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Introduction: [00:00:00] Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns: [00:00:21] And guess what? We have a pirate in the house, back for another round, and we were having someone that had to cancel and Darren, thank you so much for being willing to jump in, jump on and have a great conversation again.

Darren Burch: [00:00:35] So truly my pleasure. Thank you for letting me come on in.

Russ Johns: [00:00:41] It's often times there's a lot of pirates out there that are always excited to jump on and willing to participate. However, we were talking yesterday with Brian and having a good conversation and you jumped on and I introduced you guys and so hopefully you'll be able to connect and. And one of the conversations we were having with Brian, and if you haven't watched the episode or you didn't catch it  live, it was yesterday. Go check it out at RussJohns.com/PirateBroadcast and it's with Brian, his experience. He had a traumatic life-threatening experience where a nurse jumped in, ran over and helped him, saved his arm. Great story and I can totally relate to it. And it was nice that you jumped in and said, hey, have you ever considered finding that individual that made an impact on your life? And before we were live, we were talking about how impactful different people in our lives have been and how important for it is for us to recognize who they are. Yeah, just take a moment and pause and think, man what an impact they made in my life. So I hope you guys can actually tackle that adventure and maybe do some good work for that.

Darren Burch: [00:02:07] So yeah, what a great guest and what a great story. Inspiring, truly inspiring this random stranger, a Walmart stranger no less saves his life. And when he was telling the story, I couldn't help, but wonder because I had, I didn't have that physical lifesaving, but I had a teacher that was retired. A first grade teacher, literally remap my brain so I could speak, I was young. I had a horrific speech impediment and. I would not have learned. It was probably fourth grade before anyone could even understand me. It was just an auditory processing disorder, but I have no idea what her name is. So when he, when your guest has a, a life saving scenario, truly lifesaving , I couldn't help, but wonder if he, stayed in touch and I thought probably not because many times these lifesavers, these people that are so important in so many lives , it's just another day at the office in a sense for these nurses, these first responders. And I could see that person just leaving before any kind of accolades were showered upon them and sure enough, that's exactly what happened.

Russ Johns: [00:03:18] It's interesting too, because I was  at one point in my life, I was a volunteer firefighter and an EMT, and there've been many cases where I wondered how they ended up, from the other opposite side, it's like, hope they're well, I hope they recovered and, survived this trauma that they went through, whether it be a car accident or a fall, or an injury of some kind. And the reality is we're all going through this world and we're doing things and things happen to us. And what we were talking about before the show was how this trauma, this tragic circumstance allows us to become stronger, more resilient. It's like the crucible of processing steel and making it stronger through fire and heat and, dousing it in water and doing it over and over again. And it's just a process that we have to go through in life. And the more resilient we are, the stronger we become and the more impact we can make in a lot of ways. And at least that's been my experience, hopefully I make an impact to some people every day, I can inspire or motivate somebody to think a little differently through these stories that we have on the #PirateBroadcast™. And I know that your life and your experience in the police force, in being a detective has to have some of that same experience along your journey.

Darren Burch: [00:04:54] Oh, absolutely. And to your first point in regards to the... it's an old cliche, but so true, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And I found that to be true, that all these different difficulties, we go through these challenges and we meet them and we overcome them. It makes us stronger. It really does. It's funny, cause I didn't grow up as that kid who always wanted to play cops and robbers always want to be the good guy and just was destined to be a cop. That's my, like my daughter was destined and be a teacher. She always played school in back, a playhouse. It was a school room. So she was destined to be this teacher. Me, not so much. I think I was more destined to be a used car salesman. I just didn't have that, but I always had this overwhelming sense of community. And at the, when you're young, you don't know what that means, but I always liked helping the neighbors, whether it's shagging golf balls from somebody hitting it into the park or what have you. I always loved helping  and did go through a horrific event when I was 17, I saw a fatal one car  accident. They had been drinking and we ran over to save them and this is my first book. In fact, it starts off the chapter. And sadly, we weren't able, and I say we there's four of us, but I was the smallest of the group. In high school, I wrestled at 98 pounds. It gives you an idea how small I was. So I'm squeezing in through this burning car, trying to get the last person out. And I got ahold of her, but could not pull her out. The seatbelt, it was an old sixties car and the seatbelt had jammed and I couldn't release her. And I got burnt and sadly she burned to death and that stayed with me  horrifically to the point where I was obsessed with saving lives. So when I became a police officer , I could not go on enough radio calls. I was that guy who just loves shagging the rail calls cause it was someone asking for help, opposed to, looking for cars that look suspicious, and that's great police work, don't get me wrong, but I had this need to help. And to your question about, police work, it was so rewarding going from call to call helping people. And when I got promoted, I went back out in the street. After having been in detectives for about 10 years, I was in patrol 10 years in detective, 10 years and then as a Sergeant for 10 years, basically. And when I went back on the street, it was funny. I'd be dealing with my troops and somebody come up and say, Oh my God, you helped me with that rape case, some rape victim and yeah, it's very rewarding. And you don't realize how much of an impact you make like this nurse with your guest yesterday, Brian. Yeah. Yeah. This nurse made this huge impact. This first grade retired teacher made a huge impact in my life and  they go without a name and maybe that's appropriate to some degree. It's almost like the unknown soldier,  they represent something bigger than themselves, which is always a great way to look at life, trying to help people and do something bigger than yourself.

Russ Johns: [00:07:47] I just want to recognize the fact that there are so many people, there's so many helpers out there that if you have an opportunity, take time, a soldier, a police officer, a nurse, EMT firefighters, all of these individuals are out there doing great work and the intent is typically to help others. And, I don't think they get enough recognition in a lot of ways. And so if there's an opportunity that anyone has a moment to reach out and thank somebody for that and, offer some at least appreciation.

Darren Burch: [00:08:27] Yeah, I could not agree more. And so many times the heroes aren't the ones wearing capes, like again, I love police. I joke about firefighters, because we have a routine that's right. With this COVID and the pandemic, it really showed us a whole nother facet of that when you talk about, the stores, the grocery stores and these people's stock in the stores, the truck drivers, getting the stuff, we can't afford for them to stay home like my beautiful wife is. She gets to stay home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sadly for me, it was a blessing. I got to have her 24/7. But these folks that you don't think of as our heroes really are, we always, hopefully new nurses and doctors,  we're amazing, these checkout people at this grocery store and  these, yeah, it's funny. Sometimes it's like you, I always try to look on the bright side. It's just who we are, I think it's in our DNA. We go through a lot of tragedy as you and I have both encountered  and we always look at that silver lining and just keep going forward but with this pandemic, we got a sense of how important each other we are. And these people that you don't think of as heroes really are, and give thanks to them.

Russ Johns: [00:09:47] Yeah. Yeah, appreciate the unappreciated, the invisible, the ones that are out there doing it every day. And you mentioned the people in the stores, making sure that the supply lines are continuing to be filled and our carts are available and we're still getting fed. And now all of the things that go along with that. I want to shift gears and I want to just give a shout out to some of the individuals Angie Schuman always awesome  to be able to see you in the world.

Darren Burch: [00:10:18] She's awesome.

Russ Johns: [00:10:19] Good morning pirates. Russ Hedge in from Oregon. Absolutely  a positive person that makes an impact every single day. Love you Russ. Tracie Strunsee . I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. She's my producer. I should be thrashed about that, but thank you tracie for being here. I know I swapped out the guests today to accommodate Darren. I was just going to come on and do a solo show. This month is an interesting month for me in a lot of respects. And we talked about that, but I just wanted to make sure that people understand that we all go through things that challenge us, and we all have to understand that what we do with that challenge  is what makes it important in our lives. So thank you  tracie for being you and Darleen I still have not figured out how to create a moderator on my YouTube channel. She's offered to assist and there's a lot of people out there that are helping the pirates. Russ Hedge life's challenges definitely make us stronger. Absolutely. Yep. My daughter is a death investigator. I'm glad she didn't do too much to give me an indication that was going to be her career path as a child. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Darren Burch: [00:11:51] That's what I did for quite a few years.

Russ Johns: [00:11:53] Did you?

Darren Burch: [00:11:53] Yeah. Night detective in the homicide, going from one death scene after another. And like that proud mom said, it's not something you think about as your child's job. I never imagined a million years I'd be doing that when I hit my forties. Yeah.

Russ Johns: [00:12:08] And there's so many. There's so many, this is what I love about the #PirateBroadcast is there's so many different positions in jobs and experiences that we get to share during these conversations. Darren it's really important for us to understand that there's a lot of people doing different things in the world, and you have all kinds of opportunities. If you just look beyond what you can see and look at the peripheral and gauge life in a different way.  It's really important for us to understand that there's a lot of different people out there doing different things and have a little empathy for what's going on around you. Michael Baker says good morning. Howard Kaufman, true heroes, Howard. Thank you so much. I think of you all the time. Jenny Gold is going to be on the show. She's going to be helping , we're going to be talking about your product and everything that's going on in your world. And  thank you for being here. Darren. I want to talk about your book. You got something coming up. Last time we spoke on the first of January, new year's, we were talking about writing and authors and some of the adventures you've got going on. Give us an update on what's going on in that world.

Darren Burch: [00:13:21] Yeah. It's the end cap on my career. To more succinctly put it in context, my last five years It really was... I reinvented myself as, when I retired from the. Police department after about 30 years I was the silent witness Sergeant here locally across the globe is known as Crimestoppers. So I connected with media and I had a morning show with Katie KB, a rock and roll morning show. They wanted me to do the super suspect stories or dumb criminal stories and I didn't...

Russ Johns: [00:13:50] Darwin awards?

Darren Burch: [00:13:51] Yeah. Yeah, and I didn't trust the internet. So I kinda told my own, dumb Darren stories really but also stupid suspects and it became popular and someone asked me to write a book and I did. When I retired, hoping to give back, I did. I give about almost $10,000 to that nonprofit Crimestoppers from the book, but it became really successful. And like you, I shared the death of my son and in the final chapter a lot of people, the one thing they didn't like about it is like what happened? They wanted more information on that. So I decided to write a second one and it became again popular, for lack of a better phrase. We have a local celebrity here in the Valley of the sun called Dave Pratt , the mayor and he read it, liked it, endorsed, it gave me a review on it. And then about a year later he said, I'd love to have you on our radio show. Doing a podcast called Badge Boys. He hooked me up with a guy by the name of Jason , who is truly an inspiring story of its own, who was burnt, shouldn't have survived. It's a miracle he survived and a very inspiring story. Talk about adversity, and he's literally like the Phoenix, risen from these horrible ashes. And now hegoes around  the countr d inspiring others. So I'm so lucky to be able to share a show with him and talk about stuff and by just fate. The book was doing pretty good. And I got a call from some TV producer, a couple actually, and one of them wanted to put me on a new show with someone who's known as the Homicide Hunter, Lieutenant Joe Kenda has this Homicide Hunter show on ID channel. They create a new network called discovery plus, and the show is Joe Kenda's American Detective. And my story involving that one case and every homicide  detective, I don't care what you're doing, you have that one case that either it hits you hard because it was so horrific or because you never got to solve it or whatever those factors are for the individual detective connected. So in my second book, it's called That One Case and it is brutal. It's a horrible home invasion of an elderly couple. There was a rape component murder. It was just horrible. And thenthere was no evidence. There was no evidence. I had a great scene detective on it and got no evidence. So it was very daunting as it took several years of solving, but I was able to solve it. Thank God with the help of other detectives across the nation, because he was doing this all across the nation. It was truly a monster. So the last show on the series, the finale, if you will, is this. That one case I'm not even sure what they're labeling it. I don't know. The gypsy monster. He was part of a gypsy clan. I'm not sure what the name of it, but it's the final episode on February 24th. So I'm looking forward to seeing that. I was being recorded for two hours. It's only an hour show, so they probably have like maybe five minutes of me talking to them and then some good-looking guy being my character when I was young. And then of course, Lieutenant Joe Kenda narrates it almost  Robert Stack from unsolved mysteries, or maybe appropriately more like Rod Serling with night gallery and so forth.

Russ Johns: [00:17:06] Yeah. Yeah. When does that come out?

Darren Burch: [00:17:10] February 24th, about two weeks, just a little over two weeks from now on the discovery plus, and I foresee it going also to the ID channel in a couple of years, maybe even less than that. But it was their premiere show to get people onto this new platform and the streaming platform like Netflix, they're all going that way. It's on demand. You can see it when you want to see it and so forth. So I think that's going to be the next evolution from cable.

Russ Johns: [00:17:36] Yeah. I'm an early adopter, right?

Darren Burch: [00:17:40] You're a pirate. Absolutely. You get that.

Russ Johns: [00:17:42] Yeah, I get that.

I totally get that. Darleen says fantastic conversation. Silverfox DJ. And also one of your fans, you guys rock on Badge boys.

Darren Burch: [00:17:55] She rocks. She really does. I love Angie.

Russ Johns: [00:17:59] She is awesome. Yes. When does it episode air? Yeah. I ordered discovery plus

Darren Burch: [00:18:03] 24th. We'll see it together cause I haven't seen  it either, so we'll see it together and we'll text each other.

Russ Johns: [00:18:08] All right, we should have a showing party there. I really know that there's so many elements in this world that we're just go undiscovered and unnoticed as we go through life. And just congratulations Darren, on the episode and everything that goes along with that and enjoying some of the fruits of your labor. I know writing a book can be a challenging experience.

Darren Burch: [00:18:36] Changing the crayon into actual print form is very difficult.

Russ Johns: [00:18:40] Yeah.

Darren Burch: [00:18:43] Sometimes it melts, pages stick. It's horrible.

Russ Johns: [00:18:47] But,  you survived it, you thrive through it. And now you're a stronger person because of it. Fantastic. I want to talk a little bit about what the next stage is, cause I believe that life is an evolution, and I've never really believed in this philosophy of retirement because I think my dad worked just as hard after he quit working for organization  a,company. You're no longer in the police force. You're doing badge boys, you're writing books, you're doing things. What are some other adventures you've got on your horizon?

Darren Burch: [00:19:22] It's funny, you mentioned that. When I retired from being a cop and a lot of cops have a hard time because the job identifies them or they identify through the job. I have friends that still refer to themselves by their rank. And I never thought of myself. Yeah, I was a police officer. I was detective, but it didn't define me. I have a whole nother life, no fastest passions and so forth. So when retirement came around, I had been doing the radio so I was excited to do the book and write a book and knew it'd be daunting, especially for someone who can't read or write like my son. I was able to, the difficulties and challenges and it's funny cause now that I wrote the second one, I went ahead and wrote a screenplay for an outline. And now I'm working with a television producer and possibly putting that into fruition. But the most fun I have is that as a grandfather, my daughter had a beautiful boy about two and a half years ago. And now she's pregnant with twins. Yeah, the idea that. Yeah, they were just over last night and I got to play with them nonstop and that is so much fun. It's so beautiful. Talk about, doing something significant out there, if you ever, if you make every day a little bit better, with just like, when you talk about a smile, if you smile, but to make a difference in this young man's life is the most rewarding. So I'm dedicating myself as a grandfather, that's the greatest job there is become a grandfather and help, not just  your grandchild, but  your child, your daughter, your son. So that's, I think my next chapter of my life is just dedicate myself to them as well as dealing with the maybe this TV series.

Russ Johns: [00:21:00] That's fantastic. There's so many things that we can do. I was out, I think it was last night, a couple of nights in those last week and the sunsets are fantastic.

Darren Burch: [00:21:12] Especially here. 

Russ Johns: [00:21:13] It's just amazing. And, just, even from my iPhone, taking these pictures and just finding that moment of joy, just like playing with a grandchild in finding that section in your life, this is what it's really about.

Darren Burch: [00:21:29] Slow down. Smell the roses.

Russ Johns: [00:21:30] Absolutely. There's some things that I want to, expand on the show. And what's going on with Badge boys. Tell us about Badge Boys.

Darren Burch: [00:21:39] Yeah, we've been doing it now. My gosh, it's hard to believe, but we've been doing it over a year and we have 100 shows. Oh, yeah it's amazing ride. We got a PR a sponsor called officer privacy, which, it was really neat to get a sponsor that means something to Jason and I, in terms of keeping people safe, especially in today's world where there's people out there that are filled with hate. They just are. And it's a shame, but they're just consumed by it. And I don't care which side of the aisle, it doesn't matter. Hate is hate. It grows. It feeds just like love does and a smile and they will go on the internet and find information out about you. So when we found a sponsor that basically it's called officer privacy.com that allow you to remove your personal information, your phone number, your daughter, your family's phone numbers, or addresses, and so forth to keep people safe, because we're seeing a lot of ugliness which is a shame and again, for anybody.  We're excited about that partnership. Genuinely and Badge boys, like I said it's an amazing ride. And it's hard to believe that it's going to be two years has gone by two years with Jason. And it seems like yesterday, cause every day building bridges between community and police. And has there ever been a time where we needed to really connect with the community it's now. There is some bad officers out there. There really are. And we're seeing some bad things. We've seen it. Yeah. And when that happens, it tarnishes the badge. And it's not enough to say there's, a couple of bad apples in every bunch, you know that's a cop out. Pardon the phrase. Pardon the pun. But the problem is if we demonize and villainize entire police profession then we're going to become a revolving door and a self-fulfilling prophecy where who's going to want to do the job, but people that shouldn't be doing the job. So it's a double edged sword and we need to get a handle on it. It is a crisis mode. I think.

Russ Johns: [00:23:34] I think society as a whole needs to really take a step back and understand what they really want society to be like and riots and tearing down, burning down buildings isn't necessarily an idea of what a happy future looks like.

Darren Burch: [00:23:52] No exactly. We talked about, history and learning from history from ourselves, but also as a society. And I look at the twenties, the 1920s, we call it the roaring twenties and today these twenties are going to be the rioting twenties, forever more history is going to look back at this time with a very judgmental eye and appropriately so. There's people that are taking advantage of the anger, that's swelling, and whether it's political advantage, weaponizing it. Again, both sides of the aisle. This shouldn't be a left against right kind of thing. And it's global, we're seeing this across the globe as well. There's people out there sadly that are loud and boisterous and taking advantage and writing and then,  that's not the answer. That's just gonna create more headache and the daunting task of police officers, sadly, there's the reason it's called PTSD is post. So we're not even going to see the damage that are happening to the police officers are standing in these lines, especially going into summer was really bad. And hopefully it won't go back to that, but down the road, we're going to see some suicide, sadly, because of the It was just a very hard time for police officers to withstand night after night, especially when you look at Portland and Seattle where it's like over a hundred straight days of riots.

Russ Johns: [00:25:10] I lived in Portland and some of the places that they were rioting in and destroying, I've been there, and it's a simple city. It's beautiful city and I'm just, I was crying. It's devastation. It's like what? I don't understand what the connection between the two...

Darren Burch: [00:25:31] I'm so glad you brought that up. I had a guest on my show, badge boys, and we're talking about Antifa and we have this a sound bite of this young lady who was talking about .. She said, I personally don't damage places and burn things down, but I understand why do. It's a small price to pay for a bigger problem. And so I said to my guests, I said, I talked with a fireman. He was a African-American who had built this this dream of a neighborhood bar and all in all firemen, you guys are the smart ones. You always have this off duty job. You have this great gig. You guys do. Yeah. We just go from call to call. And so you have plenty of time to think about it in your La-Z-Boy chairs. So when when he built this in Minneapolis and that first riot after George Floyd, they burnt down his bar. And so I said to that young lady, that isn't a microcosm, that's his world. You burnt down his world. And how does that help or address any type of social injustices like with George Floyd. And what's funny about this is that this was one time where the whole world, literally whole world was on the same sheet of music. We all saw that we all said that was a murder. It was just I I don't even wanna go on about it because he makes me sick. That was a murder. And that was time when somebody like Martin Luther King would have came forward and brought the world together instead of sadly there's political purposes behind trying to tear things apart and that's a shame, it's a shame because that should have been a defining moment.

Russ Johns: [00:27:16] It really could have been. It was a missed opportunity, in my opinion. I agree people could have come together and said, let's improve the systems.

Darren Burch: [00:27:27] Yes. There's something wrong.

Russ Johns: [00:27:29] There's something wrong. Let's improve the system until, and instead of going completely opposite way. So thank you so much. We could talk for hours. I know I really appreciate what you're doing, Darren and let's continue to pursue excellence in the communities. Let's pursue a little bit of empathy. You don't know what the next person is going through. You don't know what tragedy or trials they're going through. So we really have to be a little cautious about how we judge and how we measure individuals out in the community and just have a little compassion,  that's all, it takes a little compassion, a little empathy and a little understanding and appreciation for other circumstances. We're all on the same rock flying through the universe,

Darren Burch: [00:28:21] Third rock from the sun.

Russ Johns: [00:28:23] Yeah. Yeah. Third rock from the sun. And it's just, it's something that we have to pay attention to. Cause it's, destruction and hate and everything that goes along with that is not necessarily the outcome that everybody's looking for. So yeah. I appreciate you being here. Thank you so much. Look forward to you next time, coming back as a pirate and love to catch up with badge boys and share it out, everyone, if you can just like, and share and comment and make sure that this message is put out in the universe and can inspire and motivate other people out there to at least think and consider what possibilities are in your own world. Thanks, Darren. Appreciate it.

Darren Burch: [00:29:09] Oh, thank you. And thanks for everything you do.

Russ Johns: [00:29:13] As always. And you know why? Because #kindnessiscool,#smilesarefree and I want you to #enjoytheday. Take care, everyone.

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