Reflections on the Incident and Aftermath

Alright gang, you're all pal Mike back yet again with another advertisement for the active self-protection unlimited application. You can get it on iOS or uh let's see Windows Phone uh Amazon I'm kidding i ios and android do me a favor we'd like you to get the app over at watch.active self protection dot com watch.active self-protection.com. re Theason for that is if you go through that and through us and get the app that way, we get the money that you're sending to support our valuable work rather than 30% of it going to either Apple or Google, uh whether you're on iOS or Android. So just helps us out a little bit to get us a little bit more money to fund what I think is important work. Watch at active self protection.com. What do you get with the app? You get a lot of stuff. One of the things you get is this uh this podcast and you get that uh in a video version, so you can see my smiling face one more time a week than other than on the YouTube channel. All sorts of exclusive stuff, a ton of training. We do live streams uh several times, I think three times a week now. I'm on those sometimes on Wednesday night. There's a Friday morning live stream, like coffee with John, Neil, and Steph. And there's another training with Neil's uh Chris. It's a good time. Check it out. Act Your Cell Protection Unlimited app. Well, all right again. Welcome back. Once again, it's weird. My boss is here. Welcome back yet again to the Active Self-Protection Podcast. I am as always your host, Mike Willower. Slow down, Mike, deep breath, and I remain your favorite former Fed. With me today is my best friend and his son, John and James Korea. John is in fact the uh president and founder and owner of Active Self Protection, and his son is James, who I've known since he was a wee lad knee high door grasshopper back in the back in the world. Our Lord 2000. James, how are you, sir? I'm doing pretty well. How about you? Not too bad. And John, how are you, my friend? Hey man, every day's a holiday. I think, I think James was still, I don't even know if he was really walking when we met. That's how long ago this was. Yeah, I think I have memories that are like real early over at your house and I think that we knew you before those. So Right. Yeah, I remember James is a very, very young, young man. So for those who don't know, John and I met when he was in the Navy and I was a baby federal agent in San Diego, California. And uh Correct. People ask me how do you become a big time social media uh YouTube star? And I say, Well, first make friends with a guy who's going to become a giant YouTube sensation uh two decades before he becomes a giant YouTube sensation , then keep be become his best friend and stay his best friend through all that, and then you'll be you too shall become a YouTube sensation overnight. All right, so we're gonna be discussing an incident that happened of all places at the Korea household in Phoenix uh not that long ago. This is all been dispoed. There was a burglary. Someone who had really poor target selection decided to to burgle John Carey's house in the middle of the night. Um and we'll discuss all the places. Between burglary and home invading and all the all the legal nuance there in. Um this happened about how long ago, John? Uh this happened back in March. So we're talking ten weeks ago at this point, I think. Right. So then what's interesting is the the majority of the incident was was dealt with by James as as John uh jump jumped out. The hero in the story. Right, to deal with it. And most of the legal aftermath John John dealt with. So James. Well, you know, to give everyone a little preview though, my balls do make an appearance. That's true. Yes, we will be discussing if you have children in the car, muff their little ears 'cause we'll be discussing something that me and fellow ASP employee Joe referred to as the Dong of Justice does make an appearance in this in this episode. We'll try to keep it PG as much as we can. So, James, talk to us about your personal sort of self-defense history. Is this something that you, you know, your dad being the Asp guy? I assume it's something you've at least taken into consideration. Are you a martial artist? Uh firearms carrier. Talk to us about that. So I don't carry firearm uh nowadays. It's just something that, you know, I've had some talks about with him and with myself and with a couple other people. It's probably not the best idea for me, but I do have a martial arts background. So when I was, I think four. Yeah, four or five. These guys put me into uh American Kempo. And that did really well for me. That taught me a lot of discipline, that taught me a lot of how to use my body effectively, um , and you know, how to fight in some ways. So that carried over a little bit into uh I trained in wrestling a little bit, and from there, a little bit of jujitsu. So I've got a little bit of martial arts experience. High school varsity wrestler. And for anybody who knows, if you've wrestled varsity in any high school in America , you know what you're about . Yeah. I I I would venture to say that my my high school wrestling experience did more for me than almost all of my defensive tactics training in law enforcement. Like I used that more than anything else when it came to wrestling with bad guys out in the field. Like that did me that got me further than anything else I was taught in any police academy. So yeah, I think if you're if you wrestle varsity in high school, you probably have better, more like real world training on what to do in a real fight in the streets than most people who you know, other than Jiu Jitsu. I think that's probably the most applicable thing other than that. So so it's something about making a guy who does not want to do what you want him to do, do the thing you want him to do. It's it's something about that that teaches you a lot. Right. Russ Grimm is a former uh Redskin football team commander , football player, and he said in his Hall of Fame speech, he was a wrestler as well. In his Hall of Fame speech, he says there is no feeling on earth like moving an adult man from point A to point B against his will, and that's absolutely factually true. It's one of my favorite George Kittle isms that he talks about how much he loves the run game and run blocking because forcibly picking a man up and moving him off his spot is the greatest thing ever. Yeah, you wouldn't think looking at George Kittle he could do that, but he can definitely do that . Uh he's a larger man than you give him credit for. He rolls into the season at two forty. Right. But isn't he doesn't look it. He looks like relatively thin, like he he's he's looky like he's yeah, he's he's an assassin. All right. So the incident at hand, I guess you roll right into that. Um James, tell us where you were, what you were doing, and what led you to believe there was a problem. Yeah, so I was it was probably one in the morning. I'd just gotten out of the sho wer, so I was sitting downstairs at my desk playing some video games. Nothing that big, just late night, and I heard the door alarm go off. So we have a alarm system in the house where if any of the doors open, there's a little like chime that goes off . And that's normally fine. It's just at one o'clock in the morning when everybody is asleep. That's weird. That's really weird. So I didn't think much of it, but I still wanted to check it out. So I grabbed I have a little bucket of swords and machetes and knives and things. As you do. As one does. Uh so I grabbed one of the swords and just went and cleared all the doors. There's a couple of doors in the back, went and grabbed all those. Those were all locked and shut still. Went into the guest room where there is another door that was locked and shut. So I went upstairs because that's the only other doors that I know of. And there is a dude standing in the hall way outside my little siblings room, which is not how it's supposed to be. Alright let me stop you right there. So I've been to your house, I know the chime you're talking about. It's a little too beepy chime. When when you heard that chime, did you hear any doors open or close or hear any any other noise at all? Or was it just a chime? I heard a door open. Um Yeah, there's like a little bit of a a squeaking on pretty much all the doors as they open. So I heard that. Um, but that was secondary to the chime. Like honestly, it was the chime that alerted me. So that noise was coming from though. The place where the chime comes from is very close to where he sits in his office. So it's th that that was a yeah. Yeah. Okay, so but you couldn't tell like you couldn't at that point where that squeak was coming from. You just you knew it was coming from somewhere. I knew it was somewhere in the house, so I just wanted to check all the doors. I figured it had to be a downstairs door, not an upstairs door first. So I checked all those first. So if the for those who've never been to John's house, I have, um, that you climb up a flight of stairs and there's sort of a a landing that goes to a couple of bedrooms and an office and then a landing on the right that goes to a master bedroom and then there's a open space where you could if you want jump down into the foyer where the front door is. Where are you in relation to this guy? So I got up the stairs. I'm literally standing at the top of the stairs. And he is uh straightforward towards the office. Yeah. Okay. And like towards the very office we are sitting in right now. Right. Yeah. The the Ask World Domination Studios. I'm familiar. Um so you you you walk up, you see this guy, describe his his vibe for me. Does he seem like a homeless guy, like a gangbanger, like a like a tweaker? Like what is your five check? What what's w how does he read? He's maybe a little bit younger, um and definitely a little bit more rough. My first thought was kind of who is this guy? And did my little sibling invite him over? Because I know that my little sibling has, you know, some friends that are a little bit rougher, that maybe don't have the best social cues or something like that. So it could have just been like he wasn't expecting anybody to be up. He seemed scared, honestly. He saw me and he was freaked out, let's say . So that was my first vibe. He froze, so I didn't run him through. Right. All right. So who's who says what first Uh I think I came upstairs and I asked who he was with some more swear words. We'll keep away from that in this. But uh yeah, I think I came upstairs and immediately on seeing him a,sk Ied very loudly who he was in an attempt to wake them up, essentially. Um that was in your mind, like I'm gonna A, I'm gonna c contact this guy and B, hopefully wake other people up in the process? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I try to be loud and forceful with my voice so that A, he gets scared and B, it wastes everyone out. Most especially your dad who hopefully has firearms nearby. Yep, that's the goal. All right. So at what point does what point does your father emerge from his slumber? I'm curious. So I think I asked him who he was. Uh he said his homeboy invited him in. I asked very loudly who his homeboy was, and then Papa came out. It was quick. It was within fifteen seconds of me contacting him. And about did he did he at that point was you're holding this sword, I'm imagining what kind of sword are we talking about? A scimitar, a broad sword, where give us a description. The gas station katana, it's a cheap like Chinese gas station thing. It's it would do damage, but not the most damage. Right. Okay. It's not razor sharp or anything. We're not talking about it. Imagine the sword that a D and D nerd would like test the balance of at Comic Con and you have exactly what he had in his hand. I can picture it. Okay. Renaissance fair quality. Exactly right. A Renfair quality sword. Yep. So does he make at any point after you've challenged him, say who the heck are you a couple times, does he make a move towards you at any point? Does he take a step towards you or does he stay where he is when you first saw him? He fully stayed where he was. I don't think he took one s I think he might have taken a step back even. Um but yeah, the only movement that I really was conscious of on his part was when he ran away. And what are you can I ask what you're wearing at this point? I think I might just be wearing like a pair of pants and no shirt at that point. Can we just take a side quest here for a moment and just put ourselves in the mind with someone who's just geeked out on meth and he's just climbed he's just climbed a ladder to get into the second story of a house he doesn't know. And now he's facing James, who looks like he could be out of one of these Hobbit books, just this crazy like warrior. Look at Leg olas here. Yeah. Just this this ancient warrior with a sword and he's like, Oh my god, I've gone through some kind of loophole in time. I've walked into what the hell's going on. So I'm imagining he' .m at the Shire Does hees he do say anything? Uh he tried to make a story up that his homeboy invited him over. That's why he's there. Uh that's about it. He he was mostly trying to get me not to stab him , I think. Right. So he's ter he's genuinely terrified. So your your father comes out and walk us through that from your perspective. Yeah. So I was conscious that he came out for I mean, half a second real fast um and then yelled at him to get out of the or sorry, get out of the house . Um and then he went back into the room for maybe five seconds to grab the gun. And by that time, the guy was already kind of taken off back out. He was done. I don't think he wanted anything else from us. So so he went back through the office. Did you see him actually walk out the other door and climb out or did you just say okay he's he's you saw him go in the office and that was it or you saw him actually walk out the other door and climb down the ladder? Yeah, I saw him go out well yeah, I saw him go out the door and like the vague shadow of him on the the outside balcony. So and I saw him actually trying to get back to the ladder and get down safely. I don't know if he managed to get down safely, but he tried. That was my question. There was no question he was out of the house. He weren't worried he was like still hiding in the in the office or whatever. Okay. So at what point does your dad come back out and what do you see your father doing? Uh it was I mean five, maybe ten seconds later that he comes out with a gun just to make sure that everything's clear over there. Uh and I'm not I'm trying not to look because his balls are out. Right. Well I mean there's no time to put on shonies at this point. Train like you fight. John, do you often go to the uh the C2 range and practiced in the dude? I'm curious. You'd have the executive range privileges. So it's just naked on the range. Right. Is what I do. That's yeah, you're you're kind of a VIP. So they set up a little like tent around you or something that the other folks don't have to look at all that all your business. I mean because otherwise uh that's that's obviously behind the paywall content is what that is. So that's uh we call that Asp After Dark. That's part of the There we go. All right. So gotta sub to my only feats for that. Only feet. I will turn to you now, Mr. Mr. Korea Sr. Um I assume your story begins when you're awakened by hearing your son yelling at someone to get out of the house. Just walk us through your end of this uh the example. Yeah, so I just hear a big I mean, I'm woken up out of a deep sleep, right? I party like I'm on social security, so I go to bed at nine thirty, right? So um I'm I'm in a dead sleep and but I hear a a outside the the my primary bedroom door a a loud yell. Um, now I I will say everybody's family situation is different. In my h ome, a big yell in the house is in histor ical uh terms over what we've lived with for the last 10 years or so is somebody having some kind of a mental crisis. Okay. So somebody's having a problem with a friend or uh a break, you know, some kind of a psychotic break or is disconsolate for something. So, you know, as parents, Laura and I have walked all of our kids through various stages of mental health struggles. We've done a lot of inpatient mental health trips. So uh I just I hear something big but I I didn't identify what it was. I had no idea what. So I jump out of bed and go to our our door. It's a big double doors, but you know only one of them usually operates. The other one's pinned. And I jerk the door open just to see what the heck is going on. And I see James at the top of the stairs. And like you said, it's open. So the hallways there are open to the first floor. And then there's basically a crossing from my primary bedroom uh like a a a what was what's that it's like a bridge almost like a walkway yeah like like a a walkway bridge with and and they're they're you know little half pony walls right and then from there, it you can go down the stairs to the left or to the right. Then it goes towards my office and there's two bedrooms over there, too. So I see James standing at the top of the stairs and a dude that I don't recognize. Now it's not super dark up stairs. It um James was up, so there were lights on downstairs. So it was mildly dim, but but enough that you could certainly see. It wasn't like it was pitch black or anything like that. And I so I know I opened that door when he said my homeboy said I could be here. Okay. Cause I heard that . And I looked at that, looked at him, made a quick thing, listen , my youngest would not bring somebody into the house without our knowledge that I didn't know. Like, we bring people over all the time. My kids, our host house is the island of misfit toys. There are people here all the time. And those people are are sometimes rough characters. We uh we take that as a a spiritual thing that we practice hospitality, right? And we love people of all kinds. And so but I didn't know this guy. And uh I see James standing there. Uh now funny enough, I will say this, I didn't see that he was armed. I just saw him standing there, shirtless, confronting this guy, who said, My homeboy said I could be here. And so I bellowed. I used my dad voice. And anybody who's a dad knows their dad voice. Uh and dad boy said, I get the out of my house. And I knew in that moment. So then I looked at James, recognized that he had a sword on him, and said, I need a gun. I need a gun right now. Um now I'm gonna say the the where my side of the bed is and all that stuff. I had to go around my my master bed to get to where the quick access safe. So I have a quick access safe uh on the desktop on a on a the nightstand with my handgun in it that just lives there. It's my C CCW gun. Then I had a second standing safe where my shotgun is that is quick access as well. But I've never been super happy with it because it kind of is a Rubik's Cube to get it open. You gotta kind of, it takes a few seconds to get the thing open and in that So I got the handgun out of the safe, out of the the the um nightstand top, grabbed it and I was back. And uh my recollection of that is that whole trip took five seconds. I mean it was I need it right now. When I jumped back in front of that door, um, I just caught a glimpse, I mean I, was literally up and and, you know, I had I I jerked that door back open, was on my sights as I came out it, and I caught a flash of his back uh as he was on his way out the door. Uh and and he was the funny part is my initial recollection uh is that he wasn't moving all that fast. That the but he was definitely going that way. And then I didn't see him go out the door, I just heard the door rattle and then uh I I I will say I couldn't see anything from there. We had lights on the inside of the house. The the the second floor porch he went out on is not lit uh at night unless you turn the light on out there. And I'd had to go through the office to get out there to it. I boy, I will tell you, when I saw his back, my first thought was, no way, buddy, I'm going. Like I'm I'm coming after you. And I got to in front of J ames and then I I think, you know, we say the combat fairy will not bonk you on the head with competence in the moment of need, but uh I think somebody bonked me on the head and went, Whoa, tiger, don't chase. Right. And I say that all the time on the big channel: like, don't chase deadly threats. Don't chase deadly threats. And I heard that in my own head. Don't chase and I realized real quick: everything I love is now behind me. Right? Everything I love is now behind me. So I'm okay. I can't see exactly where he is, but it's okay. I heard a commotion and I hear a on the other side. So I know he's off the porch. Now that's a second floor porch. And that porch is about 12 feet off the ground . So uh I I I mean again I heard the clangity-clangity , you know, uh, and all right, sucker. I I'm pretty sure he's gone. By that point, Laura had gotten up, my wife. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I said, Dari, you need to call cops right now. So she gets on the phone with 911 . Uh, and uh, and then once, okay, James, you're okay, go check on Cyril, make sure they're okay. He went. that away Okay, everybody's fine. Great. Okay. All right. I'm just gonna stand here and post up. And then the other cool part from our kind of upstairs parapet kind of from where I was standing, I can see every door in the house. I can see all the bottom floor doors from up there too. And so if he tr tried to come in somewhere else, I I had you know I have the high ground there, no problem . So uh and then Laura gets on the phone with 911, she starts talking with them. Uh, you know, the are there guns in the house? Yes, there are guns in the house. A couple three guns, yeah. Yeah, well, and then she goes, How many guns? The 911 operator, asked Laura, how many guns are in the house? I can hear her, uh, you know, the the 911, how many guns are in the house? And Laura goes, he has one. And I looked at her, I was like, liar . And uh and she's like all she needs to know about right now. In it is in right now, is the rest of that sentence. Yeah. And so uh and then this is probably a minute goes by and I go, Hey, would you grab my shorts? Cause I realized I'm standing there just naked as a J Bird, right? I I am, you know, I 'm honoring Har ambe in this circumstance, right? So she gets me a pair of shorts. Okay, fine. I just stand there. It takes uh this is funny because I thought I was like, how long did it take Phoenix PD to get there? I was like,, wow that was really fast. It took them like five minutes to get to the house. Um but Laura hung up the phone with 911 the second that the reds and blues showed up in front of the house, which again I could see from the second floor where we were at. Uh and the length of her call was 13 minutes . So time dilation, right? Like I I thought it was five. It was 13. It was a long time. So I told her, hey, tell them when they get here, I will come downstairs, open the front door and meet 'em with empty hands. Because of course the nine one one operator was like, well, tell John tell your husband to put the gun away. No, I'll put it away when they get here. I'll give it away when the good guys show up . So um they did. Um first one showed up, comes kind of up the hill. We're kind of sitting at the top of a hill uh at Casa de Korea and in a suburban neighborhood, right? It's a gated community, so it takes them a minute to get in. So uh he shows up, I cracked the door, hands, you know, empty. I'd put the gun down basically on my my breakfast bar on my way out to go open the door, unlocked and opened the door, hands up, kind of came out where the officer could see me. Hi officer, homeowner, homeowner, officer, I'm homeowner, I'm the homeowner. He shines his flashlight at me. You're the homeowner, come to me, sir. Walk with the walk this way. Yes, sir. That's me. I'm the homeowner. Okay, come this way. You know, blah blah blah. Okay, is there anybody else in the house? Yes, my wife and I have two adult children in the house. Okay, can we get them out of the house? Yeah, let me holler. You know, dear, bring the kids out, come out this way. So they came out. We stood at the back of that officer's uh cruiser and three more cruisers showed up. Uh, and the officers piled out of their cruisers. Two of them grabbed patrol rifles and cleared my yard. Uh, and that time the helicopter was overhead too. We had the ghetto bird, uh, the helicopter landing pad for Phoenix PD is at Deer Valley Airport, which is five miles from the house. And uh so they they showed up, let me tell you, and then what for about 15 minutes, but uh he had absconded. I mean he had 13 minutes, right? So, you know, it's too long. So they cleared the outside, they cleared my entire property. We have about two thirds of an acre, so it took him a little bit to clear both the front the the the inside the gate and outside the gate part of our property. Then the officer said, Hey, uh, can we have your permission to to for those guys to go clear the rest of the house? And all four of us are standing back at the at the car. I was like, yeah, go ahead. I don't care. You know, uh, do me a favor, try not to shoot the cats, you know, and uh no problem. They went c,leared the house, went all the way up to the porch. I said the only place he might I said I don't think he did, but there's a little closet on that porch that that's the only place he might have hold up, that the only possibility that I think he could hold up in. No. Uh so they went. and cleared that. Nope It's clear. Okay, cool. Uh a little funny story there is uh I had sat there and said, Oh man, to Laura, I was like, um, I won't, I won't out him here, uh, but name a friend, uh is just absolutely going to just kill me when he sees this whole thing go down. He happens to be a supervisor with Phoenix Police, and the officer who was standing there basically, you know, guarding us, right, and protecting us. He's like, oh, you know that guy? That guy was my sergeant for a while. And I was like, oh wow, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's cool, man. That's great. And he's like, Yeah, tell him I said hi when you talk to him. All right, great. So the officers came through, did their job. That was great. Uh one of the officers that responded was a fan of the channel. And then uh they they were here for probably 20 minutes, 25 minutes, didn't find the guy. And I saw, all right, well here's your, you know, here's your report number, Mr.. Korea Everything's all good. I'm glad nobody got nobody died and I'm glad you guys are all safe and uh somebody will call you uh to get a report. Okay, sounds good. So we went back in, made sure all the doors were locked, and what are you gonna do? We went back to sleep, right? So the only thing I did different was then normally my phone because I get too many spam calls and unknown number calls. So unknown numbers go directly to voicemail, but I turned that off. I was like, that guy has got to be smart enough to crawl into a hole for the rest of the night. But just in case he's not, I want my phone to ring if Phoenix BD calls. Because of course they're going to call from a number with a the caller ID blocked. You know what I mean? So it'll it'll say no ID. So we went back to bed, two o'clock in the morning. We went back to bed. And then uh or no five AM, I hear the ghetto bird overhead again. And I was like, no way he was that stupid. No way. Sure enough, my phone rings ten minutes later. Hey, Mr. Korea, it's officer so and so. And I was like, hey, officer. I was like, there's no way he was that dumb. He said, well, I'm not saying it's the same guy. I'm not at all saying it's the same guy, but we did catch a guy about a thousand yards from your house after he tried to break into another neighbor's house and got chased out of that guy's house by him. And we caught him in a third backyard. And we're wondering if we can come uh and pick you up and do a um a positive identification whether it's him or not I don't know if it is but you know uh he did a really good job of that I'm not saying it's him I'm not saying that happened so sure no problem you know I put some clothes on. Uh got to ride in the back of a Phoenix PD uh Tahoe, which I wouldn't recommend. Built for comfort. Yeah, not not exactly built for comfort. Uh the the knee room does leave a little bit to be desired, I just gotta say. Uh but we rolled over to where they had him at a local elementary school near us and they had uh because he was in a third he had was hiding under the like yard debris, uh I found this out a little later, uh in the the yard of the third house, and they had pepperballed the crap out of him to get him out of there. They I mean they had pepperballed him up, used up most of a hopper of pepperballs. And he still didn't want to come out, but then they threatened him with the dog. Uh because then they they had a dog that showed up and they said, okay, we're sending the dog and if you don't come out, he decided , you know, I probably ought to come out. So he did. They got him into custody. Uh, we rolled over there. Uh when I rolled up there, I was like, yeah, that's him. And uh, even though he had, you know, this they hadn't even cleaned him up yet. He had the snot ropes and you know he couldn't even pick his head up. He was sitting there like, oh and they had to like lift his head up and he 's me . Uh but they caught him, you know, uh and yeah. And then we had the legal fight afterwards. So I I do want to get to that part. I have a f a couple of observations and questions about I don't have a lot of notes about the response. I think you guys did a fan a bang up job. Um James, good on you for for responding that quickly and and just thinking fast, you know. What do I have handy? Well I have I have a bucket o' swords like you do laying around. Um I'll grab what's handy. Um you didn't have a lot of time to react, you reacted quickly and did what you you had to do. And I I love the fact that you're like, I'm gonna make sure this guy knows I'm here, knows my intent, and I'm gonna wake other people up in the process. That was really well done. Um, I do want to talk about the time time, you know, the it takes the police to arrive. I think what a lot of folks don't realize is a lot of times the police are there before they're in front of your house. What do I mean by that? Meaning they're searching the neighborhood, they're doing stuff before they actually make contact with you, the victim. If they believe the bad guy is not in your house anymore, they're going to be in the neighborhood looking around for you know knucklehead number one or two before they knock on your door. Not saying that's the case in your case, but probably that's what they were Yeah, good chance. Yeah. It it has caused quite the stir in the neighborhood group, let me tell you. Yeah. So I will I will say this about that. Um the difference between a burglary and a home invasion is very, very simple. A burglary is when someone breaks into a residence, occupied or not, with the intention of stealing things , right? A home invasion is when you break into a home that's occupied with the intention of pointing guns at people and demanding stuff. That's the basic defin difference between the two things. So if he'd have broken in there with a with a gun or a knife and you know held it to someone and said, Give me all your jewelry, that's a home invasion. Um, burglarizing a home in the middle of the night is still burglary. You know, if some if someone were to wake up and then you're then to you know hold a gun to them and say demand their stuff is it's turned from a burglary into a home invasion at that point. Right. Hopefully that explains the difference. Um John, you had a felonious absconder from your home. I just realized this. A felonious absconder, yep. So uh quite a big deal. Uh, you know, when we when I did post about it on my personal Facebook and there was a you know it got into the wild, it got four or five hundred thousand views , and uh, you know, some people were like, you know, I can't believe you didn't failed. What's wrong with you? You know, here's the reality though. First of all, um uh some people are like, why didn't you come to the door the first time with a gun? Well, again, that's very contextually determined. There are no there there are no unsecured firearms in my home at any time. It's either on my person or it's in a secure container because we've had enough incidences here where we've had to make hospital trips uh for societal ideology that that we can't no that's just it would be wholly inappropriate. And other people are in a different circumstance, a different situation, and I honor that and and that's fine for them. But in my world, it would be it wouldn't, it would be reckless negligence, uh, gross negligence for me to leave guns uh unsecured . And so uh not going to the to the door the first time with a gun. In the 99.999%, when I jerked that door open and it's one of my children that are having a challenge, a gun would have been an active hindrance at that point, right? Like I had had to figure out what to do with the dang gun before I go help my child. So uh yeah, uh I do wish um I I if I could have changed the thing and I did make this change, I um I got rid of the Rubik's Cube uh quick access safe for my uh shotgun. We've done a video for that on extra that uh I got one that's much faster acting, that's right by the door and is accessible via RFID that I keep on my watch. So basically, my watch is my RFID, and I can get in there much faster so that I have a gun with a bright white light on it and a whole lot more oomph. But even with that, if I'd had the bright white light gun, he was running off. It i the the the fight is won. And so I'm glad I didn't shoot it correctly. Yeah, I tell people like I I'll tell people I I've never regretted, I've never woken up in the morning and regretted not drinking the night before. But I have regretted drinking the night before. I would say any day you can end your day not having shot someone is better than a day having shot someone. Just just the fact that you didn't have to shoot anyone is a better day. I think we talk about this a lot. We we had a whole discussion on the app, on the actor self-protection unlimited app in one of our live streams about this, about the idea that I think people have this glamorous Hollywood idea of what it's like to be, you know, someone breaking into your home and you blow them away by the front door, you know, you shoot them and it's gonna be this fun, exciting thing, and that's just not not true. And I've borne that out with hundreds of interviews in this space of people, many of whom have had to shoot someone in their home. It's bad enough that you wake up the next day after something like this and you're like you're icked out by that part of the hall. You're like, oof, the guy was standing right here, like, you know, even that is is gross and unpleasant. Um and I hate to bring this up again, but like, you know, if you had to shoot the guy and kill him, we're talking about cleaning up after that and the the trauma associated with having shot and killed someone, and you know, the the the aftermath, the immediate aftermath of that and the PTS involved with that and everything else. You at no point were you was it necessary to pull the trigger on the guy? And that's the important thing. I think the lesson to take here is like at no point was he threatening anyone to the point where you had to pull the trigger. Right. I think these people live in a fantasy land where they they they w want to shoot someone, and that's just bizarre and foreign to me. Yeah, and I mean obviously uh Phoenix Petey would have been here for a wee bit more than 30 minutes if I had had to shoot him. So uh I'm glad I didn't. I I'm glad it worked out. Uh he now has a chance to maybe turn his life around. Um, you know, he's he's uh earned himself some consequences from uh the you know Maricopa County attorney's office and and the the Phoenix Municipal Court system . So yeah, I mean I think that's a better thing all the way around. So let's let's talk about um the desire to pursue. I wanna make sure we touch on that really quick because you acknowledged it during when you told the story. I' think its important uh we talk about road rage, right? I think it's important to acknowledge just saying, well, don't do road rage is like telling your wife to calm down when she's in a bad mood. Don't do road rage. I think it's important to acknowledge that anger that can well up when someone almost runs you off the road, accidentally or intentionally. Especially if your kids are in the car, for example. It's okay to be angry, it's okay to feel that feeling. I think it's important to acknowledge that it's okay to be angry and then go, okay, but however, I'm a sane, sober, moral, prudent person. I'm not going to engage in that behavior. That's the sequence of events I think needs to happen. I think it's really important to go, John Korea , the guy who tells everyone like how to respond to these situations. Even John Korea felt that feeling of you know what? This guy came into my house, like I'm gonna go get him. Yeah. And he even he felt that feeling. So it's okay if I feel that feeling. However, he had to take he even he had to tell himself, okay, wait a minute, everything else behind me. I need to not go after this guy. Even John Curry had to feel that feeling. Walk us through that again, John. Like what was that like? Yeah, I mean, so remember, anger is a covering emotion, right? So anger is is there to cover up more vulnerable feelings. And that can be very helpful, right? Because if you're scared to death that you're about to die and instead you can cover that over with righteous anger that says, not today, not on my watch sucker. How dare you? Then that's good. So you can act definitively, right? The other weird thing, Mike, is I didn't even have an adrenaline dump afterwards. I don't remember I there was no adrenaline dump. It was just action in the moment. This is what I'm trained to do. Go do it. And when it got done, I I if I'd have had a big adrenaline dump, it would have taken me the rest of the night. I would have sat there and laid in bed dealing with the cortisol and the after effects. And I went back to sleep . So uh yeah, there was definitely that emotion there of oh okay he ran off and now I'm gonna run after him and and and that I you know this is my my job. Oh, I gotta I gotta go get him. And then no, no, no, that's not my mission. Like it it took a second to go, whoa, back up. It's okay to have the emotion, but live your values. Like, nope, you won. Like, take the win. I will say also, by the way, you know, the difference between burglary and home invasion . The dude walked right by literally the door that he opened, which come to find out in retrospect, uh, there's a porch out there that's got a table out there, and and somebody, some folks occasionally will go out there with their friends and hang out when the weather's nice. And then did not lock that door. But it's a second floor balcony with no first floor access for God's sake. You know what I mean? It's not something that you'd really think about. So uh yeah, it it that's why he was able to get in. But he walked right past $10,000 worth of electronics, at least. Yeah, to I mean, literally, he practically tripped over the camera that we're using, which is a very expensive camera setup and my my MacBook Pro that's sitting right there on my desk. He literally almost tripped over them to get through there to get out in the hallway where James accosted him. So um it it and and then yeah, in in the aftermath there, I think he was probably having a drug-induced psychotic break. Probably. Yeah. Um so yeah. But the the the that fear is is real, the anger is real, the desire to chase is real, but living your values is real too. So I'm grateful that I think I did that very, very well. Let's talk about briefly um the court process. Now, folks who are listening or watching on the app, if you're watching on the app, by the way, thank you for watching on the app. Um, do me a favor, pause this and go into the comments and leave me a comment what you think someone the kind of sentence somebody would get for heinous crime lies for breaking into someone 's house at the middle of the night and scaring the crap out of everybody, breaking into someone's home that's gotta be five years, right? That's gotta be five or six years in prison, you would think so. Leave your comment and then come back here and listen to what John's about to tell you. Okay, John, this guy got arrested. Yep. Went to court. 10 years? 50? Yeah. Yeah, I wish. So to tell the story, try to tell it briefly. I get a letter the next week, uh like well, like two weeks later from the the attorney's office. You know, all my cop friends are like, Yeah, it'll be months before you hear anything, John. Like it it's gonna take forever. So a couple three weeks later, I get a letter in the mail and then an email from them saying, oh, um, this person, this case that you're attached to has a sentencing hearing uh in uh the first of you know, the first week of May. And I'm like, a sentencing hearing? I haven't even heard from a detective. I I haven't even given a statement in this case. What the heck, man? So I uh call the victim's advocate and she's like, Yeah, they've he's already got , you know, he's out on recognizance bail and has a plea agreement and he's got a sentencing hearing that day. Are you kidding me right now? Like I never even heard from any of the detectives. I never heard from anybody. Yeah. That's just what it is. So uh they've offered him so they offered him to plead plead guilty to so he broke into two houses, right? And then tried to break into a third. Uh they offered him to plead to one of those as a first class uh so criminal trespass in the first degree as a felony. The second one they offered as an undesignated so that if he completes his probation then it goes to a misdemeanor. The third one is a second class criminal trespass. And for all of of that, theyfered him just straight probation . And so I was like, I disagree. What's this guy's background? Does he have priors? What the heck's going on here? I want to call back from the attorney, from the county attorney. Uh I, didn't get a call back from the county attorney. I was pretty frustrated about that. So then I let the victim's advocate know I'm gonna show up to court and I'm gonna make a statement to the judge. So on that sentencing day, is uh 8:30, he is supposed to um have his hearing. So I show up early, the court's locked until 8 30. I get into court and to because I was gonna try to talk to the prosecutor. What are we doing here? You know, uh well, come to find out, it's me, the judge, and the clerk that are actually in person and everyone else is remote, uh, almost everyone else, including the the county attorney who's not the county attorney assigned to the case, he's just a fill-in , uh proxy attorney . So an hour goes by and nothing happens and the judge is like, okay, so we're out of cases for the moment. Let's take a break. And I stood up and stretched, and I was like, you know, Your Honor, I'm really sorry. I I didn't appear remotely. And she knew who I I I'd been asked who I was and what case I was there with. And she was like, o, hekayy, uh, Mr. Korea, um, your defendant hasn't checked in yet. And so I doubt he will, is the honest truth. And so uh he didn't appear, so he failed to appear at at the sentencing hearing for the sweetest plea agreement in history . Uh so she put a bench warrant out for him at the end of the day. And uh I I fetched about that on my personal Facebook that a $2,500 bench warrant is what we're after on this. Um, but thankfully I have uh it it's uh it pays to have friends. And so I had a couple of my friends who uh are a part of the local constabulary. I won't say which part. Uh holler at me and go, hey, give me a case number and a name on that, would you? And so here's a case number and a name. And then lo and behold, uh the next morning I got an email from his pre-sentencing probation officer that said, uh, he has been arrested. So I also got a text message from my friend who said he is in custody. So they went and rolled him up that night. Uh, so he was in jail. So they reset it for the next week. Then I finally got a call from the the county attorney the assistant county attorney and she's like yeah I don't get to decide charges and I don't even get to decide plea agreements. That's the charging bureau that gets to do that. And this way at least we get a felony on his record. And I said, ma'am, I understand all that, but I looked him up in the interim. He had a prior felony in two thousand nine for aggravated assault involving a firearm. And so what what are we teaching our community here? And and I think straight probation here is absolutely inappropriate given the prior. She goes, Well, but that prior was 15 years ago and it just doesn't it doesn't affect sentencing at all. I said, But you gotta understand it affects me, and I'm the victim here. And why didn't I get any input on this at all? Like why didn't I get like talking about why they didn't who's they? Yeah. They have a charging bureau that decides these things. And I'm like, okay, so you're gonna hide behind a faceless bureaucracy. Who was the attorney that decided these charges were appropriate? Right? And why wasn't the victim contacted about them . So I said, I'm gonna be in court the next week. Um I'm gonna be there and I'm gonna be here in person. She says, Okay, if you're gonna be there in person, I'll show up in person too. Great. So I show up the second time. Judge judge recognized me. Well, this time he was in court . He was in custody. So, you know what I mean? He showed up because he showed up in in uh he spent had spent the week at Casa de Mericopa and uh he was there in his uh black and white 'cause actually wear the black and white stripes in Naracopa County. And uh and so uh his defense, his he had a public defender, and the public defender was actually a pretty cool dude. And um and then I got to make a statement and I said actually used a bad word in court. I shouldn't have done that, but I did. Uh and and I said, Your Honor, I'm I'm gonna ask you to give him some actual jail time here. I get it. You don't wanna send him to DOC, which I think is crap, quite frankly. And I disagree with this entire plea agreement. In the in the fact that he didn't appear, he totally blew his hearing off . I think this should be off the table, and I think you should throw the book at him. But if you're not gonna do that, then at least give him some jail time, maybe you know, 180 days in jail with 150 of it suspended pending the completion So then that way he at least knows there's some serious and he remembers what the taste of government baloney is. And and you know, and and I I also requested I said please at least give him intensive probation supervision. So there's a thing in in Arizona called IPS, intensive probation supervision, which is way more than regular probation. Like IPS is a very stern adult in your life every day. Like you have an a a really stern parent in your life. And so uh the judge was like, okay, I tell you what, she said uh giving him 180 days and suspending some of it is all pointless because if he violates his his terms of his probation, he'll be going back to jail for for that and then some. So so I'm not gonna do that, but I'm gonna give him 60 days in the can and then uh two years of intensive probation supervision. And so he got sixty days in the can and two years of IPS. And then his defense attorney actually asked, he said, Your Honor, something's not right with this defendant , and I I would request a mental health evaluation. And so the judge said, I'm gonna order a mental health evaluation and require as part of your probation supervision that you comply with the terms of the mental health evaluation and the treatment plan. Okay, fine. Uh and so he, he, I mean, was he repentant or not? I don't know. He did apologize. Uh he did say in court, he said, I don't, I don't what happened. I just lost it. I, I, I, I, I'm ashamed of myself and I just lost it. I was doing real good and then I just snapped and I lost it and I'm sorry. Was there a talks done on this guy? A talk screen No there there was not a talks that I'm aware of that was done on him. Um and and you know, I I I had said I was like, look, this is crap that the the victim is the one that's dealing with the consequences here. And, you know, that that I understand that this is, and I said this in open court, I said, I understand you deal with this every day. And that this is just run of the mill for you. It's not run of the mill for me. And you are teaching me how we deal with our community and what we value in our community. And uh, so what do you want to teach me today? And uh, so at least she gave him a little bit . Uh and you know, there you go. And he'll be in jail now until uh I think his release date is the fifth of July. And then then he will have a stern parent for the next two years after that. Yeah, God willing. So let me ask you real quick. I I assume there's no major PTSD or anything going on with you guys as a result of this, or is there? I went back to bed. I'm just asking. I you never know. I mean I so the crazy part, my youngest uh slept through the whole thing. Uh my youngest woke up when James woke them up and was like, What? Huh? Yeah, poked my head in and was like, Hey, is everything okay? Did you invite somebody over? Like, did you not tell us? And nope. Yeah. Are you the homeboy in question? Do we know did we ever get homeboy on the line? Did homeboy show up at court? Was homeboy non existent? I don't think homeboy exists, by the way. I don't think homeboy exists. I I had this running joke when I first started with the feds I, went to a lot of jails and prisons to interview people. Um, and I I had this theory that there was one guy responsible for all the crime in Southern California, and all the people that were in jail, they were just with that guy when they got caught and the guy the guy gets away every time. And he he invites someone else to just give that guy. That one guy committing all the time. Yeah. All right. So Laura my wife is doing great. Like she doesn't seem to have any negative effects. He seems to be doing wonderful. Again, we just went to bed. Um I think that uh performing I think to the standard again I wish I wish I'd grabbed this I wish I could have grabbed the shotgun, but in retrospect, no. I've played it through in my mind a hundred times of, you know, what happened there. And actually I think I made the very right decision not to shoot him. Uh, given all that, it was the right decision not to come to the door with a gun the first time, even though that uh did extend the the the issue. Um but I mean given the totality of the circumstances would have been inappropriate. So I'm I'm I I'm pretty happy with how I acted and pretty happy with how it all went down. And so uh no, I mean it's been okay. And and yeah, I mean you look through that, I I can see, I I I can literally see my op tic on that guy's back as he breaks through my door, uh through, through the back through the office door running away. Um and I think about all of the consequences that would have come if I had shot him that way, I mean I mean, uh hopefully in Arizona we have strong presumption under castle doctrine of uh home invasion, you know? We have a strong presumption, but would a prosecutor have taken Umbridge with well, I mean you shot him in the back, Mr. Korea. Now we can make arguments, and I do make those arguments in court regularly that yes, I shot him in the back because, you know, uh he turned at the last second or whatever, but that wasn't the case for me. I when I brought the gun up, when I came around that corner, all I saw was his back . And he was retreating. And so, okay, it wasn't an immediate deadly threat. So I didn't . So I I think in that, no, I mean I went back to sleep that night and I've I've uh I've done well, I think. You know, I I would pray the prayer every morning when I went to work. Uh Lord, I don't want to have to kill anyone today, but if there's someone who needs killing, uh let me be there. Uh there's a righteous prayer. I think you both did very well. You can parted yourselves well, and thank God no one needed to kill anyone. James, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show. John, you kind of had to be here, let's be honest. Let's be honest. I mean, do me a favor, folks, do leave us a five-star rating and a review. James, I don't know if you know, but around here we'd like to leave a secret word in our review to let the good people to let us know that the folks made it all the way to the end of the show. So I'd like you to provide this week's secret word they can leave in their review to let us know they made it all the way to the end. Any word will do. Could you have to do something with the show or not? Up to you. You gotta you gotta comment homeboy. It's gotta be homeboy. Perfect. Homeboy it is. So leave the way. Yes, or Dog of Justice. Either one. Dog of Justice. Homeboy is good. Alright, folks. I appreciate you guys uh coming on the show once again. John, James, I love you guys. I'll see you guys soon, folks. Thanks again for watching and listening. We'll see you again next week.