Yeardley:  Hey, Small Town Fam. It’s Yeardley. How are you guys? I wonder if you’re anything like me, as in scouring the Internet for your next favorite podcast. Well, if you are, and you’re looking for a show that delves into the social and psychological causes of crime, I highly recommend you try Women & Crime. Each episode explores a female focused case that’s broken down and dissected by experts. I think of it as true crime meets criminology. The hosts are Amy Shlosberg and Meghan Sacks, who have spent their careers studying and teaching crime. And while you’ll know some of the stories they cover, most episodes delve into the lives of victims who never got the media attention they deserved. On Women & Crime, you’ll hear about the heroines of our justice system, like wrongful conviction advocate Kathleen Zellner and genetic genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter.

 Some of the famous cases Amy and Meghan cover include the likes of Amanda Knox, Denise Huskins, and Lorena Bobbitt. Crime is different for women. Learn how and why on Women & Crime. You can listen now wherever you get your podcasts. That’s Women & Crime. Do it.

 Hey, Small Town Fam, it’s Yeardley. I want to remind you that if you want access to bonus episodes and regular episodes, a day early and ad free, and our community forum and other behind the scenes goodies, you got to go to smalltowndicks.com/superfam and then in the top right-hand corner, hit that little tab that says join. And then listen to the end of today’s episode for a sneak peek at today’s new bonus episode.

 Hey, Small Town Fam, it’s Yeardley. How are you guys? I hope you’re all well, and I hope you are thriving. We have fan favorite Detective Robert on the mic today, and he brings us a case that’s a little different from our usual fare. In this case, detectives are not turning over hundreds of puzzle pieces to get to the bottom of who and why a crime has occurred. On the contrary, police already know who the suspect is. They also know he’s armed, extremely violent, and on the run since he has vowed not to go back to prison. As we were recording this episode, I remember I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to stand in law enforcement’s shoes on the day this all went down, where they needed to stop an armed violent offender who was fleeing police at high speeds on country roads at night. You’ll see that the options are few and all of them dangerous.

 Also, just when you think you know how the story ends, there’s a twist. This episode is a perfect example of how the wheels of justice and accountability continue to turn for the officers involved in a chase like this long after the public hears the snappy two-minute version of events on the nightly news. It’s a reminder of how much we expect from the police and how much they expect from themselves. Here is Dragnet. Hi, there.

[music]

Yeardley:  Hi, there. I’m Yeardley.

Dan:  I’m Dan.

Dave:  I’m Dave.

Paul:  And I’m Paul.

Yeardley:  And this is Small Town Dicks.

Dan:  Dave and I are identical twins-

Dave:  -And retired detectives from Small Town, USA.

Paul:  And I’m a veteran cold case investigator who helped catch the Golden State Killer using a revolutionary DNA tool.

Dan:  Between the three of us, we’ve investigated thousands of crimes, from petty theft to sexual assault, child abuse to murder.

[Small Town Dicks theme]

Dave:  Each case we cover is told by the detective who investigated it, offering a rare, personal account of how they solved the crime.

Paul:  Names, places, and certain details have been changed to protect the privacy of victims and their families.

Dan:  And although we’re aware that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we ask you to please join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved-

Dave:  -out of respect for what they’ve been through.

[unison]:  Thank you.

Yeardley:  Today on Small Town Dicks, we have two-thirds of the usual suspects. Some would say the best two-thirds, I of course I’m Switzerland, I remain neutral. We have Detective Dave.

Dave:  Hello, Yeardley.

Yeardley:  Hello, David.

Dave:  Minus one.

Yeardley:  [laughs] And we have the one and only Paul Holes.

Paul:  Hi, Yeardley.

Yeardley:  Hi, Paul. We do not have Detective Dan today. He is under the weather, so I told him to sit it out, don’t want barf all over the microphone. But he’ll be back next time, I’m sure. But here’s the good news. If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, that I anointed one of our very favorite guests, probably the one we’ve had on the most, Detective Robert as an honorary cohost. And, ladies and gentlemen, he’s back with us today. Hi, Robert.

Robert:  Hello, everyone. Glad to be back.

Yeardley:  Oh, I’m so happy to see you. What the heck is that thing? Robert is showing us a book that is the In-N-Out Burger [laughs].

Dave:  That looks like a Bible, yeah.

Yeardley:  It does look like a bible.

Robert:  Yeah. I was showing Dave one of my prized Christmas gifts.

Yeardley:  That’s so great. I happen to know that in In-N-Out is like your desert island death row food. Good man.

Robert:  Huh, huh.

[laughter]

Yeardley:  Small Town Fam. I assure you, even though we’re down one of the usuals we are in excellent hands. Robert, you are old hand at this. How did this case come to you.

Robert:  When this incident happened? I had been a detective about five years, and I was part of the county major crimes team. And I want to talk a little bit about what that is. We have 13 different police agencies in my county, and we have one major crimes team, and that is run and organized by the elected district attorney to be on the major crimes team. Every police agency in the county will provide detectives to the major crimes team. So, you could be a detective at an agency and not on the major crimes team, or you could be a detective at an agency and you have this collateral duty of being on the major crimes team.

Yeardley:  It’s like an all-star team in sports.

Robert:  Yes, it is an honor to be a part of that team. I always looked at it that way, I loved it, and I learned so much from being a part of this team. And it was one of my favorite parts about being a detective. And the idea of the team is genius. The major crimes team concept is meant to ensure that there’s thorough investigations throughout the county, regardless of the agency size, regardless of the agency resources. So, I work for the largest law enforcement agency in the county, but we have agencies that have two people, three people, ten people. And so, if they have a homicide or an officer involved shooting, they just don’t have the resources on their own, nor do they have the budget to pay all these people to be out there.

 But basically, the team would get activated if there was an officer involved shooting. The team would get activated if there was a homicide in our county and that agency wanted a little extra help or support. We had a meeting every month with the elected DA and the top prosecutors, and then the detectives representing the particular agencies where we would talk about cases that are ongoing. We would have trainings. It was just fun to be at all the big calls. [laughs] If there is a big call like this one that we’re going to talk about, it was fun to just be present and be there and get to work on that kind of case. Now, the case I’m about to talk about is not a whodunit. We knew from the beginning who the suspect was.

 However, this case shows modern day law enforcement problem solving, it shows courage, it shows extreme skills and confidence in those skills. And it was a case I’ll never forget. There is a twist in the end and that’s one of the reasons I’ll never forget this case. So, I was at home and got called out, like was frequently the case, it was in the late fall kind of winter. It’s cold, it’s rainy, it’s wet, it’s foggy. And I wanted to add to when I was new to the team, you get assigned and for a long time I was the search warrant bitch. [Yeardley laughs] Okay, so you go to these calls and there’s a need for a search warrant or multiple search warrants. And I got a reputation for typing fast and being able to knock out a search warrant pretty quick. So, I was typecast into just doing that.

 And so, I had always said, “This is fun and all, but I really like to be part of the investigation.”

[laughter]

 And so this is one of the cases where I actually had the privilege of being co-lead on this instead of just being the search warrant bitch.

Yeardley:  I could tell you as an actress that I got typecast as being the crappy secretary. I’ve played so many crabby secretaries. I am actually, a terrible typer.

[laughter]

 I’m dreadful at it, but I guess I give good snark.

Robert:  Yeah. There you go. [Yeardley laughs]

Dave:  Lot of attitude with this one.

Yeardley:  Lotta, lot attitude, lotta. [laughs]

Robert:  So, when we have a call out, we respond via text message who’s available and who’s going, and the location that gets broadcast. And then you show up and you’re assigned different tasks. The case that we’re going to talk about involves members of my state police SWAT team. And the state police SWAT team is unique in that members on their SWAT team come from all over the state. I don’t work in a small state either. There’s lots of miles to cover. And so, depending where an incident is happening, you might have someone close by and you might have people that are several hours away. The county that I work in, we have a very good interagency SWAT team, so we don’t rely on the state police SWAT team.

 But in several other counties that don’t have their own, the state police SWAT team is often the primary tactical team that would be called. So, we’re going to talk about Randy, who is 36 years old at the time of this incident. Randy was involved with a white supremacist gang. It’s a motorcycle gang affiliation. He’s a bad guy. About a week or two before this, Randy and another codefendant went into a home and tied up an adult male and Randy pointed a gun at this male and threatened to blow his head off. Randy did not pull the trigger, did not shoot him, but the codefendant then stabbed this man multiple times before the two of them left him to die and fled. Fortunately, that victim was able to give them enough information to identify Randy and the codefendant.

Yeardley:  So, the victim, even though he was stabbed, was able to give the police a statement, or maybe he actually even knew them.

Robert:  Yes. Yes.

Yeardley:  I’m curious that they actually didn’t shoot him. That guy is lucky.

Robert:  Yeah. So, Randy committed this crime in a neighboring state, and that state has put out a warrant for Randy for attempted murder, and that allows one of our federal partners, the United States Marshals Service, to go look for him. And what I want to say about the U.S. Marshals Service is also they are phenomenal. I can’t say enough good about them. If you have a felony warrant for someone and you want to find them, they do their work very well and generally very quickly.

Yeardley:  So, Randy is now in your state, and you’ve been alerted that he’s there, and there’s this big warrant hanging over his head.

Robert:  Yeah. So, this neighboring state, they got the U.S. Marshals on the case, and U.S. Marshals were actively looking for him, and they got a tip that Randy was in a coastal city about just over an hour from where I work, and he had been seen there. And so, the U.S. Marshals were doing surveillance, and their plan was to follow him to someplace, wherever he was going to be for the night and then call the state police SWAT team to come execute the arrest warrant. And so that was what they were doing. They were following Randy around this coastal town and just waiting for him to bed down for the night at a hotel, or they had come into some intelligence that he had a lady friend there.

 So, they were just waiting for him to get into one spot, and the state police was going to come help them safely arrest Randy, who was obviously known to be armed and very dangerous. So, because the marshals knew how the state police SWAT team works, that people live all over the state, the marshals gave the SWAT team advance notice. So, they called up the SWAT team commander and said, “We have something that we expect to go down in the city. You might want to get some of your people headed this way.” And so, the SWAT team commander, who at the time was a lieutenant and a couple of his sergeants, they started heading toward the city.

 And again, some of them were three hours away. Some of them were four hours away. But they’re starting to make the long drive. And by text message, they’re alerting their team, “Hey, something is brewing, go home, change clothes, get some food, and then start drifting towards this coastal town.” Again, the intelligence that we had on Randy was that he was gang affiliated and possibly armed with an AK-47 assault rifle. Randy is also no stranger to the criminal justice system, and he was very savvy and kind of the suspect that is doing counter surveillance. And he’ll pull into a parking lot just to turn around and see what cars are following him, very smart. And so Randy, as he’s moving out and about through this coastal town, he does that several times. He becomes aware through his counter surveillance that he’s being followed. The Marshals have regular unmarked cars.

 Some of the SWAT team members were driving modified larger trucks, and they have a look to them and if someone knows what they’re looking for, they might be able to notice that there’s some special equipment, and they might be a little heavier than normal.

Yeardley:  So, even though these trucks that are beefed up for the SWAT team, they don’t have an emblem on the side or anything or lights on the top that say, “I am law enforcement.”

Robert:  Correct. So, Randy is not about to go back to his lady friend’s house or a hotel and stay put, he decides now is my time to make a run for it. Before law enforcement can get the resources together, he decides to go mobile in his vehicle. As I mentioned, he’s about an hour from my jurisdiction down a major state highway. Randy starts heading east towards my jurisdiction from this coastal city. And what happens next is a wild 20 miles pursuit with Randy firing multiple guns at state troopers before it comes to a violent end.

[Break 1]

Yeardley:  Is Randy firing while he’s driving?

Robert:  Yes. Yes. So, Randy heads east. He’s headed towards my jurisdiction, and he’s traveling at a high rate of speed, driving a smaller pickup. And it’s not the full SWAT team at this point, it’s just a couple that are in position. They start following Randy, and they finally decide, “Well, let’s see what happens when we light them up.” And so, they have a marked state police car get to the front of the Congo line, and they turn on the emergency lights. And Randy, instead of stopping, he starts firing. We had several trooper vehicles that were hit by gunfire. The troopers on scene thought there has to be a passenger in this truck, because how can Randy drive and accurately shoot while driving?

Robert:  But the troopers up front were saying, “No, these shots, these muzzle flashes that we can see are coming out of the driver’s side of the vehicle.” He is alone. So that was a big surprise to everyone, again, that he could be accurate and put rounds on target while driving on a road that’s not exactly a straight line. There’s a lot of twists and curves.

Yeardley:  What time of day is this that this pursuit is happening?

Robert:  So, this is now into 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock at night.

Yeardley:  Oh, so it’s dark.

Robert:  It’s dark.

Yeardley:  How is his aim so good in the dark?

Robert:  He’s dedicated to getting away. [laughs] He knows he has a lot to lose if he’s caught. So, what ends up happening is after about 17, 20-mile pursuit we still have state troopers that are coming in from other parts of the state and they’re starting to get close and they’re starting to get in the mindset of we’re not going to be able to catch up to this because it’s constantly moving and it’s moving towards us. So, let’s get in a position of advantage where we can try to stop this pursuit. And so, a couple troopers get to a rally point. So, they’re together and their idea is, “Well, here’s a good spot to set up spike strips.”

 Now, the purpose of spike strips, of course, is to safely insert some nail spikes into a tire that brings that car to a slow stop and allows law enforcement to engage with the suspect. So that was their plan. And they had a several mile head start. And that’s a good plan. That’s a solid plan. That’s a plan I would endorse. But they also noticed that Randy had been shooting at police vehicles that were stopped on the side of the road. So, it went out over the radio that if you’re going to deploy spikes, don’t be visible because he is going to shoot.

Yeardley:  Randy will make anybody he sees a target.

Robert:  Yes. This is a major highway. Him shooting out his window, even at law enforcement, could easily strike a citizen or other vehicles.

Yeardley:  Is the highway being traveled by a lot of other people before they have a chance to shut it down. And when they shut it down, are they shutting it down after Randy has passed? How do you even manage that?

Robert:  It is very challenging because there’s a lot of different places to get on the highway. Some people that live out in this area, they can just pull out of their driveway and they’re on the highway. There’s numerous pullouts, there’s businesses. It’s just a challenge. Now, fortunately, this night, it’s cold, it’s wet, it’s rainy, and there’s not a lot of civilian passenger traffic. Thank goodness. So, I’m going to talk about Trooper Gabe and Trooper Josh. These two troopers know this pursuit is coming towards them, and they had the foresight and the knowledge to pick a spot on the side of the road where they knew this pursuit was going to come by.

 And what they did was they parked their cars on the westbound side of the road or the north side of the road, and they pointed their spotlights down the highway in the lane where they knew Randy was coming. And then what they did was they set up on the opposite side of the road. They found a platform where they could set up with their rifles. And both of these troopers are on the state police SWAT team. Both of them are very experienced and highly trained. So, what they did was they broadcast over the radio this particular location. And state troopers, I should mention, they speak in languages, a mile post, which means nothing to anyone else, [Yeardley laughs] maybe tow drivers, I don’t know.

 But if they were to give their location, they would say, “I’m on highway.” They give the highway number and then they’ll say a number. And what they mean is what milepost along that highway they are. And so, they were talking on the radio and explaining where they were, and they chose a good landmark so that there wouldn’t be any question because I want to do this safely, but they said, “We’re not going to do spikes. It’s too dangerous with him already shooting at stationary troopers and cars on the road.” So, when the suspect vehicle hits this milepost, we want the units following it to back off, and we’re going to engage the suspect.

Yeardley:  So they’ve asked the cavalry basically to hang back and create some space. And then Trooper Josh and Trooper Gabe are going to intercept Randy or engage him in some way. But not spike strips.

Robert:  Correct. I don’t think anyone would disagree at this point that Randy constitutes a lethal threat and that he is a huge danger, not only to law enforcement, but public safety in general. So, they determined that the only way to stop Randy as a threat was to lethally engage him, basically to shoot at him in his moving vehicle, which requires a confidence that I just don’t have. I am not a gun guy. I’m not a gun gomer. I go do my qualifications with my duty pistol. I can’t even imagine shooting at a moving vehicle with confidence that I would stop someone or stop the vehicle.

Yeardley:  And how fast is Randy going?

Robert:  He’s going freeway speeds, so we’re talking 55, 60, 65 miles an hour. And it’s not a road that is a straight line. We’re not in the middle of Iowa or Nebraska or anything. There’s lots of curves and there’s mountains and there’s not much other civilian traffic, but there is some on the road.

Paul:  Hey, Robert, were troopers Josh and Gabe only armed with their handguns?

Robert:  No, they’re on the SWAT team, and they have adequate rifles, so they each have .223s and a .308. They know all about that, and they talk about that in great depth in their interviews later. But, yeah, they have all the specialized equipment that a SWAT operator would have. So, what happens is they divide up Randy’s car. One of them is going to start targeting the driver and the other one is going to target the vehicle. So, whether they were aiming for wheels, tires, or radiator, they were going to put rounds into that vehicle. So, what happens is Trooper Josh and Trooper Gabe are together in this shooting platform with that plan that they broadcast. And so, Randy’s vehicle is approaching, and they have a few minutes where they can plan and set up.

 They told me that they felt confident in their plan, and unexpectedly, Trooper Evan shows up, and they have their two cars on the side of the road, and Trooper Evan is arriving to the scene. Trooper Evan either hasn’t been listening to the radio or isn’t aware of the plan, and they have to yell at Trooper Evan, “Get out of here. Get out of here. Get out of here.” And they can’t explain why, but there’s no room for Trooper Evan to safely park his car next to theirs. Fortunately, Trooper Evan does not ask questions. He gets out of there and he goes down a quarter mile further east of them.

 And now as he’s listening to the radio and what the plan is, he decides, “Okay, well, I can set up on my own and help them with what they’re trying to do, just with a little bit of distance in between.” So, Trooper Evan leaves Trooper Josh and Trooper Gabe there in their spot and sets up a little bit down the road further to the east. When Randy passes the designated spot, Trooper Josh and Trooper Gabe open fire on Randy’s vehicle with targeted lethal shots. They’re shooting through the windshield, they’re shooting through the vehicle, and they get several rounds off as Randy is approaching them. And then as soon as Randy passes him, they get a few more rounds off. Meanwhile, Trooper Evan, who showed up last, he is able to do the same thing about a quarter mile down the road.

 By the times all the shooting is done, Randy’s vehicle looks like Swiss cheese. There are lots and lots and lots of rounds through it. Just multiple bullet defects. The shooting causes Randy’s vehicle to come to a slow stop two minutes later. At this point, everyone that’s there, multiple state troopers and the U.S. Marshals, they are calling for the highway to be shut down. And so, we’re doing our best to shut down the highway. There’s just a lot of different places where cars can get on. It’s not a city system where you can shut down three or four on-ramps and there’s no one. There’s lots of driveways, and it’s a rural area, and people are living out there. So, they shut down the highway as best as they can, but there’s still occasionally cars getting through.

 The back window of Randy’s vehicle has been shot out. And from behind, they can see Randy. They’re yelling at Randy. They’re giving Randy commands to show his hands to exit the vehicle, and they’re not getting any response from Randy. Oftentimes, people might play dead, might ignore us, and then they’re just waiting to launch another ambush. With Randy, we know that he’s extremely violent. He’s already been shooting at cops all evening. They’re not taking any chances. So, one of the SWAT team members, Trooper Kevin, he goes up and rams Randy’s vehicle. And the idea is if Randy has a gun on him, that they’re going to knock that gun out of his hand, that they’re going to basically just make it very clear who’s in control of the situation. From behind, there’s still no response from Randy.

 They try a TASER on him, and it doesn’t have any effect. And then another trooper shoots Randy with a 40-mm multi-launcher. And on that tool, just imagine a giant bullet that has a sponge tip on it, almost like a racquetball on it. So, if you’re shot with, it it doesn’t kill you, it just hurts a lot. So, it’s meant for pain compliance. And they shoot Randy with that, and he doesn’t move or anything like that. And so, they realize, “Okay, Randy’s not faking it.” Randy is hit. So, the troopers all go up. They open Randy’s door. He falls out to the ground like a big bag of rocks. And they get him on the ground, and they get him handcuffed. And then the SWAT team medic and the U.S. Marshal medic immediately start rendering life-saving aid to Randy.

Yeardley:  Is Randy still alive, but in critical condition?

Robert:  Yeah, Randy is still alive. It’s been clear that he’s been hit by gunfire, and Randy gets transported to the nearest hospital, where he ultimately dies.

[Break 2]

 Now, our investigation focused on whether these law enforcement officers had legal justification to shoot Randy and obviously that’s a no brainer. They did. They acted heroically in stopping him. We knew that Randy was a lethal threat. We knew he had a warrant for his arrest. We knew he was a bad dude. We knew he was a felon armed with multiple weapons. So, it was never a question as to who the suspect was.

Yeardley:  So, what does that investigation look like?

Robert:  So, the investigation at this point, and some of the challenges of this crime scene are once Trooper Josh and Trooper Gabe engaged him, and then Trooper Evan engaged him, they get in their car and they join. They follow the pursuit. So, one of the challenges here was finding the locations where they actually shot from in the dark, in the cold, in the rainy fog. So, we have one crime scene where the two troopers were shooting from. We have another crime scene where Trooper Evan was shooting from. We have another crime scene where the car ended up. And then obviously, we treat Randy as a crime scene too. So, that uses up a lot of people. And then these crime scenes are now many, many miles apart from one another. So, it was very challenging. And of course, we’re shutting down a busy highway.

 And fortunately, it’s now, later into the evening. So, there’s not tons and tons of cars. So, our investigation at this point is multifaceted. I mentioned, there’s lots of different crime scenes. And a week later, we’re doing interviews. We’re interviewing all the troopers involved and the U.S. Marshal’s personnel that are involved. This is not just sitting down just the three of us with these shooters. These troopers are represented by a union representative and an attorney. And every county is a little different in how they handle things. So, the county next door to me, let’s say, “You’re a law enforcement officer and you’re in a shooting and you kill someone. You are being investigated for homicide, and there’s a grand jury, and the grand jurors have to clear you.” Okay.

 In my county, our district attorney, very intelligent, very reasonable, very rational guy, and he says, “Hey, look, unless there’s something really weird, these cases are not automatically going to grand jury with officer’s troopers, deputies as suspects.” And so, this case was not taken before a grand jury. I don’t think there’s anyone, even maybe Randy’s mom, couldn’t argue that he wasn’t a lethal threat to the public.

Yeardley:  So, you’re talking about the investigation into Trooper Josh, Trooper Evan, and Trooper Gabe.

Robert:  Yeah.

Yeardley:  Since Randy is deceased, this is the next bit of the investigation. You got to make sure it was justified.

Robert:  Yes. Okay. So, I want to talk first about our interview with Trooper Evan. We sat down with Trooper Evan with his union rep and with his attorney. And at this point, Trooper Evan is a six-year veteran of the state police. He is off duty and responded from home to this SWAT team call out. And he recalls that the request over his phone was to respond lights and siren to this coastal city to assist with apprehending Randy, who’s a dangerous wanted subject. Trooper Evan was the most familiar with the geography of this area since he worked at a nearby office whereas Josh and Gabe drove in from really far away. Trooper Evan is listening to radio traffic while he’s driving to the pursuit location. And Trooper Evan told us that he remembers vividly the suspect description. Randy was driving a small truck.

 And Trooper Evan distinctly remembered hearing that Randy was shooting multiple rounds at the troopers and the Deputy U.S. Marshals. Trooper Evan remembered that one of his colleagues on the SWAT team broadcast on the radio that his patrol car had become too disabled to continue and he had to pull over and he was out. He remembered his sergeant talking about actively being shot at by Randy. And then to make things even worse, Trooper Evan is almost out of gas. [laughs]

Yeardley:  God.

Robert:  But because of what’s going on, he doesn’t want to stop and refill. So, Trooper Evan is the one, he pulls up to the other two troopers on the side of the road, Trooper Josh and Trooper Gabe. And he says that these other troopers strategically placed their patrol cars on the side of the road and they walked across the highway to higher ground to get a shooting platform. Trooper Evan saw that they had deployed spike strips already, just in case, but that these two troopers, Josh and Gabe, yell at him, “Get out of there. Get out of there.” And so, he doesn’t ask questions. He just goes further east and he sets up his rifle to also engage Randy and Randy’s truck. Trooper Evans continuing to listen to the radio and he hears his fellow team members, Trooper Josh and Trooper Gabe, firing on Randy’s truck. When Trooper Evan hears those rounds, he also engages and fires what he estimated was 7 to 10 rounds at Randy’s truck and at Randy right after the other troopers do so.

 He is able to fire on Randy’s vehicle as it’s approaching him. And also, after its past him, he gets a couple more rounds off. Trooper Evans, very confident that he struck Randy’s windshield. And then once Randy’s vehicle passes, he hops in his car and he goes to where the pursuit ultimately ended. Trooper Evan noticed a couple of his colleagues take Randy into custody. Another thing that stood out for Trooper Evan was he saw the SWAT medics trying everything they can to help him.

Yeardley:  Could they tell where Randy had been hit?

Robert:  They saw a couple different defects in different places on the body. They could tell there was a headshot. Randy was also bleeding from his upper right back area. So, our next interview was with Trooper Josh. Consistent with the first interview we did, Trooper Josh had his attorney present, he had his union representative present, and Trooper Josh, at this point in his career, he was a 20-year veteran of the state police and a four-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps. He’d been 18 years on the state police SWAT team at this point, and his assignment on the SWAT team was as a sniper. Trooper Josh was one of those who was hours and hours away. He was responding literally about three to four hours from where Randy had been spotted in this coastal town.

 As Trooper Josh is driving in, hears over the radio that Randy is shooting at pursuing vehicles and also stationary state police vehicles. Trooper Josh is the one who decided that it’s just too dangerous to stand outside on the highway to deploy spike strips. He discussed with Trooper Gabe immediately, “We have to stop this threat. We got to prevent him from firing on our colleagues.” And it’s Trooper Josh and Trooper Gabe that decide that the best course of action is to engage the suspect and stop the pursuit. So, Trooper Josh, Trooper Gabe, they come up with a plan. We’re going to park our cars here one side of the highway, we’re going to put our spotlights on the highway so that we can see Randy’s vehicle.

 So, basically, we’re going to do everything we can to identify our target, because obviously, we don’t want to shoot at the wrong vehicle. And so, they both put their spotlights on the highway. Their goal there was twofold. It was to draw Randy’s attention towards their vehicles. And that way, if he’s going to shoot at them thinking they’re in their vehicles, then that’s kind of a distraction. And then they were going to engage him from the other side of the highway as a surprise. So, when we interview Trooper Josh. Trooper Josh says, “Hey, the reason I did this was we had a similar case to this 10 years ago, and we employed this strategy and it was successful.

 So, Trooper Josh continuing, he says that right as they were imminently awaiting Randy’s vehicle, that’s when Trooper Evan had pulled up and they’re yelling at him, “Get out of here. Get out of here.” Because again, part of them leaving their cars there was possibly to attract fire from Randy. Trooper Evan being there was not part of their plan, and they wanted him out of there right away. Fortunately, he left. Trooper Josh tells us again they divided up the tasks. So, one was going to fire at the engine block of the vehicle and one was going to engage Randy. And our round count on the night of the investigation showed that Trooper Josh fired nine rounds.

Yeardley:  Robert, how does Josh or Gabe, who’s going to actually engage Randy and shoot Randy if he’s going at highway speeds and it’s dark and all you have is this one light source shining in his face? That’s the smallest window of opportunity. It’s like a nanosecond.

Robert:  You ask a great question, and all it does is speak to the expertise of these people. We often talk about SWAT as being who cops call. Cops calling 911 equals SWAT. And I like that analogy. In fact, I have a SWAT team commander in my county, and he said for years that he sees SWAT as an escalation in safety to both the public and to the police. The SWAT teams train very consistently, and so they have a confidence that I can’t even imagine, they have a confidence that comes from very consistent training and then other successful incidents.

Paul:  And Robert, as I’m envisioning this with Troopers Josh and Gabe, they’re on higher ground across the road from where their vehicles are. And now they’ve got a vehicle coming at a high rate of speed, at least freeway speed, within that lane. And I’m assuming that both troopers are armed with one of their rifles.

Robert:  Yes.

Paul:  I’m envisioning a skeet shoot with a shotgun, right where now you have this target that is going past them. So, these two troopers have to decide when they initially engage that target. And as this target continues to drive, they’re having to track that target and continue to shoot while paying attention to themselves, to making sure that they’re not getting themselves into some crossfire, so it does show that there’s not only a high amount of skill to shoot at this fast-moving target, but also the situational awareness of what’s around them.

Yeardley:  It just seems like something Hollywood would put in a movie and you’d be like, “Oh, come on.” I mean, they couldn’t really do that in real life you would think to yourself, but here we are.

Robert:  Yet Trooper Josh says this is not only the first time he’s done it, that he did this 10 years ago.

Yeardley:  Right.

Robert:  We next interviewed Trooper Gabe. He’s accompanied by his attorney and his union rep. He, at this point, is an 18-year veteran of the state police. He’s assigned to an office also about three, three and a half hours away from this location. Trooper Gabe has been on the SWAT team for eight years. And Trooper Gabe told us that he got an earlier call on the day from his team commander. They gave him a heads up that the U.S. Marshals were looking for a wanted subject in this coastal city. He remembers being told that Randy was gang affiliated. Randy had vowed not to go back to jail or prison. And he recalled being told that Randy said he would shoot it out with the police and that he was armed with multiple weapons.

 Trooper Gabe went into a discussion about which rifle am I going to use and which ammo am I going to use? Because penetrating skin is a lot different than penetrating a vehicle moving at freeway speed. And Trooper Gabe remembers that civilian traffic on the highway was very light, thank goodness. And Trooper Gabe said that he and Trooper Josh had again divided up the responsibilities. Trooper Gabe was going to target the engine block on the vehicle and Trooper Josh was going to target Randy. The incident occurs, they both fire their rifles. Trooper Gabe says a short time later, Randy comes to a stop and gone up to Randy’s vehicle this point. And Trooper Gabe remembers there’s no rear window. It was likely either shot out by Randy or by law enforcement.

 Trooper Gabe also discusses that Randy’s not responsive to commands. And so, the troopers on scene believe that Randy’s unconscious at that point. Trooper Gabe and his colleagues, they cut the seatbelt off, pull Randy to the pavement and get Randy transported to the nearest hospital. And then our scene investigation the night of the incident showed that Trooper Gabe had fired a total of six rounds. I do one more interview. Trooper Kevin is on scene and he was one of the early responders. So, he had been behind Randy for the most time. He estimated on the high end that Randy had fired about 60 rounds at police during this incident.

Yeardley:  Did Randy hit anyone? As he’s wildly shooting as he drives?

Robert:  He hit multiple cars, but fortunately, no people.

Yeardley:  Oh, my God.

Robert:  That’s just amazing because with that many rounds, even with dumb luck. You could hit someone and imagine Trooper Kevin’s position too. You’re behind Randy’s vehicle, and you know your colleague is going to be opening fire on Randy’s vehicle. How confident does that make you? I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near Randy’s vehicle. I wouldn’t want to be in the same zip code as Randy’s vehicle. But these SWAT team members, they trust each other. They trust in each other’s skills. And Trooper Kevin was close enough to see his colleagues shoot at Randy’s vehicle and see Randy’s vehicle come to a stop. He suspected that Randy’s vehicle had just become disabled, and trooper Kevin suspected that Randy was going to come out of that vehicle shooting.

 And none of these troopers shied away from this contact, which shows their bravery and their dedication to stopping this threat. Trooper Kevin is also the one who rams Randy’s vehicle with his patrol truck just to make sure that there’s no chance that, again, if Randy’s reloading his gun or Randy’s going to pop out of the car firing, it’s going to interrupt his thought process. We call it interrupting someone’s OODA loop. So, if Randy has a dumb plan to get out and engage, they’re going to interrupt that plan.

[Break 3]

 Now, one thing I saved for the very end here was there’s a twist in this case. The autopsy, post mortem examination is a big part of our investigation. No surprise the autopsy revealed that Randy died of a gunshot wound to his head. The big surprise was that Randy took his own life.

Yeardley:  Really?

Robert:  Yes. He was shot at by the troopers multiple times, but Randy took his own life at the last minute Randy put his .45 caliber pistol up to his head and pulled the trigger. And it was super clear at the autopsy. Basically, the techs shaved Randy’s head, and they removed the hair around the bullet entrance area, and it was very clear that his death was directly caused by a gun that had been held up to the side of his head and not a rifle round from long distance. So, one thing Randy did say early on was that he would not go back to jail or prison, and he’s one of those rare people that apparently meant it because he ended up taking his life.

Yeardley:  Do we know if Randy hadn’t taken his own life, did he have plans? Was he fleeing the country, anything? or he just was like, “I’m only looking where the rubber hits the road, and I’m just going to make sure I don’t go to jail tonight, and then I’ll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.”

Robert:  The latter, he was just trying to get away from this unwanted attention from the Marshals and the state police. He was just hitting the road. I don’t even know how familiar he was with this area, if at all. I don’t know if he’s ever been in this area. He was committing most of his crimes up in our neighboring state, so I don’t even know if he knew where he was going or where the road went or anything. So, because of the massive law enforcement response and Randy dying, obviously this was a medical examiner case, and they did the autopsy. The death certificate for Randy lists that he committed suicide, and that’s the only appropriate finding here. Now, months later, when toxicology came back, it was revealed that Randy had a very high presence of methamphetamine in his system and cannabis.

 So he was shooting accurately while high on meth and cannabis. It’s just so interesting how no innocents were hurt. I believe in miracles and I think this was a miracle. We’ve had gang shootings where people are just holding the gun sideways gangster style, and they hit people. It’s just a miracle that no one was hit on this night. I’m very, very grateful for that. I’ll always be very grateful for that.

Yeardley:  When there’s an officer involved shooting like that, are Gabe and Josh and Evan the ones who actually pulled the trigger, are they put on administrative leave while the investigation takes place? What are the protocols for that? And/or are you relieved to be put on that kind of leave so you can process what just happened?

Robert:  That is a great question. So, yeah, what is the aftermath now? The aftermath depends often on each individual agency, but what’s very common now is administrative leave immediately after a shooting. And at my agency, that’s a minimum of two weeks and then a minimum of one visit to a psychologist to make sure you’re ready to come back to work. And then that’s followed by a return to duty assessment. And this would be a very challenging [chuckles] scenario to recreate, so it probably wouldn’t happen. But generally, our return to duty assessment involves an incident similar to the one that the officer had dealt with or that the deputy or trooper had dealt with.

 So, for example, let’s say they fired at a domestic violence call. Then that return to duty, they would set up a domestic violence call in our little scenario village, and they would just see with similar circumstances, and they would just make sure that the employee would feel comfortable using reasonable amount of force again. Now, in this case, these troopers were all off, the minimum of two weeks administrative leave. And then I don’t know what their department requires for psychological assessment or return to duty. But some counties require basically a DA saying, “Hey, we’re not going to charge any of them before they can go back to work.” And I don’t know if that’s how it is for the state police.

 These guys all worked for different jurisdictions, but the incident happened in my jurisdiction and my DA’s office what they do is they get our case file when we’re done with our major crimes investigation and they make what we call a charging decision. So, in this case, our DA wrote a letter to the superintendent of the state police and says, “Hey, we’ve done a comprehensive investigation and we definitely are not going to be bringing criminal charges against any of these troopers.” And so some agencies, they make you wait for that DA letter before you go back to work, which I don’t think is the best idea because that can take many, many months.

Yeardley:  Oh.

Dave:  Yeah. I think people have this idea that cops get in a shooting and they’re on shift two days later and that’s just not the case. It is a huge deal, and you have to deal with all the procedural, all the second guessing, every decision you made. Then there are times where you end up in front of a grand jury and there are times where you actually get charged. So, these are not just like, “Oh, well, I got another shooting today.” These are huge deals. Even if it’s a clearcut case of justified force, the officer who uses that force is still dealing with, “I just shot another human.” If they died, I’m dealing with, “I just killed a human.” And even if it’s clearly justified, they are still sweating to some degree.

 You get some calls where you have six or seven officers on that call, open fire. Now you have six or seven officers who are off work for the next two weeks. How do you cover that? There’s a whole lot to these shootings. They’re not just “ho-hum” type things.

Robert:  Most of us get in this profession to help people, not to take lives. Now, we also know that it could happen tomorrow on a traffic stop. Or it could happen tomorrow at a domestic. But we got into this business to help people. We do not want to have a lethal encounter. I realize that every day that’s a possibility. I hope it never happens. But if it does happen, I’m ready. I have the tools. I have the training. Hopefully, I never have to do that. And most police officers in America still go their whole careers and never fire their gun outside of trainee. Thank goodness.

Yeardley:  Thank goodness. So fascinating. Thank you for bringing that to us, Robert. I do think it’s really important, but also so interesting to get the unvarnished, behind-the-curtain view of a day like that. It’s just because, again, it’s so unimaginable for people like me who sit on this side of the table.

Dave:  Thank you, Robert. I like when we highlight really good police work and tough but appropriate decision making. That’s this case.

Robert:  Yeah. Lots of stress, and these guys pulled together as a team, and they pulled it off.

Paul:  Yeah. Another stellar example of law enforcement cooperation, Robert. Thank you. And stay safe out there.

Robert:  Thank you.

Yeardley:  Now for a sneak peek at today’s new bonus episode.

Paul:  I’m trying to think of an analogy and this may seem a little silly, but you know those little mustard packets that you get, to squirt on your hot dog?

Yeardley:  [laughs] Yeah.

Paul:  Imagine you have that mustard packet. That’s all the DNA that you have is in that mustard packet. Well, each time a DNA test is done, I’m squirting a little bit of that mustard packet out, a little bit of the mustard out of the mustard packet. And then new technology comes along, and now I have to squirt a little bit more mustard. So pretty soon, the mustard packet is empty and can’t do anything more.

[music]

Yeardley:  To listen today’s bonus episode and access hundreds more, go to smalltowndicks.com/superfam and hit that little join button.

 Small Town Dicks was created by Detectives Dan and Dave. The podcast is produced by Jessica Halstead and me, Yeardley Smith. Our senior editor is Soren Begin and our editors are Christina Bracamontes and Erin Phelps. Our associate producers are the Real Nick Smitty and Erin Gaynor. Gary Scott is our executive producer and Logan Heftel is our production manager. Our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell. And our social media maven is Monika Scott. It would make our day if you became a member of our Small Town Fam by following us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at @smalltowndicks, we love hearing from you.

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