Friendsday: Dennis of Armored Breacher (02/11/2026)

Summary

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The Antihero Broadcast – Friendsday: Dennis of Armored Breacher

Date: February 11, 2026
Host: The Antihero Podcast (Tyler & Mike)
Guest: Dennis Medina, Founder, Armored Breach (Guardian Breaching Shield)

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Overview

This Friendsday episode spotlights Dennis Medina, veteran SWAT operator and creator of the Armored Breach Guardian Breaching Shield. The conversation dives deep into the needs and challenges of SWAT breaching, law enforcement culture, and the journey of developing and patenting innovative police equipment. Medina shares his career path, product origin story, and the broader mission of equipping not just SWAT, but patrol officers, fire rescue, and even schools for safer, more efficient rapid entry and protection.

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Main Discussion Points and Insights

1. SWAT Culture & Entry Barriers

• Long Waits and Evolving Standards

  • Dennis describes waiting 5 years to join SWAT in a big agency, underlining the differences between past and current recruitment cultures (12:03).
    • “That shows your level of commitment … you went through all the grueling classes, schools did everything up front and then waited. That, that to me speaks volumes of your character.” – Mike (12:16)
  • SWAT entry now faces less bottlenecks, as the older members retire and keeping teams staffed becomes a priority (14:55).

• Rigorous Training

  • Initial 3 weeks to push physical and mental limits, focusing on sleep deprivation and retention under stress, followed by a 9-week integration with the team (17:46–19:12).
  • Teamwork and psychological resilience are emphasized over simply physical prowess.
    • “We just want to make sure that your, that your mind is in the right place and that you could retain some of that information while being deprived of sleep or hungry and the whole night.” – Dennis (18:38)

2. The “Guardian” Breaching Shield: Innovation Born from the Line

• Origin of the Product (26:27–27:56, 34:05)

  • Dennis saw the gap in operator safety after a tragic FBI incident where agents were shot through a door; breaching is inherently dangerous because the operator is exposed.
    • “When it comes to breaching, you're knocking, you're announcing, you're letting the subjects know that you're outside, and if they want to shoot through the door, that's when I saw that. That there was that deficiency, that void…” – Dennis (27:00)
  • Before the Guardian, breachers often worked with little or no protection–“rolling the dice every time.”
  • The Guardian shield uniquely allows attachment/detachment of a Halligan tool, providing the first real solution for breaching behind ballistic cover.

• Patenting and Prototyping (28:08–34:05)

  • The challenge of teaching a patent attorney about law enforcement needs.
  • “I had to basically teach him how it is that we breach and why I felt that that was necessary to get that.” – Dennis (29:02)
  • Hardware began as wood prototypes, then recycled expired shields, until finding a manufacturing partner.

• Sales/Entrepreneurship in Law Enforcement (38:58–42:30)

  • Transitioning from “knuckle-dragger” to businessman and public speaker was intimidating.
    • “I was like, bricks and it was just to introduce myself.” – Dennis, on initial presentations (39:29)
  • Dennis emphasizes authenticity: he doesn’t market aggressively, he solves a problem fellow operators recognize.

3. Technical Details of the Guardian Shield

• Material & Ballistic Ratings (07:52, 44:18)

  • Constructed of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene, level III rating—stops common rifle rounds such as 7.62 NATO, 5.56, and .300 Win Mag.
  • Double cutout allows for shielded weapon use, with optional viewport for visibility.

• Integration with SWAT Tactics (49:25–53:16)

  • The Halligan is (detachably) mounted front and center, usable both for breaching and quickly converting the shield for general cover.
    • “But my shield is just for breaching, you know, so I'll breach, I'll get out of the way for him, and then…if I can’t get out of the way, if it’s a small hallway…I'll make entry.” – Dennis (50:29)
  • Shield design addresses both inward and outward opening doors, with room for adaptations (screen doors, commercial buildings, schools).

4. Training & Broader Implications

• Bridging SWAT and Patrol/Other Agencies (74:13–79:23)

  • Emphasizes that patrol (not just SWAT) and fire rescue—often first on scene—should have breaching shields, given the increasing danger and mission overlap.
  • Fire rescue, bondsmen, and even schools can justify the tool for life safety.

• Influence After Uvalde & Law Change in Texas (98:23–107:57)

  • Dennis and his son created a video after the Uvalde school tragedy, advocating for breaching shields and tools in every school.
  • Texas passed a law mandating breaching tools and ballistic shields in every school, and Dennis notes their video was widely circulated to lawmakers.
    • “We just want to create awareness with this video to let people know that this tool already exists, that there is a breaching shield…” – Dennis (105:13, quoting from the video)

• Overcoming Resistance & Cost Analysis

  • The shield is priced comparably to conventional shields; the pushback is mostly tradition and inertia, not cost.
    • “How do you explain, like, let's say you're breaching and this product is out there, and now, you know, once you see it you cannot see it.” – Dennis (85:07)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Tradition vs. Modern Needs

“When times evolve. We don’t still ride horses…We’ve got body cams. We got tasers. Tradition changes, and you have to keep up with times.”
—Mike on resisting unnecessary tradition (04:21)

On the Realities of Law Enforcement Selection

“Imagine telling a 20 year old kid he’s got to do, go through all these schools and then wait five years to get into a specialty unit…they’re going to want to go somewhere where they get it immediately. But that shows your level of commitment…”
—Mike (12:16)

Entrepreneurship as a Cop

“I’m not a salesman, I’m a door kicker.”
—Dennis (35:05)

On Operator Safety

“If you can’t get in, you can’t save anyone. You can’t execute the search warrant…you’re rolling the dice every time and [when] breaching, I’m like, all right, made it through this one…”
—Dennis (26:27)

On the Uvalde Response

“We just want to create awareness with this video to let people know that this tool already exists, that there is a breaching shield out there that should be present at every school…”
—Dennis’ message to parents and school administrators (105:13)

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Key Timestamps by Segment

| Timestamp | Topic/Segment | | ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | 07:52 | Technical breakdown of the Guardian shield by Tyler | | 10:03 | Dennis discusses entry into law enforcement and SWAT | | 17:46 | Details of SWAT selection and initial training process | | 26:27 – 27:56 | Why breaching is the most dangerous SWAT job; shield origin story | | 34:05 | Dennis uses prototype shields; expired equipment and operator risks | | 38:58 | The transition from SWAT cop to entrepreneur and public speaker | | 44:18 | Evolution in shield technology—pistol vs. rifle rated | | 49:25 – 53:16 | Shield use in the breaching “stack,” tool integration | | 58:13 | Audience Q&A: Training for new products, “red circles on shields” | | 74:13 | Broader uses: patrol, fire rescue, school deployment | | 98:23 | Uvalde: Creating the awareness video, impact on Texas law | | 100:12 | Dennis and son’s advocacy video for breaching shields in schools | | 108:22 | Reflection: It’s about saving lives, not making money |

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Memorable Stories

• SWAT Humor & War Stories (108:22 onward)
  • Tales of CP warrants gone awry, breaching mishaps (111:16), and the ultimate SWAT husband-wife rivalry–Dennis’s wife evacuating a downed aircraft.
    • “You thought you were the badass in your relationship because you're in a SWAT team.” (113:11)

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• The Need for Innovation: Medina’s Guardian shield bridges the gap between tradition and 21st-century threats. His firsthand experience fuels a practical, not theoretical, improvement in life-saving tactics.
• From Tragedy to Change: The national Uvalde tragedy prompted both Dennis’s advocacy and real legislative change in Texas, mandating breaching tools and shields in schools.
• Practical Wisdom for LEOs: Regular patrol officers, fire-rescue, and even schools should consider breaching shields, not just “tactical teams;” training and tools must keep pace with modern threats and missions.
• Grassroots Change: Cultural inertia and “the way we’ve always done it” are the main barriers, not cost or lack of solutions—fitting for a podcast “for veterans, first responders, and all blue collar Americans.”

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Resources

• Armored Breach: armoredbreach.com
• @armoredbreach on Instagram & YouTube for product demos, contact, and advocacy materials
• Guardian Breaching Shield: Full details, ordering info, specs on the website

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Final Note:
The episode is packed with technical insight, real-world law enforcement humor, and an earnest push for innovation from the ground up. Dennis’s journey is a case study in the power of field-driven invention, and his advocacy for wider deployment of breaching shields is a call for practical improvements not only in policing but in public safety at large.

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“I didn’t come up with this to make money. I came up with this to save my life so that I could go back to my home.”
—Dennis Medina (83:13)

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Transcript

[Dennis Medina]

Sa.

[Tyler]

Team for life.

[Dennis Medina]

Good morning.

[Tyler]

It's Wednesday Friends Day February 11, 2026. The Anti Hero broadcast is the news entertainment broadcast for veterans, first responders and all blue collar Americans. This show is brought to you by human performance hp trt.com use promo code HERO. Save 20% not just on your initial purchase of testosterone but every single month you will save 20% on testosterone. GLP2s peptides, Anavar, Deca, they have it all. Get medically prescribed. Get on board with your men's fitness jersey journey human performance hp-trt.com use promo code HERO and GHOSTBED go to ghostbed.com forward/antihero save 10 on their already extremely low pricing. Everything from pillowcases, mattress toppers, cooling, patented technology sheets and their award winning mattresses. 60, 000 5 star rating and reviews in house customer service. All handcrafted here in America and Canada and they have free shipping and free returns. Go to ghostbed.com forward/antihero save 10% and of course elevated Silence. Get a suppressor for your weapon. Exercise your second amendment rights. Go to elevated silence.com use promo code anti hero save 15 on your can. They have everything from 22s to 50 cows and it's not a hard process even though it sounds intimidating. And Jim will walk you through it. Elevated silence.com use promo code ANTIHERO Save 15 Good morning Mike.

[Mike]

Good morning Tyler. How are you doing fat boy?

[Tyler]

I know I'm arguing with people in the comments already.

[Mike]

It's too early for that. Too early for that.

[Tyler]

It is gonna worry about my mental health. Not many reflections other than that. The real, the real we dropped this morning about the trooper seems to be pretty one sided as far as the only thing. There was one comment that I saw about the trooper, the Pennsylvania state trooper that essentially quit because he was under investigation was somebody said that when the charger pulled up he's on a. He's on a lawful traffic stop with the wife. The husband pulls up behind him and the charger and there's question about whether or not he had the right to remove the husband from the charger because the charger wasn't being in the traffic stop.

[Mike]

Yeah, you're going to fall into like officer safety. I mean would you want a car pulling up behind you in the middle of a trap? And you know we have a 25 foot Halo rule in Florida now obviously doesn't apply there but there was a reason that that was created to not have people come up on you. So I think it's reasonable in that scenario to ask somebody to get out of the car and identify themselves. You know, you can't just pull up on a cop in a traffic stop. You know, that's where the First Amendment goes a little too far. Like when they're performing a lawful duty and they're in the middle of a traffic stop. Even liberal. Michael go. That. That's un. That's not reasonable. And that you have a right to like, hey, man, what are you doing? What, are you here to kill me? So, yeah, that whole Pennsylvania situation gave us like a week of. Of content. Between the hats, the ball gags, and then the traffic stop, it's been. It's been nuts. I almost did my episode today that drops at noon on the. On the ball gag situation. But I went with another update on Sal.

[Tyler]

And if you don't know what's going. What ball gag means. We're talking about the. The troopers that are forced to wear their chin strap, like, right underneath their lip by admin because of.

[Dennis Medina]

Hold on.

[Mike]

I believe I have a video of the actual. Like a recruiting ad where the chick is like, it's in her mouth. Hold on.

[Dennis Medina]

No way.

[Mike]

Yeah, I'll load it up for you while you're. If you want to tell everybody how great they are.

[Tyler]

I mean, the troopers are pretty supportive.

[Mike]

Yeah, they're good people. Like, there's a lot of. There's a lot of good dudes up there that they're. They're falling under that. That's what my episode almost was always going to be. Tradition. Like, we're going too far into tradition. Like, I get it.

[Dennis Medina]

Stay.

[Mike]

Stay with you. Like the class A. We talked about that. But when times evolved. We don't still ride horses. We don't. We. But we. We've got body cams. We got tasers. Tradition changed, and you have to keep up with times. And that UN Thing was what initially started it. And this was actually the first video I saw that got me going on it. This is a recruiting ad. This is in her mouth.

[Tyler]

Hi, this is Corporal Trilling with the Pennsylvania State Police. We're down here at the Philadelphia Auto show inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Mouth, feel free to come check out some cool cars and come say hi to us. We're located on Heroes highway and here until Sunday, February 9th.

[Mike]

It's in her mouth.

[Tyler]

Is that. Is that AI?

[Mike]

No, that's a ad on there. That. That was the first one I saw that's on their Pennsylvania State.

[Tyler]

It's muffling her. She.

[Mike]

Yes, you can hear her stuttering because in a mouth. So that was the first one I saw, and I saved it. And then I saw the pictures. And then at like 1am I was like, I'm done. And I started posting memes about it on my story. Like, the is going on here was this.

[Tyler]

You saw this after we talked about it before?

[Mike]

That was the first. That was the first video.

[Tyler]

I forgot about the interests of you.

[Mike]

That piqued my interest. And then I saw the pictures. And then when I was going through my save stuff this morning, I saw that one. I was actually doing it. I was going to do an episode today on tradition, being like, we have to move on from certain things and uniforms evolve and all that. But then I went with Sal. But that's the first one I saw. Like, it's in her mouth. She's talking with the strap in her mouth. Like, come on, man.

[Tyler]

Whoa. All right.

[Mike]

If I saw that, If I saw that, I'm like, do I really want to work there and put a leather strap in my mouth to walk around like a horse? Like, no, I don't think I do.

[Tyler]

Let's. Let's watch it one more time.

[Mike]

Go ahead.

[Tyler]

Hi, this is Corporal Frillin with the Pennsylvania State Police. We're down here at the Philadelphia Auto show inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Feel free to come check out some cool cars and come say hi to us. We're located on Heroes highway, and we'll be here until Sunday, February 9th. All right, I, I hate roasting cops, but, I mean, she's a recruiter, so she's probably cop. Probably a strong word for a description for her. No, I'm just kidding. But that is ridiculous. I, I, Yeah, that is.

[Mike]

I just, I think the whole hat thing is ridiculous. But I'm just a fat.

[Tyler]

The hat thing's ridiculous. This, the strap over. I mean, dude, I mean, here was ridiculous. It's in here. And she's trying to talk and do a recruiting pitch.

[Mike]

And, like, no one said she had time to prepare for that. It wasn't like, spontaneous. Like, they rehearsed it. They got it ready, and she talked with the strap in her mouth. So it just.

[Tyler]

We need to get Pennsylvania State Police brass on board.

[Mike]

Yeah, they, they don't do podcasts. They still do 35 millimeter cameras and Polaroid pictures. They send them to you in a certified mail. They're. They're sticking with tradition. A horse will ride the message down here and deliver it.

[Tyler]

All right, guys, so today's Wednesday, Friends Day. Obviously, we have our guest. His name is Dennis Medina, which Mike got confused with earlier, but we'll talk about that. But he's the owner and founder of Armored Breach, and they produce the Guardian breaching shield. So real quick, before we bring them on, I'm going to kind of talk about the significance of the shield for any SWAT boys watching. Let's see here. I hate producing, dude.

[Dennis Medina]

All right.

[Tyler]

So the Guardian beach is constructed from 100 ultra high molecular weight polyethylene. I'm gonna let him describe that, but in layman's terms. But it's got unmatched ballistic stopping power rated at levels to stop 762nato rounds. 5, 5, 6 rounds. And you can stop rounds for the.300 win mag. I'm assuming that's a really. You know what that is, Mike? Sounds like a really high caliber round. The Guardians patented breaching design pairs ballistic protection with tactical function. A unique double cutout option allows officers to employ handguns or rifles while maintaining full shield coverage. While the optional 4x6 viewport delivers crystal clear visibility with a V50 rating. An optional tactical cover provides an added protection and allows operators to kit out the shield with mission critical gear, ensuring no pause in the fight. So without further ado, we're gonna bring on Dennis Medina.

[Dennis Medina]

What's going on, guys? Everything good?

[Tyler]

Yeah. I'm not gonna lie.

[Dennis Medina]

You.

[Tyler]

You look like a SWAT guy. Yeah.

[Mike]

Yeah. Well, you got the Hispanic part to you, so it's like, right? It's all there, man. It's like right across the board. If I was gonna draw a SWAT guy in class, that would be. You'd be right up there in the. You'd be running the conversation.

[Tyler]

The great thing is you can model your own product. You don't even have to hire somebody.

[Mike]

Yeah, like we gotta hire somebody because we're fat.

[Tyler]

And we look like we're in our 40s and 50s.

[Dennis Medina]

I'm in my 40s too, man.

[Mike]

You know, but, you know, we can't tell you a human thing, man. You could be night. You could tell me you're 19 and I would believe it.

[Dennis Medina]

A lot of things were in your 40s, you know, it is.

[Tyler]

How long have you been SWAT?

[Dennis Medina]

So I've been. I've been with my agency for 20 years and in the SWAT team for about half of that time.

[Tyler]

Okay, so what? What? I mean, we ask everybody. I mean, it's cliche, but, man, what brought you into law enforcement in general?

[Dennis Medina]

I was just looking for a job. I knew. I knew school wasn't like, for me in a way, even though you should know, you should never stop learning. But a buddy of mine told me about the job. I didn't know how much we made. I didn't know about the retirement. I just needed a job at that time. I was young and ready to go, you know.

[Mike]

Yeah, you could have ended up with the strap in your mouth, but you chose a better agency. You chose a better agency.

[Dennis Medina]

Yes sir. I'm glad that I went with my agency, man. We're, we're pretty, we're pretty good.

[Mike]

Yes.

[Tyler]

Did you, did you know that pretty early on that SWAT was something of interest to you or did it take a while for you to show some interest in that?

[Dennis Medina]

To tell you the truth, the. My buddy, I got me into it, he was in tnt, which was a narcotics unit at that time. And that's kind of like where I saw myself going eventually. But I got stuck in a small town for about nine years after the academy. And like in the last five years of that was when I, I was like, hey, you know what? I want to go to this, do the SWAT thing. And I've always been in shape. I've always been part of a team playing sports and all that. So it made, he made it easy.

[Tyler]

You know, Right on.

[Mike]

Now you. I know you work for a. Not. We're not talking about large ac. Did you find it difficult? You know, a lot of guys were. There's more small agencies than large agencies. Being at a very large agency, was it easy to get in? Did you have to know anybody or was it just a regular normal trial like anything else? Or was there, you know, how does that work in a, in a large agency?

[Dennis Medina]

Not at all. I mean at that time no one was leaving the, the agency, the SWAT team. So you kind of had to wait for someone to retire. You could do your, your SWAT school and you could be out there waiting for years. I was actually waiting five years.

[Mike]

Wow.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah. And. And I was kind of like forgotten back there. But eventually, you know, people got to retire so they open up those spots and I took, I took the best advantage that I could.

[Mike]

Let me tell you what that tells me about you. Because you're old like us older. That shows a difference in today's policing. In today's policing. If they get, they want swat, they want it right now. And if they can't, if they're not going to want to wait to say. Imagine telling a 20 year old kid he's got to do, go through all these schools and then wait five years to get into a specialty unit or wait to get in swat. They're not going to want that. They're going to want to go somewhere where they get it immediately. But that shows your level of commitment to something where you knew there was no openings, but you went through all the grueling classes, schools did everything up front and then waited. That, that to me speaks volumes of your character and what, how bad you really wanted it.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah, definitely man. Like I said, I went down there and they kind of like forgot about me. I'm not the type that's gonna come around like gets ass in a way and do all those things that others may. But when, when my, when my phone was called, I, I took advantage of it. Man, I'm glad. I wish I would have came earlier to tell you the truth. I would have had a lot more experience. I would have done some cooler things back in the day. Was a little, a little more torn up. Yeah. But. But hey, I took my chance and, and I've made it the best that I can, you know.

[Mike]

And you're on a full, full time team, right? Correct. You're. That's all you do.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah, that's all we do.

[Tyler]

I think that says a lot about the, the job in general. You know, it was ex. It like there wasn't like a jump ship mentality. Every cops got this. If I don't like where I'm at and it's, and it's, it's really condoned by everybody, like, hey, if you're not happy where you are, go to another agency. I never agreed with that. I'd done it myself, but I waited a very, very long time and I weighed it and I weighed it and I wouldn't, I wouldn't suggest that to anybody. Because right now, like Mike said, if somebody said, well you gotta wait and I know that's probably not the case nowadays, you know that it's almost a good thing that kids don't have to wait five years to get on a SWAT team. But back then when they had to, it, it made sure only people that really wanted it were getting those phone calls.

[Mike]

Yep.

[Dennis Medina]

Now, now that I'm part of the, the guys that do the cadres that do the, the schools, it makes it that more gratifying that I waited that long, that it took that long, that it's that hard to get in. Because like you said, man, the, the harder it is to get in, the more you're going to appreciate it if they just give it to anybody. And maybe that's where that comes or I don't like it here I'm going to go there and start jumping ship within units, you know.

[Mike]

Do you guys still have that long wait? Is there a wait list to get on?

[Dennis Medina]

Fortunately and unfortunately I would say a lot of the guys are getting older, so we, we are not having those, those candidates waiting that much longer because of the fact that we got to have them in the pipeline before the older guys retire. So that I would say there's not that much weight at this point in time, you know.

[Mike]

Good. And I've seen pictures of your class. You guys put like 15, 20 guys through a school at a time, right? It's a big class.

[Dennis Medina]

We actually the. No, when I went through it was like 60 people trying out.

60?

Nowadays, yeah.

[Tyler]

6.

[Dennis Medina]

0.

[Mike]

Holy.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah. Nowadays you have like, I was in like 30 where 20. Around 20 make it through 21 in the low 20s and then you end up finishing with like 5 or 6 at the, at the end of the course.

[Mike]

I couldn't find 20 guys at the agency I worked at right now that could pass one of the qualifications for, let alone have 20 guys go through and make.

[Dennis Medina]

That's.

[Mike]

That's crazy. That's crazy.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah, that's kind of like the luxury that we have of being a big agency.

[Tyler]

Yeah, yeah. And big agencies, man. Like so in a bigger agency in Florida, do you just like do. Trying to do this without. Do they have to go to a swat, do they have to be certified first before they can even go through your agency's pipeline? And do you guys provide that certain. Like. Because I've heard of guys talking about that. Yeah, like, kind of like what you're saying. Like I went to SWAT school, I got certified, I guess, you know, like I, that I went through the training and I passed the training but. Or the, you know, but then do you have to go through an in house tryout as well and get certified in house or.

[Dennis Medina]

So we only accept our, our guys that go through our school. You could have gone through another agency somewhere else, but once you ladder over to our agency then, then you have to go through our school. The way that, the way that works is you do the tryout. Like sometimes at times we go and we'll like scout in different districts to see, hey, this guy's, you know, his military or he might be into it. This guy looks like, like he could be part of the team and we'll reach out to those individuals. But once you pass the SWAT school, then you have like another nine week course that you got to come over, get detached to our unit and that's kind of like what you do to learn. The first three weeks is just, you know, like getting your butt kick left and right and seeing if you have what it takes, you know, you know.

[Tyler]

Making sure you want to be.

[Mike]

Yeah, break that, I mean, break that down for me. You have to go crazy detail. But what is that, what is that three weeks? Like, like, is it between the physical shooting and scenarios, can you break down what that three weeks would look like for somebody?

[Dennis Medina]

So, so you touch up on everything on those first three weeks. Like, as far as shooting, I actually had to go through a, to swap schools because at that time I didn't pass my shooting. I missed about one round when I went through it, so I had to read through the tryout. Once I made it through school, then, then it was all good. And then the air. Right. But throughout the school, throughout the course, you do your shooting. There's a lot of physical thing, a lot of, I would say, like late nights, staying like extra activities or whatnot. After hours, like, you go through everything fast. Rope breaching, shooting, a little bit of everything. But you don't, you, you're not actually learning. We just want to make sure that your, that your mind is in the right place and that you could retain some of that information while being deprived of sleep or hungry and the whole night.

Right.

But once you come back through the nine weeks, then at that time is when it's a little bit more like you're part of the team, part of the unit, and you're still getting, you know, mess with left and right. But it's not as intense, I would say, because we do want you to learn at the end of the day, you know, it's not like drill this guy and, and watch him fail. You know, we eventually, we believe that you made it through those three weeks, that you have what it takes. And now we want to invest a little bit more intimate time, I would say, for you to, to be part of us.

[Mike]

Does those three weeks. Are they going home? Are they staying in house?

[Dennis Medina]

You get to go home, which is probably long days. Okay. Yeah, yeah. It might be worth it. I would rather stay with the guys that were suffering in there were sleep and wake up. But if you go home and now you get to cuddle next to your wife or your significant other.

[Tyler]

Oh, yeah.

[Mike]

And then 5am Comes to get back.

[Dennis Medina]

Out there, you might be like, hold on, man, this bed is a little too warm.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

So you know.

[Tyler]

Yeah, I mean, I, I, I don't know. I've, I Agree. The same thing. I learned that Navy. Navy SEALs, when they go through outside of like, hell week outside of that initial, like, we're just gonna see what if you want to be here. The rest of it, they go home at the end. At the end of the day, man, I don't. I don't know if. It's almost like you're saying I want to keep my brain there.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah.

[Mike]

I would not want to make the.

[Dennis Medina]

Suffering, I guess, like, easier. I don't know. If you go home and now you get to shower in the warmth.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

I actually had a guy call me one of the nights I. I'm home and, you know, you're in character and you're doing your thing and like drilling people or not. And this guy gets a my phone and calls me and he's like, hey, I don't have what it takes. I'm quitting. Right? So you come out of character. And now you're like, all right, boy, you know what? Try harder next time. You know, you already saw what it. What it consists of. You know, come a little bit more prepared, this and that. So I go the next day, the next morning, we're there. We do everything with. With the class, like all the workouts, all. Everything we. We do together with the students. And this guy shows up after I broke character and after he called me the night before that he. That he was quitting. Let's just say that he didn't last the first out. Hey, you showed up. Okay, cool. Because you can't quit after hours, let's say right now when you come back.

[Mike]

But you knew it was here.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah, yeah. And he, he's like, you know what? I understand. I'll come back to the next one.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Once you put. Once you put that mind out, you put that words out there, you can't take them back. So you know, you got them, you gotta. You got them on the line, and it's time to see if you make them break.

[Dennis Medina]

Especially when you break character and you're like, all right, let me show you who I'm, who, who I really are, you know, like, now I gotta go.

[Mike]

Back and show you who I was. Plus. Plus 20.

[Tyler]

You got the nice guy out of me.

[Mike]

Yeah. What is, what is the actual physical? Like, is there a test like a certain perform? Like, is there actual number? Like so many push ups, so many pull up. Is there any numbers you have to meet? Or is it just like a hell week?

[Dennis Medina]

So it is. Some doctor came up with a. With a tryout that is kind of easy. I would say it has a time, a cutoff time. You have to, like, jump a wall, this and that, the whole nine run a little bit. The trial prior to that was a little harder. I would say you kind of had to prepare for it. This one you could pass if you're in some sort of shape. Okay. But at least it shows, depending on what time you put on that, how good of in physical shape you are for the school. If you can do 50 push ups, if you can do 50 sit up, believe it or not, man, the sit ups get a lot of people.

[Mike]

Yep.

[Dennis Medina]

And I'm like, really? Like, you can do 50 setups? You know, we're gonna do a ton of setups, right. So it's like a guy, a guide. I would say that now you're like, all right, I'm in. I'm in okay shape. I'm struggling a little bit, maybe on the run. So I got. And the child is usually like two weeks to a month prior to the beginning of the school. So that. That gives you a chance to get in a little bit better shape.

[Mike]

So it's a constant little mind. Mind fuck. Because you get the little tryout, you're done, and then you're like, oh, good. Two weeks later, I get to go to this nice school. And then it's three weeks of hell. And then you're like, all right, I made that. And then it's nine weeks of being the new guy, getting, you know, learning, but still getting treated like, so what happens at the end of those nine weeks? You guys have like a oral board or some type of selection process, or how does the final guy go from temporary to, like, sworn in with the sword? And you're on the SWAT team.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah. So. So we'll do like, an interview as well. Like, we'll ask the guys, hey, what do you want to come here? You know, typical questions and see their responses and see how well prepared they are. We kind of already done, like, a background on them, so we know who's who. And maybe, hey, this guy doesn't like them. Or they say this about this guy. You'll bring it up at that. At that interview. And that's pretty much the one on one that we'll do with them. And we'll have a couple of cadres at that time, and we'll come up with the best decision that. That we believe the best guy that will fit our team. We have four different teams.

[Tyler]

So.

[Dennis Medina]

Like, this guy may be like, oh, I like this guy. He'll fit in with Us a little better. And that's where you make those, those decisions.

[Mike]

So how many total SWAT guys are in the agency currently?

[Dennis Medina]

Including Command staff? About 44.

[Mike]

Okay. And you break it up in four teams.

[Dennis Medina]

You said four teams? Yeah, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. And then we, we alternate the midnight shift. As far as like on call, off call on a monthly basis.

[Tyler]

Do you guys have any partial. Anybody on the team that's, that's auxiliary or part time that have other spots in the agency or Is every single person there SWAT full time?

[Dennis Medina]

No, all of our guys are part of the unit. Like, you get detached within nine weeks, you're still wherever you're at working. Then once those nine weeks are over, we'll have like our interviews and all that, but you go back to whoever you were with. Like, if you were working narcotics, if you're working in a district, you go back to that until you transfer permanently to us.

[Tyler]

Man, that's a good setup. I like that. That's just it. It keeps it constructive, it keeps it motivating, but it also keeps you on your toes. Like you're, until you are patched in, you are, you know, you're not it. Yeah, you'll have fun back at your unit. We'll call you.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah. And we'll tell the guys, you better stay in shape because the call will go like, hey, next week we have interviews and you got to do the tryout and the whole nine, and if you're not in shape, you may not pass. And now you get past because you were, you know, eating out there, not staying on top of the physical part and all that.

[Tyler]

So you're, you're on the team for, I'm assuming you, you noticed, you had to have noticed something in the art of breaching that inspired you to create the, the shield's called the Guardian, right?

[Dennis Medina]

The Guardian breaching shield. Yes, sir.

[Tyler]

Yeah. So what, what was it that kind of like, started making you think, like, I, I, I know what I'm doing. I, I can make this product.

[Dennis Medina]

So I, I've always been pretty handy with my hands and like, swinging a hammer and working around the house and things like that. Thanks to my dad, when I, when I got there, I, I didn't see breaching like, like that hard. You know, you pretty much is breaking it. To me, it's one of the most important job of the SWAT team.

Right.

Because if you can't get in, we already, we saw what happened at Uvalde, didn't get in, and a lot of people died. You know, so the same thing. If you can't get in, you can't save anyone. You can't execute the search warrant. So I was. I had that background in me, and then I noticed that. That I would come up to the door with just the Halligan, and I'm like, this kind of sucks. You know, like, one of the first things that they teach you in your. In your FTO phases is when you knock on the door, you don't stand in front of the door.

Right.

It makes sense. But when it comes to breaching, you're knocking, you're announcing, you're letting the subjects know that you're outside, and if they want to shoot through the door, that's when I saw that. That there was that deficiency, that void, and I would kind of, like, breach. Like, rolling the dice every time and breathing. I'm like, all right, made it through this one until. Until, unfortunately, the FBI was shot through the door. That's when I. I kind of, like, before I thought this could happen. This sucks. You know, you're standing in front of the door. The doors are not bulletproof. And then when that happened, I was already kind of, like, playing with the idea of breaching with a. With a ballistic shield or Halligan. But when that happened, it kind of, like, hit me home. And. And I'm like, you know what? I got to do something. And that's when I was able to secure the patent for. For that before I even talked to any other shield companies, because I was afraid that they were going to steal my idea.

[Tyler]

Yeah, that's smart. So you got. What's just off topic, what's getting a patent? Like, I've never done that before. Is that a. Is that a hard process?

[Dennis Medina]

Well, a funny story. So I have a cousin of mine, she's an attorney, but she's not a. I didn't know that there was patent attorneys, like, domestic violence, domestic attorney.

[Tyler]

The ones I see in court are the only attorneys.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah, I'm like, traffic, bro. That guy could make a patent. So I reached out to my cousin, and I'm like, hey, I need. I need. I want to know if this idea that I have, if it's patentable, you know? So she's like, I have no idea. I'm not a plan attorney, sir, but. All right, but I thought you were supposed to, like, know about these things. So she's like, look, out of my office. Prior, there was this guy that used to do patents, and I still have his contact reach out to him and see if he could help you with that. So attorneys don't know anything about breaching, don't know anything about search warrants. As far as like this was just a patent attorney and I had to pretty much teach him how it is that we breach and why I felt that that was necessary to get that. And I had to send like, I don't know, it was like a five or six page word document to him explaining from what we do in the SWAT team, how do we open the doors, what could happen? And all those things. Like, I detailed that brother. He sent that up to the patent office and within I would say like under a year, they approved. He's like, they're probably gonna kick it back. You're gonna have to fix some things on it. And then we'll send it back and resubmit it. They send it back and they're like approved. I guess the people that were reading it, they didn't, they didn't know anything about police work either. And they went with what I said on the. And they're like, hey, approve. So it's a utility patent. It's a little bit stronger than a design patent. So on a design, on a design pattern, if you change a percentage of the design, then you're not infringing into a patent per se. But as far as the utility patent is a little bit stronger because the minute you attach those two things together, then you're in valley.

[Tyler]

We need to pat something, Mike.

[Dennis Medina]

But it was pretty easy, like I was saying. And then I ran into this other guy and he's like, man, I went like five years, $60,000.

[Mike]

Sounds like you got lucky. Sounds like you got very lucky to have something happen. Anything with the government to happen on the first try. Under a year seems pretty, pretty reasonable.

[Dennis Medina]

And as far as money, it was like just below 10, 10 grand.

[Tyler]

Oh man. So if you, if you don't get something patented, Pat. But like you're at risk of somebody borderline stealing your design and may able to make profit off it. And there's nothing stopping them as long as they don't like just straight up 100 carbon copy. They can have the same design and make money off it.

[Dennis Medina]

Pretty much, yes, sir.

[Tyler]

All right, so you get like a big company.

[Dennis Medina]

I would say, like, let's say if you're. You're designing some design with like an apple or something like that, those guys that got deep pockets, they might go after you for a little bit less.

[Mike]

Glock came after me. So I know that.

[Tyler]

Making your stickers.

[Mike]

Yeah, they, they got my first page Killed by making a logo knockoff of theirs. And they didn't like it.

[Tyler]

They got. That's why Mike's a sick guy. He hates Glock.

[Mike]

Yeah, they got me good.

[Tyler]

So you get the patent? What. What's the next. I mean, obviously we're entrepreneurs, so just as much as the SWAT stuff, we're really. I love learning about entrepreneurship. And, you know, first off, you're full time in another occupation. You can't even Invest, you know, 16 hours a day into a company like you'd want to. So what was that all like?

[Dennis Medina]

Well, I think it made it easy at the beginning because I was, like, testing the prototypes that I was thinking. Like, initially, I went online and I researched. Is there, like, a breaching shield? Breaking shield didn't exist. Like, those two words together, Halligan were ballistic protection. So Halligan was developed by a firefighter, so firefighters like you. Halligan, in 1947, I believe, or 57, he developed the Halligan. And those guys, you know, everybody loves the fireman, right? They don't think that they're gonna be shot through the door when breaching and this and that. So initially, I wanted to search to see that existed. You know, I. It came back, nothing. I went into the big. The big shield companies, into the website. There was nothing online. So I'm like, maybe it doesn't exist because it's not feasible. You know, you can't breach with a shield. That was my first thought. So I made. I made a seal out of. Out of wood. I attached. I drilled an old Halligan that we had, and I attached it to it, and I started breaching on, like, training doors. And I'm like, okay, I don't see any problems with this. The next level was we have some expired shields laying around that we're gonna throw away. And I asked the lieutenant, hey, can I use one of these? I put holes through it, I put my. My attachment on it, and I started using it. But now I had already tested it on training doors, so I wanted to test it on real doors, like, real operations. So I would go up there and breach with it. And the other lieutenant, he comes up to me. He's like, hey, you're using an expired shield in our operations. You know, like, we're kind of like a big agency. What if something happens? He called me, like, off guard, man. I was coming up, had a good return for him, though, man. So I was like, lt, with all due respect, what's the alternative? Go up there with no shield? I will go up there with an expired shield from.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

20 years ago. If I, if I don't have anything. A piece of wood would be better, I think. Slow down the. The round before it hits me in my face.

[Tyler]

Yeah, that's a good point.

[Dennis Medina]

When I told him that, he's like, you know what? You're right. Carry on. When he told me, I was like, green light. So I, I kept testing. I kept testing, and it was me getting behind the shield. It wasn't that I was asking a. You get behind that. Let me know if that works for you. You know, on this advice, you. So after he, After I had that conversation with him, I kept testing and I kept. I kept going. That's when the FBI was shot through the door. And that's kind of like when I'm like, you know what? This needs to be a little more serious. Because initially I didn't think of it as a company. I thought of as just something that I. That I could use myself to protect me so that I could go back home, you know, to my family.

[Tyler]

Yeah, that, that gives validity to your product when you can actually say, I made this for me.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

And it's not to make money.

[Mike]

So how did you go from the prototype to actually your first shield? Like your actual first product that you put together?

[Dennis Medina]

So what once I, once I got that happened with the FBI, like, that was on 2-2-21. On February 7th, I actually have the email that I emailed the attorney for the patent because I don't want to go into like, go talk to Point Blank, go talk to Safari Land, the guys that make shields already, without having a pattern if I could, you know, so I was able to secure the patent. And then after that was when I went to go talk to those guys, but I didn't have a shield. I had a piece of wood that. That looked like a seal. And I think I went up to him prematurely. Right. But I didn't know any better. And, And a funny story. So I'm presenting to Point Blank, and it's just like, follow those guys in front of me and. And I'm like, nervous as hell. Like, I'm not a public speaker, you know, Like, I'm learning on everything from the bottom, like, how to make this, how to do that and how to. How to sell my product. I'm not a salesman. I'm a door kicker. You know, so I'm like, by the, the, like around six in the morning. We had done a warrant that day, and we went after like, like an armed subject or whatnot. And I was the One that kicked the door open, got the guy in custody, and here I am, like, a couple hours later, My knees are shaking, and I'm just talking to five dudes on how I would. I need you to make a SEAL for me.

[Mike]

Rather. You'd rather be in a gunfight? You'd rather be in a gunfight than an interview?

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah. My wife is like, you've come a long way. Yeah, but. But it.

[Mike]

It.

[Dennis Medina]

It was pretty cool. I. I went to. So I went to point blank. I went to safari land. Safari land kind of gave me, like, the cold shoulder. I don't know what their deal was. I drove to. I drove to Jacksonville, man. And they never got back to me as far as like, oh, this is a good idea. Because initially, whoever goes with me, I'll give you exclusivity. Like, you'll be the only one to make this. We have a patent together, you know, but so I'm like, you know what? I'll make it with everybody. So I was able to get a hold of an ex marine guy that. He does the. The shield that's right behind me, and he's like, definitely, but we can work together, and I could do that for you. And we'll. So I have his measurements, and what I design is the detachable system so that you could slide the Halligan in and, like, able to take it off and on. And initially when I went up to them, I had holes on the. On the Halligan. And I'm like, listen, this is a breaching tool. There's not a ballistic shield. Because I don't want to eat away on their profits on ballistic shields. I'm like, they're gonna get. They're gonna send me to go pound sand if they see, hey, this guy has a pretty good idea, but he has a patent. We're not gonna let him get in. In the fun, right? So I'm like, this is a separate. A separate product that you guys don't have. Like, and. And I'm like, you know what? After that, after no one, like, teamed up, I said, I'll make it detachable now. I could put it on any shield. And now, like. Like, I have, like 100 of it, you know?

[Tyler]

Yeah. And what was it like? So you're. You're going to talk to all these big companies, right? And you're literally a door kicker. Like, you. I mean, you take pride and, you know, we joke, we call ourselves knuckle draggers, but, I mean, you are a door kicker, and you are now putting a polo on and going up. Did what? How did you gain the ability to kind of present your product? And was it just kind of like the public speaking that comes with being a cop and like all that? Or is it. Did you have to go in there? Did you have to like Google how do I present this? These are questions I ask all the time. Because me and Mike have ideas, but we're like, man, when we got to put on the polos and go impress somebody, do we know how to do it?

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah, it. It the first time I got on the agency when I was 21 years old, man. So I had no public speaking whatsoever in my background. I was like a shy kid, you know, like, yeah, we could do stuff together as a team, but I'm not like the leader when it came to that, you know, like, so the first time that I got up was in front of my academy class and I was bricks and it was just to introduce myself.

[Tyler]

It's going around the room and you're like, yeah, I'm next.

[Dennis Medina]

And you're coming up with something. I said some lame ass joke. No one laughed. So it made it even worse. All right.

[Mike]

I just want to help people. I just want to help people.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah, right.

[Tyler]

My name is Dennis. My name's Dennis.

[Dennis Medina]

And then you go up and you forget to introduce yourself. You just go, so. So I didn't get any better. I would say up to this moment that, that I'm. But you do get some confidence from telling people. And you get. And you have, I guess the. At that time, I have five years on with the agency, with the SWAT team. Right. 15 years on. So I had talked to a bunch of people on the road and. And you know, arrest people. So you get a little bit of confidence. But when it comes to sales is a totally like a different animal.

Right.

What gave me a little bit of confidence where I come from, like, we spoke about a bigger agency. We're busy. We're always doing stuff. So you have that. And on your background, it's not like, oh, we do two warrants a year. You know, we're doing like 300 operations yearly and like non stop. Yeah. And sometimes they like, hey, in the summer, no one can take off. We have too many things going on. And you like the summer. That's kind of like what you do with your family. Right? So that gave me. That gave me like, like a little bit of a background when I. And for them to listen to me, to open that door at least. I'm like, hey, they open the door. There is no going back. I'm going to put my foot on it and they're going to hear me speak. Right. Even if I suck at it. And like I said, my wife has said that I've improved a lot. I believe so too. And then you start like looking into YouTube videos on how to speak, how to stand, how to put your hands, this, that eye contact. But before, hey, guys, you know, my name is Desmond.

[Mike]

I, I thought as a SWAT guy, you just put on like a medium shirt and it said SWAT real big on it and just walked in and stood there like this. Yeah, I wouldn't put your product on the table. I'm swat. That's what most of the guys I know do. They don't have to talk, they just swat.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah, what, what makes it easy is since I have this in my background, that I could speak on it, you know, and people listen because I use it. What, what I suck at is like following up and like that second contact, because like I said, yep, you know how it is. That's the worst thing to present if you know what you're talking about. It's easy to present anything, right? You could even like, maybe BS your way around some things, but not like to, to follow up and be like, hey, how you doing? You know, like some people that I will follow up on an email and hey, what's up, man? You're not talking like, like your friend. You gotta talk like different, you know.

[Tyler]

Dennis, I do the same thing. I, I suffer from the same, like the business world first off, moves way slower than any pace we're used, bro. And I, I have to have my wife type out the emails to reach, to reach out to companies because I'll be like, hey, what's up, man? No pressure, just. And she's like, no, these are business people though. They're, they, they want to see. It's just, man, I don't know how to do the follow up.

[Mike]

It's just like, weird, weird, weird thing. I, I started, I did a little software for a software company right when I retired. And I remember presented to the agency and then they're like, oh, yeah, we'll get back to you in like two months. You're like, like two months. Like, like, I'll forget that this even happened in two months. Email me in six weeks and we'll get back. I'm like, it, go on to the next day. You're not buying it today. I don't want to talk to you ever again.

[Dennis Medina]

Like, yeah, you know what?

[Mike]

Definitely different.

[Dennis Medina]

When I come to hey, man, is like December, bro. Because on December everybody's oh, we'll do it next year. We'll start off the year. I'm like, listen, right now you gotta strike while it's hot, you know, yeah.

[Mike]

Christmas, Santa Claus needs it bring us.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah, yeah, right. Throughout the holidays, you know, like it's not like, hey, the, the criminals are going on, on a way party, you.

[Mike]

Know, like, like, yeah, from Thanksgiving to New Year's, you're done, man. That whole, that whole month and a half, everybody's in the next year.

[Dennis Medina]

I wish, bro.

[Tyler]

So you went from, you went from. Your idea was a breaching tool, that's better than nothing shield. And then you incorporated the breaching side and the. I mean from reading the description, it's about as ballistic rated as you could get in a shield. Yeah. What was, what was that like? Like going from the, hey, it's a breaching tool with better than nothing to an actual breaching shield.

[Dennis Medina]

So when it comes to reaching shields, you have the handgun rated shields and the rifle rated shields. Right. Back in the day, rifle radio shields were so heavy that you needed wheels on them, right? So everybody was kind of like going towards the pistol radio shields. You could handle them better. They were bigger, so you felt like a little bit more sense of protection. But I would say like right around the time that I got into this, the technology for, for rifle rated shoes was getting so much lighter that it doesn't make any sense at this moment if you're running a handgun radio shield, right? So we had a, we had a couple of our guys that they still, around that time had pistol radio shields that they were running in operations. And we're like, listen, you know what happens if they shoot that? We're like an AR or an ak. They were like, I get out of here. Because there were older guys in the team or whatnot. But we got one of the expired shields. We went, we put the money where the mouth is, right? We went to the range, we put it on, on the range and we shot it. We took an ak, we took a bunch of different firearms and it did what it was supposed to do. Even an expired shield, it stopped the handgun rounds. Didn't stop the rifle rounds. Yeah, we went back to the office and we put it in the office where everybody could see it. We had label it. It was out of this wasn't no scientific, you know, they put them in like, like an indoor rain. No, it's outdoors. We're doing it like, like you said, knuckles driving our way to science. And we label all the rounds. There's an AK round, there's a two to three round and you can see that it goes right through it. And we put it there. Let's just say that the guys that were using hangar rated shields, they put them down, they picked up rifle, radio, shields and they haven't been used since. And that's one of the improvements that, that I noticed like I would say like in the last six years on the, on the light. Lightness of the, of the rifle, radio, shield.

[Tyler]

So somebody asked a question. It's actually a pretty good question because I've never been on the. I've never been holding a shield while it was hit. What's it. I mean you might not have either, I guess when a 762 round smacks that shield and you're holding it. What's the, what's the absorption like? Is, I mean are you still able to, to move and function or is that going to like what's that gonna do?

[Dennis Medina]

We've been shot at inside of structures, but luckily never been struck since I've been there. You know, we've had a couple of incidents that some of our guys were shot without shields and they've made it, you know. But it depends, I would say where the shield struck. Like if it's struck in the edge, it might throw that a little bit to the side when I, when I'm sinking it in. I think it's going to be pretty sturdy in the, in the door crack that it shouldn't move. You know, it is attached to the, it's not like I have velcro on there and it's gonna like rip off.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

And I'm holding, and I'm holding it with, with my one arm on the, on the bar. So once it's sunk then I would say if you shoot it, it shouldn't move much. But I've heard, I've also heard of people who have been swung around and I'm guessing that's a high caliber around hitting it somewhere on the edge where, where it may cause that. But I mean I'd rather, I'd rather take those chances.

[Tyler]

Yeah, I mean it's like, it's like wearing a vest. Like, you know, when we were kids we watch Hollywood movies where guys get shot in the chest. But I mean that's still gonna, you're gonna feel that one. That's. You're not. Yes. Yeah, I can imagine taking one.

[Dennis Medina]

I'm guessing if it is like where your forearm is at is gonna cost a lot of pain, you know, it's not gonna go through, but I'm pretty sure it's gonna probably break a couple things in there, you know, so better.

[Tyler]

Than taking one in the. In the. In the wrist and losing your hand.

[Dennis Medina]

100 look or in the face. You know, there's a video of Volusia county when they were like, going after this guy for just a petty theft at a gas station. And the guy shot through the window while they were trying to break the window. And the shield just happened to move as he's breaking the window. And the guy took it, like. Right. Like it pretty much gave him a haircut. And the other guy took it dead on the shield, which would have been his face. And those guys are glad that they had that shield on there, you know?

[Tyler]

Yeah. Yeah. So when you. Okay, so let's. Let's continue on. So you're kind of like. I think where we left off in your. In your entrepreneurial journey is that you were just doing the. You were gonna focus more on the breaching side of it because you didn't want companies to get kind of, like, defensive when it came to you, I guess, having a competitive breaching shield. But what changed the course on that?

[Dennis Medina]

So initially I drilled the Halligan onto that. Onto the shield, right? And on one of the operations, the. The Halligan, I guess I made it so weak because I had drilled through it that it broke off. So this during my. My testing phases, right. Once that happened, I'm like, I gotta come up with a better idea, right? So I. I always wanted to have it detachable. At that time, people were asking for a detachable. People were asking for a window because initially I didn't have a window because I was just going up to the door. And most of my job is, like, looking at the side where the Halligan is, right? So people kept asking for that. And I'm like, you know, what if. No, if none of these companies see the benefit of, like, adding this to the product line, why not add my stuff to their product line? And now I'm competing with them in some way, and eventually they're gonna notice, you know, those. What I was thinking. So I'm like, the Halligan that I have is about an inch hardened steel tube, and I just had to, like, drill tube where that could fit, and I could lock it in with, like, a pin so it wouldn't slide out. You know, sometimes I'll go without the pin being locked in. So that could be a little quicker to dump it. And I have actually Made entry into. Into structures with the Halligan attached to it because there hasn't been, like, a. Like, space for me to get out, let our shield go in. So we're pretty. SHIELD heavy team. Will do primary most. Most of our searches with a shield. But my shield is just for breaching, you know, so I'll breach, I'll get out of the way for him, and then if. If I don't, if I can get out of the way for whatever reason, if it's a small hallway or whatnot, I'll make entry. I'll transition to my handgun, obviously make entry into that initial living room area. Then he'll take over from there.

[Mike]

What do you do on the. Obviously, the Halligan's outward doors. What do you do at the indoors?

[Dennis Medina]

I haven't develop. I. I played with it for a little bit where I had an attachment on the opposite end that you could put by the lock and, like, ram that and now you have a shield. But you could kind of, like, do that with just the shield and just leave enough space for the ram, like, to hit that.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Dennis Medina]

Okay.

[Mike]

And if you need to pry. And if you need to pry, you still have the Halligan in your hand with the shield, correct?

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Dennis Medina]

And. And most of the time, like, when you breach with the Halligan and you pry it open. Open, you're gonna. You're gonna be on the hot side of the door, right?

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

The initial. Or they call it a door crack.

[Mike]

Or first light side.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah, correct. So you're gonna be on the outside. So if it opens in and you're gonna ram it, and you want to use some sort of, like, shield when it comes to that, you're going to be on the hot side as well, because that door is going to open and you're going to be able to see into the room.

[Mike]

You still. You still bring the same shield up, and you just. If it's. If it's an inward door, you just leave room for the RAM guy to hit the door.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah. So we'll use a lot of, like, technology, Google Maps, Apple Maps or whatnot, to see which way the door opens. That way you come a little prepare. But I could see the door today. Let's say, hey, that door opens out, and I'm still gonna bring a ram or sledgehammer, because that guy could have changed that overnight. And now it opens in, you know, or they hit the house the week before, and you. You were looking at an old picture, and they switched up the house, the door on you. So. Yeah, Even if it opens in, you still bring the Halligan. You may need it for another door inside of the house. Who knows, you know, it's not just for that one.

[Mike]

So you guys have two, you have two breachers, the ram and the Halligan guy.

[Dennis Medina]

Or did somebody just bring the ram on sledgehammers? Okay, yeah, like I like keep it in your back.

[Mike]

The other guy carries it on his back.

[Dennis Medina]

No, bridging is a two man operation. So that guy's gonna come with the ram or, or the sledgehammer, and then the other guy is going to come with the Halligan. Okay. In that case, it'll be like the breaching shield. If you don't need it, you. You don't use that. You could plug a window with it. You know, you could use it for a window while this guy hits the door in. And now your primary shield guy could kind of like cover him. We use a lot of thermal breaching, so if you're melting the door there, that one's kind of like slower. So we'll throw, we'll throw a shield on the door to kind of like give him some sort of protection as well. So, but if you don't need the breach and shield because the door opens in, let's say then we'll, we're definitely going to have windows that we got to cover, you know, so what.

[Mike]

That's cool. You guys do thermal, you guys do explosive as well?

[Dennis Medina]

Yes, sir.

[Mike]

And they guys, obviously that's beforehand. You guys determine based on the type of warrant what you're going to do and brief that beforehand.

[Dennis Medina]

We've had, we've had guys that have been like, like murder subjects or whatnot. They're like, hey, when the copy gets here, we're gonna kill the cops too. Like, I killed this guy. And, and we'll turn it up a little bit. We'll go with explosives. Because you have that intel and on that specific warrant that I'm telling you, the guy came out like, yeah, I've seen it.

[Mike]

I was a preacher on the team and I went to. We didn't obviously not as big as you guys and nowhere near that, but I went to explosive breaching school and I went to all that and I've seen it. And it's, it's pretty. We've done. I did it once. We, we actually had a barricade where we breached a metal apartment door. And it was definitely startles everybody inside when it goes off.

[Dennis Medina]

Yep. And, and the best ones are like the, when the detectives are like, hey, this guy's a badass. He. This is password. And the guy, hey, what's going on, guys?

[Mike]

Yeah, until that front door. Until that front door flies 30ft into the house. They're. They're not so bad anymore.

[Dennis Medina]

Nah, I was only playing, bro.

[Mike]

You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tyler]

Somebody says, mark. Fire said, how is it in your towns or cities you live those crimes? Playing with SWAT team, get military vehicles. Sacramento is bad. Kind of what you guys are talking about. I remember doing the show and tell, and you're constantly explaining, that's the one thing the old guy with the Vietnam hat comes up and goes, y' all really need that tank. And you're like, dude, this is for our protection and our protection only. I was like, this is a turret. Yes, but it is there to protect the guys that are dismounted. It is not there. You know, And I remember having to convince civilians, like, this is not an agree. This is not really used other than to ram the front door if we needed to. It's for protection. There was some other questions. I assume that you have issues with departments changing to your product versus what they've used or known for years. Do you offer training on your products?

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah. So, like, right now, I've gone as far as Texas to, like, promote the. The shield. I actually gone to California as well. And if they need the training on it, obviously it's a new product. But nothing changes when it comes to the breaching part of it. It's just now you're doing it behind ballistic protection, you know, so if you're applying a door, you're gonna pry the same way. With R2, there was one door that I couldn't use it on, but you couldn't use a regular Halligan either. So I haven't found a door that, oh, you can use the Halligan by itself, but not this. But the more you practice, practice on it. Like, let's say I'll give it to you right now. And the first door, you look like, awkward as hell, right? Like, oh, man, how do you do this? Once you do, like, five or ten, and you're like, okay, there's nothing. The only difference is once I breach. If you breach with just a Halligan, right? Once you breach, you turn around and you haul ass out of there. Because the last thing that you want to do is stand in front of the door round, start coming through. The difference is once you breach with the. With the breaching shield, you don't back out and go away. You back out facing the door. That way, you still have that protection. You Know, in case something happens. And your hammer operator could be like the. Your. Your eyes behind you, like, hold you by the vessel. You come on, step back. You gotta step coming. If you're like in a little landing or whatnot, giving you that, you're not just gonna turn around. That's the one thing that you would need to, like, work on, I would say. But once you do 10, it's like night and day from. From your person.

[Tyler]

So we got a couple videos that we're gonna go through on your YouTube and stuff like that. One final question before we take a quick commercial break. What are his thoughts on red circles on shields? I don't know anything about this, but I didn't want it to be a good question. And do you guys know what he's referencing?

[Dennis Medina]

I'm guessing, like a target for the subject to shoot at.

[Tyler]

That's what I was thinking too, but I don't know everything, so I was like, I think, yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

Huh.

Go ahead.

[Tyler]

I was just gonna tell the guy Ficus, if he could clarify maybe what he means a little bit.

[Dennis Medina]

I think the. The light serves kind of that purpose, you know, like when you do like, Sims training and you have that light on your gun, what gets lit up is like your knuckles because that's what you focus on. So I'm guessing that's where his question goes.

[Tyler]

All right, we'll be right back, guys. We'll take a quick commercial break. See, in a minute.

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[Tyler]

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[Mike]

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[Tyler]

Yeah, I just put that stuff on Eli's lacrosse stick.

[Mike]

Yeah, they just. The black is was sold out. It's back in stock. So good to go.

[Tyler]

Nice. So we have some videos of the shield being used. I'm just trying to get the media assets. Justin uploaded one right here. Don't know if there's any sound to.

[Dennis Medina]

It.

[Tyler]

But I see what you're saying now. It's just. It's the same concept of using a halligan.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You'd be standing there with nothing.

[Tyler]

Yeah. Literally you're doing the same thing but now you have ballistic shield coverage.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah. So basically what I'm, what I'm explaining in the process on, on that, that if the door is, like, reinforced or you need to go 2 guys, you could also do that. The hammer guy could, like, help you with an extra arm on there to pull. And that was the old shield that I didn't have a viewport on it, but it's pretty much the same concept as. As the one that I use now. You see that one doesn't have a viewport, and that's when the haligen was attached to it.

[Tyler]

Okay. All right, so this. So this was. This is the first gen one. Yeah, it's still cool.

[Dennis Medina]

It's a really good video. Was a little bit heavier, that one weighing, like, only, like, 35, 36 pounds. So initially I'm like, oh, let me put a sling on it, because, you know the song there. They're like, ah, it's too heavy. I don't want to use it.

[Mike]

Well, to clear up some of the funny confusion, I saw the video, a video recently of you using it. And initially I said it was kind of grainy. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. And it's hard to see. And I'm like, look at this. With this alligator and the shield, trying to do everything at once. And then it all came to me of. Of who you were, who it was, and what it was. And I'm like, oh, God. Like, it makes sense now because you in that video, it's hard to tell that it's all one thing. And I'm like, what is this guy doing? And then it hit me. Like you said, you stand. You'll be standing there shieldless in the old days before this thing came out, just hoping a prayer that no bullets come through the door. So even if you're sticking out a little bit, like you were saying, it's still good to have coverage in front of the door than just be standing there.

[Dennis Medina]

And. And we've been on calls. You. You mentioned something on your video there that. That you're surprised when you open the door and the guy's there, and now you got to backtrack. You know, believe it or not, that happens so much. I would say, like, maybe not 50 of the time, but, like, close to it, right? Because you're knocking, you're announcing your. You have the. The speaker going off, and they're not opening the door. And what I've seen is once you start breaching and they. And they're on the other side of that door, and they start screaming or like, oh, I was gonna open it. Wait, no, wait. All those things that you hear from the Other side. And you're like this. Yeah, I'm 6, 2, and I'll make myself, like, 5 flat just to make sure, just in case that happens.

[Mike]

You know, Tyler would be like this with. Tyler would have to do this with the shield.

[Tyler]

I'm five, nine and a half, bro. I have.

[Mike]

Don't forget to have.

[Tyler]

Yeah, I mean, the video. The video is. I mean, it was weird. Weird covering SWAT videos. But I think that, like Mike said, the reason why we didn't catch it was because you move so flawlessly. It kind of messed with, like, you know that saying, like, you only see what you've already seen. So we weren't looking for that. So we were looking at a guy moving very fast with a shield and a halligan, and we're like, what was that? And then it was actually Justin. That was like, that's armored breach.

[Mike]

Yeah. You know, that all got confusing with. I know. I know Frank helps you sell the shield, so I got the two confused. I know he has his own company and yours. And when you. You actually sponsored one of our events down in. Down south. So it was like, that whole confusion of everything, and I'm like, now it all makes sense. I know you guys are all laughing about it too. You're much. Hey, you're much better looking than Frank anyway. I don't care what. I don't care what you say.

[Dennis Medina]

How did you confuse that? Gonna mess with me later.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

Believe it or not, as soon as that thing went out, like, a lot of our guys follow you YouTube or not. And. And they. They call me. This guy called me. We're in the middle of, like, our training. CQB or not. And I'm like, why's this guy calling me? He works afternoons. So I pick up the phone, he's like, hey, bro, who the hell is Frank that owns your company? What are you talking about? Oh, bro, this video online. I'm like, send it to me, because, I don't know. I hadn't seen it yet. This was early in the morning. And when I see it after that, easily, like, 30 to 50 people either send me the thing, the video, or send me a text and started calling me Frank. And I'm like, initially, until you guys, like, I. I went through it again. I'm like, oh, that's why. Because he had.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah, I know. Frank. Frank has come all the way up here to local agencies selling it. And I got the two confused in my head that I knew Frank was selling a shield. I forgot it was for you and not him. And that's where the confusion. But you know, cops are, they all busted your balls, right?

[Dennis Medina]

Of course I send them the, the clip. And I was like, hey man, not only you get to sponsor my, my product, but you took over my company.

[Mike]

It was like two nights ago. He messaged me and I was like, my bad, dude. Like he was laughing. He sent me the video. Then he's like, send me the link to the whole episode. So I sent him the episode, but he's like, yeah, I guess I own, I own a new company now.

[Dennis Medina]

We have so much time on our hands. Yeah.

[Tyler]

I'm a, I'm a SWAT dude, right? I'm not in command. I'm not a team leader. I've been with the team. I'm a breacher. I see this product. What is the process of equipping my team with your product? Right? We had all know how it is. I've got a captain or a major above him that was never a breacher. They, they take what I say because of my cadre experience and I want to present them. This is a no brainer, right? This is a no brainer. I've done this time and time again. These guys are talking about and laughing about it and we're, it's it, we're laughing but it's, it's no joke. I've stood in front of so many doors when my butthole. Tucker, just Come on, come on, come on, do it, do it, do it. What's the process of this guy being able to, to, to equip his team with, with this product?

[Dennis Medina]

So like you said, they send guys like you breachers and, and those guys that, that the command staff listens to when it comes to like a new product to like conferences and, and all this and that, right? Then the idea is for them to take that information back to those guys and convince them that they need it.

Right.

And initially when it was just a touch, I was like, maybe some people will have a pushback on, on the fact that it's big, it's heavy, this, that. But now it is like a detachable shield. You could use it for anything, just like a regular shield. I'm like, what the. The question should be, why not? You know, like if you using a shield to plug a window, why not use one of our shields? Even if you don't need the Halligan, if the door opens out, you have the Halloween. Like that's easy to convince the command stuff, right? The process is they, they'll reach out to me and I'll Give them a quote. They forward that quote up to their. Of their. Up to those command commanders and the guys that are the decision makers. If, If I put two. Two quotes on there. Because the, the big question is, what size do you want? Like, I like the standard size is 30 by 20. I'm 6:2. I like mine 34 by 20. It covers a little bit more. If I could make one that's 80 by 36, which is the size of the door, I would. But no one would use it because it's too big, too heavy.

[Tyler]

Right.

[Dennis Medina]

So I have to go with the side. The standard sizes. So it's either like, what size do you want? I'll put a couple of those on the quote. I'll send it to you. You're like, I like, we want to get this size. All of my shields come fully, like, finished with the Halligan, the detachable system. The light was another thing that I found out on the job. Like, a lot of shields. That's like an extra thing that you could put on it for the price. I, I put it on there anyways, because we hit. We do warrants at 5, 6 in the morning when the sun is not up. And I came up before I even thought about putting a light on it. Came up to the door, and I'm like, where am I putting this duck Bill? Where's the door crack? I couldn't see it, so I had to wait for someone else to light that up for me. So our shields come with the light. They come with the COVID If you get the. This one here doesn't have the COVID but the green cover on the website, that's an extra that helps to protect the. The glass. You know how SWAT guys are. They don't use it. They throw it in the truck or they throw it in the trunk of a car. If that's your personal shield. And it might get scratched. And what happens the minute the glass gets scratched? You're looking out the side. Now you're defeating the purpose of why you have a viewport anyway. So. Well, once I do the quote, they come back a. This is the size that we're gonna go with. Then I send them the. The pricing. I begin that process. I have the approved purchase order. I can't make the shield. I don't. I don't make the shield the company that makes a shield. But I don't have shields, like, lined up because they have an expiration date on it. Yeah, I have elegance. I have lights. I have the other things that do not expire. But once you. I get that purchase order, I put that through. I usually takes about 60 to 90 days, let's say. And then once it's finished, by that time, the. The check is already. The payment is already received, and they get their stuff. And if they need training, I'm. I'm at a level that I. I'll do the training. You know, I've done train the trainer and then those guys. But I could. I could go up to just about anywhere. I'm at the level that I just want to get my name out there. I want everyone to know the. That this product exists. If any questions, the. Believe it or not, the. The feedback that I get is like, you came up with this. Like, it's such a simple idea. Right? And I'm like, yeah, bro, I'm. I'm an uncle driver. I'm no smarter than you. I just happened to be put in front of that door, like, life once too many.

[Tyler]

Yeah. You know? Yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

So that's why it is out of necessity. Like, I saw myself and, And. And so we did the. The service for the agents, the FBI agents down here in South Florida, and we did that service for them. And I was part of the cat team under the bleachers. So when they're willing the. The agent in, I come out to pay my respects, you know, like. And when I saw that on the screen and I saw that and I saw his wife and I saw his son, I saw my wife and I saw my son, and I'm like, damn, that could be me. I could be putting my family through that as well, you know, like, that's why I came up with the idea. It's not like I'm like a Harvard graduate or whatnot. I got a high school diploma and a little bit of college.

[Tyler]

One thing that me and Mike always talk about is what we would have done different when we were street cops. You know, SWAT out of it. You know, one thing I would have done different now, you know, that I've been away from the job for quite some time is the amount of things that I would have carried with me now as a. As a street cop. Because in today's world, it is getting crazier every. You know, your patrol deputies are what? What, Mike?

[Mike]

My wife. When I started dating my wife, I didn't have a gun light. And she's like, I almost didn't go. She's like, I almost didn't go out with you the second date when I saw you. She's a cop as well. She's a Cop as well. And she's like, I never paid attention in uniform. And then we went out, and then I noticed you don't have a gun light. She's like, I almost didn't answer the phone the second time of reflecting on what we should be carrying. It made me laugh about thinking about that.

[Dennis Medina]

It would have been like, the one that got away.

[Mike]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, well, I had the little clip on, light on my belt. She's like, nah, dog. You have a. You'd have a gun. You'd have a holster. Like. Yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

Like, did you carry bridging tools back when you were on the road?

[Tyler]

Well, that's what I was gonna say. It's like, we did.

[Mike]

Well. Supervisors had them.

[Tyler]

Yeah, exactly.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

Well, the way things are going now, as I was getting out, I was realizing regular cops, even with a couple months on the job, were responding to calls that would have been. They're. They're having to act quickly. And we're seeing it. We're breaking down videos now where regular patrol cops are taking calls because of the urgency and having to make decisions that preferably we would want SWAT doing. Because of the training and experience that the team has, we're not able to wait sometimes. And I feel like this is, like, right now, I'm being dead serious. I would. You're. After talking with you, I would purchase your product. As a patrol officer, I had an entire SUV with a huge back. Huge. How many times have I been on calls where we're waiting on the supervisor or the captain to bring the shield for the squad? We're waiting. Yes. We can't wait. And so going on the list of things that I wish I would have, that's. You know, I wish I would have had a shield. I. I started bringing breaching tools towards the end of my career. One of our fans actually sent me a customized RAM that was. It's a heaviest, but it was really good ram. But I think this tool right here, if all the dumb. That cops spend money on that. Me and talk. Me and Mike talk about all the time that you buy that you don't need. This is something to put in the back of your Explorer for that rainy day when you're gonna need it.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah. I actually. I actually carry it maybe on the back, like, kind of protecting my back in. In a way. Like, you think, like, weird. You know, like, you have to think, like, all kind of, like, crazy scenarios, right? What happens if. If there's shots. If you hear shots inside it, but you can't get in because you don't have breaching tools and you're a regular officer on the, on the job. You think fire rescue is going to come open that for you?

[Tyler]

Nope. They're not even coming close.

[Dennis Medina]

They're gonna give you the tools and go breach yourself like around the corner, you know, like.

[Tyler]

Yeah, they're gonna say come to us, then we'll hand you the tool. Then you got to go back and.

[Dennis Medina]

And even Fire rescue, Fire rescue deals with like Baker acts and armed subjects and a check checking the well being of an individual. And you don't know that that guy could be armed. And when you start breaching, he could shoot through the door as well. So even Fire rescue could benefit of. Now nowadays Fire rescue has ballistic vest helmets. They go to some warm areas with us like in a school shooting or anything like that. They're not gonna lead the way, but they're gonna be tracking behind. So even if I rescue will benefit from having a ballistic shield and the, the breaching shield with them. If you're like a check on the well being of my dad. I haven't heard from him. You live in another state and your dad is a gun fanatic and he happens to be showering when he's coming down, he hears fire rescue breach in the door, he's gonna grab a gun, he might shoot, who knows, you know, like those things. But definitely for like a Baker act. Those guys have guns as well, you know, like they're, they're not right in the head.

[Tyler]

Especially now in Florida.

[Dennis Medina]

We're, we're.

[Tyler]

I know Admin is really pushing hard the last 10 years for those RP some whatever it is after you bank, rack someone, you essentially you risk protection. Yeah. You go back into the home and take all the weapons and you try to do it before they get out of the hospital. But sometimes I mean, and that's crazy to me to go. It's a crazy concept to send law enforcement to take guns from a mentally ill person. I'm not saying that it's not right and I'm not saying that there's anybody else for the job. But when you're looking, that is a conflict waiting to happen. And yeah, like you said, just having these shields, man, I've been like I said tons of times, I never even thought about Fire Rescue. Like wouldn't you rather. Especially when it's government money. When it's government money I'm talking about. I would buy it with my own personal money to put in the back of my Explorer that I use. But I'M talking like all the funding that you know that agencies get, including fire rescue. Why not have one per truck?

[Dennis Medina]

Yes, the battalion chief should have.

[Tyler]

Yes.

[Dennis Medina]

Hey, we're checking the well being of grandpa. He hasn't come. The car is outside. He's not responding the phone. Why not another one that, that, that could benefit from his bondsman. Those guys make breach and they go after some bad dudes and they have the right to go in and it's usually what, two guys? Hey, you cover the back. We're gonna do the front. Two guys in the front, one in the back. A team of three guys going after some dude that maybe wanted for a murder. Didn't go to, to, to court. So that's another guy that, that could benefit from a breaching shield. Not only that, once you breach, you could also become the shield operator. Remove the Halligan. Now you're searching through the house with the shield on. Our agency, we had a, an eviction that, that went deadly. Like the lady was like hey, you come in my house, I'm gonna kill you. Sure enough they had to breach our door. They left, came back, luckily it had a shield and the shield got struck. She was hiding behind a couch I believe and they had to put her down. All because of an eviction notice. So. Bondsman eviction units. Initially I made, I made my product for, for tactical units, you know. But then I saw this benefits from it that, that we're even putting them in schools nowadays like some, something like a fire extinguisher, an active shooter in the school. Do you think an agency is going to be able to, to equip every officer in their agency that when they pull up they're going to have a shield, they're going to have breaching tools? No, but it's already going to be there. We're working, we're working with legislation to hopefully for that, you know, to have breaching tools, ballistic shields. But what happened at Uvalde, the subject was shooting through the door. Didn't come up to bridge. That door. Nobody wants to take around to the face, right? But if I give you now a breaching shield that may give you a little bit more like, you know, confidence to go up to hide behind that real quick while you pop it at least approach the door, see if it's locked, you know, so where we have a couple things that we're working on. Hopefully this is the year that that all that is gonna go into, into play and, and we could, and we could save lives because I'm not here. I'LL tell you what, man. I didn't come up with this to make money. I came up with this to save my life so that I could go back to my home. But if I, If I get a phone call sometime that they tell me, hey, your product allowed this guy to go home to his family, that would be more than anything that you could pay me. Like, you know, like, I take pride on what I do.

[Tyler]

Yeah. Real question is, are you going to send him a new shield?

[Dennis Medina]

100, bro.

[Tyler]

And you brought up another point. And I know, as. When you're. As cops, we, we don't think. We don't really dwell on common sense because we work for the government, which should say enough. In its own. And obviously cop work, nothing makes sense when you're in the briefing room looking around like, what the hell are we doing? But you said that it's on. It's unfeasible or it's unrealistic to equip every single cop with this shield. I get what you're saying, right? That, that arguing for that is just. Might as well be a waste of time. But me and Mike try to go broader and we go all the dumb that we train our cops in, all the dumb mandatory training that they. That we waste money on cops. I would rather. I would rather have every single cop issued at least a shield.

[Mike]

You know, smack an Axon sticker on that shield and everybody will have to.

[Tyler]

Yeah, there you go. Oh, no.

[Mike]

It says you need it. You have, like. Isn't that interesting though, right? We'll. We'll make sure we all have body cameras because we have to have that view. But it's. Body camera is never going to save anybody's life. Body camera is never going to do anything for anybody. It's not going to stop a bullet. But we're all going to have them because of litigation and, and all the. But a shield is going to save your life. But we can't have everybody have a shield. But they can all have a taser and they can all have a body cam, right? Cost way more. I guarantee the body cam taser combination costs more than the shield.

[Dennis Medina]

Like, like, on a serious note, man, like, my shields are pretty much the same price as a regular shield, right? So there's no difference. I'm not like, hey, I'm the only one who do this. Gonna charge a hundred thousand dollars per shield, right? No, but how do you explain, like, let's say you're breaching and this product is out there, and now, you know, once you see it you cannot see it.

Right.

And you're. And you're a commander and. Or I reach out or whatnot. And now one of your officers get hit through the door while breaching without a shield, going after the subject. Are you, number one, able to live with yourself after that? Or you telling me that his life was not worth what the price of the shield was?

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

Not everybody could process that the same way, you know, and then how do you explain to the family what that, yeah, we didn't get that product and that's why your family member is not here with us today. Those things kind of like have to hit home. But, yeah, like you said, man, it's a tough decision when you're up there, that the people. Sometimes the people move up in the. In the chain. They. They lose like that touch. But if you do maintain that and like, if this guy's bringing this product to you, why not test it? Why not running? Why not see what you guys that are out there on the field. Think about it. All the comments. Just about all the comments on the video that you guys posted and that the other Instagram posted where about the shield? They're like, how does that. How is the shield with a Halligan? Like, it's like, bro, like I said, I'm. I'm just happened to be put in front of that door. I came up with this idea.

[Mike]

We call you anything you want, right? As long as everybody's got to see it. I can call you any name I want to.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Frank Shields.

[Tyler]

That's the new company. Frank Shields.

[Mike]

Frank Shields. But you're right, they'll spend money on here's. I'm gonna. I'm gonna go down my rabbit hole. They'll spend hundreds of thousand dollars to call themselves accredited. For what? What does that accreditation do for anybody? It gives you a little shield on. A shield on your door with a little sticker. Yeah, you get a little sticker that says accredited. And they'll get accredited by seven different national agencies and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to say we're credit. When you could take that same money. Like you said, put a shield per shift, put one in each sector. Something that's going to help. And that always seems to blow my mind, that common sense. And that's a tough thing for you to say. I know it is. It's. You can't just show up at an agency and go, hey, that guy that died, you know, do you feel bad that you could have saved them? It's hard to get that message across after the fact but it should be a no brainer up front. Like here's a product that can help. It's way more important than accreditation. It's way more important than most of the stuff we spend our money on. But you know, I will spend a ton of money on Narcan, but not a shield, you know.

[Dennis Medina]

Well, like there like I, I'm. I'm not a salesman, bro. Like I said, I'm a SWAT dude and this is what I do. And I love my job. Believe it or not, I tell my wife I can't wait to retire somebody. You're never gonna retire. You're gonna. Because she sees that I have passion, you know. And that's kind of like what it takes not only to create this product, but to be in this line of work. You're going after some really bad dudes, right? So there's a line. And I, and I never said it because I feel like you said it's hard to say that, you know, to those people. How can you put up. Can you put the worth on like your life or some one of your officers? No, but at least you would tell me it is at least 7, 500, right. You could say his life is worth at least that. And not only his. The whole squad that works afternoons, let's say. So the idea is not. Ideally would be everyone has a breaching shield in their car. They're the first ones on scene, they get to do go to work. But for everyone to have access to one will be the ideal thing. And are training on breaching now in the academy that's something that you didn't see before.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

Maybe bring shields onto it. One handed shooting. You know the same thing I know when cops leave the academy, that's probably the last time that they are in the best shape of their life. Like the guys that are coming now at least nowadays. Right. But make that standard a little higher and have those guys ready. And at least as a department, as an agency, you could be like, we train them on that. We do it every six months or we do a yearly and we do this and we do that. And that's how you could like, like cover yourself as an agency, you know?

[Mike]

Yeah. Think about what you just said. What do we do as cops? We drive to a house and we go in a door hundreds and hundreds of times a day. What are we never been trained on? What if they don't open the door now what. And what do we do? We do that. We do the Hollywood kick. I kicked one door and I'm. I Was in really good shape when I kicked it. I. I pulled my hamstring as soon as I kicked that door because I wasn't expecting it to do what it did. And then I remember the guy. It was a barricade in the bedroom, and I'm, like, limping through the house now, like, that was a bad idea. Like, get to the. So we do all we do. What do we do? Hello, ma'. Am. Officer Moron here to take your report. We go to doors. All day long we go to doors. But what have we never been trained in? How to open it if they don't open it? And then we learn on the fly, or we. The big. The big. The big marine guy runs through, or you kick it. And how dangerous is that? You know, how many times have you seen an officer. I know there's a really bad one with a canine officer where he kicks the door open and his gun goes off as soon as he comes to the door because he has a sympathetic reaction. So it's like something we should be trained on is opening doors and then opening doors safely.

[Dennis Medina]

We had a call when I. When I was, like, five or six years on, where the. The. The white called, locked herself in the room. Said, my husband's gonna kill me, and is my buddy and I pretty much the only guys in town. Because it was a small town. We're the only one in service on afternoons. So we get there, we tried the door. Preaching one on one is you try the door first. If it's open. Good. Right. The door was open. The subject was grabbing the gun from, like, the counter to go upstairs to possibly shoot her. As soon as we open up. Hey, let me see your hands. Drop the gun. The guy put the gun down. No one lost their life. She was good. But what if that door was locked?

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

We would have never made it. He would have got. He was about to go upstairs with the gun.

[Mike]

You'd have been standing there, hearing gunshots at the front door going, how do I get out?

[Dennis Medina]

Break a window, get a rock, break the window, crawl through the window. This guy already killed somebody, so now he's in that state of alert. He's gonna possibly shoot it out with us. All that could have been prevented with breaching tools, with a breaching shield. If the door was locked.

[Tyler]

Yeah. And I mean, just going. Circling back to. Just tactical units. I mean, it's. Let's just say. All right, let's not talk safety. Let's talk, you know, optimizing, you know, efficiency, all that stuff you got. Oh, well, we don't have a breacher by himself. We have a shield guy with him. So now we're.

[Dennis Medina]

We're.

We're.

[Tyler]

We're taking up two positions in a breach. It just. I don't know, man. It blew me away when. When we did that episode. And then Mike went, oh, yeah, that's the. That's armored breach. I was like, what? And then we talked later, and I was like, wait a minute. So. And I had to go watch the video because I'm like, how does that work? And I'm like, oh, my God. This is. It's like you say, dennis, it's like, this isn't rocket science. This is just basic. And I'm like, well, how has that never been thought of? You know? And I was like, yeah, man, but it's such a good concept.

[Mike]

Your biggest argument or sales pitch should be, why would you. But why would you buy. Why would you buy a regular shield? That's like buying a car with, like, no motor in it. Like, yeah, why would you do it?

[Dennis Medina]

Why would anyone purchase a regular shield when you could have one that also protects you while breaching?

[Mike]

Yep. Doesn't make sense. Then that should be your whole sales pitch. Like.

[Tyler]

And you can. Like you said, you can use it as a right. If you need to. If you don't ever use it for the breaching side, you can still use it as a shield.

[Dennis Medina]

There may be that one door. Some of the pushback I would say that I was getting was up north. A lot of the doors open in because of the snow and all that. And the breaches are like, hey, I'll never use the Halligan. Number one. Screen doors open out. You can lock screen doors. You could defeat them with a Halligan. That could be right on the other side of that inward opening door, and you could be shot through. Right. That's number one. But what about in schools, in commercial buildings where you could. Building codes required for our opening doors into those rooms, because if a classroom catches on fire, and let's say you have an inward opening door, and all the kids pile up by the door, you're not gonna open that door. So the building codes require those doors to open our. So now you need a prime tool.

Yeah.

And. And in Uvalde, if you look at the video, that famous video of the hallway, the. The intersection there, all those doors open out. The door to that room opened up, you know, so it's because of building codes. So you could tell me, like, yeah, we'll never use it because our doors open in because of the snow. Not in commercial buildings. They do not into classrooms. And having that and not needing it. Cool. But needing it and not having it now you like?

[Mike]

Yeah, no, it makes, that makes all the sense in the world. It, it's simple and like you said you could, you could leave it off as carried as a shield. And then you go, okay, I'm here. I'm just gonna hold somebody, go get the hall again. I'm gonna throw it on real quick, attach it and go. And yeah, it only makes sense. But then we know, we know what happens in law enforcement when things make sense.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

Even if I don't need the Halligan, like I'll have it off and I'll stick it into my vest. That way I have it in here just in case if I need it for like on a hallway, different doors. All right, so now you'll give me the. Is a school. I have a master key. We did a training in a school. It was an empty school. We're running through the school, seeing how long we take to open doors with that master key not exposed, standing to the side. And we almost broke the key. So what happens when the key is broken? What happens when the access card doesn't work? When you have a shit ton of keys on your, on a chainring and you gotta find that but you hear shots on the other side and you gotta go mechanical. Mechanical is the most common way of breaching, you know? Yeah, you could have ballistics. Why do some supervisors don't like ballistic breaching? You're introducing a shooting to a no shooting situation. Right. You're. They're afraid that grandma might be coming to the door or a little kid. Now you go blow up the lock and, and they're struck, you know. Yeah, those things are same thing with, with explosive breaching. But mechanical breaching is like the no brainer. All regular cops on the road detectives, they should know how to breach mechanically and they should have tools to do the job.

[Tyler]

Yeah. And I mean we, we. I think with Uvalde, we all as a nation and as a culture, we focus on. Yeah, we focus on some things that need to be focused on. But you kind of reminded me something I haven't really thought about is. Yes. The, the. I think the. One of the things that everybody can agree on what happened was the fact that the breaching. Every time they went up to breach, there were shots fired. And so they. Were they right, wrong or indifferent? A lot of their decision making was based on that fact that every time we go to breach, he's shooting. So when we're not breaching, there's no shooting. And it was kind of that. Is it barricade? Is it not. It's a barricade or it's not. But again, we could sit there and dissect that for hours. But the fact that the. Let's just breach. He's gonna. We have to assume he's gonna shoot through the door. Let's just breach. You got men. If you got men willing to go through the door, that means you have men willing to die. So if. If they're gonna go through that door, I don't think, you know, putting a shield on them. They're going through anyways or be. You know, and I just. We. Yeah, that's such a good point about the Uvaldi thing that, you know, we focus on the boar attack. We focus on all the, you know, the. Well, you know, coward. Cowardice acts, whatever. But the fact that the tactical side of that. The. One of the learning points from that is the fact that that door. They would have benefited so much from a shield that could allow them to breach and be shielded at the same time.

[Dennis Medina]

No, I'm not sure if you're aware, but Texas. So I. I made a video. It should be on my Instagram with my son, about having breaching tools and ballistic shields, specifically our breaching shield in schools. And we send that to everybody, because once we saw the documentary, we noticed that that was some. Something that they could have used there, you know, and maybe the first couple guys that went up and then they were shot at, if they would have had that on scene, they would have made. They would have made it to those victims faster. They were asking for breaching tools. They were asking for shields. Those were on the. On the interviews afterwards, right?

The.

The documentary is called the. And the Uvalde behind the Uvalde Shooting or something like that. When they interview those cops. And that's why I'm like, you know what? Why not have that there, like a fire extinguisher? If. Yeah, the first officer comes, he knows how to breach. He knows how to use a shield. Or first two dudes. Hopefully one of them knows at least that'll give him that encouragement to go up there. So we. We made that. I made a video on that. I saw that interview on December 23rd or December 24th. I don't remember exactly. But on January, I made that interview. I made that video with my son. It's me and my son, like, sitting down on. On. It goes way back.

[Tyler]

Way back.

[Dennis Medina]

All right.

[Tyler]

I'll keep looking for it.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah, so if you find it. And I made that video. And funny enough, man, Texas passed the law where every school requires reaching tools and ballistic shields.

[Tyler]

Good.

[Dennis Medina]

We send that video to everybody in Texas. We send it to the governor, we send it to this school districts, and, and they passed that law. And I'm like, I wonder if they saw the video and they're like, this makes sense, you know, let's put shields. I, I just thought that was funny. So that's something that, that we're working on in Florida and hopefully it passed that one right there with my son.

[Tyler]

112.

[Dennis Medina]

112.

[Tyler]

112. Yes. Ma', am, what's your name? Ma', am, please hurry. There's a lot of dead bodies. Someone's trying to get me. Chloe. Okay, please. I can't wait.

[Daniel Medina]

So last night we were watching a documentary on YouTube from Frontline of that tragic shooting that took place in a Uvalde school back in May 2022. I'm Daniel Medina, this is my dad, Dennis Medina, who's been on COP for almost two decades. A member of a full time swap team and the creator of Armor Beach. Dad, how did you feel watching that documentary yesterday?

[Dennis Medina]

Honestly, it was tough to watch. Watching the documentary made me frustrated knowing that 21 lives were lost that day and that so many things went wrong.

[Daniel Medina]

Out of everything that went wrong, what bothered you the most?

[Dennis Medina]

What bothered me most was that it took them 77 minutes to get the door open and engage the thread, all because they didn't have the right equipment. Do you remember what Officer Mendoza said?

[Daniel Medina]

You're talking about the part where he said they didn't have the right equipment.

[Tyler]

Right?

[Dennis Medina]

Exactly.

And we know we need to get in there, but we don't have the right equipment. Like I said, we didn't have any shields.

So he basically knew that they had to get in there, but they did not have a shield to do it behind ballistic protection since the guy was shooting through the door. The gunman fires through the door of.

One of the classrooms, grazing Staff Sergeant Canales and Lieutenant Martinez. Am I bleeding? Am I bleeding? Am I bleeding?

That is what kept me up last night thinking, what can I do to let everyone know that there is a tool out there to get the door open behind a bulletproof shield, behind ballistic protection, basically.

[Daniel Medina]

And this is the main reason why we're doing this video today. Two years ago, my dad came home with an idea. As a breacher on his SWAT team, he came up with a safer way to breach behind ballistic protection by creating the first and only breaching shield. Dad, let me ask you something. Would our shield stop the gun that the shooter had?

[Dennis Medina]

Yes. Our shields are level three, which means that they're tested to stop those types of rifle rounds. The AR15 and the AK47 are two of the most popular rifles out there used by criminals. Those are the type of rounds specifically tested on our shield.

[Daniel Medina]

Just so everybody watching this video knows what makes our shield so special.

[Dennis Medina]

So our shields come with a detachable Halligan in the front so that the individual, the operator opening the door, can do it behind a bulletproof protection. So you guys have a better picture. A picture of bulletproof shield with a detachable Halligan in the front across. And that is used to open doors. Right? So the Halligan was basically one of the.

One of the tools that the chief.

And several officers on scene were looking for to start breaching doors when they didn't have a master key. I believe that not only would our shield would have given those officers the ability to search for a subject behind his protection quicker, but it would have also allowed them to open the doors knowing that they would have been protected. That is one of the reasons our shield is unique.

[Daniel Medina]

And guys, our shield is fairly new. My dad was able to get a patent after a long process a little more than a year ago. So most people don't even know this product exists. However, several police departments in South Florida are already utilizing it. But we still need your help. After watching this documentary, my mom, dad and I looked at each other and realized not only should tactical teams have our breaching shield the same way schools have fire extinguishers, we believe that every school should at least have one breaching shield so that when the first police officer arrive, they can act quickly. Because in a situation like that, a second can save many lives.

[Dennis Medina]

The first few moments of a response is crucial is what experts said. This is the best moment in time to engage the shooter and rescue any victims.

[Daniel Medina]

Dad, let me ask you something. What message do you want to send out to the parents watching this video?

[Dennis Medina]

So being a dad, you can't help but think that this could happen at any school, unfortunately, even your child's school. While watching this documentary, the first thing that came to my mind was that there needs to be a breaching shield in my son's school.

[Mike]

So how are we going to do that?

[Dennis Medina]

So even if I have to donate one, I will. I'm willing to equip your school so it is ready just in case. Hopefully it never happens, but just in case it does, they could deal with a situation like that. I know that not everyone is in a position able to donate a shield, but by simply spreading our message, it can get to the right individuals who can help us equip schools so that our children are better protected.

[Mike]

Now. Hold it.

[Dennis Medina]

Damn it. Hey, can you. Can you go get a breaching tool like. I know, I know there are more gunshots.

The first in nearly 40 minutes. We just want to create awareness with this video to let people know that this tool already exists, that there is a breaching shield out there that should be present at every school, that it can be the difference that can save lives. We can argue tactics all day, but no one can argue safety because it is not a question of if. It is a question of when, where, or who.

[Daniel Medina]

On that note, help us spread word and create awareness by sharing this video to school boards, school committees, principals, assistant principals, educators, and anyone who may be able to make a difference and protect us students when the next mass shooting happens.

[Tyler]

Well, first of all, if you don't hire your son as executive marketing director, we will. That is a very well put together young man.

[Dennis Medina]

He actually put the video. He edited the video now.

[Tyler]

Wow, man. Yeah, that's. That. He's definitely the face of the company I could see in like five or 10 years. For sure, man. Great points, dude. So that circulated organically. That did it did what it was supposed to do.

[Dennis Medina]

I. My wife got on and she sent that to everyone that same night. We. We stayed up once, we posted that and I guess that it got to someone and the government there because they, they passed the law May 19th of 2025, that every school is required to have that. You know, I required to have bridging tools and ballistic shields. However, if I give you a Halligan. Yeah, it's a breaching tool, right? The door opens out, you're running through the hallway, you picked it up because it's just like a fire extinguisher. It's gonna be somewhere locked, secure. You don't want the bad guy to get his hands on a ballistic shield and you have a couple dead bodies on the way to the door where you know that the subject is at. How comfortable do you feel? You already know that he shot with a Halligan or maybe with the breaching shield together as a whole to now come up. You know, it's a no brainer, but yeah, I'm the guy that made it. But it's to me, it's like you, you rolling the dice. You're playing with your life. You could create some distractions, break some windows on the other side. Meanwhile, you're going just with the Halligan. But if you drop there, you're not saving anybody. Now you just became a rescue mission. Now they got to get you a officer down drill, get you out of there, get you to somewhere safer. Meanwhile kids or anyone is inside still losing their life, you know.

[Tyler]

Yeah. And it goes to what you said. I mean, you're not doing this to make money. The fact that you got an entire state educational system and you raise that much awareness to where they made it manner. They didn't make it mandatory to buy from armored breach. They made something mandatory to protect children. And I think that alone says a lot about, you know, your company and your mission.

[Dennis Medina]

Thank you.

[Tyler]

Well, I was going to leave it the last nine minutes for just some simple funny SWAT stories. So I was, I was gonna let Dennis think while Mike, you got. See if you had something in the chamber. You're. It doesn't have to be the most insane or crazy, but something that you were like, what the. Because I've got one. We've been talking.

[Dennis Medina]

I got one too. I'm ready to go.

[Tyler]

We've been talking about hitting, hitting, hitting for cp. I try not to say the words, but CP warrants, much like that, that that video is based off. And we did one. I wanna, I wanna say we did one. It was for the FBI and a standard warrant and we brought him out. Nothing, nothing crazy happened, but we brought him out. And he was in his boxers. And I look over at my buddy, I was. That was brand new. And I'm like, yo, dude, this dude have a boner. And he's like, yeah. And then one of the senior guys comes up to me goes, dude, as sick as it is, this is his final thing. Like, he's like, I'm. He's getting off on getting arrested for, for this. He's like, this is. They're not right? They're not. And we're like, dude, he's got a full on. Like, I don't like making light of the type of warrant was.

[Mike]

Somebody please clip this.

[Tyler]

It was bizarre, dude. It was. I've never seen anything like that. It's the worst day of his life. And he's got a. And he didn't have it when he came out. He started getting it outside of handcuffs when the agents were talking to him. And I'm like, the. And I felt weird for noticing too.

[Mike]

Did you watch it grow? Did you watch it grow? I mean, did you, like, like, fertilizer? Were your eyes fertilizer?

[Tyler]

Yeah, definitely.

[Dennis Medina]

Definitely.

[Tyler]

All right, Dennis, what's your story?

[Dennis Medina]

All right, so I'll go with two, if you don't mind, man. I have one with. For CP as well. So we search throughout the house. The guy happened to. Happens to be in the bathroom and in the. In the master bedroom. Bathroom door is locked. We search everywhere. So is it. I kicked the door open, and the guy's on the toilet. So we go hands on, and he's like, no way. He's resisting. All he kept saying was, no way, no way. I'm like, no way. It's too late. So we pulled him out, did our thing, you know, he ended up, like, on himself. It's not a. He didn't have a boner, but I was like, damn, but lucky I didn't get any of you, man. But he got what he deserved, though. Yeah.

[Tyler]

You have. You have an AR and you're like, you know what? Next time this happens, maybe we'll just let him finish. We'll put a guy on him. Put your hands up, but finish.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah, I think he said it on himself because he. He got so scared, you know?

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Dennis Medina]

But he was in the positive doing it, and we just helped him finish.

[Tyler]

Mike, what you got?

[Mike]

I mean, the only funny one I got. I was a preacher, and we were hitting an apartment door, and, you know, they got the little slide, the little metal thing that slides over like a hotel room. So I hit it.

[Dennis Medina]

Boom.

[Mike]

And it opens. And when I. When it closes, the guy was coming to the door, and we didn't know it, and he undoes the lock. So I hit it again and just split them right down the middle of his skull. Like, boom. I had no idea he was behind the door, and I had no idea. So I threw it. I put everything into it to hit it the second time to try to break that lock. And I hit a door that was essentially open, and he was standing around the other side of the door, and I just watched him.

[Dennis Medina]

Boom.

Oh, damn. I'll tell you my next one if you want, man.

[Tyler]

Yeah, let's do it.

[Dennis Medina]

But it involves my wife, so I.

[Mike]

Got plenty of those.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah, my wife is. She's a flight attendant for an airline that went down at Jacksonville. And the water. I don't know if you guys. May 3, 2019. Yeah.

[Mike]

Holy.

[Dennis Medina]

So I landed, and it ran off the Runway onto the river. So she acted like a g. Evacuated everybody, like, onto. Onto the raft, the whole nine. And I'm telling My buddy from work, this older guy, like, muscular, about to retire, like, 20 plus years on, like close to 30 years on. And he's like, talk like that. Like, real deep voice. I'm like, bro, my wife, like, evacuated the. The aircraft. Like, she did all these amazing things in a real world emergency, right? Like, how many flight attendants, how many people in a. In a plane do you know that crash and get to survive and tell the story? Not only that, get to be the person that evacuated everybody. Like, I'm like, that's pretty cool. So I'm telling him the story. And you thought you were the badass or relationship because. Because you're in a SWAT team.

[Tyler]

Yeah, that's. That's a great.

[Mike]

Never crashed a plane before. What's wrong with you?

[Tyler]

Yeah. And then help people after.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

And she's always gonna have that.

[Mike]

At any argument, she's gonna go, yeah, cool story, bro.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah.

[Mike]

You haven't survived a plane crowd. I don't want to hear it.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah, you beneath me.

[Tyler]

So anybody that wants to get in touch with Dennis or armored breach, I'm gonna share real quick. Obviously, probably the easiest way is through their website, armored breach.com you can go to the contact tab. You got something right here. I'm assuming this is going to shoot them an email directly. They also put their email right here. Dennis's email and a phone number. Obviously, you can, you can. We've looked at their Instagram, so their Instagram is up and running, and they have a YouTube. We all know that. Yes. As we do check and start Instagram messages. The most reliable way is an email. So, yes, sir. Get in touch with Dennis. Even if you have questions about it, even if, you know, if you're. If you're the. If you're the breacher and you're like, this makes sense. Help him help you. So, Dennis, thanks so much for coming on, man. Especially. You were a good sport when we put out that clip. And you were like, just. By the way, guys, my name is Dennis.

[Dennis Medina]

Thank you. Thank you for having me. And it was a blast. A lot, A lot of feedback, positive feedback from. From that video. So thank you guys for. For being. Being the voice for that. And, you know, we love what we do, but to be, like, recognized on something that you created and for people to be like, damn, that's a pretty cool product. And hopefully saving a life down the line is. Can put. Can't put that into words.

[Mike]

Correct.

[Tyler]

Yeah. And I. I'm assuming we'll see you at. In the, in the coming years. We'll be seeing yet a lot of SWAT conferences and stuff like that, so. Yep. Heather says that one with his son needs to be shared in every single school in the United States. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to obviously go reshare that once we're done here, and a great video. And it was a pleasure having you on, man. And we'll be in touch. Anything you need from us, you let us know. We'll do it.

[Dennis Medina]

You got it, bro. Same here.

[Mike]

Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

[Tyler]

All right, me and. Me and Mike are gonna wrap up the show real quick, so don't forget to check out our merch store, anterobroadcast.com we got plenty of merch up there. We got the X conference coming up April 21st, 22nd, thrown by our boy Kenny from the Red Ninja from the beyond the Barrel podcast. We'll be there. Kind of like a street cop training type thing. Three days, a bunch of cops getting together and hanging out. And Thursday night, that's. That's approaching.

[Mike]

Mike, it's tomorrow night, isn't it?

[Tyler]

Yeah, Thursday night. Don't forget, go subscribe to Counterculture Inc. YouTube, man. That's where we'll be for the night shift. You got anything else, Mike?

[Mike]

I have breaking news.

[Tyler]

Okay.

[Mike]

For our followers. Jerry Worms has purchased a house in South Florida, and he closes at the end of March. Our boy Jerry is coming back home to Florida. As long as everything goes well with the closing, he'll be. I already googled the address. He's like an hour and 15 minutes south of me. So he plans on popping into some of the weekly shows, coming over to Orlando, and then. So that's. That's exciting news for all of our followers and everybody who loves Jerry, be able to see a lot more of him.

[Tyler]

All right? And then, yes, the West Palm Beep show is being discussed, and it's looking like, what, mid May? Probably mid May.

[Dennis Medina]

Yeah.

[Mike]

If we go mid May, we can double up the old birthday. My 50th birthday, so get that out of the way. And I think that West Palm is the best area. Jerry will be down here by then, and you'll finally have to drive somewhere, so. I like that. How are we. We're all going. Justin's going, too, right? To South Carolina?

[Tyler]

Yeah. Well, we have. We have two in South Carolina, I'm assuming, I think.

[Mike]

But the canceled event.

[Tyler]

Yeah, the X conference. Yeah. I'm pretty sure Justin's riding up with us in the. In the old van. We're gonna Rent. Justin found like a really good rate for like 300 bucks for the week. It's just a rental van, you know, everybody can crash and so that'll be fun, but. What?

[Mike]

I'm sleeping with Justin.

[Tyler]

Why? You store dude?

[Mike]

No, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about Jimmy comes. You got Jimmy. I'll take Justin.

[Tyler]

I figured we were all going to room in the same room. Aren't the auntie old ladies going, is it?

[Mike]

I gotta figure. Yeah, I gotta figure all that out. I gotta get serious about that. I gotta cruise before that to deal with. That's the only thing on my mind.

[Tyler]

Oh, so you're not doing anything until that cruise is there?

[Mike]

Let me see, where are we at? We are at how many days to my cruise? Bunk beds? No, my Cruise is in 39 days. All right, more about the other stuff later. Tomorrow is the in studio broadcast will be there tomorrow.

[Tyler]

The flagship broadcast number two of the week. So 11am guys. YouTube x Facebook join us tomorrow. We'll see you then. JV Team for life.

[Dennis Medina]

This is Coke. Zero sugar with real Coca Cola taste and zero sugar.

[Tyler]

Listen closely.

[Dennis Medina]

Hear those bubbles.

[Tyler]

That's the sound of delicious real coconut.

[Dennis Medina]

Coca Cola taste and zero sugar. Ice cold cook. Zero sugar. Real Coca Cola taste.

[Tyler]

Zero sugar.