Nick Hall is a veteran Police Officer and speaker. In 2000, an armed intruder held Nick and his family hostage. Through a tragic miscommunication, an Orlando PD sniper shot Nick's mother, Andrea. After struggling through both grief and anger, Nick decided to become a law enforcement officer and thus part of the solution.
In this second conversation we discuss fatherhood, vascectomies, post traumatic growth, fitness, sefl sufficiency, mentorship and so much more.
I was born in Long Island, New York. My parents were divorced at the time, father moved to Florida with my older brother. I then moved to Orlando with my infant sister and mother in 2000. We moved in with my aunt and her family.
On a weekend in July at that time, a male entered our residence with a firearm. He was an older white male. It was later revealed that the suspect, Jamie Petron, was fleeing from law enforcement after killing a convenience store clerk in south Florida earlier. Once Petron entered our residence, he then shot my cousin in the face. My cousin survived and was allowed to leave the residence to receive aid. We, my mother, me, sister, and two other cousins, were then held hostage for approximately 50 hours. At one point, Petron instructed me to retrieve donuts from law enforcement outside. I stated that I didn’t want to go and asked my mother to go. It was at this time that Orlando SWAT subsequently shot my mother, thinking she was the suspect. Petron later escorted myself and my sister out of the house and subsequently killed himself.
I later went on to live with my older brother and dad after the incident. Around the time I was 18, I had a falling out with my father after discovering that he was having an affair against my step mother, whom he had been with since before I lived with him. This prompted me to go down the rebellious road and started smoking weed and having friends over any time my dad and step mom were out of town. This ended rather quickly with me getting kicked out of the house. I ended up homeless living out of my car for a few months and couch surfing with friends. Eventually my girlfriend, now my wife, and her parents allowed me to live with them temporally. I then found out from my father that he wasn’t in fact my real father in a heated argument.
Time goes on, I get older, and started working construction. Eventually I get into law enforcement, because I wanted to help people and do the right thing. My past experience gave me perspective on what could go wrong on the job and I wanted to be there in the heat of the moment, believing I could make a split decision when it comes down to it. That saying rings in my head, “If not me who, If not now, when?”
During my career in law enforcement, I’ve met a lot of people along the way. Older SWAT cops knew who I was before I’d even met them. I’ve even met a SWAT Officer that was on my very own call out while he was teaching an advanced training class that I’d sign up for. While working at Cocoa Police Department I was lucky enough to make the Crisis Negotiation Team (CNT). While at hostage negotiation training, the instructor had a PowerPoint that had a picture of my mother and the incident on the projector. I figured that’d be a great time to tell the class a story as well.
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Interview Transcript: Click Here