Shadowing Practice: He's The Dumbest Cop I've Ever Talked About - Learn English Speaking with Video
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103 sentences
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So in order to win his ex -girlfriend back, this cop shot himself in the leg.
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This story is wild.
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Now the cop's name is Thomas, and Thomas is about 27 years old during this time, living in West Hempstead, New York,
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working as a state trooper.
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And Thomas has a problem.
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A year before this, his girlfriend broke up with him, and he can't stop thinking about her.
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In fact, He would do anything to get her back, even if he has to break the law.
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And so one day in 2024, he gets an idea, a creative way to win over her love.
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Because he remembers a couple of years before he had gotten hurt in a hit and run while on duty.
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And from this, he got a lot of sympathy.
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I mean, everyone felt really bad for him and treated him so well for a while after that.
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So Thomas's big creative idea is that he wants to get injured on the job again.
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But this time, the injury needs to be way worse.
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Because in order to win his ex back, he doesn't just want her to feel bad for him.
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He wants her and the public to see him as a hero.
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So what's the most heroic thing a cop can do?
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Get shot in the line of duty.
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And how's he going to get shot in the line of duty? he's gonna do it himself.
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So he gets to work on this insane plan.
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First, he researches where to buy a gun online.
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I mean, he obviously already has a gun, a service weapon, you know, he's a cop, but he can't use that gun.
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It would be traceable.
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So he looks for a new one.
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He also gets online and researches ways to shoot himself without actually getting hurt that badly or leaving a permanent injury.
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Specifically, he wants to know the best place to have a bullet hit his leg and not bleed out.
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And he reads like all kinds of articles about this, like this one titled
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How It Feels to Get Shot.
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And once he has all the information he needs, he puts his plan into motion.
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One night, he drives over to a spot on the highway that runs through his assigned post,
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and he pulls over and he drops some bullet casings on the ground.
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Then he heads to the nearby state park, and he pulls out his rifle, and blam!
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He shoots himself right in the leg, which I'm sure doesn't feel good.
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Then he ties a tourniquet on his wound, his wound that he gave himself, and from there, Thomas drives back to his house,
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where he hides the gun in his personal car.
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Then he returns to the spot where he left the bullet casings, and he calls in over his radio,
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and says, shots fired, shots fired, I'm hit.
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Minutes later, police and first responders arrive, and they see that he's been shot.
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And at some point, he tells his fellow officers some bullshit story about how he was out on patrol,
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and he saw a Dodge Charger with temporary
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New Jersey plates stopped on the center median, and he tells them that he went to check it out,
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and that there was a black man wearing a ski mask there.
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And this mysterious black man had a gun and blam, shot him in the leg.
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Thomas also asks the first responders to make sure to take him to a specific hospital on Long Island.
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Why that hospital?
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Because the ex -girlfriend he's trying to win back works there.
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And she's on duty right now as a nurse.
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And he wants to make sure that she sees him in the state he's in.
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So this state trooper at the scene believes that his friend is dying
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and he puts him in his squad car and he takes him to the hospital.
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And his ex -girlfriend is actually there, but it's unclear how she reacts to him being shot.
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I actually don't have information on that.
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But I seriously doubt that she puts a medal on him and says, oh, my hero.
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Now, obviously a law enforcement officer being shot is a big deal and police aren't going to take this lightly.
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So immediately, hundreds of law enforcement officers get involved.
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State police, county police, the NYPD, the New Jersey State Police, Newark Police, even police from Delaware get involved,
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and they all start a manhunt for this mysterious black man who supposedly shot a fellow cop.
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And they are searching everywhere for this guy.
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And they can't find him.
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Because, you know, he's not real.
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Not to mention, it's extra f*ed up that he blamed it on a black man,
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because he knew that he was describing a person that the cops would actually go and look for.
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Anyway, later, Thomas recovers enough for the hospital to release him.
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So they release him, and he gets a hero's walkout, like a lot of officers get while injured in the line of duty.
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Which means there are a bunch of police there, And they cheer and they applaud this courageous officer for surviving everything he went through.
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Here you're looking at a bunch of pictures of him.
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During this hero's walkout, you can see that he's in a wheelchair because his leg is injured.
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Now, apparently, Thomas can't believe that he's actually pulling this off.
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People think he was courageous.
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They believe him.
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And so about a day after the shooting, he gets online and he starts looking up every article that he can find about him being shot.
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Two days after the shooting, he gets online and he starts researching
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Dodge Chargers because he said the shooter was driving a Dodge Charger,
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and he wants to be prepared in case the police later ask him more specific questions about the car he saw.
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Meanwhile, his fellow officers are still out there, still looking for the mysterious shooter.
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A guy they'll never find because he doesn't exist.
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And so at this point, Thomas, he's probably thinking, you know,
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his plan worked, And it'll only be a matter of time before his ex realizes what an absolute freaking chad he is,
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and she'll come crawling right back to him.
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Until.
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So, police are still investigating all this, trying to figure out why someone would shoot Thomas.
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And within a few days of all of this happening, these officers, they start feeling like the evidence is not supporting Thomas' story.
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Like, if this crime went down the way he said it did, there would be tire marks from the Dodge Chargers' quick getaway.
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Plus, they also can't seem to find any actual bullets at the crime scene, even though they find shell casings,
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which to them it just doesn't make sense.
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Not to mention, there aren't any eyewitnesses to the shooting, no video evidence, no record of any license plate matching the plate number he gave them.
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There isn't even any body cam footage they can look at,
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because their body cameras turn on automatically when the cop turns on the full light bar,
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and he never turned on the full light bar because he was never in any real danger.
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Needless to say, police are starting to get suspicious,
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and they're able to track the GPS in his patrol car to see where it went that night,
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and they can see that it traveled to his post, then to the state park, then to his home, and then back to the crime scene.
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And so they get a search warrant, and they go and they search Thomas' house.
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And there, police find the gun he used to shoot himself in the leg.
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They also search his electronic devices and his search history, and they find the gun website he was using to look for a new gun,
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and the research on what getting shot feels like, and everything else he searched for.
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So eventually, Thomas resigns from the force and a few days after that, he turns himself in.
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And so, bam, police arrest him.
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And I don't have a mugshot, but here he is being taken away in custody.
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And ultimately, Thomas takes a plea deal and he gets sentenced to six months in jail.
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And at the end of it all, his poor ex -girlfriend does not, in fact, think he is a hero.
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And she doesn't get back together with him at all.
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No, no, she actually gets an order of protection against his weird ass, which is like a restraining order.
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So he's legally no longer allowed to contact her.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “He's The Dumbest Cop I've Ever Talked About”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Thomas, shot, gun, officer, himself. This video has 103 sentences and 1448 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:24. The speaker talks at a natural 172 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| bullet noun | /ˈbʊlɪt/ | A projectile, usually of metal, shot from a gun at high speed. |
| mysterious adjective | /mɪˈstɪɹi.əs/ | Of unknown origin. |
| enforcement noun | /ɪnˈfoɹsm(ə)nt/ | The act of enforcing; compulsion. |
| patrol noun | /pəˈtɹoʊl/ | A going of the rounds along the chain of sentinels and between the posts, by a guard, usually consisting of three or four men, to insure greater security from… |
| shooter noun | /ˈʃuːtəː/ | Someone who shoots something; a gunner, archer, etc. |
| courageous adjective | /kəˈɹeɪd͡ʒəs/ | Of a person, displaying or possessing courage. |
| meanwhile adverb | /ˈmiːnwaɪl/ | During the time that something is happening, often specifically in a different place. |
| temporary adjective | /ˈtɛmp(əˌɹ)ɛɹi/ | Not permanent; existing only for a period or periods of time. |
| badly adverb | /ˈbæd.li/ | In a bad manner. |
| insane adjective | /ɪnˈseɪn/ | Exhibiting unsoundness or disorder of mind; not sane; utterly mad. |
| nurse noun | /nɝs/ | Anyone performing this role, regardless of training or profession. |
| medal noun | /ˈmɛdəl/ | A stamped metal disc used as a personal ornament, a charm, or a religious object. |
| shell noun | /ʃɛl/ | The calcareous or chitinous external covering of mollusks, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates. |
| arrive verb | /əˈɹaɪv/ | To reach; to get to a certain place. |
| cop noun | /kɑp/ | A police officer or prison guard. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| get back verb | Return to where one came from. | |
| go down verb | To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one. | |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| look up verb | /ˌlʊk ˈʌp/ | To have better prospects. |
| pull out verb | To withdraw; especially of military forces; to retreat. | |
| pull over verb | To come to a stop, and turn off the road (i.e. onto the roadside or hard shoulder). | |
| run through verb | To summarise briefly. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | been shot · being shot · is injured |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | man who supposedly · ass, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 23 contractions and reduced forms, such as can't, doesn't, aren't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shooter /ˈʃuːtəː/, shell /ʃɛl/, suspicious /səˈspɪʃ.əs/
- Long words — get the stress right: mysterious /mɪˈstɪɹi.əs/, temporary /ˈtɛmp(əˌɹ)ɛɹi/, investigate /ɪnˈvɛs.tə.ɡeɪt/, supposedly /səˈpoʊ̯.zɪd.li/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like bullet, mysterious, enforcement.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.