← Law Enforcement Talk: True Crime and Trauma Stories
Law Enforcement Talk: True Crime and Trauma Stories
Prison And The State Police, Bomb Squad
00:40:14
Prison And The State Police, Bomb Squad In Arizona, Special Episode. When retired Arizona State Trooper Ken Emerson looks back on his career, few memories stand out more vividly than the prison hostage crisis that shook the state, and the nation. Emerson, who served on the Arizona Department of Public Safety Bomb Squad and the door-entry SWAT team, found himself on scene during the longest prison hostage crisis in U.S. history.
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- [00:01]
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John J. Wiley
Well, will you look at that. It's exactly what I ordered.
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John J. Wiley
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Carvana Announcer
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Grainger Announcer
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- [01:00]
John J. Wiley
He's a retired Arizona State trooper. He's also United States army veteran. During his law enforcement career he worked in patrol. He was a gang unit detective, SWAT team member and spent many years in the bomb squad. He's here to talk about his law enforcement career, the complications and stress from defusing bombs and explosive devices, and much more. Welcome to the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show. In the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show, we are joined by special guests talking about their experiences, their realities of investigating crimes, plus those who have experienced horrendous trauma. Police, first responders, military and victims of crimes share their stories. Hi, I'm John J. Wiley. In addition to being a broadcaster, I'm also a retired police sergeant. Be sure to check out our website letradio.com and also like us on Facebook, search for the law enforcement talk radio show. You can find us on Facebook, look for and like the law enforcement talk radio show Facebook page. Calling us from Arizona, we have Ken Emerson on the phone. Ken is United States army veteran, also retired Arizona State trooper. He's got a great website called 5ocareers.com, which we'll talk about later on in the show. Ken, thanks so much for being a guest on the show. Very much appreciated.
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Ken Emerson
John James, I really appreciate this opportunity. Thank you. It's an honor.
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John J. Wiley
It's good to have you here. One of the things that I like doing with this show is breaking stereotypes and quite honestly, Americans are fed a an untrue depiction of what law enforcement officers do in every aspect of law enforcement. From Hollywood, the news media Social media, you name it. But you spent a large part of your career and in a segment of law enforcement is really not understood. And I'll be honest by me. You're a bomb squad technician, correct?
- [02:54]
Ken Emerson
And that is correct.
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John J. Wiley
First of all, thank you for your service in the military and also in Arizona. I'll be honest with you, I don't know the first thing about bombs. I'll tell people this. Every call we had for a bomb threat, usually in a school, it was always a false alarm. But one of the things they do is you get a call from the dispatch to say, call me. And you call them. And that was the first clue. They want you to turn off your radio. We wouldn't have the radios on. We went in there because that could trigger some of the old devices. So. And we searched the building and it always came up, you know, nothing there. Which is, thank God, the case. That's not always the case. And I'm sure you have plenty of experience dealing with that, correct?
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Ken Emerson
Yeah. So we would actually, in the state of Arizona, you know, the DPS bomb squad, we had both full time and part time squad members, and we were the most called, one of the most called units with the state police. We would on Average go to 3, 4, sometimes 500 calls a year throughout the state of Arizona. And quite a few of those were false alarms at schools. A lot of them were because we live in a state that has a mining industry. So we get a lot of old dynamite, a lot of old blasting caps. Sometimes we get calls and they're simply road flares. But we're traveling constantly throughout the state of Arizona answering those calls. And you're correct, we get on scene at a call. You definitely don't want to be making a phone call when you're standing over a suspicious package. So that's a lot of what we train fellow officers to do, that. If you get a suspicious package, don't call it in from where you're standing, don't activate your radio, don't call your cell phone. Right.
- [04:34]
John J. Wiley
And, and what is the reason why for that?
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Ken Emerson
Well, because it depends on how the improvised explosive device was developed, if it was an ied, on how it was developed. So you don't want any kind of stray currents going over the air that might interact with whatever the device you have on the ground. So for instance, the individuals at the bombings in, at the Marathon in Boston, they had antennas sticking out from the pressure cookers in which they built the IEDs. You don't want to stand over that. And Activate your radio because some kind of inadvertent transmission could possibly set off that device.
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John J. Wiley
I got to tell you a story about the closest call I ever had. I was the acting lieutenant. I was a sergeant, and I was working an area of Baltimore called the Block, which is where all the. The exotic dancers were. And a young lady who's an exotic dancer was locked out of her car. So I helped her unlock her car, and when I went in to get the. She said her registration was in the center console, which when I opened the center console was an old Camaro, by the way, in there. I almost knocked myself out because I saw what looked like three sticks of dynamite taped to each other with a long fuse on it. I thought, this is the end for me. It's over. Turns out they were roadside flares she tried to make look like dynamite to scare people. Well, it worked. It scared me. And it gave her one way trip to the jail.
- [06:01]
Ken Emerson
Absolutely. So in 2008, I actually wrote two laws in the state of Arizona. Senate Bill 1153, Senate Bill 1154. 1153 made it illegal for individuals to develop improvised explosive devices. 1154 is actually a law that strengthened that very case that you just mentioned. And if you were to take a stick device and place it on somebody's car before there used to be a misdemeanor. And we strengthened that law to make it a felony in the state of Arizona for somebody to make a fake device just to scare somebody.
- [06:36]
John J. Wiley
Yeah, I don't know why someone want to scare someone. I get road rage. I understand all that, but I'll tell you the truth, when you've got these things going on and it's totally unexpected, you don't have a chance to really become afraid. You don't think about it, you just react. I literally hit my head so hard on the t top, I almost knocked myself out because I really thought it was dynamite. And we've heard stories of law enforcement officers being inadvertently killed or killed in deliberate acts with explosives. And I think it's. Eric Rudolph is one of the ones I think of right away where they were bombing. And it's not a new tactic. It's been going on since the 60s, correct?
- [07:17]
Ken Emerson
Yep. And another device that we see often, especially across the country, are the inner hand grenades. You know, the old pineapple hand grenades from World War II, from Korea, Vietnam, that they're paper waste, they're holes on the bottom. But a lot of people will pack those with some kind of filler, you know, tape something on the bottom to hold that, you know, to cover that hole. And you basically got an improvised explosive device. And people carry those around their vehicles. We got many calls. And when an officer would open up the vehicles and see a grenade land there, not knowing if it's real or not. So we're having to shut down full intersections and disrupting a lot of life so we can get in there and take a look at it to see if it's real or not.
- [07:59]
John J. Wiley
Here's what may seem like a crazy question. I was in narcotics. I did drug raids. I was never in swat. I know you were in SWAT for a while. We did all the high tactical, the high threat raids. We did all that stuff arresting murderers. I never once in my life thought, hey, I think I want to be a bomb squad tech. How does one go about saying, hey, that just didn't pop in your head on a Saturday?
- [08:23]
Ken Emerson
Does doesn't. So for me personally, it really started before I became a police officer. Because when I was in the army reserves, I met a sergeant, his name was Bob stout, that said, hey, 10, you know, my department's hiring. I'm in charge of the bomb squad, but my department's hiring. I think you'd make a really good highway patrol officer. Not once did I ever give a thought that I wanted to be a police officer. So I took the test, ended up getting hired. It took roughly six years. Six years after getting hired and working patrol that the bomb squad had an opening for a part time position. I also wanted to be a part of the SWAT team, but so I gave it some thoughts. I do I want to do bomb squad? Do I want to be SWAT team? But for the bomb squad, what they offered was when you become a bomb technician for Arizona dps, you're also a breacher for the SWAT team. So I was like, I could do both things at the same time. So it's a great opportunity. I took the testing process to be a bomb squad technician and was brought on. So I actually went to our SWAT school prior to going to the hazardous devices school in Huntsville, Alabama. And how long was that training in Huntsville, Alabama? At the time it was five weeks. And I was actually the class mom, is what they call the class leader for those five weeks. And that really details the very beginning of how to respond to these types of calls to actually operating well known robots that we use on the bomb squads throughout the country.
- [09:54]
John J. Wiley
We are talking with Ken Emerson. Ken is a retired Arizona State trooper. He's also a bomb squad tech for Arizona dps. He is a breacher For SWAT team. He is a patrolman, gang detective unit. You name it, he's done it. We're going to talk more about the intricacies and stress of being a bomb squad technician. This is the law enforcement show. Don't go anywhere. We will be right back.
- [10:22]
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- [10:51]
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- [11:20]
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- [11:55]
John J. Wiley
Return conversation with Ken Emerson calling us from Arizona. He is a retired Arizona State trooper, is also United States army veteran. And in your career, we're really focusing on your involvement in the bomb squad because I'll be honest with you, Ken, I find that fascinating in a very disturbing kind of way because I've seen movies. I'll give you an example. I think one was the Hurt Locker. And there's scenes in there where they're diffusing an explosive device and you can literally almost feel and hear the beads of sweat rolling down his face thinking, how can anybody do that under that kind of pressure? Is that realistic or is that, of course, overly dramatized for Hollywood?
- [12:40]
Ken Emerson
There is a huge difference between being an EOD technician for the military and then being a civilian bomb technician. With the civilian bomb technicians, we really do everything at a distance. That's why we really invest heavily into robots. Because in that situation, unless it's a life threatening situation, we keep everything at a distance. In the military, you know, they really need to get down into the, into the devices and handcuff a lot of different things and try and keep the soldiers safe. So it's more of an emergency when it comes to the military, with the civilian side of law enforcement, with sending down the robots, evacuating the area and a little bit of time to play with. If, for instance, you do have a life threatening situation, they've had cases in the past with devices clicking down to a certain time and you can't do an evacuation such as what happened in Boston, you may have to do a hand entry into those devices to render them safe and hope they don't go off. But for the most part, in civilian bomb squads, we do everything at a distance. We have tools necessary to disrupt the devices at a distance. We can actually take them, put them in another kind of trailer and take them to a safe location to have them detonated. But in the military, you know, looking at the Hurt Locker, I've seen that movie a few times, you know, the individual takes his bomb suit off while he's trying to diffuse some large heavy artillery, improvised explosive devices. That bomb suit is there pretty much to keep you in one piece. It does there. It is there to keep you safe. But when you got a device over a certain size, it's not really going to help you much. The biggest battle we had here in Arizona is if you're having to put that nine pound bomb suit on when it's 115 degrees out and you got to go down on a device, shoot some X rays, do whatever you got to do to make sure that's safe. We want to make sure the bomb techs are always safe. And when it's 115 degrees out in Florida, you know, in the southern states and you got high humidity, you know, the safety of that officer that's in that, in that suit is paramount.
- [14:52]
John J. Wiley
I'm glad you brought that up because I started visualizing remembering being a patrolman, a sergeant also in Baltimore, and a soft body armor and the car with the AC not working in the summertime, it was brutally hot. So those outfits, those suits got, they have to be almost claustrophobic because they're large and you feel, I'm sure you feel enclosed in it. But they've got to be incredibly hot.
- [15:17]
Ken Emerson
It is incredibly hot. And they do have air circulating through those. The helmet has that you can place in it. It has a fan in there that helps circulate the air through the soup. But the problem is this outside air that's going through the soup. Some bomb squads do have. Most of them will have frozen vests that they can put on over their T shirt and then put the bomb suit on top of that. And that keeps you cool for about 10 minutes in 115. But it's a little bit of something. So, yeah, oftentimes we have fire on, on scene, you know, to hose us off or to make sure we got plenty of water, check our, you know, our pulse rate, check our blood pressure to make sure, you know, we're fine.
- [15:57]
John J. Wiley
You brought up a case, you brought up Boston a couple times and there's so many things about it. There's a pressure cooker bomb devices, which I'll be honest, I don't know anything about that stuff. But also I' believe when they were being pursued by police, they were throwing handmade homemade hand grenades, explosive devices at law enforcement as well.
- [16:18]
Ken Emerson
Correct. And I believe those were pipe bombs. So fairly easy to make. Most common type of IED in the country are pipe bombs just because they're easy access. And I believe what they were doing is lighting those that they had hobby fuses, at least in the movie portrayed having them hot diffusers, lighting them and throwing them at the officers.
- [16:37]
John J. Wiley
I couldn't imagine having to go against that. The thought of chasing a man into an alley that killed someone is armed with a gun, no problem. Did that many times. As a matter of fact, part of it was actually I kind of missed the rush from it. But the thought of going against people with explosive devices is something totally different.
- [16:57]
Ken Emerson
Correct. You're taking it to a whole new level because your soft body armor, it might stop a 9 millimeter 40 caliber round. That's not going to stop shrapnel coming from an ied.
- [17:08]
John J. Wiley
And before the Boston bombing, I don't think a lot of people were really familiar with the pressure cooker bombs. I'd heard of them before and like I said, I'm by no means an expert. The other case we'll talk about in a moment and then we'll go to your career would be the Atlanta bombings, the Olympics, their pressure cooker bombs. That's something that's been around for a while. As a matter of fact, I believe there are instruction manuals you can purchase in books or online on how to make them.
- [17:33]
Ken Emerson
Correct. And when we always taught in the classes that I've taught are explosives or improvised explosive devices are limited to the imagination of the person building them. We've gone on multiple SWAT calls, other EOD calls which, you know, we found pipe bombs that you could tell were made for specific purposes. And that's having slip wires attached to them. So if you kick it, if you're going into a marijuana grow and it sets those devices off, I don't believe a lot of those in the marijuana grows were aimed at law enforcement. But pretty much anybody that might come in, maybe another rip crew coming in to rip off this marijuana grow, they build these pipe bombs. But when we get involved and we get down there and find them, that's a huge concern for law enforcement as well.
- [18:21]
John J. Wiley
That's a term that's thrown around quite a bit, pipe bombs. And a lot of people don't seem to take them very seriously. And the other one would be Molotov cocktails. And he obviously both can be deadly.
- [18:32]
Ken Emerson
Correct. The new Molotov cocktails is an incendiary device. Because you're on gasoline or whatever kind of fuel that you have inside the bottle, you have the fuse on the outside, they're lit and thrown. And when they break, of course, it just spreads that fire very quickly. And it's happened to police officers in the past where at riots that individuals are making Molotov cocktails and throwing them at officers, throwing them at vehicles, you know, throw them against buildings to start a fire. They're very, very fast burning. And if you mix it with the right kind of chemicals, it can stick to your body, similar to what they had in Vietnam. And, you know, it's just dead all the way around.
- [19:12]
John J. Wiley
I mean, you said earlier that the pipe bombs are the number one most common explosive improvised device in America.
- [19:21]
Ken Emerson
Correct.
- [19:22]
John J. Wiley
How often did you guys encounter them?
- [19:24]
Ken Emerson
We actually. It's not very often that we see those. The majority of our calls were, you know, looking at suspicious packages of what somebody deemed suspicious. But we have gone on calls before where we found one in particular. Three large pipe bombs that had nails that were glued to the outside of the pipe bomb, had little switches on there with a hole in it, which indicated to us that they were for trip wires. And we believe they were built by members either of the cartels or drug gangs, and they were to be used inside a marijuana grove. Unfortunately, members of the Arizona Department of Transportation are sitting under a rack along the side of a highway, and they called us. We were not to take a look at them. We were able to dispose of them safely, but we got some good pictures of them. We can see the nails on the outside of it, which adds additional shrapnel to these items. Now, with these attacks on law enforcement, you know, throughout the country lately, the last year, last couple of years, you know, I Just I hope, you know, it doesn't come to that as well.
- [20:27]
John J. Wiley
Take a short break. We are talking with Ken Emerson on the Law Enforcement Show. Don't go anywhere. We will be right back.
- [20:36]
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- [21:08]
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- [21:40]
John J. Wiley
After a conversation with Ken Emerson on the Law Enforcement Show. Ken is a retired Arizona state trooper. He's also spent many years in their bomb squad. And in our conversations, Ken, you began firing up some gray cells. And that's not easy to do at my age, but I started thinking of some of the cases that have been prominent in the United States. We talked a little bit about the Boston bombing with, at the marathon with the pressure cooker devices and the pipe bombs. Then we started talking a little bit about the Atlanta Olympics bombing. Those were all pipe bombs as well, weren't they?
- [22:16]
Ken Emerson
I'm not quite sure. I believe the Atlantic bomb was pipe bombs inside of a backpack. And Richard Jewell was the actual hero there to get people away from that device detonated.
- [22:27]
John J. Wiley
He was really treated horribly. I mean, to this day I feel horrible about the way he was treated by different agencies and the media as well. But the guy, the suspect, I think it was Eric Rudolph. He went on a bombing spree throughout the southeast United States and they hunted for him for years.
- [22:48]
Ken Emerson
Incorrect. And he was found dumpster diving, actually by a deputy. And I can't remember the name of the county in which he was captured. But Intercruit also is known for bombing at least abortion clinics throughout the 80s, early 90s. And he was found dumpster diving by a deputy that stopped him, started talking to him, ended up arresting him, and that's how he was captured.
- [23:11]
John J. Wiley
And his big thing was pipe bombs. And I believe he escalated to remote control, or timed explosive devices.
- [23:20]
Ken Emerson
I believe so, with the time devices, because actually one bombing that he did, he blew up the front part of the abortion clinic. But then they had pipe bombs, sending mostly parked vehicles, knowing where the first responders were going to park their vehicles in response to that initial bombing and that second, those second and third pipe bombs were aimed at the first responders. Fortunately, in this one incident, the brunt of the force was felt by the vehicles that he placed it by, not by first responders.
- [23:53]
John J. Wiley
So that's a technique. Again, this is something you're more proficient at and you have a lot more experience at between the military and your law enforcement career. But that's a technique that's used by a lot of terror groups and also fighters in guerrilla warfare. They plan an ied, and when help gets there, then they'll activate secondary and third devices.
- [24:15]
Ken Emerson
Correct. And that's what we teach a lot of times at the police academies or if the agency will call us to for a class on infrared explosives. That's one of the things we teach them. And if you get called to a bombing or a suspected bombing, wherever you run the park, you need to make sure you walk around that area as well to make sure it's safe. If you see something suspicious, move away from that area and let the responding bomb squads know that, hey, there's another package at this location. And I think they just had that incident in California where the individual going on a Sury lampage, they went to his house, but they went with the bomb squad first to make sure there was no booby traps in that. In that residence.
- [24:55]
John J. Wiley
So we covered Atlanta, we covered Boston. Now, Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, a little bit different. And this is another device that, I'll be honest with you, I never really gave much thought to. Letter bombs, package bombs. I can understand a package bomb, but we talked earlier in the conversation about x raying a device, and there were nails embedded in it. This is something he did quite often with his devices, am I correct?
- [25:20]
Ken Emerson
Correct. And he had to be really good at what he was doing in order to hit his intended purpose, because he's going to have it sent through the US Mail, through ups. However method that he used, they're going to be handled by, you know, anywhere from three to 15 individuals to get it to where it needs to go. They could be pressurized going up in the airplane, you know, and then depressurized when it's coming down. So he hadn't really delved into knowing what he was doing so that it would get to his intended target and be initiated the way he had it planned. And from what I understand and from the studies that we've done, he did that really well.
- [25:59]
John J. Wiley
And he was a guy that got away for it for a very, very long time. And without giving names. I don't believe in giving names to books or killers, and I did when I mentioned Ted Kaczynski. But there are books that people can buy online that will basically, and we're not going to get the name, but they can basically teach people how to create an explosive device in their own kitchen. Am I wrong?
- [26:24]
Ken Emerson
No, you're correct. And unfortunately, you can find that information online as well. So you don't need to buy the books anymore. I'm sure you can find videos, you know, online, you know, showing you how to do those kinds of things. I'm hoping, you know, with social media, you know, any kind of video that come out showing that kind of information, it can be taken down. But I believe the Boston bombers receive their information through online sources, through emails with their handlers, the individuals that were teaching them how to do that.
- [26:55]
John J. Wiley
So you had to go to Alabama for five weeks to get intensive training on handling. And I'm glad you said earlier, in the civilian law enforcement world, these devices are handled at a distance. Explain what that means.
- [27:09]
Ken Emerson
So the majority of the bomb squads throughout the United States, which are close to 500 bomb squads in the United States, we utilize robots. So if we have a suspicious package, instead of walking down on that suspicious package in the 90 pound bomb suit, we didn't operate a robot to go down. And there's a way that we can transport X ray equipment to go down there and place it there, shoot an X ray, bring it back in and take a look at what the package is. And that'll tell us if it's a live device or if it's a fake device or if it's just somebody's clothes. So we try to keep that distance. So if the device goes off, you know, we want to be further back so nobody gets hurt when it, when a detonates. In the military, the military guys, they go close to a year full of training, you know, to make sure they're safe. And they get a lot of detailed information on how to handle improvised explosives that they would see in a war zone. In the civilian world is a five week training course in Huntsville, Alabama, and then the FBI requires two days of training every month after that, and then every three years we're required to go back To Huntsville, Alabama, for recertification.
- [28:20]
John J. Wiley
That's one of the big misconceptions a lot of people have. And Hollywood doesn't help that. You go through the police academy, that's it. You never get training again. We always had at least one week a year. We called in service training for all kinds of things, and we also had daily training in roll call. So when especially units like the bomb squad, you guys really, really intense training on top of everything else you had to do in a law enforcement field.
- [28:46]
Ken Emerson
Correct. And with DPS bomb squad, you know, like I said before, we were also members of the SWAT team, so we did training. We didn't do as much training with the SWAT team as, you know, we could have. But as breaches, we would. We would do a lot of breaching training with the slat team. And then we were on the majority of the calls that we went on with those guys. You know, where are the breaches? Where are the guys? Whether we're using mechanical breaching techniques, using a ram and the pick. And later in my career, we started using explosive breaching techniques as well.
- [29:15]
John J. Wiley
That would have saved my shoulder. That would have saved a lot of injuries using the explosive devices or other mechanical devices. Back in the day, we used a sledgehammer or a ram, and the big guys always got that. So I wound up getting it quite often, and I'm paying the price for it in my ripe old age. You talked about in your career in Arizona, being a mining state, you have a lot more calls for explosive devices, primarily old mining explosives.
- [29:45]
Ken Emerson
Correct. We get a lot of calls for old dynamite that somebody might be exploring a mine, a gold mine or copper mine, and we'll get a call, we'll find a case of old dynamite that doesn't look very healthy. You know, you're not going to want to move something like that. So a lot of times we'll blow it in place. We also get a lot of grandfathers that are passing away that used to be minors, and we'll get a call from their family, and we'll find an army camp full of old blasting caps. And they might be turning green. Very hazardous. It's something you absolutely don't want to touch. So we'll get in there. A lot of times we can't countercharge it in place because we don't want to bring the person's house down. So we'll have to remotely remove those using a robot or whatever necessary to keep us safe, take it to a safe location out in the desert and countercharge it and get rid of it.
- [30:36]
John J. Wiley
We're talking with Ken Emerson. Ken is United States army veteran and also retired Arizona state trooper and during his career with Arizona State Police he was a bomb squad technician. When we return we're going to talk about a prison hostage situation and being deployed as a bomb squad tech and his experience. This is a law enforcement show. Don't go anywhere. We will be right back. I'm going to let you in a little secret that's been a game changer for me with social media. You can get details@letpops.com It's a redirect L E T P O P S.com it's called chatbots. There are meta partners, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, WhatsApp and soon to be TikTok. You can turn those people that visit and engage with your content and social media into consumers and then sometimes customers and you can market to them, get details. Best of all, you can get started for free. Let pops.com that's l e t p o p s.com again it's l e t p o p S dot com. Back to our conversation with Ken Emerson on the law enforcement the show. Ken is a man of many accomplishments. He's the United States military veteran, United States army and also retired Arizona State trooper. Thank you for your service and both. And during your career with Arizona State Police you were a bomb squad technician and also a SWAT team breacher. They go hand in hand. A lot of agencies, they don't do that. They're separate divisions. I didn't know Arizona combined the two. One of the things in your career and this is something a lot of people don't get either. In Baltimore we had Baltimore City Jail, we had Maryland Penitentiary and if they had riots, they had police would go there and they call the Maryland State Police and back up and a lot of it would be sit and wait while the Division of Corrections handled it. But when they're really long, sometimes you'd have to take an anti riot type stance with the inmates and it can be very, very hazardous. You were on call for one of those, weren't you?
- [32:48]
Ken Emerson
Correct. We actually responded to the Lewis prison complex back in 2004 for a hostage situation that took place in January of 2004.
- [32:59]
John J. Wiley
And briefly what happened there, two guards.
- [33:02]
Ken Emerson
Were taken hostage by two prisoners. They overtook one of the towers at this prison complex and they were held. One guard was held for I believe seven days and then the other guard was held, a female guard was held for 15 days. So we initially got the call, we sent The SWAT team up there, the bomb squad also responded because we are the breachers, for some reason, we need to go in and try and breach that tower. You know, we were there to be able to assist with that. But our initial response, what we were tasked with, was developing or taking robots and taking items in the robot and driving them down to the tower and putting them a little insert into the tower, sort of like a bank does. When they push it out, you put your money in, they pull it in. This tower had something similar to that. So we were taking items in the robot, driving it down there and dropping them in those intakes so that the prisoners can have water. And that's how we're providing them with water and food.
- [34:04]
John J. Wiley
And how long did this go? How long did they have hostages?
- [34:07]
Ken Emerson
So it was a total of 15 days. It's the longest US history. And unfortunately, you know, using those robots, I almost brought that to a conclusion on the first night because of the mistake I made utilizing those robots. Actually, the backside of those robots have fiber optic cables that you're using to drive them. And when I drove it down onto the tower to drop off some food, I got the cable wrapped up into the track and actually cut it, which caused it to die right there at the tower. So after a couple of hours of negotiating, we had to suit up myself and two flight officers and go down and get that robot. But the prisoners thought it was some kind of a ploy that we're going to storm the tower, and they were threatening to kill the hostages. But luckily that didn't happen. We were able to get that robot back and continue on with the mission.
- [35:02]
John J. Wiley
You said they had two. Two corrections officers held hostage. One was for what, seven days? L1 is 15, correct?
- [35:09]
Ken Emerson
Yep. So it was a Maryland female officers that were held hostage. When the prisoners went to the tower, they attacked an officer inside the kitchen. And one individual took that officer's uniform and went down to the tower. And when he buzzed to come in, the officer inside and noticed that he had the uniform on and let him in, only to get attacked inside the tower. The male officer was knocked unconscious with an implement from the kitchen, and he went down. And then the female officer was attacked as well. And then the second inmate was able to get into the tower. And at that point, they took over the weapons that were inside the tower and held those individuals hostage again. One for seven days, I believe it was, and the other for 15 days.
- [35:56]
John J. Wiley
My thoughts are with them. I hope that they weren't too badly physically and or emotionally scarred. Over that incident, I can't imagine not being. But I also can't imagine being on scene as a law enforcement officer and having to sit by idly while this is going on. It had to be very frustrating for you.
- [36:15]
Ken Emerson
Well, we definitely weren't idled because we were constantly training and figuring out what we need to do to get inside that tower. So all the windows at the top of the tower were bulletproof glass, and the rest of the tower is made out of brick. So we're developing ways that if we need it again in there quickly, you know, how can we do it safely without too much pressure for even explosives, you know, to hurt or kill, you know, everybody inside that tower? But at other times, we would sit there, and, of course, we were always on the ready to go within a minute's notice. And we could hear the guards screaming, you know, not sure what was happening to them at the time, but it was very frustrating on our part that they wouldn't just let us go in and take them. The prisoners were very smart about what they were doing. They had the top part of the tower in which they would come up and look around the yard. But they were smart enough to know that both of them couldn't be up there at the same time because the snipers would have taken them out. So anytime one of the prisoners went up to the top of the tower, the other one was inside the tower with his gun on the hostages. So if something happened on the end of the door on top of the tower, then the person inside the tower would execute his prisoners.
- [37:30]
John J. Wiley
That's a part of law enforcement I've never experienced, thank God, and I don't want to. And I'm not envious of those who have. I'll be honest with you, Ken. You can't go through a career in law enforcement and not experience a lot of trauma. And whether it be accidents or fires or deliberate acts of violence and see it inflicted on other people and sometimes do yourself as well. But to sit there and listen to corrections officers screaming for extended periods of time, knowing that they're. They're in harm's way and being harmed at the same time, I really don't know that I could do it.
- [38:06]
Ken Emerson
Well, being the police officer, you know. You know, you can. You know, you're putting those situations, you're trying to be into those situations. It's not how you cannot handle it at the time of. Of the event, but it's afterwards. How are you going to handle it afterwards, especially with the officers that are inside the tower? I know the female officer, she wanted to go back to work. She was ready to go back to work. And for one reason or another, I believe it was the state of Arizona, we're saying, no, you know, we're not going to bring you back to work. But she wanted to be back there. She wanted to get back to doing her job. And you know, that takes a lot of strength to be able to do that.
- [38:43]
John J. Wiley
They're a special breed of people, our corrections officers. I'll be honest, I couldn't do it. The noise alone, I couldn't handle the stress, the pressure, the threats of violence. They are non stop. They are law enforcement officers, they are first responders and they are very much appreciated by me and many of our population across the United States. Not understood. And I want to get more of them on the show. One of the things that you do now that you're retired is you work on trying to help people find careers in law enforcement, in particular United States veterans. Tell us how you do that.
- [39:20]
Ken Emerson
Sure, absolutely. So I have a website at five zero careers Calm. I offer free advice and mentoring to military veterans that are coming out of the military and they want to get into law enforcement. I have over 13,200 agencies listed on my site. And for agencies, what I can do for them with a membership is I advertise their agency and I guide the community in which they serve, whether they're hiring or not. For veterans coming out, I'm well connected through the Military Transition Assistance Program and through the U.S. chamber of Commerce Foundation Hiring our Heroes program. I go to transition summits that are held at military bases and talks about what it's like to become a police officer coming out of the military. So basically what I'm doing is what Sergeant Bob Scout told me to in 1994. Hey, Ken, I think you'd make a good police officer. I'm doing the exact same thing, just on a much greater scale.
- [40:14]
John J. Wiley
And right now it's sorely needed. We have such a retention problem in the United States. And it's not just one particular agency. It's all across the country where experienced officers that are. I mean, these are men and women that are highly proficient in what they do. They are college educated. They are military veterans. They are. They often speak multiple languages and they have lots of options. So a lot of them are choosing to retire or leave early. And so we have a void also with hiring their replacements. So we have a lot of agencies that have tremendous shortages of law enforcement. Have you encountered that?
- [40:52]
Ken Emerson
Yeah, absolutely. Agencies across the nation are losing great officers because they're losing support from the civilians, not so much the Sudanians, but there's losing support from their government for which they work, whether it be a state or municipal government or a county government that you know, are following in line with. Did you find the police Kind of rhetoric? And so agencies nationwide are having a really tough time recruiting qualified, you know, individuals. So my goal, or one of my goals is to show that law enforcement is still a great and noble career. To get into that. When you're sitting in your rocking chair after you retired, you can think of all the great things that you've done throughout your career. If there's some bad eggs, just like there are bad teachers, you know, but not every teacher is bad.
- [41:41]
John J. Wiley
Right?
- [41:42]
Ken Emerson
The vast majority are you getting there. You want to make a change, you can make the change yourself. What you see police officers doing, you don't like it, go in yourself and do it and make those changes.
- [41:53]
John J. Wiley
And before we run out of time, what is your website? One more time.
- [41:56]
Ken Emerson
It's Fido careers.com and that's spelled out F I D E O 5O careers. Com.
- [42:02]
John J. Wiley
Ken, thanks so much for your service and thanks for being a guest on the show. Very much appreciated.
- [42:07]
Ken Emerson
I really appreciate this opportunity, Dundee. I really do. Thank you.
- [42:10]
John J. Wiley
I'd like to thank our guests for coming on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show. The Law Enforcement Talk Radio show is a nationally syndicated weekly radio show broadcast on numerous AM&FM radio stations across the country. We're always adding more affiliate stations. If you enjoyed the podcast version of the show, which is always free, please do me a favor and tell a friend or two or three. I'll be back in just a few days with another episode of Law Enforcement Talk Radio show and Podcast. Until then, this is John J. Wiley. See ya.
- [42:45]
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