What happens when law enforcement officers swap their badges for handlebars? Meet the Blue Knights Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club—a group of current and retired officers riding for a cause. From raising money for fallen officers’ families to promoting motorcycle safety, they’re giving back in ways most people don’t see. But how do bikers with badges bridge the gap between law enforcement and the community? Tune in to find out how this club is changing lives, one ride at a time.

So listen in. I think you'll find it interesting and fascinating and learn about this group of law enforcement officers and what they're doing to give back to their community.

Jonathan Breeden: Hello and welcome to another edition of The Best of Johnston County Podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Breeden, and on today's episode we have Keith Newland, the president of the Blue Knights Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club right here in Johnston County. We're gonna talk to Keith a little bit about what are the Blue Knight who can be a member and what the Blue Knights do to support the citizens of Johnston County and some of the surrounding counties as well, and how you can get involved to help the Blue Knights in some of their fundraising projects that are going on over the next few months.

So be listening for great episodes in the future and go back and listen to some of our previous episodes with County Commissioner Chairman Butch Lawter, County Manager, Rick Hester. The people who own Just Dog People my favorite dog store. Got a lot of great guests. If you love Johnston County as much as I do.

This is the podcast for you, but if you don't like or subscribe wherever you're seeing it, you won't be made aware of future episodes and you might forget about us. So do that right now before we get into talking, before you listen to our conversation with Keith. Welcome Keith.

Keith Newland: Thank you sir.

Jonathan Breeden: Alright, so you do not sound like you're from Johnston County.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Keith Newland: So

Jonathan Breeden: Well, I love the accent and I was just telling you before we started recording that I lived in London one summer.

Keith Newland: Yes, sir.

Jonathan Breeden: And studied at the University College of London when I was in law school. And I studied european community law and public international law. And back then your European community was brand new. That would've been the summer of 98 when they also had the world Cup, which France won and happened to be in France when they won the World Cup that year.

But yeah, so it was neat. And the accent,

Keith Newland: So when you're talking, when you say World Cup, you're talking proper football?

Keith Newland: Absolutely

Jonathan Breeden: with the World Cup going on.

Keith Newland: Yes, sir.

Jonathan Breeden: And America's gotten more serious about soccer in the last 25 or 30 years. But so anyway, so did you wear like the uniform with the hat?

Keith Newland: I did. I was a London Bobby with the Bobby's hat on for 10 years. I only wore that for the first couple of years when I was on foot patrol.

And then when you start driving, you wear a flat hat. And then I've still got my Bobby's hat. I've kept it. So I've got it at home. Kept it for prosperity, I'll pretty hand it down to my son and it'll just get handed down and stay in the family hopefully. But yeah, so I say I, I had a great time.

I was a cop in London, loved it as say 10 years with the city 20 years were road patrol and came away with nothing, but good memories.

Jonathan Breeden: I got you. I got you. They still drive on the wrong side of the road over there.

Keith Newland: They do. Yeah. Drive on the wrong side of the road and don't carry guns.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, I think that's interesting.

I don't know exactly how you could be a police officer about carrying a gun, but

Keith Newland: the thing is,

Jonathan Breeden: I guess you did it for 30 years.

After the done blind shooting, they banned all handguns. So, there was a blanket ban on handguns after the dun blind shooting. The teacher and all the kids got killed. So the only people that really had guns were the farmers. They had their shotguns and rifles for farming. So yeah, so they access to handguns was very limited.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Keith Newland: And so some of the bad guys had handguns and some of the cops had handguns. But for the best part. Yeah. Didn't need it.

Jonathan Breeden: Alright. Well, and you're now the president of the Blue Knights Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club. Tell the listeners what that is and how you got involved.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, that's awesome. That's awesome. And I went to the Blue Knights website and read that the group as a whole has raised over $18 million for charity.

But that said, we like to extend into the community because we like people to know who we are. I mean, yeah, we're bikers, we're the good guys and we want people to know. We are here. You know, we, there is a human side to police officers. Most people only see cops there's people who ride around in cars, stop 'em if they're speeding or take 'em to jail if they've done something wrong.

And it's nice for people to meet us, look at me, you know, oh, does he look like a police officer? And, And meet who we are. And that's why one of the things we did last year the Johnston County chapter was I'll say ticking over. It was ticking over. We were just about keeping our heads above water with regard to membership and things like that.

We, this past year, we went out, we bought a tent, we bought a banner, a sign, a table. Tablecloth table covering with the Blue Knights logo on it, chairs. And we go and set up at events. We go and put the tent up. Primarily this past year we've been doing events down at Bulldog Harley-Davidson, Smithfield, so it's obviously our home is Smithfield.

We meet every month down at Golden Corral for dinner and a in a meeting. And so we put the tent up and we wear our colors and we tell everybody who we are, we hand out flyers saying, this is the Blue Knights, this is who we are. This is my phone number, this is my email address. Talk to us, you know, get us involved.

I'm a cop. I ride a bike. Can I join? Hell yeah, come along.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Well that's great. That's great. And women can be members too.

Keith Newland: Uh,

Jonathan Breeden: It's not just men.

Keith Newland: No. I've got two ladies at the moment who are both serving police officers. Well, one's, one's serving, one's retired. They're both full regular members of our chapter. Barbara and Megan, they're both serving me well, as I say, Barbara's now retired. But Megan's still serving. And yeah, they come out, they ride with us, they eat with us. They laugh and joke with us.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. And there's no probationary period. There's no hazing to get into your motorcycle club.

Keith Newland: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. No. We ride you wanna be a member, obviously we do a background check in much as we make sure you are a serving officer you are. When I applied to join, I had to show them my certificate of service from England saying that I'd served 30 years, I retired, you know, with good conduct and all that sort of thing.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. So how many members does the Johnston County chapter have?

Keith Newland: At the moment

we are up to 30.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, wow.

Keith Newland: Yeah, we've got 30 at the moment. So we're in good shape. We've got two more members. Hopefully two more members joining this month, but they've got applications coming in. So that's cool.

Jonathan Breeden: You don't have to ride an American bike either. You can ride any motorcycle you want, right?

Keith Newland: You can ride two wheels, you can ride three wheels. We have people come out and ride on the spiders. The three wheelers, the spiders, the slingshots. We have one of our member, one of our members who sadly passed he became ill and couldn't ride two wheels anymore, so he sold his bike and got a slingshot.

So he could still come out and ride with us, which was great 'cause he was our rear gunner. Whenever we wanna rise, he was our rear gunner.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh.

Keith Newland: And made sure that we were safe.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome.

Jonathan Breeden: So what are some of the things y'all raised money for? you know, back in the day when I was really active with the Crossroads Civitan, which unfortunately is no longer in existence here at the 40/42, we would do poker runs

Keith Newland: that's it

Jonathan Breeden: and raise money for varying charities.

Keith Newland: Absolutely.

Jonathan Breeden: And a poker run is, you're not aware is where the motorcycle, they ride to different locations at each location they get a card and at the end they get the last card and the best poker hand wins a small prize and everybody pays.

Keith Newland: That's it.

Keith Newland: Absolutely. Yeah. We, this past year we've been in a supporting role. So we will support rides, whether it be an officer down ride a classic example of what we do. Obviously Bulldog Harley-Davidson down in Smithfield is a great spot for us. We know the staff there, the staff know us. We get on really well with them.

They've been supporting us by letting, letting us put our tent up at events and that I had worked on, on my bike there and their service manager, unfortunately, last year was involved in a fatal accident. He was on his way home on his motorcycle. An 18 wheeler pulled out on him and he got killed.

So a local group helped the neighbor, Johnston County. You may have heard of it. Charity. They raise money, they put on events, and last year they put on an event for Joe to raise money. And this coming Saturday we've got another ride coming up and we are going down there as Blue Knights to support them and raise money for Joe's family.

As I say, you saw the list of officers that we've got. I've got a fantastic vice president, fantastic secretary, treasurer, all very proactive. I've got great directors. Yeah, we, I've got a great team who, and we all work together and this year we decided we wanted to put something back ourselves.

We are still supporting other rides, but this year we're actually putting on a ride.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. And I think that's gonna be June 28th

Keith Newland: yes sir

Jonathan Breeden: at Wayne? It's gonna start at Wayne Community College

Keith Newland: Yes sir

Jonathan Breeden: in Goldsboro?

Keith Newland: Yes sir

Jonathan Breeden: And who is that money ride to raise money for?

They're doing really well. One officer got killed in the line of duty. They paid his mortgage for a year. They paid for scholarships for children, and we decided that's where we would like to focus our energies on this year. So we're at the moment we've got everything booked and planned.

Now we're starting to, bring it all together and that's where you guys could help because we are looking for sponsors. I mean, obviously a ride doesn't just happen. There's financial implications. And obviously we are here to raise money. We as a chapter are putting our own money into it. And obviously if anybody can help out door prizes. We need door prizes sponsorship financial or you know, product, anything, you know, to help put this ride together.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. You're also working on a raffle where you're raffling off some very nice guns.

Keith Newland: Yes, sir.

Keith Newland: Again all the money goes back into as, one of the things we do each year is the because I say we have Johnston County Blue Knights but Blue Knights is, is a global thing.

There's no Blue Knights in Wilson County. There's no Blue Knights in Wayne County. There's no chapters out there. So what we did, we almost adopted them. So we are the Johnston County Blue Knights, but we incorporate Wilson and Wayne Counties. So we used them some years before I even came on board.

The chapter decided that they are chosen charity of the year was the Kennedy Children's Home out in Kinston. Huge children's home. And so that every year since I joined apart from with, during the Covid period, we go out to Kinston and we ride, ride, raise money, we donate money out of our own pocket obviously at our own account to the kids at Kinston.

Jonathan Breeden: Well that's awesome. That's awesome 'cause another thing that the Blue Knights is really big on is motorcycle safety.

Keith Newland: Yes, sir.

Jonathan Breeden: And promoting the correct way to ride.

Keith Newland: Yes, sir.

Jonathan Breeden: So what have y'all been doing to try to educate the public about motorcycle safety and stuff like that.

Keith Newland: Again from our perspective, we do the shows. We put our tents up and we meet people and especially down at Bulldog Harley-Davidson, great spot. We go down there, we talk to people and meet fellow bikers.

And yeah, we did, we just try and share. And I say from my perspective, being retired highway patrol, I've got an absolute plenty of war stories to tell people, you know, some, you do some good, some good, some bad.

Jonathan Breeden: No, I'm sure you do. I'm sure you do. I know one of your officers is Steven Anderson, the For Oaks Police Chief.

Keith Newland: Yes, sir.

Jonathan Breeden: I worked with him for many, many years. I was doing criminal defense when he was a young officer, and, he's a really good guy.

Keith Newland: Oh, he's fantastic. He's one of my directors.

Jonathan Breeden: And he's done a great job there in for Oaks and sort of revamping that police department.

Keith Newland: Yes, sir.

Jonathan Breeden: And he deserves a big, a lot of credit for what he's done there so. So how can people reach out to you, the Blue Knights, how can they get involved?

It's not limited to anybody. We have got rules. There's basic rules in the group. You know, we're all cops from retired cops don't come and join us to say, you can take a cheap pop ATIs. If you take a cheap PO ATIs, you'll be, you'll be blocked and you won't come back. But we are. Come, come and talk to us.

Come and meet us this year. We did it last year we did Mount Mount Olive pickle Festival. And that was a great fundraiser 'cause we use that as a time as well to sell, sell our raffle tickets. And that's what we're gonna be doing again this year. We've got the Mount Olive Pickle Festival, that's April 26th.

We're gonna be setting up the tent. And again, handing out the flyers. You saw, the flyers that I gave you. Tells us who you know, tells people what the Blue Knights were, where they came from, where they are now. It gives details of our chapter with all our officers listed contact information.

And as I say, reach out to us. We love talking to people.

Jonathan Breeden: All right.

Keith Newland: As you can see, I love talking. Hey, I'm hoping to talk. Hey, hey, look,

Keith Newland: Yes sir.

Jonathan Breeden: The Best of Johnston County Podcast is what do you love most about Johnston County?

Keith Newland: I'm from London. I'm from London, and I could literally walk to everything in five minutes. Well, in my old house, I used to be able to walk to, in 15 minutes, I could walk to several bars, pubs, as we called them, restaurants, stores, bank. Everything was in a 15 minute walk here. If I walk for 15 minutes, I don't even get off my neighborhood.

I love the open space. I love the pace at which people live their lives in Johnston County. I go back to London for family vacations. I'm going back this fall to see my new granddaughter. But I like when I'm back in London, believe it or not, I'm there. I do the family thing, and then I wanna come home.

I want come home because this is my home now. I love the open space. I love sitting on my deck after working a day and listening to nothing. Peace and quiet.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, it's definitely different than living in the city.

Keith Newland: Absolutely.

Keith Newland: Yes sir

Jonathan Breeden: to more relaxed lifestyle.

Keith Newland: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: not, not the hustle and bustle of, of the city of London. So I could see why you would enjoy that

Keith Newland: I love it

Jonathan Breeden: after doing that for many, many years.

Keith Newland: Yes, sir. Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: Anyway. Well, great. Well, we would like to thank Keith Newland the president of the Blue Knights of Johnston County Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club for being our guest on this week's episode of The Best of Johnston County Podcast. As we mentioned earlier, please feel free to like, follow, subscribe to this podcast wherever you're seeing it, so you'll be aware of future episode of The Best of Johnston County Podcast and leave us a five star review down below. It will help our visibility and let us know what you like about our podcast and how we can make it better.

Until next time, I'm your host, Jonathan Breeden.

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