Austin PD LODD: A Wife's Perspective - Kim Pastore

This is a very special episode of The Debrief. My guest today is Kim Pastore. Kim's husband George Pastore, was killed November 11th, 2023 while attempting to rescue hostages with the Austin SWAT team. This was a case we covered previously and debriefed with the team. However, Kim has graciously offered to sit down, and debrief the incident from her perspective, to walk us through what it was like starting with the chief of police knocking on her door, all the way through, the services. funerals, and everything that followed.

This is an episode we've wanted to do for a long time on The Debrief to look at the spouse's perspective in a Line of Duty death, and also look at the best practices that an agency, a team and individual officers can engage, in to make this process as easy as possible for the family members of the officer injured or killed in the Line of Duty.

It's difficult to overemphasize how brave Kim is sitting down to dig through the most traumatic event of her life with me. On a personal level, I am unbelievably impressed by her bravery, her perseverance, and the way that she has coped with this event, and turned this tragedy into something positive with the George Pastore Foundation, and with her efforts to try and improve Line of Duty deaths. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Kim Pastore.

My name is Jon Becker.

For the past four decades, I've dedicated my life to protecting tactical operators. During this time, I've worked with many of the world's top law enforcement and military units. As a result, I've had the privilege of working with the amazing leaders who take teams into the world's most dangerous situations.

The goal of this podcast is to share their stories in hopes of making us all better leaders, better thinkers, and better people.

Welcome to The Debrief!

Jon Becker: Kim, thanks so much for being here with me.

Kim Pastore: Thanks for having me, Jon.

Jon Becker: I guess, it's probably best to start with why we're doing this. I think somebody who is watching this would think “My God, like why is she reliving the worst day of her life, and why, Jon are you having this conversation?” I think from my side of it as a guy that is constantly dealing with people in trauma. I have, I would say, begun to realize but have realized for quite a while that we don't get it right. Most of the time, we don't get it right. Departments don't handle it correctly, people don't handle it correctly. I think a lot of times, it's just because it's so novel, it's something that could happen, but nobody ever expected it to happen.

I think part of the reason that I wanted to sit down with you is because you've been through something that hopefully nobody ever goes through again, but somebody's going to go through again. You've seen the other side of this. I really wanted to get your lessons learned, in the hopes that the next team that goes through what you went through, learns from the good, and the bad of the incident. So I think that's kind of my intent. Tell me why you wanted to do this.

Kim Pastore: The morning that this happened. I instinctively wanted things that I didn't necessarily get. After learning about the process, and really they say, you don't want to relive this trauma, but what you don't know is that we relive it all day every day, and those constant loops of what happened. I find myself stuck on parts of the loops where those are the moments that we maybe could have done a little better.

I think from a human perspective, sometimes that emotional intelligence maybe isn't there, and because you're dealing with police officers, they come from a place of protecting people, and then the protection becomes kind of leaving things out or doing what they might think is best because it's hard to put yourself in the shoes of someone when you haven't experienced the same thing. The same as I couldn't have understood, what it was going to feel like or be like.

So my goal with you and you giving me this opportunity, is that we can hopefully provide the people that have to make these notifications. Nobody wants to do that. That's not the most fun job at a department, but those people that do that like any other position or any other task that the more information you have on how to do it, the better that you can. You can hopefully avoid adding additional trauma to the worst day of someone's life. It's not intentional but it's the same thing without the tools to do it the best that you can. How can you expect anybody to do that?

So I think that I want to do it in the hopes that if one department makes a small change, and we all want to say, let's hope it never happens again but hope's not a plan. Unfortunately, it's going to happen and when it does that the people that go to make this notification have the best shot of doing it the best that they can. So that there's not more trauma added to an already very traumatic experience.

Jon Becker: I can tell you that as a guy who sits down with people and talks about the worst day of their life on both sides of the event, nobody ever gets it. I don't think there's a right answer, I think there are a lot of wrong answers. I think that sometimes what we do intuitively, what our instincts are as to how to handle these kinds of situations, aren't the right answer.

So from my perspective. I'm looking at this conversation the way I look at any other debrief, the point here is not to second guess anything that was done it's not to to look back and go, "Oh man your agency didn't get this right or they should have done this or they should have done that." It's saying, "All right, you've been through this traumatic event, what could have made it better?" Where could we avoid causing injury that was unintentionally caused? Where could we improve future actions? This was a traumatic event for everybody that was involved. George was obviously a ridiculously popular guy, the team adored him. Everybody that's involved is traumatized here. So I just want to from the beginning make clear that the intent here is not to second guesses, not to criticize but to go okay from your perspective what happened, what did you want, what did you get, where was there opportunity that next time would absolutely.

Kim Pastore: I will say that I did it in preparation for our conversation. Sometimes you just need I don't want to call it validation, but maybe because you don't have a gauge for. There's times when I've often thought, “Did I act appropriately? Did I do what I wanted that was appropriate?” So I did speak with people who this is what they do, they either do Line of Duty death notifications across their state, or they are trauma therapists or peer support, something along those lines. So there were a lot of things that I intuitively felt that did align with best practices, or experiences that they've had where they saw the best outcome if that's a way to put it.

I think it's more just about best practices as it relates to how humans handle trauma, and sometimes just giving somebody a way to go, okay you might have the spouse that freaks out and screams and then one that completely shuts down, and then where do we go from that, and what's the fallout, and how can we appropriately respond to maybe the top three typical responses for this. As officers' wives we all are kind of a different breed anyway. So really kind of fine-tuning what that looks like and what we think some of those common responses would be, and how to apply what we do to that. Instead of thinking what do I think is best for this person that I've never met in my life.

Jon Becker: Yes. It's not a bad idea to preface feeling having talked to you, and prepared for this conversation, you are an abnormal badass. Nobody wants to look at their trauma. This was 14/15 months ago. This is not 10 years ago. We're not far from the anniversary of it. Your willingness in our conversations to lean into this for the good of the next wife or the department is just exemplary.

I cannot stress enough to people that are listening, if you don't seem as emotional as people would expect you to be about some of this stuff, it's not because it isn't emotional, it's because you have managed to fight through this thing in a way that honestly astounds me every time we talk.

Kim Pastore: Thank you. It's not easy. My clavicles are tingling right now. My neck's tight, the heart pounds, and it's not being nervous to speak to you. I do find though that talking about it as horrible as it is sometimes it does release that energy. I think it's just a buildup of that trauma that is stored in the body, and I just learned about it. I've been trying desperately to understand grief. It's an insane human condition that is very hard to understand why it's so painful, and why it lasts so long. We can talk about different things in our lives and fight or flight. We all kind of have a good understanding of why we have those. We used to be chased by tigers. All the things that maybe we've evolved out of but still have as a human condition. You just have to flip it. I just try to flip it, and go to gratitude. George has put me in a beautiful community of people that have been so supportive, and I just try to go to the positive. If I'm going to make the choice to move forward, how can I do that in the best possible way, and to help others, which is what he spent his life doing.

It's a tribute to him and it's him living through me. I just hope we can just help one other person or wife or department. Even for the department to people that notify, my heart goes out to them too. I can't imagine what it must have felt like, and just watching the chief take that deep breath before she had to say the words that came out of her mouth, I was just like my heart broke for her. Even if I can just help anybody else, it makes everything that happened to George worthwhile and it makes his sacrifice mean something, and so that's really my motivation.

Jon Becker: It's an extension of your work with the foundation.You created the George Pastore Foundation to help guys train, and make them better and make them safer, and this is one one more step in that direction.

Kim Pastore: Absolutely.

Jon Becker: Let's walk through it November 11th 2025, how does your day start?

Kim Pastore: Well I didn't know the date. It's actually a beautiful day 11-11 and if you look at it people make wishes on that day, and I've tried to look at it that way but for me it was a Saturday morning. Lucky for me George worked 2 to 12 on patrol Friday night and so it was very unusual for him to get off at a decent time. I think he got off around 12:30 and said he was on his way. 1:00 in the morning is early for us because he works nights, and so I thought well good i'm going to wait up. I'm so grateful that I got to see him, we got to chat, he got in bed, we talked for a couple minutes, and the call came out shortly after I think 3:39 ish something like that.

So he always gets up, he never complains about a call. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, he was laying on the foot of the bed, he got dressed, came over kissed-kissed here, it kind of missed. I asked him for a better one, he gave me a kiss and he said, "Love you. See you in a bit." He always says "See you in a bit." He never said goodbye. It was his thing, he just always said, "See you in a bit." He sets off and I remember thinking, "Well I leave for work at 9:00, so I probably won't see him." SWAT calls typically take forever. I thought I wouldn't see him before he got back and went back to sleep and it wasn't shortly.

It was very quickly thereafter that I heard a loud knock on the door, and I actually thought it might have been an Amazon delivery, the kind that you order during the day and they come between 4:00 and 8:00 in the morning. But they don't typically knock, and then I heard it get louder. I still didn't think it could be that and I heard the dogs barking. I thought maybe it was a neighbor trying to-- your brain wake up, your brain tries to figure it out. I walk to the door, and we have a window to the right of our door and I just looked out the window and saw two lines of officers. The chief, regular patrol officers dressed in there, and a couple SWAT guys, and they were just in two lines. My knees got weak, my heart started to pound, and I sort of shut the door, I just remember saying, "No, there's no way." And I thought, "Maybe he was just in a car accident but why are there so many people here?" And it's amazing how many thoughts you can have in such a short amount of time.

We talked about this, and it always would have been his support officer that would have been there to tell me something happened with George, and take me to George; that was kind of we talked about it. I just didn't understand why there were so many people. I could just see on their faces something was wrong, obviously.

Then the chief, I could see her lip was just quivering a little bit, and she said, “Kim I'm so sorry, George was shot and killed. Sorry, in a SWAT hostage rescue call this morning”. I said, “This is impossible. He just left.” And I don't remember much. I just remember everybody coming into my house and I think I went to put better clothes on and I think I immediately asked and I've had to ask people what happened. There's so much I don't remember and I try to get people to help me to remember it because your brain loops and loops and loops, and you sort of fill in the gaps. I just remember thinking, “There's so many people here. Why is there so many people here?”

Naturally as anyone would, I wanted to be taken to George. I wanted to go to George. It was almost as if no one anticipated that would be something I wanted which is so strange to me because what else would I want and what else would anybody want. There's a lot of unanswered questions about what happened, how did this happen and you think about all this training. I never worried about him on SWAT how in the world could something like this happen, and then of course was anybody else hurt or killed. Then I instantly thought, "Oh my god if George had to come home, and tell me one of the guys was killed." Then my heart broke and shattered a million times more thinking of all the guys that were there.

I just said, "Can you please take me to George?" I kept asking by name for his support officer. And as it turned out they said that I couldn't go to the hospital and that I couldn't see him. They didn't want me to see him. The victim's services person who I'm still in touch with regularly, she was amazing and she called the hospital, and they said the ME said, “No, she can't see him”. “We're so sorry Kim, they're saying no”, which I just didn't understand, and I just wanted to see his pinky or anything because they said because of the trauma but I couldn't see him and well surely his finger, his toe anything. I could see anything, and the answer just kept being no. They told me that his support officer, and his best friend on patrol was at the hospital. I thought, “Well at least if he's with him… it's hard not to be upset about the fact that I wish I would have just gone but you're so numb.” Not numb. It's the strangest feeling.

They told me I couldn't go. So the type of person that I am, I'm all right, what's the next step, what do we have to do. I don't know seven, eight, nine, ten people were in my home, everyone's just kind of looking at you. I think I even said, "Should I make coffee? Does anybody need water?" I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do here. All I want is to be with George. I didn't care what he looked like. I wouldn't have cared about blood or none of it. Obviously, if he was shot I have a good idea of what he may have looked like. I just wanted to be in his presence. There was some talk of them doing CPR on the way to the hospital, so then you're wondering did he suffer, did he know I wasn't there. A lot goes through your mind.

I think when we kind of just resolved ourselves to the fact that we weren't going to get to go to the hospital they said Felix was with him and Felix was asking where I was-- Oh I didn't mean to really say his name, but he's asking where I was, and we're going back and forth and it felt like an eternity Jon. It felt like people were in my house for hours, and then they said, "Do you have a friend that we can call or go get?"

So two of the guys I think went to try to get one of my friends who lived close by, and then we called my other friend who then drove to my house and it felt like it took an hour, and people are still in the house. I think at some point, the chief finally had to leave to do her news conference, and ask if it was okay to release his name, and then who else do we call, and the family. It's just too much. It's just too much. So already right off the bat, all I want is to be with him. I don't care, release his name, tell who you want. I need to be with him right now. So that couldn't happen and so more people just kept coming to the house.

Now a wonderful sergeant with the department brought his three support, he had two, you assigned two, but brought three of his guys he had gone through academy with that I personally knew. Looking back, and this might sound strange, but I didn't know anybody in that group of people. Sometimes you just need someone to give you a hug, and there wasn't a hug. There wasn't anybody who knew me. They all looked like deer in headlights because they were traumatized themselves. So they sent people all of which knew George, loved George. If you knew him you loved him, it was just the way it went. Now they're in my home which looking back I think now they're seeing where George lives, and seeing the reality of his real life, and his wife and our love and our pictures, and my note to him, “Don't forget your radio”. “I love you”. And his coffee ready to go, and all the things that are our home and our wedding photos, and all of those things.

I have to imagine for them that was a probably a shocking. I don't know. I can only imagine.

Jon Becker: It's got to be. It's got to be traumatic.

Kim Pastore: It's what brings the human, and then you get in there and this is real.

Jon Becker: They're having to confront face to face with the trauma that's left behind. They're seeing the effect it has on you.

Kim Pastore: How do you not think of your own wife?

Jon Becker: Oh yeah.

Kim Pastore: You're still in shock as to what happened. One of the guys still had blood on him from helping one of the other officers that was shot. This is too much. It's already too much what they do in their everyday life that this is a reality. This is almost like crossing the line of trauma for them because the only way to cope with what you do all day every day as an officer is to compartmentalize, and push it down and now…

Jon Becker: You're not pushing it down.

Kim Pastore: No. I don't know how much further you want me to go in the day, and then the day just fills up and there's more people and more questions, and all I'm needing and all my insides and heart are screaming for is to be with George, and I never got that I never got that chance.

Jon Becker: And is that because they're trying to protect you? Is that because there's a criminal investigation? What do you think is underlying that inability?

Kim Pastore: I think there's a little bit of both. I think we all have spoken about it since then. I think because police officers tend to be so black and white, they thought I was going to go in, pull off a sheet and look at everything. Now I think they understand I just needed to be in his presence, and his energy even if it just meant to hold his pinky to see it. I said, "You can show me any part of his body and I will know that it's him." Because you have to remember another officer has been brought to the hospital as well and undergoing surgery. So in your head you're think, "Maybe they're wrong." You don't just go, "Okay." I just kept waiting in my head. I thought, "They're going to say "No-no-no. I'm so sorry but we were wrong.” They revived him from CPR we're going to take you now because there's just no way this isn't supposed to happen. It isn't especially on a SWAT call.

Jon Becker: Yes.

Kim Pastore: So you just have this weird strange hope that they're going to, and I would say I'm not even mad if you messed up and you have to turn this around and tell me he's okay.

I do think there is a level of protection for sure, and them not wanting me to see it and them only knowing how they think they would feel if their wife saw them, and what they might want. So once they realized it wasn't that I wanted to see his injuries I just needed to be in his presence right whether it be for closure or to see because your brain can't believe it. Someone is just telling you something. It could be a lie. We don't even believe the news. We don't believe things we see on TV. I think that's where a lot of the trauma takes place, and then those people then represent they're connected to that trauma.

Jon Becker: Right.

Kim Pastore: You don't want to be connected to someone's trauma especially as you go through the week and the funeral arrangements, and all the things that happened, and people that worked with him and now we're all connected through trauma. In our case it's helped because we're all healing together but that day I would say as we get into this, and what is the biggest turning point, and the biggest thing that I would change, it would be if if the spouse wants to go to the hospital, you take the spouse to the hospital. Most of the trauma people, and therapists and people that I've talked to are say they absolutely need to go.

I was told that once the ME has the body, it's the ME’s decision, and it's their body. Texas law says that the ME makes those decisions. Again, I don't know. I think even just to have gone to the hospital, and then some people say, “That would have been traumatic”, and I thought, “Well the absolute worst thing happened”. It's hard to say in hindsight, but I think for myself and now that people who know me that would have been something that I still want and still sort of haunts me to this day. I do think there was a level of wanting to protect me there, no malicious intent at all, and everybody's heart was in the right place for sure.

It was a major critical incident for Austin for that department for SWAT. He was on Honor Guard, and Honor Guard's the one who kind of takes care of that. A lot of people knew him, so it was incredibly traumatic for everybody.

Jon Becker: I can see I would have a desire to protect you. He died in a traumatic way. It's not going to be pretty, so I would have a desire to make sure that’s not her last memory. Let's try to prevent her from seeing that because that will be better for her.

Kim Pastore: Yes.

Jon Becker: Instinctively that's what you would do but you don't stop to think about the fact that there is a part of us that just needs to know it's real.

Kim Pastore: Needs to know it's real, and your brain fills in gaps. So when you say, there's so much trauma and then you have 10 people identify a body that they think something's traumatic that actually is worse. What I'm imagining is there's nothing left of him to see right.

Jon Becker: Right.

Kim Pastore: So when you allow someone's brain to fill in gaps the unknown becomes worse.

Jon Becker: It's a horror movie. It's scary music, and the dark hallway and obviously this is all we know it's terrible, but not having a tangible memory of it or having an opportunity to see it, your brain starts to run wild with it “What are they hiding from me?”

Kim Pastore: Exactly. They're basing their decisions on what they have seen or know to be when I wouldn't want to see that, and if they told me not to look here just to have held his hand and be able to say something to him.

Everybody has a different idea about death. I've had the opportunity to be with my father, and people when they take their last breath, and there's a beauty to that too. To think about where he was and who he was with, and we honestly we don't know what that is and and it felt like a betrayal as if I wasn't with him in his worst moment, and that was a really tough pill for me to swallow because you always imagine being with your loved one, or at their bedside or holding their hand. I don't know, I think it's just the way you hope. In their line of work obviously this can happen and just try not to really think about it.

Jon Becker: Yeah. I think if there is it's hard to find a silver lining to this cloud, but if there is a silver lining. I think it was very quick. He was shot in the head.

Kim Pastore: Thank God.

Jon Becker: It was very quick.

Kim Pastore: Thank God.

Jon Becker: He probably never knew that it happened which is I guess the tiny little bit of silver tin trying to black cloud.

Kim Pastore: It took a minute to get that information though because honestly they don't know. In any kind of situation like that they can't answer a bunch of questions. They don't really have answers to when you're talking about an investigation, and a scene of that nature when so much happened. So that makes it harder too because you don't know if they are just keeping things from me, or do they really not know and now understand it. Typically if they say they don't know, they really don't or they have an idea but they don't know it to be true yet and they're trying to prevent people from spreading wrong information.

Jon Becker: The last thing you want to do is tell a woman whose husband was just killed.

Kim Pastore: Right. The wrong thing.

Jon Becker: That something that didn't happen did.

Kim Pastore: Right.

Jon Becker: It is probably you're having to very carefully vet information, and make sure everything we're saying is truthful but that takes time, and from your perspective you want to know everything right now because this just happened.

Kim Pastore: Right because it's your brain, it's nothing else. Your brain's just trying to make sense of things because what else do you do? What else do you do?

Jon Becker: Well you're trying to make sense, your entire world has changed in a split second and so your brain has to be looking to anchor it in something. You wonder what still is real, so I can see where you're going to want the information even if it's bad information.

Kim Pastore: Even to this day I still can't believe it. I still can't believe it, it's as if I'm hovering above myself. But strangely and oddly enough, you're 100% right of him going instantly, and not feeling any pain, and for him I mean if he had to pick a way all of you guys.

Jon Becker: This would have been it.

Kim Pastore: This would have been it, aside from.

Jon Becker: Protecting his teammates on a hostage rescue.

Kim Pastore: Yep exactly. If he could have had it his way I'm sure he would have been able to save the hostages, and have his teammate not get shot at all. I think we've talked about and as he had a tattoo across his chest above his heart that said “Protect my brothers, everyone goes home”. So, of course George went out with a bang, and got to get his-- that's what he lived for and he wouldn't change a thing.

Jon Becker: That’s exactly what he did. I mean it's exactly what he did. We debriefed this case weeks ago, and sitting with the team and talking with the team and going through it that's exactly what he did. So it's a little too on the nose but--

Kim Pastore: I know. I know who I married. I know who he was. It would never be a question in my mind. As a matter of fact, I was just wanting to make sure it's just the reconciliation of all the training and then this happened anyway, but the beautiful thing in talking with the guys is, it's all the training that gave him the confidence to run in there and do what he did. Without the training in what world would your brain allow you to run into a situation like that? So it was all because of the training and the trust they have in one another even in the stack not having to turn back and go, "Okay who's here do you guys got me?" They got you. It doesn't matter who's in the stack you're good to go, and that's where the training comes in. Training was so incredibly important to him.

I'm glad I figured that out sooner than later because that was a tough pill to swallow at first was all this training, all this time away to train and look at what happened, but they wouldn't have been able to do, and they executed that as far as I know and what I know about it and what I've seen and heard, almost flawlessly.

Jon Becker: They did the right thing. It's just unfortunate that in some of these situations you don't have total control.

Kim Pastore: Right.

Jon Becker: That is the ugly truth that I think probably is rationalized away to allow you to work, and to allow families to deal with this is that most of the time it's totally fine.

Kim Pastore: Most of the time.

Jon Becker: But not always.

Kim Pastore: But not always.

Jon Becker: And unfortunately you're on the receiving end of not always. So you've got these people in your house where obviously your friends have come over now. The chief to her credit that would have been a really easy knock on the door to delegate to somebody else. I will give her because she was an interim chief, if I remember correctly.

Kim Pastore: She is. I cannot say enough about her. She's been by my side every step of the way every memorial, every award. Even for the Humble Warrior Games, she dedicated herself that entire weekend to us set up with us all day at my house at 9:30 at night Saturday, helping me put the teams together for the obstacle course. The next day there are setting up. She has literally been at every single thing and by my side through all of this checks in. She is something special, a special human being, and so grateful for that. She is definitely topnotch great human being, can't say enough about her.

Jon Becker: Yeah. That would have been a really easy knock on the door to be too busy to make, so I'll give her full credit.

Kim Pastore: Full credit.

Jon Becker: What's the next significant event that happens?

Kim Pastore: So as people leave they start to go over what's going to happen. And of course now we have to make some calls right. We have to notify his family. I have to notify my boys, my friends. My brain just starts going crazy. I thought, "Oh my god we owned a karate school together in Florida." I’m thinking, "Oh my gosh the karate kids." And with each thought of telling who I have to tell my heart is just like it's just like oh my gosh. So everyone's like “Well who can I call?” And this is the type of news that people need to hear from you.

There's certain people I can say were top tier. If I can call these five people then I can get them to notify what comes after that, and then just thinking of all his firefighter he was a firefighter forever. Our whole family of friends in Florida, the karate students, and my mind is just, wow and our boys.

The victim services lady kind of kicks everybody out and I said, “I have to make some calls. I got to make some tough calls. I got to just sit down. I need to take a deep breath and I've got to start to make some calls.” We did that. I barely remember. I've had to ask those people, “Where were you when I told you what happened?” and even just to hear their stories is really hard because I got mine but all these people have to hear it for the first time, and it's truly unbelievable. This isn't the news anybody would have ever expected. And then of course the word starts to travel very quickly. APD was amazing about helping me get his family notified, and there were a lot of challenges with that. They were spread out, hard to find in Florida. None of our families are here. So you're talking about asking for their local police departments to go to the house. It's a lot of coordination and a lot of challenges to get everybody notified, and as time goes on, the last thing you want is for people to find out through social media or the wrong way, or get the wrong news. It felt very rushed and again, I'm still reeling from the knock on the door. So everything that's added on top of it, your brain's not catching up. Your brain doesn't catch up and somehow you go, you fall into whatever your default is. So if you are an organizer problem solver, get shit done kind of person that's what you're going to do. What is the next thing?

I was always just moments away from collapsing and not being able to do anything paralyzed, and it was two extremes or just keep going, get things done. Then all of a sudden your house starts to fill with more people, and then people are flying in.

The next thing for me was that I was hopefully going to get to at least see him somehow when they moved him the next day, Sunday from the medical examiner's office to the funeral home. Somehow we chose a funeral home there was one that they use for officers and so they do try to make things as easy as possible, but in that process there are so many decisions to make very quickly I guess different than a normal maybe death notification because of the publicity of this, because now it's a crime scene. Now you have the FBI come in, all these things. All the guys are on do-not-discuss orders. Some are getting their weapons taken away. They're sitting through things. There's a lot simultaneously happening time-sensitive. It feels very rushed where you feel like you need just a minute and there's no minutes, you just got to keep going.

So now my focus is going to be on Sunday getting to see George because I was still back there right. That need of mine didn't get fulfilled, well someone else is with him, someone's coming to see me, and tomorrow. I'll get to see George and so everything for me was that which also didn't really happen. So now we've got everybody flying on Saturday, which I didn't know that when you tell people that's what they do, because I didn't say please fly to me right. So now people from my Florida life are coming into my Texas life, and we've only been in Texas now four or five years at this point. So it's very disorienting, and you've got officers coming and people just coming to the house and, “What do you need?” “What do you need?” They start setting up meal trains and the flowers and the food and the people and it's a lot.

Jon Becker: All of it is good intentioned.

Kim Pastore: Yes.

Jon Becker: All of it is trying to help you and all of it is overwhelming.

Kim Pastore: 100%. You hear conversations happening, “Wait my aunt's coming from-- she's driving.” You want to say, no, tell her not to-- we don't even know what's happened. You want to say it's as if you hear these voices in your head. It's almost like you're in a dream state and it's just too much. So all I could ever do and anybody who walked in that might have more information about George, that's what I was hyper focused on. You can't eat. You can't drink. You can't sleep. You can't do any of that. You’re just hyper focused on how I get to see George, and what really happened? You have to remember at that point, I don't really-really know. I don't know if he suffered. I don't know who was with him. I don't know it takes time to figure all that out even for the guys who are on scene. You're taking time to look at body camera footage. You're talking about it, being interviewed, all of those things. So, it's almost hard to talk about now in hindsight, and trying to truly remember in those moments how disorienting it really-really was. Now I know the information that I didn't know then, but all I wanted was George and I wanted him to walk through the door. I remember saying, I don't even care if this is a joke. If he just walks in I won't be mad at anyone. I promise.

Jon Becker: Yeah, it's the bargaining. They talk about the Elizabeth Kubler Ross Five Stages of Grief: denial, acceptance, bargaining, depression.

Kim Pastore: I’ll do anything.

Jon Becker: Denial, bargaining, acceptance, depression and acceptance. Yeah you're in the bargaining portion of the program.

Kim Pastore: “Okay even if they're wrong, it's okay if everybody's wrong. He's going to come through the door. This can't really be happening. Who do you lean on when you're spiraling? Your person and your person's not there.”

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Kim Pastore: I would just always think what would he tell me. So most of the hardest moments I got through were just him telling me what I know he would say to me. He always used to say, "You're the strongest person I know." Well this one. I don't know.

Jon Becker: Definitely one of the strongest people I know Kim. I think he was right in that regard.

Kim Pastore: Golly. Then you think, “I was sleeping when he took his last breath. I'm in our bed. How could this be?” So there's a lot of guilt, but also I know I said I know who I married. I was so grateful that nobody else was killed, which was truly a miracle. You've debriefed it. You know what happened.

Anyway so we get to Sunday, so now my house is just my house stayed full till I left 8 days later to go to Florida,  we did a couple services in Florida. So of course I don't sleep that night. The house is full of people, and I'm glad everybody's there. The hostess in me, it's hard not to be a hostess and everyone's in your stuff getting your blankets, and blow-up mattresses and your pots and pans and pulling out food and taking over your space, and again all the right intentions. Being the empath that I am, everybody that walks in your house for the first time walks up to you. So I'm getting each person's initial pain of seeing me every single time over and over and over, and each person elicits a new your friend from fourth grade who you've been through everything with, and you just say, "Okay this is a different level." Friends who say, "Kim I've never even seen you cry. I don't know what to do. And your love was everything and we know how much you loved him and how much you loved.”

So every single person elicits a new stab to the heart. And it's not intentional. And then what are you going to complain that you have so many good friends right, and a beautiful social circle of people that love you and care about you and appreciated your love, and loved George.

Jon Becker: We're going to talk about some of the contradictions that you and I have talked about. There are a million contradictions in play here that I think we'll kind of dig into once we get through the timeline because it is--

Kim Pastore: Am I allowed to cuss?

Jon Becker: All you want. Knock yourself out.

Kim Pastore: Okay. It's a level of mind fuckery that is unexplainable. It is fuckery at its peak for sure.

Jon Becker: Yeah, I mean just the example you gave, everybody's coming up to you. They're expressing their sorrow, and trying to be helpful and in the process tearing your guts out. You don't want them to leave you alone, but you kind of need to be alone.

Kim Pastore: Right. There was no moment-- and I refer back to that hug, and I think if everyone can just think what happens with your daughter, your wife, anything, you say, “Oh this this day is terrible”, and you say, “Come here”, what happens when you just put your arms around someone, and that's when you can. It's hard when you have all these people, none of which you know. It took hours before I finally had people that I could just holy shit, this happened, this sucks so bad.

Jon Becker: Because having all these people that you don't know in your house, you are going to feel the need to put up a front.

Kim Pastore: Right.

Jon Becker: You're going to try to be a good host, or try not to come unraveled and turn into a crumpled heap, and all of those things. In the process you're also not allowed to turn into a crumpled heap.

Kim Pastore: Because they have to ask questions even just is it okay. You have to ask those questions who we can call. They don't know. I don't even know who you can call, and say, “Okay call her”, and then where can we go. It's a friend that has a code to her gate. What's the code to the gate? I don't even know how I knew it, but they have to ask those questions in order to help you. It's weird.

Jon Becker: We'll talk a little bit about lessons learned, but just while we're on this topic what would have made it better.

Kim Pastore: That's easy, every officer in every department should have a death plan literally as horrible as that sounds, they have death binders now, people plan these things out. It's the one thing that we know can happen regardless of where you are in your life. This plan says, “I officer whoever you want…” first of all it should never be more than three people that do any kind of a notification. Three people max, and you're talking about a chief assistant chief someone in that higher level, a support officer that is designated by the officer because typically that's going to be someone that also knows your spouse. You've had a conversation with them about how your spouse should be dealt with.

As a matter of fact when his support officer came into the house when he finally got there which was well over an hour and a half later, he knew what his one job was, and because they took him to the hospital he thought I was on my way, I thought he was on his way, there was a little bit of miscommunication there he walked in and said George said, "If this ever happened do not bullshit Kim." Just by him knowing me, it would have maybe given the notification team an idea of okay this is someone who wants things, don't sugarcoat, let's have a plan she's going to take action or someone who maybe is very fragile. There's two toddlers in the house. That support officer kind of knows what type of a person they are. There are some people that said, “I would never want to go to the hospital”. The other half say, “I would have gone to the hospital. I would have plowed through people to get to the hospital.”

The one thing I've learned is although I tend to be very different. I've always been different, my group of friends, you're never alone. There's always someone else who thinks like you. There's no one human that thinks different than everybody else. So that would have made it better, and then to have the third person would have been a peer support victim service, a chaplain, someone like that.

Jon Becker: Someone who's trained in dealing with the situation.

Kim Pastore: Yes.

Jon Becker: So you have the person who's going to give the notification.

Kim Pastore: Right.

Jon Becker: You have a friend. You have basically the person who's going to give the notification, the person who's going to give the hug, and the person who's going to know what the hell to do.

Kim Pastore: Exactly.

Jon Becker: That makes perfect sense.

Kim Pastore: Exactly. It's quick. You rip off the band-aid. This happened. These are the next steps. Typically the chief is going to have to leave. They're going to have to get in and get out.

Jon Becker: Yeah it's the worst day of her career.

Kim Pastore: Right. Absolutely. So they're going to have to get in. So you're left with two until they get your person there and it wouldn't be a bad idea in this emergency, or sheet whatever you want to call it for the wife then to designate who to contact. Now you're not asking the spouse who I'm fumbling around on my phone trying to find my friend's number. I can then tell my friend “You're my person if this happens”.

Jon Becker: Yeah, that's a great idea.

Kim Pastore: I think you have to be able to have the conversation though. You need to have the conversation, and if we ever do more based on this there's also what George put in place for me is amazing in terms of all the things that they're offered, benefits and accidental, and life insurance and all those things that they have. I don't think people are talking about these things because you want to hope it never happens. Chances are it won't.

Jon Becker: Having done estate planning with my own wife, and not in a job where this is a possibility, you don't want to have that conversation.

Kim Pastore: What do you want? There was even talk about selecting pallbearers. George being on the Honor Guard he's done so many funerals and so they wanted to get it right. George has guarded caskets, he's sat outside of homes, he's transported, he's dressed officers, he's done it all and he took it very seriously. It was incredibly important to him. So there was that pressure on them to get all this right, and they did a beautiful job, and his service was incredible. They had to move the venue I think a couple of times because of the amount of people that attended. There was a lot of stress. It was very stressful but had some of that been laid out on an open casket. Do you even want-- who would you want if you could as your pallbearers? There's a lot of stuff.

I think when you talk about those things, you already have released some of the preemptive trauma that exists in thinking about it. You have a plan. It's like any other aspect of the job they do, you want a plan. It's just a tough topic.

Jon Becker: One of my dearest friends died a year and a half ago, and I acted as his family representative. I was the one that took all the phone calls. I was the one that notified the relatives. I was the one that was dealing with a lot. They called the immediate family, but the aunt whatever who no longer talks to the family, that was my problem. The thing that I saw is anything that somebody else doesn't deal with, some member of the family does. In the case of you and George, that means that you're going to make all those phone calls. You're going to make all those decisions, it's all going to be your problem. Anything that is pre decided is not your problem unless you just continue to move through the 8000 other things that are confronting you.

Kim Pastore: I've heard from officers who were support officers, and there's a lot of things to consider. There are times when depending upon the time of the day, support officers don't answer their phone. Their phone's on ‘Do not disturb’ because they just got off shift and they're sleeping. So it's not as if it's going to play out perfectly by any stretch. Every situation, and nobody knows this better than you, is completely different. The timeliness of the notification is very different at 4:00 in the morning or 3:00 in the afternoon, when you probably can't even get to the spouse's house before she's going to find out from somebody else.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Kim Pastore: So there are very different situations. I do think though across the board, there's never a situation where more than three people need to do a notification, and I do think that there's never going to be a time where having a little bit of a plan that's easily accessible by the notification team. So that's the other thing, if it's some paper in a notebook in someone's office somewhere and it's not in a database, or easily accessible you get a lot of people calling people they know, “Do where the wife lives? Do you know who I'm supposed to call? Do his parents even live here?” Now they're having to figure all this out in the moment and that's a cluster right in and of itself. So if there's something you pull it up, spouses who live at this address, officer is this.

I don't know that that doesn't exist but if I had to guess universally what would be better for any department anywhere, it would be having that in place. You do that at the academy and then you do it every three to six months, and I think a lot of departments do have you update those things. I just don't know if it's a piece of paper and how do they access it because a lot of people made phone calls, and asked officers questions that I said, “Why is the department asking these questions? Why are they trying to figure out where I live?” I would think you just pull it up, and there it is but I don't think that's the case.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Kim Pastore: Even at my job I don't know it would take them a minute to figure out. I think it's in the personnel files in our corporate office somewhere. I don't know.

Jon Becker: Yeah you're going to have to hunt that information and having it readily accessible reduces the time and also creates an opportunity to more quickly make decisions, and not have to go and chase the information or god forbid, ask the spouse 8,000 questions because they're going to have to ask you 8,000 questions.

Kim Pastore: Even if there's a guide for how you talk to your support officer, your support officer should know these 10 things: Do they know your wife? Have they been to your home? DFo you have children, dogs, whatever that need to be cared for if they take your wife to the hospital? I don't know just having a “I was lucky enough to know his support officer very well and we knew each other very well”. I'd like to think that every officer has someone close enough to them that at least has met their wife, and you it's a whole different story about talking about private private lives and officers talking about that. I do think that would be helpful if it was easily accessible information where you're removing decision-making, and fact finding missions out of an equation of an already chaotic stressful situation.

Jon Becker: Yeah, so okay so we're first Sunday.

Kim Pastore: Well we're through Saturday, so Sunday we're all going to meet, we're all going to go to the ME. They do a procession just like they do for a funeral. It's that big of a deal moving him from the ME to the funeral home. So there's a line of cars, there's a ton of people, and I'm in I believe it was George's SUV with his support officer and a couple of our closest friends and his best friend in the back and they're transporting him and I can see where they are again km what do you need can I be in the car with George. If I had my way I would have crawled into the I would have laid with him, that's really truly what I wanted. So we follow and go to the funeral home and I've learned to try to ask questions about what I can expect ‘because there's a lot of things that happen where you just don't even know what to expect. We sort of lined up at the entrance of the funeral home and I don't know it felt as if 30 of the SWAT off SWAT guys were there dressed saluting as he was moved through. Again my heart was just broken. You could just see in their eyes just shock and disbelief. Of course, I'm crying and I don't even remember being able to stand up. I looked at my friend and I said, "Can I go over and hug them?" They said, "No, don't do that." So again here's another thing that I instinctively wanted to do because I just felt I could just hug them and say, "We're in this together." I don't know if they were blaming themselves. I know George would have. I wanted to, if I could, take any of it away by “Please don't worry about me. I'm okay. I trust you.”

I knew about probably survivors' guilt, and just the mentality of-- I'm sure they've run through it a million times, and it could have been me. I don't know, I can't say what they were feeling but I could tell by how they looked that they were heartbroken. This is their worst nightmare and I didn't know they were all going to be there. I just thought I was going to have my husband brought in. Everything's so big in these situations. There's so many people, and it's so big and there's police escorts, and police everywhere. It's a lot. Even my friends just said, "Holy shit like what's going on?" I said, "I don't even know."

Jon Becker: Yeah because at this point, it's not just your husband.

Kim Pastore: It's barely my husband, yeah.

Jon Becker: It's a symbol.

Kim Pastore: Right.

Jon Becker: George, he's a hero, and he's given his life for other people. So we're going to honor him, but that honor is going to have a price for the family.

Kim Pastore: Right. Exactly. He deserved to be honored, and I would never have taken that away from them. I guess instinctively, I knew that it mattered, but Line of Duty Death is so much more than just dying doing your job.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Kim Pastore: I didn't know that. I said, "What in the world?" George and I were so private. We weren't really on social media. We just liked our alone time. He was very humble, and it was just so different than just the way we lived our lives, and it was so big and so many moving parts and so much going on, and just thick with emotion.

Jon Becker: Oh yeah.

Kim Pastore: The air was so thick. Then you still have that performative-- I had to stand up. I had to walk in and sign papers. I had to answer questions. Everyone's around, and they're touching you and is this okay, are you okay? Again, woe is me for having so many great people that we're trying to help. Then you have your children.

Jon Becker: I think that’s a very reasonable feeling.

Kim Pastore: You're trying to, and then you think, "Oh my gosh. I don't want my boys. I don't know what it would be like to see your mom… you know”. Then I'm trying to be strong for them. I don't want the SWAT guys to feel worse to see me like this. From the moment they knocked on my door, I still haven't had a moment just to be by myself and think, “What in the hell's going on?” So it just keeps piling on top just piles on top, piles on top, piles on top, and you somehow, I understand now that somehow you have this fight, the fight or flight is amazing that you can just walk and function and talk and think. I don't even know how it works, but it does. We get through that, and I think they continue to tell me that it's not a good idea for me to see him, and to please wait until they have him dressed and ready and that would be a better time. I didn't know at that point that I by law am the only person who has a right to see him once he got to the funeral home. The Emmy is a different story. There is a law in Texas at the Emmy. So again, a little bit of feeling guilty.

My son said that I went in and put my hand on his knee when they moved by, and I don't remember that. The next would have been Wednesday at 3:00 to be able to see him once they had dressed him, and made him look presentable. Now it's Sunday so it was Saturday morning Sunday at 11:00, go do the Emmy to the funeral home, and then Wednesday at 3:00. And that's the timeline of my life that week, everything else is just a blur.

Jon Becker: So from Saturday to Sunday with a hope, and then from Sunday to Wednesday with a promise.

Kim Pastore: Right. Exactly. I don't even think we knew I'm trying to remember when we finally knew when the funeral was going to be because they kept having to move it and then the funeral being Friday morning. When people talk about the date 11/11/23 it's like yes I know that's his end of watch. For me it's Saturday, Sunday at 11:00, Wednesday at 3, Friday morning funeral. So yeah did I answer the question?

Jon Becker: Yeah totally. So we are Sunday at the funeral home, and they've moved him to the funeral home now, what's the next thing? I imagine at this point now the for lack of a better term, the ‘respect machine’ is turning at a pretty high rate and you're having to make a lot of mildly unwelcome decisions.

Kim Pastore: Yes. I did have a lot of people that took over, and a big part of that was handling his family which I was grateful for peer support doing, and then you have the Honor Guard team that's managing the funeral preparations, and all of that, and getting him dressed and ready for me to see and all of that. Then you have the patrol side of it, and some of his best friends on patrol were the ones that were managing, helping the family come in, dealing with the parents and getting them to see him at the funeral home. All that simultaneously going on where my house is full and people are coming in. But now you have to pull pictures, choose music, write obituaries, and who better to do that. I can't delegate that. I have to start now. Flowers are coming in. Meals are starting to come. People want to come by. Phone calls. A friend of mine had my phone for days just trying to handle where we should stay, who's coming, what are we doing, we'll be here, people need to eat, food's rolling in, meal trains are being set up.

The type of person that I am, I knew again instinctively that if I didn't allow people to help, what would you want to do? By saying, “no” or “get away from me” or “don't help me”, that just compounds their pain. Anybody, they went and bought a refrigerator to house the stuff. So they were happy to have a job to do. “We'll run to Home Depot.” “We'll go get food.” “We'll call this person.” Everybody just wanted to help. “Let's get you in the shower.” “Have you eaten?” I knew they needed that. So I allowed them to do that, but it's like I sacrificed myself in essence. I knew if I turned off, I got in my bed, I would never get out. S as many people that wanted to sleep in my bed, doors open, music on, TV on. It was chaos, but I was terrified for it to be silent.

There was a moment  Jon where I laid on my shower floor, and I was was wondering how do you waterboard yourself. I literally remember thinking that there is a way to, and then I will just peacefully go in this shower. It just was so much, there was so much noise even when it's silent. So it's just a lot. Everything is a timeline. They need the obituary. They need it. “Kim, we hate to bother you, but they do need this.” I can't let anyone else write it, right? I knew I would regret it. I knew if I turned everything over to everyone because I already didn't get to go see him, and that's the part I say, “Well I'm now going to. I'm going to get to do something. I know that I should and I need to be strong, and I need to do this for George, and I can't have anyone else write it.”

As I was writing it I remembered that Tecumpsa poem from “Act of Valor” that movie. I don't know if it's so good. It clicked, it was like he spoke to me and then it's just like it just flowed-- the whole thing just flowed. It was so healing, and it made me feel like I did something for him. He knows I came through. Then picking pictures and music. Originally it was supposed to be at a big church, and so it was like you need music for when we bring them in, music when you take them out, transitions between who's going to speak, who's going to speak at this, who do you want there, who do you not want there. I don't know, right whoever needs to go needs to go. We do open casket, closed casket. Now we're looking at thousands and thousands and thousands of people now it's here, and now it's switched and now that changes.

I think they came with lights and sirens to get the flash drive with the pictures on it because I kept changing it and couldn't finish it and they were trying to give me time but saying, “You need to get this done”. Everyone's walking on eggshells but shit needs to get done. They're doing this incredibly beautiful, very logistically challenging-- very logistically challenging service while also being sad, and grieving. You're talking about guys who were with him on scene now being pallbearers, and so imagine what they're processing and then seeing him.

Did I answer your question?

Jon Becker: That's fantastic.

Kim Pastore: Thank you. I go off my brain.

Jon Becker: We're working our way towards Wednesday. What's the next significant event?

Kim Pastore: I would say Wednesday. I don't even really remember Monday, Tuesday just trying to get things done people, coming. I know I was terrifying looking. I'd glance at myself in the mirror, and think, "Oh my gosh." you don't… I never knew you could literally care nothing about everything-- nothing.

Jon Becker: I think you get a free pass for that one.

Kim Pastore: Just so weird to just literally not care about anything except for getting certain things right. I was looking forward to Wednesday, and a group of people went with me. We got to the funeral home. Two of his best friends brought me into the room. He looked so beautiful, and he was of course in a beautiful casket in his uniform, and really hard to see because now this is the first time I'm seeing him since Friday night. I haven't ever gone that long without seeing him. Maybe a short weekend trip. It's not him, but it's him.

They brought me over to him, and then when I was ready they gave me some time alone. I just think I kissed him the whole. They said, “Kim you can't…” they knew. They said, “You can't like, don't push, don't do anything too crazy, and I just talked to him and I just kissed him kissed him, kissed him.” I could tell everything that wasn't really him but they did a really good job. I don't know how long I stayed there. It was very-very hard to leave. I think maybe someone came in, and said, "Okay." But I asked everybody who was there I said, "How did you feel when you first got here compared to now after you saw him?" They said, "I just feel so at peace seeing him like that." Especially the guys who saw him, not great. Saturday morning. That's when I made a really tough decision because George had never wanted an open casket but I decided that it would be important for certain people to be able to see him the way that we all just saw him.

Then we talked about funeral arrangements, and things that we would want. They had to ask a bunch of questions, and you signed a bunch of papers. I remember hugging the officers, they always have someone outside the door. I had forgotten about that because George has done that so many times. I remember hugging a female officer, and she was so sweet and she could hardly look at me and she said, "I'm so sorry." And I just said "Thank you for being here with him." She goes, "Of course." They take shifts. It's like I knew he was at peace and in good hands, but if I could have I would have stayed there forever. But you have decisions to make and we got in the car and went home.

I was so happy to finally see him though but I just felt like I was leaving him. I don't know if there's anything that can satisfy that void. I think that you're constantly looking for something to make you feel better. So you look forward to that thing. Sunday was that thing. Wednesday was that thing. Friday was that thing, but there's really nothing but that little chase that makes it so you can get through the day that little next nugget that carrot, "Okay get through this get through this, get through this."

Jon Becker: As you're saying that I'm thinking if you had seen him right afterwards, traumatized, bloody that would be the impression you're left with. I think that as traumatic as that was, it's an interesting balance.

Kim Pastore: For sure.

Jon Becker: Because it did seeing him in his uniform cleaned up and prepared, you were left with this peaceful image of him. I think that that's probably what they were trying to ensure happened.

Kim Pastore: Absolutely.

Jon Becker: I don't know. Again, like so many of these things, I don't know what the right answer is. I think there's a thousand wrong answers and one right answer, but if there is even a right answer.

Kim Pastore: Right.

Jon Becker: As I heard you describe it this time and walking, because we haven't really walked through the whole process yet, walking through the whole process, it did give you a certain sense of peace, that I don't think you would have gotten seeing him right afterwards.

Kim Pastore: I would have to agree with that. I've really tried to dig in deep and really try to unpack my feelings. I think a lot of it boils down that I just feel like I wasn't there for him. That thinking of him dying alone or not again because we don't know what happens. You see these shows where people hover above their body. I don't know.

Jon Becker: He didn't die alone. He died with his brothers.

Kim Pastore: Yeah. Once I was able to get more information about that, especially the one teammate of his who was really there with him from that moment all the way to the hospital, I got so much peace from that.

Jon Becker: Yes.

Kim Pastore: That moment it's like talking about it with all the knowledge I now have…

Jon Becker: Right.

Kim Pastore: There might just need to be some level of, “Get her to the hospital, they can brief me on the way that you may or may not get to see him, but we want to honor your wishes. Please know we might get to the hospital, there's probably going to be hundreds of officers. We can try to get you through the back. You may or may not be able to hold his hand. You may or may not be able to see him.” And then it's my burden to bear.

Jon Becker: Interesting. It's a question to some degree of agency.

Kim Pastore: Yes. Very much so.

Jon Becker: Having control over what is going to happen after the fact very.

Kim Pastore: Very much so. It's easier for them when you really think about it because now the onus is on me now, but they've briefed me in a very compassionate way in a professional manner that this is what I asked for. “Hey we'll take you, but once you get there please know XYZ”. Now I'm in the car moving as opposed to standing in my kitchen entertaining with the time to think. We pull up. It's probably a scene out of you can't even imagine. Interestingly enough, all of those officers what is their first instinct to do when they hear an officer's been shot, what do they all do?

Jon Becker: Go to the hospital.

Kim Pastore: So in what world would I not want the same?

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Kim Pastore: They're not going to do anything. They can't perform any life-saving measures. They just go there. I don't know what that is. Why? Again instinctively as humans, why? They should have it all. So now you have hundreds of officers not on the streets, but they needed to be there. They needed to be there whether they knew him or not, it was one of their. It was one of their own.

Jon Becker: This is a very interesting way to look at that.

Kim Pastore: So that's instinctively no question officer involved shooting what does everybody do?

Jon Becker: Go to the hospital.

Kim Pastore: One of our guys is hit. What do we do right? Instinctively. They get there and it's like they don't know what they're going to do. None of them can go see George, but they're there.

Jon Becker: Yeah, no that makes perfect sense.

Kim Pastore: In support of one another just to pay homage to say we stand together. I don't know but instinctively boom, turn the car around, we're at the hospital.

Jon Becker: Yeah. It's a very valid point. Like we said, there is a certain amount of agency you are in control of what is going to happen.

I imagined as you're working your way towards Friday, and this thing, the respect machine for lack of a better term is now rolling, and it's like a snowball it's getting bigger, and there's going to be more services and more more people that want to speak and all of that, I can see where that's going to become progressively more overwhelming. It's great. I'm sure it's wonderful to have them honor him, but I imagine from your perspective that's also kind of terrifying and overwhelming.

Kim Pastore: “Kim, the mayor wants to speak with you.” What? Then you have the day off, and while they were doing, I guess ‘the viewing’, you call it we're in a trailer. It was at Kota which is the Circuit of the Americas where they do the…

Jon Becker: Yeah, it's a big Formula 1 venue.

Kim Pastore: Yeah. So we're in these trailers where people can sit and there's refreshments and chiefs from Colorado, New York, Florida are wanting to pay their respects, say hello, some fallen officer, they'll give you a check, and a patch. I realized instantly, it was not out of obligation. This really matters to them that they send somebody that they're driving flying across the country.

Jon Becker: Yes.

Kim Pastore: That SWAT teams are coming from all over. That fire departments, EMS and Honor Guards from everywhere. I'm talking to George and I said, "Baby this is you." "This is you." I don't know that anyone could have gotten all those different entities under one roof. He was so proud to be a firefighter. He was so proud to be a paramedic. So proud of the Honor Guard. He was so proud of earning that spot on SWAT. He was so proud of everything he did for the Cast, SRT. and having everybody work together, firefighters, and paramedics and cops and how many lives we can save working together.

Chief Henderson said at his funeral, and I learned a lot about George because he didn't know how he could tell me everything that happened at work. We had very little alone time, and it was our time right. So now I have people lined up to tell me their story of George, and I'm just falling more in love with him. I knew he was humble but holy shit these are people saying, “I went for this promotion. I went back to school because of him. I tried this because of him. He's the one who encouraged me to do this. I train more because of him. He was the only one that was nice to me like dispatchers.” Or “He always had a smile on his face” or “He was always so respectful and courteous”, and all these things that I knew but to hear it like that it's like wow. For the chief to say, “He trained to save lives not take lives”. To get into law enforcement when he did after being a beloved firefighter and proud instructor in 2019, and then we know 2020 was the protests and the defunding. He's at protests getting spit on, and things thrown at him and I'm thought this is a person who got into this to save lives and to help people.

So that was really really hard. So then to see it completely come around full circle and have all of these departments come from all over. That's when I really said, “Oh wow like this is real, this is this really matters to them”. Some of them still reach out, they still check on me. It's gotten much quieter obviously, but it was beautiful but I'm still at the knock on the door. My brain can't catch up.

It's overwhelming but I'm trying to be gracious. I'm representative now of George of this person that is being put on a higher, and higher pedestal with every story, and I'm the representative of him that's how I felt. I need to carry that humility and that he was just such a great person and that respect, and that measured demeanor that he had. You could have just had beef with him and he'll see you the next day hello sir handshake. He always said hello, eye contact. So respectful, respected the chain of command, all of those things. I can be a little loose cannon or mouthy. I had to really be a representative of him, and it made me a better person to get through it that way.

Jon Becker: It's a lot of responsibility.

Kim Pastore: Yes.

Jon Becker: Especially in the state of grief that you are, that's a lot to take on. I don't know how you don't feel that way but I don't think people would think that you would feel that way. I think we tend to think of survivors as dealing with their own things, not feeling responsibility to act and be a certain way as a representative. That's a lot.

Kim Pastore: It was a lot. I was so proud of him. I knew it well. I didn't know then. I realize now, and it's hard, it's a tough pill to swallow. There's no redos. You don't get to go, "Well next time that happens here's what I'm going to do." It's like the train's moving, and you're either on it or you're not. You try to have as much of an impact on the process as possible.

His service was beautiful. I will still say that APD's Honor Guard is the sharpest. So respectful, the service that they threw together, and the owner of Kota and last minute and what they were able to do, and the people that showed up, and how early people had to get there, and wait the traffic and a 16-mile backup precision. I mean, they shut down Austin on a Friday morning, drove him through downtown, put him in the Bearcat like all the things it was so beautiful. You have news people reaching out to you. People don't realize that everybody wants a quote or something, and of course, I didn't want to talk to any of them. They're asking if they can live stream it, and that's a big question. I thought well he's got family all over, and people that can't come. I didn't really know what that meant. I said, "Okay, YouTube. What are you asking me? I don't-- I don't even understand." So they can and I was like, "Well that's nice for someone who can't make it to be able to watch this because it becomes a…” a Line of Duty death funeral is remarkable. My dad's buried at Arlington National.

My two favorite people in the world had the most honorable funerals, and everyone needed to see that and it impacted everyone. It made people want to be better people. Some of my friends' husbands said, “I feel like a loser”. I'm going to get out there, and you start to think, “What impact have you made?” They talk about the dash that time between what have you done, and so it's amazing that he still impacted so many people even through that. I'm so proud of him. For him to be honored that way, I'm so grateful for it.

Jon Becker: I think that's why we do it, we need that. As a society we need to Deify George. He represents what we want people to be.

Kim Pastore: Right.

Jon Becker: So as much as the ceremony is a burden, it also sounds like it was also a blessing oh it was beautiful. Even though I couldn't fully understand-- I don't want to say appreciate that's not the right word because I appreciate everything that was done-- having been to funerals that was another moment of fuckery. Pardon my French. I remember going to funerals, and always sitting and it wasn't even about the officer anymore. I just was about who's in the front row, how is this affecting the front row. It affects so many people on such a deep level, and there's tentacles of the impact it has on the community, and the lives that it touches and the people and children and the parents and on and on and on. You never want it to become a measurement. I never wanted anyone to feel they couldn't grieve because my grief should be less than your grief. “How dare I say I miss George! Of course you miss George more.” I wanted to make sure that people knew it would never be a measurement of grief.

Jon Becker: Yeah don't compare traumas.

Kim Pastore: Don't do that. It's all… as a matter of fact, I recognized their trauma which made it harder for me but also that's what allowed me to say, we need to let people help and get involved and help with the foundation and volunteer, and all the things that they do because we're healing together.

Jon Becker: Okay. So you get through the services and now you got to go home.

Kim Pastore: There are little bits and pieces when you have something like that happen. I was convinced they didn't do the Final 42. I said, "I'm so glad they didn't do that for George."

Jon Becker: 21 gun salute?

Kim Pastore: No, the final 42 when the dispatchers call in.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Kim Pastore: I'd heard that done so many times and that's there's those moments at funerals that are just those you hear the bagpipes, you hear there's just those moments--

Jon Becker: Yeah if I never hear another bagpipe, I will not care.

Kim Pastore: Thank you.

Jon Becker: We have to do it, I get it but it could be-- I would just like to hear something happy played on bagpipes would be good, a song I like-- something.

Kim Pastore: So it's those moments and oddly enough I would have put a million dollars on the table if they didn't do those at George's funeral. I blocked it. I literally blocked it out. So it all ends, and people come up to you. I remember having both of my boy's hands. All I wanted to do was slither off my chair, get in the fetal position and just tell me when it's over. It was like, “Kim, stay in your seat. Hold the boys.” I was focusing so much energy on just staying upright in the chair, it's probably why I didn't hear anything.

Part of the deal with them streaming it was that they were to not focus on me wait for that money shot of the widow crying getting the flag, and all that. They were very respectful of that.

They carry him out and we all get back in our respective vehicles, and so there's kind of a session convoy, if you will. We're following the bearcat. I'm just so exhausted and so out of it, I don't even know and all I remember is him going straight, and we turned right and I didn't understand. I said, "Oh my god again." It was like saying goodbye to him again. Then I realized I hadn't gone up to the coffin at the service because I didn't want thousands of people to watch me see him. We went to my house because everybody was on their way over.

Jon Becker: You're back to being an entertainer.

Kim Pastore: Back to being an entertainer. I loved every human that was in my home. I was just blown away by their love and their support and wanting to be there for me. I think nobody knew what they were coming to Austin for. Everybody said, "What just happened?" I mean that is an impactful moment.

Jon Becker: Oh yeah.

Kim Pastore: I mean just wow. I wish I would have and I don't know if it was even an option, and what would I have done to follow him to wherever they were taking him is where I really wanted to go. So it was that kind of difficult moment again to get back to the house, prep the house, everyone's coming over, and then I believe we're there that weekend. Then I flew to Florida where it was Thanksgiving week. We did another couple of memorial service type things for him.

Jon Becker: You are going to be going into a cycle of memorial service ad nauseum. I'm not going to drag you through all of them, but how many different events were there?

Kim Pastore: There was a 5 day period where there were six events in that 5 day period, to the point where one of my friends came over and said, “Let's talk about what you're going to wear?” I said, “What am I going to wear?” She goes “Kim this is crazy. I don't even know how you're getting to, who's going with you, you're signed up for this, what's happening.” It was all beautiful what they wanted to do, but compounded by the fact that it was SWAT, so TGPOA conference comes out, and they do a beautiful tribute to him and this what do you call it a run and gun? That was the first thing of all the stuff. I said, “George would freaking love this”. So that felt great and then they had me at the banquet and they awarded him with the SWAT officer of the year, and that was beautiful. APD has their own awards, and then their own memorial where they put them on their wall of course. There's a Texas police officer memorial, and of course there's police week. Then in between, you have people that want to present you with a check or they run from here to there in George's name. We had a San Antonio boxer that wore George's name on his trunks when we came to the fight.

So it's things that you don't even think of and a lot of people say, "Well Kim you can say no." I said, "Which would you have me say no to? They're honoring my husband for what he went through, and what would you have me say no to, and what would I do instead? Sit home?”

Jon Becker: It's still overwhelming.

Kim Pastore: It's overwhelming.

Jon Becker: It's the right course of action, but it's still a rough course of action.

Kim Pastore: It's rough. You fight against the overwhelming nature of it by being grateful because the last thing that anybody wants is for their loved one to be forgotten. This is what keeps them alive, and makes what happened matter.

Jon Becker: Yeah. We can talk about lessons learned but it may be better to space those things out a little bit more.

Kim Pastore: Probably. I was shocked by it because even Titusville does on their American all police hall of fame. Literally it's always I believe Friday after police week, they honor any fallen officer, and put their name on a wall. My sister had to attend that for me because I couldn't do all the things. George of course Honor Guard has been to police week. He's presented a rose to a widow. I have pictures of him there, and of course my dad's buried there. That was just an emotional time, and everyone tries to warn you.

You do get widows that reach out. I have met some wonderful women and they say words, and you just say, “Oh my god yes, that's exactly how I feel.” So that's very helpful. I think even for guys that have been through this, any traumatic situation to get around people who have been through the same thing is very helpful because it validates what's going on. It helps explain what you're feeling, and so getting with them. These things all take time, and interestingly enough the people that wait to reach out are the people that know how you feel the most.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Kim Pastore: So those are the people that you really need to hear from but they know that you need to take a beat they know, or they'll reach out to their support officer and say, "Listen I'm ready to call Kim. Here's my number. When she's ready."

Jon Becker: Yeah have her call me.

Kim Pastore: “Have her call me”. A lot of times you don't want to do that, and then once I did that once I said, "This isn't me." And there's some you jive with and some you don't because again we all-- so as you can imagine it's the tougher women that have all also started foundations, or done big things. So you kind of find your crew, you find your little tribe of people. It's a club they always say that nobody wants to welcome you into, and nobody wants to be a part of but we get through it together. We all know each other's end of watches. We know where they're at. It was good for me to find out very early on that. Even at the 10, 11, 12 year mark, it's not any easier. It was better for me to just hear it right off the bat because a lot of people say, “Just get through the first year everything will be okay. You'll be better. Best is, you'll find love again.” And you just say, okay. So for them to just go, “Look, the best way to describe it is grief is a 10 pound rock. It feels like a 2,000lb something you're dragging. But grief's a 10 lb rock, and it's heavy, it's in your pocket weighs you down, but it stays the same weight but you get stronger around it so it feels lighter but it doesn't go away. And once that it's one less thing to even worry about, okay this is the reality of it, how do we move forward?”

Jon Becker: Yeah, you stop asking yourself, when's this going to stop?

Kim Pastore: When am I going to feel better? Just never. You're not. It'll get lighter. You'll have more okay days and then those okay days you say, “Oh you'll have a good hour, and maybe you'll have a good two hours. And you're like “Okay, I didn't cry quite as much today or…” Then you figure out why didn't you, well I was productive. I went to lunch with the guys. I reached out to somebody or and it's the big things that people think are the hardest Valentine's Day, and all those things. Those aren't the hard things, it's just the little stuff that hits you like a ton of bricks, and comes out of nowhere. When you like to control your own chaos and when you're a controlling person, and it hits you out of nowhere it's shocking. So it just takes a minute to just relinquish it and let grief in and feel it. I call it “feel the suck” “embrace the suck”, and just sooner you come in as soon as you come to terms with that it doesn't make it better but just relieves you of one extra obstacle.

Jon Becker: Yeah no that makes a lot of sense. I think one of the things that is as we've talked through this, and hearing you today there are a ton of kinds of innate contradictions that occur here. I think some of them are obvious, you want people around, you want to be by yourself, but I don't think all of them are. I think it would be good to kind of just walk through some of the things that you're feeling, the things that you're thinking that have these kinds of contradictory sides to them.

Kim Pastore: Yeah because again you're always trying to seek something that makes you feel better. So it's ask me but don't talk to me, or say something but don't say any of these things or just know just look at me and know because sometimes you feel like you have to go, “My heart is pounding out of my chest right now I feel like I'm going to die, but I have to play it cool.” The interesting thing that I've realized is people want you how they need you. So then you end up grieving, or acting how you think that person can handle you best that makes sense.

Jon Becker: That makes perfect sense, but that's a really ugly thought to think.

Kim Pastore: It is because they say, "Oh you can you can say anything to me, I can take it." And then I say "Well how are you today?" The worst question ever now everybody knows not to answer it and we bought all these books, and we've helped people understand the griever, the grieving, and how to be around a grieving person. It's just really tough because how are you so now I go full truth half truth do you need a lie, what do you need today?

Jon Becker: I'm fine. Fucked up, insecure, neurotic and emotional.

Kim Pastore: Yeah. I said, today just fucking sucks well at least. Don't start a question, don't even start a comment with at least. There's no at least today just sucks so bad and so a lot of but also… and then you start to worry about what people think because people will say, "If this happened to me fill in the blanks. I would be in my room crying all day. I wouldn't be able to do anything.” So are you saying that you love your person more? Are you saying that I'm grieving inappropriately but you just told me how you grieve…? Then am I talking about it too much, and then you feel like a burden because they invite you to things, so you keep inviting. I really don't want invitations. I never did before. You don't have to invite me to anything, and now but now you're putting yourself in a position to have to say no. You're telling me it's okay to say no to other people that ask me. But now you've asked me, and you think it's best that I should go to this and be around these people. It's only six people, or it's only seven people. I thought, “Seven people, that's a lot”. You just feel like you're doing it wrong, and then people say, “Well there's no right or wrong way”. But you're also telling me that I need to get up, and put my feet on the floor. George would want you to do this. Just be happy. You just got done telling me that I should grieve how I want to grieve, and that it's not linear and there's going to be.

It's very difficult to really say, "Well I don't care what other people think. I'm just going to do it.” But you can't walk through the grocery store crying, you got to get through it. “You got to get through it." And then there's the people that say "Well just get over it” or “You'll be over it soon and I don't want to get over it." What makes you think I want to feel good again because this pain is what connects me to George. This pain is what connects me to George. It's all my love with nowhere to go. So this pain is love. Feeling like I need to do something over-commits me, and now I'm overwhelmed, but if I don't have these commitments what am I getting up to do every day? Let other people help but say no to everybody, it's just a constant contradiction.

Jon Becker: How can those around you make that better?

Kim Pastore: I think individually, there's people that are just going to fall off because they just can't deal, and that's okay. It may be in a couple years you run into each other, and everybody's in a better spot and they go, "My bad I couldn't deal." And that's fine. I don't expect anybody to know how to do this. I don't know how to do it. I just think in my case and again, woe is me, I had a lot of people. So if I had three people trying to figure it out we probably could have figured it out together, but because of who George was just my Florida people alone, and now they're distant. They go, ”Are you going to move?” “Are you moving back here?” Because they need me to be close. “No, I feel good here. I like our house here.” “Well isn't the house going to remind you of George?” and there are some days I want to rip all the pictures down, and then there's days where I can't get back home fast enough and he's everywhere but is he there.

I just think in my case because you don't want people to not talk about it, but then there's times when you don't want them to talk about it, but if they don't talk about it, you're mad they're not talking about it. Then you want to go, "But did you forget you remember right?" They say, "Of course I remember, but I thought if I talked about it I would upset you”, but now I'm upset because you didn't talk about it.

Jon Becker: What's the right question? I ran into you in a grocery store, what's the right question?

Kim Pastore: It's not even a question, it's more the people that go, “I think of you all the time” “I think of you every day.” “I pray for you every day” “I'm always here for you if you need anything.” “I don't want to answer any questions”. Answering questions requires thought. You can say, you're thinking to me, and I can say nothing. I don't have to respond to that.

Jon Becker: That's interesting. I never thought of that but if I ask you, "How are you doing?" I'm asking you to look inside the box, and see what's going on inside there.

Kim Pastore: Now there's different people that ask, and I know why they're asking, and the way you've reached out to me has always filled my heart and been appropriate because of who you are, and what I know you've been through, and what I know you do for a living. I know that when you're saying it, it's coming from a space of, you really pretty much know what I'm going through. So you're not doing it with a lack of emotional intelligence, where it's a dumb question Jon. It's not a dumb question when you ask it.

Jon Becker: Interesting.

Kim Pastore: Because I know why you're asking me. You're literally saying, “How are you dealing with this horrific grief that you're experiencing?” You're asking me that and I know you are because I know why you're asking. In a grocery store random stranger, it's a dumb question, because you're not going to stand here long enough for me to tell you the truth. You can't handle the truth.

Jon Becker: When people ask, "How are you doing?" You're not going to give me the time to emotionally dump on you, so let's just say fine.

Kim Pastore: Then if you decide to then tell me how I should fix it, you're probably going to get a punch to the throat. “Well what my friend did” or “Yeah last year when my dog died” or “Yeah when my dad died what I did was, and I would just get with friends we'd go to the movies and drink wine.” I feel my fists curling.

Jon Becker: Yeah, and the thing is again this is the contradictions right because they're trying to make you feel better, but at the same time it's making you want to kill them. I had never thought of it, you put it beautifully a few minutes ago which was that when I'm asking you I'm asking you to be the way that I need you to be for me to feel okay. I want you to tell me, I'm fine because then I can walk away, and feel like, “Oh she's fine, no big deal. We can move on. I think one of the things that you and I have talked about is that there is always going to be this here. This is losing your arm. You're not going to recover from this, and think, "Oh everything's fine. It permanently revectored your life." But I think that having people, and this goes back to agency right, is surrounding yourself with people that legitimately know who you are, and get you, and are going to care in a way that is meaningful but then also kind of separating. This is where I think a limited number of people, putting people between you and the outside world, are all things that kind of buffer to some degree.

Kim Pastore: Yeah and there is a level of civilian and police. My friends had no idea. I always say, “I know it's hard being a cop, but try being in love with one”. So now they're jumping into this, they see stuff like this on the news occasionally but this is a holy shit moment for a lot of people, myself included. My regular everyday lifelong friends, I feel like I have nothing in common with them because anything they want to go do, what am I going to do, go get my nails? I don't want to do anything like that. Now when I'm around the officers, particularly the ones that were on the call, we're already 10 steps ahead of meeting each other in an emotional state. We can get past all this bullshit in the beginning to get you up to speed to where I am as we talk about the next thing. They know we're all just devastated, brokenhearted. I don't have to get them up to speed where I have to go, imagine what it's like, every night when I come home and no one's home, go to bed alone. I wake up alone. Then it's “Well at least you had that beautiful love”. Man, I still freaking want it.

Jon Becker: We had a conversation a week ago, and you broke my heart in the conversation you said "Imagine when everything's going wrong and the person that can fix it you can't have." I think of all the times I've heard that expressed, that was the most clear manifestation of everything going wrong, and the one that you've turned to your whole life to make it right is the one that's now not available. I think that if you start from that premise in dealing with people who are in this situation. If you start with that premise of where they are, throughout our conversation, it's coming back to agency. It's coming back to you having control over what is going to happen, and enough control that you feel like you're in charge, but not enough control that you have to return every phone call.

Kim Pastore: Another contradiction. I was so happy for the stuff I didn't have to deal with, but then mad about the stuff I didn't get a say in. You can't have it both ways, and I know that.

Jon Becker: It's a shit sandwich.

Kim Pastore: It’s a shit sandwich.

Jon Becker: There's no good way to eat it.

Kim Pastore: There's no good way to eat it, and especially for me and depending upon the type of person you are, George not only was my person, but he was really truly the only one that could handle me quite frankly. I was always the one people came to. “Kim will go tell them or have her do that”, or “Kim will take care of you” or “just call Kim she'll know what to say” because I'll give it to you straight so you either want it or you don't. When that would take its toll on me or he was what could take it down a notch. Then to not have that I had to rely on what I know he would say to me without having him there, and then the physical comfort of just the touch, the smell, him being close and to know you're never going to have that again, it's terrifying. It's honestly terrifying. I never knew what a panic attack was. I would say for 6 months I woke up to a beating heart that initially beat so loud through my bed, and pillow that I thought it was bass in a car outside. Just trying to manage the just the physical symptoms of stress and and grief was… and then you don't eat you don't sleep, you just keep functioning somehow and and then you have work and life and bills, and let's not even talk about all the paperwork that has to be filed, all of the things that have to change, who paid the bills, who did. Every day it was just stacks of stuff that had to be taken care of, and my friends couldn't do it they're asking security questions, and so then they'd have to ask me anyway. “Your insurance changes, your job, your leave, your pay, his stuff come to the station you got to fill out this. You got to do that.” You're just like a zombie, just autopilot.

Jon Becker: Looking forward now and I kind of want to start thinking through like your lessons learned here.

Kim Pastore: Yep.

Jon Becker: If you were now designing this process for somebody else what would you do?

Kim Pastore: As impersonal as it sounds, I feel like if you could just pull up this this sheet that's already been completed, who to contact, where to go next of kin that you're going to have the support officer there, and then there's a checklist a flowchart, algorithm, whatever you want it to be. Notify the wife, these three things are most likely going to happen. She says yes to this, go on to the next box. Obviously you wouldn't do that in front of the person, you know what I mean?

Jon Becker: Yes.

Kim Pastore: But if you need to. That takes away because you're already going to have somebody that's emotionally traumatized themselves. I don't care how strong of a person, how many Line of Duty deaths you've done, it's traumatic for the person notifying the person as well. If you can remove what's right what should I do, no this is our protocol. We know this to work best because it's been created through our peer support team, through people who have done hundreds of Line of Duty death notifications. Through trauma therapists who have said, “This is why closure is important, this is why taking them to the hospital if that's what they prefer”. It should have been “Would you like to go to the hospital?” Yes or no.

Again, the questions and I in general just don't like to be asked a lot of questions just for the sake of asking. So I would have looked for more guidance.

Jon Becker: Yeah, it almost strikes me that it's almost two different people. It's almost a person who is there to support you, that friend or whatever. Then it's almost like somebody who is not emotionally involved in the situation who has some objectivity that can come in and say, “Here's the five things you need to do, or here's the five things we need to do”. It is more clinical for lack of a better term.

Kim Pastore: Yes because those other people in your life are going to provide that support. There's nothing the notification person can do.

Jon Becker: To some degree they're almost better off notifying and leaving because it is…

Kim Pastore: One of the therapists I spoke to does ER notifications, and then she did it for border patrol or something, and then she taught and wrote a book about it. It was through the course of her time but every single time. The notification they teach you how to do it. It's very quick. It's very factual, it's very quick. They leave, the care team comes in but it's never more than two people. It should be somebody that wants to do this. I know that sounds terrible, nobody wants to. Nobody wants to interview a victim of child abuse. But if you're good at it…

Jon Becker: Nobody wants to be on the Honor Guard but somebody does.

Kim Pastore: Somebody does. You find those people that person, and just like any other thing in the department maybe every 6 months they have a training on it, or they talk about best practices or what some other departments are doing. Hope isn't a plan. Hope it's not going to happen isn't a plan. Even with the other officer who was shot, there was a notification process involved to take her to the hospital, and to notify them that her husband had been shot.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Kim Pastore: There's still something to be said about that. You don't know what's going to happen from the time you notify them to the time they get to the hospital, but the same thing is who you are sending and why. Why are you in front of this person's door?

Jon Becker: That's a really good way to look at it. There needs to be a purpose.

Kim Pastore: Why are you here? What is your role?

Jon Becker: How do you define that role so that you know? It's almost like the team talked about their trauma pit crew, and everybody has a role in the trauma pit crew. This is almost like a trauma pit crew for Line of Duty death or Line of Duty injury, where everybody that goes has a specific purpose to help the family do x, y or z.

Kim Pastore: On a very basic level of being a human, we do better with a purpose. In any case, we do better with a purpose.

Jon Becker: Like you said, hope is not a course of action. I think that so often as a guy who's spending a lot of my time talking to people that have been affected by Line of Duty deaths, Line of Duty OIS's, the agencies don't have a plan. They have a plan, they don't really have a plan, and it doesn't survive first contact. That initial, “Oh my god, now what do we do?” I think barring your case, the last 50 people I've interviewed, most of their trauma came from the way that they were handled after the event. I think that objectively Austin did a really good job.

Kim Pastore: They did.

Jon Becker: They got a lot of things right.

Kim Pastore: They did.

Jon Becker: I've definitely seen it done worse. I think that's part of what's instructive here.

Kim Pastore: Yes.

Jon Becker: There's got to be a plan ahead of time, people have to be identified, information has to be provided, and it has to be very instantly accessible. I think we've got to give you the agency to make the decisions, but not at the same time, hand you 5,000 things to decide that 4,999 of which don't really matter.

Kim Pastore: At the end of the day Jon, they're human beings. Just because you wear a badge just because you're in this position, doesn't mean you're going to do you're going to do this well. I think that there's a gentleman in Texas, I can name him if we want to.

Jon Becker: Please go ahead.

Kim Pastore: His name is Tim Cresta, and he's been phenomenal and so helpful to me, but he's probably done over 50 Line of Duty deaths, some notifications in funerals. They would call him in all areas of Texas and say, “Just call Tim. Tim knows what to do.” He still is a resource for families as they move into their benefits and how we do this, and I didn't know what to do and how to do this. He's very knowledgeable and he has a fantastic plan and idea, and dreams of every state having a governor may be appointed or a governor, a state position of a Line of Duty death notification specialist or whatever that may be.

Of course, that person wouldn't be able to go right away because it is a time-sensitive thing, so it's going to have to be the chief support officer like we spoke about and possibly a chaplain, or a victim services peer support person. Then we take this best practice or protocol very different from an SOP because it's really just best practice to give them some guidance because it's going to vary how it goes. Then they're able to go and just train those specific people. So whether it's a branch of peer support, whether it's a branch of your department who have you determined these people to be, and who's doing your Line of Duty notifications. Furthermore, what is your protocol for it? It's either we have no protocol whatsoever we just wing it, we haven't had to do one in 15 years. There's going to be a varying amount of answers, and it's like well you can see especially with social media how many Line of Duty deaths there are now. If you're caught off guard, it can be very detrimental to the spouse, the family, the department and everybody notifying. So four hours, three hours let's talk about this or let's put something into place, and then to have that database.

In addition to that, to have where you can go into George Pastore spouse Kim Pastore, here's all the things that needed to happen, here's what did happen, here's what's pending, here's who took care of it. If that one person at the department who's doing all of that stuff whether it's for workman's comp, getting their last paycheck all those things that need to take place they can see where you're at in the process. If they promote out, they're on vacation, if they get out, if they retire, someone can go in and go, "Here's where we're at." And pick up where we left off. Not “Oh, I think we did that form. I don't know, what does it look like? I don't know. I think someone said something about it because there's a lot that happens.”

Jon Becker: This might be a year-long checklist.

Kim Pastore: Yeah, there's still stuff that's coming up or that I haven't received. Then there's benefits out there with every department where they pay dues to cleat for example, or they pay dues to something and in those dues there is a Line of Duty death benefit whether it's $1,000. If someone doesn't know that…

Jon Becker: They never get it.

Kim Pastore: Then there's benefits for people who have dependent living in their home. You own your home. There's property tax benefits in certain states.

Jon Becker: It almost seems there has to be like a benefit coordinator who is the person that…

Kim Pastore: And that's all they do.

Jon Becker: Yeah.

Kim Pastore: That's someone who has decided like I'll take care of this because I want to help people. Again, they're only human and it's a lot to do, and it can be overwhelming. They handle other things too, and they were also handling the other officer who was shot because they have to go through some workman's comp. Suddenly you're not working anymore. What needs to happen? Things have to get filed and done, and paperwork has to be completed. It's the ugly part of it.

Jon Becker: John was injured pretty seriously.

Kim Pastore: Big time.

Jon Becker: Same thing, now the agency is tasked twice.

Kim Pastore: Twice, and more happened for the department that weekend. I don't know if, but more did happen. So they had a lot going on. I think that putting these things in place only helps the people that are tasked with this very difficult job. Every Line of Duty death matters, but they're all going to be very different, and some are going to be more critical and impactful, and the time of the day, where it happened, what happened, who they were, all of those things. If you can remove decisions needing to be made, or how do we do this, or God give me strength to get through this, because you don't even know what's on the other side of that door. You don't know what's on the other side of that door, but with that support officer they do. They have a pretty good idea of what's on the other side of that door.

Jon Becker: It can at least prepare you.

Kim Pastore: Hopefully, you've had conversations because George and I very openly talked about an OIS what would happen, not to the degree of if he was killed because he never thought that would happen to him. If he was in an OIS, they would take his gun, take his badge, they'd have to question him, he wouldn't be able to call me maybe. He didn't know. We talked about those things, and then when you see it on the news, you can't help but think that could be me, what would that be like, what would I do.

Jon Becker: I got one more topic for you before we call it a day. Talk to me about the foundation.

Kim Pastore: Oh, I'd love to. So in the beginning we talked about all this chaos and all this outpouring of love and support and respect, and all the things we talked about. I couldn't help but think about all the guys that are going back to work tomorrow. All this emphasis towards George now, and not like, “Oh you have to die to get this honor, but these guys are struggling”. APD is understaffed. It's not a fun time to be a police officer anywhere. I couldn't believe these guys just had to go back to work. I couldn't even think straight. They just go back, and then it makes me think of all the trauma they experienced, and they just keep going back, going back, and they're expected to do it. “This is what you signed up for.” People say things like, “Well that's what George signed up for”. This is what they signed up for, yeah but is this really in our best interest to send them back out on the street, and not take care of these people?

I just had this overwhelming sense that I wanted to take care of them in some way. Then shirts and hats and patches, and coins, bracelets, morning bands, all the things beautiful but what would George want? What George would want, he'd want you to honor him, go to training, go to the range, do good police work, be a great cop. Be the guy that you want to back you up. Be that guy just be that guy in honor of me, please do that. I thought “Well how do I get that to happen?” Because people can spiral quickly, and then there's the talk and people get salty. I didn't want that. I didn't want to lose that momentum. I think it was also something for me to regain that agency that we talked about, or feel a little bit in control. Again, fearing that he would be forgotten. Let's do something in his honor, and let's make it about training and then, and then wellness and community engagement.

Backing up just a tiny bit if you can. Procession going through downtown Austin, I was terrified. This is the same town where people spit on them and throw things at them that protest against them. I thought “Why in the world are we driving through here? They're going to be happy about what has happened. They're going to throw, they're going to throw stuff at the Bearcat.” I really thought that I was terrified, and in complete contrast there were kids out with signs "We love you Officer Pastore." There were people saluting. There were flags on the bridges. I was just blown away. It gave me this spark of hope.

Even to go down Sixth Street which is where he worked Dtach and patrolled. They had the thin blue line black and white flags up all down Sixth Street. I said, “This is beautiful”. I knew that it's just those little things of just saying, we appreciate you, and the way I thought I could do that was, by doing this foundation by funding and providing training in George's honor, and giving people an outlet for their grief or their sadness instead of going the dark way. You know what, I'm going to sign up for this training, and know the whole time it's for the foundation and that was paid for. George would be so stoked that I'm here. Then guess what? Get a little more comfortable in your skills. Regain a little bit of confidence. You feel like people care about you. Have a better purpose. Get that training bug that George would love for you to have, and sign up for another one, and then another one, and then another one. Instead of that “I'm not even going to take these calls. Nobody in this town cares about us anyway. They don't want us here anyway.” No F that. I'm gonna get better, so that I feel confident and kind of impact that culture internally, and keep George's name. It was really just to make sure he was never forgotten, and to honor him in the way that I knew that he would want. Quite selfishly, it's given me something to get up and do every day. It's brought me joy. It's kept me so busy which I don't know if it's a good thing, but it's keeping me busy. I think he'd be really proud of all the work that we're doing.

Jon Becker: I know that he would. Where can people find the foundation?

Kim Pastore: Jpastorefoundation.com. We just kind of revamped our site. We have all our training opportunities there. We do offer training grants for people who apply for them, and have to kind of write what it means to them to do these training. We're sending a guy out to a blue bearing training, and working with some really great trainers out there, working with Staccato. They've been so generous with their range time, so we can do training out there and just really branch out, and kind of make it cool to support law enforcement training. I think everybody thinks, “Well their department should pay for it”. They do what they can but…

Jon Becker: It's not enough.

Kim Pastore: It's not enough. We're there to be a part of the solution, and not just bitch about the problem.

Jon Becker: If you're sitting listening to this and thinking "What can I do?" You can go to the JPastore Foundation, and donate all the money you can possibly afford.

Kim Pastore: You can donate all the money you can possibly afford. We have very little overhead. All the money goes towards training. Then we're working with some great organizations that offer some wonderful wellness programs; from suicide prevention, PTSD, research retreats for guys. So really very proudly working with some organizations who are doing good work because that breaks my heart every day that they are struggling, and we don't want that to happen. So we've got that, and then just trying to get the community to kind of make it cool to support law enforcement again.

In some of our classes we allow civilians to take the class with the cops, so they get to kind of train with them. They say, "This was so cool." Then they pay for the class, and that money comes back to the donation through our instructor who teaches those classes. So a lot of them post “I just trained with a bunch of cops. That was really cool.”

Then we had our first annual Humble Warrior Games in November for his end of watch, and we had hundreds of people out there. We did a 5K obstacle course. We had fire, EMS, civilians, and really just trying to tame that animosity that's there, and try to bridge that gap a little bit.

We're all just humans who want the same thing who want to be loved and appreciated. It's been great, and I’m so proud of the work we're doing and all the people that are helping, and the volunteers just come everywhere. It's a beautiful group of people.

Jon Becker: Kim, you are a rock star. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this with me.

Kim Pastore: Thank you Jon. Hopefully we can help some people with some good information out there. I appreciate you, and all you do. Thanks  Jon.