Heroes Behind the Badge

About Heroes Behind the Badge

From the front lines to the final call, Heroes Behind the Badge brings you the untold stories of America's law enforcement community. Led by Craig Floyd, who spent 34 years working alongside police officers across the nation, alongside veteran facilitator Dennis Collins and law enforcement expert Bill Erfurth, this podcast cuts through misconceptions to reveal the true nature of modern policing. Our dynamic trio brings unique perspectives to each episode: Craig shares deep insights from his decades of experience and relationships within law enforcement, Dennis guides conversations with meticulous research and natural flow, and Bill adds engaging commentary that makes complex law enforcement topics accessible to all listeners. Each episode features in-depth conversations with law enforcement professionals, sharing their firsthand experiences, challenges, and triumphs. Drawing from extensive research and real-world experience, we explore the realities faced by the over 800,000 officers who serve and protect our communities every day. From dramatic accounts of crisis response to quiet moments of everyday heroism, our show illuminates the human stories behind the badge. We dive deep into the statistics, policies, and practices that shape modern law enforcement, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of what it truly means to serve in law enforcement today. Whether you're a law enforcement professional, a concerned citizen, or someone seeking to understand the complexities of modern policing, Heroes Behind the Badge provides the context, insights, and authentic perspectives you won't find anywhere else. Join us weekly as we honor those who dedicate their lives to keeping our communities safe, one story at a time. Presented by Citizens Behind the Badge, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and advocating for law enforcement professionals across the United States. Join over 126,000 Americans who have already signed our Declaration of Support for law enforcement at behindbadge.org.

Publisher

Citizens Behind the Badge

Category

government · news · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

17 Jan 2025

Latest episode

8 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

76 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   8 Oct 2026

   Dave Hinners — The Arrests, the Trial, and What It Cost | Part 2

   Dave Hinners was a Wichita patrol officer, not quite three years on the job, when he became the first officer to speak with the lone survivor of the December 2000 Wichita Massacre. Today he is the executive director of the United States Deputy Sheriff's Association. In this second of two parts, he picks up with hosts Dennis Collins and Craig Floyd the morning after. By nine o'clock that morning, a 911 caller had spotted a man matching the description dragging a big-screen TV across an apartment parking lot, and the first brother was in custody. Hinners explains that the killers had gone back to the house after the shootings to take what was left, and he still wonders what might have happened if the survivor had seen an unlit farmhouse 200 yards away. The second brother was arrested after his own girlfriend recognized him and made a phone call. Both were in custody within 24 hours. At trial, the survivor testified the way she had spoken to Hinners in the emergency room: strong, credible and unafraid. He explains why he deliberately never spoke with her again before he testified, and why he still thinks about her. Without her, he says, the case would have depended on another witness or DNA, and it would not have moved as fast. He also describes the crime scene work: a lead investigator trained in archaeology who had the scene gridded and every section collected in its own drum. Craig Floyd then asks what the case cost him. Hinners calls it one of his demons. He went back on shift the next night after about an hour and a half of sleep. He credits his department's stress debriefings, a close-knit shift and his wife, and argues that officers have to talk about what they carry rather than lock it away. The episode closes on his work with the United States Deputy Sheriff's Association, which provides free training and safety equipment to underfunded agencies and a $1,000 benefit to the family of every officer who dies in the line of duty. Craig Floyd, who serves on its board, explains how the conversation led to this episode. New episodes drop every other Tuesday and Thursday. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more at https://heroesbehindthebadge.com. © 2026 Citizens Behind the Badge. All Rights Reserved.

2. 

   6 Oct 2026

   Dave Hinners — First Officer at the Wichita Massacre | Part 1

   Dave Hinners was not quite three years into his career with the Wichita Police Department in December 2000. Today he is the executive director of the United States Deputy Sheriff's Association. In this first of two parts, he tells hosts Dennis Collins and Craig Floyd what happened on the night he became the first officer to speak with the lone survivor of the Wichita Massacre. The call came in mid-December, in a foot and a half of snow. Dispatch described it first as an assault, then a stabbing, then a shooting. At the house, Hinners found a young woman wrapped in a blanket, bleeding from the back of her head. She had walked about a mile through the snow after being shot, hiding from passing cars in case the killers were coming back. A plastic hair clip had deflected the bullet just enough to keep it from penetrating. He followed her to the hospital, and she never stopped talking. Hinners calls her the best witness he has ever had. She knew she was the only one left, and the only one who could solve the case. Over the next several hours he filled a case book, relayed descriptions of both suspects and a stolen pickup truck, and eventually had to tell her that none of her friends had survived. An off-duty partner with a broken hand wrote up the stolen-truck report from the hospital. By the next morning, a 911 call about a man dragging a big-screen TV across an apartment parking lot led officers to the first of the two brothers. Along the way, Craig Floyd reads the names of the victims — Brad Heyka, Heather Muller, Aaron Sander, Jason Befort and Ann Walenta — and Hinners describes trying to process what one human being could do to another while still doing the job in front of him. He stayed with her until he was relieved the next morning, then went in to write up the cases. In Part 2, how the second brother was found, the survivor's testimony at trial, and what the case still costs the officer who was there at the start. New episodes drop every Tuesday and Thursday. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more at https://heroesbehindthebadge.com. © 2026 Citizens Behind the Badge. All Rights Reserved.

3. 

   24 Sept 2026

   Bill Bratton — Sweet Alice, the Bronx, and What the Job Costs | Part 2

   Bill Bratton led six police departments over fifty years, including the NYPD twice and the LAPD from 2002 to 2009. In the second half of this conversation, the policy arguments give way to the people who shaped him — and to the parts of the job that no one applies for. It opens in Watts. When Bratton arrived in Los Angeles, his community relations sergeant told him to go see Sweet Alice, a sharecropper's daughter from the South who had become the driving force of one of the city's most distressed neighborhoods. She once stood up at a community meeting and told an activist attacking the new chief to shut up. When Bratton left the city in 2009, she told him why her neighborhood had trusted him, in three words he still calls the highest honor of his career. From there he turns to training, and to the difference between the departments he ran. The NYPD he took over in the 1990s was reactive and discouraged; the LAPD was proud, self-reliant and permanently short of officers, working with a fraction of the numbers he believes it needed. His own academy in Boston in 1970 lasted seven weeks. He argues the country still undertrains its police, and that the cost falls on officers first. Asked for his best moments, he describes lowering his gun in front of an armed man holding a bank teller hostage, and the 2007 MacArthur Park crisis he says was his finest hour as a chief. Then the worst. For Bratton it is not a single moment but every officer he had to bury, and one night in 1994 when a young officer's widow arrived at a Bronx hospital still in her waitress uniform. He has carried what he heard in that hallway for thirty-two years. He closes with Steven McDonald, the NYPD detective paralyzed in 1986 who publicly forgave the teenager who shot him, and who rode 235 miles by ambulance to attend Bratton's father's funeral. Across both parts, this is a portrait of a leader who changed American policing and remains unsentimental about what that took. New episodes drop every other Tuesday and Thursday. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more at https://heroesbehindthebadge.com. © 2026 Citizens Behind the Badge. All Rights Reserved.

Who has been a guest on Heroes Behind the Badge

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Randy Sutton
• Jan Scruggs
• Craig Floyd

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

5 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 42 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

70

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

32

Contact Heroes Behind the Badge

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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