February 4, 2025 • 32 mins
Officer Chris Hester from the Allen Police Department is here to tell us about his two-decade journey in law enforcement, filled with unexpected twists and a touch of magic. Alongside co-hosts Officer Sam Rippamanti and Alexus Birmingham, Chris recounts the experiences and tight-knit bonds formed on the force, encapsulating the lighter, human side of policing. Get ready to laugh as Chris shares a humorous first meeting with Sam and the story of his own apartment being broken into, providing a unique perspective on the unpredictable nature of life behind the badge.
We also learn about the comprehensive training that prepares officers for the unexpected. As well as Chris revealing how classic TV shows fueled his passion for law enforcement as a child. Adding a sprinkle of wonder, Chris performs an astonishing card trick, demonstrating how magic is used to educate and engage. This episode is a blend of humor, heartfelt stories, and a dash of the extraordinary, offering a rich insight into the lives of police officers.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (00:02):
Welcome back to another episode of Allen
Police.
Behind the Badge, we're yourhost Officer, Sam Rippamanti and
Alexus Birmingham.
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (00:09):
And today our special guest is
Officer Chris Hester.
Thank you for coming on today.
Officer Chris Hester (00:13):
Hello, hey , thanks for having me, hey,
Chris.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (00:15):
So tell us a little bit about what you
do for the police department.
Officer Chris Hester (00:19):
So I'm currently the training
coordinator and I've been upthere for a little over three
years and I've been with thedepartment 19 years and two
months.
And who's counting?
Teah, right, exactly who'scounting.
And you know, originally I hadno desire to be in training.
And it's interesting how I cameto this position, because
everyone's like, hey, Delio isgoing to leave.
And we kind of traded placesbecause now he's in community
(00:41):
relations and I was an SRO.
But in between, I was incommunity relations and I was an
SRO, but in between, you know,I was in community relations
before going to SRO and I saidno, no, no, you know, I like
doing what I'm doing.
It was Arsenal at the time hewas the sergeant in internal
affairs, come up here, come workfor me, and all that.
He just kept harping on me.
And then finally he's like allright, I'll do it.
And two people had put in forit and then the other person
(01:03):
withdrew.
So I saw the chief in theparking lot one day and he said,
hey, congrats on being the newtraining coordinator.
And I said, no, sir, I haven'thad the board yet.
No, he goes, you're thetraining coordinator.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (01:12):
That's one way to wind up.
Officer Chris Hester (01:13):
That's how that happened, but no, it's a
great position and a joy to do.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (01:19):
So tell me some interesting stuff over
your 19 years.
That's a lot of experience.
Officer Chris Hester (01:22):
Yeah Well, first of all, I think we need
to talk about how me and Sammymet.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (01:27):
I remember, I remember well.
Officer Chris Hester (01:28):
Because this is the best story.
So I'm in the report room andI'm at 19 years.
Are you at 17 years?
Yes, may will be 18.
Okay, so I'd been on thestreets for two years, right,
and definitely not a seniorofficer at that point.
But Sammy sits down next to meand he was in field training, I
think.
Yeah, I was in field trainingand I was stressing.
Yeah, For the listeners.
Back then our report writingroom had four computers.
(01:50):
It was four workstations andthey're all side by side just in
one long row, and I'm sittingdown and I'm typing a report, a
DWI report, something alongthose lines, and Sammy's typing
with one finger on each hand.
He's kind of pecking away thereand he goes uh, officer Hester,
and that shows you how informalit was at the time, cause we're
(02:11):
definitely not like that witheach other.
Now he goes how do you spellholler?
And I was like wait, what?
Outreach Coordinator Ale (02:17):
Holler .
Officer Chris Hester (02:19):
And I was like down in the holler and uh
like H O L L E R and he goes.
No, she was.
She was hollering at him, shewas uh writing a, I guess, a
domestic report.
So that that was our firstinteraction it was a.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (02:30):
It was a family violence report.
I remember it and and she washollering at him and I had to
type it in the report and he'slike, well, why don't you use
another word?
Like she screamed at him, sheyelled yeah oh, that might make
more.
Officer Chris Hester (02:42):
I started giving him some options, but I'm
from salina so I was like, okay, I can definitely relate to
this, so that it was likeinstant bond that was back when
it was uh, four officers and onesupervisor on night shift, oh
wow yeah, there was four oh, wewe call it four and two to be in
the supervisors, and they wouldjust cut the city, you know,
into four quadrants kind of, andwe each had a corner and if it
was on a call, we'd all be inthe same place looking around,
(03:05):
going oh, something else happens.
So that that shows how farwe've come, as far as you know
just how many officers we haveon the street.
But it also means we workedreally close with each other,
cause if there are only two ofyou on one side of the city, on
how you know, on that side ofhighway 75, we were pretty much
going to every call together ifit's a two man call and most of
(03:25):
them are, so we've got a lot.
I have a favorite.
It might be one of the sameones that you're thinking of too
.
Let's hear it.
So my apartment was broken into.
It's going back to 2008.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (03:39):
And so that night we're working night
shift and that back then shiftdidn't start till 10 pm.
So we worked 10 pm to 8 am andand chris, I remember he's like
man, I'm gonna take off early,since at that time we had five
officers, we had a rover, so ifwe had five, one of us could
leave early if we ever want it.
So I remember chris was likeI'm gonna take off early, go
(04:01):
home, play some video games.
And he was a single guy at thetime so he had all this extra
time to do stuff and uh, so heleft early and got home and
everything.
He didn't have any video games.
Somebody had.
We laugh now, at the time itwas pretty.
Yeah, we were pretty upset, allfor him.
Somebody broke into hisapartment and stole all of his
(04:22):
so I had electronics.
Officer Chris Hester (04:24):
Yeah, I'd moved into that apartment about
a week prior so I didn't havetime to get the renter's
insurance going.
Plus, you're working nightshift patrol, so you're sleeping
when everything's open, right.
So I'm like, just get my stuffin there.
I'd barely unpacked abouthalfway unpacked maybe, and
someone must have knew that Iworked at night, you know.
But anyway, long story short, Icome home and I can see my door
(04:46):
cracked about that far and youcan see where they pried it.
I'm like, here we go.
So I go in and I mean, if itwasn't nailed down it was gone.
They didn't take clothes oranything, but I play guitar, so
electric guitar, multipleguitars were taken.
You know TV, video games,computer digital camera, all
that stuff, computer digitalcamera, all that stuff.
So that's the precursor.
We have to tell that part of thestory to tell this next part of
(05:07):
the story on how this came tobe.
Um, so we were working.
I guess I would have been onthe east side, so I don't know
if you were on the east side too, to back me up, or if you
crossed over.
I don't remember that part.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (05:16):
I remember getting a.
I don't know back then if itwas an mdc message or a text
message, but I got a messagefrom him.
He said hey, my apartmentcomplex like now.
So I fly over there to theapartment complex to back Chris
up.
Officer Chris Hester (05:35):
Yeah, this is a couple of weeks maybe
after the incident had happenedand it really made me empathetic
, which I already was.
But when you have it happen toyou, it's so violating to have
someone come into your space andI wanted to make sure that it
didn't happen to anybody else.
So I'm that's part of mydistrict, so I would go, and you
know this is the crown Vic days, so you'd black your vehicle
out or, you know, park underwhere there's not a street light
(05:56):
and I'm watching and I see acar come into the apartment
complex and the guy parks at,you know, building 14 and cuts
his lights off and gets out andhe's like sneaking down, you
know, passing building 16, 17,going right toward building 18,
which is where I lived, and I'mjust watching him.
I think that's the moment whereI'm sending Sammy a message on
the MDC.
(06:16):
You know, hey, you may want tohead this way and I was watching
and observing.
So he goes and this guy crouchesdown next to an apartment
window and it looks like he'smessing.
I mean, from the observerstandpoint you would think this
guy's breaking into an apartmentor doing something he shouldn't
be doing, so he's messing withthe window seal.
I'm pretty far away, maybe 40,50 yards away, and he can't see
(06:38):
me.
So I'm waiting and he messeswith it a little bit and then he
sneaks back to his car, gets inhis car and by that time I'm
rolling behind him.
You know we're going to try toknock him down and get a traffic
stop and at least see what he'sup to.
And that's when Sammy backedhim up.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (06:54):
You know it's suspicious behavior.
So I think he had a trafficviolation too when he was
leaving.
And so Officer Hester pulls himover and he's like all right,
we're, it's for good cop, badcop here.
So chris is going to be sternand then I'm going to come in
and be like hey, man, it's okay,and try to get him to make sure
he's not really trying to breakinto houses.
(07:14):
But it's almost like the movies.
I get up there and I'm now allof a sudden I'm feeding off of
chris and we're both like whatare you doing?
We know you're trying to breakinto that apartment and this
poor kid, he's a teenager.
We say kid, he's.
You know he's probably 17.
Officer Chris Hester (07:30):
Yeah, 17, 17 or 18.
And, um, you know all the signswere there of nervousness.
So you know he's like shakingvoices, quivering, and uh, it's
which amplifies the suspicion.
Right, I'm like, okay, I sawyou drive in, cut your lights
out, you walked three or fourbuildings at 3 am in the morning
.
What are you doing?
Messing with someone's window?
Like none of this adds up.
(07:51):
You weren't just visiting afriend, kind of thing.
And then Sammy's jumping in.
I feel bad now because I thinkhe ended up crying, the kid
starts crying.
He finally breaks down and we'relike-oh, he's not a burglar,
yeah, and he goes.
Sir, can I be honest with you?
I was.
My girlfriend broke up with meand I'm just leaving her a love
note and a mixtape of ourfavorite songs for the cd and I
(08:15):
was like, no, you weren't, andyou know, because I'm still
trying to get him to admit youknow because it wasn't.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (08:21):
We didn't believe it at the time.
It was like you're you'remessing with windows at three
o'clock in the morning.
Yeah, who does?
Officer Chris Hester (08:25):
that, apparently, if you're
heartbroken heartbroken you do,so we let him go with a warning
and you know, just kind of hey,don't come back doing this kind
of stuff.
Or if you do anything like that, come back in the daytime.
Of course we go back and look,sure enough, on the window seal
there's like two I don'tremember the girl's name there's
(08:46):
a love note and there's a CDand a CD with a rock on top, all
their favorite songs.
There's still a chance.
They worked it out.
Who knows, maybe they'relistening.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (08:54):
It ended on good note with the young man
.
We had a good conversationafter that and explained to him
why it looked suspicious and heunderstood and and then we tried
to offer a little bit of adviceon his relationship and uh, so
it all ended well.
Officer Chris Hester (09:11):
So let's talk a little bit about what a
training coordinator does forthe department yeah, so, um, so,
initially, when they approachedme about it, uh, you know,
because I I liked what I did asan SRO and especially in
community relations, becauseit's a different side of
policing, you know it's it'sSergeant Felty used to say it's
it's easier to prevent a crimethan to solve a crime.
(09:32):
So get out there and preventsome crime, right, and I kind of
had it in my head that as anSRO, you know we're doing good
with these kids, mentoring them,and, um, you know, I really
wasn't ready to leave that Idon't think.
But what made me change my mindis I was thinking about okay,
how important is training towhat we do, to the police
department, to the city, to thecitizens?
It's the most important thing.
(09:54):
If you don't have well-trainedofficers, then you don't have
the best service that you canget.
So when I thought about it thatway, that's what made me think
okay, you know, being a trainingcoordinator because, your heart
has to be in it, you have tobelieve in what you're doing,
and so I said, okay, I'll do it,and I dove into it.
So really, in a nutshell, it'smaking sure that the officers
are equipped to encounteranything that they're going to
(10:16):
encounter on the street, and itcould be everything from
in-service training, where weuse our in-house instructors to
teach things, we bring insomeone from the outside and we
get requests.
All the time An officer willsay, hey, can you bring in this
organization or this group?
We'd like to have some trainingin this, and you know it's
working along those lines.
And then you know there's statecompliance, making sure that
(10:38):
everybody has their, you know,hours of continuing education,
but really that's what it is.
Outreach Coordinator Alexu (10:50):
It's supplying the officers with
their needs from a trainingperspective.
How long is like the training?
How long does it get for likefrom new recruits or the lateral
process.
Officer Chris Hester (10:55):
Yeah, that's been.
That just changed recently andwe had some state changes as
well.
So, for those that's listening,she's referencing, if we have
someone that comes in andthey're a new recruit, they have
no police experience whatsoeverand they want to become a
police officer and there's apathway to that and then we'll
hire one of the agencies thatwill hire someone and support
them while they're doing that.
(11:16):
So you'll get paid as wesponsor you to go to the academy
and that's about currently theacademy's 29 weeks.
So we'll bring you on a coupleweeks early just to make sure
that everything's ready to go.
Um, we'll do some things withphysical preparation, physical
fitness, because that's a bigaspect of what we're doing, to
kind of prepare them for that.
And then, once they get out,they have six weeks with me
(11:36):
where I, uh, I do more training.
We, we host a mini academy.
Um, the different agencies willcall them different things, but
we call it mini academy, andthen that prepares them for
field training.
And then, if you're anout-of-state lateral or an
in-state lateral, there'sdifferent requirements for them
depending on what you're doing.
So out-of-state lateral wouldbe six weeks with us and that's
(11:57):
after they've taken the stateexam.
There's all these courses thatthey have to take to prepare
them for the state exam,including in-person.
So they add trainings every twoyears when they go to the
legislative session.
They usually add trainingrequirements, which is a good
thing because you can't trainenough, but there's different
processes for all that.
So I kind of coordinate allthree of those things and Jason,
(12:20):
our other training coordinator,who just started helping with
that, he's taken a lot of thein-service training which
includes block training andthat's just where we take
officers and we have them, youknow, train for a 40-hour period
.
We consider that their workweek and they go and they do
their firearms training,defensive tactics training, all
that.
So there's a lot of movingpieces to it.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (12:42):
Do we have any openings right now?
We have three.
Oh, we do, really we.
Do you know of any test datescoming up or anything like that?
Officer Chris Hester (12:50):
Well, we have an academy coming up June.
So for someone that wants toget into it and they're not an
officer, june 10th is theacademy start date.
We use the Plano RichardsonAcademy partner with them and we
kind of do tests on anas-needed basis.
When we got hired, you'd have300 people show up and you'd
have one test and then forseveral months there wouldn't be
(13:11):
another test.
And now, as Laura receives, youknow, interest Laura's our
background investigator, one ofthem she'll set up tests to kind
of accommodate three or fourpeople that have put in for it.
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (13:24):
Now we know what you do for the
department, but tell me a littlebit about yourself.
Who's Chris Hester?
Officer Chris Hester (13:29):
Yeah, so I grew up in Salina, so I haven't
strayed that far.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (13:32):
And I lived there.
Yeah, state champion.
Officer Chris Hester (13:35):
Sammy lived there for a bit, lived
there until I was 19 and movedout.
I was raised by my grandparentsthey're both passed now but you
know, I what I think is adifferent childhood than most
kids, just because my, myparents were so much older and,
uh, you know, I spent all mytime going to antique shops and
listening to Merle Haggard, youknow, and everyone else you know
(13:56):
, their parents are in theirtwenties and their elementary
school and all that, and youknow mine are in their fifties
and by the time you get to highschool they're older.
But uh, but no, I wouldn'tchange any of that.
So I grew up fishing a lot.
We had a single wide trailer atLake Texoma that we go to
pretty much every weekend andall summer and that's kind of
what connected me to Sammy,because you know, after the
(14:16):
whole how do you spell hollerthing, and I knew he'd like to
fish, because no one speaks likethat and not like to fish.
So I grew up running jugs onTexoma, catfishing, all that
crappie fishing, but I alwayswanted to be a police officer.
It was all I ever wanted to doand I blame andy griffith
(14:37):
because growing up my grandpa,you know, we watched all those
uh shows, green acres andpetticoat junction of the
younger listeners.
I have no idea what I'm talkingabout.
Um, but yeah, watched andygriffith and cops a lot.
So you get lured into theaction of cops and you're like,
oh, it's like this all the time.
Then you become one.
(14:58):
You're like it's not like thisall the time at all.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (14:59):
You come to allen, we're in the winter
time, we're counting the rabbits.
Officer Chris Hester (15:03):
Yeah, at night, yeah, because it's so
many bobcats you see in thealley, no, which is a good thing
, old alley, um.
But but it comes in waves and,uh, you do get to experience all
that, and just not not as it'sportrayed on tv, um.
So so, mentally, I always justprepared myself that this is
what I wanted to do.
I just didn't know where itwould take place.
And, um, I sold insurance forthree years 18 months with
(15:29):
Nationwide and 18 months withfarmer's insurance and learned a
lot.
But I was like this is not forme, I don't really care for
being in an office.
And here I am, 19 years laterdoing training Exactly.
So, yeah, I came full circle,but I think it prepared me a lot
.
But as soon as I turned 21, Ijust started applying and I
applied for Allen.
(15:49):
I applied for another agencythat I won't mention and Allen
gave me the job offer first andit's funny because Laura was the
background investigator at thetime who hired me and then she
was my field training officer,so my FTO, and then now we work
together, so she's thebackground investigator again
and then I'm the ones that trainthe employees that she hires.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (16:11):
So that's awesome so you play the
guitar.
What other hobbies you got?
I know of one yeah, there's one, the.
Officer Chris Hester (16:19):
The rumors are true.
Word got around.
I kept that secret for a longtime.
Uh, so, no, I'm a, I'm amagician and I'm a professional
magician.
Now I can say that, but I usedto just love magic.
So when I was a kid, I saw amagic show on TV.
It's called World's GreatestMagic and it came on every
Thanksgiving around that timeright.
So I'd seen it one year and thenext year I knew it was going
(16:40):
to come on.
So I'm going to put a VHS tapeon and record it.
So I record it.
I recorded it over a karatetournament that I had.
Like a childhood memory is gonebecause I recorded this TV show
.
I used to watch this tape allthe time and, uh, you know, I I
didn't know how any of theseguys did this stuff, but it it
was phenomenal to me.
I knew it was sleight of handand um, it's a performing art
(17:01):
and uh, I always just kind ofdid it as a hobby on the side.
So I've become a police officerand it was a different persona
when you get to work, you, Ibecome a police officer and it
was a different persona when youget to work.
You know, there's anassertiveness to it, and there
has to be.
So I never went around saying,hey, I do magic tricks, you know
, pick a card right, that kindof stuff, and I can't remember
when the first I don't know whenword spread, you know it
spreads like wildfire Once oneofficer knows, then everyone's
(17:27):
like hey, show me some magic.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (17:28):
Hey, you do magic tricks, show me
something.
The first time I rememberseeing you do magic we were
doing a tip-a-cop for SpecialOlympics and we were at
Cheddar's and he had theselittle red balls in his hand and
he's walking around tables andI'm like what is he doing with
those?
Next thing, you know, they'redisappearing.
And I'm locked in Like I forgetwhat I'm doing.
I'm locked in Like I forgetwhat I'm doing.
(17:48):
I'm supposed to be servingdrinks and helping out and I'm
just watching him, following him, watching him do magic at all
the tables, because it was thecoolest thing to watch.
He'd slide a hand with thoselittle red balls.
I mean, I think it's slide ahand.
Maybe they really just care, Idon't know.
Officer Chris Hester (18:02):
See, I started to tell our supervisor
at the time in communityrelations we used to do tip a
cop every year in, um, you know,benefits, special Olympics.
And I said, hey, can I do somemagic?
Cause I think I could really.
You know it'll help, um, youknow, just with the
entertainment aspect and thetips and everything.
No-transcript at that point,but no, it went really well and
(18:39):
I think that was one of thetimes where the secret was out.
And then that was long before Ibecame a school resource officer
, so by that point I did magicall the time, so I would do
magic for the kids.
I even put together a programwhile I was at SRO and it was
called make a good informedchoice.
Magic right came up with theacronym and so we did shows for
(19:01):
and this was kind of thebeginning of COVID, because I
remember performing with a maskon, you know, until the kids got
in and everyone was separated.
But I, we did full magic showsfor the kids, just teaching them
safety things, you know how tomake good informed choices.
A lot of what we did incommunity relations because we
go to the would have led me upto this point, Like I don't
think I would be doing magic 20years ago had I not gone through
(19:33):
this path other than a hobby.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (19:36):
Right.
So where are you at in yourmagic now?
Like, what are you doing withit now?
Officer Chris Hester (19:41):
So about 14 years ago I started doing
magic, I say professionally.
You know, on the side someonecould hire you to perform for
them, did a lot of corporatework, a lot of kids' birthday
parties too many to count,probably and but that led me to
things like performing for theDallas Cowboys, performed for
Ross Pro Jr, hillwood Airways,hilton.
(20:05):
I mean they're like corporatecompanies that will hire you to
go and perform magic and that'sreally how I honed a lot of my
magic skill, because you, youperform for these people and you
know there's some CEOs thatwill just say, okay, show me
what you got and impress me.
Right, it's not your typicalmagic audience where you go up
and it's a family and you knowthey, they're eager to see what
you do.
(20:25):
So you have to get really good,you know, to perform for those,
uh, so those kind of people.
So I just kept following mypassion and, um, so we recently
opened a magic venue, um, up inoklahoma.
So I I do magic on the side,outside of this, and it's kind
of like having two full-timejobs but neither of them really
feel like feel like work.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (20:46):
You oh wow, that sounds exhausting.
It is so.
We've talked a lot about it andI know for everyone that's
listening, you can't really seeit, but do you have anything you
could, any magic you could dofor us?
Officer Chris Hester (21:01):
Yeah, does anyone happen to have a deck of
cards?
Oh look, I just happen to havesome right here, hey what do you
know?
I think life takes you down apath, right.
Sometimes we don't expect it.
I met my wife working for theAllen Police Department, right,
and I think back, if I wouldhave went with that other agency
let's say that other agencygave me the job offer I wouldn't
have the kids that I have now.
(21:21):
I wouldn't have the friendsthat I have now.
I mean, you can call that whatyou will, but I think destiny,
fate.
So I'm going to try somethingand, for the listeners, I'm
holding a deck of cards here andI'm going to do this for you.
So, alexis, I want you to.
In a deck of cards, there'shigh cards and there's low cards
, okay, and I want you to justgo instinctively, so just like
(21:45):
subconsciously, don't thinkabout it too much, but I want
you to choose one of them Now,I'm not going to eliminate.
So if you say high cards, Iwon't say, oh, we'll eliminate
the high cards.
If I want you to take a lowcard, like, whatever you choose
is what we're going to use, okay, okay.
So if you say high cards, we'llkeep the high cards.
If you say low cards, we'llkeep the low cards.
It doesn't matter to me whichhigh cards.
(22:06):
She wants to keep the high cards.
It could be 7, 8, 9, 10, jackQueen King, and then the low
cards would be Ace 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, somewhere along those lines.
Doesn't really matter, becausewe're going to take it a step
further.
So of the high cards, so let'ssay, just to be sure, let's say
8, 9, 10, jack Queen King.
Is that fair to say those arehigh cards?
(22:28):
Yeah, yes, and I wouldn'texpect you to pick the ace of
spades because it's on the frontof the deck, it's the one that
she can see right now and it'salso the most common card that
people select.
So if I said name a card, yousaid ace of spades and I could
predict that not as impressive.
But of the high cards, there'seight, nine, ten, jack, ten,
jack, queen king.
(22:49):
Which one would you like to use?
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (22:51):
Am I supposed to tell you?
Officer Chris Hester (22:52):
Yes.
Outreach Coordinator Alexu (22:54):
Nine .
Officer Chris Hester (22:55):
The nine?
Yes, Okay.
So of the nine, there's clubs,hearts, spades and diamonds.
Two of them are red, two ofthem are black.
Okay, would you like to use ablack nine or a red nine, Red,
the red nine?
So of the red nines and this iscompletely fair there's the
heart or the diamond, and it'scompletely up to you which one
would you like to use.
Outreach Coordinator Alex (23:16):
Heart .
Officer Chris Hester (23:19):
So there's the nine of hearts.
Do you want to change your mind?
Outreach Coordinator Alexu (23:24):
Nope .
Officer Chris Hester (23:26):
Okay, so she just picked the nine of
hearts.
What drew you to the nine ofhearts?
Outreach Coordinator Alexu (23:34):
Just chose the card, she just chose
it.
Officer Chris Hester (23:36):
You didn't have any conscious thought
about it, right?
It's not your favorite card, itjust felt right in the moment
Because there's somethinginteresting about the nine of
hearts.
We're going to come back tothat.
Outreach Coordinator Alexu (23:44):
Okay .
Officer Chris Hester (23:46):
But on the back of the cards.
It has some things written onthe back.
Oh my gosh so on the back of theace of hearts, for example, it
says grand prairie, because anyof us could have worked there,
right, chief die came from.
There is a history there, butyou didn't choose that one.
Um, this one says frisco.
(24:07):
That would be the eight ofhearts.
You're one off.
Frisco is actually the be theEight of Hearts.
You were one off.
Frisco was actually the otheragency that I applied for when
Alan hired me.
So you were one off fromchoosing that one.
You could have chose Richardson,which would have been the Six
of Clubs.
I'll go through these prettyquick.
There's Plano, which is theFive of Clubs.
Garland is the Five of Hearts.
Grapevine, carrollton you cansee they're all different.
Royce City.
(24:27):
There's Farmersville it wasactually tough to find 52 towns
in this area to fill out anentire deck of cards.
If there's Waxahachie, thatwould have been the ace of clubs
.
Highland Park, you could havegone with the eight of diamonds.
You can see they're alldifferent.
There's no duplicates.
There's no other nine of hearts, but you pick the nine of
hearts and I think life is aninteresting way of leading us to
(24:51):
a place that says alan on thephone, and it does so on the
back of the nine of hearts cityof alan wow, I'm a little lost
here.
Outreach Coordinator Alexu (25:06):
What just happened?
Officer Sam Rippamonti (25:07):
for those that listening, go watch
the youtube video, and itwatched that.
Officer Chris Hester (25:13):
I'm not sure how this happens, uh, but
she's going back and rethinkinglike did he make me choose?
Watch the high cards?
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (25:22):
and make me see what happened.
Yeah, that's.
It's kind of like the one whenwe were in chipotle and you
spelt my name using Wikipedia.
Officer Chris Hester (25:32):
Yeah, so that was random.
That was kind of our firstmeeting we had met in passing.
But me, you and Sammy all hadlunch together at Chipotle.
Delia was there, and even them.
They were kind of like hey, wedon't really see you do magic
all that much at work.
It's like because I'm working,show us something.
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (25:50):
And he so happened to have a deck
in his pocket too, so you haveto always be prepared.
But yeah, that one was a prettycool trick.
You guys need to go and watchhis show.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (26:01):
Oh, it's one of the best experiences
with.
Chris's magic at work.
So we do our Citizen PoliceAcademy twice a year, chris's
magic at work.
So we do our Citizen PoliceAcademy twice a year and one of
the nights it's DWIinvestigation, traffic
investigation night, where weactually and so we bring in
volunteers that haveparticipated in Citizen Police
Academy in the past and it'svery monitored.
(26:23):
We drive them there, we takethem home, but we actually they
drink and then they go in and weactually do field sobriety
testing so our citizens get tosee the effects of what alcohol
will do.
Well, we'd let them have a fewdrinks in their controlled
environment and then we'd bringChris in to do magic before we
(26:44):
took them.
And, oh, minds blown in thatroom.
But Chance Graves also mindsblown in there.
But Chance Graves was alsowould be in there because he was
one of the chaperones for thatand he's completely sober on
duty and he was.
I think his mind was blown,usually more than the drinker.
Officer Chris Hester (27:02):
Yeah, chance is always looking over
the shoulder of the drinkers andI would just see his eye.
You know, wait, do that again.
Wait, I'm like who am Iperforming for here?
He would get so mad.
Yeah, he couldn't figure it out.
And the more they drink, theeasier the magic gets, for me at
least.
Right, you know, when you'resober it's a little bit tougher,
but no chances is falling.
Wait, what'd you want to catchyou?
And then it becomes a challengebecause chance is very
(27:23):
analytical.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (27:23):
He's the puzzle solver yeah, but he
never figured them out, as faras I know.
Officer Chris Hester (27:27):
Yeah, he came up to a show recently and I
got his sons up on stage.
What's the name of your theater?
Hester's Theater of Magic, andthat's just a tribute to my
grandfather.
So growing up he was a mechanic.
So he quit school at aboutseven years old, third grade or
so, to go work on his grandma'sfarm.
To go work on his grandma'sfarm and that's how he learned
(27:50):
to fix trucks and tractors,because his grandparents, you
know they needed help andsomething would break down and
he would be looking over hisgrandpa's shoulder trying to
figure out how does this work.
So I always say he's thesmartest man I ever met, for you
know, being I don't want to sayuneducated, but leaving school
at seven years old and he wasself-employed, he did his own
taxes, he could read, write, allthat and he was brilliant, he
(28:11):
could fix anything.
I mean he worked on.
He used to have trophies in theback of his automotive shop and
I asked him one day, you know,I said, daddy, what are the
trophies for?
He goes, well, that was a racecar that I worked on and they
won first place.
Bring him all kinds of stuff toto work on.
But his automotive shop wascalled Hester's Rebuilders and I
(28:33):
thought well, if I open a place, what would you call it Just
Hester's Theater?
in this, but I tack on of magicso people know what it is.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (28:40):
That's pretty cool, and his shops.
It was in downtown Solano for along long time, yeah.
Officer Chris Hester (28:45):
Up until a couple long time, yeah, up
until a couple years ago.
So my uncle, my grandfather,passed away in 2010.
And that was right when I wasabout to go in community
relations and I can say this forthe listeners on how much work
feels like family.
So, um, sammy, sergeant Felty,I think, uh, bob, at the time,
(29:06):
maybe Chance um came to thefuneral and uh, or the
visitation, and um, and thatit's hard for anybody to go
through that.
That was the hardest time of mylife and I'm going through this
pivotal moment.
You know, in my career.
I'm going to go to this otherunit and I didn't really know
these guys all that much otherthan I knew Sammy, probably
better than all of them, but Ihadn't really worked with the
other ones and there they were,you know.
(29:28):
So that, so that meant a lot.
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (29:31):
So , speaking about the community,
if you could tell our viewers orthe city of Allen one thing,
what would it be?
Officer Chris Hester (29:37):
I would say one.
I would say thanks for thesupport, because we've been so
blessed in a police departmentthat for the majority who've had
so much support throughout theyears and even in times, or on a
national scale, that hasn'tbeen the case.
It's always been the case.
Here, you get people coming upto your window all the time when
you're on patrol.
You know knocking on the window.
I just want to say thank youfor your service.
(29:58):
I want to buy your meal.
You know that makes a hugedifference.
It really does, um, so I wouldjust say thank you, I mean, for
making this 19 year career, um,you know, enjoyable, safe, you
know, I I feel relatively safeon the streets of Allen, who got
amazing coworkers for backup,but just citizens as well, but
(30:22):
just the citizens as well.
And then, from a trainingstandpoint, I mean from a
training coordinator standpoint,um, you know, I would just say
that the it's an amazingdepartment.
I mean one of the best trainedin the country.
I would say, and I think thathas a trickle down effect.
I think that, um, you know,that affects the quality of life
here and, um, we couldn't do itwithout the resident support.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (30:41):
Is there anything new to your unit?
Anything as far as the hiringprocess?
Officer Chris Hester (30:47):
Yeah, we've got a lot of changes just
from Chief coming in and he'sambitious and he's got a lot of
good ideas, a lot of good visionon where he wants to take the
police department.
We've already implemented a lotof those changes and we have a
new police department comingdown the pipeline and we're
going to implement a lot ofthose changes.
And, um, you know, we have anew police department coming
down the pipeline and you knowwe're going to implement a lot
of things that will give us alittle more freedom on
(31:07):
scheduling as far as becauseright now we we use a lot of
in-house venues but we also use,um you know, off-site locations
for some training.
But we're going to haveeverything from our own
defensive tactics mat room, apermanent mat room where you
don't have to put the mats outto train, they're just always
there, kind of a jiu-jitsu style, everything from virtual
(31:29):
reality, use of force simulatorsyou know all that is kind of in
the plans.
From a fitness standpoint, youknow a big part of the police
training overall.
You know our fitness initiativewhich got talked about.
I think our fitness initiativewhich got talked about, I think
in both episodes it has made ahuge difference and the
equipment.
We just opened the police gym,the other police gym, the
(31:53):
CrossFit gyms, and now we haveone at the police department
that we can train at and we havethe offsite.
So a lot of those big changes.
And then, just as far asstandards go, raising standards,
you know, for the new hiresthat are coming in, because we
want the best and you know, whenyou have the best, you're going
to give the best service to thecitizens.
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (32:12):
So earlier you mentioned our new
police headquarters.
We just want to remind everyonethat our groundbreaking will be
on February 19th, so we're allpretty excited about that.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (32:23):
Chris, thank you for coming on today
and talking to us.
Show us a little magic.
Yeah, it's been a lot of fun.
Figure out how you do thatbefore it's over with.
Enjoy the mystery.
Thank you everyone forlistening or watching today.
If you want to learn more aboutupcoming events, go to
allenpoliceorg.
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (32:40):
And make sure to like and subscribe
, and if you have any questions,leave them down in the comments
below.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (32:44):
We'll see you next time.
Welcome back to another episode of Allen
Police.
Behind the Badge, we're yourhost Officer, Sam Rippamanti and
Alexus Birmingham.
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (00:09):
And today our special guest is
Officer Chris Hester.
Thank you for coming on today.
Officer Chris Hester (00:13):
Hello, hey , thanks for having me, hey,
Chris.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (00:15):
So tell us a little bit about what you
do for the police department.
Officer Chris Hester (00:19):
So I'm currently the training
coordinator and I've been upthere for a little over three
years and I've been with thedepartment 19 years and two
months.
And who's counting?
Teah, right, exactly who'scounting.
And you know, originally I hadno desire to be in training.
And it's interesting how I cameto this position, because
everyone's like, hey, Delio isgoing to leave.
And we kind of traded placesbecause now he's in community
(00:41):
relations and I was an SRO.
But in between, I was incommunity relations and I was an
SRO, but in between, you know,I was in community relations
before going to SRO and I saidno, no, no, you know, I like
doing what I'm doing.
It was Arsenal at the time hewas the sergeant in internal
affairs, come up here, come workfor me, and all that.
He just kept harping on me.
And then finally he's like allright, I'll do it.
And two people had put in forit and then the other person
(01:03):
withdrew.
So I saw the chief in theparking lot one day and he said,
hey, congrats on being the newtraining coordinator.
And I said, no, sir, I haven'thad the board yet.
No, he goes, you're thetraining coordinator.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (01:12):
That's one way to wind up.
Officer Chris Hester (01:13):
That's how that happened, but no, it's a
great position and a joy to do.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (01:19):
So tell me some interesting stuff over
your 19 years.
That's a lot of experience.
Officer Chris Hester (01:22):
Yeah Well, first of all, I think we need
to talk about how me and Sammymet.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (01:27):
I remember, I remember well.
Officer Chris Hester (01:28):
Because this is the best story.
So I'm in the report room andI'm at 19 years.
Are you at 17 years?
Yes, may will be 18.
Okay, so I'd been on thestreets for two years, right,
and definitely not a seniorofficer at that point.
But Sammy sits down next to meand he was in field training, I
think.
Yeah, I was in field trainingand I was stressing.
Yeah, For the listeners.
Back then our report writingroom had four computers.
(01:50):
It was four workstations andthey're all side by side just in
one long row, and I'm sittingdown and I'm typing a report, a
DWI report, something alongthose lines, and Sammy's typing
with one finger on each hand.
He's kind of pecking away thereand he goes uh, officer Hester,
and that shows you how informalit was at the time, cause we're
(02:11):
definitely not like that witheach other.
Now he goes how do you spellholler?
And I was like wait, what?
Outreach Coordinator Ale (02:17):
Holler .
Officer Chris Hester (02:19):
And I was like down in the holler and uh
like H O L L E R and he goes.
No, she was.
She was hollering at him, shewas uh writing a, I guess, a
domestic report.
So that that was our firstinteraction it was a.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (02:30):
It was a family violence report.
I remember it and and she washollering at him and I had to
type it in the report and he'slike, well, why don't you use
another word?
Like she screamed at him, sheyelled yeah oh, that might make
more.
Officer Chris Hester (02:42):
I started giving him some options, but I'm
from salina so I was like, okay, I can definitely relate to
this, so that it was likeinstant bond that was back when
it was uh, four officers and onesupervisor on night shift, oh
wow yeah, there was four oh, wewe call it four and two to be in
the supervisors, and they wouldjust cut the city, you know,
into four quadrants kind of, andwe each had a corner and if it
was on a call, we'd all be inthe same place looking around,
(03:05):
going oh, something else happens.
So that that shows how farwe've come, as far as you know
just how many officers we haveon the street.
But it also means we workedreally close with each other,
cause if there are only two ofyou on one side of the city, on
how you know, on that side ofhighway 75, we were pretty much
going to every call together ifit's a two man call and most of
(03:25):
them are, so we've got a lot.
I have a favorite.
It might be one of the sameones that you're thinking of too
.
Let's hear it.
So my apartment was broken into.
It's going back to 2008.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (03:39):
And so that night we're working night
shift and that back then shiftdidn't start till 10 pm.
So we worked 10 pm to 8 am andand chris, I remember he's like
man, I'm gonna take off early,since at that time we had five
officers, we had a rover, so ifwe had five, one of us could
leave early if we ever want it.
So I remember chris was likeI'm gonna take off early, go
(04:01):
home, play some video games.
And he was a single guy at thetime so he had all this extra
time to do stuff and uh, so heleft early and got home and
everything.
He didn't have any video games.
Somebody had.
We laugh now, at the time itwas pretty.
Yeah, we were pretty upset, allfor him.
Somebody broke into hisapartment and stole all of his
(04:22):
so I had electronics.
Officer Chris Hester (04:24):
Yeah, I'd moved into that apartment about
a week prior so I didn't havetime to get the renter's
insurance going.
Plus, you're working nightshift patrol, so you're sleeping
when everything's open, right.
So I'm like, just get my stuffin there.
I'd barely unpacked abouthalfway unpacked maybe, and
someone must have knew that Iworked at night, you know.
But anyway, long story short, Icome home and I can see my door
(04:46):
cracked about that far and youcan see where they pried it.
I'm like, here we go.
So I go in and I mean, if itwasn't nailed down it was gone.
They didn't take clothes oranything, but I play guitar, so
electric guitar, multipleguitars were taken.
You know TV, video games,computer digital camera, all
that stuff, computer digitalcamera, all that stuff.
So that's the precursor.
We have to tell that part of thestory to tell this next part of
(05:07):
the story on how this came tobe.
Um, so we were working.
I guess I would have been onthe east side, so I don't know
if you were on the east side too, to back me up, or if you
crossed over.
I don't remember that part.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (05:16):
I remember getting a.
I don't know back then if itwas an mdc message or a text
message, but I got a messagefrom him.
He said hey, my apartmentcomplex like now.
So I fly over there to theapartment complex to back Chris
up.
Officer Chris Hester (05:35):
Yeah, this is a couple of weeks maybe
after the incident had happenedand it really made me empathetic
, which I already was.
But when you have it happen toyou, it's so violating to have
someone come into your space andI wanted to make sure that it
didn't happen to anybody else.
So I'm that's part of mydistrict, so I would go, and you
know this is the crown Vic days, so you'd black your vehicle
out or, you know, park underwhere there's not a street light
(05:56):
and I'm watching and I see acar come into the apartment
complex and the guy parks at,you know, building 14 and cuts
his lights off and gets out andhe's like sneaking down, you
know, passing building 16, 17,going right toward building 18,
which is where I lived, and I'mjust watching him.
I think that's the moment whereI'm sending Sammy a message on
the MDC.
(06:16):
You know, hey, you may want tohead this way and I was watching
and observing.
So he goes and this guy crouchesdown next to an apartment
window and it looks like he'smessing.
I mean, from the observerstandpoint you would think this
guy's breaking into an apartmentor doing something he shouldn't
be doing, so he's messing withthe window seal.
I'm pretty far away, maybe 40,50 yards away, and he can't see
(06:38):
me.
So I'm waiting and he messeswith it a little bit and then he
sneaks back to his car, gets inhis car and by that time I'm
rolling behind him.
You know we're going to try toknock him down and get a traffic
stop and at least see what he'sup to.
And that's when Sammy backedhim up.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (06:54):
You know it's suspicious behavior.
So I think he had a trafficviolation too when he was
leaving.
And so Officer Hester pulls himover and he's like all right,
we're, it's for good cop, badcop here.
So chris is going to be sternand then I'm going to come in
and be like hey, man, it's okay,and try to get him to make sure
he's not really trying to breakinto houses.
(07:14):
But it's almost like the movies.
I get up there and I'm now allof a sudden I'm feeding off of
chris and we're both like whatare you doing?
We know you're trying to breakinto that apartment and this
poor kid, he's a teenager.
We say kid, he's.
You know he's probably 17.
Officer Chris Hester (07:30):
Yeah, 17, 17 or 18.
And, um, you know all the signswere there of nervousness.
So you know he's like shakingvoices, quivering, and uh, it's
which amplifies the suspicion.
Right, I'm like, okay, I sawyou drive in, cut your lights
out, you walked three or fourbuildings at 3 am in the morning
.
What are you doing?
Messing with someone's window?
Like none of this adds up.
(07:51):
You weren't just visiting afriend, kind of thing.
And then Sammy's jumping in.
I feel bad now because I thinkhe ended up crying, the kid
starts crying.
He finally breaks down and we'relike-oh, he's not a burglar,
yeah, and he goes.
Sir, can I be honest with you?
I was.
My girlfriend broke up with meand I'm just leaving her a love
note and a mixtape of ourfavorite songs for the cd and I
(08:15):
was like, no, you weren't, andyou know, because I'm still
trying to get him to admit youknow because it wasn't.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (08:21):
We didn't believe it at the time.
It was like you're you'remessing with windows at three
o'clock in the morning.
Yeah, who does?
Officer Chris Hester (08:25):
that, apparently, if you're
heartbroken heartbroken you do,so we let him go with a warning
and you know, just kind of hey,don't come back doing this kind
of stuff.
Or if you do anything like that, come back in the daytime.
Of course we go back and look,sure enough, on the window seal
there's like two I don'tremember the girl's name there's
(08:46):
a love note and there's a CDand a CD with a rock on top, all
their favorite songs.
There's still a chance.
They worked it out.
Who knows, maybe they'relistening.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (08:54):
It ended on good note with the young man
.
We had a good conversationafter that and explained to him
why it looked suspicious and heunderstood and and then we tried
to offer a little bit of adviceon his relationship and uh, so
it all ended well.
Officer Chris Hester (09:11):
So let's talk a little bit about what a
training coordinator does forthe department yeah, so, um, so,
initially, when they approachedme about it, uh, you know,
because I I liked what I did asan SRO and especially in
community relations, becauseit's a different side of
policing, you know it's it'sSergeant Felty used to say it's
it's easier to prevent a crimethan to solve a crime.
(09:32):
So get out there and preventsome crime, right, and I kind of
had it in my head that as anSRO, you know we're doing good
with these kids, mentoring them,and, um, you know, I really
wasn't ready to leave that Idon't think.
But what made me change my mindis I was thinking about okay,
how important is training towhat we do, to the police
department, to the city, to thecitizens?
It's the most important thing.
(09:54):
If you don't have well-trainedofficers, then you don't have
the best service that you canget.
So when I thought about it thatway, that's what made me think
okay, you know, being a trainingcoordinator because, your heart
has to be in it, you have tobelieve in what you're doing,
and so I said, okay, I'll do it,and I dove into it.
So really, in a nutshell, it'smaking sure that the officers
are equipped to encounteranything that they're going to
(10:16):
encounter on the street, and itcould be everything from
in-service training, where weuse our in-house instructors to
teach things, we bring insomeone from the outside and we
get requests.
All the time An officer willsay, hey, can you bring in this
organization or this group?
We'd like to have some trainingin this, and you know it's
working along those lines.
And then you know there's statecompliance, making sure that
(10:38):
everybody has their, you know,hours of continuing education,
but really that's what it is.
Outreach Coordinator Alexu (10:50):
It's supplying the officers with
their needs from a trainingperspective.
How long is like the training?
How long does it get for likefrom new recruits or the lateral
process.
Officer Chris Hester (10:55):
Yeah, that's been.
That just changed recently andwe had some state changes as
well.
So, for those that's listening,she's referencing, if we have
someone that comes in andthey're a new recruit, they have
no police experience whatsoeverand they want to become a
police officer and there's apathway to that and then we'll
hire one of the agencies thatwill hire someone and support
them while they're doing that.
(11:16):
So you'll get paid as wesponsor you to go to the academy
and that's about currently theacademy's 29 weeks.
So we'll bring you on a coupleweeks early just to make sure
that everything's ready to go.
Um, we'll do some things withphysical preparation, physical
fitness, because that's a bigaspect of what we're doing, to
kind of prepare them for that.
And then, once they get out,they have six weeks with me
(11:36):
where I, uh, I do more training.
We, we host a mini academy.
Um, the different agencies willcall them different things, but
we call it mini academy, andthen that prepares them for
field training.
And then, if you're anout-of-state lateral or an
in-state lateral, there'sdifferent requirements for them
depending on what you're doing.
So out-of-state lateral wouldbe six weeks with us and that's
(11:57):
after they've taken the stateexam.
There's all these courses thatthey have to take to prepare
them for the state exam,including in-person.
So they add trainings every twoyears when they go to the
legislative session.
They usually add trainingrequirements, which is a good
thing because you can't trainenough, but there's different
processes for all that.
So I kind of coordinate allthree of those things and Jason,
(12:20):
our other training coordinator,who just started helping with
that, he's taken a lot of thein-service training which
includes block training andthat's just where we take
officers and we have them, youknow, train for a 40-hour period
.
We consider that their workweek and they go and they do
their firearms training,defensive tactics training, all
that.
So there's a lot of movingpieces to it.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (12:42):
Do we have any openings right now?
We have three.
Oh, we do, really we.
Do you know of any test datescoming up or anything like that?
Officer Chris Hester (12:50):
Well, we have an academy coming up June.
So for someone that wants toget into it and they're not an
officer, june 10th is theacademy start date.
We use the Plano RichardsonAcademy partner with them and we
kind of do tests on anas-needed basis.
When we got hired, you'd have300 people show up and you'd
have one test and then forseveral months there wouldn't be
(13:11):
another test.
And now, as Laura receives, youknow, interest Laura's our
background investigator, one ofthem she'll set up tests to kind
of accommodate three or fourpeople that have put in for it.
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (13:24):
Now we know what you do for the
department, but tell me a littlebit about yourself.
Who's Chris Hester?
Officer Chris Hester (13:29):
Yeah, so I grew up in Salina, so I haven't
strayed that far.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (13:32):
And I lived there.
Yeah, state champion.
Officer Chris Hester (13:35):
Sammy lived there for a bit, lived
there until I was 19 and movedout.
I was raised by my grandparentsthey're both passed now but you
know, I what I think is adifferent childhood than most
kids, just because my, myparents were so much older and,
uh, you know, I spent all mytime going to antique shops and
listening to Merle Haggard, youknow, and everyone else you know
(13:56):
, their parents are in theirtwenties and their elementary
school and all that, and youknow mine are in their fifties
and by the time you get to highschool they're older.
But uh, but no, I wouldn'tchange any of that.
So I grew up fishing a lot.
We had a single wide trailer atLake Texoma that we go to
pretty much every weekend andall summer and that's kind of
what connected me to Sammy,because you know, after the
(14:16):
whole how do you spell hollerthing, and I knew he'd like to
fish, because no one speaks likethat and not like to fish.
So I grew up running jugs onTexoma, catfishing, all that
crappie fishing, but I alwayswanted to be a police officer.
It was all I ever wanted to doand I blame andy griffith
(14:37):
because growing up my grandpa,you know, we watched all those
uh shows, green acres andpetticoat junction of the
younger listeners.
I have no idea what I'm talkingabout.
Um, but yeah, watched andygriffith and cops a lot.
So you get lured into theaction of cops and you're like,
oh, it's like this all the time.
Then you become one.
(14:58):
You're like it's not like thisall the time at all.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (14:59):
You come to allen, we're in the winter
time, we're counting the rabbits.
Officer Chris Hester (15:03):
Yeah, at night, yeah, because it's so
many bobcats you see in thealley, no, which is a good thing
, old alley, um.
But but it comes in waves and,uh, you do get to experience all
that, and just not not as it'sportrayed on tv, um.
So so, mentally, I always justprepared myself that this is
what I wanted to do.
I just didn't know where itwould take place.
And, um, I sold insurance forthree years 18 months with
(15:29):
Nationwide and 18 months withfarmer's insurance and learned a
lot.
But I was like this is not forme, I don't really care for
being in an office.
And here I am, 19 years laterdoing training Exactly.
So, yeah, I came full circle,but I think it prepared me a lot
.
But as soon as I turned 21, Ijust started applying and I
applied for Allen.
(15:49):
I applied for another agencythat I won't mention and Allen
gave me the job offer first andit's funny because Laura was the
background investigator at thetime who hired me and then she
was my field training officer,so my FTO, and then now we work
together, so she's thebackground investigator again
and then I'm the ones that trainthe employees that she hires.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (16:11):
So that's awesome so you play the
guitar.
What other hobbies you got?
I know of one yeah, there's one, the.
Officer Chris Hester (16:19):
The rumors are true.
Word got around.
I kept that secret for a longtime.
Uh, so, no, I'm a, I'm amagician and I'm a professional
magician.
Now I can say that, but I usedto just love magic.
So when I was a kid, I saw amagic show on TV.
It's called World's GreatestMagic and it came on every
Thanksgiving around that timeright.
So I'd seen it one year and thenext year I knew it was going
(16:40):
to come on.
So I'm going to put a VHS tapeon and record it.
So I record it.
I recorded it over a karatetournament that I had.
Like a childhood memory is gonebecause I recorded this TV show
.
I used to watch this tape allthe time and, uh, you know, I I
didn't know how any of theseguys did this stuff, but it it
was phenomenal to me.
I knew it was sleight of handand um, it's a performing art
(17:01):
and uh, I always just kind ofdid it as a hobby on the side.
So I've become a police officerand it was a different persona
when you get to work, you, Ibecome a police officer and it
was a different persona when youget to work.
You know, there's anassertiveness to it, and there
has to be.
So I never went around saying,hey, I do magic tricks, you know
, pick a card right, that kindof stuff, and I can't remember
when the first I don't know whenword spread, you know it
spreads like wildfire Once oneofficer knows, then everyone's
(17:27):
like hey, show me some magic.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (17:28):
Hey, you do magic tricks, show me
something.
The first time I rememberseeing you do magic we were
doing a tip-a-cop for SpecialOlympics and we were at
Cheddar's and he had theselittle red balls in his hand and
he's walking around tables andI'm like what is he doing with
those?
Next thing, you know, they'redisappearing.
And I'm locked in Like I forgetwhat I'm doing.
I'm locked in Like I forgetwhat I'm doing.
(17:48):
I'm supposed to be servingdrinks and helping out and I'm
just watching him, following him, watching him do magic at all
the tables, because it was thecoolest thing to watch.
He'd slide a hand with thoselittle red balls.
I mean, I think it's slide ahand.
Maybe they really just care, Idon't know.
Officer Chris Hester (18:02):
See, I started to tell our supervisor
at the time in communityrelations we used to do tip a
cop every year in, um, you know,benefits, special Olympics.
And I said, hey, can I do somemagic?
Cause I think I could really.
You know it'll help, um, youknow, just with the
entertainment aspect and thetips and everything.
No-transcript at that point,but no, it went really well and
(18:39):
I think that was one of thetimes where the secret was out.
And then that was long before Ibecame a school resource officer
, so by that point I did magicall the time, so I would do
magic for the kids.
I even put together a programwhile I was at SRO and it was
called make a good informedchoice.
Magic right came up with theacronym and so we did shows for
(19:01):
and this was kind of thebeginning of COVID, because I
remember performing with a maskon, you know, until the kids got
in and everyone was separated.
But I, we did full magic showsfor the kids, just teaching them
safety things, you know how tomake good informed choices.
A lot of what we did incommunity relations because we
go to the would have led me upto this point, Like I don't
think I would be doing magic 20years ago had I not gone through
(19:33):
this path other than a hobby.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (19:36):
Right.
So where are you at in yourmagic now?
Like, what are you doing withit now?
Officer Chris Hester (19:41):
So about 14 years ago I started doing
magic, I say professionally.
You know, on the side someonecould hire you to perform for
them, did a lot of corporatework, a lot of kids' birthday
parties too many to count,probably and but that led me to
things like performing for theDallas Cowboys, performed for
Ross Pro Jr, hillwood Airways,hilton.
(20:05):
I mean they're like corporatecompanies that will hire you to
go and perform magic and that'sreally how I honed a lot of my
magic skill, because you, youperform for these people and you
know there's some CEOs thatwill just say, okay, show me
what you got and impress me.
Right, it's not your typicalmagic audience where you go up
and it's a family and you knowthey, they're eager to see what
you do.
(20:25):
So you have to get really good,you know, to perform for those,
uh, so those kind of people.
So I just kept following mypassion and, um, so we recently
opened a magic venue, um, up inoklahoma.
So I I do magic on the side,outside of this, and it's kind
of like having two full-timejobs but neither of them really
feel like feel like work.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (20:46):
You oh wow, that sounds exhausting.
It is so.
We've talked a lot about it andI know for everyone that's
listening, you can't really seeit, but do you have anything you
could, any magic you could dofor us?
Officer Chris Hester (21:01):
Yeah, does anyone happen to have a deck of
cards?
Oh look, I just happen to havesome right here, hey what do you
know?
I think life takes you down apath, right.
Sometimes we don't expect it.
I met my wife working for theAllen Police Department, right,
and I think back, if I wouldhave went with that other agency
let's say that other agencygave me the job offer I wouldn't
have the kids that I have now.
(21:21):
I wouldn't have the friendsthat I have now.
I mean, you can call that whatyou will, but I think destiny,
fate.
So I'm going to try somethingand, for the listeners, I'm
holding a deck of cards here andI'm going to do this for you.
So, alexis, I want you to.
In a deck of cards, there'shigh cards and there's low cards
, okay, and I want you to justgo instinctively, so just like
(21:45):
subconsciously, don't thinkabout it too much, but I want
you to choose one of them Now,I'm not going to eliminate.
So if you say high cards, Iwon't say, oh, we'll eliminate
the high cards.
If I want you to take a lowcard, like, whatever you choose
is what we're going to use, okay, okay.
So if you say high cards, we'llkeep the high cards.
If you say low cards, we'llkeep the low cards.
It doesn't matter to me whichhigh cards.
(22:06):
She wants to keep the high cards.
It could be 7, 8, 9, 10, jackQueen King, and then the low
cards would be Ace 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, somewhere along those lines.
Doesn't really matter, becausewe're going to take it a step
further.
So of the high cards, so let'ssay, just to be sure, let's say
8, 9, 10, jack Queen King.
Is that fair to say those arehigh cards?
(22:28):
Yeah, yes, and I wouldn'texpect you to pick the ace of
spades because it's on the frontof the deck, it's the one that
she can see right now and it'salso the most common card that
people select.
So if I said name a card, yousaid ace of spades and I could
predict that not as impressive.
But of the high cards, there'seight, nine, ten, jack, ten,
jack, queen king.
(22:49):
Which one would you like to use?
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (22:51):
Am I supposed to tell you?
Officer Chris Hester (22:52):
Yes.
Outreach Coordinator Alexu (22:54):
Nine .
Officer Chris Hester (22:55):
The nine?
Yes, Okay.
So of the nine, there's clubs,hearts, spades and diamonds.
Two of them are red, two ofthem are black.
Okay, would you like to use ablack nine or a red nine, Red,
the red nine?
So of the red nines and this iscompletely fair there's the
heart or the diamond, and it'scompletely up to you which one
would you like to use.
Outreach Coordinator Alex (23:16):
Heart .
Officer Chris Hester (23:19):
So there's the nine of hearts.
Do you want to change your mind?
Outreach Coordinator Alexu (23:24):
Nope .
Officer Chris Hester (23:26):
Okay, so she just picked the nine of
hearts.
What drew you to the nine ofhearts?
Outreach Coordinator Alexu (23:34):
Just chose the card, she just chose
it.
Officer Chris Hester (23:36):
You didn't have any conscious thought
about it, right?
It's not your favorite card, itjust felt right in the moment
Because there's somethinginteresting about the nine of
hearts.
We're going to come back tothat.
Outreach Coordinator Alexu (23:44):
Okay .
Officer Chris Hester (23:46):
But on the back of the cards.
It has some things written onthe back.
Oh my gosh so on the back of theace of hearts, for example, it
says grand prairie, because anyof us could have worked there,
right, chief die came from.
There is a history there, butyou didn't choose that one.
Um, this one says frisco.
(24:07):
That would be the eight ofhearts.
You're one off.
Frisco is actually the be theEight of Hearts.
You were one off.
Frisco was actually the otheragency that I applied for when
Alan hired me.
So you were one off fromchoosing that one.
You could have chose Richardson,which would have been the Six
of Clubs.
I'll go through these prettyquick.
There's Plano, which is theFive of Clubs.
Garland is the Five of Hearts.
Grapevine, carrollton you cansee they're all different.
Royce City.
(24:27):
There's Farmersville it wasactually tough to find 52 towns
in this area to fill out anentire deck of cards.
If there's Waxahachie, thatwould have been the ace of clubs
.
Highland Park, you could havegone with the eight of diamonds.
You can see they're alldifferent.
There's no duplicates.
There's no other nine of hearts, but you pick the nine of
hearts and I think life is aninteresting way of leading us to
(24:51):
a place that says alan on thephone, and it does so on the
back of the nine of hearts cityof alan wow, I'm a little lost
here.
Outreach Coordinator Alexu (25:06):
What just happened?
Officer Sam Rippamonti (25:07):
for those that listening, go watch
the youtube video, and itwatched that.
Officer Chris Hester (25:13):
I'm not sure how this happens, uh, but
she's going back and rethinkinglike did he make me choose?
Watch the high cards?
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (25:22):
and make me see what happened.
Yeah, that's.
It's kind of like the one whenwe were in chipotle and you
spelt my name using Wikipedia.
Officer Chris Hester (25:32):
Yeah, so that was random.
That was kind of our firstmeeting we had met in passing.
But me, you and Sammy all hadlunch together at Chipotle.
Delia was there, and even them.
They were kind of like hey, wedon't really see you do magic
all that much at work.
It's like because I'm working,show us something.
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (25:50):
And he so happened to have a deck
in his pocket too, so you haveto always be prepared.
But yeah, that one was a prettycool trick.
You guys need to go and watchhis show.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (26:01):
Oh, it's one of the best experiences
with.
Chris's magic at work.
So we do our Citizen PoliceAcademy twice a year, chris's
magic at work.
So we do our Citizen PoliceAcademy twice a year and one of
the nights it's DWIinvestigation, traffic
investigation night, where weactually and so we bring in
volunteers that haveparticipated in Citizen Police
Academy in the past and it'svery monitored.
(26:23):
We drive them there, we takethem home, but we actually they
drink and then they go in and weactually do field sobriety
testing so our citizens get tosee the effects of what alcohol
will do.
Well, we'd let them have a fewdrinks in their controlled
environment and then we'd bringChris in to do magic before we
(26:44):
took them.
And, oh, minds blown in thatroom.
But Chance Graves also mindsblown in there.
But Chance Graves was alsowould be in there because he was
one of the chaperones for thatand he's completely sober on
duty and he was.
I think his mind was blown,usually more than the drinker.
Officer Chris Hester (27:02):
Yeah, chance is always looking over
the shoulder of the drinkers andI would just see his eye.
You know, wait, do that again.
Wait, I'm like who am Iperforming for here?
He would get so mad.
Yeah, he couldn't figure it out.
And the more they drink, theeasier the magic gets, for me at
least.
Right, you know, when you'resober it's a little bit tougher,
but no chances is falling.
Wait, what'd you want to catchyou?
And then it becomes a challengebecause chance is very
(27:23):
analytical.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (27:23):
He's the puzzle solver yeah, but he
never figured them out, as faras I know.
Officer Chris Hester (27:27):
Yeah, he came up to a show recently and I
got his sons up on stage.
What's the name of your theater?
Hester's Theater of Magic, andthat's just a tribute to my
grandfather.
So growing up he was a mechanic.
So he quit school at aboutseven years old, third grade or
so, to go work on his grandma'sfarm.
To go work on his grandma'sfarm and that's how he learned
(27:50):
to fix trucks and tractors,because his grandparents, you
know they needed help andsomething would break down and
he would be looking over hisgrandpa's shoulder trying to
figure out how does this work.
So I always say he's thesmartest man I ever met, for you
know, being I don't want to sayuneducated, but leaving school
at seven years old and he wasself-employed, he did his own
taxes, he could read, write, allthat and he was brilliant, he
(28:11):
could fix anything.
I mean he worked on.
He used to have trophies in theback of his automotive shop and
I asked him one day, you know,I said, daddy, what are the
trophies for?
He goes, well, that was a racecar that I worked on and they
won first place.
Bring him all kinds of stuff toto work on.
But his automotive shop wascalled Hester's Rebuilders and I
(28:33):
thought well, if I open a place, what would you call it Just
Hester's Theater?
in this, but I tack on of magicso people know what it is.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (28:40):
That's pretty cool, and his shops.
It was in downtown Solano for along long time, yeah.
Officer Chris Hester (28:45):
Up until a couple long time, yeah, up
until a couple years ago.
So my uncle, my grandfather,passed away in 2010.
And that was right when I wasabout to go in community
relations and I can say this forthe listeners on how much work
feels like family.
So, um, sammy, sergeant Felty,I think, uh, bob, at the time,
(29:06):
maybe Chance um came to thefuneral and uh, or the
visitation, and um, and thatit's hard for anybody to go
through that.
That was the hardest time of mylife and I'm going through this
pivotal moment.
You know, in my career.
I'm going to go to this otherunit and I didn't really know
these guys all that much otherthan I knew Sammy, probably
better than all of them, but Ihadn't really worked with the
other ones and there they were,you know.
(29:28):
So that, so that meant a lot.
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (29:31):
So , speaking about the community,
if you could tell our viewers orthe city of Allen one thing,
what would it be?
Officer Chris Hester (29:37):
I would say one.
I would say thanks for thesupport, because we've been so
blessed in a police departmentthat for the majority who've had
so much support throughout theyears and even in times, or on a
national scale, that hasn'tbeen the case.
It's always been the case.
Here, you get people coming upto your window all the time when
you're on patrol.
You know knocking on the window.
I just want to say thank youfor your service.
(29:58):
I want to buy your meal.
You know that makes a hugedifference.
It really does, um, so I wouldjust say thank you, I mean, for
making this 19 year career, um,you know, enjoyable, safe, you
know, I I feel relatively safeon the streets of Allen, who got
amazing coworkers for backup,but just citizens as well, but
(30:22):
just the citizens as well.
And then, from a trainingstandpoint, I mean from a
training coordinator standpoint,um, you know, I would just say
that the it's an amazingdepartment.
I mean one of the best trainedin the country.
I would say, and I think thathas a trickle down effect.
I think that, um, you know,that affects the quality of life
here and, um, we couldn't do itwithout the resident support.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (30:41):
Is there anything new to your unit?
Anything as far as the hiringprocess?
Officer Chris Hester (30:47):
Yeah, we've got a lot of changes just
from Chief coming in and he'sambitious and he's got a lot of
good ideas, a lot of good visionon where he wants to take the
police department.
We've already implemented a lotof those changes and we have a
new police department comingdown the pipeline and we're
going to implement a lot ofthose changes.
And, um, you know, we have anew police department coming
down the pipeline and you knowwe're going to implement a lot
of things that will give us alittle more freedom on
(31:07):
scheduling as far as becauseright now we we use a lot of
in-house venues but we also use,um you know, off-site locations
for some training.
But we're going to haveeverything from our own
defensive tactics mat room, apermanent mat room where you
don't have to put the mats outto train, they're just always
there, kind of a jiu-jitsu style, everything from virtual
(31:29):
reality, use of force simulatorsyou know all that is kind of in
the plans.
From a fitness standpoint, youknow a big part of the police
training overall.
You know our fitness initiativewhich got talked about.
I think our fitness initiativewhich got talked about, I think
in both episodes it has made ahuge difference and the
equipment.
We just opened the police gym,the other police gym, the
(31:53):
CrossFit gyms, and now we haveone at the police department
that we can train at and we havethe offsite.
So a lot of those big changes.
And then, just as far asstandards go, raising standards,
you know, for the new hiresthat are coming in, because we
want the best and you know, whenyou have the best, you're going
to give the best service to thecitizens.
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (32:12):
So earlier you mentioned our new
police headquarters.
We just want to remind everyonethat our groundbreaking will be
on February 19th, so we're allpretty excited about that.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (32:23):
Chris, thank you for coming on today
and talking to us.
Show us a little magic.
Yeah, it's been a lot of fun.
Figure out how you do thatbefore it's over with.
Enjoy the mystery.
Thank you everyone forlistening or watching today.
If you want to learn more aboutupcoming events, go to
allenpoliceorg.
Outreach Coordinator Alexus (32:40):
And make sure to like and subscribe
, and if you have any questions,leave them down in the comments
below.
Officer Sam Rippamonti (32:44):
We'll see you next time.
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