The county did a lot of things for me…

Hey guys, this is Ken Kobrick, bringing you another success story of people who tell us about the journey to how they got to where they are now. Today I’m talking with Mickey Smith. He
is a retired assistant team leader for Chesterfield County, Virginia SWAT.

People are gonna want to know how in the world did you get to be a SWAT guy? How old were you when you decided you were going to be a police officer? And what happened at that time?

Mic: Well, you know, when you’re a child, you watch a lot of TV, back in the 60s. I always believed that a white knight, you know, there’s always the person that’s going to protect everybody.

I took my test for the army and went into the army first. I scored very high and was told I could do anything you wanted.

My uncle was a recruiter. We talked about it and he said, “Well, you know, you can do anything you want in the military”? What do you want to do? I told him, I’m not sure.

The recruiter who was standing next to him says, Well, you could be a cop if you wanted to be because that’s how high your score is.

That’d be pretty cool. So I just decided at that point that I was going to do it and went to the Army School, 16 weeks, eight weeks of basic eight weeks of police school, and became an MP for three years.

Ken: Where did you take basic?

Mic: Fort McClellan, Alabama, in July, it was hot. Oh, man. But it was a good time down there; I lost a little bit of weight from it and for three years I was a cop, I ended up being a desk sergeant on one of the military bases. I would sit there and send people out on patrol and all that, and I was required to report all the things that happen on that shift for the military.

After three years of that, I decided it was time to stay at home. Because they told me if I re-enlisted I’d go to Korea to a missile silo site. Well, at that point in time, all the MPs who were over there at the missile silos, were getting into trouble, very boring. They would be doing drugs and drinking too much. That’s just not what I wanted to do, too much temptation.

My mother was an alcoholic and kind of pushed me away from anything with alcohol or drugs. So that was important to me. At the end of my three years, I went right into a guard unit and flew around in helicopters for three years for something different to do and I enjoyed that.
I applied for the Chesterfield police and got hired and went through the academy starting in April of 81.

I spent two more years in the Guard Unit. And then after that, I got out of the Guard Unit after being in for a total of six years. So it was a good time.

Ken: How long were you actually been in Swat?

Mic: 24 years, yeah, the longest time of anybody in the department.

Ken: Now, most people, you know, grew up with the show SWAT and whatnot, so tell everybody what exactly the SWAT stand for?

Mic: Well, SWAT stands for special weapons and tactics. Basically what they say is when done, please call 911 who they call. Okay, so they call us, you know.

Ken: OK, so pretty much what the police cannot handle. That is what you guys do?

Mic: Right? Well, in the earlier days, most of the patrolmen weren’t trained in the things that we do, but now they’re trying to have more patrol officers train, they train with patrol rifles and things like that, give them more tactics. Try to teach them more things. Because once you push the button for SWAT, the money starts rolling out because you’re paying all these guys who are off duty time and a half to come out and do the job.

Ken: Okay, I see how that works. And so am I correct in assuming that regular policemen compared to a SWAT person you got you can repel, you can climb through stuff. There is a whole lot more going on than just walking in and serving a warrant or arresting someone or even shooting at somebody. There’s a whole level of training that you guys do, it’s way past normal police work. Is that right?

Mic: Yeah, yeah. We get all the bells and whistles, we get all the specialized toys, specialized weapons. At one time, our SWAT team had more ammunition than a third world country did.

Ken: Wow.

Mic: A lot of people don’t know about SWAT teams because the counties try
to not talk about them too much.

Ken: You don’t want to divulge your best secrets?

Mic: Well, not so much that you can get those secrets and books, on the internet and things like that. But it’s the personnel that really makes it.

Ken: Oh, right.

Mic: Yeah. And becoming a SWAT member is not an easy thing. People say, Well, I want to go to be a policeman and be a SWAT guy. Well, that’s not how it works. You’ve got to start at the bottom, you got to show everybody that you’re a good police officer, you’ve got to have good reviews and things like that. And you can’t be overweight, you can’t be one of these guys who says,
Go to the donut shop and has a donut or anything like that, and gains a lot of weight.

Because before you even get a chance to become a SWAT officer you got a
test for it. And that’s a rigorous thing. It basically starts with letters of recommendation from supervisors and things like that, you must have a certain minimum number of years before you can even apply.

Ken: What is that? How many is that?

Mic: When I was there, you had to be there for at least three years.

Ken: Okay.

Mic: It may have changed it by now, but normally, it is a three-year stint before you even apply for squat.

Ken: Right.

Mic: You interview with a panel, you do a PT test, they looked at your shooting scores, etc., they look at your driving. They look at your internal affairs, they look at everything about you to make sure that you’re the best of the best. They don’t want just anybody doing it.

So, the SWAT guys are pretty much the A guys. And it’s always been historically that most SWAT guys, end up getting promoted to supervisory positions, things like that. So that makes it interesting for a lot of the guys to use it to further their career. Some of them do it for the love.

Ken: Oh, what did you do it for?

Mic: Well, I did it for the love. Oh, there you go. Gave me fast cars, and I got to shoot a lot of guns.

Ken: Perfect. Yeah, it was good. Yeah. Mic, in all the years that you’ve encountered people, has there ever been a situation where you really thought well I’m in a tight spot? I might not get out is have you ever been in a scary situation with you and your team and doing a warrant or something? Has there been something that stands out in your mind?

Mic: Well, you know, they all blend together after a while Ken.

Ken: Yeah, yeah.

Mic: The problem is you know, when we first started, we get called out once or twice, three times a year. When I retired, we were getting called it every three to four weeks.

Ken: Wow.

Mic: Because society has just gotten a little bit crazy.

Ken: Yeah, yeah.

Mic: And you know, drug raids, things like that. You just trust your guys with you. You always trust the guy behind you and in front of you.

Ken: I guess it’s kind of like, you know when we’re driving down the road at 55 or 60 miles an hour on a two-lane road that really the only thing separating us is this yellow line painted. So you have to have faith and trust that the oncoming drivers will stay in their lane.

I guess the same thing if you’re going through a door, you know that the guys around you in front of you behind you. They’ve got your back no matter what if you have that undying faith and trust, I guess it makes your job, you really not thinking about I’m going to die you got to get the job done.

Mic: Well, the thing of it is, people got to realize one thing. Every day is a blessing. You don’t know what’s going to happen the next day, I always try to be the first guy through the door. Because I didn’t have any children. So I could go through the door and be the first one in case something really bad happened. But I knew the guys behind me would take care of business.

Ken: That’s bold.

Mic: No.

Ken: I’m just saying, that’s a bold personality. I don’t mean it in a bad way. I don’t have a better adjective for that. But that is above and beyond. That’s cool.

Mic: Well, you know, the thing about it is the county did a lot of things for me. They sent me all over the country. They taught me specialized things. I’ve met some people in the world that have been world-class shooters, world-class SWAT guys, you know, we trained with LAPD. They came out here and gave us basic training and got us on the right foot.

I was there when the team was only 10 people. You only had 10 people on the team. We had an old truck and this and that and everything we had was just basically hand me downs, you know? And now most of your SWAT teams are cutting edge things like that.

Ken: How many guys are on a team nowadays? Typically?

Mic: Ah. I think we’ve got 26.

Ken: Holy cow.

Mic: Yeah. But then again, jurisdictions got bigger.

Ken: Yeah, that is true. That’s just for Chesterfield, you don’t you don’t go into Richmond right unless there’s a need, but typically you’re in Chesterfield?

Mic: Well, we’ve gone outside jurisdiction before to assist them, all they have to do is ask.

Ken: Okay, yeah. When you think about Chesterfield, it’s a large County. So, it’s really not that many people in an extreme situation, right?

Mic: You don’t always get all the people every time, you set the pace, somebody might be sick, somebody is on vacation, somebody may be out
of the county or out of the state.

So, 26 if you get all 26 on a call, you’ve really done something.

Ken: You know, it’s funny because I remember there’s a new SWAT program now, I forgot the name of the guy who plays it. And it’s a takeoff from the original SWAT. It’s funny, the trucks and the plain uniforms, now you guys, I mean, you can’t even see a guy or you’re covered head to toe, you got the awesome tech, and I’m a techie big time. I really love how all the stuff you guys have built-in, GPS cameras; I mean everything. But I love watching SWAT guys coming out of the back of a truck and doing stuff. But I just like tech gear.

Mic: Well, lucky for us, we had a police chief who was big into technology. Our SWAT team was one of the very first ones to ever test out a room radar system.

Ken: Oh, wow.

Mic: It looks like a big box. You put it on the side of a ball. And you could see and we give you the radar impressions of everybody inside.

Ken: That’s something right on TV. I’ve seen stuff like that TV on Mission Impossible and things like that. And it really exists, that’s amazing.

Mic: We were the very first ones to have it. But that, you know, technology is a wonderful thing, but it still boils down to the guy. Because, you know, everybody’s trained with heavy weapons and things like that. But everybody’s got to be good at everything they do.

Ken: You got to push that button to make that tech work. And you must be intuitive and have that instinct to watch your buddies back no matter how much tech you got hanging on your butt.

Mic: Oh, yeah, it averages 100 pounds, the stuff you’re carrying.

Ken: That’s similar to what I did in the army. Except I didn’t have the tech you had it was a backpack full of junk just to walk.

Mic: Oh, yeah, well, things have changed.

Ken: Mic, this has been kind of enlightening, because not only have you made a lifelong career, this but has, in my opinion, enriched your life with the experiences you’ve had through traveling and meeting people. So it’s not just about serving the law and serving the county, it’s actually enriched your life. And I think you have probably enriched way more people than have enriched you, I got a feeling just from knowing you and what a good person you are.

I think a lot of things are going on now with cops good and bad. But when you look at the majority of people, there are just a few that always make the bad seem like it’s overwhelming. And I know cops, you cannot be a cop and be a hater, or someone doesn’t care about people. It’s just the nature of it. And I think that you are the epitome of that, in my opinion.

And if you were standing toe to toe with a young person, whether it be a male or a female fresh out of the academy or fresh out of college, and this is what they want to do, what would you tell them?

Mic: Well, I think they need to realize it begins before that, okay? Social media is a big killer of people getting in police work, you know, they post stupid things on social media, and they must remember, it’s always going to be there, somebody’s gonna be able to find it.

And if you apply for the police department or the state police or anything like that, they are going to ask you for your Facebook password, things like that. And a few policemen in this camp, at least one or two of them have been fired because of their Facebook post or what they said they believed in.

Ken: Oh, I’m sure. So, that’s indicative of your personality?

Mic: Oh, yeah. And the thing of it is, you know, heavy foot, you know, lots of tickets and all that can kick you out, too. You know, you’ve got to be responsible for what you do. You know, everybody says, well, anybody can be a cop. Very few people apply and get picked for it even though it’s a hard job right now, with everything being recorded, you know, everybody has got a video camera, this and that.

Depending on the angle you use, it can look good or it can look bad.

Ken: Yeah. But that probably is the best. I have asked this question over and over from different people I’ve interviewed and now I’ll get an answer that’s great. But that piece of advice you gave is actually workable and real because people forget right now. It’s no longer social media. It’s part of our lives no matter whether it be an Academy or a police department looking to hire you, or Walmart, they’re going to look at your social media. That’s where everything begins. So you’re exactly right. If you’re going to do this, you better start early and think about how you’re projecting yourself on social media and everything.

Mic: Oh, yeah. Like we have an explorer group where kids who are interested in police work and it’s a Boy Scout type group thing, police explorers, they can join and be in until they’re 21 years old.

Ken: Oh, that’s great.

Mic: So that’s somewhere we’ve gotten a lot of good police officers from the floors because a lot of those people are second-generation and third generation. And we’ve got a few of those in the department right now, third generation, police.

Ken: That’s excellent. Mic, this has been a little more enlightening than I thought it was going to be. And folks, this is a side note, I gotta tell you, I’m probably one of the luckiest people in the world. Because not only do I know, Mic and I consider him a friend, but he lives across the street from me, and he’ll get to my place before 911. Mic, thank you for your time today. Is there anything else you’d like to say before we go?

Mic: Well, you know, people asked all the time, what was the greatest thing you’ve ever got out of being a policeman? And I said, Well, you know, there were days that were great. There were days that are terrible, you know, but there’s always another day, you know, and no single day is the same.

If you’re a road, if you’re a street policeman or detective, no day is the same. You know, if you’re one of these people who want to protect this factory job, but be something boring after a while, be a cop, because the world opens up to you. You’re on a social elevator, you move up and down the elevator, with everybody you deal with. They can be millionaires, they can be rich, they can be poor, you deal everybody from top to bottom. And it’s a good job. Now, it’ll take a toll on you, but you’ve got to know how to talk about it.

So that would be my thing.

Ken: Excellent. Thank you, Mic. These are words guys from Mickey Smith, a cop and retired cop who loves life. Thanks a lot, Mick.

Mic: You’re welcome.