You don't have to wear a badge to fight for the people who do. Kim Pastore, founder of the Jorge Pastore Foundation, lost her husband Jorge, an Austin PD SWAT officer, in the line of duty in 2023. What she built in the aftermath, in a remarkably short amount of time and entirely from the outside looking in, is one of the most honest, boots-on-the-ground efforts to close the training gap facing law enforcement in this country. This conversation is long overdue, and it goes deep.
Kim and I trace the full arc: from Fort Lauderdale, a karate school, and a firefighter-paramedic who couldn't shake the pull of tactical law enforcement, all the way to Austin, COVID, defund protests, a SWAT career, a line of duty death, and a foundation that is now putting officers through world-class training from Texas to New Jersey to Alabama and beyond. What you'll hear is not a polished nonprofit pitch. It's a real conversation about what it costs to build something like this, what the obstacles actually are, and why the people doing the most important work are often the ones getting the most pushback.
The training gap is real, it's leadership-driven, and it's fixable. Kim breaks down exactly why consistent, valuable training is so hard for patrol officers to access, what the foundation is doing to solve it one class at a time, and what a model built on radical transparency with donors actually looks like in practice. If you have ever wondered where your money goes when you give to a law enforcement nonprofit, this episode answers that question with specifics.
And then the conversation goes somewhere even heavier: the line of duty death notification process, the wife's perspective no one in the room has ever heard, and why leadership at every level needs to have a plan in place before the worst day happens. Kim has spoken at law enforcement conferences across the country on this, and the lines that form afterward tell you everything about how much the community needed someone to finally say it out loud.
In this episode:
• The single biggest obstacle to consistent law enforcement training is leadership: training needs to be built into the work week as a mandatory, funded part of the job rather than something officers fund themselves on personal time and PTO.
• The Jorge Pastore Foundation operates on a radical transparency model with donors: instead of a general donation bucket, Kim presents a specific training, names the cost, and lets donors sponsor individual officers so they can see exactly where every dollar went, including photos afterward.
• Free training has a hidden cost: the foundation learned early that charging officers even a small amount creates buy-in and accountability, making the training more effective and the commitment more real.
• Eric Wise of Cornerstone Performance and 303 Solutions is now tasked with seeking out the smallest, most underserved agencies, including departments in Alabama and rural Texas, that receive little to no firearms instruction whatsoever.
• The foundation's training calendar for 2027 is already being built out by genre, with categories covering pistol, rifle, CQB, and critical response training, mapped to the companies and regions best suited to deliver them.
• Kim's line of duty death best practice protocol, developed with John Becker and peer support resources, gives departments a four-page checklist covering who notifies, what is said, how support officers are assigned, and how outside resources are used, addressing a gap that exists in most agencies.
• The foundation's regional expansion model mirrors what has been built in Central Texas: Humble Warrior Games and legacy matches in new regions, with money raised locally going back into local law enforcement training, structured almost like a franchise that gives communities a vehicle to honor their own fallen officers.
Chapters:
0:16 The Capable Standard: Scott's new free email, the Brief
2:25 Introducing Kim Pastore and the Jorge Pastore Foundation
3:48 Kim's origin story: Fort Lauderdale, karate, and Austin
8:05 The foundation's mission, pillars, and how it started
22:20 The biggest obstacle: why patrol officers can't get training
35:39 Working with instructors: logistics, facilities, and costs
41:33 Donor transparency: where the money actually goes
58:17 Speaking at conferences: the wife's perspective on line of duty death
1:07:56 What civilians don't understand about a SWAT incident
1:12:25 Jorge Pastore's final call: bravery, protocol, and the debrief
1:25:55 Line of duty death protocol: fixing the gap in every department
1:52:59 Where JPF is headed: regional expansion and how to get involved
Mentioned:
Kim Pastore — Founder of the Jorge Pastore Foundation, guest on this episode, who built a law enforcement training nonprofit after the line of duty death of her husband Jorge Pastore in 2023.
Jorge Pastore — Austin PD SWAT officer and husband of Kim Pastore, killed in the line of duty in 2023 during a hostage rescue call; namesake of the Jorge Pastore Foundation.
Eric Wise — Founder of Cornerstone Performance and 303 Solutions, a full-time firearms instructor tasked by the foundation with finding and training the smallest, most underserved law enforcement agencies.
Jake Labhart — Founder of In Extremis Performance, mentioned for his movement-based training work that Kim believes should be in every police academy.
Shane Foster — Founder of Guild Solutions Group, described as one of the interconnected training professionals working with the Jorge Pastore Foundation.
Chuck Pressburg — Owner and lead instructor of Presscheck Consulting, whose courses the Jorge Pastore Foundation sponsors officers to attend through a direct donor-to-training-company model.
Tommy — Associated with the sub second guys, working to deliver four-hour training blocks to law enforcement officers who can't get more time approved.
John Becker — The person who first encouraged Kim to share the wife's perspective on line of duty death notification publicly, connecting her to speaking opportunities at tactical conferences and helping develop the debrief format she now presents.
Anthony Coley — Organizer of the Legacy match and PCSL matches, described as a daily collaborator with Kim in expanding competitive shooting events for law enforcement across the country.
