Retired San Diego cop finds second act in Hollywood

• He advises writers and directors on scripts and action scenes and teaches actors how to act like police and not look stupid holding a gun.

Flashback: Gallop was a police officer for 28 years, and spent time on SWAT, along with the beach team, narcotics and the mayor's detail, he told Axios.

• A friend, who's a retired Navy SEAL, referred him to Hollywood.
• Gallop started working on the CBS show "S.W.A.T." in 2017, and on his first day trained the whole cast on the back lot of Universal Studios.
• He taped off a warehouse as if he was serving a warrant as part of a SWAT team.
• Then he taught them different scenarios: how to handle their guns, how to enter rooms, how to arrest people and how to breach a building.

Fun fact: A writer also recruited him to play a recurring role, Sgt. Stevens, a veteran SWAT team member who regularly wins the Master Gunner award.

• "I was in the pilot just in the background, and a writer said, 'Hey, man, I've got this line, you want to try it?'" Gallop said.
• From there, a star was born, and he was in 40 episodes.

Why it matters: It's important to make the police details as accurate as possible because law enforcement and military people watch the show, Gallop said.

• "The writers have their vision, and so you work together with them along with the cast, and you try to figure out what's going to work for them," he said.

Sometimes the writers want something real police would never do.

Case in point: Slicing the pie. That's when police are coming up to a corner in a building and peek out around the corner with just half their face and the barrel of their gun.

• "You look straight forward and you see where the suspect's at, or you see down the hallway and you keep your eyes facing that way," Gallop said.
• But on TV, an actor might need to talk to another actor who's standing behind him.
• "So he might have to turn his head a little bit so the camera can get him talking to Jay," Gallop said.
• In real life, you would stare down the hallway and talk, or communicate with hand signals, but that doesn't work for TV, he said.

Another example: The Charlie's Angels pose, where you point the gun straight up.

• "That's just not something that anybody does," Gallop said.

After "S.W.A.T." was canceled in 2025, Gallop switched to working on its spinoff, "S.W.A.T. Exiles," earlier this year.

• It's about the main character leading a ragtag group of younger misfit police officers.
• Gallop also advises the Netflix show "The Night Agent" about an FBI agent who works overnight in the White House.

Not bad for a retirement gig, Gallop said.

Context: Before Gallop was a technical adviser for TV shows, he worked on the mayor's security detail.

• Gallop worked under five different mayors and has a lot of behind-the-scenes stories.

🎟️ Better seats than the boss. Under Mayor Dick Murphy, Gallop and his partner attended the inauguration of President George W. Bush.

• Their security passes got them near the front, while the mayor was halfway back in the crowd, he recalled.

🍽️ Sanders kept them fed. Mayor Jerry Sanders, also the former chief of police, made sure his security officers didn't miss out on food at events.

• "He treated us great," Gallop said.

🤝 A future president's sidewalk hello. During a trip to Washington, D.C., the police officers were hanging out on the curb while the mayor attended a dinner at a private residence.

• Then-Sen. Barack Obama came outside and introduced himself to all of them.
• Gallop also met President George W. Bush, Sen. John McCain, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gov. Gavin Newsom while he was mayor of San Francisco and former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin.