Sheriff Michael Neal was a wildlife officer with no business being at a West Memphis crime scene the afternoon of May 20th, 2010. He was over an hour away when two police officers were shot and killed during a traffic stop. He drove there anyway. Part 2 of this conversation is the story of what happened when he got there — and what he carried home from it.

The episode opens with Neal describing his wife seeing his bullet-riddled truck at the National Law Enforcement Museum for the first time, and the conversation about why he chose to get married on the anniversary of the shooting. From there it moves into the drive itself: running his Game and Fish truck at 140 miles an hour, stopping for gas at the Horizon Shell Station at Mile Marker 275 — not knowing it was the same exit as the crime scene — and looking down on the bodies of Brandon Paudert and Bill Evans from an overpass before pulling back onto the road.

What followed was a two-hour manhunt that failed because of a bad vehicle description. The killers were hiding in the Walmart parking lot in a battered white Plymouth Voyager while every officer in the area searched for a church van with "House of God and Prayer" written on the side. Neal explains the communication breakdown in plain terms: that's what gets cops killed.

He was on the other end of the parking lot when the shooting resumed. He describes the moment gunfire started, the decision to ram the van at 55 miles per hour rather than risk a mobile firefight, shooting through his own windshield while taking 12 rounds of AK fire, and the first thought he had walking up on scene after it was over: that he was going to jail.

The episode closes with why he stayed in law enforcement — a friend told him cops want to hear from cops, not has-beens — and what he wants people to feel when they see the names of Brandon Paudert and Bill Evans on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.

What's the most memorable experience

after that incident?

Oh, wow.

Man, there's so many.

You know, there's so many.

I think probably Bobby

Paudert coming to the scene

and hugging me.

I'd say that one

probably stands out the most.

Part two picks up where part one left off

with Mike Neal 16 years

later, still carrying May 20th.

So I want to go back just

like Craig just went back.

Let's talk about your

wife and this anniversary.

So all of this story

that we're talking about,

this just happened May 20th.

You get married on May 20th.

What did Chief Paudert and some other

folks ever say to you about you deciding

to get married on that same day?

We're only two years in and I haven't

heard anything from the chief and a lot

of people don't realize

that that's my anniversary.

We had a false anniversary set in August,

but we had actually kind of eloped if you

will, on May 20th and

we kind of kept it quiet.

I didn't do it to offend anyone.

I did it for me to try to help me cope

through the day,

honestly, to bring some joy.

I finally found someone in my life that

gives me the support that I need,

the soft spot to come home to.

Did she ever give you any pushback about

that and say why that date?

She laughed and she said, well, you'll

make sure you won't miss our anniversary.

That's for sure.

But no, she understood.

She got it.

She's pretty special.

Tell us about her.

We've known each other for, oh, probably

about 15 years and across paths

throughout the years, but I got divorced

in 19 and then she got divorced

and they just all kind of clicked and

fell together timing was right.

It's been a life changing event.

I never understood how good a marriage

could be until you get the right one.

And this one's the right one.

That's awesome.

And you needed that in your life.

You needed that.

Absolutely.

She stood right there with me all last

week, the police week.

That support is invaluable.

I promise you, it's an amazing thing.

So when she stood there by you at the

museum, how proud was she?

Probably more proud than me.

Yeah, she's super proud of her husband.

I have to ask, what was her feeling like

when she first saw that truck with dozens

of bullet holes through the windshield,

knowing that you were

on the other side of it?

That had to hit her hard.

It did.

And it got me too,

but I think it humbled her

to actually see the truck.

She's seen pictures of it, but that last

week was the first time that she saw it

in person, that got to see

just how bad it really was.

Seeing it in person is a lot different

from seeing pictures or

videos of it, that's for sure.

I'm so glad that you thought to put that

truck in that museum.

At that luncheon when you mentioned it to

me, I'm like, this story is incredible,

but a truck in a museum,

I hadn't seen the truck.

I didn't know how many bullet holes there

were in it or anything else.

But I am so glad that you had that vision

and that it came to life.

And by the way, the people that installed

our exhibits in the National Law

Enforcement Museum told me that putting

that truck up on that pedestal in the

museum was the hardest

part of building that museum.

It was even tougher than putting the

helicopter there

hanging from the rafters.

I think they used it for something to

lift it up, didn't they,

or something like that?

Oh, incredible.

But what a statement it makes, right?

To me, I'm seeing

this as a civilian again.

I've never been a cop,

never worn the badge.

But to think what you all have to deal

with at times, right?

I mean, it can be a very normal, boring

day most of the time, and then boom,

within seconds, you're in the middle of a

shootout with people that have no respect

for the laws of this country or the men

and women who serve in law enforcement.

And it's just amazing to me that officers

are willing to do what you did that day

and that that truck tells that story to

the American people, right?

That our officers are willing to assume

these risks, life and death moments, for

the safety of others.

And so that gets me to my question, which

is, okay, you hear about these two

killers that are on the loose, you're

miles and miles away.

It would have been easy, I think, for you

as a wildlife officer to kind of let

other people take

charge and deal with it.

But you took it on your own to end this

mayhem and this murderous rampage.

I mean, what is going through your mind

when you heard that call go out and you

decided I'm gonna be the one to stop it?

You know, it goes back farther than that.

I had always had the burn in me.

I've always, for lack of better words,

felt something coming

within inside my soul, honestly.

And it led up to that day.

The doors throughout my

careers that opened and closed

are pretty phenomenal to

lead to the May 20th shooting.

There was no reason for me to be there.

Just like you said, I was a game warden

of, I had no business even being there.

But it was, I was used as

an instrument, honestly.

That's the best way I can put it.

That was a guardian angel that was taking

control and putting me where I needed to

be to stop a bad situation.

But when that call went

out, two officers down,

it was put out, it was an MS-13 gang.

It was a hit on the

drug interdiction team.

It was a really bad deal.

And it was inside me like a fire.

I had to be there.

I'm one of those kind of guys, I guess

true leaders are born with it.

It's something that's in you.

You don't really, I'm sure you can bring

it out in any person, but for the ones

that it's inside them or the cops that

are out here doing it every day.

They're putting their life

online for complete strangers.

And this was kind of one of those deals.

That call went out.

I knew I had to be there because I know I

know what I'm doing.

I don't know if you know what you're

doing, but I know I do.

Let me go first.

You know, so I'll go through the door

first, move out of the way.

I'm that kind of guy.

I always have been, played football my

entire, high school

growing up, headhunter.

You were a linebacker.

I was a middle

linebacker in a defensive end.

Yes, sir.

I was one of those, if I hit

you harder, it don't hurt me.

Yeah, I hit people, but getting out of

that, I'm getting a little old, my bones

break anymore, it hurts.

So I still get invites as sheriff.

Went up in the hospital about a year ago,

I have a fight, broke

my hand, but it happens.

But that day-

Yeah, go ahead.

No, no, yeah, that day I

had to be there, you know?

And I could not get there fast enough.

And if you stop and really listen to the

story and how things

went, I got there too quick.

That old game of fish truck run 140 and I

had her stretched out.

What I'd done is I'd called my sergeant.

I told him a little bit of a white lie.

I said, "Hey, sergeant, I know what's up.

I'm pretty close.

Can I come help?"

Well, I was game warden close.

And I don't know if you see game wardens,

you never see game

wardens, that's how close I was.

I was over an hour away.

And he said, "Yeah, get up

here as fast as you can."

And I was like,

"Green light, here we go."

You just gave me permission to run lights

and sirens as fast as I can.

And that's what I did.

But when I got into town, I was running

out of gas in my truck.

It was one of those moments, hey,

it's where God kind of grabbed me and

said like, "Hey, stupid, slow down.

Hang on just a second, you

pull the reins back a little bit."

And I pulled into the gas station and I

didn't even know where I was at.

It was a gut punch is what I needed, but

like a squirrel, something shiny over

here, something shiny over there.

I'm that kind of guy.

But I pulled in that gas station, I was

getting gas and I'd stopped at the

Horizon Shell Gas Station at the 275 mile

marker, had no idea.

And as I'm gassing up that truck, I

realized where I'm at.

And I see two officers down.

I was right there at the crime scene.

It was right in front of me.

And it was a humbling moment.

There was also a moment of,

this is real.

This isn't training, this is real life.

This is what you've prepared for.

Get your mind right and get in the fight.

And when I pulled out of that gas

station, I drove over that overpass to

look down on that crime scene.

And I'm gonna tell you, it put a fire, a

burn in my soul that

I've never felt before.

And I get adrenaline running right now,

just thinking about it.

And I remember

thinking, we gotta fix this.

Cops were fixers.

That's what we are.

As a cop, you're there to fix something.

When you're called to the

scene, you had to fix something.

And I remember you through your rifle

across your chest and you slung your

rifle and left that gas station and you

decided you were

going to go into the hunt.

Yeah, I was hunting.

Well, a game war is a hunter.

He hunts people.

He hunts the hunter.

He's the ultimate

hunter, a game war, yes.

And I'd honestly put that

rifle on 40 minutes before.

When I pulled over on the side of the

road and got the green light to go, I

started preparing myself

and I put an old vest on.

I didn't have my good vest on because

that morning I got up and it was hot and

I didn't want to wear it.

I thought, I don't need that.

And I left it at the house.

But luckily I have enough equipment in my

truck for everybody.

And I put one of my old vest on and I

pulled that rifle down and I slung it,

hung it right here, started driving.

And when I left that gas

station, you're exactly right.

It was time to fix this.

And as I was waiting, man, I had my hand

on my rifle the whole time.

I'm hunting.

I'm looking for a

stolen white church van.

That's what they put it out as, that's

what I was looking for.

Yeah, crazy.

And I'll tell you what, and I just wanna

say it just flat out straight as it is.

You went on the hunt and you dispatched

two pieces of shit to the greatest depths

of hell, just where they believe, just

where we all believe they deserve it and

where they definitely will live the rest

of their evil lives.

Yeah, their evil will not torment anyone

else here on Earth, that's for sure.

You know, Mike, I'm confused though.

You mentioned you were an hour away when

you first got the call.

I assume that was the two cops that had

been shot and killed.

And apparently nobody knew exactly where

these murderers had gone at that point.

There was a couple hours

where they kind of were,

disappeared and now

everybody's looking for them.

Is that when you

decided to get to the chase?

And why, I'm just aghast really that if

you were able to get there, from an hour

away, why weren't other

officers already on the scene?

Why hadn't they

already dealt with these two?

What was the delay?

Well, it's the same in every one of these

mass incidences you see across the US, no

matter which one, if it's Pulse Nightclub

or the Sikh Temple shooting or the

bombing in San Bernardino.

The biggest breakdown in law

enforcement is communication.

And incorrect communication and

information is the death of a cop, is

what it boils down to.

That's what gets cops killed.

And that was a breakdown that day.

The information that they were putting

out is you're looking for

a stolen white church van

with a house of God and

prayer written on the side of it.

So you figure, picture that in your mind.

What do you see?

Well, those 15 passenger forward vans

with a house of God and

prayer written on the side, right?

That's what you think of as a church van.

What we were looking for was a dirty

white piece of crap

wore out Plymouth Voyager.

Nothing of the sorts that we were told.

So everybody's out hunting a church van

where this little van is

sneaking around through town.

Nobody's paying any attention to it.

And they're hiding in

the Walmart parking lot.

They were there twice,

not just once, but twice.

They were there right after the shooting

where the boy went in.

He was in there for

15, 20 minutes shopping.

The dad was outside and a patrol unit

drives right by, never seizing because

that's not what he's looking for.

That's not the

information that he was given.

If you would have said, you're looking

for a piece of crap, trashy little white

van, yeah, we'd have found it quicker.

But we're looking for a church van with a

house of God and prayer

written on the side of it.

And it all falls back.

The breakdown where it

happened was in the 911 system.

If we would have stopped and had the

fortitude to thought to

check the calls, the 911 calls,

investigate those a little deeper,

they didn't really have time to do that.

We're Monday morning

quarterbacking this — really bad.

And I'm not trying to

say they did stuff wrong.

Don't get me wrong here.

I'm just saying things if we could have

done would have been different.

But the guy describes the van is just a

plain white van in the 911 call.

And what happens is the dispatchers run

the plates and it comes back to the house

of God and prayer and a van.

So they start putting

out the information.

You're looking for a van, house of God

and prayer on the side of it.

So that's where everything

went really wrong for us.

And at what point did it evolve though?

Where did it go from that

white van to the actual van?

It didn't until they

started shooting officers again.

In the Walmart.

In the Walmart parking lot.

So when W.A.

Wren and Sheriff Dick Busby pull in and I

had conversations with them, they didn't

know this was a van either.

This van turns out off of row 12 where

another 911 call had called in and just

said, "Hey, there's a

dude acting weird on row 12.

He's putting aluminum

foil on these windows."

And it kind of sparked the attention.

Wait a minute, what are they doing?

They're putting sunscreens up.

That's what they were trying to do.

They were trying to

blend in in the Walmart.

That was the second time they were there.

So when the sheriff and the chief deputy

pull in, this van goes to pull out,

there's not a green arrow above them

going, "Hey, here's your bad guys.

These are your bad guys."

And they just pull up in a head-on

traffic stop and are shot immediately.

And luckily for me, I'm on the

other end of the parking lot.

I hear the 911 call come out.

Suspects are spotted in row 12 as I'm

driving by Walmart, perfect timing.

Here we go again with the

doors opening and closing for me.

And I pulled in at the parking lot.

So as I turn right in front of

the doors, the gunfire starts.

So there is a green arrow or a red arrow

for me pointing at the van.

These are the bad guys.

Here they are right in front of you.

And you cranked up your truck.

How fast were you going when you zipped

across that Walmart parking lot and

rammed into their van and you're firing

through your windshield?

I honestly could not tell

you how fast I was going.

State police estimates with damages to

the vehicles and the surveillance videos

at about 55 miles an hour.

I didn't care how fast I was going.

I was just trying to

get up and amongst it.

Wow, and you got there quickly and you

made a crisis decision

to ram their vehicle.

That probably saved the sheriff and

deputy or under sheriff.

Yeah, you know, it did.

It took the fire away from them.

You know, in our training at Game and

Fish, they taught us to

shoot through our windshield.

So I knew going into that moment that,

hey, I'm going to shoot

through this windshield.

I don't have time to roll up, get out,

you know, and engage.

Why not just go ahead and start shooting

through the windshield?

So in my mind, I see the driver with the

door open and he's shooting in between

the A pillar and the door.

So I thought, I'm going to roll up, get

close enough and I'm going to pop him

through this windshield.

And I guess he heard me.

You see him on the video.

He kind of looks back behind him and gets

in the van starts backing up.

He wasn't retreating.

I don't believe that.

I believe he was trying to get turned

around for a head-on

confrontation with me.

What he didn't expect was me to hit him.

So when he gets in the van starts backing

up, I transitioned to,

okay, I'm going to ram you.

You know, I'm going to stop this vehicle.

You're not getting

out of this parking lot.

We're not going into a mobile

firefight risking more lives.

So that's when I made

the decision to hit them.

And, you know, they're

backing straight up towards me.

I thought I'm just going to ram you as

hard as I can and,

you know, go from there.

There at the last second

that they had kind of turns

and, you know, Michael Bay, he ruined me.

He thought I'm going

to run into this dude.

He's going to roll over and blow up.

Cause that's what

Michael Bay's taught us.

You know, you've been in the movie.

You know how it works.

In the movies.

Yeah.

I thought I'm going to ram you or you'll

roll over and blow up.

Well, he didn't.

It was immediate.

You know, he, driver turns around with a,

what I know now as a Taurus judge,

it looked like an RPG when you're looking

down my angry eye of it.

And that's where I engaged my first two

rounds to the front windshield.

Here again,

the guardian angel.

I hit the steering wheel, bent the

steering wheel on my truck with my body

and was thrown into the air conditioner

control system, which

dead center of the truck.

And that's where I fired my first two

rounds, dead center of the windshield.

That's where the two rounds

struck the driver in the face.

I knew the fight was over with and I

started taking the incoming rounds.

Well, what he was trying to do is shoot

the driver's compartment

where I should have been sitting.

And luckily for me, I'm dead center in

the truck and the angles, all the bullets

are kind of coming at

an angle across my body.

So that's why I didn't

take a full head on bullet.

I took shrapnel and I had a jacket, piece

of the jacket of the metal in my hip,

but the rest of it was just shrapnel and

plastic and glass and just crap flying

through the truck, taking 12 rounds of AK

through the windshield.

You can imagine how much crap was flying.

I put 30 rounds of 223

back through the windshield.

So there was a lot of particles flying

through the truck for seven days.

Lot of blasting, man, that's

just some crazy, crazy shit.

But I'll tell you what,

after all of that, Mike,

what's the most memorable experience

after that incident as far as somebody

that said something to you, called you,

wrote you a letter, approached you,

what's the most memorable thing?

Oh, wow,

man, there's so many.

There's so many, I think probably Bobby

Paudert coming to the scene

and hugging me.

I'd say that one

probably stands out the most.

Just at that same day,

right after the incident.

Yeah, yeah, it was right after that.

And now my memories blurred, like I said

earlier, but I don't remember if it was

before I went to the

hospital or after I got back.

I think it was after I got back from the

hospital because once they released me,

it was a few hours after the shooting,

they cleaned me up, so

I glued my head back up.

The wife at the time, I

told her, I said, "Hey,

run me up to Walmart, I need to get some

stuff out of my truck."

I wasn't thinking, I wasn't gonna be able

to get anywhere near that truck.

I remember pulling up on that scene and

the reality set in

real quick of this is bad.

Of my thought patterns, well, I'm gonna

get fired for this one for sure.

I just shot two people in Walmart parking

lot, broad daylight,

this isn't gonna go well.

And when I walked up on scene, I remember

it was like the record stopped and

everybody turned around and looked at me

and I thought, yep, I'm

going to jail, here we go.

But everybody turned around and looked at

you because they were all going, wow.

I didn't see it that way at the time, but

yeah, I thought this is bad.

Mike, what are you most proud of?

What are you most proud of in your life?

Oh, well, you know, my

family is what I'm most proud of.

Family, yeah, and I am proud that I was

able to rise to the occasion, you know,

because in these critical incidents,

you're gonna do one of two things.

You're either gonna fall to your level of

training or you're gonna

rise to your level of training.

You know, that's on you.

You gotta be the decider of that.

Luckily for me, I was able to rise to my

level of training and it's not

been a one and done situation.

I've been in multiple situations where,

you second guess yourself sometimes you

think, dang, could I do it again?

I think I could do it again, but could I?

I've been tried and true,

you know, quite a few times.

Matter of fact, there's a t-shirt at Tent

City that said, send me on it.

I didn't buy it.

I was like, no,

I've been to Tent City.

You don't want these stuff anymore.

They already sent you, yes.

I still go, but yeah,

let's let some of these

younger guys do it now.

Mike, as we get ready to close, an

amazing story, but I've gotta ask you, so

many officers that have been in officer

involved shootings that have maybe had to

take the life of another

human being as you did,

they deservedly so, but nevertheless,

it's still always with you that you had

to take another human life and you

referred to that earlier.

A lot of those officers

quit the profession, right?

They don't wanna go back.

They can't go back.

You did.

And you not only went back, but here you

are, what, 16 years later, and now you're

a sheriff and you've still got many more

years probably in you in the law

enforcement profession.

Why did you make that

decision to go back?

You know, I had a buddy that was with me

through a lot of that

and we were doing training.

And he told me, cause I

was considering getting out.

And he said, look, he said, the story

that you have is powerful.

And he said, you're helping a lot of

other cops and cops wanna hear from cops.

They don't wanna hear from

has-beens or things like that.

And that really motivated me.

Okay, you know, if I wanna continue my

story and continue helping other

officers, you gotta stay in the game.

You know, you gotta stay relevant.

You gotta stay part of it.

And that's what kept me

going for a long time, honestly.

You know, I wanna make sure that I can do

everything I can to help

save officers as long as I can.

You know, as long as somebody wants to

hear the story, I'm gonna tell it.

And that's been the

driving factor for years.

Love it.

Last question.

When people see your truck in the

National Law Enforcement Museum and hear

that story, when they see the names of

Brandon Paudert and Bill Evans on the

National Law

Enforcement Officers Memorial,

what would you like people to take away

from that experience?

That's somebody's brother,

son, father.

Those aren't just names.

Every one of those names,

those are not just names.

Those are lives.

Those are people's family.

But these guys, these are real people.

These are real people that put their

lives out there to save other lives.

And don't ever forget that.

Don't just walk by.

Yeah, there's a name,

there's a name, there's a name.

Every one of those names have a story of

a lifetime attached to them.

And if it touches you, read up on them.

They're all on the website.

Most of them are, I'm sure.

Go on there, pull that

name up, read their story.

Find out what really

went on in their lives.

And your story, Mike, is an inspiration

for many, many people and

will be for years to come.

I hope so.

I hope it helps a lot of people.

That's for sure.

And I thank you guys.

Y'all have been, you two guys

have been a major part of this.

And I appreciate

everything y'all have done for me.

That's for sure.

You're the man, baby.

Yeah, it's been our honor and our

pleasure to get to know Mike Neal.

And I'm so glad we got to share your

story here today with our audience.

Mike, there's a inscription on the

National Law

Enforcement Officers Memorial.

And I know you've seen it many times.

It says, "It is not how these officers

died "that made them heroes.

"It is how they lived."

And I think that's such an important

sentiment that, okay, we're gonna always

honor people like Bill

Evans and Brandon Paudert.

They're gonna live forever because we're

gonna continue to see their names on a

national monument and we're gonna go

across the street to the National Law

Enforcement Museum and hear

their stories and see your truck.

And know that there are men and women

among us who are willing to risk their

lives, put their lives at risk for the

safety and the protection of others.

And that's such an important part of that

National Law Enforcement Officers

Memorial and that museum experience.

And I hope if you haven't already visited

the memorial and the

museum, I hope you will do so.

Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Chris, for being a member of

our audience because it is inspirational.

It will change you the way you look at

your own life to know that there are men

and women that have laid

down their lives for others.

And Mike, I think your story is the

epitome of law

enforcement and what it means to me.

The men and women whose courage and

compassion for others

is a moment that is just so

amazing to even think about.

This is the conclusion of Heroes Behind

the Badge, today's podcast.

It is produced by Citizens Behind the

Badge, the leading voice of the American

people in support of law enforcement.

And I hope you go to our website,

behindthebadge.org and you'll hear

stories like Mike Neal's, you'll hear

stories of the men and women who've made

the ultimate sacrifice and you'll learn

how you can support the men and women in

law enforcement by becoming a supporter

of Citizens Behind the Badge.

So Mike Neal, thank you, my friend.

It's been an honor and

a pleasure as always.

Yes, sir, thank y'all so much.

(Upbeat Music)