Extra: The Heavy Toll Of Wearing The Badge
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I'm Jessica Rosenthal. Earlier this week, Fox News contributor and U.S. Marine veteran Joey Jones joined the Fox News rundown as a special guest host and spoke with former Pinal County Sheriff Mike Lamb. Sheriff Lamb is featured in Jones' new book, Behind the Badge. It profiles some of America's first responders and the sacrifices they make. In the discussion, Lamb talked about the toll wearing the uniform has on police officers and how their job impacts their family and mental health.

Sheriff Lamb also explained how he used his life in law enforcement to build a bond between his department and the community using social media. We had to make some edits for time, but thought you might like to hear this full conversation, so thank you for listening. Please follow the weekday rundown podcast, if you don't already, at foxnewsrundown.com. Now, here's retired Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Joey Jones and former Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb on the Fox News Rundown Extra. ♪

So, Sheriff, listen, I've had the chance to get to know you, and I know our audience at Fox News Channel has gotten a chance to get to know you. But I think bringing this book Behind the Badge out and giving you a chance just to tell, I mean, there are things about your childhood I had no idea about. I didn't know that you got into policing later in life, and that's because you're kind of an entrepreneur at heart. I'd love for you to tell me about that.

Yeah, I never intended on being a police officer. I grew up as my dad was a businessman. He was an international businessman. And I thought that's just the way you did things. And so when I got married, I ran my own businesses. Some failed, some succeeded. You know, you just kind of grind along, especially when you're younger. And one day somebody, one of my neighbors just said, hey, you want to do a ride along? And man, I went on one ride along, came home that morning, woke up my wife.

And I think you tell the story in there. We responded to a house where a guy had found his 14-year-old daughter with a 20-year-old.

And they got into a scuffle. The kid comes out the back. Well, we show up and normally you don't let people on a ride along out of the car. But they let me out and I'm out there, like I said in the book, armed with a flashlight and courage. And I don't want to give away everything what you're going to put in the book. But in essence, we end up finding the guy. And I came home that morning. I woke my wife up and said, honey, I'm going to be a cop.

And my love of this country, my love of the Constitution, my love of serving others, it just was a perfect fit. And the rest was history.

You know, it's funny you say you woke your wife up and said, honey, I want to be a cop. There's another line in the book where you're talking to your wife. And I've had a couple of people ask me about this. And I think it's because you have to read your story, really understand the tone here. But you basically told her one time after you become a cop, been on the job for a while and you were starting to really see the worst that people can do to each other and the worst accidents and situations we can find ourselves in.

And you talk about how the stress gets to you so much that you finally just tell her, hey, don't bother me with minutia. I'm at work. Like, don't call me and ask me. I don't remember the exact analogy, but it's basically like what I want for dinner because of it's not like you're being rude to her. It's because of the gravity of what you're doing. And obviously she understood. I'd love for you to talk about that. Yeah, I think a lot of people don't understand. And when they read that, I'm glad you brought that out because they may be like, this guy sounds like a jerk.

You're out there doing a job where your life relies on split second decisions and your ability to think clearly and process and plan. Not only that, you're dealing with other people's lives. You may have to arrest somebody. You may charge them with a crime that affects their family's life and their life.

for years to come for the rest of their life. And you, I just feel like you have to be on point. You've got to be focused and you've got to be clear headed when you go do this job. And so we try the best we can to leave the home stuff at home so I can go out and be the best public servant I can be. And if my wife calls me and tells me about some silly thing that my kids dealing with at school or, or what's for dinner,

It just takes away from my focus on what I needed to do. And so as I got to do the job, especially as I became a gang and drug detective, and that danger level was even more increased, I said, honey, you can't call me with things that are not important.

I mean, obviously, if there's something majorly important, anything else that can wait, wait till I get home because I owe it to the people that I serve. I owe it to my family and myself to be the best that I can be. And the only way I can do that is to be clear headed, clear eyed and be able to make the right decisions in a timely manner.

To me, when I hear that, I hear that there's more sacrifice than just yours. I mean, really what you're talking to there is your family has a sacrifice access to you, even if it's not about big things, but access to you in a way that most families don't have to worry about. And I guess it's something that over time you just accept or you sit down and have a conversation with them. How do you get to that point to where it doesn't become a wedge between you and your family to do such a job?

Well, I don't think you can do it. Like, I think it does become a wedge. You know, I had one son that went off the deep end, got into drugs, and he was right around that teenage years when I was running for office, when I had been a cop. He was a younger kid.

My daughter came to my wife one time and says, Dad's never here. He doesn't love us. My wife had to say, look, the way your dad shows his love is he goes out and works hard so that I can be home with you guys, so that you guys can have the things that you want and you need. He takes extra shifts. When I started as a cop, I had five kids.

Like I had to take every extra shift I could get so that I could continue to provide for my family. And so sometimes that's that trade off in life. You can have a successful husband, he may not always or a dad and he may not always be around. Or you can have a dad that plays patty cake with you all day long. And guess what? He may not be successful. There is a it's really hard to find the balance.

And when you, it truly is a sacrifice for the men and women who put on the badge, firefighters, police, military, because we spend valuable time that we can never get back.

Time is one thing that you can't buy. You can't make more of it. Every time I go out that door and spend time with the community and I spend, you know, my heart and my soul trying to fix other people's problems and protect other people, that is time that my family doesn't get from me. And so...

I truly hope that people will understand just what we sacrifice. It's not just family time. It's valuable time that I will never get back. And frankly, a lot of it has most people don't appreciate, but that's time that I've determined I'm willing to sacrifice my family time, my personal time, my growth time so that I can serve others. And I think that's really the gist of your book from what I've read so far is

For anybody that's going to read it, I think you're going to really appreciate just how you guys captured the sacrifice that the people who put on the badge every day go through.

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You know, you talk about you see the impact of these things that you, the trauma that you experience is certainly you're sacrificing at home with your family, but it's also seeing good people go through bad things, having to be the one to tell somebody, hey, your child's, you know, expired in a car accident or having to be even to lock somebody up that you may look at that person and say, hey, there's a good person in here, but they've just had, you know,

They've been mistreated. They've made all the wrong decisions, and it's all led them to here, but consequences are still there. And that's the hardest thing for me. I don't think I'd be a good cop because I don't think I'd ever ride a ticket as long as somebody just seemed like a decent person. I don't think I could ride them a ticket, you know. But you understand that that consequence dictates their future actions in a way that a normal person doesn't. So you can kind of see through that. But the reason why I bring that up, kind of the –

The emotional experience of dealing out the law among your neighbors. You talk about putting money in the bank and use this analogy probably because you're a businessman at heart as well. When you go out and do things in the community, do good things in the community, have positive interactions with

You're putting money into a bank account because you're going to have to withdraw. You're going to have to lock up somebody's favorite teacher that did something wrong or you're going to have to pull somebody over that, you know, that that may feel like they've never broke the law. Why are they getting this ticket? I'd love for you to explain that and kind of give us an example.

- Yeah, look, I'm like you, Joey. I'm the cop that doesn't wanna give tickets. I don't know if tickets is always the answer and some guys love to give tickets. I was not one of those guys. But I also thought there was a way to correct behavior and you gotta tell people if they're doing something wrong.

But we're in the business of bad optics. We're in the business of showing up when all hell is breaking loose, whether it's in somebody's home with a domestic violence call, whether it's an accident picking people up off the streets, whether it is a child crime or an assault, whatever it be, or a murder. Like we are showing up when it's the worst time. And so the optics are not good and it doesn't.

it's hard for the community to see us in a positive light because we're always showing up when things are really bad. And so I understood that not only as a business owner, but as just a caring person that we had to balance that. And the way to balance that is you develop a bank account of trust. And, you know, when we saw what happened in Minnesota back in 2020,

It didn't impact us much in our county. Why? Because we had filled that bank account up with positive stories from things that we did in our communities. Every time we would go do something that was positive, we would take down a drug dealer, we would save a child from drowning, all of the things, dog stories, and we would save a dog. You know, those things, we would put those in the bank account of trust because

Because there are those times where you have a deputy that does something wrong or we shoot and kill somebody or you have a video of something that really doesn't look good. And they only took a little smidge of that video. And then now the rest of the Internet world is trashing you. The only way you will survive that is if you have enough money in your bank account of public trust to take care of that withdrawal.

And frankly, the deposits are always small. It's like little stories. The withdrawals are big. And if you don't have, if you have not built that up, which most law enforcement or a lot of law enforcement agencies across this country, they don't put attention to that. They don't take the time to do that. So when they have a shooting, when they have a major incident, when they have something that looks really bad,

They have a tough time overcoming it and they have a tough time regaining the trust of the community. We're on our in our community. Our community comes to our defense. They say, no, we know how Sheriff Lamb and how the Pinal County Sheriff's Office runs their business. We trust them. They're good people. They only had to make this decision because of this. So it really helps us.

And I just wish more law enforcement agencies across this country understood the value of putting deposits in your bank account of trust. You know, when you talk about putting that deposit in, how do you let people know? One of the ways you can let people know is social media. And that's kind of something that you decided to...

rather than looking at it as a thorn in your side, seeing it as a tool and an asset. I think, like I said, the first time I saw you, I think you were, if I'm not mistaken, you're on social media and I think you're doing something about people going too slow in the fast lane, which is something that I could, you could,

constitutionally amend that and I'd be okay with it. But it's this idea of connecting with your community where they are. And whether we like it or not, people are on social media. Was that just a hunch? Is that something that proved to be a good tactic? I'd love for you to tell me about that.

No, I wasn't a hunch. I came from the business world. And one thing I could never understand, you know, when I first started as a cop, there was no social media. So that was the, you know, Internet was, you know, emails, that kind of thing was still on the rise. And then, you know, as I became a sheriff, social media was really hot and heavy. And I just couldn't understand as a bit former business owner why.

Law enforcement wasn't taking advantage of the ability to set the narrative. You know, the media wants to set the narrative in so many situations and it's become this, whoever gets the first word out there is the one who gets to control the narrative. And I just didn't understand why law enforcement agencies would allow the media or negative voices to control that narrative. Now, I'm not saying that we're going to mislead you by telling you something that didn't happen.

I just felt like it was important to tell the truth and show people and let us sell, tell you before the media tried to twist it, what happened in the community and social media was the perfect platform for that. And the way we really were able to build it in a fast manner, I knew it was going to be valuable.

And it was hard to get the trust of people who were career law enforcement. They were uncomfortable with what I was doing. But I said, you guys got to trust me. I promise you it'll work out. And as time went on, they saw and they were like, oh, man, the sheriff's right. The sheriff's right. It worked again. We did live PD. You know, those videos of me pulling people over in the left lane. I don't think there's a single one of them that doesn't have less than five million views. And we actually won an Emmy for one of them.

And so we actually have more Facebook followers. Well, we are second only to the FBI. We now know they have an inside source on social media, right? But we are only second to the FBI for Facebook followers. And I think we are the agency with the most amount of followers.

YouTube followers and certainly the most engagement for a law enforcement agency with our YouTube. And what that has allowed us to do is my voice is far more powerful. Our agency's voice was more powerful than the local media or even sometimes some of the national media sources. And so we knew we needed to be able to take advantage of that.

for hiring, for community development, for all of the reasons, for the county growth, everything. We all put it in there and it worked out good. So it was more than a hunch. It was applying business principles to good government.

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Police officials, different than a police chief or commissioner, sheriff being this elected, constitutionally upheld position that deals with enforcing the law that you as a sheriff have

know and understand to be constitutionally correct. And so you get into this dilemma sometimes where your state or federal government is trying to push you in a direction that you don't feel like you should go or your constituents support. I'd love for you to explain that because I don't think most people understand that. This will kind of lead to a second topic.

But just this idea that a sheriff in most counties and places in the country, that a sheriff's power is different in a lot of ways.

Yeah, sure. It varies from state to state, but in Arizona and most states, the sheriff is really the highest along, you know, elected official in the county. Usually he usually carries the most authority, his ability to be able to balance the law versus the constitution, all that. And, you know, a lot of people say, well, I don't want the sheriff dictating that. Well, we don't want to do it either. But when a legislature, a state legislature,

or the federal government passes a law that goes against the Constitution, then who stands between the Constit- who does- who's the guy that's the arbiter of that to make sure that people aren't being charged for something that is a constitutional violation? And people will look at me and go, well, I don't-

What makes you the arbiter of it? And I go, look, the reason the Supreme Court exists is because they knew that states and the government would pass laws that may conflict with the Constitution. Until they determine that, who's going to be the guy that keeps people's constitutional rights from being violated? And a lot of times people say, Sheriff, I can't believe you talk like this. You're the government. I said, no, no, no, I'm not the government.

I'm your county sheriff. And my job is to protect you from the bad guy and from government overreach. And a perfect example of that, Joey, was COVID. You know,

All across this country, the federal government was telling us, you got to shut down. You got to wear a mask. You can't talk to anybody. You can't see your family and all these crazy things. And I just thought it was constitutional violations. I thought they were inhibiting our ability to go out to pursue, even though this is the declaration of independence, life pursuit, you know, pursue life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And so I, as a sheriff said, no, we're not doing the lockdowns. And there was nothing that the federal government or the governor could do to me that, that

That wasn't their authority. That authority fell on the sheriffs because they weren't laws. Remember, they were mandates and orders. So anybody that said, well, the sheriff's not following the law. And I said, no, I am following the law. Those guys are following mandates and orders, which are not laws. They did not go through the proper channels to create a law. And then we had mass mandates and the vaccine mandates, all of those things I stood against. And that is the value of a sheriff.

If you have a sheriff who understands what the Constitution means and stands for and what the value of your freedom is,

That's the person you want, somebody who will protect those at all costs, even if it means getting blasted nationwide for your stance and being called all sorts of names. I don't care. Like my job is to protect them. That's what I was elected to do. And that's the difference between a sheriff and a police chief. I don't work for the city, the city council. I don't work for the corporation or the county commissioners or the county supervisors or whatever you call them.

I work for the people and there's power in having an elected official who directly works for the people. And that's what your county sheriff is.

You know, I know you've done work down at the border in different ways. And as a sheriff, you know, in the state that you're in, I'm sure border problems were your problems. And, you know, we talk about this idea that the sheriff has a responsibility outside of the government around him to take care of the people that he or she serves. When states pass, because right now we're seeing this happen where we have these judges that act to hide information

illegal immigrants from ICE and then you have states that pass laws making themselves sanctuaries or cities. How does that affect the sheriff and does the sheriff have the legal ability to continue to work with ICE or work with federal agency?

Well, you know, that's a great question. And certain states are really battling with that right now. You know, California, Colorado, there's a lot of states that have passed laws that say you can't work with the federal government. And I just think those laws are really unconstitutional because what you're doing is you're putting the sheriff's office, you're putting your local law enforcement in an impossible position. Either I protect the community, which is what I was elected to do, or which is what a police chief was hired to do.

Or I jeopardized breaking the law because I worked with my federal partners and, you know, the left. And so many groups of people, and I don't really want to get into politics as much, but there's so many groups of people that every time Arizona or Texas tried to do something to help protect our states, those groups of people would swoop in and say, you can't do that. That's the federal government's job.

Now, conversely, those are the same people that are saying, well, we're going to we don't want the federal government to do their job. Like, which one is it? Pick your poison, you know, and I think they are wrong. And first of all, it's a, you know, Title eight policy.

1324 says you cannot conceal, barber or shield anybody you believe to be in this country illegally. I'm glad that judge in Wisconsin was charged because I think she violated that law and she should be held to a much higher standard being an officer of the court, a judge.

And I think that some of these governors should be held accountable. I honestly do because I think that in many ways, having read through that code a lot of times, you could articulate that their behavior, especially now knowing that the federal government is actively trying to hold these, you know, find these people that came into this country illegally. I think that to be able to be in a position of authority to then try to conceal, harbor or shield them from the federal government and the consequences of the law,

I think is borderline illegal. So I, you know, as a local official, I'm always going to do what's right by the people, but I'm also going to do what's right by the law. And we have federal laws that say you can't be in this country illegally. And if you don't like it, then you need to elect people that'll change it on a national level. You talk about electing people. You've been a sheriff. You've ran for statewide office. I just want to, I'm sure everybody wants to know, what are you up to now? We're still looking for you. What, where do we find you?

I'm at a crossroads, Joey. I don't know. Look, I'm not a politician. I never wanted to be a politician. I wanted to be a public servant and serve my community. And being the sheriff was the best of everything because I worked directly for the people. I didn't have a governor or anybody that could tell me what to do. But I also was still a law enforcement agent. I could still go out and enjoy the job that I love to do.

I only ran for the US Senate because I was frustrated with the direction of the country. I thought that, like I always explain it, there were, I can keep the wolves from coming into my herd as a sheriff on a county level.

But if somebody doesn't go hunt those wolves, eventually they will multiply and they will be too many for even the best sheriff to stop on a local level. And where we had to go hunt those wolves was on a national level. These were issues that I could no longer fix at a county level. I can maybe stop it, but I couldn't fix it. And so the only way to fix it was to be part, you know, and instead of complaining about it, which is what I do on Fox and all these other national programs,

media outlets, instead of just complaining about it, I thought I would take my expertise and apply it and run a campaign that was focused on my talents, my experience, my qualifications, and not being hateful and negative towards any other candidate.

And so those are the reasons I decided to get into it. And it was at the cost of being the sheriff. I knew that win or lose, I couldn't run for both offices. So when I chose to run for Senate, I knew that the consequence of that would be that I would have to retire as the sheriff.

But, you know, there's a lot of power in being a citizen in this country. And I think most citizens don't understand that. And it's by design, the media, the government, they continue to divide us because they know that the power is we, the people in this country.

And so I'm still active as a citizen. I think I have just as much power and authority as a citizen as I did as a sheriff, maybe more because now I'm free to go all over the country. And what I'm doing is working for great organizations like FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, one of their law enforcement advisors. They are focused on border security, immigration reform.

They are focused on the 287G program, expanding that throughout the country, working with federal partners. I'm also working with a few vendors. I'm working in the mental health field for law enforcement and wellness for law enforcement and military veterans.

which is the Vittania, the best program I've seen for rewiring and mapping our brains without having to dig in with a psychiatrist to the depths of our soul to find those things that are bothering us. It was the best thing that me and my guys at my agency have done, and I attribute our success

to that program. And then I'm building a few businesses with my kids and one of them is directly related. I'll be launching it in July. It's going to be 10/7 and the website will be go 10/7. And it's really to help law enforcement, first responders, military veterans learn about business and then learn how to build a business and create a community where they can find success, you know, supporters, where they can find

a squad, a team that they can work together with to help build their businesses across this country. I just finished my book and that'll be coming out in July and a podcast. I'm going to launch it all in July. And it's not just as I mean, obviously, if you're not law enforcement, you can still be part of it. But it's really geared towards helping our veterans, helping our military, our first responders, law enforcement,

I want to help them build a business and improve their lives and use the skill set that they acquired in their jobs to really impact our communities in a different way.

Man, I know one thing. We're going into the summer, and you don't have time for vacation. I mean, you've got all these things going on. You've got so much of it launching in July, which is a great month, by the way. That's my birthday month, so I was launching in July. Mine too. July 14th. But I'm a week after you, the 21st there. But, man, you've just got so much going on. You bring so much energy to this conversation. You're serving at heart. Everything you're doing is about serving others.

And it's just really an inspiration, man. I can't thank you enough for checking in with us, obviously for lending your voice to the book. But even on top of that, just everything you continue to do and you're a voice of reason a lot of times. And I think a lot of people are listening. Well, I appreciate it, Joey. And look, I have a very Christian view towards life. You know, God bless us with this life. You know, bless you. Bless everybody with this life. And I think it is.

It's disingenuine to our Heavenly Father and our Savior for what they did for us, what they gave us to not maximize and do the best you can with this life and to help others, to challenge yourself, to write books. And that's why I love that you wrote this book and I'm honored to be part of it. You are taking a bite out of life. You know, when I die, I want to get to the other side and have the Lord say, "Son, you killed it. You did awesome."

And I think that's truly what this life is about. I've been blessed to be able to put on the badge. I'm gonna continue to try to bless other people's lives

And I just it's truly an honor to just to exist and to be in this world and especially be in this great country of the United States of America, because it truly is the greatest country where freedom abounds. And so I just feel blessed. So thank you for letting me be part of it. And I know people are really going to enjoy your book. And and I think it'll really help our professions and the men and women that do this job.

Sheriff Mark Lamb, thank you for everything you're doing, bud. Thanks for joining us, and I look forward to seeing what happens in the near future. Thank you, brother. God bless you.

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