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Chats with law enforcement experts and leaders
Hi. This is Sergeant Betsy Branter Smith with the National Police Association, and this is the National Police Association Podcast. I have a guest today that he's got a long and storied law enforcement career, and and then he decided to write a book based on, basically, a situation that I thought would be really interesting for everyone to be able to hear about, to learn about. And but and I also just wanna get into his career because this guy's been in the law enforcement profession for a long time, and I knew you needed to meet him. Deputy Chief Rusty Myers, welcome to the show.
Rusty Myers:Hello, Betsy. Thank you for having me.
Betsy Smith:Alright. So I'm gonna I'm gonna break protocol here. And how come they call you Rusty? Where'd that come from?
Rusty Myers:So, my real name is Arthur Wilson Myers the third, and I wrote the book under that name because my father deserves it. I'm still blessed to have both my parents. When I was born, I was a fiery redhead, and it's faded over time, obviously. But my mother was extremely concerned that people would call me red. So she came up with a nickname Rusty, to which my uncle who raised dogs promptly said, Rusty, that's a dog's name.
Rusty Myers:So that's what I'd go by as Rusty. That's what my friends call me. That's what I prefer you to call me. But, that's where Rusty came from.
Betsy Smith:I love it. That that's a great story. I think your mom I think your mom did the right thing. I think that's fantastic. So now we know why you're named Rusty.
Betsy Smith:Chief, why'd you become a cop?
Rusty Myers:So I went to the, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. I graduated in 1993. I was in the class of '92. It was so great. I stuck around for an extra year.
Rusty Myers:The five year plan was me. When I graduated, I really had two career tracks I looked at seriously. One was to go into teaching because I am a history nerd, and I love history. I love studying it. And the other was law enforcement.
Rusty Myers:And I took a long look at both, and I I kinda saw what what teachers were going through with some of the students. And I I just decided that if I was gonna deal with that, I'd rather be armed. So I I made a choice to go into law enforcement and, never looked back.
Betsy Smith:Love it. Nineties, when you got on the job, that was an interesting time to be a cop. You know? We were seeing, a crime surge similar to what we saw post 2020. And, so it it had to be a really exciting time.
Rusty Myers:We were busy. I started in what they called team one in the city of Charleston, which is the the downtown area, which was a a very big challenge to try to police. After a couple of years there, I transferred to team three where I spent thirteen years of my twenty three years in the city of Charleston. I spent in team three. And I was in patrol.
Rusty Myers:I was a patrolman almost my entire career until I sat behind a desk, which is unusual. We only had two lieutenants that actually got promoted out of patrol. But I I worked in team three for a while, got promoted to corporal, went to a a team four in West Ashley of South Carolina, if you know where I'm talking about, and spent some time there, and then made sergeant. I went back to James Island as a sergeant. I was a sergeant for about three or four years, and then I actually took over an interdiction team, which is something I'd never really done before.
Rusty Myers:I did patrol, you know, and then interdiction was kind of the tip of the spear, go find trouble and arrest it. You know? So I was lucky enough when I went to that squad that I had some very sharp young officers who knew the job. They knew the lines that you couldn't cross, and they walked the lines, but that's the job. And they taught me a lot.
Rusty Myers:They taught me everything I know about interdiction, and it was a lot of fun. We had a good time. I had that squad for three years. We had no complaints, which is kind of unheard of for an interdiction squad, but we did the job right. So that was a lot of fun.
Rusty Myers:And then then I made lieutenant, and in the first year of that, I spent command duty lieutenant, which is basically the chief at night. So there's not a problem till I gotta make a phone call. You know? And you're expected to pretty much run stuff like the chief. And I did that on midnight shift for a year.
Rusty Myers:I don't remember much of that year because I don't sleep right on midnight shift, but, got through it. And then I got promoted or not promoted. I got moved back to James Island as the commander, which was a unique a unique opportunity because I knew every officer in that team except one. And I met him the first night I was a lieutenant, which gave me the ability to come in and already know who my hard chargers were, who my possible problem kids were, who would answer a call, and who would sit behind a grocery store and do nothing. So they couldn't, you know, they couldn't sling ball.
Rusty Myers:I knew who they were. I knew what they did. I can address issues as they came up, but they also knew me, but they also knew them you know, I believed in doing things right, do it do the job right, go home well, do the do this job like your mom's in the passenger seat. You'd probably never get in trouble. She'll probably slap you for the language.
Rusty Myers:But other than that, you'll probably never get in trouble, and that's kinda what I preached. After about three years as a team commander, the, the chief at the time was Greg Mullen. Greg decided to do a a wish list for every lieutenant. Where would you wish to go? And so I was you know, well, I've been in patrol my whole life.
Rusty Myers:I'll put training on my wish list, and it it'll never happen. You know, that'll never happen. Well, I was wrong. And the chief called me in and said, gonna put you in training, and I kinda stopped. And I said, can I ask why?
Rusty Myers:And he said, I think we've lost our patrol mindset in training. We need to get back to it. And I said, well, that's good because that's the only mindset I really know is patrol. So I will do it. So went to patrol.
Rusty Myers:My team got broke up, and the chief even apologized for it. He he you know, we had, like, eight sergeants in the team. Six of them got transferred or promoted and moved to other areas. And he apologized, and he said, I I hate to do that to the team. It's such a good, well oiled machine right now, but team three is where we're building our leaders.
Rusty Myers:And that was actually what the officers put on my plaque when I left the team. Because to me, coming from him, that was probably one of the greatest that you know, one of the greatest compliments I've ever received in my life. So I went to training, took over there. This is back. Active shooter was really starting to pick up.
Rusty Myers:That training, you know, we started with SWAT stuff and moved our way through diamonds and t's and y's, and now we're now we're down to just go get them. You know? And so I got to do a lot of active shooter training with, with every all the officers. We you know, chief Mullen was really big on community policing, which is a catch word that gets on my nerves sometimes, but he was really big on the ethical side of policing. So we taught a lot of ethics.
Rusty Myers:We put together a civil rights in Charleston program because one of the problems we were having is we were hiring officers from Ohio to come to Charleston, South Carolina. And they didn't know the history of Charleston in civil rights movement. Charleston was huge in the civil rights movement, and they didn't understand that, you you know, you might not wanna pull a traffic stop right here because something happened here significant that they still remember. It's still part of the community's memory. So we started taking them around when mother Emmanuel happened.
Rusty Myers:We added that to the tour. We took all the new recruits to, to mother Emmanuel to let them meet the church ladies there. Then we had the Charleston nine firefighters. So we started taking them by, you know, the old Superstore site where they've got a memorial and all built up and let them see. You know, there's a cost when we when we fail or something goes bad like the Superstore.
Rusty Myers:There's a cost, and it's not it's not a pretty one. It's it's bad. So chief Mullen got about eleven years as chief. He retired, and we spent a year searching for a new chief. And then we brought in an another chief from outside was brought in, and one of the things he did was he wanted to do a big shake up.
Rusty Myers:At his old department, SWAT had run the training division. I wasn't SWAT. In fact, I think of all my training officers, only one of them was on the SWAT team. So, basically, we all got replaced with SWAT folks over a couple of months. I ended up back downtown in team two, which is the more expensive, ritzy area of the Peninsula, and worked there for two or three months before, I had my incident, which, you know, blew my life.
Betsy Smith:So let's talk about that. Bring us to that situation.
Rusty Myers:So team commander was sitting in my office. We had a suspicious party call, and they got into a foot pursuit. A rookie outraged his FTO. I'll just leave that there. And got got the guy behind the house, but because he was still in training, he didn't know exactly where he was, couldn't put it out, got in a fight.
Rusty Myers:During the fight, he fell on a garden rake, one of those spiky rakes, it stuck in his arm, in his hand. So the guy got away because when he jumped up to run, the rake was still connected to his arm. I got on scene, and my first concern now is I got an officer bleeding. That's always my first concern. So I go straight to him.
Rusty Myers:He's sitting in the EMS wagon. They're treating him, and they're like, it's gonna be some stitches. We're gonna transport. Just take him to the hospital, have him checked out, make sure they clean these wounds real good. Okay.
Rusty Myers:The guy's gone at this point. I figured that's the end of it. Citizen walks up and says, hey. I think he's in that house. Okay.
Rusty Myers:So we go to the door. Door's locked, and it's, you know, luck and god sense of humor would have it. The homeowner showed up at that very moment and said, well, I just walked through the store. I didn't lock my house. So she rips out a key and is immediately concerned about her pets.
Rusty Myers:So instead of listening to us and letting us clear the house, she runs in. My officer's running behind her. The, bad guy was hiding in a closet, so he runs out of the house. We get into a second foot pursuit with the officers. Me and my sergeant come around the corner and just see our officers racing after the guy.
Rusty Myers:So we get into foot pursuit, and I'm picking up body cams as we go because they're falling off in the foot pursuit. We end up running down Rainbow Row. He's he jumps behind the house, and we me and the sergeant don't initially see that. We haven't cleared the corner yet. The officer's chasing me.
Rusty Myers:Slips in some pea gravel, little tiny quarter inch rocks that had just been laid for the driveway. Slips and falls. Me and sergeant lose sight of everything for ten or twelve seconds, then we realize, okay. There's screams coming from over there. Let's roll over there.
Rusty Myers:We get there. There's three officers on him. He's on the ground. They're trying to get him under control and get him handcuffs. Sergeant jumps on the pile.
Rusty Myers:I'm like, these four guys, he's not going anywhere. We're behind the house in a fenced yard. This guy could say anything. You know, we we've had a number of incidents in Charleston itself in addition to nationally because this was where we had the, you know, the Slater shooting and everything else. So my my thought is, you know, former training commander, I'm gonna video this.
Rusty Myers:I'm just gonna stand back and watch.
Betsy Smith:Mhmm.
Rusty Myers:Because they don't need me to jump in. This is a
Betsy Smith:very And you're wearing a body camera.
Rusty Myers:And I'm wearing a body cam. Yeah. So the four of them are trying to get him in cuffs. As they're doing that, one of the officers stands up. As he's standing up, I I'm turning to my radio because now I got another officer screaming she's hurt.
Rusty Myers:And I don't even know what's going on with that one yet. So I'm trying to turn in my head to the radio on my shoulder, and I see him slap the guy on the back of the head. And I later characterized it as a cuff. Gibbs slap, if you watch NCIS, what my grandma used to do when I talked too loudly in church. And I thought, oh, in my head, okay.
Rusty Myers:I gotta ask about that. I don't know why he did that. But then he stood there and he's kinda just moving his legs around, kinda making a little pile of rocks. And I see him doing that, and I'm thinking, you know, alright. I'm just gonna give him his body cam back, let him let him kinda settle down because he's got we've got three or four may I don't know.
Rusty Myers:A lot of adrenaline dumps at this point. Two foot pursuits and injured officer and the running code. That's there's a lot of adrenaline going through his system. So I walk over. I hand him that.
Rusty Myers:The guy starts complaining about I'm hot on the rocks. It's 98 degrees because nothing ever happens when the weather's nice in Charleston. So we're all sweating, and he's hit he's on those rocks. They're burning him. So we get him up.
Rusty Myers:Would tell him, get him up off the rocks. He's got a few scratches. We take him back. The EMS team looks at him real quick. No big deal.
Rusty Myers:We leave leave the scene and, you know, I I'm gonna go by the office so I can download my body cam real quick. I need to ask about that slap, but my biggest concern at the moment is I got one officer hurt I hadn't seen yet and one that's bleeding and got transported to the hospital. So I gotta go find out what's going on with my officers. That was, I thought, the end of it. You know, that day, the officers went in.
Rusty Myers:They did their, their use of force reports. As I was riding to the hospital, was getting ready to call the officer, and my phone rang, and it was him. And I and and I asked him. I said, say, what was that about? What did you slap him on the head for?
Rusty Myers:And he immediately says, oh, he was spitting. I thought he was gonna spit on me. And I said, okay. Well, spitting on officer in the performance of duty is a felony in South Carolina. If you stop that with a tap to the head, then no problem.
Betsy Smith:Mhmm.
Rusty Myers:So they did their use of forces. I came in the next day, did the review. I could not find the video. I watched it download on my little MDT, which is, you know, an 11 inch screen, and I could clearly see that he slapped him on the back of the head. I said, okay.
Rusty Myers:Well, I even told him, I said, I might wanna look at that, but don't don't sweat it. I don't think it's any big deal. If he was spitting, then, you know, it's all justified. And I tried to watch the video a couple of times, but I couldn't get it. And it turned out months, years maybe later, we figured out it was because I was using the body cam that I had just been assigned.
Rusty Myers:It was an it's still assigned to another officer. And then I downloaded it on my detective's MDT, so it was all screwed up in download land, which is, I guess, why I couldn't find it to review it some more. And, still thought that was pretty much the end of it until Friday. Friday about noon, the sergeant walks in, and it's the same squad. And he goes, hey.
Rusty Myers:They pulled him off the street. And I was like, what? For what? And the first thing I thought was, oh my god. I didn't know they're also with a DUI or something.
Rusty Myers:He didn't even tell us. You know? Didn't really occur to me that was dealing with that. So I call over to IA, and they won't tell me anything. I get it.
Rusty Myers:I know the job. And, we can't talk. It's under investigation. And I was like, well, it's about that foot pursuit. And I'm like, the foot pursuit?
Rusty Myers:Well, I was there. It's on my body cam. I got the whole thing on body cam. You can watch it. I'll come in.
Rusty Myers:You want me you want me to give a statement or something? No. Don't worry about it. So the weekend comes, and Monday, again, I'm at dive training of all things. And I keep hearing stuff about the foot pursuit, you know, the secret investigation that is, everybody seems to know more about than me.
Rusty Myers:So I stopped by the station again. I I bump into the IA lieutenant. He's a good friend of mine. And I said, hey. Do you want me to do an interview?
Rusty Myers:Because, you know, I saw the whole thing. He's like, no. We're not gonna interview you. The whole thing is, you know, we probably don't need to interview. We don't we don't want to.
Rusty Myers:Okay. Fine. And about two hours later, he calls me at home and says, hey. We do wanna do an interview. Can you come in at 07:30?
Rusty Myers:Sure. No problem. So 07:30 the next morning, I go in. I give an interview. They asked me because on the on my video, all you can see of his legs is his knees, and his knees are kinda moving back and forth.
Rusty Myers:And they asked
Betsy Smith:me Oh, the bad guy?
Rusty Myers:No. This is the officer that's still
Betsy Smith:The officer's knees. Okay.
Rusty Myers:Yeah. And they asked me what he was doing, I said, well, he was just piddling in the rocks, just kinda making a little stack of rocks with his feet. I just nervous energy. And that was the only question I ever got asked about that. And they asked about the slap, and I explained this.
Rusty Myers:I yeah. I asked about that. It's in my report. You know, he said that, that I was spitting, and he said it like that. It wasn't something that he had time to make up.
Rusty Myers:It was just immediately what came out of his mouth, and I found it to be credible. So that's what I use as justification for it. So finished my interview, went back to my office, and thought, okay. Well, that's over. I guess I'm probably gonna get a letter about something, but I don't know.
Rusty Myers:I mean, when they first called me, the only thing I could think of in the whole incident was that ten or twelve seconds when we were behind the corner and they had already rounded the corner, had something happened in that ten or twelve seconds that wasn't reflected properly in the use of forces. That's all I could figure was was the problem at that point. And then they called me about two hours later and say, hey. We need you to come bring your car. We're putting you on administrative leave.
Rusty Myers:And I was like, for what? And so I called my wife. She came with my father, picked me up. My wife couldn't drive because she was freaking out. And
Betsy Smith:And that's what you know, people who aren't in the profession, when you're put on administrative leave, you're you're basically not a cop anymore. I mean, they you know, you're turning your car and your badge and your gun, and and, you're you're generally speaking, you're getting paid.
Rusty Myers:But Yeah. I would want leave with pay.
Betsy Smith:Right. But it's a big deal. And this was what year?
Rusty Myers:2019.
Betsy Smith:Right. So this is a is a big deal.
Rusty Myers:A lot of stuff is going on. George Floyd's about to happen.
Betsy Smith:Right. Right.
Rusty Myers:We have a lot of stuff, and it was just very unusual. I couldn't figure out what the complaint was. I didn't know what they were accusing me of. The paper I signed just said it was that the case was under investigation. They didn't have to give me the exact charges or anything because I had no idea.
Betsy Smith:Right.
Rusty Myers:So I went home that night. I emailed an attorney that's kind of the go to guy down here, Andy Savage. He's, he's he was the big time. He's pretty much retired at this point, but I stay in touch with him. And I just sent him an email about 07:00, and I said, hey.
Rusty Myers:I think I need to talk to you. I don't understand what's going on, but no one will tell me anything. I'm on admin leave. And I was shocked when about an hour and a half later, about 09:00, he emailed me back. And it was obviously straight from him, and his immediate concern was my mental state.
Rusty Myers:You know, don't let this get to you. I know how these things go. I'll see you in the office tomorrow morning, 09:00. I said, okay. Well, I'll be there.
Betsy Smith:People think law enforcement stress comes from, oh, you're seeing dead bodies, and, oh, you're getting involved in a shooting and this and that. What you're describing, I'm literally feeling my blood pressure rise as you explain this. And I mean and I know the end of the story. This stuff is wildly stressful, isn't it?
Rusty Myers:Oh, absolutely. My my brain was I started drinking for the first time in my life because I hate alcohol. And even today, I that's just not something I've ever done, but it was I called it the loop. Every day, I would sit in my yard. I would I would work on it because I could actually do something with my energy.
Rusty Myers:But once that energy ran out and I got tired and had to come in, it was the loop. It would start in my head. What did I do? Why am I here? What's going on?
Rusty Myers:I don't understand. And it was just I called it the loop, and the only way I could find to quiet that loop was to self medic medicate. So I would go in. I knew exactly the measurement. Three shots was was enough to quiet the loop for a couple hours.
Rusty Myers:Four shots made me feel sick.
Betsy Smith:So
Rusty Myers:and that that's what I would do. Don't do that. Alright?
Betsy Smith:It's a terrible idea, but a lot of people do it. Right. So you're you know, the investigation's going on. You know, there's some media on this stuff. And and, so how does this how does this conclude?
Rusty Myers:So in the end, I was I was terminated, found guilty of three charges that they had to explain to me because I didn't know what I've been charged with. And I immediately said, that didn't happen. What what you're saying absolutely did not happen. They accused the officer of kicking rocks on the guy. But right to work state, we don't have unions.
Rusty Myers:So, you know, they they misconducted me to our academy, and misconduct means this officer should never be an officer again. Mhmm. But I had to fight that through our police academy. The first hearing you go to is it's a lawyer who works for the academy sitting as a judge who's supposed to make a recommendation one way or another. It's preponderance of evidence.
Rusty Myers:So 50%, no feather is all he needs to say, yes. This happened or I'm not sure this happened. I don't think it happened. He came back with an inconclusive, which is really great when you're expecting some type of resolution one way or another.
Betsy Smith:Right.
Rusty Myers:And then I ended up in one of our law enforcement training council, which is nine people, the chief of SLED, the, South Carolina attorney general, and seven police chiefs. And the whole way up there, my attorney's prepping me to lose. He's like, chiefs don't go against chiefs. You know, in best case, maybe they'll give you a suspension because they have several things they can do to your certification. And the the officer involved had received a one year certification and, a certification revocation for one year suspension.
Rusty Myers:And then so he's just setting me up just to lose. So we present the case, and the first person to speak is the attorney general. And the attorney general just goes, this is not misconduct. Why are we here? And I kind of sat up because, know, your attorney says, don't let it show on your face, and I
Betsy Smith:don't have a
Rusty Myers:lighter face. So I became a cop too because I'm a terrible liar, so I had to tell the truth. And I kinda sat up like, wait a minute. Now that sounded good. And then in the end, they voted that there was no misconduct.
Rusty Myers:I got what's called a full no misconduct, which at the time was extremely rare Because it's very easy to say, well, you've already been out of work. At that point, I've been out almost two years. You've been out two years, two years suspension, have a sensitivity class, go back to work.
Betsy Smith:Right. By the time this starts to conclude, when you go before this this board, this council, it's 2021. Is that right? Yeah. And so the atmosphere for law enforcement, especially in this type of situation.
Betsy Smith:I mean, you know, it's it's just it's extraordinary. And okay. So you're before the board, and holy cow, things are going your way, which is extraordinary.
Rusty Myers:After you lose, you lose, you lose, you lose, you lose, you lose, and all of sudden you win. You don't even know how what to do. You're just like, oh my god. Somebody finally looked at the evidence and said it's not there. What are you talking about?
Rusty Myers:Which I've been saying for two years. You know? Right. So what it did, though still a training commander. Right?
Rusty Myers:Two and a half years almost of my life was spent defending who I was and what had happened. And I don't ever wanna see another cop have to go through that, and I know they do. So when I wrote the book, the book is not written from it explains the story, but I was very, very intentional not showing anger or grievance or anything. There's there's parts where I talk about it, but it's relevant to my mental state at the time. But, when you get sent home on them and leave, brother, sister, you're not alone.
Rusty Myers:Other cops know. And when I first started writing the book, I called it when the blue line fails. But what I realized when I was writing it is the men and women that got me through were either family or members of the line. So I changed it to Frays because I said, you know, the blue line, my department failed, my leadership failed. But when it came down to it, members of the blue line that were my friends who knew me personally, they were the ones, retired cops, retired military guys that knew me or the ones that got me through it because I was to the point of suicide.
Rusty Myers:I had a plan. You know, behind me, you'll see hats. Part of my plan was to surround myself with all the hats I wore in life. That's how detailed my plan was. And when my wife yelled at me in the yard one day, I realized, you know, I had a plan.
Rusty Myers:I all those sleepy you know, you you sit through mental wellness training. Mhmm. And I did what everybody does. I played on my phone. Yeah.
Rusty Myers:But the one thing I remembered from all of them was the checklist they give you. These are the warning signs. These are the things to watch out for. And as I sat in the yard that day, I started checking boxes, and I checked every single box except illegal drug use. But I was using the alcohol.
Rusty Myers:Mhmm. And when I got to the last one, the last one's always they have a plan or they they know a plan. They've talked about a plan, and I had extensive plan in how I plan to leave the world. So from a training perspective, I want cops to know we we kill ourselves five or six times more than the bad guys. Mhmm.
Rusty Myers:That's a shameful number. We as a profession need to take accountability for that and understand that part of the reason officers do this is the way they're led. Part of it is because they've come to expect institutional betrayal. And we have studies that tell us that institutional betrayal for a police officer is far worse than responding to a critical incident.
Betsy Smith:Absolutely. That that's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you was that organizational betrayal that that you talk about. And I don't think because none of us expect, you know, that, you know, you're you you put their patch on. Right? You put their badge on, and you go out there, and you're willing to die for the strangers in this community, and you expect that the organization, the institution to be with you.
Betsy Smith:You're part of them. And, when you when you feel that betrayal that you did, you know, the I you know, again, that's why that's why I think your book is so important. That's why I think telling your story is so important because, there is cop after cop after cop that has been betrayed by their organization, by the justice system. You know? You know as well as I do have cops sitting in prison now for doing their job.
Betsy Smith:That's one of the things that the National Police Association gets involved in
Rusty Myers:Yep.
Betsy Smith:Is trying to support these officers and and reverse these situations. And and, you know, you tell your story so well, you know, and you talk about that organizational betrayal, but you also talk about leadership. You you talk about, you know, what to do, and what not to do as a leader. And one of the things that we see, and I'm sure you see it too when you're doing training, is especially the young cops now. What are they asking?
Betsy Smith:Is the department gonna be with me? Are they gonna back me up? Are they going to support me?
Rusty Myers:Do they
Betsy Smith:have more than huge deal. Right?
Rusty Myers:It it absolutely is. And, you know, I wrote the book with the idea that if you were going through this, this this book can give you some hope. And I hope you never go through it. You may not. There are police officers who retire every day that were lucky and never never had to go through something like this.
Rusty Myers:But I am not a shiny example of survival, but I am a example of survival. People I cared about stood up for me, my wife. You know? God love her. Thirty one years we've been married, and she made me get counseling.
Rusty Myers:You know, I went it helped with not just the incident. This was the straw that broke the camel's back because I have PTSD. PTSI is what I call in the book. And when I went to counseling after a couple of sessions, you know, the counselor was like, alright. I know about your incident.
Rusty Myers:Now tell me what you dream about. And so I started recounting a young officer that had been killed in line of duty that I had trained that was a good friend. The superstore, I talked about that earlier, and, the sofa superstore fire, the mother Manuel shooting, and most police officer I think the number is, like, sixty seven percent. I think that's probably grossly unrelated. If you're in the career for ten years or more, you've got stuff packed in your PTS closet.
Rusty Myers:It's packed in there, and it eventually, it starts to push on the door. Right? And one day, the door gets open. For me, it was this investigation, and it just all came out. You know, it all came out and exploded out.
Rusty Myers:And when I first started going to counseling, I dreamed about, Joe getting killed about about once a week. And and I am to the point now where I honestly do not remember the last time I dreamed about it. It's been so long. Now they can come back. And part of PTS that we have to understand is what to do when you you feel it coming back and being able to work through those emotions and those feelings because it's an injury.
Rusty Myers:It's not a disorder. It's an injury. It doesn't bleed. It's not something that you know, we we were taught, particularly in our generation, suck it up.
Betsy Smith:Right. Don't talk to
Rusty Myers:You know, that double homicide suicide with a two year old baby? Yeah. You don't need you don't need to talk to anybody about that. You're fine. You know?
Rusty Myers:And then and that's kinda where I wrote the book from because I didn't want it to come across as angry. I I that's water under the bridge. I ended up in a great place at Summerville PD under chief Wright who made me his internal affairs inspector with the charge that I was not to allow him to do to any officer what was done to me, which was good because that's what I was gonna do.
Betsy Smith:Right. Right.
Rusty Myers:And that's, that's where I was expected to retire from. But one of the things I'll tell you guys or gals, if you're in trouble and something happens and and your life explodes and you get fired, there are still people out there who know you. They know the real you, not the one the world wants them to believe. And one day, literally out of the blue, the phone rang. You know, my current chief was like, my my deputy chief's gonna retire.
Rusty Myers:I don't know where you're going, but you should think about this. If you wanna put in, you should put in. And, yeah, I wasn't even ready for that. I was thought it was just a, hey. How you doing phone call?
Rusty Myers:You know? And then after being told by my wife, my father, and my chief that I was an imbecile, and the chief actually goes, you're an idiot. You need to use my phone. I had called him back. I put in had to go through the whole process, of course, and, you know, and was ultimately selected to be a deputy chief.
Rusty Myers:And what the whole thing taught me is to pay attention to your officers. You know? And I'm not perfect. Right? I got quiet guys that just don't wanna talk.
Rusty Myers:So I keep an eye on them. You know? But the worst thing you can do is walk me off, and and I say, how you doing, man? If you go, I'm fine, then you know that's the beginning of the conversation. Mhmm.
Rusty Myers:I'm fine. It's cuss words in law enforcement. If they tell you they're fine, that's the start of the conversation. That's not the end of it. What do you mean you're fine?
Rusty Myers:What are you fine with? You know? You gotta dig because we're cops. We don't trust easy, and we don't tell our stories easy. We don't tell people what we've been through.
Rusty Myers:And, I mean, obviously, I wrote a book. I did. Because because I feel like everything that prepared me for that situation can be used to make our profession better and to help us take care of our people better.
Betsy Smith:Absolutely. That and, you know, and the way that you that you put that is so extraordinary. That's why I wanted to, to get you on because your story is such an important one. I think the book's a very important book. Where can people find you in the book, and how can they bring you in to talk and and, stay in touch with you?
Rusty Myers:The book is called Tattered When the Blue Line Phrase, and it's available on Amazon. The email for that is tatteredreaders@gmail.com. I have a Facebook page, Tattered FB is the Facebook page. And I have a very fledgling little podcast. It's gonna have, like, little three minute, four minute, five minute pep talks on it when I get done with it, and that is at tattered podcast.
Rusty Myers:But, let me say this too real quick. If you're an officer and you're going through this, I realize that $7.99 or $16.99 or 23 or $24.99 is a lot of money when you're eating Pop Tarts for breakfast and hot dogs for lunch. Get in touch with me. I will send you a PDF of the book. This book is not about me making money.
Rusty Myers:If you need to read it, I will get it in your hands. I don't care about making money off this. What I care about is saving a life. And if you could save one and I've already had people tell me, it spoke to me. Every word you said is exactly what I'm going through, so I know it's affecting people.
Rusty Myers:But if it can save you, if you're going through it, get in touch with me, tatteredreaders@gmail.com, and I'll send you a PDF of it tonight. I mean, it's that important to me.
Betsy Smith:That is a perfect way to end the show. I think, chief, we're gonna see a lot more of you. Get on that YouTube page and start putting stuff out because what you have to say is so incredibly important, and I can't thank you enough for being with us today. And if you'd like more information about the National Police Association, you can visit us at nationalpolice.org.
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