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Chats with law enforcement experts and leaders
This is Sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith at the National Police Association, And this is the National Police Association Podcast. I have a guest today that we almost couldn't get to recording because we just wanted to talk and laugh and share stories. So of course she was recommended by a good friend of mine. And I want you to meet her because this woman is the epitome of what public services, parenting is, and being an outspoken advocate for this profession, as well as for the non woke atmosphere that we need to steep ourselves in. So, Marique Bartoldus, welcome to the show.
Betsy Smith:I am so grateful that you are here.
Marique Bartoldus:I am so thankful for you having me. Thanks so much. I'm really excited about this. That was quite an introduction.
Betsy Smith:I hope I don't disappoint the listeners to sure. So of course, you spent twenty years in the NYPD. I have to, no small feat. I gotta ask you, why did you become a cop?
Marique Bartoldus:It's a funny story. Most people like I always wanted to be a cop or I grew up wanting to be a police officer. No, not me. I grew up not really knowing what I wanted to do. And one night in college in Upstate New York, I was sitting there with a buddy of mine and we're like, what are we doing with our lives?
Marique Bartoldus:And he's like, he was a Brooklyn guy. He's like, yo, you should be a cop in the NYPD. And I'm like, what? I said, you think I'd be good? He's like, yeah, you like telling everybody what to do.
Marique Bartoldus:You'd be great. I said, Okay, all right. So next day I packed up my stuff and I moved back home. I went to school at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, got my degree there and applied for the NYPD, took the test. And next thing I knew, July 2002, I got hired.
Marique Bartoldus:So that was it, it was a whim.
Betsy Smith:Now, when you got on the job, and first and foremost, and I'm gonna guess this is you, you don't do anything small. When you decided to become a cop, you decided to become a cop on the largest police agency in The United States Of America, right? I mean, this is, it's a huge agency. And this was post nineeleven oh one. This was a time where terrorism was, we had experienced the worst terror attack in the nation, literally in your backyard.
Betsy Smith:But this was a time when law enforcement officers were still pretty revered, especially on the NYPD. Talk about what that was like.
Marique Bartoldus:Right, so when I came on, after I graduated the academy, went right to transit in the subway, which I was not a big fan of. I had known the subway system my whole life. I didn't wanna go down into the hole, but that's where they sent you. So, needs of the department. So for us, we were down there with the National Guard.
Marique Bartoldus:They were there so people would feel more safe and use the subways. And because the subways are still a major threat, they thought there was gonna be a bomb in one of the tunnels. So the people would come up to you, thank you for your service, thank you for being here, thank you for what you do. And with an issue, like a few short years, turned into, like I was at a detail at the Western Day Parade and a woman came up to me and said, you should have died in the Twin Towers. So it was a quick change back to, I guess the normal way of some people thinking.
Marique Bartoldus:But for me it was like coming on and you were a hero and I didn't feel like I earned it. I didn't do anything to be a hero. Just took a test and passed the academy. But for the guys that I worked with that were down on Nineeleven, they were on the pile and stuff. I felt like I had no business even being in the same room as them because what they had done, they were still exhausted six months later from working nonstop, no days off down there and doing anti terrorism activities all over the city.
Marique Bartoldus:So it was an interesting time.
Betsy Smith:Well, and not only were you, you know, are you a retired police officer, but you're also a police wife. Your husband, he was down on the pile. I have a couple of very close friends that were as well. One is fighting, is constantly fighting a brain tumor and all of that.
Marique Bartoldus:I'm sorry.
Betsy Smith:You know, I don't think people really understand, you do, what those first responders continue to deal with almost twenty five years later.
Marique Bartoldus:Yeah, he doesn't really talk about it too much. My husband, when he was down there, once in a while he was on the pile. So he was actually on the bucket brigade with bringing debris and all kinds of other things, passing it back and forth. He would describe it a lot as being on top of like a building that was built of like sticks. So you would just look down into a crevice and you wouldn't see the bottom.
Marique Bartoldus:It would just keep going down and it would move a lot because it was not a solid structure. So it was so unstable, it would move and they would blow whistles and you'd have to get off the pile. And then when they found a body, they would have a moment of silence. And even years later, he goes every year for the nineeleven and to measure the things that are on his lungs and to make sure nothing's growing. But a lot of the guys that were down there unfortunately have had effects of cancer and all kinds of health issues.
Marique Bartoldus:And it's a shame because I'm not gonna let the EPA president go. She said the air is safe down there. I'm not gonna forget the lies that were told and these guys believed it and they gave them paper masks and they thought, oh, everything's gonna be okay, don't worry about it, just keep clearing out the debris. And not just the cops, not just the firemen, the construction workers that came from all over the country to help us out, to clear it up down there because it was a mess. It was unbelievable what was down there.
Betsy Smith:Now you're a mom of young kids. I was on the job during nineelevenone and my youngest was six. And I, the next day, sat down with her and I had her watch what happened. I explained it to her, I talked to her about it because back then you know we had to have a plan because we, know the American law enforcement officer, not just in New York but everywhere around the nation was instantly thrust into this war on terror that we really had not anticipated. And so we had to, you know, we were told prepare your families, have a plan, talk to your kids.
Betsy Smith:Your kids are now, you know, they're young. Do you talk to them about nineelevenone and what happened that day?
Marique Bartoldus:Oh, absolutely. I am not one to, I guess, shield my kids from the realities of life. They need to face it full on, you know, because I look at it like the kids during the Revolutionary War when the war was brought to their backyards were five, six, seven years old. And, they were looking at dead bodies and people shot and the horrors of war. So my kids need to be aware of what goes on.
Marique Bartoldus:So every year I watch the, I think like one of the news corporations does a whole thing on that day. They do an hour play view of everything that happened. And out of respect for the people who died, my mom was downtown working on that day and the people that I had friends down there that were running, my uncle had seen people jumping and all that. So out of respect to all those people and the people who died horrific deaths, I watch it. And last year I had my kids watch it for the first time.
Marique Bartoldus:We always told them about it and stuff. And now I said, you're gonna sit and watch and this is what happened. And you have to understand this is the reality of the world today. We have people who don't like us and they will do whatever it takes to try and hurt us again. And then I'll tell them funny stories like when I was in transit, we had to do the, what is it with the suit?
Marique Bartoldus:What is that called?
Betsy Smith:Oh yeah, like the hazmat suit.
Marique Bartoldus:The hazmat suit, thank you. Yeah, so we had to have hazmat training, right? So here I am thinking, I'm joining a police department, I wanna chase bad guys with guns, I wanna go to, and they're like having me put a hazmat suit on which makes you sweat profusely. I So would always intentionally rip the zipper so that I wouldn't get all sweaty and smelly after the training was over. And I'd be sitting here in like a gas mask and rubber gloves with duct tape.
Marique Bartoldus:And they're like, Oh, we're gonna send you into like the orange zone. And I'm like, You're not sending me into What are you talking about orange zone? I'm like, where is my gun belt gonna go on on this hazmat suit? Because I don't Somebody is gonna come out of an orange zone and try and steal my mask. How am I supposed to defend my Am I gonna kick them in the cojones?
Marique Bartoldus:Like where are we going with this? So I try and spin it into a funny type of tale for them, but absolutely they understand what happened. They know where their daddy was and they know what happened on that day. And I also pushed their school to teach it too. I said, they're not too young to learn because you don't really know what's gonna happen.
Betsy Smith:Nineeleven oh one was one of the most historic events in our lifetime. You're absolutely right. And I think there are a lot of schools that are not teaching it or they're not teaching it appropriately. Know there is still that faction that thinks we deserved and what happened on nineelevenone and all of that and our it's gonna be interesting you know we're in an election season now and there's a lot of discussion about did you know did America bring this on you know all of that and it's so unfortunate because you know again who suffers very often it's the American law enforcement officer because we're on the front lines of having to deal with all of this and so you know I'm glad to know that you're talking to your kids about that and I intend to talk to my I talk to my grandkids about it now and and our kids all knew you know what had happened why it happened and and and all of that so you did twenty years on the NYPD what you know that you know wow and and and then you retired and you wrote a book. Talk about what made you sit down because I've always been impressed with people who were able to actually sit down and write a book.
Marique Bartoldus:Well, I was always a reader. I love reading anything I get my hands on. Towards when my because I had kids later on in my career. So I would come home from work and my daughter would be like, mommy, what'd you do at work today? And you know, the thought of my day of like, well, the one guy that got shot and I was trying to stop the blood from coming out of his head and you know, then I slipped in brain matter on this one and then, you know, this animal was abused and I had to, you know, try and arrest it.
Marique Bartoldus:And all those jobs that we see on a daily basis that normal people just don't really get. And I'm like, which one would be appropriate for a six year old? And I'm like, okay, I'll tell you what, I will write a book, I'll write everything down, I'm gonna write it all, I'll print it out. And then when you get old enough, then you can read it and you'll know what mommy did at work every day. So I was retired, I didn't really wanna work yet.
Marique Bartoldus:I wasn't really up to being a cop again. Those days were kind of, I'm not chasing perps over fences anymore. Those days were over. So I started writing. And a year later, and a lot of edits, I said, this is 400 and something pages and my brother printer was not able to handle that type of workload.
Marique Bartoldus:So I'm like, well, I may as well like get it, a publisher and get a cover for it. The next day I know it's on Amazon. And I really was only expecting to sell three copies, which were the three copies I was gonna buy. But then it kind of just, word got out and a lot of guys that I work with are buying it and stuff. And then it just, it went on a bunch of podcasts and it went from there.
Marique Bartoldus:It really was really meant for a memoir of what I did for my kid. And now it's turned into, people are buying it and reviewing it. I'm like, wow, this pretty cool. I'm glad people are enjoying it.
Betsy Smith:What can people expect when they buy a copy of it? Because I want everybody to buy a copy.
Marique Bartoldus:Oh, well, yes, thank you. It's there. So you can see the glamour shot is my friend was making fun of me. She's like, that's the picture that you're gonna pick. And I said, well, that's me.
Marique Bartoldus:I'm not gonna put some kind of fancy dudded up picture of me on. So it's basically just, it's a bunch of stories. They're short, three, four pages at the most for the most part. And it's just all kinds of stuff that I experienced while I was working throughout twenty years from transit to patrol, to conditions, to street narcotics, anticrime, field intelligence, just everything thrown into the mix. And then a lot of the, I'm sure you experienced it as well, like the bull busting that went on in the police department and the pranks that were played on everyone.
Marique Bartoldus:So I include some of that stuff in there too. So it's just kind of a mixed pot of twenty years of chaos.
Betsy Smith:There's nothing funnier than police work, is there? I know everybody thinks we're And yes, of course we're chasing bad guys. We're dealing with trauma and tragedy and all the horrible things. But it's a fun job and damn is it funny, isn't it?
Marique Bartoldus:Yeah, I don't think I've ever laughed as hard as the times on the job. And even like, we still keep in touch with guys we retired with. And my husband and I worked together, so we knew everybody. So we'll do like a FaceTime call with people we work with. And I'm like, I haven't laughed this hard since I was working.
Marique Bartoldus:It's just the stuff that you deal with, the pranks that are played on people, it does and there isn't that well, back then there was no I'm offended by this, I'm making a complaint. It was like stupid. Like I tell people all the time I got into a fist fight with a perp, which happens. They don't care that you're a girl. A matter of fact, they'll pick us because we're a girl because we look like the weaker language, it happens.
Marique Bartoldus:And so he got me, he gave me a good unicorn nod on my head. So me being a girl, I said to the guy, take a picture of my face because I wanna see my makeup's running. Like how bad is this? Because everybody's looking at me and I don't I don't realize I have a knot. I think it's because my makeup is like a mess.
Marique Bartoldus:So he takes a picture and I'm like, holy crud, look at the size of that knot I got on my head. So he has the picture and I go out, I have a concussion, I'm out for two weeks sick or whatever it was. I come back from work and I'm walking in and I said, what the heck was that? And I look into the Arrest Processing Room and there's the picture of me with the nod on my head as the screensaver in the Arrest Processing Room bouncing up and around the computer screens. So stuff like that, we made fun of each other and it built the bonds that you just can't describe and that's what I miss.
Marique Bartoldus:I miss that and Chase and Perps. Those are the
Betsy Smith:two things I missed about the job. I know there's nothing on earth like that, absolutely. And you know when you look at and you've said it so so well the evolution of how people looked at at you guys how everybody looked at law enforcement because you you know you were there when we were the heroes and then you were there after you know the Eric Garner case and and then you know George Floyd you know Michael Brown and then George Floyd and all that the the that degradation if if you will where you know we went from being the heroes to absolutely the villains and nobody experienced that more than the NYPD I think. I mean you know when again after Eric Garner and then you saw you know people throwing water on NYPD cops and leftover food and all that stuff. What was it like to deal with that?
Marique Bartoldus:It was really frustrating because people I had gang members, right? Like I was in Intel, so I followed the gang members and they all knew me. I had been in the precinct for a long time, so I knew a lot of the players that were out there. So I go out on the street and the gang guys were cool with me. What's up, moms?
Marique Bartoldus:What's going on? Like we had a decent relationship. They didn't buy into all the nonsense that, you know, they recognize that the bad guys ironically recognize some of the cops were jerks, and the rest of us were all right. And you know, some days you're the dog and some days you're the hydrant. Some days we would catch them and some days they get away.
Marique Bartoldus:And that was the game they played and they got it. But the vast majority of people bought into this whole, the cops are bad, we're targeting people, we're going after people. And it was ironic because during the George Floyd disaster, we would have congregations and marches and all this other stuff through our priests and other precincts. So one of my assignments would be to go to all these places and to escort them in a car. Like I would do pre recon and post recon and stuff, but I would escort them and make sure that their ability to walk through the streets of New York City and say the cops are bad and we beat people up and we're racist.
Marique Bartoldus:And I made sure that their first amendment right to say these things peacefully was protected and that nobody would assault them as they were marching around. And, you know, it was just the ironic, the whole irony of the entire situation was not lost on me. And it was a shame because they didn't understand that, you know, yeah, I understand you hate the cops, but right now I'm missing my kid's sixth birthday. I'm missing Christmas. I'm missing my grandfather's last birthday before he passed away.
Marique Bartoldus:We give up in our own personal lives for people that I don't know, I don't live in your neighborhood. I'm probably never gonna see you again, but I'm willing to make that sacrifice because that's what I signed up for and that's what I swore an oath to do. And I think the powers that be are really working hard to divide us and they've been successful, which is a shame. But it was interesting to come on and thank you so much, we love you. And towards the end of my career, it was, well, we hate you, you guys are racist and you're not really doing your job.
Marique Bartoldus:And then take this shot or you're gonna get fired. So it was it was the like, gamut of the whole both ends of the spectrum. Was insanity.
Betsy Smith:So where do you see now as a spectator, if you will, what do you see as the future of the NYPD as well as just American law enforcement? Know, because that's one of things I love about you. You have informed opinions. What do you see?
Marique Bartoldus:Well, so what I would like to see is cops having guts again and not being afraid to take action because what we're seeing is more and more cops are getting hurt because they hesitate. And as you well know, and cops who are listening, hesitation gets you hurt and you can't hesitate. The cuffs have to go on, they go on. If you're gonna have to get into a fight, you have to fight. You can't be afraid.
Marique Bartoldus:And what people don't understand is I was never one for just beating the crap out of people and driving away. Once the handcuffs are on, the fight's over, it's done. We're not beating people excessively. I'm not slamming people's heads into the dashboards of cars and this stuff. If he wants to fight me, it's gonna be a fight.
Marique Bartoldus:But once he's under control and I got cuffs on, it's over. And then it's like, okay, you want a soda and I'll get you some dinner. That was the game that I played. And nowadays it's not like that. So the future of policing in New York City, especially with Dumb Donnie, is I have serious concerns for the safety of those guys.
Marique Bartoldus:I don't see how the pendulum is gonna swing back anytime soon. It goes back and forth, it's so far to the other side now where cops are not able to do what they wanna do, not just because of the fear of being on the 06:00 news and the cover of the New York Post, but because if you have so many oversight organizations that are making sure that they're following the rules And one split second of a judgment is judged during hours and hours by somebody in an air conditioned office and you can't survive under those type of conditions. You're going to fail, you're set up to fail. So it's really, for the cops, it's circle the wagons, protect yourselves, do as little as possible. And so what that means is the citizens of New York City are more in danger because the perps are emboldened and that's what the plan is.
Marique Bartoldus:They don't want the cops doing anything. They want chaos to ensue because that's just this type of society that the people that are running the city want to have. And unfortunately, it's the citizens that are trapped in the inner city that either love the city so much or they can't afford to get out who are gonna be victims of the criminals having the empowerment and running around rampant and doing what they want and thinking nothing's gonna happen to me. I think that's what's gonna happen across the country.
Betsy Smith:Yeah, I think you're right. What we're seeing is because lower income people can't leave, I see the same thing in Chicago and LA. They can't leave, they can't afford to leave. Who can afford to leave New York is leaving New York.
Marique Bartoldus:They're gone.
Betsy Smith:Yeah. And as are cops. And that's the thing. When I look at you and your career, you did twenty years. You could have done thirty.
Betsy Smith:You could have done thirty five. But there was so much happening against good NYPD officers like on many other agencies where they wanted you to get the COVID vaccine. And one tiny mistake might land you not just in a lawsuit or with a thirty day suspension, but in prison. That is difficult. That's a difficult way to have to live and to have to work, isn't it?
Marique Bartoldus:You can't function that way. You can't make a clear decision and you can't What the normal people don't understand and what cops and bad guys understand is that there's the normal people that go about their day and this is where they're at. And underneath them are the cops and the bad guys. And we see each other and we play by a different set of rules. Some of the bad guys are okay and they're really not bad.
Marique Bartoldus:They're just a victim of their circumstance. And they don't have bad hearts. They sell drugs, they got guns or whatever they do and that's their game. But there are some guys out there that wanna hurt us and these civilians don't understand that those people came from a place and it starts with the youth. When they change that law, they raise the age law and they made criminals up to 18 instead of 16, that messed up a lot of people because it starts in the teenage years when there's like, they're running around with the little hoodlums and the gangs and they wanna impress the OGs of the neighborhood.
Marique Bartoldus:And then they feel empowered when the cops don't do anything to them. And when they walk up and they put a bucket of water over the head of a cop and nothing happens, then they're like, well, I can do something even worse the next time. And then that violence against cops grows. And as the violence against the cop grows, and there's no discipline in the home, of course. So the complete lack of respect for authority and the taking away of the threat of like, if I punch a cop, he's gonna beat me down and that's gonna be it.
Marique Bartoldus:Once that is removed, and I'm not talking excessive force because I don't play that game, I'm not into that, but just equal force. Equal force will be met as opposed to the cops being cowards. When you have that removed, the perps are going to be out of control and that's what we're seeing. And it's really a shame and I feel bad for the people in the inner city because there's a lot of really good people there that are just trying to go about their lives and make ends meet and they got a couple of kids that are running around and now, oh, well gang members, we can't target them. That's not really fair because now we're targeting people.
Marique Bartoldus:No, we're targeting criminals. They're committing crimes. We're not going out there. And the funny thing was is like people always say, oh, you racially profile. I would racially profile white people because when I saw white people where I worked, I knew that they were there to buy drugs.
Marique Bartoldus:It's just the fact. I'm sorry, that's the fact of the matter. So you'd follow them and sure enough, they buying drugs and that's what it was. The whole racial profiling and the division thing, it has nothing to do with it. You need police that are going to maintain order.
Marique Bartoldus:There's the line. That's what the blue line is. Order has to be maintained because if we don't have that line of order, we have chaos and the people that suffer are the inner city residents.
Betsy Smith:And then it'll spill out into the suburbs. That's just inevitable. And that's why we're seeing there's new polling that is just now coming out again, that most people like the cops. Most people want more police in their neighborhood. Most people want cops to get paid appropriately and to do proactive policing.
Betsy Smith:Proactive policing in New York is almost a dead situation, isn't it? Everybody, like you said, you're just trying to do your job. I'm guessing patrol officers like in a lot of bigger cities start their shift with twenty, thirty, 40 calls holding. Right. Productive policing is it's almost dead.
Betsy Smith:And and you keep using that word gangs. You used to work in gangs. But now we see police chiefs around this country refusing to to use that word and say, well, this mass shooting we had is two groups who don't like each other. Tell me why that's insane.
Marique Bartoldus:It seems to be common sense, but apparently common sense has been lost on most of the populace. So I guess we have to explain what is so like, you have to in order to solve a problem, you have to identify what it is. If you can't identify what it is by name, like after nine eleven, we had a problem with Muslims. It wasn't because we were racist. It's because it was that religion that radicalized people to fly planes into buildings and to kill innocent civilians.
Marique Bartoldus:Gang members are the drivers of violence and the gang starting at 14 and 15 and even younger years old. And those are the guys that you have to target. You have to target them not And I was always very big on constitutional. I wasn't for the red flag laws because I thought that was a violation of fourth amendment. I'm much a constitutionalist and you have to do things legally, but you gotta identify the problem.
Marique Bartoldus:And two groups of people is not what the problem is. We have two gangs and if you can't identify them and learn who their associates are, who are their cohorts, Are we gonna go up on wires in these guys? What's the plan of attack to take these guys down? They're involving gangs and guns. Where are they getting the guns from?
Marique Bartoldus:Where are they getting narcotics from? Where are they getting the money from to fund their organization? You have to attack all of those things. And if you don't identify who's associated with who, who's affiliated with who, what girls are hanging out in between both gangs and maybe you can talk to them, there's a million ways, but if you can't identify what the problem is, you're never gonna solve it. And once again, it's the people and the regular citizens who have nothing to do with this that are caught in the crossfire, that get shot by rounds that were in between gang fights.
Marique Bartoldus:And it's a shame, it's sad. I've gone to way too many of those jobs and the leaders that are elected by the people are not doing what they're supposed to do to cut it out, like taking out the metal detectors in schools. I was very much against it. You're just going to encourage people to bring weapons to school and sure enough, school shootings and fights in schools goes up. A lot of buildings, gotta pass through a metal detector to get into a building.
Marique Bartoldus:Why would we not have that in schools in crime prone locations?
Betsy Smith:Especially because if you wanna go to your city council meeting, you wanna go to your county board of supervisors, you wanna go to any of those meetings, you wanna go before a judge, all those things you gotta go through a metal detector. But hey, let's just throw open the schools because we don't wanna offend teachers or whatever. Again, this is something that talked about off camera is just the poison that wokeness has brought not just to law enforcement but really to this society. And to that end, because you do have all these, how dare you, common sense opinions, Ma, you also have a podcast, talk about that.
Marique Bartoldus:I do, yeah. This is part of the problem is that I'm Italian, right? So I got a loud mouth. I say what's on my mind. I'm also from New York, from New York City.
Marique Bartoldus:We are just a different breed. I don't give a crap. I'm gonna say what I think and I don't care who it offends and you know what, to hell with it. But I'm also open for dialogue. So I had been on all these podcasts when I wrote my book and a buddy of mine was like, should create your own podcast because you got a lot to say.
Marique Bartoldus:And I'm like, well, know I have lot to say but it's just a matter of our people gonna wanna listen to what I have to say. So I started this podcast, Monz on the Mic, and I had a couple of interviews with guys that I worked with and war stories and all that fun stuff. But really the whole purpose of the podcast is to expose what people are not taught anymore and what they don't know. So like I go into a lot of CIA operations, like people think, well, the government's not gonna hurt you. They wouldn't say the vaccine is okay if it really wasn't.
Marique Bartoldus:That's the safeguard that's put up. It's like, well, back in the day, absolutely that was the case, but it's not anymore. So I talk about Operation Northwoods and Edward Bernays who got the American Dental Association to say that fluoride is safe. It stops tooth decay, but really fluoride was a byproduct of aluminum production and it's a toxin. And he got the ADA to say it was safe.
Marique Bartoldus:And next thing you know, it's in the water supply of everybody because of public opinion. And so these things that people don't understand where they come from and also how they're tied to today. The war in Iran is a way bigger story and way deeper and goes way back. You're talking all the way to World War II on why that whole war and what's going on there, it really has almost nothing to do with Iran. The Ukraine war, the bigger picture.
Marique Bartoldus:So that's the whole purpose of my podcast is bring things to light, things that were declassified, but nobody, they're hiding in plain sight. Nobody sees them, nobody thinks to look at them. Nobody's a nerd like I am that has time to research them. So it's like, this is what's going on, this is why it's going on, and this is why you should care. Because the reason why we've gotten to the point is because people don't care.
Marique Bartoldus:They don't get involved in their local government. They don't get involved in a little, they're not voting. They don't care about what happens at their board meetings. You've gotta go to all these things and hold these people accountable because otherwise this woke disease spreads. I mean, imagine if the kids didn't come home from COVID and they weren't being homeschooled.
Marique Bartoldus:All this stuff that was going on that the parents suddenly got wind of, we wouldn't have known.
Betsy Smith:We would have no idea that any disease going on.
Marique Bartoldus:Yeah, the brainwashing. So that's the whole purpose of my podcast is just to bring stuff to light that people don't know in a concise way that cuts emotion out. It's just matter of fact facts. And I encourage people who don't agree with me to write in and comment and they do and I rebut their argument and then they have nothing to say. So I guess that works for me.
Marique Bartoldus:I like winning arguments. That was the whole purpose for it and it's fun. It's just my little soapbox that I stand on and try and make sense of insanity.
Betsy Smith:So tell people where can they get the book? Where can they find the podcast? How can they follow you on social media? Give me all that.
Marique Bartoldus:So, oh gosh, so social media I despise. So I'm not on Instagram.
Betsy Smith:That's why I use it.
Marique Bartoldus:I can't do it. But my book is 20 and Out, it's available on Amazon. And then my podcast, Monz M O N Z on the mic, it's on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcast. So you can check all those episodes out and hopefully it opens some eyes, that'd be great.
Betsy Smith:But I tell you, you served for twenty years, you're serving this nation now with common sense and research and information. And I can't thank you enough for spending time with us today. And if you'd like more information about the National Police Association, you can visit us at nationalpolice.org.
NPA:Every day, the brave men and women of law enforcement put their lives on the line to keep us safe. But they need our help to continue their mission. Activist politicians, progressive prosecutors, the ACLU, and the rest of the anti police forces receive millions in donations from extremist pro criminal elements like George Soros and woke corporations, the National Police Association is fighting them in courts around the country, including the United States Supreme Court, defending officers who are being attacked for doing their jobs. Additionally, the National Police Association works year round to pass tough on crime legislation to put and keep criminals behind bars. Consider going to nationalpolice.org and donating to keep us in the fight.
NPA:Together, we can win. That is nationalpolice.org.