NYPD Terror Detective on 9/11 & Building 7 Mystery | Tom Smith

From sauce, to dust, to nuggets.

It's Taco Bell's new Diablo Dusted Crispy Chicken Nuggets.

Are they mild?

If they were mild, we'd have to change the name to little rascal nuggets or minor nuisance nuggets.

Definitely Diablo.

New Diablo Dusted Crispy Chicken Nuggets.

A brand new classic.

Only a Taco Bell.

At participating US Taco Bell locations for a limited time and while supplies last.

Hey guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five-star review.

They're both a huge, huge help.

Thank you.

Nope, I'm lining up here because, but he would know.

It wasn't, no, I'm just doing this.

He would like rewind the tape.

No, I'm lining up here because watch how they work.

And I can get through there and I'll say I'll have four sex tomorrow.

Now picture a guy with all those physical skills, all those mental skills as well.

He's built like a Greek God, works his ass off.

And he was living through the 80s where he might have.

Oh God.

Like every fucking game.

I mean, the amount of stories I heard of, you know, having to get woken up on the side of the road in his car.

Like, dude, you have a game in like five hours.

Yeah.

It's scary enough seeing Lawrence Taylor coming out.

You see and coked out Lawrence Taylor running straight down.

That's like watching a fucking man bear pick run in the wild.

Yep.

Yep.

And it's kind of the, you know, not to the drug part, you know, but it's the Mickey Mantle comparison.

You know, looking Mickey Mantle with the drink and he did.

And he had, what if he didn't drink and was healthy?

What that guy could have accomplished?

You look at Lawrence Taylor.

What could you have done if you were just,

if you were just straight up?

Maybe.

Although coke.

He might not have been that bad.

He might not have been that good to say.

Right.

More than alcohol.

Yeah.

Like actually pulls you down.

That's the, there is a difference that I will say that.

But he was, I mean, you watch that tape.

It's still don't even look real all these years later.

Absolutely.

Fucking greatest linebacker.

Grace defensive player to ever play the game.

No doubt.

Right?

Absolutely.

All right.

So one, one thing I did want to tie back with the esteemed thing and then we'll move on.

Because I want to talk about 9-11.

You're obviously like sold at that day and everything.

But you know, as a long time, law enforcement, literal detective and someone who's done so

many serious cases across all different kinds of crimes, horrific and everything in between.

When you see someone like this, especially someone who was operating out of your own city,

getting cover later after he's dead.

And the truth not being obfuscated by the most powerful people regardless of who they are.

Mm-hmm.

How much does that piss you off?

It's infuriating.

It's infuriating.

Because here's why.

Because both sides, both sides will, will yell at their highest level, the opposite.

And yet, there they are.

And that's what's infuriating.

So you let, you get up there, you profess, you preach, you scream, you yell, you come up

with, you know, bills and law and all this, but yet look what you did.

Mm-hmm.

On both sides.

Because it depends who's where, right?

Where the conversation is.

Oh, you didn't do this.

Well, you could do it now.

No, we're not going to do that now.

You know, so there's so much, it's infuriating.

And it's never, I mean, I don't think it's never going to come out what the whole

realm of him was.

I agree.

It's not.

I hate it, but I agree.

Right.

It's not names, books, ledgers, you know, whatever, you know, all that crap is not going to come out.

Does the NYPD still have anything to do with that case whatsoever at this point?

Oh, I don't know.

I don't know.

You know, I don't know.

The problem with him was there was so many different jurisdictions that his case is

hit, which ended up having multiple agencies work together.

You don't know what was focused here or just took place here that didn't take place on

the island or Florida or something.

So to say what they just had here or what they still have open, I don't know.

All right.

So real quick, I got to go to the bathroom when we come back.

I want to talk.

Cool.

All right.

All right.

So September 11th, 2001, you're obviously active in the NYPD.

Were you in officially in narcotics at that time or that day I was actually in a robbery

squad in the Bronx.

Interesting.

Okay.

So before we get to the context of that, I assume you remember exactly where you were.

Oh, yeah.

I saw it or heard the first one.

I was actually off that day.

And I was in the car.

It was a normal day, gorgeous, you know, not a cloud in the sky.

And I was in my car with my daughter who at the time was about 19 months old.

And my parents were coming up to the house that day just to visit, have lunch.

So we were running out to get, you know, some food and rolls, you know, just normal, normal

morning.

And I stopped at a red light and it was weird that the radio was down because me and

my daughter were goofing around and, you know, laughing and stuff.

And I didn't hear any music on the radio.

And I turned it up and it was a DJ interview in this woman.

And she's upset and I'm like, what's up?

And she starts talking about a plane that hit the World Trade Center.

And the very first thing I did, I leaned out and looked out my windshield and went, how

they screw that up.

Because it was gorgeous.

It wasn't a cloud in the sky.

Just thinking it was a prop plane or a sightseeing, you know, plane because it wasn't any

report of anything different yet.

And I'm like, oh, all right.

And I actually call the friend of mine who I knew was working down there and got his

white, my friend of mine got his wife on the phone and said, no, he's not even there.

He's up at a different building.

He's done.

And I was like, okay, cool.

You know, that was the end of it.

And I pulled into the parking lot of the store we would go into and a woman on the radio

starts hysterically screaming just uncontrollably.

And I'm like, you know, you're looking not like laughing, but you're like, what's up?

You know, what's going on now?

And she got the words out that another plane hit the other building, the other tower.

And I immediately got out of the parking lot.

Now I know what's up, something's, you know, going on.

And I call my partner, Carlos, who I've mentioned before.

And he gets on the phone and he goes, where are you?

And I said, well, I got Nikki in a car.

What's going on?

He goes, we're under attack.

He goes, we got to get in.

I'm like, okay, let me get settled.

He knew my wife.

He knew my family.

He knew, you know, we were very close.

And my wife at the time was working in the city.

And I called her.

I said, listen, I don't give a crap if you get fired.

Get in your car and get home.

You know, just leave because you're not going to be able to get out of the city.

This is going on.

This is in the attack.

You know, your school where you are in between two bridges, get out of the city right now.

And she did.

And I got the kids all together, dropped them off at my sister-in-law's, grab Carlos, and

then we went into the city.

In between that time is when the buildings fell, yeah, the pentagon got hit all as we're

getting down to the city.

And we went right down to ground zero.

We didn't go to the precinct.

We just, we drove right down there.

And we ended up parking on the FDR before the loop onto the west side, who's going to

get near there.

So we just left the car and ran up there.

And it was the wildest scene you could ever imagine.

It looked fake.

It was something you couldn't believe you were looking at.

We were in those buildings all the time.

I've been to the restaurant, you know, up there.

You know, just it was part of New York.

It was part of everything with New York.

And now to see 200 and 10 story buildings, just a pile of rubble and the buildings around

it just gone and figuring out how, well, like, what are we doing?

What are we going to do?

And waking your way through a maze kind of to get up on the pile, took a while to.

And just coming up with, what are we doing?

And just peaking, you know, picking pieces of rock and moving it to see if you can see

something or whatever.

What time is this?

Like how, because it was 102 minutes, they fell.

They were both down by playing one hits 846.

They're both down at what, like 10 or 10.

10, 12 or something.

Somewhere around there.

Yes.

I actually have the, I had the time somewhere of each that I had.

I think it's 1032.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, like, what?

So we got down there, probably, I'm going to say, probably around one, two o'clock, three,

you know, like around there.

So it took, yeah, all this is taking a while to get to that point.

Yeah.

Because, well, first of all, there was no way into the city.

Right.

So it came up with this out of the way through Connecticut down to, you know, just a totally

different way to get into the city because every highway and every bridge was closed.

So we, uh, you drove up through Connecticut.

Yeah.

We figured a way out to get down like 684 through Connecticut, you know, just a way to get

into like Yonkers.

I was going to say, and then made our way down there.

Yep.

Wow.

That's a long time to be in the car with your partner.

Once you know your family's safe, like, that's all been taking care of.

So now it's just the thought of, it's chaos, were you guys radioing into the precinct?

No, yeah.

See what guys were doing?

We did nothing.

We just went.

Nothing.

We just went.

So in this three hour, four hour car rider, whatever, you listen into the radio.

I assume.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you just get a, you know, reports of what happened.

And then you hear about, you know, and then you can, you know, where we are, you can

see, you know, the skyline.

So you see the smoke, uh, what's going through your head?

Cause it's a long time to process.

Just the, it probably wasn't that one by the time I got the family situated and got to

Carlos and all that.

I probably wasn't a three, you know, it was probably a couple of hours that we were in

the car, making our way down there.

By the time we got everything settled at home and then, then picked them up, uh, but

it was just realizing the world changed.

And the reason and the one thing that really solidified that, and I've said there's so

many times on other interviews, watching military planes fly around New York City was looking

up and watching these things bank around New York going, all right, this is not the same.

The world's not the same anymore.

Everything just changed.

I've seen no commercial airlines and seen military just flying all over Manhattan.

That was a holy crap, you know, what really happened.

And then the impact of it, obviously, then, you know, more things start settling in of

what happened that day and then we are mostly in the car and then the rumors, the rumors

were horrible.

Like the entire first precinct of the NYPD or all dead, you know, this is gone and that's

gone.

You know, we had a truck full of explosives on the GW bridge, the rumors were wild that

day.

Is it so much noise that it almost, it's just like your numb, oh yeah, yeah, you're just

like, you're listening to kind of half of it, uh, of what's coming through, but the rumors

of other things that were going on that day were pretty wild.

And then we didn't hear, obviously, because we were in the car, we couldn't see it until

like kind of the next day of like the jumpers and what people were really going through

in the buildings at the time while they were still up, you know, didn't really resonate

with anyone until like the next day, you know, who didn't have access to a TV, uh, people

who were home watching it sort of, uh, and it was just, you know, it was a day you'll,

you'll never forget just like anyone who was, you know, the JFK assassination, the challenge

of blowing up Pearl Harbor, you know, all those historical events that people will

never forget where they were, what they were wearing, who they were with, uh, and then

I think we went down the next day, we went down there again, uh, to do whatever you could

do.

And then we started, then things kind of settled down in the NYPD kind of got control

of, all right, we got to send a group here, we got to do this, we got to do that.

And we got detailed different things that were going on, you had the morgue, you had,

the landfill, which was in Staten Island, which was worse than ground zero, uh, going

out there, who was worse than being downtown.

Why?

Because downtown was two, ground zero was two piles to really see what was there when you

went out to, uh, the landfill is when everything was being taken out of ground zero, putting

our barges and brought out there and you had to go through it all.

So now the reality of victims and the reality of the devastation of bodies and body parts

and all that hit you where you didn't see that at ground zero because of just the area.

And now having to go through it and having, you know, you're on a line and that you have

like three buckets next to you, you know, and certain things going one bucket, certain

things going another and dealing with that on top of the air quality issue that went

on, uh, yeah, in the crap that, you know, uh, that was at the landfill and being dressed

like you're going to the moon, you know, and going through everything, where you all

messed up everything, not the first time we were out there, you know, when I got out

there, I think the first day I was out there was September 14th.

And we were dressed like this, you know, because no one really sent anything to us.

And then we came back like a week later and everyone's dressed like, yes or not, you're

like, what just happened?

Oh, well, this is an issue.

Great.

What about the other day?

You can check it all the time.

All the time.

Yeah.

Yep.

All the time.

You know, so that was, yeah, that was a, that was a rough day.

And when you first get there though, arrive that afternoon on the 11th on the scene and

you're just, you know, the city just got blown up.

And you're a lifelong New Yorker growing up on the island at that point, many, many years,

you know, a decade over a decade in Dan, YPD, like you're a New Yorkers, New Yorker,

and you can't even process the fact that all this just happened.

But you see, you know, the two staples along with the Empire Staples of the skyline of

your city gone, dust, pieces, rubble.

You know, is it similar to the shooting in 93 where everything's just kind of moving

and you don't have time to process it right there?

Or is there a moment where you're standing on the rubble because there's nothing to do

it at that moment where you're just like, holy fucking shit.

It, it was the second.

It was, you know, it wasn't anything you could prepare for obviously.

When you get into the NYPD and you have the, you know, you go to the range so you do fire

your weapon.

So that's a possibility.

You go through tactical stuff.

So that's a possibility of maybe happening one day.

The majority of the time it doesn't, but that's out there.

This?

You couldn't, you couldn't have thought of this on your worst day of planning something

that could have happened to New York City.

So there was a point in time where you get angry, mad, sad, upset, back to angry, back

to pissed off, back to what are we doing?

Like how we, how we, you know, what's the response to this?

And then starting to hear who did it, you know, Ben Laden's name came up pretty quick,

you know, in, in the conversation, you know, so, all right, what do we do when, when

do we get them, you know, all that?

And like you said, it, it, it wasn't something you saw in the news.

It wasn't a book you read.

It happened to our city.

Right.

And that was it.

That was the, the impact part.

You knew a lot of people who died that day, I assume.

I knew a few, a good friend of mine from high school died in there.

A lot of the cops, I didn't know personally, but especially one of the ESU trucks that

was from Manhattan, North where we were.

So three or four or five of them, we've been on jobs together and, you know, so I knew

their faces, you know, had conversations with them, you know, and things like that.

But everyone, you know, then you start talking, everyone knew somebody or knew someone who

knew someone, you know, from that day.

A lot of brave people that day went, who went up when things were quite literally like

going down.

Yeah.

You know, and again, not, not having that though we talked about before, not having that,

oh my God, what if, you know, we just do it, just do it, yeah, you know.

And so many heroes and civilian heroes that grabbed, you know, people that worked with

and got them downstairs, you know, all, all firemen, cops, you know, so many, so many

stories.

Yeah.

It's just, it's also nuts to think about that it only took the time it did for both

of the buildings to come down and those were monstrosities.

Oh, yeah.

You know, even just a course of the entire attack, I've spoken in colleges.

And I'll ask students, hey, how long, how long did 9, 11 transpire, oh, a day, 12 hours,

10 hours, like 102 minutes.

Now, like what are you talking about?

102 minutes from beginning to end.

Didn't even United 93 crash before the towers were done going down?

I think that was even before, yeah, it might have been that was meaning Pentagon's hit,

United 93 is down, towers down, all 102.

I think you're right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, listen, there were so many bad things that happened that day too, response wise,

that, you know, we all wish, could have, could have been done better like what?

The military response, you know, where to send jets, where to, how to intercept what,

you know, the, the visa, the problem, you know, and learningness from doing, you know,

related cases to 9, 11, you know, the visa program was exploited by the hijackers, because

they knew it was a, you know, easy to exploit in the United States.

And they just walked in here, you know, literally the problem with the information sharing,

you know, in, in the days or months, year, a year leading up to it was historically

bad and devastating because it's my football, you can't play type of crap when the ramifications

of the consequences never entered anyone's head.

And I say that all the time, you know, they all thought of the moment, the instant and

not, all right, if we don't, this could happen.

Or if this happens, the right window treatments change everything, your sleep, your privacy,

the way every room looks and feels.

At Blinds.com, we've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what

your home needs.

We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50,000 five star reviews to prove we deliver,

whether you DIY it or want to pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have

you covered real design professionals, free samples, zero pressure.

Right now, get up to 50% off with minimum purchase, plus get a free professional measure

at Blinds.com, rules and restrictions apply.

You know, A, B and C didn't get done, you know, things like that.

No one thought of that, which again, is, is another inferior and infuriating part of,

of that day.

Yeah.

The head of the counterterrorism in New York at the FBI, John O'Neill, you know, was

famously somewhat of a controversial guy.

People who loved him or hated him and he pissed some people off, but, you know, if people

haven't read the book, the Looming Tower or seen the mini series on it, this is the guy

who was pounding the table for years that they were coming and this was going to happen

and this been a lot of guy was a huge problem and no one listened, including the CIA and

Alec Station, who actually might have agreed with him, but just hated him so much that they

let the personal aspect in the middle of it to the point that they didn't, as you said,

they didn't share any information and things that could have been stopped or people that

could have been tagged that ended up being involved in hijacking weren't.

And probably the coldest and worst fucking post 9-11 quote, I heard from one of our guys

involved with the situation was at the, I believe it was at a 9-11 commission hearing.

They had Michael Shore, who was, I think, the head of Alec Station officially at CIA.

They had him in the testimony and for people that don't know, John O'Neill was fired

retired from the FBI about three or four weeks before 9-11, very ironically in a sinister nature as it

would turn out, was, took the job as the head of security at the World Trade Centers.

And so the very thing that he had predicted for so long he died in the towers that day trying to

help people. And so fast forward to Michael Shore being in front of what I believe was the 9-11

commission. He was asked about John O'Neill, who he didn't like that didn't get along. But he had

been asked about whether he liked them or not or something like that. And he was like, well,

no, and all that. And then he piped in and corrected the record because they said, they just said,

like you said, you didn't like him. And he goes, no, actually, I said the only good thing that came

out of that day was that the two towers fell on him. And when I heard something like that said

after the fact, just like the, like a respect is fun. That's one thing. But the fact that there

was a hatred that deep and that bad of people who are supposed to be on the same team reeks to me

of a culture that was so fucking rotten that a million heads need to roll for that. And the fact

that someone would be that egotistical to say something like that in that moment, I mean,

fuck you, dude. Yeah. Yeah. It was gross. And the more information that came out in the years

later made it that much, you know, made everyone that much more angry with what could have been done.

And when you look at it at the time when it could have been shared, it would have been easy.

They knew where they were. I mean, it wasn't, you know, they had their names in the phone book,

cars were registered in their names, bank accounts were in their names, didn't hide anything,

they didn't hide a thing. You know, there was, this wasn't, see, this is, this is one thing I've told

people this was not a clandestine plan. It wasn't. They didn't cover anything up. They, they went

online. They researched flights. They went to, you know, flight training schools. They didn't do it

in a covered darkness or with different names. They were themselves. There was nothing that was

hidden. You know, so if you backed it up with the information that they had, especially, you know,

with the Kuala Lumpur part and then, you know, getting into LA and San Diego would have been,

would have been easy. Would have been easy. But it was so like you said, no, my boy, we're going to,

you know, we got this, correct, which is, never works out when you hear that line.

No. But when you see it that open, that's why so many people at home go, yeah, of course,

people who want this to happen. Right. And I, and I get that. Yeah. But you, so if you're there

that afternoon, by the way, were you there, like when building seven, one town? Did you see that?

We, no, we, that was afterwards. We got there. What do you think of that?

Yeah. It's another one that's, you know, I don't get, you know, I didn't spend a lot of time

thinking of it because it's, it's, I don't know. And, and, you know, I'll be completely honest.

I don't know how, why, when that all took place. That's one of those, you know, moments of it,

the thing that, here's the problem with, with just, with that, you're just building seven.

And you just said it. When you have organizations, entities, agencies, whatever,

they just don't tell you the damn truth of what, just what, hey, yeah, we blew it, we blew it

up so we didn't fall. That's what you, that's all you had to say. That's, I mean, if that's

what you did, then just say you did that. Yeah. Yeah. We got, we got a tech team in there. We

blew it down before it fell and killed more people. Yeah. Done. That would be too easy.

Done. That's what I mean. You know, instead of, oh, well, no, it's this, no, it says,

then you get the cover up, you know, like you know, it was always worse than, than the crime.

And if you just did something that led to that falling down, then just tell everyone when,

when secrets are, are told, and non-truths are told is when conspiracies lose their mind and

just take on a life of their own instead of just telling the truth. Yeah. And to people at home,

like we've seen real conspiracies play out on a massive scale, especially over the last 10 years,

that then people just openly lie to you about whether it be some of the stuff with COVID or,

you know, which was on the global scale or the stuff with Epstein. So it's hard not to think

that way about, well, what, you know, what else are they lying about? Well, right, and that's

a very first question that comes up. I mean, look at, you know, even go back to JFK. Why? That's

where the term conspiracy theory starts, right? And why? Because no one's sending it. So people's

imaginations just go and go and go. And now in this day in age, it's, it's 10 times worse.

Absolutely. Because now what you do is get on TikTok and say one thing and it's over. Yep.

Family abuse. That's it. That's it. Hey, this is what I think because

blah, blah, blah for 35 seconds on the clip. And that's it. I think it's also unfortunately,

it creates the opposite effect because the way you can drown out truth of conspiracy is by

flooding the zone with a lot of noise. Yeah. Just every fucking thing. Right. It's the worst

possible thing to think of. And then, you know, people just get exhausted and move to the next thing.

Right. And then it gets to a point where you can't tell the truth. That's right. You know,

and that's what they get jammed up with. You know, oh, let's see how this play. Whatever the

conversation is, it gets to a point where you can't now go, well, this is what really happened

because no one's going to believe you. You had a very interesting post 911 though with what

ended up happening with your career. I did because, you know, obviously, and thank you for

covering like what it felt like in that moment. It's always a pretty hollow thing when or not

hollow. What's the word I'm looking for? It like, fuck, I just blanked out. I want to do that.

I had a good word for that. But it's always like a harrowing. That's what I want to say. It's always

a harrowing thing when I have people from different perspectives that day who saw it in different

ways, describe how they process that. You know, it's, it's, it definitely still hits years and

years later. It's not stuff you can unsee. But at some point there, I don't know if it's a week,

a couple weeks month or something, there is this task force setup that involves at least some

aspects of NYPD. And you're one of the few guys who are chosen to be a part of this. What was it

and what did this look like? So how the joint terrorism task force is actually, you know, was in

existence, started in 1981 when a series of bombings would take place around the city by a group,

the FALN, you know, targeting police stations and, you know, a whole ton of stuff. So at bank

robberies, that would take place. So that's when it started. And then after when 9-11 happened,

it became this enormous monster. And the joint terrorism task force in New York City ended up

becoming the largest in the country. You know, each, each FBI office has a GTTF. But depending on

the manpower, it is what it is. You have 10 guys, you have 20 guys, you can have 3,000 guys like in

New York, where you have 65 different agencies that are on one task force, three different branches,

international branch, domestic branch, and intel branch. You know, that's how large this became.

And the way I got down there was actually, I got a call from a sergeant I used to work with

on patrol, who is a sergeant down in the task force. And, you know, we stayed in touch. He knew

where I was working, you know, over the years, he was a great guy and called the 5-2 one day while

I was there and just said, Hey, you know, what are you doing? And I said, you know, we were doing

some of these. You need to get down here tomorrow, meet me on the corner, in front of 26th,

I'm going to give you a packet, fill it out and get it all done and get it back to me.

And of course, I was like, all right, why Mike? What's up? He goes, no, you need to get down to this

task force. And you got to remind you thing at the time, GTTF was not a place you put in to go.

It was very elite. It was very not a lot of guys were there. You didn't even ask to go there.

Like, Hey, how do I get there? There was no applications. There was, you know, there was none of that.

That's how, you know, like revered it was. So when Mike said to us was, I'm like, which one?

Like, what do you mean? I didn't even think of it. And then he's like, no, GTTF, you know,

you need to get down here. So I said, okay, great. I met him down there the next day, did all the

paperwork, did everything, did the interviews, you know, and all that and then got down there.

And to be asked to go down there, especially after 9.11 and I knowing what we were going to be

doing, not only, you know, doing a worldwide, you know, investigative teams, you know, that we had,

your job was to make sure that data didn't happen again. Right. You know, that was our biggest,

that was our biggest calling. That's not to happen again. And you're going to do everything in

their power to make sure it doesn't happen again. And all your investigative knowledge and

experience and all that is, is why everyone was down there. Uh, with cases you did and

investigations you did. And now you're going to make sure this doesn't happen again. And that was

our goal. What, what was the first role you were given there? Like what, what specifically was

like your job? I think the very first thing when we all got down there was, was running down the

leads that were coming in because after, you know, even a year or so after 9.11, you were still

getting this cars parked here. This guy's taken a picture of this, this guy, you know, so you

were running down leads like crazy all day. What kind of tech were you working with back then?

I mean, now we know. No, not a lot. Right. There wasn't, I mean, you know, still 2001, 2002, 2003,

it wasn't where we are now, you know, by any stretch, you know, so you were still having people

take, you know, physical pictures of the Empire State Building, which a million people did a day

just because it's the Empire State Building and had no nefarious actions to it at all. But

they're calling people calling the FBI saying, you know, oh my god, someone's taking a picture of

the Empire State Building. Okay. But that generated a lead that you had to go, you know, getting,

yet. And then, then as you started going, you got on specific teams with specific missions and

specific areas of the world or groups that you were into, you know, Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabab and Al-Qaeda

two team, you know, there were all different teams that you got assigned to with different groups

that were out there. Was the purpose of being assigned to them, tracking them down to track back

towards the 9-11, greater 9-11 investigation, or was it also, or more to track down from a preventative

measure, the things that you were finding out from an intel perspective that they might be trying

to do. Yeah, preventative. It was, it was, you know, making sure that group, and listen,

every group, every terrorist organization, even today, New York's enough one target. Of course.

You know, so was it going to be, we had to make sure it wasn't a, they're outdoing us. We need to,

you know, outdo them. We need to do something bigger than 9-11. You know, so it was more preventative

thing and keeping track of, of these groups that were all over the world. I mean, it was the number

of terrorist organizations that were operating around the world was mind-blowing. You know, and not

knowing and not being in that world until you got down there and learning on the fly, you know,

all these groups and what they were all about and what they did. You know, you had to get caught up

to speed pretty quick with everything they were doing, depending on what team you were on.

It's kind of like, you know, it's constantly looking at fucking a million haystacks and trying to

find the needle though. Like you're dealing with the biggest city in the world. Yes, it's got a lot

of resources around it now to try to protect it. But, you know, breaking through, breaking the seal

and someone getting in there to do, you know, one dirty bomb or something like that. Like,

you don't have like a magnetic force field around it that can stop that. How do you, you don't have

borders, you don't have, I mean, you could fly into somewhere, drive to New York, you know, there was no,

how do you not lose your mind like thinking about all the possibilities all day? Yeah, I mean,

and that was part of it. It was, you know, and that's why so many people were so on top of their game

because you couldn't make that mistake. You couldn't have a bad day. You couldn't overlook

whatever. Getting, you know, people in the right places and source information was big too.

But a bigger part became, you know, became part of the everyday work force as opposed to before

9-11 was the information sharing got much better. And agencies started to work together and share

information, have group meetings and, you know, teams that were put together with interagency

communications and coordination. And that made it much better.

It was maybe something you had. I didn't have and now we both have it. Right. You know, so that

was really, really important. How did you manage like jurisdiction with stuff because you're doing

with FBI and maybe in some cases you're dealing with CIA. You know how it is. It's like, uh,

I mean, we were, we were unique because we were, we were still all NYPD detectives,

but we were, you know, given federal status under the marshals. So we had federal powers,

but we're still NYPD detectives. Wow. You know, so we had the same powers as an FBI agent,

you know, to get information, to receive information, to read it, to be in briefings, you know,

all that. We all had top secret clearances, uh, you know, and even some above that, depending on

what you're working on at the time. So getting the information wasn't something that we were

excluded from because we all had, you know, the proper clearances. It was, it was finding out the

right information and getting the right information to, to be actionable, uh, to something,

maybe you had working or something you heard or, or whatever, but the information sharing and the

group, uh, work workload was much better than it was. And we were able to go, you know, and then

you got to know people, you got to have relationships with people in, in the agency, whatever say,

hey, I need this or, or what do you got on this? Oh, Tommy, okay, it's you, you know, and it

became easier to get information. Uh, and the, the good thing was the way the FBI worked,

any NYPD worked. If you had something going somewhere, you went, there was no, uh, let's get this,

you know, briefed and let's get this cleared. No, if I had to get on a plane and go to California,

go, um, just go. What was it like suddenly? I mean, you'd spent your whole career,

basically like in the city, cracking down on all different stuff. What's it like to suddenly

be like, you know, we're going to Somalia tomorrow. Yeah. It was, that was bizarre. It was, uh,

it was inviting. It was great because we didn't. I mean, a day, listen, if you went to Jersey for a

day, that was a good day. You know, if you, if you worked in a Bronx and had to go to a Jersey

department for a day, okay, great. Uh, go over to bridge, go get something to eat in Jersey and

have a meeting. Awesome. Uh, you know, and now you're, you're getting on a plane, you know,

going overseas and, and working in an embassy and, you know, dealing with high level people of

power and influence and political figures and, you know, ambassadors and, you know, all that.

And you had to, you had to be on top of your game and, and here's why and I don't mean it.

I don't mean it that the NYPD is the end all be all I don't want it to come across that way at all.

But the NYPD detective is, is looked upon as, all right, you better know your crap. You better know

what you're talking about. Don't walk in here and say, I don't know. Uh, and all of us believed in

that and lived by that. So we were able as detectives to go overseas and brief an ambassador.

How many like NYPD detectives were doing that? We had, we had about a hundred detectives assigned

to JTTF, but actually going overseas, it's dependent on what team you were. I mean, there were,

there were guys who did a lot of stuff. There were, there was a, you know, there were certain

guys who did a lot more than others. I mean, you know, let's be honest. You know, JTTF isn't

any different than any place else. You know, uh, you know, people that have the opportunity to do

other things that others don't, whether they make it themselves or it's just the case that they're

working on. Uh, but, you know, that's when I said before, you know, in, in earlier part of the

interview, Julian was your communication skills. You know, you can't walk in somewhere and say, I don't

know, you know, hey, detectives Smith, what's this in this group? And let me get back to you. No,

you, you can't do that. Uh, so I just made it a point to just make sure I had everything I had.

No matter, and I never, the good thing about me, I never got, oh my god about someone I was talking

to. I didn't care who you were. You could be an ambassador. You could be the undersecretary of

your state, the director of the FBI director of the CIA. To me, you were just a guy. That's just

on you. I love that. That was your kind of answer in this question because what I was going to ask you

is, was there ever, you know, you got thrown right into this and it's a whole different literal

environment, you know, to oversee stuff, whatever. Did you ever have a moment where there's like

imposter syndrome, like, what the fuck am I doing? Like that guy's in the CIA, you know? Oh, you had,

listen, you know, there were moments don't get me wrong that that you took a step back and went,

whoa, like, all right, this, I'm not in the Bronx, right? I'm not dealing with, I'm not dealing

with the crack head on the corner. You know, this is, this is someone, you know, a group wants to

blow the world up. Yeah. Uh, and you can't be wrong. And the, the delegate thing about what we were

doing is new markdowns up to 70% off are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. And that means so many

new reasons to rack because I always find something amazing. There's so many good brands because

there's always something new. Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals

first and more, plus buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands,

great prices. That's why you rack. What you say has a tendency to become policy somewhere.

So you better be right with the information you have. And when I say you can't walk in and say,

I don't know, I mean, that in a certain way, if you didn't know, you had to say you didn't know,

you didn't make stuff up or or think or, hey, this is what I kind of think. No, you know, I'll let

you, I'll get that info for you in the next 10 minutes. How, how would, from like a source developing

perspective in all these different countries, just in general, you know, you spent your career

developing sources on the streets of the city that you knew. You knew every fucking thing that

was going on, especially within your precinct and stuff. So you knew who people were. You kind of

knew where they stood and you knew how to build that relationship to say nothing of the fact they

all spoke your same language with most of them. You know, now suddenly you're in all these

different countries in all these different cultures wherever the investigation may lead.

How are you an NYPD detective successfully developing sources and winning their trust? Like,

what did you have to change up to do that? Exactly. The opposite of what you just said,

I didn't change the thing. I didn't look upon, see, I never made and that was one of the things I

made sure of. I never made something out to be more than it was. And I looked at everything as,

and I honestly, I looked at every case I did as an archaic case in the Bronx. What would I do?

What would I do then? What would I do with that case here? And I just did it the same way.

I never, oh my god, this guy wants to whatever I did. It was a bad guy I need to get. Humans were

humans. That's it. And it was a case. And I never, you know, and that's why I kind of to this day

kind of pride myself, I guess, you know, to a point of not getting stressed out about stuff.

And I did it then because I just thought of it as what it was. It's a case. It's a bad guy.

We got to stop them from doing this. Just like I would stop a guy from killing a family in the Bronx.

Okay. Same thing. I'm going to go about it the same way in a lot of times.

Maybe with an exception here and there because of the amount of resources we had in the federal

government as opposed to just doing something in a precinct in the Bronx. But always kind of like,

okay, we need this. Obviously, we need this and we need this. Let's just get this and see what

else we need to stop this. You know, so that's kind of just the way I did it. I didn't make more of it

than it was. Now there's a lot you did in these years that remains classified that you're not

allowed to talk about publicly to this day. Is there one kind of story or investigation that you

are allowed to talk about that stands out? Well, going, I mean, not to get into the operational

weeds of it, but going over to Afghanistan as an NYPD detective was odd in 2009, right?

In 2009. This is like the fucking Afghanistan. It was going on crazy. Yeah, it was it was going on.

And you know, it got sent over there on a case we were doing a kidnapping case we were doing

that someone got grabbed over there, a US citizen that we had to go get. Was it a new York?

Well, I don't know if I'm allowed to ask that. Were you getting it because it was a New Yorker

in your Jersey? It was a New York area based. Okay. Just got a situation has a that's

you know, and as as different as it was, it was that took a lot of, you know, if I ever

thought a lot about a case and the ramifications of it and what was really going on it was that

because it wasn't normal. You know, like I just said before, I wasn't going to the Bronx.

So I wasn't going to Brooklyn. I'm going to a war zone and I'm a detective. I'm on the military.

You know, I wasn't the military. Am I tactically okay in in what I can do? Yeah, I was comfortable

with my tactics and all that, but it was mentally, it was mentally getting ready for it and mentally

saying, all right, stuff can go bad in an absolute blink and I'll never know it. Right.

You know, I'm not going to know if something blows up right next to me because I'm going to be

gone in a millisecond and that's going to be it. So to get mentally prepared for that was a challenge.

But I remember we landed in a country. Stay there for like a day because we couldn't take a direct flight

to Afghanistan. Then we take like kind of a commercial flight.

US Air wasn't going right now. It just now. There was like and then like a contract that flight

into into Kabul and on that flight is when I just said, okay, I'm good. I'm good. We're ready.

I got this. I have a game plan. I know what I want to do. I'm going to run it like every other

case I've done in my career. I'm not going to do it any different. I'm good. Let's go any of the

military guys on the ground in these places, every ever like kind of give you trouble or

they loved it. They're like, oh, you know, you're dealing with special operators who do the most

wildest crap in the worst situations in the worst places of the world. You can imagine.

And for them to stand in front of you and you tell them, yeah, I'm a NYPD detective.

They're like, holy crap. Hey, what are you doing? And they're like all into it. You're like,

really? Like, do you know what you do? You're like, you're like, you know, your team is like

the New York Yankees to me. And you're worried about me. You know, it's just, you know, it is,

you know, and that's what I mean by understanding what you represent as a detective in the NYPD.

You know, and how revered you are and how people look at you. You can't overlook that.

Because if you do, then you're, you just, you're going to look like an idiot.

You know, and people aren't going to respect you. You have to understand what you represent.

And when you have someone that's a tear operator going, oh my god, dude, like, tell me a story.

Like, what? Like, I'm going to tell you a story of like, you know, doing a search warrant in

Busson and they love that. That's cool. You know, so those relationships that we got to,

you know, talk to a few of the guys and then realizing who, you know, where I worked was,

was pretty cool. And, you know, we take for granted that just because I'm from New York,

doesn't mean everyone else is. Here's a serious badass tear guy who's from a, like,

town somewhere in America with 600 people in it. You know, who's seen NYPD on TV?

You know, and now one standing in front of them, you know, so that's, that was kind of cool.

And you're, and like you said, in all these different countries, you're working with all different types of

special forces operators, delta, seals, stuff like that.

Yeah. And combined, you know, on certain task forces that set up, you know, and all that.

And how many years didn't you spend on this task force, by the way?

I didn't ask.

Well, uh, 17, 17.

So you were from 118. You were doing this. Yeah. No, from I got in in 2003 to, uh, 2020.

I got it when I was over 17 years, which was not the norm. They were like, I think three or

four of us that were left there with that amount of time. That's why. So 17 years.

It's got to take some years off your life, doing shit like this. It did. And you know what?

It got to a point and you're, you're exactly right. It got to a point where I had, I,

I just had enough of the traveling. And in a particular case, I was doing that. I was all over

the world and just traveling a lot and down to DC. And it was a lot, not, not the case I just

talked about another thing that was really, really heavy on me. Uh, I mean, I,

I, I didn't know what time it was anymore. I didn't know what time zone I was in.

My watch was always different. I look, you know, when you get to a point where, where people

at work with looking you and go, go, so many, you're right. I'm like, yeah, why? Well,

you look like you haven't slept in four days. Right. You know, that adds up. And, you know,

got to a point where I was like, you know, what timeout I need to stop doing this, go to a different

team, you know, who didn't do as much stuff because it was, it was, it was a lot. The

case you're getting older, you know, I had other responsibilities with coaching and, and all

that like we discussed that I was not going to stop doing, uh, for anything. I mean, I would,

I would fly home from overseas land and go do a tournament like that weekend. 17 years of it being

your primary job literally at like the tip of the spear for your own city to prevent

another 9-11 is a lot to carry around in your head every fucking day for that long, like

at any point, but for that long, that's wild. Yeah. It's impressive. You did that for that long.

And it will, you know what? But the thing was, the thing about is I loved it. It wasn't like,

I come to you guys, you know, it can, you get to a point like I just explained like, hey, I need

a break. I can't do this is different than not loving what I was doing anymore. Two different,

two totally different things. You know, your body, your body, you know, and there's only so much

you put your body through, you know, after a while where before it starts going, dude, you know,

you need to take a break or I'm going to fall apart. Uh, you know, just physically not, you know,

nothing bad. I never, again, never looked to do anything else or, you know, it was just, it was

just time. And then, uh, you know, then the same thing with retiring, you know, then you did that

a couple of years later, 2020. Oh, so you retired right when you got out of this pretty much.

Yeah, I retired from that unit. And then you retired from the NYPD as a whole, yeah, all at once.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and I can see why it's a lot of years in there. But yeah, I mean, that's 30,

30 was a nice round number. Uh, it was, you know, when, you know, you hear it all the time,

you've heard it probably a million times in your show, you know, when you know, you know, it's just,

you know, when I, enough, uh, I'm still healthy. I still got it my brain. I'm still, you know,

I could still do stuff, you know, so get out now before again, if we talk to athlete one more

year, right? One more year and that's something stupid happens. Uh, you know, so it was just,

it was a good, it was a good time to go. Did you have some high octane moments in some of these

countries where it was like, oh, shit, something's going to go down right now over the years? Yeah. Uh,

there was a, there was a couple in Afghanistan that were eye openers that I'm glad we got out of.

And he cannot talk about that. And wild stories. I heard a couple. Yeah.

But just, you know, thankful for who I was with, you know, because if you're not with the right

person, those situations could have went dramatically in another direction and bad. So I, I just,

I was so fortunate to be with people I was with over there. And some I still talk to all these

years later. That's cool. Uh, you know, and staying in touch with, uh, you know, about trips up

to Bogrum and car rides and, you know, again, not thinking too much of it. Let's just get there.

Uh, you know, he'll a rides, you know, all, all stuff like that. Uh, you know, we had one

that I could tell you was, you know, we took a small plane when we were driving going down to

Kandahar and it's a small like, it's like four seats in the thing, you know, and the guy who's

operating the plane kind of looked at us went, listen, uh, if there's an emergency, do it.

Don't mind the duct tape. That's kind of right. You know, if something bad happens, I, that's

the door that's all we got. You know, and you're like, okay, you know, that's about it. Uh,

you know, so things like that. But, but the crew and the people I get to meet, especially over there,

uh, are still special. I still talk to, uh, but throughout my career, I was just

absolutely blessed with people I got to work with. I mean, you know, the list is endless of,

of the, the good people who had the same mindset as me, the same drive, the same energy,

the same, you know, a either, you know, in the test force, we're not going to let this happen

again, or, hey, we're not going home until we catch this bad guy, you know, just things like that.

And, and guys I, I stayed up with for, for two days, you know, chasing guys for a double homicide

around Scranton, Pennsylvania, you know, uh, you know, that's interesting stories like that. Uh, yeah,

it's white. There were two, two occasions I stayed up for two days because, you know, what, that

was my drive, and I, and I tell this all the time, you want like visuals of what drives people,

whenever I was chasing someone, like I knew they did it and we just had to find them.

I never stopped and my partner callers used to get pissed at me all the time. I wouldn't eat,

I wouldn't sleep. I wouldn't stop because I had this vision of the bad guy sitting on his

calis, watching TV laughing at me that I couldn't find him. I had that absolute vision in my head

that this guy was sitting there watching TV going, you don't know where, yeah. And that used to get me,

man. You, you've seen like a guy all day, like, I mean, this is compliment, like you enjoyed the

rush of like the chase. Oh, God, for sure. Oh, I'm a adrenaline junkie to the end. Absolutely.

How do you, how do you go from doing that, though, for 30 years to,

it took a little while to get used to, and I, and I tell this story, I equated all the time to

people that it's like walking forwards for 30 years and then someone telling you you got to walk

backwards. Right. You'll, you'll stumble and you'll fall, but you'll eventually get it. And

that's kind of what it's like, you know, just nope, walk backwards now, like, oh crap. You

know, it's going to take a little while. And it did, you know, when, when you see stories or

your stories on the news or, you know, you hear stories from guys you've worked with, you're like,

throw the cape on. But then, you know, then, then you kind of just take a breath, go, you know,

what did that and, and had a blast doing it. And I had the time of my life, like I told you,

man, I do, I do it again tomorrow. That's awesome. Well, your, your story tells amazing. And yeah,

you're on podcasts as well, the Gold Shield show, which will link down below. And then you also have

a product that is basically like a replacement for pepper spray, too, right? Yes, we do. Uh,

it's called, it's called impact. And Dan and I, my partner on the show on Gold Shields, uh,

who was my partner in the gang unit and in terrorism task force. And it was my sergeant. Uh,

so that's how we hooked up doing the show. But we came up with this idea of an alternative

to pepper spray because no one uses pepper spray, cops on the street hate it. It's horrible to

use on people because it has an impact on your respiratory system. You're spending hours

trying to drain their eyes of, of crap. So we came up with impact. And what that does is it's

the opposite of pepper spray. It is a extreme eye irritant sprayed in your eyes. You cannot open

your eyes. You can't see. And it burns. But there is no cross contamination. I can, I can spray

you and jump right on you. Nothing's getting on me. I can use it inside a car in an elevator

in this room. And the only person that's affected by is the person you're spraying. So it's just

more targeted. It's a targeted stream. And people can buy this. Absolutely.

On carry impact.com. Okay. As our website, let's link that down below for sure.

Uh, and there's the on the law enforcement side, you know, like I said, about to clean up,

once you get the person under control, you had a half a bottle of water poured over their eyes

and about 30, 40 seconds, you were fine completely back to normal. Wow. But no impact on

on anything. Uh, there's an invisible UV die marker in it. So you can hit someone with it

and find them later with a black light. Uh, don't be such a cop thing. Don't be covered in it.

But UVMA is how many don't have that, you know, so we put it in hours and it's making its way

around the country and in different departments, security services, uh, hospitals love it because

they can use it in an emergency room or waiting room. And no one's being affected by it except the

person you're spraying. And our bottles are nitrogen propelled. So it's not air. So our small or

cans can hit you from like 12 to 14 feet away. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. We have a key chain,

you know, for the public that, you know, joggers and runners can have right in their pocket,

that they can use. And it's, it hurts. It works. That's for sure. Uh, I've had it done to me

many, many times unfortunately. Oh, it had to, you know, it's hours. You know, we have to,

yeah, to test it out and, uh, but it's focused. Oh, it's, it's a, it's a hard stream. Like I could,

I could walk around here and spray it all over this room and you wouldn't even know. Whoa.

Until it hit your eyes. Uh, and, and it's, it's working, you know, and, and departments are going

to it and loving it. And like I said, it's making its way around and, and we're, we're pretty proud of

it. That's awesome. All right. Well, we'll link it down below. I appreciate all the stories that

you're an amazing storyteller. Hell of a career man. That's an interesting pathway you took.

It was fun, but thank you so much. It was, it was really, it probably should be here and being

asked to be here. Thank you so much. That's it. My bedroom is right there. It's not that serious. You

know what I mean? It's seven feet outside the studio, but I'm honored that, that, that you're happy

to be here. Thank you guys for watching the episode. If you haven't already, please hit that

subscribe button and smash that like button on the video. They're both a huge help. And if you

would like to follow me on Instagram and X, those links are in my description below.