Ep. 197 - Eric Robinson: How a Pastor Became an FBI Agent

0:01 Stories from Real Life is a production of Media Well Done, LLC. Welcome to another episode of Stories from Real Life with Melvin E. Edwards. Our guest today was a pastor. Then he became an FBI agent. For 24 years, Eric Robinson worked terrorism, gangs, corruption, and crimes against children and lived to tell the stories. This episode reveals the humor, humanity, and unexpected moments behind the badge. This is Stories from Real Life, and today's story is Eric Robinson's How a Pastor Became an FBI Agent. You are listening to Stories from Real Life, a podcast by engaging storytellers for engaged story listeners.

0:47 Here's your host, author and journalist, Melvin E. Edwards. Hello again, and welcome to episode 197 of Stories from Real Life. I'm your host, Melvin E. Edwards. Thank you for joining us for the podcast where our real stories are so much more interesting than fiction. Like this one. In this episode, we talk to Eric Robinson about his incredible journey of going from the pulpit to the FBI. Eric, welcome to Stories from Real Life.

1:27 Thanks, Melvin. I appreciate it. So you spent 12 years in ministry before you joined the FBI. What was it like to go from what I'm going to call the Celestial Bureau of Inspiration to the Bureau of Investigation? Well, I'd never handled a firearm before that, so that was unique. The idea of the FBI was so broad and vast, and 24 years later, there are – maybe I learned 70% of what the FBI does and is – There's so much to take in. So the idea of doing the investigations, understanding the legal work, learning how to shoot, gradually that stuff came and I became familiar.

2:15 But just the idea of how does the FBI function was probably the biggest shock that I had going into the academy from being a Baptist pastor. That's quite a switch. What did your congregation, how did they react when you told them what you were doing next? They were supportive. The reason I had to do something different was I was having stress-related headaches every single day without fail for two years. And so they understood that. And I had to find something with less stress. So I joined the FBI, which people chuckle at.

2:58 And then those who have worked in a church chuckle in a different language because they go, oh, yeah, that's true. It was just that the burdens that other people brought to me were normal, but I couldn't let it go. And I had to find something where I could let things go. All right. So what skills for ministry turned out to be surprisingly useful in law enforcement? Well, and I don't know if it was surprising, but the FBI, we've got our guns, we've got our gadgets, we've got our computers and databases, but eventually we have to work with people. And so that ability to listen to folks, hear their sides, be curious about what they're bringing was something that I employed time after time.

3:45 That whether it's victims, witnesses, or even the criminals, coming to them without having that judgment, that's something I had to do as a pastor. If you had an issue, I can't just give you Bible verses and leave it at that and say, I know what I'm doing. I had to listen. And that was much of what I employed as an FBI agent as well to be successful. All right. How did your faith shape how you approached your job in the FBI? Well, much of what I learned to do in ministry and a lot of the practices I had carried over very similarly, because despite all that the FBI has with our guns and our gadgets and our computers, eventually you have to interact with humans.

4:31 And so coming to people, without judgment, being open to them and listening, having curiosity. That's something I had to do as a pastor. If people came to me with issues, I had to sit and listen and not just simply dole out Bible verses. And similarly, when I would come to victims, I had to do more than just ask for facts and try to get to the bottom of what they're saying. I had to many times show them compassion and care. And even with the criminals, that's something that I had to show that they were humans to me. Not coming with the idea of like, I know all the answers, but being open to what they had to tell me as well.

5:14 Okay. So what was the most intimidating part about becoming a special agent? I think just the broadness of the FBI. I had started out – my wife and I did some schooling in Chicago. And so that was my first assignment. But here was like a whole world ahead. And for me, some of it was the fear of missing out because there's many things you can do in the FBI. I mean, I could go overseas, get deployed into war zones, have opportunities to have many different jobs. And so I think at first I was wanting to see what I could be able to do. But as a new agent, you're told to just learn the ropes, figure out what you're supposed to do.

6:00 And along the way, I found that there were corners and aspects and jobs that really fit for me. And so I was fairly old when I became on the SWAT team and became an operator. I think I was maybe 42. Yeah, 42 when I first got on. So that's a little bit older. And And by the time I'd been on for like 15 years, I mean, these guys were like my kid's age. So I did get to do a lot of the things that I was worried I might miss. And I found some of the fun things to be a part of. So I'm still curious about how you ended up in the FBI. What was that whole process like?

6:41 Well, so more and more people are asking me this. And my answer is, it's super cool. I thought this would be pretty neat to do. And I took a shot at it thinking, well, I don't think I'm qualified for this, but let's see where it goes. I've asked out prettier girls, so got to take your swings. And this was back before I think the internet had just started. It wasn't much out there. So this was done by paper. I went through the process. The first thing that you do, if they look at your application and go, okay, well, you look like a good candidate.

7:21 Let's move you on to the next. is to take this test, which is like the SAT. And I remember driving from my church in Buffalo, south of Buffalo, New York, up to the Buffalo division and, you know, taking a test with, you know, 20 other guys and going, well, you know, I tried because there's no way I passed this. And then they called me back and here we go onto the next. So, you know, then it's interviews. And at that point I thought, okay, I can do interviews. I can do written tests. Now I think I got this. And I preached my last sermon on Easter Sunday of 2002. Then I was in Quantico, Virginia the next Sunday.

8:06 And then the Sunday after that, I was preaching in Quantico, Virginia because they didn't have a chaplain. That's quite a transition, too. Ease me into it. Ease me into it. What does the public misunderstand about the FBI? Yeah, what the public misunderstands that I've come across a lot is they don't know that there's two FBI's. So the arguments, the angry ideas of what the FBI is doing and being abused or failing to do, that's DC. And the great majority, all agents, all support staff, analysts – support operations specialists, secretaries.

8:48 They just want to do what's in front of them. They want to do the work that they think is righteous and they believe in. And the last thing they want is for somebody at headquarters to contact them or direct them to do something. The last thing they want is for somebody to get involved in their cases. So the public, I believe, can trust in the FBI that's in their neighborhoods. Because those are men and women who are going to follow the law and they want to do the proper things. The FBI that people get frustrated with or see in the newspaper headlines, those are politicians almost that are employed by the FBI.

9:34 Yeah. So after a while, these governmental acronyms start to run together. So what's the difference between the FBI and the CIA? I've got to work with some CIA officers, and they are in the United States looking to do work outside of the United States. They have to have a partner like the FBI who's domestic so that they can find informants or find sources of intelligence. So they are not – They cannot operate on their own within the border of the United States. We don't operate outside of the United States except for clearances through chief of station, the agency people in those countries.

10:20 So they're all foreign. We're domestic. And a lot of those CIA officers have done some very cool things in the past. And if they're back in the United States, they're probably – convalescing from all the crazy stuff they'd done overseas. So what you're saying is the CIA is an inferior agency to the FBI. Is that what you're trying to tell me? I made a couple of buddies. I'm not saying that. I made a couple of buddies in the CIA that I was always trying to reach out to because these are guys who had done some, probably some crazy stuff through the military. And yet now they're back in, almost neutered in the US.

11:04 And so I'm like, hey, man, we're going to the range. You want to shoot the guns? And they were like, yeah, I really do. Because they're not carrying, but they want those opportunities. So I tried to bring them back and let them have some fun once again. So what was it like serving in SWAT, especially since you went into the FBI not having fired a gun before? Yeah, I got better over the years. And then with SWAT, got to be very proficient because we were regularly shooting So I served 15 years as a SWAT operator in the last portion of my career. And the best people that I have met in my life are in the FBI. And the best people in the FBI are on SWAT.

11:46 Those are the ones when you serve next to somebody and we don't get deep about it or get rah-rah and cry, but we all know implicitly, if I need to, I'm sacrificing myself for you. And when you do that, Week after week, there's a bond that grows there. And when you spend time sitting together, sacrificing by waking up early and driving across state, when you've done so much training together, it builds a bond. And so these are the guys that I was closest with. And got to do some of the most dangerous things with too. Yeah, it's crazy that you went from not having ever fired a gun to doing this.

12:28 I have a similar story, not military or not federal, with my daughter when she was a senior in college. She needed a one-hour elective to graduate. And the only thing that fit into her schedule – well, two classes fit into her schedule, ultimate Frisbee and a shooting class. She went to college in Florida, so they had shooting. And she signed up for the Frisbee class, and she went to the first class and realized how much running there was, and she hated that. So she dropped out and then signed up for the shooting class, hadn't ever even held a gun before. This was in January of her senior year by – March, she had qualified for nationals.

13:11 Some people are natural. She also had been invited to the shooting team after one class because their instructor says she was a natural. Then two months later, she had qualified for nationals. That's amazing. Some people can just – it's very simple, but it's hard to maintain. When my middle kid was 12, I took her to the range that I have space side of my house. And I showed her how to do it, gave her all the explanations, put one round in. And I think she was about five yards, so not far away. And her first shot between the one and the zero on the bullseye, because she didn't know to expect that there's going to be a bang.

13:55 And so people push against it. She just was like, here we go. Fired. Perfect shot. That's the only shot she ever took. And then we're done. Was she scared after that? She cried. Oh, okay. All right. We won't talk about her then. All right. So how do agents prepare mentally when they're going into high risk situations? For me, it was always just going through my role in my head. We are very fortunate at the FBI. So with the police, you get a call, you go someplace, you don't know what's happening, where it is, you have some vague descriptions. On the contrary, with the FBI, when we arrest somebody or execute a search warrant, we almost always dictate time, place, and circumstances.

14:43 So I know next Tuesday, we are meeting and we're hitting this house here. And because of that, I'm going through and rehearsing my roles in my head, preparing what tools I need. I was a breacher, so I'm making sure I have what I need to break in the door or if I've got a different role. Everything's prepped and ready, and I don't worry from there. Not to sound like some alpha male, but I was never frightened. I was never scared. I knew what I was capable of, and I knew all these guys were very competent. And so the worst thing that I could think of if I had any fear – it is that I would mess up and let them down.

15:31 So that's the only kind of fear that I had because we rehearsed, we knew what we're doing and we were very skilled at what we're doing. So it's just, here's the job. Let's take those steps. So how did you convince someone to become an informant? That's so, you know, there's some informants where I don't have to convince you much because if you don't work for me, you're going to spend more time in prison. But the ones who were giving us intel, the ones who were just what we refer to as good citizens, it was remarkable to me. And I always had to keep this in mind that if I'm pitching you, Melvin, there's no real good reason for you to stick your neck out.

16:12 Patriotism only goes so far. This is a little dangerous. It's very inconvenient. It could be embarrassing or cost you a job. And I always kept that in mind that you are doing this as a favor to me and the United States government. So I need to treat you well. And there's some pay in it, but the pay wasn't good enough to go through all that. So if an informant needed something, I made sure I was there to a certain degree, patient with them. They're calling late at night. I'm taking their calls. And I had one informant.

16:53 I've had many Muslim informants. I had one Muslim informant who called me timely here on Easter one morning. And I pick up the phone. I'm like, hey, man, it's Easter. And he's like, yeah, happy Easter. I said, bro, you don't even believe in that. And we went back and forth a couple of times. He goes, just say happy Easter. I'm like, happy Easter. And then we moved on to his stuff. But I was asking this guy to do some things for me. that might get him in trouble. And so if he's calling me on Easter morning, I got to take the call and, and treat him the way that I think he needs to, to keep him working with me and appreciating it.

17:35 Did anything ever go wrong with an informant? Like tragically wrong? Not tragically wrong. Um, I had one informant who was very prolific. This guy, like he could get in with anybody. He was great at what he did. He had such a mouth on him. Drive me crazy. Um, He would call so many times and he'd go, hey, man, I got this great idea. And I'd go, OK, because we can break into this business and I could steal this stuff. And I go, no, we can't do that. And he'd say, well, no, you can't, but I can. I go, no, that's we. Neither you nor I can do that. We're not allowed to.

18:15 But so he infiltrated the clan, which has many different names, but he got in with them. And unbeknownst to him, part of their initiation was going to be, can you fight? And so this guy jumped him and he's telling me after the fact, like, I'm not there. I'm not there to protect him. You know, we go through like, Hey, if you feel like you're in trouble, you just run. And he goes, yeah, the guy jumped me and I crooked his nose, man. He's going to be breathing funny for a while. Like, and so here he was in this situation and, And he goes, ah, just a fight. I handled myself well. Wow. I've actually had a former Klansman on the show. We did a two-part episode.

18:56 Awesome. Like two hours with him. And he was in the military, and he left the military, and he said he felt like he needed some group to be a part of. Yes. And he was convinced to join the Klan. Well, and this guy got into so many different white supremacist groups because – The Bureau is not – we're not looking to infringe on hate speech. People can say awful things and it's terrible. But we're looking for those who are going to carry out violence. The problem is they all talk about violence as we should kill all these people and they don't – but it's who's going to act. And it's just so – for me, it was deflating to see a lot of these individuals and you look up their social media.

19:45 And here's a nice Bible verse – right next to something horrible about another group of people. And, and so this one informant I had, who was so prolific at this, he calls me one Saturday and I'm doing errands and he's going, Hey, there's this guy who says he's going to kill a bunch of Muslims in another country. And I'm like, okay. Cause you know, give me five minutes. I can find that on the internet. And then he says, yeah, yeah. He already posted a scouting video and has a time where he's going to do it. And I go, hold on. let me pull over and write this down now. Cause now, now you got my attention. And within 24 hours, like I'm giving him directions. He's asking questions.

20:27 I'm issuing emergency subpoenas. And within 24 hours, we located this kid in Ireland who the Garda, the police there then go to his house. And he was like, it was, I'm looking at my watch going, Hey, Hey, we should hear something back. I mean, that was to the minute. where he was ready to go out and was prepared to kill Muslims as much as he could. That's amazing. So what makes a person trustworthy or dangerous and how, how can you tell? Well, it's hard. So like when I would have, I've had many, many, many, many informants. And the reason I've had so many is because, you know, you make a pitch to someone and you find out they're, they're, they're not willing to take those steps forward or they're not self initiators.

21:13 Um, some of them get scared. Some of them I've had guys say, Hey man, I just don't have the time. I realized, you know, I got classes. I can't do this. And then we've got the criminals we're looking at, you know, and I had one informant sitting in a group of white supremacists and you know, they're in person and the ones like, Hey, I work construction. I can put bombs together if you want. And everybody just kind of like, let that sit at waiting to see who's going to take that next step. So, It's hard to determine. And what we see is those people who are going to do that, you don't know. They'll just go off and do that. We had one Nazi in our area where I worked in the Cleveland division named Eamon Penny.

22:00 He just went out one day. He was part of a group we were looking at, but he was just one of those offshoots that he went out one day and decided he was going to firebomb a church because they were pro-LGBTQ. and he needed to protect the kids. But everybody else in this group was saying the same thing. He just, one day, now it's time to go. So, what's the most surprising thing you learned about human behavior when you were in this job? Well, there are a lot of disgusting things that I found out along the way. Like, you know, people are bad, but now there's a difference between that and getting to see it. And I guess it's a little surprising that even with Awful criminals or I would say criminals who are going to spend a lot of time in prison.

22:48 They're just human too. They've got the normal stuff like they're fighting with their wife. I used to sit so many wires, phone taps when I was working narcotics in Chicago. And, you know, guys be like, hey, the call came in. He said he's picking up three burritos and he'll be there at noon. And like, they're just burritos. You know, guys got to eat too. Folks forget like dude goes grocery shopping. He's like, yeah, he's going to meet him over some code. Well, yeah, because so many times they use code, but they're burritos. So like you realize there's two classes of criminals.

23:30 There's a guy who commits a crime and he's going to go to jail and I arrest him and that's fine. And then there's a criminal who is a horrible person too. And I didn't mind working the ones going to just, you know, hey, they broke the law and they go, yeah, I get it. You got me. And, you know, many, when I work crimes against children, many of those sex offenders we come up against, I didn't have to tell them they're terrible people. They knew that. They felt, they felt ashamed. They felt disgusted by themselves, but they're overcome by what they're doing. And so they continued and continued. So it's just that People are people.

24:11 They just have different choices they've made in life and some take them down a horrible path and some just take them into crime. Wow. All right. So did your background as a pastor help you to read people better? I think so in the sense that I learned to have patience and I learned to suspend judgment. So that's going to help you read. If I already know that I've read you, then I can't. And as far as reading goes, that's just listening. So, you know, if I look up into the right or the left, or if I, you know, keep touching my nose, like those micro expressions, those, those aren't, if I haven't had time to really have a solid baseline for you, and even then it's not that useful.

24:57 The reading is under, like listening to your words and what you've left out. One example is I give as I ask someone like, did you do, this on this date? And their answer was, typically what I do each day is this. And that's their way of answering around my question without lying because people don't like to lie. It's harder to lie. And so they found a way to tell the truth without answering. I asked you specifically and you say, well, usually what I'm doing each day is this. I'm getting up, I'm going to here. And you didn't answer. What did you do on this day? And so that's the reading.

25:38 It's just being sharp and picking out what's going on, which is why it's useful to have one person interrogating and another person off to the side, taking notes and like trying to be observant of those things. Okay. So what's the biggest misconception about informants? That they're all dirtbags that, I mean, people call them rats. Most of the informants I had were like, these guys are heroes. And, And they're all one type of person. I've had informants, multiple ones, who were high level in their home country before they came to the United States.

26:20 They would have connections to presidents, to military officers. I had an informant that was a porn star. I made sure she was handled by a female agent, but who just called up once because a friend of hers was being blackmailed. with the videos. And I resolved her problem for her. And I'm like, hey, look, we don't have many people like you on the books. You're in a world we don't normally get to. So it's diverse. The Muslims that I had as informants were very patriotic. And their opinion was, US has been good to me.

27:03 And if somebody's committing a crime, then they deserved punishment. So I think people look at them as lower level and it's a shame because they are what makes the FBI and many police organizations successful. So on a lighthearted note, what's the funniest situation you've encountered on the job? I have seen many, many naked men I don't know what it is with so many of these guys that we arrest who's just – look, if you know you might – like there's a decent chance you might be arrested some morning.

27:45 Maybe they're doing it to be vengeful. But like so many guys sleeping naked and then I have to handcuff them naked. I'd prefer not to – I'm glad I don't go through that anymore. We did have one occasion where we arrested a gang member who was dating a stripper and she was wearing her work clothes when we encountered them. So at least we had the opposite, but oh my goodness, the many, there's so many jokes that we would play on each other. And, uh, one of the ones, the stories I tell is, well, I had a case working with the IRS. So they had this wonderful investigation where blue collar worker died, strange circumstances, but he had been socking away money for years and he owned the duplex they lived in.

28:33 He fell down the stairs and But he had $2 million socked away. And not surprisingly, he named them as his beneficiaries in his will. Well, they had an attorney who counterfeited the will, made something up. So case goes against them. The dad's like, hey, I'm not getting a big enough cut. So the dad flips on his own kid and girlfriend. And IRS has a great case. Well, they come to me late and they go, hey, When we did the search warrant, we didn't pick up the victim's ashes. And we think they're going to say that he loved us so much and that's why he gave us the money.

29:15 But this guy's ashes were in a literal Chinese takeout box sitting on the fireplace sill. So they go, can you write the warrant? Because we don't want to look bad like we had to do this again. I said, no problem. And so we get the warrant. We go back in. And I knew that prosecutors would come by and check because it was a high-profile case. And both prosecutors were very stoic. One of them went to Harvard and Yale. The other one went to West Point. But that didn't stop me from playing with them. So knowing they'd stopped by, I was ready. I had an Amazon box. I'd filled it with some ashes from my fireplace. And then I cut a hole in the corner.

29:55 Yeah. So as they showed up, I walked out of the garage and I held it over my head saying, I've got it, guys, and just ashes coming everywhere. And they looked pale. But that's part of the dark humor we had to use to just kind of keep going forward. Shaking my head here. We did recover the actual ashes, though. Okay. And they won the case. And they won the case. So was there ever a moment when things just went completely sideways? About a year and a half ago, we had an arrest on, I think, about a 26-year-old male who had some mental health issues.

30:35 He had some domestic violence and some violence against the police. And SWAT had been called for that. And also because it was difficult terrain, And it taught me to not just go through the motions because every time we'd go out, we'd carry out our roles and everything was safe and fine. And this was one where he chose to oppose us. And if he had had a gun, it would have been an easy call because, you know, put down the gun and then it's deadly force. But he charged at three of us kind of on an island behind a ballistic rated vehicle.

31:16 with a baseball bat. And we gave him every opportunity to not charge us. And then his last words before he was shot was kill me. And that night I didn't feel bad about it. It was fully justified. I know we tried to stop from doing that, but that night I, my mind just kept running and running all through night of like of the same situation, I think to play it out again, but this time, Maybe we don't have to kill him this time. Of course, it failed. Finally, late at night, I had to just sit up and convince myself, let it go. That happened.

31:57 You're not solving it. It's done. That was difficult. I didn't feel traumatized by it, but maybe I was, and that's the reaction. Right after that event happened, ours was the first FBI shooting with body cameras. I asked my buddy who pulled the trigger and was right there with me, how long do you think that was? And he goes, maybe five minutes. And I go, yeah, I felt like that. I bet it's a lot less than that. And it was a minute and a half because everything, everything just like constricts. And I remember being angry that I had made the call for a hands team to come like, hey, let's see if we can wrestle him.

32:44 if the opportunity arises, if he puts the bat down. And I remember being angry that they didn't respond. And then I watched the tape of it, and it was 10 seconds. By the time I said, hey, we need a hands team, and they're right behind me, it was 10 seconds. And it felt like they had abandoned me. And they were right on top of it as soon as they could. So for me, that was my first experience of just – in a sense, like a time warp where things stood still for so long. Other than Chinese food, human ashes, what are some moments that you couldn't believe were real?

33:31 There's one, but we had one case where a subject was engaging in activity. We were arresting him for distribution of child pornography. And whenever people tell stories, they're always like, oh, you won't believe this one case we had. And other people share that. And I just go, I'm going to let you finish. And then I tell them this story. And I won't go into detail, but he engaged in an activity that he referred to as poop farming. And it was for his own use. And that was one where like, You know people get dark.

34:14 You know people go down a bad path. But that's not one that you had in mind that, yeah, yeah, people might go here too. And it's great details involved in this that I won't share with you. But that's not in my mind of things that you can do. And we've had many others along the way as we're dealing in the sex crimes where it's not just what they do, but now we have – access to their phones and their computers. And you're looking at it going like, I didn't think that was something, but I guess today I learned. Wow. So that might be the answer to my next question. What, what one thing did you see that made you that changed how you saw the world after that?

34:59 Well, there, I think the way that changed how I saw the world was something I had to continue to be involved with. So to answer your question differently, I mean, there was that. There was so many, you know, oh, man. But I worked Mexican and Colombian drug cartels in Chicago for five years. And I had to have conversations with a buddy of mine and with myself because every Mexican I saw was dealing drugs, helping the drug dealer, profiting off of the drug dealer. And I had to confront that of this is not every Mexican. You're focusing on the bad ones. But it's difficult when that's all that you see. And then just moving into longer in the career to talk to myself and talk to others that not everyone is horrible.

35:49 Not everyone are these people whose phones we've downloaded and saw discussing things. We're trying to find these people. That's why we're seeing them. And so there had to be some self-talk to not fall into such... dark cynicism that the world is terrible. All right. So let's talk about your book. So why did you decide to write a book now? Well, I was retired. My wife markets and publishes books and she says, you should write a book. And I said, yeah, but I didn't take notes. I remember getting in the bureau. I was like, oh, I should have a notebook and like write stories down. And I didn't. And then here's 24 years.

36:31 But as I sat down, Everything just started coming out of the stories and the things we did. And I never lost that awe from when I first got in the FBI of, oh my goodness, they're asking, I get to do this? And along the way, work could be tedious too, but I would so often think, I can't believe that I'm in the FBI. This is remarkable. And now even more, I look back and go, wow, I did that. And so there's stories in there that are very – I think they stand out. Even small ones, even like ones that don't win awards or don't make big headlines.

37:13 There's things that I got to do where I stand back and I think that was remarkable that I got to be there. So to me, it's like a social science experiment where somebody said, what would happen if we took a Baptist pastor – And we stuck him on a SWAT team. And he did all this stuff for 24 years. Let's see what happens there. It's like the Truman Show, a darker version of the Truman Show. Right, at times. Although the Truman Show really is dark if you think it. But it was like that. And so I wrote a memoir detailing how that move went for me, but also some of these stories.

37:56 And through it all, it's from a perspective of, a guy who used to be a Baptist pastor is seeing this happen. And my reflections on that along the way. So tell me the title of the book and how, how listeners can get a copy of it. It's called irreverent from saving souls to chasing sinners in the FBI. And, uh, unfortunately paying customers have jumped ahead of me for my wife's company to publish it. So we have to wait for them, but it'll be out in the fall. And if folks want to follow me on Instagram or It is underscore Eric underscore Robinson and I'll have updates there or on LinkedIn. I don't know how that works, but you type in Eric Robinson and FBI and you'll see this face and you'll be able to follow that way too.

38:42 But it'll be in all the usual places. I have told my buddies that I will do the audio book. It'll be 16 hours long because I'll just start going off on tangents the whole way. You'll just deviate from the script. You know, this is in the book, but here's a funny story too. Your wife will have to get you to focus better. She has told me such, yes. Exactly that. Well, I'll include the links in the show notes so that people can follow you and be alerted when the book comes out. I'd be interested. Thank you very much. So what can readers take away from your book? What can they expect? Well, I think what they can expect, one of the things that we would do on SWAT and also took on as a squad with agents is we do an after action review.

39:30 So with each story, which is usually like one of the cases I had, I finished with an after action review, which is looking back, what worked, what didn't work and why, how could we have done it better? And so it's instructive in a sense in that way, where I say, hey, look, here's where we had a case where in one weekend we took down A guy who was going to be a mass shooter at a synagogue. And then we took down two kids who were going to be mass shooters at a bar. And we did that all on the weekend. And then I talk about, well, here's why it worked. And here's what we did to make it happen. So it should be instructive in that way, too.

40:14 Okay. And as a final story today, what's another story from real life? Either it could be outside of your pastorhood or pastor time or your law enforcement time. What's one other story that you'd like to share? I was just thinking of this the other day because it was so crazy. Buddy was talking about some evidence he had. My buddy PJ had a case when I was in Chicago and we were working dope and we were We were on phones all the time, rolling from one phone to the next and listening to people talk. And there was this, I think it was originally like 26 kilos of cocaine that was getting passed from guy to guy because it was such terrible quality.

40:57 Guys had cut it so much it was falling apart. And so it ended up that there were 19 kilos left at a guy's house. So we did the takedown, arresting everybody. And then we seize these 19 kilos along with money and stuff. And then we have our press conference where people come in and they say a little thing and go from there. And I remember I was the agent. I was still on probation. I had to check the cocaine out of evidence and then bring it to the conference room. And it was just falling apart everywhere in this really crappy – we hadn't put it in a new box. It was still in this old cardboard box that the criminals had.

41:38 And at the end, we had like a half a kilo of cocaine on the floor and on the table. And we're just like spraying it with Windex and wiping it off and like rubbing it into the carpet with our shoes because it just was falling apart like sand. And I remember like normal practice is you weigh Evans when you take it out and when you bring it back. And as an agent on probation, I was lucky I wasn't fired. because it didn't match up at all. So that sounds like a pretext to your ashes story later on where you leak it. Exactly.

42:20 One was a little more serious than the other one. Yeah, a little more serious. All right, Eric. I really appreciate having you here today. My guest today has been Eric Robinson. Eric, thank you for being our guest today. Thanks so much, Melvin. So there's a moment in every life when the path changes. Sometimes it happens quietly. Sometimes it happens suddenly. For Eric Robinson, that moment took him from a church pulpit to the front lines of federal law enforcement. For listeners who want to know more about Eric's incredible story, there'll be links to his website and to his book when it comes out. Make sure you get a copy of that. That's it for this week's episode of Stories from Real Life. Until next time, don't forget to shine your light wherever you go.

43:06 That was Stories from Real Life. Join us again next week for another great storytelling journey. See you next time.