I Was a New Jersey Cop for 25 Years — These Are The Moments I Can't Unsee | Rick Fittin
September 28, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readFor 25 years, Rick Fittin served in New Jersey law enforcement, working his way from patrol officer to canine handler to chief of police. Along the way, he accumulated a career's worth of moments most people never see firsthand: a woman hanging from a third-story window, a suspect on PCP who kept coming, a suicide that left a rookie EMT running from the room. In this conversation with Ian Bick, Fittin walks through the calls that shaped him, the dogs that saved him, and the hard transition from the badge to a second career.
The Path to the Badge Wasn't a Straight Line
Fittin didn't grow up dreaming of being a cop. He was a self-described rebel who played in a band, surfed, and totaled two cars before his mother sent him to live with his father. At 18, he saw a cliché Army commercial, enlisted, and spent his service as a cavalry scout at Fort Knox and later at the National Training Center in California, where he trained National Guard units during Desert Storm. When he got out at 21, he had no plan. His father, who was dying, pushed him into the family laundromat business. "He said to me, I don't ever want you to be a cop," Fittin recalls. But after his father passed, friends who were officers took him on ride-alongs to clear his head. The pull was too strong. Fittin had been a volunteer firefighter and EMT since he was 16, and the service instinct was already baked in. He
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What you'll learn
- 1 Timestamped Navigation Outline
- 2 (02:00) **The Call That Started It All** - Rick describes arriving to find a half-naked woman bleeding and hanging from a third-story window
- 3 (02:37) **Growing Up Jersey Shore and the Rebel Years** - Rick's early life before law enforcement
- 4 (05:40) **Basic Training and the Military Foundation** - How the Army reshaped Rick's trajectory
- 5 (12:08) **From Laundromats to the Badge** - The winding path into policing after the military
- 6 (17:55) **Breaking Into Policing and the Seaside Mentorship** - Landing the job and finding a true leader
- 7 (28:56) **The Midnight Rookie and the Robe Sergeant** - Early lessons in what not to do as a supervisor
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Rick Fittin grew up in New Jersey, joined the Army, and went on to spend more than 25 years in law enforcement — working his way from patrol officer to K9 officer and eventually police chief. Along the way, he experienced the wild, funny, and unpredictable side of policing that most people never get to hear directly from the officers who lived it. After more than two decades on the job, Rick walked away from law enforcement and started an entirely new chapter of his life.
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#police #cops #TrueCrime #crimestories #k9
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Connect with Rick Fittin:
https://www.instagram.com/rick_fittin?stkn=cmEzMXc3ZTF6NXJ3
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Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick:
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Timestamps:
00:00 Rick Fitton: 25 Years Behind the Badge 00:37 Growing Up at the Jersey Shore 01:42 Rebellion and the Road to the Army 03:04 Joining the Army: A Life-Changing Decision 04:06 Basic Training: Fort Knox and the Realities of Military Life 06:24 Field Exercises, Helicopters, and Military Discipline 09:35 Family Loss and Staying the Course 10:23 Desert Storm and the National Training Center 11:21 Transition Back Home and Family Business 12:56 Getting Into Laundromats and Dry Cleaners 13:27 Grief, Ride Alongs, and the Call to Policing 14:38 Becoming a Police Officer: The Academy and First Steps 15:44 Starting in a Quiet T
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