From Baptist Pastor to FBI Agent: The Story Behind Irrevent

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Dorsey Ross Show, where real faith meets real stories. Hosted by Dorsey Ross, here we share encouraging and inspiring stories. And today we're diving into another incredible testimony of overcoming trials and experiencing the faithfulness of God. Whether you're facing your own battles or just need some encouragement, you're in the right place. So let's get started. Because your story matters, and God's grace is bigger than any obstacle.

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Joining us today is Eric Robinson. He is a former Baptist pastor who traded the pulpit for the bags. After more than a decade in ministry he served twenty-four years as an FBI, special agent, and SWAT operator, working major, cases involving corruption, gangs, counterterrorism, and crimes against children. He's now retired and sharing his remarkable story in his upcoming book, Irreverend. Eric, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

I'm excited to talk to you, Dorsey. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

I have an ice cream good question I you know, and as a fan myself of crime shows, especially the FBI series, um, if you do watch them, how accurate would you say the storylines are? And what do you think of the shows? And are you a fan?

SPEAKER_03 1:46

Uh so if if TV producers kept it accurate, it would probably be very boring. So, you know, over 24 years I could tell you lots of exciting things

Why FBI TV Would Be Boring

SPEAKER_03 1:58

I got to be a part of, but if you checked in on one day in my career or someone else's, you'd see uh someone sitting at a desk swearing at the computer because it's not working, or you know, slamming a phone because some crazy person called in. So I'm okay with those types of things. How like I will always uh gripe about it and point it out to my family of how that's not how we would do it, and that's not accurate. But at the same time, I get it. Like if we did it accurate, it would be probably pretty pretty dull.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

You know, I I regret in your opening there that you were part of the SWAT operator as well, and I don't even know I realized that the FBI had a quant you know division for their you know for their for their operations.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

Yes, so all agents obviously are trained tactically, many have rifles, everybody's got a a Glock on their side, and agents are very capable of handling

How FBI SWAT Really Works

SPEAKER_03 3:05

arrests, but then each division, and there's 56 field offices in the FBI spread out across America, each division will then also have their own SWAT team, depending on the size, you know, New York and LA are going to have multiple teams and be quite large, and then places like Sacramento might have a dozen people, you know, if they're lucky. And then when certain threats hit targets on a matrix, such as someone having uh guns, uh a violent criminal history, cameras, dogs, uh difficult locations, then SWAT gets called in because though agents are well trained, SWAT has better training and a few more tools and experience to maybe handle those more difficult situations.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

How do tell us about how you came to the go from ministry to becoming an FBI agent? That's a big uh leap.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

That that's not that doesn't seem like simple normal path to you.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

No.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

Uh so I I spent years in ministry, uh, kind of following the usual path of out of college, I I was a youth pastor and then a an assistant pastor, and then I planted my own Baptist church in Western New York, and we got

Leaving Ministry For The Bureau

SPEAKER_03 4:31

to do church the way that I felt like it should be, which was reaching out to people who didn't normally go to church. And although I wasn't doing anything dramatically different than what other pastors do, I had I lacked the capability of separating myself from my people's problems. So when they came to me and said, Hey, Pastor, I've got this issue, whatever's difficulty going on in their lives, I then carried that burden too much. And because of that, I spent two years where every single day I had a stress-related headache. So there came a point where I had to talk to my wife and I said, I've got to do something different. So I thought the FBI sounded really cool. And well, here we are, it was really cool. So I I applied. I thought might as well take a shot. You never know, and was a little surprised when they called me back. And in 2002, uh in April, I preached my last sermon in my church on Easter Sunday. The next Sunday I was in Quantico, Virginia at the FBI Academy. And then the Sunday after that I preached in the chapel at the FBI Academy because they needed a chaplain. So they were kind of easing me into this FBI life by letting me let me preach a little bit too.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

Now, you know, you know, what what was it beforehand that you said, hey, I'll, you know, I'll sign up or I'll, you know, apply to be a FBI agent. What what what was the mindset there that said, hey, this is what I wanna do?

SPEAKER_03 6:14

Well, so I I've had friends, I I have one good friend named Laura. I'd talk to her about how, you know, what was the process for you, and she was like so many other people, would share a story of like, oh, when I was 12, I met this person and they were in the FBI or read a book, whatever it might be, and then Laura took these specific classes in college, and then this job, and then that job, all two get into the FBI, and she was successful. And for me, I just I said, Yeah, that's cool. I I did it on a whim, where I I'm married to a woman who's way out of my league, and from experience, I know you're not gonna get the pretty girls unless you take a swing. And FBI looked like a pretty girl that was out of my league, but I thought that could be a very interesting career path. And when I had applied, it was in 2000 uh late 2000, and then my application was in process when 9-11 struck. My background is studying Islam and working with Muslims, and so I have a I have a notion that that might have played a part in why the FBI said, oh yeah, we'll we'll take a chance on this guy.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

Oh, in other words, when what you're saying is 9-11 happened, and that when they approached you and said, hey, we'll we'll you know, we'll let you into the academy or into the into at the FBI?

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Yeah, I I think so. I mean, obviously no one sat me down and told me this. Part of it too was after 9-11, uh, you know, there was a bit of a settling, but then starting in 2002, uh, I think about the class after mine or a couple afters when they really started bringing in a lot more people. So not only was it I had experience working with Muslims and we had this Al-Qaeda issue, but also now they're saying we need we need more agents, we need more analysts, and they started hiring more people. And of course, in the FBI's wisdom, here's a guy who had uh possibly some counter-terrorism knowledge, and they put me on a drug squad. Well, how do you have that background working with Muslims and well I was preparing and then with my wife doing the same, we were going to go overseas as missionaries in Muslim countries and share the gospel with these people. So it wasn't just I had some decent knowledge of Islam, but also I had experience interacting with Muslims and trying to understand their culture. And it wasn't until uh 15, 16 years later that I got placed back on a counterterrorism squad and was able to start putting some of that to use.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Could it actually really use you during 9-11 or after that time to, you know, in the counter-terrorum, you in it?

SPEAKER_03 9:17

Well, they they could have, but they chose not to. So I was assigned to Chicago Division, and the way the FBI works is they needed bodies on a drug squad. And so as I came in, they just said, here, you're going to a drug squad. So I I work criminal offenses rather than national security for 15, 16 years before then moving into the national security, which is international terrorism and domestic terrorism.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

Many people might see pastoring and FBI work as polar opposites, one focused on grace and redemption, the other on justice and accountability. How did you reconcile or navigate those two roles?

SPEAKER_03 10:04

Yeah, very easily. I didn't feel like it was much of a stretch at all to consider. Well, obviously, working in the church, I felt like I was doing God's work, but working law enforcement, I felt it was God's work as well,

Faith And Justice In One Calling

SPEAKER_03 10:18

because as you said, this is accountability and justice, and I know that that's an aspect that God wants, that He wants justice for people. It doesn't always come, but the church can do many things for a person. But if if you're a victim of a crime, uh you know, they can pray for you, they can support you, maybe even raise money for you, but you're not going to have justice. And so I felt that what I was doing could still be part of what God wants and was an honorable uh career to have. So I was blessed to do something in ministry where not only was I earning money for my family, but I could do something that supports the community, and then doubly so moving into the FBI, I got to earn money, a lot better money than as a pastor, and but also got to do something useful for my community.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

What was the big what was the biggest culture shock when you went from the pulpit to the FBI academy and then into field work?

SPEAKER_03 11:26

Well, Dorsey I had never handled a gun before, so you know, I there's a couple of cops and military guys in my class, and you know, I thought they were doing great as they shot. Turns out they weren't very good either yet. But you know, I'm skipping rounds off the concrete, and then you know, they're up here doing well, and I'm down here just trying to figure out what to do, and then you know, slowly we both got better until everyone was proficient. But the biggest culture shock was the FBI is a huge organization with many just so just different veins, jobs, positions, and after 24 years, I'm gonna estimate that maybe I learned 75% of it. Because even to the very end, like I'm learning about tools and techniques. Younger agents are coming in, I'm a senior guy, and they're teaching me things that they learned when they're in the academy or from a different division. So there's just there's so much. It wasn't just learning a new career, it was learning about this storied agency that had been around almost a hundred years at the time and had so many different aspects to it.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

Well, were there times in your life when you were able in your field work when you were able to, you know, you know, use what you learned in the ministry and learned and you know, and you know, from your time in the ministry to help people in, you know, uh with what who you were working with, or even you know, maybe some of the criminals that you interacted with.

SPEAKER_03 13:13

Yeah, all the time. So no matter the computers that we have, the

Pastoral Listening As An Agent Tool

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sophisticated equipment, guns, judicial process, eventually agents have to work with people. And so that practice and the skills that I developed in ministry, of listening, of being uh an ear to people, so that's gonna be for victims and for witnesses, that so often came into play, and I found it useful that I had this experience of interacting with people, and rather than being the one to always talk, if I'm counseling someone, I'm gonna listen and I'm gonna draw out more things. So that worked with informants so often where whatever they said to me, I had to now draw more out of them, and with criminals as well, that if they were open to having a conversation, if I can show them some modicum of kindness, a bit of humanity, then that usually calmed them a bit and then opened up them to now start having a conversation with me more, and this whole idea of you're being arrested kind of comes down to just having a conversation, and then they found themselves telling me things that they probably shouldn't have been.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

Well, you know, you worked over the you know, you worked in a different in a series of different you know, divisions in the FBI. What was the biggest what was the you know most unique one that you worked in, and what was the you know a story that you can share that you know supplies to you while you were working in that division?

SPEAKER_03 14:59

Yeah, I I worked so many different violations, and the national security was very interesting because it it you've got influences from overseas, which adds many layers of difficulty in an investigation. You've got ideology, um you have to understand different cultures if it's international terrorism, and so much of that you're you're breaking into a culture that may be uh they may be Americans, but they're also holding on to uh cultural norms that I have to be familiar with. So that was very complex and difficult. Uh and I had worked about 15 years in criminal fields, which is just financial crimes and drugs and such, before getting into counterterrorism. And then the first case that I had there, just like the FBI was easing me into work by letting me preach a little bit first, the first case I had on a counterterrorism squad was a murder for hire. And that came about because a buddy of mine had developed a case on three men from India who had come to the U.S. and they had been uh maxing out credit cards and then just defaulting on them, but taking that money and providing it to Anwar Laki, who was the

Counterterrorism Sting From Inside Jail

SPEAKER_03 16:21

mouthpiece for Al-Qaeda at the time, and he was a designated terrorist. So providing funding for a designated terrorist is illegal. So Sean got charges on the three men, they were in jail, and I came onto the squad, and as I came onto the squad, one of the subject's uh jailmates came to us and said, This guy wants to kill his judge. So the subject's name was Yahya Farouk Mohammed, and we had this jailhouse snitch who was telling us that this guy wants to kill his judge. His reasoning was if I kill the judge, maybe I can get out if I got a more lenient judge. And so I knew the process of wiring up informants and sending them into jail, and it's it's just very difficult and it's complex. And so many of these jailhouse informants just make up stories because they want to have fun and just bring some different aspects to their boring time in prison. But Sean believed the guy, and so we wired him up and we sent him back in to talk to Yaya Farouk Mohammed. And then the crazy thing is the informant said, Hey, you know all those things you're telling me about wanting to kill your judge. Can you tell me about them again? And I'll be darned the guy told him about it again. So now we had it on tape that he wants to kill his judge. And the way that that investigation developed, the informant kept work talking to him. Uh, they drew up plans to uh build a terrorist training center. You know, if they got out, um the uh Muhammad told him, I want you to work with me because we're gonna drill holes and bridge stanchions, and then we're gonna blow them up. And then they also had a plan to go to the Mall of America and shoot as many people as possible. So he had all these plans that now that he was exposed, he wanted to get out and kill as many Americans as possible. So we set this up and we had the informant tell him, hey, I know a guy who's a hitman, and of course that hitman was an undercover uh agent, and so we had uh phone number, and so from the jail, our subject called our undercover, set it up, and the undercover said, I'm gonna need a thousand dollars down to do this. And we even then had uh the undercover meet with the subject's wife in Chicago to show him a picture of what he was saying, okay, this is a judge that I just killed for your husband. Let me show you the picture I have here. And this is the picture he showed him of what he said. That's that's the judge that I shot in the head. Of course, that's that was our team doctoring that up. And uh we didn't actually kill a judge, do this. So, with all that done, uh Yahya Farouk Muhammad ended up pleading guilty and got a sentence of 26 and a half years in prison to be deported as soon as he gets out. So he's not somebody you have to worry about. However, at one point we had to monitor his meeting with his wife, because he he couldn't have contact with the outside world anymore because he was trying to kill the judge, and so we sat down while he had a visitation with his wife, and that was when a legitimate terrorist told me that I had a magnificent beard, and so I'll take that.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

I remember the one the story that you just told about the drugs and being killed. I mean, I remember being in New York and hearing about that story.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

Well, that story, so that was my first terrorism case, even though it was still a criminal case. And even though my buddy Sean is the one who worked so much of that case and did the great majority of work, that's a case where we were awarded the Attorney General's award, which is a very high honor in the FBI for the work that we did.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Okay, and that was gonna be one of my other later questions down in the down in the uh question through there, but I was gonna ask you, you know, were you the side that were were you awarding or giving any other type of honor or uh medals or anything of that nature during your time?

SPEAKER_03 20:53

Well, so there's always other awards that you can you can get cash awards if you've done a good job, you get time-off awards. I worked another case in Chicago with a friend of mine named Jake, he's a great partner, and that was a civil rights investigation in the city of Chicago that dealt with it was a historical case where a Chicago police commander and his crew in the 70s and 80s had tortured subjects of crimes in order to get confessions, and they were almost exclusively black men. So

Civil Rights Case Against Police Torture

SPEAKER_03 21:26

it wasn't just police abuse, there was a lot of racism involved too. But over the years, the Chicago police saw that these guys were effective, getting the job done, so they didn't look into the allegations, and the FBI didn't do their job back then either. But now, twenty, twenty five years later, Jake and the rest of our team were going to work up charges on John Burge, who was the leader of this group as a policeman, because he was sued in federal court civilly for. Torture of one of the subjects, and in that suit, he stated under oath that he knew nothing about any type of torture or abuse. And so just like Al Capone got taken down, we were taking him down with uh obstruction of justice and perjury. So it was a great civil rights case, and we had to get him on kind of a technicality. But that meant, I mean, we had no phone records to look at, you know, you can't subpoena bank records. We were looking at a case that was 20, 25 years old, talking to people who had witnessed these things years and years in the past, and we were fortunate enough to get a conviction on Burge as well, though for only about four to five years, but still it was something that we could bring some justice for the city of Chicago and for the victims too. And that also was awarded the Attorney General's award.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

Okay. Well, with all that you've seen and all that you went through during the time at the FBI, um, how do you, you know, how do you keep your faith and how do you, you know, stay strong in your faith with all that you thought?

SPEAKER_03 23:14

Well, uh, uh it takes self-reflection. So it's easy to become cynical when every day, when you check in, all that you're doing all day is looking at criminal behavior, and so it's easy to now just

Staying Grounded After Seeing Evil

SPEAKER_03 23:30

become angry or jaded at thinking the world is like this, but it takes moments to stop and recognize what's actually true, and and for me, that was what I needed to do. Also, I would have like-minded colleagues, friends that I could interact with, and I had done that of saying, hey man, you know, working this case, like with my friend Jake, as we were working this case of here's all these guys, these are police, these are our people who are torturing folks, and that's a lot to deal with, you know, we would have conversations about what's proper, what's not proper, and how this investigation was affecting us, too.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

You mentioned stress-related issues during your ministry years. Did long enforcement ultimately provide the things or purpose you were seeking?

SPEAKER_03 24:28

Well, uh it did. I I felt pretty I I held on to ministry for a long time because it felt like what I was supposed to do. And despite my body telling me you can't do this anymore, I still pushed through until I just couldn't anymore. And then when I got into the FBI, it it felt very comfortable. And it didn't take long for me to feel like, yeah, this is this is meant for me, this is good. And the cue for me that I was making the right decision was the day that I was accepted into the FBI, my headaches went away. So even though I wasn't in yet, I didn't have to suffer them anymore.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

Yeah. And do they not have any age limit uh as far as the FBI goes?

SPEAKER_03 25:14

They do. You have to get in by 37 because there's mandatory retirement at age 57. So as I was creeping up to that age, uh, I retired a few months ago because that time was coming anyway for me.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

When was the first time your faith collided with real criminal darkness?

SPEAKER_03 25:40

Well, uh it wasn't the first time, but a very memorable time was a few years ago after I had gotten off of the crimes against children task force and I had headed that up for a time. A friend of mine was now leading that task force, and he had a case on um some Toledo area pastors who were

When Pastors Commit Child Exploitation

SPEAKER_03 26:04

engaged with um one of the pastors was prostituting a girl that he had fostered from his church, and he was pimping her out solely to these other pastors. And so I was tasked, probably because of my background, to interview one of the pastors who had sex with an underage girl. And I had a very literal come to Jesus speech ready with Bible verses on how you have to confess your sins and be right with God. And when I started presenting that to him, he stopped me and said, Hey man, I'll talk to you about this, but I don't want you to bring Jesus into this, which was an indicator of how he had lived his life. That here's the man on Sundays, here's the man who serves God, and then here's a sinful man who was compartmentalizing those two lives so that he could have sex with a 15-year-old girl. And so I did. I gave up, you know, no more Bible verses, no more talking about morality. We just talked about the facts of the case from there.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

Obviously, like you said, you were talking to him, when you were talking to him, you were talking to him as an FBI agent, not somebody that went to him almost like a like as a pastor or somebody in ministry.

SPEAKER_03 27:32

Well, uh foolishly, it turns out, I was trying to do that. I was trying to talk to him like a pastor, like somebody he could unburden himself to. And surprisingly, he didn't want any of that. He was more willing to just talk about facts to an FBI agent. And in retrospect, I think he just he did not like having to confront that he was a minister and was doing these things. So he he wanted to push that minister's part to the side and just speak about how this man had done these things.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

After 24 years dealing with the worst of human human nature, human trafficking, as you said, child exploitation, corruption, have your view of people or redemption or evil things.

SPEAKER_03 28:24

I don't think it's changed. I th uh but I definitely have a broader view. Having seen how people act, when you when you wake somebody out of bed and say, hey, we've got a search warrant and we're gonna go through your stuff, and I go through your phones and computers,

Curiosity Over Anger In Interrogations

SPEAKER_03 28:42

you see a lot of what people hide even beyond the criminal activity that we know about. And I see the people that I worked with in the church and the people that I was investigating, in many ways, very much the same. The difference is the people in the church would come to me and say, Pastor, I've I've done something I I'm not proud of. I've done this wrong thing, I need to change or repent to turn around. And then the criminals were ones who said, I see this wrong thing, and I'm all in for it, and I'm gonna keep going down this path. And we would see that so many times of people who they knew what they were doing was wrong. They knew if they got caught, they would go to prison, but whatever reason that they excused it, that's that's what they did, and they just kept on that path.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

What unique quality does it take to be a good FBI agent?

SPEAKER_03 29:47

I think that a good FBI agent is open and curious as a pastor. If someone came to me and said, Hey, I've done this thing that's wrong, and all I did was open up the Bible and give them relevant Bible verses, that's probably the last time we're gonna have an interaction. And similarly, when I came to an arrest and I'm talking to a criminal, I have that same type of scripture in front of me. It's all the evidence. This is why I know you've broken the law. But if I'm not open to listening and hearing what they have to say, I'm missing out on opportunities to gain more evidence or to hear what their defense might be. And so that trope of the FBI agent walking in and slamming the table and yelling, it it I've I've seen it happen for sure. But it's not useful. It's much more useful for me to just let you express yourself, tell your side of the story, and even if it's a lie, I'm okay with that because now I know I can deal with that next as we go back and forth in a conversation.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

You know, you mentioned uh earlier about you know, people who come here, you know, illegally or meet with like um that Muslim man who was deported who was gonna be deported after being you know arrested. And for you know, maybe I'll I'll use the example of the people who cross the border illegally and come here legally, you know, uh criminals while they're here, but yet they get deported back to, you know, the uh their foreign

Jail Time Then Deportation Explained

SPEAKER_02 31:29

country back home. Is there a is there a reason why we can't arrest or put them in jail here in the US? Is it because they they're not a US citizen?

SPEAKER_03 31:44

Uh it's no, I mean we can obviously we can so Yaya Farouk Mohammed was not a U.S. citizen, but he broke the law in the United States, and so we are able to imprison him. Uh and I think people who cross the border illegally are, you know, number one, we don't want to be putting them in jail. So now that we're just filling up our jails and costing the United States money. And also, I think in many cases, those are uh a civil infraction. And so the easy solution is to deport and not to spend time uh tying up the courts and tying up uh law enforcement more to now carry out these arrests and go through uh putting them in prison.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

Yeah, well, I and I understand that, but I was I was maybe more referring to those that you know kill you know who are here illegally and then end up killing somebody, but we deport them anyway.

SPEAKER_03 32:46

No, I so uh I you know we've had cases like that, and if you have if you have broken the law in the United States, you're gonna spend time, especially if it's considerable. I mean, some people, if it's a if it's a minor infraction, they might just be deported. But if you're gonna do something like kill a person, then uh there's gonna be jail time first. So they get they get both ends of it. You're gonna spend time in prison, and then you're kicked out of the country when you get out.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

Gotcha. What do you think of the current events um that are going on today? And can you give us a perspective, you know, as a former agent?

SPEAKER_03 33:29

What give me an idea what are like what what uh current events?

SPEAKER_02 33:35

Which ones? Great question.

SPEAKER_03 33:39

There's a lot of there's a lot of current events going on right now.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

There is a lot of current events.

Threat Investigations And Conspiracy Thinking

SPEAKER_03 33:51

I mean, if you want to talk about the possible attempted assassination of the president um at the White House correspondence dinner, that'll be one where the FBI will be working with probably the DC police and Secret Service to uh, you know, working in coordination hand in hand so that they're going to be examining uh the weapons, uh checking ballistics. I uh I'm sure they've already executed warrants to get any type of materials out of this the suspect's house. So they'll look into if there's any coordination, co-conspirators, uh anyone who uh was providing material support for him to do this in finances or ideology. And so that's one of the first things that's done. If there ever there's an attack or um an attack that is stopped, the FBI is going to look into all right, we got to dig out the roots here. Is this one single guy who acted solely alone? Did he have others who were thwarted and couldn't also assist or backed out last minute or planning a next attack, too? So the first action that the FBI will be taking is sending a team to get that digging as deep as they can to make sure there's not a uh follow-on threat to come after this as well. And then from there it'll be building the case, working with the federal prosecutors to say, here's how we can apply charges and have the evidence necessary to convict in court.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

And you don't have to answer this question, but why do you think there are so many people who think, you know, whether it's the United States or whether it's, you know, a Carly Cook assassination or different things of that nature, you know, people come up and think it's a conspiracy or think it's a you know it was, you know, done by the government or done by a you know an outside government, you know, they they think of it like a uh a white flag attack type of thing.

SPEAKER_03 36:01

Yeah, I I think that people uh have a cynicism towards the government, and so that's often the case. A lot of it too is there's only so much information that gets out to the public, and so then the public is relying upon whatever source of information they can get, and it's usually someone chirping and making guesses along the way, and that gets taken a hold of. But from my experience, when we would look into domestic terrorists, and even in the international terrorists who are here in the United States, most often they are uh being pushed and promoted by a group. So a lot of the uh white supremacists that we looked into, they were part of a group. And in that group, they all talked about how different races of people are terrible and somebody should carry out violence, but none of them did, until one would splinter off and do that. And it wasn't at the direct um promotion by the group, it's not like they would say, Hey Dorsey, here's a gun, you go do this. It would be them saying, Yeah, somebody should do something, and then someone like you splinters off and says, I'm fed up, and now individually they go off. And I think people have a hard time accepting that. They want to think that there's more to it, but almost exclusively there are individuals, there are lone wolves, there are singular people who just get to a breaking point and then they try to take matters in their own hands.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

Was there ever a time when your life was ever in danger, and how did you deal with concrete threats?

SPEAKER_03 37:51

Yeah, my life was in danger a lot. So you know, whenever we would go, uh especially on the SWAT team, we were called because these guys were more dangerous. Um however, we had good equipment, we had uh ballistic rated vehicles that we could stack behind. It doesn't mean that a stray shot couldn't get past it, and and

Life Threats On SWAT Operations

SPEAKER_03 38:15

they were truly life and death situations. That being said, most of the time we get on the loudspeaker, surround the house, guys have guns with lasers pointed at windows, and the bad guy comes out with his hands up. So, yeah, life and death, because you never know if we're going to be opposed, but most often everything just works out very calmly. And that happened regularly, and then we had a few occasions where we had to engage with deadly force because uh the individual pressed the issue, either flashing a gun, or on one occasion, a couple years ago, we had uh a young man just charge us with a bat and refuse to comply. And though a bat doesn't seem like it's that bad, there's no there's no law that says that I need to endure a strike to the side of my neck and then have numbness for my life if I give this man an opportunity to surrender, which he did not.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Tell us about the book that you're writing and what is it what is it about?

SPEAKER_03 39:25

So the book is called Irreverend, from Saving Souls to Chasing Sinners in the FBI, and it's it's just that. It's here's a here's a Baptist pastor who doesn't know anything about law enforcement, and I go, hey, I think I'd like to be in the FBI, and then these are the remarkable stories of events that I got to be a part of, that I witnessed, that I instigated.

Irreverend And Stories Worth Writing

SPEAKER_03 39:52

Um, so many of them are cases that I had, and many of them are just ones that I got to be along the ride played a role in. And I agents will often tell each other stories whenever there's downtime, but those stories, if you step back, which I did and listen to them, were pretty amazing. They're the kind where if I have time to go into detail in a book, people would probably say, Wow, that's pretty cool. So, you know, it's some of the things in greater detail of what we've discussed, and then it's also reflections from me as a former pastor of what how did I bring my former career into play in some of these interactions that were very stressful, life-threatening, and sometimes just crazy.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

Yeah. What do you hope to do now that you're in retirement? What are you some of your goals and dreams?

SPEAKER_03 40:55

Well, the biggest right now is working on the book, so I've got it finished. It's in the hands of the FBI for them to review because they've got to check it off, and then in the fall it will come out. But from there, uh the FBI had given me a lot of training and tools that I used in law enforcement, and one thing that I had seen quite a bit in giving training

Retirement Plans And Training Local Police

SPEAKER_03 41:20

to uh state and local police is they often lack that. So the FBI doesn't get in scrums like local cops do, but we got great training, and here are cops who don't get that. So being able to pass on some of that knowledge and experience that I have is something I'm seeking to do.

SPEAKER_02 41:37

Yeah. As I always like to ask my guest, um, you know, I always like to ask my guest um to give my a word of encouragement to my audience.

SPEAKER_03 41:53

Yeah, one thing that I learned over the years, and much of it is just getting older, but much of it is also the experience of having gone through small traumas, uh hardships, making poor choices. I've learned that human beings

Resilience, Encouragement, And Closing]

SPEAKER_03 42:12

typically underestimate our resilience and we overestimate the impact of bad decisions or hardships that we endure. So when when I was at the tail end of my career in ministry, I was afraid to leave what I thought was the right thing to do and abandon it. And until I was forced, my body just said I had to. And I was afraid what would happen if that was the wrong choice. And fortunately, I got a great career out of it, but even if it was the wrong choice, I would have recentered and my life would have gone on with just a change. And if something terrible happened out of that, I would make it through. So one thing I think of, Dorsey, I'm sure you can acknowledge this, is that to this point in my life, I'm undefeated. There's nothing that I haven't been able to get through. Everything that I've done that's wrong, everything that I've endured that's hard, I've gotten through.

SPEAKER_02 43:17

Amen. Well, Eric Rabin King, thank you so much for coming on the show today. We greatly appreciate having you.

SPEAKER_03 43:25

Thanks so much, Dorsey.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

Well, guys and girls, thank you so much for tuning in and for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dorsey Rush song, and we'll have the information for everything book when it comes out. And hope you go and check out this episode, please like and share, and subscribe as well. And until next time, God bless. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

That's a wrap for today's episode of the Dorsey Ross Show. Thank you so much to our guests for sharing such a powerful story of faith, perseverance, and God's amazing grace. If this episode encouraged you, encourage someone else. Share it with a friend, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can find more episodes and ways to connect at www.dorseyrockshow.com. And if you'd like to support the podcast, check out the links on the show notes or on Dorsey's social media. Remember, no trial is too big for God's love, and your story can point others to him. Until next time, keep trusting, keep sharing, and keep shining for Jesus. God bless you.