In this episode of Veteran Led, John sits down with Michael Sugrue, Air Force Veteran, former police sergeant, and international best-selling author of “Relentless Courage: Winning the Battle Against Frontline Trauma.” Listen in as Michael shares his experiences starting out in the Air Force to becoming one of the elite Phoenix Ravens to his eventual transition to civilian law enforcement, where one fatal night changed his life forever. Learn about Michael’s battle with Post-Traumatic Stress Injury and the courageous steps he took to confront it.
I know that that day, that call was the bravest, the most courageous thing I’ve ever done in my life. Nothing in the military, not even that shooting as a civilian law enforcement officer. Nothing was more courageous than making that phone call.
Welcome to the Veteran Led podcast, where we talk with leaders who use their military experiences to develop great organizations and continue to serve their communities.
I got commissioned in 1998. I went through the ROTC program at California State Sacramento University, and I got my number one pick, which was Security Forces. Security Forces, it encompasses a bunch of different things, but basically, it’s military police, anti-terrorism, force protection, air-based ground defense, in my case, foreign airfield assessments, nuclear security, you name it. It’s literally, people say like the infantry of the Air Force. I started off actually at a nuclear missile base in Wyoming. I led a flight of 60 people for my first SF assignment. I loved it. I mean, it was absolutely phenomenal. I had a tremendous NCO, and truly, that’s what made a difference for me is that I had a strong NCO who guided me and mentored me early on because just coming out of college, coming out of the ROTC program, there is a steep learning curve, and we definitely do not know it all. We don’t know anything, basically. Having that strong support system makes a difference. And from there, I went on to the base law enforcement side. Love that. I actually got in trouble from my commander because I was a brand-new butter bar, and I was out there running LiDAR Radar, and I was given traffic tickets to all kinds of people on base, including civilians, and going to federal magistrate court.
Actually, for my going away thing, he gave me a Bronze 1408, and it said denied across the top of it. So I thought that was hilarious. But for me, I knew I was going to get out of the Air Force at some point. It wasn’t going to be a 20, 30-year career for me. For me, I used it more as a stepping stone. My original plan was to go into federal law enforcement. I wanted to go into the DEA or the marshals or the FBI. While I was in the Air Force, I got exposed to these federal agencies. I realized quickly that wasn’t really what I wanted to do. I wanted to do more hands-on, be out there in the field, dealing with people day in and day out. Eventually, I got stationed back at Travis Air Force Base here in California, which is close to where I live now, and I was the Chief of Security Forces there. As soon as I got there, one of my first goals was to become a Phoenix Raven. That’s a subset of Security Forces members. We’re distinguished by two things. We’re the only ones that wear a flight suit in a beret, but we wear our BDUs or tactical uniforms we also have a Raven tab on our shoulders.
It’s a very small number of Security Forces. I think to date as of now, and this program has been in existence for over 20 years, I think there’s only about 3,300 Ravens who have ever gone through the program and done this. So it is pretty unique. And for me, it was an early on goal. And so I accomplished that. I went through the training. I eventually found myself in South America doing foreign airfield assessments in Columbia, and I absolutely loved it. I mean, I loved it. And one of my biggest regrets today is actually getting out of the Air Force. Looking back, I wish I would have stayed in, at least on the reserve side. Still go into civilian law enforcement but stay connected to my SF roots. I have a lot of friends that did that, and I envy them because for me, I think that was a big mistake. Right out of the Air Force, I got out as a captain in 2004, and I transitioned immediately into civilian law enforcement back here in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Why did you go into law enforcement? In reading the book and talking with you, it sounds like you always knew that you were going to be a police officer. Why was that?
I did. Actually, I knew from eight years old, if you can believe it or not, my stepfather, who’s the one that really raised me with my mom, he was my hero, he was a police officer, and he worked for a couple of different agencies here in the Bay Area. I actually became a police volunteer at eight years old. In high school, I was a police explorer for a different agency. Like I said, in college, I majored in criminal justice, and this was my path. I really owe that to my stepfather. To me, he was a role model, not just as a police officer, not as a father, not as a husband to my mother, but as a person. He truly cared about his people, and he truly cared about our family. He was my inspiration. That’s the reason why my book, Relentless Courage, is dedicated to him, because this whole path in my life, it’s because of him. My biological father was actually an alcoholic, a drug addict, and he went down the wrong path. I truly believe, had it not been for my stepfather coming into my life, I very well could have gone down another path myself.
You have this great example. You’ve had a great military career, and you’re doing wonderfully as a police officer. You’re a sergeant, you’ve got a daughter, you’re married. Everything seems to be going your way. Then we hit December 26, I think it was 2012, and that’s when everything happened. Take us back to that moment.
Yeah. Up to that point, I had been a patrol officer, a field training officer. I was a detective. I was undercover on a state drug task force, and I got promoted to sergeant in November of 2012. And we had an informal FTO process where you ride along with other sergeants, and eventually I was cut loose. So December 26, I was working the graveyard shift, which was 9:30 at night till 7:30 in the morning. It was only my second solo shift as a patrol sergeant. So I’m out there running a team. It was minimum staffing because of the holiday. Eventually, there was an overlapping team. They went home; a dispatcher went home. And literally, I was the acting chief of police for the entire city. I only had one dispatcher and four officers. It was our Friday. I was going to be off for several days. At this point, I was happily married, had a beautiful two-year-old daughter. Everything was going perfect in my life. I mean, everything. And about four hours from going off-duty, a call comes out, alert tones, which is very unusual. My dispatcher, very panicked on the radio. And she says that there’s basically a woman inside a condominium and a man armed with a knife.
At that point, I literally just put my car and drive, lights and sirens on. I start driving to the location as fast as I can. I know the general area. It’s basically a one-lane street. It’s high-res, lots of condos, apartments, high-rises. I know where this complex is, but I don’t know where this unit is. About halfway there, and again, there’s no traffic this time of night. I’m blowing through lights. It seems like eternity, but literally, we’re talking seconds. The dispatcher gets on the radio again and says, Now, the boyfriend and girlfriend are barricaded inside their bedroom. And so I asked for clarification on the radio. I wasn’t sure, is the boyfriend the one with a knife, or is there a third subject with a knife? And she quickly clarified, No, there’s a third subject armed with a knife. And so now you can just imagine the adrenaline is pumping. All these thoughts are going through my head. I mean, I’m in charge. I’m the supervisor. This call is already highly unusual from the very start. I pull up on scene in front of this dark complex, and literally, as I start to open my car door, the dispatcher starts screaming now on the radio saying, Units, units, there’s a struggle, there’s a struggle.
And then the phone line goes dead. The dispatcher loses all contact with the people inside that condo. Now, thank God, one of my officers, a female officer, pulls up right behind me at this time. And then we can hear blood-curling screams coming from a distance. We pull out our firearms and we just start running towards the sound of the screams as fast as we can. Eventually, we have to crawl underneath this outside stairwell. We get into this open courtyard and there’s two-story attached condos literally just all around us. We follow the screams, and we get in front of this unit and it goes dead silent. So from these blood-curling screams, just eerie silence. I mean, nothing. I don’t remember seeing anybody outside, hearing any other noises. I post up at the door, my partner posts up at a window. We announced ourselves, and I’ve got more officers coming, but we got to get inside that condo because we don’t know if this couple is being killed, if they’re bleeding out, if they’ve been stabbed, but we got to get inside there. So we announce ourselves. I try kicking open the door. It doesn’t work. My partner motions over and the window that she’s at, it’s a louvered window the size of a full door, and it’s shattered inside the condominium.
So Again, we post up at the window. We announced ourselves. Guns are out. Nothing, no movement, no sound. She goes in. I go in right behind her. We clear that kitchen area. She goes right. I go left. I end up clearing a family room, dining room area, don’t see anybody, no signs of a struggle. I go back to where she’s at, and she’s at the base of a stairwell. So I’m literally shoulder to shoulder to her. She’s to my right. Behind us is that locked front door, and there’s a solid wall to our right. And we look up the staircase, and there’s an opening we can see on the upper left. We don’t know if it’s a landing, a hallway, if it goes to a room, but we’ve got our firearms pointed up, lights mounted. Again, we’re announcing ourselves, Police, come out, show us your hands. Show us your hands. Moments later, a male subject partially comes out. We can’t see the entire right side of his body, just sweating profusely, eyes wide open, literally staring straight through us. The best way to describe it today is like something out of a zombie movie. I mean, literally just staring straight through us.
Again, we got our guns pointed up. We’re yelling, Show us your hands. Show us your hands. No movement. I don’t remember body movement, eye movement, facial expressions, no words from this suspect. Eventually, he comes all the way out, and my partner yells, He’s got a knife. He’s got a knife. And in his right-hand, he was clenching a full-size kitchen knife. At this point, we’re now yelling, Drop the knife, drop the knife. He’s not reacting. During this time, two more officers come into the condominium, another female officer and a male officer. I immediately yell for one of them to get less lethal force or the taser. So the male officer says, I’ve got the taser. He positions directly behind myself and that first officer at the base of the stairwell. The second female officer goes perpendicular to the stairwell with her firearms out. Moments later, the male with the knife suddenly comes up in a stabbing position over his head, and he starts coming down the stairwell at us. I shoot. Officers shoot. Officer deploys the taser. At this point, we don’t know if any of us have hit him. He’s now at the bottom of the stairwell.
The two female officers repositioned to the family room, dining room area. The male officer that had the taser dropped that, he now has his firearm out. And we’re literally, myself and this other officer, are just a few feet from this subject. Still holding this full-size kitchen knife. And all we know is he’s between us and the couple upstairs. And now we’re yelling again, guns out, Drop the knife, drop the knife. He starts coming back up with the knife. And we shoot. I mean, literally, he’s right there. Absolutely devastating. I mean, his wounds were just… It was horrible. And I knew at that point, he probably wasn’t with us. I had officers check his vitals. There were none. We already had medical staging. We called in dispatch to send in medical. I had the officers go upstairs. And thank God we got there when we did, because this subject had been stabbing through that bedroom door. And that poor couple, a male and female, were physically barricading their body against this door, trying to prevent him from coming inside and killing them. I have no doubt, had we not gotten there when we did, they would be dead.
But thank God, at least physically, I can’t speak to their mental state, but physically, they’re okay, and we saved their lives. And unfortunately, we had to take his life not only to save their lives, but to save our own lives. And that incident literally was my tipping point. That incident changed my path. It changed my life. It changed everything after that.
And up to that point, you had been… Well, you were no stranger to danger at that point. You had been in some pretty rough situations before that. You’d seen some pretty grotesque things. But this was the tipping point. And I wonder why, and I think maybe you still wonder why, but it seems like the way you were treated afterwards certainly appears to have an impact on how that event, how you process that event. Instead of going back and the team, saying, Okay, great, you saved a life, and giving you a medal right away. They didn’t give you a medal till years down the road, once the whole matter was resolved. Instead, they treated you like a suspect.
I think, honestly, it’s twofold. So I think you’re right in one respect. But I think first and primarily is that, like you said, up to that point, I’d been exposed to hundreds and hundreds of traumatic incidents. And the thing was, is that early on in my career, I made a big mistake. I made a mistake saying that I would never talk about the job, I would never bring it home, I would never share when I was having a bad day or a rough day. I just came home pissed off or in a bad mood. I didn’t have that established support system where I could go to my spouse at the time. I didn’t believe in peer support because the people on the team were just lame. They were just popular. They weren’t cops-cops. I didn’t believe in talking to therapists or clinicians. I didn’t have a close priest or pastoral relationship. Other than my stepfather, who I did talk to, but in this case, we were ordered immediately not to talk about this incident unless it was with our attorney or a protected individual. My father, unfortunately, was not one of those protected people. I literally felt like I was on an island.
After this incident, being up all night, going through an interrogation, basically, I started having constant nightmares. I mean, literally for some reason, and there was other incidents where I could say I was close to being killed, this was the closest I’d ever been killed. I literally lost that feeling of invincibility that I had for all those years, both in the military as an undercover narcotics agent on a state drug task force. I literally lost that sense of invincibility. I literally realized, even though I know it’s common knowledge, that my life could be gone in a millisecond, anytime, any day, any call, any contact. At this point, I’ve got this beautiful two-year-old daughter, and all I could think about was, what’s going to happen when I’m not here? Is she going to even remember her father and how much I loved her? But now to go into the shooting, shortly after the shooting, we were sued immediately. I was part of this federal lawsuit that drug on for over four years. This incident that I wanted to forget, I couldn’t forget. I had to remember every finite detail. Not only was I interviewed right after the shooting, then we had our internal investigation.
Eight months after that, we had a coroner’s inquest where I’m in a public court with a jury. Now I have my third recorded statement. Then we have depositions. Every year, we had to go through depositions where the father of the man I killed was sitting directly across the table from me. And so I’ve got four recorded statements on the record over a period of four years. And this court case is not going away. Eventually, I end up as a defendant in federal court in San Francisco, literally fighting for everything. And a big part of this is admin betrayal or institutional betrayal. And I talk about this heavily in my book. And I think, in my humble opinion, the admin betrayal or institutional betrayal is what actually pushes most officers over the edge into suicide. And I got so bad, I got to the point where I purposely started putting myself in dangerous situations, hoping I got killed in the line of duty. That’s how bad it got. And so the admin betrayal, institutional betrayal, that’s like the dirty little secret that nobody talks about, because oftentimes we’re ordered not to talk about it. If we mess up, if we’re under investigation.
We’re always ordered, Hey, you cannot discuss this with anybody except for your representative or your lawyer. You can’t talk about it with anyone. And what I found out through this experience in the book and speaking is I get messages almost daily, not just from here in the United States, but other countries like Australia, UK, Canada, on how this is really what’s affecting most people. Our culture is so toxic. We eat our own better anybody else. I know we’re going to get to this, but I thought before I went into civilian law enforcement that it was going to be like the military, and there was going to be this real sense of family and camaraderie, and there wasn’t. It’s a very different culture. The military, in my opinion, is much more family. It’s much more close-knit. It’s much more a sense of being a team.
Now, I want to at least let you know your lawyer did the right thing. I have represented officers involved in shootings. I’ve represented officers involved in shootings resulting in deaths. And of course, when we meet with those police officers, we tell them, Look, if you talk to anybody, you make them a witness, right? They’re going to look for an inconsistent statement. They’re going to ask you who you talked with during that deposition. And there may be, I’m sure there are department policies because no one wants to make it look like the cops are conspiring to create a story. But the reality is anybody you talk to becomes a witness. And so when I sit down with that officer after the shooting, and some are rattled, some are not, but it’s, Hey, look, you can talk to me. You can tell me anything and everything, but I don’t want you to tell anybody else because you potentially make them a witness. And if you testify or your deposition is taken, someone’s going to ask, Who did you talk with? And you can bet they’re going to try to talk to that person, twist their words, and make it sound like you told them something different.
At this point, you’re no longer going to be treated like a protector. You’re now a target. And the reality is someone’s going to come after you, and we need to protect you. And the best way you can protect yourself is to not talk. Now, there is, of course, privileged communications with certain certified individuals, specifically therapists, psychologists that you can talk to. But as you explained, law enforcement doesn’t necessarily trust those individuals. Why is that?
I think there’s a couple of reasons, but honestly, I think it’s an experience. It’s not knowing people that have actually used these resources personally and trust these resources. I think there’s a sense that first, that it’s not really protected, that it’s not privileged, and somehow these communications are going to go back to your agency and it’s going to result in negative effects or ramifications on your career, on potential assignments or promotions. I think that’s part of it. I think the other part of it is that a lot of first responders don’t think that therapists or clinicians or psychologists or psychiatrists understand the uniqueness of what we do and what we see, and that we are really different than most patients, as you will say. What’s important is that I only preach or talk about talking to a culturally competent clinician or therapist. That is one who truly understands what it means to have served in the military or as a first responder or both. There are actually lots of people out there now who are culturally competent, who are trained, who do work with military and first responders, and do get it and do understand it, and can be an invaluable resource.
And so part of my mission is that when I go out and speak across the country, for this book, let’s talk about Relentless Courage. I mean, because this book is living proof of the real collaboration between a trusted clinician, my co-author, Dr. Shana Springer and myself. And it shows the power of what truly can be done. But to go back to when my shooting happened, I didn’t know that. I didn’t believe in that. I didn’t have these relationships already established. And so what I encourage people to do is don’t wait to the big one. Don’t wait to the big shooting or the on-duty death or the pursuit that results in a fatal collision. Establish these relationships early on with a trusted, culturally competent clinician. And the facts are that I went through a year’s long journey from what I call post-traumatic stress injury versus disorder. And I’m now on the other side of that. But I still talk to a clinician and therapist. In fact, I have to end this interview at a certain time because I have my weekly appointment with my therapist. And really, all it is, is talking to somebody in a trusted, safe environment.
And you can talk about anything and everything. But like you said, don’t talk to your partners, don’t talk to other officers as far as these incidents, because you’re right, this can come up to hurt you or haunt you later on. Make sure that you’re talking with your lawyer or somebody who is legally protected, and this conversation is not going to get out.
Now, I think there’s a strong parallel between what you perceived as an officer and what we perceive in the military. We know that in the military, there’s a great fear of that stigma associated with any type of mental health issues. I’m not going to get promoted. I’m going to lose my security clearance. There’s all this fear that if I talk to somebody about the problems that I’m having, it’s going to get back to the chain of command somehow. It’s not going to be confidential, and then it’s going to be used against me, and this may be a career ender. It sounds like that parallel is pretty strong when you look at what you were experiencing in the police department.
It does. But here’s something. I just thought of this. So this is, unfortunately, what happens, too. I’ll be straight up and say that my post-traumatic stress injury, none of it comes from the military. None of it comes from my service. I was in South America, the Middle East, all over Europe. I did these things. But for me, it all stems from my first responder career. Now, oftentimes military people become first responders, and oftentimes, they do have post-traumatic stress injury from the military, and they have posttraumatic stress injury from their first responder career, whether it’s a firefighter, paramedic, dispatcher, or cop. And in my case, when I eventually decided that I needed to medically retire because I could no longer do this job, they kept trying to point the finger in my deposition saying, Oh, this was the military. This had nothing to do with your law enforcement career. They kept trying to point the finger backwards. And I was like, Hey, guys, I don’t have a disability claim for PTSD through the VA. I’ve never mentioned that. I don’t have that. But they kept trying to point the finger. That’s unfortunately what happens, too, is that you’re going to have both sides trying to point the finger at each other, or say it was some childhood adverse experience or something that happened before you became a first responder.
That’s something for people to be aware of because in most cases, people have trauma at all levels, from childhood, from maybe military service, their first responder service, and just their personal lives. We all go through stuff. We all experience things. Whether you’re a first responder or not, a veteran or not, we all deal with different things.
When we’re part of a team, I think it’s easier to deal with those things because you know you have people that you trust to your right and your left, your brothers and your sisters. We’re all part of the same team, and we want to continue to perform for them. But we also know on some level, they get us and they’re here for us. Now, it seems that that’s what you expected, or that’s what you felt when you joined the police force, but that’s not how things ended up. It seems like that was a pretty rude awakening that in your time of need, it felt like the team wasn’t there.
Yeah. You know what’s ironic is that my best friends are actually from my police academy. So these are people that ended up going to different departments. They didn’t work at my department. The police academy is the closest you’re going to get to a military environment, like a boot camp environment. I’m closer today as we sit here with those people that I went through that academy class. So it was six months long, 880 hours. I went to Walnut Creek Police Department. I worked 14 years with these people day in and day out, but I never became as close to them. It’s because, in my opinion, at least my experience, that there’s this cutthroat mentality where everyone’s going out for different special assignments, whether it’s investigations, SWAT, canine, detective, bomb team, all these different things, promotions, and everyone’s out for themselves, especially administrators or people in higher up positions. And oftentimes, those people aren’t really street cops. They’re not cops-cops. They’ve gone through their career on I don’t want to say getting other people in trouble, but literally, they have no backbone, and they have no problem with eating their own people. And that’s the sad reality is that as cops, here’s the thing, we’re in combat every single day.
We’re out there on the street, sometimes 20, 30 years, every contact, every call is a potential lethal threat. And so not only do we have to protect ourselves from the bad guys on the street, but we have to protect ourselves from our own administrations. Now, fast forward, since George Floyd and all these other things that have happened, we’ve got elected officials, whether it’s mayors, city managers, city councils, governors, county supervisors. These people are politicians, and they don’t have our back. I mean, literally, we are on an island on our own, left to fend for ourselves. And that’s how we feel. We feel absolutely alone that no one’s going to understand us, no one’s going to help us when we need us. And the reality is that in the beginning, it felt like family. But when I realized when I needed my blue family the most, they turned their back on me. And that hurt the most. And that caused me to want to take my own life.
Now, you did have some strong relationships. In fact, a Vietnam veteran, I think his name was John, actually stood by you the whole time and helped you through it. And of course, he was fighting his own demons at the time.
Yes. So he was a reserve officer. He was a volunteer. In our department, we had single-person cars. Most agencies, they don’t have two officers in one patrol car. In our case, but we did have a reserve officer program, and I liked the reserves. I usually had one of two people that would always ride with me when I was an officer. One guy was John that you mentioned, another was Alan. They’re both mentioned in my book. I became very close with them. And I did trust them. And I did have a different relationship because we had all that time together. And yes, they both were tremendous. And I don’t want to give the story away, but in the book, we talk about this. But John, I didn’t know the demons that he was suffering. I didn’t know about his experience in Vietnam because he never talked about it. I know it today, and we talk about that in the book, but a very tragic incident happened involving him, and that was my wake-up call. He actually saved my life. And it was a month after that tragic incident, after four years of suffering in silence where I lost my marriage.
My health started to fail. I lost my father. My career was going down the crapper. I mean, literally, I was drinking too much. I wanted to die on duty. And a month after that, I finally got the strength and courage to ask for help.
Yeah, and I think it’s important to really go through the sense of isolation that you felt. I mean, before that shooting, you’re in a happy marriage with your daughter, and everything is great. But as this unfolds, you can’t talk about it. You don’t tell your wife what happened. She doesn’t even find out, I believe, until the coroner’s inquest. So there’s a long lag where you’re just carrying all this. You don’t have anybody you can talk to, and ultimately, it destroys your marriage.
It does. And again, and I have to take some ownership here, but I made that mistake, like I said, before I started the Police Academy. And that was a fateful decision for me because I think had I established a healthy communication in that regard early on, that I would have talked about these incidents over the years as they were happening. Get the stuff off my shoulder, get off my chest, have that support system. But I didn’t do that. And when I came home pissed off in a bad mood, she was walking around on eggshells because she thought it was her or something she did. She didn’t realize that was because I saw a child die that day or I went to a horrific car accident, or I went to a suicide, a domestic violence call, a sexual assault call. She didn’t realize that these were the things that I was dealing with. And so, again, I have to take ownership here because I screwed that up. And for anybody watching this, listening to this, it’s not too late to start. I encourage you to start that communication out, open up those doors. And here’s the cool thing is that this book, Relentless Courage, and I hear this time and time again, is that when either a spouse or a partner of a first responder reads it, or the first responder reads it, and they have the other one read it, for the first time in the relationship, they’re coming together and they’re having these conversations because it’s laying the foundation to understand and realize that this is normal. This is a normal reaction to the abnormal things that we have to see and deal with.
There is so much on top of that. If you can’t talk about the incident and what’s going on, then it’s tough to talk about the court process and all the stress that’s going on and feeling attacked and betrayed. If you can’t have that initial conversation about this is what we’re going to go through, it’s very hard to get there. I enjoyed reading about the cross-examination of the trial by this now disbarred lawyer who attacked you. As I read that, and I was thinking about my federal jury trial. I was defending a law enforcement officer, and I remember that they had the weapon, the actual weapon, in the courtroom as an exhibit. I was going to have my client show exactly how we used the butt stroke to not have to shoot the criminal, so that he would not have to shoot the person that they were pursuing. But I had a trial before where a prosecutor took a gun, a shotgun and flagged the entire jury with it, just waved it in front of the jury and a couple of people ducked. So I said, I’m not going to do that in a courtroom. So I ended up getting one of these blue rubber ducks to show how it was that this law enforcement officer decided to, instead of shoot, drop the weapon to a better grip and butt stroke the suspect.
Being able to show was the big difference in what actually happened then I think what the government perceived happened. To have him get down off the stand and just show the jury. Tell them, This is what was coming, and this is how I reacted. To show them was so important because as pointed out in the book, the cross-examination was ridiculous. It was by someone who didn’t take the time to understand police work or to understand self-defense, to understand what was going through your head at the time. I mean, to a rational person, especially someone who served in the military and knows about rules of engagement, no question. This is justified. Why are we having a trial? This is easy, right? This is an easy decision. And yet they distorted it and perverted it and tried to attack you with it in ways that were just sheer manipulation. And ultimately it backfired. But for you to be under that stress for four years, I think a lot of people I try to explain as a lawyer how much stress I’m under because this is my client’s life. This is my client’s future. He did nothing wrong, and they are coming after him, and I’m the only thing standing in the way.
And for me, it’s… To see justice, there’s no better feeling. But in the moment, well, in the moment, it gets pretty exciting. But up till that point, knowing that this is… It’s just me and you. It’s just me and my client, and we’re fighting for his life. And that fight doesn’t just happen 30 days later in a courtroom. It is after years and years, as you said, of depositions. I don’t think people understand the stress that just day in, day out. I would sometimes try not to call my clients too much because I knew that as soon as I called, their heart was going to jump up and they were going to feel that anxiety again. Going through all of that, how did you keep it together for those four years? I mean, you struggled a lot, obviously, and you go through that, but yet you’re still able to function and you make it through the trial. It just seems like you go from one from the coroner’s inquest to the deposit. You got to be thinking every time, Okay, this is dumb. This is over. They have to know there’s no case here, but that never happened. How did you deal with that?
A couple of ways. First off, I want to give credit to my attorney, Noah Blechman, and he’s mentioned in my book, but I’m very good friends with him today. I’ve got his personal cell. I text him, I call him, I send him messages. I knew that he had my back. I knew that he had my back to the fullest, and he knew everything about this case, and he made sure he was informed. His support and knowing that he cared about us really made a critical difference for me because I didn’t feel like a number. I didn’t feel like one of his many clients. I felt like, honestly, I was his only client, and I felt like he had my back to the fullest. That made a critical difference. But for my own survival, I told myself that this lawsuit is the root of all my problems, and that once it’s gone, once it goes away, that all my problems are going to go away. There actually came a time right before the trial where the city last minute actually offered the family money for the case to go away. I wasn’t happy about this because I wanted to go to trial.
Honestly, I didn’t want this case settled because I wanted it known in print, in black and white for eternity that we did the right thing, that we saved lives. But last minute, they offered, I think it was like $500,000 or something like that. And these people are suing for millions and millions. And the family’s like, No, we’re going to court. And I was like, Let’s do this. And so I was actually glad they didn’t take the money, and I’m glad that we went through the trial. But the trial took a toll. It took a tremendous toll, and much more so than the buildup to the trial, because in our case, we had four officers involved in the shooting. Only myself and that male officer were held to answer because they gave us qualified immunity on the first round of shots, and the two females were not involved at all in the second volley of shots. And so they became witnesses. Myself and this other officer became defendants. To sit there for two weeks feeling like we’re criminals with everything on the line, with the jury staring at us, with them calling these crazy hired guns, these expert witnesses.
I call them dinosaurs, these people that were cops back in the 1960s in Los Angeles, to get up there on the stand and call us cold-blooded killers, that we planted evidence that this guy was never armed. Now these stories are going out to the news media as this trial is going on. I can’t begin to tell you the toll this took. And so we did prevail in this trial, but things after got much worse. They didn’t get better like I thought. And so that survival strategy of, Hey, once this goes away, all my problems go away. I can go back to normal. Life’s going to be good. And even though we prevailed and we won that trial, it didn’t. Like I said, it become much, much worse.
You prevail, you get an award, but the award is downgraded, and there just seems to be a lot of distrust in the organization at this point on both sides. You feel like the team doesn’t trust you, you don’t trust the leadership, and things just start to spiral. Where did you finally gain control?
It was the month after that tragic incident I told you. This would have been December 2016, actually the anniversary of my shooting. I finally got that strength and courage to ask for help. I made the phone call as difficult as it was. I know today, and again, I was ashamed and embarrassed. I mean, even for a couple of years after making that phone call, I was ashamed. I didn’t want anyone to know about what I did, that I needed help. But now that I’m on the other side of I know that that day, that call was the bravest, the most courageous thing I’ve ever done in my life. Nothing in the military, not even that shooting as a civilian law enforcement officer. Nothing was more courageous than making that phone call. And that’s where I took control because initially, one of my administrators tried to talk me out of it and say, Hey, are you sure you don’t want to just take a day off, get yourself together? And I was like, You know what? No, because I know I’ve been playing this game for four years, and they don’t realize how messed up I am and how literally I want to die in a line of duty.
I said, You know what? No, I’m doing this the right way. I’m going to devote 100% of my time to getting better and to recovering because I do want to come back to work. I do want to do this job. This is all I know. This is what I love. This is what I was destined to do. For me, this was a calling. I took control right then and there and said, You know what? For the first time in my life, I’m going to I’m going to make myself a priority, and I’m going to get better, and I’m going to do everything I can to make that happen.
To your credit, you had to reach out more than once. I think now about you taking your daughter to Disneyland and the administration going after you while you’re in that moment, that very special moment, an important moment in bonding with your daughter.
I still hold anger over that, and I take it very personally because for me, I had just gone I did a week-long program, the West Coast Post-Trauma Retreat. I was very well on my way to recovery. I was doing all of these things that I needed to do. I was making progress. One of my expectations when I left that week-long retreat was we came up with a 90-day plan, like a year plan, three-year plan, and so on. And one of the things that I committed to doing, because I was going through this nightmare divorce with my wife, and literally I was fighting for custody of my beautiful daughter, my everything, that I decided on Father’s Day weekend, no less, of all weekends, that for the first time in my life, I was going to take her and just us, just the two of us. I was going to drive down to LA as a surprise and take her to Disneyland, just us, that weekend, to bond, to get our relationship back together and to start living life again like I wanted to do. And like you said, some things started happening. And that was a real turning point for me.
After that trip is when I finally actually consulted with a work comp attorney because up to this time, I hadn’t had an attorney. I was like, You know what? My agency is being supportive. I’m getting the time off. I’m getting the resources. But now it was this point where they actually tried to talk me to retirement when I was down at Disneyland. I realized that I’m just a number filling a position, and they either want me back right now or they don’t want me back at all. And for me, it was like, no, this is my calling. This is all I know. I’m coming back. I’m doing what I can. And after that, there’s some more admin material, which we won’t give the whole story away here, but the hits keep on coming. And this is the reality. Where is my blue family when I need them? I’m doing the right things. I’m doing everything that I humanly can to get better and to overcome post-traumatic stress injury, and I’m making damn good progress. But all it took was a phone call from an administrator that ruined all of that and that set me back exponentially.
I’ve had those calls that I let ruin a weekend, and you never get that time back, and you regret it. It’s so tough. I think as leaders, sometimes we really need to think through that. All right, we’re coming to the end. I want to be respectful of your time. I also want to talk about where people could find you.
But the after-action review. Give me three examples of great leadership you observed, either in your police career or your military career, and then three examples of horrible leadership.
All right, well, let’s start with the good. One of them was Chief Joel Brighton. He was the police chief who promoted me. He was the chief actually during my shooting, but he left shortly after the shooting. So he wasn’t there for all that admin betrayal and all those things. But that morning in the shooting, he actually arrived on scene in the middle of the night, and it actually drove me back to the police department personally and reassured me that everything was going to be okay and that we did the right thing, that we saved lives. He was a leader. He was a mentor to me. When he left, this new chief came in, and here’s the bad side of this. This new chief came in who didn’t know me, hadn’t promoted me, but I was on probation. So my promotion was in jeopardy. And this guy wasn’t a leader. He wasn’t a cop’s cop. He was a politician, and he cared more about what the city council or the city manager thought about. He wanted to make friends with all the civilians on the city side instead of making his own people a priority. I look back and I know that had Chief Brighton still been there through the lawsuit and through all this, I’d still be working there today.
Again, having this other person, a so-called leader, not a leader, in my opinion, and he truly let me down. He did not lead by example. If anything, he encouraged certain people in the administration to do the exact same thing that he was doing in hopes of becoming chief someday. Well, let’s go with another negative. I got to tell you this story. This chaps my hide. I’m not going to say the name, but this book, Relentless Courage, it hadn’t been published yet. We had the manuscript done, and I reached out to several leaders across the nation, military leaders, law enforcement leaders. I reached out to an acting chief of police at one time for a very large city in, I’ll just say California, because I don’t want to narrow it down too much. And I reached out to him and told him what the book was about and that I really wanted them to read it. And I wanted their honest, no-hold, barred feedback and suggestions. Because this thing wasn’t in print yet, we could still make changes. We could add things, we could take things away. And I wanted his opinion. Well, the first thing he said was, I don’t know if I’m the right person to read this because I don’t really believe in post-traumatic stress.
I don’t think it’s a real thing. And I was like, I took a pause. I said, well, I said, Chief, I said, actually, I think you are the right person to read this because I said, I think this book, it’s going to rock your world. I think it’s going to truly change your perception. I think it’s going to let you realize some things. So he agrees to read it. And a couple of weeks later, we hit him up, see how it’s going. He’s like, yeah, I’m about halfway done. I should be done by the weekend. I’ll get back to you guys. So we’re like, cool. Okay, awesome. Well, that time goes by. I wait a few days. I’m like, he’s a chief. He’s doing chiefly things. He’s busy. He’s got a personal life. Not hear anything for a week or two. Eventually, I send an email. Nothing. Wait, send an email, nothing. Send a text. I’ve got the guy’s personal cell phone. Nothing. Call, leave a voicemail. Nothing. Send one more email. And we’re at this point now where we’ve gotten every single endorsement back. We’re literally ready to hit the print button. We’re ready to rock and roll.
We’ve been working on this life-saving project for over a year and a half. It’s consumed our lives and nothing. And so finally, I’m at the gym and I’m so pissed off. I’m like, You know what? Screw this, dude. I don’t care who he is. So I sent him this text and I said, You know what? If my dad knew how you were treating his son, he would roll over in his grave. I said, Here you are, treating me like I’m some psycho ex-girlfriend. You don’t have the balls or the courage to answer my message or respond. Well, guess what? Within a minute, within a minute of over a month of being ghosted, I get a phone call on my cell phone, and it’s this chief. He yells in my ear for like 45 seconds, and it hangs up the phone. Never talked to the dude again. That’s the problem right there. He was an acting chief. Thank God this guy is retired. He was an acting chief with hundreds of officers under his command, doesn’t believe in post-traumatic stress injury, and those are the people that are costing lives. And he’s in denial of his own shit that he can’t look himself in the mirror.
And I know damn well this book opened those doors, and he didn’t want to acknowledge the damage that he’s done. But I’ll tell you what, he’s got to wake up every day and look himself in the mirror. And one day, mark my words, one day, He’s going to realize his errors and what he’s done. Horrific experience. Left me speechless.
Well, that was so powerful. I won’t even hold you to the other ones unless you want to give them to me because I want to make sure we talk about where people get a hold of you.
You know what? Let’s end there. I think that’s a good one to end.
Yeah, I love it.
You got to me fired up now.
From the heart. No, absolutely. That’s the type of authentic leadership that we like to see is, Hey, this is the reality. So obviously, the book, Relentless Courage, great book. Tell us, what I love about it is there’s a lot of great information, but there’s a great story, and it’s your story, and it’s true, and it’s raw. So this is an amazing book, an amazing story, and it’s an audiobook for those Marines that can’t read out there. But also, I also saw some great videos, and I know that John is in one of them. Tell us where people could learn more about and Relentless Courage and your work today, Michael.
Okay, so Relentless Courage, the best place I think is Amazon to get it. It’s on hard cover, paperback, Kindle. And yes, we just released the Audible a few months back, and that is in our own voices. It’s straight from the heart. I highly, highly encourage the Audible. Of course, for the Marines out there, but everyone for that matter, I think you’ll enjoy it. As far as me, I’m on every social media platform you can imagine. So I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. I guess they call it X now, not Twitter. Reels, Parlor. Just type in Sergeant Michael Sugrue. You’re going to find me. I check messages every single day. I will get back to you. I do speak all across the country, so look for that. I announced that on those sites, on the dates and locations. But again, if you do happen to read or listen to Relentless Courage, I personally want to hear from you. I love getting messages. I get them almost daily. So please send me a message. Give me your feedback. Give me your thoughts. But I will make you one guarantee. I’ll make you one promise that when you start this book, whether it’s reading it or listening it, you won’t be able to stop.
And this book will change your life. It can save your relationship. It can save your career. But most importantly, this book can save your life.
Absolutely. And it resonates with anybody that has served anywhere, whether it’s law enforcement or military. I found a lot of things that, yeah, you really feel things from this book. And you don’t have to be Air Force, don’t have to be a police officer. But if you served our country or served your community and put yourself in harm’s way, you’re going to relate to some of the things that happened in this book. And you’ll pray that they don’t happen to you. But it’s important to recognize that our brothers and sisters out there, whether they’re blue or green, experience this every single day. And I want to clarify the name is S-U-G-R-U-E. So when you look for Michael Sugrue, that’s the spelling. And in the show notes, we’ll have links to some of the other videos that you should definitely watch. The production value is high quality, and the message is great. Michael, thank you so much for coming on today to the Veteran Led podcast. Is there anything else you want to share with our veterans today?
Just one last thing, and that is if you’re listening to this or watching it and you think that you’re alone, if you think that nobody is going to understand how you’re feeling or what you’re going through, because I felt that way for so long. I promise you that there are countless people out there who will understand it, who will be there to support you. But you’ve got to make that first step, and you’ve got to ask for that help. And I promise you, if you do, it’s not going to be easy. My journey was difficult. There’s good days, there’s bad days. It takes time. But I’m living proof that you can beat post-traumatic stress injury. And I have a whole new life. There’s a whole new life waiting for you. So please, if you’re suffering and you think you’re alone, please ask for help.
Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we pursue our mission of promoting veteran leadership in business, strengthening the veteran community, and getting veterans all of the benefits that they earned. If you know a leader who should be on the Veteran Led podcast, report to our online community by searching @veteranled on your favorite social channels and posting in the comments. We want to hear how your military challenges prepared you to lead your industry or community, and we will let the world know. And of course, hit subscribe and join me next time on Veteran Led.
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