August 6, 2025 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Jeff McCutchen didn’t set out to reimagine how a small-town police department operated, but after years on the job, something kept pulling at him. The calls felt heavier, the days felt longer, and the line between public safety and personal burnout was growing harder to ignore. Instead of holding the line on tradition, McCutchen began asking different questions about what leadership requires and what service should look like in a place where everyone knows your name.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:20):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
including your story. Send them to our Americanstories dot com.
There's some of our favorites. Oxford, Mississippi's police chief has
good reasons for why he chose to overhaul his department,
and as you are about to hear every one of
(00:42):
his reasons as a memorable story.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
My name is Jeff McCutcheon, thirty nine years old. I
have spent eighteen years of my life as a law
enforcement officer, but that's not really how identify myself. Anybody
that knows me knows I'm a husband and I'm a
father to two girls. It's kind of my groundwork. I
grew up just down the road from here, about thirty
(01:05):
minutes in a little town called New Albany. My entire
family basically grew up and worked in the furniture factory.
My mom still does. My father's a pastor, and even
in the summers of college, I would go go back
and work. And I tell people that because man, I'm
a blue collar, you know, hard worker, and I saw that
(01:27):
in my family and that was ingrained in me. I'm
proud of that. I'm really proud of that. It made
a huge impact on me. And a lot of times
you hear people, oh, you rose to the top because
of someone you knew. The reality is, I mean it's
those that get after it and put their head down.
And I was blessed. Man. My dad being a pastor,
we moved a lot from time to time, and you
(01:48):
had to learn to make friends. You had to learn
to talk to people and played sports growing up from
the time I could remember, Man, if it was a
ball or somebody was competing, I wanted to be. In
my senior year, we won a state championship in basketball. Man,
it was amazing. You know, you work your whole life
for that moment and got through that moment and then
I was like, gosh, what next, Like I didn't prepare
for that. And so going into college though, he just
(02:10):
trying to figure out, Man, what do you want to do?
And I'd always loved one being outside but being a
part of a team and had this interest in law enforcement.
And the summer that I turned twenty one, I was
doing landscape with this furniture company and a guy working
there I was telling about what I wanted to do
and he knew that the sheriff's department just down the
road needed some jailers. And I said, no, I'll do
(02:33):
anything right, you know. I mean, that's just want to
get my foot in the door. So about a week
later I got a shot and the sheriff gave me
a chance to work for him in tip A County,
and man, it changed my life. You know, you experience
things in life and then you have this light bulb
moment together. Man, this is why God put me on
this earth. And I'll never forget the jail administrator. He
(02:55):
was a former sheriff of that county, and older gentleman,
and set me to and he said, he said some
of you ever you ever driven by or walked through
a cemetery And I said, oh, yes, sir. And he
said there's a star date and there's an end date,
and I said yes, sir. He said, don't matter. All
that matters is what's in between in that dash. And
(03:17):
he said there'll be people that walk by your cemetery
one day, and it's that dash. It's what's going to
matter to them how you lived your life and how
you treated them. And he said, you're going to learn
real quick in law. Enforcement that how you treat people
goes a long way for them and for you. Those
encounters are imported and people are imported, and so working
(03:40):
in a small jail man you you could to learn
to talk. You know. At the time, we worked swing
shifts and a night shift from midnight to eight in
the morning. There was two of us, and somebody had
to stay in the control room, so you by yourself
if something went south and until somebody else got there,
your partner and come out, and you learn quickly how
(04:03):
to talk, how to de escalate. They wasn't teaching us
that at the time, but that's what you were doing.
You were listening to people's stories, you were empathizing. You're
trying to make good decisions, not based off force, but
based off leverage of using my words, using my compassion
to get what we needed to get done. And so
shortly I did about a year's stint there, year and
(04:24):
a half, and I got an opportunity to be a
patrol officer for the Baseball Police Department, and I spent
about a year there. Incredible opportunity, incredible time. I quite
a lot of what I learned initially as an officer
to my FTO he was unbelievable in teaching, like he
(04:45):
truly took pride in teaching me how to do things,
why we do things, how it makes impacts and you
know when you go. I actually got to do my
FTO before I went to the academy, and so when
I got to the academy, I felt like, man, we
just got to get it over. Were like this guy
had me so well prepared. We were in classes. I'm like, ah,
we've done that and that you know, it was it
(05:05):
was huge for me. But while I was at the academy,
I was I was there with about six or seven
guys from the Oxford Police Department and and so baseball
and Oxford are pretty close. And uh, I my wife
and I just got married and we were living here
in Oxford, and so I still connected with those guys.
And sure enough, one of my classmates was actually going
to relocate to the Jackson area and he saw me
(05:29):
at the gym and said, I mean, if you want
to come over, And that was in a great time.
And fortunately, Uh, in O five, I got an opportunity
to move over here and uh and start working at OPD.
And UH So coming to OPD did UH just like
everybody else, you know, you go through patrol and you
serve as a patrol officer and did that for a
few years. And we were starting back a grant program
(05:51):
to do DUIs and uh so I got an opportunity
to serve as a du officer and did that for
about six months until uh and in a criminal investigation
spot opened up, and was really fortunate to get that position.
There were a lot of guys that put in and
I had an incredible captain that going into that position,
(06:12):
I would say I was pretty headstrong and driven with
with blinders on, you know, not a lot of forethought
on what I'm doing. There's a mission, you get the
mission done and let's roll on and don't ask a
lot of questions. And he was completely the opposite. He
was super patient and and and very coachy about the
(06:33):
way he would do things, which would drive me nuts
because I'm like, give me a case, I don't want
to I don't want you to see me again, until
I saw it like I'm want to be on the street,
you know, And and he would constantly reel me back
in and slow me down, and and we would debriefcases
and and again I didn't understand it really well.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And you're listening to Jeff McCutcheon and he's Oxford, Mississippi's
police chief. When we come back more as Jeff continues
his story here on Our American Story, lie H Habib here,
(07:30):
and I'd like to encourage you to subscribe to Our
American Stories on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or
wherever you get our podcasts. Any story you missed or
want to hear again can be found there daily again,
Please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast on Apple podcasts,
(07:51):
the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It
helps us keep these great American stories coming. And we
(08:19):
returned to our American Stories, and now let's return to
Jeff McCutcheon and more of his story.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Even in my time at the jail, I thought I
understood dealing with individuals and why that's important. But when
I became an investigator, I really really learned because you
go and you deal with situations where people have been victimized,
and that could be from a property crime or or
(08:48):
that could be from a personal victimization. And the heartbreak
that you see, you know, and the fear in their
eyes and many times you're their last hope. Can you
get me answers? Can you help me? Can you solve this?
Can you put the person away who did this to me?
And at that time, we were struggling with a rash
(09:10):
of property crimes. I think for a year or two, man,
we were averaging like three hundred and sixty five a year,
which you know, in a small town like Auctreman, every
day somebody's getting their house broken too. You know, that's
a big deal. And I found a little bit of
success early, and you know, like with anything else, you
find that success and you're like, oh, man, I gotta
(09:30):
get more of that. I got to craft myself better
and to come back for somebody. I've never been a
victim of a burglary, but when we've sat down and
talked with these people, it wasn't about that you stole
my stuff. You violated my peace of mind. You know,
you took something from me. I may never feel comfortable
(09:51):
back in this house again. And to knock back on
those doors to say, hey, that person's in jail, and oh,
by the way, I got a truck coming, I got
all your stuff back. To see that though, just the
color in their eyes change. It was. You understand why
law enforcement Austris get just get lost in this job
because there's no feeling like that. You even now we'll
(10:14):
brief our newbies on hey, when when this moment happens,
I promise you, I'm gonna have to kick you out
of this office because there's no feeling like that. Again,
no home run you ever hit, no walk off three
when you helped somebody and you absolutely change them, man,
there's nothing better. So went through that, did about six
and a half almost seven years of investigations. But in
(10:36):
that time we had some cases that we took to
court and thought they were just jam up good cases,
you know, really solid cases. And I'll never forget we
had a multiple burglar case and had several people that
had already you know, taken please and we took it
to trial and we had a witness saw pretty much
(10:58):
everything that went down. They saw people pull up, They
saw those people go around the house come back with stuff.
We were like, we're good, multiple people had already taken
They're guilty plea. The jury came back not guilty. And
I remember sitting there like, WHOA, how did we lose that?
And so we get an opportunity to go back and
(11:20):
talk with the district attorney and say, hey, we need
to find out how we can do better what happened?
And he said, you don't have a relationship with this community.
And I say, what do you mean? They're like and
the reputation of your department is not great. They were like,
you know what, Hey, there was about a thirty second window.
She didn't see such and such, So now not good enough.
(11:43):
And that moment then reminded me and downed on me.
Did every encounter we have has got to be spot on.
Every time we go in a gas station to get
a drink, we need to be smiling and speaking to people.
We need to be personable. We need a relationship with
our community. And it was at that moment where you
(12:06):
begin to change who you are and how you do things.
A lot of times, even as a young ulstra, I
didn't mean anything bad or think anything about I'm focused.
So I pull up at the gas station. Man, I'm
getting my drink. Get back because I'm trying to do work.
But you miss all of those moments in between. Another
teaching moment, we had a case where an individual took
their life and again a young investigator. He's trying to
(12:29):
teach me to look beyond just what's in front of
me as a big case investigation. And he made me
go back and trace the steps that that person took
for the twenty four hours prior to that moment. And
so what I found was that that person actually was
out the evening of shopping for the items that they
(12:50):
would then use to take their life. And I just
remember going back and replaying that video and I kind
of stopped watching them after a while, and I started
watching the people around them. Why didn't somebody hold the
door for you know, could I have been that person
on that aisle that would have looked at them and
(13:12):
just spoke or maybe just a smile, or that moment
at the register. You know, how many moments have we
missed in our life for people that are just struggling
internally that those gestures may have pushed them one more
day and then it maybe somebody picks it up the
next day. And so when you when you begin to
see all of this in your law enforcement career, and
(13:33):
you begin to be shaped by the images that are
in your head, and man, sometimes those are traumatic. You
have to then either bury them or you have to
use them for the greater good. And during that time
as an investigator, that became my mission. So my wife
and I got into ministry work with students, and again
(13:56):
you're you're kind of crafting yourself at all times. You
know what am I learning? Am I seeing in the world.
And we found out that all of these people that
we thought were what we would call okay. When you
get into a world where you start encouraging people and
building people up and lifting them up, and you see
their whole mannerism change and you're like, wow, I did
(14:19):
that through encouragement of you. And then you get to
talk to them like, yeah, man, I really was in
a low place and that word of encouragement or that
positive message or just that hug or that smile, man,
that was huge for me. That pushed me to the
next day. And so I continue on as an investigator,
and then an opportunity popped up that I thought, would
(14:40):
you know, never consider myself a person that would be
on the administrative side. But we had a major of
operations position open up and I put in and was
just unbelievably blessed to have that opportunity. And so you
go from Jaylor to the street officer, to du officer
to invest gator, and in between all that, I had
(15:01):
some SWAT time and probably been here four years where
we had a hostage situation and our team actually had
to make entry and do a rescue. And you know,
the the things that you pick out of that is
you train all these years and all these hours for
one moment, but that one moment is critical to someone else.
And so it helped to remind me that the little
(15:23):
things that we're doing on a daily basis that we
can't take them from just it's just mundane work, it's
mundane training, or this is not important that moment that
you have to use it it's important to someone it's
important to those men that were in the stack with me.
That I was a team leader at that time and
I hadn't even been a team leader probably two or
three months, and we had that event happen, and you know,
(15:44):
all you can think about is did I do everything
to prepare these gays for this moment? And I prepare
for this moment and and it turned out good. We
were able to rescue an individual and not hurt someone inside.
It was perfect scenario. But you take all that and
it begins to continue to shape you and shape who
you are and how you lead. And so as major
(16:05):
of operations, we began to focus on that personal touch
of law enforcement. And at the time it was Chief Joeyast.
We took a complete turn in law enforcement for OPD
into what we call community based policing, where we focus
on community events and going out and meeting the public.
And you know, we were met with a lot of
(16:26):
frustration in that because that's not the style that people
were used to, and even for me, I was like, man,
I don't know how this is going to work out,
you know, I mean, we're cops. We got to go
out and you know, take care of things. And so
so that was twenty fourteen. That summer I got to
go to Quantico. I spent two and a half months
in Quantico at the FBI Academy and just met some
(16:47):
incredible people, got to take some great classes on leadership
and communication and learning about what other places are doing
and how they're doing. I'll tell you what I learned
is in the out. You know, when we talk about
hospitality and we talk about those things, it's legit, like
it's real. And the way we treat people and interact
(17:08):
with them is completely different than other parts of the world.
And it made me appreciate how we do things because
I would be out with some of the buddies and
they would be from different areas of the country and
I'm the yes ma'am, yes sir, and the people are
looking at you like you're doing And it's that respect
that goes a long way because it opened up other
(17:29):
dialogues and opened up other conversations about just different things
because now you're approachable.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
When we come back more of Jeff McCutcheon's story, Oxford,
Mississippi story, and so many communities around this great country
here on our American stories, and we returned to our
(18:09):
American stories, and now let's return to Jeff McCutcheon and
more of his story.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
I'm contrary as it is, so, you know, being in
the subway in DC and talking and you're us, people
are just looking at you and right, yeah, I'm not
from here. I get it. So twenty nineteen he decided
to run for sheriff. It opened up the chief spot
for an interim role and I was fortunate enough to
receive that and become the interim chief in twenty nineteen,
(18:37):
and he was still the guy, all right, I mean,
because he's still running for office, but I'm trying to
hold the seat. But it wasn't one of those things
where I wanted to just sit on my hands and say, well,
you know, we'll just let's just keep everything as it is.
And I don't feel like that's leadership. I don't feel
like that's helping the men and women that you serve with,
(18:58):
and I definitely don't think it helps your community. And
so we just decided, let's let's run like it was ours,
all right, Let's just don't set back and wait for things.
I don't want to be a counterpuncher. I want to
be the first. And so we crafted a new mission statement,
and so our mission statement was completely people driven. We
(19:19):
didn't want to do anything that wasn't people driven. So
every phone call that we take, every traffic stop that
we make, every call that we go on is tied
to a person. There's nothing in law enforcement that you
do that's not people oriented. I don't care if you're
out directing traffic, you're dealing with people. You're doing people
in those cars, and the way you present yourself and
(19:42):
the way that the way that you interact with them
in every situation absolutely matters. Go back to that new
investigator who lost a case that should have been a
good one because we didn't have that relationship. So we
began to just focus on relationships and people. Last year
we did over two thousand hours of community service. And
(20:05):
that could look like camp cops, or that could be
snow cones with kids. I mean, we try to literally
look for any and every opportunity that we can get
around people and just be people. You know, don't be
a cop, just be people. Next, I think it's next weekend,
maybe in two weeks, we will go to one of
the doctor's office and they're doing a drive through flu
(20:26):
shot for children. Well, one of our captains, he's just
reading the news and saw that they were doing that,
and he said, I'm gonna call them, and you know,
when you get a shot, you typically get a sucker. Right,
We're gonna set up a snow cone station. So when
they drive through and roll the wind down get a shot,
they pull right up and we got a snow cone
with you, and it's gonna be a guy or girl
in a uniform smiling and give you a fist pump
(20:47):
and a snow cone. Those are the things that we
want to instill in people of the good that's happening.
And you know, it's a little thing, but you never
know where that kid's going to be in four or
five years. That they may give information to an SRO
or they may have a total different perspective about law enforcement.
And so it's not a maybe not a tomorrow impact,
but it's a seed that's being planted and then it's
(21:09):
somebody else's responsibility to water it and help it. But
we begin to just focus on relationships and people. And
so our mission is this to serve with wisdom and
compassion and to create a safe and connected community. That's it,
because I think everything that you tie in, I don't
care what status you use, fits in that mold. And
(21:30):
so we wrote it for keywords, and we preach this
constantly to our officers. I mean they get tired of
We're going to talk about it almost in every meeting.
Are we focusing on those things? Because number one, we're servants,
So we got to have a servant's attitude. We got
to have another's first attitude. It can't be about us here.
Our role here is strictly to make someone else's life better.
(21:53):
It's not about what we get out of it, it's
what we give out of it. That's our goal. So
number one, we got to be servants too. We've got
to have wisdom, We've got to make good decisions. So
we talk about just a phrase or what are all
my options? You know, and when when you're looking at
a situation, when you're on a call or a traffic stop, man,
what are all of my options to fix this? Too
(22:15):
often we are do I take someone to jail? Do
I not take someone to jail? Do they get a ticket?
Do they not get a ticket? There is so much
in between there that we can meet a need, and
so we begin to talk about that. We want your
decisions to be wise and what are all your options
to get through with this? What are all your options
that is best for you in a safety manner that's
(22:37):
also best for the person that you're dealing with. And
when you think about that, man, Oxford is such a
blessed community. Like if if you need something in Oxford,
there's probably a nonprofit for it. If someone's hurting, there's
probably a group that will will meet that need. They
just need to know about it. And so we begin
giving our officers information on all of these nonprofits or
(23:00):
all of these community help organizations and send it out
to them and emails to listen, save that in your
phone when you get in these situations, man, go back
to it and just maybe it's not an a risk,
maybe it's not a ticket. Maybe you just say, hey,
call this number, take a screenshot, call this number. They're
gonna take care of you. Or you call them and
bring them to you. And then so we want to
be wise in our decision making. We want to see
(23:21):
the big picture because everything matters, Everything is important when
you're dealing with people. And then to serve with wisdom
and compassion. I know for me, there's been people that
have shown me compassion in my life and it changed
my life. But they didn't just change my life. They
changed my kid's life. They changed their kids that are
(23:44):
gonna come because that's what I'm gonna teach them. And
so for us, we want our officers and our staff
to think, every time, how can I show compassion? Right
when we realize that not every time we can show compassion.
Sometimes people do have to go to jail. Still teach
to treat you right, still treat you like a human.
We still keep that servant others first mentality. But I
(24:05):
still may have take someone to jail. Someone may talk
themselves into a ticket. Okay, so compassion may not work
that day. They didn't allow that to take place. But
our goal is always to show compassion. And we tell
our guys, I don't know that there's a ticket in
Oxford under two hundred dollars. I don't know that if
we write you any citation on the side of the road,
(24:26):
that's gonna be under two hundred dollars. So take that
thought and apply it to this. If I give them
that two hundred dollars ticket today, they may have a
child at home that doesn't get to sign up for
OPC soccer or OPC baseball, or they don't get to
go on this trip that the parents have been saving
(24:48):
money for. It's not just a ticket, it's greater than that.
There's so many times that a word of encouragement like
we talked about earlier, does more than a citation than
punitive damages. Man showing love a lot of times will
pay itself forward, and that's what we want to do first.
So we want to serve we want to do it
with wisdom, we want to do it with compassion. And
(25:10):
then we want to create a safe and connected community.
And so when you study law enforcement, I was fortunate
enough to be at the FBI and able when Ferguson happened,
and we got to debrief that every day in our
media class, and we talked about, Hey, how did it
go wrong? Why why is there not a dialogue in
the community. Well, you've got to keep your community connected.
(25:31):
So we say, let's keep it safe and connected, because
I believe we can do it both. It's not always easy,
but I believe we can do it both. And so
we phrase it this way to our staff. I can
keep your street safe, I can put that thing on
lock down, but I can treat you like a jerk
every time I deal with you. And so you're safe,
your cars an't gonna get broken into, your family's not
(25:52):
going to be victimized, but I treat you like crap.
You're not connected to us. Now, Equally, swing it the
other way and we can be real the clothes buddies
and go have lunch and work out and do all
those things together. But I keep letting your house get
broken into or I keep letting one of your family
members get harmed. Well, we're connected, but we're not safe.
We have to find that balance.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
And searching for that balance is no duck walk. That's
a big deal. And you're listening to Jeff McCutcheon and
what a dilemma for that cop. And he said, sometimes
you give a ticket, sometimes you don't. But those aren't
the only two options. There's a range of options in between.
And that two hundred dollars ticket, and he said, two
hundred dollars is the minimum. You're in this town, it's
(26:34):
a minimum in a lot of towns. That's a lot
of money to a family. And so as you're writing
that guy up for doing a fifty five and a
forty and you have a chance to warn them or
a chance to take two hundred dollars out of the
family budget, Well, that is an ethical dilemma for that
cop on the spot. What do you do? How do
(26:54):
you do the right thing? When we come back more
of Jeff McCutcheon's story here on our American Stories, and
(27:37):
we continue with our American stories. Now, let's continue with
Jeff McCutcheon and his story.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
What we know is this, if we put eighty of
our officers out at one time, all eighty of them,
they'll never see what the community sees on a daily basis.
There's twenty five to forty five thousand people here at
any given time the day. We need that connectivity. We
got to have that trust so that they will talk
to us about their issues, and then we got to
(28:06):
go meet that need. And so for us, that's that's
been our goal, that's been our vision, that's been our mission,
and to keep it super simple. And for me, I
try to make sure that the life lessons that I've
learned is what we apply here because I've seen it,
I've seen it work, I've seen it work in my
own life. For me, every day, I start each day
(28:29):
with a journal, and I start my journal with six circles,
and then n those six circles are first Peter five
two through six. That's number one. Don't lord your position
over people. You use your position to make it better
for somebody else, and you do it with humility that
God deal with everything else. Then Proverbs two seven one
seven Iron sharpens iron. That's my next circle. How am
(28:52):
I sharpening myself as a husband, as a father, as
an officer, I think that too often we lose who
we are. You know, I'm not just the cop. That's
not who I am. I'm really proud to be a cop.
I love it. I'm very proud of this profession. But
at the end of the day, that's not who I am.
It's just what I do. But I've got to make
(29:14):
sure I'm being the best version of that to my
wife and my children. But as I can come and
be the best officer I can be for this community.
But if I'm not serving them, I'm really missing the
point of why I'm on this earth. I don't want
my legacy to be here on my legacy to be
left with them, you know. And it's happened. But I've
(29:35):
only had one guy in all of the retirements that
I've been to in law enforcement, only one guy's ever
stood up and said, I'm with the same woman that
I started this career with. And I'm sure there's been
a few that have, you know, that didn't highlight that.
But when you go back and you start looking at
the retirements that you've been to and you go it's
(29:55):
not many, it's not many that were able to keep
their fans. And I was telling them the football coaches yesterday.
I've been to some of the retirements where the kids
aren't there, like they don't come, like there's they have
of the coffee one of that, you know, and and
it's hard. You know, it really is hard from a
(30:16):
time standpoint and energy standpoint when you deal with certain
things here and then you pick your kids up and
you're just like, man, I am mentally drained. But I
think it goes back to that whole foreverness mentality of
if it doesn't have an eternal impact, man, you've got
to be strong enough to get it out of your
life because your family needs your energy. And so the
third circle is joy. So it's Jesus others and then you,
(30:38):
and that sets that other's mentality and that kind of
helps me remind myself, Look, it's not about you. You're
deep on the bench. We got to do this for
other people first, and then we crafted a little. The
last three are kind of for here positive culture. It
needs to be positive up here. There are times when
it's tough. There's times when it's dark. There's times where
(30:59):
traumatic events happened, and it can change you for the negative,
and it can make you hard, and it can make
you disgruntled and cynical. We want to be positive, we
want to be upbeat. We want to make sure that
you want to come to work, because if you're come
into work and you want to come to work, and
you're following that mission statement, we're going to get it
right most of the time. And that's the goal is
(31:20):
not to send them out frustrated, but send them out
with a specific purpose and to know what that purpose is.
And then questions are greater than reactions. For me, I know,
I've got to be patient and I've got to ask questions, Hey,
how did we get to this point? You know, what
is what are all my options? You know, we want
to ask those questions before we make a snap reaction,
(31:42):
because again, I don't want to be a poor leader
that here's information snaps on somebody and then come to
find out I didn't really get all the details. Because
I've seen it over my eighteen years. These men and
women go through so much, the toll and the scars
that they do or for this profession. I respect that,
(32:03):
I honor that, and I want to do everything that
I can to be the best version for them so
that when we go through these moments we don't make
it harder on them. Job's hard enough, The job is stressful enough.
I don't want to be an extra one. I want
to find ways to make it better for them. And
then the last thing is just encourage every day. There's
a way to encourage someone every day. These guys and
(32:24):
girls are doing good stuff. We got to make sure
we give them out of boys. We got to make
sure that we put we have a system on Guardian
Tracker that keeps up with positive and negative behavior every day.
We're trying to put something in that Guardian Tracker for
someone to say, hey, we see you. You keep doing that,
because I believe rewarding that positive behavior instills what we want.
(32:45):
And they are doing things so good, and we are
in a society right now where law enforcement has taken
a lot of just a lot of beatings right now,
and for those officers that are doing it the right
way and trying to make their communities better, we got
to remind them that we see you and we appreciate you.
Those are the goals each morning, right decide that I'll
(33:07):
do a hashtag and four f's and I tell my
girls that's reminds me of my report cars I want
to do better, but it's faith failing forever, and those
are kind of my grounding points. It's very busy up here,
and I mean it's busy from the time I wake up,
I'm reading emails and something's going on. I'm making sure
(33:28):
we're doing what we need to be doing, right. I mean,
that's the position I'm in, is to try to bless
our community, and so when we see things, we got
to deal with it. But in that time, I have
to remember what I am and one faith. Faith is
is that navigation for me, and I've got to make
sure I spend time trying to learn and be the
best leader that I can possibly be with the purest heart.
(33:48):
And then my family, which kind of grounds me. You know,
they keep me where I need to be. Am I
focusing on them, you know, my spending time genuine real
time with them. And then forever I tell peoples foreverness.
So if if whatever I've got going on in my life,
if it doesn't have a forever impact, I really need
to move on from it. You know, I'll check social media,
(34:12):
but I'll kind of check for what's happening quickly in
the world and what the pulse is around Oxford, and
then I try to get off because whatever free time
I have, I want it to be allow myself to
be spending time with my family, spending time on my faith.
If it's going to draw me away from those two things,
I need to get away from it because it's gonna
make me pour up here and I need as much
(34:32):
energy for here as I can possibly have. And so,
you know, I think for me, those are the focuses,
the simple things. I try to keep it simple. I'm
not great when I'm trying to juggle a lot of things.
I know that, and I know that about man, so
I try to keep my life simple. Last night I
had a little free time and there was a college
football game on and my daughter was getting ready to
(34:55):
go to bed. I thought, and turn that off and
take these last fifteen minutes to just listen to her,
how was your day, what was going on? Instilling those
things into her. And if we're not careful, we get
so inundated with so much stuff that has no forever
impact that we're going to get to the end of
our line and we wasted that dash. You know, that's
(35:15):
my biggest fear is We've got this huge opportunity, not
just as a police chief, but as a husband and
as a father to make that dash impactful. And I
don't want to. I don't want to get to that
end rope and realize that I wasted twenty five years
of my life with my thumb on my phone when
I could have been doing something for somebody else. You know,
(35:37):
there's there's so many needs around us that if we
will just be open to it, just like that that
investigative case where I'm watching the video of this person,
I don't want my eyes down. I own my eyes
up looking for someone that we can make an impact on.
And you know I want to do I want to
do ten more years. I got to do five. I'd
(35:59):
like to do ten. And I love to pass the
torch on to someone else and carry on that mission
of another's first as I feel like, if we do
anything in this world, we were all put here to
make life better for somebody else. When they took the
interim label off and I became the chief, I sat
in here one day and I just started writing letters
(36:21):
to people that had impacted my life. And one of
them was a coach, and he was a hard coach.
He was stern. He was hard nosed, but he took
us to a different level than we could have gotten
to on our own, that we could have gotten to
with just an encourager. I mean, you knew the line,
you knew the standard, and you didn't cross that. And
(36:41):
he made us so much better. And then there was
another guy who wrote a letter to who as a
little kid, as a little leaguer, I never forgot this.
We were warming up for an All Star game as
a tournament we were playing in baseball, and the ball
just would not land in my glove. I'd stick it
there and it just wouldn't stick, you know. And so
as a little kid, you're emotionally so fragile. I was
(37:02):
like so down on myself. And he put his arm
around me in the outfield that day as we're wanting
up going You're fine, calm down, It is okay. You
know you got this. And I wrote him a letter
to say, you know, you have no idea that moment,
what that did for me as a kid that I
now use for our people. And just like John Wooden,
(37:24):
sometimes you got to be stern and here's the line.
And then there's times you got to know when to
put your arm around somebody, and you got to develop
a feel for that. You know, that's there's no blueprint,
that's a feel. And you know those guys made impacts
on me that now I'm trying to pay it forward
to other people. But you know, my thought is you
(37:45):
do right, you keep doing right, and then whatever happens,
it just is what it is. You can always hold
your head high.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
A young police chief's people first policy. Jeff McCutcheon's story
here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
and we tell stories about everything here on this show,
including your story. Send them to our Americanstories dot com.
There's some of our favorites. Oxford, Mississippi's police chief has
good reasons for why he chose to overhaul his department,
and as you are about to hear every one of
(00:42):
his reasons as a memorable story.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
My name is Jeff McCutcheon, thirty nine years old. I
have spent eighteen years of my life as a law
enforcement officer, but that's not really how identify myself. Anybody
that knows me knows I'm a husband and I'm a
father to two girls. It's kind of my groundwork. I
grew up just down the road from here, about thirty
(01:05):
minutes in a little town called New Albany. My entire
family basically grew up and worked in the furniture factory.
My mom still does. My father's a pastor, and even
in the summers of college, I would go go back
and work. And I tell people that because man, I'm
a blue collar, you know, hard worker, and I saw that
(01:27):
in my family and that was ingrained in me. I'm
proud of that. I'm really proud of that. It made
a huge impact on me. And a lot of times
you hear people, oh, you rose to the top because
of someone you knew. The reality is, I mean it's
those that get after it and put their head down.
And I was blessed. Man. My dad being a pastor,
we moved a lot from time to time, and you
(01:48):
had to learn to make friends. You had to learn
to talk to people and played sports growing up from
the time I could remember, Man, if it was a
ball or somebody was competing, I wanted to be. In
my senior year, we won a state championship in basketball. Man,
it was amazing. You know, you work your whole life
for that moment and got through that moment and then
I was like, gosh, what next, Like I didn't prepare
for that. And so going into college though, he just
(02:10):
trying to figure out, Man, what do you want to do?
And I'd always loved one being outside but being a
part of a team and had this interest in law enforcement.
And the summer that I turned twenty one, I was
doing landscape with this furniture company and a guy working
there I was telling about what I wanted to do
and he knew that the sheriff's department just down the
road needed some jailers. And I said, no, I'll do
(02:33):
anything right, you know. I mean, that's just want to
get my foot in the door. So about a week
later I got a shot and the sheriff gave me
a chance to work for him in tip A County,
and man, it changed my life. You know, you experience
things in life and then you have this light bulb
moment together. Man, this is why God put me on
this earth. And I'll never forget the jail administrator. He
(02:55):
was a former sheriff of that county, and older gentleman,
and set me to and he said, he said some
of you ever you ever driven by or walked through
a cemetery And I said, oh, yes, sir. And he
said there's a star date and there's an end date,
and I said yes, sir. He said, don't matter. All
that matters is what's in between in that dash. And
(03:17):
he said there'll be people that walk by your cemetery
one day, and it's that dash. It's what's going to
matter to them how you lived your life and how
you treated them. And he said, you're going to learn
real quick in law. Enforcement that how you treat people
goes a long way for them and for you. Those
encounters are imported and people are imported, and so working
(03:40):
in a small jail man you you could to learn
to talk. You know. At the time, we worked swing
shifts and a night shift from midnight to eight in
the morning. There was two of us, and somebody had
to stay in the control room, so you by yourself
if something went south and until somebody else got there,
your partner and come out, and you learn quickly how
(04:03):
to talk, how to de escalate. They wasn't teaching us
that at the time, but that's what you were doing.
You were listening to people's stories, you were empathizing. You're
trying to make good decisions, not based off force, but
based off leverage of using my words, using my compassion
to get what we needed to get done. And so
shortly I did about a year's stint there, year and
(04:24):
a half, and I got an opportunity to be a
patrol officer for the Baseball Police Department, and I spent
about a year there. Incredible opportunity, incredible time. I quite
a lot of what I learned initially as an officer
to my FTO he was unbelievable in teaching, like he
(04:45):
truly took pride in teaching me how to do things,
why we do things, how it makes impacts and you
know when you go. I actually got to do my
FTO before I went to the academy, and so when
I got to the academy, I felt like, man, we
just got to get it over. Were like this guy
had me so well prepared. We were in classes. I'm like, ah,
we've done that and that you know, it was it
(05:05):
was huge for me. But while I was at the academy,
I was I was there with about six or seven
guys from the Oxford Police Department and and so baseball
and Oxford are pretty close. And uh, I my wife
and I just got married and we were living here
in Oxford, and so I still connected with those guys.
And sure enough, one of my classmates was actually going
to relocate to the Jackson area and he saw me
(05:29):
at the gym and said, I mean, if you want
to come over, And that was in a great time.
And fortunately, Uh, in O five, I got an opportunity
to move over here and uh and start working at OPD.
And UH So coming to OPD did UH just like
everybody else, you know, you go through patrol and you
serve as a patrol officer and did that for a
few years. And we were starting back a grant program
(05:51):
to do DUIs and uh so I got an opportunity
to serve as a du officer and did that for
about six months until uh and in a criminal investigation
spot opened up, and was really fortunate to get that position.
There were a lot of guys that put in and
I had an incredible captain that going into that position,
(06:12):
I would say I was pretty headstrong and driven with
with blinders on, you know, not a lot of forethought
on what I'm doing. There's a mission, you get the
mission done and let's roll on and don't ask a
lot of questions. And he was completely the opposite. He
was super patient and and and very coachy about the
(06:33):
way he would do things, which would drive me nuts
because I'm like, give me a case, I don't want
to I don't want you to see me again, until
I saw it like I'm want to be on the street,
you know, And and he would constantly reel me back
in and slow me down, and and we would debriefcases
and and again I didn't understand it really well.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
And you're listening to Jeff McCutcheon and he's Oxford, Mississippi's
police chief. When we come back more as Jeff continues
his story here on Our American Story, lie H Habib here,
(07:30):
and I'd like to encourage you to subscribe to Our
American Stories on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, or
wherever you get our podcasts. Any story you missed or
want to hear again can be found there daily again,
Please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast on Apple podcasts,
(07:51):
the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It
helps us keep these great American stories coming. And we
(08:19):
returned to our American Stories, and now let's return to
Jeff McCutcheon and more of his story.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Even in my time at the jail, I thought I
understood dealing with individuals and why that's important. But when
I became an investigator, I really really learned because you
go and you deal with situations where people have been victimized,
and that could be from a property crime or or
(08:48):
that could be from a personal victimization. And the heartbreak
that you see, you know, and the fear in their
eyes and many times you're their last hope. Can you
get me answers? Can you help me? Can you solve this?
Can you put the person away who did this to me?
And at that time, we were struggling with a rash
(09:10):
of property crimes. I think for a year or two, man,
we were averaging like three hundred and sixty five a year,
which you know, in a small town like Auctreman, every
day somebody's getting their house broken too. You know, that's
a big deal. And I found a little bit of
success early, and you know, like with anything else, you
find that success and you're like, oh, man, I gotta
(09:30):
get more of that. I got to craft myself better
and to come back for somebody. I've never been a
victim of a burglary, but when we've sat down and
talked with these people, it wasn't about that you stole
my stuff. You violated my peace of mind. You know,
you took something from me. I may never feel comfortable
(09:51):
back in this house again. And to knock back on
those doors to say, hey, that person's in jail, and oh,
by the way, I got a truck coming, I got
all your stuff back. To see that though, just the
color in their eyes change. It was. You understand why
law enforcement Austris get just get lost in this job
because there's no feeling like that. You even now we'll
(10:14):
brief our newbies on hey, when when this moment happens,
I promise you, I'm gonna have to kick you out
of this office because there's no feeling like that. Again,
no home run you ever hit, no walk off three
when you helped somebody and you absolutely change them, man,
there's nothing better. So went through that, did about six
and a half almost seven years of investigations. But in
(10:36):
that time we had some cases that we took to
court and thought they were just jam up good cases,
you know, really solid cases. And I'll never forget we
had a multiple burglar case and had several people that
had already you know, taken please and we took it
to trial and we had a witness saw pretty much
(10:58):
everything that went down. They saw people pull up, They
saw those people go around the house come back with stuff.
We were like, we're good, multiple people had already taken
They're guilty plea. The jury came back not guilty. And
I remember sitting there like, WHOA, how did we lose that?
And so we get an opportunity to go back and
(11:20):
talk with the district attorney and say, hey, we need
to find out how we can do better what happened?
And he said, you don't have a relationship with this community.
And I say, what do you mean? They're like and
the reputation of your department is not great. They were like,
you know what, Hey, there was about a thirty second window.
She didn't see such and such, So now not good enough.
(11:43):
And that moment then reminded me and downed on me.
Did every encounter we have has got to be spot on.
Every time we go in a gas station to get
a drink, we need to be smiling and speaking to people.
We need to be personable. We need a relationship with
our community. And it was at that moment where you
(12:06):
begin to change who you are and how you do things.
A lot of times, even as a young ulstra, I
didn't mean anything bad or think anything about I'm focused.
So I pull up at the gas station. Man, I'm
getting my drink. Get back because I'm trying to do work.
But you miss all of those moments in between. Another
teaching moment, we had a case where an individual took
their life and again a young investigator. He's trying to
(12:29):
teach me to look beyond just what's in front of
me as a big case investigation. And he made me
go back and trace the steps that that person took
for the twenty four hours prior to that moment. And
so what I found was that that person actually was
out the evening of shopping for the items that they
(12:50):
would then use to take their life. And I just
remember going back and replaying that video and I kind
of stopped watching them after a while, and I started
watching the people around them. Why didn't somebody hold the
door for you know, could I have been that person
on that aisle that would have looked at them and
(13:12):
just spoke or maybe just a smile, or that moment
at the register. You know, how many moments have we
missed in our life for people that are just struggling
internally that those gestures may have pushed them one more
day and then it maybe somebody picks it up the
next day. And so when you when you begin to
see all of this in your law enforcement career, and
(13:33):
you begin to be shaped by the images that are
in your head, and man, sometimes those are traumatic. You
have to then either bury them or you have to
use them for the greater good. And during that time
as an investigator, that became my mission. So my wife
and I got into ministry work with students, and again
(13:56):
you're you're kind of crafting yourself at all times. You
know what am I learning? Am I seeing in the world.
And we found out that all of these people that
we thought were what we would call okay. When you
get into a world where you start encouraging people and
building people up and lifting them up, and you see
their whole mannerism change and you're like, wow, I did
(14:19):
that through encouragement of you. And then you get to
talk to them like, yeah, man, I really was in
a low place and that word of encouragement or that
positive message or just that hug or that smile, man,
that was huge for me. That pushed me to the
next day. And so I continue on as an investigator,
and then an opportunity popped up that I thought, would
(14:40):
you know, never consider myself a person that would be
on the administrative side. But we had a major of
operations position open up and I put in and was
just unbelievably blessed to have that opportunity. And so you
go from Jaylor to the street officer, to du officer
to invest gator, and in between all that, I had
(15:01):
some SWAT time and probably been here four years where
we had a hostage situation and our team actually had
to make entry and do a rescue. And you know,
the the things that you pick out of that is
you train all these years and all these hours for
one moment, but that one moment is critical to someone else.
And so it helped to remind me that the little
(15:23):
things that we're doing on a daily basis that we
can't take them from just it's just mundane work, it's
mundane training, or this is not important that moment that
you have to use it it's important to someone it's
important to those men that were in the stack with me.
That I was a team leader at that time and
I hadn't even been a team leader probably two or
three months, and we had that event happen, and you know,
(15:44):
all you can think about is did I do everything
to prepare these gays for this moment? And I prepare
for this moment and and it turned out good. We
were able to rescue an individual and not hurt someone inside.
It was perfect scenario. But you take all that and
it begins to continue to shape you and shape who
you are and how you lead. And so as major
(16:05):
of operations, we began to focus on that personal touch
of law enforcement. And at the time it was Chief Joeyast.
We took a complete turn in law enforcement for OPD
into what we call community based policing, where we focus
on community events and going out and meeting the public.
And you know, we were met with a lot of
(16:26):
frustration in that because that's not the style that people
were used to, and even for me, I was like, man,
I don't know how this is going to work out,
you know, I mean, we're cops. We got to go
out and you know, take care of things. And so
so that was twenty fourteen. That summer I got to
go to Quantico. I spent two and a half months
in Quantico at the FBI Academy and just met some
(16:47):
incredible people, got to take some great classes on leadership
and communication and learning about what other places are doing
and how they're doing. I'll tell you what I learned
is in the out. You know, when we talk about
hospitality and we talk about those things, it's legit, like
it's real. And the way we treat people and interact
(17:08):
with them is completely different than other parts of the world.
And it made me appreciate how we do things because
I would be out with some of the buddies and
they would be from different areas of the country and
I'm the yes ma'am, yes sir, and the people are
looking at you like you're doing And it's that respect
that goes a long way because it opened up other
(17:29):
dialogues and opened up other conversations about just different things
because now you're approachable.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
When we come back more of Jeff McCutcheon's story, Oxford,
Mississippi story, and so many communities around this great country
here on our American stories, and we returned to our
(18:09):
American stories, and now let's return to Jeff McCutcheon and
more of his story.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
I'm contrary as it is, so, you know, being in
the subway in DC and talking and you're us, people
are just looking at you and right, yeah, I'm not
from here. I get it. So twenty nineteen he decided
to run for sheriff. It opened up the chief spot
for an interim role and I was fortunate enough to
receive that and become the interim chief in twenty nineteen,
(18:37):
and he was still the guy, all right, I mean,
because he's still running for office, but I'm trying to
hold the seat. But it wasn't one of those things
where I wanted to just sit on my hands and say, well,
you know, we'll just let's just keep everything as it is.
And I don't feel like that's leadership. I don't feel
like that's helping the men and women that you serve with,
(18:58):
and I definitely don't think it helps your community. And
so we just decided, let's let's run like it was ours,
all right, Let's just don't set back and wait for things.
I don't want to be a counterpuncher. I want to
be the first. And so we crafted a new mission statement,
and so our mission statement was completely people driven. We
(19:19):
didn't want to do anything that wasn't people driven. So
every phone call that we take, every traffic stop that
we make, every call that we go on is tied
to a person. There's nothing in law enforcement that you
do that's not people oriented. I don't care if you're
out directing traffic, you're dealing with people. You're doing people
in those cars, and the way you present yourself and
(19:42):
the way that the way that you interact with them
in every situation absolutely matters. Go back to that new
investigator who lost a case that should have been a
good one because we didn't have that relationship. So we
began to just focus on relationships and people. Last year
we did over two thousand hours of community service. And
(20:05):
that could look like camp cops, or that could be
snow cones with kids. I mean, we try to literally
look for any and every opportunity that we can get
around people and just be people. You know, don't be
a cop, just be people. Next, I think it's next weekend,
maybe in two weeks, we will go to one of
the doctor's office and they're doing a drive through flu
(20:26):
shot for children. Well, one of our captains, he's just
reading the news and saw that they were doing that,
and he said, I'm gonna call them, and you know,
when you get a shot, you typically get a sucker. Right,
We're gonna set up a snow cone station. So when
they drive through and roll the wind down get a shot,
they pull right up and we got a snow cone
with you, and it's gonna be a guy or girl
in a uniform smiling and give you a fist pump
(20:47):
and a snow cone. Those are the things that we
want to instill in people of the good that's happening.
And you know, it's a little thing, but you never
know where that kid's going to be in four or
five years. That they may give information to an SRO
or they may have a total different perspective about law enforcement.
And so it's not a maybe not a tomorrow impact,
but it's a seed that's being planted and then it's
(21:09):
somebody else's responsibility to water it and help it. But
we begin to just focus on relationships and people. And
so our mission is this to serve with wisdom and
compassion and to create a safe and connected community. That's it,
because I think everything that you tie in, I don't
care what status you use, fits in that mold. And
(21:30):
so we wrote it for keywords, and we preach this
constantly to our officers. I mean they get tired of
We're going to talk about it almost in every meeting.
Are we focusing on those things? Because number one, we're servants,
So we got to have a servant's attitude. We got
to have another's first attitude. It can't be about us here.
Our role here is strictly to make someone else's life better.
(21:53):
It's not about what we get out of it, it's
what we give out of it. That's our goal. So
number one, we got to be servants too. We've got
to have wisdom, We've got to make good decisions. So
we talk about just a phrase or what are all
my options? You know, and when when you're looking at
a situation, when you're on a call or a traffic stop, man,
what are all of my options to fix this? Too
(22:15):
often we are do I take someone to jail? Do
I not take someone to jail? Do they get a ticket?
Do they not get a ticket? There is so much
in between there that we can meet a need, and
so we begin to talk about that. We want your
decisions to be wise and what are all your options
to get through with this? What are all your options
that is best for you in a safety manner that's
(22:37):
also best for the person that you're dealing with. And
when you think about that, man, Oxford is such a
blessed community. Like if if you need something in Oxford,
there's probably a nonprofit for it. If someone's hurting, there's
probably a group that will will meet that need. They
just need to know about it. And so we begin
giving our officers information on all of these nonprofits or
(23:00):
all of these community help organizations and send it out
to them and emails to listen, save that in your
phone when you get in these situations, man, go back
to it and just maybe it's not an a risk,
maybe it's not a ticket. Maybe you just say, hey,
call this number, take a screenshot, call this number. They're
gonna take care of you. Or you call them and
bring them to you. And then so we want to
be wise in our decision making. We want to see
(23:21):
the big picture because everything matters, Everything is important when
you're dealing with people. And then to serve with wisdom
and compassion. I know for me, there's been people that
have shown me compassion in my life and it changed
my life. But they didn't just change my life. They
changed my kid's life. They changed their kids that are
(23:44):
gonna come because that's what I'm gonna teach them. And
so for us, we want our officers and our staff
to think, every time, how can I show compassion? Right
when we realize that not every time we can show compassion.
Sometimes people do have to go to jail. Still teach
to treat you right, still treat you like a human.
We still keep that servant others first mentality. But I
(24:05):
still may have take someone to jail. Someone may talk
themselves into a ticket. Okay, so compassion may not work
that day. They didn't allow that to take place. But
our goal is always to show compassion. And we tell
our guys, I don't know that there's a ticket in
Oxford under two hundred dollars. I don't know that if
we write you any citation on the side of the road,
(24:26):
that's gonna be under two hundred dollars. So take that
thought and apply it to this. If I give them
that two hundred dollars ticket today, they may have a
child at home that doesn't get to sign up for
OPC soccer or OPC baseball, or they don't get to
go on this trip that the parents have been saving
(24:48):
money for. It's not just a ticket, it's greater than that.
There's so many times that a word of encouragement like
we talked about earlier, does more than a citation than
punitive damages. Man showing love a lot of times will
pay itself forward, and that's what we want to do first.
So we want to serve we want to do it
with wisdom, we want to do it with compassion. And
(25:10):
then we want to create a safe and connected community.
And so when you study law enforcement, I was fortunate
enough to be at the FBI and able when Ferguson happened,
and we got to debrief that every day in our
media class, and we talked about, Hey, how did it
go wrong? Why why is there not a dialogue in
the community. Well, you've got to keep your community connected.
(25:31):
So we say, let's keep it safe and connected, because
I believe we can do it both. It's not always easy,
but I believe we can do it both. And so
we phrase it this way to our staff. I can
keep your street safe, I can put that thing on
lock down, but I can treat you like a jerk
every time I deal with you. And so you're safe,
your cars an't gonna get broken into, your family's not
(25:52):
going to be victimized, but I treat you like crap.
You're not connected to us. Now, Equally, swing it the
other way and we can be real the clothes buddies
and go have lunch and work out and do all
those things together. But I keep letting your house get
broken into or I keep letting one of your family
members get harmed. Well, we're connected, but we're not safe.
We have to find that balance.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
And searching for that balance is no duck walk. That's
a big deal. And you're listening to Jeff McCutcheon and
what a dilemma for that cop. And he said, sometimes
you give a ticket, sometimes you don't. But those aren't
the only two options. There's a range of options in between.
And that two hundred dollars ticket, and he said, two
hundred dollars is the minimum. You're in this town, it's
(26:34):
a minimum in a lot of towns. That's a lot
of money to a family. And so as you're writing
that guy up for doing a fifty five and a
forty and you have a chance to warn them or
a chance to take two hundred dollars out of the
family budget, Well, that is an ethical dilemma for that
cop on the spot. What do you do? How do
(26:54):
you do the right thing? When we come back more
of Jeff McCutcheon's story here on our American Stories, and
(27:37):
we continue with our American stories. Now, let's continue with
Jeff McCutcheon and his story.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
What we know is this, if we put eighty of
our officers out at one time, all eighty of them,
they'll never see what the community sees on a daily basis.
There's twenty five to forty five thousand people here at
any given time the day. We need that connectivity. We
got to have that trust so that they will talk
to us about their issues, and then we got to
(28:06):
go meet that need. And so for us, that's that's
been our goal, that's been our vision, that's been our mission,
and to keep it super simple. And for me, I
try to make sure that the life lessons that I've
learned is what we apply here because I've seen it,
I've seen it work, I've seen it work in my
own life. For me, every day, I start each day
(28:29):
with a journal, and I start my journal with six circles,
and then n those six circles are first Peter five
two through six. That's number one. Don't lord your position
over people. You use your position to make it better
for somebody else, and you do it with humility that
God deal with everything else. Then Proverbs two seven one
seven Iron sharpens iron. That's my next circle. How am
(28:52):
I sharpening myself as a husband, as a father, as
an officer, I think that too often we lose who
we are. You know, I'm not just the cop. That's
not who I am. I'm really proud to be a cop.
I love it. I'm very proud of this profession. But
at the end of the day, that's not who I am.
It's just what I do. But I've got to make
(29:14):
sure I'm being the best version of that to my
wife and my children. But as I can come and
be the best officer I can be for this community.
But if I'm not serving them, I'm really missing the
point of why I'm on this earth. I don't want
my legacy to be here on my legacy to be
left with them, you know. And it's happened. But I've
(29:35):
only had one guy in all of the retirements that
I've been to in law enforcement, only one guy's ever
stood up and said, I'm with the same woman that
I started this career with. And I'm sure there's been
a few that have, you know, that didn't highlight that.
But when you go back and you start looking at
the retirements that you've been to and you go it's
(29:55):
not many, it's not many that were able to keep
their fans. And I was telling them the football coaches yesterday.
I've been to some of the retirements where the kids
aren't there, like they don't come, like there's they have
of the coffee one of that, you know, and and
it's hard. You know, it really is hard from a
(30:16):
time standpoint and energy standpoint when you deal with certain
things here and then you pick your kids up and
you're just like, man, I am mentally drained. But I
think it goes back to that whole foreverness mentality of
if it doesn't have an eternal impact, man, you've got
to be strong enough to get it out of your
life because your family needs your energy. And so the
third circle is joy. So it's Jesus others and then you,
(30:38):
and that sets that other's mentality and that kind of
helps me remind myself, Look, it's not about you. You're
deep on the bench. We got to do this for
other people first, and then we crafted a little. The
last three are kind of for here positive culture. It
needs to be positive up here. There are times when
it's tough. There's times when it's dark. There's times where
(30:59):
traumatic events happened, and it can change you for the negative,
and it can make you hard, and it can make
you disgruntled and cynical. We want to be positive, we
want to be upbeat. We want to make sure that
you want to come to work, because if you're come
into work and you want to come to work, and
you're following that mission statement, we're going to get it
right most of the time. And that's the goal is
(31:20):
not to send them out frustrated, but send them out
with a specific purpose and to know what that purpose is.
And then questions are greater than reactions. For me, I know,
I've got to be patient and I've got to ask questions, Hey,
how did we get to this point? You know, what
is what are all my options? You know, we want
to ask those questions before we make a snap reaction,
(31:42):
because again, I don't want to be a poor leader
that here's information snaps on somebody and then come to
find out I didn't really get all the details. Because
I've seen it over my eighteen years. These men and
women go through so much, the toll and the scars
that they do or for this profession. I respect that,
(32:03):
I honor that, and I want to do everything that
I can to be the best version for them so
that when we go through these moments we don't make
it harder on them. Job's hard enough, The job is stressful enough.
I don't want to be an extra one. I want
to find ways to make it better for them. And
then the last thing is just encourage every day. There's
a way to encourage someone every day. These guys and
(32:24):
girls are doing good stuff. We got to make sure
we give them out of boys. We got to make
sure that we put we have a system on Guardian
Tracker that keeps up with positive and negative behavior every day.
We're trying to put something in that Guardian Tracker for
someone to say, hey, we see you. You keep doing that,
because I believe rewarding that positive behavior instills what we want.
(32:45):
And they are doing things so good, and we are
in a society right now where law enforcement has taken
a lot of just a lot of beatings right now,
and for those officers that are doing it the right
way and trying to make their communities better, we got
to remind them that we see you and we appreciate you.
Those are the goals each morning, right decide that I'll
(33:07):
do a hashtag and four f's and I tell my
girls that's reminds me of my report cars I want
to do better, but it's faith failing forever, and those
are kind of my grounding points. It's very busy up here,
and I mean it's busy from the time I wake up,
I'm reading emails and something's going on. I'm making sure
(33:28):
we're doing what we need to be doing, right. I mean,
that's the position I'm in, is to try to bless
our community, and so when we see things, we got
to deal with it. But in that time, I have
to remember what I am and one faith. Faith is
is that navigation for me, and I've got to make
sure I spend time trying to learn and be the
best leader that I can possibly be with the purest heart.
(33:48):
And then my family, which kind of grounds me. You know,
they keep me where I need to be. Am I
focusing on them, you know, my spending time genuine real
time with them. And then forever I tell peoples foreverness.
So if if whatever I've got going on in my life,
if it doesn't have a forever impact, I really need
to move on from it. You know, I'll check social media,
(34:12):
but I'll kind of check for what's happening quickly in
the world and what the pulse is around Oxford, and
then I try to get off because whatever free time
I have, I want it to be allow myself to
be spending time with my family, spending time on my faith.
If it's going to draw me away from those two things,
I need to get away from it because it's gonna
make me pour up here and I need as much
(34:32):
energy for here as I can possibly have. And so,
you know, I think for me, those are the focuses,
the simple things. I try to keep it simple. I'm
not great when I'm trying to juggle a lot of things.
I know that, and I know that about man, so
I try to keep my life simple. Last night I
had a little free time and there was a college
football game on and my daughter was getting ready to
(34:55):
go to bed. I thought, and turn that off and
take these last fifteen minutes to just listen to her,
how was your day, what was going on? Instilling those
things into her. And if we're not careful, we get
so inundated with so much stuff that has no forever
impact that we're going to get to the end of
our line and we wasted that dash. You know, that's
(35:15):
my biggest fear is We've got this huge opportunity, not
just as a police chief, but as a husband and
as a father to make that dash impactful. And I
don't want to. I don't want to get to that
end rope and realize that I wasted twenty five years
of my life with my thumb on my phone when
I could have been doing something for somebody else. You know,
(35:37):
there's there's so many needs around us that if we
will just be open to it, just like that that
investigative case where I'm watching the video of this person,
I don't want my eyes down. I own my eyes
up looking for someone that we can make an impact on.
And you know I want to do I want to
do ten more years. I got to do five. I'd
(35:59):
like to do ten. And I love to pass the
torch on to someone else and carry on that mission
of another's first as I feel like, if we do
anything in this world, we were all put here to
make life better for somebody else. When they took the
interim label off and I became the chief, I sat
in here one day and I just started writing letters
(36:21):
to people that had impacted my life. And one of
them was a coach, and he was a hard coach.
He was stern. He was hard nosed, but he took
us to a different level than we could have gotten
to on our own, that we could have gotten to
with just an encourager. I mean, you knew the line,
you knew the standard, and you didn't cross that. And
(36:41):
he made us so much better. And then there was
another guy who wrote a letter to who as a
little kid, as a little leaguer, I never forgot this.
We were warming up for an All Star game as
a tournament we were playing in baseball, and the ball
just would not land in my glove. I'd stick it
there and it just wouldn't stick, you know. And so
as a little kid, you're emotionally so fragile. I was
(37:02):
like so down on myself. And he put his arm
around me in the outfield that day as we're wanting
up going You're fine, calm down, It is okay. You
know you got this. And I wrote him a letter
to say, you know, you have no idea that moment,
what that did for me as a kid that I
now use for our people. And just like John Wooden,
(37:24):
sometimes you got to be stern and here's the line.
And then there's times you got to know when to
put your arm around somebody, and you got to develop
a feel for that. You know, that's there's no blueprint,
that's a feel. And you know those guys made impacts
on me that now I'm trying to pay it forward
to other people. But you know, my thought is you
(37:45):
do right, you keep doing right, and then whatever happens,
it just is what it is. You can always hold
your head high.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
A young police chief's people first policy. Jeff McCutcheon's story
here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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