Joshua is a staff writer for Coffee or Die Magazine. He has previously covered the 75th anniversary of D-Day in France, multinational military exercises in Germany, and civil unrest during the 2020 riots that followed the death of George Floyd. Born and raised in small town South Dakota, Josh grew up playing football and soccer before going on to serve as a forward observer in the U.S. Army. After leaving the service, he earned his Crossfit Level 1 certificate and worked as a personal trainer while earning his paramedic license. Josh went on to work in paramedicine for over five years, much of that time in the North Minneapolis area, before transitioning to his career in multimedia journalism. Josh is married and has two children, and is currently pursuing his bachelor’s degree in multimedia journalism. His creative outlets include Skovlund Photography and Concentrated Emotion, which is where he publishes poetry focused on his life experiences.
As Officer Kurt Kaner’s police boat cut through the frigid waves in a Monday, Jan. 10, race to Chicago's Navy Pier, he knew only a few very bad things. A girl had jumped into murky Lake Michigan around 4 p.m. The water temperature hovered around ...
Amid a rocketing rise in shooting deaths of law enforcement officers nationwide, the FBI issued a stark warning to cops to watch out for assassins who want to ambush them. “Unprovoked attacks, pursuits, ambushes, and tactical situations remained ...
The deaths of five law enforcement officers in Illinois, Maryland, North Carolina, and Puerto Rico close a grim year for cops nationwide. Their deaths raise to 482 the number of officers killed in the line of duty in 2021. The leading cause of ...
Storm clouds are hovering around the city of Minneapolis. It’s a warm, humid night, and several 911 calls are already behind me. My 12-hour shift started at 4 p.m., and it’s just past midnight when I start to heat my Tupperware dish full of mashed ...
A Minnesota jury convicted the ex-cop who thought she was tasing a 20-year-old man and instead shot him to death with her pistol. Kim Potter, 49, a former Brooklyn Center Police officer, faces up to 15 years behind bars after being found guilty of ...
“Jesus, there it is.” It was 4:46 p.m. on Aug. 28, and Brent Kallem — a flight paramedic on board St. Luke's Health System’s Bell 429 GlobalRanger rescue helicopter — gazed along the east side of a granite peak in Idaho’s Payette National ...
A gun-toting New Jersey man who tried to cosplay as a federal cop got busted, prosecutors said. Wesley Rucker, 34, of Tinton Falls, flashed a fake US Drug Enforcement Administration ID card on Oct. 22 while seeking treatment at a Red Bank, New ...
After combing more than 19,880 square nautical miles of ocean off North Carolina and Florida, the US Coast Guard stopped searching for two missing mariners. Joseph Matthew Johnson, 44, of Carolina Beach, North Carolina, and Jason Heath, 35, a ...
In the Beaver State, it’s legal to grow marijuana, which makes the bust by Oregon State Police on Thursday, Nov. 18, stick out. Armed with a search warrant, troopers pounced on 500,000 pounds of processed pot in Jackson County, making it the ...
While taking a left curve along rain-slick Highway 14 in rural Arkansas on Thursday, Nov. 18, Independence County Sheriff’s Patrol Deputy Frank Ramirez’s cruiser began to slide. The Dodge Charger hit a culvert, became airborne, and then flipped on ...
By the time Atlanta Police Department officers Willie Adams and Marcus Todd arrived at the crash, flames were lapping at tree limbs and the driver appeared to be knocked out. It was Sunday, Nov. 14, and their body-worn cameras captured the horror ...
Someone is threatening to blow up businesses in Oregon unless the bomber is paid off, according to an FBI warning. Agents don’t know who’s targeting internet service companies, schools, and health care providers, but the hoaxers demand between ...
The Marine veteran who thwarted an Oct. 20 stickup in Arizona says he's “pogue as fuck” and not some sort of “freakin’ Ricky Recon” hero. “I'm a goddamn air winger, so, it’s like I'm not Steven Seagal here,” James M. Kilcer, 32, told Coffee or Die ...
Authorities have announced funeral arrangements for a deputy constable killed last week while moonlighting at a Texas tavern. Harrison County Constable Precinct 4 Deputy Constable Kareem Anthony Atkins died in Houston during an ambush on the night ...
Riverside County Sheriff’s Department deputy Alicia Lopez was awake. It was 4 a.m. in California, and the 47-year-old mom of three needed to breathe. She took a puff on her inhaler and tried to go back to sleep. But two hours later, the alarm went ...
A stay-at-home mother for three years, Terri Larson chose to take care of her three daughters rather than keep watching entire paychecks earned as a waitress go to daycare. One night in 2003, the TV was on as she fed her daughter a bottle. The show ...
Prodded by nationwide calls for police reform, all members of the US Marshals Service will now wear body cameras when capturing federal fugitives. The first phase of the camera mandate began with interim policy guidance signed Oct. 6 by the ...
Angelina Liu will never meet her father. A gang member assassinated the New York Police Department detective and his partner in 2014, about two and a half years before his daughter was born. The miracle birth to Angelina's widowed mother, Pei ...
Hours after FBI agents armed with search warrants raided his home and office, Edward D. Mullins resigned as the powerful president of New York City’s Sergeants Benevolent Association. A statement emailed Tuesday, Oct. 5, to the police union’s ...
Authorities continue to probe the death of a US Drug Enforcement Administration agent who was shot and killed Monday, Oct. 4, in a Tucson, Arizona, train station. In a prepared statement emailed to Coffee or Die Magazine on Tuesday afternoon, DEA ...
Inmates at New York City’s infamous Rikers Island jail routinely batter paramedics and emergency medical technicians with poop, spit, piss, and punches, forcing first responders to fend for themselves inside violent cell blocks, officials say. At ...
The US Drug Enforcement Administration issued a rare public health warning Monday, Sept. 27, designed to help curb the skyrocketing number of drug overdose deaths nationwide. The DEA wants Americans to be aware of a record and rising flood of cheap ...
A crowd of first responders gathered in front of the Brooklyn headquarters of the New York City Employees' Retirement System on Tuesday, Sept. 28, to protest what they say is a failed effort to compensate them for toxic exposures at the World Trade ...
Slain Houston Police Department Senior Officer William "Bill" Jeffrey will be buried Monday in Texas. Jeffrey, who spent more than three decades on the force, died Monday, Sept. 20, after being shot while trying to serve a warrant in the city. He was ...
US Customs and Border Protection spied on American citizens, blocked their international travel, and compromised their personal information to foreign agents, according to a scathing report that Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General ...
Municipal lawmakers in New York’s capital refused this month to ban tear gas and other less-lethal munitions, the latest setback in a national movement to curb police responses against protesters. On Sept. 9, the Albany Common Council tabled a bid ...
For at least 109 seconds, the night turned orange as a towering blaze closed over the firefighters. Captured in a video shot Sept. 10 from inside the cab of a truck, at least two men can be heard screaming obscenities, shouting directions, and ...
Denise Olsen cares so much about New York City’s firefighters that she took more than 500,000 steps to tell them. Olsen, 52, is a widow. Her husband, Jeffrey Olsen, died on Sept. 11, 2001. He was a Ladder 10 firefighter. The World Trade Center ...
If today is like pretty much any other day, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers will seize more than a ton of illegal drugs nationwide. And they'll probably seize a few really weird things, too — sea turtle shells, a box of parasitic ...
New York City's finest and bravest are battling for Big Apple bragging rights in the Hockey Heroes match on the night of Thursday, Sept. 9. For the 47th year, hockey teams representing New York City’s fire and police departments take to the ...
