Welcome back to heroes behind the badge.

We tell real stories about real cops.

We expose the fake news about police and we give you.

The Real Truth.

This podcast is brought to you by Citizens Behind the Badge, the leading voice of the American

people in support of the men and women in law enforcement dedicated

to ending the disastrous movement to defund and defame the police.

I'm your host.

Dennis Collins, a founding board member of Citizens Behind the Badge.

I'm joined today by my colleagues Bill Erfurth and Craig Floyd.

Bill is a retired Miami Dade police lieutenant with 26 years of decorated service.

He is also a founding board member of Citizens Behind the Badge.

Craig Floyd is the founder, the president, and CEO of Citizens Behind the Badge.

Many of you probably know Craig as the founding CEO emeritus of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

Craig led the team that built the Law Enforcement Memorial and the National

Law Enforcement Museum in Washington D.C. No one has worked longer or harder.

to advocate and support law enforcement.

So today our podcast concludes our three part conversation with former U. S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund.

In the past two episodes, Chief Sund has documented the lead up to January 6, 2021 and the minute

by minute harrowing account of what happened on the actual day.

From the inside, from Chief Sund's point of view.

If you miss those, be sure to check them out on Heroes Behind the Badge podcast.

So Steve started his law enforcement career with the Metro Washington D.C. Police.

He held numerous leadership positions over his 25 year career.

He commanded Metro PD's SOD, Special Operations Division, handling major events, security operations.

He helped coordinate security for many of the high profile events that happen in and around D.C. In 2017, Steve

moved to the U. S. Capitol Police, and in 2019, he was promoted to Chief.

He was the Chief, of course, during the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol.

Steve is also a member of the Citizens Behind the Badge Law Enforcement Advisory Council.

He wrote a book.

Called Courage Under Fire, where he offers his detailed documentation

of the events leading up to, during, and after the incident.

In this final episode, Chief Sund offers us his account of the aftermath.

of January 6th and the lasting impact.

Here now is part 3 of our conversation with Chief Steven Sund.

Steve, you lost your job.

You were obviously, you and your family were deeply affected

and continue to be affected by what happened on January 6th.

But there were also, uh, uh, injures, injuries to your officers, uh, several officers died as a result of January

6th, um, and all of your officers who were there that day, uh, suffered, uh, not only physical, uh, injury,

but also, uh, mental health injuries, uh, tell us about, uh, the effects

on your officers and some of the lives that were lost as a result.

So when you, when you look at it and any law enforcement agency, uh, or any law enforcement, uh, officer

that goes through a, a significant critical incident, uh, and I would say what these officers went through

was, was pretty significant, uh, will carry that with them for a long time.

I, like I said, I still talk to officers, you know, there

are still a number of them out there dealing with it.

Um, so getting the, the proper counseling, uh, helping them through it, um.

I think has been, uh, is important, especially following a critical incident.

You know, when you think about the, the, the lives lost, uh, for the, from the officer standpoint.

So we had, uh, one, one officer that I would say is a direct correlation, uh, to it.

You know, what I'll say is, so yeah, Brian Sicknick, Brian Sicknick that

evening, uh, and people, people think he, he, he, he died the next day.

He did die the next day, but he collapsed that day, collapsed

that evening, uh, after we'd gotten control of the Capitol.

Uh, 8 p. m. The Senate went into, uh, session.

9 p. m.

The, uh, House goes into session.

Shortly after the House goes into session, Brian Sicknick's walking with a group of, uh, officers, including

a Virginia State Police officer by the name of Chris, uh, Serlac.

Uh, he happens to be a tactical medic.

Uh, they're walking to get a bite to eat, um, and he drops to the ground.

Um, uh, Trooper Serlac is immediately rendering first aid.

They can't get, uh, he's not able to be, he doesn't recover at all.

He's transported, uh, and ends up dying the very, the very next day.

Um, a lot of people have pointed the fact, well, medical examiner said it was natural causes.

He died of a stroke, natural causes.

Um, the medical examiner did make a statement in a press conference where he said the, um,

Incident, the actions of that day contributed to, uh, to his illness.

Anybody that doesn't think that's a, uh, a correlation, um, you know, anyway, um, so I, I think that right there

is your, you know, that's immediately the direct, you know, one person that, um, died as a result, uh, you had a

suicide two days later, I'm sorry, on the 9th, uh, Howard Levengood, who, uh, actually was a, was a friend of mine.

He was a Capitol police officer.

Uh, we worked at the same, worked at the same gym, uh, in, uh, in Virginia.

And, um, yeah.

We'd share stories.

He'd like to work on cars and race cars.

I love to, uh, work on cars and growing up.

Uh, I raced once a quarter mile.

He raced rally, but we'd share some stories and it was tragic to hear his loss.

Um, anytime, you know, an officer deals with, um, You know, whatever they're, you know, whatever

they're, they're having to deal with and, uh, takes our own life.

That's, that is really, really tough and is a tragic situation.

Uh, I think it was January 16th, you had Jeff Smith with the D.C. Police,

uh, who also responded, uh, to January 6th that, um, ended up taking his life.

And ultimately, a couple of months later, you had two other, uh, D.C. Police officers that took their life.

So, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's tragic.

Um, I know when And I talk about it in the book in, in, in detail, um, because when my watch commander came

in and told me, uh, about Howard Leamingood's, um, death, I got really, really concerned, uh, because I know

my officers, a lot of them were going through a lot of stuff after that,

and the last thing I wanted to see was anybody else, um, do any self harm.

Uh, so I was very, very worried about that and knew this had to be dealt with in a very effective, uh, and

immediate manner, uh, and that in itself is a whole, is a whole other story.

You know, it really, you and I cop to cop, you know, what really pisses me off about that whole

situation is that their deaths have been so politicized now for political gain.

You know, just the other day on January 6th, Merrick Garland made a statement and in his statement on Twitter says

that five officers were killed in the line of duty on January 6th.

And there was a Congresswoman that came out and said the same thing.

And that's just not factually true.

I mean, it's horrendous what happened.

It's horrendous that the officers are.

No longer alive.

I mean, we've, you, you, you've lost friends in the line of duty.

I've lost friends in the line of duty.

It's, it's tragic.

Uh, but I think it's even more tragic that certain political people

for political gain are going to use the deaths of those officers.

To their benefit,

I agree.

That's I mean, that's the lowest of low when they, when they, when they started doing that.

Um, and, and you saw that repeatedly a matter of fact, that's partially the, uh, the reason for the, the

title of the book courage under fire is, you know, the, uh, the backlash and some of my officers that came,

especially from members of Congress, um, and, you know, uh, Craig, you had talked about some of the people that

were some of the biggest supporters of, you know, defund the police.

You know, I talked about it in the book.

One of those.

Yeah.

You know, big, um, uh, big supporters, uh, was, was screaming at me the evening of January 6,

wondering why I hadn't ordered my officers to open fire on the crowd.

Think about that.

Think about if any chief in the United States of America came out and give a blanket order for your

officers to open fire on a group of protesters, uh, rioting protesters, however you want to describe it.

Um, that would have been a terribly, that would have been a dark day for America.

So, Chief, are you, uh, Chief, are you referring to, uh, crazy Maxine Waters there?

No, that would have been, uh, uh, Tim Ryan.

Tim Ryan.

Um, and I was explaining to him, I said, that's not that, you know,

we, we rely on our training, our policies, Supreme Court decisions.

That's not how we work.

And he told me I should have changed the policy in the middle of the fight.

Good.

You know, and the reason I brought up, the reason

I brought up Maxine Waters is because you have, uh, a couple of.

Excerpts in your book about that whole situation, how she called

you in advance to January 6 to basically tell you how to do your job.

Then in the middle of the whole situation, she's calling you again, trying to tell you how to do your job.

Nothing to me is more unbelievable than a politician trying to tell

somebody how to do their job that's never walked in your shoes.

But you know, the irony of that whole thing, and I'll let you expound on it a little bit.

But the irony about Maxine Waters is we You know, if we go down memory lane with her, you know,

back in, uh, June of 2018, she's out encouraging supporters of the Trump

administration to go out and harass and intimidate and get in their face.

Anyone that's part of the Trump administration.

Then in April of 2021, with the incidents that occurred in Minneapolis,

Minnesota, she's quoted as saying, we got to stay on the street.

We got to get more active.

We got to get more confrontational.

We got to make sure they know we mean business.

And then she goes on to encourage people to violate the curfew.

So here's a Congresswoman.

With that kind of background, and then she calls you to lecture you about how you should do your job.

You want to talk about that a bit?

Yeah, I'm in the, I'm in the command center.

I'm trying to remember the exact time, um, that she called probably two, three o'clock is, is probably

right in the height of when I'm trying to get into resources, trying to get people, uh, deployed out there.

And was screaming at me about what are you going to do?

What are you going to do to get this under control?

What are you going to do?

You know, it's a, you know, um, and, um, went and I said, ma'am, trying to bring in whatever resources I

can, trying to get, you know, we say reestablish perimeter, you know, please, I need to get back to my job.

And she was screaming at me.

She wouldn't stop.

And finally, I just looked at the phone and said, This conversation is going nowhere.

Just hit the end call button.

And I remember turning over and, um, because my general counsel was

sitting, I had, uh, chief Pittman and chief Gallagher sitting in my left.

And then my general counsel, I remember looking over my general counsel go, Hey, you may just want to make a note.

I just hung up on, uh, Nancy water, Maxine waters.

I'm sure I'm gonna hear about it.

Um, you know, it's one of those things to look back on.

I would have done it again today.

I didn't have time to deal with that.

Uh, and it was again, it was just taking critical time away from me getting resources from officers.

We're getting ready to wrap things up.

We could go on for hours.

That book was, as I said, riveting, packed full of stories and information

that the public did not have about nine or excuse me, about January six.

But let me just ask you this maybe as a closing thought, um, this obviously, you got the report from Congress in

December, a nice Christmas present, if you will, uh, exonerating you from any of the blame and really praising you for

having done a good job and shouldered so much of the burden of January 6.

Unfairly.

Um, but clearly this has had a deep impact, not only on January six and

soon after, but a lasting impact really on you and your family.

Talk to me a little bit about how you've had to be able to deal with all that.

Um, it it was again.

Yeah, it's still it still is is is is tough.

I still I love being a police officer.

I loved working with the men and women up there.

Like I said, I still talk to capital police DC police on a daily basis.

Um, and I really did did miss it.

I think.

And my kids, they've, that's all they've known them, you know, their entire lives is, hey, dad, dad was a cop.

There's always something going on.

You know, you took the good with the bad, a few missed birthdays, things like that.

But they really liked it.

The big takeaway now is, you know, I had a couple of kids that were really looking forward to maybe

following my dad and my footsteps and their dad's footsteps.

Specifically, I had, uh, my middle daughter was always talking about, dad, I want to be a doc with a Glock.

Wanted to go in and get, um, Her medical degree, but also work with

tactical units and kind of one of those tactical response capabilities.

Um, not now, not now.

And they see what goes on with law enforcement and they see how things are politicized when they see how

people are scrutinized again, like you said, for doing their jail be, um.

Far the same.

Nope.

Don't want any part of it.

It was, uh, it was tough.

My son was doing online classes when the, uh, right at the capital

began and isn't his teacher was the one that told him about it.

Uh, and and just to hear the stories of what they went through, um, that day.

And then when I finally came home late.

Late Thursday night.

I came home to a security detail from Fairfax County and Capitol Police on the house And had to had to had

to deal with that but needless to say Good now that the December 17th report helps out it helps out a lot

But you know, there are still times I miss I miss the the camaraderie.

I miss the mission.

I don't miss the minutia

We salute you, sir. And again, I just want to conclude by telling people you've heard some

of the highlights from this book, Courage Under Fire, but there's so

much more that we couldn't get into today because of time limitations.

But go out and get this book, Courage Under Fire, if you really want to know the truth about

January 6th, the prep for it, the day of, and then the aftermath.

Uh, Steve can't thank you enough for joining us today and, uh, look forward to continuing to work with

you, my friend, you are a hero behind the badge and we're honored that you were with us here today.

Thank you very much for the opportunity.

And I was just going to say thank you for all you do, uh, supporting the men and women of law enforcement.

Bill, thank you for your, uh, your support and your working with Craig and Dennis.

Um, honored, honored to be here and thank you very much for your time today.

Thank you, Steve.

We salute you.

Terrific.

Yes.

Thank you.

Terrific.

You've been listening to the third and final

conversation with former U. S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund.

If by chance you missed the first two, you can still find them at Heroes Behind the Badge podcast.

Uh, Chief Sund also wrote a book.

Courage Under Fire, he goes into great detail and documents his account

of the events surrounding January 6th at the United States Capitol.

We thank you for joining us for this important conversation.

We aim to bring you many, many more newsmaker, more

interesting conversations on Heroes Behind the Badge.

To learn more about how you can support law enforcement, go to BehindBadge.org.

Join hundreds of thousands of Americans already showing their support for law enforcement.

That's BehindBadge.org.

I'm Dennis Collins, and for my colleagues, Bill Erfurth.

And Craig Floyd, goodbye for now.

We'll see you for the next episode of Heroes Behind the Badge.

Real stories about real cops, and we expose the fake news about the police, and we give you the real truth.