Nicholas Ruggiero

Nick was a police officer for almost 20 years in two different agencies, Alexandria City, Virginia, and the New York City Police Department. Nick is an eight-time best-selling author and advocate for law enforcement mental health programs and advocates for better law enforcement leadership. In Alexandria City, Nick held the position of Sergeant and supervised midnights, evenings, day shift, and ended his career in the Community Policing/Crime Prevention Unit. During Nick’s time in the Community Policing unit, he witnessed poor leadership decisions made by his command staff. He fell victim to a hostile work environment for speaking up about the treatment of his troops. In 2019, after the department refused to handle his hostile work environment claim, he retired and went to work for the District of Columbia Police Department as the supervisor of background investigations. He immediately knew he had made a mistake and asked to return to the Alexandria City Police Department. As a punishment for leaving the agency, Nick was stripped of his rank, pay and put through countless retaliation to prove a point to other people thinking about leaving the agency. After over a month of relentless harassment and retaliation, Nick attempted to take his life. He didn’t complete suicide but took his poor experiences and started the Roll Call Room podcast in October 2019, helping thousands of other officers struggling with PTSD and mental health issues. When the Roll Call Room podcast hit 25,000 listeners, the Chief of Police attempted to make Nick shut the podcast down by intimidation and denial of promotion. When Nick refused and scored top of the list for the upcoming Lieutenant process (as a police officer), the department investigated him for an incident a year prior and prior to his re-hire. Knowing that Nick was on probation, the department concluded their investigation six days before the end of Nick’s probation so he would not have grievance rights. Rather than be forced out of the department, Nick retired and left the agency. After the release of "Police mental barricade,; A survivor's guide to poor law enforcement leadership" the City of Alexandria Police department engaged in multiple forms of retaliation, including attempts to prevent Nick from gaining employment. As a result of harassment, retaliation, and untruthfulness uncovered, the Chief of Police resigned (retired). Nick wrote “Police Mental Health Barricade: A survivor’s guide to poor law enforcement leadership” to help others going through the same thing. Leaders are very scarce in our profession right now, and more than ever, positional equity leaders have no place leading us through these challenging times. This book will take you through taking medication for PTSD, poor leadership, promotions, positional equity leaders, and how we fix our fantastic profession. In "The dark side of the blue line," Nick speaks about how, since the "defund the police" movement started, our poor law enforcement leadership has destroyed morale with countless poor leadership decisions. Leadership within law enforcement has turned its focus from solving crime and protecting the public to extreme punishments for the troops and policies that put officers and the public in danger. This book sheds light on how crime statistics are manipulated for law enforcement leadership's gain of positional equity, all while crushing line officers for minor policy infractions. Now Nick has assembled multiple studies guides he's created over the years and wrote: "What to expect when expecting a law enforcement process." This study guide has assisted with over 40 promotions within Nick's old department and gives real cops a fighting chance of acing the promotional process on their feet, not their knees. Nick's wife finishes the book with an in-depth look as an LEO spouse. What it's like to watch someone you love commit themselves to a more significant cause only to have their soul crushed by poor law enforcement leadership. Nicole speaks about how our profession is in a critical time and heading in a dangerous direction. Finally, someone is speaking up and saying what needs to be said about the REAL problem in law enforcement. Nick can be reached at rollcallroompodcast@gmail.com