Blake Cook
Appearances
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Thank God I didn't get punished because they realized that I was humiliated because when I got out, I had to turn my body camera on. to make sure they didn't lie on me. So the whole interaction was on camera. The whole Miss Piggy, Piggy, Piggy. I was like, everything. So they're like, man, we're not going to write you up for this one. We feel like that you're, I'm like, hey man, thanks.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, this is not how we operate, right? That seems kind of dangerous. And they're like, oh, no, we got to eat. We got surf and turf, right? So I was like, this is, what? This is wild. This is crazy. And, you know, so finally they ended up leaving. And then, you know, the rest of the big 82nd started coming in, right? Command Sergeant Major Love. Dude was a soup sandwich, man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And he was the head of everything. And it just got to the point where like, hey man, we're at war. We get mortared every day. Like, Why do I got to wear a PT belt to go to the bathroom? Why do I got to wear a PT belt to go to the chow hall? What are we doing here? And that was when I was like, I have to get out of the 82nd. Because this is crazy.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm wearing a PT belt and I'm shaving in like horrible environments because I can't have like a little scruffle. Like, I'm shitting in MRE bags up at the outpost. Like, And I'm still having to shave up there. What is going on? It doesn't make sense. Everybody's stuck in this World War II. Guess what? That was great. They did great things. It's not World War II anymore. Right?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It's a different environment. Y'all can loosen up a little bit. This is not that long ago. Like, that's a long time. We can chill out a little bit. I don't need to shave and shit in an MRE bag. Like, nobody's bothering us. It was just, everything was ridiculous. But, It was fun though. It started to really get to know the guys. We started forming as like a little team.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
We had gotten a new squad leader at the time. His name was Staff Sergeant Garcia Boches. He was like, he's had like all these jumps. He was a black hat for a while. He was, Pat Tillman was, went to his class in jump school. So he was a awesome guy, very old school though. But he took, he looked out for us.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And then before him, we had Nick Fredsty, who was, he deployed like seven or eight times to Afghanistan. Like in my eyes, he was like a legend. Like, man, this guy's still alive. He's got eight deployments in 10 years of his career. Like he'd been deployed like all the time. And he was like, he was so chill. Like we had him as a squad leader for like seven months.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And man, he just taught you everything. Like he just took care of you. He just taught you everything. But I still couldn't go anywhere because we're locked in on an appointment. So then he got sent to another company, I think like Delta Company, and then we got Bochez, which was awesome to have, and then we deployed.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
But, I mean, it actually felt good because there are a lot of good young guys in the 82nd. There's a lot of good dudes in the 82nd. You know, the conventional Army has been overshadowed. People think it's not cool anymore, like being in the infantry, like standard infantry, because of social media, right?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Yep, I'm really humiliated. And I'm sure I'm never going to live this down. But yeah, that's it, man. That's the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Social media now, when you think of something sexy, you think of beards and like plate carriers and cutoff t-shirts and, you know, the special operations community. Like it's, it looks cool. And it's, you know, a lot of guys in the 82nd, they're really good dudes. And I think they feel maybe overlooked sometimes. You know, maybe like we're not as important anymore because we're just in the 82nd.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I've heard guys tell me their story. Well, I was just in the 82nd. Hey man, be proud. Be proud of what you did. You're still in the infantry. You're still in the 82nd. You're still jumping out of planes. Be proud of what you, I'm so proud to be in the 82nd. I don't go around and try to act like I was in SF or anything. I'm proud of what I did because what I did set me up for where I'm at now.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
That was where I'm supposed to be. So I tell all those guys, anybody to this day in the 82nd, be proud of what you're doing. Your service is not overlooked. You guys, there's a lot of really good young dudes who are changing this. They're changing the 82nd.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You know, I've been reached out by several guys and I will go on post and train any of those guys for free from the 82nd because I didn't get that. I didn't get any CQB training except for basic. And it was the whole like grab, lean, rock, lean, rock, like old school stuff. My heart is with them guys, man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It was awful.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
If they ever need anything from me, like they message me all the time and I will do whatever I can for you. If any training, any shooting, any advice for like after the military, like I got you because I'm proud of what, and I'm proud to know you. Be proud of your service. So we had one of the SF groups, I don't know which one, that was on FOB Warrior too.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It was awful.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So we would see them around, and they just had like a different life, right? Everything was just kind of carefree and big boy rules. You know, they're treated like big boys because they are, right? They come from an amazing family. group or amazing unit or amazing team. And something about that, I was like, man, when I leave here, I talked to Bochez and he's like, I'll help you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He's like, we'll get all the paperwork done. When we get back, we'll do everything. And I was so excited, man. I was like so excited. And then May 24th, 2012 came. We were, that week, we were the QRF. And whatever outposts that the SF unit had, they were taking contact. And we were going out to help them.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
The fastest road to, I later found this out, the fastest road to them was, they labeled it as a black road. It hasn't been cleared of an IED in two weeks, but it was the fastest route to them. So that's the one that our amazing leadership decided that we were gonna go take. And we hadn't turned off Highway 1, but maybe more than a half a mile. And I'm the gunner. And we're driving.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And then it's so crazy. I even think about it now. It's so crazy. I saw this massive bright light. And then it was like slow motion of seeing the dirt. I could see like piles of dirt. It was so crazy, like slowly, I never heard it. I just saw it and I saw the dirt come up. And I felt this heat pressure push me back and my back plate broke in half.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And then I came forward and smashed the whole left side of my face on the buttstock of the 240. And I woke up, they said about 10 minutes later, on a gurney. I'm hearing people scream. I'm hearing people talk about the QRF that's coming for us, just ran over an IED. They're seizing all operations. I hear Apaches. I hear something about ambushes. So the vehicle in front took the main blast, right?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Our front half of our vehicle caught it because it was kind of in between. But I got the back blast. The pressure is what got me. It pushed me back and broke my plate. And then I got slung forward and then broke the whole left side of my face. To this day, I still have no feeling on the left side of my face. Damn. You can look at my nose and tell that it's broken.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So I have no feeling anywhere over here. This is... They never fixed it, never gave me surgery for it, nothing. It's just, the nerves are gone. It's crazy. I can feel this side, but not this side. So if you ever see me with a face tattoo like Mike Tyson, it'll be on this side. Just so you know that. Teardrops. But I remember laying on the gurney, And they're trying to get a bird in.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Man, one of my really good friends, he's calling in the nine line. His name's Josh Marshak. Phenomenal.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I was aware at this point. I could feel bleeding. I could taste the blood. I just didn't know where it was coming from. And I actually have a scar on my head. It was a massive gash. That's mainly where I was bleeding from. But I had no idea. I had a massive headache. My ears were ringing and it was just tons of confusion. But I could see Marshak next to me and he's calling in the nine line.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm kind of hearing what he's saying, but like I'm kind of going in and out too. And I love that dude to this day. Like we still talk and I still thank him. Anytime I see him, I hug him. Hey man, thanks for getting that nine line for me. Then a bird came down and they got me on the bird. And... Crazy story about that, too.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They got me on the bird, and I'm laying there, and, man, my head's killing me. I'm bleeding. And on the ceiling is a flag. You know how some of them will put their team flag or whatever on the ceiling? Man, it was a Blackbeard flag. It was this guy. And I didn't know my injuries. I thought I was dying, the way everybody was acting. They're cutting clothes off on me, and I pass out.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I love gummy bears, man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I wake up at the little medical spot on 5 Warrior. And they got all these doctors around me, you know, asking me about filling in my legs, my brain. I had a massive knot, like a huge knot. They're like, oh, you're trying to do all these things. But they couldn't find me to bogger them. Weather was so bad. Whatever they call it, the sky was red. I don't know whatever they call it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So I laid there for two days. Just, I remember laying there, and we'll get to that in a second, but so they give me some morphine, like I'm feeling kind of good, and I'm laying there, and then the next morning, the command sergeant major and the commander walks in, and they're like, hey, private cook, like, we need to talk to you about something. I'm like drugged up. I remember the conversation.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They're like, hey, we need you to call your wife. I'm like, okay. I'm like, yeah, that'd be great. I got a phone, I can call her. Because I had one of those little Hodge phones that you could buy with the minutes. I was like, hey, somebody give me my phone. They're like, but here's the problem, is the 82nd and the family readiness group called my wife that night.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
told my wife that there was an accident and I was deceased. Are you fucking kidding me? Next to my mom. And your mom. And my mom. And there was about an hour from my call, from the call she received from when I called her. They called her first thing that morning. Not that night, first thing that morning. Then I was able to call her an hour later.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And she goes, her exact words was, who the fuck is this? I'm like, hey, it's me. I'm like, I sound funny because I'm on morphine. I'm not dead. I'm alive. I'll call you in a little bit. She's, like, so confused. I'm like, hey. I'm like, this is really me. I promise. They get on the phone. They're like, ma'am, Ms. Cook, we're sorry about this. Like, she is, he is alive.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Nobody had died, but like... Holy shit. So for an hour, my wife and my mom thought I was dead. Like, how do you fuck that up? Because some army wife calls my wife and tells them news that should have even been delivered to her. Why would you do that? It's not your responsibility. So that was, I think that still bothers my wife, maybe, that she got that phone call.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
But I can't even imagine, man, how she felt. So, but at least they were, they caught it fast enough to where it wasn't a day, right, or hours. It was about an hour. And I think what happened is the lady that was the head of the FRG told her husband that, hey, I called the wife. She's okay. It's like, well, hold on. Nobody fucking died. He just got hurt really bad.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So we were able to clear that whole mess up. And, you know, which caused anxiety for the whole rest of the deployment for my family. But they finally get me to Bagram. I get to Bagram and, you know, I have massive headaches. I don't feel well. I'm still throwing up. My legs are feeling weird. My back is like super sore. And I didn't break my back. Didn't have any spinal damage.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I just had like, my whole back was black. I guess just some nerve damage. So they're like, hey, we can send you to Germany and then send you home. Or I'm like, can I stay? They're like, well, that's, how do you feel? I'm like, I feel great. They can't send me home. That's an embarrassment. I failed at college. I'd failed my family about getting a job. Like, I'm on a continuous path of failing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
If I go home early, I look like a bitch. I let my grandfather down. You know, I'm not dead, so why do I need to go home? So then they were like, that's fine, but you're not going to be operational for a little while. Take these Ambien's in the morning and at nighttime. Sleep. I was taking like two Ambien's a day. One in the morning, I'd eat breakfast, take an Ambien, go to sleep.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'd wake up, go eat dinner, take an Ambien, go to sleep. Then I was like, oh, I need pain medicine. They gave me oxycodones over there. I was like, I stayed high and tired. Then like I kicked all of it to the curb because now people like are looking at me like I'm a pussy. Like they don't know the extent of my injuries. When I got back, I told them nothing was wrong.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They don't know that I have some brain scans that, you know, they told me I was fine. But later on when I got back home, so I get back home and we do the appointment. I do a couple missions with them and then I get back home and we do a battalion run. I think I'm fine, I feel fine. I do the run, don't even remember the run.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I remember walking out to the field, hearing some ACDC, we're all lining up. I remember drinking water. That was it. That's all I remember. So then I was like, man. How do you know you did the run? I don't know. How do you know you missed something? Because people had told me that I ran. So I was in the formation. My shirt was wet. We had gray battalion shirts. My shirt was soaking wet.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I thought maybe I was dreaming. I didn't know what was going on. People told me I'd ran. I don't remember the rut and my shirt's drenched. I mean, you're talking October, North Carolina, 80% humidity, I'm soaked. I thought, man, maybe I just blacked out. So a couple of days go by, I start having these random nosebleeds, these massive headaches. My eyes like start hurting over here on the sides.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, man, I don't feel right. something's not right. I started getting like that, that feeling that we have when we stood up and your legs are tingling. That would come and go. I felt like my legs were always asleep. I'd be standing and I'd get this tingling and I'd have to lean on my wife. So finally, I go to Wal-Mart. And I asked to go to Wal-Mart.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I pretty much get told I'm a pussy, being a pussy. Suck it up. You're gonna be a sick hall ranger. I'm like, hey man, like, I got hurt. I like to get a follow-up. So finally they let me get a follow-up and get these scans done, get a full body scan and ended up being committed to the hospital.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I had some, I had swelling in my brain and I had some optic nerve issues and I had some nerve damage in my spine. So I stayed in the hospital for like a week And then they get the swelling down. They bring in a doctor who enrolls me into the first Womack traumatic brain injury pipeline. There was five of us.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
One guy killed himself, one guy dropped out, two guys dropped out, and two of us completed it, me and another guy completed it. So for two years, I did this pipeline. I met with a world-renowned brain doctor. I can't remember his name, but me and my wife met with him once a month. To this day, Sean, I don't know why I was having the issues. It was never explained to me. Nobody ever got answers.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Nobody ever got anything. I had a doctor, a neurologist, told me that she thought I had STDs. What? Exactly. I got off the phone with my wife. I'm like, what? And then she ended up getting fired because she was sexually harassing patients. The whole system was broken. To this day, I still don't know what happened.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I did speech, memory, and physical therapy every day for two years, well, a year and a half. And I got transferred to the Warrior Transition Battalion because I had so many doctor's appointments. And I couldn't ever get an answer. The Army never wanted to admit that they messed up by letting me go back and not fixing me right then. Because that's on them. They let me go back.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm sure that that doctor, one, that did the brain scans, there's no way you didn't find that my brain wasn't swelling. Had a nod out to here and I was throwing up with nosebleeds. You just gave me Ambien. I don't know if there was like, hey, we can't just send people to Germany unless you're like, actively died, I don't know, I don't know.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
But to this day, I never got answers of what happened to me. I have a medical file that's this thick. I'm 100 total and permanent. But I never got answers. I could never get answers, ever. So for a year and a half, I did speech, memory, and physical therapy with no answers to what was wrong. But whatever they were doing was working. So after a year and a half, I felt normal.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I had all these like shock therapies on my brain. I had these needles put all over. Had all these things done, but nobody ever told me why. Why I'm doing this. Like, oh, you know, you got a brain injury. It's just something we're doing. Something we're testing out. I'm like, I'm not a rat in a lab. What's wrong? What are you doing to fix me? Oh, you know, you have a great care team.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They got it taken care of. Yeah, that's great, but what are they doing to fix me? Have they not explained this to you? No. Bring it up to them. I bring it up to them. Nothing. Nothing. It was horrible. You want to know why guys are killing themselves? Because they can't get answers. You don't care.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You're a civilian or you're in the military and you're not giving people the answers that they need because you don't care. Something's wrong with me. What is wrong with me? If the army fucked up, that's fine. I'm not going to blame the army. But nobody ever told me what was wrong. So I got released from the pipeline. I had this little ceremony, whatever. They're like, oh, this is successful.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, cool. They send me back to my unit. Send me back. I can leave Warrior Transition Battalion and go back to the 82nd. Get in the 82nd, everybody's like, rigging up, getting all their stuff. They're like, hey, Cook, hey, man, glad you're back. Go get your ruck. Needs to be this weight, blah, blah, blah. We got a combat jump tonight.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And we're gonna walk back to the company and you're gonna jump at 240. I'm like, I just got back. I just walked in the company. I'm like, what do you mean? I'm not jumping. I just did this for a year and a half. This was like the end of The end of 2013, so about December of 2013, I'm like, I only have like six more months left on my contract. I'm like, I'm not jumping.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They're like, oh, you're going to jump. You're not with the Warrior Transition Entire anymore. You're going to jump. I'm like, man, this is bullshit. This ain't right. First Sergeant was mad. They're all mad because I went to the War and Transition Battalion and got help that I needed. Whether I got told what was wrong or not, whatever they did worked. I felt better.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I still have some stuttering when I get excited. If you watch any of our videos on Instagram when I'm trying to teach, sometimes I'll stutter. But whatever they did, it was great. And I'm grateful for those people. But to this day, I'd still like to know. But So I get rigged up. I got no option. I'm an E4. You know, like, you can't argue.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They're either gonna give me an Article 15 for disobeying orders six months before I get out, or I can just suck it up and jump. So I'm like, cool, whatever. I'll jump the 240. At this point, whatever. We jump, jump out. Parachute opens. Everything's fine and dandy. Bam. Head bust right off the windshield of a Humvee. Smacked a Humvee on the ground. I woke up, man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I don't know, maybe, I mean, it could have been long. 30 seconds later, I'm like, damn, I got a headache. I'm like, dude, suck it up. Suck it up. Put my parachute up. Met up at the meetup point, the rally point. And I'm laying on the ground and Sergeant Bochez is right there and I'm just throwing up. I am just yakking. He goes, Cook, what's wrong? I said, hey man, I hit my head off the Humvee.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He shined a light and I was bleeding down there on my face. He's like, are you sure you hit your head? I'm like, yeah, I'm throwing up. He's like, hey, he goes, go to the medical tent right now. He goes, you only got six months left. Go to the medical tent right now. Went to the medical tent. Took me to the hospital, same doctor in the ER. Super cool.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Right back into the Warrior Transition Battalion the next day. They treated my concussion for about five months. And then they were like, hey, you seem fine. See you later. Go pick up your DD. I walked in still thinking I had treatment. I still had like a month left in my contract. And they were like, hey, you go pick up your DD-214 and take this leave. I was like, okay. That sounds great.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Am I okay? Am I good to leave? They're like, yeah, your doctor's cleared off all your paperwork. We have all your paperwork. I'm like, nobody ran that by me. Nobody told me I was cleared. No shit. I was like, let me see my paperwork. There it was. So they rushed you out. Rushed me right out. Pushed me right out the door. Went to a social support center.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Picked up my DD214 and I didn't do any out processing. Dude, I still have, I had like my helmet. I didn't do any out processing. Never got a letter for to bring it in, nothing. They rushed me right out. See you later. And man, that's why I do encourage people to, if you want to stay in this longer, try to get to those other units, man. because I feel like you might get better treatment.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Maybe it's different now. I mean, it's been, my God, it's been 12 years now. But to this day, I have no idea. I just know how I felt. I just know that I was put in this important timeline. I know that I was sent to a battalion that was made so people can go to their appointments because they're messed up. And then I was rushed right on out. And I had two months of leave build up. So I took it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Damn. And still had memory issues. Couldn't remember anything. Couldn't remember I put my keys. Couldn't remember nothing. And so I had applied. So I got out early. So that was like February or like March, March timeframe. I was like, man, what am I going to do? So what am I going to do? Because I didn't get out medically. Don't have a degree, right? Didn't take that serious.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Shooting a piece of paper in a trash can didn't work for me. What am I going to do? I have a son and a wife. She works. She does hair, but she had to lose all of her clients when I deployed to move back home with my mom. So she's still trying to build her clientele up. She gave all of her clients away. for safety. And now she's trying to build all of them back up. It's hard.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So I'm like, man, I'm going to, oh, we were driving down Bragg Boulevard and I saw this armored vehicle flying up the road, blue lights and sirens. It said Fayetteville Police Emergency Response Team. I was like, that's it, man. I'm going to be that. How do I get there? So I walked to the police station. I walked in the police station. Hey, I want to be a cop. How do I sign up?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Like, oh, you know, you got to go to the training center. So I started the process and did all the hiring process. And then, you know, May came and I heard nothing. May and June, crickets. I'm like, man, I didn't get this job. Because, you know, I had to tell them, you know, so in that time period when I fell out of college, You know, because I was honest with him about everything, right?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Smoked some weed. My stepdad had hernia surgery. And when he was healed, I stole the rest of his Percocets and sold them for money. So I had to be truthful on all this. They give you a lie detector test. I said, man, maybe they didn't really like that. You know, maybe that was, maybe I should have tried to lie. I don't know. Maybe they didn't like that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Man, like June, end of June, they were like, hey, man, start BLEP next Monday. It's like a week away. Start what? BLEP, basic law enforcement training. You're hired with Fayetteville Police Department. You start BLEP next Monday. I was like, they were like, we're going to report. We'll send you an email with all the instructions. I was like, am I hired? They were like, yeah. I was like, oh, man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
All right, cool. Let's go be a cop, right? I have no idea what to expect, but let's go be a cop. So first day in B-let, you know, we go and we're meeting with all the other people. We had like a large class. We had like 18 to 20 of us. And we lost six in for testing purposes. But Fayetteville has their own basic law enforcement training. So everything is in-house.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You don't have to, a lot of places, you go to college, you go to BLET, and then you're sponsored by an agency that then picks you up afterwards. But Fayetteville's a really good department, because Fayetteville's a very dangerous city. So they have their own instructors, their own BLET on site at the training center. We have a whole training center.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And so I go to BLET, and we're sitting down, they're doing orientation. and then we do that, and then the next day, we report to the training center.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Get to the training center, and they're explaining everything, and they're like, every Friday, we have a test on, I think there was a total of like 20-some tests, because it's all about like law, Fourth Amendment, like all the, everything, anything about being a cop. So they bring an instructor in on Monday, teach you for four days, and then Friday, you take an exam.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You can only fail two, your third one, you're out. And I'm like, I go home and I'm like, honey, I'm screwed. I'm like, I can't remember. At this point, I can't remember. My memory is horrible. It's really bad. I'm like, there's no way I'm going to be able to sit down and do this and go take a test. I already had like test anxiety. She's like, we're going to get you through it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, she's like, I promise you, we're gonna get you through this. I'm like, all right, I'm gonna try it. So every Wednesday and Thursday night, my wife would come home from working 10 hours, help me make index cards. And she'd sit up all night flipping them for me, helping me study. All night, hours. We'd get up five o'clock in the morning before a test. She'd flip index cards.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I was like top three in my class for academics. And there were some really intelligent people. I had like, I was getting almost, I never failed one test. It's because my wife stuck by my side and came home after a long day of work, feeding our son, and then staying up and flipping index cards for me. And that's six months I'm doing that. Damn. So she was exhausted. I quit.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Terry and I would never would have made it through BLET testing if it wasn't for her. I owe it all to her and God. But man, like, she made sure that I was successful. That's a good woman. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah. Man, she was not going to let me fail. Because she had saw my life the last two years of how I was treated in the Army. She wanted to go talk to all these chain of command. She was livid.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I was like, no, leave it alone, leave it alone. She's like, Blake, I want answers. I'm like, I do too. But I'm like, I don't want to make nobody mad, Nicole. We don't understand. I don't want to be punished. I'm afraid that if I roughed up too many feathers... They're just going to send me back to my unit. Just discharge me and send me back to my unit.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, just be quiet so I can just keep doing the treatment. Because if you start pissing off people, they're going to send me back. If they send me back, then you have nobody to irritate except for that commander and first sergeant. And you're not their problem anymore. So she's like, okay, okay, okay. So she was already livid. I mean, dude, she had to help me shower.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Like there were times where my leg would just go numb. Like just, like not numb, like not where I couldn't feel them, but like they were just asleep. And if I stepped, it hurt. It felt like knives were in my legs, only in my legs, never my arms, never my upper body, always my legs. The only answer I got was nerve damage. And that it can take up to three to four years for nerves to heal themselves.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They're kind of like misfiring is what I was told. And that's what's happening. They're misfiring with my brain. And that's the feeling that I'm getting. Some BS answer. Not even a true medical answer. Sounds like talking about a car engine. Like, tell me what's wrong. But she never let me fail, man. So six months. Go to graduation. She pins my badge on me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm just so grateful that she took the time to do all this.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because she should have been wearing a badge. By that point, she knew the law. She knew the law better than I did. Because she had to read the chapters first. and pick out what she believed to be important things. And while they were teaching, I would highlight things that they would be like, okay, you need to label the Sean Ryan show. Wink, wink, that might be a test question.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
But she would go through all the highlights and make the index cards for me, and I would make them too. And without that, man, without her push, right? Hey, man, don't give up. Don't give up. You're not broken. Because I could have laid around and made excuses. Oh, the Army said I was zipped up, right? Yeah. Jacked up, you know? Because I wouldn't get any disability at the time. Nothing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Not a thing. No one could. Nothing. No medical, no nothing. So... So she pins my badge on me, and I get assigned to Fayetteville's broken up into three districts, Camelton, Central, Cross Creek. It's a city of like 300-some thousand people, plus all the craziness on Bragg, right? A lot of people don't understand, man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
There's more gang members on Fort Bragg than there is in the city of Fayetteville.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Yeah, we'll get into that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Somebody has to pay for that. Yeah, yeah. I would be infuriated if I was a owner of a store in one of those cities.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Grew up in a small town in West Virginia called Pombal, West Virginia. 1,000 people max in my hometown, 18,000 in the county. So real small town. Everybody knew everybody. You start daycare with the same people that you graduate with. So, you know, for 13, 14 years, it's the same friends. It's the same people every day. Even in the summer, we all lived next to each other.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Yeah, so like I said, my wife, my wife pinned me, right? So I'm super excited. I'm starting to really feel like a cop. I got a badge, got a gun, all the training that I feel like I need. So I get my assignment, you know, my assignment, Central District. which is kind of the city's broken, like I said, into three. Central's the middle. So it covers a lot of the really bad areas.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It covers an area called Bonny Doon, Massey Hill, a lot of crime and gang members and all these things. What is Fayetteville?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So Fayetteville is obviously a military town, but... It's weird. It's kind of nice, but it's kind of ghetto. The street that my wife grew up on was a really nice street. It's called Devon Street. It's one of the predominant areas in Fayetteville, because she's born and raised in Fayetteville. And the street behind it is one of the worst neighborhoods in the city.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It's one of the worst roads on the city. And you could be driving nice, nice, nice, and then bam, ghetto. And then nice, nice, nice. It's crazy. Because I started out in this district, I got fascinated with gangs. just how they operate, music, everything. Really? Yeah, I just got obsessed learning everything I could about gangs.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So we have Bloods, Crips. We have MCs, and we have some cartel groups. The New Generation and Sinaloa cartels, pretty predominant in the area. Sinaloa cartel runs Myrtle Beach. No shit. Oh, absolutely not. What do you mean by that, runs Myrtle Beach? Like, runs it. They are... Runs what? Like, everything. Strip clubs, drugs, anything that comes in and out of Myrtle Beach is Sinaloa cartel.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It used to, a long time ago, it used to be kind of like the Russian mafia. But something happened when the Sinaloa cartel came in and just... took over. Dominated it. Dominated it. Strip clubs, drugs. Probably all the stores, all the... So when I was younger, when I would go there... What do you mean, all the stores? Like Subway.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Remember how Subway used to... Like Subway in Myrtle Beach, you would go there, it would be like foreign exchange students from Russia. The Wings, all the stores had Russian. Now it's just a bunch of Hispanic people. Growing up, it was always Russian teenagers. Now it's not no more. Now it's Mexicans, Hispanics.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
We just know that they operate out of Myrtle Beach. So anything in Myrtle Beach, is probably like drug-wise and guns, is probably all being filtered through the cartel, is what I mean. I'm not saying that they own the subways and things like that, but there's an increase of Hispanics in that area since the Sinaloa cartel has moved into that area, if that makes any sense. Gotcha.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because they operate off I-95, right? So the halfway point from New York City and Miami, The halfway point is Fayetteville, North Carolina. Is it really? You can take several exits in and out of our city off I-95 and disappear. They operate a lot in Lumberton, North Carolina, which is... It's called the Lumbee Tribe. They're not... They're not a national tribe.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I think Trump was trying to make it, but they're not. But there's a lot of land, and they can disappear out that way. Like, drugs and money and guns are just so predominant through Fayetteville and that Robinson County area because of 95. Interesting. You can gump off I-95, and then boom.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So it was a cool place to grow up. Windows open, doors open, ride your bikes wherever until whenever. You know, we didn't have crime, you know, just rednecks, you know, so it was a great place to grow up. I grew up in a split house. You know, the only memory that I have of my mom and dad ever together, my mom was trying to leave, and my dad was punching a hole in the wall, screaming and yelling.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
There is this kid in Fayetteville called Kaboom Holdley. I think his name was Andreas Flight. He was the leader of a non-traditional gang. So you have traditional, non-traditional. Traditional gangs are gangs like Little Wayne came from, like Eastside Ma'apauru. That is a gang that is nationally known everywhere, sets everywhere. Non-traditional was like a neighborhood clique.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So he had a non-clique called Money Gang, right? And they were a blood set.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Okay. 17, 18 is kind of old. Old? Yeah, that would be old, older. You're dealing with those high school kids. So hold on.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So a lot of times they'll start in nontraditional gangs. They'll get older. then they'll move on and try to get into another gang. Like if they're a non-traditional blood set, like Money Gang, they'll try to go, once they get older, they want to wait from that little click, or maybe several of them have died off and the gang has died off.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They'll go, maybe they have a homie that's with Eastside Ma and Piru, or Sex, Money, Murder. Those are traditional gangs. So Money Gang is a blood set, a non-traditional blood set, But once they kind of age out, maybe they don't want to be a part of this clique anymore. What do you mean a blood set? So you have bloods and crips, right? That's just who you are. And then there's different sets.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Like a set is sex, money, murder. That is a blood set. They're bloods. But then you have Eastside Mob Peru. So what is this shit like?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It's very organized.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
No shit. They have... It's... What kind of rules? Like, you got to be beat in for a certain amount of... Like, eight trade crips... Like they have to be beat in for 83 seconds, for eight three, right? Eight tre, three is tre. So you have to be beat into the gang, or if you're a chick, you can be raped into the gang.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
What do they get out of that? They're obviously missing something at home. They want to be a part of that gang. What does that entail? So, like, man, who's the... What, do they got to fuck somebody? Oh, yeah, they get raped by, like, multiple gang members. But is it rape? Pretty much, yeah. I mean, it's consent. They're, like, beating her ass and they're fucking her.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It's not like we're all just gangbanging you. They're, like, forcefully, like, raping her. Like maybe she, because she's not like, maybe she don't want to be a part of it, right? Maybe she might like change her mind, but once you commit to it, you've committed to it. There's no backing out. Yeah, it's sex, but then if they don't want to and they try to back out, there is no backing out.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I mean, are they prostitutes?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They're gang members. They get to just hang out with the gang. They don't really do anything. They just hang out with the gang. I'll show you some videos, but it's... That's all right. No, not of getting gang banged in, but I mean, it's just, gangs are very interesting. So if I go see, you know, you have to be Hispanic or black to be a blood. You can't be white.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Any white guy that ever says they're a blood... They're a complete liar. So in this day and age, if I see maybe a young 13, 14-year-old African-American kid and he's wearing Chicago Bulls and he can't tell me anybody on their current team, it's a validation point to be a blood.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So I have to get three validation points to validate you on a sheet that gets submitted in to state that you're a gang member. But if you tell me you're a blood or a crip, I just need one other validation point. But a validation point is a lot of, you see a lot of blood members wear Chicago Bulls. Why? Because Bulls stands for bloods usually live longer and stronger.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It's the only memory I have of them together, and So they got a divorce when I was young, you know, three or four. And my dad built a house right next door, right beside my mom. And that was kind of cool. Why'd they get divorced? My dad cheated. Yeah. So my mom had a lot of hatred towards him, but she ultimately left him because he was a cheater. He cheated on her. Were you close with both?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You see a lot of 8-Tray Crips, 83 Crips, they wear the Texas Ranger hats. The hats are blue and there's a T on it. T stands for tray, 8-Tray. You see like, you ever seen the tattoos that say MOB and they're like, ah, money over bitches, member of blood. You see a lot of tattoos that are RR. That stands for real right. That means you've done something for the gang.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You've done something maybe violent for the gang. There's, you know, the five-pointed stars, six-pointed stars. You ever see anybody with a Star David on them? You know, they're a gangster disciple. It's just so much. Bloods operate on the right side, so if they're flying a flag, which is a bandana, everything should be on the right side. If they're a crip, everything's on the left side.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Now a lot of the younger kids will, instead of carrying flags, they wear like red shoes or blue shoes. Vans is highly popular.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Yeah. Stoop Dogg, Crip. You know, Lil Wayne. You can watch... There's a music video with him and Bruno Mars, this mirror on the wall, whatever that mirrors or whatever. If you actually watch the music video, Lil Wayne pays tons of respect to the Bloods. He shows all of his blood tattoos, MOB, RR, five-pointed stars, everything. A lot of them will even have like red dreads.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So there's another set of Bloods called Sex Money Murder. They are a Blood set. But they were founded by a guy in like the 60s, Pistol Pete. They don't do this. This is blood, right? They hold this up. This is blood. You'll never see Crips operate on the right side. Crips will always operate over here. So they're a blood set, but they'll throw up two pistols to pay respect to Pistol Pete.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And they operate off the color green because Pete loved money. Have you ever known Chicago Bulls to ever wear green? No. No. So why do they sell green jerseys and green hats? No shit. It's because they sell to the gang. They make a ton of money off of it. No shit. Man, it's... Bloods will never eat at Burger King because BK stands for blood killer. Like, it's a whole bunch of rules.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
that you would never even think of.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They have territories, neighborhoods.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Oh, yeah. Then you have non-traditional gangs who have no authority or discipline, because they're just a bunch of kids that want to make their presence known. They might attack a traditional blood set. Doesn't make any sense. The non-traditional gangs, Sean, scare me to death. Why? More than the traditional ones? Because they're undisciplined. They're not answering anybody. They don't have rules.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They have no rules. They're not scared of us. Because why? Because they're 15 and 16. I can't do nothing with them. 14 and 15, I can't do nothing with them. 16, you're mine. But I can't do nothing with you at 15 or below. Man, like they are, it just, so I watched his first video. My friend, one of my really good friends named Dave Franklin, huge mentor at the police department.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He was in what was called GGVU at the time. It was called the Gang Gun Violence Unit. So he came in and taught a gang class while we were in B-Lit. That was one of the classes. And I watched his video. It was called Gun Weight. And it's a non-traditional gang, the Money Gang. And they're just in this shitty trailer, holding up guns, talking about the gun weight.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Three of those kids in that video are dead from gang violence. Two of them are in prison, and the leader is in and out of prison. It's just... Man, it's just so fascinating to me. I used to listen to the music, all the rap music, just listening to terminology, how they talk, how they operate. Just there's so many different things, like Bloods will make a sound.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You hear a lot like Lil Wayne's music videos. If they're in a large crowd full of other blood gang members, that's signaling to them that 12 is around because it sounds like police sirens. It's just so fascinating. And a lot of chicks really got into the gangs because of Cardi B. Cardi B's a blood. She used to have blood dreads and she had the whole nine yards. She was a straight gangster.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Growing up, yeah, I was close with both. My mom was phenomenal, man. To this day, I still wish her Happy Father's Day. She did her best. She was young. She was, I think, maybe 21, 20 when she had us. I remember she'd take me to college with her, to community college, so she could get her degree.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
She had a whole music video where there's like, she's the OG, back before she got super famous. She's- Wow. Oh, it's- So Cardi B is a blood.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Lil Wayne's a blood. The song Red Nation, that like, it talks about, it pays respects, even like Ocho Cinco's, like it gives him a shout out. Doesn't mean he's a blood, but it means he's an affiliate. It's so interesting, man. Like, I used to be obsessed with watching, because I knew this was what I wanted to do. How many gangs are in Fayetteville? Oh, man. A lot. Like 20?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
30, 40 gangs. Yeah. Are they all rivals? I don't think that they get along. I think Blood's trying to hang out with Bloods and Crips trying to hang out with Crips.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
The MCs... Don't get into that. They have their own rival.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Gangster Disciples, Latin Kings. You got all this shit in one area. Oh, yeah. We got Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, Gangster Disciples, Folk Nation, Hell's Angels, and like four or five other... Motorcycle gangs, but all of those. How do you categorize them? Research. A lot of them will omit. A lot of them will see on their Facebook page, hand signals, tattoos.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Run guns. Run guns and run drugs and just be... They're just outlaws. They just... They just shoot each other. Like, nobody fights anymore. It's just shooting. The Money Gang, they had a... I forgot. They brought in a boy from Charlotte. Man, he... He sucked, I can't remember his name, but he has been arrested several times for sex trafficking. He was a big sex trafficker.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I can't even remember his name on YouTube. They have all these videos out there, man. Like there's one gang in Fayetteville called Rue Gang. We completely dismantled them. They made a video that said, fuck the police, shoot anything blue. holding rifles, convicted felons, and this idiot at a surplus store sold all of it to them for a music video, plate carriers, then gave them patches to wear.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They were raided by Homeland Security. Had stolen secret radios. Had 22 Ops Corps maritime helmets that belonged to SEAL Team 6. What? 22 of those. How'd they get them? Supply guys bring them there and sell them to him. Oh, shit. He's gone. They raided him. I think he still has a store, but he's pending federal charges unless he snitched, which I'm sure he probably did.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
But that other gang is gone. Like, we dismantled them. They were, two brothers were the leaders and Ecstasy or Xanax bars were their big things. We did a search warrant on their house, couldn't find anything in their house. Went out to their storage unit, started digging through boxes, big old heavy boxes. I'm like, what is in these? Opened them up, cereal boxes. I'm like, This is weird.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Open up the cereal boxes. Bags. Cereal bags full of Xanax bars. Holy shit. Probably thousands. I don't know. I think we got like 20, 30,000. Just thousands. I mean, they all kind of keep to themselves until at some point they cross paths or they have beef. Social media beef is the worst. People get mouthy on social media and then they go shoot houses up. Nobody fights anymore.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Brothers and sisters? I have a brother. I have an older brother. He's four years older than me. I love him more than anything. He's always protected me. Always. We're complete different. He's well-dressed, skinnier little fella. He's an attorney. Here I am looking like a convicted felon. But ultimately, man, at the core, we're the same person. Even to this day, he still looks out for me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It's shooting and killing. Man, Fayetteville's wild, Sean. Is it really? When the sun goes down, it is. You get like a very eerie feeling because that's when all the goons come out. They all come out to play. And it is like any car you stop, you might be in a gunfight because they don't respect law enforcement. especially after the past administrative chiefs and stuff that we've had.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Like, they just don't respect it. And man, it's very, very interesting just how they operate. Because we'll find their Bibles and we'll study them. And a lot of them can't stay off social media, right? A lot of them will always be on social media throwing up gang signs. So we'll go find them. We'll do investigative stops on them. Find guns.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Man, the year that we got gang unit of the year, man, we got, I don't know, like 400 or 500 guns that year. Just guns everywhere. And a lot of it is because soldiers leave their cars in their apartment complexes unlocked with guns in them. And these kids, these gang members, go around pulling car handles. And then, man, they get 20, 30 guns a night.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And then the soldiers threw his gun box away and doesn't even know his serial number. So he can't, sometimes can't even charge him with stolen firearm because they don't have the serial number. And they'll tell him, hey, when you get it, call it in so we can put it in the system. And they never do. It's, I mean, I've had some close calls in that city. That city never sleeps.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
We've had broad daylight shootings. Wendy's parking lot, one o'clock in the afternoon, three people dead in a parking spot. It's crazy. Damn. I mean, I pulled up to that scene and they're like, oh, the car left. And I didn't see it. And I saw three bodies. I get out. It's three young black African-Americans dead over drug deal. Just broad daylight. Had one guy, another one.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Broad daylight, smoky bones. Outside of Cross Creek Mall. He was shot five times with a judge, with a .410 shell. I didn't know he was black or white until I felt his dreads. I was plugging bullet holes. Damn. He survived.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Yeah. I couldn't tell his skin color because he was covered in red. He was so bloody. He survived. He's paralyzed, but he survived. It is wild. It was a wild ride, man. There's nowhere else I'd rather have been a cop, though, than that city. That city gave me every opportunity to do everything I wanted. It was a fun place to work. Sounds like it. Yeah, if you want to be a cop, man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I mean, maybe not in today's time, maybe not now, because you got proactive versus reactive. Now so many cops want to be reactive.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Oh, man. About three years. Three years? It's a spot nobody wanted to leave. The gang unit? Yeah, nobody wants to leave that unit.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Everybody wants to be in the gang unit. Why? It's fun. You're like cowboys. Oh, shit. Yeah, you're not like the narcs where you, you know, the narcs couldn't show their faces. And, you know, we wear plain clothes. I'd man my hair down and pass my shoulders. Got a beard down to here. Just out there getting after it, man. Fighting crime. You know, there were times where we weren't seen at all.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And then there were times where we would go out at nighttime and just go to work. Didn't take calls. Did what we wanted. And we made a difference. You want to make a difference in your city and stop crime? You go get you about seven good dudes who want to fight crime and tell them good luck and give them a good supervisor.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It is possible. It is very possible. We have to figure out, the problem is we have to figure out how do we keep good, young cops from leaving to go do another job. Shitty cops are staying in and getting promoted.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Other than here. I think in a lot of agencies, there are good leadership that have made it to an executive level, but they're too afraid to speak out because they're outnumbered. I think those people have to have backbone. I think we have to figure out that this person is a shitty leader and they need to be demoted.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He's one of my biggest role models. So he's a phenomenal father. He's a great husband. He's just a great human. So I have a half-sister and a half-brother from my dad's, you know, I don't consider them that. They're my brother and sister. But when my dad got remarried, he started another family. My dad building a house right next to us.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You know, if you have officers, like when I left, when I medically retired, 108 left.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Yeah, a lot of frustration. So my first call ever, day one, I got pinned the day before, and now I've reported to my duty. I get with my FTO, and we're going over all the things. 7.30 in the morning, my first call. Call comes out. Missing kid. Cool. It's a great one to go to. It's a great one to learn from. Right off the gate. Missing kids. They come up all the time. So a lot of them are runaways.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
A lot of them are just hiding in closets. Don't want to go to school. Parents just can't find them. Whatever. They're not actually missing. They're just running away. So we get there. And the mother is just... She's really like distressed. I don't know what she's supposed to look like. It's my first call ever. She's like, I can't find my son. I don't know where he's at.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I've searched the whole house. I just haven't looked in the basement. They're like, well, has he ever had any behavior of running away? No, he just doesn't like going to school. Like, all right, man, we'll search the house again. Search the whole house, nothing. Open up the basement door, started walking down the steps. I see two little bare feet maybe about a foot, foot and a half off the ground.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I'm like, wow, I already know what this is. I get all the way down to the basement. My FTO is behind me. He took an extension cord, tied it to a water pipe, multiple pipes, and hung himself. So we're sitting there, and I'm day one, man, first call. My FTO is such a coward. He said, hey, you need to go up and tell that mother that her son is deceased, and we found him. Why don't you go do that?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm in training. This is my first day. I'm not even supposed to do nothing. I'm just watching you. No, no, you need to go do that. I'm telling you, you need to go do it. All right, roger that. So I go up there. She's standing in the kitchen. She leaned up against the counter, and I'm like, hey, ma'am. I'm sorry to tell you, but your son is in the basement, and he's no longer alive.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
She let out a scream, Sean, that I still hear every night. I watched her open her mouth and scream, and when she opened her mouth and screamed, I watched her soul leave her body. And... I go back downstairs. She's screaming. Finally, her sister gets there. She's comforting her. I'm holding the kid's legs. FCO cuts the extension cord off. He had like one of those serrated knives and cut him down.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
We laid him on the ground. Did all the things, called the detectives. Next rotation came. Next rotation is kind of like towing, like for tow trucks. If we need a tow truck, it's the next on rotation. But we have a morgue service, so they're in a rotation. So next rotation means whoever the morgue service is up to come get the body, that comes. So we call for next rotation for morgue.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They come to and they get the body and, you know, we go through on out the day. Like the next call, man, was after that. The next call was some old lady complaining. And she was mad that the neighbor's cat was on her car. Realistically, she was lonely. Just wanted somebody to have coffee with at 9 o'clock in the morning.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It was cool as a kid because we would, for us, right, we would just go back and forth whenever. But, man, it caused a lot of drama, you could say. My mom and my stepmom didn't get along. And, you know, there was constant arguing in the driveways. I remember... And, you know, I would say that they were more of the instigators on it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
To an 80-year-old lady who wants to file a complaint. She wants a police report for her neighbor's cat that's on her car causing damage. And I have to be able to give her every bit of me that I can because she's calling me. She's calling me for a service in my job. I can't go there and just give her half-ass. I have to switch off what just happened. What I just went through doesn't matter anymore.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
That's done. Kick it out. How do you do that? Try not to think about it. Focus on, man, the queue is so busy. The queue and the calls, they're just stacked. There'll be 15, 20 calls pending. They all go by priority. You don't have time to think about what you just went through because the next thing that you're going to go through might be just as bad. The next call might be your life.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I feel so sorry for people, for law enforcement officers in those areas. Because, you know, God forbid, I had this conversation. Those guys, their job is to escape by any means necessary. They're very brave and they're bold. They have no respect. They're broad daylight smashing glass, grabbing thousands of dollars of merchandise and then leaving. We show up, what are we supposed to do?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You can't think about that. You can't dwell on that, kid. That's horrible. But how do I know the next call is me not dealing with somebody that's going to try to kill me? I have to be mentally sharp to deal with the next call. Once you get in your car and that call's over, put your head on the steering wheel, let out a big old nice scream, and push on. Because guess what?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
The next call is somebody else is having their very worst moment of their life that you are responding to. Every call is somebody's worst moment of their life. And every call, you should treat it as if it's your first call of the day. because they deserve that. They're calling you at their worst time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I never got a phone call for somebody to come tell me I was doing a great job or somebody to cook me food or pat me on the back. Every call for 10 hours is somebody's worst moment. Somebody's dead, somebody's about to kill themselves, a robbery, a murder, mental patient standing in his garage naked with a butcher knife to granny wanting to have a cup of coffee. It's insane.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And there's no, there is no shutting it off. I still think about all of it. There are cops that have been way through more than me. I don't know. All I did was the next call could be life ending for me. So I need to be switched on. That call no longer exists. It goes away. It's just a report number. But then you deal with it and you get home by drinking or lashing out at your family.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And then you wake up the next day and you go to work and you treat people at work better than you treated your family because you can't show up to work angry. You can't lash out at people at work. They'll put you on administrative leave and take your gun, make you go get help. Can't shut it off. Fake a smile every day.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And you give people the best version of yourself because they need you in that moment. Whether it might not be a big event to you, it might be stupid to you, you might think this is a stupid call, but man, they're on, they call 911. 911. Police, because they're having such a bad moment. They need you at your best. Forget about the next call. It's time to move on. This is what I always got told.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So at the end of that shift, I walked in. And my sergeant's sitting there with his legs up, shoes off. I said, cook, how was it? I'm like, oh, it sucked. First call of the day, kid hung himself. It's a lot. Starts laughing. He's like, suck it up. Welcome to being a cop. I was like, what? What? And then it just, for the next, you know, two and a half years, it was a ride, man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You know, my dad liked to, even though they weren't together, my dad still pushed my mom's buttons. I remember one time I was going to school, and... My stepmom or somebody had called down to the house. My mom said something to her on the phone, and my mom was taking us to school, and my stepmom comes running out of the house, boom, boom, boom, down the stairs.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Every day, like, bro, if you're not checked in, when you check in for service, if you're not mentally checked in, you could die. You could die. There were times where, because let's say you're being proactive. You know, it's a scary feeling walking up to a car that you just pulled over, especially if you can't see inside of it. You know, a lot of people ask, why do cops touch the back of the car?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
For DNA. For if we're shot and killed, right then, right there, our fingerprints are on the back of that car. So when they find it, they can for sure say that is the vehicle. There's Cook's fingerprints. It's scary. Man, who's shit?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Man, every traffic stop that I walked up to that I couldn't see into the car or my spidey senses kicked in. Man, people ask, you know, why are cops so aggressive when they get up to the car? Because when they touch the back of your car from the front of their windshield, do you know what they're thinking about? Am I about to take rounds through the windshield? Am I about to get shot?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
When the window comes down and it's old Miss Betty and she's all nice and sweet, It's a good feeling. Now, she can still kill you, right? You still got to be elevated a little bit, but it's a good feeling because every car I ever approached, I just waited for rounds to come through the windshield. If you had rounds come through the windshield? I've never. Luckily, I've never.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I've seen a lot of videos where it has happened. It just never happened to me. And I had a OG gang member in Bonny Doon tell me one time, he'd say, man, you know, I see a lot of people in the neighborhood treat you different. He's like, you ever wonder why? I'm like, I don't know, man. Because you present yourself well. Your uniform is obviously tailored to your body. You're fit.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Your hair looks good. Your belt looks good. Everything about you says I don't want to fuck with you. I can't run from you. I can't fight you. You're going to kill me. But I'll run from him because he's fat and sloppy. That's a big deterrent. My uniform was fresh every day. I had three uniforms. I wore the same uniform.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Day one, I wore my first uniform, and then I would wear that again on my fourth day. But day one, two, and three, I always had fresh uniforms. On my day off, the first thing I did is I took them to one of the shops and had them pressed. They're all tailored to my body because I wanted to present myself as if you fuck with me, I'm gonna kill you. If you try to kill me, I'm gonna kill you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You're not gonna kill me today. I'm the wrong one. I'm gonna do everything lawful. I'm gonna do everything I can as a professional to keep you alive during our interaction. But the moment you try to take me off this earth, buddy, I'm coming. And it ain't gonna end well for you. I'll give you the utmost respect.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Everybody I encountered, I treated it as if it was my mother, my father, my brother, my sister. I treated them as a family member and as a United States American citizen because they deserved that. Now, the moment you cross that line, then we're going, we're doing it. Whatever you want to do, but you better be ready because I'm ready.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I try to harp that to law enforcement, to, hey man, use this as a motivation, get in shape. Go to the gym, man. Quit eating bad on duty. Be presentable. That will keep you alive. If bad guys, right? I heard you ask the sheriff. Mark Lamb. Yeah, Sheriff Mark Lamb. Love that dude. What's a good way to prevent people from entering in your home and things like that?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And my mom's like, she worked out every day. She wasn't a typical woman. She was raising two boys, and she worked out every day, and she was a social worker, so she was constantly dealing with drug addicts and stuff anyways, so she stayed fit. And she had these heels on, man. I remember my stepmom getting to the bottom of her steps. And my mom just snapped her up in a headlock.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Security cameras, anything that bad guys will not, you'll never become a victim if they feel like that there'll be any resistance. They only pick easy targets, man. Wolves don't attack other wolves. They attack sheep. They kill animals that can't protect themselves. Single, right? If it's a single wolf, they're not going to try to kill a grizzly by themselves. They know they're going to lose.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So they'd rather go get the sheep. I wanted to present myself as if you mess with me, you're getting all of me. And it's not going to end well. And that's how people, if they just put ADT stickers on glass, that's a deterrent. Floodlights. Anything that they feel like they're going to get caught at all, they won't mess with it. It's only easy targets they prey on. Same with law enforcement.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Yeah, you have a gun. If you look like a badass, you probably can't shoot it. So they're going to test you. I never got tested. I got tested, and I take that back. I've been tested twice. One dude was like 6'6", 280. Brother, I just held on. That was it. That's all you could do, slam you up against the hood of my car.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I just maintained control as much as I could until somebody else came and helped me. But very few times I've been tested. And it's because every day at work, there was nothing on me that looked ragged. Let's talk about that scenario. How did that start? Traffic stop. Dude had outstanding robbery warrant. Pulled him over outside the hospital, Cape Fear Valley Road. Soon as we stop, car door opens.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I get out. He takes off running. He is on me before I know it. I'm fighting him. He's fighting me. Dude's picking me up like a rag doll. Threw me on the hood of the car. And I'm just holding on. Finally, we make it on the ground. I don't have a lot of jujitsu knowledge at all, but I did mess around with it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So I did know like some control techniques to try to control him, especially keeping him off my gun. That was my biggest worry was my gun. He actually got hands on my gun, but I had my level three Safari Land holster that had the hood And he didn't know how to operate, work that. He knew the button, but he couldn't get my hood. So that holster saved my life. Always have your hood up.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You see a lot of officers, they put the hood down to get shots off faster. Just go train. That's it. Because that saved my life. Then luckily, my zone partner, BJ Bullard, showed up and just came up from behind and just one good hit. The boy went down and that was it. End of the fight. Because... Now it's two on one, chances are over.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He felt a little resistance, a little, I can't compete against two, and he gave up. You know, it's because BJ was a proactive, he was a proactive. He wasn't the first to always initiate, but he would always back you up. He was a good country boy. And he went to the academy with me. You know, it's... I've seen videos where cops just stand there and watch their buddies get beat up.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like a kid watching this, though. As a young kid, now I laugh about it, right? But as a kid, it was kind of scary. You know, it's kind of like, what in the hell is going on? And then my dad come down, running down the stairs. You bitch, you better let her go. You better let her go. Man, he got close to my mom. My mom stuck them heels so far in his chest. Just took the breath out of him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I don't know how you do that. Because if BJ would have watched me get beat up that day, we would have had to have shot that dude. And then, what would that have been?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I shot an unarmed black man. And that always goes through your head. Especially after... The boy in Louisiana, I think that they killed, the Darren Wilson guy killed. Just started all this years ago, like 2014. What happened there? Remember he robbed the gas station and the officer got out with him and they got into a tussle and he shot and killed him inside the vehicle or something.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It was Mike Brown. Remember Mike Brown? That was St. Louis. Yeah, St. Louis. Yeah. Yeah, so Mike Brown. I used to live there. After that, like, man, like, I'm white. It sucks. You know, if I should unarm a black dude. Because guess what, man? These can kill you. If you're 6'6", 290, I'm 5'10", 215.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Would a reasonable person believe that if you got the best of me, you could take my gun out and kill me? Yeah. Now I'm shooting an unarmed dude. That's what the news is going to put out. West Virginia boy shoots and kills an unarmed dude. Like, the news is awful.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And they're a major reason why cops are getting out too, by telling lies. Who are they going to call? They never thought about that. These big cities never thought about that. Who y'all gonna call when these criminals go wild? Crime doesn't stop. But police officers will quit. Criminals won't quit. That's all they know. Why would I continue to get treated like shit for $43,000 a year?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
No. Some did.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Phenomenal dude. He always had my back when I was on patrol. I mean, I'll tell you, it's like two or three people Right out the gate, he had my back. There was one incident that there was a disturbance inside of a restaurant when I was on patrol during the day. Dude had made a comment right before we got there that he was gonna go to his truck and get a gun.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
We show up, he's still in the Texas Roadhouse. or Logan's Roadhouse. We go inside, he's still in there. Him and this other family went at it. He goes, I'm gonna kill you. I've already had two people tell me that said he was gonna go get a gun. So he runs out to his truck. I watch him run out the door and so I've run after after him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He goes, opens up his door, gets in a posture as if he's grabbing something under the seat. I draw my gun. I give him commands. I got three days off. He had a gun. I was too aggressive.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He had a gun under his feet. He just never presented it. Because he didn't present it, why did I draw my gun? Why didn't I use de-escalation skills? I don't know, bro, because I didn't want to get shot first. How about that? That was when I realized, wow. Things are bad.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And then... Then they just ended up splitting ways and trying to call the police or whatever. But, you know, it was always some type of, you know, if they were both in the driveway together, it was always like anxiety. Like, let's just hurry up and get in the car. You know, like my mom did a very good job at protecting us from it. But it was always there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Eight years? And I had one time where I was fighting a guy. We'll get into that. But it was when I was in the gang unit. I mean, if you cussed on body camera in a high-stress situation, you're getting 10 hours off. You're getting written up. So a lot of people don't know this. It's become a nationwide thing. If I point my gun at you, that is a use of force. I get written up for that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Might not catch days off, but let's say a year goes down the road and I've pulled my gun 50 times that year. Dude, I could pull my gun three times in a shift. We're dealing with people. I've had people jump out of a bay with swords serving involuntary commitment paperwork. that their family couldn't deal with them anymore.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So I have to go in and deal with them and put them in handcuffs and take them to the mental section at the hospital. I mean, I have almost, I had a guy who was shooting blow darts. So Fayetteville used to have a mental institution. They shut it down and just, see y'all later. Thanks for staying. Send them all back out in the wild. My first week, I had a call, a guy named Allen.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
in his garage, butt naked, circle drawn in the garage with chalk. He's got a trash can in the middle of the garage. People running by are calling and saying he's blowing blow darts at them. So I'm like, oh, it's a mental patient. I'll convince him to go to the hospital. I'm gonna hit Chipotle after this. This is easy. I like these calls. As I'm coming around the corner, I hear dispatch.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
She's like, you know, now he's in the garage with a knife. Man, I hit the corner, dude. This dude's standing there butt naked. This big, massive butcher knife. He's like, come in the dungeon, motherfucker. And I'm like, uh, no, sir. I'm like, let's drop that. I mean, he's like, no, no, no. He's like, fuck you, come in the dungeon. And finally my backup comes, like seconds later.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So now we're both lethal, right? Because we don't know what he's about to do. People don't understand, tasers only work if you're in a distance. Like if I shot you with a taser right here, it wouldn't work. I have to be like seven feet back to get the spread to split the hemisphere. One has to go in the upper torso and the other one has to go in the body to get exactly what you need.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
If I shoot both here, that's why you still see people being able to reach it out. It doesn't do what it's supposed to do. That's why cops, they shoot tasers from feet away. It doesn't work. I was too far back from my taser, and I didn't want to get close enough to him so it works, because if I get closer to him and he charges at me, and then Regat shoots him, what did I create?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And, you know, as a kid, that can be very traumatizing to always have that anxiety of, let's just hurry up and get in the car. I hope mom and dad don't talk, like, Like, if we were going out to the car and they were going out to the car, like, it was always just like, please, like, can we just not fight?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Why did you go up there? To tase him so we didn't have to shoot him? So we're out there 45 minutes, me and him, me and Regat. This dude's coming in and out of his house. finally get him to put the knife down in the middle of the garage. And he runs over and he crouches down behind like a city trash can on wheels. We're like, what's he doing?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He's like back and forth using the trash can as like a barricade. And he's talking to Regat and then he starts talking to me and Regat yells at him and he turns a little further. What he had had, he had taped on the back of the trash can a little 10 inch blow dart gun. And he was putting darts in it as he was talking to us to shoot us with them. And when Ragat yelled at him and I saw him do that,
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I holstered, pulled my taser out, upside down, shot it. One went in his head. The other one went in the wall. He turns around, tries to dive on the knife. I turn the taser off, turn it back on, initiates the second cartridge. I shoot it again. One misses. The other one hits him in the head. Done. He starts, like, seizureing out and everything. Hits his head, cuts his head wide open.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He's bleeding everywhere. Get him in handcuffs. Later, we found out that he had dirty blood. And he was stabbing himself with the needles and was trying to shoot people with them to give him his dirty blood. But he was also... Holy shit. Was he HIV positive? Oh, yeah. He was also on... So he was trying to fucking give other people HIV. It's crazy. He was gone. So we got him in handcuffs.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He found out he'd been drinking and he was on cocaine. But they were upset with me because he split his head wide open. I'm like, he's alive. What do you mean? And that was like a big ordeal. That was a big ordeal. Like, oh, they're going to sue us. I'm like, for what?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They don't know the answer. The problem with agencies... is shitty leadership. Shitty leadership. Because in their mind, we had this guy named James Nolet. Man, he ended up being our assistant chief. He ran everybody away. He was horrible. Probably, in my opinion, maybe the worst human on the face of the earth. He was a horrible person. Not just a bad leader, but a horrible person.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Man, this dude would punish people because he thought by punishing people, it made him a good leader and that he would get promoted. This dude made it all the way up to assistant chief. He's the reason why I left. I mean, officers are doing their job and they're getting written up for it. I ended up not caring about getting written up because at that point I'd applied and got my VA disability.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And my mom was always the bigger person when we'd get in the car, but it was always something, man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You want to give me a week off? I'll take a vacation and post it all over Facebook. I don't care. I'm getting paid. But imagine some of these guys who are a father of three and a wife, they're making $1,100 a paycheck, and they're getting talked about getting two days off. Why would you be proactive?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So now I got to feed a family of four on a $700 check because you gave me two hours off or you gave me two days off. So why would you be proactive? Yeah. I can't blame them. We have to hold leadership accountable.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
California's wild. I went to Target to get deodorant, had to find a sales associate to come and unlock a case so I could get a thing of deodorant.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They're like, yeah, sorry, they steal everything. I'm like, that's crazy. But the problem is, is if they get a use of force with these people, they're going to get in trouble by the chain of command because the chain of command says, well, that's not a heel that we don't want to dial on. You know, just let them take it and we'll take the report. That's not right. That's not right.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Man, that's, you know, yeah, like, my stepmom, My stepmom, some weird shit. My stepmom was 16 when my dad started dating her. My dad was like in his 30s. So it kind of tarnished our name a little bit. And now, thinking about my older brother, my older brother is only a few years younger than her. So there was always that. There was always that, him and her. They never got along.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It's not right to the people that own that store. Do you think this shit's gonna change? The only way it can change, in my opinion, is if Trump gets reelected, or if Trump gets put back in office.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Things changed. I don't know what happened, but there was a little bit of a span there where cops were being cops again. I don't know what it was, but I was a cop for two years during the Obama administration, and it was different. We had a liberal chief who said that we were pulling over too many black people. That's another thing, Sean, I got in trouble.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So anytime you do a traffic stop, you got to do a traffic stop incident thing where you put in male, female, black, white. They just searched the car. What did you find? I used to get in trouble and have to go do racist classes because I was pulling over too many black people. But my district was all African-Americans. Like, so what did I do? Stop stopping cars.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I let known drug dealers drive past me because I'd already stopped too many black people. And it's pissed leadership. It's because instead of having a backbone of being a man, they would rather throw you under the bus and make themselves look good. We disciplined him, don't worry. Instead of saying, hey, Blake is assigned to an area full of African-Americans.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He's probably going to have a higher traffic stop rating for those kind of people. Like, I have heard people say, go stop more white people. What does that even mean? Go violate somebody's right? Stop them because they're white now? That's the leadership mentality that we're having nationwide. It don't even make sense.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Man, I don't know, Sean. I really don't. Because, like... It's got to be...
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Oh, they do. I've had so many people ask me if I can be their voice. Please put this out. Hey, this happened. Do this. Hey, like, can you put this out on your social? Like... They can't go vocal about it, right? Because they're going to be punished. They're terrified. The good leaders have to somehow get a backbone.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
That's true, man. You're right. So, yeah, we have very few good leaders then.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They're just chasing money. They're chasing, now they're on a salary. And they're trying to max out their time so now they can get promoted, and then max out that time and get promoted so their retirement looks good. So they make more money in retirement. And it's so much easier to write us up than stick up for us. So when I was in the gain unit, we were the easy button. We were the button that
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
For an example, brand new female officer out in an area called Bonnie Dune. She was doing real police work. She had a good sergeant. They were letting her do good police work. She was disrupting this non-traditional gang's operation. They started getting tired of her. She did a traffic stop one time. Pulled over a kid, had a gun in the car. Gun was in the passenger seat. She arrested him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He was a convicted felon. She knew that. All the people out of this little apartment complex came out and swarmed her. Somebody ended up taking the gun out of the seat. Thought they were gonna kill her. So they said, hey, there's a female cop. Her life's being threatened. We need to go out and make our presence known. Coming from the top. Who's this coming from? Coming from the top.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Cool, I'll stop what I'm doing. We went out there, drove around the complex. I'm like, cool, I need to stop a car here. So I waited till I saw a traffic violation. Saw a traffic violation, lit them up, happened to be right in front of the apartment complex. As I get out the car, man, 30, 40 people were coming out. I'm like, oh no. I'm like, hey. We don't look like the regular fucking police.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
There was one time, Father's Day. We would always go up there. My mom would, because he had every other weekend, so we'd have to go stay with him. And my mom would leave, maybe go on vacation with her friends or something, maybe go out of town, and we would stay with him. And, you know... My brother and my stepmom would always get into an argument.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
We don't act like it. Get your asses back inside or you can get some of this too. They're like, cook. I was like, yeah. So this is the gang unit. They call us like charger boys. That was a name that carried on from when they were GGVU. Everybody was scared of the charger boys. And we gave a head nod and went back inside. Problem solved.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
The Uber driver, it was an Uber driver that we stopped, black kid, said that I called people coming out of the apartment complex, the N-word. Called and complained, so an investigation happened. I had my body camera on 24-7. I will say whatever, I will say whatever with my camera or with my camera off. Whatever I say with it off, I'll say with it on. I don't change. It's just who I am.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I said, go ahead and review it. Went in, set it in, it uploaded. Didn't happen. But we had a major at the time named Major Whitaker. He was racist. He was a black dude. He was racist. He hated white police officers, in my opinion. Just my opinion. He was not proactive. He was a horrible cop throughout his career. And He didn't like the way I talked to people in that neighborhood.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He thought I was talking to someone like that because they were black. So they called me in the office, in his office. Like, hey, we refuse this footage. Major Whitaker wants to have a conversation with you. And I'm like, dude, okay, I cussed. Sorry. Like, when you're in those environments, you speak their language. You don't tell them, please get inside. They don't understand that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They didn't grow up with that verbiage. Hey, get the fuck inside. Okay, cool. Sorry, it's not regular police. We're going back inside. So I get in there and they're all in there. And he's like, talking about, well, we didn't like how you talked to people in that neighborhood. You know, it's a minority neighborhood. You know, the times that we're living in, you could have been a little nicer.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, I'm like looking over at my leadership, like, Does anybody want to tell him why I was there? Do you even know why I was out there? A female cop is being threatened that they were going to kill her. I'm like looking at my leadership like, y'all want to, y'all didn't tell him? Y'all didn't brief him on this? Because in his mind, I'm out there just freelancing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
The people that see me out there have, everybody being quiet, crickets, hands in the pockets. He's like, Cook, what would you have said if you were in Van Story's Hill? Van Story was a really nice neighborhood in Fayetteville. And a group of four or five white women came out drinking wine. And you were on a traffic stop. What would you tell them?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Again, I'm looking at my leadership, like, this dude's trying to bait me in on a race question. They're looking at me, I'm like, I tell them, get the fuck back inside. We ain't the regular police. Nothing changes. Don't make this a race thing. And my leadership, they're like, oh. I'm like, don't, oh. How about you be a man and say you sent us out there?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I mean, hell, she was only a few years older than him. Then my dad would always take her side. My dad, my whole life, has always taken women over us. Always put women first over his children. And Father's Day, I'll never forget this. Father's Day, she had said something to him. Tony, she was going to... whoop his ass or something.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
The people that came in and told us to go out there didn't say a word. No shit. Nobody spoke up and said, hey, we sent them out there because X, Y, and Z.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Nobody said a word. Why? Because they're cowards. Because they don't want to take the responsibility that they sent us out there because it looks bad on them and everybody's trying to get promoted.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because a female officer was about to get murdered. They don't want to take responsibility. Nobody wants to take accountability of sending people out to do things when it comes down to it. Now, when it's good, if it's good, it's good. Hey, if we sent them out there, that was on me. Monday morning, we do the crime stats come out, right? Oh, it's lower. Yep, I sent the guys out there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
We took care of that. But when shit hits the fan, you're on your own. And when the waiter brings the bill to pay, ain't nobody else paying it but you. Everybody else done walked out. That's a major issue that we have. And I had that happen to me so many times that it just became normal.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I left. I left because they had us out in an area. It was a predominant gang area, drug area. And I watched a car go by, and I realized that the driver was a guy that I had dealt with before named Joshua Hill. Known to have guns, known to sell guns, known to be a big dope boy, not just little street stuff, you know, kilos of fentanyl, kilos of cocaine. He was this beautiful charger man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Just chrome paint job, big rims. So I get behind him. And he takes off. I take off with him. No lights, no sirens. I take off with him. Finally, I turn my blue lights and sirens on. He goes faster. So I'm like, okay. I'm going to turn my blue lights and sirens off. I'm still following you, brother. And then he realizes he can't shake me. We didn't go far, maybe 200 yards. He pulls over.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So I throw my car in park. I'm like, all right, he's not jumping out. Nothing's going on. Took a deep breath, and I was like, treat it like a regular traffic stop. Don't act like it just almost turned into something. So I go up to the car, rolls his window down. Man, I see the bag. His car already is just thumping. He's sweating profusely. Can't even talk, he's breathing so hard.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, hey, sir, I'm from Texaco, the Fayetteville Police Department. The reason why I pulled you over is we have a new chief. You have a really dark window tint, man. Window tint's the flavor of the month. I need your ales. I'm gonna scratch off a warning ticket. I'm hungry. I'm gonna go to Chipotle, okay? We're gonna make this quick. So I'm like, all right, cool.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And my brother was like, dude, you're like three years older than me, four years older than me. What are you talking about? So my brother picked up a two liter of Mountain Dew and chucked it at her. And he came over and got me and was like, hey, we're going to stay at the house. And they ended up calling the police on him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Where's everybody at, you know? I didn't get enough time to put it on the radio yet. because we kept playing the games, and I was trying to get it out, but I couldn't, because we stopped too soon. So I get back in my car, I put it out, and a K-9 officer shows up. And I was hoping for one of the gang guys, but the K-9 came up, which was great, because he's backing me up.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Look up his history, man, it's just gun charges. He's gone away for a while. I didn't see a gun. When I went back and watched my body camera, you can see it clear as day. Sitting right here, I just got focused on the bag, the dope. My attention went straight to the dope. I smell it, I know I'm gonna search the car, and I know what I need to find is in that bag. So I'm watching the bag.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Don't even see a gun, don't even see the Glock. Now, it's a black gun with black center dash, right? We go up to the car, I'm like, hey man, I'm gonna pull him out. He's like, all right. I'm like, hey, Mr. Hill, I need you to step out of the vehicle. Before I walked back, I'd actually had him take his keys out and put them on the dash.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Something I always did if I knew that I was gonna search the car. So because of this reason, when I walked back up and asked him to step out of the vehicle, he said no. Opened the door, he grabs the door, he shuts the door. Now he's trying to throw it and drive. but he doesn't know that his keys are on the dash. We had to turn the car off and I made him put the keys on the dash.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
His OODA loop, now his mind went to, I gotta get out of here. So I open up the door again, I dive in to get him. He reaches down, he goes to pull out a Glock. Glock hits the steering wheel, I grab a hold of the Glock. If you look right here on my hand, I have two scars. You see them? That's from his front sight post, trying to rip it out of my hand. Man, I'm hitting him with elbows.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm hitting him with, I can't shoot him. I'm left-handed. My gun's over here. I have a hold of his gun with my left hand pinned down. I'm hitting him. I start beating him over the head with it, shatters, nothing. He knows he's going to jail forever. Man, I'm like, I'm getting tired.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
The K-9 officer was trying to get in, but he can't, which I wish he would have went around, but it was a pretty crazy incident. Man, the passenger door opened. I can't say his name because he does federal work, but the most big, beautiful country boy ever that was on our gang unit opens up the door and just punches this dude, man. And we fall out. Get him in handcuffs, no more issues after that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And there was a cop at the time named Jim Hall who came up there and put my 13-year-old brother in handcuffs, put him in the back of a cop car over that. You called the police on your own son because of something that he did that you caused by marrying somebody that was only two years, three years older than him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
His gun had his sweat dripping off the handle. Took pictures and videos of everything. So cool, it's a useful force, right? Because he got hurt. I hit him a couple of times. He got scraped up on the ground. People are outside filming, right? Because we're in a predominant minority neighborhood and here we are pulling out this dude. roughing him up a little bit because he had a gun.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So we go back to the station and upload my body camera. I'm typing my report. Body camera uploads. I'm allowed to watch my body camera to write my report accurately. So I'm writing my report. And I write it out, submit it in. Everything's good. Come to work next morning. And, uh, I'd already, before I get to this, I'd already tried to leave Fayetteville once. And we'll get to that after this.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So the next morning, the report comes out. Or I get to the office. They come to my desk. Hey, they need you in the IAEA's office. I'm like, okay, yeah, I mean, whatever. I did hit the dude, right? So I'm sure I need to sign internal affairs paperwork saying that I'm being investigated. So I go in and I go to make a right into the sergeant's office and they're like, no, no, no, you're in this room.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
What room? The room that has the camera with the red light on it right now that means it's recording? They're like, yeah. I'm like, oh, okay. It's kind of serious. So I get in there, they're talking, they're like, hey, on your body camera, you stated that you thought he had a gun. You never stated that he had a gun, but you wrote on your report that you observed the gun.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
We believe that you lied on your report. I'm like, well, hold on. First of all, I was fighting for my life. My OODA loop was broken. all jacked up, and I was trying to yell that he had a gun, but I couldn't get past the initial traffic stop when I was like, man, I think he has a gun, he has to have a gun. There has to be one in here.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
But my OODA loop was so messed up, I just kept yelling I think he has a gun instead of gun. I made a mistake. Nothing unlawful about what I did. I watched my body camera, I wrote a good report. I stated in my report that I thought he had a gun until I observed But they were trying to twist it around because that assistant chief wanted me out of that unit, James Nolet.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So he was pressuring of why I said I thought I had a gun and tried to make it seem like I was lying. I got so emotional. The gun was in the body cam footage, correct? Yes, and we had photos of the gun. The gun was put in evidence. The gun was taken with his DNA on it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And so it was constant, like my mom would leave, we would go up to my dad's for a few hours, and then me and my brother would go down to the house. Because it was just, it was always something. It was always something. And my brother would cook for us. He'd take care of us. And then when, you know, my mom, we would call my mom the day that she was coming back home.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm bleeding. The gun with his DNA on it is in evidence, on body camera, and we took crime scene photos. What are y'all talking about? So they wanted to suspend me. For what? Because it would have sounded bad on CNN. If I would have shot him, it would have sounded bad on CNN and I was too aggressive.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So Chief Braden is there now. Chief Braden is the only one of the few that has a backbone. There are several others that he's promoted that have backbones and they're making better choices. Chief Braden is a crime fighter. The dude still wears tactical pants. He's been on the SWAT team his whole career. He took eight rounds on a search warrant.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He is a crime fighter, and he's the police chief there, and he's doing the best he can. And he's promoting the right people. He's just now fighting city council. Why are we pulling over black people? Like... I don't know, maybe because their tags are dead. Why are we arresting more black people? Maybe because they're dealing drugs. I don't know.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I just know that a crime has been committed and we are taking that person to jail, no matter what the color is. So he has shaped the police department back. The tag team is doing more search warrants now than ever. They are back to trying to be crime fighters, but he's just getting so much push now from, city council has too much power.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They have too much power because for them to be able to- How do the citizens combat this kind of shit? I don't know, man. I don't think enough give a shit, to be honest. I don't think they're aware. You're not aware if you don't attend the meetings and nobody attends those meetings.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It's... But they put out we don't have a gang problem. The city council does. We do have a gang problem. But I will say, Sean, Braden is doing a... I would go back and work at the Fayetteville Police Department right now. I would. Under Chief Braden... is the only person I would.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Now, there are still some cowards in that leadership, but there are more people now with backbones that were on specialized units and were proactive police officers that are making a difference there now. The biggest problem they're facing now is trying to get city council to raise their pay. I work at Fayetteville, and you can go work at Cary for $20,000 more, and it's a way nicer city.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Chief fought for them and did get them a pay raise. So he's doing the things. There are still some police departments that have great leadership.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And we'd be like, hey mom, we just came down to the house, we know you're coming home that day. And she had no idea that we were doing that. But my brother was protecting me from the toxic environment. He's always protected me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I don't know, man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
The chief that I worked under, that was the assistant chief, James Ouellette. The main chief, her name was Gina Hawkins. She tricked us. She got hired and started buying our attack team everything. And then it was like she flipped a switch overnight. More people left because of her than anything.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Dude, her last year as a cop, she was at a bar, a gang bar on Owen Drive in Fayetteville, North Carolina. left with the mayor. Two minutes later, had a homicide. Her vehicle was in front of the building. She showed up two hours later, had a police officer come pick her up, because they assumed that she was drunk, showed up at the crime scene.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
One of the homicide detectives said, hey, Chief, I'm here to brief you. She said, hey, I'm here to get my car. She had sunglasses on and a wig. They said, well, you can't take your car. She moved him out of the way, went and took her vehicle that was taped off in the middle of a crime scene and drove it off. The bar had cocaine in it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
The bar was a, it was a homecoming weekend for Fayetteville State University, which is Fayetteville's, there's three colleges, Methodist, Fayetteville Community College, and then Fayetteville State University, which is a all-black college. It was their homecoming. They had a massive party there with gang members. Apparently, I wasn't there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
There was drugs all over the bar that our police chief was at. They paid her $250,000. She claimed some racists that she was mistreated because of her race. And then she went back down to Atlanta. Our city manager was only there because he got a DUI in a county that she worked in. And she got him out the DUI. And then he hired her when he got hired in Fayetteville. She wasn't even in the running.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He brought her back in the running. It's that kind of stuff that is going unnoticed and why people are leaving. That's the shitty leadership I'm talking about. So after they told me that it would have sounded bad on CNN, I lost it. I'm so mad.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Ask them nicely? No, we have to chase them. We have to go hands on with them. And if they fight us and we have to use force, now the mayor or the governor, God forbid, or the police chief, they're gonna say, why didn't you let them go? Is that a hill you want to die on? Yeah, it is. Because you know what? I was hired to enforce the law, not different laws that you want me to enforce.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And, you know, and I'm not saying that the whole childhood when my dad was back, because that would be a lie. You know, there were great times. You know, we would have Nerf gun wars and things like that. But, you know, and he was a good dad growing up. He would play basketball. He'd teach me how to play basketball and things like that. But, you know, there was always something, right?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So I was trying to leave Fayetteville. And this is the first time this has ever been heard other than my wife and a few other people. Nobody at the department ever knew why I came back. I lied and said the guy decided not to go to the troopers. So I decided I had to leave Fayetteville because they were just, man, it was just like one incident after another. Just horrible leadership.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They were telling us to go do something. I'd point my gun, and then I'd get written up. I'm like, I can't sustain here. I can't work here anymore. My mental health is damn near gone, and I'm drinking all the time. All night long, I'm drinking. So I applied for a police department where I live now called Riceville Beach.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Went in for an interview and I answered like four questions and they were like, hey, you're hired. Just don't do nothing stupid in between now and when you can move up here. I was like, oh, absolutely. Man, the following weekend, like that was on Thursday. Yeah, the following weekend, Saturday, there's an island called Palm Tree Island. It's got a fake palm tree.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You can go out, pull the boats up and swim. It's super fun. It was July 4th weekend. Went out to the island with some friends. I was just drinking, man. I drank a whole fifth of Fireball. At that point, I'm drinking out of rage. Just pure rage. Because I didn't want to face the reality that I have to still go back to work. Deal with bad leadership.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It got to the point, Sean, where I didn't even want to go to work. I couldn't go to sleep because the anxiety was so bad about knowing that when I get to work tomorrow, somebody's gonna task me with something, and then they're gonna write me up for it if it doesn't go smooth. So, man, I drank this whole bottle back when my wife was drinking too.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
She was drunk, and the people we came on the boat with left. Left. Left us on an island. Sure, there was a bunch of people. I was drunk. I didn't know anybody. So the island is in the intercoastal waterway, but it's maybe 50 yards from the shoreline. But it's deep, and it's a high boat area. So my wife said, hey, we're going to swim. I'm like, yeah, we got another option. So we swam.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, I'm a decent swimmer, but drunk. It's kind of hard, especially with the current, right? Low tide was coming in, so the current was pushing out. And I felt like I was drowning. We get all the way to the, we make it across, we get to the dock. And I'm just a country boy from West Virginia, right? I don't know about all the barnacles and everything on the dock. So I grab a hold of the dock.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
There was always something that would happen that would ruin it. Always. And, yeah. And it's just, and my mom did a great job at protecting us from that too. She tried to limit our time as much as possible, but you know, I'm not gonna sit here and beat my dad down, but, because there were good times. He ran our community pool and he would take us down for night swims.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Current's coming out, current takes my legs out and just slices my legs. I'm like, dang. So get out and I look down and I'm just bleeding. I'm just, my whole legs is covered in blood. And I'm like, oh my God, we got to get back to the house. Like, I'm not supposed to be out here acting a fool. And now I'm standing on a dock with blood everywhere. And I'm hammered. Shithouse.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Not hammered, shithouse. So we take off walking. And we're not familiar with the area. And we're drunk. My wife's like, hey, we got to go this way. I'm like, no, we have to go this way. This is the way to the house. She's like, no. So we get in this massive verbal argument on the side of the road. Cars everywhere. It's July 4th. I'm screaming. She's screaming. I'm like, fine, go that way.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm going this way. She goes that way. I go this way. Man, 45 seconds later, I hear it. I turn around. This dude drawing down on me. Show me your hands. I'm like, okay. He comes over and he handcuffed me. He's like, where's she at? I'm like, who? He's like, the lady you were arguing with. I'm like, it's my wife. She walked that way. I'm walking this way.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
We're trying to figure out who gets to the house first. Puts me in the back of a cop car. The rest of the cops show up, they know who I am. They asked the dude what happened. They went and found my wife. She was like, nothing happened. They come back to him and they're like, why did you put him in handcuffs? He's a cop in Fayetteville. He didn't do nothing wrong.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Now he's in the back of a cop car in handcuffs. Takes me out, they all apologize. They even take me to the house. And I got a call Monday morning, you're not hired. So I tried to leave and I failed. So now I'm thinking, man, they all knew I was leaving. I told them I'd gotten the job that Thursday and I was gonna prepare to leave. I was like, oh my God, dude, how?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
If they find out about it, I'm going to get disciplinary action and probably taken off the gang unit. How do I tell them I'm not going to this department anymore? I came up with a lie. I said, hey, the guy that was leaving to go to Highway Patrol didn't get the job in the Highway Patrol, so he went back to the job, and they're not filling it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They did offer me a reserve job for now, but I told them that if I can't get a full-time job, I can't commit to that. And that bought me about a month until this incident occurred that I just explained with fighting for the gun. And then once that happened, I had an emotional breakdown. I was like, I can't leave this place. I'm stuck here.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm getting treated, I'm getting shit on right now in our room that's being interviewed because I fought a guy for a gun the day before and it would look bad on CNN. Well, guess what, asshole? What about my family?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because the fact of the matter is, if I would have died on that Friday, they would have had a nice memorial service, people would have grieved, they would have put these beautiful flowers and wreaths on my car, had a memorial service Saturday, funeral on Monday, and before the flowers died on my vehicle Monday morning, they would be swiped off and it would be reissued out, my desk would be cleared, and I would be some stupid picture on a wall.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And the next generations of police officer would walk by and just know that's just some guy that died here. And the only people grieving me for the rest of my life would be my wife and son. That's the truth. You don't ever put an agency before your family because the agency moves on. Your family doesn't. They grieve you forever.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I mean, there were great, great things, but as we always felt like that we were just second, because he had started a new family and we were just secondary. And that was a lot of my childhood until I became a young teenager. I've been playing sports since I was young, like super young, and basketball was always my thing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
The agency does some bullshit stuff for a couple of days and then don't even communicate with your family anymore. Your badge gets reissued out. Everything. Like you didn't exist except for the picture that collects dust in a hallway that people don't even know who you are. So I got up. I completely excused myself from this.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
After they told me it would have sounded bad on CNN, I didn't hear anything. I stood up, went to the bathroom outside the gang unit office. It's a single bathroom. Locked the door. I sat down on the ground and just cried my eyes out. I said, I can't do this.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because I knew that from here on out, I would never be able to make a decision to protect myself in the event of a deadly force encounter, because I'll always think about, am I going to get in trouble? And I can't do that. I can't put my family through it. I wasn't feeling well, man. Called my friend who was my family doctor. And I went and saw her. I just left. I left the apartment.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Went and saw her. I guess they were still waiting for me in the IA. I don't know. She said, come in immediately. I went and saw her. I sat down. She said, Blake, you don't look good. I'm like, what do you mean? She goes, no. Like, I see it. You don't look good. Her husband was a retired Green Beret, and she knows the look. And she just talked to me, and I talked to her, and
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
She put me on medical leave. I always mess it up. FM, LFA, whatever that is. It's the medical leave, like the people take when they have babies and stuff. I always mess that up. But Kyle's going to laugh at that because I always mess it up. But she said, hey, you can't do this job no more. She goes, it's going to take your life. I'm just crying, man, because I love this job.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It's the highlight of my life. I was in it, man. I was in it. I didn't get the opportunity to go SF. And here I am in this specialized unit that is just big boy rules. Something I always wanted was, and we were killing it. And man, she gave me my paperwork and I went back to the department. They're like, oh, where'd you go? I was like, hey, I'm out. I'm not doing this no more.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Their mouths all dropped down. I'm like, y'all fucking did this to me. I love this job. I'd have died for any of y'all. I love this job more than everybody in this building. And you stole my passion from me because you failed to be a good leader. James Nolet stole the passion of law enforcement out of me, sucked it out of me because he thought that was gonna help him be promoted.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Stole it from me, man. I love law enforcement. That's why I love working at Blueberry. I love what I do now. We give so much to the community, to law enforcement. All of our training courses are incredible because we're passionate about what we do. I've had somebody ask me, Blake, why do you still give back to the community? You're completely screwed over because I love you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I love everybody that wakes up every morning and puts a badge on. And I'll say this, think about it like this. All the tier one guys, all the specialized military units, they go do the most dangerous jobs in the world, the most secretest, dangerous jobs in the world. But the difference, they get to get on an airplane and come back to the United States of America.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Police officers are deployed 365 days a year, seven days a week, in a city that they have to work in. You want to talk about paranoia? I can't even go to Best Buy with my son without being bumped into somebody that I arrested for a drug charge. And I don't know if he's going to kill me right here or right now. That's paranoia. Law enforcement take their life, I believe, because of paranoia.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
185 law enforcement officers killed themselves in 2023. 136 died in the line of duty. Why are we having more officers dying by self-inflicted gunshot wounds than they are fighting crime? It's because the leadership is pushing us to the point where we would rather kill ourselves than have to see your fucking face in the morning. That's the problem. and it needs to be addressed nationwide.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And we won every, as a kid it was cool, but we won every county championship until I was in the eighth grade. And the only games that my dad would really attend were the ones that were impossible. And then when I got into the eighth grade, we won our county championship basketball game, and there was a guy in the stands that had known me forever.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
The DOJ needs to do something about it. Somebody needs to do something. It's getting out of control and bad leaders need to be held accountable. They need to be fired. Man, I'm passionate about this because I feel sorry for them because there are some good ass cops out there, man, that are still believing the right, still doing the right thing. But when the time comes,
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
and there's a little hiccup in what they're doing, they're thrown to the wolves, and their families have to suffer because it comes out of a paycheck. That's bullshit. If you get an officer-involved shooting, they put your ass in a closet. Whether you're good or not, if it's a good shooting, they put your ass in a closet, get you a new gun, and they make you watch body camera footage.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Nobody checks on you. They put you in the worst job possible. Man, things need to be done better. People need to speak up. You know how you change this, Sean? Fucking officers need to step up and speak up. Because as a unit, as a whole, they can get some stuff done. You might be scared alone, but man, form you a group and make sure that that bad leader gets out of there. Or you walk out.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because they want that bad leader or they want to lose 100 people. I tried to bring this to Gina Hawkins' attention. She called me when she found out I was leaving. Begged me to come in for an interview the day after. She said, please come in. We don't want you to leave. I said, Chief, I'm out. I'm like, your leadership is fucking horrible. The people we have under you, horrible.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
She said, still come in and talk to me. Come on, Blake. I said, all right, I'll give you an exit interview. I came in there, I sat down, started telling her issues. She didn't want to hear it, man. She didn't want to hear it. She took up for every one of those dudes. I said, that's the problem. That's why I'm leaving. I said, you don't even know it yet, but you're about to have a mass exit.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Like, it's crazy. The riots? Why would anybody want to be a cop after the riots? The city we lived in, they were burning them all down. Our SWAT team was riding around in unmarked cars and it looked like, what's the movie where they have like 24 hours to kill people? You know what I'm talking about? Oh, what is that movie?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
No, no. They have 24 hours to kill people. It's legal. All crime is legal for 24 hours. Can't think of the name. If I wasn't on here, I'd spell it off. But man, That's what it was like. People doing donuts in the middle of major intersections, shooting guns in the air. People shooting glass out of convenience stores. Raiding Walmart, shooting guns.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Employees in Walmart calling for help because they can't leave. That is a hostage rescue at this point. They're being held there by gunfire. We're not entering Walmart. We advised them they needed to shut down. What? We got to do something. Like Academy Sports, Fayetteville. It took us two years, a year to recover from what happened there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He said, hey, why don't you come try out for football? The way you move and how physical you are, you might be a great football player. I was like, man, I've never played football. I don't want to get hit like that. I don't know if I'm tough like that. So my mom signed me up.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Two patrol officers watched the vehicle, watched four gentlemen run out of Academy Sports like for the fifth time, carrying boatloads of guns, throwing them in the vehicle. They recovered like 15 guns in the parking lot. Because they dropped. Got behind him, was going to stop him, and James Ouellette told him, let him go. We have the license plate. We'll find the guns. Mind-blowing. Purge.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
That's the movie. The Purge. I've never seen anything like it in my life. That incident happened in Walmart. Man, I remember sitting in the vehicle, and my eyes were so watery because I was so mad. I was like, everybody's like, oh, well, we can't, you know. Like, no, man, somebody right then should have made a decision. Like, there are people that need to be saved. Go in the back.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Let's go pull the people out and drive on. Those people need our help. They just, they said, let them burn it down. The residents of Fayetteville under her leadership should have been infuriated. There's radio calls of her saying, stand down. James Nollet, assistant chief, cartoon, stand down. Your city's burning down. People's lives are at stake. What are we doing?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It reminded me of the scene, Sean, from 13 Hours. Remember when they're waiting to be released and they're just watching the embassy being burned and nobody will send them? That's what it reminded me of. They're burning their market house down, which is like this historic building with the historian guy inside of it. Let it burn. There's somebody inside of there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He ended up getting out, but what do you mean let it burn? I just had so much that I couldn't do it anymore. And I can't even imagine these massive cities. Cops getting, you see, there was a video recently out in D.C., cop getting drugged through the street. Still on his cell phone.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Dude, if I saw my partner getting drugged like that, bro, I'm gonna go get two or three people and we gonna come in like the Wolfpack from WWF. We coming in hot. We gonna lay the law down. But they can't. People are scared. They watch their buddy be drug off because they're scared you should even been there. I love the people, man, who are out fighting every day. I really do.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I started playing football, and my first time ever on the field, man, one of my really good buddies, Nick Rizonico, came over, hit me so hard, put me off my feet and took my breath out. He's like, hey man, welcome to high school football. I was like, dude, I gotta get in the weight room. I gotta get good. I suck. I suck at this. I'm out of my comfort zone. And then, man, I quit baseball.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm their voice for them. I will continue to support them because there's a lot of good young cops out there, but man, You have to come together as a whole.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Hey, man. Focus on why you're doing it. because it's not for money, it's your calling that you feel like that you're being called to do. Focus on the positive impacts that you're making on people's lives. That's what kept me there so long. When I was in the gang unit, we would go do search warrants and there would be kids without beds. The next morning, I would go to the mattress warehouse
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
and buy mattresses and then deliver them to that house for those kids. I've taken vans off my feet. I used to keep boxes of vans in my feet of different sizes to give out to kids who didn't have shoes. I have pictures of all this. I used to find what I would feel like a kid in a neighborhood who just,
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
wasn't in a gang but wanted to affiliate with a gang who just was on a bad path, and I'd say, hey man, look, I'm not asking for passing grade, or I'm not asking for A's and B's in schools. Bring me passing grades, I'll buy you Kevin Gate concert tickets when he comes to Fayetteville. I'll buy you skateboards, I'll buy you a bicycle. Bicycles are huge. It gives them the ability to go get a job.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It gives them the ability to escape their situation. That's why we have a bike drive. at Jimmy's at Riceville Beach, it's a bike drop. We raised two or 3,000 bikes in 30 days, brand new bikes, not used bikes. We raise these bikes and we give them out at Christmas to kids who get nothing for Christmas.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because a bicycle to a teenager that's living a horrible life is a way for them to escape, to go get a job, go do something. instead of just walking around. I have a huge passion with this bike drive. I have a huge passion with, I used to buy kids' bikes all the time. It's because I'm giving them the ability to get away from what their environment is producing for them.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm giving them something, some motivation. Man, I used to buy skateboards all the time. We have a skate shop in Fayetteville, man, and they were so awesome. They would sell me boards at 50% off. And I'd go to the neighborhood and I'd give it to the kid. Or if there was a kid that we did a search warrant on that was traumatized, I'd go play basketball with them.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
There's one picture, man, it's my favorite picture, it's hanging up in my house. It's the gang unit. We just went in a neighborhood, we played basketball with all these kids. They were terrified of police. It's Massey Hills, one of the worst neighborhoods. And they were damn sure terrified. Dudes with beards and long hair.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
because that's normally people that are coming to take their parents away for a while, right? We're the jump out boys. And just got out and started playing basketball with them one day. Used to do it all the time on the road, just play basketball with them. And there was this picture of this kid. He's sitting on my shoulders. He's messing with my hat.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They only had me at baseball. They only kept me around. I sucked at baseball. My older brother's name's J.R. His best friend, Derrick Bolt, literally, they thought it would be funny. Derrick was like 6'2", and like 11, 12 years old. Threw a fastball, hit me right in the neck. I wouldn't stay in the batter's box ever again. I didn't want to hit. I don't want you to hit me in the neck again.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
His brothers and sisters are here and the gang unit's here. And it meant so much to those kids, man. to see that we're humans. Law enforcement officers are humans. The problem is that citizens see us at their worst moments. They'll never see us at their best moments. So if their worst moment, we're either good or evil, it doesn't matter. They still don't get to see us as humans.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You know, when I go home and I take off that vest, I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a son, I'm a brother. I used to have shit thrown on me when I was on patrol. Crazy lady, shit in her hand and threw it on me. All I did was ask her to get out of the road. People don't understand that. So when people like are wondering why officers are aggressive, you're just seeing them in that capacity.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You don't know what they just came from. They're humans. Find them outside this. They'll joke with you. They'll have a beer with you. They'll hang out with you. They're just normal people that have a job and an oath to protect. That's it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Just stay motivated. Do it for the right reasons and be a good cop. and know that you're impacting somebody's life. Whether it's one person or it's 100 people, you're impacting somebody's life. You have the ability to reach somebody at their worst moment and try to make it a smidge better by just your presence. That's the key, man, of being a good cop.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Try to make somebody's worst moment a tad bit better. How would you want a cop to approach you at your worst moment? That's it, man. You do that, you're going to be okay. You'll have a good career. But when it's time to go to work, time to go to work. It's time to be the police when it's time to be the police. But you got to be able to switch it up and switch it down.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
That's the biggest thing about CQB is we're known to throttle it up and throttle it down. That's what makes it professional. You know, I truly believe that a professional law enforcement officer is not one that gets in shootings. I was fortunate of eight years to not get into, I didn't ever pull the trigger. That is because I did everything as a professional.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
There's nothing more professional than going into a crazy environment and not having to kill somebody. Having to talk them out of their worst moment. Having to have better tactics than the bad guy to get them in handcuffs. That is being a professional.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
That is what should set you aside from everybody else, is being able to go do what I consider to be the country's most dangerous job and not ever pull the trigger. Because you have better tactics, you're out thinking, and you have the ability to talk somebody down at their worst moment. That's what makes a good cop, Sean. That's what makes a professional, in my opinion.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I don't want nothing to do with it. They kept me around because I was fast, and they could sub me in to run bases. And so finally, my freshman year, I was like, hey, Chief, I'm not playing baseball no more. He's like, why? I was like, look, me and you both know I suck. I'm gonna work out for football. And I dedicated like a lot of time in high school for football, working out in football.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It's been a pleasure to be able to sit here and share this story. You know, a lot of things, man, I've never even said out loud. So thank you for having me on the show and using this platform and Man, if it just helps one person, that's all that matters.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Yeah, I think that's the most important thing for them to hear is that Stay off the news. Stay off social media because people support you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I appreciated every person that stopped me and said thank you. It was the only positive thing I ever got during that 10-hour shift.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I was already pretty decent in basketball. And then, man, my junior year, I started getting really good at football, really good. And then when I started getting good and my name started getting in the paper, then my dad started showing up to all my games. And then he wanted to come around. And then he really wanted to come around
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You got anything to say? I would not be who I am without her. She never gave up on me. She's been my mom and my dad. to be my biggest supporter. I love you, and I'm so grateful that God gave you as my mother. Thank you for never giving up on me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
My junior and senior year, we won back-to-back state championships in basketball. And Denny really wanted to be around. Once we won the first one, the second year, he came to all the games, came to all the football games. You know, he wanted to be there now, right? Did you feel resentment because of that? I did because, like, it was kind of like— At the time or looking back?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
No, at the time, I kind of did. And I told my mom this as a kid because, like— The only times I ever saw you when I played basketball in middle school, in the eighth grade. In the eighth grade, I'm what, 13, right? I'm starting to see things and understand things a little more. Like, why are you only at home games? Is it because you don't want to pay the $2 entrance at the other games?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And you get in free because he was a school teacher at the school. He was a school teacher?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Yeah. Yeah. Weird, very weird. I didn't know any of this at the time, right? But my mom, again, she hid it from us because it was embarrassing, right? We live in a small town. Everybody knows that. It's still to this day, it's embarrassing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Now that I'm an adult and I know that that's wrong, that's not right, like, you know, there's even some hatred that I have, resentment that I have towards him, right? for giving us that bad name, because we share the same last name. You know, like, I don't want people, fathers of my friends, to think, man, I'm going to grow up sick like that, because that's wrong. It's sick. It's weird.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It is what it is. It's weird. We come from a small town where everybody knows everybody. So, you know, when I started understanding these things, and then he started coming around in high school when my name started getting out there in the papers and and colleges started coming and looking, then it's like, hey man, like where were you at like my earlier years?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I was hired and took an oath to do my duty and to protect the laws and to protect innocent folks who are trying to make a living. Yes, did they physically harm anybody? No, but that store owner has to come out of pocket for that. You know, that hurts that family. That hurts the employees' families. They're not going to get paid. Maybe they get laid off because of it. Maybe the store shuts down.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Now you want to travel two hours down the road to a football game and wear a shirt with my name on it. Like, hey bro, my mom has been to every game and my grandfather on my mom's side and my grandmother have been to every game since I ever played. My mom showed up to an AAU game one time. Her friends had like a birthday thing that they had planned out for.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I guess we didn't think we were gonna be there all day playing, because we kept winning and winning and winning. She canceled her plans so I could finish that game out. Like, she's been there since day one. Like, where have you been? Oh, now. Now people are starting to know who I am here. Now people are like, wow, Blake's really good at this. Because, man, I exploded with football.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Like, I found a passion for it. I was a slot, I was a wide receiver, and I was a cornerback. My junior year, I had like 13, 14 interceptions. Wow. My senior year, I broke the record for yak yards, yards after catch. Wow. I had like, I don't know, a 7,800, like 13, 14 touchdowns. There was one game where I had four touchdowns. And that was unheard of at that time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because you're talking 2008 where people were still trying to run the ball. Everybody then now wanted to run the spread because then Pat White, Steve Slayton, West Virginia started throwing the ball more. And now we had some really, we had some new coaches come in that were like, hey, let's throw the ball. And their nephew was the quarterback.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He'd moved, so they were obviously going to let him throw the football. But man, it was like everywhere I went. Like high school was crazy because like, I'm going to be honest with you, Sean, I didn't do a single bit of homework. I don't know if I even did classwork. I just got pushed through. As an adult, I'm like, man, I wish you would have pushed me to do better.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Yeah, just, you know, because it's my dad, man. I loved him. I didn't want him to feel like I was mad or disappointed. I loved him. He was my dad. And like I said, my childhood all the time wasn't all the time bad. You know, he did do things that was a great father, but there were things that like, You know, I have a 16-year-old son, right? I've raised him since he was three.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
His dad's non-existent. I married my wife. She had a son. And I've raised him since he was three. That's my own. He is my son. You'll never be able to convince me that he's not. I'll never look at him and say, hey man, remember that time I changed your tire? Hey man, remember that time I did this for you and did that for you and did this and that? That was what it was like.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It was always, hey, man, remember that time you ran out of gas on Salisbury Mountain, or ran out of gas on Salisbury Mountain, I brought you gas? Yeah, that was it. Yeah, Dad, thanks. Thanks for being a dad.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Yeah. He's keeping tabs. To this day, and we'll get to that, to this day, he still keeps tabs. And it's like, man, you're my father. What are you talking about? You're supposed to do those things. I would give my life for my son. I never keep a tab on it. I'd be dead, but I never keep a tab on that. I hope that he would never be like, oh, well, you know, like that's what I'm supposed to do.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And that's what I'm raising him as is, hey, man, when you have a son or a daughter, you do things for them out of love. You never expect a thank you ever. And so a lot of my childhood was he would do something great for us, but we would be reminded. Like, okay, my mom never did that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I think he just wanted us. You know, I really think, and this is something I've dived into in my adult life, is I felt like he was always trying to compete with my mother. Because she always did right by us. But what he doesn't know is we never, we weren't thinking her either.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It has a domino effect. Yes, they didn't hurt nobody physically, but somebody has to deal with that. How about the PTSD they just caused those people inside of there? They thought that they could have died. I mean, they're getting robbed. Our job as law enforcement officers is absolutely, I'm going to chase you down and you're going to jail. But unfortunately, those cops, this is their career too.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I had a conversation later on in my adult life, and he says he regrets cheating on my mom. And, you know, I do. I feel like that he has his own demons that he deals with, and I think that it is his guilt. Yeah, he did the right things, but ultimately, I think at that age, he just wanted us to tell him how great he was. Maybe he didn't feel like he was great. Well, I'm sure he...
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He wanted to be in our life. He built a nice house. He did his best. He worked as a manager at a swimming pool in the summertime. And he took us on vacation every summer to Myrtle Beach with that money. Every summer. So he tried. It's just he always wanted the thank you that we never gave him. I mean, I'm a kid.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I have one parent who gives me the world with not ever thinking about it, and I have another parent who is trying, and we're not giving the thank you to. I'm keeping tabs. He's keeping tabs. One's not, one is. What am I supposed to do? I don't know. My mom doesn't keep tabs, but he is obviously keeping tabs. We're beyond grateful, right? I had a decent childhood.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm not going to say I didn't, but it was always like he's always trying to compete with my mom. And my mom took us on vacations every year. And, you know, to like Mexico and Cancun and Disney World. And it was always like he was trying to compete. My mom never like shoved it in his face. but he would always shove it back. Like, oh, I pay child support.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You know, I take the kids on a vacation every summer. Like, it was always something like that. You know, it was always, it was always, you know, now that I'm older, I'm like, man, maybe I should have said thank you more. I don't know. I was a kid. I didn't know any better. I just thought it was what dads do.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He's dying of drugs. I've spent my whole adult life fighting drugs, and I'm losing my dad to it. It's a non-existent relationship. I broke it off. What kind of drugs? Heroin, meth, fentanyl, cocaine, Dilaudid's. Anything that's a drug that will get you high. How did that happen?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
When I was 14, he fell off a ladder, 20, 30-foot ladder, changed into a light bulb, like a floodlight, and went to a doctor in a town in our county called Oceana. It's a nickname, Oxyana. It had a doctor who was prescribing Oxycontins like crazy. I guess he's in federal prison now, but he got addicted to Oxycontins. He got addicted to fentanyl patches for his back. Then it went to oxycodones.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I think my dad's always fought depression too. A lot of times as kids, he'd sleep all day while we were with him. We figured maybe he's just tired, right? He was a volunteer firefighter. He'd get called out in the middle of the night, all that. But now that I'm older, I know what depression is. He definitely had depressions. I think he battled his own demons every day.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And ultimately, they got the best of him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I have. So, I attempted to save his life. When I got out of law enforcement, so I found out that he was on drugs, right? So, Thanksgiving 2018. We're back home. We're in West Virginia. I'm at my mom's house. And my mom lives in a whole nother city, whole nother county now at this point, right? She moved to a bigger town of Beckley, West Virginia. It's got like 30,000 people in it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
This is how they feed their family. A lot of cops are not going to go, if they don't have the backing, man, they're going to sit there and watch it happen.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It's right outside of Charleston, West Virginia, about 30 minutes away. She don't even live near him anymore. So she got remarried and all that in my adult life. But... We went to visit him, me and my brother. My brother has a lot of resentment towards him. He's not alive in my brother's mind. My brother completely shut him off.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
My brother had warned me several times, my older brother, several times to be careful. And... My brother was mad that he was on drugs. Be careful in what way? Like, he's toxic. Manipulation? Manipulation. He's going to put women in front of you. Like, be careful with him. What do you mean he's going to put women in front of you? Like, if I have an argument with my stepmom.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Remember, he had an argument with my stepmom at 12 years old, 13, and was put in handcuffs. My dad called the police on him. and had a police officer put him in handcuffs. So I think my brother's always had resentment for that. It's terrifying at 13 years old. Hell, it's terrifying at nine watching your brother get arrested by your dad. That was traumatizing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And then finally my mom rushed home and fixed the issue. So my brother's always had some sort of resentment towards him. So my brother's like, we had found, we had heard that my dad got on drugs, like hard drugs, in 2018. Well, he was on drugs, met this chick, got on drugs, got away from this chick, and got sober, 2016, 2017.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
My younger sister was in high school, and her mother, my stepmom that we had the issues with, had cheated on my dad and left my dad. So my dad was trying to raise this high school girl on his own. He did a good job, but after she graduated, he met this other lady named Melissa. And Melissa comes from trash. She was an addict, and she got him hooked back on drugs.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So my brother wanted to drive down to confront him about all this, see if he actually is on drugs. This is on Black Friday, day after Thanksgiving. So me and my brother, we drive down. Knock on the door, Melissa answers. She's high as a kite. Like, hey, my brother says, hey, is Jim here? That's my dad's name. She's like, yeah, let me go get him. He's downstairs sleeping.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, it's seven o'clock in the afternoon. Like, what do you mean he's sleeping? Whatever, he's old. Maybe he went to bed. He comes up the stairs and And it's the first time in my life I've ever seen my dad. So my dad didn't drink when we grew up, and I hardly ever heard him cuss. I will say that. But for the first time in my life, I saw my dad physically, but I didn't know who my dad was.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He was so high. And he invited us in and my brother's like, hey, you're high right now. What are you talking about? And they get into a heated discussion. My dad gets livid. Somebody that is on drugs. I think at the time it was just, I think cocaine and oxycodones is all he was on at that time. Because he was on four DUIs for driving while impaired from not alcohol, but narcotics.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So he'd already been arrested for like three or four DUIs for this. So my brother was attempting to try to help him, but it went south. My dad filled with rage, and he took off running back downstairs, and I knew that's where he kept his revolver. I immediately grabbed my brother, and we ran out the house, ran down the stairs. It's like 15 stairs.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I run in my truck, open my door, and I go to get my gun out. I'm like, he's going to kill us. He is going to kill us. And, man, he comes running out. And I never saw the gun. I don't think I saw the gun. Everything was happening so fast. But the rage that he had. Sean, I went out that driveway at probably 50, 60 miles an hour. I thought he was going to kill us. I thought he was going to kill us.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And then the whole 30, 40-minute drive home, me and my brother didn't talk. We got back to my mom's house and everybody was already in bed at this point. And man, I drank all night. I cried my eyes out. I went on his Facebook page, found photos of when we were younger. I just lost it. I had a mental breakdown. That's the first time I ever saw him high. And that was the start of my downfall.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
That was it. That's what set the tone for the next several years of my life and what I was about to go through. So no, I have forgiven him once. And I almost died from somebody else's drug addiction. I almost lost my family because of somebody else's drug addiction. And I refuse forgiveness. to lose my family or take my life from depression or die from somebody else's drug addiction.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I won't let it happen. I won't let it happen. Y'all got me once. Y'all got me twice. But never again. No, no, no, no. Your toxicity that you bring to the table, my childhood that you brought to the table, I'm not gonna let it flow into my family. I'm gonna protect my family. And my wife is so sweet, Sean. She tries and, you know, because she saw my dad before he was on drugs.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
We got married in the beginning of 2012. And we only knew each other for like 30 days. We've been married almost 13 years. And we'll get to that. That's a whole other story. But, you know, she has always tried to, because she remembers him, right? She remembers who Jim Cook was before drugs, right? I mean, and, but now it's like, I don't even remember who that person was. I don't remember.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You don't have to answer. No, I don't feel bad for him. You know, it's not fair to judge all of us off of one individual's actions. Let's take ownership that that man was also a criminal. Now, I don't believe that a knee should have been in his back. He's in handcuffs. You could have put hands on the shoulders. There's three of you there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I don't remember who he was because his addiction has been so bad on me, it's hard for me to even see the good anymore.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Sean, I don't think so.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Somebody grab his feet, somebody grab his shoulders until we can get a wrap to put him in. There's way better ways to have handled that situation. But we all got judged based off of one police officer's action. Law enforcement officers were killed during those riots.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I am finding it, right, because... If I'm going to say that I'm a Christian, I need to act like a Christian. And it's hard. But parts of me is trying. And we'll get to the parts of why that I am the way that I am right now in this moment. And you're gonna be like, wow, I kind of understand. Because... I tried so hard.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
People are still mourning their husbands and wives that were killed based off another person's actions. And because you went out and said defund the police, I think it went national that most of the big movements of... The BLM spent the money that was donated to them on houses and cars. They don't care about their people. I know, it's hilarious. Now you're burning your own city down.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And that's what I need to work on because, again, I want to be free of somebody else's addiction. Because if I don't forgive him, then I'm addicted to hate towards him, like he's addicted to drugs. And until I can forgive him, I can let that go. You know, and you're right, man. I thought I forgave him, but I don't feel it now that I'm talking about it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I don't feel that I truly, I might have told people, yeah, I forgive him, but now that I'm here in this moment and we're talking about it, because I don't really talk about it often. I'll be honest with you, I don't talk about it at all. I don't talk about it with my wife. My wife brings it up, I immediately go to shutdown mode.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I would rather be angry and start an argument and piss her off than to have her try to talk about it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I think a part of me is I just love him. And I hate that my niece doesn't get to experience a grandfather. I hate that my son doesn't get to experience that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I spent my whole adult career fighting evil and fighting drugs, only to lose him to drugs. You know, that's hard. I have voicemails of when he was trying to do better. Hey, son, I just want to hear from you. I'm trying. And I just sent him a voicemail, you know? And so I have a lot of guilt for that, dude. Like, I just, maybe I could have done better. Maybe I failed him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Maybe he did addiction because I failed him. You know, maybe he's addicted because I wasn't there for him or I didn't say thank you. I didn't give him what he was looking for. You know, that's a tough pill to swallow. And it eats me every day. Because I do, man, I'm missing. Used to call me a shadow boy. There's no shadow anymore. And man, that fucking hurts. It hurts.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm 35 years old, man, and the little boy inside of me still misses, you know, misses his dad. When everybody else gave up, I still tried. Man, I got burned. I got burned. I almost lost everything. So I'm trying. I really am. Maybe I need to go to therapy. Don't give up, man. I'm not. I'm not. I just need to take a break and realize that I can't fix everything right now.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You know, when I was in the gang unit, we were an easy button. Hey, man, go fix this. Gang unit, fix this. I'm used to being an easy button, fixing it right now. But those right nows were only temporary fixes. Somebody else is going to come in and take that guy's spot, or somebody else is going to sell dope and guns out the house. Maybe that's what I'm trying to do.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It's hilarious. It's like, what are you doing? But I guess if you put it into perspective as police officers are like commercial airline pilots. You can't have a bad pilot. Because if you have a bad pilot and he crashes and kills a bunch of people, people are going to be like, well, those guys aren't trained at that airline. You know, we're not going to fly that airline no more.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm trying to fix it right now, right? And I'm getting no results because you can't fix a... Can't fix a 67-year-old man, a 65-year-old man that's been addicted to drugs for the last eight years.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He just doesn't want it. And I lied. I think a part of him. And I got to experience that, right? So... 2004, I met Kyle. I was teaching on my own. I had my own company, Black Flag Solutions. One of the trained SWAT teams. Guys just didn't get the training that we had. Well, I love law enforcement, man. I love law enforcement so much, and I think the number one thing they lack is training.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I was training people for free. Departments won't spend the money. My God, they'll go spend $20,000 to get new pencils that say, you know, Fayetteville Police Department. and not Fayville did this, it's just where I came from, but they won't put money towards training. It's mind-blowing. So I was like, I have to do something.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And my wife was asking me to go do something because I was an alcoholic. So I was training in a team one day, and my Aunt Judy calls me, my dad's sister. And she says, hey, Blake, can I have a second? I'm like, damn. She's about to tell me my dad's dead. I've been waiting on that phone call every day. I have my phone in my hand all the time because I'm waiting on the call. I'm like, is he alive?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
We can't have bad cops. And you know how you stop that? Is when good cops, whether you're young or not, you step up and you stop it immediately. You be brave and you be bold and you stand for what you believe in and that is doing the right thing. That's how you stop that. If I would have been there, I would ask him to get his knee off his back
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
She said, yeah, he's alive. I said, well, okay, what's going on? Why are you calling me? I'm in the middle of training. She said, he's dying. He's laying in the bed at his house with Melissa, his stepmom. And she's a really bad drug addict, too. And she was so concerned that he's dying that she called the police for help. Man, where I grew up, those boys don't know how to be cops.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And we'll get into that. They failed me. So I said, hey. I said, what do you mean? They said, well, he walked in. They saw needles and everything everywhere. I'm saying, they tried to do a... what do they call it, like a self-check, like a hygiene check or whatever on a person, well-being check. I said, he's on probation for hitting four cop cars on the side of the road, high.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
But he's on like a probation, not in jail, but on probation. I'm like, is there needles in the house? Yeah, yeah, they said they saw needles. Okay, they need to take him to jail, get him out of the environment. Well, it was the police chief. There's only like three people in that apartment. Well, they say there's nothing they can do. I'm like, what are you talking about?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He's a drug addict, syringes everywhere. He's on probation. It's drug paraphernalia. I don't care what it is. I don't care if it's one orange cap. Take him to jail, because if he goes to jail, they won't take him. They'll make him go to the hospital before they can intake him. So they'll force him to get medical. They're like, Blake, they say there's nothing they can do. I'm livid.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, what do you mean? There's nothing they can do. That's your job. You just don't know what to do is the problem. You don't know how to be a cop is the problem. So I'm like, I know this probation officer. So I call him up. I'm like, hey, my dad's dying. There's drug paraphernalia everywhere. The police chief went in there, saw it. Nothing they can do.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, can you go check on him tomorrow? He said, yeah. Went and checked on him, found all the needles, revoked his probation, took him into his office. My dad calls me. He's like, he's high as a kite. I'm like, hey, Dad. He goes, Blake, you're going to have to help me so they'll listen to you. I'm like, hey, man, you're going to jail. I don't want to go to jail. I don't want to go to jail.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, hey man, you're going to jail. Like, I can't keep doing this with you. You're going to jail. So I hang the phone up. I have a breakdown. I'm like, oh my God, Blake, if he goes to jail, he's gonna get bare minimum care. He's gonna die. So I call him back. Hey, I'm like, can he go get, so he's dying. He needs real medical help. Can we convince him to go to the hospital?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And if he refused, I would have jerked him off of him and told him to stand by the car. Somebody should have done that, but nobody did. Nobody was bold and brave. So now, four years later, now look at us. Crime is through the roof, murders throughout the country, robberies. Man, I'm going to tell you something, everybody should own a gun.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Then he can go back on probation at the house or whatever. But let's see what's wrong with him. He said, yeah, we'll do that. Took him to the hospital. Man, he was there two hours. They lifelined him to some hospital in Roanoke. Next day, he's having open heart surgery. He has done so much heroin and fentanyl that he has vegetation on his heart. He has what? Vegetation. What does that even mean?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Mold. Because drug addicts, they use faucet water with bacteria. So he had shot up so much that the bacteria in the water had went to his valve and started creating mold. That's how much heroin he was doing. Holy shit. So he had open heart surgery. He dies in surgery. They bring him back to life. They give him a second chance at life.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Doctor calls me, he's like, hey, he's got like less than 5% chance to live. I'm like, because I'd had a conversation with him. I had a conversation with him afterwards. They're like, he'll wake up, blah, blah, blah. But like, we're not sure. And he was mumbling. He's like, All I heard was cremate me and spread my ashes on the hill. The hill was, his house was built on a slope.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And that was the hill, that's the hill that we played on as kids. And that's all I heard. And I was like, oh my God, he's gonna die. I'm like, Nicole, he's gonna die. And dude, dude made a miracle, just like, he was a miracle. He woke up the next day, infection, no infection. Vitals were good. Everything was good. So I told my wife, I said, this is my opportunity. This is January of 2023.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It's my opportunity, honey, to save him. I financially can do it. I'm medically retired. I have the time. I have to go save him. So I packed some bags, went to the hospital, walked in, didn't even know who he was. He's got no teeth. He's weighing at maybe a buck 30. He's 5'10", 5'11", pale as can be. Looks like he's 90-some years old. Barely recognize him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He's talking to me, and I'm talking to him, and man, I stayed there. I slept in my car, in my truck. I slept with the hospital. I called my wife. I said, hey, he's agreed to let me help him. She said, all right, my stepmom tried to visit him, Melissa. She was kicked out of the hospital for doing heroin in the bathroom. So I'm like, hey, she's got to go. She's living in his house. She's got to go.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So what I did is I came up with a strategy is I created a renter's document and had my dad sign it and I paid him a dollar a month as a renter to allow me access into the house. Because if not, I'm just breaking into the house and she could call the police on me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
My fastest response time as a police officer was like seven minutes. And now that we live in a time where criminals are braver than law enforcement officers, it's scary, man. It is. I carry, it's why I carry everywhere I go.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
But she can't no more because I have an actual contract signed by Jim Cook that I pay him a dollar a month for my room downstairs in the basement. So I can kick a door in, do whatever I want to to the house. I'm a renter. If I break something, I just got to pay the landlord and that's him. Her name's not on the house. Just his. So man, I went down to this house.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I was like, hey, here's the contract. I'm staying here. She's like, I'm out. I'm leaving. I'm like, cool. That was easy. She gives me the keys. She calls some other drug addict, pick her up. I go in the house. Sean, I've been into thousands of dope houses. Users, dealers, just disgusting people in general. The moment I walked in, I threw up. The smell.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
The dog was overdosing also, had withdrawals, not overdosing, had withdrawals from dope. It had diarrhea everywhere. There was a mop bucket full of water, diarrhea water, where she had tried to clean it up, but it was just sitting there for days. Diarrhea all over everything. The dog at one point had been chained to something in the door in a back bedroom with carpet.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And there was just shit and pee everywhere. And I'd found out that the dog had been chewing on syringes and it was getting high. And they haven't been using there because she'd been staying with somebody else. He's been in the hospital. So the dog's having withdrawals. I'm like, man, I got to clean this house. I got to clean this house. I spent thousands.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
My childhood best friend and my cousin on my dad's side, name's Josh Lombo, phenomenal human. Knew I was in town. I was actually staying with him. I couldn't stay in the house. I'd get sick. I'm on my hands and knees. Spent hundreds of dollars on cleanup stuff. I'm like shot back in diarrhea, ripping up carpet. He shows up and helps me clean this whole house.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
most disgusting house I've ever been in. And we had it spotless. And she was gone. I was still visiting my dad. I was making the house. I fixed the steps. I went and bought him a bed to bring upstairs. I didn't want him sleeping on a dirty mattress. We got him brand new everything. And... She, sorry, I'm having some, getting kind of emotional. So I leave to go back home.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
This was about a month later. See my family, do some things. My dad's still in the hospital. They release him. I get home on a Friday. They released him that same Friday. They weren't supposed to. They weren't supposed to release him until the following weekend. I was gonna pick him up. So he had somehow convinced somebody something. Something happened where they released him. So I went home.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I was home. And my Aunt Judy calls me and says, hey, they released your dad. I'm like, oh my God, I'm not there. What do you mean? I can't watch him. Like, he's going to go back. He gets home that Friday night. Drops him off. He gets home immediately. Immediately. He had been in contact with my stepmom since he'd been in the hospital.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He somehow got a cell phone and everything and was able to get in contact with her. We didn't think they had any contact. I thought I had fixed that problem. He gets home and she pulls up maybe 10 minutes later, the neighbor says. About 30 minutes later, my dad's drug dealer, Tammy, I'd figured out my dad's drug dealer. I got addresses, Sean, cars, mama's house, houses they were storing dope in.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I had times of houses. I dedicated the whole month also to following her around everywhere. I had built a case for the sheriff's office of Wyoming County. Everything they need. Tried to give it to their dope cop, crickets. Tried to give it to the sheriff, crickets. They wanted me out of that county so bad, because I was forcing them to do a job they didn't know how to do.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Did a little history last night laying in the bed, trying not to think about all the episode and all that. And this is a very historical place.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I was calling them out on it. I have everything for you. Because their excuse was, you know, We don't have enough information on her. Cool, stand by. Boom, here's everything. Phone numbers, license plates, houses, everything you need. Her drop zones, the day that she gets her resupply, everything. I went to full straight detective mode again and got them everything in a big old folder.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Pictures, pictures of the cars, pictures of her, pictures of her mom, pictures of everybody, her dog. I had everything in there. They wouldn't touch it. Wouldn't touch it. Didn't want nothing to do with it. Because that system down there is so corrupt. Where is this? It's in Wyoming County, West Virginia. It is the good old boy system. Who pays the most money is in charge.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I couldn't get help from nobody. I went to the sheriff's office, to the sheriff himself, who's known me since I was a child. I was told he's just a drug addict. I understand that, guys. but here is your number one drug dealer in the county. This woman's not only serving him dope, but she is traveling from Pineville. So there's four towns in where I grew up.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Pineville, Mullins, Baileyville, and Oceana. She would come once a week and do a round in every little town and then go back home to Princeton. She didn't even live there. She drove 30 minutes away. I gave them everything. I mean, they told me to fuck off. They didn't want nothing to do with it. They wanted me out of there so bad.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So that the night that they got home, my dad left with the drug dealer. Drug dealer came and picked him up. They came back home the next Saturday. Drug dealer stayed there a little bit. They went back to the drug dealer's house. And everybody on that, so the hill that I grew up on was primarily my whole family. And the neighbors have known me since I was a kid.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
When I tried to move in and made my stepmother leave, Dude, them old women on that hill baked me brownies and cookies, and they were like, hey, thank you so much because it has just gotten so bad. So they were calling me and giving me updates, and I'm like trying to get home. I'm like, I'm in North Carolina at this point. So I'm like, man, I got to figure out how to save my dad.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So I called my dad up. Now Sundays came around. Sunday's here. I'm like, hey, Dad. This is like Sunday night, 10 o'clock at night. I'm like, what are you doing? The neighbors are calling me. You weren't supposed to leave the house. She's not even, the Melissa is not even supposed to be there. The drug dealer has been up and down the driveway.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Dude, I was sending text messages out to deputies, to police officers. She's there right now. This is the car. Nothing, man. Crickets. So I'm like, I got to get down there, dude. I got to do something. So, I'm like, hey, she's got to go. I've already contacted your probation officer. They've already contacted your probation officer. Man, you're going to jail tomorrow. Like, you have to.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I love American history. I was reading and there was that old plantation house here that still has blood stains. Oh, yeah. On the floors from Confederate soldiers because I guess they had turned it into a hospital.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It's not, he thought I had some power. He's like, you need to fix this. I'm like, dude, what do you mean I need to fix this? There's nothing I can do. Only thing, I'm trying to help you. I'm giving you a call right now, telling you that your probation officer is showing up tomorrow. She needs to be out of the house. He's like, all right, all right, we'll figure it out, figure it out.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He had a call at four in the morning from my dad's neighbor. She was a younger girl. And Melissa would go down and ask for a cigarette and they pretty much just pestered her. She lived in the house that we grew up in.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I'd been trying to help them get Melissa out of there too and trying to help fix some things around their house because my dad was on drugs and the house was falling apart and they were renters. And she called and she says, Blake, Melissa called the cops on you. I'm like, how did she call the cops on me? I am literally six hours away. She's like, they lied.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They said that you were laying down the street with a sniper rifle. I was like, well, I'm home. She goes, well, well, the police officer took her to the master's office and she swore a domestic violence protective order out on you. I'm like, what? What? And my dad's beeping in. I'm like, I got to go. My dad's calling me. I answer the phone. It's the last conversation I ever had with my father.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He said, fuck you, you piece of shit. We took a DVPO out on you. I'm going to go do my time in jail. There ain't shit you can do. You're a piece of shit worthless son. Hung the phone up. So I'm like, what is going on? Now I have a DVPO taken out on me. That's, if found guilty of that, that's worse than being a convicted felon.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Man, that's so cool.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So I'm like, immediately went into like, I got to go stash my gun somewhere else. Because the first thing they do when they serve you that is they take your guns. But luckily I was four states away and there's no communication with it. crappy agency there. They don't even know how to handle that properly, thank God. It's like the one mess up where I took advantage of.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
She didn't have my address, so nobody could serve me anything. These dudes are calling me, asking me to come turn myself in. I'm like, dude, I don't know what you're talking about. See you later, alligator. So I got up with an attorney who was a friend of mine, Tim Lopardis, who... So my dad, so sorry, I'm skipping. That Monday morning, my dad got arrested from probation.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They took him to the courthouse. Some people in the courthouse know who I am and went to talk to him and said, Jim, you have to drop this. He is a good person. He trains law enforcement. He's not going to be able to do his job. My dad said, fuck that piece of shit. Didn't drop it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So I got up with Tim Lapardus, who was my dad's really good friend growing up, who's an attorney there, represented me for free. He helped me figure out a solution out. So I did some smart things while my dad was in the hospital, right? Because he needed my help. Nobody else could help him except for me. I made him sign his social security checks over to my house.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
All of his retirement money went to my mailbox in North Carolina. So she didn't have access to it anymore. And if he did that, I would buy him dinner while he was in the hospital. I'd help take care of him. I'd clean his house, do whatever he needed me to do. Well, he did all this. And I was like, okay, I have an advantage here. She won't get any money for dope. It's the end of the month.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
She's not getting any money for dope. And she needs a fix. So I called her up. I said, hey, Tim O'Parse was like, hey, let's offer something. I said, all right. I was like, 450 bucks, I don't know. I came up with a number, it was 450. And I said, hey, if you drop this, I'll pay $450. And every month, I'll mail my dad's checks to you so you can cash them.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I do, I would like to start with a prayer. Absolutely, let's do it. Dear Heavenly Father, God, I ask you, Lord, to be with us during this interview. Lord, I ask that you speak through me to whoever needs to receive this. God, I give you thanks for bringing Sean into my life. I give you thanks for allowing him and giving him this platform to use for the good. God, I'm so grateful for you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because the little fast check general store, grocery store in our hometown was allowing her knowing that my dad's in jail or in the hospital, sign the back of his checks and cash them and then go buy dope with them. So, but they would get like a 10% of the, of the whatever, 3%, whatever. They were making money. They didn't care. So they allowed her to fraudulently sign his checks and cash them.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
The whole town is crazy. So, um, She says, she goes, yeah, we could do that. I said, look, because it's thousands of dollars in his retirement, Social Security. I'm like, I don't care what you do with the money. I'll mail it to you every month. As soon as I get it, I'll mail it. I'll overnight it. I'm panicking, Sean. I ain't slept in two days.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because what if she gets up there and BS's and some female judge believes her? And I get convicted. I'm done. I mean, your guns are gone, everything. What am I going to do? It's all I know is how to run a gun. It's all I've done my whole adult life. She said, I'll do that under one condition. I said, what? You have to write an apology letter to your dad's drug dealer.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because she knows you've been following her Because I'd knocked on her door and asked her to stop selling my dad drugs and stuff. Pretty much terrorized her to run her away. I'm trying to save my dad's life. Didn't break the law. I didn't do anything that I wasn't supposed to. I just made my presence known. And I said, you want me to write an apology letter to my dad's drug dealer?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
She said, it's the only way that I'm going to drop this. I was like, oh, man. Oh man, what did I do? I wrote a letter. I had a conversation with Kyle about this not too long ago. That letter was not to her. That letter was to myself. That was an apology to myself for acting the way that I had acted out of character, risking my family's future to do things that I shouldn't have been doing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So I wrote the letter and I sent it to her and they dropped it. It's the last conversation I ever had with my dad. Man, I'm sorry. So it's a little frustration there. And I heard from him about a week ago. He got out of jail. He spent a year in jail. He said, hey, Blake, I love you. He didn't respond. Hey, I just want to know you're okay. And then two days ago, I got a text. I blocked the number.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'd appreciate you letting me know that you're okay. I said, I'm not going back to this. I'm not going back to this. Because after they dropped that DVPO and after the justice system and law enforcement that I've dedicated so much time, I trained their little SWAT team for free 15, 20 times because I wanted to give back to my community that I grew up in. I have a small skillset.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I have a passion for this. I want to help you. But when I asked for help of just doing your job, it was crickets. I was trying to do the right thing. I was so close in my mind of helping him. And all I needed was a little help from the law to do their job. And they failed me completely. So after they dropped that, I said, man, fuck law enforcement. Fuck this community.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I went straight alcoholic, man. I drank every day, all day. Hate. Pushing my family away. Passing out drunk in my backyard by a fire. And I finally realized that I'm never gonna get over this. And the only way to get over this is to take my life. That was in April. I knew my son's birthday was May 22nd. I said, man, I can't take my life before his birthday. I can't take that from him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
There's a song that says that evil, that the devil tries to bring evil, but you turn it for good. And I'm beyond blessed. Thank you, Lord, for everything you do for us. Lord, we give you the honor, the praise, the glory, and the love forever. Amen.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And at the time I'm not thinking straight, right? Whether I take it before or after, still gonna ruin his birthday, right? But I was trying to put his feelings first somehow and say, I'm gonna wait. So that was about two weeks when I started really deciding that, you know, I'm dragging my family through the mud. I'm feeling like this. I can't, I need to set them free.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I am dead inside from my dad's addiction. Because I did, I tried. I tried to save him. And I failed. I failed miserably. And I thought that I actually had a chance to save him. And I was taking it out on my family by drinking, pushing them away, staying on my phone. So I was like, hey man, it's time to prepare things for when you're gone. So, first thing, bills.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I made sure everything was on auto-draft, on one card. Boom. Paperwork for the house, for the cars. Everything went in my safe, labeled, to my wife. It said, to my wife, here are the documents. everything, life insurance, whatever, everything that was important for my afterlife to help her have somewhat of a smooth transition, in my opinion, was there. May 22nd came, we were in Tennessee.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Does she know this? She knows it now. I shared this story at our Blueberry and Couples camp last year. It's the first time that anybody's ever heard it. I held that in for months before I ever spoke about it out loud. And May 22nd came, we were in Tennessee, visiting my brother, had my son's birthday with my family. We came back home. Got home, I texted Kyle.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So I talked to Kyle previously on social media. When I first went to help my dad, And then I had to drive home to get resupply. This show gave me hope. I listen to his episode. I don't listen. I'm not real big into listening to people's podcasts and stuff. If I listen to a podcast, it's like the legends of the old west, Billy the Kid, things like that. That's what I really like.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
But I was like, man, I need something. I'm tired of listening to music. I don't want to listen to music. I tried to listen to a couple other people's, but I was just not mentally there. And there was something about Kyle's podcast. I talked to him a few times on Instagram, maybe one or two times. Remember, I was transitioning from Glocks to SIGs. I knew that he had just started shooting SIGs.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I was asking him some questions. Small Instagram talk. And I listened to the podcast and I heard his story, right? And I was seeing, I'm getting chills, man. And I was seeing what he was doing. I thought, oh my God, he was addicted a little bit, right? Look at him now. I can save my dad. There's hope that people can be addicted and be saved.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because in my whole law enforcement career, it was just drug addicts dying all the time, overdosing. It was horrible. But now there's one positive story of somebody that has overcame this. I can help my dad. And that's what gave me the motivation to do what I tried to do in those two or three months that I was there. So at the time, I was training tactical teams through the colleges.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So North Carolina, how that works is A college can, because there's only like, for like training-wise, you know, a college can host a course, have me come in as an instructor. It's free to law enforcement officers. And then the state reimbursed the college for paying me. It's a great system. So I was doing that through the colleges. And I was like, man, I still love the law enforcement community.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Even though I was mad at the certain group that failed to do their job, I love cops, man. I think what they do every day is courageous. And I was like, man, I'm gonna reach out to this guy. I'm gonna give him the advice on how to teach cops through the colleges. If they're gonna get any training, it might as well be by somebody like him. Because there's so many fake trainers out there, right?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He's got to be legit. He seems genuine. I reached out to him May 23rd and said, hey, man, do you have time for a quick phone call? He was like, sent me a picture. I still have it. It was weights. And he's like, hey, I'm working out. I'll call you in a little bit. Or can I call you in a little bit? I was like, yeah, man, absolutely. The day came, no phone call. May 24th came.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I didn't know this at the time. I didn't even know this until when I talked about it at the couples camp. May 24th, 2012 is the day I got blown up. May 24th, 2023 is the day that I drove my truck. My service dog goes everywhere with me. I put her in a kennel and kissed her. I drove to Marshall's parking lot in Wilmington, parked at the very end, and I rolled all my windows down.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I wanted somebody to hear the gunshot, and I wanted somebody to call the police, and I wanted somebody to find me before the birds come in and eat me away. I bowed my head on the steering wheel, and I said, God, please forgive me. I'm in pain. I don't want to go to hell.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I went to grab the gun. My hand grabs the gun. My phone rings. I remember the last two digits of this number, 8-2. It's the last two digits of Kyle's phone number because I remembered he was in the 82nd. It was Kyle calling me as I had my hand on the gun, grabbing it. He was calling me back. Squeaky wheel gets the grease. My phone made a noise. I grabbed my phone.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So a big, beautiful man called me. I answered the phone, said hello. And he said, hey, man. Hey, man, sorry I didn't call you back yesterday. I said, hey, man, you're calling to have a great time. You're calling to have a great time. I'm like, he's like, you busy? I'm like, nope. No, I'm not, man. He goes, hey, yeah, yeah, I got your message. I was like, yeah.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Thank you for that. Yeah. That felt good. Got to give him the glory, man, because I'm telling you something. I don't feel deserving of this, but I'm here because he wants me to be here.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Started talking to him about the colleges. He's like, yeah, man, that sounds great. That sounds great. He goes, hey, do you know anybody that, I just had a cancellation in my protector mindset course. Do you know anybody that you used to work with on the team that would want to come and take it? I'm like, I don't know anybody right now. Like, I'm in the middle of something.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Like, I'm like, no, I don't. He goes, oh, all right. You want to come take I said, you want me to come take your course? I'm about to kill myself right now. You said that? No, no, no, no. I didn't tell him. He didn't know this until months later. Until he heard it at the couples camp. I'm like, dude, in my mind, I'm like, bro, I'm about to kill myself. I'm not going to tell you yes.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
But the other half of me was like, gave me a little hope. Gave me something to look forward to. Another... I love CQB, man. I love shooting. I love this industry. I was like, yeah, man, I'll come take that course, dude. I hung the phone up, Sean. I was so excited. I was like, oh my God, man, I'm gonna go take this dude's course. I've seen the videos.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
We had a mutual friend that had taken the course a month or two prior that was like, it's the greatest course ever. I was like, man, I gotta go try it out. And... Man, I'd sold all my stuff, right? I didn't really have much. I was so mad at law enforcement. I was selling all my things, giving it away. I drove over to OP Tactical in Raleigh. It's like one of the best like tactical stores.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They have all the good name brand stuff. Man, I dropped a bunch of money. Got belts, got all this stuff. I was like, man, I'm excited. I'm like, holy shit. I haven't felt like this since months. And showed up to the course. I bought all that stuff on Friday. Course was Saturday and Sunday. Showed up to the course Saturday morning. And I'm sitting in the back and we're introducing ourselves.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Introduced myself and Kyle Zickel. Blake's here. Blake has his own training company too. So it's cool to have him here. And I'm like, I'm like, all right, how are y'all doing? I'm truly a nobody, but how you doing? So an hour, 45 minutes in this course, man. I do some demos with him. You know, he's showing the students corner fed what one and two looks like, and I'm running reps with him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You know, maybe he just felt that I was capable of helping him demo. So after that, he's like, hey, take these six students, do corner fit with them. I'm going to take these other six and do center fit. I'm like, what are you talking about, dude?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Like, I have a Delta, a former unit guy that's asking me to take six of his students that has entrusted in him with money that he's trusting in me to be able to teach them Even this little bit of knowledge gave me a little fire in my gut, right? Nervous. I'm like, dude, I'm capable of doing this. Why are you nervous? This is what you, you're good at this. I'm like, but I can't believe it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, sure, dude. Yeah, whatever, whatever you need. Roger that. So we go over there and then we're switching and then we spend that whole day, I'm helping him teach. And then the next morning, second day of the course, he said, hey, I want you to run the first scenario. And then I want you to follow me with the students and kind of help guide them a little bit if they get stuck.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, yeah, cool. Phenomenal course. So we're at the end of the course. And the students, I'm in the back sitting down as a student. And there's 12 students. I'm like the 13th. And these students are given the pros and cons of the course, kind of like closing statements, right? About every student is thanking Kyle, but thanking me for my knowledge. Every one. And I'm like, what is going on?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I started feeling some self-worth again. I started feeling like maybe I'm worthy. Maybe I shouldn't die. Maybe there's a purpose for me here. Because what really drawn me into Kyle was as he started his course out is we're going to talk about God and if you don't like it, you can get out. I was like, dude, that's how I feel too. But like, it's hard to, I'm in a bad spot right now, right? So...
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
But the last students, like, yeah, Blake, thank you for everything. Thanks for your knowledge. Kyle's like, hey, man, you didn't know this was a job interview, did you? I'm like, I got my own training company. What are you talking about job interview? I started my own training company. We're competitors. No, not really.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
But, you know, I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, man, I got my own training company. I'm not going to come work for you. What are you talking about? And then we started talking at the end of that, and then, I saved my life. I've been with him ever since. And that was the end of May. October 22nd, 2023, I was rebaptized. Because God gave me a second chance.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He put the right people on my path to save my life. And I will spend the rest of my life honoring him. And that's what I'm gonna do because he gave me another opportunity, which I feel like I didn't deserve. He took something that the devil meant for evil and he turned it to good. And he did it to save me. And had I met Kyle any sooner, I don't think we would have clicked the way we did.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I don't think Kyle was, Kyle had just gotten back from his treatment. that He needed to receive me into His life. Timing is everything. And I don't believe, the day that I grabbed a gun and my phone went off, I don't believe in coincidences anymore. I believe in God's timing. I believe He is the power.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And he will guide you in the direction that you need to be, even when you feel like that you're carrying the load all by yourself. But guess what, brother? You're not. He's carrying you and he's carrying the load to help you get through it. And that's what he did. And that's how me and Kyle met. And we've been running and gunning ever since. He's my brother, man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I love him more than anything in this world. I love that man and his family and Erica and his children. They are my family. And, uh, I'm just grateful for the opportunity to even. So I dropped my company. I prayed and prayed and prayed, man. I was like, man, what do I do? It's just, I've always wanted to work for myself. And then prayers, I kept, you know, where two or more gather, there I am.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I can do it by myself. Or we can partner up with Kyle. and use our platform to bring people closer to him. And that's what we're doing. We're also teaching you to be men. But more importantly, we want you to be Christian men and women. So the next generation sees what that looks like. Wow.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm beyond grateful, man. I am. The opportunities, man. Sean is, you know, did it August last year. A couple months after I met Kyle, we got hooked up with Bourne Paramount. We did this video shoot for him in Arizona. We're running around in helos. And I remember sitting there hanging off the side of it. Kyle's to my right. Two former, still Team Six guys on the back end.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, what are you doing here? This is all God. I'm just a cop. I'm just a cop. At the end of the day, I'm just a cop. I have a former unit guy. And I have two former SEAL Team 6 guys behind me, and I'm the fourth man. God is good. When you submit to him, fully submit to him, after everything I just went through, here I am flying around on a little bird with these guys.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And that was when I realized Man, this is all God. This is all God. Here I am. And here I am before you, Sean, on probably the most respected platform in the world, in my opinion. And I was just a cop. God is great. He will put you where you need to be, whether it's one person or 100,000 or a million.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
that can be saved by this message, even if it's just one person, I am where I'm supposed to be on the day that I'm supposed to be here, with the person that I'm supposed to be with. And I truly believe that. I believe that too.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It was the second night of the couple's camp. Holy shit. Everybody was crying. I was crying, my wife was crying. Wife was a little upset with me. Because she's a buddy, come talk to me. I'm like, I wasn't thinking straight. I was thinking that I was saving y'all from me. This is what I was thinking. I'm saving you from the monster.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I swore when I married you, I promised you nobody would ever hurt you again. And I'm saving you from me? I'm not physically hurting her. I've never physically hurt, excuse me, physically ever hurt my wife. But I was emotionally hurting her by just being an asshole. Being a drunk.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He's so understanding.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And And we're gonna watch the episode together. And we're gonna have conversations. That's what I told him. He asked, can I watch the episode? Yes, but not on your own. I'll watch it with you. Because I don't want him to hear that and think that I was giving up on them. I wanted to protect them.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I just wasn't thinking right at the time because I was mentally dying from somebody else's drug addiction. I'd put my dad in front of my family for the first time, thought that I could save him because I can save anything, you know? And I failed. And I felt like a failure. And then I felt like a failure as a father for putting them second and then still failing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And then now I'm failing at home after my failure of my father. It's time for me to go. But I think he's understanding enough to know because he has watched the, he watches everything I do. You know, and I love that kid, man. He's my hero. He is amazing. You know, his dad sucks. His real dad sucks. He knows this, but he smuggles drugs with boats. He's a boat captain.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Drives to Mexico and Florida all the time. He's been arrested. He's got a longer rap sheet than about any criminal I've ever arrested. My son Googled his name one time. He found out that a month prior he had been in a hostage situation in Myrtle Beach. He took his girlfriend hostage and threatened to kill the cops on an 18-hour standoff. So, you know, we have some conversations.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
We talk and we're very open in our house about our emotions and feelings. He's 16, but man, he acts like a grownup. He's a phenomenal human. What's his name? His name's Henry Stacey Hayes. He used to call him Stacey. Got made fun of in high school, I think. So he goes by Henry, but I found out recently that Hank is short for Henry, so now I call him Hank.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I don't want him to be a shock. We're going to sit down as a family and have the conversation of, hey, we're going to listen to this show. We're going to talk about this. And I'll explain to him everything that he's going to hear that could harm him or hurt him. Or not hurt him, but he'd be confused on. I want him to hear it from me directly before the show comes out.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Talk to him about this?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Man, Sean, this is... Did you know this before we spoke? I've never told nobody. And I knew he would never find out. But when he heard I was coming on the show, he was excited because he had watched some other episodes. And he's like, you know, You gonna talk about things I don't know?" I'm like, yeah. He said, what is it?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, well, kind of why I've been hesitant to ever do anything like this is because I don't want him to be confused, but he understands trauma and he understands that relationship with my dad. He understands that PTSD from law enforcement. He understands my injury from when I was in the army.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He understands that I have some trauma and he does a great job at keeping me happy and keeping me active. He's a major part of who I am now, but I'm going to talk to him about it because I think he needs to hear it from me first, rather than hearing it on a podcast as a family. We're going to talk about it and we're going to talk about this is what happened. This is why it happened.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
This is why I was upset. And he's so smart and understanding that I know that he's going to understand because he's just like that. He's just a phenomenal person, and he's understanding. And I don't think it's going to be, you know, is it something that I did? That was my biggest worry was, you know, was it me and mom, you know? But no, man, it was just me, my own demons, right?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Trying to save somebody that didn't want to be saved was hard. And then failing at that when you thought that you could. And he understands that we used to call him Papa Jim, my dad. He hasn't seen him in years, since 2018. Well, he saw him two years ago. We were back home. And we met with my dad at a state park at a little restaurant. And my dad was like shaking and it looked horrible.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And we had a long drive home and we explained it. And I told him that I'm not going to expose him to Paw Paw Jam anymore to protect him. And he understood. He was a little kind of scared why he was like that. And I was like, well, he's on drugs. He was 15, man. I can't hide that from you. He's on drugs. Because you could just tell he's on drugs. I mean, scabs, shaking mouth, doing all the things.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You could just tell. So we had a long conversation that whole day about that. And he agreed that he doesn't want to see that no more.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I am scared of those, what those questions are going to be. But I'm going to answer them with honesty. It's out. I'm not going to hide anything or try to make it sound better. It's out. Maybe he can take something away from this that, you know, one, that God is good. That don't ever give up on life. Don't ever give up on yourself. And don't ever run when things get hard.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Man, let's save that. You want to save that? Let's save that. All right, we'll save that. Because it's a testimony, man, of the power of God. I want to, let's save that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because now he sees positive growth. He sees what we're doing now. He's already seen me at my worst. But I didn't give up by the grace of God. And things get better. Life is hard, but things always get better. At the end of every rainstorm, the sun comes out. You just gotta bear through the storm. And I hope that's what he learns from this. But he's gonna ask some tough questions.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
First time I've ever talked about it other than with my wife and Kyle and Kyle's wife, Erica. So a lot of my followers on Instagram have an understanding of what I've been through, but they don't have a true understanding because everything you post online can be made to look a little better, right? So, but you know, if you put yourself out there
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
out there to fight evil or to do anything in that line of work, trauma is gonna happen. We're not meant to see things that we've seen or do things that we've done. And that's what I think he really understands is I don't have a normal job, nor did I have a normal job, nor did I see normal things. And with that comes some trauma. So, yeah, it felt good to get it out. Good.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I've been holding that in for a long time.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Yeah, you think so?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm trying to figure out how to find forgiveness without physically telling him I forgive him. Because I don't want to talk to him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Maybe that's crazy you said that because me and my wife are having this conversation. She said the same thing. Maybe when I'm ready soon, so I can move on, I need to call him and say, look, I do love you. You are my father. And I forgive you, but I can't carry on this relationship. And I think maybe that's what needs to be said, truly. But yeah, you're right. I need to forgive him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I feel like I'm ready to forgive him. I'm just scared of his manipulation. He's already messaged me telling me he's sober. I'm 18 months sober. Dog, that don't even make sense. You were only in jail for nine months and the last time I saw you, you were on drugs. Still with my stepmom, so I can't help him. She is, she is, I have videos of her, can't even put her shoes on.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
She is, he's a bad drug addict. She is the worst drug addict I've ever seen. As long as he is with her He'll never get clean. He'll never get clean. The moment he went to jail, she had some other dude living in the house begging him. She'll never get clean. And I'm so scared that that phone call for forgiveness is going to lead to trying to save him again. That's what I'm scared of.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm subscribed to your Patreon.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because where I am now and who I am now is not the same person I was. I'm a year sober from alcohol. I haven't had a drink or did I want to drink alcohol in this last year. Because I can feel God in my soul. And it's not that alcohol is bad. You're going to hell for drinking. Man, it just doesn't do well with me. It brings the worst out in me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And my problem is, is once I get that feeling of the buzz, dude, it's like riding a bull, man. I ain't stopping.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I thought about it. I'm just going to have to not put my return address. They don't know my address. Anytime I mail those other checks, I didn't put a return address. Or I made one up.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He gave me the biggest hug. He was crying. And he just told me he loved me. And said, I want you to know that As much as you needed me, I needed you in that exact moment. Wow. So that was, that was just good to hear.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
That was November. I think we did a couples camp in October and November. But that was May. May when it happened. And he found out. I think it was November.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Yeah. It truly was. By a high power.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Oh, man. I have a good one for that one. Did a search warrant one time on a gang house. is a non-traditional gang, which means it wasn't a gang that was, you know, it's like a neighborhood clique, right? The guy that we were going after, he was distributing stolen guns from soldiers to all the little hoodlums. So we went and did a search warrant.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So I got a football scholarship. And man, I thought it was the greatest thing ever. So I got to Concord University, which is a school in West Virginia, Southern West Virginia. And I got there, and coming from a small town, our partying was different, man. Our partying was... in the fields, chucking Bud Light and drinking Bacardi 151 by fire, right? That's more dudes than girls, whatever.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You know, it's the country. I mean, I grew up with everybody that was there anyway, so I've known them my whole life. So I go to college, man, and I went early for summer practice. It was kind of boring. It's just football all day. Meetings in the morning, meetings in the afternoon, practice in the morning, practice at night. God, this sucks. So then the rest of the students started coming in.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And right as football was starting up, I went to my first massive college party. And it was in like an apartment complex. It was like all these apartments were having one big party. You could go from apartment to apartment. So I go down to this one guy's apartment, and he's like, nah, man, football players aren't allowed in here. I'm like, get out of here, man. Get out of my way. Big boy.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I mean, I thought I was something. You couldn't tell me nothing. I was 18. I had a football scholarship. I was on the football team. I took two steps. This dude came up behind me and punched the living fire out of me. Boom, knocked me out. Fell down the steps. I woke up, my buddies were carrying me to the car and they went back in to party and I laid in the car in pain.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
There's a small bone that's like right here that he had broken. And I had to go to the doctor the next morning and had to go tell my football coach I can't play because I was at a party that I wasn't even supposed to be at. You know, we weren't supposed to party. He's like, well, fine, you're not playing. He goes, um,
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You know, you're going to be redshirted and, you know, don't even know if we're going to carry on your scholarship next year. I was like, all right. I understand. I understand. Whatever. So, man, for the next like two or three months, I never went. I didn't go to one class. Not one class. I didn't even know where my class was. I knew where the food hall was and the gym.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I stayed in my room and played Xbox all the time. That was back when, Call of Duty, when they had the zombies, the zombie game. Man, I was playing that all the time, partying at nighttime. Well, about November, well, October, right before Halloween, I go to my room, and on my door is this letter from the college. I'm like, what is this? Take it off, go in my room, open it up. It's like, ah.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Dear Mr. Cook, you have zero attendance. Your grade point average is zero. We're informing you that if you don't bring your grades up... Zero? Literally zero? Zero. Holy shit. I didn't go to one class. And if you don't bring your grades up or make an effort, then we're going to have to remove you from the college.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I was like... I was reading it, I was like, balled it up, Sean, in this most beautiful, rounded, small little tennis ball. Kobe! Threw it away. I said, they're not gonna kick me out of here. No child left behind. I'm like, dude, now I'm like, bro, it's not high school. You know what I'm saying? Dude, month and a half later, we're coming up on Christmas break.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Mom, I mean, just a horrible area in Fayetteville called Murgison Road. So we go there, we execute the search warrant, the gang unit, not the TAC team. And we're searching through everything, and that morning, My bungee on my radio pouch had broken. And I was like, ah, you know, whatever. It'll be fine. So we're about to wrap up. I'm searching a closet, and I bend down to grab something.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
People were standing by my door, go to my room. They're like, hey, Mr. Cook, how are you? I'm so-and-so, I'm in administrative office. I'm like, yeah, yeah, how are y'all? They're like, yeah, did you get your letter? Yeah. We got our letter and you still didn't go to class? No. They were like, oh, cool. Make sure you leave nothing behind when you leave here for Christmas break.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You're no longer enrolled here. I was like, oh my God. I'm like, nah, let's work something out here, right? I can't go home. I'm embarrassed. My mom's gonna kill me. She's like, nah, man, you got to go home. So I call my mom. I'm embarrassed. She's like, ah. She's like, oh, you idiot, blah, blah, blah. She's like, but you know what? Everything's going to be okay. She's fine. I understand.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Maybe you just couldn't handle, you know, a college, a university. I'm like, all right, Mom. Yeah, you're right. Can't. She's like, all right, cool. I'm going to enroll you in a community college. We're going to get your grades back up, and then we're going to go talk to one of them, see if we can get you back in there. I'm like, absolutely, Mom. That sounds like a great plan.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I attended the first class for 15 minutes. And I was like, this ain't for me. I got up, left my notebook and everything in there, told the teacher I was going to the bathroom, never came back. Well, my mom said that I couldn't find a party where I grew up. By this point, she was living in a little bit bigger city with like 20,000 people.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
What my mom didn't know is I could find a party in that city because Applebee's had happy hour at 12 o'clock. And I got drunk with a bunch of moms with their kids in the little carriers on the ground, like every day. So I didn't go to class. And my mom was infuriated, because she had tried. I kept telling her, mom, maybe school's not for me. I'll get a job. I'll take a break.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'll mature a little bit. She's like, oh, cool. She's like, let's try that. I was like, all right. So I stalled for like a year. I'd sleep all day, play Call of Duty all night. I'm like, hey, mom, I'm gonna be a professional gamer. She's like, no, you gotta go get a real job. You're a loser. I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm working on a career. She's like, playing video games is not a career.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So finally one day she comes home And by this time, she had met my stepdad. And my stepdad was trying to get me to go, like, he worked, he did something like delivering stuff for the coal mines. And he was like, hey, he took me to work with him one day. And I was like, oh my God, this sucks. I don't want to do this.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And finally she came in and she's like, hey, you need to find a job or you're going to have to go. I'm like, mom, where am I going to go? She's like, I don't know. You can't keep living here because I'm just supporting this. I'm like, okay, that's my mom. I'm the baby child. You're not kicking me out. You kidding me? My mom and papa would light you up if you kicked me out of this house.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
That's her mom and dad. So I'm like, all right, whatever. So I'm playing video games. She calls me up. She's like, hey, you find a job? I'm like, I'm going to try Hibbett Sports up at that new shopping center complex. She's like, okay, all right. I'm like, I'm looking like a badass, right?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I got like sandals on and some gym shorts and a dirty shirt with Dorito cheese all over it and a hat backwards. I'm like, hey man, y'all hiring? They're like, oh, we're not hiring you. And I was like, oh, wow. I thought this was going to be easy. So I go outside and I'm sitting on the bench. I'm like, oh my God, she's really going to kick you out of the house. Where are you going to work?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, I'm not going to McDonald's. I'm like, no, we'll figure this out. I hear this guy. He's like, hey, man, you okay? And I look up. He's kind of a bigger dude. He's got the old digital camo on. It said United States Army. I was like, ah, man, I'm not doing so good. I'm like, my mom's about to kick me out of the house. I need a job. He's like, you need a job? How old are you?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I guess it had fallen off. And I didn't know how it turned off. I'm in the house. And so we wrap up. We leave. taking the evidence to the station, and I'm driving down Merkison Road, and man, I hear, Hey, Mr. Policeman, you left your walkie-talkie at my house. And I'm like, oh, man, somebody's in trouble. What an idiot. What an idiot.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, ah, at that point I was 20. I'm like, I'm 20. He goes, come on inside. Let me talk to you. He's like, what do you do for fun? I'm like, man, I play Call of Duty. He was like, oh yeah. He goes, let me talk to you about real life Call of Duty. It's just like Call of Duty. I was like, dude, just like Call of Duty? I'm like, I'm down. I'm like, let's go. We go inside.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I do the little, like, computer ASVAB thing, got my score. He's like, what do you want to do? I'm like, I don't know. He goes, how about the infantry? I was like, what's it like? He goes, call of duty, man. He goes, front lines. He goes, just like the game you play, all the cool gear. I was like, yeah, I want to do that. He's like, all right, cool. Signed up, got a ship date from, like,
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
That ship date was in January or December of 2010. And I go home. I'm playing video games. And she goes, you're still here. Did you get a job? I'm like, I did. She goes, oh, man, I'm so proud of you. She goes, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm going to join the Army. She's like. oh my God, I killed my baby. Tell him you can't go. I was like, I don't think that's how that works, Mom.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, I've already signed paperwork. I'm fully committed. She goes, oh my God, I killed him. She's like all hysterical. I'm like, no, no. And then my stepdad's like, no, it's good for him. He'll be all right with him. My grandpa was in Vietnam. My grandpa called her and was like, Tammy, he needs it. My uncle was in the Air Force. He needs it. He is a bum right now. He has no guidance.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
There's no discipline. All right, because I've been handed everything because of football. High school, like it's Friday, you have a game tonight, put your head down, take a nap. Basketball, Tuesday, Fridays, take a nap. You want to go, hey, I'm kind of hungry. I can't play tonight on an empty stomach. Hey, well, go down to the cafeteria, see if they'll feed you. Like, babied all through school.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Didn't do anything in school. I failed myself as a young kid, but the people that were supposed to be molding me didn't do that either. So I had no drive, no discipline, no nothing. So I get sent to Fort Benning, Georgia, and I'm like, oh my God. What did I sign up for? As soon as I get off the bus, everybody's yelling. It's complete chaos. People are holding bags over their heads.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, I didn't see this on Call of Duty. This wasn't on Call of Duty. No, it wasn't. Y'all supposed to hand me some sexy stuff. I got a bag and y'all are yelling at me. So I did basic, right? My recruiter didn't give me anything in my contract. Nothing. I didn't have anything. So about two months in, and I started asking people what they're doing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Some people are like, oh, man, I have, you know, the 18 x-rays, special forces. I got an airborne contract. I got this. And I'm like, man, I got nothing. I don't have anything. I'm like, you know, people got bonuses, and I'm like, if I ever go back home, I'm going to fight this dude. He lied to me. It's not like Call of Duty. Everybody else in here are getting paid pretty good.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I don't have anything in my contract. So about two months in basic, the drill structure comes in. He's like reading off everybody's duty assignments of where they're going. You know, people with airborne contracts, some are going to Italy, some are going to Bragg. Obviously the 18X guys are going to Bragg. And they're like, cook, Korea. I'm like, huh? What do you mean Korea?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Like I'm the youngest child. Like when we went to like Chinese restaurants and stuff, my mom took me to McDonald's. I'm not going to eat their food. I don't know what food they got there, but I'm going to starve. What are we talking about? I can't go there. Are you absolutely kidding me? So I'm like, I'm panicking.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, man, I'm like, some other guys are like, oh man, South Korea, that's kind of cool. I'm like, that's not cool. Like at this point I was dedicated, right? I wanted to go fight bad guys. Once I put the uniform on, because I come from a family of military people, and I'm that generation.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Now, my younger half-brother is now, he's in the 82nd, but I was the first one as the kids to go do something. I was listening to all like the Toby Keith music and stuff before I left, get myself all like hyped up, you know, the American soldiers. By this point, I was like, I was kind of in it, man. I was like, man, it's kind of interesting, whatever. But I wanted to go do something.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I didn't just, I didn't know anything about what I was doing in the first place, but I know I didn't want to go to Korea because I knew the guys didn't deploy from Korea to go fight a war. And we were still in war, right? So if I'm here, let's go do it. I still had that as they were starting to mold me to understanding of my purpose, why I'm here, right?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm here to go fight a war, go fight bad guys. So I'm like, I go in there. That was on like a Friday. And Sunday, it's like a relaxed day or whatever, cleaning guns, whatever we're doing. And I find my drill sergeant. I'm like, hey, sir. I'm like, Sergeant Rutherford. I'm like, hey, Staff Sergeant Rutherford, or drill sergeant, can I talk to you? He's like, what you got?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, oh, man, somebody's about to be in a lot of trouble. And she is just on it. The next thing I know, both of my cell phones, my personal and my work number is ringing. I answer it. It's my supervisor. And he's like, hey, man, hey, man, check to see if you got your radio. I'm like, hey, dude, I got my radio, bro. I'm like, I got my radio. Oh, shit.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, hey, I can't go to Korea. He's like, why? I'm like, well, one, like for real, I don't eat any kind of food like that. He's like, shut up and get out of here, private. I'm like, no, no, for real. I want to go do something. I want to go to war. You have to help me get somewhere that's going to deploy me. I didn't just sign up for this to have a job. Now I know my purpose.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I understand why I'm here and I understand the importance of why I'm here. I understand that there are people who have died wearing this exact uniform that I'm wearing. I want a purpose. He goes, pulls out, he said, what have you got on your last PT test? I'd maxed out 300s on all my PT tests. I actually trained for this. I didn't have a job, right? So I had six months to train.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I trained every day. I ran all the time. I did everything I could because I had been told that you can get contracts in basic. So I'm like, I heard that I can get an airborne contract. He's like, look, you got 300 on your next PT test. It was coming up to be like the last PT test before AIT.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It just spiraled downhill.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He's like, you get a 300 on your PT test and I'll give you an airborne contract because you have the highest score here. You've had consistent 300s. I'll give you an airborne contract. I was like, yeah, I was like, I can do that. PT test was coming up about three days, two days before the PT test. I came down with the flu. diarrhea, throwing up, feeling weak. I'm like, oh, man, dude.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm really going to Korea. And the night before the PT test, my bunkmate was like, hey, cook. He goes, no, you ain't been feeling well, but... You want to buy something that'll give you energy? I'm like, what could you possibly have? Like packs of sugar that you stole? He said, no, no, no. I was able to get a five-hour energy shot from the commissary. I was like, yeah. I was like, how much?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He's like, $100. I was like, done, done. I'll get you the money when we get out. He goes, all right. And I ripped that thing the next morning. Man, I was throwing up on that run, but I was so dedicated to get out of a deployment to Korea or be stationed in Korea that I maxed out that PT test. I got a 300. No shit. So, I mean, I'm pretty sure I'd shit myself on that run. I wasn't stopping.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I wasn't stopping to puke. I had to do this. Like, because the push-ups and setups were easy for me, but it was always the run that I always came so close to always passing to get to 300. It was always by, like, seconds. And I didn't have seconds to spare. And I was feeling horrible. So they... Rutherford held up to his end of the bargain and gave me an airborne contract. So... We got the orders.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And he's like, no, no, for real, get hands on. I'm like, all right. So I'm driving. I'm feeling it. Pull my vest up. I don't see it. My heart drops in my stomach. So I turn around. I pull over. I look. Can't find it. I'm like, hey, that's my radio. And I whip that car around. And I am blue license irons to this house because she is on it. She is talking shit. She is just solid.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Everybody else, again, was pretty much going to Italy. A few were going to Bragg. And they were like, hey, we'll get you to Bragg. I was like, man, that's great. I'll take Bragg. I'm an hour and a half from Myrtle Beach, four hours from home. Like, that's okay. I can do that. I like that. And then I got to, you know, went to airborne school.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And, man, it's just another, you know, month of just being treated like shit. And now I'm talking to guys there that are like, yeah, yeah. I'm like, oh, where are y'all going? They're like, oh, you know, we're going to RASP after this. I'm like, well, what's that? They're like, oh, ranger selection. I'm like, dude, how did I not get any of this?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Like, I forgot what my ASVAB score was, but it was high enough to get these qualifications. I don't know. I can't remember what it was. It was like, I don't know, like one-on-one or something like that. I'm not sure, but it was high enough to get it. these contracts. My recruiter just, I was easy. I was like a stray dog outside, and he gave me a little puppy chow, a little food, and I was happy.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He gave me a job. I didn't think of the bigger picture. And I was like, man, I got to get there. You know, that sounds cool. You know, that's the kind of people I want to be with. So I get to the 82nd. I get to Bragg. It was really cool, man. I was just like seeing all these like maroon berets and just kind of the vibe that people were putting out. And I was like, yeah, this is, I like this place.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
This is cool. But when I got to my company, man, you just get treated like shit. There's like no true leaders at that time in the 82nd. Everybody just treats you like shit. There's nobody taking care of you. Nobody helping you or trying to be a leader. You got people that have never been leaders a day in their life, like E4, like the E4 mafia.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Dude, those dudes will beat you down and treat you like shit, physically hit you and treat you like shit. Then expect for you to have morale. And then the squad leaders would come down after doing nothing all day long. Instead of like going to do training, five o'clock comes around, it's time to go home. Hey, we gotta go do area beautification. That's just not what I signed up for.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I would have signed up for it all. This is ridiculous. I was like, I can't. Because at that point, I was like 20 years. I can do 20 years. Retire at 40 years old. Yeah, I could do that. At this point, I'm like committed. I'm in this. I'm like, man, I'm the type of people I want to be around. But man, that... I was very prideful wearing my maroon beret in my 82nd patch.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
But it was like every day, bad leadership was sucking the morale out of me. I'm like, I want to do this, but I got to get out. I got to go maybe try out for something else. And that was when I saw my first SF guy. We were in a gym and he was walking in and had a green beret. And I was like, man, what is that? He said, special forces. I looked it up. I said, man, I got to get there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
That's what I want to do. I want to go to ranger school. I wanted to do this. And I had a horrible staff sergeant at the time. I mean, he was just a redneck from Louisiana that just was, he had failed selection like three times, failed ranger school, didn't want any of his guys going anywhere. Because if I pass ranger school and I have a tab, what does he look like? Jealousy.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He didn't want any of us going anywhere. Dude, I was smoking the MMPT. They would punish me by stupid punishments by trying to smoke me. I looked at it as a workout. Smoked me out for hours. That just means I don't go to the gym after this. I enjoy it. I'm working out. I enjoy working out. I was taking all that hatred that we had talked about and I would put it into working out. I enjoyed it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Push-ups, front lean and rest, whatever. Because guess what? You're not going to do it until I die. Eventually, you have to stop. And I just got to outlast you. And I can. But it was just all the time there. Just there was no training. I think I did CQB like twice. Like the rest of it was walking around Area J in the woods, acting like we were taking contact. Like there's no real training.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because, I mean, this is not like a channel just for us. This is a channel for that district. She's on the radio. She's on my radio that I dropped. My police radio.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, man, this is not, it's got to be something better than this because my motivation, I've been there for eight months and I'm like ready to leave. I'm like, this sucks. I'm getting treated like shit every day just for being good at PT or like not being able to take the machine gun, like the 240 at a certain time while people are yelling at me and Well, I'm doing jumping jacks.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I can't take this machine gun apart fast enough. And neither could they. That's the problem. I was being asked to do things that they couldn't do. But because they had been there and they deployed some BS deployment to Iraq and didn't do anything, but sit on a fob, they were superior to us cherries. They thought they'd done something for their country.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So instead of just taking us under our wings and teaching us the ways, he treated us like shit. You killed our motivation. Hey brother, we are your backup. We are the people that are gonna be fighting next to you. You don't want somebody next to you that hates you when you're trying to fight for your life. Because if you get shot, I'm gonna have to help you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You don't want somebody that hates you to help you. So how about you build us up? But it never got to that point. It never, it just, I saw the first Green Beret and I was like, that's what I wanna do. I wanna be that guy. I started looking into it. I'd see somebody that was in SF, and I'd ask them questions. They were nice guys. Hey, man, what's it like? Hey, you know, we do this, this, and this.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It's grown-up rules, big boy rules. I'm like, dude, I got to get there. Because I spent, like, my whole youth being a part of a really good team. Football, basketball, I always wanted to be the best. I wanted to be on the best team to win. And I wasn't on the best team to win. And I didn't want to go to war not being on the best team. So I asked if I could go to the selection. No.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I asked to go to ranger school. No. We're locked in. We have an appointment coming up. We have training coming up. We don't have guys to spare. We're already short. I'm like, man, you should want me to go do these things. Like as a leader, I want you to be better. Because if you go and do these things and I help build you up, then that's an example of what a good leader I am.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So she found my radio after we left the search warrant and turned it on. And now it was on that district station. Like dispatchers are trying to dispatch officers to calls. They can't because she's on it. Could you hear it in the car? I had an in-car radio. I could hear it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You're exactly right. It is a domino effect. They've been treated like that forever. And then it just keeps going and going and going. I think it's making a change now. Mainly because of social media, right? I think a lot of these leaders have a lot of squad leaders on Bragg that follow us and want to be good to their dudes because they're learning from what we're doing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I think it is making a change, but back then, man, I hated going to work. I hated it. I couldn't get out of there because nobody wanted to send anybody because if you sent me and I actually came back with a tab— you know, and you didn't have one. Like, it sucked, man. It sucked. And then finally I gave up because like, we're locked in on an appointment.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So about November of 2011, we were supposed to deploy to Afghanistan. We went to Louisiana. No, we were going to go to Louisiana, JRTC, and it got canceled. Then deployment got pushed. So we did a jump. Supposed to deploy like the following week. So I went in for a haircut at this place called Frederick's Salon in Fayetteville. And I went in there and this girl cut my hair.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Did a great job talking to her. Super awesome person. Really connected with the person. Man, I thought she was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life. Man, I thought she was beautiful. And I left to say goodbye. And then we went to some other train. Oh, we went to Dahlonega to train for about two weeks.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And I came back and they were like, all right, guys, your deployment got pushed again to February. All right, whatever. So I went in for a haircut. And my wife was the one that I connected with. She was like, hey, she just got out of a relationship. She's dating this guy that was in the Q course and he went to Germany and cheated on her and stuff. So she went looking for a relationship.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Neither really was I. And she was like, hey, let's all go out tonight. I'm gonna hook you up. The girl that was in the chair next to me, she thought you were cute. I'll set it up and we'll all just go out tonight. Bring some of your friends. I was like, yeah, that's awesome. Let's do that. And we go to my wife's apartment and the girl never showed. So I was like, all right.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So we all just started hanging out. And then me and my wife started hanging out. And stayed all night with her, didn't have sex, thought that was awesome. Got married like 41 days later. 41 days? 41 days. Yeah. That date alone is crazy. January 4th, 2012 is when I got married. Well, we had just found out this past year, her grandparents were married January 4th. No way.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
That's why I started laughing. I was like, what an idiot. Somebody's in trouble. Oh, my God. I mean, I'll whip that thing around. By the time I get back to the house, the whole hood's out there. Everybody. Man, I get out the car. She's holding that radio by the antenna.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I found out in a newspaper article that my aunt posted on Facebook that my dad's parents married January 4th. Wow. No idea. We had no idea. Wow. We have them hanging up in our house, both of the articles. Hers is a wedding invitation, mine's an article. Super crazy. Very cool. So how I met my son is about that third or fourth night I was over at her house.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It was like in one of those old historical homes, downtown Fayetteville, that they turned into like an apartment complex with like four apartments. We had a backyard. We had a fire going. She had her son. She said, hey, he's in the bathtub. My mom's watching him. I'm going to go put him in bed. I was like, all right, cool. I'm sitting out by the fire. I'm by myself. I hear like little footprints.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
This kid runs over, he's like soaking wet. Sets on my lap. Looks right at me, dead in my face, and says, I love you. I'm like, whose kid is this, first of all? Whose kid is this? I'm a little freaked out. She's like, oh my God, Stacy, Mom, you're supposed to watch him. She's like, he just ran out. And, you know, she's got hip replacements. She can't really run after him. She's like, I'm so sorry.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He wasn't supposed to meet you. I was like, she's like, you know, because she didn't want him to meet me, obviously, because she don't want to traumatize him with, you know, some male at his house. And I don't know. We got married 41 days later. And I just instant, I just felt this instant love for them that I've never felt before. And What was your second interaction with him, with your son?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I came over. I had breakfast with him and stuff. And then about a week, I just, instead of staying at the barracks, I just stayed there at their house. When did you start getting close to him?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He was a good kid, but man, he was hell on wheels too, though. One time I had to discipline him. I was like, hey, go sit on your bed. He's like a little kid, man. He did some. He wasn't listening to his mama. I said, hey, man, go sit on your bed. You're in timeout. So he goes and sits on the bed. I hear him in the air like messing with the bed. I'm like, hey. Five more minutes just added.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He looks at me dead in my face and goes, five more minutes. I was like, I was like, hey, I can't whip this. I can't whip him. She's going to have to go in there and deal with that. I was like, I'm about to lose it. She said, what do you do? She starts busting out laughing. I'm like, no, man. Go in there and whoop that tail. What are you talking about?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
So, you know, but we've had a great relationship since day one. Since day one. It is just, it's just like he's my child. Since day one. And I wasn't trying to be his dad. He already had one. I didn't know anything at the time. Like his dad was, he knows this, but his dad was very abusive. Like when I met my wife, my wife had screws, screwing her windshields down.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
not windshields, sorry, her windows down in all of her, around the whole house, the whole apartment. She had like five or six locks on the inside of the doors, keeping them from being kicked in. So it was a, I never knew at the time, I didn't know, I didn't know anything about that. I always thought it was weird.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I thought, okay, well, maybe somebody previous did this, but yeah, the windows were locked. Back door had the same thing. It was a pretty bad situation that I came into, but I found it out weeks later, and I was like, she's like, she didn't tell me, her mom told me. I confronted her about it, she's like, I don't want you to leave.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Sean, I felt this big. My tattoos didn't matter. My beard didn't matter. My long hair didn't matter. Nothing mattered. I was so humiliated. I had to walk over and was like, sorry about that. Got my radio, got back in my car. But man, I had, I told everybody the story. Every day I would have Miss Piggy. I would take it down the next morning. It would get right back on my desk.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
She's like, I'm sorry, but I figured if I told you, you would leave. You know, it's hard to find somebody who has a single mom anyways, but it's really hard to find somebody that has a crazy, abusive ex. I'm like, am I going nowhere? But they don't, all I ask for from here on out is honesty. And that's what our whole marriage has been, is honesty.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And that was, we got married January 4th, 2012, like 41 days later. Went down, had a marriage at the courthouse, you know. Got married in a red button up with a cheetah print tie. You know? Nice. Some Vans, man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And she dressed up nice, had some guys from... The one leader that was phenomenal, two leaders, one was named Nick Fredstey, and the other one was named Dakota Carter-Santos, which ended up becoming one of my best friends. Really took me under his wing. Phenomenal human being. He owns a gym now in Pennsylvania. Phenomenal human. He was... Man, he kept me going every day.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He was a phenomenal leader. And if he would have stayed in, he would have been a phenomenal leader. But he was there at my little wedding. And I didn't know any better or anything at the time. And I didn't tell anybody I got married. I didn't tell anybody. And so finally, the training came for JROTC, right? And I'm walking around Louisiana. My phone's just . I'm like, dude, who is calling me?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
They've been calling me for 10 minutes. I look down, it's like 28 missed calls from mom. I'm like, dang. She found out. I'm like, dang, this is gonna be bad. So we carry on with the little training exercise we were doing and we get back to the little hooters and I call her and she's like, my grandma will be her mom. She should have been a CIA spy on Facebook. She could have found anything.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
She was the Facebook Farmville queen, man. She lived on it. She goes, well, mom said that on so-and-so, that so-and-so saw where you got married. She goes, are you married? I'm like, yes, I am. Yes, I am, mom. She goes, oh, my God. Oh, my God. You're an idiot. I'm like, they have a great relationship now. But, yeah. I was like, she goes, I had to find out through your grandmother on Facebook.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I'm like, sorry about that. I was like, makes you feel any better. Nobody else knew, unless you lived here. And so finally, man, we got through that, and then I deployed at the end of February. So I met my wife, got married in 41 days, went to training for a month, right after I got married, and then deployed, Two weeks after I got home. Wow. So. How'd you propose to your wife?
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
The private way, you know. There's a little bar restaurant downtown called Husk Hardware. It's the first place we ever went to. We had dinner and we had a little thing in the corner. And, yeah. You know, I took an E, asked her to marry me, and I was shaking so bad. I'm 21 years old. I was 22 at the time. I'm like, you know, couldn't even get it out, right? And I just knew I loved her.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
That's all I knew. I just knew that, man, I don't even know. Like, I've never even felt this, really, this kind of love, like, other than like my mom, but I feel like I almost love her more than my mom. I loved her so much. And yes, I proposed at a restaurant, right? And then we got super wasted. Went to dollar night at Lido's downtown. Everything was a dollar. You know, we were howling life.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
You know, we were just living it up. At the time, she's older than me. She's a cougar. You know, she's 39, I'm 35. So, you know, she's older. And, you know, free haircuts for life, though. But, you know, whatever. It's a perk. But I deployed. And then a couple weeks into deployment, my son's father found out that I was gone. He was infuriated. He was livid at this point. And...
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It was so embarrassing because, I mean, you're talking a channel for that district, not just a channel for our unit, but for that district. So everybody, police chief, everybody in my chain of command, all the patrol officers who look up to us. I mean, it is what it is. I did it to it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Because he hadn't even been around, really. But he just shows up and tries to cause violence. When you were there? Never when I was there. But once he found out I left, it was game on. There's police reports. Like, when I became a cop at Fabo, I kind of looked into some addresses and stuff. He actually tried to cut a pipeline at that apartment and tried to blow the whole apartment up. What? Yeah.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
Before I was around. Like, did some, Sean, some of the most horrific things I've ever heard of to her. And I don't want to say them because they're her stories, but it was gnarly. It was really bad. So she's like, Blake, you know, I don't know what to do. So I call my mom. Hey, Mom, I got a favor to ask you. I'm like, it's gonna be a hard favor, but I need Nicole and Stacey to come stay with you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
I explained the situation. She said, tell them to come on. And she took them in, took care of them, made sure they were safe. But my wife, every other weekend, My wife had to drive to Fayetteville. Five-hour drive. She drive, drop Stacey off on Friday. Drive back to West Virginia. Because his grandfather, his real dad's dad had custody, not his dad. Because it's part of the good old boy system.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
He had a bunch of money in Fayetteville. He knew the judges and how that even worked out is backdoor deals. But she would turn around and drive five hours Sunday to go pick him up and then drive five hours back. She was driving 20 hours in a weekend. Wow. So, strong woman. But, you know, and my mom took him in. And so it was just, you know, it's a standard deployment. It was winter.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
It was starting to phase out of that winter time, right? Yeah. Starting to get into the fighting season that you always kind of hear about. When we first got to Fob Warrior, the Polish were still there. And man, Polish were crazy. Like they were somehow making like whiskey or whatever they were making. Like them dudes were wild. Like it was cool to see that. It was a cool experience.
Shawn Ryan Show
#146 Blake Cook - America's Scapegoats: The 365-Day Service That Never Stops
And, you know, we were doing the exchange with them one time and we were on a route and there was an IED and it was close to, you know, we were like an hour away from like surf and turf, right? And dude, we're like, oh, you know, we'll call EOD to come out and look at this. Man, these dudes just start chucking grenades. They're just like, oh, we'll blow it up.