In this episode, Tudor is joined by Jim Tignanelli, the President of the Police Officers Association of Michigan. The conversation delves into the challenges faced by police officers, the lack of appreciation for their work, the impact of negative public perception, and the decline in recruitment and retention of officers. It also addresses the consequences of defunding the police and the need for community support. The conversation highlights the physical and emotional toll of police work and the importance of understanding the realities of law enforcement. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network. For more visit TudorDixonPodcast.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. You all probably heard
my quick podcast over the weekend where I talked about
being at the convention for the Police Officers Association of
Michigan and giving out awards for a police Officer of
the Year. What a powerful event that was. I think
that I wanted to dig deeper into that event, but
(00:22):
into what is going on with our police officers across
the country and we can give you that perspective from
here in Michigan, because there was an overwhelming theme and
I think I mentioned this over the weekend as we
were sitting there and hearing these police officers talk, overwhelmingly
they were saying, well, I don't want to say too much.
You know, we're really under attack. People aren't appreciating what
(00:42):
we do, and I don't want to get in trouble
or anything like that. And I just thought, Wow, how
did we get here where the good guys are afraid
to say, yeah, we did our job, just nothing more
than that. Just we did our job. That's now a
a point of contention. That's now something that if you
(01:03):
are a cop, you're afraid to go out and even
receive an award for protecting us as people of the community,
and that struck me so hard. It's been something that
I just keep thinking about. And then over the weekend
I had an experience at church where one of our
pastors was talking about the hardships that our police officers
go through, and I'm like, you know what, I just
(01:23):
feel like, this is God's way of saying speak more
to how wonderful our police officers are. All of the
guys that put their men and women who put their
life on the line for us every single day. It's
something we should talk about. We should go back to
that time when we appreciate that and we go up
to police officers and we say thank you, and our
kids go up to police officers and say, hey, this
(01:45):
is the good guy. So I want to talk about
that today with the president of the Police Officers Association
of Michigan. His name is Jim Tigganelli. I'm going to
bring him in in just a second. First, I want
to remind you of my partnership with the International Fellowship
of Christians and Jews because the attacks are still happening
on Israel. You know, Aron launched that attack of hundreds
(02:08):
of missiles and drones and the Israelis are living every
day with the harsh reality of terror. The International Fellowship
of Christians and Jews is on the ground now addressing
urgent needs, and that's why I've partnered with IFCJ. While
they're praying for the best, IFCJ is preparing for the
worst by packing emergency bomb shelter kits that can be
(02:29):
delivered immediately to those in desperate need. Your life saving
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Your gift will help save lives, and today, thanks to
(02:50):
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The number to call is eight eight eight eight eight
if CJ again, that's eight eight eight four eight eight
if CJ or four three two five, or you can
go online to support IFCJ dot org. It's one word.
(03:12):
Make sure you go online to support IFCJ dot org.
And let's go back to talking about supporting people here
in the United States of America as well, because our
police officers desperately need people to know how hard they're
working every single day. And Jim Tiganelli is a good
friend of mine, also the president of the Police Officers
Association of Michigan and someone who loves to talk about
(03:36):
what our cops are doing all the time. Thanks Jim
for joining me.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Glad to be your friend. I am, and I'm going
to make a donation on to that program that you
just mentioned because I think it's a very worthwhile one.
So let me say that we made a little progress
on that today. How's that.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
That's so sweet, Appreciate the opportunity to be with you.
And may I say that regards the appeace you did
on Saturday. I put that out to about five thousand
people and it was unanimous that you sounded just like
I know you are, and it was from the heart.
(04:13):
It was good and very much appreciated. Well.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
You gave me an opportunity during the campaign to talk
to a lot of families who were in law enforcement.
And I think that you know, growing up in the
era that I grew up and growing up in the
seventies and the eighties, cops were your friends. Everybody loved
the cops, right like that was it was unheard of
to think that the cops were the bad guys. And
I don't really understand when this started. I don't know
(04:42):
if it was. I know you before we got on
you started talking about twenty twenty, But it almost felt
like this turn against the police started back in like
the two thousand and eight era, when we started to
have some conversations about cops were the bad guys, and
cops were against certain races. And it has taken off
(05:02):
to a point where, like I said at your conference,
I'm hearing police who don't want to share their stories.
There's there's stories of even saving people's lives.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
You know, you're You're right. Probably the eight period of time,
things got a little tight money wise, and so consequently,
you know, benefits things like that occurred among police officers.
But I've been around this business for now over forty years,
and I think that and I was a child of
the fifties and the sixties, so I mean I went,
(05:32):
you know, through the sixties where you know, we had
a lot of protests, whether it was a Vietnam war,
different things like that, but they always came around, you know.
I mean young people became became the parents, and usually
it changed, you know. I mean like they say, everybody's
a liberal till you start spending their money, you know.
And that's to me. I think we alway knew would
(05:54):
roll around. But this is in my period of time,
since since the late seventies to today, I've never seen it.
And I'm an optimist, I really believe that, but I've
never seen it to a point where I think we're
up against the biggest Bob barricade we've ever had. I
really do. I think it's I think it's less likely
(06:17):
to fix itself now than it was in times paths.
I really do. And yes, there's a variety of reasons.
I guess.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Well when you say that, so what is the hope
for communities? Like I mean, I'm looking at Chicago over
the Memorial Day weekend and you see this, I think
it was thirty murders and multiple shootings and little kids
that lost their lives, and then you see this massive
looting of stores, people just going in with garbage bags
and filling their garbage bags, and it's like people were
(06:45):
joking oh, I guess the Memorial Day sale was that
people could just fill up the bag and walk out.
But when does this If we don't start respecting police
officers and the law enforcement community, what happens next? How
bad does the lawlessness become?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Wells, what's got to happen. First? We have to start
being able to enforce the law. And I think you've
taken they taken away our ability to actually try to
enforce the law. When you have officers that are told
to stand down while fifty people run out with iPads.
I mean, why would anybody pay for one? I mean,
so we've gotten to this point now, and you know,
(07:24):
at some point you're going to give me hear my
story about the you know, ten million people that have
come in illegally. But I think when you find out
how easy it is to break the law, what you say,
if we're all going thirty over on the freeway and
you're the guy in the middle, do you worry about
getting stop going? He's going that fast and he's going
that fast, and so the cops must not be working today.
(07:44):
So that's fine. And I think that the inability for
us to actually enforce the law, to actually stop one
of those guys. When we were adults, we did walk
up with a pack and gump. I mean literally if
it was if we had it was like by accident,
and we were apologizing. I mean nowadays, because that's how
(08:05):
we were raised and because we knew we would get
scolded somehow or other for taking it. So nowadays it's
so easy to be bad. You know. The better way
to say that what ends up happening is I think
we've gotten to the point now where the people that
used to apologize for taking the gun say, hey, screw it,
let's just take the company. I mean, I really think
(08:28):
we've created a generation right now that it's going to
have a hard time on doing this. The only thing,
you know, you ask it to jump all over you
here because I'd like to hear your questions. But the
only thing that can change it is the people themselves.
There's got to be somebody other than you and I
and I know there is, and I think that they're
(08:50):
going to start at some points. I'm saying this is wrong,
we need to do something. I hear in your voice,
but you know, we're all crazy about you. But when
you hear these stories about other people starting to say
I've seen some of these moms in Chicago on Fox
and Newsmax and such lateway saying hey, I've had enough
(09:11):
of this. You know, I'm voting for these same people
for decades. I was raised that way, And what's happening
now is now they're feeling it. And I think when
you start feeling it, the first thing you do is
you're afraid to mention it because it might create an
argument amongst your friends that at some point in time,
you have to be able to say, I'm not doing it.
(09:33):
I got to stop it. Like you said in your
peace on Saturday, what can we do? How do we
do this? We need more? You know that has to
be the regular Joe out. Then those moms in Chicago
were pretty strong the other day when I listened to them.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
I mean the guy that we introduced over the weekend
who comes out and says that he literally just took
away a baby from a mother. The mother had stabbed,
the baby was drowning the baby. The other child is stabbed,
and he goes home, has a crier with his family,
and then goes back on the job. And his chief says,
you don't have to come back, and he's like you
got no one else? What do you meaning I don't
(10:07):
need to come back. Of course I'm coming back. It's like,
first of all, that mindset that he just went through
this traumatic event, and then he knows he's got to
go back on the job because he knows there's nobody else.
And that's a big problem right now. You talked about
a number over the weekend or last week that I
want to bring up, and I might get it wrong,
but I think you said that two years ago the
(10:27):
number of people assaulting officers was in like the forty
two thousand, and now it's seventy thousand.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Was seventy last year, and you're right, yes, it was
like forty to seventy. And those are physical assaults now,
and let me tell you, you met some of these guys.
Nine out of ten guys never want to tell you
they got punched in the face. So I mean, when
you hear seventy thousand, that's a guy that really got punched.
That's not a guy that got pushed. That's not a
guy that got you know, that's a physical assault. Because
(10:58):
nobody wants to tell anybody that somebody get the lowdown out.
You know, it's one of those deals. I mentioned to
you earlier about one that happened to me. I never
told anybody about it. I bose got all what because
it was raining up. But I mean, nobody wants to
go in there and say that. You know, it's like
we like we got somebody got the jump on us.
We don't even want to tell anybody that. So when
you're seventy thousand, I'm telling you, and I don't know
(11:19):
the real number, but I'm telling you, that's a fraction
of what really really got a hands on physical assault
from a civilian.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
So I think about that, and I think about what
we were talking about when you were telling me that
you've had this happen, and someone I was telling you
I recently, and I don't know if it was a
conversation that I had with you during the campaign, or
if it was another one of the sheriffs who said,
you got to understand when you watch a movie and
you see people fighting for two minutes, it's like all choreographed,
and it all everybody seems like they're fine and they're
(11:49):
not winded, and they're just in this like fantastic fight
when you weren't expecting to be in a fight. And
suddenly you're fighting this guy. It is. It takes it
out of you immediately, And people are mad at the cops,
but they truly are fighting for their life. So what
you see with your eye and your Monday morning quarterbacking
of all of these interactions that are videotaped, what you're
(12:12):
watching with your eye is different than what that cop
is experiencing. And how do we get people to understand
what your fit body is physically going through when you're
being attacked like.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
That, Well, I don't think. I don't think there's a
way of training somebody to know how difficult it is
to hold someone who doesn't want to be held. These
are guys that already want to fight. And we have
a camera on our chest, front seat of the car,
backseat of the car. Every pole around this has got
a light camera. We're glad, Okay, they show things that
(12:44):
they show what they see. But for us, if we
if the only way we can stop this guy is
to punch him in and almost we'ren't punching them. We're
not going to do it. We're gonna get yelled at.
You can't choke a guy. And I know how terrible
it's and I know I saw the video one hundred times.
I'm just telling you a guy that's bigger and stronger
(13:04):
than you, when he runs out of air, gets a
little weaker. Not suggesting that it's the right thing to do.
I'm just saying if the guy would just stop. The
common threat I went all these fights is if somebody
says pull over or stop, or hold on or show
me your ID, and you just do it. None of
those people get into a struggle. When you get into
(13:25):
one of those struggles, and like I said, I can't
speak firsthand and one then I'll never forget. I'm not
the only one I ever had. Days later, your arms
feel like you like you bench pressed thousands of pounds
and you didn't press any weight. It's the adrenaline in
the world. We're at a disadvantage. Is the other guy
(13:48):
already knew he was going to fight. I already knew
he was going to struggle. Probably grew up and among
people that that's normal, and he wants to get away.
All we want to do is go home. You know,
we're just trying to do a job. I've said so
many times we hire from the human race. I mean,
it's an old dragon at TV show. I wish, I
(14:10):
wish I could tell Joe Friday how many times I've
used it. But the fact is we have we In
that TV show, he said, you know, they have us
at a disadvantage. They forced us to hire from the
human race. We do. We hire from We hire guys
whose dog dirty is the carpet, whose kid misses the bus,
who who he's he has to skip baseball practice tonight
(14:32):
because he's got to work four hours overtime. That's who
we hire. And in between those eight or twelve hour shifts,
he's just a guy that's got to get the grass cut.
He's just the guy that you know, needs to make
sure that little billy didn't leave his lunch on the bus,
you know. And so we're not out there. We're not
we're not designed to be fighters. You wouldn't want us
(14:53):
to be that way. You want us to be normal people.
You want us to have a good relationship. I mean,
I've told people that I think in your lifetime, you
being an exception because of at least our time together.
Is that most people grow up and they never meet
a police officer on a good day. You know, they
come home and the back doors kicked in. Come home
(15:15):
and mom and dad were fighting. They come home, come
out of the theater, and their car's gone. The red and
blue lights are in the back window, and you're going
fifteen over to speed limit and oh my god, my
insurance is going to go. You know, I tried when
I was on a job, and I know a lot
of guys do this. Maybe it was more rewarding in
those days. I always try to make sure that when
(15:37):
we leave here today that I left a good impression.
I even if I did have to do something, I'm
popular to you. You know, Hey, it was some man,
It's just the way it is. You know, it's the job.
It's you know, I tried to do that, and you
can't do that anymore. You just can't do it anymore.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
a Tutor Dixon podcast. To your point, yeah, you're right,
probably me and most of my most of my colleagues
in the political world, I would say, who are either
on one side or the other. And I would say,
especially to those who are vocally defund the cops and
(16:17):
all that baloney, they're also the ones that are likely
never calling a cop. But in certain neighborhoods, you defund
the cops and all hell breaks loose. I mean, they're
just barely holding it together as it is. And then
how is it fair to those kids, and how is
it fair to those moms and those grandmothers who are
just trying to make sure their kids are safe and
their kids are alive. Because I think about it from
(16:39):
a mom perspective. I'm listening to this story over the
weekend in Chicago where this three or eight year old
I think it was eight year old or nine year old.
The little girl that was in the car, she a
little girl, She's in the car at three thirty in
the morning, gets shot, and I'm like, what is happening? Like,
there's so much in that story alone to unpack. Why
is this child in the car at three in the morning,
(17:00):
Why is there a gunfight? What is happening? And how
is it going to be helpful to continuously take resources
away from those communities? And you brought up the illegals earlier.
That's another problem. You got not only all these people
that are coming in illegally and they can do that,
And then again you set up the whole idea of
if this is illegal and everybody can come. Why shouldn't
(17:22):
I be able to do everything illegal? But they're also
taking resources away from our communities that need it the most,
and nobody says boo about it.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I just heard the mayor in Denver this morning talking
about they're going to spend millions of dollars on the
They're they're inviting people into their town. I don't want
to go into details that I don't really remember.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Oh, yeah, the newcomers.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
They were going to spend millions of dollars on the Yeah,
he had a term for them, the newcomers. I think
you're right. And I thought to myself, Man, now, if
you're if your mom, you know, and you're you're living
here and you're working here, and you know, the couple
windows knocked out, or the school bus has got some
ball tires on it, how does that? How do you
relate to that? I mean, how do you how do
you ignore that? And? Uh? And in our in our work,
(18:08):
in police work, and again, blessure for the good things
you think about the people we represent in our job,
it's the most difficult to turn around. I think you
know that freighter that hit the bridge in Baltimore, you know,
I was like trying to stop for god knows how long,
and he couldn't stop it because it's not it's not
an eighteen foot center console fishing boat. And when recruiting police,
(18:33):
I was just in Washington, d C. Two weeks ago
for Police Week, and and I sit there with with
legislators from all around Michigan. And you know, some like
us better than others. They'll pretend to, at least momentarily
while I'm there, But when they when you talk about
recruiting and retaining police officers, they make like, you know,
we just got to pay him more money, we just
(18:54):
need to pay more money. Well, doesn't want more money.
I get it, But how do I get that guy
into that suit in the first place? How do I
get those kind of bots on that guy? How do
I get him to decide I'm not going to have
a bad driving record, I'm not going to fail a
drug test. I'm going to I want to be a policeman.
This is how it was years ago. And when you
lose it, we lose a whole generation of young people.
(19:17):
And I'll tell you why. That is our best recruiters
forever back to the Old West, where your dad, your uncle,
your neighbor that was a policeman that you said, he's
a good dude. I grew up on the east side
of the Try when there was residency. Whole neighborhood was
police officers and firefighters, and you all knew that those
(19:38):
were good guys. They had coached baseball, They played catch
with you in the street, and when they drove to work,
they waved at you and you wave back, and you
were glad he was down there, you know, so you
saw something. Those are the guys. If I didn't come
from a law enforcement family, just something somebody influenced me
somewhere along the line. I really wish I could identify it.
(19:59):
But my dad was as a gas station owner, you know.
That's where I grew up at. And I think maybe
the best education I had was pumped and gas because
I had old people, young people, rich, poor, every race,
every socio economic background, and I had an air gauge
and an air compressor, and you needed air and you
like me, and so I figured out how to make
(20:19):
everybody that way. So that was my education. I always
called it was the University of Shadow's. That was the
name my dad's gas station. But I actually did go
to school, believe in or that. But those people that
came to you, you said, I want to be like
Uncle Joe. I want to be like my baseball coach Bill.
He's a good guy and when I grew up, I
want to be just like him. I'm telling you Uncle Joe,
(20:41):
and Coach Bill was going to say, you're out of
your mind, don't do it.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, that's where we lose that generation. You really recruit
kids into this job while they're thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old.
You know, hire them, but you get that mindset, you
know that this is what I want to do. Can't
tell to a twenty five year old person. They've they've
got other things to do.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
No, absolutely, they don't want to put their life at risk,
and they want to. I mean, gosh, getting them to
work in an office is hard enough, let alone getting
people to go put their life on the line.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Well, you know, you mentioned we're down like ninety percent
of total cops in twenty years. And when I tell
you that, and you say, and I say, there's nobody
in the police academy and I go to land saying,
we make arguments that put people through the academy. You know,
we got put through the academy. We got hired to
want to the academy. That hasn't happened in twenty five years.
(21:38):
So now they've done a grant, the state hasn't I
commend them. It's a great idea that if you hire
somebody that works in your town, because we want to
adjust those cultures. We don't want to guy from the
West Bloomfield working, you know, in a town that's much
different than West Bloomfield type of a thing. But the
only way you're going to get that kid, because academy
(21:59):
costs that and he's got to take fifteen weeks off
of his job at the speedway station or the subway subshop,
you can't do it. So if you pay for his
academy and give them minimum wage to go, you'll get them.
The problem is you already lost that generation of young people.
You know, the academies are empty. They're not empty because
the guy doesn't have a job or it doesn't have
(22:20):
the opportunity. It's because you just want to be a policeman.
And that's where we lose recruiting and retaining. And there's
no amount of money you're going to get me to
take a job that I think the guys are a
bunch of bad guys. You know, it's just not going
to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Well, I mean it's like you can barely get people
to run for office, and that is because they get
so viciously attacked, right, And that's something that where you
you're pretty cush community to me a cop, you know,
and why would I also have my reputation ruined and
be attacked on a regular basis and have to go
(22:54):
out and fight bad guys, like physically fight bad guys.
That's what I just don't understand what these people who
trash cops are thinking, Like how do you how do
you think we get back to being the country that
we once were, because the fundamentals, like the great fundamental
of what government is to do is there to protect right,
(23:16):
to make sure you have a safe community.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Public safety. That's really what else was the government tended
to do with too right the constitution and for my
public safety. I mean that's that's defense everybody. If you
do that, well, we'll figure out how to make money.
We'll figure out how.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
To do things right. Yes, yes, just there are a
few things. It's like infrastructure safety, I mean, how can
how can we be at this point where somebody was
like that arm, you know what We're done with that arm?
Forget about that will just run amock. I mean, and
it's obvious when you look at what's happening. I mean,
I wouldn't move to Denver to save my life right now,
(23:54):
because my life wouldn't be saved if I moved to Denver.
You look at what's happening with these newcomers and all that,
look at what happened in gren Rapids. And you were
just here in gren Rapids to endorse Donald Trump because
he came in to talk about Ruby Garcia. And the
thing that makes me mad about the Ruby Garcia story
is what a devastating, unnecessary situation to have this woman
(24:19):
lose her life, But to top it off, to have
the stupid leftist media come out and say, oh, this
was a domestic violence case, this was an illegal immigration.
I'm like, I'm sorry, but screw you. How can you
say that this woman this could be my daughter, it
could be their daughter. What happens one day when one
(24:39):
of these yahoos that goes out and says, oh, this
is nothing more than domestic violence. What happens when their
daughter is dating a guy who they don't know, came
over from some place else and as a gang member,
wants to kill her. When do people wake up and say, actually,
this is a flipping problem.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Will never happen to me, of course, because it only
happens to those people. That's how that's how people will
read it. Yeah, right, it's not going to happen to us.
We know who Gladys is dating. You know, he's a
great guy, right. You know when I when I mentioned
to uh, this person from writers, no.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
One is named Gladys by the way, nobody. I'm just kidding.
There's a Gladys listening and she's like, no, I am
named Gladys. That's what I will just quickly say. When
I brought my one of my daughters home and I
named her Bonnie, my mother in law was like, that's
from my generation. Are you sure? I'm like, oh, yeah,
she's going to be a Bonnie and she owns it.
(25:31):
She loves it. It's a perfect name.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Well, I'm sure the name Tutor has a lot of
glamorous background to it and do a lot of famous things.
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
When that's actually accurate, No one is named Tutor.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Oh no, it's it's a beautiful name. Though. Let me
tell you. The funny part is it might sound like
it's from you know, England, or you know that, you
know the royalty, you know what it reminds me of.
I had a fifty one Ford and on the left
front fender the tudors were expelled, t U d o I.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
So you were My grandfather called me two door four door.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Well you were immediately popular with old jt here because
they named her after a fifty one Ford. That was
pretty good. This guy a couple of weeks ago, this
writer's guy. I said to him, you know, three hundred
and fifty police officers got shot last year. Now you
don't hear about that. Three hundred and fifty were shot
now this So then they say, well sixty were killed,
(26:28):
and you know in most years that number is a
lot higher. Well, we're wearing ballistic vests, we have paramedics treatment.
But I asked him, I said, if you got shot
on the job, whatever job you went, if you got
shot on the job, does it change your life? Does
it change your family's life, your neighbors, your parents, your kids.
(26:49):
Do you just well throw that shirt away and start
over again. You get shot what could be more violent
than that, other than being killed? Can you imagine being
shot living? And how often do you think that can
happen to somebody before they go crazy or they or
they quit the job. Three and fifty were actually shot
(27:11):
and survived. And to me, that number is way up.
That number is like double what it was three years ago.
And it's because it's too easy to fight back, it's
too easy to resist, it's too easy to shoot the
police officer because there is no consequence. When you saw
those two New York officers getting beat up on a sidewalk,
you know what I was thinking. I wish I could
(27:32):
get there in an hour and jump into that fight.
You know what would I have done if I was
on the sidewalk? Can those guys flipped off the bird
to the cameras and walked out of the place before
the cops got on? Well? Right, why would you stop?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah? But if you're the cops in that situation, how
much do you want to fight back with the situation
where all these cops are like, Man, if I fight
back and something happens, then I'm the one that ends
up having to pay. And all these people that want
to take away immunity from cop and I mean, this
is making it less and less attractive. It used to
just be pension. And it was interesting when I was
running for office. I was at a building and they
(28:08):
had a security guard there and he was talking to
me and he's like, hey, I'm I'm a cop, but
I retired because you know, it was just too dangerous.
And he said, and they took our pensions away. And
the guy I was with was like, hardcore. You know,
we shouldn't pay pensions and teachers pensions and all this stuff,
and why I don't get a pension? Why should you
get a pension? And it was so funny to listen
because he said, you know, we can only be on
(28:30):
the job for like fifty five years, and I've given
up my whole life to be to make sure people
are safe, and then you're going to take away my
pension from me and say, now you got to at
fifty five start a whole new job that you know
nothing about. And we walked away. We got in the
car and he looked at me and was like, man,
makes me think a lot differently about pensions. And I'm like,
but why aren't we talking about this, because these should
(28:52):
be the people that we are taking care of, that
we are holding up that Like, that's what I'm saying
about government. Government should be there for these people were
saving our lives, they're protecting us, and yet how do
we get to this point that was just the beginning
was taking away pensions. Now it's like people are openly
trashing cops on the news.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, you know, we had at one time because we've
never really felt like a police officer should be pushing
a car on at sixty five, you don't Medicare age.
So it actually just two weeks ago. And I've been
working on this for about five years in Washington, DC
right now, and I know it's could be unpopular to some,
but we don't have any retirement healthcare anymore. There was
a time when we did so a guy left at
(29:30):
fifty five, he had this bridge to sixty five. We
all were obligated when eligible to join Medicare, which is
sixty five. We all contribute to it. And what happens
is there is nothing between fifty five and sixty five
right now, then the Blue Cross will tell you that's
the most utilized period in your life most of us.
Could you get a stint or a bad shoulder or
(29:51):
a hip or whatever, And so what happens? Do you
want that cop to work to a sixty five? It's
not good. So I've gone to I had Senators dabin
Out and Senator John Cornyn brought a bill in five
years ago, and all I wanted was Medicare from fifty
five to sixty five. But only if you were eligible
(30:12):
to retire. Not a guy that quits his job, not
a guy that gets fired from his job. But if
you were eligible to retire when you left, did you
get medicare until sixty five and then get it as
everyone else does? And I remember a senator's dabbing I'll
look at me and saying, I can't believe we don't
already do that. Well, well then she puts it on
the bill and she says that everybody should get it
(30:33):
at fifty five. Well know what that looks like? A
billion trillions of dollars. I wasn't trying to get something
for free. I was trying to find a way of
bridging this gap for first responders. And really, we generally
hire healthy people. I mean we're not like the normally.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, but I go back to what you were just
saying about you getting in that fight and five days
later you suddenly feel it in your shoulders. Because your
job is different than my job. Your job is going
to be a torn road cuff and those things are
going to start to affect you at fifty five and
you got to go in and get it fixed. And
that's different than what I'm experiencing. So I would say
cops even more so, are going to need that protection
(31:11):
when it comes to healthcare and it gets taken away.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I got hit so bad hard in the back of
my police car while I had nine hundred million LED
light bulbs going off, not LED's, they're incodescence when I
was on a job by a female that had been drinking.
Hit so hard that the deck what came through the
back window of the police car door slam shot on
my leg, radar hit me in the face, arm broke
off the butt of the shotgun, all in one hit.
(31:37):
Go back to work two hours later in a different
car because you're not bleeding, so you just go back
to work. I love the job, and I'm glad. I'm
glad I did every day of it. But you're right,
the things you're saying happened so routinely that and these
were accidents, but now they're intentional things that are happening.
You know, people, these officers are getting hurt by three
(32:00):
hundred and seventy thousand people funding them in the knows.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Right now, we have a president
who is all for what. I mean, he's out there saying, well,
I listened to AOC because she's smart and she is
a great advisor to me. And I think this woman
is talking about getting rid of all our protections. I mean,
(32:24):
she kicked a good company out of her district for jobs,
but more so the amount that she has gone after
police and said we need to defund the police. So
you endorsed Donald Trump before I let you go tell
me how that happened and why you guys decided to
do that.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Thank you for asking, because it got me more emails
and text messages and telephone calls, and I've ever had
some of them actually were happy, and you know, I
love that challenge. That's all good. This is the first
time in my life that we had two presidents running
for office. We had two people that actually ran. We
(33:01):
didn't have a senator, a governor, you know, a secretary
of state run and against an income. But we had
two presidents, both had served in the office. I think
since Grover Cleveland that might have been the last time
that happened. And even that was even before me. And
so when I looked at it, it became this this
binary choice. You've got one guy. What did he do?
(33:22):
He came in and he said, hey, we gotta do
something about the border. And it wasn't even a big deal.
Yet he builds five hundred and forty miles a wall.
I don't know how many miles of materials he had
laying on the ground. It ended up rust in a way.
He got Mexico to keep people on the Mexican side
of the border and had their military guarding the border.
So was it coming on our side and then and
(33:44):
then having to put him somewhere you can't come in.
It worked out really well, and you had forty thousand
people a month instead of three hundred thousand people a
month coming in. Now we have a person that says
open the border. It's the law that's messed up. Grief,
are you kidding me? This is because of the lot
Come on, the same law existed when Donald Trump was there.
(34:06):
So when that happens, you've got when you let three
million that you identify, and I think that's probably a
fraction of what actually comes in come in here, and
you give him an iPad, and you give them five
hundred dollars gift card, and you give them free transportation
anywhere in the country they want to go. We're in
the public safety business, you know, like like you want
for your your children and your family and your mom.
(34:29):
These are the things that happen out there. And I'm
looking at this one guy that says he well, if
you've got to if you've got a you know, a
crisis to say from back home, you you know you
want to get let in tell them over there. You know,
we'll figure it out. We'll send the judges over to you.
So I looked at these two and to me, that
wasn't even who would risk a coin toss. And a
(34:51):
guy that says, I secured the border. I did it
even in spite of the fact that the Congress fought
him on every dollar. He went to court to get
the money and to take it from the Pentagon. I mean,
this was the guy that fought and fought and fought
for got Mexico basically by threat of terrace guard the border,
and they did. And look at it now, I mean,
(35:12):
it's to me, how can you think that's okay? How
can ten million people in three years coming into your
illegally be safe? Right? Thirty thousand coming from China since
probably last October. This isn't not because I hate Chinese people,
It's not that at all. Come through the door. You
put a fence around your house, Is it too much
(35:33):
to ask for you to come through the gate instead
of climbing the fence. To me, it's the easiest choice
I've ever had to put in front of my people.
Is you've got one that says let them all, and
we've got one that says, let's do the best we
can to slow the blood flow here. And that's what's
going on in Chicago and Denver and you know, in
(35:56):
every other tell New York City. Oh my god, I mean,
these people in Chicago talking about how many millions of
dollars are being spent to house the illegals. They're saying
in the big hotels, for star hotels. I don't care
where they stay. Why am I paying for it? And
we've got police officers that were down seventeen percents in
this state. That's about two thousand and thirty thousand guys.
(36:18):
Everybody's working sixteen hour days. They work mandated overtime. This
isn't overtime that you say, I'll take the money. It's
them saying if you don't show up, you're going to
get suspended. It's the guy like you saw last week
that says, yeah, I just went through a tragedy and
I got to go wash up and get back to
work because there's no one there. Yeah. Me, this decision
has the border for us. I know the economy is big,
(36:41):
I know all these things are big, but a lot
of it stems from there.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
That the border was the clincher for you endorsing Donald
Trump for president.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
It was you know, I had a list of good thanks,
but that was the one as the president of the
people that I represent and the people were trying to protect,
to me that if you fix that, we'll figure out
how to buy bread and milk.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Yeah. Yeah, before I one more thing before I let
you go, because you were talking about how you.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Are sorry to me, you already told me one more thing.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
I know I know, but I'm going to go. I'm
doing another one because I thought about this. When you
were just saying milk and bread. You said something about
when you were a kid and you were pumping gas
for people and how many people you met. It made
me think, like, I've got people today don't even remember
when someone pumped your gas for you and went to
the gas station. They can you imagine now gas stations
even being able to afford to pay people to sit
(37:35):
at the pump and pump your gas.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Wait a minute, first, you beat me up about Gladys.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Now, damn I remember Gladys and the pump. Okay, so
I'm not that much younger than you. Was my point.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Listen, I have heard your stories about you cleaning out
cleaning on molds at the steel shop. I know you're
a real person, that's why we get along. But I
never knew a Gladys anyway. I think she was on
maybe Lucia or something. I know.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Well, I'm just saying right now, in this economy, we
don't even have somebody we're punching in the buttons at
McDonald Do you don't even have somebody to order from,
let alone pump your gas.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
That's right. That's right, man.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
We were spoiled. We didn't know what we had in Michigan,
especially with the weather in the winter. Somebody just come
up to the window and ask you what you want. Oh,
it was beautiful.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
If you're ever in a neighborhood, I'll come pump your guests.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
With all right, that's a deal. Thank you so much
for coming on, Jim taking Ellie. We appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Thanks for the nice things you've said about the people
we represent lately, and you're always welcome.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Awesome. Well, yes, you guys are amazing, and I just
want you to know that we are here for you.
Whatever we can do to continually lift our police officers up,
we will do that good.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
And ask for a better advocate. Thank you, have a
great afternoon. Good to your girls.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Thank you, and thank you all for joining us on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. For this episode and others, go
to Tutor Dixon Podcast and subscribe right there, or head
over to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts and join us next time on the
Tutor Dixon Podcast. Have a blessed day.
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. You all probably heard
my quick podcast over the weekend where I talked about
being at the convention for the Police Officers Association of
Michigan and giving out awards for a police Officer of
the Year. What a powerful event that was. I think
that I wanted to dig deeper into that event, but
(00:22):
into what is going on with our police officers across
the country and we can give you that perspective from
here in Michigan, because there was an overwhelming theme and
I think I mentioned this over the weekend as we
were sitting there and hearing these police officers talk, overwhelmingly
they were saying, well, I don't want to say too much.
You know, we're really under attack. People aren't appreciating what
(00:42):
we do, and I don't want to get in trouble
or anything like that. And I just thought, Wow, how
did we get here where the good guys are afraid
to say, yeah, we did our job, just nothing more
than that. Just we did our job. That's now a
a point of contention. That's now something that if you
(01:03):
are a cop, you're afraid to go out and even
receive an award for protecting us as people of the community,
and that struck me so hard. It's been something that
I just keep thinking about. And then over the weekend
I had an experience at church where one of our
pastors was talking about the hardships that our police officers
go through, and I'm like, you know what, I just
(01:23):
feel like, this is God's way of saying speak more
to how wonderful our police officers are. All of the
guys that put their men and women who put their
life on the line for us every single day. It's
something we should talk about. We should go back to
that time when we appreciate that and we go up
to police officers and we say thank you, and our
kids go up to police officers and say, hey, this
(01:45):
is the good guy. So I want to talk about
that today with the president of the Police Officers Association
of Michigan. His name is Jim Tigganelli. I'm going to
bring him in in just a second. First, I want
to remind you of my partnership with the International Fellowship
of Christians and Jews because the attacks are still happening
on Israel. You know, Aron launched that attack of hundreds
(02:08):
of missiles and drones and the Israelis are living every
day with the harsh reality of terror. The International Fellowship
of Christians and Jews is on the ground now addressing
urgent needs, and that's why I've partnered with IFCJ. While
they're praying for the best, IFCJ is preparing for the
worst by packing emergency bomb shelter kits that can be
(02:29):
delivered immediately to those in desperate need. Your life saving
donation will help to assemble and place those kits with
enough food and life saving emergency supplies for twenty people
in a bomb shelter. The cost to put together and
distribute these kits is two hundred and ninety dollars each.
Your gift will help save lives, and today, thanks to
(02:50):
a matching challenge gift from a generous IFCJ supporter, your
gift will double an impact to provide twice the support.
The number to call is eight eight eight eight eight
if CJ again, that's eight eight eight four eight eight
if CJ or four three two five, or you can
go online to support IFCJ dot org. It's one word.
(03:12):
Make sure you go online to support IFCJ dot org.
And let's go back to talking about supporting people here
in the United States of America as well, because our
police officers desperately need people to know how hard they're
working every single day. And Jim Tiganelli is a good
friend of mine, also the president of the Police Officers
Association of Michigan and someone who loves to talk about
(03:36):
what our cops are doing all the time. Thanks Jim
for joining me.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Glad to be your friend. I am, and I'm going
to make a donation on to that program that you
just mentioned because I think it's a very worthwhile one.
So let me say that we made a little progress
on that today. How's that.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
That's so sweet, Appreciate the opportunity to be with you.
And may I say that regards the appeace you did
on Saturday. I put that out to about five thousand
people and it was unanimous that you sounded just like
I know you are, and it was from the heart.
(04:13):
It was good and very much appreciated. Well.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
You gave me an opportunity during the campaign to talk
to a lot of families who were in law enforcement.
And I think that you know, growing up in the
era that I grew up and growing up in the
seventies and the eighties, cops were your friends. Everybody loved
the cops, right like that was it was unheard of
to think that the cops were the bad guys. And
I don't really understand when this started. I don't know
(04:42):
if it was. I know you before we got on
you started talking about twenty twenty, But it almost felt
like this turn against the police started back in like
the two thousand and eight era, when we started to
have some conversations about cops were the bad guys, and
cops were against certain races. And it has taken off
(05:02):
to a point where, like I said at your conference,
I'm hearing police who don't want to share their stories.
There's there's stories of even saving people's lives.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
You know, you're You're right. Probably the eight period of time,
things got a little tight money wise, and so consequently,
you know, benefits things like that occurred among police officers.
But I've been around this business for now over forty years,
and I think that and I was a child of
the fifties and the sixties, so I mean I went,
(05:32):
you know, through the sixties where you know, we had
a lot of protests, whether it was a Vietnam war,
different things like that, but they always came around, you know.
I mean young people became became the parents, and usually
it changed, you know. I mean like they say, everybody's
a liberal till you start spending their money, you know.
And that's to me. I think we alway knew would
(05:54):
roll around. But this is in my period of time,
since since the late seventies to today, I've never seen it.
And I'm an optimist, I really believe that, but I've
never seen it to a point where I think we're
up against the biggest Bob barricade we've ever had. I
really do. I think it's I think it's less likely
(06:17):
to fix itself now than it was in times paths.
I really do. And yes, there's a variety of reasons.
I guess.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Well when you say that, so what is the hope
for communities? Like I mean, I'm looking at Chicago over
the Memorial Day weekend and you see this, I think
it was thirty murders and multiple shootings and little kids
that lost their lives, and then you see this massive
looting of stores, people just going in with garbage bags
and filling their garbage bags, and it's like people were
(06:45):
joking oh, I guess the Memorial Day sale was that
people could just fill up the bag and walk out.
But when does this If we don't start respecting police
officers and the law enforcement community, what happens next? How
bad does the lawlessness become?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Wells, what's got to happen. First? We have to start
being able to enforce the law. And I think you've
taken they taken away our ability to actually try to
enforce the law. When you have officers that are told
to stand down while fifty people run out with iPads.
I mean, why would anybody pay for one? I mean,
so we've gotten to this point now, and you know,
(07:24):
at some point you're going to give me hear my
story about the you know, ten million people that have
come in illegally. But I think when you find out
how easy it is to break the law, what you say,
if we're all going thirty over on the freeway and
you're the guy in the middle, do you worry about
getting stop going? He's going that fast and he's going
that fast, and so the cops must not be working today.
(07:44):
So that's fine. And I think that the inability for
us to actually enforce the law, to actually stop one
of those guys. When we were adults, we did walk
up with a pack and gump. I mean literally if
it was if we had it was like by accident,
and we were apologizing. I mean nowadays, because that's how
(08:05):
we were raised and because we knew we would get
scolded somehow or other for taking it. So nowadays it's
so easy to be bad. You know. The better way
to say that what ends up happening is I think
we've gotten to the point now where the people that
used to apologize for taking the gun say, hey, screw it,
let's just take the company. I mean, I really think
(08:28):
we've created a generation right now that it's going to
have a hard time on doing this. The only thing,
you know, you ask it to jump all over you
here because I'd like to hear your questions. But the
only thing that can change it is the people themselves.
There's got to be somebody other than you and I
and I know there is, and I think that they're
(08:50):
going to start at some points. I'm saying this is wrong,
we need to do something. I hear in your voice,
but you know, we're all crazy about you. But when
you hear these stories about other people starting to say
I've seen some of these moms in Chicago on Fox
and Newsmax and such lateway saying hey, I've had enough
(09:11):
of this. You know, I'm voting for these same people
for decades. I was raised that way, And what's happening
now is now they're feeling it. And I think when
you start feeling it, the first thing you do is
you're afraid to mention it because it might create an
argument amongst your friends that at some point in time,
you have to be able to say, I'm not doing it.
(09:33):
I got to stop it. Like you said in your
peace on Saturday, what can we do? How do we
do this? We need more? You know that has to
be the regular Joe out. Then those moms in Chicago
were pretty strong the other day when I listened to them.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
I mean the guy that we introduced over the weekend
who comes out and says that he literally just took
away a baby from a mother. The mother had stabbed,
the baby was drowning the baby. The other child is stabbed,
and he goes home, has a crier with his family,
and then goes back on the job. And his chief says,
you don't have to come back, and he's like you
got no one else? What do you meaning I don't
(10:07):
need to come back. Of course I'm coming back. It's like,
first of all, that mindset that he just went through
this traumatic event, and then he knows he's got to
go back on the job because he knows there's nobody else.
And that's a big problem right now. You talked about
a number over the weekend or last week that I
want to bring up, and I might get it wrong,
but I think you said that two years ago the
(10:27):
number of people assaulting officers was in like the forty
two thousand, and now it's seventy thousand.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Was seventy last year, and you're right, yes, it was
like forty to seventy. And those are physical assaults now,
and let me tell you, you met some of these guys.
Nine out of ten guys never want to tell you
they got punched in the face. So I mean, when
you hear seventy thousand, that's a guy that really got punched.
That's not a guy that got pushed. That's not a
guy that got you know, that's a physical assault. Because
(10:58):
nobody wants to tell anybody that somebody get the lowdown out.
You know, it's one of those deals. I mentioned to
you earlier about one that happened to me. I never
told anybody about it. I bose got all what because
it was raining up. But I mean, nobody wants to
go in there and say that. You know, it's like
we like we got somebody got the jump on us.
We don't even want to tell anybody that. So when
you're seventy thousand, I'm telling you, and I don't know
(11:19):
the real number, but I'm telling you, that's a fraction
of what really really got a hands on physical assault
from a civilian.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
So I think about that, and I think about what
we were talking about when you were telling me that
you've had this happen, and someone I was telling you
I recently, and I don't know if it was a
conversation that I had with you during the campaign, or
if it was another one of the sheriffs who said,
you got to understand when you watch a movie and
you see people fighting for two minutes, it's like all choreographed,
and it all everybody seems like they're fine and they're
(11:49):
not winded, and they're just in this like fantastic fight
when you weren't expecting to be in a fight. And
suddenly you're fighting this guy. It is. It takes it
out of you immediately, And people are mad at the cops,
but they truly are fighting for their life. So what
you see with your eye and your Monday morning quarterbacking
of all of these interactions that are videotaped, what you're
(12:12):
watching with your eye is different than what that cop
is experiencing. And how do we get people to understand
what your fit body is physically going through when you're
being attacked like.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
That, Well, I don't think. I don't think there's a
way of training somebody to know how difficult it is
to hold someone who doesn't want to be held. These
are guys that already want to fight. And we have
a camera on our chest, front seat of the car,
backseat of the car. Every pole around this has got
a light camera. We're glad, Okay, they show things that
(12:44):
they show what they see. But for us, if we
if the only way we can stop this guy is
to punch him in and almost we'ren't punching them. We're
not going to do it. We're gonna get yelled at.
You can't choke a guy. And I know how terrible
it's and I know I saw the video one hundred times.
I'm just telling you a guy that's bigger and stronger
(13:04):
than you, when he runs out of air, gets a
little weaker. Not suggesting that it's the right thing to do.
I'm just saying if the guy would just stop. The
common threat I went all these fights is if somebody
says pull over or stop, or hold on or show
me your ID, and you just do it. None of
those people get into a struggle. When you get into
(13:25):
one of those struggles, and like I said, I can't
speak firsthand and one then I'll never forget. I'm not
the only one I ever had. Days later, your arms
feel like you like you bench pressed thousands of pounds
and you didn't press any weight. It's the adrenaline in
the world. We're at a disadvantage. Is the other guy
(13:48):
already knew he was going to fight. I already knew
he was going to struggle. Probably grew up and among
people that that's normal, and he wants to get away.
All we want to do is go home. You know,
we're just trying to do a job. I've said so
many times we hire from the human race. I mean,
it's an old dragon at TV show. I wish, I
(14:10):
wish I could tell Joe Friday how many times I've
used it. But the fact is we have we In
that TV show, he said, you know, they have us
at a disadvantage. They forced us to hire from the
human race. We do. We hire from We hire guys
whose dog dirty is the carpet, whose kid misses the bus,
who who he's he has to skip baseball practice tonight
(14:32):
because he's got to work four hours overtime. That's who
we hire. And in between those eight or twelve hour shifts,
he's just a guy that's got to get the grass cut.
He's just the guy that you know, needs to make
sure that little billy didn't leave his lunch on the bus,
you know. And so we're not out there. We're not
we're not designed to be fighters. You wouldn't want us
(14:53):
to be that way. You want us to be normal people.
You want us to have a good relationship. I mean,
I've told people that I think in your lifetime, you
being an exception because of at least our time together.
Is that most people grow up and they never meet
a police officer on a good day. You know, they
come home and the back doors kicked in. Come home
(15:15):
and mom and dad were fighting. They come home, come
out of the theater, and their car's gone. The red and
blue lights are in the back window, and you're going
fifteen over to speed limit and oh my god, my
insurance is going to go. You know, I tried when
I was on a job, and I know a lot
of guys do this. Maybe it was more rewarding in
those days. I always try to make sure that when
(15:37):
we leave here today that I left a good impression.
I even if I did have to do something, I'm
popular to you. You know, Hey, it was some man,
It's just the way it is. You know, it's the job.
It's you know, I tried to do that, and you
can't do that anymore. You just can't do it anymore.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
a Tutor Dixon podcast. To your point, yeah, you're right,
probably me and most of my most of my colleagues
in the political world, I would say, who are either
on one side or the other. And I would say,
especially to those who are vocally defund the cops and
(16:17):
all that baloney, they're also the ones that are likely
never calling a cop. But in certain neighborhoods, you defund
the cops and all hell breaks loose. I mean, they're
just barely holding it together as it is. And then
how is it fair to those kids, and how is
it fair to those moms and those grandmothers who are
just trying to make sure their kids are safe and
their kids are alive. Because I think about it from
(16:39):
a mom perspective. I'm listening to this story over the
weekend in Chicago where this three or eight year old
I think it was eight year old or nine year old.
The little girl that was in the car, she a
little girl, She's in the car at three thirty in
the morning, gets shot, and I'm like, what is happening? Like,
there's so much in that story alone to unpack. Why
is this child in the car at three in the morning,
(17:00):
Why is there a gunfight? What is happening? And how
is it going to be helpful to continuously take resources
away from those communities? And you brought up the illegals earlier.
That's another problem. You got not only all these people
that are coming in illegally and they can do that,
And then again you set up the whole idea of
if this is illegal and everybody can come. Why shouldn't
(17:22):
I be able to do everything illegal? But they're also
taking resources away from our communities that need it the most,
and nobody says boo about it.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
I just heard the mayor in Denver this morning talking
about they're going to spend millions of dollars on the
They're they're inviting people into their town. I don't want
to go into details that I don't really remember.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Oh, yeah, the newcomers.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
They were going to spend millions of dollars on the Yeah,
he had a term for them, the newcomers. I think
you're right. And I thought to myself, Man, now, if
you're if your mom, you know, and you're you're living
here and you're working here, and you know, the couple
windows knocked out, or the school bus has got some
ball tires on it, how does that? How do you
relate to that? I mean, how do you how do
you ignore that? And? Uh? And in our in our work,
(18:08):
in police work, and again, blessure for the good things
you think about the people we represent in our job,
it's the most difficult to turn around. I think you
know that freighter that hit the bridge in Baltimore, you know,
I was like trying to stop for god knows how long,
and he couldn't stop it because it's not it's not
an eighteen foot center console fishing boat. And when recruiting police,
(18:33):
I was just in Washington, d C. Two weeks ago
for Police Week, and and I sit there with with
legislators from all around Michigan. And you know, some like
us better than others. They'll pretend to, at least momentarily
while I'm there, But when they when you talk about
recruiting and retaining police officers, they make like, you know,
we just got to pay him more money, we just
(18:54):
need to pay more money. Well, doesn't want more money.
I get it, But how do I get that guy
into that suit in the first place? How do I
get those kind of bots on that guy? How do
I get him to decide I'm not going to have
a bad driving record, I'm not going to fail a
drug test. I'm going to I want to be a policeman.
This is how it was years ago. And when you
lose it, we lose a whole generation of young people.
(19:17):
And I'll tell you why. That is our best recruiters
forever back to the Old West, where your dad, your uncle,
your neighbor that was a policeman that you said, he's
a good dude. I grew up on the east side
of the Try when there was residency. Whole neighborhood was
police officers and firefighters, and you all knew that those
(19:38):
were good guys. They had coached baseball, They played catch
with you in the street, and when they drove to work,
they waved at you and you wave back, and you
were glad he was down there, you know, so you
saw something. Those are the guys. If I didn't come
from a law enforcement family, just something somebody influenced me
somewhere along the line. I really wish I could identify it.
(19:59):
But my dad was as a gas station owner, you know.
That's where I grew up at. And I think maybe
the best education I had was pumped and gas because
I had old people, young people, rich, poor, every race,
every socio economic background, and I had an air gauge
and an air compressor, and you needed air and you
like me, and so I figured out how to make
(20:19):
everybody that way. So that was my education. I always
called it was the University of Shadow's. That was the
name my dad's gas station. But I actually did go
to school, believe in or that. But those people that
came to you, you said, I want to be like
Uncle Joe. I want to be like my baseball coach Bill.
He's a good guy and when I grew up, I
want to be just like him. I'm telling you Uncle Joe,
(20:41):
and Coach Bill was going to say, you're out of
your mind, don't do it.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, that's where we lose that generation. You really recruit
kids into this job while they're thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old.
You know, hire them, but you get that mindset, you
know that this is what I want to do. Can't
tell to a twenty five year old person. They've they've
got other things to do.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
No, absolutely, they don't want to put their life at risk,
and they want to. I mean, gosh, getting them to
work in an office is hard enough, let alone getting
people to go put their life on the line.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Well, you know, you mentioned we're down like ninety percent
of total cops in twenty years. And when I tell
you that, and you say, and I say, there's nobody
in the police academy and I go to land saying,
we make arguments that put people through the academy. You know,
we got put through the academy. We got hired to
want to the academy. That hasn't happened in twenty five years.
(21:38):
So now they've done a grant, the state hasn't I
commend them. It's a great idea that if you hire
somebody that works in your town, because we want to
adjust those cultures. We don't want to guy from the
West Bloomfield working, you know, in a town that's much
different than West Bloomfield type of a thing. But the
only way you're going to get that kid, because academy
(21:59):
costs that and he's got to take fifteen weeks off
of his job at the speedway station or the subway subshop,
you can't do it. So if you pay for his
academy and give them minimum wage to go, you'll get them.
The problem is you already lost that generation of young people.
You know, the academies are empty. They're not empty because
the guy doesn't have a job or it doesn't have
(22:20):
the opportunity. It's because you just want to be a policeman.
And that's where we lose recruiting and retaining. And there's
no amount of money you're going to get me to
take a job that I think the guys are a
bunch of bad guys. You know, it's just not going
to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Well, I mean it's like you can barely get people
to run for office, and that is because they get
so viciously attacked, right, And that's something that where you
you're pretty cush community to me a cop, you know,
and why would I also have my reputation ruined and
be attacked on a regular basis and have to go
(22:54):
out and fight bad guys, like physically fight bad guys.
That's what I just don't understand what these people who
trash cops are thinking, Like how do you how do
you think we get back to being the country that
we once were, because the fundamentals, like the great fundamental
of what government is to do is there to protect right,
(23:16):
to make sure you have a safe community.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Public safety. That's really what else was the government tended
to do with too right the constitution and for my
public safety. I mean that's that's defense everybody. If you
do that, well, we'll figure out how to make money.
We'll figure out how.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
To do things right. Yes, yes, just there are a
few things. It's like infrastructure safety, I mean, how can
how can we be at this point where somebody was
like that arm, you know what We're done with that arm?
Forget about that will just run amock. I mean, and
it's obvious when you look at what's happening. I mean,
I wouldn't move to Denver to save my life right now,
(23:54):
because my life wouldn't be saved if I moved to Denver.
You look at what's happening with these newcomers and all that,
look at what happened in gren Rapids. And you were
just here in gren Rapids to endorse Donald Trump because
he came in to talk about Ruby Garcia. And the
thing that makes me mad about the Ruby Garcia story
is what a devastating, unnecessary situation to have this woman
(24:19):
lose her life, But to top it off, to have
the stupid leftist media come out and say, oh, this
was a domestic violence case, this was an illegal immigration.
I'm like, I'm sorry, but screw you. How can you
say that this woman this could be my daughter, it
could be their daughter. What happens one day when one
(24:39):
of these yahoos that goes out and says, oh, this
is nothing more than domestic violence. What happens when their
daughter is dating a guy who they don't know, came
over from some place else and as a gang member,
wants to kill her. When do people wake up and say, actually,
this is a flipping problem.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Will never happen to me, of course, because it only
happens to those people. That's how that's how people will
read it. Yeah, right, it's not going to happen to us.
We know who Gladys is dating. You know, he's a
great guy, right. You know when I when I mentioned
to uh, this person from writers, no.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
One is named Gladys by the way, nobody. I'm just kidding.
There's a Gladys listening and she's like, no, I am
named Gladys. That's what I will just quickly say. When
I brought my one of my daughters home and I
named her Bonnie, my mother in law was like, that's
from my generation. Are you sure? I'm like, oh, yeah,
she's going to be a Bonnie and she owns it.
(25:31):
She loves it. It's a perfect name.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Well, I'm sure the name Tutor has a lot of
glamorous background to it and do a lot of famous things.
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
When that's actually accurate, No one is named Tutor.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Oh no, it's it's a beautiful name. Though. Let me
tell you. The funny part is it might sound like
it's from you know, England, or you know that, you
know the royalty, you know what it reminds me of.
I had a fifty one Ford and on the left
front fender the tudors were expelled, t U d o I.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
So you were My grandfather called me two door four door.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Well you were immediately popular with old jt here because
they named her after a fifty one Ford. That was
pretty good. This guy a couple of weeks ago, this
writer's guy. I said to him, you know, three hundred
and fifty police officers got shot last year. Now you
don't hear about that. Three hundred and fifty were shot
now this So then they say, well sixty were killed,
(26:28):
and you know in most years that number is a
lot higher. Well, we're wearing ballistic vests, we have paramedics treatment.
But I asked him, I said, if you got shot
on the job, whatever job you went, if you got
shot on the job, does it change your life? Does
it change your family's life, your neighbors, your parents, your kids.
(26:49):
Do you just well throw that shirt away and start
over again. You get shot what could be more violent
than that, other than being killed? Can you imagine being
shot living? And how often do you think that can
happen to somebody before they go crazy or they or
they quit the job. Three and fifty were actually shot
(27:11):
and survived. And to me, that number is way up.
That number is like double what it was three years ago.
And it's because it's too easy to fight back, it's
too easy to resist, it's too easy to shoot the
police officer because there is no consequence. When you saw
those two New York officers getting beat up on a sidewalk,
you know what I was thinking. I wish I could
(27:32):
get there in an hour and jump into that fight.
You know what would I have done if I was
on the sidewalk? Can those guys flipped off the bird
to the cameras and walked out of the place before
the cops got on? Well? Right, why would you stop?
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah? But if you're the cops in that situation, how
much do you want to fight back with the situation
where all these cops are like, Man, if I fight
back and something happens, then I'm the one that ends
up having to pay. And all these people that want
to take away immunity from cop and I mean, this
is making it less and less attractive. It used to
just be pension. And it was interesting when I was
running for office. I was at a building and they
(28:08):
had a security guard there and he was talking to
me and he's like, hey, I'm I'm a cop, but
I retired because you know, it was just too dangerous.
And he said, and they took our pensions away. And
the guy I was with was like, hardcore. You know,
we shouldn't pay pensions and teachers pensions and all this stuff,
and why I don't get a pension? Why should you
get a pension? And it was so funny to listen
because he said, you know, we can only be on
(28:30):
the job for like fifty five years, and I've given
up my whole life to be to make sure people
are safe, and then you're going to take away my
pension from me and say, now you got to at
fifty five start a whole new job that you know
nothing about. And we walked away. We got in the
car and he looked at me and was like, man,
makes me think a lot differently about pensions. And I'm like,
but why aren't we talking about this, because these should
(28:52):
be the people that we are taking care of, that
we are holding up that Like, that's what I'm saying
about government. Government should be there for these people were
saving our lives, they're protecting us, and yet how do
we get to this point that was just the beginning
was taking away pensions. Now it's like people are openly
trashing cops on the news.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, you know, we had at one time because we've
never really felt like a police officer should be pushing
a car on at sixty five, you don't Medicare age.
So it actually just two weeks ago. And I've been
working on this for about five years in Washington, DC
right now, and I know it's could be unpopular to some,
but we don't have any retirement healthcare anymore. There was
a time when we did so a guy left at
(29:30):
fifty five, he had this bridge to sixty five. We
all were obligated when eligible to join Medicare, which is
sixty five. We all contribute to it. And what happens
is there is nothing between fifty five and sixty five
right now, then the Blue Cross will tell you that's
the most utilized period in your life most of us.
Could you get a stint or a bad shoulder or
(29:51):
a hip or whatever, And so what happens? Do you
want that cop to work to a sixty five? It's
not good. So I've gone to I had Senators dabin
Out and Senator John Cornyn brought a bill in five
years ago, and all I wanted was Medicare from fifty
five to sixty five. But only if you were eligible
(30:12):
to retire. Not a guy that quits his job, not
a guy that gets fired from his job. But if
you were eligible to retire when you left, did you
get medicare until sixty five and then get it as
everyone else does? And I remember a senator's dabbing I'll
look at me and saying, I can't believe we don't
already do that. Well, well then she puts it on
the bill and she says that everybody should get it
(30:33):
at fifty five. Well know what that looks like? A
billion trillions of dollars. I wasn't trying to get something
for free. I was trying to find a way of
bridging this gap for first responders. And really, we generally
hire healthy people. I mean we're not like the normally.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, but I go back to what you were just
saying about you getting in that fight and five days
later you suddenly feel it in your shoulders. Because your
job is different than my job. Your job is going
to be a torn road cuff and those things are
going to start to affect you at fifty five and
you got to go in and get it fixed. And
that's different than what I'm experiencing. So I would say
cops even more so, are going to need that protection
(31:11):
when it comes to healthcare and it gets taken away.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
I got hit so bad hard in the back of
my police car while I had nine hundred million LED
light bulbs going off, not LED's, they're incodescence when I
was on a job by a female that had been drinking.
Hit so hard that the deck what came through the
back window of the police car door slam shot on
my leg, radar hit me in the face, arm broke
off the butt of the shotgun, all in one hit.
(31:37):
Go back to work two hours later in a different
car because you're not bleeding, so you just go back
to work. I love the job, and I'm glad. I'm
glad I did every day of it. But you're right,
the things you're saying happened so routinely that and these
were accidents, but now they're intentional things that are happening.
You know, people, these officers are getting hurt by three
(32:00):
hundred and seventy thousand people funding them in the knows.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Right now, we have a president
who is all for what. I mean, he's out there saying, well,
I listened to AOC because she's smart and she is
a great advisor to me. And I think this woman
is talking about getting rid of all our protections. I mean,
(32:24):
she kicked a good company out of her district for jobs,
but more so the amount that she has gone after
police and said we need to defund the police. So
you endorsed Donald Trump before I let you go tell
me how that happened and why you guys decided to
do that.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Thank you for asking, because it got me more emails
and text messages and telephone calls, and I've ever had
some of them actually were happy, and you know, I
love that challenge. That's all good. This is the first
time in my life that we had two presidents running
for office. We had two people that actually ran. We
(33:01):
didn't have a senator, a governor, you know, a secretary
of state run and against an income. But we had
two presidents, both had served in the office. I think
since Grover Cleveland that might have been the last time
that happened. And even that was even before me. And
so when I looked at it, it became this this
binary choice. You've got one guy. What did he do?
(33:22):
He came in and he said, hey, we gotta do
something about the border. And it wasn't even a big deal.
Yet he builds five hundred and forty miles a wall.
I don't know how many miles of materials he had
laying on the ground. It ended up rust in a way.
He got Mexico to keep people on the Mexican side
of the border and had their military guarding the border.
So was it coming on our side and then and
(33:44):
then having to put him somewhere you can't come in.
It worked out really well, and you had forty thousand
people a month instead of three hundred thousand people a
month coming in. Now we have a person that says
open the border. It's the law that's messed up. Grief,
are you kidding me? This is because of the lot
Come on, the same law existed when Donald Trump was there.
(34:06):
So when that happens, you've got when you let three
million that you identify, and I think that's probably a
fraction of what actually comes in come in here, and
you give him an iPad, and you give them five
hundred dollars gift card, and you give them free transportation
anywhere in the country they want to go. We're in
the public safety business, you know, like like you want
for your your children and your family and your mom.
(34:29):
These are the things that happen out there. And I'm
looking at this one guy that says he well, if
you've got to if you've got a you know, a
crisis to say from back home, you you know you
want to get let in tell them over there. You know,
we'll figure it out. We'll send the judges over to you.
So I looked at these two and to me, that
wasn't even who would risk a coin toss. And a
(34:51):
guy that says, I secured the border. I did it
even in spite of the fact that the Congress fought
him on every dollar. He went to court to get
the money and to take it from the Pentagon. I mean,
this was the guy that fought and fought and fought
for got Mexico basically by threat of terrace guard the border,
and they did. And look at it now, I mean,
(35:12):
it's to me, how can you think that's okay? How
can ten million people in three years coming into your
illegally be safe? Right? Thirty thousand coming from China since
probably last October. This isn't not because I hate Chinese people,
It's not that at all. Come through the door. You
put a fence around your house, Is it too much
(35:33):
to ask for you to come through the gate instead
of climbing the fence. To me, it's the easiest choice
I've ever had to put in front of my people.
Is you've got one that says let them all, and
we've got one that says, let's do the best we
can to slow the blood flow here. And that's what's
going on in Chicago and Denver and you know, in
(35:56):
every other tell New York City. Oh my god, I mean,
these people in Chicago talking about how many millions of
dollars are being spent to house the illegals. They're saying
in the big hotels, for star hotels. I don't care
where they stay. Why am I paying for it? And
we've got police officers that were down seventeen percents in
this state. That's about two thousand and thirty thousand guys.
(36:18):
Everybody's working sixteen hour days. They work mandated overtime. This
isn't overtime that you say, I'll take the money. It's
them saying if you don't show up, you're going to
get suspended. It's the guy like you saw last week
that says, yeah, I just went through a tragedy and
I got to go wash up and get back to
work because there's no one there. Yeah. Me, this decision
has the border for us. I know the economy is big,
(36:41):
I know all these things are big, but a lot
of it stems from there.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
That the border was the clincher for you endorsing Donald
Trump for president.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
It was you know, I had a list of good thanks,
but that was the one as the president of the
people that I represent and the people were trying to protect,
to me that if you fix that, we'll figure out
how to buy bread and milk.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Yeah. Yeah, before I one more thing before I let
you go, because you were talking about how you.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Are sorry to me, you already told me one more thing.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
I know I know, but I'm going to go. I'm
doing another one because I thought about this. When you
were just saying milk and bread. You said something about
when you were a kid and you were pumping gas
for people and how many people you met. It made
me think, like, I've got people today don't even remember
when someone pumped your gas for you and went to
the gas station. They can you imagine now gas stations
even being able to afford to pay people to sit
(37:35):
at the pump and pump your gas.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Wait a minute, first, you beat me up about Gladys.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Now, damn I remember Gladys and the pump. Okay, so
I'm not that much younger than you. Was my point.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Listen, I have heard your stories about you cleaning out
cleaning on molds at the steel shop. I know you're
a real person, that's why we get along. But I
never knew a Gladys anyway. I think she was on
maybe Lucia or something. I know.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Well, I'm just saying right now, in this economy, we
don't even have somebody we're punching in the buttons at
McDonald Do you don't even have somebody to order from,
let alone pump your gas.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
That's right. That's right, man.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
We were spoiled. We didn't know what we had in Michigan,
especially with the weather in the winter. Somebody just come
up to the window and ask you what you want. Oh,
it was beautiful.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
If you're ever in a neighborhood, I'll come pump your guests.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
With all right, that's a deal. Thank you so much
for coming on, Jim taking Ellie. We appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Thanks for the nice things you've said about the people
we represent lately, and you're always welcome.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Awesome. Well, yes, you guys are amazing, and I just
want you to know that we are here for you.
Whatever we can do to continually lift our police officers up,
we will do that good.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
And ask for a better advocate. Thank you, have a
great afternoon. Good to your girls.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Thank you, and thank you all for joining us on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. For this episode and others, go
to Tutor Dixon Podcast and subscribe right there, or head
over to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
get your podcasts and join us next time on the
Tutor Dixon Podcast. Have a blessed day.
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1. The Podium
The Podium: An NBC Olympic and Paralympic podcast. Join us for insider coverage during the intense competition at the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. In the run-up to the Opening Ceremony, we’ll bring you deep into the stories and events that have you know and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget.
2. In The Village
In The Village will take you into the most exclusive areas of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to explore the daily life of athletes, complete with all the funny, mundane and unexpected things you learn off the field of play. Join Elizabeth Beisel as she sits down with Olympians each day in Paris.
3. iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2024 Olympics.