Episode 22: The Realities of Police Work in Fiction with Patrick O’Donnell

Angela Haas (00:17)
Welcome to episode 22. I'm Angela Haas and I'm here with my co-host Cassie Newell. And this month we're talking all about how to find your industry professionals. This episode we're talking to Patrick O'Donnell about finding professionals that can help you with research specifically when writing thriller, police procedurals, and crime novels.

Patrick O'Donnell is proof that there is life after retirement. He was a city of Milwaukee police sergeant with 25 years of street experience where he supervised various special units and investigated major felonies. He's the author of 10 books, including his newest thriller, The Good Collar which I have read and it's awesome. He hosts the popular Cops and Writers podcast and founded and runs

Patrick O'Donnell (01:03)
cool.

you

Angela Haas (01:08)
an 8,300 member Facebook group for crime writers. He has also hosted True Crime Television documentaries and has consulted with crime writers for their books and screenplays. O'Donnell lives in Wisconsin where he enjoys working out, riding his Harley, and spending time with family. Welcome, Patrick. Thank you so much for being here.

Cassie Newell (01:28)
Welcome.

Patrick O'Donnell (01:29)
Thank you for inviting me. This is great. Like I said before, off camera, I've been listening to this podcast and it's really good. You guys have something really good going and I really hope that you keep pushing because you really have actionable steps that are incredibly helpful for authors. Like you mentioned, I've written 10 books. I'm working on number 11 right now. And I listened to your last one about different tools, et cetera.

And then there was another one with the second book. I forget who your guest was on that one. The second book in a series. And that's what I'm doing right now. I'm writing the second book in the Good Collar And I'm just like, this is perfect. This is so cool. And she had some really good advice. So good on ya, keep going.

Angela Haas (01:59)
yes. Yeah, Suzy. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (02:00)
Yeah.

Well, people who aren't seeing us, Angela and I, are blushing like all shades of pink right now. Thank you. much.

Angela Haas (02:14)
Thank you.

We're blushing!

Patrick O'Donnell (02:18)
hahahaha

Angela Haas (02:23)
Well, there is so much to unpack with this episode too. But what I think listeners would be interested to know, take us through briefly, your career in law enforcement and then switching to helping authors writing your own books.

What led you to that? What led you to want to help authors the way that you do?

Patrick O'Donnell (02:45)
Well, I guess, you know, my background in law enforcement was in the city of Milwaukee. I, uh, I'm a Chicago boy. was born in Chicago. I was there till I was a freshman in high school. Then my family up and moved to rural Wisconsin. So I was a complete fish out of water. Yeah. We wound up in a town of like less than 10,000 people from Chicago.

And I'm a teenager in the place. It didn't even have a McDonald's. I'm like, how am going to survive? This is ridiculous. You know, there was, there was actual dirt roads. I've never seen a dirt road before. I'm like, my God, did you do to his dad? You know, I couldn't sleep at night because it was so quiet. He moved us out into the country and I'm just like, this is ridiculous. I literally cannot sleep. Yeah. So, you know, I, but I do have very fond childhood memories of

Angela Haas (03:12)
You

Cassie Newell (03:13)
I love it.

Patrick O'Donnell (03:33)
being in Chicago and seeing the Chicago police cars, you know, on a, we were on a busy street, you know, the flashing blue lights, And when I was probably about 11 or 12, the police did a raid on our neighbor's house. They served a search warrant. They broke down the door. There was guys in our backyard wearing full tack gear with machine guns and shotguns. And my eyes were like saucers. I'm like, this is so cool. my gosh. You know, they're, breaking the door down and stuff. And I'm like,

Angela Haas (03:45)
my goodness.

Patrick O'Donnell (04:00)
This is the coolest stuff ever. You know, and I'm watching, you know, all the TV shows like SWAT and Chips and Starsky and Hutch and all that good stuff from that era. So I always had the bug. I went to college at University of Wisconsin Whitewater. I started as a music major. Actually, I was going to be a band director. And I worked my way through college. I worked a full-time job while I was going to school full-time and music and that just did not match at all.

Angela Haas (04:13)
⁓ wow.

Patrick O'Donnell (04:29)
So I wound up

shifting to sociology with a minor in criminal justice. I interned with the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department and I was hooked. You know, I did a summer internship and I'm like, this is the coolest job. I would do this. Like I would volunteer to do this. This is so cool. You know, wow. I can't believe this stuff is happening. And you know, I finished up college and it took a while to get on. was 30 years old.

I waited, I was on a waiting list for four years and I was 30 years old when I got on. the meantime, I'm selling cars, I'm bartending, I'm a restaurant manager, just doing what I had to do to pay the rent. Then I got on the job and I thought I'd died and went to heaven. my God. This is the first job I ever had. That was five days in a row. I had two days off in a row. like, I've never experienced that before. If I work overtime, I get paid for it.

I had good benefits. I'm like, wow, the only tough part was the shift work. You know, I was a vampire for 17 years. I worked nights for 17. And I worked all over the city. After being a cop for about six, seven years, I promoted to sergeant. And that's, I stayed at sergeant until I retired after 25 years. And I spent the entirety of my career on the street.

Angela Haas (05:30)
Wow.

Patrick O'Donnell (05:43)
As a Sergeant, you

Angela Haas (05:44)
Wow.

Patrick O'Donnell (05:44)
know, it's kind of like Hill Street Blues where, you know, it starts out with roll call and, you get everybody ready for their shift and then boom out they go. And as a street Sergeant, I was in charge of the coppers on the street. So I went to every major crime scene, you know, anything big happened, I had to respond to it. So every night was something different, which I absolutely loved. I've never had an office job in my life. And I just.

Cassie Newell (05:49)
Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (06:10)
I absolutely loved it. Yes, there were some really hard times and down times and you saw stuff that no humans should have to see. So

Angela Haas (06:18)
Mm-mm.

Patrick O'Donnell (06:20)
I, I knew that, okay, 25 years I'm popping smoke. I'm out of there. Not because I hated it. Nothing like that, but it was time and police work is a young guy's game. It ain't an old guy's game like me. You know, I was 55 years old and it chews you up.

especially if you've been on the street the entire time. My head is off to everybody that's doing their job because it takes a toll both physically and emotionally on you. And I think 25 or 20 years is more than enough. So it was time to go. So I was thinking myself, it's like, you know, I'm a huge fan of the saying, dig the well before you're thirsty. So I knew it's like, I saw it on the horizon. You know, I had, that's one thing.

Cassie Newell (06:45)
I imagine.

⁓ I love that.

Patrick O'Donnell (07:02)
With that type of job is that, you know, it's common, you know, you don't have to retire at 25, but it's the most beneficial for a number of reasons. And I didn't want to do an inside job. I'm like, that just wasn't me. I wanted to be on the streets. So it's like, if I couldn't be on the street, I'm not going to do the job. So I'm thinking to myself, well, what am I good at? I don't want to sell cars again. don't want to be a restaurant manager again. And.

I'm still fairly young. was 55. So I'm thinking to myself, okay, so I sold cars in my former life before I was a cop. And I continued to help people buy cars. Friends, relatives, it's like, hey, Pat, I'm going to buy a car today. Could you please come with me? I don't want to do this. I don't want to do it alone, you know, whatever. I'm like, yeah, sure. So yeah, I'd get a dinner out of it or a drink or thank you or whatever. It didn't matter. So somebody

that knew a lot more about this kind of stuff is like, you should really write a book about how to buy a car. And I'm like, Hmm, I'm not an author. And I was just like, yeah, I guess so. So I wrote, was more or less a glorified PDF and I had some help. It wasn't edited all that well. I wrote it under a pen name because I would have to get permission from the chief.

And I know the answer would have been no. So I'm just like, all right. So I just did it under the radar and it actually sold a few copies. I was just like, wow, that's

Angela Haas (08:22)
Mm.

Patrick O'Donnell (08:27)
kind of crazy. At first, a friend of a friend is like, Hey, I got this friend that she's got a big time agent in New York. gave her your manuscript. She loves it. She's going to pitch it for you. I'm like, wow. So I'm thinking myself, Hey,

Angela Haas (08:31)
you

Cassie Newell (08:39)
Nice.

Patrick O'Donnell (08:42)
I'm gonna be rolling in dough. I'm gonna be driving a Mercedes tomorrow or Lexus and yeah, everything's gonna be honky dory and everything's going great. And then the night before she leaves, they get into a fight. And I called

her and I said, Hey, I hope this doesn't interfere with our professional relationship, you know, etc. And she said, No, I already threw that PDF. I already threw your manuscript in the garbage. If you're a friend of him, you're no friend of mine. I'm like, ah, so

Cassie Newell (09:09)
Ouch.

Patrick O'Donnell (09:11)
I started listening to podcasts. was the so rocking rocking publishing who's that? Oh, there's some old ones says Johnny Sean and Dave there's the self publishing podcast. Yeah, Brian Cohen, he's still going to his him and Jim Cukral. I'm

Cassie Newell (09:24)
Yeah, I love them. Yep.

Angela Haas (09:24)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (09:29)
good friends with Brian. Great, great guy. I can't say enough good things about him. So he's just Joanna Penn, you know, the creative pen and I'm just like, you can do this thing called self publishing.

Wow, I didn't think that was, I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah, and was like, so I threw it up on Amazon and it actually started selling. So I told a buddy of mine about it. That was another sergeant and he was an inside cat. He liked working inside. He was working on his PhD. So he was doing his dissertation and he was just so sick of writing that. He wrote this post-apocalyptic book and it wasn't, the story was good, but the cover was horrible.

Cassie Newell (09:40)
Yeah.

I love it.

Patrick O'Donnell (10:04)
There was a ton of spelling and grammar mistakes, but he made like 10 grand in one year off this book. And my eyes popped out of my, he's showing me this and I'm like, well, I'm going to write a post-apocalyptic book that in mind didn't know it did. Okay. It didn't do great. And then I'm like, well, whatever. But I started going to conferences and I'm like, okay. So I became good friends with Craig Martelle from 20 books to 50 K. So.

Cassie Newell (10:11)
Nice!

Angela Haas (10:12)
Wow.

Cassie Newell (10:24)
Yeah.

yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (10:32)
I was at the first 20 Books to 50K in Vegas, that was in 2017. And by 2018, I was giving presentations. I had panels, exactly what we're doing right now. it gave me an opportunity to know people that were really plugged into this and were very successful. And I saw what was possible.

Angela Haas (10:36)
wow.

Cassie Newell (10:43)
Nice.

Patrick O'Donnell (10:58)
So before I know it, know, Brian, I think it was Brian Cohen came up to me and said,

you should write a book about police procedurals, you know, for authors. And I'm like, okay, I think I will. So I did. And they did very well. Then I started a podcast and a Facebook group just for, to plug the books and both those took off. So it was just like one thing after another. And I'm like, all right, I'll just keep on writing books. And I did get a deal with LMBPN with Michael Anderle.

I co-wrote four books with him. And my last book is Indy. I just did it myself.

Cassie Newell (11:26)
Have a nice.

Wow.

Angela Haas (11:31)
That's, wow, that's a journey.

Cassie Newell (11:33)
That is a journey. That's quite the full circle, isn't it?

Patrick O'Donnell (11:33)
Yeah.

Hopefully it's not a circle. I want to keep going. That's true. so. Yes, I hope so.

Cassie Newell (11:40)
Circles can overlap, they just get better and better and better.

Wow, that's great. I'm curious with regards to police procedurals, like

what do writers typically overlook or get wrong? I mean, I'm sure you answer that question quite a bit, but

Patrick O'Donnell (12:00)
point.

Angela Haas (12:01)
Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (12:02)
I

do. And, you know, with the conference thing, I'll just real quick. It's like, I didn't have a t-shirt on saying I was a cop. was an unknown. Nobody knew me, but for some reason they knew I was a cop. So they'd come up to me and ask me questions, like exactly what you just said, you know, and it's, it was just a natural thing. They're very respectful, very kind. And it was just a natural thing. And that's where I, I'm like, okay, I should be writing crime fiction. I should be writing, you know, police procedurals for writers too. So.

Cassie Newell (12:16)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (12:23)
you

Patrick O'Donnell (12:30)
In, in regards to your question, you know, there's so many things. I don't know how long we have, but boy, we could, we could. Okay. Well, all right. Well, let's start out with, you know, the lone wolf detective, you know, that shows up to a crime scene, like a murder within seconds of this crime being committed. Yeah. It's a team effort, you know, and also there isn't just that one case they're working on. They juggle multiple cases.

Cassie Newell (12:36)
Okay, pick the top two or else Angela won't get a question in.

⁓ okay.

Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (13:00)
You know, there's all, you know, in Milwaukee, when I first started, it's a city of 600,000 people. There was probably about 230, 240 homicides and over a thousand non-fatal shootings. So

Angela Haas (13:12)
Wow.

Patrick O'Donnell (13:13)
they had cases, you know, on top of their cases, on top of their cases. So, you know, and then of course, you know, they just poof show up. Usually homicide detectives will show up about an hour after, maybe later. The first people on a scene are the cops and the sergeant.

They're the ones who actually do the initial stuff. And another thing that you see is no boss or a very indifferent boss. You know, Harry Bosch, know, if everybody's one of TV's favorite detectives, you know, it starts out with him running down a dark alley after a bad guy, he winds up shooting and killing the guy. And we'd laugh at work. It's like suit and tie detectives don't run after anybody, man. That's

Cassie Newell (13:36)
Mm.

Angela Haas (13:39)
Yes, I, yeah, yeah.

Cassie Newell (13:39)
I love that show though.

Patrick O'Donnell (13:53)
Unless you're in a gang unit or something that ain't happening. And, you know, he, one that happens, there's a number of investigations that are going on sometimes in tandem, sometimes separately, but best case scenario, you're back on the street in three months. Worst case that I've seen is a year you're riding the pine, you're working inside. So, you know, Harry's giving, you know, crate and barrel Laker tickets.

Angela Haas (14:11)
Wow.

Cassie Newell (14:11)
well.

Patrick O'Donnell (14:18)
So they'd stay inside and he'd go out and take these different

cases and it was like, no, and his boss knew about it. His boss was like, okay, you go out there, you're fired. You're done. You know, so yeah. And then one, one more thing guns, you know, they don't have unlimited ammunition. just get a kick, you know, there's like a wheel gun and they've shot like 30 times. I'm like, how did that happen? You know, that's, that's some serious movie magic there.

Cassie Newell (14:24)
Yeah, no.

Angela Haas (14:24)
Yeah. Right. ⁓

Cassie Newell (14:37)
You're right.

Angela Haas (14:42)
I'm

Patrick O'Donnell (14:45)
How they handle a gun.

You know, one of the first things you learn is your, your trigger finger is often outside the trigger. Your figure is never on that trigger until it's time to go boom. You know, and I see that being misrepresented so many times and you know, they're pointing guns at each other, these actors and stuff and just, oh my God, recoil, you know, the gun doesn't fly, you know, way up and there's very little recoil to some of these guns actually.

Cassie Newell (14:57)
Right.

Patrick O'Donnell (15:11)
And when somebody is shot, you know, a lot of times, well, not a lot of times, almost every time the body crumbles, it doesn't fly 50 yards after getting a shot. know, the, the dramatic through the plate glass window where they're traveling, you know, the length of a football field after getting shot with a 38, like, no, that does not happen. And some of the other stuff too, like DNA getting the results in like five minutes from a DNA head.

Angela Haas (15:21)
Right. Yeah. ⁓

Cassie Newell (15:31)
Yeah.

Sure.

Angela Haas (15:37)
Yeah, and that's

what I've wondered I stopped watching NCIS because I could not picture that their crime lab functioned the way it did Unless unless that's how it is like they're playing loud music and Sometimes making out in there come on I don't think you're just hanging out in the crime lab

right? Like that's a pretty serious sealed off place, isn't it?

Cassie Newell (16:01)
Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (16:04)
Very much so. You know, we have this we have two state crime labs in Wisconsin. One was in Milwaukee, one's in Madison. And it takes a lot just to get into the building. It's very nondescript. There are cameras everywhere. It's very, very well protected. And you feel like you're going into a vault almost. I mean, it is super, super secure. No, no, no, no, no. Yep, exactly.

Cassie Newell (16:18)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (16:24)
Yeah, it's not like you just walk in with coffee and be like, what's up, babe?

Cassie Newell (16:29)
right.

Angela Haas (16:30)
Yeah. So are there, are there TV shows that have gotten it right though? Because I think sometimes as writers, we watch TV and we read, but sometimes we write based on what we think we've seen on television shows. Is there a television show that has been more accurate?

Patrick O'Donnell (16:30)
That does not happen.

Cassie Newell (16:38)
Mm.

Patrick O'Donnell (16:45)
Right.

You know, I mentioned, know, um, so, uh, Hill street blues, the relationships between partners and, sometimes with the community, that's pretty spot on, you know, the procedural stuff. No, not really, but the human emotions and the human element. I think they did that right. Uh, let's see Southland. I don't know if you've ever watched that. That is almost 100 % spot on.

Angela Haas (16:50)
So we know, yeah.

Cassie Newell (17:11)
Mmm, yeah.

Angela Haas (17:11)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (17:15)
The only difference, the only difference is all that stuff usually doesn't happen in one shift. You know, obviously you have to have lots of action to keep everything moving. Otherwise, you know, it's like, yeah, I've been in a ton of car chases, but usually they last like two or three minutes. Sometimes longer. And then usually they crash or they run out of gas or they give up. Then it's a foot chase and that under a minute, maybe two or three. And.

Cassie Newell (17:16)
⁓ good to know.

Angela Haas (17:21)
Right. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (17:22)
Great.

Angela Haas (17:34)
Right?

Patrick O'Donnell (17:43)
That's followed by like six, seven, eight hours of writing. There's a ton of reports. Obviously that would be really boring in a book or a movie. like, okay, we got five minutes of action, then the rest, know, an hour and 50 minutes is gonna be, you know, this guy writing a report. No, that's not gonna fly.

Angela Haas (17:48)
Mmm.

Cassie Newell (17:53)
Wow.

Interesting.

I'm in the clinical side of my day job. So a lot of times they get hospitals wrong and ER is wrong and things like that. So I'm like nodding my head in agreement. But my question to you is as an author, who knows they have specific scenes or specific procedural things they need to look into and research on. How does one go about

Patrick O'Donnell (18:04)
.

Angela Haas (18:24)
Okay.

Cassie Newell (18:28)
approaching someone in a current position in order to gather that research or interview them or especially in a police office that that can be a little unnerving. ⁓

Patrick O'Donnell (18:40)
Yeah, it can be daunting, I get it.

Cassie Newell (18:40)
I don't think it's as. Yeah, like how what would you propose people do in order to try to get that one on one time in research versus just Googling? Because I do think there's some office.

Angela Haas (18:42)
Okay.

Cassie Newell (18:53)
and interviewing and talking to people. It's more tactile and as authors sometimes we need that.

Patrick O'Donnell (19:01)
Yeah, you know, the best obviously is having a family member or friend who's a cop or was in law enforcement somehow, but that's not always

Cassie Newell (19:06)
Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (19:09)
going to happen. Some suggestions I would have for your listeners would be police, police citizen academies. A lot of different departments run those and you can bend the ear of those instructors. You know, almost all those instructors are cops.

Angela Haas (19:16)
Hmm.

Patrick O'Donnell (19:24)
and they're used to talking to people. Obviously, if they were picked to be in the Citizen Academy as an instructor, they're not going to be shy about talking

Angela Haas (19:25)
Gotcha.

Patrick O'Donnell (19:31)
to you. So that's a good one. Most departments, especially larger departments, have a PIO, a public information officer. You just, that should be on like their website or whatever. They're the liaison between the police department and usually the media, but

Cassie Newell (19:40)
Great.

Patrick O'Donnell (19:48)
It wouldn't hurt to say, hey, I'm an author. I'm working on this. I really want to get this right. I would actually, I would say those words. I want to get this information right. cops are going to have their walls up because there's so much gotcha journalism, that kind of stuff. And they're thinking they're being set up. So kind of break that down.

Angela Haas (20:05)
Hmm.

Cassie Newell (20:06)
Sure.

Patrick O'Donnell (20:10)
Every, where I worked in Milwaukee, every district had a community liaison officer. They would go to community meetings, et cetera, et cetera. So depending where you live, the size of the department, if there's, community meetings. Yeah. I would suggest go to those and then maybe afterwards, Hey, could I bend your ear for a couple of minutes and offer them a donut? I mean, Hey, it can't hurt, see, yeah, here's the thing. ⁓

Angela Haas (20:35)
Some pastry,

Cassie Newell (20:27)
Great idea.

you

Angela Haas (20:36)
yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (20:37)
If you see a couple of cops attempting to have lunch, you know, at a restaurant sitting down, which was kind of a luxury for us. I, I never sat down in a restaurant until I was on the job for almost 18 years, because at night there's, we didn't have a chance and there was really nothing open. So that kind of really, that restricted us as far as that goes, but you know, buy him a cup of coffee. Buy him, you know, just, Hey, can I bend your ear? I'm an author.

Angela Haas (20:50)
Wow.

Patrick O'Donnell (21:05)
You know, it's, cetera. And you know what, sometimes they might say, you know what, I'm too busy. I'm this, I'm that. I only have 20 minutes for dinner. You know, it's like, okay, well, here's my information. Here's my email address. You know, if you, if you don't mind, this would be great. You know, and then another thing to think of is there's a lot of CCW courses out there carrying concealed weapon. And a lot of those instructors are former law enforcement or active law enforcement.

Angela Haas (21:29)
Okay.

Patrick O'Donnell (21:31)
So you could take the course, you know, get your license and not even consider carrying a gun. But I think everybody should have a very rudimentary understanding of guns. When I got married the second time to my now wife, you know, I said, you're marrying a cop. You're I'm going to take you to a range because she never even held a gun before. And said, I'm going to show you how this works.

Angela Haas (21:32)
.

Cassie Newell (21:51)
Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (21:53)
because it's going to be in the house. You should know when it's safe. You should know when it's not safe. And that's what these courses teach you. again, know, our ACCW class, that's another resource. You know, use your imagination. And one more thing I would say, there's a lot of police procedurals, you know, on different books on Amazon. If they have an author, you know, page or whatever and a website, just cold email.

Cassie Newell (22:00)
Yeah.

I love that.

Patrick O'Donnell (22:18)
I tell you what, it's been a gold mine for me as far as when I was brand new. I was listening to your episode about different tools and whatever. What I did was I looked for authors that were in my genre that were selling well, I like say they're covers. They're selling well, I really like their covers, but they're not James Patterson or somebody that is unapproachable.

Angela Haas (22:19)
So yeah.

Cassie Newell (22:19)
Awesome, that's a great idea.

Mm-hmm.

Patrick O'Donnell (22:47)
Kind of like a mid tier

that I'm like, okay, out of 10 emails, I got a couple back. It was like, yeah, this is my cover designer. She's awesome. I'm like, wow, thank you. You don't even know who I am. Hey, do you mind if I ask you a few more questions? No, not at all. Then before you know it, you have a little author friend.

Cassie Newell (22:59)
I love that.

Yeah, I totally look at the

Angela Haas (23:03)
That's

Cassie Newell (23:04)
front of books when they say who the book cover artist is all the time, but that's just me. But it's funny that you said that about your wife because I grew up, my dad's a hunter and he was always very careful about gun safety. And then I married my husband who's ex army and he was like, we're going for the conceal license. And I never carry.

Patrick O'Donnell (23:10)
So do I.

Okay.

Cassie Newell (23:28)
but I've done it twice because I was just like, I just don't want to be the girl who forgets and has an issue that I have to handle or anything. So I love those courses. I think it's really helpful. And it also, like

Angela Haas (23:35)
I'm here.

Cassie Newell (23:44)
I said, as an author being tactile and like I like to have visual things when I'm writing as well, I think those things are so important because how can you really talk about the experience if you have no clue?

Angela Haas (23:56)
Right. This reminds me though of a trope in a lot of books. I see it in books and I see it in TV shows and movies about the angry wife.

Patrick O'Donnell (23:57)
Very true.

Cassie Newell (23:58)
You know.

Angela Haas (24:10)
And I just get tired of seeing like, obviously, if you marry someone in law enforcement or military, I've seen it in thrillers where the woman is married to a secret service or CIA agent. And she's totally surprised or upset when there's a call in the middle of the night and, you miss Tommy's fourth

birthday party and I'm like, just, is it really like that? Because I feel like you, if you're marrying into that life.

you know what you're signing up for. They're probably not going to be around consistently all the time. And I get tired of like them saving the world and then coming home and their wife's like, you missed dinner again. And it's like, yeah, I stopped a terrorist threat. I just, that bothers me because I just wish, I mean, I know it's hard for the spouses. I'm not saying it isn't a hard life.

Patrick O'Donnell (24:58)
Yeah

Angela Haas (25:10)
And I'm sure they're constantly worried if their spouse is gonna come home, but being angry, you miss the toddler's birthday. I am so tired of that because I think women are, stronger than that, you know? I don't know. What are you?

Cassie Newell (25:23)
Yeah, I think there are other shows

that represent it better. Like The Unit is really great when it comes to military wives and stuff. like, I get what you're saying. But I also feel that way in fairy tales too. For the longest time, the females had to be rescued. And now there's a flip, right? And the females are saving themselves and possibly rescuing the guy nowadays. So I don't know. I think it's all cyclical and

Angela Haas (25:31)
Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (25:45)
Hahaha.

Cassie Newell (25:49)
And in our time event, I'm curious, Patrick, your thoughts on that though, because that that is kind of this cliche. You see quite a bit of these angry spouses.

Patrick O'Donnell (26:01)
those cliches come from places. Let me tell you, you know, my, my, my first day in the Academy, I forgot who it was, you know, is up at the podium. It's like, congratulations, you guys are now cops. And we're like, oh, cool. You know, it says, okay, the divorce rate in this country is about 50 % give or take a little bit. All right. All right. Now you're cops. Now it's in the high eighties. And if you're

Cassie Newell (26:03)
They do, don't they?

Angela Haas (26:04)
I know, I

know they do.

Cassie Newell (26:24)
Wow, that's a huge jump.

Patrick O'Donnell (26:26)
Yup, and they said if you're stupid enough to marry another cop, now it's in the 90s.

Angela Haas (26:31)
Mm-hmm. Oops.

Patrick O'Donnell (26:32)
Yeah, so we're all looking at each other

like, great. Is it too late to leave? Yeah, like, nah. But I think the true heroes in a lot of high profile cases and such are the families. You never see what's going on with the families. And law enforcement is still traditionally a male dominated profession, especially on the street. That's what I've seen through 25 years of being in law enforcement. And

Angela Haas (26:42)
Yeah.

Cassie Newell (26:44)
Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (26:54)
Usually, you know, most people are married, and most people have kids. That's most not all. And, you know, it, there's a lot of strain there. Like you said, you know, you're missing, you know, little Johnny or Suzy's birthday party. You know, you feel like you're two inches tall because of this. It's horrible. But it's like, okay, I was working on this homicide. And, you know,

Angela Haas (27:14)
Right, yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (27:18)
Once the trail is hot, you get you stay on it. There's nothing more important. Unfortunately, everything else takes a backseat. And it's like I remember one time, you know, I was working on a homicide, I took a dying declaration. And this guy in his last breaths told me to f off. And then he died. He was shot like I don't know how many times. And he refused to tell us who shot him was all gang stuff. And we spent 2526 hours straight.

Angela Haas (27:25)
Mm-hmm.

Patrick O'Donnell (27:43)
trying to find this guy's killer. know, everything else takes a backseat, including family life. So the real heroes aren't, they're not the cops or the special agent or the whatever. It's the wife or husband that's keeping everything, you know, under control at home. That ain't easy. And then if you really want to multiply it, you know, I have, I've interviewed DEA agents, CIA officers, and

Angela Haas (27:43)
Wow. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (27:57)
together.

Patrick O'Donnell (28:07)
You're talking about packing up the family and going to a different country sometimes. You're leaving all your family and friends. You don't, you may not even know the language, but guess what? You're going. Or like the CIA, you might see dad six months from now. Cause he's doing X, Y, or Z. So yeah, like I said before, the real heroes, I think are the families or the spouses, the children, they have to endure all

Angela Haas (28:11)
Right, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I...

I just wish they were, yeah,

and I wish they were portrayed differently because I think sometimes the wife is just comes off as so just bitching at her husband when, right, yeah, which I can see the frustration, but at the same time, like, I think I wish there was a balance like,

Patrick O'Donnell (28:41)
That was my ex-wife. That was my ex-wife.

Cassie Newell (28:44)
Yes, PTSD of you talking about it.

Angela Haas (28:53)
I understand the sacrifice that a military law enforcement wife has to go through, although you are signing up for a different life. You're not signing up for the same life your neighbor has where your husband's just mowing the lawn on the weekends. it's, you you've got to prepare yourself emotionally, but I also wish they weren't portrayed as just these bitchy women that, you know, don't understand that. Because I'm sure there's some wives that just...

Patrick O'Donnell (29:07)
Right.

Angela Haas (29:19)
have to be strong. I wish that strength was portrayed more instead of just like, where were you? My chicken's cold. You know, I hate that. Yeah, I know. Yep.

Cassie Newell (29:28)
It's time for you to write that, Angela. ⁓ It's time for the writers to get that right.

Patrick O'Donnell (29:34)
Well, part of that too

is like, I don't want to like be mean or cruel or, know, or whatever to my ex wife. But I remember, you know, we would be at family functions. We'd be doing whatever. And people are like, Hey, do you have a cool story? Do you have a story? Or it's like, I can't believe you did X, Y, or Z or yeah, you, went down a flight of stairs a couple of days ago and your back is all screwed up, you know, or you're hanging from a bridge. You save some guy. And my ex would look at this as I've got a tough job too.

Nobody ever asked me about how my day was. And she was completely unsupportive. You know, you see like in movies and TV, you you have the doting wife that's supporting their superstar. No, that doesn't always happen. Sometimes they're jealous. You know, and it's, it can cause some really hard feelings. You know, when you sign up for it, it's nothing like you think it's going to be. It sounds like it's a, Hey, you know what? I'm tough. I can handle this. This is going to be great. You know, blah, blah, blah.

Cassie Newell (30:01)
no.

Angela Haas (30:02)
Right. Right. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (30:13)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (30:18)
Yeah. Sure.

Patrick O'Donnell (30:27)
Then reality kicks in, you have a screaming six month old at home and your husband is at work. You've got no break. You got no rest. So reality slaps you in the face hard. yeah. But then.

Angela Haas (30:30)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. No, that would be so difficult. And I wish, yeah, I wish that was stone more.

that side of it, you know? Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (30:43)
Right. then the, yeah. And then the flip side of

the coin is I worked nights for 17, 18 years. And with my first son, you know, I worked midnight to eight. I'd pick him up from the sitters. I'd always work overtime. So I don't know, I get home at nine, 10, 11 o'clock in the morning. And I would watch him until my wife got home from work, which was five, six o'clock at night. And he was

Angela Haas (31:05)
Wow.

Patrick O'Donnell (31:06)
God bless him. He was Mr. Colick, Mr. I didn't want to take a nap, Mr. I'm and I didn't know anything about babies. I knew nothing about babies. And I'm like, what am I doing wrong? I got to be doing something wrong here. You know, it was the most frustrating, just crazy time and everybody's tempers are short. Everybody just it's not like TV or in the movies. It can really suck.

Cassie Newell (31:11)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (31:11)
yeah.

Cassie Newell (31:19)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (31:30)
Yeah, yeah, no. And I think those are the cool things. I think that's the help in why research sometimes feels so daunting, because you can't necessarily find that information by Googling. and that's what stopped me I had thrillers outlined, and we've talked about this, Patrick, but the research got so overwhelming that I just couldn't write or flow through it. And

that's what they could all these intricate things and stories like I just didn't have that and so I felt like I'm just kind of writing blind here they didn't know where I was going and I just stopped

Patrick O'Donnell (32:05)
Yeah, but most people don't know exactly anyways. I think if you have a great character and a great story, that counts for so much. And you can fill in the blanks, you know, as you go along.

Cassie Newell (32:05)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (32:15)
Right.

Yeah, yeah, I had to learn that and I had to just kind of let go and then write what I thought I knew and then then in editing you can kind of work through like, yeah, this doesn't happen or this happens more or this is how they would think. So yeah, still still on the dock once I get through some romance.

Cassie Newell (32:18)
Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (32:27)
Absolutely.

Hey

Cassie Newell (32:38)
She's come over to the dark side with me.

Angela Haas (32:40)
Yeah,

those are much easier to write. Those are much easier to write. But although there's still romance, yeah, there's still romance in... I really do think romance between partners is so possible because you're with that person like 24-7 going through trauma and I can't, just, yeah.

Cassie Newell (32:45)
Mmm.

Patrick O'Donnell (32:46)
Lot of competition though. Lot of competition.

Cassie Newell (33:02)
Can a couple though be a partner, partners on the force like that?

Patrick O'Donnell (33:07)
I've seen it happen many times. I've seen many a marriage breakup because of that. Many. it's not recommended. That's for sure. Yeah. I've had my first partner on the job was a female and I got along with her so well, but you know, I was very unhappy at home. She was as well, but we both knew there was this like unspoken. was like, no, hell no.

Cassie Newell (33:10)
You have.

Angela Haas (33:13)
Ooh.

Cassie Newell (33:15)
Yeah.

Sure.

Patrick O'Donnell (33:33)
We are not going to go down that road. We're both a little bit older. We're like in our early thirties, know, mid thirties. And I'm looking at these 21 and 22 year old kids. call them kids. You know, if most of them were married when they got into the job, most of them were unmarried within about five or six years. And usually it was, you know, maybe not a squad partner, but somebody on the shift, et cetera. You know, the women that I worked with.

Cassie Newell (33:33)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (33:48)
Wow.

Cassie Newell (33:49)
Wow.

Patrick O'Donnell (33:58)
They found their husbands at home and I know this sounds terrible. They just weren't manly enough anymore or sexy enough anymore because now you're working with these high speed guys that are presumably in good shape. And like you said before, you're going through these emotional times that draws you together. That kind of camaraderie is like nothing else. It's like super glue. It's amazing. And you can't get that with your husband. That's the account.

Cassie Newell (34:20)
Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (34:24)
or the banker or the whatever. I mean, I would, I remember I was talking to my partner about it and she's like, I can't believe this stupid girl. And I'm like, what are you talking about, Patty? And she says, yeah, she's talking about her and she's bored with her husband. She's messing around with this guy that's on the SWAT team. And she's like, she sat her down and she said, when he's done with you, you're done. You know, don't leave your husband, stop being stupid. You know, and she's, but my husband's so boring now and he's so good looking and he's this and he's that. she's like,

Angela Haas (34:35)
Mm.

Cassie Newell (34:47)
Mm.

Patrick O'Donnell (34:53)
No, stop it. You're being dumb. And of course she didn't listen. And of course she left her husband.

Cassie Newell (34:56)
Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (34:59)
And of course, six months later, the boyfriend dropped.

Angela Haas (35:02)
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That gives me an idea for a story. Nope. Stop it. Okay. But wait, your partner was Patty? So Pat and Patty? That's a whole other story now. Like that's...

Cassie Newell (35:03)
Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (35:03)
So that is not uncommon.

Yeah, I was, I was Pat and she was Patty. Yes. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (35:19)
That's awesome.

I have friends that she's married

when they were married. was Kelly and Kelly. And I was like, oh my gosh, are you going to hyphenate your name? And she said no. I was just like, this is really difficult. But yeah, that's wild Pat and Patty. love it.

Patrick O'Donnell (35:27)
Hahaha

Angela Haas (35:28)
boy.

Patrick O'Donnell (35:32)
hahahaha

Angela Haas (35:37)
Yeah, no, that's, I don't know. But I mean, good, good. Yeah, I wonder how different it is. It's gotta be so different for a woman to like prove herself out there than it is for the male colleagues. mean, it's just like, yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (35:39)
We're still besties. We're still good friends.

Cassie Newell (35:41)
That's good.

Patrick O'Donnell (35:55)
It can be, and

I had a bird's eye view because my partner was female and we worked in one of the worst areas of the city. So every squad was a two person car. A lot of police departments, there's just one person in a car. They don't have a partner, which is really unfortunate because I tell you what, it's not just the physical stuff. It's the emotional stuff too. It's so nice. You know, it's like, yeah, I a fight with my wife today.

Okay, what'd you do wrong? All right, here we go. like, but I got the female perspective. Because, you know, I was with her all the time. I spent more time with her than I did my wife and kids. Because we're working all the time. You know, so it gave me a front row to see what this was actually like.

Angela Haas (36:24)
you

Cassie Newell (36:27)
I love it.

Yeah.

Angela Haas (36:35)
Right. Right.

And what was it like for her though? What helped our listeners like understand the difference a little bit.

Patrick O'Donnell (36:46)
Well, she,

family came before anything for her. Her kids were her life. And I don't know how she did it when we're both, excuse me, sleep deprived. She would get done with work at eight o'clock in the morning. If there was overtime, I would take it. She, cause the reason being is she was married to a cop that worked from 11 in the morning till 7 PM. So she would run home, go to bed.

Angela Haas (37:07)
Mm.

Patrick O'Donnell (37:10)
then wake up like at 1030 and then take the kids, he would go to work. He'd get home around 730, eight o'clock and then she'd go back to bed and sleep for a couple hours. That was her life. Cause she refused to send her kids to daycare. She said, I am, I'm raising my kids. So, you know, we would, she would laugh at other female cops that overdid it. Like we had one gal.

Angela Haas (37:22)
Wow. Gotcha. Right.

Patrick O'Donnell (37:32)
I don't know if you remember the police show police. I think it was policewoman Angie Dickinson.

Cassie Newell (37:36)
Mm. Yeah.

Angela Haas (37:37)
yeah. Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (37:38)
Yeah.

And her name was Pepper. They called her Pepper on the show. So we had one female cop that was always overdoing it, always just overcompensating. So Patty started calling her Pepper.

Angela Haas (37:50)
wow. Wow.

Patrick O'Donnell (37:51)
you know, you can still be a woman and still do this job. You don't have to overdo it. Cause her mouth got me into more fights than you can ever imagine. She can make mother Teresa a fighter. She can make Gandhi a fighter. And I'm like, come on, stop it.

Cassie Newell (37:54)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (37:56)
Yeah.

wow.

Cassie Newell (38:06)
what's interesting? Have you seen the, well, it's been out for a couple of years now, but the Rookie they have more female, like detectives and cops than I've seen in the past too, on that particular show.

Patrick O'Donnell (38:19)
Yeah, I, I don't,

haven't really watched that show all that much because it was just so hokey. just, my skin started crawling and I'm just like, no, I can't do this. I just can't do this. Sure. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with that.

Cassie Newell (38:23)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (38:28)
boy.

Cassie Newell (38:29)
I love Nathan Fillion. Sorry, I'm going to watch everything he's in.

Angela Haas (38:31)
Yeah, we love him. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (38:38)
But I was curious.

Angela Haas (38:38)
Cassie,

you have one more good question about the tech piece, I think.

Cassie Newell (38:42)
Yeah,

so I was curious because I'm a techie person, but so many things have changed in technology. So I was just curious, are there recent changes in law enforcement that could influence storytelling as a result of the technology boom? Per forensic tools or even body cameras, you see that more readily. And a lot of the technology that's being

Angela Haas (38:53)
you

Cassie Newell (39:08)
implemented in the various police forces, mostly I think in more dense cities. But I was just curious, you know, does that change or influence how

someone should do their storytelling with the changes in technology?

Patrick O'Donnell (39:20)
Yes, you know, it

definitely, as far as like time period goes and location and, department, we all have kind of our own shtick, you know, on the East side, the East side, the East coast, you know, like in New York and Boston, there are police precincts. We're on the West coast in LA, there were divisions in Chicago and Milwaukee. were police districts. You know, in Chicago, it's a star.

Cassie Newell (39:27)
Sure.

Patrick O'Donnell (39:47)
It's, if you say badge, they'll slap you across the face. The only people that wear badges are firefighters. Yeah. So for me, it was a badge on the East coast. It's a shield. You know, same thing with technology. You know, if you're writing a story about 1995 Milwaukee, we hand wrote all of our reports. They're the only computer was.

Cassie Newell (39:53)
Yeah.

Okay.

Angela Haas (40:04)
How?

Patrick O'Donnell (40:07)
in the office that when you were running somebody and it was the dot matrix printer is like, So, you know, be aware of that. Be cognizant of when your story is taking place. You know, also, know, DNA is a game changer. You know, it's that wasn't around. I mean, it was kind of when I first started, but boy, you know, that that is a game changer, but.

You in order to get a hit on DNA, you have to have somebody that has DNA in the system. You know, so it just, same thing with fingerprints. It's like, okay, I'm going to get a fingerprint. Good for you. If that person has never been arrested or held like a city license, like a bartender or something like that, then you're not going to, it's not the end all be all. It's a great thing to have, but no, that's that, you know, unless you use familial DNA.

Angela Haas (40:39)
Mm-hmm.

Cassie Newell (40:55)
Right.

Patrick O'Donnell (40:59)
That's, that's a different beast altogether as well. So you have to be cognizant of the time period and the department itself. Some departments were a lot more high speed than we were, and it all comes down to city budgets. know, public safety is usually schools are number one and public safety is number two. So I'm driving around in a squad car with bald tires and no brakes. You know, the last thing we're worrying about is a computer in the district station.

Angela Haas (41:18)
Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (41:26)
or in a car for that matter. When I started, was no cameras. There was no body cameras. There was no squad cameras. There was no cameras in the district station. None of them. When you interviewed somebody, you might use a tape recorder, a literal cassette tape recorder. Things have changed so much. I'm thinking to myself, for the future, and maybe not...

Cassie Newell (41:26)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (41:35)
Wow.

Wow.

Cassie Newell (41:43)
Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (41:49)
so does in future, look at AI. How is that gonna be integrated into police work? That's all new territory, who knows what's gonna happen? Is the DA gonna take a look at a case that they're reviewing, put it into some AI software and it's like, well you have a 40 % chance of winning this in a jury trial. All right, pass, I'm not gonna charge that person. Or you have a detect.

Cassie Newell (41:58)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (42:08)
wow, that's interesting. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (42:11)
Yeah.

Well, they're using AI

now and publishing too with submissions. know, agents can say what they're looking for. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I went to a little class on that and I was kind of shocked. I was like, wow, that gets through a slush pile though really fast.

Patrick O'Donnell (42:18)
really? Okay.

I did not know that.

Angela Haas (42:22)
Yeah.

Yeah. I don't think people consider city budgets and what the police, you know, have money allocated to them because some shows I've watched, it's like the smallest

Cassie Newell (42:34)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (42:41)
You know, even Hawaii Five-O, the new Hawaii Five-O. And they had like all this tech. I did love that show, but they had like, I mean, this is very small and they had that thing where they could pull things and it was like sci-fi tech level. And I'm like, really? That must cost how much money? don't... Right.

Patrick O'Donnell (42:45)
My wife loved that show. ⁓ yeah, they do. Yep.

Yeah.

Cassie Newell (43:02)
besides a whiteboard.

Patrick O'Donnell (43:03)
Yeah, we didn't get whiteboards till the end of my career. was like, none of that stuff. But you know, it's funny you say that about Hawaii Five-0. I remember the first time seeing that. I was watching it with my wife and I'm just like, this is so ridiculous. This is absolutely laughable. You know, I'm like, wow. my gosh. know, it just...

Cassie Newell (43:07)
hahahaha

Angela Haas (43:19)
You

Patrick O'Donnell (43:24)
Yeah, it blew my mind how silly it actually was. I don't know how these actors keep a straight face. I really don't.

Angela Haas (43:29)
Right.

Right. But I guess a takeaway though is there is a balance between how much we really do we have to get everything right or just enough because it still is fiction. I mean, you know, we probably have to get the big things right.

Cassie Newell (43:41)
Right.

Patrick O'Donnell (43:42)
Correct. Like I said before,

you're talking about the Rookie Cassie. It's like you like the actor. That's how a lot of us watch TV. I really like this one actor or actress. I like this story. It's original, it's going somewhere. The writing is super crisp and it keeps me engaged. Same thing with a good book. It's like, okay, this story is awesome. I wanna see what happens to this character.

Cassie Newell (43:49)
Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (44:08)
You know, and sometimes the other stuff kind of goes off to the side.

Angela Haas (44:09)
Right. Yeah.

Cassie Newell (44:09)
Well, and I.

Yeah, and I kind of followed him because I loved Castle and I was so upset when it got canceled and I wasn't happy with the ending. And then the rookie came and I was like, this is my new castle. Not quite. It's not the same by any stretch because I love the idea of the writer, right? Being in with the police like that would never happen. But I thought.

Angela Haas (44:11)
Yeah. Yes.

Patrick O'Donnell (44:15)
Mm.

Angela Haas (44:20)
Me neither.

Patrick O'Donnell (44:22)
hahahaha

Angela Haas (44:22)
Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (44:32)
the ⁓

Cassie Newell (44:32)
How fun is that? And

there's also that suspension of disbelief. Like how fictionalized do you want your story? Do you want it such that you are intimately more realistic or more fantasy and you buy into that fantasy, right? So I think you have to decide that too.

Patrick O'Donnell (44:50)
Yeah.

Angela Haas (44:53)
Yeah. Well, this has been so amazing. I mean, I could, I have like 500 more questions. So we'll just have to have you on again. But yeah, but

Patrick O'Donnell (44:53)
Absolutely.

Cassie Newell (45:02)
Yeah, thanks Pat for coming on.

Patrick O'Donnell (45:03)
I would love to, absolutely.

Angela Haas (45:05)
Before we get to our table talk, I think we should, I just want you to tell listeners how it came about that you were featured in the Wall Street Journal. Cause that was huge. How did that happen? You were just.

Patrick O'Donnell (45:14)
Yeah, knock

me over with a feather. I thought somebody was pranking me. I really did. And I'm like, I get an email, but first I'll back up. was, you know, I have the Facebook group, Cops and Writers, and it's mostly writers and it's law enforcement that answer questions for people. And I vet everybody that comes in. I'm very careful. I'm like a overprotective mom.

Angela Haas (45:19)
you

Yes.

That's good.

Patrick O'Donnell (45:39)
You know, I just want to make sure it's a

Angela Haas (45:40)
Good.

Patrick O'Donnell (45:42)
safe place and it's not, it could be very predatorial. Anything with writing, you know, it's like, Hey, give me $10,000 and I'll make, you know, you'll be on the New York Times, blah, blah, blah. I'll do it. That makes my skin crawl. So I make sure that everything is copasthetic. So I get a friend, a request to join the group from some guy and I look and I always look to see what they do for a living, how long they've been on Facebook, et cetera, et cetera.

Cassie Newell (45:49)
Yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (46:06)
investigative reporter for Wall Street Journal. And I'm like, OK.

Angela Haas (46:09)
You

Patrick O'Donnell (46:09)
That's odd. There's a

red flag there. But you know, yeah, come on down. Come on in, Jeff. So I was going to email him. I found him. I found his work email. And I'm like, I'll give it a couple days. I'm going to email him. Well, the next day he emails me. He says, Hey, a friend of mine that's a writer told me about your group. I'd really like to talk to you about it. And I'm like, sure.

And I'm thinking, is this a joke? And I could hear him typing as we're talking and I'm like, okay, this guy's real. Yeah. He is a reporter. And I said, well, he said, I'm really busy right now. Could we con could I talk to you next week? Absolutely. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. So the next day I'm in the gym.

I'm working out and my phone rings and it's him and I'm like, okay. Now before any kind of interview, I prepare myself. I have all my ducks in a row. You know, even if you don't know the questions, you know, like there's some basic ones that people are going to ask you. And I usually, I like to have everything in front of me. I'm all squared away, ready to go. And he's, he starts interviewing me and I'm like, I, he interviewed me for over an hour at the gym.

on my phone and I'm just like, I wasn't ready for this at all, but I can think on my feet. Then he interviewed me again for about a half hour. The next week he said, I'm pitching this idea to my editor. He said, there's lots of editors. This has to go through. I'm like, okay. So I thought to myself, yeah, whatever.

Angela Haas (47:15)
Wow. Wow.

Patrick O'Donnell (47:29)
It was an hour and a half out of my life. It's not the end of the world. Then before I know it, he's like, okay, it made it through this editor. And he says, I'm trying to get you on page one. he said Thursday, you're going to be on the cover of the wall street journal. You know, down towards the bottom.

you know, all the important stuff is there's a top and I'm like, I get that. He emailed me, sorry, something popped up. I'm like, okay, there I am on Friday. And then he put me in the weekend edition and I was just like, holy cow. So that's how all that happened. It was awesome.

Angela Haas (47:55)
Wow. That's great. That's so great.

Cassie Newell (47:57)
Amazing.

Angela Haas (47:59)
⁓ I need to get a signed copy of that somehow. Okay, that's my newest mission. Alright, so...

Cassie Newell (48:00)
That is great.

Patrick O'Donnell (48:04)
Hey

Cassie Newell (48:07)
You

Angela Haas (48:08)
this is actually a really fitting one for this episode. Okay. Have you ever been conned? Have you ever had a con pull on you?

Patrick O'Donnell (48:11)
⁓

Ooh, a

can.

Angela Haas (48:20)
Have you ever been conned?

Patrick O'Donnell (48:21)
at work.

Angela Haas (48:21)
anywhere in your life.

Patrick O'Donnell (48:23)
Anywhere in my life.

I mean, I think we all have to What pops out into my head and was really embarrassing but I don't mind embarrassing myself a couple of my cops Stopped a couple of there's like an 18 and 19 year old kid kids. I call them kids or adults at a bus stop There was some kind of domestic thing where one guy was supposedly trying to run over his girlfriend

And his car was like wound up on this girlfriend's front yard, blah, blah, blah. So he's just sitting there and it's me and two of my cops. And one of the cops went inside the car to run them. She went in and used her squad computer. And I'm like, and one kid, man, he was squirrely as heck. And I'm like, there's something wrong with him. So my spidey senses were kind of tingling. said, stand up. said, I'm going to hook you up. said, these handcuffs come off just as easy as they go on. I said,

He was cooperative, but I felt resistive tension. Which means, you kind of cinch up and your muscles get tight and they're like, hmm, something's going on here. I'm like, all right. So we're just waiting for the results of their, wanted checks to come back. And you know, the other officers getting the story of what happened between this one guy and his girlfriend, blah, blah, blah. I'm just there for security. And the one guy that was really squirrely.

looked at me and says, we're by a car dealership. There's a bus stop and then there's a car dealership. He says, man, look at that car. So I look, I turn my head, he's gone.

Angela Haas (49:42)
⁓ my gosh.

Patrick O'Donnell (49:44)
I'm like, Oh, I can't believe I'm that dumb. So that was the ultimate con. He's

Cassie Newell (49:48)
no.

Patrick O'Donnell (49:49)
running like an Olympic track athlete with, you know, he's wearing, he's wearing gym shorts and a t-shirt and tennis shoes. I've got 30 pounds of stuff on. He's 18 years old. I'm 55. And I'm like, I ran after this kid for half a mile. Cause I'm like, I'm not going to let you get away with my handcuffs on you. And he was handcuffed behind his back. He was running like a jack rabbit.

Angela Haas (49:51)
⁓ my gosh.

Wow.

Whoa!

Patrick O'Donnell (50:12)
So I'm like, ⁓ I felt so stupid.

Angela Haas (50:13)
Wow. That was the ultimate made you look. Wow.

Patrick O'Donnell (50:18)
Yes. So that was the con that

Cassie Newell (50:19)
my

Patrick O'Donnell (50:21)
I had. And it wound up being great because he was wanting for bank robbery. He held up a bank a week beforehand. So that's why he was running.

Cassie Newell (50:27)
my gosh.

Angela Haas (50:27)
Wow.

Cassie Newell (50:32)
my gosh. Okay, so mine isn't half as exciting, but it's funny.

Angela Haas (50:32)
Cassie, when have you been conned? Yeah.

Cassie Newell (50:36)
So my youngest daughter, I think she was 12, 10 or 12, and I'd gotten her her first cell phone. And I had a rule that she could not go to bed with her cell phone because she would play on it. You know, like they just don't go to sleep. And I would make her put it in our kitchen that has like a little desk area.

Patrick O'Donnell (50:37)
Yeah

Cassie Newell (50:57)
And I would see it at night. Well, of course, it was the phone holder. And one night, my oldest daughter looked at it. I would just generally scan it, no big deal. And my oldest daughter looked at it and touched it and moved it. There was a piece of paper she had colored to look like her phone and put it in the case and was putting it on the desk while bed just

Angela Haas (51:05)
Okay.

Cassie Newell (51:26)
going to town that had

Angela Haas (51:27)
my gosh

Cassie Newell (51:28)
been going on for like a week and all I could do was bust out laughing because I wasn't doing my due diligence of actually picking it up and knowing. And needless to say that had been a hilarious con in my house. She got a little in trouble. The phone got taken away. And of course that was dramatic. And yeah, from then on I was touching items. wasn't just.

Patrick O'Donnell (51:28)
That's awesome.

⁓

That's good. I like that.

Yeah

Cassie Newell (51:54)
casually glancing anymore. Yeah, that was the big con.

Angela Haas (51:59)
Well, mine actually should be a Netflix special if I ever get my hands on this man Because well, this is why I should have been a detective So and it also it's a joke. It's hilarious because it has to do with pickleball It was a pickleball Ponzi scheme So this man named Brett Thomas, which I don't think that was his real name because I googled I googled him

Patrick O'Donnell (52:04)
Ooh.

Really?

Cassie Newell (52:17)
my gosh.

Angela Haas (52:23)
And someone without a search history, I think that's a red flag. There was nothing about this man anywhere, anywhere. And so we all have, you can Google any of us who are not celebrities. have a Google search history. Anyway, so he had this pickleball facility in Laguna Beach and he met through playing pickleball.

group of us out here in Colorado and he wanted to start he wanted to go across this country and open these like indoor pickleball facilities with food and Merch and whatever so my husband I got wrangled into this and He wanted to hire us to do the merchandising, but when I would ask him specific questions like okay Well, you're gonna hire me to do be your buyer. How much are you paying me? He's like, like he couldn't answer specifics about anything

So then long story short, I kept asking questions like, said he had a whole team of people working for him and he needed $250,000 of our money to open the facility. So we gave that to him, but then all of sudden the architect wasn't being paid, the sign guy wasn't being paid, things weren't happening. And we, like I said, Tim, this is a scam. I bet you he's paying the bills at the Laguna beach with our money.

Patrick O'Donnell (53:21)
no.

Angela Haas (53:33)
and he's courting someone in St. Louis trying to get them so he can fund this. And I started doing some digging on his Facebook page. I tracked down his ex-wife. Apparently he faked. Yeah, I did. I found her with just her first name. And apparently he faked cancer in California to get donations to open the Laguna Beach thing.

Patrick O'Donnell (53:43)
You are a detective, look at you.

That's so low.

is that low? my God.

Angela Haas (53:58)
And he's

out there. I want this to go on Netflix. He is running wild, still doing these things, but he changed his name, I think, and that's why we can't find him anymore. But the second we were onto them, he started to bring up the cancer thing. Like he thinks he has a cancer diagnosis and they won't let him fly anymore. So we couldn't get back out to us.

Cassie Newell (54:19)
Okay, that's not a thing.

Patrick O'Donnell (54:21)
Nope, it's not.

Angela Haas (54:21)
Right, didn't have cancer. Yeah, and that's not a thing.

That's not something, but he kept faking illnesses, which is what these con artists do when they start to get. So we lost, all of us lost all that money. It's gone in the wind. There was like 10 people involved to put up different money to be a part of this whole business. And he, he, no.

Cassie Newell (54:36)
awful.

Patrick O'Donnell (54:37)
that is.

Did you call the police?

Cassie Newell (54:44)
You should have.

Patrick O'Donnell (54:44)
Why wouldn't

you?

Angela Haas (54:45)
How would you prove it? Like, I've had all this, you know.

Cassie Newell (54:47)
You wouldn't have to. You could probably get

Patrick O'Donnell (54:48)
Yeah, you'd

absolutely. I would have called the cops and it's, I don't think it's too late.

Cassie Newell (54:49)
lawyers and take over the Laguna. Sue him for damages.

Angela Haas (54:52)
Yeah.

I wanted to. I

wanted to get this guy, but someone of these other people, I was like, this is justice. And I said, it's not about us. He's doing this to other people are probably going to lose their shirts, giving money to. Yeah, I think what he does is he borrows just enough under something that it's like he found a loophole that I looked up, but I found a lean online. I was like hard detective mode. I found a lean from someone else.

Patrick O'Donnell (55:06)
He's gonna keep doing it until he gets caught. He's gonna keep doing it.

Angela Haas (55:23)
who had wanted money because he wasn't paying bills at the Laguna Beach thing. But he changed his name now, I don't know where he is, but someday I'm gonna be on Netflix with this. Because it has to do with Pickleball, how funny is that? Like, it's a Ponzi scheme. Anyway, that, yeah. So that's my, that's my, yeah.

Patrick O'Donnell (55:34)
Okay.

Cassie Newell (55:34)
He should.

Patrick O'Donnell (55:37)
It's... Wow.

Cassie Newell (55:42)
my gosh, that's crazy.

Angela Haas (55:45)
But anyway, thank you everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. Don't forget to give us a review and rating wherever you listen to the podcast. It really helps us with visibility. Next week, new month. Since we are headed into summer, we're going to tackle some hot topics, because it's getting hot out there. So until then, keep writing, keep doing. We'll see ya.