 George Bruno for the 21 report. We're at the 21 convention the Patriarch Edition in Orlando, Florida 2019 and I'm talking with Rich Graham. Welcome. Thank you. Great to be here. Well, I understand you have quite a pedigree. I Guess yeah, that's what I've heard and that's why you're here. You served our country, didn't you? Yes Tell us about that In 2000 after high school. I went into the Navy and served for six and a half years in the SEAL teams And then after some medical conditions, I found my way out of the military and since then I've been working with civilians and law enforcement doing security training and consulting around the country and Central South America Nice. What is the reason for security and safety training? Oh well, I mean it's a dangerous world we live in and Not to be paranoid but to be prepared So working with different SWAT teams and special tactics teams for counter-terrorism active shooter response just building skill sets and tactics and then sharing some of those Lessons learned or how that translates into helping assist a family protect their loved ones or themselves Just bringing in the realistic expectation of the response time of law enforcement So to empower the individual to empower our law enforcement and you know help us fight and protect ourselves So do you have a narrative or kind of like a little? Thing running in your head when you watch on TV where there's active shooter situations I mean are you kind of analyzing as if you are there when you watch these things on TV? Yeah, yeah, I mean there's a there's a lot of patterns and there's a lot of There's lessons to be learned so I mean in the SEAL teams and I'm sure other military units have this too But whenever something bad would happen, we'd always go back and reassess Why did that happen the way it did so a lot of the laws or the rules that we have in place that we call them They're lessons written in blood and the goal is to not let that repeat itself so there's many times where we look at these different attacks that happen around the country and You see consistent themes or you see something new and then basically taking that information it helps us develop Strategies that we hope we can avoid that or react differently to Better predict and prepare for those types of attacks Do you find yourself? Let's say you're training with a police department Mm-hmm Does your training go above and beyond obviously what they learn in the academy of course? Yeah, normally We come in and build off of what they've learned in the academy So the academy not to take anything away from the academy, but the academy is a baseline That's the lowest common denominator of training. They should ever receive because that's their first training They're receiving everything from there. We're building on it So many times as we come in and we're working with people who are already police officers And then we're taking their skills and their tactics to the next level Introducing new things and new experiences to them. So scenarios have profiles just the way Suspects do yeah Do they fall into categories where you think are fairly predictable It depends so different training it will be predictable based on What is it that we're trying to achieve? So I mean you can set up any scenario you want and win because you know You know the layout of what the scenario is so you can set traps So the goal in setting up scenarios isn't necessarily to beat the officers. It's to Give them the opportunity to challenge the things that they would normally do on a static shooting range and now get to come in and have other moving parts that they have to process information make reaction judgment calls and choices and Move through and there's times where they still lose because they're learning with them again You debrief you reset it up You do it again and get it to a point where at the end you want them to win You know what I mean because the goal isn't to beat them in the training in the scenarios The goal is to give them the opportunity to learn more and advance their skills or to test those skills under stress. I See did you learn all this while serving our country? I learned a lot from serving the country I learned a lot from my time in the SEAL teams But there's been from being a martial artist for years for being a personal trainer from being a Navy SEAL Taking that information I can't come to a law enforcement department and teach them what I taught what I learned in the SEALs Because it's different and I can't come teach you how to protect your family based on what I learned in the SEALs Because you don't have night vision. You don't have 16 other guys who have the same training level as you You can't call an airstrikes. There's all these things that you don't have access to and neither do the police Right, the the enemy is different. The battlefield is different So basically we just have to be thinkers and we go based on what I know and understand and Based on what I understand of the current threat That this particular group whether it's the family whether it's law enforcement and that could change in different areas around the country They could change when I'm training here versus Central or South America. You know what I mean? But then we just take that and you go How do what is this department? What are these officers? What does this family need? And then how do I connect the dots based on the knowledge that I have in the background that I have and the Understanding and then basically set the training up so it is most valuable for them where they're at currently based on What it is that the need is? Communication is a big part. Yeah of what happens, isn't it? Yes communications huge and Everyone is in the loop electronically when these are when these scenarios take place So are there is everybody? in the same on The same frequency as far as radio is concerned Can everyone hear all the orders that are happening when when these scenarios take place when law enforcement goes into a shooter? situation or are there certain people that are on Frequencies that they can speak with individually. What have you discovered about that the part of that's regional so Every part of the country has different communication systems some parts of the country or certain regions within a state local community Have an emergency? Frequency they can turn to so that everyone's on the same page firefighters EMS and Police officers or different police officers SWAT teams and all that stuff other regions. There's it. They don't do it that way So it's not a it's not necessarily yes or no answer. It's that just depends Yeah, I'm thinking about our audience right now. So let's Kind of switch gears here safety for the Average if there's such thing as an average American citizen, what would you What is the most important thing about safety and security for the average American citizen? so It's a good question to put it into one thing but Being prepared and being having situational awareness and having an understanding that These types of things can happen. You know what I mean, and we should be Prepared and we should not have an expectation that it's going to happen to where we're paranoid But we shouldn't be naive to the fact that it can't because I can guarantee you all the people who find themselves in these Active shooter style attacks because just on the topic that we're talking about right now None of them were expecting it to happen and then all of a sudden there they were it could be a school day It could be a concert It could be a city street and the the bad guy will always have the advantage Because they're picking the time and place of when the attack happens and we're not ready for it And normally it's going to happen in a in a situation or a time frame when we least expect it Which makes us vulnerable right and now we have to one of the biggest things When we do our active shooter training one of the first parts Of the way I teach active shooter response for the civilian Is we have to accept reality Right and why this is so crucial is in the beginning you always hear people talk about yeah, man You go into fight or flight But there's something before fight or flight there's a third f and that's freeze There's time that we take the process information and we go into shock right and When we go into that mental freeze Right we're processing is this really happening Because when something happens out of the normal That we're not used to like this shouldn't happen in this environment So my brain doesn't accept the fact that this is actually happening Which causes me to freeze and try to process that kind of like a deer in the headlights Right well, I need to go into and I'm not saying fight or flight is the right response That's what we that's what we refer to it as I break it down in a different way, but The accepting reality phase is extremely important because I need to make a decision And what I decide is going to be based on the situation. I can't tell you what that decision is going to be You have a million different answers for a million different scenarios, you know, I mean but To accept the reality and then to to break out of shock if you can recognize that you're going into this like mental hold I need to break out of it and I mean make a decision and go with it whether it's right or wrong I need to go with it Right because the worst thing I can do is stay stationary Right because these attacks happen so fast and One of the things that we find when we go into shock like this Is many times we try to talk or negotiate ourselves out of it because we don't know what to do like no No, don't don't don't don't right like that's that's a shock. That's a that's a One of these freeze responses. It's your brain trying to go. I need time to process need time to process, right? But there is no negotiation here. It's a different type of attack So unlike if I wanted your cell phone or if I wanted your wallet I make my demands. I say Give me your wallet. Give me your phone or I will whatever my threat is And now I give you opportunity to respond. We're having a negotiation here I'm on the the winning end of this negotiation at this point because I'm probably threatening you with something But now you have a time to go. Oh man easy. Whatever you want. I'll give you. Yeah, yeah You don't need this. Stand me over this. I'll give you my phone. You want my wallet, right? So now that what this does is this buys us time In an active shooter style attack time is not on our side. Most of these attacks happen in less than two minutes Right and the other thing that's dangerous with this is the average law enforcement response is over seven minutes So if you look at the gap between well, is it up to me or the police saving me, right? It's up to me or it's up to us, right? So I one of the main things is Not being paranoid with our life that we're afraid to go to the mall Or we don't go to the movie theater or anything like that anymore But at the same time when I go out I need to be situationally aware and be paying attention that when I'm in a place It has a lot of people This is a reality currently That one of these things may happen whether it's with a vehicle whether it's with a knife or gun We don't know a bomb bomb. You can't really do much about right, but If I see something that looks like it I need to Accept that this is a high likelihood that this is what's happening and if I overreact I have to be okay with it and not be so caught up on I don't want to overreact because I don't want to be embarrassed and Look like an idiot, you know, I'm like, oh dude, he freaked out. He's paranoid PTSD or whatever. You know, I mean so We want to react accordingly make a strong decision make it fast And if we overreacted cool, we can throttle it back But at the same time one of the most dangerous things Is to pretend like it's not happening get caught in shock try to negotiate with a person who didn't come to negotiate Because the goal of an active shooter attack is to create as much chaos as possible Right to move their The agenda to make a statement Right. So the only thing that I have for them is my life You know, I mean, so there's there's nothing I'm handing them. So I have no negotiation tools Do you ever study conspiracy theories about? Situations, you know, kind of like Monday morning quarterbacking I know after the uh, the vagus thing there was just There was just so many so many things. Yeah, there's a lot to learn in los vegas There's a lot to learn in los vegas from I've there's things that I watched that video That didn't make sense to me Like I know a lot about firearms. I work in the industry That didn't sound to me personally not to get into conspiracy theory stuff But it didn't sound like a bump stock to me, right, right and a bump stock to do that kind of thing It doesn't make sense. There was other things that don't make sense where I don't know why if you were to do that. It's it's faster and more simple to have More magazines for the same type of gun Then it is to try like if I was going to try to sneak in and shoot up a whole courtyard of people It's easier for me to sneak in a gun or two And a whole bunch of magazines because they're small and I could put them in multiple suitcases or bags and bring them into an area Then to try to bring in You know 15 20 30 guns, whatever it was and then all the ammo So if I have different types of guns and I have to bring in different types of caliber ammo And I have to load up different types of caliber magazines And then when I'm in the middle of shooting that gun and I go to do a magazine change I'm looking a bunch of Array of different caliber magazines to choose from but I have to choose the right one for the particular gun i'm shooting So from that standpoint, it doesn't really make sense and i'm not I mean the guy could have been stupid As far as his competency is is choosing that or his his his design, but it doesn't seem like he was So from that standpoint, there's certain things that I look at and I go A lot of things didn't add up. Well, I don't just don't know why you would do it like that Like it doesn't make sense from an attack standpoint to do it like that. You're making your job harder And you know, there's no point in getting a a bump stock because if you're going to go do something like that It's just as easy to get something that's full auto, right? Gunshots in public don't necessarily sound like gunshots. Do they I always hear witnesses saying they thought There was firecrackers going off And they're in like this disbelief just thinking somebody set off a pack of firecrackers Guns don't sound like they sound in the like in a movie. Well, that's that's the thing So guns don't sound like they sound in the movies Right, they don't sound like what they sound on the speakers coming out of your tv Right, so When we do shoot a gun, what are we normally wearing? Ear protection, right? Yeah, so If you've never actually been around gunfire without your protection on You don't really have a true understanding of what a gun sounds like, right? The other thing that happens in an urban environment that we have to be aware of And this is one of the things that we teach in our active shooter classes Is when you're in an urban environment, so let's say I'm in an alleyway, right like this And we have someone who's shooting over here and this is a wall of a building The sound waves get muffled by this wall of the building But this wall is open line and the sound hits this wall and actually echoes back So when you're standing in this alleyway here and someone's shooting a gun here It sounds as if the gunshots are coming from this direction So when they teach run hide fight my problem with run hide fight Is when I say run That doesn't spark you to think It you just react and go there's no thought process to it And when we pressure test this with blank guns or Simunitions and things like that what we see is the majority of the people who just go run without thinking They run away from the sound of the gunshots, but in an urban environment You have to be very careful because of the echoing Right and how the sound works in that type of environment Most of the people will run around the corner straight into the bad guy And then as the first couple people are getting shot The next wave of people who try to turn around The last people coming around the corner are pushing into them and the people can't turn around and run back Because the people in the back can't see that the shooter is actually over there And what happens is the crowd actually runs into the shooter So urban environments are tricky and that's one of the things that made it so confusing in Las Vegas for the people who are on the ground Is the way the sound was echoing off the buildings People were saying that they think there's multiple shooters I don't know if there was or there wasn't. I don't have that information But I do know in an urban environment like that the echoes can play Very big tricks on you I've been in canyons where I've yelled and then Like a split second later you hear your voice. Yeah kind of coming back at you. So I could imagine what Gunfire sounds like. Yeah Interesting very interesting and also too if you're in your car driving and let's say you hear a siren Ambulance police fire truck You're looking in all your mirrors because you don't know where it's coming from. Yeah, and that's kind of confusing. Yeah Yeah, so there's so that's one of the things that we talk about Is it's extremely important to locate our threat And locating the threat is one of the first things that we're going to do Right without taking the the the action plan out of order But one of the key elements is to locate the threat because I don't know where to run I don't know where to hide. I don't know how to fight. I can't really make any logical decisions on how to navigate the situation if I don't understand Where the threat is coming from gather information and then once I locate it then I can identify Well, what is the threat? I might be looking at exits, but just like in this diagram I might locate the exit Right, but if I haven't located the threat my exit might take me to the threat So I need to locate identify and then once I have that information then I can move I'm not saying we stand still just doing this until it happens Like I can create some movement. So I'm not a stationary target But these are the things that we're trying to gather so that we can make Strategic decisions that will increase the odds of survival Yeah, well, I just learned something here today and That I've always heard the fighter flight thing was the first thing but you say the freeze People just actually just stop and go into that shock mode. Yeah Yeah, that'll be the first thing you do because that's the time you're processing information Because you're going to make a judgment call based on life Oh Like do you think you will win? If I fight Then you're like I'm gonna fight. Yeah If I'm like, there's no way I'm winning this Then you're gonna run. Yeah, you know what I mean? But there's a time frame that you have that you're processing You're weighing out the odds. Well, I could do this. I could do that this happens Well, this happens right and it can happen really fast Right, but if you have no reference or experience in this particular field Right, then it takes time. It's like walking into a new airport I might be in airports all the time But I walk into a new airport and I walk out of the gate and I'm kind of standing there like looking around like Where do I go? And I'm trying to look in areas where the signs normally are But maybe I just flew into a different country and they put their signs in different places And then I'm trying to find one that words that look similar, right? So I'm in a new environment in a new situation And I don't just move right out to head toward baggage claim Right, because I don't know the direction to where baggage claim is So there's a time frame where I'm trying to process information. Maybe that's a bad example, right? But if I'm not used to being in a situation that I need to fight or defend myself or someone's trying to attack me or You know This situation seems like it's going bad. You know, there's all these things that start coming through your mind of especially in a society where We're taught not to ruffle feathers. Everything's politically correct. Yeah, right? So what happens with everything being politically correct and super sensitive? It's really like outlandish to be loud You know what I mean? Like if someone was coming up to you and they're making you feel uncomfortable for you to yell at them Hey, stop stand back, right? That's like, whoa, dude. Chill out, man Like why are you yelling at that guy who's just going to walk up and ask you for Five bucks or something like that. You don't have to yell at him He's making me feel really really uncomfortable But it's like counterculture to just tell someone stop leave me alone stand back Right because now you're kind of being a jerk So that so in this process you're like, uh, well, this is what I really want to say But then maybe this is what I should do should I just walk around should pretend like this I haven't should I just not make eye contact in the norm? Like all these things are processing in your mind on how you want to react And do you stand up to the dude and say leave me alone or do you just Try to get away and that's on a simple scale. So when you take something that's super high stress That's what we find ourselves is getting locked into this this You know taking in information in something that we've never seen before Right and something that we don't want to accept is actually happening We're in disbelief and there is a time of processing that information and then trying to figure out well What the hell do I do? You know so and then you know, hopefully we make the the best decision we can But there's been a lot of people if you watch the videos who just They don't know what to do and there's another thing that we see a lot Is people jumping on the ground? and You've heard from like the old school like vietnam era guys They're like if you hear gunshots you get on the ground like have you ever heard that? Right get down. Yeah get down get down. Okay. Well Fair enough Again in the beginning. I said I can't take what I learned in the SEAL teams And teach you exactly what I learned in the SEAL teams because it might not be relevant for your fight Okay, so if I want to do an active shooter attack and kill lots of people The place I go Is where lots of people are right? So if I'm in an environment where there's lots of people Okay, one of the last places I want to be Is on the ground? Right Because if you take los vegas again for example Almost half the people died by being trampled to death. Yeah, not by being shot Yeah So does it does my body care whether I get shot and die or I get trampled to death and die like my body's like Hey, dude, how about you just keep me alive? Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, and I'm not trying to arm chair quarterback But it's something to be aware of because We don't know what we don't know and there's been there's people who teach us things Or there's things that we've heard that we just go. Oh, I guess that's what you do So we have people who don't know what to do And they just go oh get down and they jump on the ground and now they're getting run over Well, if we were talking about trying to locate a threat Is it hard to if I lay down in the middle of the crowd, how do I locate the threat? If I'm trying to identify well, what is the threat? Who are they? Where are they? Where are they moving? Right? I can't do that because I can't see anything If my next step is to move And try to get the safety if I want to fight whatever it is that I want to do Now that I'm on the ground and people are stomping on me. It's very hard for me to move from that position And I'm not saying we can never get on the ground But in one of these types of environments for active shooter attack that might be one of a That needs to be a very calculated decision for me to commit myself to the ground In that type of environment because the people Around me are just as dangerous To me as the attacker is it's like if you're do you know anything about ocean lifeguarding? No, so I grew up on the beach in New Jersey when I was a lifeguard The most dangerous thing in the ocean right people are scared of sharks and they're scared of you know Crabs and eels and all sorts of little weird things in there, right? But the most dangerous thing in the ocean is the person you're trying to rescue Because they're going to climb on top of you and drown you while you're trying to rescue Yeah, I've heard that yeah, and that's why you have that little red buoy a little baywatch buoy, right? Yeah, so you swim up and you stop like five yards away from them And you pull the line up and you grab that buoy and you approach with caution Grab on hold on and you let them get onto that and you let them hold on And you give them a second to get on that thing then you come around behind them And then you start to pull them in because if you come in first the person You're trying to save is the one that kills you right so in this concept of this active shooter attack The people who are in In fighter flight, right? They are just as likely to hurt me Right as the person who i'm trying to get away from So it's it there's a lot going on in it, you know what I mean and uh It's a very complex situation Interesting Yeah Well, I know there's a lot of men out there watching this Who have wives girlfriends and families? And your gears are turning about safety About keeping yourself and your family and your loved ones safe You learned a little bit today and I would encourage you to encourage you to do a little bit more research On this how can people find you? We have a website and we actually have this active shooter response training We're just happened to be talking about it today. So on our website full spectrum warrior dot us And you can look at that you can join our online training membership And we have active shooter response training there on our website for you to take advantage of I would do that if I were you Thank you rich. Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity and thank you for your service. Thank you