141 Days: Zero Contact — When the System Fails You: Rusty Myers

Well Rusty, welcome to the First Responder Wellness Podcast. Thanks for joining me.
Rusty Myers (01:11.032)
I'll look into that. Thank you.
Rusty Myers (01:18.752)
Happy to be here. Thank you for having me.
Conrad Weaver (01:20.409)
So tell us a little bit about you. You are in law enforcement.
Rusty Myers (01:24.05)
I am in my thirty first year in law enforcement and I started as a patrol private in ninety four, I think. Something like that. And worked my way through the ranks. I left to go in the FBI and got hurt and ended up coming back to law enforcement on the street and got promoted to street supervisor as a corporal, became a sergeant, ran an interdiction squad for a while. That was a a lot of fun.
We we had a lot of fun. I had some good guys working for me who were s I was smart enough to let them teach the sergeant what to do. So we had a whole lot of fun and then got promoted to lieutenant and this was all at the city of Charleston. I ended up on the command duty roster, which is basically night shift, you're the chief. You're out there on night shift for I did that for a year, then I took over a team command and took over a patrol team, which was kind of what I knew was patrol. So I had a lot of fun with that. We had great team.
Conrad Weaver (01:57.475)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (02:21.9)
And then the chief was going to do a a move. He asked everybody to throw out a a a wish list. And I kinda threw training on the wish list as like a yeah, that'll never happen joke. And he called me on it. Told me we need to put a patrol mindset in training. And so I said, Well that's good, 'cause it's the only mindset I really have in law enforcement is a patrol one. So ended up taking over the professional development and training office for about five years at C P D and and
Conrad Weaver (02:35.694)
Yeah.
Rusty Myers (02:51.69)
I viewed that as like a legacy position. This is a chance to really affect the whole department, not just my team. I had a really good team. In fact the chief apologized 'cause he broke the team up whenever he transferred me out. I lost six of my eight sergeants. But he told me he said, I gotta do it. It's where my leaders are being built. So it was a really huge compliment that I I still to this it's all my plaque they gave me when I left the team. And I'm very very proud of those guys and where they've gone 'cause I I still stay in touch with just about all of So
Conrad Weaver (02:53.754)
Hm.
Conrad Weaver (03:05.186)
Mm.
Conrad Weaver (03:09.25)
Mm.
Conrad Weaver (03:13.647)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (03:19.606)
Mm. So let's talk a little bit about that leadership experience. How does leadership in general overall affect an agency?
Rusty Myers (03:30.212)
it's dramatic. Absolutely dramatic. And now that I've I've been in several agencies, you know, since everything happened, and seen the difference that a good leader can make and how a leader that's good is is not there just to make decisions. They're there to to develop their people and teach their people and train your replacement. You know, that's that's what a good leader's doing, is he's training the people that are beneath him and having seen it now, and you know, when I was inside the for the
twenty three years I served at Charleston. I didn't I didn't really see it that way. I did leadership my way, which was kind of different than a lot of people there, but it's huge. Absolutely huge. And I see it in leaders in law enforcement, I feel like for many years we kind of we let it slide. You know, we were militaristic and do what I say, do what I you know, do it the way I tell ya. And now I I
Conrad Weaver (04:15.195)
Yeah.
Conrad Weaver (04:21.765)
Do you think that comes because of that military background?
Rusty Myers (04:24.93)
I don't know if it was that or that was just what most people knew, you know, and and as we've developed as a profession now, I see a lot more leadership training. I've had far more leadership training, you know, in the last five, ten years than I ever had in my first fifteen years. And in first, you know, that's when we really need to be developing them is when they're young. Because if we teach them good leadership when they're privates and patrol officers, that will just get better as they move up the ranks.
Conrad Weaver (04:27.803)
Hm. Yeah.
Conrad Weaver (04:52.635)
And you know, when you speak about leadership, it's not just that operational wisdom. It's also just being a good human, right?
Rusty Myers (05:01.056)
yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And treat your people the way you want to be treated. Whether you were treated that way or not, right? Your your day at at the those levels is over. You can't go back and change it. But what you can change are the people coming up now and work to develop them and you know, obviously I could retire. My chief could retire. He's got almost fifty years in, my chief. He's insane. But we could r we could he'll listen. But he
Conrad Weaver (05:05.024)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (05:20.645)
Wow. I won't tell him you said that.
Rusty Myers (05:31.308)
We have the same philosophy. We're both healthy. We're both having fun. Working with these young guys and seeing them develop and being able to to lead them in a way that we weren't really led. It it's it's just the the most fun I've ever had in law enforcement, to to develop these young guys, get into the training they want to go to, let see how it's done right and teach them to do the job right.
Conrad Weaver (05:51.259)
Mm-hmm. What's one thing you wish you would've known when you were in your first five years in law enforcement?
Rusty Myers (05:56.569)
Lord. I felt like I was without a clue when I went into law enforcement. I guess the biggest thing is is I wish I'd had known earlier where I wanted to go. 'Cause you know, you get into law enforcement and everybody comes in and says, I want to be C S I or I want to be a detective. Well, I just went in and I was like, I just want to be a police officer. And so that's kind of where I was and it took me a long time. And then, you know, at one point I did I did go to the FBI for a year, but like I said, I got hurt.
And I left there and went back to doing my regular patrol job again. And now looking back, I'm glad I did that. Because patrol, that's the heart of a police department, is patrol. If your patrol division has bad morale, your department has bad morale. So that's what I focus on now. I'm the commander of patrol for our for our department and take care of those guys. And you know, when they call you in the middle of the night to tell you something's happened, don't yell at Just answer the phone. What you got? What's up? Okay. All right.
I'm gonna start getting dressed. Call me in five minutes. Let me know what's what you figured out. 'Cause something like seventy five percent of that initial info you get is probably gonna be wrong before you get there. And and more than once that second phone call came in and I was able to say, Okay, well then I don't need to come out. Just call me if anything changes, I'll be listening up for the phone. And you know, sergeants know how to do the job. You just gotta let and know that know that they ha you have their back when they make a decision. So
Conrad Weaver (07:16.826)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (07:21.336)
I think that just in in speaking with the people, you know, in law enforcement across the country, I think that frontline leader is such a vital position.
Rusty Myers (07:30.575)
It's probably FTO and sergeant are probably the two most undersold positions because of what they do. You know, your FTO comes in then and they're gonna give the person your culture. They're gonna teach but they're also gonna give your culture. And then that sergeant, if you got good sergeants, you've got the core of a good agency. You know, we can we can work on the rest if we need to. But a good sergeant stops things from going too far, steps in, has that maturity to
Stay calm when somebody's yelling or screaming and and you know, just it's remarkable. And when you see it in action, it it makes your chest kind of swell. You get pro proud of those guys and see who they're gonna be. And then you know, when they're in my position one day down the road, they're gonna be very good. They're gonna be better than me. And that's what I want.
Conrad Weaver (08:16.154)
I remember talking to someone this was out with the Las Vegas PD and he said and he's now retired, but he said, you know, my w my FTO was this guy that no one wanted to be, you know, the protege of. And of course I got assigned to him and he said it was really hard, but he said I became a much better officer because of my time riding with this guy.
Rusty Myers (08:39.746)
Right, 'cause your your FTO can't be your buddy. And if your FTO gets in the car and just starts buddying, that's you know, when I was doing FTO stuff, my my philosophy is I'm training my backup. So I'm gonna give the best and and make the best I can because that's the guy gonna bail me out if something goes bad, you know. But I've seen that before, you get people you know, FTOs get overworked and then next thing you know, they're just churning out people left and right and they're just exhausted and it goes into the that constant
Conrad Weaver (08:51.713)
Mm. Mm.
Conrad Weaver (08:57.722)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (09:09.902)
turnover we have in law enforcement that we've we've gotta work to be f work to beat to a degree. You'll never get rid of it. But but then I've also seen tough FTOs and they turn out a rookie that that kid knows his stuff, man.
Conrad Weaver (09:16.888)
Mm-hmm. So
Conrad Weaver (09:22.67)
Hm. Yeah. So you've spent some time in internal affairs. So let's talk about about that. What you know, we for someone who has never been through an investigation like that, what actually happens?
Rusty Myers (09:28.078)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (09:37.679)
So I was I was privileged to be in internal affairs when I went to Somerville PD and you know, you you get a complaint, it comes in whether by phone or email or sometimes they walk in and they're they're usually mad about what happened. And they start telling you what's going on and I would say ninety five percent of the complaints you get are just 'cause somebody's mad about the fact that they got a ticket or that somebody got arrested or something, 'cause let's face it.
Conrad Weaver (09:52.026)
Mm.
Rusty Myers (10:07.234)
The customer's not always right in law enforcement and we we tick off about fifty percent of people we deal with. the first thing we do anymore now is the first thing is the body cam. And sometimes I would get a complaint on an officer and I'd be like, That's the nicest dude we have. I know this is spurious, but I'll do my due diligence and I'll go watch the body cam. And a lot of times I'd watch the body cam and then call the person and say, Would you like to come watch the body cam? 'Cause it doesn't exactly show what you said. And sometimes he just hang up on you.
Conrad Weaver (10:09.078)
Ha ha ha.
Conrad Weaver (10:18.04)
Mm.
Conrad Weaver (10:36.26)
Hm, mm.
Rusty Myers (10:36.822)
And they don't realize they were on camera and now, you know and then you just follow through and finish out the unfounded of the complaint. But complaint comes in and you have to you have to really look at it. First thing is the body cam and then if there is something there or you need some explanation on why an officer did something, you you call them in and start doing the the interviews with them. And y usually
Between those two, you get a pretty good feel for whether something happened or not. And if you have a good officer, and I had it happen numerous times. Yeah, I F bombed that guy, I shouldn't have done that. What am I gonna get? Well, you're probably gonna get a letter. No big deal. Life goes on, everybody screws up from time to time. Everybody has bad days from time to time. So you get a good officer most of the time, there's nothing I could do or yell at that they're not gonna be yelling at themselves a lot louder in the mirror.
Conrad Weaver (11:30.252)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (11:30.777)
Because they know I screwed that up. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna take a hit for it. And and that usually the job is easy, you know. Internal affairs, I I when I went there I told told my chief, I said, this is a fifty-one forty-nine job. Fifty-one percent of my job protect this department, forty-nine percent is protect my officers. And usually those two numbers align. So one hundred percent of your job is protecting everyone.
But then you got that little two percent when an officer actually does something bad. And y you know, when it comes to like an ethical violation or something, sorry. I'm done. You know, we we're held to a higher standard. We should be held to a higher standard. Because we have the power in a nation that prides itself on liberty, we have the power to take that liberty away, even to the point of killing someone. Because we think we know what's happening and we think we're making the right call. So it that's a lot of power. And internal affairs has a lot of power and it's
Conrad Weaver (11:58.95)
Yes. Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (12:06.107)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (12:18.135)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (12:24.431)
Right.
Rusty Myers (12:27.19)
As long as it's done that way, it annoys me when a department when officers are afraid of internal affairs. I get being anxious, somebody's looking at what you did. That's always gonna bring some anxiety, but shouldn't be afraid. my god, internal affairs is looking at it. my god, what what did I did? Did I do this? We will watch our body cam. We know what we did, what we said. So
Conrad Weaver (12:32.987)
Mm.
Conrad Weaver (12:48.035)
Has body cam has that made that process better or ha has it improved has has it improved behavior?
Rusty Myers (12:53.498)
it's made it I don't know that it improved behavior. I think we were doing the job pretty much right before body cam. And if you ask the ACLU, you know, they want to get rid of now, right? Because wait, these body cams are just showing the cops doing the right thing and what they're actually dealing with. And, you know, when you see some of the the behavior that we're dealing with, people are just blown away. Like, what in the world is that person doing? What is going on?
Conrad Weaver (13:05.819)
Right.
Conrad Weaver (13:15.973)
Can't imagine. Yeah.
Rusty Myers (13:21.132)
And if I was the cop, I would have done this. And it usually involves a stick or sp spray or something, you know. But fortunately the the real cases that come in when it's a real big investigation, they're pretty rare. And you know, as as much as they like to say cops shoot everybody, we don't. It's pretty rare. And I don't know an officer on the force that wants to go to work and have to pull the trigger. That's the worst thing. We w we don't want to do that. You know, we're there. One of my pastors one time when I was talking to him, he said
Conrad Weaver (13:23.803)
Right.
Conrad Weaver (13:36.953)
Right.
Conrad Weaver (13:42.521)
Mm-hmm. Sure.
Rusty Myers (13:49.507)
You know what amazes me. Your job is is to go out and help people. And the first thing you have to do every day is strap on a gun. And it it hit me when he said that. I like, you know, I never thought of it that way, but you're right. But I think most officers are all about body cams because it takes away that, Am I telling the truth or not? it's right there on you know, DC, it's on it's on the camera, everything's there. I get a lot more officers coming to me and saying, Hey, I think you'll get a complaint on this
Conrad Weaver (13:56.495)
Hm.
Conrad Weaver (14:09.06)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (14:16.686)
It's on the body cam, if you want to go ahead and look at it. We didn't do anything, but you know, they were vocal. Okay, fine, I'll watch it and be like, Okay, if they call I know what happened already. So I think the officers have engaged it. I think it saves us far more than it hurts us. And I think they've been well accept well received.
Conrad Weaver (14:21.07)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (14:25.339)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (14:29.435)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (14:33.593)
Yeah. It's it in in a small way, it's kinda like I I recently bought a camera for my car. You know, now I'm going down the road and it's recording everything that happens and sometimes like on our trip this past weekend, you know, there was a couple of crazy drivers that zoom past us, you know, it's like, Hey, I got it on on camera. You know, but it it kinda gives you a little bit of that comfort knowing that, okay, if something crazy happens and there's an accident, it'll show if I'm at at fault or not. You know. Right.
Rusty Myers (14:48.6)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (15:00.994)
Right. It's no longer my word against theirs. It's I'm gonna tell you what happened and by the way, here's the video. And you know, it it really it helps us. I'm it's amusing to me that the ACLU went from, they all need body cameras to wait, you know, there's privacy problems here. Okay, yeah.
Conrad Weaver (15:07.163)
Yeah.
Conrad Weaver (15:18.009)
Yeah. Well, you know, people should know there's cameras everywhere. You know, y you can't walk down the street without a camera being looking at you. Right.
Rusty Myers (15:22.948)
yeah, I I tell my guys, you know if whether your camera's on or not, there's a camera on you. You know, I work at a college. We have something like twelve hundred and fifty camera views. If you're outside, we have you on camera. Some of the buildings where you're at, we have you on camera. If you're not in the restroom, we probably got you on camera somewhere. So we're able to go back and see a lot of stuff and we can pull video, not just from the officers, because body cams aren't the best sometimes. You just all you see is blur.
Conrad Weaver (15:42.543)
Right.
Rusty Myers (15:52.633)
But we could pull the the camera from wherever the incident happened at and watch it and be like, Yep, everything looks good, no problem. So
Conrad Weaver (15:58.524)
Mm-hmm. So n so how can an agency balance thinking of IA, how can an agency balance accountability with compassion?
Rusty Myers (16:08.92)
Think the biggest thing is when you're doing an internal investigation, you gotta communicate with the officer. Yeah, we do an interview and we give them their guarantee warnings and their all their their legal rights, which they have. Sometimes people forget the officers are citizens too, you know, they have certain rights we're we give But I think that when I was doing IA, I was very honest with You know, if they walked in and and I'd already watched the video and I kinda knew where the case was going, I'd be honest with and say, Look, man,
I don't think you did anything. We just need to verify that. I need to get your statement on paper and and we'll go from there and you know that we'll have this knocked out in a couple of days. Because sometimes they're allowed to drag on. And when anytime you're under investigation, whether you did anything or not, it's it's stressful. It's it's always there in the back of your mind. Well, what if, what if, what if? But my thing was just to be very communicative with and you know, if I saw something they had screwed up, I'd like, Look, I think you're looking at two days off here, maybe a day off.
Conrad Weaver (16:54.267)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (17:07.384)
You know, I had demotions, I had terminations I had to deal with, and that's just part of the job. And nobody likes to have to fire somebody or to recommend that to the chief. But sometimes that's what you have to do, because you're that fifty one percent, you are protecting the profession and the agency. So but I think the biggest thing and and the biggest problem I see with a lot of agencies is number one, somebody gets shoved into IA. Right? put that guy in internal affairs.
Conrad Weaver (17:21.147)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (17:24.56)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (17:32.699)
Mm.
Rusty Myers (17:36.003)
You really need to have your best in internal affairs. They need to be your number one, your best guy. You need to have somebody in there who can look the chief in the eye and say, No, that's screwed up. That's not what I saw. And they've got to have that courage to be able to come forward. And you've got to have a chief that could listen to someone that's going to say, That's not what I saw. That's not what happened And here's what yeah and be able to explain themselves well. Because like I said, you shouldn't be afraid. Anxiety is one thing, fear is another.
Conrad Weaver (17:37.883)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (17:55.995)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (18:01.403)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (18:04.834)
And if you have an agency where people are afraid of IA, then you've got some problems in your morale, you've got some problems in your people wanting to stick around, your attention is gonna not be the best because they're gonna feel like they're not getting a s a square shake all the time.
Conrad Weaver (18:17.427)
Mm. Do you think that sometimes when especially when there's an officer involved shooting and they're they have to stay home for a while and that investigation can be long? what can an agency do to help their officer during that kind of a investigation?
Rusty Myers (18:36.366)
So when I went through my thing, what I experienced was just everyone was afraid to talk to you. And I think that's something that we need to be prepared for because we know about the minimum on a on a shooting is going to be probably two months because another agency comes in and does an investigation. It's it it'll drive you nuts. And if no one's updating you, e because even I I tell if we're doing an investigation and simple things should be done quick. Get them out of the way.
Conrad Weaver (18:41.136)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (18:49.987)
Mm-hmm. That's a long time to be sitting at home wondering if you're gonna have still have a job. Sure.
Rusty Myers (19:05.262)
Because when a big one comes, well now okay, every Friday you need a touch base with your officer. Hey, nothing happened this week, things are still rolling, are you doing okay? Yep. You don't have to talk about the case, okay, to stay in touch and to let the officer know, hey, it's proceeding. It's proceeding slow. The wheels of government grind slowly, but they grind finely and they do move. But I think the biggest thing is just staying in touch and it not just, you know, stay in touch with your friends.
Conrad Weaver (19:17.381)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (19:27.867)
Hm.
Rusty Myers (19:35.565)
Yeah, it's funny, I had an officer come into my office this week and he's re he just was reading my book and he came in, he's like, Man, I I'm so sorry. You know, I was one of those ones I didn't call and I told him don't feel that way. I absolutely don't feel I don't want the book to make you feel bad. You know, nobody called. People weren't returning my text messages and that's the wrong way to be. We need to be staying in touch with them. I'm working part of the plan I'm working on now with peer support is that if you have a case like that, they're gonna have an assigned peer support person to
Conrad Weaver (20:03.841)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (20:04.886)
And that peer support person just checks in two, three times a week, hey, just check it on you, you're doing all right. I know it's frustrating. Just commiserate with them. Let let vent. Let talk about what's going on in their life. You're not talking about the case. And peer support in South Carolina is very well protected. So we don't have to you know, if it's peer support, it's peer support. Unless they're homicidal, suicidal, that's different. But everything else, you know, they can vent. You don't you don't tell this is what I heard, this is what's going on.
Conrad Weaver (20:24.283)
Mm-hmm.
Sure, sure.
Rusty Myers (20:34.478)
But they need to stay in touch because that isolation, whenever you're the one under investigation, it's dramatic and it's immediate. And it it's very it's painful. It's very painful whenever you're used to being in the middle of everything to all of a sudden your hands off. Everybody's afraid. he's screwed up, something's wrong. I don't want to talk to him anymore.
Conrad Weaver (20:40.987)
Hm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (20:58.274)
You know, we we've got to do a better job of taking care of our people because for God's sake, we're killing ourselves five or six times better than the bad guys. And I'm tired of it. I'm tired of losing friends to suicide. I'm tired of reading about suicide. Every morning on Facebook I'll get a update. Lost the battle to mental health, lost the battle, you know, and it's it breaks my heart every time I see it 'cause I know what it's like. I've been there. And I just we've got to get the word out and part of the reason is why we're the way we've been led.
Conrad Weaver (21:03.343)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (21:16.001)
Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (21:26.252)
Our leaders haven't really done a good job addressing this. I will say this though, I feel like last five years, maybe last six years, mental wellness and resilience has really popped into the law enforcement lexicon in ways I've never seen before. We're talking about it, the word is getting out there, there's there's resources developing like we were talking about earlier before the call cast. And that's that's given me a lot of hope that we can do that and that we can get
Conrad Weaver (21:39.119)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (21:52.335)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (21:54.841)
that being not just something that we think about occasionally, but peer support needs to be the way you run your agency, not just a a little group off to the side that helps out once in a while.
Conrad Weaver (22:01.231)
Mm.
Conrad Weaver (22:04.667)
Sure. So without giving away your whole book, give us a little bit of snapshot of your story and and then what makes you passionate about this subject now.
Rusty Myers (22:15.084)
So we were involved in a foot pursuit on beautiful Rainbow Road, downtown Charleston, in a beautiful July day. It was about ninety eight degrees. Chased the guy a couple of times. He had tried to take a car, went into a house, finally caught him behind a house and the and the officers had him on the ground. I got there and I'm standing back 'cause we got four guys on I don't need to jump on the pile. They're trying to get handcuffs on. He's spitting, fighting, kicking, doing what people do when they don't want to go to jail.
And literally in my mind, I had just come out of training and gone back to patrol. And in my mind I'm thinking, okay, we're gonna video this. I'm gonna get a good make sure my body cam's clear, because we're behind a house in a fenced yard. This guy could say anything. And we'd already been through the the Michael Slager shooting and a bunch of other stuff. So I was very aware of what was going on and where we were and what could be said. So I kind of stood there, I was just shooting the video. They're they're they're getting the handcuffs on and just as they go on, one of the officers kind of stands up.
And he slaps the guy the back of the head and at the at that time I'm actually trying to talk it in my radio 'cause I got another officer injured somewhere else. And I noticed it and I like, Well, I gotta I gotta ask what that was about 'cause I didn't really see it that well. I mean, it was right in front of me, but you know, in the heat of the moment all you see is it's like a picture.
So he stands up and he's kinda standing there and he's he's just standing beside the the other three guys are still holding the dude down and he's moving his legs a little bit. He's making a little pile of rocks. We're in pea gravel, which is little tiny rocks. He's just nervous movement because of all the adrenaline dumps, I assume. And that was pretty much it. We we walked off, you know, I had I had two injured officers. I had one that had fallen on a rake while fighting with this guy earlier. So my main concern is getting to the hospital to see how they are, see what's going on with And
The officers did their use of force that night and I came in the next day and I reviewed it. He he actually called me. I was on the way to the hospital. He the officer that had slapped the guy on the back of the head called me and I said, What was that about? And he just immediately said, he was spitting. I thought he was gonna spit on me. Just like that. And it wasn't, you know, let me think about it or anything like that. It was immediate. And I said, Okay, well that that makes sense. I A may wanna look at it, but if he was spitting, fully justified. It's a felony in Socralina to spit on law enforcement. So
Rusty Myers (24:32.77)
I really wasn't that worried about it. I said just make sure it's in your report. They did their use of forces and I was able to go back and download my body cam. I was able to watch it one time on a MDT, which is about an eleven inch screen on a laptop basically while we were downloading it. came in the next day and tried to do my follow up review of the use of force and couldn't find the video anywhere. Didn't know what was going on with it. So I was kinda like, Well, sometimes they get lost in La La Land for twenty four hours and they magically show up.
Sent a few emails out and in short I never saw it again until I was in IA. Submitted my report on what had happened and I called it a cuff to the back of the head because that's just a word I've used before, cuffed about the head and shoulders. It's nothing, you know, no big deal. It was it was a small thing. And then on Friday I found out they had sent the officer home and I I called internal affairs going, Hey, you're gonna send one of my guys home.
Conrad Weaver (25:20.218)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (25:28.322)
I need to know about it and what's he going home for? Did he get a DUI last night or something that I don't know about? Well no, it's this was related to that foot pursuit. And I'm like, well, pull my body cam. I don't know where it's at, I can't find it, but it's in there somewhere. I was there, I I watched the whole thing, I saw it. and I said, You want me to come in and do an interview? They're No, don't worry about it. So that was Friday. The weekend went Monday, I again went back and said, Hey, do you want to interview me on this? And they were like, No, no, no, we're not gonna interview you.
And then about seven thirty that night they called me and said, yeah, can you come in early tomorrow or we won't do wanna interview you? So went in, I did my interview. They asked about the slap. I said, Yeah, that was you know, why'd you use the word cuff? And I said, Well, to me that was more descriptive. The very next sentence is that's the only strike I observed. So obviously it was a hit. And then we're watching the video and and you see the officer's knees moving in my video. You don't see his feet.
And they asked me what he was doing there, and I he's he's just piddling in the rocks. He's kind of piling up the rocks or something. And shortly after that I walked up and gave him his body camera because it had fallen off in the foot pursuit. And that was that was pretty much it. I went back to my office thinking, okay, well, I don't know what they're upset about. Maybe something happened. We had lost sight. I had me and the sergeant were running together. We had lost sight of him for ten or twelve seconds. Maybe something happened at ten or twelve seconds I don't know about. That's all I could figure.
And then about two hours later the phone rang and they said, We're putting you on administrative leave, you need to come to the station, drop off your car and
You're you're under investigation and I'm just like, What? For what? And I still to it it took me months to find out what I was under investigation for. So that was kind of the incident and and then I got sent home. You know, my wife came to get me. She was so nervous she couldn't drive, so my father and her actually pulled up to get me in the car. And I got in and I just looked at him and I said, I have no idea what's going on. I haven't done anything wrong. I haven't lied. And
Rusty Myers (27:35.019)
I I don't know what they're I don't know what what this is all about. They have you sign a form, but all the form says is you're under investigation. It doesn't give you the charges. And it would be the better part of four and a half, five months before I found out what I was actually charged with. And that was actually at my hearing when the investigation was complete. So went home that night, I got in touch with the best attorney we had in the area, which was Andy Savage. Sent him an email, didn't expect to hear back from him.
Conrad Weaver (27:42.639)
Thank
Conrad Weaver (27:50.894)
Wow.
Mm.
Rusty Myers (28:02.752)
About an hour and a half later, I got an email back and Andy was immediately concerned about my mental state. And he said, I'll see you at nine o'clock tomorrow morning at my office, which ironically was about two blocks from where all this happened. So the next morning I'm in there with Andy and we're sitting there, we're talking. I walk him through the incident. I'm like, I don't know what more I could do. Everything's in my report, it's on my body cam. I volunteered to take a polygraph, and they literally told me well, polygraphs don't work if you think you're telling the truth. And I was like, Isn't that the reason you do a polygraph?
Conrad Weaver (28:29.955)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rusty Myers (28:33.698)
So Andy's the first person who brings up are they going criminal? And I'm Criminal? What do you mean criminal? For what? He just said, just be aware of it. Then he then he started talking to my wife about, you know, w we need to make sure all the weapons are accounted for in the house. And I'm just like, no. didn't do anything wrong. And Yeah, that was it for about two weeks. And then two weeks later the phone rang.
And I I I answered it and it's a sled agent. Sakura Law Enforcement Division. They're the ones that come in and investigate crimes when they have police officers involved. And I just started talking to him 'cause you know, I've been talking to SLUD agents my whole career and about two or three minutes in the conversation I'm like, you know
Conrad Weaver (29:15.951)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (29:22.07)
I probably ought to make sure my attorney knows that we're talking. And he's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn't know you had an attorney. I apologize. Noth you know, I hadn't really said anything except he did tell me at that point that they were looking at an assault and alleged cover up. And I remember saying cover up. How can I cover it up? It's right there on my camera. It's in my report. There's no cover up. But he was like, This this conversation, you know, nothing you said here, I didn't know you had an attorney. I apologi and I was like, It's fine, it's fine, I understand.
So that was the end of that. And then and Andy o my attorney obviously said you're not gonna give him an interview 'cause there's no telling what they'll try and pull out. And
Rusty Myers (30:03.692)
Now we're about two and a half weeks in.
Conrad Weaver (30:07.833)
And you're still out, you're still at home and yeah.
Rusty Myers (30:09.506)
yeah, I'm at home. And the phone's copped ringing. No one my text messages aren't getting answered. You know, I still got a a patrol team that arguably I should be running, but I guess my admin sergeant's doing all that. And she'd send me an email once in a while, but not a lot. And then three months later, three months now, so keep your time frame. Because this whole thing took two years. Three months later, the sled report comes out. Andy calls me and says, Hey, they're gonna
They're gonna charge the officer with assault for slapping him on the back of the head. And but there's no charges for you. Your the sled report actually says Lieutenant Myers wrote a detailed account of what he observed. There's nothing in there for a cover up. And I'm kinda like I'm feeling bad for the officer 'cause I mean, this guy was spitting. That's a crime. And if he stopped it by basically grandma saying, Don't talk so loud in church, which is kinda how I said it. You know, and
Conrad Weaver (30:55.514)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (31:06.69)
Then I waited because I thought, well, sled clear me, this is over. I'll be going back to work in a day or two. I'll just wait on internal affairs to call and say, Okay, come on back. Well, they don't call. So three days later I call them and I'm like, Hey, what's going on? You know, I I've been cleared. Can I come back to work? well no, the internal affairs investigation just began. So now we're, you know, three and a half, four months out. Finally, on December or no, November thirtieth, I get a phone call.
From internal affairs saying, we're putting you on leave without pay now. And we have a meeting set up with the deputy chief next week. You're gonna meet with her on December 6th to go over the findings in your case. I haven't been called for an interview or anything this whole time, and my brain is I'm fried, right? I'm it's I've been sitting at home, I start working in the yard, just doing whatever I can to to keep my brain occupied.
This was when I really started getting into a low point because I just didn't understand what was happening. So I go to that hearing on December the sixth and I'm told that I've been charged with duty to it failure to intervene, failure to supervise, and false reported records. And I'm just like, what are you talking about? And the deputy chief goes, Well, when he kicked rocks on the subject, you didn't stop him. And I was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you talking about?
Nobody kicked rocks at anybody. What do you what do you mean? They had interpreted the movement of his knees to be kicking rocks on the suspect. Well I pointed out then, as I point out now, there were still three officers on the suspect. None of them talked about being kicked by rocks. And if you're kick you're not you're not selectively just kicking them one person, you didn't hit everybody. There's no there's no evidence, there's no there's nothing. And I'm just like, you're you're f she recommends termination. And I'm like, You're firing me for something that did not happen.
Conrad Weaver (32:40.219)
Mm.
Rusty Myers (33:03.234)
And how do I prove that? How do I prove that something didn't happen? So I had a a week to go back, that I appealed my my termination to the chief of police, went in on December thirteenth, Friday, December thirteenth, for my appeals hearing, and and you know, he he listened to me rant for about forty five minutes on I didn't do anything wrong. And then just said, I'm upholding the termination.
Conrad Weaver (33:28.591)
Wow.
Rusty Myers (33:31.459)
Yeah. So I went through a grievance process with the city, which took through till the almost the end of January. I grieved it. There were seven people on the board. I think only five of actually voted. And they voted to support the city. I mean, that's where their paycheck comes from. And then they also submitted a misconduct to the Academy saying that I had lied. And I that I had left this stuff out of the report intentionally, and I'm just like, I got I gotta defend that. So at this point the criminal part is over. I get a new attorney.
Conrad Weaver (33:45.135)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (34:01.892)
this attorney I knew from law enforcement. He had been a police officer for twenty five years, retired and became an attorney. And I hired him intentionally 'cause I was like, he's a cop. He's gonna see what this is, he's gonna check me out on the down low with his buddies and I know what they're gonna be told. And sure enough, that's that's what he was told. Later on he did tell me, I I you know I checked you out when you came into the office. I was like, I knew you would. I'm glad you did. I knew what you were gonna hear. So we went to the academy process, which again this and
Conrad Weaver (34:25.275)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (34:29.422)
To the credit of the state, it was during COVID, so this took a lot longer than normally. Normally you'd look at maybe four months total. For me, it took the better part of another year and a half. You know, I go to the first hearing and it's a judge who's got his preponderance of evidence is the is the level in this case, so fifty and a feather, to say whether something happened or didn't. That's all he's gotta decide. We go in, we present our case, and again, about two months later we get the we get the answer, and the answer is
Conrad Weaver (34:38.407)
yeah.
Rusty Myers (34:59.712)
Inconclusive. And I'm just like, What what the heck does that mean? Inconclusive? This that's no answer whatsoever. So now we have a final hearing with the law enforcement training council, which is a council of nine people, the head of sled, the state attorney general, and seven police chiefs. And we're driving up to that hearing and I rode with my attorney that day 'cause we wanted to go over things and and he's just the whole way up there. He's preparing me. You're gonna lose.
Conrad Weaver (35:04.763)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (35:29.804)
Chiefs don't go against other chiefs, just be prepared for it. Don't show anything on your face. We gotta we can go through the Socceral admin court system after this, you know, d this isn't the end. It's not good if you lose, but it's not the end. If we're lucky, we'll get a suspension because they can suspend you for a certain amount of time. And at this point, I've been out of work for almost two years. They could have given me a two year suspension. I could have gone back to work. That's how long I'd been out. So that's kinda where Jack was hoping we would get to was just suspend him, make him go to some sensitivity training and
Conrad Weaver (35:48.549)
Wow.
Mm-hmm. Mm.
Rusty Myers (35:59.789)
Let him go back to work. So he presents the case, and the first person to speak is the Attorney General. And the Attorney General just goes,
This is this is not misconduct. Why are we here? Because the whole rock kicking thing had been thrown out. It was detosed. They said there's no evidence. You can't just say that happened without evidence. Because now we're in a court where evidence matters, as opposed to the IA court where it didn't. So I won my my certification. I went literally the next day I had an interview with Somerville P D. I I've known the chief at Somerville for probably going on thirty two years. I knew him before we were cops and
Conrad Weaver (36:20.698)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (36:26.17)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (36:40.738)
He knew I was wounded, he brought me in and I worked the road for a couple of weeks, which was fun. I was only responsible for one person. And it's been a long time since I'd done that. There's also a lot of new buttons in the cars now that weren't there when I was under I'm just like this thing's like the space shuttle. It's amazing what what all the tools we've given these guys. But
it was good to get back on the road a little bit and then the opening internal affairs came up. I put in for it. We did a process. The chief even pulled himself out of the process. He'd said, Okay, I said I know who I want, but I'm not gonna sit on the process. So I had to earn it. And then once I got in there, one of the really big moments for me internally was when I got promoted to to to inspector is what they call it there. And my family came, my son surprised me, showed up
And you know, half the department's there at the promotion ceremony. And Doug gets up and tells my story. He he knew what I'd been through and he had he had done his diligence before he hired me. So he he sat up there and he looked everybody in the eye and he said, I am hiring this man and putting him in internal affairs so that he never allows me to do to you what was done to him. And that's that's that's leadership.
There's a lot of accountability there when you stand up in front of people and say, This is why I'm doing this. So I went in there and I was able to run it the way I felt internal affairs should be run. You know, I was able to I did a lot of training still because I had a lot of free time. So I would help the training office do actor shooter training and stuff like that that I had done at the city for years. And it was great. I had a good time at it and really thought I would retire from there.
Conrad Weaver (38:21.678)
Hm. Hm. So y you gave me a quote that I want to ask you about. You say the end will come and the sun will rise. What do you mean by that?
Rusty Myers (38:33.368)
So obviously this was a two year endure endurance trial. I wish I could tell you how strong I was and that I did everything great, but I wasn't. I you know, I was I was going nuts. I called it the loop. I would get out in the yard first thing in the morning, as soon as the sun was up and start working in the yard and digging. I dug out a pool. That that was how I got rid of my anger.
Conrad Weaver (38:38.138)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (38:55.695)
Ha ha.
Rusty Myers (38:56.824)
But I I had to do something, you know, and this gave me some control. And I would work through it until about noon when it just got too hot. And noon or one o'clock, I'd eat lunch, I'd go inside, and I'd sit there. Cause when you're on admin leave, they can call you for an interview at any time. And I I fully expected to be interviewed again at some point about what had happened. And I never was. You know, I went a hundred and forty-one days with zero contact unless I initiated it from my department. And
Conrad Weaver (39:20.996)
Wow. Hmm.
Rusty Myers (39:26.336)
As I as I just went through that, the loop would play over and over again and then about four o'clock, three thirty, four o'clock, I had a ritual and I got it down to a science, right? I'm not a drinker, I don't like alcohol, I like donuts and I like ice cream for calories, okay? I would pour three shots of fireball, which is nastiest substance on earth, but I like cinnamon, so wasn't quite as bad. Three shots. Four shots made me sick. Three shots would turn off my head.
Conrad Weaver (39:53.998)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (39:56.409)
For about three or free or three and a half hours. It would just turn off the loop. My wife hated it. She tattered me to my parents. I found that out a couple of weeks ago. But but apparently my father's response was, Well, yeah, I would un I would be too. I understand. And it was just a way to turn off my brain for a few hours. By the time I sobered up, it was almost bedtime and I could just, you know, crash and try to sleep through the night, which didn't happen a lot. But and
Conrad Weaver (40:06.945)
Yeah.
Rusty Myers (40:26.166)
You know, I went through stuff I had a new pastor at church and the first day he came in, he was just like a an interim pastor at first. And he started preaching. I looked at my wife and I said, God, that guy looks like a cop. And about halfway through the sermon he starts talking about his days as a as a narcotics officer. And I was like, called that one. Cityway g
Conrad Weaver (40:39.035)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (40:45.231)
Mm.
Rusty Myers (40:49.432)
Talked to him, got to be good friends with him, and you know, we went to breakfast and talked about the case and what I was going through, and he was very supportive the whole time and you know, he understood where I was coming from. And you know, any pastor would have loved on you for something like that. But having a pastor who was a cop and understood made a difference for me. and my wife, God bless her, she's the the reason I finally got help. One of those days when I was working in the yard.
Conrad Weaver (41:02.885)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (41:06.489)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (41:17.67)
She walked out and I think she asked me what I wanted for lunch. And I bit her head off. Because I was angry and, you know, I was very angry. It took a long time to get over the anger. And I bit her head off and she looked at and she said, Rusty Myers, you better get help before you do something stupid. And I was just like, she don't know what she's talking about. I'm perfectly fine. I'm strong. I'm not one of these officers that has emotional issues or anything else. I don't have these problems. But I'd also been the training commander.
And while I was training commander, I sat through a lot of classes on mental resiliency, you know, tactical mindset and and suicide awareness. And as I sat there, I started thinking about all those classes. And almost every one of those classes, they end it with a checklist. These are the things to watch out for. And I sat there and I started thinking through the checklist and I realized I'm checking every single box. And then I get to the big one at the end, which is planning.
Conrad Weaver (42:14.939)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (42:15.756)
And I realized I had a plan. I had a detailed plan. And it and it it was just it scared me. And so that's the that was the day I literally called the the the Dorchester Mental Health. 'Cause here's the thing, when you're fired, peer support and all that disappears, right? You're on your own now. Try to see how much mental health your your health insurance covers if you still have it.
Conrad Weaver (42:23.547)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (42:42.232)
So I called, set up an appointment to go in, went and and met with a counselor and we talked through the whole case. First probably the first three sessions were just talking about my anger, my frustrations and all that. And then one day he the th the fourth I think the fourth meeting, he sat there and looked at me and said, There's a lot more here. Tell me what you dream about. And I was kinda taken aback. I was like, Well, I'm not even sleeping right now. What do you mean?
Well, I started talking about a young rookie. I I had trained he wasn't young, he was on the force for fourteen years and he was killed in the line of duty. And it hit me hard. My whole family knew him. My son had been born when I was training him, so we would sneak to the house and, you know, see the kids. And he was killed in the line of duty and that was a big one and he had me journal it. We did some EMDR. I I wrote seventeen handwritten pages about that night when he got killed because I had responded.
And then we talked about some of the other stuff we'd been through at this point. We'd had Mother Emmanuel, the church shooting, which was everybody there basically has some form of PTSD, every responder that was there. And then we talked about, you know, the Charleston nine, the firefighters that we killed, the Sofa Superstore. We talked about homicide suicides. I'd had one that where a two year old baby was killed and it was I could draw a picture of it. You know, I I remember never forgot it. And I could walk you through a detailed account of that night.
And everything we did. And what he finally decided was you have a lot in your PTSD closet. And what's happened is this case has blown it open. This is the big rock, right? So some people the best the best way I've heard it described is you get into law enforcement with a backpack, and every call you go on, you put a rock in the backpack. And it might be a pebble, it might be a grain of sand, it's small, and you throw it in there. But then sometimes you get a big rock.
And that goes in there. And whether it's a big rock or a pebble of sand, over time the weight builds up. The weight builds up. And the weight builds up. And that's why, what are we, five times more likely to have PTSD than the average person. And that number's probably low because we're not good at reporting it. We don't like to talk about it. But the whole this whole case, everything that happened with it was just it was the boulder that just blew the door the door open or ripped the backpack and caused me to just
Conrad Weaver (44:50.19)
Right.
Conrad Weaver (44:57.73)
Yeah.
Rusty Myers (45:02.496)
mentally lose it. And I I credit my wife for her, you know, number one sticking with me. The the night I came home and you know she was traumatized by this too. And she stood in the hallway and leaned against the door jam and she just looked at me and she said, I don't know where this is going. I don't know what's going on. But if we have to live in a trailer for the rest of the rest of our lives, I'm here with you. And that's my girl. You know, we've been married thirty thirty one years now.
Conrad Weaver (45:03.748)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (45:30.798)
So she's been married to me my entire police career.
Conrad Weaver (45:33.122)
Mm. Which is also unusual in law enforcement.
Rusty Myers (45:36.131)
Yes. I've told her. I say we've we've survived six law enforcement marriages. 'Cause the average one's about five years, you know, but it's it's been she she really she stuck through, you know, as a family. The family came together, my mom and dad had to restructure some of their finances to help us not lose the house. I had FOP insurance, which covers the attorney to it, you know, to the criminal case and to the the academy. Andy Savage never billed me.
Conrad Weaver (45:41.366)
Ha ha.
Conrad Weaver (46:00.858)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (46:05.44)
He d he didn't never s a bill. But the the other attorney got paid through the FOP because I had that protection. So you need that if you're on the street. You definitely need that. Cause it was never gonna happen to me. You know? I was I did the job right, I'm a good cop, I know what I'm doing. It was it was never gonna happen to me, and then it did. And then it drove me to the point of being suicidal, which it's still weird to say.
Conrad Weaver (46:15.427)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (46:32.76)
But I'm so tired of losing cops. And I know what it's like to be there. And we are problem solvers. And when you start to believe that you're the problem, you solve it. But you're not the problem. And the line you talked about when the sun rises, to me, every day was like a challenge. I just wanted to get through the next day to see the sunrise. I enjoyed the first hour or two working in the yard because it was cool. Then it got hot really quick. But
Conrad Weaver (46:38.607)
Right.
Conrad Weaver (46:43.62)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (47:03.71)
Every day the sun's gonna rise. You know, and we don't want you to make a a permanent solution to a temporary problem. The sun will be there tomorrow. You need to be there to see it. The blue line is thin, right? We call it the thin blue line. We don't need to make it any thinner. Every cop is important. Every cop is a is a piece of that one. And you know, when I first wrote the book, I called it Tattered When Blue Line Fails. And as I was writing the book, I realized that the the friends I had
Conrad Weaver (47:09.945)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (47:14.714)
Mm.
Hm. Sure.
Rusty Myers (47:32.631)
Because not everyone abandoned me. I had some really good friends that stayed in touch with me. I had one guy who just showed up at my front door one day. He's Well, we had talked on the phone earlier. He You s you sounded down. So here I am. And I don't know what we did. We just hung out. You know, I he just knew I needed somebody to be there. And I started looking at these guys and, you know, Pastor Richard, former police officer. These guys were mostly cops. The
Conrad Weaver (47:46.681)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (47:58.265)
Former dive store owner that was sli sliding me students so I could teach dive to keep you know, food on the table. Former cop, retired cop. You know, and I realized the blue line didn't fail. My department failed, the leadership failed. The blue line frayed, but it didn't fail. And so I changed the title of the book because I realized how many people had come in and kept it together when I couldn't.
Conrad Weaver (48:15.269)
Hmm.
Conrad Weaver (48:25.893)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (48:26.36)
When I couldn't take care of myself, they were conspiring in the background, talking to each other and trying to keep an eye on me and make sure I was doing stuff. So it wasn't a failure, it was a fray. But I got I got through it and you can too. If you're going through something, you can get through it. And you know, the resources are there and I I'm the same way you were. When I sat through those classes on mental resiliency, I sat in the back and played on my phone too.
Conrad Weaver (48:33.989)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Rusty Myers (48:55.16)
But when something bad happens and you start thinking about this, that's the reason the book was written. It's it's not about anger. I I got over that. It's written to that officer sitting in his car that can't go in the house and tell his wife he's been suspended. And he's tr he's considering the worst. And I want him to realize that you can survive this. You can get through this. It's gonna take a long time. And I hope that by reading the book people get a feel for kind of the stages of it. One of the
a doctor I talked to said I did a really good job of kind of naming the stages, you know, how how how I went through these different stages and I put a name on something that people really weren't able to describe, but because if you're prepared for something, you're always gonna handle it better. And if you know, okay, this is what's gonna happen, this is what this is this is exact same thing that happened in the book, I I see it happening. Number one, you're prepared for it. But number two, you can start taking steps to prevent it in your own life.
Conrad Weaver (49:53.979)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (49:54.979)
Like alcohol, don't do it. It's a depressant. It it definitely turns off the loop in your head for a couple of hours.
problem's still there. And you just there are people out there willing to help you. And in the back of the book is a whole litany of free resources. And it really kinda hemmed and hawed over whether I wanted to put it in the book. But I was kinda like, well, if somebody reads this and they want to make a call, I want them to have a number. Because you know numbers change, emails change and stuff. So that'll eventually some of those probably won't work. But but I wanted to put in there and just say, Look, if if you don't if you need something
Conrad Weaver (50:06.907)
Hm.
Rusty Myers (50:35.704)
Get in touch with somebody. There are people out there who know what you're going through and they can help you. 'Cause I know my counselor, if you were to ask him, is a professional relationship. I feel like he's a brother. Because we went through so much together and when I was ultimately cleared by the law enforcement training council, you know, he called me the day after to check on me 'cause he knew I had my hearing. And I was like, Brother, I won. I won And he said he s had a smile on his voice.
Conrad Weaver (50:47.875)
Hm.
Rusty Myers (51:04.694)
You have no idea how rare that is. It's so great to hear, you know, 'cause it's it's very hard to fight the man. You know, this definitely gave me a different perspective on making an arrest. You know, I don't I don't ever want to make an arrest where I don't feel like this is the person because I know what it's like to fight an accusation when you didn't do it. So it it's giving me a new take on that, but it's also really made me aware of what officers go through when there's an investigation going on.
Conrad Weaver (51:21.755)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (51:34.334)
And what's going on in that head. And sometimes we're rational and we're problem solvers, but sometimes we're not as rational as we think we are. And we we can make a very bad decision, that could be a permanent one. And I was headed that way.
Conrad Weaver (51:43.803)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (51:50.725)
So where can people find your book?
Rusty Myers (51:52.623)
It's available on Amazon and like I said it's called Tattered with the Blue Line Phrase. It's got my real name on it, which is Arthur W. Myers the third. I did that to honor my father because I still have him and I'm blessed. He's 82. But if you're an officer, I've been there. And if you're like me and you can't even afford Pop Tarts, you're eating toastems and hot dogs for lunch. my website is rusty-myers.com, rusty hyphenmyers.com.
Or send me an email at tattered readers at gmail dot com and I'll get a copy of the book to you. Because I did write this book to make bank. It's not that I wrote this book to save lives and i if if seven ninety nine or whatever, it's just you know, I know what it's like when you're like eight bucks, man. I can't afford that. I'll get it to you. It's not about it's not about making money, it's about saving lives. And I've already had several people contact me and tell me that, you know, every word in this book spoke to me
Thank you for this and and that is the reason I wrote it. It's already it's already paid the price. It's already it's already done what I wanted to do. It's gotten into people's hands that have said, It's helping me. And that's that's what it's about. It's I'm I don't want to lose any more cops to suicide.
Conrad Weaver (52:52.494)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (53:04.43)
Yeah, for sure. I'll be sure to put those links in the show notes so people can access that directly. So so final question to you. What do you do today to stay healthy, to take care of yourself?
Rusty Myers (53:18.21)
Well, that's the happy ending to the book. So as I was the internal affairs guy at Somerville PD, figured I'd retire from there, had no intention of leaving, had started a leadership series teaching the department. I told the chief, I'm gonna give you a hundred and fifty little Rusty Myerses, so you better be ready. 'Cause they're gonna question you. And one day the phone rang and I answered it, and it was a it was a friend of mine from the city of Charleston, who was the only commander who had actually stayed in touch with me throughout the whole thing.
Conrad Weaver (53:19.818)
Yeah.
Rusty Myers (53:46.605)
And he had become the chief at one of the local universities and he's like, Hey, my deputy chief is gonna retire. I don't know what you plan on doing with the rest of your career, but you should think about it. And I didn't even have an answer for him. I was like, Well well, I need a weekend or something. I hadn't even thought about something like that. He's like, don't worry. Nothing happens fast. There's a whole process, but let me know. So I went home and I told my wife and she said, You're an idiot
Conrad Weaver (54:11.65)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (54:12.578)
You need to call him right now. I said, Well, let me talk to my dad. So I called my dad and tell him what's going on. He's like, son, you're an idiot. You need to call him back. So, well, look, me and Doug are we're more than just coworkers. We're friends. And we had this plan of where we were going to take Somerville, what we were to do there as a group. I need to talk to him before I make a decision. So I went into Doug's office on Monday morning and said, Hey, I need I need to talk to you about something. This happened on Friday. And I told him and and Doug looked at me and said, What'd you tell him? I said, Well, I I told him I needed to think about it.
And Doug said, You're an idiot. Do you need to use my do you need to use my phone? You know, and and I was like, Okay, okay, okay, I get it. There's a there I see a theme here. I see a theme. I'm not stupid. I got it. So I put in for the position and a couple months later I got it. And so now I'm a deputy chief, which gives me a chance to you know, I talked earlier about a legacy position as a training officer. Well, talk about a legacy position as a deputy chief that runs IA patrol and training.
So the three things that I'm I'm passionate about, I have a chance to affect. I've got some really good young officers coming up and I'm I'm I'm motivated, you know. When I got into law enforcement, people were like, you're a police officer. When kids get into law enforcement today, that's not the response they get. It's you're a cop, you know, and the people kinda look at you side eye and so these young people they're getting into law enforcement today, they wanna be police officers. There's a desire there that
Conrad Weaver (55:29.05)
Hm, right.
Conrad Weaver (55:38.756)
Hm. Yeah.
Rusty Myers (55:41.145)
That they have. And so what I do for fun, I I I try to chase them down. They all outrun me. You know. the range days take about two or three days to recover from now with the because we run and shoot. We don't just stand still. We we have them moving and doing all kinds of stuff. We had them shoot a a rifle call and then afterwards we told them congratulations, she just qualified for SWAT. They had no idea. We just had them running and shooting, and they had no idea they were doing a SWAT qualification. and I I love it.
Conrad Weaver (55:47.042)
Mm-hmm.
Conrad Weaver (55:54.522)
Mm.
Conrad Weaver (56:02.437)
Hm.
Conrad Weaver (56:06.971)
Mm-hmm.
Rusty Myers (56:10.136)
I love working with these kids. I love seeing them. I love seeing them excel. And and you know, knowing at least one of those guys is gonna be a chief. I see it. I see it in the way they present themselves now. And it's a chance to affect their lives and making their lives better. And by making their lives better, guess what? The world's better. The police profession is better because we're you treat the way you wish you'd have been treated and and that's that's what I do for fun. I don't drink. I don't drink anymore.
Conrad Weaver (56:27.973)
Yeah, for sure.
Conrad Weaver (56:36.324)
Yeah.
Rusty Myers (56:37.826)
Sometimes after a dive I'll enjoy an angry orchard. That's about it. I just don't like the flavor of alcohol. It's not something I've ever really liked.
Conrad Weaver (56:43.28)
Yeah.
Rusty Myers (56:47.34)
That's what keeps me young is is hanging out with young people.
Conrad Weaver (56:50.469)
Yeah, for for sure. Well Rusty, thank you so much for sharing your story and for I think I know I know there's people who are listening to this that are gonna be impacted by your story and and and perhaps their life is saved because of your story. So I really thank you for that.
Rusty Myers (57:06.222)
That's it. If you need something, get in touch with me. We'll find a way. If you need help, I'll get your phone number, I'll find something. I'm I'm I'm tired of losing cops.
Conrad Weaver (57:16.889)
Yeah, for sure. So w a qu one final question, so I lied earlier, so one final question. what are you gonna do when you when you hang up the badge?
Rusty Myers (57:22.817)
Okay.
Rusty Myers (57:28.888)
Part of it's this. I I definitely I'm getting involved in some some peer support organizations that are in you know, pushing stuff in law enforcement. I wanna be able to go out there and and and affect some of these officers that are that are dealing with troubles, they're dealing with stress, to be able to to help them. So it's still developing. That's kinda where I'm headed, is is you know, I I as long as I'm healthy, I'm I'm staying. I'm enjoying it. But you never know. That could change tomorrow.
So I didn't really know until now and now I realize, you know, all the stuff I've done in law enforcement, the most important thing I could do would be save other cops. If they were in a fight on the side of the street, I'd jump out of the car and help If they're in a fight in their head, I want to be able to jump out of the car and help So that's where I'm going.
Conrad Weaver (58:13.724)
Hm. I love it. Rossi, thank you. Yep.
Rusty Myers (58:17.72)
Thank you, sir.