that. I think we need to address it because it is a problem in this country, and it has manifested itself into, the last time I checked, about 40% of people who identify as Democrats saying that assassination was okay. That is not me saying it. Look at the recent research that came out on it.

I think we have some problems, and obviously this is just another aspect of those problems.

Speaker 3 - Andrea Cassell:
I am super excited for the fight. I love UFC and always have been a huge fan of UFC. The saddest part is that we are really going away from being proud Americans. We are losing a side of that.

I just went to the Kid Rock concert, and it was the Freedom 250. To sit there and see the military, see that they were pro-law enforcement, see the American flags and a crucifix hanging up, and hear people talk about God, country, and freedom, it was nice. There were so many people gathered together doing that.

I do feel there is more hatred toward Donald Trump than a lot of people, partially because he came from being a Democrat and then switched over. He is not a politician. He does not have the charisma people expect. He does not say things the way people want him to say them, but he gets his point across, sometimes in a crude way and a lot of times in a crude way. But he is very pro-America. If you take a lot of the things he says, he is all about America.

I think we are losing that in a lot of this. Either way, it is 250 years of this country. Why are people not excited about that? I do not understand. I am getting to the point where I think you cannot let evil win. It is okay for us to cheer the fact that it has been 250 years.

It makes me sick to think people are fighting that because of their hatred for so many other things. We are lucky to live in the United States of America. Again, we have talked about it. My father is from Cuba. I live, eat, and breathe this. That is how I teach my kids. We need to celebrate that and put some of these things aside. It is sad that these things are going on. Let us enjoy it. Hopefully, it will be a good fight.

Speaker 2 - Dr. Travis Yates:
I was around for the 200th anniversary, so the difference between 50 years ago and this country now is pretty outstanding when it comes to what Andrea was talking about, which is love of country. The latest research says three out of four Democrats are not proud of America. Now, one out of ten Republicans are not proud of America, so there are some there, but that is a spooky thing. When a large section of America is not proud of the country they are in, where does that take us?

If you close your eyes and think about it, you know where it has taken us. You can look at the news every day and see where it has taken us. There is a reason why America is not mentioned in Scripture and Revelation. We need to be very careful. The Roman Empire is no longer around. No civilization lasts forever. We need to be very careful with this great thing that God and our founding fathers gave us. I do not think we respect that very much.

Speaker 1 - Chip DeBlock:
Thank you guys for what you are saying. I have not booted him yet, but we have a guy, Steve Cameron, on Facebook. Of course, you get guys who watch the show and say, “Mental disorders reveal either working or retired LEOs,” but there are no stats to back that up because they do not exist. Steve, I challenge you: instead of just putting rhetoric out there, Travis just gave out stats and you did not. If you do not agree with what we are saying, that is fine, but do not spread misinformation. If you are going to counter something, at least bring facts to the table. Do not be like the typical guys on the left who run their mouths and cannot back up what they say.

We are ten seconds out from taking a commercial break. Stick with us, guys. We will be right back.

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Speaker 1 - Chip DeBlock:
Welcome back to Leo Roundtable at leoroundtable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I am your host. We are joined by Dr. Travis Yates and Officer Andrea Cassell.

Now we are going to jump over to Louisville, where I think the next police conference might be. This is at WLKY.com. We have LMPD, Louisville Metro Police Department, and the officer who shot the unarmed naked guy ended up resigning. We just covered this. It is a fresh shoot. The officer who fatally shot the unarmed naked guy has resigned.

Chief Paul Humphrey has accepted the resignation of Officer Nathan Stotch, effective immediately. Stotch shot 27-year-old Martin Adnitskin Jr. last month after responding to an assault call in the Klondike neighborhood. The agency reviewed the video and quickly released it to the public days later, which I can confirm. They then swiftly started the termination process.

Here is a quote from Chief Humphrey: “This is not an acceptable performance for us, and this is not what we teach.” He also said the resignation expedites the departure of the officer, eliminating the appeals and separating him permanently from the department.

They say the officer is being criminally investigated as well for the shooting. The Commonwealth’s attorney is involved. They have not filed any charges yet, and they are also investigating whether they can revoke his certification. That is kind of where that stands.

The officer started with the agency back in February of 2024, so he has only been a cop for a couple of years, at least with that agency. He had no disciplinary record at all and worked in the Sixth Division.

When we covered the shooting, the officer pretty much gets there and the guy is squatting in the street. When the naked man stands up, they have the strategic parts of his body blurred, but he is not showing both hands at the same time. The cop draws down on him and says, “Show me both hands. Show me your other hand.” The guy is rotating hands, but before he starts advancing on the officer, it becomes obvious that you can see both hands and that he has no weapons.

It is always hard to judge distance. I remember one call in particular where we covered a story on the show involving a deputy going to a burglary at a jewelry store. When the deputy gets there, the bad guy is behind the counter, looting jewelry. The deputy has drawn down on the bad guy, and the bad guy does not appear to be armed. The bad guy starts walking around the corner toward the deputy. The deputy goes to holster his weapon, but the problem is he does not have time to holster it and lock it into the holster. Now the bad guy advances quickly before the deputy gets it all the way into the holster, and they are fighting over the gun. The deputy has both hands on the gun trying to retain it, and the bad guy is using one hand to try to get it and the other hand to strike the deputy.

That is always something I want to try to avoid. My point was that I could not really tell how close the bad guy was in this case, even though it looked like he was still a long way away. If the cop made the argument that the guy was too close and he did not want to holster the weapon, it could be a completely justified shooting under those conditions if he reasonably believed the bad guy was too close and he did not have time to holster the weapon. That is the only thing I was trying to get out of it.

Commentary, guys. Travis, do you want to start us off?

Speaker 2 - Dr. Travis Yates:
We covered this when it came out, and I can guarantee you Louisville PD teaches many aspects of what I will tell you about why this is not just an automatic bad shooting. Graham v. Connor talks about reasonableness with the information that you know at the time, and then you have the human-factors aspect. It is easy for us to watch the video and say, “At this point in time, there is no weapon.” But that is not the luxury the officer gets.

It is not that cut and dry. He probably resigned to try to keep job options open in the future. I would find it shocking if they were able to decertify him. Even if they attempted to file charges, I do not see this as a criminal action. They may do that because Louisville is a very politically charged community, but as we often see, those officers typically get acquitted because the juries, which oddly enough are the only courageous group we can find, look at all the evidence and say, “This is not what it was purported to be in the media.”

He probably knew he was going to get fired, did not want to go through years of fighting to get his job back, and probably decided to resign and try to start over somewhere else, either within law enforcement or somewhere else.

Speaker 1 - Chip DeBlock:
I kind of wish he would have done that differently. I do not know whether Louisville has a union. I attended an FOP conference there in Louisville, so I think they at least have the FOP over there, even if it may be fraternal as opposed to labor. That said, if I had been involved, the action strategy would have included, “We are not going criminal, we are not going to support the criminal, and we are not going to decertify you. At least you can go elsewhere in the state and get a job if somebody will hire you.” But it is not like that happened.

Speaker 3 - Andrea Cassell:
The other thing is, if I remember correctly, he has only been an officer since 2024. You do not quite develop that backing. Law enforcement has changed a lot. You do not quite have that backing, and you do not really know who is going to be in your corner. You are going to be dragged through it. Any shooting, whether it is a good shoot or a bad shoot, means you go through a lot. Who is going to be on your side? People are going to make opinions about you, and you are going to face public scrutiny one way or another.

With two years in, I am sure he is probably thinking, “I just need to go as quietly as possible,” because there is nothing quiet about this anytime you have a shooting.

Speaker 1 - Chip DeBlock:
Thanks, guys. We have a minute and a half, so let us whet the appetite for the next one. I think we have a story coming up with a video component. This is the Mission District in San Francisco, where I have been before. Rumble.com is the source, and this is Butter’s channel. San Francisco police released body-camera video of a shootout following a pursuit that injured an officer and a robbery suspect.

The funny thing was that the officer who got injured was the female partner to the cop on the other side of the passenger side of the cruiser, or that is what it looked like. I thought for sure that when the body-camera video started with our male officer behind the driver’s wheel of the cruiser, he was the one engaging the bad guy. But they said a female officer got shot, so that is what I suspect happened. You guys correct me if I am wrong.

We have only got seconds here, but to whet the appetite, the shooting happened on May 31 after police chased robbery suspects. At 10:13 in the evening, San Francisco Police Department is involved. They are alerted about a robbery suspect’s vehicle entering San Francisco from the Bay Bridge, and officers locate the vehicle with two occupants inside.

Right after we come back from the first break, we will get into this and talk about it. Again, in San Francisco, they do things a little differently. We will be right back.

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Speaker 1 - Chip DeBlock:
Welcome back to Leo Roundtable at leoroundtable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I am your host. We are joined by Dr. Travis Yates, retired police major from Tulsa, and Officer Andrea Cassell from Tampa Police Department in Florida. Thanks, guys, for being on the show.

We have been talking about San Francisco police releasing body-camera video of a shootout that happened after a pursuit. The officer got injured, and the robbery suspect did as well.

This happened on May 31 after police were chasing a robbery suspect. San Francisco PD was involved. They were alerted that this guy was coming over the Bay Bridge, and officers located the vehicle. It had two occupants inside. They tried to do a vehicle stop in the area of Mission and First Street, in the Mission District. The suspect driver fled from officers, leading to a vehicle pursuit.

The suspect flees through city streets, and the vehicle becomes disabled. If you watch the video, you can see that it crashed. It looks like it crashed into another vehicle. There are a lot of cops there, but the main cops whose body cameras we see are the ones immediately behind the bad guy’s car.

It appears to me that we have a female San Francisco cop on the passenger side of the cruiser, and a male cop on the driver’s side, which is the first body camera. They are ordering the suspects out. It sounds like the female officer is ordering them to get out, while the male officer is saying, “Show your hands. Show your hands.”

Seconds later, the driver exits the car. Let me slow this down. Our male officer, wearing the best body camera, is in the car with his door closed. As soon as the bad guy opens his door, our officer opens his pistol, gets out of his car, and starts stepping away. I thought that was unusual. He waited until the bad guy opened, and then he got out and started stepping away.

The bad guy gets out. The video was not great, but there is enough zoom and slow motion to establish that you can see the muzzle flash, the smoke, and eventually the firearm the bad guy had in his hand. He fired toward the officers. It looks like he is firing toward the male officer, but the female officer ends up getting hit. There is a bit of a shootout.

We have a lot of cops around. The San Francisco officer and the passenger of the vehicle were struck by gunfire and transported to the hospital by officers at the scene, not fire rescue. We are seeing more and more of that during the day now.

The driver was arrested and had two handguns in his possession. The driver was 36-year-old Norse Reed, and he was charged with two counts of attempted murder and numerous felony counts. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, he had been on parole for about six months after serving more than 14 years in prison for kidnapping and grand theft involving a firearm.

The passenger was later arrested. Remember, he got shot. Police say Officer Brittany Taylor, who was injured in the shootout, is still recovering from her injury.

Andrew, do you want to take this one first?

Speaker 3 - Andrea Cassell:
One of my takeaways is that the videos are very difficult to watch. The way the first body-camera video was slowed down helped tremendously. Initially, when you first watch the video, it is like, “What is going on?” There is a lot going on.

When he went to close his door, I was thinking, “What are you doing?” He is getting away from his cover. Not to mention, when you look at one of the other body cameras, they are awfully close to that car. There is no distance between them. I do not even know how the female passenger-side officer had a line of sight based on where she was to see what was going on.

The one thing I would say is, “Get better cover.” Him closing his door was not enough cover. I am not so sure, Chip. I think you said the female in the first car was the one who was shot. I am not so sure. One of the other videos shows a female at the back of the car. I thought she said she was hit, but I had to watch the video a couple of times. I think she might have been on the other side of the car.

If that is the case, and he closed that door, then if he had not closed that door, would she not have gotten hit? I would like to firm that up and know. If I had more time, I probably would have looked into who actually was shot. All of a sudden, I thought, “Wait a minute. I thought she was the one who said she was hit.” Travis, did you see that?

Speaker 2 - Dr. Travis Yates:
I think you are right, Andrea. As you know, Chip, when I look at these, I am looking at what is going on before the shooting, because the only way to predict violence is to look at the behavior before the violence. If you wait for violence to respond to violence, you lose. Action always beats reaction.

Research will show us that someone can shoot at you in about a quarter of a second, and your brain does not even recognize a threat for about a third of a second. Your reaction time is up to a couple of seconds. When we did our research, at focuscertified.com, looking at the prediction of violence, we found pursuits to be one of the most dangerous precursors to violence.

Fortunately, when you do research, you hope for validation. A study came out in late 2025 that looked at use of force at the Cincinnati Police Department over a period of 1.4 million contacts, and they found that pursuits were one of the most dangerous aspects where force had to be used.

Andrea is right. If you are participating in one of the most dangerous activities when it comes to use of force and deadly force, a pursuit, why are you stepping away from your car? Do not leave your car. Have your gun up on target. Have cover, and do all you can, because you do not know it is coming, but you are in a situation where it happens a lot, and you have to be cautious for that.

Speaker 3 - Andrea Cassell:
Here is the other thing. Even from law enforcement, we are trained in pursuits. We go through that. All of a sudden, you are dealing with someone who does not care. In most situations, they are not concerned about anything other than, “How do I get out of here?” Whether they are going to shoot you, run, or whatever it is going to be, they are trying to get out, and they are not trained to handle that in any way other than escaping.

We are trained for that. In a high-stress situation, with panic, you need to slow some things down and make sure you do not get away from your cover. Even in a small portion of the video, you could see part of the bad guy, the driver, outside of that car. Do not get away from that cover. I do not know how many times we say it, over and over again. Do not lose your cover.

I wonder how well they are trained on cover. Use the cover. Use the cover in a shooting. Use the cover in a shooting after a pursuit. Those are the things I would go back and examine with San Francisco.

Speaker 1 - Chip DeBlock:
Good point. I do not know how many videos we have covered where cops leave cover. I have seen it, and I know you have too. They will leave a perfectly good car and run out into a field. All they are doing is maybe creating distance. They will do that even when they have a bad guy with a rifle, which is the craziest thing.

Our next one is from Fox59.com. We are going to jump to Indiana. An Indiana sheriff is charged with stealing campaign signs in Jennings County. Sometimes these stories are hard to believe. We have seen a lot, but every once in a while, I get one that makes me wonder.

A grand jury has indicted the sheriff of Jennings County, the current sheriff, after an Indiana State Police investigation involving GPS trackers found that he allegedly stole campaign signs. You have to give kudos to the guy who put a GPS tracker on at least one of the campaign signs.

Sheriff William K. “Kenny” Freeman Jr. was indicted last week on charges of theft, official misconduct, obstruction of justice, and perjury. Freeman, a 60-year-old from North Vernon, currently serves as the Jennings County sheriff.

Police officials confirmed that an arrest warrant was served on Monday morning when Freeman turned himself in to the Ripley County Jail. He was later released on his own recognizance. They said the arrest comes after a six-month investigation that started in November of 2025, following a candidate for the Jennings County Sheriff’s Office reporting that his campaign signs had been stolen from the local roadway.

Apparently, this guy was campaigning to become sheriff. The candidate told police that he had bought GPS locators and put one on a campaign sign. When the sign was subsequently stolen, the device allegedly led straight to a dumpster on Sheriff Freeman’s property in North Vernon.

State troopers went to Freeman’s home and found the sign and the GPS tracker inside his dumpster. That is not good. Police also found other campaign signs on the property, including one for a Jennings County judge candidate, who also reported having his sign stolen. So you have a would-be sheriff and a would-be judge, and they both got messed with by this guy.

Soon after the signs were found at Freeman’s house, the sheriff allegedly issued complaints and summons tickets to both political candidates for illegal sign placement. That is just how he rolls.

Once the troopers concluded the investigation, protocol called for a special prosecutor and judge because it involved a sitting sheriff. Prosecuting attorneys from Dearborn and Ohio County selected Superior Judge Jeffrey Sharp. Stick with us. We will go down the rabbit hole a little further after the commercial break.

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Welcome back to Leo Roundtable at leoroundtable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I am your host. We are joined by Dr. Travis Yates, retired Tulsa police major, and also Andrea Cassell, retired from Tampa Police Department.

We have been talking about the Indiana sheriff charged with stealing campaign signs in Jennings County, Indiana. We left off talking about how the signs were found on his property by troopers. They did their investigation, got the sheriff indicted, and had to get a special prosecutor.

The charges include theft, a Class A misdemeanor; two counts of official misconduct, a Level 6 felony; obstruction of justice, another felony; and perjury. They do not go into detail about the perjury charge, and I find that kind of bad. I am assuming he lied somewhere under oath, but perjury is normally something involving being sworn in, such as in a court setting. I wish I had more information on that.

Freeman was booked Monday morning into the Ripley County Jail after turning himself in, and he was later released. Sergeant Wheeles with ISP said Sheriff Freeman waived his right to have an initial hearing in court and that a pretrial hearing will be scheduled at a later date. It is still unclear what the arrest charges will mean for Freeman’s status as sheriff, because he is still the sheriff.

Commentary on this one, guys. We have eight minutes.

Speaker 2 - Dr. Travis Yates:
This type of shenanigans has been going on since the beginning of time with political candidates. But you have to watch today’s technology because you will get caught, as this sheriff has just found out. I do not know why anyone would run for office, because these stories are rampant with what goes on, not to mention the lies and nonsense that get told about you. It is really crazy.

Speaker 1 - Chip DeBlock:
I know these guys keep us in business and give us a lot to talk about. Our next one has a video.

Speaker 3 - Andrea Cassell:
I was just going to say, this is not a proud Hoosier moment, being from Indiana. I do not know, but you look at this guy, and he has been around for a little while. He is not young. I am sure when he first came into policing, they probably thought, “We have done this forever. We have been taking signs forever.” He just has not quite come up to the times.

Speaker 1 - Chip DeBlock:
Here, the governor would remove him from office like they did with Scott Israel. We will see how they roll up there.

Up next, I believe it is Maryland. The Baltimore Police Department on Friday released officer-worn body-camera and street-camera footage of events that led to the shooting of a 35-year-old.

We have surveillance video showing Trevin Newton fighting with a man alongside a group of people on a sidewalk. This is before police engage Newton around 12:16. There is an object in Newton’s hand. Officers watching the footage in real time are giving police on the ground updates on the group’s whereabouts. You have surveillance video, and you have officers at a surveillance center communicating with officers on the ground about what they are seeing.

Police approach Newton, and of course he does what every bad guy usually does: he flees. The video footage shows Officer Devin Gubar, a four-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department, taking Newton down in the parking lot outside the Avenue Market. Once Newton is on the ground, he starts struggling with the officer. Another officer, Salman Ahmed, arrives as well.

Officer Gubar, the first officer, attempts to yank a black bag from Newton. The officer repeatedly tells the bad guy, “You are going to get tased.” He moves around the other officer and pins the bad guy on the ground before deploying his taser.

In the parking-lot video, the officer uses his taser on Newton. Then the officer removes his gun from his holster and holds it behind him. The officers continue to struggle with the bad guy on the ground as people start to gather, and some are recording.

The video shows the main officer telling the bad guy he is going to get tased again. Meanwhile, our second officer has his own role, and we will talk about how well he did or did not do in a second. The bad guy ends up grabbing the taser with one hand while the other officer is grabbing the black bag from his other hand. The first officer loses control of the taser but maintains control of his gun. When the bad guy has the taser, our main officer takes a step back and shoots the bad guy in the back while the second officer is still struggling over the top of him.

After the shot is fired, the second officer gets full control of the black bag and steps away. The first officer stumbles backward after firing the shot, and the bad guy is face down. They end up going to the hospital and being treated for non-life-threatening injuries. The department said investigators found a handgun in the bad guy’s black bag. They also found a knife at the scene.

In my show notes, at 2:19, the suspect is taken to the ground, and our officer decides to go to the taser while his male partner fights with the suspect on the ground. It seemed like one officer with a taser did not want to go hands-on and was standing back, not even in the action. Two officers could have taken the bad guy, and in my opinion, they could probably have avoided the shoot. But we have an officer standing up with a taser, and he seems taser-happy to me. I will let you guys talk about it more. Travis?

Speaker 2 - Dr. Travis Yates:
I wish we would see more post-taser-deployment research, even from Taser, because it seems like we see these types of disasters involving tasers when we are telling people before we taser them that we are about to tase them. That does not make any sense. It is like a boxer in a ring saying, “I am about to hit you with a left hook.”

I do not understand it. The successful taser deployments I often see are when we are not giving warnings. We are just hitting them with a taser because there is an element of surprise that is beneficial. I do not understand dancing around the taser deployment.

They were absolutely correct to get this bag away from the guy. That is huge and had to be done. I just do not understand the dancing around the taser deployment. Just tase him. Has there ever officially been anyone who, when we said, “We are about to tase you,” said, “Oh, I do not want to be tased,” and complied? They never do that. They continue with the behavior. If you have seen the behavior that requires a taser deployment, just deploy the taser. Stop dancing around. Time is not on your side, despite what the DOJ de-escalation training told you.

Speaker 3 - Andrea Cassell:
I have to say, the couple of times we had to document that we said “taser,” you know, you have to yell “taser.” To me, I stopped going to taser. I was like, “I am not using my taser. We will just go hands-on.” They could have gone control.

Thank God the officer who was hands-on is still alive. You grab your taser and your gun, and we have seen it. How many times have we seen someone use the wrong one? Why do you have both out? What happens once you shoot your gun? There are so many things that can go bad.

Speaker 2 - Dr. Travis Yates:
Andrea, you are right. Why do you have them both out? It is either deadly force or it is not. If it is deadly force, put the taser away.

Speaker 3 - Andrea Cassell:
That is right. Stop messing around. Stop playing around. Go hands-on. If you are so afraid, why do you have a taser and a gun? If you are afraid, I sure as heck do not want you to have a gun and a taser. I do not want you having both out.

Clearly, he was terrified. You watch the video, and once he is falling back, now you have an officer falling back with a gun in his hand. If you watch it, there are so many things that could have been done differently.

Then you watch the guys they are dealing with. They have the video showing this guy beating the kid up repeatedly. They are focused on one guy. Where are all the other guys? You have a taser that you are responsible for, a gun, and your officer is hands-on. What about all these other guys who are ready to come up behind you and attack you from behind? The whole thing felt disastrous. Thank God the officer who was hands-on is okay.

Speaker 1 - Chip DeBlock:
Training matters, and not everybody is trained the same way. I agree.

Another great show. Andrea, thanks so much for making it back. Hopefully we will be seeing more of you this summer.

Speaker 3 - Andrea Cassell:
Absolutely. Thank you for having me. As always, I love being on with you, Travis.

Speaker 1 - Chip DeBlock:
Thank you to Dr. Travis Yates as well. Thanks, guys.

I do want to mention The Wounded Blue. It is Randy Sutton’s 501(c)(3), helping cops around the world who are suffering from things like PTSD and other issues. If you are looking for an organization to support, I support them monthly. I am not worried about them embarrassing me. Travis Yates is on the board of directors as well. I believe you are still there, Travis. I do not think they have kicked you off yet. You are doing God’s work over there, so thanks for what you do.

Travis is also involved with Focus Certified. Make sure you check that out as well. He has good work going on with pre-attack indicators, and they are getting some traction, so you guys are definitely going to want to get involved with that.

If you want to get hold of either one of these guys, LinkedIn is your best source, in my opinion. LinkedIn is a great platform for both Andrea Cassell and Travis Yates.

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