Welcome back to Heroes Behind the Badge.

In the last episode, you heard Tom Weitzel's Story of Survival, how Gang

members Shotgun Blast nearly ended his career and his life during a

routine parking violation stop in 1987.

Tom's Bulletproof vest saved him that night.

He returned to duty, rose through the ranks and became chief of police.

But the gang member who shot him, he walked free.

The statute of limitations expired before he could be charged.

In this episode, were talking about Tom's fight to change the system

that failed him, his advocacy for federal prosecution of line of duty,

death cases, and why he believes.

Every officer in America deserves justice.

This is heroes behind the badge.

Part two, Fighting for Justice.

you were leading by example and I'm sure ultimately

the morale there was quite good.

you're telling a story about you.

How they came to you and said, put your paperwork in if you

want to become the chief.

We have a, person on our advisory council.

He was a deputy chief on a department, and, they decided

that they were gonna do a search.

Outside, like a lot of places do.

And he basically said, I've nearly died blood, sweat, and tears for

this agency for countless years.

I've got every - you know, every accomplishment, every award.

And if I'm not good enough and you gotta find somebody

else, then find somebody else.

And you know what?

He just retired.

Boom.

It was insulting.

It was insulting for him.

It was probably insulting for you,

and I was in the position of acting chief, so I would

probably would've gone back to deputy chief or operations lieutenant.

And, but I, was serious.

I'm like, I'm not, you're not offending me if you don't, if you don't know my

skills and know what, and here if you don't want me as your chief, that's okay.

I, it wasn't, I wasn't gonna go behind a rock and cry, and literally the next day

they came and said, yeah, you are the guy we want, let's negotiate an employment

contract so you could stay here.

And they kept me there for 13 years till I retired.

I love it.

So Tom.

Go ahead, Craig.

I was just gonna say, I, we started this organization,

citizens Behind the Badge, in part because of, wholly because of the

defund and defame, the police movement.

But one of the problems that we were trying to solve and continue to work

on is the recruitment and retention problem within law enforcement that

was created by the Defund movement.

Your story, I think, is inspiring in many ways because not only did

you go back on the job after nearly dying, for your community, but three

of your sons are now police officers.

and, so many officers I've talked to, recently during the defund

movement especially have said.

They would not encourage their children to become law enforcement

officers because of the climate today.

the, degradation of law enforcement, the, potential, civil and, criminal, penalties

they may face for simply doing their job.

But with all of that as background, and you live through the defund movement,

your three sons are now police officers.

so number one, how did your wife feel about that?

And number two, why would you encourage your sons to become a

law enforcement officer today?

My wife, I'll start with that.

she wishes they could have gone.

My wife's an accountant, she would always say, couldn't

one of them be an accountant?

There you go.

and I had two that always wanted to be policemen.

They wanted to follow in my footsteps.

They really did.

They currently, all suburban Chicago police officers here, they've all

been on 10 years or more, and.

I encourage them.

That's true.

'cause when they were little kids, I brought 'em to every

police event our department had.

if we had a, what we would call a Turkey shoot or we had a

Christmas with Santa, the police, I always had my kids come with me.

So they were, she used to that culture and they were used to police officers.

My third son wanted to be a teacher.

He just randomly tested with a suburban police department and got

an offer, and then he took that job and now he's a sergeant on

that department and he loves it.

But I, my wife would, to this day, she would like them to do

something else because it's hard.

It was hard to go through that to fund the police movement because.

My son went, their departments went from being revered to people

would put signs out on their lawn.

They, used to put signs, we support the police.

And then the yard signs were defund the police and defame the police.

And they would put all kinds of anti-police rhetoric and they

weren't used to seeing that.

And it really affected them.

And as how difficult recruiting and retention is, they were.

Individuals were coming into profession that never wanted to be

police officers or they were getting what I consider lower caliber.

'cause what happened here in Illinois is they lowered the police entry standards

because they were having so difficult time recruiting officers after the defund,

the police movement and the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis, they, what, when I

left Riverside, the last exam that we gave for police officer, 10 people showed up.

10 years before that, we had 350 for the written exam.

So it had plummeted.

But I always told my kids, this is the best profession.

It's the most honorable profession.

You will enjoy it, you will love it.

There will be times you hate.

There will be times that are really good, but it is a honest

profession and honorable.

And you know what?

They bought into that and they still buy into it.

And I'm asked today, I asked the other day, somebody said

to me, Tom, would you still.

Today, recommend that all of your sons go into policing, and I said I would.

I'm not one.

I am absolutely 100% behind this profession and I would support my

sons going into this profession now.

And I also encourage other people that are still looking for a really

honorable profession to still come in.

'cause we need new blood.

when I left this chief, we need new officers coming in to the profession

that have the skills we need.

Tom, give us a little inside story in the Wezel house when

your first son decided he was gonna become a cop, and, what the dynamics

were in that household and how did he get the other two brothers to follow,

or what was the reaction overall?

So my first son took the first job.

He could, you get out of college, you're, testing.

He was working, but he was testing.

So he took a town in the south suburbs, hired him, called University Park.

He stayed there about six months because, he wanted to move on

to a department that was larger.

and had more, opportunities for advancement and he ended up going

through two departments, a department in Illinois called, suburban La Grange

Park, and then he ended up in North Riverside, which was next to where I work.

Different community though, and.

He loved it and he would come home and just tell my other sons about

how fantastic it was and how, he, they were making arrests every night.

'cause that's, what he thought his job was.

and they were, the community supported law enforcement.

he had a really good department.

The structure was good.

They had a lot of opportunities.

So he never said a bad word about it.

And that really.

My other, my two other sons, my middle son, youngest son, they, would listen

to that because at then they were living at home and they would listen to that.

And, I think it, I think my oldest son Alex, played a huge

influence on my other two sons.

Excellent, excellent.

And then now, today, as things have evolved, and like you're saying,

there used to be the 'supports your police' signs and the lawn, and now

they're, Protesting against the police.

It's the defund, defame the police.

And I think you've got a story to tell us that your kids now are actually involved

in What we've seen, so oftentimes on the news now is there's a, an ice facility

outside of Chicago there and they have had protests going on a daily basis.

And it's been something that your three kids now have to deal with.

Yeah.

So that is, the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois.

Just minutes from where two of my sons work and the smaller agencies

have these mutual aid packs.

And what happens is when they have these big protests, they're,

they don't have enough officers to handle it, even with ICE themselves.

And it sometimes they had, border patrols still there.

They would have to call on the Cook County Sheriff's, police, state police and local

police to assist them in skirmish lines.

And, controlling, Protests.

So my, I have sons that have been there on a regular basis

and it is brutal Over there.

The officers are being targeted, they're being, injured on a regular basis.

They're having bottles and bricks chucked at them.

They're having.

dog feces wrapped up in plastic bags thrown at the officers.

They're having bottles for urine thrown, and it's all staged.

My sons will tell me that every time they do this, they wait until

the media gets there and then the confrontation takes place.

The confrontation, if the media is not there covering it.

All it is yelling and screaming.

Once the news stations and the print media shows up, then the surge is

on to get in the facility where the confrontation takes place.

So it's very staged for media attention.

So staged, so disingenuous.

the other thing too is, we're treating all these people with such kid gloves.

this is a funny story.

I was in the gym the other day and it was, we were literally talking

about this, ice facility outside of Chicago there in Illinois, and one

of the guys in the gym said to me.

Why aren't you?

Why aren't the cops just blasting the balls off of them with the water cannons?

Why don't they use the water cannons anymore?

And I said, man, I would love to see that.

I would love to see the water cannons, it's the kid gloves.

Oh, we gotta treat 'em so well, blah, blah, blah.

These little babies, the thing of it is, if they'd have blast their

ass with the water cannons one day.

That would be the only day we'd ever hear about that.

because it would be over.

Yeah.

they're allowed, just recently allowed to use less than lethal weapons.

And here's the thing with that, like that's what they're designed for.

They're less than lethal.

In fact, many of these activists that are at this Broadview facility,

they've been preaching that for years, that police should use

other tools than their firearms.

now they've been able to use a pepper ball.

Guns, stun guns, sometimes some type of mac or a chemical agent and

the newspapers here in the Chicago metropolitan area are blasting the police

for using the less than lethal options.

And I was, I commented the other day, somebody interviewed me.

I said that, I said, these are the weapons that you designed for

police to use less than lethal.

It's what they're meant for.

It's what you've been advocating for.

Now they're being used and now you're slamming the police saying

they should not be using them.

Like what, do you think that the police officer's job is to sit there

and get the crap beat out of 'em?

'cause it isn't, that's not in their job title.

They're allowed to defend themselves.

They, it's, it, you don't have to be attacked to defend yourself.

my situation, you don't have to be shot to shoot back.

there's this notion out there that you have to be stabbed or shot, or you have to

be attacked first before you can respond.

And that is not the legal standard in Illinois.

Good for you, Tom.

Good for you for saying that.

For standing up and voicing that loud and clear.

I, would just like to see, like in the mornings when all those idiots

show up, just, greet 'em with a wave of tear gas every day and just

say, good morning motherfuckers,

What they're doing.

This attitude that cops, can't use force of any kind, is resulting

in, serious threats to the lives of police officers who are now

hesitant to use force when necessary.

Even less than lethal force, let alone lethal force.

But sometimes if you don't react, within seconds, your life.

Could be taken by these criminal, animals out there that are, it

could care less about a cop's life.

They don't even care about their own lives.

Tom, I know we're getting near the inter, this interview, but a couple quick points.

One, thank you.

I understand you're an ambassador now for the National Law Enforcement

Officer's Memorial Fund and I started that program way back when, when.

I was still with the Memorial Fund and I'm so thankful for people like yourself,

seasoned veterans of law enforcement, people that have great integrity, great

reputations now, talking about the importance of the memorial, the importance

of the National Law Enforcement Museum, the importance of Destination Zero,

our safety program, trying to promote the safety and wellness for officers.

So thank you, sir for that.

I wanted to have that opportunity to thank you myself.

But last question I had for you is, I understand you have a bit of a

personal crusade going on right now where you're trying to get the federal,

prosecutors to take over line of duty death cases when it comes to law

enforcement, as opposed to leaving it up to the state and local jurisdictions.

I, I'd just like you to talk about that.

What's your thinking behind that type of change in the way we

deal with line of duty deaths?

It's my, first of all, it's my honor to serve as

an ambassador for the memorial.

No question about that.

And the individuals I work most with, I love and, my direct supervisor,

Matt Garcia, is superior individual that I work with at the, the memorial.

So what I've been trying to do for 15 years is I saw over the years

that all police investigations, when there's a police.

Line of duty death aren't handled the same way.

And in fact, in many rural areas and small communities who don't have the resources

and don't request a lot of assistance from either their state police or federal

partners, those investigations are not conducted and evidence is not collected

universally throughout the United States.

And I believe that, some of those cases, are, there's missteps.

There's, Evidence missed, there's leads missed.

There's, a, local politicians who serve as state's attorneys who don't really

push, for prosecution in the right manner.

I'm a huge believer in that we need to have uniformity in that.

So I was pushing this federal legislation that would make the murder of a

police officer in the line of duty.

A federal crime and investigated by federal agencies similar to

what I theorized was the FAA has this thing called a GO team.

So when an airplane crash happens, the FAA immediately.

Dispatch is this go team that comes with experts in everything, Boeing engines,

gas, the, manufacture, everything.

So I, I envisioned a GO team when a police officer's killed in the line of duty that

this go team would come with the federal prosecutor, FBI, secret service, a TF.

Evidence collection people from FBI and they would work

with the local law enforcement.

we wouldn't X them out of it, but we would work together and then the

prosecution would be at the federal level.

So there's no politics involved you that survivors families and I really

have become a advocate working with the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial

Fund, ambassador for family - victims families need to be heard, and you need

to trust the investigation of your loved one that was murdered in the line of duty.

You need to trust that investigation.

You need to trust the department knows what they're doing and that the

prosecution knows what they're doing and you go for the full extent of the law.

I'm not a person that believes there should be any.

Parole or early release for any police officer, the offender

that shoots and kills a police officer or stabs them or whatever.

You should serve 100% of your time, if not get the death penalty.

I have been criticized for some of that, but that's my belief.

I think that needs to be uniformed as far as.

A federal statute, so that I've been fighting for that for 15 years.

the only administration to acknowledge me is the Trump administration.

I reached out to, the Biden administration twice.

I've reached out to the, federal prosecutor's office.

they have never gotten back to me in previous administration, my own

state, federal, Tammy Duckworth, for example, or, Mr. Durbin, I have

emailed them, called their office, wrote them letters that I keep.

This all, never ever a response from them, even an acknowledgement that,

Hey, maybe I could work with you and look into if this doesn't work, we

could come up with a modification.

Never had a response.

Tom, you're a hundred percent right on

that a hundred percent right?

And quite frankly, if it were to go federal, you could then move forward with

the death penalty in all 50 states, right?

Because you don't have the death penalty otherwise.

And, you know your point and what you're talking about, you

and Craig should get together.

Tom, you should put this op-ed together.

Craig can help you get that published and we can help you, even

bring that in front of Congress.

So I, think that's something we should follow up on.

Sure.

I love that idea.

And, we are advocating for a piece of legislation that's been in Congress the

last, couple of congresses at least.

it's called the Thin Blue Line Act.

And basically this would allow for.

More circumstances where the death penalty for killing a law

enforcement officer would be in play.

And to Bill's point, there are many states, most states in this nation,

who have eliminated the death penalty and have never imposed the death

penalty in decades and never will.

but if, in fact, this was made a federal crime.

To Bill's point, it would be eligible for the death penalty.

Tom, let's plan on working together, seeing what we can do.

I love the idea of an op-ed that would make the case and

explain why this would be a good, change, something that is needed.

Why, and, we can certainly help, amplify that message.

thank you sir. once again, I think we, nailed it.

Dennis and Bill, we call our show Heroes Behind the Badge.

I think we've got heroes in our midst.

Tom.

He's not a hero, but I would disagree with him.

Tom, you got me fired up today.

You got me on a roll a couple of times.

Yeah.

You, really, I don't know of anybody that we've had as a guest that embodies what

Citizens Behind the Badge is all about.

Tom is like perfect.

what courage?

you take a stand and you stand up for what's right.

we appreciate you telling your story.

your story's not just about.

That night that changed your life.

It's about what you chose and it was your choice, what to do afterwards, how

you fought for others, and how you've continued to serve long after you

retired the badge because of your fight.

Officers across Illinois are safer because of your persistence.

The law is stronger because of your voice.

Which we heard today loud and clear because of your voice,

family spacing, that worst day of their lives are not alone.

So Tom, Weitzell, thank you for telling your story.

Thank you for representing for police.

Thank you for showing all of us what commitment looks like

long after the sirens fade.

We appreciate it.

Thank you.

I'm honored.

And let me remind our listeners.

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Citizens Behind the Badge is the leading voice of the American people in support

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That's it for this episode of Heroes Behind the Badge.

We look forward to seeing you again.

We'll give you a nice warm welcome back very soon on the new episodes

of Heroes Behind the Badge.