Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
Welcome to LEO Round Table at LEORoundTable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I am your host. We are a group of law enforcement professionals who talk about today’s news and issues, but we do it from a law enforcement perspective.

Let us go ahead and welcome Captain Brett Bartlett, retired captain with the Tampa Police Department, 32 years of experience, and also the founder of Ex Umbra Defense Solutions at ExUmbraDefense.com.

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Let me whet the appetite, Brett, for what we are going to be talking about today. The DOJ is suing four states over undercover license plate refusal. That was interesting. Then we have a story about an ICE agent arrested after allegedly firing through a Minnesota door and covering it up, but there is a flag on that story that we will discuss.

Then we are going to Aurora, Colorado, where police fatally shot a suspect after he stabbed an officer in the head and also stabbed a canine. You know how I love canines, so I am not wishing it went a different way for the bad guy.

We also have a man armed with a hammer who was fatally shot when he tried to steal a cruiser and advanced on a Verona officer. We have a former CIA official detained after the FBI found $40 million in gold bars in his Virginia home. That boy has some explaining to do.

We also have a woman fined for distracted driving after police claimed she used her phone with her right hand. Most people have probably heard about this. Guess what? She does not have a right hand.

Then we have 12 years behind bars for a California deputy who shot a fleeing unarmed man in the back. We covered this previously when he was convicted, but they still had the sentencing hearing coming up. Now we know he got 12 years.

Lastly, an Ohio police chief who visited Cincinnati public schools while claiming to be with ICE. It is a female chief. We covered this before. She had an officer with her who pretty much panned her out. She got fired, and we are going to talk about what happened to two other officers as well.

So if you are ready, Captain, if you want to take anything out of order, let me know. Let us start with the first one.

This is from the Tampa Free Press at TampaFP.com. The DOJ sues Maine, Washington, Oregon, and Massachusetts over undercover license plate refusal. I am amazed at the lengths these liberal locations will go to, thinking they are going to get by with it. But if anything goes down where anyone gets hurt, these guys, like you like to say, are going to have to write the check.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed lawsuits on Wednesday against the states of Maine, Washington, Oregon, and Massachusetts, alleging that the states implemented unconstitutional policies by denying confidential license plates to federal law enforcement agents.

This is just addressed to federal agents. I will go ahead and spit it out now. They are only doing this to federal agents. If you are a state agent or other cop, they will let you do it. But they are just targeting the feds. It is disgusting, really. These people are getting paid with tax dollars.

According to the federal complaints, the legal action follows previous correspondence from the Justice Department requesting that each state rescind policies that block federal agents from obtaining undercover plates. So the DOJ already asked them to do it, and they did not.

The DOJ argues that the restrictions compromise the operational effectiveness and physical safety of federal personnel, noting that agents have experienced a recent wave of targeted harassment. The lawsuits state that without access to confidential license plates, or with plates that are in the public domain, suspects can more easily track law enforcement vehicles and evade capture.

The filings further allege that the states are engaging in discriminatory practices because they continue to issue confidential plates to their own state-level agencies while withholding them from federal components like Homeland Security and ICE.

“The Department of Justice will exercise any and all lawful authorities to support the brave men and women of law enforcement,” said our buddy Todd Blanche, whom we saw last week. That was Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in a statement accompanying the announcement.

So there you have it. Captain Bartlett, were you blown away by this too?

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
No. Here is what it is. Remember when you have seen little kids out in public, especially now, and they throw a fit? “Come on, little Billy, we have to go.” “No, you cannot make me. I do not want to.”

I imagine these officials, whoever they are, saying, “No,” laying on the ground, beating the ground, screaming, “You cannot make me. I do not want to.” They are little petulant children. That is all they are. They are pitching a child fit and embarrassing themselves.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
There need to be some severe repercussions. I would love for them to get voted out. I do not know if this is really going to care about this, and I have not really seen this in the news, to be honest.

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
They are not going to get voted out. They are doing this to garner votes. They are doing this to placate the people who did vote for them. If you are an idiot communist, that is who you are going to vote for. You are going to vote for these anti-ICE people.

It does not surprise me at all, but they will find a workaround. There are very intelligent people up there in the DOJ now. Not that they were not before, but I think the leadership has gotten the edge now, and they will find a way around it.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
Yes. The lawsuit is a good start. If you are a cop and you are looking for a place to work, I am telling you guys, if you go work in one of these states, like Washington state, I think that was the first one, when something goes wrong, not necessarily if something goes wrong, but when, if they do not have your back, you have been forewarned. You would be crazy to go.

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
When the Democrats are doing this, remember they were busing these people into New York. The DOJ should do that now. Put them all on a big bus and dump them in Portland, dump them at all the capitals of these states, right on the capital steps, and go, “Here you go. If you love them so much, here is a busload. Good luck with that.”

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
Disappointing. But we are getting the word out there, so remember, you heard it here on LEO Round Table. We have a couple of stories today that you are not finding anywhere else.

Moving right along, and I am going to go in order unless Brett wants me to do something differently. We have, according to the Tampa Free Press and GovExec.com, an ICE agent arrested after allegedly firing through a Minnesota door and covering it up. This is the story I said had a flag.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agent was arrested in Texas on Friday, when we were there, Brett, after authorities accused him of shooting an immigrant through a closed door in Minnesota earlier this year and then fabricating a story to cover it up.

The agent’s name is Christian Castro. We previously talked about this and about them trying to jam him up. He was taken into custody by Texas Rangers and the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General. So we have two agencies here: Texas Rangers, a state agency in Texas, and the Department of Homeland Security, the feds. They took part in taking him into custody after investigators with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension tracked him down. I suspect they wanted to be there when the state of Minnesota was taking this guy into custody.

The arrest follows charges filed earlier this month by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. That may sound familiar to some people, because they have a reputation for jamming up cops. The office hit Castro with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime.

According to official releases and investigative reports, the incident started on January 14. Agent Castro attempted to arrest a Venezuelan migrant named Alfredo Ojorno, and this is their account now, following a car chase. They say the bad guy managed to evade the agent and fled inside a residence.

They say Agent Castro fired his weapon directly through the front door of the home, despite knowing that there were people inside, allegedly. The bullet struck the guy’s roommate, Julio Sosa Celis, in the leg.

In the initial report filed with investigators, they stated that Agent Castro claimed he opened fire in self-defense, saying he feared for his life because multiple men had attacked him with a shovel and a broom for several minutes. Based on that statement, local authorities initially charged Ojorno and Sosa Celis, both the guy who escaped and the guy who got shot.

However, the charges were abruptly dropped after police video footage of the encounter allegedly contradicted the agent’s account. Now that is what they are saying, but I do not believe anything coming out of their mouths.

Following the discovery, both ICE and the Department of Justice opened internal investigations. They do not say what happened with ICE’s internal investigation, but they say ICE and the DOJ are both investigating this.

Here is where the flag is. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty confirmed that both men, the one who ran and the one who got shot, were present in the United States legally. I believe that like nothing, because she has no credibility. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison stated that Castro deliberately lied to supervisors to justify the shooting. Again, I do not believe anything Keith Ellison has to say either, because this is not the feds’ way. This is Minneapolis and Minnesota, where they have been pledging to get a hold of the feds and make them pay for what they are doing.

They have been wanting to be part of the investigation every time there is a shooting, and now we know why.

The day Castro was initially charged, ICE released a statement calling Minnesota’s prosecution “unlawful” and “nothing more than a political stunt.” That should tell you something. Also, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz compared ICE’s federal operations to Nazi occupation.

Captain Bartlett?

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
They did mention the video that countered his account of the situation, but what do we know about videos? They do not show fear. They do not show distortions. They do not show what the person was actually thinking.

I am hoping that when ICE goes out and does these operations, their bosses have a big roll-call meeting and tell them, “You had better do exactly what the law says because they are hunting for you.”

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
I agree. Perfect timing. Commercial break, guys. We will be right back.

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Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
Welcome back to LEO Round Table at LEORoundTable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I am your host. We are joined by Captain Brett Bartlett with Ex Umbra Defense Solutions at ExUmbraDefense.com.

Brett, I know we have been talking about the confidential plates first, and then this last one. Anything else you wanted to add?

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
No. These states are just mad, and they are going to take their ball and go home. They are going to lose. They are eventually going to lose.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
He is talking about the states that are jamming the feds from being able to get confidential plates. They are risking federal agents’ safety and the job effectiveness by doing that. But if you work for the state, they will let you do it. It is only the feds being targeted. There is no way this is going to hold up in court.

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
It is so obvious that they are doing anything they can to forestall ICE and its activities. If this is one little thing to stick a thorn in ICE’s foot, that is exactly what they are going to do. They had better hope no one gets injured or killed because of this stunt. They had better hope that.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
They keep voting these people back in. I have a pretty hard rule. I think we have talked about this. Here is my rule: I do not vote for communists.

People talk about moving, and I talk to a lot of young people. I do not go out a lot for food and stuff, but Saturday night is a big night, my wife and me. We will talk to waiters and waitresses. We come across a lot of people who are moving to Tennessee and elsewhere, and I ask people why. When you are young, there are a lot of things you just do not think about.

My nieces and nephews are in Georgia. I was going to get a place to stay at when I go see them or spend holidays and stuff. They say, “Oh, you are moving to Georgia.” I am like, “Please do not misunderstand my motives. I will never move to Georgia. Do you think I am going to leave Florida and Ron DeSantis?”

While we were in Texas, it was pretty nice being in Texas because their governor is very similar to Ron DeSantis. Over there in Texas, they have it going on, and their AG too. Now, if we were in Austin, we would be hearing a different story because that is a very communist area.

So I do not vote for people whose name starts with “Comrade.”

Let us hop over to Aurora, Colorado. We have our first story with a video component from Rumble.com and our favorite law enforcement video channel, This Is Butter.

In Aurora, police fatally shot a suspect, and this is tough to watch. I love animals, canines especially, and I carry the scars to prove it. This dude stabs a canine first, and then he does not just attack the officer. He starts stabbing the officer in the head.

This guy needed to die about 30 seconds before it ended.

Aurora, Colorado: newly released body-worn camera video shows moments leading up to a deadly police shooting in Aurora that killed a suspect after an officer was stabbed in the head. I am going to go through this article. It leaves out the stuff about the canine. It is in the title, but it is not really in the details, and I do not know why. I have some show notes, so I will describe in detail what happened.

The shooting happened on April 9 at an apartment complex. Officers and a canine handler were dispatched to the apartment complex. A woman had reported that her son was having a mental health crisis.

According to the Aurora Police Department, while officers were attempting to contact the individual, he threatened to harm himself and kill anyone around him, including the officers. They can see him through the window of an apartment, and he is holding a butcher knife to his neck. It looks like he is on an elevated second or third level.

While police are trying to make verbal contact through the front door, he runs outside. He still has the knife in his hand. Body camera footage shows what appears to be him running with a knife and charging at the officer.

I am going to throw in what they are missing. The canine officer has both hands on the lead, the leash, for the canine. He does not have a gun in his hand. He releases the lead, which releases the dog, and the canine starts running toward the bad guy, who has a knife in his hand.

The officer does not initially close the distance. He is letting the dog run, but he is not running behind the dog like I would have liked to see. The dog runs up to the bad guy. The bad guy starts stabbing the dog. The dog is smart enough, at least, to run away, and he yelps because he realizes he has been stabbed.

Then this guy continues to run at the canine officer. There are cops all over the place in the backdrop, Brett. There is one cop who rounds the corner, and after the shooting goes down, a second cop runs around the corner. There are five cops.

We have our canine handler, who has no gun out because he had just let go of the lead. You have the guy to his left who has a Taser, and the guy to his right has something like a bullpup. I believe it was a pepper-ball gun, based on what it sounded like when it went off.

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
It was a launcher.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
It was a launcher? Okay. Do you think it was a pepper-ball launcher?

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
I do not know, because it looked like a 37-millimeter launcher. It was a big hole.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
Okay, you are probably right. I heard some faster trigger pulls that sounded like what I normally associate with a pepper-ball gun, but you are probably right.

After the dog runs away and yelps, the bad guy with the knife gets up on this cop and starts stabbing him. I did not hear the guy with the less-lethal firing, but the other video I saw clearly showed him firing during this point.

You have a guy with a Taser still trying to activate the Taser on the bad guy while he is stabbing the officer. We have the guy with the launcher firing his less-lethal. The only thing that saves this dude is that the canine handler gets his gun out and shoots to the side, turned away from the bad guy while he is shooting him, and he gets some shots on target. Then our other guys get involved.

Those are the only shots that I believe were fired from a lethal standpoint, which really bothered me.

They give no indication how the dog is doing, which is really what I care about. It says the canine officer and other officers fired their weapons. It just does not point out that the other weapons being fired were less-lethal, in my opinion.

The officer who was stabbed was taken to the hospital. As of Friday, the officer is still recovering from his injuries. You have about 20 or 25 seconds, Brett.

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
This is the first video I have ever seen since we have covered this where you can actually almost see the bullets impacting. It is close. Usually, it is far away, but this is so close. You actually see blood developing.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
We are going to talk about this more when we come back. Guys, we are up for our second commercial break. We are going to spend a little time on this, so hang with us. It is going to get real. We will be right back.

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Welcome back to LEO Round Table at LEORoundTable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I am your host. We are joined by co-host Captain Brett Bartlett.

We have been talking about a story in Aurora, Colorado, where police fatally shot a suspect after he stabbed a police canine and a cop in the head. We do not know how the canine is, but the officer is still recovering. We do not really know how severe the injuries are, but it was just a nasty-looking video.

If people want to see it, the live show is at 12:00 Eastern, but the producer will take a copy of this live show and, at 9:00 tomorrow morning, upload it after embedding all the video. So if you watch that version of the show at 9:00 on the Rumble channel, you can check it out.

Brett, I know you had already started weighing in on this. Tell us more about the story with the canine that got stabbed.

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
To me, it was just a normal thing. You send the canine in, and the canine bites the guy. I felt bad for the canine that got stabbed, but I have never seen anything we have talked about where the shots were fired at that close of a distance to the bad guy. You can see the hits. We have never had one that close.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
Brett is the expert when it comes to firearms and stuff. I am just lucky to be in the same room with him when he opens his mouth and talks about stuff like this. He is really that knowledgeable.

However, Brett, I was surprised the officer did not shoot himself in the arm or something. It was one of those awkward positional shoots. He had to shoot. Let us face it, if he had shot himself, it would have been worth it because every second he does not shoot, he is getting stabbed in the head.

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
I would say 90% of police shootings are fired from awkward positions. Very seldom are you going to get an isosceles triangle or a Weaver stance and fire your shots.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
Do not use words I have to look up, Brett. What you are saying is that he did pretty good.

The other issue I have, Captain, is that I was never a canine handler, but I mentioned I have scars. We have both worked very closely with many canine handlers. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the justification for releasing a canine on a guy with a butcher knife, or any knife. It is a lethal situation. It looks like you are sacrificing the dog. I know that they consider them property, like horses and stuff, and we have a tendency to elevate them, but I have a severe problem with releasing a dog on a dude with a knife. I would rather release a rookie in that situation than a dog.

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
I understand, but I do not know what their policies are. I do not know what their training is. I do not know if these standards are nationwide or local. But you are right. There is obviously a knife. The next obvious step, I believe, should have been shooting the guy. I do not know why those other people did not see that.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
Then the other people not transitioning from less-lethal to lethal. I know you have said before that the first thing you are going to do after something like this happens is put someone in the snot locker, because you are like, “Dude, you are firing your Taser at the dude who is stabbing me. Dude, you are launching your beanbag or whatever less-lethal at some dude while he is stabbing me. You have a gun.”

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
At this point, the guy with the less-lethal would be perfectly justified in shooting that guy in the eye with that beanbag, because now it is not a less-lethal situation. It is a lethal situation.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
Yes. I have questions. This was Aurora, I believe. I have a relative there. We know the chief almost became a panelist on the show. Chamberlain, I think, is his name. He was from LAPD. I have questions and problems with that.

Anything else, Brett, that you want to point out?

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
No, not on that one.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
Moving along, let us take our next video story. This one is still at Rumble.com and our favorite law enforcement video channel, This Is Butter.

A man armed with a hammer was fatally shot when he tried to steal a cruiser and advanced on a Verona officer.

In the video, officers can be heard giving repeated commands: “Drop it. Drop it. Get off of there. Get on the ground. Stop. Get on the ground.” Then shots are fired, and an officer reports that one is down and still has the hammer.

This looks like it is in Wisconsin. When I read the title, I thought we had someone trying to steal a police car and a cop using lethal force, which I have no issue with. I will let Brett speak for himself, but not only is he leaving with a 3,000- or 4,000-pound vehicle, an SUV, but it may have a shotgun, AR, or whatever in it too. But that is not exactly what happened in this one.

The encounter between Verona Police Sergeant Trevor Runkle and the bad guy, Eric Poneger, happened on March 15. The bad guy had been driving a stolen car, so there is really no question that he is a bad guy. Verona police were chasing him. The chase ended at an intersection in the town of Springdale.

The body cam from Sergeant Runkle shows Poneger walking toward the officer’s squad car with a hammer in his right hand. The cop gets out of his car and backs away. He does not stand his ground. He backs away and leaves the driver’s door unlocked, like so often happens. The door is closed, but the bad guy advances. The cop has his gun out and retreats into the open with no cover. I say that because, even though it is a hammer, hammers can be thrown.

Our bad guy opens the driver’s door, which was not secured or locked, gets into the squad car, and sits in the driver’s seat. Now the cop realizes what is getting ready to go down. He is getting ready to have his car stolen. He runs up, opens the door, which is still unlocked or in the process of being closed, and starts trying to get the bad guy out of the car.

Poneger was apparently trying to close the door and leave. The bad guy ends up stepping out of the car with his hammer raised because the cop is fighting with him, trying not to let him leave. Our cop backs up and shoots the bad guy. The bad guy goes to the hospital, where he ends up dying.

This all happens fairly fast. At two minutes and nine seconds in, the shots go down.

Captain Bartlett?

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
They interviewed the guy at the hospital. He said with his dying breath, “If he had told me to stop just once more, I would have complied with his orders.”

No, that guy should have been shot much sooner than he was. The officer also should have stayed behind or next to that car. He abandoned cover. Now he is out in the open. Now he is in the road, and it is not bad enough that he is about to get clubbed by the guy with a hammer, he is about to get run over by somebody coming up behind him who is not paying attention.

Stay behind your cover. I do not understand that. But just when you think it is about to get bad, you realize the guy is stealing the police car. He is fortunate that when he opened the door to confront the bad guy, the bad guy raised that hammer, giving him that justification to shoot. If that guy had dropped his hammer and was just trying to steal the car, and the officer had shot him then, that might have been a problem.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
Yes. I draw that line. Guys, do not leave cover. I know I am wasting breath because we have so many videos where guys leave cover. It is crazy. Even if somebody is in a fixed position shooting at them, or advancing on them with a gun, are they going to stand their ground and use cover? No. They are going to leave and go out in the open. They think they would rather have distance than cover. Somehow they think distance might provide some level of tactical advantage, but it does not beat cover. It is crazy.

Obviously, bad guys do not listen to commands. One of the reasons you give a command is to build your totality-of-the-circumstances story. You can say, “Look, I tried A, I tried B, and I tried C.” When a person walks right past your command to stop, you are starting to build up that justification. You do not yell for the bad guy. He is not going to pay attention to you.

I am watching some of the commentary on Facebook. Alan Inman is retired from Susanville PD, so thanks for watching. Apparently, they just had an officer-involved shooting too. Frank Dumathick, retired from a Northeast Ohio Police Department, is watching the show for the first time. Thanks for watching.

Betty Dunn was talking about how if the dog was a badge, he should have had a vest too, which I agree with. We have been thinking about getting involved with a charity. With my fascination and love for canines, I want it to involve canines, and I want to help them with ballistic vests. That is important because they do not all have them.

Anybody on this one? Susanville PD had an attack on May 7. The guy tried to attack one of their officers with a machete, which turned out bad for the bad guy.

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
It turned out bad for the bad guy. I used “bad” twice in the same sentence. Technically, my grammar needs work.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
We are coming up on our next break, Captain, if you can believe that. Let me whet the appetite for the next story real quick here. We have an update story. A former CIA official was detained after the FBI found $40 million in gold bars in his Virginia home. I cannot wait to talk about that one. Somebody has some explaining to do, and there is some stuff we do not know about this story and will probably never know.

We will be right back.

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Welcome back to LEO Round Table at LEORoundTable.com, the law enforcement talk show. My name is Chip DeBlock, and I am your host. We are joined by Captain Brett Bartlett, 32 years of experience from the Tampa Police Department and founder of Ex Umbra Defense Solutions at ExUmbraDefense.com.

We left off with the next story from the Tampa Free Press at TampaFP.com. Our buddy Brian Burns owns that. They are huge. I know it says Tampa Free Press, but they are like national news, and their stuff is automatically picked up by MSN.

A federal court postponed a detention hearing for a former CIA official who was arrested last week after federal agents allegedly discovered $40 million in gold bars in his home during a background fraud investigation.

That is key. They say there is a background fraud investigation, and then they do not mention it again.

David J. Rush is this dude’s name. They do not even say what he did with the CIA. He was an official, and they say he is a former CIA official. They do not say whether they fired him to distance themselves from him because of this, or whether it has just been some time since he left the agency. They do not touch on that.

David J. Rush is still in custody after being arrested by the FBI. According to court records and sources, federal authorities were initially investigating whether he lied about his educational and military credentials when they uncovered the massive cache of gold.

Remember when they said it was a fraud investigation? They said it was a background fraud investigation. I doubt that the educational and military credential thing is all they were talking about.

In a joint statement, the FBI and CIA confirmed that this guy was taken into custody after an internal referral from the CIA, which flagged potential violations of law. Both federal agencies said they are still doing their investigation.

That is where we are at. Brett, how many bars of gold would it take to get to $40 million? What do you think?

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
That is not even the point. The point is, how did he get gold bars? Let us figure that out. Then we will figure out how much.

On his next job application, when they ask, “Have you ever stolen from your past employer?” he is going to go, “Yes, I have.”

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
Yes. Alan Inman says he lied about something. I have to believe that it had some connection with his job with the CIA and that he was either privy to, or had been involved in, some investigation that involved something with gold, and that he had it. I know they do not want to release that information because it could compromise some other investigation probably too, but they cannot sit on this forever.

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
They have released enough. If they were going to keep it quiet, they would have kept it quiet. Can you imagine us going to the property room and saying, “Hey, I need another couple rounds of ammo. I fired some. I need some pens. And do you have any gold bars back there?” They go, “Yes, because we are not paying attention. Did your sergeant approve this?” “Yes, he said I can have some gold bars.”

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
We need somebody like MBS on Rumble or somebody to check this. MBS says it is lead covered in gold paint.

Somebody needs to Google or use AI to find out how many gold bars are worth $40 million. I am curious whether it was 10 bars or more.

This says about 31 standard 400-troy-ounce gold bars would be worth roughly $40 million. I just Googled that. Thirty-one. Those are not easy to hide. They are heavy, obviously.

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
He is full of crap. Somebody is.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
Yes, there is some good stuff there. I hope we learn more. We may never know, but it sounds pretty fascinating to me.

There are movies or two about heavy metal that is similar to the weight of gold, and they paint it gold to pull something off.

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
On another note, Hillary Clinton released a press release saying that guy is going to kill himself tomorrow.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
That is probably going to happen.

Did you know this? This is a fun fact. You know I always come up with little things. Did you know that if you ever buy large quantities of gold, you should do it around midnight because the moon’s gravitational pull may make it lighter than what it normally is?

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
Yes, sure.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
No, I am being completely serious. If they are weighing the gold you are paying for, that is true. I just know these stupid, weird little things.

Moving along, what can we do in three minutes here? We have to do the distracted-driving woman. She was holding the phone in the right hand, or was she?

This is from Rumble.com and This Is Butter. This is Florida, Brett. A woman was fined for distracted driving after police claimed she used her phone with her right hand.

In the video, the deputy walks up and says, “Good morning. I am with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. The reason you are being pulled over in the city of Lake Worth today is that we are doing an operation for distracted driving. You drove past me holding the phone with your right hand and manipulating the phone.”

The woman responds, “I mean, I saw you, so obviously not.”

He says, “You also just called this a day?”

She says, “I do not want to call it a day. You said I had a hand up.”

He says, “I just said your right hand.”

She says, “You said my right hand? Well, I am asking now. Did you see me with my right hand?”

He says, “I know what I just said.”

She responds, “No, not how you felt. You did not see me with my right hand.”

Then she shows him she does not have a right hand. He asks for her driver’s license, registration, and insurance.

I am going to go through this quickly because I know Brett is going to be all over it.

We are in Palm Beach, which is down where Trump is, right? Mar-a-Lago? A traffic citation issued to a woman who said she was accused of holding a phone in a hand that she does not have has been dismissed, court records show.

There is a video to go along with this. It shows that the citation was dismissed at the request of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputy who actually issued it. But when he gave it to her, he refused to acknowledge the problem.

I will cut to the chase. This thing was all over TikTok. The guy pulls the woman over, walks up to the door, identifies himself as a Palm Beach County deputy, and says, “I saw you holding the phone in your right hand while driving.”

She says, “You mean this one?” She pulls up her arm, and it is just a stump. There is no hand. She has some kind of cloth wrapped around it, but there is no hand and no way she could hold a phone with it.

She says, “This one?” She is finding it humorous to a point because she does not even have a hand.

He says, “Well, I thought I saw you doing it. Let me see your license and registration,” and all that kind of stuff. So he goes through the process, comes back, and writes her a citation.

She says, “Let me get this straight. You are writing me a ticket. Did you put down on the ticket that you saw me holding it with my right hand?”

He says, “No, I did not put that down on the ticket.” That is how it rolls.

She posted video on TikTok, and this thing went viral. I do not know whether she had her own video because I was watching the body cam, but she posted video, and it went viral. I heard about this before it ever came up here. I heard about this when Brett and I were in Dallas. My wife sent it to me on Instagram.

Brett, give us your take. You have a minute and 54 seconds.

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
“Ma’am, I am obviously mistaken. I humbly apologize for that right now. Apparently, I saw something that I did not see. You have a great day, and I hope life gets better for you. My name is Chip DeBlock.”

I can think of a lot of ways to handle something like this, but that is not one of them.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
The way the officer handled it was ridiculous.

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
Ridiculous. A deputy. Ridiculous. I do not care if she had it in her stump. At that point, here is what he needs to look at: how is this going to look in the paper tomorrow? How is this going to affect my ability to explain myself? Well, now he knows.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
His agency forced him to do that because he canceled it after the fact, but now he is on video citing her anyway.

I can say confidently that there have been times in my career when I thought I saw something or heard something that I would have sworn happened, and there is absolutely no way it could have happened. In fact, off camera, I will tell you about one that would blow your mind because I will swear that it happened, but there is no way it happened.

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
To counter that, I pulled a guy over years ago. He was the only one in the car. I said, “Let me see your license.” He says, “Oh, I do not drive.”

Back in my day, I was a little more sarcastic than I am now, and I went, “Oh, sorry. I am so sorry. You are the only one in the car. It was moving. You can see how I easily made the mistake.”

He says, “No, no, I do not normally drive.”

I said, “Why did you not just say that up front instead of saying, ‘I do not drive’?”

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
Wow. That is pretty good.

I know we are about out of time, but what is the future of this guy’s career at the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office?

Speaker 2 – Captain Brett Bartlett / Co-Host:
He will be a captain.

Speaker 1 – Chip DeBlock / Host:
Captain, okay. You cannot make stuff like this up.

Captain Brett Bartlett, it has been a great show. Guys, you need to check out Ex Umbra Defense Solutions at ExUmbraDefense.com. You can get more information on Captain Bartlett there as well, or find him on LinkedIn. Some of the stuff you may find on LinkedIn is pretty spectacular. Actually, look at his resume. You will be reading for a while.

Guys, thanks for watching. Alan Inman and everybody on all the social media sites, thanks for watching the show. We appreciate it.

I also want to mention The Wounded Blue at TheWoundedBlue.org, Lieutenant Randy Sutton’s 501(c)(3) that helps cops around the world who are hurt or suffering from things like PTSD.

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We will see you guys back tomorrow, live from Tampa at 12:00 noon Eastern.