Ted Nugent a Police Officer? ‘I’ve been a cop since 1982’ Comment Spurs Investigation

Ted Nugent a Police Officer? ‘I’ve been a cop since 1982’ Comment Spurs Investigation
Ted Nugent performs at Rams Head Live on Friday, August 16, 2013, in Baltimore. (Photo by Owen Sweeney/Invision/AP)
Zachary Stieber
3/3/2014
Updated:
7/18/2015

Ted Nugent’s latest comments in the ongoing controversy after he called President Barack Obama a “subhuman mongrel” spurred an investigation.

Nugent told CNN that he has been a police officer since 1982 in Lake County, Michigan. 

“I conduct federal raids with the DEA and ATF and U.S. Marshals and the FBI and Texas Rangers and heroes of law enforcement,” he said.

“And we are re-arresting fugitive felons let out of their cages after murdering and raping and molesting children, carjacking. And we keep going after these guys.

“The adrenaline is something like you will never experience, I hope you never have to experience it, but when we are done with these kinds of raids, we get together and our hearts are broken that we have to face these monsters. We call them mongrels. We call bad people who are destroying our neighborhoods mongrels.”

Nugent is in fact a reservist for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office but he has no authority or official responsibilities. The only thing he’s done that Sheriff Robert Hilts can recall is help raise money for a four-wheeler so that officers can reach people in the woods faster.

“He’s never joined us for any raids,” Hilts said of Nugent to the Tampa Bay Times. “Fortunately, we don’t have those sorts of problems up here.”

Representatives with the ATF, DEA, and Texas Rangers said that they don’t have any record of Nugent joining in on raids.

Joe Moses, a 22-year veteran special agent with the DEA, noted that sometimes special projects include people whose names wouldn’t be recorded, but that there are strict standards for whose involved in raids.

“You would not have someone who didn’t hold the status of a police officer or federal agent participate in such an operation,” Moses said.

The FBI declined to comment.