Sheriff Mike Neal — 16 Years of Survivor Guilt After the West Memphis Ambush | Part 1

Sheriff Michael Neal is a law enforcement officer, a combat veteran of one of the most dramatic police incidents in modern American history, and today the elected Sheriff of Lee County, Arkansas. In May 2010, he was a wildlife officer who drove over an hour, lights and sirens, to respond to a cop-killer ambush in West Memphis and ended it himself in a Walmart parking lot with dozens of rounds hitting his truck.

The first interview told the story of what he did. This one tells the story of what it cost him. Sixteen years of carrying a date - May 20th - that alternated between the worst day of his life and, eventually, his wedding anniversary. He got married on the anniversary of the shooting on purpose, to give the day something else to hold.

This conversation covers the year of fog that followed the shooting. It covers the 42 awards he received that he didn't want while the colleagues who died received nothing. It covers the National Law Enforcement Museum in Washington D.C., where his bullet-riddled wildlife truck is one of the two centerpiece displays, and how the first time he visited he kept his back to it and greeted visitors rather than look at what he called, without hesitation, "a casket." And it covers the conversation he wasn't ready to have for years: what it meant to take a life, why it's nothing like Hollywood, and what it actually takes to get right after you do.

The mental health piece lands differently coming from a sitting sheriff. Neal doesn't preach. He talks about the stigma in plain terms, the colleague who "went to see the quack" and got avoided, the broken analogy between a broken leg you can see and a brain injury you can't. And he talks about Dr. Gray, a retired injured officer who broke his back fighting a suspect and conducts his therapy sessions from a bed in his office. He was the one who finally helped.

Part 2 goes to the Walmart lot. What Neal saw when he got there. What he did. And what he brought home from it.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(68)

Morgan Wright — What the JonBenét Ramsey Crime Scene Actually Says | Part 2

Morgan Wright is the founder and CEO of the National Center for Open and Unsolved Cases, a nonprofit that works cold cases toward resolution rather than commentary. A former detective who went on to t...

13 Aug 34min

Morgan Wright — Reinvestigating JonBenét Ramsey From First Principles | Part 1

Morgan Wright is the founder and CEO of the National Center for Open and Unsolved Cases, a nonprofit that takes on cold cases and works them toward resolution rather than commentary. He is a former de...

11 Aug 37min

Bill Buford — He Owed It to the Men He Lost at Waco | Part 2

In Part 2 of this two-part conversation, retired ATF agent Bill Buford takes listeners back inside the gun room during the February 28, 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. He w...

30 Juli 25min

Bill Buford — Surviving the Waco Raid as an ATF Agent | Part 1

Bill Buford spent nearly three decades in federal law enforcement, first as a Green Beret in Vietnam, then as a Special Agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In 1993, he ...

28 Juli 41min

Jim Freeman — Inside the Unabomber's Cabin | Part 2

Jim Freeman spent 32 years as an FBI Special Agent, rising to Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau's San Francisco field office. In the final two years of the 17-year hunt for the Unabomber, Freeman ...

16 Juli 33min

Jim Freeman - Leading the FBI's Hunt for the Unabomber | Part 1

14 Juli 42min

Rick Harcrow — Inside Attica: The Stats, the Families, and the Hidden Cost | Part 2

Rick Harcrow spent 37 years as a correctional officer at Attica Correctional Facility — home of the deadliest prison riot in American history. In Part 2, the conversation goes deeper: from the daily r...

2 Juli 32min

Rick Harcrow - Inside the Attica Prison Riot: What Really Happened | Part 1

Rick Harcrow spent 37 years as a correctional officer in the New York State prison system — 30 of them at Attica Correctional Facility. He wasn't there on September 9, 1971, when the riot began. But h...

30 Juni 44min