August 7, 2023 • 53 mins
Ever wondered what the harsh realities of serving in law enforcement are? What if I told you that it’s more than just catching bad guys and maintaining peace in the neighborhood? On this episode of the Protectors Podcast, join us as we journey into the demanding world of law enforcement with Justin Cotte, who has a particularly fascinating career trajectory. We were joined by Laura McCord.
Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hey, welcome to the protectors podcast.
We have Justin Cotty.
I got it, brother.
Did I get it, justin?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
You got it right off the gate.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Right off the gate.
Right off the gate.
So, everybody, when you haveinteresting last names, like
Justin and I, like piccolo, youget all sorts of just.
You know it's just different.
Okay, like Laura is joining ustoday, laura McCord, which is
it's a fairly.
You know you're not going tomess up the McCord, but Justin
Cotty I am super excited forthis one because mental health
(00:47):
everybody loves to say hey, youknow what we're going to talk
about.
Mental health.
We need to be aware, we need tohave this discussion but to
actually take the next step anddo something about it.
You know I love talking aboutmental health but I buy no means
a professional, while I do havemy own mental health issues
over the past, you know, acouple decades, maybe even more
(01:07):
than that.
Now I'm not a professional, butyou are becoming a professional
and I'm really excited to talkto you about that today.
Justin, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Right on.
Thank you, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Let's get a little quick snapshot of your
background, and you've had avery interesting one, and I've
been told not to call you aofficer, you're a deputy, so
let's, can you give the 30,000foot overview of like, kind of
like, your past couple decades?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, sure.
So just just grew up kind ofpretty chill, you know upper
middle class in the Midwest andthen a typical American happy
family.
You know parents got divorcedwhen I was 12.
And then about a year later mymom came home from vacation or a
business trip and said hey, Imet somebody.
We're moving to Canada.
I was like what in the hell?
Okay, they live in England.
It was up there, you know,midwest kid doesn't know any
(01:54):
better.
And so I moved to BritishColumbia, went to high school up
there, loved it, great place tolive.
Graduated high school up there,started college, hated it.
I just wanted to party and, youknow, work and make money, I
think at that age.
So you know, I was working fulltime, clubbing every weekend
and downtime, like you, wereliving my best life.
You know I was 19, 20 years oldand then 9, 11 hit right, and
(02:18):
even though I was living inCanada, I was still an American,
and so that was, I mean,devastating to see that.
You know, as every Americanwatching the events unfold that
day I mean the towers comingdown, people jumping to the
opposite of their safety I meanit was, yeah, it was wild, right
.
And the thing that stuck in myhead, though I mean more than
the gruesome and terrible eventsof that day, were the first
(02:39):
responders.
Ironically enough, I don't comefrom a family or background of
first responders at all, neverhad any interest in those
careers, but seeing that theonly the only calm of that day
was the firefighters, the EMTsand the cops that were just kind
of directing the chaos andhelping people.
And here at the time, you knowI was like I was living in
Canada working like inside salescustomer service in an office
(03:01):
all day, meaningless job.
You know, I paid for my hobbiesand that was essentially it.
But to see a career that youcan make money but also affect,
you know, other people aroundyou in a positive way and help
them, I was like, wow, I nevereven thought of those as a
career, like I said, but thatreally stuck with me and so I
started.
I don't know if Google wasaround yet in 2001, but whatever
(03:22):
, there was internet, a versionof it.
You know a old Iowa.
And so I started doing a littlebit of research, you know, on my
own, into the careers, whatthey pay and stuff like that.
I said, yeah, you know, you getpension, all these great things
, and you get to help people andwork outside every day is
different.
So started looking into it.
But I was living about a notquite an hour north of the
Washington border and, monetarywise, it just made more sense
(03:43):
for me, being an American, tomove down to Washington state
Same scenery, cheaper costs ofliving and more money for those
careers.
And so I literally picked up,moved down here I think it was a
month after 9 11 hit picked upsome side jobs and then before I
knew it I was signed up andvolunteering doing ride-alongs
and stuff with Olympia PoliceDepartment and did that for
(04:04):
about a year.
While I worked just kind of sidecustomer service jobs, sort of
testing around with some of myhistory in Canada and lack of
judgment decisions kind ofshaded me away from some agents,
some of the larger agencies,including Olympia.
They were like you know whatkid, come back in a couple years
, we'll let you come volunteer,but we're not going to give you
a commission quite yet.
And so I tested for like eightdifferent agencies and a county
(04:28):
here in Washington state, masonCounty, took a chance on me and
so I got hired there 2003.
I initially was a correctionsdeputy and I did that for a few
years and then decided thatwasn't really what I wanted, so
went on to the road you know aspatrol deputy and then just had
a while.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I'm going to pause on there real quick, yeah, because
I've always been wonderingabout this.
So not a lot of everybody jumpsin along.
Enforcement has that, like youknow, that itch since they were
a kid, the like you know gettinga military law enforcement and
stuff like that.
When you first did you playsports in high school.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Define place.
I did, but I was very good.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I won a lot of benches, but but it wasn't like
you're like, you're like life,you're adrenaline life.
When you first get this job incorrections man and you're first
like coming from this like kindof corporate-ish world you know
even a retail corporatewhatever and you get these, like
when you're in a CEO, you neverknow what's going to happen,
you never know what's around thecorner.
You're always wondering like,am I going to get like quote
(05:30):
unquote shanked?
Am I going to get jumped?
Am I going to get this?
What's that adrenaline like thedump?
Is it like you know you'regoing, you're going, you're
going?
And how did you first startdealing with that?
Because I'm like I know we'rekind of talking about mental
health later on in theconversation, but I always
wondered about that like with aninitial law enforcement.
I'd like to ask Laura that samequestion.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
You know, for me I didn't.
At the time I was, you know, 22years old still when I
graduated the academy andstarted being a CEO, and I
didn't.
I didn't know what day that wasright.
It wasn't until way later in mycareer, after suffering from
anxiety and panic attacks andhigh blood pressure, that I
didn't know what adrenalinedumps were.
I knew, I mean, I never been ina fight in my life and I was a
CEO for I think, two months andI got punched in the face and I
(06:11):
was like what the hell?
But, like you said then, theadrenaline with that and you're
the camaraderie of all yourother CEOs coming to your aid,
and the adrenaline was awesome.
But, like I said, I didn't knowwhat those dumps were.
I know I'd be, you know, raging, 100% that adrenaline flowing
and all of a sudden, an hourlater after a good night's sleep
, and that just happened.
(06:32):
Now you're exhausted, you can'tstop yawning, you know what the
hell's going on.
So that's when I got mycaffeine addiction of those red
bulls and those monsters, whichagain now, later in life, I know
was a big part of those panicattacks.
Not taking care of yourself andtrying to medicate those, those
adrenaline dumps and court oflaw dumps and all that right so.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Now, laura, that must have been like kind of like a
kick and buffer you to,especially with your background.
Not, you know, it's not like,hey, you know what I'm going to
go and serve in combat or dothis or do that when you're 12
years old.
And then all of a sudden, likewhat was your experience like
coming out of the academy?
And all of a sudden it's like,oh shit.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
You know it's funny because it's Justin is talking.
I'm like, is he like talkingabout me?
Because, same thing, like nolaw enforcement in my family.
I'd never thought I'd bewanting to do that.
So that was.
That was interesting, himmentioning that.
But when he said you know thatfirst fight, you're like, oh
crap.
It's interesting because when Iwent from my interview, that
(07:33):
was one of the questions on thepanel.
It was, hey, have you ever beenon a fight?
And I'm like, is this a trickquestion?
Are they trying to see if, like, I can control my anger, or are
they trying to see if I canhandle myself?
So I'm like I'm just going togo with the honest answer and
say, yeah, yeah, I have.
And so it was interesting tokind of wait for that response.
(07:55):
But they were actually wantingto know because that, you know,
is that whole.
Well, what about that firstpunch in the face?
What are you going to do?
Somebody trying to pull it?
Gone on you.
How are you going to act?
And I mean, you can trainsomebody all day long, but until
you're there, and I'm five,three, so I'm like working on
the southern of the county withpeople that have been running
(08:18):
the streets, basically, andthey're going to size you up and
what are you going to do?
So, yeah, that's, that'sinteresting.
They started putting thatquestion on the interview panel,
you know it said.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
You know you go, you get, you get on the street, you
like CEO streets or anythinglike that.
But then you start developingyour own skillset, your own way
to cope, your own way to likelive this life, your own way to
keep it at.
You know the job at the job orkind of bleed over.
But you can't always let itstay at the work and like, later
on in your career you startworking like I caq and officer
(08:55):
of all shootings and detectivesand all this other stuff and I
know these are, I know like me,I am.
When my career started goingkind of up and down and all
around I really really like theanxiety started shifting up.
I started dealing with it indifferent ways.
Not only did I get, I love it.
This is the reality ofpodcasting.
(09:16):
I love to hear in the canine inthe background.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
I've got a locked out to sorry.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
That's a big deal.
But it's like the, the alcohol,the caffeine, the alcohol,
everything else to kind of keepthis anxiety and you're like
you're doing one and then you'redoing the other one to low down
.
And I remember, like sitting onmy couch and any.
If I can only focus on onething and if anything else is
going on at the same time, myanxiety would go up and I would
(09:40):
grab like a I drink a big assglass of rum and coke, big ass
glass of rum and coke, big assglass of rum and coke, and
repeatedly and I was hittinglike the crack and rum every
night.
I mean it was going crazybecause I couldn't deal with my
mental health.
I mean, is that like somethingthat I don't know if you've ever
had a deal with that, or thepeople you work with?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, I mean, I did so, I, when I switched from from
being a CEO to patrol.
I just had gotten married atthe time and I was around 2026,
then 25, going on 26.
And so that fizzled out.
You know, shocker, beingmarried in the early 20s and law
enforcement working ingraveyard didn't work out.
That fizzled out pretty quickly.
And so here I am.
(10:21):
I think I was only on the roaduptroll for about a year and a
half, going through a divorce,losing my house and deal with
all the things you just talkedabout.
Self-medicating, you know,nonstop red bulls all shift to
keep awake during graveyard.
Then you come home and you gotto slam for me with vodka
because you can't fall asleepotherwise.
And so that's actually theexact timeframe where I started
having panic attacks and, again,uneducated back then, didn't
(10:44):
know what they were.
I just knew that I would all ofa sudden out of nowhere and it
didn't happen during the hotcalls.
I mean, I'd be in fights, youknow all these things, homicide
calls, whatever it was, and Iwas fine.
It would be the down, the downtimes on shift.
I'd just be driving down theside of the road waiting to pick
the shag in the next call andall of a sudden I'm sweating
profusely, I'm getting tunnelvision.
I couldn't, I couldn't bringmyself to be present, to the
(11:08):
point right of pull over.
And after my third or fourthone, I was in the squad room and
they actually called theparamedics on me because I just
wasn't coherent and didn't knowwhat was happening to me until
later in life.
But but yeah, self-medicated,not taking care of yourself and
all that, the stress of the job,it adds up quickly for sure.
And then later on, yeah, I meanI lost a handful of coworkers
(11:29):
to substance abuse issues anddomestic violence, which I can't
say for certain, but I can makea safe assumption that both of
the issues they were dealingwith, and then also to to
neighboring agency coworkers, tosuicide as well, yeah, it's the
unfortunate, you know, elephantin the room in this career.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Well, it's alcohol.
And then like, when you, whenyou take that next step I never
took the next step into theother addictive substances, but
I can imagine, as so many peoplehave, but it's trying to, you
know, equate it.
And then who do you go to?
You know, like I was, I'vealways fairly open about it,
about, like my drinking andeverything, and also very, very
open about, you know, takingmedication, a deal, anxiety.
(12:07):
But in a lot of agencies youcan't go, you can't come forward
, you can't come forward and youcan't feel comfortable coming
forward Because to them theylook at you as a liability, and
what liability equals is moneyand nobody wants to mess with
the budget.
So is this kind of one of thereasons you're on this path now?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, I mean not just the budget, I mean we're all
just line items anyways, right,and these agencies, but I'd say
even more so than than that iswho wants to come forward.
And not only you might lose thetrust of that brotherhood that
you have.
You're now, you're not walkingliability.
Can you be trusted at that?
Not that next hot call withyour coworkers, but also the
bigger fear I think for a lot ofus internally is is desk duty
(12:50):
right, losing your gun, losingyour badge, your your unfit for
duty and all these things.
And then a lot of the issues tooagencies that are doing peer
support teams or wellness.
There's a lot of labels beingthrown out there.
It's kind of frustrating.
But, like my agency had a quote, unquote peer support team
which when I first got involvedin it I thought, oh great, yeah,
this is helpful.
But now, looking back, knowingwhat I know, I mean it was, it
(13:13):
was a facade, it was, it waspointless.
The people on peer support teamI don't think there was a
single deputy looking back.
No, it was.
There was corporals, detectivesand supervisors.
Now who in the right mind,especially if you're a young,
behind the ear patrol deputy, isgoing to go to a supervisor,
even a detective, is yoursupervisor as a deputy, and say
I had a problem, yeah right, andthen you want to promote to
(13:35):
whatever it is later in yourcareer.
I mean you should be able toand be allowed to, but but that
stigma is attached to all thatand it's it's terrible and it's
it's starting to shift theneedle a little bit.
We're nowhere near where weneed to be.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Stigma, that is that word, right there.
Stigma with PTSD, you sigmawith alcohol.
You know alcohol, caffeine,drugs, anything that I mean.
How many not every big agency,not every small agency's getting
drug tested.
So you know, you kind of bleeda lion's eye some way to keep
this, this stress down, thisadrenaline dump.
(14:12):
And that is the differencebetween law enforcement and the
civilian world.
If you're on a construction site, yeah, some shit can happen.
If you're here in there, someshit can happen.
But when you're in this worldwhere any second someone could
pull a gun, any second, pull agun, pull a knife, punch you in
the face or anything, anallegation you know an
(14:34):
allegation lands on your, yoursergeant's desk, your captain's
desk, your chief's desk and thenext thing, you know, you're
like your stomach's in a bind,you got the fucking shits.
And I'm being graphic becausethis is what happens when your
anxiety hits you.
Your stomach's going crazy,your head's going crazy, you're
getting headaches, you'regetting dizzy, your blood
pressure spiking.
All of this is happeningbecause you chose to take a job
(14:58):
that is putting your life on theline and you don't have that
out.
And anytime you want to talkabout it, you get this stigma.
You know a chief can comeforward and get a DUI, a captain
can come forward and get a DUIand everybody's like, oh, it's
fine, you know he's, he'smanagement, he's this, he's that
.
You know he's dealing with alot that first year officer,
(15:19):
that first year deputy, thatfirst year CEO, that second year
, third or fourth, fifth yeardealing with all this anxiety
where and have never had to dealwith it in their life, there
was only one out.
They're going to find somethingto counteract it, whether it's
good or bad.
Let's talk about you and likehow did you get to the point
(15:39):
where you're like I need to takethis step and figure out a way
to help.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, it was after probably the medics were calling
to me by my own co-workers onshift, you know, and medics in
accounting that I worked in andso that I was on calls with all
the time.
That was mortifying, I mean.
Thankfully I was able to, youknow, at least relatively square
my shit away and still promoteother things in law enforcement,
had a full, full-ish career.
You know I was out right beforethat 20-year mark, but to me
that's still.
(16:05):
I'm proud of what I was able toaccomplish after that.
But I was lucky, to be honest,even after all that happened, I
made it to the divorce.
I just gave the house up, Ithink, which didn't alleviate
some of the stress because Ijust walked away from it all,
where a lot of guys I knowAngels they fight tooth and nail
lawyers, custody battles.
I didn't have any kids incommon, so I could have far
worse, like a lot of myco-workers had over the years.
(16:26):
But I've always liked reading.
I started picking up every bookI could on PTSD, on trauma, on
vicarious trauma, on anxiety andall these different things.
And it wasn't until I read partof my third or fourth book and
I was like, holy shit, I'mchecking every box in this book
as far as symptoms andeverything else.
And so I realized, okay, well,first of all, you can't
(16:47):
self-medicate with alcohol to goto sleep and then you wake up
two hours later because yourbody's processing that alcohol
and you're not going to havethat deep REM sleep.
Well, I didn't know any of that, so I was just not able to
sleep yet so I'd go and drinkmore vodka to go back to sleep.
Just stupid shit like that.
Until you read and realize,well, you're running your body
from the inside out.
This isn't helping anything.
And so just thankfully for me,was self teaching myself.
(17:10):
Through a lot of books that Iread and self-help and
psychology books.
They also got me on this path.
I think it piqued my interest.
But I mean cutting out a lot ofalcohol, cutting out a shit ton
of caffeine, really uppingcardio workouts and stuff like
that, forcing myself to get moresleep, alleviated panic attacks
entirely never have one again.
And then later in life, othergood decisions and stuff like
(17:33):
that too.
But for me, thankfully, I wentto therapy later in life for
other reasons through the career, but at the time, just reading
and educating myself helped meget through that.
I was fortunate.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
You brought up two things I want to hit.
One is the checklist.
Now, a lot of people understandyou may be anxiety-ridden, you
may be riddled with just allsorts of PTSD, anxiety stuff,
but there are a ton of reallygood checklists out there.
I didn't realize I had someissues going on until I actually
went online to the VA and Iwent down to checklists and I
(18:07):
was like, oh wow, oh wow, whatis going on here?
So you have that.
And then you mentioned anotherword too lucky.
You were lucky to, you know,figure this out at a certain
time.
You were lucky to find anotherjob.
You were lucky to do this.
I don't know how many timesI've heard that from other
(18:28):
people.
They were lucky to get it out.
I mean, I'm preaching to thechoir, but it shouldn't be like
that.
It shouldn't be like you'relucky to find an out.
You should have the supportfrom the top down and then you
should be able to come forward.
That is a critical issue withinthis profession.
So lucky.
And then I've really reallyanybody out there who's
(18:51):
suffering from what they maythink is anxiety attacks could
also be PTSD.
But if check the VA websiteseven if you're in LAO, go to the
VA and check out the PTSDchecklists and stuff like that.
Just find discover yourself.
So you don't have to be like,hey, I'm lucky I did this and
stuff like that.
You were dealing with caninesas well for a lot of your career
(19:16):
.
A lot of people don't realizethat canines can also get
stressors.
They're adrenaline dumps,they're ins and outs.
So dealing with that must havebeen a very dealing with your
own stuff and then also dealingwith your partner.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, it's funny, laura shirt, you know, drink
coffee and pet dogs.
I think I like dogs more thanmost people, to be honest, which
is one of the big reasons I gotinto canine in the first place.
But I honestly, if there was ajob out there to become a canine
psychologist, I would jump allover that in a heartbeat and
just deal with dogs the rest ofmy life and their PTSD, because
(19:51):
I absolutely kind of test thefirst hand that they have it.
But I don't think you should beany surprise though, either.
I mean, we all have different,varying levels of resilience,
right, and our breaking points,if you will, whatever it is.
So why should animals be anydifferent?
I mean, yeah, I worked a caninefor just shy of seven years
until I literally watched himget broken on the call and I at
(20:13):
the same time was starting to gothrough my own issues again
after being in a second ambushshooting, and I was just done
with patrol.
But I was still at the timewhen he was in my late 30s, and
so thankfully I was able to testand get promoted to detective
and get off the road and thenalso retire him.
So both of our stress levelswent down, at least for a little
while until my new job pickedup some other issues.
But yeah, I mean I watched himgo from a dog that could be on
(20:38):
the range with gunfire and healaround, play with his toy and be
living his best life to afterthe second ambush shooting I was
in he was with me at the timestuck in a car for an hour and a
half, which is all hellbreaking loose.
And after that day I knewenough through training and
stuff that okay, if a dog's inthe shooting, whether he shot or
or here's the shooting,whatever it may be, you need to
(20:59):
get his ass back to the rangeand make sure that that is not
going to have any residualeffects from that.
And I watched that dog that I'vebeen training with for years at
the range who was happy to golucky, go from, yet no problem
gunfire to any of youmotherfuckers, pull the trigger
under your face off, because Imean the aggression was through
the roof after that call and Itried to get into the range for
several days playing with them.
(21:21):
You know it was zero stress andthere was no getting back from
that.
I could shoot and he was fine.
But even my coworkers who heknew.
If they were standing next tome, my best friend of the job
would would just shoot a couplerounds down range.
You wanted to attack them.
I was like, well, this, this isgoing to be an issue clearly
moving forward.
And it's like I said,thankfully I was going to have
to retire him anyway, butthankfully I got promoted as
(21:41):
well and we both got off thestreet from that.
But yeah, absolutely, dogs Iknow I've seen can suffer from
the same issues that we do.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
I was waiting for.
Laura had a question aboutbeing involved with a shooting.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I felt like I needed to raise my hand.
I'm just like taking it in.
I want to pet a dog now, I wantto run again, get my great day.
So you know I was.
I was talking to Jason a littlebit about your experience and
how in the past you and I talkedabout, you know, what do they
consider a critical incident?
(22:18):
What are they considered a anactual?
Oh, I was involved in ashooting.
You know, and some agencieshave this mentality of, well, if
you didn't shoot, if you werejust there, you know, if you
didn't even you know aim, thenthen you're good, get back to
work.
And I thought it was a localthing.
(22:39):
And then you mentioned thathappening in your state and I'm
like holy cow.
So share a little bit aboutthat, if you don't mind, and how
that was perceived to be.
You know, if you can share.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, sure, I mean, washington is probably one of
the most liberal states in thenation too, right, so you would
think we'd be up and up on ourmental health and I mean we are
what we say, that we are for alot of stuff.
But yeah, my first one waspretty low key ish.
Right, it was just myself andanother deputy, back around 2010
, responded to a call and it wasan asshole we dealt with many
times, so we knew he'd probablybe a problem.
(23:11):
But the train, the way it wasis, he had the high ground on us
and he was.
He had, you know, dozens ofacres of woods behind him and we
were on a main highway when weresponded to the scene, and so
as soon as we got out of ourcars, he cranked off, I think,
three or four rounds at us, andwe already had our ARs out
because we knew this guy was anasshole and it might escalate
like that.
But once the rounds skippedacross the pavement in front of
(23:33):
us it was kind of dusk time toowe turned to where the fire came
from, but he was alreadyunasked into the woods.
I mean, couldn't shoot back toknow who the hell was.
Else was up there and with himand so SWAT call out airplane,
everything else we caught him.
That wasn't a big deal, but themore recent one the one in 2018,
where my dog enforced they gotbroken, and that one was just a
(23:54):
routine.
I won one call.
I went to and I was going to goalone and one of my coworkers
said, hey, you want, you want asecond?
And normally I would say youknow, no, it's a welfare check
or I don't want to hang up, nobig deal.
But you know, we all we got off.
You call it spidey sense,whatever it is.
We all have that kind of thatinside voice that sometimes says
yeah it's probably some backup.
There's something kind of weirdabout this call, for whatever
reason, I don't know Right.
(24:14):
And so I said yeah, why don'tyou come with me?
And so as soon as we got thereagain, I something felt odd,
even though it was just a simple911 hangup.
And so when I got there, Iparked my SUV with my dog in it
about 50 yards away from theresidence, kind of you know, put
myself between my car and theresidence and called dispatch
and said, hey, call in, have himcome out and talk to us, let us
(24:37):
know what the issue is.
And his response was no, I'mnot coming out, they need to
come to my front door.
Well, that's just not happening.
And so as soon as I relayedthat through my dispatch to him,
we heard one shot.
And so we figured, okay, well,he just shot himself.
You know, that's unfortunate,but it is what it is.
So then we kind of left my dogand my car in hindsight Now I
(24:58):
wish I would move my car backfurther, so my dog wasn't caught
in this crossfire issue, but wethought it was already said and
done.
And so, as we're kind of pyingoff, it was a duplex and so we
wanted to let the neighbors know.
You know, stay inside, we don'tknow what's going on, type
thing.
Well then, seconds later, I meanall hell broke loose.
This guy had an arsenal of likeseven, seven guns in the house,
handguns, lawn guns, and whenit was all sent down it was like
(25:20):
39 or 43, I forget somethinglike that rounds.
He fired through the house,through the front windows, in
the front door of me and mypartner, and again we couldn't
return fire because, a we don'tknow what the hell we have, but
B to see how hostages family inthere I have no idea Never saw
the guy, just bullets flying atus.
And so, like Laura said, wenever returned fire.
(25:40):
So, by policy, by Washingtonstate standard, I wasn't in the
shooting.
I was in a shitty call.
It's a shitty situation, but Iwasn't in the shooting.
And so, after we got SWAT thereand drones or anything else,
introduced CS into the house, hedid find the shoot himself, you
know, so never came out, hedied there.
But that was it, you know.
And the funny thing when I lookback now is after that was all
(26:03):
said and done and my partner, Iwere alone there for about 15
minutes, as Laura goes ruralCounty, even when you're back up
, it's hauling ass.
It takes some time, and so,when it was all said and done,
there was probably 30 cops thereor more, right, but still it
was a stressful situation.
You know when you feel bulletsflying by your ear and your head
.
I was never in combat.
I'm not former military, thatwas the first for me.
And so when it was all said anddone, that was it All right, go
(26:25):
home for the day.
I remember my chief at the timecoming up to me and saying hey,
you're scheduled to worktomorrow.
Right, yeah, chief, it's, likeyou know, 9 pm now I'm scheduled
to be at 6 in the morning, areyou good?
I'm told Laura this like whatthe hell are you gonna say to
your chief?
Well, no, I'm kind of feelingfucked up right now.
I'm gonna go home and drink afit of whiskey because I'm happy
to be alive, but my stress isthrough the roof.
I needed to kind of take itdown a notch now.
(26:45):
Oh yeah, chief, I'm fine, I'llbe in tomorrow.
And I was hungover, you know,but I wasn't in a shooting.
And then later on, when I'minvestigating officer involved
shootings as a detective.
To know the amount of time andeffort that goes into that, but
only if you fire your weaponwhen the situation could have
been identical.
The only difference was maybe Ipulled my oh my God, it was
(27:08):
obviously pulled.
Maybe I shot one round.
That was it.
That doesn't only change thecall at all, but the way it
would have been handled afterpost-shooting would have been
night and day different.
I'm off two weeks.
I can go see a psychologist onthe department's dime.
You know, yada, yada, yada, andit's just that the system's
broken and that's one of manyfactors leading to the suicide
(27:31):
raping in Sohi and mental healthissues.
Amongst law enforcement is wegotta take care of our people,
and that is a prime situation ofwhere I was not taken care of,
but I also didn't have the ballsto speak up either.
Like, probably a lot of peoplewouldn't know, because you don't
want to disappoint your commandstaff, right?
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Well, you don't have an out.
You know you don't have thatout.
You don't have another joblined up.
You don't have.
I mean, this is your life, thisis your career.
It's not like, hey, you knowwhat, I'm gonna go and get a job
tomorrow.
We know jobs are not easy toget.
That takes time.
The other thing too is I reallythink someone should write a
book called routine.
You know you show up to aroutine, call routine, this
(28:10):
routine that You're involved ina critical incident, life
all-time critical incident andyou're like, huh, now I don't
have any support just because Ididn't pull my gun and I didn't
pull the trigger.
You know your gun's pulled,you're ready, the slack's coming
off your trigger and you'reready to go.
Maybe you're not in the sameposition as someone else that
(28:32):
could pull the trigger, butbecause you didn't pull that
trigger, now you don't have thesupport.
You don't have the agencysaying, hey, you know what,
we're gonna send you all to theshrink or we're gonna send you
all to a mental health, we'reall gonna send you to the
critical incident response teamor whatever.
Everybody involved anytime thatround comes within any part of
(28:53):
your body or anywhere in thenear zone.
Both travel.
They could travel anywhereanytime.
They could ricochet, they couldkill.
It doesn't mean you're notfeeling the same thing just
because you didn't pull yourtrigger.
So that is one thing thatabsolutely needs to be fixed.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Well, and you know I'm gonna jump in too, because I
mean, take it a step further.
What if it's not even ashooting?
What if it's not a barricadedsubject?
What if it's not that swap call?
You know you have so manypositions, and even as a
detective.
What if you work in crimesagainst children, sex crimes,
internet crimes against children?
(29:31):
You put someone in a situationwhere you're seeing literally
the worst of the worst for anyamount of time.
At what point do you think thatperson needs to, let's call it,
decompress, you know, and justkind of unload all that stuff?
You're being, you have beenpacking, you know.
And another thing I also thinkabout sometimes in this
(29:54):
profession is does it reallytake?
Well, I've been doing this for10 years, 15 years, 20, 30 years
.
I mean, does it really?
Or can you be a year, two yearsin in your perception, maybe
your childhood, maybe some acombination of things you know?
(30:17):
Have you seen life and thingsand experiences different than
somebody that you know?
Like I had a coworker tell meone time oh, I can look at, you
know, child abuse pictures andcases and work them all day,
every day.
It doesn't bother me, and hehad a kid and he had been doing
it for I don't know 15 years atthe time and I'm looking at it
(30:38):
like huh really, cause I'm nottrying to sign up for this any
longer than I have to.
And then it doesn't have toshow up.
As you know, let me go home anddrink either, cause I never did
.
You know, I worked promising aschildren for years.
I don't know you know how muchI've shared, but even when I was
(30:58):
working those cases you know500 cases or however many in in
alcohol, I never picked up abottle.
But then it wasn't until yearslater.
I'm, like you know, 34 yearsafter I did that assignment.
Then I'm like Respondent towhat is adjacent a routine call,
and I'm thinking about that kidfrom four years ago, five years
(31:20):
ago, like oh crap, I was littleyou know Johnny doing, or
whatever.
So I think those two areas Idon't believe that you know
administration really gets.
What do you think, justin?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah, I agree with you a hundred percent, and I
actually want to touch onsomething you both you both said
independent, independently fromone another.
But, laura, you're spot on withit's dependent upon people's
upbringing, their past orchildhood, their experiences,
all of those things right.
There's a thing in the medicalfield that the ACE scores the
adverse childhood experiencescores.
If you've been essentiallyassaulted as a child or
(31:56):
physically abused, whatever itis, even your scores can go up
depending on your childhood.
That may or may not Build one'sresilience right going into the
military or law enforcement orboth, like a lot of people are.
I like to, you know, explain itor Describe it as, like
everyone's walking around insideof our brain is like a cup, you
know, tea cup, whatever youwant, to a coffee cup, whatever
(32:17):
you want to envision.
In every routine call go to theterm shitty, or every hard call
, you go to Death.
You see, whatever it may be, aLittle bit of liquid is poured
into that cup, a little bit oftrauma, if you will.
Right, depending on yourupbringing, your background,
your level of resilience and howmuch you can take.
Everyone's cups are differentsizes and so to that point, you
(32:38):
and I, laura, could be workingthe same agency.
We can be the same age, be inthe same job, the same shift and
go to every single calltogether the same.
I might break before you or youmight be.
Neither us will break it, youdon't know, because we don't
know what everyone else's levelsof experience and trauma, how
much they can handle and howmuch, and tell that cup spill of
over.
You know what we want to usefor an acronym, but I mean it's
(32:59):
very true.
And then to Jason's pointearlier you mentioned, in
critical incidents, where youknow everyone should just be
sent to therapy or a wellnessvisit, whatever it is.
I've been arguing that for thelast couple years, since I
really got into this, is ismandatory wellness checks.
Some agencies are have wellnessteams and training and whatever
(33:20):
.
What is that?
Most of it is still death byPowerPoint.
You might go to in-service anddo four hours firearms, four
hours DT and get a 30-minutePowerPoint on mental health.
What good is that?
I mean maybe a little bit sure,better than nothing, but we
need hands-on training, yoga,mindfulness training, my
professionals, not cops in ouragency.
That might do it as a hobby.
But mandatory wellness checks.
(33:41):
What do we all have to do everymonth, every two months,
depending on your agency?
Is you have to go, sit for afull day and do whatever?
The required training is yourevoc training, your first aid,
cpr or whatever.
Why in the hell can't you throwin one hour of that eight hour
day or ten hour day, whatevershift you depend upon you at
your work, a one-hour wellnesscheck, contract out with a
psychologist, a culturallycompetent law enforcement
(34:04):
Psychologist, and mandate thatacross the board.
And I mean your patrol, I meanyour patrol, your detectives,
your administrators, yoursheriffs, your police chiefs,
lieutenants Everyone hasmandated, like you are, go
mandated to do ground fighting,whatever it is.
You go do a wellness check oncea quarter, once a month,
whatever it is.
Even if you're fine, okay,you're getting paid to be there.
It's an hour out of your day.
(34:24):
What is it gonna hurt you to gotalk to a professional and then
guess what, during that hourconversation that you're getting
paid for on your mandatory worktime, some shit might come up.
You might just have to be, havea conversation with that
psychologist and all of a suddenthey pull something on you
because they're a trainedprofessional, they know what the
hell they're doing that.
Oh, like Laura mentioned, shehad no issue doing those looking
at the child abuse materialthat all of a sudden fast
(34:44):
forward, you're to call yoursdown the road and oh, what the
hell?
Well, guess what, you'realready in that hour-long
mandated wellness check.
Why don't you talk about it?
And if it's mandated, everyone'sgonna get better.
Everyone's gonna get at leastbetter ish, get help with the
issues or lack.
There are issues they may notbe aware they have of yet, but
the biggest thing is, like wetalked about earlier, what's
that big scary word?
Stigma, right, if everyone ismandated to go to therapy,
(35:07):
wellness check its therapy,right?
What?
What stigma is there?
Oh, do you hear so?
And so is going to therapy whatyou big fucking deal we all do
every, every month at in-servicetraining.
Well, where's the stigma now ifeveryone's going, including
your command staff?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
I Really like that idea.
You know, get everybody involved, make them involved.
You know, make that part of.
You know we go through all thistraining, tons of training in
services.
We go through our basingacademies and everything.
Everybody.
And you brought up anincredible point that it really
bothers me because we are a lineitem but we're all not the same
(35:45):
.
You know that line item fillsup and then that cup you said
about the stressors, the stripit's not just a cup of that,
it's experience.
You have a cup of experience.
Everybody starts out with anempty cup.
They may have some lifeexperiences and stuff like that,
but when you put these twothings together you have a line
item and you have a cup ofexperience.
You can't just, you can't justreplace someone.
(36:08):
You know I was in 1811.
I was in 1801 in the US, 1896.
All sorts of different codes inthe government.
We're all not the same.
You know you have a squad ofpeople.
You know maybe one really knowswhat the hell they're doing.
Two are really good at theirjob, three are great support.
Three or four are completewaste of time and one is just he
(36:32):
shouldn't even show up to work.
You know, not all those people,you can't take one.
Like you know, the guy whodoesn't show up for work
Shouldn't show up for work.
He should really just stay home.
He can't replace number one.
It can never replace number one.
It's not just line items, youknow, and when you bring it up,
this point of get everybodyinvolved, then maybe one number
(36:54):
one and number two, three, four,five the people that you really
want on the job are havingthese issues.
Before you lose them to anotheragency, before you lose them to
just quitting or before you Godforbid you lose them to death,
to suicide, maybe you geteverybody involved and You're
not gonna have retentionproblems and you're not gonna
(37:15):
have the death problems.
Mean, you're always gonna havethem, but you're not, you're
gonna limit them.
That's my sub box.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Well, jason, how about this, though you mentioned
?
What about that person you knownot showing up to work?
Oh, tell me, this is just notme.
Tell me how much you guys lovethe fact that if I need a Sick
day, I need to be sick.
You know so is either I'llbring a doctor's note because I
got a cold or I have a dentistappointment, but if I need a
(37:47):
mental health day Because I'mnot feeling well on an actual
body part, then you know no,you're not sick.
You know.
You know you don't need amental health day, or you know
there is no note, there is nolike what do you do, right?
So, oh, you know it's, it'sHIPAA.
We can't talk about this, wecan't talk about that.
(38:08):
And so do I lie?
Do I just say, hey, you knowfeeling sick today, calling out,
or Shouldn't it be just okay tocall my supervisor and say, hey
, I can't make it to work today?
You know I'm taking a mentalhealth day.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
And of the conversation, yeah, yeah, that
needs to be normalized.
But I mean to your point though, too, is I suffered a bunch on
the job injuries part, part ofit, I'm just the clumsy
individual.
But also, being a caninehandler in Washington State, if
you've ever gone on a hike orour tracks through our woods,
there's a lot of down, trees anda things, a lot of things, to
trip over, and so I've.
I've broken my hand a couple oftimes, broken my leg, all kinds
(38:46):
of fun shit.
And I, like a lot of us, ifyou're on desk duty, it's
mind-numbing, it's terrible, andyou're hearing all these calls
come out.
Your people are running out ofthe squad room and you're
sitting there with your leg upon a chair, whatever, taking
just one old shake all afteranother, and you're not really
doing anything.
So what do we all want to dowhen we're physically injured?
You want to rush that rehab,get that Pete physical physical
(39:08):
nervous, to sign off and sayyou're good for full duty.
And at least for me I've donethat, especially when I was in
canine.
I might, you know, I'd stillbring my dog to work and he was
just running on the squad roomsticking his head in garbage
cans.
He's bored, he's a friggin dog.
He wants me back on the street.
And so those two, those twoinjuries I suffered while I had
him is I really pushed andFought to get back to full duty
(39:29):
when I knew that I wasn't ahundred percent.
But in my mind I'm like, yeah,I got coworkers, I have a dog.
If I'm gonna get to fight, I'lljust hit my door, pop or my
dogs, and they come out.
I don't really need both myhands yet.
It's fine, but to mysupervisors credit in those
incidentsthey?
They were like no, you're stillfucked up your fingers, still
like wonky, you can't come backto work, okay.
(39:49):
So why, when they know that Iwas just in a critical incident
or whatever, or you got aco-worker that comes to work and
that you smell booze on them,they're probably not in a good
spot mentally, are they?
Why do we ignore that?
Why can't we talk about thatlike we can talk about a
physical injury that?
No, hey, buddy, you're not goodenough yet.
Let's get you rehab, let's gowork out, get you better or
whatever.
(40:09):
Our brain is also part of ourbody.
It's, it's, it's, it's, youknow, an appendage, if you will
like a finger or a leg, whateverit is.
So if it's, if it's damaged,why can't we get it fixed or get
aid for it and not bescrutinized about it?
And why can't it just be normallike oh shit, your legs and two
pieces.
You should probably take sometime off work.
Well, if you're going through adivorce, you just lost a kid to
(40:31):
cancer or whatever it may be,why isn't that treated the same
way, right?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
the brain.
It's the most important thing.
I mean it's one of the mostimportant things because it's
all big machine.
You know the military it tooktwo wars in 20 years from the
finally say it's okay to havePTSD, right, it's okay to get
help, it's okay.
You have commanders coming outnice, saying I have PTSD.
(41:01):
You have generals coming outnow and saying I PTSD.
How many of these people haverose through the ranks who may
have mental health issues, butbecause they're rising through
the ranks and they're alwayslooking at that next step in
their career, they don't want totalk about it.
They, they.
What you really need to affectchange is to have someone from
the top start saying hey, youknow what?
(41:22):
My brain is a little broken.
It's not irreparable, it can befixed.
I need help and Empower everyone of his leadership.
Below them, supervisors shouldbe able to check in on their
people.
Hey, you know, I notice you'vebeen calling and sick a lot
lately and Is there anything Icould do?
(41:44):
Do you want to see someone?
Do you need to changeassignments?
Do you do in the little extrasleep?
Do you need something Now?
Granted, manpower issues arealways gonna be a problem,
especially with the smallerdepartments.
But if you have a solidsupervisor, they should be able
to check in on their people andthen go to their captain, go to
their chief and say, hey, youknow what such and such, you
(42:05):
know what, let's, let's lay offthem a little bit.
Let's not bust his balls,buster balls.
Let's, let's fix them so theydon't one leave, don't break
themselves to where they're notrepairable and, three, they
don't end up in the grave.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yeah, 100%.
And so how do we get there?
You know the the bigger issue,unfortunately, I think and then
Laura might talked about thisbefore is is some of our command
staff who probably should haveretired many years ago.
But they're hanging on to thosestripes or whatever it is, and
a lot of them too, and I've hadsomething I worked for.
(42:47):
They worked the road for like acouple years and then they
decided to get on that promotionchain and all of a sudden
they're leading an agency butthey've probably never even been
in a fistfight, let alone ashooting or work any you know
child crime or anything likethat.
So they're probably completelyfine.
And so to ask them tounderstand this and and and
mandate wellness checks and allthis, they're gonna say, well,
(43:09):
especially if they're an oldschool male mentality, you know
it's like you may as well talkto the planner about this
because you're not gonna getanywhere.
So that's, that's the bigger,scarier issue.
And so how do you fix that?
Well, it's gonna take timeuntil they retire out, I think.
But if agencies start promotingout, they're junior surgeons and
stuff and they're doing it, youknow, an effective job at that
and normalizing all this stuffwith them that as they move up
(43:30):
in the ranks, that I think, liketo your point, it won't be such
a weird thing.
It'll be, it'll be normalizedin the agencies, but I think
also police academies from dayone need to be teaching this
stuff, implementing the stuff,normalizing the stuff and
everything else.
I remember when I went throughin 2003 2003, there was no talk
(43:51):
of this they would just, youknow, scream at you and spit in
your face, probably similar toboot camp back in the day, when
you went through Jason, and youknow your piece of shit, your
your boot.
You know we've all been inshootings and we've had six
divorces and we're alcoholics,but we're bad asses and so our
generation, unfortunately, wasbrought up on that.
But there's an easy fix to thatif it starts the day one in the
(44:12):
academy Is these recruits aretreated like humans.
Usually I've taught the job andweeded out if can't handle the
stress and being in a fight andshooting and all that.
That's fine.
But what about after, like themoccasins in the academy?
After you're in a use of force,you're in a shooting, with
simulitions.
That's kind of realistic andstuff like that.
What should be done after that?
Immediate debriefs, havepsychologists in the academy,
(44:35):
have peer support teams, haveshooting buddies all that if
it's, if it's brought to theforefront on day one in the
academy.
Then fast forward to 10 yearsfrom now.
You're in a critical incident.
Oh, back in the academy.
Yeah, we would practice thesemindfulness techniques they
taught us afterwards and wewould take mental health days.
We would go see a psychologistbecause they tell us in the
academy that's how you getbetter, because it's
scientifically proven.
So if you start teaching thatfrom day one, I think, with the
(44:57):
command staff, to take the firststep From day one, I think,
with the command staff changingas time goes on and also the new
recruits coming up, goingthrough the Chain of commands
and stuff like that, my hopeanyway, you know 510, especially
20 years from now, this will bea mute point, but.
But things have to change again.
In Washington State I went up toour basic training Academy
(45:20):
About a year ago.
I'm out of law enforcement nowbut I have a stake in this game.
I don't want people to gothrough what I went through,
what a lot of my friends andcoworkers have gone through, and
so I heard that our Academy isteaching mental health.
The officers now and I was likecool, can I come up and watch
the class?
They're like, yeah, of courseI've got connections and stuff
still.
And in law enforcement it was atwo-hour class they get one
time and Most of it was how todeal with people in crisis.
(45:42):
I'm like, well, fuck, no, ourmental health, not people on the
street.
We get that through CIT and allkinds other bullshit.
Training will go through later.
Again, washington State, prettyforward-thinking liberal state.
We're not even getting it yetit's not that difficult people.
Well, let's get in someprofessionals and psychologists
and teach mindfulness andresiliency and psychology and
and Talking to therapists andall of these things are normal.
(46:04):
You're gonna have theseadrenaline and cortisol dumps
and here's why.
Here's what's gonna happen toyou.
It's gonna suck, but here's howyou get through it.
We're, we're giving, we'reteaching great techniques and
tools for kicking people's assesand shooting them and tasing
them and giving first aid andnow Deescalation.
Sure, but what about ourselvesthat are still seen on average?
If you do a 20 year career, orthey say, I think, three to six
(46:26):
hundred critical incidents we'regonna come across.
As opposed, your averagecitizen might see two or three
in their entire life.
I mean, it's not even happensin oranges.
So why isn't more being done atthe basic Academy training
level is my question.
I can well that's so box allday, but Well, you know, I made
a couple notes here.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
One of them is two dollar science money.
Everything comes down to money.
Yeah every extra day, everyextra hour you spend in Academy.
But that's the other aspect ofthis whole situation is let's
look at it from a monetaryinstance.
Retention, recruitment,everything comes out of money.
But who?
Who really approves the money?
City councils, mayors, thewhole bureaucracy above the
(47:09):
police station, above thesheriff money.
If you get buy-in from councilmembers, you get buy-in from the
civilians who don't deal withthis.
You already said it before thatthey don't deal with these
critical incidents.
They have no idea what someonein law enforcement go through
goes through absolutely none.
But if you get buy-in fromthese council people who are
(47:31):
gonna approve the budget and say, okay, the next time, chief,
so-and-so is writing a grant,hey, we're gonna write a grant
for mental health, we're gonnawrite a grant for this.
We're gonna write a grant foranything to do with like
physical fitness machines,anything where you that's not
just like Tasers and new gunsand knew this and knew that, but
we're gonna do something that'sgonna help the mental health,
(47:52):
the physical health of theofficers, the deputies that
they're in charge with.
Get the buy-in from thecouncils, get the buy-in from
the, from the people who areapproving these budgets.
I think that's kind of anotheraspect of this whole situation
is to start looking at that way.
It took a lot of push, a Lot ofpush, but now there's laws that
(48:13):
are on the books going at thefederal level.
That's showing that suicide isnow a line of duty Death for a
lot of law enforcement.
A lot of people like, well,that's really touchy-feely.
No, it's not, because what itdoes is provides benefits,
benefits the loved ones.
So if you start putting themental health aspect in of it,
in it, the monetary aspect of it, a suicide line of duty death
(48:35):
is now going to cost the getthese counsel people money.
It's unfortunately, it's atruth, and you're going to tell
them hey, you know what, beforewe get to this point, we're
we're going to have to providehiring bonuses for people or
we're going to have to provideline of duty death Benefits of
someone who commits suicide.
Why don't we start looking atthe mental health aspect and do
(48:56):
it from a monetary point andEffect changed at that level too
.
So, hey, you know what?
I'll write a letter today.
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Yeah, I mean you're spot-on and it's not, it's not
difficult Chore task toaccomplish.
You just need the right peopleto have the knowledge and
expertise or at least, if theydon't know where to reach out
and get those answers to.
I mean, there's plenty of signsand evidence out there that
shows this is a real thing.
We're losing people at suicide,the rates aren't going down,
(49:26):
and why?
It's because the un-on-stoptrauma and you're not getting
enough time off, you're notgetting the resources and all
that.
So, yes, it's, it's a budget,it's a monetary issue.
But what does it cost?
Like you just touched on thehiring incentives, I think
Seattle is up to like $50,000for a new hire now I think come
on, so not like that.
But what does it cost to traina Brand-new, you know snot-nosed
(49:48):
boot on the Academy up to alevel that they can work and be
effective on their own?
I mean it's hundreds ofthousands of dollars.
So if we're only asking thesecouncil people or county
commissioners, whatever it is,for a 50,000 or $100,000 budget
to get mandatory wellness checksand psychologists on staff for
all of our, all of our staff,but guess what?
That's probably gonna helpretain all of them.
(50:09):
So we don't have to do thesehiring incentives and then train
people in the Academy costs andall that.
What's gonna cost us more inthe long run?
It's gonna be losing people andhaving to hire and pay
incentives all day.
So why not let's pony up themoney up front and worry about
retention rates and not havingto lose people to suicide and
substance abuse and DUIs and DVsand everything else which is
still happening.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
Yeah and Justin, it's not just critical incidents,
it's not just shootings, it'snot just someone's gonna beat
your ass.
Sometimes it's just piss.
Poor management.
Yeah sometimes it's just piss,poor management.
And if you could get a, a psychor someone mental health
professional on retainer sosomeone can go invent and Vent
(50:50):
without using alcohol or justventing and in bitching a
co-workers.
But some of them go there andget some sort of like mental
resolution, so then they're notlooking for jobs, they could
enjoy their job.
But then also have these chiefsand captains and lieutenants go
see the mental health people aswell.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
Get them to be like hey, you know what, maybe you're
kind of fucked up, you need totake care of your people.
Yeah, lori, you got anythingelse?
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Um, no, I think that, like Justin said, if you don't
know where to start, what to do,reach out.
I know I had a I don't know,maybe a 30-minute conversation
with him once because I was.
I look, I'm currently workingat a very small department.
I've never seen anything meantto health related be addressed.
Uh, what do I start?
It needs to happen.
(51:38):
We have a lot of new officersand you know I mean literally a
year or less.
They have already attendedthree funerals in their time in
this career.
He gave me some pointers, did alittle bit of research, use some
agencies that are already doinggreat things in that arena, and
presented it.
(51:59):
And, hey, 30 minutes I wasawarded.
I'm, I take it so brought in aprofessional she talked for
about I don't know, maybe 40minutes, and then has someone
talk about physical wellness,like you were saying.
You know, go for a hike, go tothe gym, practice.
(52:19):
You know martial arts or youknow crossfit, whatever you're
into, and I was so grateful formy 45 minutes during in service.
So if you don't know what astar, just ask.
You know, justin was super kindand gave me some pointers and
kind of told me how I could evenpresent this to my chief and he
worked.
So we, we did that in my supertiny agency and I think if you
(52:44):
just look for you know where tostart, it can happen.
You really can.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Justin.
I really appreciate you comingon, brother.
I'm looking forward to continueour discussion and I really
maybe affect some change.
Why not?
Speaker 2 (52:58):
Something's got to change, you know, so I'll keep
talking whoever I can andinventing or whatever else I
need to do.
Yeah, it's worth it, so I I.
Hey, welcome to the protectors podcast.
We have Justin Cotty.
I got it, brother.
Did I get it, justin?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
You got it right off the gate.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Right off the gate.
Right off the gate.
So, everybody, when you haveinteresting last names, like
Justin and I, like piccolo, youget all sorts of just.
You know it's just different.
Okay, like Laura is joining ustoday, laura McCord, which is
it's a fairly.
You know you're not going tomess up the McCord, but Justin
Cotty I am super excited forthis one because mental health
(00:47):
everybody loves to say hey, youknow what we're going to talk
about.
Mental health.
We need to be aware, we need tohave this discussion but to
actually take the next step anddo something about it.
You know I love talking aboutmental health but I buy no means
a professional, while I do havemy own mental health issues
over the past, you know, acouple decades, maybe even more
(01:07):
than that.
Now I'm not a professional, butyou are becoming a professional
and I'm really excited to talkto you about that today.
Justin, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Right on.
Thank you, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Let's get a little quick snapshot of your
background, and you've had avery interesting one, and I've
been told not to call you aofficer, you're a deputy, so
let's, can you give the 30,000foot overview of like, kind of
like, your past couple decades?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, sure.
So just just grew up kind ofpretty chill, you know upper
middle class in the Midwest andthen a typical American happy
family.
You know parents got divorcedwhen I was 12.
And then about a year later mymom came home from vacation or a
business trip and said hey, Imet somebody.
We're moving to Canada.
I was like what in the hell?
Okay, they live in England.
It was up there, you know,midwest kid doesn't know any
(01:54):
better.
And so I moved to BritishColumbia, went to high school up
there, loved it, great place tolive.
Graduated high school up there,started college, hated it.
I just wanted to party and, youknow, work and make money, I
think at that age.
So you know, I was working fulltime, clubbing every weekend
and downtime, like you, wereliving my best life.
You know I was 19, 20 years oldand then 9, 11 hit right, and
(02:18):
even though I was living inCanada, I was still an American,
and so that was, I mean,devastating to see that.
You know, as every Americanwatching the events unfold that
day I mean the towers comingdown, people jumping to the
opposite of their safety I meanit was, yeah, it was wild, right
.
And the thing that stuck in myhead, though I mean more than
the gruesome and terrible eventsof that day, were the first
(02:39):
responders.
Ironically enough, I don't comefrom a family or background of
first responders at all, neverhad any interest in those
careers, but seeing that theonly the only calm of that day
was the firefighters, the EMTsand the cops that were just kind
of directing the chaos andhelping people.
And here at the time, you knowI was like I was living in
Canada working like inside salescustomer service in an office
(03:01):
all day, meaningless job.
You know, I paid for my hobbiesand that was essentially it.
But to see a career that youcan make money but also affect,
you know, other people aroundyou in a positive way and help
them, I was like, wow, I nevereven thought of those as a
career, like I said, but thatreally stuck with me and so I
started.
I don't know if Google wasaround yet in 2001, but whatever
(03:22):
, there was internet, a versionof it.
You know a old Iowa.
And so I started doing a littlebit of research, you know, on my
own, into the careers, whatthey pay and stuff like that.
I said, yeah, you know, you getpension, all these great things
, and you get to help people andwork outside every day is
different.
So started looking into it.
But I was living about a notquite an hour north of the
Washington border and, monetarywise, it just made more sense
(03:43):
for me, being an American, tomove down to Washington state
Same scenery, cheaper costs ofliving and more money for those
careers.
And so I literally picked up,moved down here I think it was a
month after 9 11 hit picked upsome side jobs and then before I
knew it I was signed up andvolunteering doing ride-alongs
and stuff with Olympia PoliceDepartment and did that for
(04:04):
about a year.
While I worked just kind of sidecustomer service jobs, sort of
testing around with some of myhistory in Canada and lack of
judgment decisions kind ofshaded me away from some agents,
some of the larger agencies,including Olympia.
They were like you know whatkid, come back in a couple years
, we'll let you come volunteer,but we're not going to give you
a commission quite yet.
And so I tested for like eightdifferent agencies and a county
(04:28):
here in Washington state, masonCounty, took a chance on me and
so I got hired there 2003.
I initially was a correctionsdeputy and I did that for a few
years and then decided thatwasn't really what I wanted, so
went on to the road you know aspatrol deputy and then just had
a while.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I'm going to pause on there real quick, yeah, because
I've always been wonderingabout this.
So not a lot of everybody jumpsin along.
Enforcement has that, like youknow, that itch since they were
a kid, the like you know gettinga military law enforcement and
stuff like that.
When you first did you playsports in high school.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Define place.
I did, but I was very good.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
I won a lot of benches, but but it wasn't like
you're like, you're like life,you're adrenaline life.
When you first get this job incorrections man and you're first
like coming from this like kindof corporate-ish world you know
even a retail corporatewhatever and you get these, like
when you're in a CEO, you neverknow what's going to happen,
you never know what's around thecorner.
You're always wondering like,am I going to get like quote
(05:30):
unquote shanked?
Am I going to get jumped?
Am I going to get this?
What's that adrenaline like thedump?
Is it like you know you'regoing, you're going, you're
going?
And how did you first startdealing with that?
Because I'm like I know we'rekind of talking about mental
health later on in theconversation, but I always
wondered about that like with aninitial law enforcement.
I'd like to ask Laura that samequestion.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
You know, for me I didn't.
At the time I was, you know, 22years old still when I
graduated the academy andstarted being a CEO, and I
didn't.
I didn't know what day that wasright.
It wasn't until way later in mycareer, after suffering from
anxiety and panic attacks andhigh blood pressure, that I
didn't know what adrenalinedumps were.
I knew, I mean, I never been ina fight in my life and I was a
CEO for I think, two months andI got punched in the face and I
(06:11):
was like what the hell?
But, like you said then, theadrenaline with that and you're
the camaraderie of all yourother CEOs coming to your aid,
and the adrenaline was awesome.
But, like I said, I didn't knowwhat those dumps were.
I know I'd be, you know, raging, 100% that adrenaline flowing
and all of a sudden, an hourlater after a good night's sleep
, and that just happened.
(06:32):
Now you're exhausted, you can'tstop yawning, you know what the
hell's going on.
So that's when I got mycaffeine addiction of those red
bulls and those monsters, whichagain now, later in life, I know
was a big part of those panicattacks.
Not taking care of yourself andtrying to medicate those, those
adrenaline dumps and court oflaw dumps and all that right so.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Now, laura, that must have been like kind of like a
kick and buffer you to,especially with your background.
Not, you know, it's not like,hey, you know what I'm going to
go and serve in combat or dothis or do that when you're 12
years old.
And then all of a sudden, likewhat was your experience like
coming out of the academy?
And all of a sudden it's like,oh shit.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
You know it's funny because it's Justin is talking.
I'm like, is he like talkingabout me?
Because, same thing, like nolaw enforcement in my family.
I'd never thought I'd bewanting to do that.
So that was.
That was interesting, himmentioning that.
But when he said you know thatfirst fight, you're like, oh
crap.
It's interesting because when Iwent from my interview, that
(07:33):
was one of the questions on thepanel.
It was, hey, have you ever beenon a fight?
And I'm like, is this a trickquestion?
Are they trying to see if, like, I can control my anger, or are
they trying to see if I canhandle myself?
So I'm like I'm just going togo with the honest answer and
say, yeah, yeah, I have.
And so it was interesting tokind of wait for that response.
(07:55):
But they were actually wantingto know because that, you know,
is that whole.
Well, what about that firstpunch in the face?
What are you going to do?
Somebody trying to pull it?
Gone on you.
How are you going to act?
And I mean, you can trainsomebody all day long, but until
you're there, and I'm five,three, so I'm like working on
the southern of the county withpeople that have been running
(08:18):
the streets, basically, andthey're going to size you up and
what are you going to do?
So, yeah, that's, that'sinteresting.
They started putting thatquestion on the interview panel,
you know it said.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
You know you go, you get, you get on the street, you
like CEO streets or anythinglike that.
But then you start developingyour own skillset, your own way
to cope, your own way to likelive this life, your own way to
keep it at.
You know the job at the job orkind of bleed over.
But you can't always let itstay at the work and like, later
on in your career you startworking like I caq and officer
(08:55):
of all shootings and detectivesand all this other stuff and I
know these are, I know like me,I am.
When my career started goingkind of up and down and all
around I really really like theanxiety started shifting up.
I started dealing with it indifferent ways.
Not only did I get, I love it.
This is the reality ofpodcasting.
(09:16):
I love to hear in the canine inthe background.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
I've got a locked out to sorry.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
That's a big deal.
But it's like the, the alcohol,the caffeine, the alcohol,
everything else to kind of keepthis anxiety and you're like
you're doing one and then you'redoing the other one to low down
.
And I remember, like sitting onmy couch and any.
If I can only focus on onething and if anything else is
going on at the same time, myanxiety would go up and I would
(09:40):
grab like a I drink a big assglass of rum and coke, big ass
glass of rum and coke, big assglass of rum and coke, and
repeatedly and I was hittinglike the crack and rum every
night.
I mean it was going crazybecause I couldn't deal with my
mental health.
I mean, is that like somethingthat I don't know if you've ever
had a deal with that, or thepeople you work with?
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yeah, I mean, I did so, I, when I switched from from
being a CEO to patrol.
I just had gotten married atthe time and I was around 2026,
then 25, going on 26.
And so that fizzled out.
You know, shocker, beingmarried in the early 20s and law
enforcement working ingraveyard didn't work out.
That fizzled out pretty quickly.
And so here I am.
(10:21):
I think I was only on the roaduptroll for about a year and a
half, going through a divorce,losing my house and deal with
all the things you just talkedabout.
Self-medicating, you know,nonstop red bulls all shift to
keep awake during graveyard.
Then you come home and you gotto slam for me with vodka
because you can't fall asleepotherwise.
And so that's actually theexact timeframe where I started
having panic attacks and, again,uneducated back then, didn't
(10:44):
know what they were.
I just knew that I would all ofa sudden out of nowhere and it
didn't happen during the hotcalls.
I mean, I'd be in fights, youknow all these things, homicide
calls, whatever it was, and Iwas fine.
It would be the down, the downtimes on shift.
I'd just be driving down theside of the road waiting to pick
the shag in the next call andall of a sudden I'm sweating
profusely, I'm getting tunnelvision.
I couldn't, I couldn't bringmyself to be present, to the
(11:08):
point right of pull over.
And after my third or fourthone, I was in the squad room and
they actually called theparamedics on me because I just
wasn't coherent and didn't knowwhat was happening to me until
later in life.
But but yeah, self-medicated,not taking care of yourself and
all that, the stress of the job,it adds up quickly for sure.
And then later on, yeah, I meanI lost a handful of coworkers
(11:29):
to substance abuse issues anddomestic violence, which I can't
say for certain, but I can makea safe assumption that both of
the issues they were dealingwith, and then also to to
neighboring agency coworkers, tosuicide as well, yeah, it's the
unfortunate, you know, elephantin the room in this career.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Well, it's alcohol.
And then like, when you, whenyou take that next step I never
took the next step into theother addictive substances, but
I can imagine, as so many peoplehave, but it's trying to, you
know, equate it.
And then who do you go to?
You know, like I was, I'vealways fairly open about it,
about, like my drinking andeverything, and also very, very
open about, you know, takingmedication, a deal, anxiety.
(12:07):
But in a lot of agencies youcan't go, you can't come forward
, you can't come forward and youcan't feel comfortable coming
forward Because to them theylook at you as a liability, and
what liability equals is moneyand nobody wants to mess with
the budget.
So is this kind of one of thereasons you're on this path now?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, I mean not just the budget, I mean we're all
just line items anyways, right,and these agencies, but I'd say
even more so than than that iswho wants to come forward.
And not only you might lose thetrust of that brotherhood that
you have.
You're now, you're not walkingliability.
Can you be trusted at that?
Not that next hot call withyour coworkers, but also the
bigger fear I think for a lot ofus internally is is desk duty
(12:50):
right, losing your gun, losingyour badge, your your unfit for
duty and all these things.
And then a lot of the issues tooagencies that are doing peer
support teams or wellness.
There's a lot of labels beingthrown out there.
It's kind of frustrating.
But, like my agency had a quote, unquote peer support team
which when I first got involvedin it I thought, oh great, yeah,
this is helpful.
But now, looking back, knowingwhat I know, I mean it was, it
(13:13):
was a facade, it was, it waspointless.
The people on peer support teamI don't think there was a
single deputy looking back.
No, it was.
There was corporals, detectivesand supervisors.
Now who in the right mind,especially if you're a young,
behind the ear patrol deputy, isgoing to go to a supervisor,
even a detective, is yoursupervisor as a deputy, and say
I had a problem, yeah right, andthen you want to promote to
(13:35):
whatever it is later in yourcareer.
I mean you should be able toand be allowed to, but but that
stigma is attached to all thatand it's it's terrible and it's
it's starting to shift theneedle a little bit.
We're nowhere near where weneed to be.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Stigma, that is that word, right there.
Stigma with PTSD, you sigmawith alcohol.
You know alcohol, caffeine,drugs, anything that I mean.
How many not every big agency,not every small agency's getting
drug tested.
So you know, you kind of bleeda lion's eye some way to keep
this, this stress down, thisadrenaline dump.
(14:12):
And that is the differencebetween law enforcement and the
civilian world.
If you're on a construction site, yeah, some shit can happen.
If you're here in there, someshit can happen.
But when you're in this worldwhere any second someone could
pull a gun, any second, pull agun, pull a knife, punch you in
the face or anything, anallegation you know an
(14:34):
allegation lands on your, yoursergeant's desk, your captain's
desk, your chief's desk and thenext thing, you know, you're
like your stomach's in a bind,you got the fucking shits.
And I'm being graphic becausethis is what happens when your
anxiety hits you.
Your stomach's going crazy,your head's going crazy, you're
getting headaches, you'regetting dizzy, your blood
pressure spiking.
All of this is happeningbecause you chose to take a job
(14:58):
that is putting your life on theline and you don't have that
out.
And anytime you want to talkabout it, you get this stigma.
You know a chief can comeforward and get a DUI, a captain
can come forward and get a DUIand everybody's like, oh, it's
fine, you know he's, he'smanagement, he's this, he's that
.
You know he's dealing with alot that first year officer,
(15:19):
that first year deputy, thatfirst year CEO, that second year
, third or fourth, fifth yeardealing with all this anxiety
where and have never had to dealwith it in their life, there
was only one out.
They're going to find somethingto counteract it, whether it's
good or bad.
Let's talk about you and likehow did you get to the point
(15:39):
where you're like I need to takethis step and figure out a way
to help.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, it was after probably the medics were calling
to me by my own co-workers onshift, you know, and medics in
accounting that I worked in andso that I was on calls with all
the time.
That was mortifying, I mean.
Thankfully I was able to, youknow, at least relatively square
my shit away and still promoteother things in law enforcement,
had a full, full-ish career.
You know I was out right beforethat 20-year mark, but to me
that's still.
(16:05):
I'm proud of what I was able toaccomplish after that.
But I was lucky, to be honest,even after all that happened, I
made it to the divorce.
I just gave the house up, Ithink, which didn't alleviate
some of the stress because Ijust walked away from it all,
where a lot of guys I knowAngels they fight tooth and nail
lawyers, custody battles.
I didn't have any kids incommon, so I could have far
worse, like a lot of myco-workers had over the years.
(16:26):
But I've always liked reading.
I started picking up every bookI could on PTSD, on trauma, on
vicarious trauma, on anxiety andall these different things.
And it wasn't until I read partof my third or fourth book and
I was like, holy shit, I'mchecking every box in this book
as far as symptoms andeverything else.
And so I realized, okay, well,first of all, you can't
(16:47):
self-medicate with alcohol to goto sleep and then you wake up
two hours later because yourbody's processing that alcohol
and you're not going to havethat deep REM sleep.
Well, I didn't know any of that, so I was just not able to
sleep yet so I'd go and drinkmore vodka to go back to sleep.
Just stupid shit like that.
Until you read and realize,well, you're running your body
from the inside out.
This isn't helping anything.
And so just thankfully for me,was self teaching myself.
(17:10):
Through a lot of books that Iread and self-help and
psychology books.
They also got me on this path.
I think it piqued my interest.
But I mean cutting out a lot ofalcohol, cutting out a shit ton
of caffeine, really uppingcardio workouts and stuff like
that, forcing myself to get moresleep, alleviated panic attacks
entirely never have one again.
And then later in life, othergood decisions and stuff like
(17:33):
that too.
But for me, thankfully, I wentto therapy later in life for
other reasons through the career, but at the time, just reading
and educating myself helped meget through that.
I was fortunate.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
You brought up two things I want to hit.
One is the checklist.
Now, a lot of people understandyou may be anxiety-ridden, you
may be riddled with just allsorts of PTSD, anxiety stuff,
but there are a ton of reallygood checklists out there.
I didn't realize I had someissues going on until I actually
went online to the VA and Iwent down to checklists and I
(18:07):
was like, oh wow, oh wow, whatis going on here?
So you have that.
And then you mentioned anotherword too lucky.
You were lucky to, you know,figure this out at a certain
time.
You were lucky to find anotherjob.
You were lucky to do this.
I don't know how many timesI've heard that from other
(18:28):
people.
They were lucky to get it out.
I mean, I'm preaching to thechoir, but it shouldn't be like
that.
It shouldn't be like you'relucky to find an out.
You should have the supportfrom the top down and then you
should be able to come forward.
That is a critical issue withinthis profession.
So lucky.
And then I've really reallyanybody out there who's
(18:51):
suffering from what they maythink is anxiety attacks could
also be PTSD.
But if check the VA websiteseven if you're in LAO, go to the
VA and check out the PTSDchecklists and stuff like that.
Just find discover yourself.
So you don't have to be like,hey, I'm lucky I did this and
stuff like that.
You were dealing with caninesas well for a lot of your career
(19:16):
.
A lot of people don't realizethat canines can also get
stressors.
They're adrenaline dumps,they're ins and outs.
So dealing with that must havebeen a very dealing with your
own stuff and then also dealingwith your partner.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, it's funny, laura shirt, you know, drink
coffee and pet dogs.
I think I like dogs more thanmost people, to be honest, which
is one of the big reasons I gotinto canine in the first place.
But I honestly, if there was ajob out there to become a canine
psychologist, I would jump allover that in a heartbeat and
just deal with dogs the rest ofmy life and their PTSD, because
(19:51):
I absolutely kind of test thefirst hand that they have it.
But I don't think you should beany surprise though, either.
I mean, we all have different,varying levels of resilience,
right, and our breaking points,if you will, whatever it is.
So why should animals be anydifferent?
I mean, yeah, I worked a caninefor just shy of seven years
until I literally watched himget broken on the call and I at
(20:13):
the same time was starting to gothrough my own issues again
after being in a second ambushshooting, and I was just done
with patrol.
But I was still at the timewhen he was in my late 30s, and
so thankfully I was able to testand get promoted to detective
and get off the road and thenalso retire him.
So both of our stress levelswent down, at least for a little
while until my new job pickedup some other issues.
But yeah, I mean I watched himgo from a dog that could be on
(20:38):
the range with gunfire and healaround, play with his toy and be
living his best life to afterthe second ambush shooting I was
in he was with me at the timestuck in a car for an hour and a
half, which is all hellbreaking loose.
And after that day I knewenough through training and
stuff that okay, if a dog's inthe shooting, whether he shot or
or here's the shooting,whatever it may be, you need to
(20:59):
get his ass back to the rangeand make sure that that is not
going to have any residualeffects from that.
And I watched that dog that I'vebeen training with for years at
the range who was happy to golucky, go from, yet no problem
gunfire to any of youmotherfuckers, pull the trigger
under your face off, because Imean the aggression was through
the roof after that call and Itried to get into the range for
several days playing with them.
(21:21):
You know it was zero stress andthere was no getting back from
that.
I could shoot and he was fine.
But even my coworkers who heknew.
If they were standing next tome, my best friend of the job
would would just shoot a couplerounds down range.
You wanted to attack them.
I was like, well, this, this isgoing to be an issue clearly
moving forward.
And it's like I said,thankfully I was going to have
to retire him anyway, butthankfully I got promoted as
(21:41):
well and we both got off thestreet from that.
But yeah, absolutely, dogs Iknow I've seen can suffer from
the same issues that we do.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
I was waiting for.
Laura had a question aboutbeing involved with a shooting.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
I felt like I needed to raise my hand.
I'm just like taking it in.
I want to pet a dog now, I wantto run again, get my great day.
So you know I was.
I was talking to Jason a littlebit about your experience and
how in the past you and I talkedabout, you know, what do they
consider a critical incident?
(22:18):
What are they considered a anactual?
Oh, I was involved in ashooting.
You know, and some agencieshave this mentality of, well, if
you didn't shoot, if you werejust there, you know, if you
didn't even you know aim, thenthen you're good, get back to
work.
And I thought it was a localthing.
(22:39):
And then you mentioned thathappening in your state and I'm
like holy cow.
So share a little bit aboutthat, if you don't mind, and how
that was perceived to be.
You know, if you can share.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, sure, I mean, washington is probably one of
the most liberal states in thenation too, right, so you would
think we'd be up and up on ourmental health and I mean we are
what we say, that we are for alot of stuff.
But yeah, my first one waspretty low key ish.
Right, it was just myself andanother deputy, back around 2010
, responded to a call and it wasan asshole we dealt with many
times, so we knew he'd probablybe a problem.
(23:11):
But the train, the way it wasis, he had the high ground on us
and he was.
He had, you know, dozens ofacres of woods behind him and we
were on a main highway when weresponded to the scene, and so
as soon as we got out of ourcars, he cranked off, I think,
three or four rounds at us, andwe already had our ARs out
because we knew this guy was anasshole and it might escalate
like that.
But once the rounds skippedacross the pavement in front of
(23:33):
us it was kind of dusk time toowe turned to where the fire came
from, but he was alreadyunasked into the woods.
I mean, couldn't shoot back toknow who the hell was.
Else was up there and with himand so SWAT call out airplane,
everything else we caught him.
That wasn't a big deal, but themore recent one the one in 2018,
where my dog enforced they gotbroken, and that one was just a
(23:54):
routine.
I won one call.
I went to and I was going to goalone and one of my coworkers
said, hey, you want, you want asecond?
And normally I would say youknow, no, it's a welfare check
or I don't want to hang up, nobig deal.
But you know, we all we got off.
You call it spidey sense,whatever it is.
We all have that kind of thatinside voice that sometimes says
yeah it's probably some backup.
There's something kind of weirdabout this call, for whatever
reason, I don't know Right.
(24:14):
And so I said yeah, why don'tyou come with me?
And so as soon as we got thereagain, I something felt odd,
even though it was just a simple911 hangup.
And so when I got there, Iparked my SUV with my dog in it
about 50 yards away from theresidence, kind of you know, put
myself between my car and theresidence and called dispatch
and said, hey, call in, have himcome out and talk to us, let us
(24:37):
know what the issue is.
And his response was no, I'mnot coming out, they need to
come to my front door.
Well, that's just not happening.
And so as soon as I relayedthat through my dispatch to him,
we heard one shot.
And so we figured, okay, well,he just shot himself.
You know, that's unfortunate,but it is what it is.
So then we kind of left my dogand my car in hindsight Now I
(24:58):
wish I would move my car backfurther, so my dog wasn't caught
in this crossfire issue, but wethought it was already said and
done.
And so, as we're kind of pyingoff, it was a duplex and so we
wanted to let the neighbors know.
You know, stay inside, we don'tknow what's going on, type
thing.
Well then, seconds later, I meanall hell broke loose.
This guy had an arsenal of likeseven, seven guns in the house,
handguns, lawn guns, and whenit was all sent down it was like
(25:20):
39 or 43, I forget somethinglike that rounds.
He fired through the house,through the front windows, in
the front door of me and mypartner, and again we couldn't
return fire because, a we don'tknow what the hell we have, but
B to see how hostages family inthere I have no idea Never saw
the guy, just bullets flying atus.
And so, like Laura said, wenever returned fire.
(25:40):
So, by policy, by Washingtonstate standard, I wasn't in the
shooting.
I was in a shitty call.
It's a shitty situation, but Iwasn't in the shooting.
And so, after we got SWAT thereand drones or anything else,
introduced CS into the house, hedid find the shoot himself, you
know, so never came out, hedied there.
But that was it, you know.
And the funny thing when I lookback now is after that was all
(26:03):
said and done and my partner, Iwere alone there for about 15
minutes, as Laura goes ruralCounty, even when you're back up
, it's hauling ass.
It takes some time, and so,when it was all said and done,
there was probably 30 cops thereor more, right, but still it
was a stressful situation.
You know when you feel bulletsflying by your ear and your head
.
I was never in combat.
I'm not former military, thatwas the first for me.
And so when it was all said anddone, that was it All right, go
(26:25):
home for the day.
I remember my chief at the timecoming up to me and saying hey,
you're scheduled to worktomorrow.
Right, yeah, chief, it's, likeyou know, 9 pm now I'm scheduled
to be at 6 in the morning, areyou good?
I'm told Laura this like whatthe hell are you gonna say to
your chief?
Well, no, I'm kind of feelingfucked up right now.
I'm gonna go home and drink afit of whiskey because I'm happy
to be alive, but my stress isthrough the roof.
I needed to kind of take itdown a notch now.
(26:45):
Oh yeah, chief, I'm fine, I'llbe in tomorrow.
And I was hungover, you know,but I wasn't in a shooting.
And then later on, when I'minvestigating officer involved
shootings as a detective.
To know the amount of time andeffort that goes into that, but
only if you fire your weaponwhen the situation could have
been identical.
The only difference was maybe Ipulled my oh my God, it was
(27:08):
obviously pulled.
Maybe I shot one round.
That was it.
That doesn't only change thecall at all, but the way it
would have been handled afterpost-shooting would have been
night and day different.
I'm off two weeks.
I can go see a psychologist onthe department's dime.
You know, yada, yada, yada, andit's just that the system's
broken and that's one of manyfactors leading to the suicide
(27:31):
raping in Sohi and mental healthissues.
Amongst law enforcement is wegotta take care of our people,
and that is a prime situation ofwhere I was not taken care of,
but I also didn't have the ballsto speak up either.
Like, probably a lot of peoplewouldn't know, because you don't
want to disappoint your commandstaff, right?
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Well, you don't have an out.
You know you don't have thatout.
You don't have another joblined up.
You don't have.
I mean, this is your life, thisis your career.
It's not like, hey, you knowwhat, I'm gonna go and get a job
tomorrow.
We know jobs are not easy toget.
That takes time.
The other thing too is I reallythink someone should write a
book called routine.
You know you show up to aroutine, call routine, this
(28:10):
routine that You're involved ina critical incident, life
all-time critical incident andyou're like, huh, now I don't
have any support just because Ididn't pull my gun and I didn't
pull the trigger.
You know your gun's pulled,you're ready, the slack's coming
off your trigger and you'reready to go.
Maybe you're not in the sameposition as someone else that
(28:32):
could pull the trigger, butbecause you didn't pull that
trigger, now you don't have thesupport.
You don't have the agencysaying, hey, you know what,
we're gonna send you all to theshrink or we're gonna send you
all to a mental health, we'reall gonna send you to the
critical incident response teamor whatever.
Everybody involved anytime thatround comes within any part of
(28:53):
your body or anywhere in thenear zone.
Both travel.
They could travel anywhereanytime.
They could ricochet, they couldkill.
It doesn't mean you're notfeeling the same thing just
because you didn't pull yourtrigger.
So that is one thing thatabsolutely needs to be fixed.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Well, and you know I'm gonna jump in too, because I
mean, take it a step further.
What if it's not even ashooting?
What if it's not a barricadedsubject?
What if it's not that swap call?
You know you have so manypositions, and even as a
detective.
What if you work in crimesagainst children, sex crimes,
internet crimes against children?
(29:31):
You put someone in a situationwhere you're seeing literally
the worst of the worst for anyamount of time.
At what point do you think thatperson needs to, let's call it,
decompress, you know, and justkind of unload all that stuff?
You're being, you have beenpacking, you know.
And another thing I also thinkabout sometimes in this
(29:54):
profession is does it reallytake?
Well, I've been doing this for10 years, 15 years, 20, 30 years
.
I mean, does it really?
Or can you be a year, two yearsin in your perception, maybe
your childhood, maybe some acombination of things you know?
(30:17):
Have you seen life and thingsand experiences different than
somebody that you know?
Like I had a coworker tell meone time oh, I can look at, you
know, child abuse pictures andcases and work them all day,
every day.
It doesn't bother me, and hehad a kid and he had been doing
it for I don't know 15 years atthe time and I'm looking at it
(30:38):
like huh really, cause I'm nottrying to sign up for this any
longer than I have to.
And then it doesn't have toshow up.
As you know, let me go home anddrink either, cause I never did
.
You know, I worked promising aschildren for years.
I don't know you know how muchI've shared, but even when I was
(30:58):
working those cases you know500 cases or however many in in
alcohol, I never picked up abottle.
But then it wasn't until yearslater.
I'm, like you know, 34 yearsafter I did that assignment.
Then I'm like Respondent towhat is adjacent a routine call,
and I'm thinking about that kidfrom four years ago, five years
(31:20):
ago, like oh crap, I was littleyou know Johnny doing, or
whatever.
So I think those two areas Idon't believe that you know
administration really gets.
What do you think, justin?
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah, I agree with you a hundred percent, and I
actually want to touch onsomething you both you both said
independent, independently fromone another.
But, laura, you're spot on withit's dependent upon people's
upbringing, their past orchildhood, their experiences,
all of those things right.
There's a thing in the medicalfield that the ACE scores the
adverse childhood experiencescores.
If you've been essentiallyassaulted as a child or
(31:56):
physically abused, whatever itis, even your scores can go up
depending on your childhood.
That may or may not Build one'sresilience right going into the
military or law enforcement orboth, like a lot of people are.
I like to, you know, explain itor Describe it as, like
everyone's walking around insideof our brain is like a cup, you
know, tea cup, whatever youwant, to a coffee cup, whatever
(32:17):
you want to envision.
In every routine call go to theterm shitty, or every hard call
, you go to Death.
You see, whatever it may be, aLittle bit of liquid is poured
into that cup, a little bit oftrauma, if you will.
Right, depending on yourupbringing, your background,
your level of resilience and howmuch you can take.
Everyone's cups are differentsizes and so to that point, you
(32:38):
and I, laura, could be workingthe same agency.
We can be the same age, be inthe same job, the same shift and
go to every single calltogether the same.
I might break before you or youmight be.
Neither us will break it, youdon't know, because we don't
know what everyone else's levelsof experience and trauma, how
much they can handle and howmuch, and tell that cup spill of
over.
You know what we want to usefor an acronym, but I mean it's
(32:59):
very true.
And then to Jason's pointearlier you mentioned, in
critical incidents, where youknow everyone should just be
sent to therapy or a wellnessvisit, whatever it is.
I've been arguing that for thelast couple years, since I
really got into this, is ismandatory wellness checks.
Some agencies are have wellnessteams and training and whatever
(33:20):
.
What is that?
Most of it is still death byPowerPoint.
You might go to in-service anddo four hours firearms, four
hours DT and get a 30-minutePowerPoint on mental health.
What good is that?
I mean maybe a little bit sure,better than nothing, but we
need hands-on training, yoga,mindfulness training, my
professionals, not cops in ouragency.
That might do it as a hobby.
But mandatory wellness checks.
(33:41):
What do we all have to do everymonth, every two months,
depending on your agency?
Is you have to go, sit for afull day and do whatever?
The required training is yourevoc training, your first aid,
cpr or whatever.
Why in the hell can't you throwin one hour of that eight hour
day or ten hour day, whatevershift you depend upon you at
your work, a one-hour wellnesscheck, contract out with a
psychologist, a culturallycompetent law enforcement
(34:04):
Psychologist, and mandate thatacross the board.
And I mean your patrol, I meanyour patrol, your detectives,
your administrators, yoursheriffs, your police chiefs,
lieutenants Everyone hasmandated, like you are, go
mandated to do ground fighting,whatever it is.
You go do a wellness check oncea quarter, once a month,
whatever it is.
Even if you're fine, okay,you're getting paid to be there.
It's an hour out of your day.
(34:24):
What is it gonna hurt you to gotalk to a professional and then
guess what, during that hourconversation that you're getting
paid for on your mandatory worktime, some shit might come up.
You might just have to be, havea conversation with that
psychologist and all of a suddenthey pull something on you
because they're a trainedprofessional, they know what the
hell they're doing that.
Oh, like Laura mentioned, shehad no issue doing those looking
at the child abuse materialthat all of a sudden fast
(34:44):
forward, you're to call yoursdown the road and oh, what the
hell?
Well, guess what, you'realready in that hour-long
mandated wellness check.
Why don't you talk about it?
And if it's mandated, everyone'sgonna get better.
Everyone's gonna get at leastbetter ish, get help with the
issues or lack.
There are issues they may notbe aware they have of yet, but
the biggest thing is, like wetalked about earlier, what's
that big scary word?
Stigma, right, if everyone ismandated to go to therapy,
(35:07):
wellness check its therapy,right?
What?
What stigma is there?
Oh, do you hear so?
And so is going to therapy whatyou big fucking deal we all do
every, every month at in-servicetraining.
Well, where's the stigma now ifeveryone's going, including
your command staff?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
I Really like that idea.
You know, get everybody involved, make them involved.
You know, make that part of.
You know we go through all thistraining, tons of training in
services.
We go through our basingacademies and everything.
Everybody.
And you brought up anincredible point that it really
bothers me because we are a lineitem but we're all not the same
(35:45):
.
You know that line item fillsup and then that cup you said
about the stressors, the stripit's not just a cup of that,
it's experience.
You have a cup of experience.
Everybody starts out with anempty cup.
They may have some lifeexperiences and stuff like that,
but when you put these twothings together you have a line
item and you have a cup ofexperience.
You can't just, you can't justreplace someone.
(36:08):
You know I was in 1811.
I was in 1801 in the US, 1896.
All sorts of different codes inthe government.
We're all not the same.
You know you have a squad ofpeople.
You know maybe one really knowswhat the hell they're doing.
Two are really good at theirjob, three are great support.
Three or four are completewaste of time and one is just he
(36:32):
shouldn't even show up to work.
You know, not all those people,you can't take one.
Like you know, the guy whodoesn't show up for work
Shouldn't show up for work.
He should really just stay home.
He can't replace number one.
It can never replace number one.
It's not just line items, youknow, and when you bring it up,
this point of get everybodyinvolved, then maybe one number
(36:54):
one and number two, three, four,five the people that you really
want on the job are havingthese issues.
Before you lose them to anotheragency, before you lose them to
just quitting or before you Godforbid you lose them to death,
to suicide, maybe you geteverybody involved and You're
not gonna have retentionproblems and you're not gonna
(37:15):
have the death problems.
Mean, you're always gonna havethem, but you're not, you're
gonna limit them.
That's my sub box.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Well, jason, how about this, though you mentioned
?
What about that person you knownot showing up to work?
Oh, tell me, this is just notme.
Tell me how much you guys lovethe fact that if I need a Sick
day, I need to be sick.
You know so is either I'llbring a doctor's note because I
got a cold or I have a dentistappointment, but if I need a
(37:47):
mental health day Because I'mnot feeling well on an actual
body part, then you know no,you're not sick.
You know.
You know you don't need amental health day, or you know
there is no note, there is nolike what do you do, right?
So, oh, you know it's, it'sHIPAA.
We can't talk about this, wecan't talk about that.
(38:08):
And so do I lie?
Do I just say, hey, you knowfeeling sick today, calling out,
or Shouldn't it be just okay tocall my supervisor and say, hey
, I can't make it to work today?
You know I'm taking a mentalhealth day.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
And of the conversation, yeah, yeah, that
needs to be normalized.
But I mean to your point though, too, is I suffered a bunch on
the job injuries part, part ofit, I'm just the clumsy
individual.
But also, being a caninehandler in Washington State, if
you've ever gone on a hike orour tracks through our woods,
there's a lot of down, trees anda things, a lot of things, to
trip over, and so I've.
I've broken my hand a couple oftimes, broken my leg, all kinds
(38:46):
of fun shit.
And I, like a lot of us, ifyou're on desk duty, it's
mind-numbing, it's terrible, andyou're hearing all these calls
come out.
Your people are running out ofthe squad room and you're
sitting there with your leg upon a chair, whatever, taking
just one old shake all afteranother, and you're not really
doing anything.
So what do we all want to dowhen we're physically injured?
You want to rush that rehab,get that Pete physical physical
(39:08):
nervous, to sign off and sayyou're good for full duty.
And at least for me I've donethat, especially when I was in
canine.
I might, you know, I'd stillbring my dog to work and he was
just running on the squad roomsticking his head in garbage
cans.
He's bored, he's a friggin dog.
He wants me back on the street.
And so those two, those twoinjuries I suffered while I had
him is I really pushed andFought to get back to full duty
(39:29):
when I knew that I wasn't ahundred percent.
But in my mind I'm like, yeah,I got coworkers, I have a dog.
If I'm gonna get to fight, I'lljust hit my door, pop or my
dogs, and they come out.
I don't really need both myhands yet.
It's fine, but to mysupervisors credit in those
incidentsthey?
They were like no, you're stillfucked up your fingers, still
like wonky, you can't come backto work, okay.
(39:49):
So why, when they know that Iwas just in a critical incident
or whatever, or you got aco-worker that comes to work and
that you smell booze on them,they're probably not in a good
spot mentally, are they?
Why do we ignore that?
Why can't we talk about thatlike we can talk about a
physical injury that?
No, hey, buddy, you're not goodenough yet.
Let's get you rehab, let's gowork out, get you better or
whatever.
(40:09):
Our brain is also part of ourbody.
It's, it's, it's, it's, youknow, an appendage, if you will
like a finger or a leg, whateverit is.
So if it's, if it's damaged,why can't we get it fixed or get
aid for it and not bescrutinized about it?
And why can't it just be normallike oh shit, your legs and two
pieces.
You should probably take sometime off work.
Well, if you're going through adivorce, you just lost a kid to
(40:31):
cancer or whatever it may be,why isn't that treated the same
way, right?
Speaker 1 (40:39):
the brain.
It's the most important thing.
I mean it's one of the mostimportant things because it's
all big machine.
You know the military it tooktwo wars in 20 years from the
finally say it's okay to havePTSD, right, it's okay to get
help, it's okay.
You have commanders coming outnice, saying I have PTSD.
(41:01):
You have generals coming outnow and saying I PTSD.
How many of these people haverose through the ranks who may
have mental health issues, butbecause they're rising through
the ranks and they're alwayslooking at that next step in
their career, they don't want totalk about it.
They, they.
What you really need to affectchange is to have someone from
the top start saying hey, youknow what?
(41:22):
My brain is a little broken.
It's not irreparable, it can befixed.
I need help and Empower everyone of his leadership.
Below them, supervisors shouldbe able to check in on their
people.
Hey, you know, I notice you'vebeen calling and sick a lot
lately and Is there anything Icould do?
(41:44):
Do you want to see someone?
Do you need to changeassignments?
Do you do in the little extrasleep?
Do you need something Now?
Granted, manpower issues arealways gonna be a problem,
especially with the smallerdepartments.
But if you have a solidsupervisor, they should be able
to check in on their people andthen go to their captain, go to
their chief and say, hey, youknow what such and such, you
(42:05):
know what, let's, let's lay offthem a little bit.
Let's not bust his balls,buster balls.
Let's, let's fix them so theydon't one leave, don't break
themselves to where they're notrepairable and, three, they
don't end up in the grave.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Yeah, 100%.
And so how do we get there?
You know the the bigger issue,unfortunately, I think and then
Laura might talked about thisbefore is is some of our command
staff who probably should haveretired many years ago.
But they're hanging on to thosestripes or whatever it is, and
a lot of them too, and I've hadsomething I worked for.
(42:47):
They worked the road for like acouple years and then they
decided to get on that promotionchain and all of a sudden
they're leading an agency butthey've probably never even been
in a fistfight, let alone ashooting or work any you know
child crime or anything likethat.
So they're probably completelyfine.
And so to ask them tounderstand this and and and
mandate wellness checks and allthis, they're gonna say, well,
(43:09):
especially if they're an oldschool male mentality, you know
it's like you may as well talkto the planner about this
because you're not gonna getanywhere.
So that's, that's the bigger,scarier issue.
And so how do you fix that?
Well, it's gonna take timeuntil they retire out, I think.
But if agencies start promotingout, they're junior surgeons and
stuff and they're doing it, youknow, an effective job at that
and normalizing all this stuffwith them that as they move up
(43:30):
in the ranks, that I think, liketo your point, it won't be such
a weird thing.
It'll be, it'll be normalizedin the agencies, but I think
also police academies from dayone need to be teaching this
stuff, implementing the stuff,normalizing the stuff and
everything else.
I remember when I went throughin 2003 2003, there was no talk
(43:51):
of this they would just, youknow, scream at you and spit in
your face, probably similar toboot camp back in the day, when
you went through Jason, and youknow your piece of shit, your
your boot.
You know we've all been inshootings and we've had six
divorces and we're alcoholics,but we're bad asses and so our
generation, unfortunately, wasbrought up on that.
But there's an easy fix to thatif it starts the day one in the
(44:12):
academy Is these recruits aretreated like humans.
Usually I've taught the job andweeded out if can't handle the
stress and being in a fight andshooting and all that.
That's fine.
But what about after, like themoccasins in the academy?
After you're in a use of force,you're in a shooting, with
simulitions.
That's kind of realistic andstuff like that.
What should be done after that?
Immediate debriefs, havepsychologists in the academy,
(44:35):
have peer support teams, haveshooting buddies all that if
it's, if it's brought to theforefront on day one in the
academy.
Then fast forward to 10 yearsfrom now.
You're in a critical incident.
Oh, back in the academy.
Yeah, we would practice thesemindfulness techniques they
taught us afterwards and wewould take mental health days.
We would go see a psychologistbecause they tell us in the
academy that's how you getbetter, because it's
scientifically proven.
So if you start teaching thatfrom day one, I think, with the
(44:57):
command staff, to take the firststep From day one, I think,
with the command staff changingas time goes on and also the new
recruits coming up, goingthrough the Chain of commands
and stuff like that, my hopeanyway, you know 510, especially
20 years from now, this will bea mute point, but.
But things have to change again.
In Washington State I went up toour basic training Academy
(45:20):
About a year ago.
I'm out of law enforcement nowbut I have a stake in this game.
I don't want people to gothrough what I went through,
what a lot of my friends andcoworkers have gone through, and
so I heard that our Academy isteaching mental health.
The officers now and I was likecool, can I come up and watch
the class?
They're like, yeah, of courseI've got connections and stuff
still.
And in law enforcement it was atwo-hour class they get one
time and Most of it was how todeal with people in crisis.
(45:42):
I'm like, well, fuck, no, ourmental health, not people on the
street.
We get that through CIT and allkinds other bullshit.
Training will go through later.
Again, washington State, prettyforward-thinking liberal state.
We're not even getting it yetit's not that difficult people.
Well, let's get in someprofessionals and psychologists
and teach mindfulness andresiliency and psychology and
and Talking to therapists andall of these things are normal.
(46:04):
You're gonna have theseadrenaline and cortisol dumps
and here's why.
Here's what's gonna happen toyou.
It's gonna suck, but here's howyou get through it.
We're, we're giving, we'reteaching great techniques and
tools for kicking people's assesand shooting them and tasing
them and giving first aid andnow Deescalation.
Sure, but what about ourselvesthat are still seen on average?
If you do a 20 year career, orthey say, I think, three to six
(46:26):
hundred critical incidents we'regonna come across.
As opposed, your averagecitizen might see two or three
in their entire life.
I mean, it's not even happensin oranges.
So why isn't more being done atthe basic Academy training
level is my question.
I can well that's so box allday, but Well, you know, I made
a couple notes here.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
One of them is two dollar science money.
Everything comes down to money.
Yeah every extra day, everyextra hour you spend in Academy.
But that's the other aspect ofthis whole situation is let's
look at it from a monetaryinstance.
Retention, recruitment,everything comes out of money.
But who?
Who really approves the money?
City councils, mayors, thewhole bureaucracy above the
(47:09):
police station, above thesheriff money.
If you get buy-in from councilmembers, you get buy-in from the
civilians who don't deal withthis.
You already said it before thatthey don't deal with these
critical incidents.
They have no idea what someonein law enforcement go through
goes through absolutely none.
But if you get buy-in fromthese council people who are
(47:31):
gonna approve the budget and say, okay, the next time, chief,
so-and-so is writing a grant,hey, we're gonna write a grant
for mental health, we're gonnawrite a grant for this.
We're gonna write a grant foranything to do with like
physical fitness machines,anything where you that's not
just like Tasers and new gunsand knew this and knew that, but
we're gonna do something that'sgonna help the mental health,
(47:52):
the physical health of theofficers, the deputies that
they're in charge with.
Get the buy-in from thecouncils, get the buy-in from
the, from the people who areapproving these budgets.
I think that's kind of anotheraspect of this whole situation
is to start looking at that way.
It took a lot of push, a Lot ofpush, but now there's laws that
(48:13):
are on the books going at thefederal level.
That's showing that suicide isnow a line of duty Death for a
lot of law enforcement.
A lot of people like, well,that's really touchy-feely.
No, it's not, because what itdoes is provides benefits,
benefits the loved ones.
So if you start putting themental health aspect in of it,
in it, the monetary aspect of it, a suicide line of duty death
(48:35):
is now going to cost the getthese counsel people money.
It's unfortunately, it's atruth, and you're going to tell
them hey, you know what, beforewe get to this point, we're
we're going to have to providehiring bonuses for people or
we're going to have to provideline of duty death Benefits of
someone who commits suicide.
Why don't we start looking atthe mental health aspect and do
(48:56):
it from a monetary point andEffect changed at that level too
.
So, hey, you know what?
I'll write a letter today.
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
Yeah, I mean you're spot-on and it's not, it's not
difficult Chore task toaccomplish.
You just need the right peopleto have the knowledge and
expertise or at least, if theydon't know where to reach out
and get those answers to.
I mean, there's plenty of signsand evidence out there that
shows this is a real thing.
We're losing people at suicide,the rates aren't going down,
(49:26):
and why?
It's because the un-on-stoptrauma and you're not getting
enough time off, you're notgetting the resources and all
that.
So, yes, it's, it's a budget,it's a monetary issue.
But what does it cost?
Like you just touched on thehiring incentives, I think
Seattle is up to like $50,000for a new hire now I think come
on, so not like that.
But what does it cost to traina Brand-new, you know snot-nosed
(49:48):
boot on the Academy up to alevel that they can work and be
effective on their own?
I mean it's hundreds ofthousands of dollars.
So if we're only asking thesecouncil people or county
commissioners, whatever it is,for a 50,000 or $100,000 budget
to get mandatory wellness checksand psychologists on staff for
all of our, all of our staff,but guess what?
That's probably gonna helpretain all of them.
(50:09):
So we don't have to do thesehiring incentives and then train
people in the Academy costs andall that.
What's gonna cost us more inthe long run?
It's gonna be losing people andhaving to hire and pay
incentives all day.
So why not let's pony up themoney up front and worry about
retention rates and not havingto lose people to suicide and
substance abuse and DUIs and DVsand everything else which is
still happening.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
Yeah and Justin, it's not just critical incidents,
it's not just shootings, it'snot just someone's gonna beat
your ass.
Sometimes it's just piss.
Poor management.
Yeah sometimes it's just piss,poor management.
And if you could get a, a psychor someone mental health
professional on retainer sosomeone can go invent and Vent
(50:50):
without using alcohol or justventing and in bitching a
co-workers.
But some of them go there andget some sort of like mental
resolution, so then they're notlooking for jobs, they could
enjoy their job.
But then also have these chiefsand captains and lieutenants go
see the mental health people aswell.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
Get them to be like hey, you know what, maybe you're
kind of fucked up, you need totake care of your people.
Yeah, lori, you got anythingelse?
Speaker 3 (51:17):
Um, no, I think that, like Justin said, if you don't
know where to start, what to do,reach out.
I know I had a I don't know,maybe a 30-minute conversation
with him once because I was.
I look, I'm currently workingat a very small department.
I've never seen anything meantto health related be addressed.
Uh, what do I start?
It needs to happen.
(51:38):
We have a lot of new officersand you know I mean literally a
year or less.
They have already attendedthree funerals in their time in
this career.
He gave me some pointers, did alittle bit of research, use some
agencies that are already doinggreat things in that arena, and
presented it.
(51:59):
And, hey, 30 minutes I wasawarded.
I'm, I take it so brought in aprofessional she talked for
about I don't know, maybe 40minutes, and then has someone
talk about physical wellness,like you were saying.
You know, go for a hike, go tothe gym, practice.
(52:19):
You know martial arts or youknow crossfit, whatever you're
into, and I was so grateful formy 45 minutes during in service.
So if you don't know what astar, just ask.
You know, justin was super kindand gave me some pointers and
kind of told me how I could evenpresent this to my chief and he
worked.
So we, we did that in my supertiny agency and I think if you
(52:44):
just look for you know where tostart, it can happen.
You really can.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Justin.
I really appreciate you comingon, brother.
I'm looking forward to continueour discussion and I really
maybe affect some change.
Why not?
Speaker 2 (52:58):
Something's got to change, you know, so I'll keep
talking whoever I can andinventing or whatever else I
need to do.
Yeah, it's worth it, so I I.
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