Heroes Live Forever Podcast

McLean, VA (June 17, 2025) - Nicola Cotton, a 24-year-old New Orleans police officer was responding to the call of a possible rape suspect on the loose. She found a man sitting on the curb who fit the description of the possible rapist. As she attempted to arrest and handcuff the man, he violently resisted. After choking and striking Nicola in the head, the man grabbed her .40 caliber Glock servic...

McLean, VA (June 10, 2025) - On April 26, 1995, Prince George’s County (MD) Police Corporal John Novabilski was working an off-duty job as a security guard for a local liquor store. He was in uniform and sitting in his marked patrol cruiser around 2:30 a.m. when a man walked up to his car with a MAC-11 assault pistol and opened fire. Corporal Novabilski was shot 11 times and died. The assailant gr...

McLean, VA (June 3, 2025) - On October 6, 1995, Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Officers Scot Lewis and Keith DeVille were flagged down by a motorist who needed help. The two officers were just seven minutes from the end of their shift. It turned out that the man who flagged them down could neither speak, nor hear. While the two officers waited for an interpreter to arrive, another motorist d...

McLean, VA (May 20, 2025) - In 2009, 15 law enforcement officers were shot to death in just five separate multiple-death incidents. One of those tragedies occurred just after 8 am on Sunday, November 29, when a lone gunman walked into a Pierce County, Washington coffee shop and opened fire on four officers from the Lakewood, Washington Police Department. The fallen heroes—Officers Greg Richards, T...

McLean, VA (May 13, 2025) - Around 3:30 a.m. on February 26, 1988, a 22-year-old New York City police officer named Edward “Eddie” Byrne was sitting alone in his marked patrol car guarding the witness in a drug case. That’s when a car drove up. Two men got out of the car, while two others acted as lookouts. When one of the men knocked on the passenger-side window of Eddie’s patrol car, his accompl...

McLean, VA (May 6, 2025) - Following the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the many months leading up to National Police Week in 2015 were filled with a troubling amount of anti-cop sentiment—and charges of racial bias in policing. So, I decided to hit the issue head on during my speech at the 2015 Candlelight Vigil at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. I tol...

McLean, VA (April 29, 2025) - It was not until the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901 that the Secret Service began protecting the President of the United States on a full-time basis. A Secret Service operative by the name of William “Big Bill” Craig was assigned to protect McKinley’s successor, Theodore Roosevelt. Craig seemed the perfect fit for the job. He was a noted athlete w...

McLean, VA (April 22, 2025) - For two decades, Franklin Township (NJ) Police Sgt. Ippolito “Lee” Gonzalez distinguished himself as a no-nonsense cop who had a keen eye for suspicious activity and never shied away from following his instincts. The night of May 6, 1995, was no different. About 10:30 p.m.—just a half hour before the end of his shift—Sgt. Gonzalez pulled over a suspicious vehicle occu...

McLean, VA (April 15, 2025) - By all accounts, Sgt. Clifton Rife II was a hardworking officer who had no fear of the streets. One police official said, “You got so used to him doing a great job that it just became the standard.” During the early morning hours of June 2, 2004, Sgt. Rife was off duty when he was confronted by a would-be 16-year-old robber. The two exchanged gunfire. The 16-year-old...

McLean, VA (April 8, 2025) - At the age of 42, Dale Claxton had grown tired of his job selling and repairing tires. He wanted to do something more meaningful with his life. It wasn’t long before he was being sworn in as a Cortez, Colorado, police officer. He had finally found his calling. On May 29, 1998—three years into his police career—he received a report of a stolen water truck. Soon after, h...

McLean, VA (April 1, 2025) - On December 28, 1990, Muncie (IN) Patrolman Gregg Winters arrested a man for public intoxication. The man was sitting in the back of Patrolman Muncie’s police vehicle, on his way to jail, when he pulled a concealed handgun and shot the 32-year-old husband and father of two in the back of the head and neck. At his trial, the cold-blooded cop killer, spouted one excuse a...

McLean, VA (March 25, 2025) - On March 20, 2011, Fond du Lac (WI) Patrol Officer Craig Birkholz, 28, responded to a call that a fellow officer had been shot. As Officer Birkholz arrived on scene and exited his vehicle, the suspect emerged and ambushed him, shooting him fatally in the upper chest—right above his ballistic vest. Officer Ryan Williams and his K-9 partner Grendel were also shot, and a...

McLean, VA (March 18, 2025) - At one in the morning on December 28, 1985, Meridian, Mississippi Police Officer Alma Walters arrived on the scene of a domestic disturbance call. Catherine Smith had called police when her boyfriend, John Lanier, became enraged and pushed her out of their house. When Officer Walters arrived, Lanier had passed out. The 29-year-old officer awakened him and told him to...

McLean, VA (March 11, 2025) - During the month of October 2007, four Philadelphia police officers were shot, bringing the total to 29 for the year. One of those officers was Charles “Chuck” Cassidy. He was a beloved officer in the neighborhood he patrolled and despite the rampant drug dealing and violence, Officer Cassidy was determined not to let the street thugs take over his city. His constant...

McLean, VA (March 4, 2025) - The law enforcement profession was not kind to Angela Davis. Her husband, Charles “Charlie” Davis, was a New York City police officer. On December 21, 1996, Charlie was moonlighting during his off-duty hours as a security guard for a Queens check-cashing business. He wanted to give his family an extra special Christmas. As Officer Davis and the owner of the store, Ira...

McLean, VA (February 25, 2025) - Isaac Smith was a man of many talents: Revolutionary War hero, farmer, doctor and politician. He was also a New York City deputy sheriff. When he got the call that another officer needed backup with an unruly drunk, Deputy Smith was quick to respond. It would cost him his life. While attempting to arrest the man for disturbing the peace, Deputy Smith was shot and k...

McLean, VA (February 18, 2025) - Shoot, or don’t shoot. That is the question every police officer has to face when they are confronted by a person with a gun. They usually have less than a second to make the decision. A Washington, D.C., police officer was faced with that choice on the evening of February 7, 1995. He and his partner were barely 10 minutes into their shift when they spotted a man h...

McLean, VA (February 11, 2025) - On the afternoon of September 2, 2008, Isaac Zamora had gone into a neighbor’s house, stealing their rifle and shotgun. His own mother called police to report the trespassing and theft. Skagit County (WA) Sheriff’s Deputy Anne Jackson responded. When the 40-year-old deputy did not answer a radio status check, another deputy went to investigate. He found Deputy Jack...

McLean, VA (February 4, 2025) - On March 9, 1963, two Los Angeles police officers, Karl Hettinger and Ian Campbell, pulled a vehicle over for making an illegal U-turn. Unbeknownst to them, the two individuals in the vehicle were two psychopaths and life-long criminals by the names of Gregory Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith. With the element of surprise on their side, one of the thugs pulled a gun on Of...

McLean, VA (January 28, 2025) - Ed Toatley wanted to make a drug buy and he knew a local drug dealer named Kofi Orleans-Lindsay who could get him what he needed. At around 8 p.m. on October 30, 2000, Toatley and Orleans-Lindsay met at a Maryland subway station to do the transaction. They left for the stash house where Orleans-Lindsay kept his drugs. Toatley gave the drug dealer $3,500, but no drug...

McLean, VA (January 21, 2025) - On September 5, 1998, Captain Jack L. Spencer Sr., 55, of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was killed in an automobile crash in rural Nevada while on duty. His son, Creighton, who also became an officer with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, had attended National Police Week ceremonies in Washington, D.C., the year his father’s name was added to the National Law Enforcemen...

McLean, VA (January 14, 2025) - On April 19, 1995, a terrorist bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killed 168 people and injured 680 others. Eight of those who died that day were Federal agents based out of the Murrah Building. It was the deadliest day in Federal law enforcement history. Timothy McVeigh, an anti-government extremist and the mastermind of the bombing, was sentenced to...

McLean, VA (January 7, 2024) - It was around 10 p.m. on April 19, 1994, when a speeding motorcyclist caught the attention of South Carolina State Troopers Randy Hester and James Dean. In separate patrol cars, each of the troopers gave chase. During the first two minutes of the high speed pursuit, Trooper Hester lost control of his vehicle. He went off the road, hit a drain culvert and flipped at l...

McLean, VA (December 31, 2024) - On November 24, 1917, a young boy named Sam Mazzone was summoned to take a suspicious package left outside a church to Milwaukee police headquarters. It turned out to be a bomb planted at the church by anarchists in an act of revenge. As a group of detectives filed out of roll call and began examining the package, it exploded, killing nine officers. For nearly 90 y...

McLean, VA (December 24, 2024) - New Jersey State Trooper Philip Lamonaco was shot and killed during a traffic stop on December 21, 1981. His family was in the midst of making Christmas cookies when they received word of his death. He was buried on Christmas Eve. That was the tragic part of his story. But there was another inspirational part of the story—about helping and healing. His wife, Donna,...