Kevin Donaldson: From the Streets of Albion to Advocating for Change

From Atlantic City’s Streets to the Badge

When Kevin Donaldson told me about growing up around Nikki Scarfo’s crew in Atlantic City, I knew we were in for a raw conversation. This retired police officer and host of The Suffering Podcast didn’t start out wanting to wear a badge. His childhood was filled with what he calls “lots and lots of bad guys” and a father who was “a nightmare.”

“My world was filled with lots and lots of bad guys,” Kevin told me. “So I grew up in the Atlantic City area and that was the time of Nikki Scarfo Jr. running the streets in Georgia Avenue. Everything was corrupt.”

Kevin’s early years weren’t pretty. He stole from convenience stores, handed out candy bars to friends for acceptance, and bullied other kids. The worst part? His home life was even darker than the streets. With an abusive father and just him and his older brother in the house, Kevin learned early that if something wasn’t nailed down, he’d try to steal it.

One story he shared hit me hard. There was a Puerto Rican kid named Jay Ponte who Kevin tormented relentlessly in sixth and seventh grade. When Jay left school, Kevin spent 30 years looking for him. Social media finally connected them, and Kevin had Jay on his podcast to apologize face to face. Jay’s response? “We were just kids. I forgive you.” They’re friends now, but Kevin carries the regret of those lost decades.

Sports as the Great Equalizer

Football became Kevin’s lifeline. He played offensive tackle in college, then switched to guard when he realized he’d never see the field otherwise. On that offensive line, he’d do psychological warfare, getting under opponents’ pads and pinching their nipples to get them fired up. After the game? They’d shake hands and party together.

“Hard work beats talent every single day,” Kevin said. “And especially when talent doesn’t work hard.”

We got into how sports creates one of life’s few level playing fields. Black, white, rich, poor, it doesn’t matter if you can help the team win. That shared ground meant everything to Kevin, especially since it was the only thing he and his difficult father could agree on, watching the Philadelphia Phillies and Eagles together.

The Unexpected Path to Law Enforcement

Kevin never planned to become a cop. He went to college for theological studies, lost his faith after reading the Bible as literature, then became a high school teacher. He hated it, not because of the kids, but because of the other teachers and the confined classroom environment.

After bouncing between jobs, selling cars and software to country clubs, Kevin was working out at a gym when an older guy he trained with made a suggestion. The man turned out to be a retired deputy chief from a prosecutor’s office.

“Did you ever think of becoming a cop?” he asked Kevin. “My brother, on the other hand, took police tests or police tests. That’s all he wanted to do. I just, I always saw myself as a criminal. I was like, criminals don’t become cops.”

But as Kevin learned, “criminals make the best cops” because they understand both sides. He took the job not as a calling, but because it was available and offered decent money with benefits. What he discovered was something deeper, a way to help people who couldn’t help themselves.

When Everything Changed

Kevin was in the police academy when 9/11 happened. Everything shifted overnight. Instead of finishing their training normally, they got recalled, handed guns they hadn’t qualified on yet, and told to guard high-value targets in their town. The job had become real in ways none of them expected.

Once on the street, Kevin found himself dealing with dead bodies, accident investigations, and the dark humor that comes with seeing things people aren’t supposed to see. He got good at the detective work, the science of figuring out what happened. But he also learned to compartmentalize, to see bodies as experiments rather than people who once had souls.

“You deal with it in a lot of unhealthy ways,” he explained. “You get the gallows humor.”

That humor became a coping mechanism. After one particularly grisly car accident where a husband and wife hit a tree, Kevin broke a window to check on the woman with his haligan bar. When a squeamish officer asked what the last thing that went through her head was, Kevin deadpanned: “It was the dashboard.”

The Night That Changed Everything

July 10, 2013. Kevin was having one of those quiet nights where nothing was happening, sitting next to his partner drinking coffee and hoping for anything to break the silence. “Just give me anything,” he remembered thinking. “Shoot a deer. Go chase a turkey off the road. Whatever it is.”

Then came the crack of the radio. Unknown open line 911, yelling in the background. No other information. Kevin and two other officers responded to a townhouse complex, not knowing what they were walking into.

They could hear shouting inside and someone yelling “don’t come in here.” Kevin started pounding on the steel front door with his crowbar while his partner went around back. Then he heard it: pop, pop, pop, pop. Four gunshots.

“And it’s a holy shit moment,” Kevin said.

What followed was a tactical nightmare. The shooter, Anthony Volkatoro, was trying to kill his ex-girlfriend. Kevin’s partner had already exchanged gunfire through the sliding glass door. They had to get to the victim, had to save her life.

Kevin positioned himself on the deck, thinking he had good tactical cover. He was wrong. The plan was to throw a chair through the sliding glass door and make entry. The moment they moved, Kevin saw the brightest flash, heard the bang, felt gunpowder grains hit his face.

The bullet grazed his head. He hit the deck hard, falling on broken glass. In that instant, everything Kevin thought he knew about himself, about fear, about survival, got turned upside down.

The Aftermath and Finding Purpose

That near-death experience sent Kevin into a dark spiral of PTSD and self-destruction. But eventually, he found his way out and realized something important: his suffering had given him a unique ability to help others going through their own darkness.

Today, Kevin hosts The Suffering Podcast and runs the Dented Development Project, a nonprofit focused on helping people navigate their worst moments. His philosophy? “Suffering is the way to sustainable success.”

From stealing candy bars in Atlantic City to nearly dying in the line of duty, Kevin’s path taught him that sometimes you have to go through hell to find out who you really are. And sometimes, that journey gives you exactly what you need to help others find their way out of their own nightmares.