Reasons We Serve: Police Careers & Officer Experience

At 23, Craig Tickelpenny worked his first night shift completely alone, with no gun, no body armor, and no one to call for backup. That was how policing worked in New Zealand.

In Episode 185 of Reasons We Serve, retired New Zealand Police Senior Sergeant Craig Tickelpenny takes us inside a country with a single national police force: no FBI, no DEA, no CIA, just one agency that handles it all. Craig joined in 1992, when officers had to sign firearms out of a station safe before responding. He explains how a cop handles a knife attack with nothing but a baton and the ability to talk someone down.

His path into the job started in a gang bar, with an offhand comment that he'd be "the last person in the world" to become a cop. He signed up the next day. From there, Craig tells us about:

• Teaching himself the job alone for six months in his own hometown

• Two years tending bar in London, which he credits for his de-escalation skills

• A man who tried to stab him and came back the next day to apologize

• The meth trade, rising gang violence, and Australia's deportations reshaping crime in New Zealand

      • Climbing to Senior Sergeant and spending six years training future leaders at the Royal New                 Zealand Police College

Today Craig runs the Welfare Fund for the New Zealand Police Association. He came to The Wounded Blue Summit in the U.S. looking for something his country still lacks: real support for officers living with PTSD after they leave the job. His honest take on hypervigilance, what policing does to how you see people, and why he steered his own son away from the badge will stay with you.

If you've ever wondered how policing works without guns, or what officers carry home long after retirement, this conversation is for you.

👍 LIKE this video if you learned something about policing beyond U.S. borders. Please give us a 5-star review if you enjoyed this interview.
💬 COMMENT: Should American police learn from New Zealand's de-escalation approach, or is it a different world?
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📤 SHARE this with a cop, veteran, or first responder who needs to hear it.

Reasons We Serve is hosted by Niles Gooding, a retired DEA Special Agent with 25 years of service. Every episode features the real people behind the badge and the uniform: why they served, what it cost them, and what they learned.

A DA charged a man with murder based on a video, and that same video got him acquitted. Retired cop, use-of-force expert, and professional rock drummer Jamie Borden explains what police videos don't show.
 
Jamie Borden retired from the Henderson Police Department outside Las Vegas in 2018 after a career in patrol, undercover narcotics, and training. At his chief's request, he built the department's use-of-force training and analysis unit. Today he's the founder of Critical Incident Review and the author of eight published works on law enforcement. He has worked around 400 cases and testified about 55 times in courtrooms across the country.
 
He's also been a professional drummer since he was 14. For his whole police career, his band Phoenix headlined Las Vegas Strip venues like Mandalay Bay and the Bellagio. He even stepped away from the badge for a short time to tour with Aerosmith guitarist Jimmy Crespo and the violinist from Kansas. At 52, he sang on a record for the first time, a 13-song album called Between Two Hats, and every dime from his recordings goes to the Wounded Blue.
 
In this episode, you'll hear:
• Why body-cam fisheye distortion makes 12 feet look like 24
• Why every video Jamie reviewed surprised him when he compared it to the officer's statement
• A 75-year-old pastor who came in anti-police and left with no questions after one session in a 300-degree deadly-force simulator
• How a forensic look at a faint smoke reflection freed a man charged with second-degree murder
• How playing in a rock band kept him balanced through a career in police work
• How hard Tom Sawyer, Hot for Teacher, and Sultans of Swing really are on drums
• The night he busted a headlining band's road manager before the show
• His answer to the question: drummer or cop? 

Whether you wear the badge, play the drums, or just want the truth behind the next viral police video, this conversation will change how you see both.
 
👉 Subscribe for new service stories every week.
👍 If you liked this interview, please give us a 5-star review.
💬 Comment below: drummers, which song do you think is the hardest to play?
🔁 Share this with someone who judges police videos in the first 10 seconds. 

Listen next:
• My interview with Danny King, Jamie's partner in building the use-of-force unit
Episode 164-Why This Cop Anchored Every Dresser in His House! 

• Randy Sutton and the Wounded Blue Episode
154-Betrayed by His Own Department After 34 Years - Retired Las Vegas Metro Police Lt. Randy Sutton 

Find Jamie Borden:
Critical Incident Review: criticalincidentreview.com
Book: Beyond the Frame: Bridging the Gap Between Digital Evidence and Reality
Album: Between Two Hats 

Reasons We Serve is an interview podcast with the people who answered the call: law enforcement, military, and first responders. Hosted by Niles Gooding, a retired 25-year DEA Special Agent.

🎙️ Know someone with a story to tell? [email protected]

In 2001, DEA Special Agent Niles Gooding arrested Willie Merry for selling ecstasy at raves. Twenty-five years later, one phone call from Willie saved a police officer's life.
 
Willie grew up in an abusive home with a father he believes was a dirty cop. By 22, he was making $30,000–$40,000 a night selling ecstasy in Idaho's rave scene. Then one morning, a month after his son was born, an orange F-250 pulled up outside his house.
 
In this emotional reunion episode of Reasons We Serve, Willie sits down with the agent who arrested him for the first time in 25 years. He talks about refusing to cooperate, serving 18 months at FCI Sheridan's federal prison camp, and why he never blamed the cops. He also explains how he rebuilt his life as a felon and became an HVAC business owner.
 
Then the story takes a turn nobody could have scripted. Willie became friends with former Nampa police officer Jared Webb. After Jared's arrest, Willie happened to call him at the exact moment Jared was preparing to take his own life. Willie kept him talking for over an hour. Afterward, he gave Jared a job, drove him to drug court every day, split his commissions with him, and helped launch Zero Dark 30 Coffee.
 
This is a story about accountability, redemption, second chances, and what it really means to serve others.
 
💬 Do you believe in divine intervention?
Episodes related to and mentioned in this interview. 
🎥 LISTEN NEXT 
- From Badge to Brew A Marine and Cop's Battle with Trauma PTSD  Addiction to Redemption | Ep. 129 Jarad Webb
-Why This Federal Prosecutor Left the Courtroom to Chase Beauty
-30 Years in Law Enforcement: From Marines to Federal Probation Chief | Kevin Hocevar 

ABOUT REASONS WE SERVE: Reasons We Serve is a long-form interview podcast with the people who run toward danger: police officers, detectives, federal agents, corrections officers, dispatchers, prosecutors, forensic nurses, firefighters, and military veterans. Guests come from small-town departments, big-city precincts, state and federal agencies, and police forces worldwide.

Every conversation comes back to three questions:
Why did you choose this life?
What did it cost you and your family?
After everything you've seen, how do you see people now? 

No politics, no scripts. Just first-person stories from people who served.
▶️ Subscribe for new interviews every Sunday
🎙️ Know someone with a story to tell? [email protected]

How much can someone find out about you online? More than you think. Former CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Kirby Plessas explains open source intelligence (OSINT), the methods intelligence agencies, federal agents, and investigators use to track people, money, and secrets using only public information.
 
Kirby started as an Army Arabic linguist and SIGINT analyst. She was sent to the NSA right after 9/11, then hunted for Iran's nuclear program online at DIA, and later helped run a CIA open-source innovation center. Today she trains law enforcement and investigators around the world through Plessas Experts Network.
In this episode:

• What OSINT is and how investigators use it
• The difference between the CIA, DIA and NSA
• Is your phone listening to you?
• How AI is changing investigations, and how to spot fake news and deepfakes
• The AI tools a former CIA analyst uses (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok)
• The most secure web browser for privacy
• Her take on Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning
• How to become an OSINT investigator
• Tracking cryptocurrency

🔎 Plessas Experts Network: https://plessas.net
🎓 OSINT Academy: https://academy.plessas.net
 
Reasons We Serve is a long-form interview podcast with the people who run toward danger: police officers, detectives, federal agents, corrections officers, dispatchers, prosecutors, forensic nurses, firefighters, and military veterans. Guests come from small-town departments, big-city precincts, state and federal agencies, and police forces worldwide.
 
Every conversation comes back to three questions:
Why did you choose this life?
What did it cost you and your family?
After everything you've seen, how do you see people now? 
No politics, no scripts. Just first-person stories from people who served.
 
▶️ Subscribe for new interviews every Sunday: https://www.spreaker.com/user/reasons-we-serve--17128705

🎙️ Know someone with a story to tell? [email protected]
 
💬 What do you think the CIA’s job really is?

They thought they were recruiting a vulnerable woman. They were talking to Detective Heidi Chance.

The retired Phoenix detective takes us inside her undercover work investigating sex trafficking—and shares what those encounters taught her about manipulation, control, and the warning signs families can miss. Heidi discusses online grooming, sextortion targeting boys, and why a parent’s reaction can determine whether their child asks for help again. She also reveals the encounter with a former student that changed her career.

Subscribe to Reasons We Serve for candid conversations with the people behind the badge. 

Welcome to our channel, Reasons We Serve, a podcast dedicated to exploring the motivations, challenges, and realities of working in law enforcement. We dive deep into the personal stories of officers, discuss different career paths, and break down the roles of various agencies—from local police departments to state and federal law enforcement.

If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a 5-star review, subscribe, and share with others. 

To watch more interviews with retired and active-duty cops and law enforcement, watch here: https://www.youtube.com/@reasonsweserve

Navy Commander who lost his best friend at 17 spent 20 years in the fleet, then walked into the DEA at age 42 as a diversion investigator. Brian Rucker helped take down the first internet pharmacy case under the Ryan Haight Act, shut down early OxyContin pill mills in Philadelphia, and watched the opioid crisis migrate from Florida into Georgia.

In this raw interview, he breaks down what diversion investigators actually do, the black-sheep relationship with special agents, leadership lessons from the Navy, and how one personal tragedy shaped an entire career fighting pharmaceutical diversion.

If this story hits home, hit like, subscribe, and drop a comment with the name of someone you lost to drugs or someone who still serves. Share it with a young person considering federal law enforcement or the military.

More veteran and law-enforcement stories in the “Reasons We Serve” playlist.

Welcome to our channel, Reasons We Serve, a podcast dedicated to exploring the motivations, challenges, and realities of working in law enforcement. We dive deep into officers' personal stories, discuss different career paths, and break down the roles of various agencies—from local police departments to state and federal law enforcement.

If you liked this episode, please give us a 5-star review, subscribe, and share to stay updated on more inspiring law enforcement stories.

He went from a full-ride offensive tackle at Oregon State to the Korean DMZ… then became a U.S. Secret Service special agent who protected presidents and hunted criminals. Jim Davidson never planned on law enforcement. One phone call from a concert promoter led him to the sheriff’s office, then IRS Inspection, and finally the Secret Service after a clerk wrongly told him he needed an accounting degree. In this episode of Reasons We Serve, Jim shares the unlikely path that took him from the professional football field to the White House protective detail, the reality of balancing high-stakes investigations with presidential protection, and the family cost of a career that demanded everything.

Later, he and his wife, Mary (also a Secret Service agent), sit down to talk about raising kids while both served, the guilt, the trade-offs, and the advice they’d give every law-enforcement couple.

If this story of unexpected service, grit, and family sacrifice resonates, like, subscribe, and share it. Drop a comment: What part of Jim’s journey hit you hardest?

Related: Watch Mary Davidson’s episode (Ep 178) for her side of the same extraordinary career.

You can find Jim Davidson's book called "Supernote" here: https://www.amazon.com/Supernote-Jim-Davidson/dp/166576435X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=7KOI993AQBPV&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.EOr6MVj_c4foMBpW3DHbUg.Tv2Z4LMOE7OXDtOewL_0kXoinXkrDbh7NF_3n1q1l6o&dib_tag=se&keywords=supernote+book+by+Jim+Davidson&qid=1788479912&s=office-products&sprefix=supernote+book+by+jim+davidson%2Coffice-products%2C228&sr=1-1

Reasons We Serve — real stories of service, sacrifice, and the people who answer the call. Welcome to our channel, Reasons We Serve, a podcast dedicated to exploring the motivations, challenges, and realities of working in law enforcement. We dive deep into officers' personal stories, discuss different career paths, and break down the roles of various agencies—from local police departments to state and federal law enforcement.

If you liked this episode, please give us a 5-star review, like, share, and comment. Thank you.

She was one of the first women in the Secret Service — and a single $100 bill from a pizza place in Brea led her to a Colombian cartel operating underground in caves.

Mary Davidson walked into Secret Service headquarters as a 22-year-old clerk the day before her birthday in 1980. She became an agent in 1981, one of the earliest women on the job, and spent two decades balancing criminal investigations and protective details while raising four kids. In this episode of Reasons We Serve, she shares the raw truth about arriving in LA right after the murder of Agent Julie Cross, qualifying with a revolver she’d never held, serving 13 arrest warrants while pregnant, and the counterfeit case that started with two preppy kids and ended with bricks of cocaine, a suitcase sewn with fake money, and the collapse of an entire network. 

If this story of grit, quiet competence, and unexpected impact resonates, hit like, subscribe, and share it with someone who needs to hear what real service looks like. Drop a comment: What part of Mary’s journey hit you hardest?

Related: Search “Reasons We Serve” for more veteran and agent interviews.

If you liked this episode, please give us a 5-star review and don’t forget to subscribe and share.

A 31-year San Francisco law enforcement veteran who grew up with a pot-smoking, drug-dealing hippie mom reveals how childhood trauma drove him into policing, gave him rare empathy for the homeless and addicted… and ultimately fueled a secret opioid addiction that ended in a pharmacy robbery, jail, and near-suicide.

Davin Cole went from K9 handler to citywide homeless outreach leader, earned medals of valor, and still lost everything to complex PTSD and pain-med addiction. This is the raw, unfiltered story of what the job really costs — and how he clawed his way back.

Key Moments:
01:00 - The Hidden Pharmacy Robbery and 10-Year Addiction
06:20 - Why He Had More Empathy for Drug Users and Homeless People
08:04 - The Subconscious Drive Behind First Responders
13:05 - Why His Mom Was Proud He Became a Cop
17:00 - Building San Francisco’s Homeless Outreach Unit
21:00 - COVID, Defund the Police, and the Fentanyl Explosion
23:28 - The Real Causes of Homelessness, According to Davin Cole
30:49 - The Gang Member Shotgun Ambush
42:10 - The K9 Bite That Eventually Put Him on the Road to Addiction
 
If you’re a first responder, veteran, or anyone carrying invisible wounds — this conversation will hit hard.

Like, subscribe, and share this with someone who needs to hear it. Drop a comment: what part of Davin’s story hit you most?
 
Welcome to our channel, Reasons We Serve, a podcast dedicated to exploring the motivations, challenges, and realities of working in law enforcement. We dive deep into the personal stories of officers, discuss different career paths, and break down the roles of various agencies—from local police departments to state and federal law enforcement.
 
If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a 5-star review, comment, and share.

He started as a 23-year-old All-American powerlifter and ended as a DHS OIG Special Agent in Charge who investigated Border Patrol shootings, Secret Service scandals, and the largest fentanyl seizure in U.S. history.
 
In this raw Reasons We Serve interview, retired federal agent Paul Leonard reveals what really happens inside the Office of Inspector General — the agency with first right of refusal on criminal misconduct by federal officers. From blank naturalization certificates worth $50k on the black market to a doctor who threatened to shoot the warden… and the day a dirty LAPD officer nearly killed him.
 
In this raw Reasons We Serve interview, Paul breaks down:
• How powerlifting got him recruited into federal law enforcement
• What OIG really does (and why it differs from OPR)
• High-stakes cases involving INS corruption, Border Patrol shootings, and cartel-compromised agents • Surviving near-misses, leadership lessons, and why fitness still matters after 33 years
 
Stick around for the fitness advice that could save your career and your health.
 
Book: Built by History (Amazon) Instagram: Paul J. Leonard (PLUSA)
Gym shoutout: ATP Powerlifting Gym, Chandler, AZ

Paul's Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/pauljleonardplusa
Paul's YouTube page: @PLeonard71
 
 
Welcome to our channel, Reasons We Serve, a podcast dedicated to exploring the motivations, challenges, and realities of working in law enforcement. We dive deep into the personal stories of officers, discuss different career paths, and break down the roles of various agencies—from local police departments to state and federal law enforcement.
 
If you liked this episode, please subscribe, comment, and share.