Katherine Montenegro (Sergeant Kiba)

I would go walk my dogs, you know. So I would sit here, there, and, like, read my emails or even when I was, like, just doing anything in the little treadmill, just walking, just walking, just walking. And I would walk everywhere, you know, take the stairs, not take the elevator, things like that, you know, park really far.

Even when I was going to calls, I would park a little further just so I could walk more, you know.

If, you know, during my lunch break, luckily our police department does have a gym. So during my lunch break, I will go to the gym. Obviously, you know how it is. Calls permitted when you're on the road. If it wasn't busy and I could actually take my lunch, I will go to, you know, to the station.

So that's what I started implementing every day and just kind of like implement that throughout the day to be able to do like an overall of the fitness thing.

It's all about the command presence that you give.

Especially here in Miami.

I might be in a situation where I might not be able to reach my radio. I might not be able to ask for emergency backup. And I need to be able to hold my own.

You know?

Because things happen and things happen in a second. Am I very vigilant about how I go about things? Absolutely. I am the kind of cop because of the fact that I know I'm a female. Can I hold my own? Absolutely. But do I understand also that you are stronger than me? I do. So I am the kind of cop that I keep my distance very far from people.

Like I'm not going to allow anybody to be like arm's length that I feel like you could just grab me unexpectedly. You know?

So the first unit that I went in was CRT, which is our crime response team. These are the guys that are in the black chargers, wearing all black. The hitters. Those are the little jump out boys. Jump out boys. And at the time, when I started, there was only two females that were in that unit.

And this was back in 2017, I want to say. So it was only two females. It was like eight of us, one sergeant. And boy, that was the best time of my life, honestly. I had so much fun in that unit. Because all in that unit that we were doing at the time, honestly, were like doping guns.

Yeah.

At the time, we didn't. But then we started working with the detectives. Once they started, when they would have somebody they would look for, they would try to find it for them. Especially with the burglary unit that we used to work a lot closer to. Because at least in our department, the robbery unit was very, very... They were very united.

So they would do their own thing and nobody would mess with robbery. Because that's like the... You know, robbery is the highest thing, you know, because nobody... The cream of the crop. Yes, because nobody robs anybody by mistake, you know?

So after that unit, I ended up actually going to detective and I went into burglary.

Then I became a detective in burglary. While I was in burglary, I did a bunch of classes with, like, the Secret Service and, you know, all these other agencies because I was trying to obviously learn the most that I could.

Because in burglary, then I helped create this program for the whole detective unit that is called SCCTV Squad. So it was to teach the detectives how to be able to download all the cameras for cases and to actually be able to testify on them in court because the first thing that any good attorney is going to do is try to throw out the videos.

So I actually went and I got classes on how to be able to download videos from different type of CCTV systems and all that stuff and be able to testify on court. After that, I ended up going to my favorite unit. I ended up going to Homicide.

So actually, I am from Nicaragua. It's in Central America for people that don't know. I moved here when I was 15. My mom came to the United States before I did. So obviously, it was like a big transition coming from, you know, like a third world country to a first world country. Like just even just the streets were very different.

Four? Four. That's still fast.

Yes.

Yes, I really was. During that time, our police department was very, very young. Very under minimum. No. How many officers? We were having people leave left and right to all the departments. The homicide unit had two people.

That's the reason how I end up going to homicide.

Because nobody wanted to be in homicide. And the reason why nobody wanted to be in homicide, obviously, besides dealing with the dead.

We were getting called out all the time because our homicide unit wasn't just homicide. We also did anything that had to do with victims' crimes. Not special victims, but victims' crimes. So rapes, assaults, you know, anything that it was... being done to a person up to death.

Shootings, stabbings. Major crimes. Yes. Major crimes.

There was times that I would get home from my call out and I was sitting down in my bed and my sergeant was calling me again. I need to come out again. I need to come out again. I need to come out again.

Yeah.

But it was honestly the best time.

I learned a lot. I got bit.

Okay, so during the time of homicide, obviously you have to do a lot of training. I went to a death investigation class at the medical examiner's office. For those people that don't know what the medical examiner's office is, basically where we take the dead and they do the autopsies and they try to figure out the cause of death of a person. So they teach about all the types of death of people.

One of the things that they teach you there is about bite marks and how you testify on bite marks and how bite marks became part of something that you can bring into court as evidence and that they're very unique to a person just like fingerprints. Wow. They're a unique identifier. So this very elderly man comes and he starts talking to us about bite marks.

They're like, hey, we're going to go to the morgue. You know, he gets, you know, a cadaver. And he brings like this like mold of like teeth, but they're like attached to like a clamp. Right. So he grabs the, you know, the cadaver's arm and he bites it like really hard.

You can hear the crunch when he closes it because he's supposed to have like the same amount of pressure than, you know, like an actual bite.

He starts talking about the indentation, how it looks, you know, on the person that is deceased. So he's like, now I need a live volunteer. And I was like, me right here all day. Bite me, sir. Yeah. So why did I do it? I have no idea. He does the same clamp on my arm. It hurt. All I could think, I was like, I cannot cry in front of everybody. I'm not going to cry in front of everybody.

After that, you know, I was part of the police explorer program for my department that I currently work for. So I was like 15 and I was a cadet with them. I also did the Air Force GRTC in high school. And because of that, that's when I decided, you know, like I want to go into the military. I joined the Army at 18, right out of high school.

But in the inside, I was crying because all I could hear is like the crunch of my arm. And then he starts showing like obviously the difference, you know, because you have the blood flow, how it turns red, how it turns purple, et cetera, et cetera, because... We leave.

When we come back from lunch, he's putting the presentation of the biggest case that has to do with bite marks, which is Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy got indicted over a bite mark. He was the first case ever that a bite mark was introduced into evidence in court, and that's what got him indicted, his bite mark.

So then this man, for the first time, actually introduces himself, and he's like, oh, my name is Dr. Richard. He is the doctor that took the mold print from Ted Bundy, and the bite mark, the mold that he bit me with, was Ted Bundy's teeth.

So Ted Bundy was one of the biggest serial killer in the history of the United States. He was using his looks as a very handsome man to pick up college women and he would basically, you know, rape them and then he would murder them. So the one case that he got indicted on is because he bit the girl's butt cheek.

So when they go and they get his mold, the print of his mouth, they show how her bite mark and his bite mark, it was a perfect match because he had a chipped tooth. So that, which ended up in my arm when he bit me with it.

And that's how he ended up getting it. That's amazing.

I love that. And that's the thing. Like, you know, a lot of people get the misconception of what, like, police work is also because of everything that is in social media. And, you know, like you're watching GSP and all they're doing is pitting cars everywhere. And so people think that that's all police work is. And it's really not.

Like you deal with so much things, which is the reason why I'm a very, very big advocate when it comes to mental health. Because at the end of the day, people call the cops on like their saddest, their most traumatic days, their worst days. I've been in the most traumatic days in people's lives.

And they have cried to me. They have, you know, I've I've held people when they've taken their last breath.

You know, and I am the last person that they see. But then afterwards, I got to go, you know, and deal with a call because, you know, somebody is parked in my driveway and like, oh, my God, this cop is being a jerk. And then they don't understand that 10 minutes before that I had to deal with like somebody's.

tragic death unfortunately so people don't understand how that as a person it taxes you little by little you know and it's all like oh because i pay your salary yeah i pay taxes i pay your salary yeah and we're the customer service that people don't want at the end of the day no we're the cleanup crew i was gonna say you're doing the dirty work yeah that no one wants to do

Honestly, like fitness was one of the first things that I started doing to take care of my mental health, you know, the fitness. And believe it or not, I actually do play video games. Yeah. I do. I actually did start a Discord community. I have like over 400 members there. And because when I was in the military, right, this is how I played video games my whole life.

My mom was, like, very nervous about it because, you know, especially during that time, it was 2008, you know, there was an ongoing war. Yeah.

But when I was in the military and I was pregnant, I was by myself living in Kentucky. My husband at the time, he was deployed. So I was alone and pregnant. I had no family around me in Kentucky, okay? So I became very, very depressed because I was alone. Of course. And since I was pregnant, I wasn't going to work because I was on maternity leave.

You know, because I would go over there, do some clerical work, and come back. I started playing a game named World of Warcraft.

Right? And then I actually started meeting, like, people online because you have, like, a clan and all this, and you meet people online, you talk to them. And I've made friends since...

2010 yeah that are my friends still now online that i've never met in person but i know their whole lives i know their wife's names their family's name we sent pictures and everything so i realized how honestly this gaming community helped me because when i felt alone and i felt sad i could jump in the game and i could talk to them and we can just like you know shit the shit and just talk shit so that's why i created the discord

So every night when I game and I do my streaming, I have like 10, 20 people in the Discord and we just talk and we play. And I have so many people hit me up afterwards and they're like, thank you. Like, I don't feel alone. I feel like, you know, every time that I'm sad, now I've made all these friends. I've made all these connections. And my Discord has been blowing up.

That's what it's been doing. Everybody's sending pictures of their family and talking. It's very different when you have like a gaming community. compared to any other community, you know? Because you can make that friendship with people that you never even met in person.

Yeah, there's still that stigma with police work and social media.

I was ready to go to war.

That's the way now.

And the thing was that, like, I was, you know, I came here to the United States with a permanent residence, so... My mom was, I was trying to figure out a way how to become a citizen too. And my mom was like, oh, you know, you can just marry somebody. And then I'm like, I can marry somebody or go to war. I'm going to go to war. That's why.

Yeah. And especially in our job, because let me tell you, like, I got to a point where I was relieved of duty in my police department. I was relieved of duty for 13 months. And even though they were paying me, I wasn't allowed to work overtime. I wasn't obviously allowed to do anything. And that, it's when I started thinking, like, damn, like, I don't have any other source of income.

I need to have something else just in case or even, like, make it a primary thing because, like, it's... Something happens. And that's the problem when it comes to police work and why we suffer so much in the mental health part because we're always like, okay, I need to work overtime. I need to, you know, pay this, pay that. So I need this overtime, that overtime, and then...

you have departments that have limitations on overtime. So it's like, what do you do then? Are you going to burn yourself out mentally, physically, emotionally, that you can't do anything else besides just be a robot and work all day long?

That was me.

Mind you, I'm 35. Yeah. Okay. And I even got certified as a police dispatcher to be a police dispatcher in my police department to work more overtime.

Yeah, and that's the thing. Respectfully, respectfully. I get it. But it was also that, like, I got to the point that I was working 80 hours a week.

And then I was sleeping, like, two, three hours. I was not seeing my son because when I was working as a dispatcher, it was from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. So my son would be alone all the time. Of course. I wasn't spending time with him. I wasn't doing anything that he wasn't working.

I was basically living at work.

And I would just go and say hi to my house. I know. Basically.

What a beast.

You know, it was proactive. You have to do the job for the job.

Don't get me wrong. You can make money. You can make so much money as a police officer, 100%. But it's blood money. That's what I call it. I call it blood money. It is.

I call it blood money because you are always at work.

You're always there. And unfortunately, that's when mistakes happen. People become complacent. Yep. And you go to the same call over and over and over and over again. And then, you know... And it's not sustainable because you could get hurt or somebody else could get hurt because you are tired. You're human. Your body takes a toll. Your mind takes a toll. Yep.

Yeah. That tells you a little bit about my personality. That's great. So I ended up in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

And always having to be at work, you know?

So, I mean, I had to figure out a way how to get out. Yep. Listen, my Instagram is fairly new. I have a year on my account. It's been a year. So for me to have 257,000 followers in a year where I've basically like not even like done much is crazy. And that's what I was telling you. Like just even me being here in this podcast with you.

I realized of how important social media is.

And how you can get the message, the right message out if you use it properly.

I'm 18 years old. My English is super broken. I don't understand anybody. Nobody understands me. And I decided to be a mechanic because I was really into cars. I wanted to learn about cars. My first car that I fell in love with was a 1990 5.0 Mustang. And I didn't have a way to go to college either. So I'm like, the only way that I can really learn, the Army is going to teach me for free.

Oh, 100%. They should have social media, and they should dedicate it, and they should show every single aspect of, like, when it comes to police work because of the misconception that they have. So, for example, the city of Miami, Nick Off-Duty, he has one of the best social media platforms for his department because he shows, like, everything when it comes to it.

And it's all about how you use the social media. What is the intention that you're trying to give, you know? Like right now you have a lot of like TikTok cops.

Yeah, like that whole dancing thing. Oh my God, I hate it so much. Because then... Especially when it comes to the females because then it makes the rest of us that are trying or going to the gym. Makes you guys look bad. Because now you think about it. You see me and I'm a cop and I'm a female and your first thought is the one video that you saw before. It was the other cop that was dancing.

Of course.

They group you together. You're categorized as that. Yeah, for sure. It depends on how you use it, what message you're trying to give. Do I think that they need to use it and make all these trendy videos and singing and all that? No. I think that it should be used to give the public the right information of current events.

I think that it should show also what the department does, especially in whatever area the department is and what they're focused on when it comes to the community. For example, in my community, in my department, we do have a lot of elderly people. So We have a lot of elderly people that end up, for example, missing because they have dementia, they have Alzheimer's, and things like that.

So maybe create a video teaching the families how to go about dealing with their elderly that wanders off, whether it's putting air tags on their clothing or in their shoes or something like that. It's just an example of things like that. Not necessarily just making a video of like, Oh, hey guys, you know, today we're going to have coffee with a cop.

You know, and I'm not, you know, talking bad about my department social media or anything like that or any department social media in general. But I think it's just a message that you try to give and how do you deliver it too is very important.

I'm going to become a citizen. And I get an education. I was like, oh, yeah.

Nick Off-Duty.

Probably like 87, especially Tokyo Drift.

You know how much I made last year?

Yeah, honestly, yeah. All right. I was so in love with cars at the time. Like right now, I'm a big JDM fan. Like if I had the money, I'd buy me an R34. That's the first thing I'm going to buy.

That is business.

Let me put that in my back pocket real quick.

All right. Give me a pen and paper.

You know?

Honestly, my words of motivation is that it's always going to be you versus you. It doesn't matter what else other people are doing, but it's also very important of who you come across with and who your circle is. So if you want to level up, honestly, mentally, financially, it's all about who you surround yourself with.

I was in the military for four years, so I served my contract. I ended up getting out because I had my son. My son was born in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

Because if you are surrounded with successful people, you get a successful mindset. And you believe in yourself is the most important thing. Because when I started with my Instagram and everything, it was all the jokes of like, oh, only fans, right? Only fans.

And then, hey, but here I am. Look.

So you can find me on Instagram.

My handle is at Sergeant Kiba, K-I-B-A, full sergeant, spell it out. You can find me on TikTok, it's the same. And you can find me on Twitch, which is the same handle, at Sergeant Kiba.

Every day.

I do every day on TikTok. Usually when I stream on TikTok, it's more related to I get a lot of like Hispanic people and they do ask me a lot of questions. I'm like, oh, I got a ticket. What do I do? Or, you know, my registration is expired. What do I do? So I do try to answer those questions because I think that that's very important. Right.

So like my TikTok is more of like, what question would you like to ask a cop if you could? Okay, cool.

So that's my concept when it comes to my TikTok. Because a lot of people, like, oh, what do I do if I want to become a cop? Like, how do I go about it? What are the requirements? You know, obviously, everything that I say on my TikTok is through my personal experience and not the opinions of my department. Of course. Because I have to clarify that all the time.

Disclaimer. Now for my stream on my Twitch is more for like the video game side for like when people want to come and they just want to play and they just want to release and, you know, like just a distressor, you know?

Yes. And the best thing that I have. Of course. My son is my biggest motivation. Everything that I do, I do it with my son in mind and how I can make his life better. compared to the life that I had. I literally had a volcano in the back of my house. I lived in the jungle. So seeing from where I came from to how his life is, is very different, two different worlds.

And then on my Instagram, I do try to do like more of like the fitness part, especially since I became a runner at the beginning of the year. my algorithm on TikTok became a lot of like female runners that were killed during running.

So I wanted to like emphasize on also on the safety of running because I run with a half vest.

But I carry.

I have my pepper spray and I carry, you know, I have an extra tag on just the vest in case my phone gets lost or dies, you know.

Things like that because I didn't realize because obviously we have like that, you know, a personality mentality. I was running a four o'clock in the morning. I was running a 10 o'clock at night and I didn't realize that I was running at nighttime because, you know, in my mind, I'm like, you know, I'm a cop, you know, I could, but then I was like, let me just be safe. You know?

So that's also one of the things that, you know, I started doing on my, on my Instagram. So, yeah.

I get out, I come back to Miami. I started using my GI Bill to go to FIU. I wanted to start college. But I realized that I wasn't making money because I can't go to school and work and take care of my son and do everything all at once. So I do drop out of college. And then that's when I'm like, I have to go into the police academy. I go to the police academy.

This is in 2014. I got out of the military in 2012. So for those two years, I was actually trying to get hired as a mechanic. But every time I would go and apply somewhere, obviously the stereotype and everything, people would be like, oh, yeah, have your boyfriend come and apply. And I would be like, no, it's for me. I'm the mechanic. And I would never get a call back.

I would apply to a bunch of different, like, mechanic shops, and I would never get a call back.

So that's why I was like, okay, you know, let me start college. Then I dropped out of college, and I joined the academy.

No. So this is the thing, right? I go to the academy self-sponsored.

I paid my way through the academy. I didn't go through a police department.

So the biggest difference is like since you basically go and get the certification to become a police officer on your own. When you get hired by a department, the department is paying for that. The specific department is paying for your way to become certified.

So that means that once you become certified, usually departments give you a contract that you, since we're sending you, you have to stay with us at least two years, for example. Ah. Okay, that makes sense. So you have to basically make a contract with that department that, like, I'm going to put you through it, so you're going to stay working for me.

Now, as a self-sponsored, since I paid my way through it, I was certified I could apply with whatever department I wanted to.

And see who would hire me first. That's basically what it was.

So... you have the option to pick whoever you want to work for. And it's a lot easier because a lot of the departments, they're going to be like, okay, I don't have to send her to the academy. I don't have to spend the money. She's already certified. She can already just start training.

Rather than with a department, they have to wait until you graduate, and then you can go ahead and train because usually the academy is about six months here in Florida. Usually in most states it's six months. But I already had done all that, so I could just start right away.

My first tip will always going to be physical fitness. Why? Because physical fitness, being a cop is not just putting on the uniform, having a gun, and then I'm going to go out there and arrest people. You have to be physically fit. If you're physically fit, you are mentally fit also. Because being a cop, it is very tiresome. And what a lot of people don't understand is that we work so many hours.

I work between 76 to 80 hours a week sometimes. So if you're physically fit, you are able to be not always tired mentally because it's not just the physical part is the mental part. So always physical fitness and not just to the academy, but like stay with it after the academy. Because a lot of people just train for the academy because you're running every day and you're doing this every day.

And then when they get out in the streets, they just put it in the back burner and they don't go back to the gym ever again. So try to stay that. So physically fit, to never forget who you are before you became a cop. So whatever hobbies you had before, if you were a fishing guy, if you were somebody that likes drawing, painting, to not forget that.

Because I feel like a lot of people, once they become cops... They lose themselves. They lose themselves and then that becomes their identity. Yeah. And that's all they do.

You know, and then I read this really good book that is called Emotional Survivor Law Enforcement. And he talks about that, how, you know, you have like that adrenaline desired all the time. That when you're like not working, all you want to do is talk about it because you want to re-experience that adrenaline rush.

So that's where all the cops get together and like, hey, you know, I arrested this guy and I did this and I did that because they want to re-experience that adrenaline because that's all they become.

So as long as you don't forget who you are afterwards and you stay true to yourself. And my third thing is always going to be family. Family is more important, especially like if you have a spouse. Sometimes like, oh, you want to pick up overtime and you're constantly working and working and working and working that you're not making time for your family. Because I remember that I used to do that.

You know, I did it with my son because I would get home from work and be like, hey, mom, can we go to a park? And I'd be like, later, Bobby, I'm tired. You know, and then that later would never come.

Or, like, my mom's birthday. And then, oh, I picked up overtime. Sorry. I'll take you to dinner next week. And then next week will never come. So always have, like, make plans and make dates with your family, with your spouse or whoever. And not focus so much on overtime all the time. Because the overtime is always going to be there. It's always going to be there.

Yes. Okay. I just hit 10 years, yes.

So I always had like an on and off relationship with fitness, obviously because of life, you know, work and all that stuff, especially when you're working 80 hours a week, you're sleeping like three and then, you know. So at the beginning of the year, my department for the first time actually had a weight loss challenge, right?

This was December. They make the post. The challenge started on January 7th, and it was going to end at the end of the month. So you were going to do a weigh-in, and then the beginning and a weigh-in at the end.

Oh, so many, so many. And they had like two categories. They had the female and the male categories, right? So I was going to the gym every day, you know, working out, doing my thing like I usually do. And then when I read the post, I was like, damn, should I sign up? I was thinking to myself, should I sign up? And there's somebody there, they're like, don't sign up. You're not going to win.

Oh, man, that hit me so hard. I felt like, I thought to myself, like, just punch me in the face. Like, you know, I'd rather you do that than tell me this. So then I was like, that just flipped a switch in me. And I felt doubted. I felt like, in my mind, I was like, who are you to doubt what I can or I can't do? So I ran into the office and I signed up.

So I ended up losing 18 pounds in those 25 days. I took it so serious. Like I have never taken anything so serious in my life because I was like, I can't lose.

The biggest thing, honestly, when you are in a fitness journey is the fact that there's a lot of things that you have to sacrifice. And one of them is the only thing that you have is time. I was waking up at 4 o'clock in the morning. I was going for a run in the morning. I would do a run around my house because I live inside a golf course. So I would run the golf course.

And mind you, running a mile is like what? Like, even if you're just starting, 10, 15 minutes that it would take you. It's not going to take you, you know, you don't have to do two hours at the gym for you to, like, be able to do a fitness journey. Then I think that that's the biggest misconception, that people think that you have to be at the gym, like, three, five hours, and it's not.

So I would just take, like, 30 minutes at the beginning. I would go run, do a mile, and then I would come back and I would do some type of, like... You know, jumping jacks, push-ups, things like that, you know, just to start the day. I would take a shower, but I was fasting from 8 p.m. the night before all the way till noon.

At noon, and all I was eating was chicken breast. No vegetables, no rice, no nothing.

I know, I know.

It's not that it's sustainable, but at the end, my mindset was so focused on it that I didn't care if it tasted bad. I didn't care if I got bored of it. I didn't care because I was not going to lose. I refused to sign up because in my mind, I was thinking, people are going to be like, oh, Sarge gave up. Oh, she gave up. She lost.

Hi, thank you for having me. I'm so glad to be here, honestly.

And I would tell that to myself all the time, and I was like, I can't have that. And that was my biggest motivation. It was not...

to lose so i learned about how to do my macros i learned you know how to do the whole protein and carbs and all that stuff how many calories i had to do i was drinking a whole gallon of water a day and i made sure that i was doing between 7 000 to 10 000 steps a day because that helps a lot more than having to go to the gym every day especially when you're busy I got me a little treadmill.