For Every Cop Who's Murdered in the Line of Duty: Jason Marsman, Brotherhood For the Fallen - Bonus Ep 50

When I was at the line of duty death funeral of Deputy Elijah Ming, I met officers from all across the midwest, but I also ran into uniformed officers from further away, specifically one officer who traveled all the way from New York City.  This was my introduction to Brotherhood for the Fallen, an organization of police officers who send representatives to every funeral of an officer murdered in the line of duty.  Today we're talking to Jason Marsman from the New York City chapter of Brotherhood for the Fallen.  We're going to talk about the strange mission to attend every police funeral in the country and the surprising gift for the family that these officers bring with them.

Brotherhood For the Fallen NYC Chapter: https://www.brotherhoodnyc.org

Music is by the Westerlies

Hey Chaplain Bonus Episode 50

Tags:

Police, Death, Funerals, Honor, Line of Duty Death, Memorials, Morale, NYPD, Travel, Brooklyn, Dallas, Kansas City, New York City, Kansas, New York, Texas

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

When that happened, I was I was considering maybe leaving the department. You know, uh it really just wasn't for me at the time, and and uh and and it was a big decision to make because I had a lot of time on already, but I really was really sick of being a cop. And we went we went down there to Dallas, we sent a large group uh because we we kind of rotated through because it the funerals were over almost two weeks, I think. So we were rotating people through, and uh really just the outpouring of support from the community and really from the nation at that time kind of changed my perspective.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Welcome to Hey Chaplin. My name is Jared Altic, and I'm a chaplain with the police department. The Hey Chaplin podcast is about talking to police officers who say, Hey Chaplain, I've got a story to tell and some hard-earned wisdom to share. The guests on Hey Chaplin come from across the world, from the LAPD to Scotland Yard, and today you'll hear from NYPD. They are sharing their wisdom with you so that you don't have to learn everything the hard way. And as Patrol Chaplain, I want you to be encouraged to do good things. This is a special bonus episode of the Hey Chaplain Podcast, and my goal today is to introduce you to an organization that I think you need to know about. When I was at the line of duty death funeral of Deputy Elijah Me, I met officers from all across the Midwest. But I also ran into uniformed officers from further away, specifically one officer who traveled all the way from New York City. This was my introduction to Brotherhood for the Fallen, an organization of police officers who send representatives to every funeral of an officer murdered in the line of duty. Today, we're talking to Jason Marsman from the New York City chapter of Brotherhood for the Fallen. We're going to talk about the strange mission to attend every police funeral in the country and the surprising gift for the family that these officers bring with them. Here's retired New York City police officer, Jason Marsman. Hello, Jason. How are you today? I am well, Jared. How are you? I'm doing pretty well. I'm very pleased to have you on the show and just excited to talk to you about uh Brotherhood for the Fallen. But before we do, let me ask you about your career with the police. Where'd you start? How did it go? How did you get into it?

SPEAKER_01 2:50

I started in 2005, uh, New York City Police Department. January of 2005, I went to the police academy. And uh I spent pretty much my entire career in the 7-7 precinct, same place, Crown Heights, Brooklyn. If anybody knows the Crown Heights riots uh a couple decades ago, that's the spot. Very diverse community. Uh and I got there at a time of change, really, in that community. We had a lot of new people moving in. That was kind of what became the tail end of broken windows policing in New York City. The community had really changed. It had turned over a lot, and there was there were a lot of new people coming in, new money coming in, new development coming in. So it was a major change from when I first got there to by the time I left. Night and day, really. What all did you do in your time? Uh I did 4-12s. I was on the 4-12 my entire career. I did patrol. First half was 10 years, I was on patrol. And then I moved into kind of under the community affairs umbrella. I was the crime prevention officer and the uh auxiliary coordinator. The auxiliary coordinator kind of supervises the volunteers, the auxiliary officers that come in. And that that unit averages somewhere around 20 uh volunteers that come in. They're all civilians, they're not armed, they're not sworn officers. But uh I I supervised and ran that program. So talk to me about police funerals. Dylan Stewart, I was a rookie. He was uh in a conditions unit. They addressed like problematic locations or quality of life stuff, uh, and it was in conditions, they were in an unmarked car, and they came side by side with a perp, and uh they got shot at. The round went in between the vest panels, the front and back panel, and in his side. He put up a fight for a while. He uh he stayed in the fight, uh, but it obviously wound up being you know a fatal gunshot wound. And uh that was probably my first if I had to guess, that was the first one I went to. And it's just the the size and scale of things, particularly in New York. And it's sad, but we have perfected the police funeral in in New York City. And uh it's it's somewhat systematic. You know the rhythm, you know exactly what's gonna happen, but you're still never prepared for it, in all honesty. But you know exactly what you're gonna hear, you know exactly how we're gonna line up, and you know exactly when the pipes are gonna play. But every time it's it's really like it's it's it's ingrained in you, but almost it's it's like you've never done it before every time because it's so impactful every time. And and New York, it's very easy for us to shut down all of Manhattan for a funeral. We've we've had quite a few at St. Pat's Cathedral, and really we shut down half of Long Island, uh, half of New York City and all of Manhattan for these funerals. It's gotten some people upset at times, but uh we kind of do it really like nobody else does.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

A lot of my cops have been to those funerals and they're not looking to go to more.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

No.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

So what makes you different?

SPEAKER_01 6:16

It has to do with how we got started as an organization and the support that despite being 30,000 members, the support that we get from other agencies and other departments from around the country when it happens to us. We even get the Bobbies coming over, uh, we get the Mounties coming down from Canada, and the support that we still always get in New York, even though I don't mean to say we don't need it, but in terms of a presence, we don't need it, but it's certainly appreciated. You know, you you do see it and and it does make a difference. It makes a difference for us, and uh it makes a difference, believe it or not. The families do notice and they they do find out, and they do with our organization, they do meet them, and that's always been a big thing for us.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Okay, so tell me then, how did Brotherhood for the Fallen begin? How did that get started?

SPEAKER_01 7:09

It started in Chicago. They were the first chapter. In 2009, right? There were four cops killed in Oakland, there were three cops killed in Pittsburgh, and there were four cops killed in uh in Lakewood, Washington. So they were all killed in the same incidents. These were multiple cops that were killed at one time. I think the one uh Lakewood, if I remember correctly, that was the one I think they were having breakfast. They were in a diner or something having breakfast, and they all got killed. Um, so it got started in Chicago. Small group of cops in Chicago said, these are really some horrible, some horrible incidents that happened, some terrible circumstances. Let's go out, let's do our part, let's let's show people that this brotherhood really does exist, right? We don't just say it, we don't just put it on Facebook, never forget and then forget. You know, we don't just say, we don't just put up a picture online and walk away from it. We don't just you know, we don't just talk, we actually walk. We're gonna get out there and we're gonna we're gonna show them that we're with them and we support them, their families, their colleagues, even even the communities where these happen. It's a big impact on some of these communities that really are very close with their police department. A lot of these places where we've been to, you know, the cop is from there, he grew up there, he was the star on the football team or or something, and everybody knows him. And all of a sudden, really not just a family, not just the department, but this entire community loses somebody that's really a crucial part of their neighborhood and the heart of their their community. So it makes a big difference when they see uh cops from all over really showing up to show to offer some support.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

So, how did it develop from a few officers saying, hey, we're gonna go attend these funerals? Because that's the right, that's one of the best ways we can show our support. How did it get from that to being an organization that's you know spreading to other agencies? And how did it develop?

SPEAKER_01 9:11

So I'll I'll fast forward to 2014, December of 2014, um, Bed Sti Brooklyn. 2014 was not a great time to be a police officer. We had an incident in New York, one in particular was Eric Garner. Uh he was he had a heart attack, he suffered a fatal heart attack while he was being arrested. And it didn't look good on camera, and the police obviously got blamed. And that led to some some protesting, and you had the Michael Brown incident where you know that was a really unfortunate set of circumstances, but the cop did absolutely nothing wrong. We all know how that turned out for that neighborhood. We had a president and a governor, and really a mayor who were not terribly supportive of the police at the time. There we had we had a lot of protests, some really ugly protests in the wake of these incidents. We had two officers, marked police car, sitting on a corner where they weren't even in the precinct where they're assigned. It was a counter-terrorism detail. It was really being used as an anti-crime operation, but it was a counter-terrorism detail where cops would be sent from every precinct in the city to a hot spot. And uh they were eating their lunch, minding their own business, and some lunatic had uh traveled up the East Coast and said, I'm gonna I'm gonna kill the first cop I see. And these two guys were just sitting there in their car. He he walked up from behind and just opened fire on them. So during their funerals, these cops from Chicago came out to New York. And it just happened to be the right cops, met the right cops, and within six months, uh our chapter was up and running too.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

Tell me briefly how a chapter operates. How does the chapter get money to do what it does to send people? I mean, it's expensive to travel. It's tough.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

And then how do you organize that? So it's not it's not just to travel. We also, every chapter, we have now nine chapters in seven states, I think, if I do the math right. We also make a monetary donation to the family. So it's our travel costs and it's it's uh these monetary donations. So every chapter has their own amount, but with with nine chapters, it it's a sizable amount of money that we're hand delivering. They're not waiting for insurance policies to clear, they're not waiting for a workers' comp claim, they're not waiting for a t-shirt fundraiser, they're not waiting for uh, you know, uh a tricky tray or a raffle. We're handing them the money right now when they need it. They can do whatever. We don't put any stipulations on it. Um, it's just we know that in those first days things are really messy and things are really confusing, and nobody should have to worry about getting dinner, about the kids playing basketball, about uh daycare, about uh needing to get diapers or formula. Like this is let's take all of those simple things out of the way, just here is this right up front, right? Uh, because we know there are some some departments again, New York. We're very big, and it's easy for us. And we have great life insurance policies, and we have great benefits through the city and through our unions. And there's really not a financial want or need for us. But lots of places don't have those resources. We don't have that at all. Yeah, right. Um so that's part of this this operation is getting this money right away when it's needed, not six months from now after we sold the t-shirts.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

So let's talk about that just for a moment. How do you go about fundraising?

SPEAKER_01 13:01

I mean, that's our members they pay a membership fee, right? So they they they pay our general members who are active cops who who will travel, they pay $100 a year to join. They got skin in the game. They do. They have skin in the game, they're making a personal sacrifice themselves right up front, and they travel on their own time if they volunteer to go. This is not a department funded operation in any way. The department doesn't give us time off voluntarily to go. We're we're burning our own vacation days or whatever it might be. Our cops are really making some sort of sacrifice to pull this off and to do this. So we have the dues. We do have some merchandise sales like anybody else. You know, we sell t-shirts and hats. Challenge coins are always a big thing. We'll run a couple of raffles a year. And our big thing now is a golf outing that we have every fall. We've had some success with the golf outing. Our goal with these events and with the fundraising things is not just to throw another rubber chicken dinner like everybody else does. You know, we're not just giving plaques out to all of the chiefs and the mayor's driver and this type of stuff. We're we're committed to our our mission here. And it's really about it's the support that we give the families and the support that we give the cops and these other departments, but it's also about honoring and some remembrance, right? So when you're when you play in our golf tournament, the entire course uh has signage all around the course. We have pictures of every cop that was murdered in the line of duty since our last golf outing. We put our own officers' names on the the pin flags. So I go back, I do this myself, I go back and I do some research and I find some names that that stand out historically, but maybe some that people haven't seen of or heard of in in a long time. And that's important too, you know. Everybody knows the big ones that they've heard about, everybody knows the cops that were that made the news, but there are so many, you know, 50, 60, 70, 100 years ago. Nobody's ever heard that name since then. Right. So I I try to go back and I try to pull some some names and and get those names and faces out there to say, hey, you know, it's not just about what happened this year. We have a long history in law enforcement, we have a long legacy of sacrifice here. And let's not forget, let's really not forget about some of these people that that walked these these beats before us that wore this same uniform as me a hundred years ago. They deserve to be remembered and seen too.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

How do you organize the trips? I mean, obviously you need an officer who's available. So you have a member said he's willing to go. How do you pick who goes? The chapters work very well together collectively. Uh that was my next question.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

If you coordinate between chapters. We do, we do. It's very important. Um somebody is always on the lookout for the news, right? Right. So our phones will go off at two o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the afternoon. It's always something going on. It'll always be, okay, we got these details now. It's going to be at this church on this day, and all the chapters start putting out their feelers for their members. We use a texting system. So we'll put out a last text message to all of our members in our chapter. Some some do it differently, some go on a rotation, but we just say, hey, uh, whoever's available, we need your help. It's usually last minute, so it's it's kind of tough, right? We'll take whoever we can, whoever's available, we'll take them. We have two travel secretaries who really are kind of the backbone of of our operation. And they're turning over these deployments in in a day or two. They're working with all the other other chapters. We we make sure we all get kind of into the same hotel and we make sure we all have the same times. We all know when we're gonna we're we're all gonna be at this at the viewing together, at the services together.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Multiple people from different chapters might go to the same funeral.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. The goal really is that every chapter is at every. Really? I mean, that's that's really the the goal. It's not always possible. We miss sometimes. We have staffing problems, or sometimes there really is that short notice funeral that pops up and you know it's Wednesday and it's gonna be on Friday.

unknown 17:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

We just can't get somebody on a plane that quick.

unknown 17:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

But really, the goal is every every chapter at every funeral for every every cop that's murdered in the line of duty in this country.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Wow. We had two funerals last year, and one was a sheriff's deputy who was killed in the line of duty. And at that funeral, I didn't have any official responsibilities. I was basically just greeting and ushering. We were in a soccer stadium, and and so there's hundreds and hundreds of people there and officers from all over, and mostly from the Midwest. And I what I do sometimes when I'm around a group of cops is I'll go with my cell phone, I'll take pictures of their shoulder patches. And so I end up at the end of the day with a collection of a hundred different agencies, shoulder patches. And that's where I found the NYPD officer. And I'm like, wow, you came from New York.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Yeah, well, that's that's actually it's funny you say that because one of one of our kind of taglines is shoulder to shoulder, patch to patch. Yeah. And I have a phone full when my guys go to these funerals and they send all their pictures back. I have a phone full of pictures with the shoulder to shoulder, and and the the we try to always get that agency that we're there to support, you know, and our own. And we I have a lot of those pictures.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Well, well, that was my introduction to Brotherhood for the Fallen. And so, and because I didn't know that existed. Yeah, I just didn't know about it. And so that was my introduction to it. But then a month later, we had another line of duty death. One of my officers was murdered, and I was officiating a funeral. And so I what I was down in the tunnel, you know, I was with the family, I was with the command staff, I wasn't up in the audience and able to see if there was anybody from NYPD or Chicago or whatever. There might, there might have been, but I don't know. Presumably, somebody from at least some of the chapters would have been there.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

They were there. Yeah, I didn't know if there was any way to know. And in fact, I actually, when I first emailed you, I asked, I said, Do you know what I mean? I did, I did actually look it up.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

I don't remember when you when you first sent the email, I did look it up. I don't remember who it was, but we were certainly out there.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

I vividly remember the NYPD officer from the deputy's funeral. My officer's funeral there a month later, like I said, I wouldn't have known. So I I just wasn't able to go up in the crowd and meet with anybody. But it meant a lot to me.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yeah, I'll tell you, so one of one of our um line of duty widows, who we're very very close with, she's a she's a big supporter of ours. She says that in the days after her husband was killed, it was really a blur. She doesn't remember much of what happened. You know, we kind of sweep them up, whether we're putting them in a highway car or we're putting them in a helicopter, we're getting them into a hospital as quickly as we can. They're surrounded by cops, they're surrounded by chiefs. The mayor comes in, everybody wants to say hello, everybody wants to be seen, everybody wants their moment, and even even throughout the whole the whole planning process and the wake and the funerals, everything's they're they're just kind of escorted and shepherd along, right? We're gonna go to the we're gonna be at the funeral home at a certain time, and there's gonna be 300 cops that pass through this funeral home in two hours, and then the governor is gonna show up and she's gonna want to say hello. And it's just yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And they follow this routine and this script a little bit, and it's it's a lot, it's a lot. But what she says is of those of those days that week, she very vividly remembers and we'll never forget being introduced to all of the cops who traveled in from the Brotherhood chapters. And that made the impression on her above everything else that went on in those days. And we really the first time I had ever heard that it kind of surprised me, to be honest with you, that of everything that went on, everybody she saw, everybody she met, that that is really what stood out.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

So that that made an impression on me hearing that. Like I said, it did for me with uh Deputy Ming. You know, like I said, I was up mingling with the officers, and we had people locally that traveled an hour or two to get to us, and we had a lot of those. But but I was so impressed that we had people from Louisiana and Texas and Chicago and New York and all that, just that meant a lot to me. Now I wish I would have asked, Are you with Brotherhood for the Fallen? You know, because because frankly, I I hope I never go to another cop funeral. When I do, I I probably will ask that if I see somebody, especially I see somebody from out of town.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Yeah, a lot of the chapters also have um multiple departments that feed into their chapter. Like Colorado, when they got started, they got started around the same time as us out in Aurora. It was the Aurora chapter when they started. And then they they expanded and they opened up to more departments. And uh same thing in Boston has more, and Chicago has more. The Fort Worth chapter has other departments, Suffolk County. The county has a couple village PDs that also uh have joined. So it's not, you know, we we're Brotherhood New York City. Yeah. We we've tried to not let anybody else in. Um but but it's not just when you see, you know, um Boston, it's not just Boston. There are multiple departments that are part of that bigger mission.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

So we have a lot of cops listening in on this. How do they get involved? How do they start a chapter or join a nearby chapter? How would that work?

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Well, we we're in uh Connecticut, Boston, Suffolk County, New York, New York City, South Carolina, Arkansas, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Colorado. It's Chicago. Right. Right. Chicago is, I can't, I'll get a lot of grief if I don't say Chicago. Um but so we're we're in some of the major, you know, metropolitan areas. There's a good there's a good chance that if you live anywhere near there, your your department might be already involved with one of the existing chapters. If not, if you want to get a chapter up and running, uh you can you can email any of us, uh really any of the chapters. If you go on any of our websites or you can you can send an email to info at brother at nyc.org and we'll we'll get you the information you need to bring you on board and and uh help you out to get started. It's it's somewhat of a tedious process because we are all 501c3 nonprofit charities. Yeah, so there is some legwork to be done, uh, and obviously you need some buy-in from your command staff to know that you're gonna have the support and they're not gonna try to uh shut you down along the way and say, no, you know, we're not gonna let that, we're not gonna let you travel, we're not gonna let you out of town from June to October. Because it's uh it's understandable. Uh some departments do really have a lot of trouble in those summer months where they they can't they can't get out of town to travel. Yeah. Everybody right now is pretty lucky. We all have very supportive agencies and command staffs, so it hasn't been too much of an issue, but uh it's important to get that buy-in.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

And again, the buy-in, there's an annual membership to be an officer who's involved.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Yeah, we we do have a membership fee. Uh our general members, they're all active or recently retired. We're allowing retirees to travel also. And it's it's $100 a year. It's it's not a lot, but it's not it's not nothing. You know, it is a it is a sizable amount.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

But you're doing this on your day off on a vacation day or something.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Yeah. Yep. And and a lot of times uh we know the trends, you know, we know what happens in July and August. We we tend to get very busy. It's very sad that that's that's kind of the pattern that we've picked up. So people are also, you know, they're trying to make their summer plans, they're trying to be with family too, but they're still they're still answering the call, and we put out that text message, they're still making themselves available and they're going wherever, wherever we need them to go. Uh, we we used to joke around that you know, we'll get a ton of responses to go to California, but we don't really see that yeah. We don't really see that that's what happens, right? We'll put out uh an alert for a small town and uh places people really never even heard of, and we'll get a ton of responses for it.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Both of our funerals, I mean, we're the other Kansas City. People don't realize that there's two cities named Kansas City adjacent to each other. Right, right. And and we're the smaller of the I actually think we had a little confusion last year when we were doing that, yeah. Yeah, because you fly into Kansas City, Missouri.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Right. I think that caused uh our guys a little bit of confusion, but it worked.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

So we appreciated it. It meant a lot that that we'd we'd see representation come out like that. That really meant a lot to us.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Yeah, it's it makes a difference. And and to be honest with you, like some of these some of these other chapters have that's how we got started, and other chapters have started the same way. That's how the the Connecticut chapter got started, also after the two officers were killed in Bristol. Fort Worth was just coming on when the five Dallas officers were killed. But then Dallas started their own chapter right afterwards. So it's it's it's hopeful, it's it's reassuring to us that we see that we did make so much of an impact by traveling somewhere that then another agency decided, hey, we we need to start a chapter here, we need to do the same thing. We need to we need to pay this forward and we need to return this favor as well.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

It works both ways. You've been to probably the smallest church buildings and funeral homes, but you've also been to soccer stadiums.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Yeah, and it's really it's really different. It's it's really kind of weird going into some of these places that I I really would never imagine saying, we're gonna go to the church of wherever. And you walk in, and the place is really it's a stadium, it's massive. Yes, and they have multiple big mega churches. Yeah, they have multiple arenas at these churches. But again, some of them are really small, really small departments, uh, and then all the way up, you know, up to the biggest mega churches that that you can find. And and we fill them up in New York. Uh generally, we don't even go into the church for a funeral because we are so many, and we don't have churches like that. There are a couple around, but we don't have these major churches that can seat thousands and thousands of people. It's you know, small local parishes, small churches, and it's it's family, it's exec police executives and and the command, the priesting where they work. It's really reserved for them.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

So typically you're gonna be like lining the street or something.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Yeah, we're we're we're lined up, thousands of cops on the street, we're just waiting for that cue to get back in line. So then when you actually can get into some of these services, it's a lot different because we don't experience that part of it here, and to be able to hear the family speak about their loved one and get the you know, their partner to talk about them and and you know, maybe some community members and family. And uh it really that's a big difference too for us when we tr when we travel, we go somewhere else. So people come to visit us and they stand outside of St. Pat's in the rain for four hours, but on the other end, you know, you have some of those major uh facilities that they can really really fill up and get a lot of people in. And it that's nice too because you really you get to experience it differently.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Yeah. Can you name some of the places that you personally have gone?

SPEAKER_01 29:02

I mean, we've been to 300 probably almost 400, I think I counted earlier, 375 uh funerals since we got started. Probably over a thousand cops we've sent. Um not not individual, not all different cops.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Has there been, let me ask it this way, has there been a state that Brotherhood has not gone to? Oh probably not. Yeah, I don't think there's any state that hasn't had a line of duty death.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

No, we've pretty much been everywhere at this point. The big one for me was going out going out to Dallas, really. That was that was a horrible situation. Um, but it really kind of changed my perspective on things. I wasn't able to travel a lot. But then when this happened in Dallas, I got out there and I had been at a point in my career, you know, we go through all of these waves of anti-police sentiment and protesting, and we like the cops, we hate the cops, we like the cops, we hate the cops. I I really when that happened, I was I was considering maybe leaving the department, you know. I it really just wasn't for me at the time, and and uh and and it was a big decision to make because I had a lot of time on already. Um, but I really was really sick of being a cop. And we went we went down there to Dallas, we sent a large group uh because we we kind of rotated through because it the funerals were over almost two weeks, I think. So we were rotating people through, and uh really just the outpouring of support from the community and really from the nation at that time kind of changed my perspective on on law enforcement and uh what we were doing and and how the community responded to us. And just because we were going through some real crap uh didn't didn't mean that everybody was was against us at that time. It really felt like that. And you always want to say there are good people out there in the community, there are people that appreciate what you do, but it's really hard to hear them through all the noise. Yeah, going down there and really seeing it and feeling it kind of changed changed my perspective on it, and and I felt a lot better about coming back and being the police again. And then uh that's that's when I then shortly thereafter I I got on the board. I started as a travel secretary, and uh I was working with my old partner, he's the one that kind of dragged me into this thing. And uh he's still doing travel, bless his heart. Where have you sent him? Well, he's he's gone all over the place. He would go anywhere at the time, really. He he didn't care, he was going all over the place. And we have we have quite a few guys, they answer up every time they're ready to go, it doesn't matter. You know, like I said, they'll they'll answer for the smallest places, and that's that's where they make the biggest impact, is when we go to these small departments. Our uh entourage was larger than the agency that we were going to, not really ever expecting it. They were asked to stand honor guard, they were served as pull bearers at funerals. So, yeah, it really some of our guys have really been caught off guard, and it was it was very impactful for them too. You know, they they were coming out to say thank you to this family and to support them, and in return, they were being treated kind of like the celebrity, and it was really weird for them. But it it really does change you, it changes your perspective and it changes your attitude on things.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

You would think that going to the funeral of someone who does your job who is was killed in the line of duty would be demoralizing. That it would be filled with fear and that kind of thing. But somehow what you're describing is that it actually kept you going through your retirement.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

You would you would think it would be, but it's it just I don't even know how to describe it really. It's just when you you feel the support in return, you know, and and a lot of it are these smaller places, you know, you we don't get that in in New York so much, right? Um the cop is killed and people are out there protesting still and saying some really horrible things and people have no filter on social media, and and that's just all you're exposed to all the time, you know. So when you go to some of these other places and you get away from that noise of these liberal cities, and and you get to really the heart of things, right? And you get into um Main Street America instead of some of this nonsense that goes on, that just reminds you that there really there really are a lot of good people, and there really are a lot of people that that have our back, that support what we do, that appreciate us being there, and it really it we're going there to support somebody else, but it it it's refreshing to us too to get that feedback. That's wonderful. Jason, thank you for doing what you do. All right, thank you for having us on here.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it. I want to thank Jason for being on the show and especially for being so accommodating. He knew that I was trying to find someone from Brotherhood for the Fallen to be on the show in time for Police Week. And he was really helpful to jump in and do this interview on such short notice. My hope is that everyone listening to this program would investigate whether they could begin a chapter of Brotherhood for the Fallen. It would not be an easy thing to commit yourself to. But a lot of worthwhile things are not easy. You can find a link to the New York City chapter in the show notes. The views expressed here are the personal views of the host and our guest, and do not necessarily represent the views of any law enforcement agency or its components. If you like this episode, please share it with a cop or someone who loves a cop. Thank you for listening to Hey Chaplin. And as always, let's pray for peace in our cities.