May 21, 2025 • 29 mins
Darrell Kriplean from the Phoenix Law Enforcement Officers Association reveals how his department successfully challenged the Department of Justice's pattern-or-practice investigation, resulting in a nationwide halt to consent decrees.
• Phoenix police faced a three-year DOJ investigation despite promises of collaboration
• City officials requested evidence behind DOJ allegations, which the federal agency repeatedly refused to provide
• Department created a public website comparing DOJ claims with actual body camera footage and reports
• Independent analysis found 97% of DOJ claims were misleading or false
• New legislation proposed to shift police accountability from the federal to the state level
• State-based oversight would standardize training, policies, and create more localized accountability
• A small group of Phoenix officers helped inspire other departments, like Memphis, to question DOJ tactics
Visit savephx.org to read the full report comparing DOJ claims with actual evidence, and savephx.com to see the messaging directed at city officials during this process.
Additional Articles:
DOJ Nixes Phoenix Investigation After Misleading Report
Join Our Tribe of Courageous Leaders:
Get The Book
Get Weekly Articles by Travis Yates
Join Us At Our Website
Get Our 'Courageous Leadership' Training
Join The Courageous Police Leadership Alliance
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Travis Yates (00:00):
Welcome back to the show I'm.
There's a long, protractedfight that was before that.
(00:27):
That was not just some decisionthat was made because a
presidential administration camein and I have the man on the
show today.
That was the muscle, so tospeak, behind so much of that.
There's been a lot of great menand women, courageous leaders,
involved in this fight.
I had the honor of beinginvited to this fight about 18
months ago and we're going tohave a discussion on how we got
(00:49):
here today, and so thank you forjoining us.
You got to tune in on this one,you got to pay attention, you
got to send it to others.
Spread this message.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates,
where leaders find the insights,advice and encouragement they
need to lead courageously.
Travis Yates (01:10):
Daryl Kriplen with the Phoenix Law Enforcement
Officers Association.
How are you doing, man?
Darrell Kriplean (01:16):
That's a good day.
I've had a lot worse days.
I'll tell you that.
Travis Yates (01:19):
Well, you're in the middle of the fight there in
Phoenix and I'm not going totake the time to give people the
background on consent decrees.
If they've been listening tothis show at all, they know what
that is and I would encouragethem.
If you don't know, go back afew episodes, listen to me
discuss this.
I've discussed this in Phoenixbefore.
I've had Bob Scales on before.
We've written tons of articleson this, so we don't want to
(01:39):
waste time on the background ofconsent decrees other than the
fact that they have destroyedcities for the last three
decades.
And they came to your city,daryl, you're the union
representative there.
They came to your city yearsago and they began an
investigation and I'm just goingto kind of give before to you
from those early days and leadus all the way up and and
(02:00):
because I want to really get inthe details of how you were able
to fight this and how thislooks like it turned into a
nationwide fight that is, forthe moment, looks like a
resounding victory.
So tell us about when the DLJvisited Phoenix.
Darrell Kriplean (02:15):
You know, when they first came to town, travis
, you know they harped on thefact that they were going to be
collaborative with the labororganization.
They were going to becollaborative with the
department and work through allof this.
And I can tell you that throughthis almost three, a little
over three year investigation,they were nothing but not
collaborative.
(02:35):
I mean, it was an absoluteatrocity they were doing.
You know, the department wasproviding tens of thousands of
documents, tens of thousands ofhours of body cam footage.
If they felt that they cameacross something, or at least in
my opinion, if they came acrosssomething that was so horrible
that we were doing something sowrong or unconstitutional,
(02:56):
wouldn't you want to bring thatto the attention of the leaders
so that that could be addressedimmediately?
But none of that ever happened,none of it.
And it was just.
And they, they cut the unionout, they cut they cut everybody
out.
Travis Yates (03:09):
And meanwhile your city spent over 10 million
dollars helping them investigatethe phoenix police fire, which
is a whole nother stock, thosestocksville syndrome.
Darrell Kriplean (03:17):
But I can't even describe right on why a
city would do that yeah, they'vebeen over backwards to appease
these folks in the hopes I think, probably because they thought
that if they were cooperative,that they would go lenient on
them and treat them differentlythan every other department that
they've investigated.
Travis Yates (03:33):
Well, yeah, and, darrell, when you came to this,
I know, when we first talkedalmost two years ago now, you
had a really good beat on thehistory of this.
I mean you were calling meabout the history, but you
really knew the history.
And the history is what yousaid.
They're not collaborative,they're not very factual,
they're not very truthful, theydon't really show evidence.
They just sort of twist the armof the agency to get them to
(03:54):
comply.
Now, the reason they have to dothat is hopefully everybody
knows, there's this little thingcalled the 10th Amendment,
where the federal governmentcannot control a local entity
but unless they get the localentity to just agree, so for 30
years that's what happened andso you knew that.
Going into this, and what weresome of the things you did
during this investigation tosort of prep your community,
(04:15):
prep your city leaders to atleast ask a few questions,
because in so many of thesecities they don't even ask
questions, they just agree withwhatever the DOJ says.
Darrell Kriplean (04:23):
Yeah, it's mind-boggling how people do that
, but you know.
So what we did was we compileda bunch of information that
showed the history of theseunsuccessful endeavors with the
Department of Justice, and wetook the hard facts and we went
to all of the city councilpeople.
We went to the community.
We brought Bob Scales down toeducate and host town halls, and
(04:45):
that effort led to our citycouncil going hold.
On a second, you want us toagree to something without even
looking at it first?
That's, that's mind boggling tothem.
So at least we had the majorityof folks to include our mayor
and to her credit, you know,being on the Democratic side,
she.
She pushed back and it didn'tmake sense to her.
So kudos to her side.
(05:06):
She pushed back and it didn'tmake sense to her, so kudos to
her.
But we were able to get thecouncil to hold fast.
And what I think the DOJmisunderstood, or at least
misinterpreted, was how our citygovernment was set up or a city
manager council set up.
In a lot of these previouscities, the city, the Department
of Justice, was able to go inand brawl beat one individual
that typically was the mayor andtypically a Democrat, and in
(05:30):
our case the mayor's one vote ofnine, so they had to get a
majority.
And you know I can't rememberthe fellow's name, but we were
at a NAPO conference a couple ofyears ago where he was talking
about consent decrees.
He was the number two underKristen Clark, and I stood up
and challenged him on what hewas saying and at a break he
came over and talked to me.
(05:50):
I go look, I've had a headstart on you.
You don't understand, You'remisunderstanding how Phoenix is
set up and we're not going tojust bend over and let you bring
this to our city without afight.
And he seemed genuinely shockedby that fact, Because they've
never had anybody push backagainst them before they were.
You know, they're the big.
They're the big machine thatgoes in and just steamrolls
(06:11):
people.
Well, that wasn't happening inPhoenix.
I had anything to say about it.
Travis Yates (06:15):
Well, it's pretty historic, darrell.
I don't write history books,but if I could I would write
this down and let people neverforget that.
You know, people need toremember, man, when we say
destroy cities, we say literallydestroy cities.
You will not vacation in anycity that has done this Seattle,
portland, detroit, chicago, Icould go on and on New Orleans.
You're scared to go to thosecities for a reason.
(06:37):
The Department of Justice hasbeen running those cities for
years, if not decades.
You knew this, you saw this.
It would have been easy just tolay down, but, man, you put
together a coalition of men andwomen very courageously, because
what I know you haven't said,and I'll just say it there were
internal people inside thepolice department, there were
internal city council membersthat wanted this, and we see
(06:57):
this all over the place, right?
That's why I think the DOJtypically picks cities with
Democratic-run councils orDemocrats as mayors, because
it's very political.
I mean, I can't think of oneRepublican-run city that's
agreed to this, because theyjust.
No one would agree to thiswithout seeing evidence, right?
So at least that work.
You've got to give them somecredit, though, because at least
(07:18):
they asked DLJ this twice overthe course of a year.
This is because of all the workyou and your men and women did
twice over the course of a year.
This is because of all the workyou and your men and women did.
Okay, because what DOJ does justso our audience knows, is
they'll do the investigation.
Then they'll come to the cityleaders, which, in your place,
with the city council, and say,hey, what we found was bad, we
can help correct this.
We can support you in this Signhere, sign for this consent
(07:38):
decree, and pretty much everycity for 30 years did it.
But what your leaders did,daryl, is they did something not
even controversial or reallycourageous.
They just said, okay, we'd loveto take a look at it.
Can you show us the evidence?
Show us the report?
And the DOJ refused twice.
That tells you everything youneed to know, does it not?
Darrell Kriplean (07:56):
Right.
They were trying to make aresponsible decision, knowing
full well that this was going toleave a huge or be you know
kudos to them.
And I tell you there were someinternal folks that were working
in our continuous improvementunit that really put their
careers on the line to get methe information that I needed to
(08:19):
be able to educate thesecouncil members and this
community, because without thatthis would have been dead in the
water.
We would have already beenprobably 12 months into a
consent decree.
Travis Yates (08:30):
Well, there's a lot of work to be done, but I
think today you should take avictory lap, and I'll be able to
tell the full story soon.
But let me tell you something.
When we talk about courageousleadership, there was a handful
of people not of high ranking atall, some detectives and
officers and some below levelpeople that literally put their
career on the line to do theright thing, as you said,
(08:50):
darrell.
And now, as a nation, thesehave been eliminated for now,
and, of course, you're workingtowards eliminating them for
good.
And I'm telling you right now,you can tie every bit of that
back to the work of a handful ofpeople.
When I talk about the power ofone of my classes, this is what
I'm talking about.
A small group of men and womenin the Phoenix Police Department
is the reason today, consentdecrees have been eliminated
(09:14):
across this country, and thereason why there is legislation
and a push to give analternative form of that, which
we'll get to in a minute.
People want to jump up and takecredit for that, but guess what
?
I've never seen a police chief,a sheriff, a police
organization state anything thatwe've said up until now.
Oh, they're all on thebandwagon now, darrelll, you get
everybody online now takingcredit for this or that
(09:34):
politicians, but none of themwere saying any of this over the
course of this investigation orbefore.
In fact, many people listeningto this are members of IACP or
the FOP or PERF or whatever else.
Where have they stood on thisissue?
You've never heard a word.
And so it took just a handfulof people in your agency,
(09:55):
darrell, to bring a halt to this, and I'm telling you right now.
That's a story that is worthtelling and we will be able to
give specific details when thetime comes, but you're at the
center of this and that's wherewe stand today.
And so you educated your leadersand they just simply asked the
DOJ to show them the evidence,and, of course, the dlj said no.
Then the pressure came.
(10:16):
They released the summaryreport 132 incidents and if all
you read was a summary report,you would have thought that the
phoenix police department istraining white supremacists
around the country to take oversmall pockets of groups of
people, and it literally.
When you read the report fromDLJ, it is so insane what they
(10:39):
wrote about your agency and howthey wrote it, because, folks,
they didn't give details.
By the way, this is a publicdocument.
The head of the civil rightsdivision read this document live
across the world and I can'tput my mind in her mind, but I
think they were.
My opinion is is they wereprobably irritated that they got
pushback from you.
Darrell Kriplean (11:00):
Oh they were absolutely irritated they
decided they wrote that findingsreport.
They probably I would surmisethat they rewrote it after they
had so much pushback to make iteven more salacious against
these council members who werepushing back.
Travis Yates (11:13):
They were trying to ruin them in the political
realm, and so this report wasobviously one of the most
damning things you could everread.
The media took it and used itand just kept battering you guys
and battering you guys and, ofcourse, the hope is that your
city would just give in, likethat would make it stop Right.
And when you read the report,when I read the report,
(11:34):
obviously something smelled.
Daryl.
What smelled to you when youread what the DOJ wrote?
Darrell Kriplean (11:39):
Well, I was immediately offended by it
because I've been a member ofthis department for 30 plus
years, you know none of it rangtrue.
There was no way any of that.
What was in that report waseven close to being accurate and
it just needed to be vetted outand shown.
But they were all about theshow, right?
They didn't expect someone togo and fact check you know the
(12:02):
DOJ?
Travis Yates (12:03):
Well, yeah, I mean because, Daryl, put yourself in
their shoes.
They've done this.
They've put 41 departmentsunder consent decrees in 30
years.
They've never had anyonequestion this little summary
report they put out to make thedepartment look bad.
But your department, I know,with a lot of support from you
and your team, your departmentdid something pretty amazing.
Kind of talk about that.
Darrell Kriplean (12:23):
Well, so what they did was and it's still I'm
still shocked to this day thatthey had the intestinal
fortitude to do it.
But they took each of theincidents within the findings
report and without any help fromthe DOJ, because God forbid
they would want anybody toactually fact check them.
They were able to pull all ofthe incident reports, the
internal affairs reports, thebody cam footage, you know
(12:47):
anything attached to whateverincident that was listed in that
report, and we put it onlinefor the world to see and that
way our community and anybodywho questioned that DOJ report
could go and get the facts rightthere in plain sight, yeah, and
the way the DOJ wrote thereport.
Travis Yates (13:05):
They never dreamed that anyone would get to see
behind the curtain of what theylooked at.
And, by the way, I want to givecredit to you, when you read
the DOJ summary report, youdon't know the dates and times
and specifics about these cases.
If people aren't familiar withit and I'll put links here in
the show notes is that we'llbasically say something like the
Phoenix police responded to aperson with a behavior crisis
(13:28):
and they tased them and it wasunconstitutional.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Literally.
That's kind of how they wrotethis thing, Ten years.
Travis Yates (13:34):
Yeah, and it's over the course of six years.
You guys responded to fivemillion calls.
You made 300,000 arrestsapproximately.
Your team went out somehow andyou were able to identify these
cases.
You actually identified 120 ofthe 132 cases specifically, and
then you put up a public websitethat's still out there with
(13:54):
what the DOJ said on one sideand on the other side, the same
incident videos and all thereports.
And for the first time in 30years and I believe that's why
it fell today, daryl for thefirst time in 30 years, the
public and the politicians andpeople like me and you can now
see exactly what they did.
And that is really incredible.
(14:15):
And I took it upon myself whenthis came out because I knew
something wasn't right, not justin Phoenix, but elsewhere,
because if you're a criticalthinker, you know something's
not right when you read thesereports, because they've never
had to show them for evidence incourt.
And I spent a long time I won'tgo into the details, but I went
through every single incidentand I compared it to what the
(14:39):
DOJ said and, of course, it'sbeen some of the headlines up to
now.
I found 97% of the time the DOJdeceived, lied, a bunch of
other things to make you guyssound like something you weren't
97% of the time.
There were only four cases outof 120 that the DLJ's narrative
was accurate compared to thevideos and this isn't me, it's
(15:01):
not some opinion.
You can go right now to thesame website and you can see it
for yourself.
In fact, it doesn't even takesome expert to see it.
A college kid or a high schoolkid could read what the deal jay
said, which puts, whichingrains in your mind how bad
this is.
But then when you go watch thevideo you go.
Did I just read that?
Because I mean, there were somecases, daryl, where I thought I
(15:23):
was on the wrong case.
I'm like, wait, this is u02.
Am I watching u02?
This doesn't even look the sameto me and it's just horrific
what they did just, it's justblatant deception.
Darrell Kriplean (15:35):
Yeah, how that's even acceptable in this
day and age is beyond me.
Travis Yates (15:39):
Well, I think they and we're going to link up all
these reports.
I'm going to link up the actualresearch report that I did and
Dr Shea did.
I mean it's a long report but,man, if you want to know about
this, you should really digestthis Because, honestly, let's
just take what we know out of it.
Daryl, the DLJ is one of themost powerful entities in the
(15:59):
land.
If they can come into Phoenixand lie about you 97% of the
time, what could they do toanybody else?
What have they done toeverybody else?
What have they done to otheragencies?
I mean, there's agencies that'sbeen under their thumb for
decades.
What have they done there?
Because those agencies didn'tdo what you did.
It's really horrific, it'sreally scary, and I'm hoping
(16:19):
that this pretty much puts anend to it for good.
We know it's ended today, butthat's not good enough, is it,
Daryl?
Darrell Kriplean (16:25):
It is not.
So I mean, anytime the WhiteHouse changes, we could be back
in this same boat.
So you know, we're working onsome legislation where we would
refocus the DOJ from localpolice departments and put this
in an arena where you know youhave local folks from the state
that, would you know,investigate our police
(16:47):
departments.
If there's an issue, statefolks would investigate them.
I mean, I think even if you'vegot a state that's rogue and
super far left, I think youwould still get a better shake.
I think, even if you've got astate that's rogue and super far
left, I think you would stillget a better shake, a fairer
shake, than you would with anyDOJ.
Travis Yates (17:00):
Well, the DOJ and the federal government's lost
all rights to investigate locallaw enforcement.
You can't make that argument,darrell.
If your officers lied 10% ofthe time and put somebody in
jail, they'd be prosecuted.
You don't get to lie in asupposed investigative report
97% of the time and get a redo,get a reshape and a revamp, so
that's over with.
The other issue is the 10thAmendment prohibits them from
(17:22):
doing this.
So there's no sense that thefederal government should be
involved in local lawenforcement.
Thirdly, if we care aboutpolice accountability, daryl and
you and I do, we all do and youcare about making sure people's
rights are not violated, whywould you want the DOJ in
Washington DC thinking they knowwhat any local agency around
the country is doing?
Because in 30 years they havedone this to 41 police
(17:44):
departments in 30 years.
Now, okay, you could say that'spolice accountability, but
that's not really policeaccountability.
What would be policeaccountability would be is you
take that same authority, yougive it to each state attorney
general, right, and they look atthe departments in their state.
That's more localized and youhave more departments are going
to be subject to that, and so,because the truth is the DOJ
(18:07):
involved, they're never comingto you know Republican
administration in Indiana orColorado, or they pick and
choose for a reason.
We don't know why they pickedPhoenix.
It was probably just a big cityrun by Democrats and they
thought let's get it right.
They did the same thing inDetroit and New Orleans and
Seattle and Portland and Chicago, so those are easy pickings for
(18:28):
them.
There's no rhyme or reasonbecause there's 18,000 police
departments in this country.
But if you empower the states todo the same thing, to just be a
monitor and look out for localagencies and, by the way, they
ought to be doing that anyway,right, the state attorney
generals and the state should bedoing that anyway.
But the federal government cantake those resources, those 33
attorneys and all the moneythat's spent there.
(18:49):
They can send those funding tothe states and let each state
run the local law enforcementthat's constitutional.
We're in a day and age nowwhere everybody talks about
threat to democracy.
Well, guess what?
The federal government runninga local entity is actually a
threat to democracy, and so putit back at the state level.
Darrell, give us some morespecifics, because you actually
not only do you have a plan,you've met with legislators,
(19:12):
you've developed a bill.
This is ready to go.
Let's talk about some of thosedetails.
Darrell Kriplean (19:17):
Well, so it would basically divest the DOJ
from local law enforcement rightand refocus them on federal law
enforcement agencies thatcurrently don't have any
oversight, if you can believethat, and empowering the state,
the top law enforcement officerof the state, the attorney
general, to oversee a newdivision of each state's post.
(19:38):
For so there's peace officerstandards and training for in
each state, and you add anentity to that where they're
part of police oversight, policeoversight standards and
training, and you make it sothat if there is a complaint
right, that it would go to thatboard to investigate, rather
than the department of justice.
Now, the department of justicewould always retain the right to
(20:00):
you know if they believe thatan individual had violated
someone's constitutional rights,they could, you know, proceed
and prosecute that individualcriminally.
But for these civil, for thesecivil investigations of police
departments, the peace officersor the police oversight
standards and training divisionwould oversee those and
(20:21):
investigate those and determinethen whether there's, you know,
cause for an injunction or somesort of consent decree at the
state level right.
But in addition to that, youknow, we want to standardize
training, we want to standardizepolicy because, as it is now,
obviously each department hastheir own use of force policy.
They have their own policy onhow they drive.
Why not standardize all of thatso that way you can go as an
(20:46):
officer?
You can go to any city in thatstate and you know what the
rules of engagement are.
You know what you have to abideby, right, because it's not
independent to each city.
I think that's a better way tooversee police and I believe you
get a better product and moreoversight with that model versus
(21:09):
the model that we have now.
Travis Yates (21:10):
Well, the reason it's better.
First of all, let me back up alittle bit.
Okay, we talked about thefaulty investigations.
Let's talk about the reforms.
None of the reforms that ELJhas ever implemented has made
things better.
They've made things worse.
They've made crime worse.
They've made budgets worse.
They've made staffing worse and, more importantly, the very
metrics that they said they weregoing to fix usually get worse.
(21:30):
Albuquerque is a prime example.
They came to Albuquerque 10years ago that's right down the
road from you, daryl.
Of course, nobody's going toAlbuquerque right now because
their crime's out of control.
They've had about a 65%increase in violent crime since
the DOJ came.
But let's just look at themetrics.
The DOJ came to Albuquerquebecause in the previous three
years they had had 20 deadlyforce shootings, and just
because of that the DOJ has gotto come to town.
(21:52):
Now, obviously, all of thoseshootings were justified, but it
doesn't matter.
That's too many according tothis DOJ pattern and practice
rhetoric.
So after 10 years they justcleared Albuquerque because of a
presidential administration.
They said you're 99% compliant,you're really good now.
This is a great success.
Guess how many students theyhad in the last three years.
(22:13):
It wasn't 20, it was 30, but itwas a success and so of course
we know it's 30, because violentcrime dramatically increased
during the dlj's tenure.
So even the reforms they claimthey're there to fix, they don't
fix, and so anyone that'sfamiliar with dlj and federal
government and especially lawenforcement, they understand
that.
But the general citizens thisis like you said, this is
(22:35):
theater, this is art.
They make this sound sohorrendous and that we're here
to save the day and kind of likethe words of Ronald Reagan,
right, the two most dangerouswords, whatever to you, for
we're from the government, we'rehere to help, right.
So yeah, but I love your stateplan, daryl, and your group's
plan, because the states alreadydo that.
We have standardized trainingnow in each state, right.
(23:04):
So why not take that to thenext step and give standardized
policies and procedures?
And then every department knowswhat the rules are.
That's one of the things withDOJ pattern and practice
investigations.
They don't tell you what thatmeans, meaning they can pick any
department they want and goafter them, which is they would
say.
Here's what this means.
You know, I'm making this up.
If 30% of your shootings areoutside of policy, then that's
going to trigger us to comeinvestigate.
(23:25):
They don't say any of that.
They just they just leave itvague and then just show up to
wherever they want to show up,and so these states really have
an opportunity.
Darrell, what's your chance ofthis?
Because this makes total sense.
I think we can all agree itcan't stay at the federal
government and I think we canall agree that we still want an
accountability arm for local lawenforcement.
But obviously this is politicsright, and you've got different
(23:47):
people and players and power andmoney.
There's a lot of money thatgoes around with these DLJ
things.
Federal consent decree monitorsmake on average a million
dollars a year and most citiesare spending over $10 million a
year that are trying to complythis kind of removes that.
So there's going to be a lot ofpeople upset by this because
they're not really in it foraccountability or law
enforcement.
They're in it for the Benjamins, so to speak.
(24:07):
But you're talking to a lot ofpeople.
You were in DC last week.
Tell us about navigating thisand what do you think the odds
are.
Darrell Kriplean (24:21):
Well, I'm optimistic by nature.
So I think that you know, withthe conversations that we've had
so far on the federal level, Ithink there's some interest.
And I think it's from bothsides of the aisle, you know,
because with the Democrats theywant to make sure that you have
oversight and this increasesthat oversight piece.
But the Republicans they wantbig government out of you know
local issues, right.
So, and I just you know, we'vetalked, I've talked to some
(24:43):
local state legislators.
They were meeting next weekwith them.
I think at the same time we'redoing this on the federal level,
speak with them.
I think, at the same time we'redoing this on the federal level
, I think we're going to startpushing on the local level, the
state level here in Arizona, sothat we're running this
simultaneously.
There's already states outthere that have proven concept
that Colorado, california.
They already have theseprograms set up.
There's no reason why Arizonacan't follow suit and start
(25:07):
doing this on a statewide levelwhile we're working on the feds.
Travis Yates (25:12):
Well, and the 10th Amendment is so strong.
We all know that Statelegislators can actually pass a
law that prohibits the DLJgetting involved in local law
enforcement, and it falls rightthere at the state level.
So I think that's a great planthat you're going to hit this
from a federal government level.
You'd love this legislation tocome out of that, because these
consent decrees come fromlegislation DLJ.
(25:36):
This comes from the 94 crimebill.
That needs to be eliminated,right, but then at the same time
, you present this to all thestates to try to do the same
thing, and so we need a lot ofmen and women that have been
silent on the sidelines to startspeaking up.
I've been amazed how silentpeople have been about this,
even when I post this.
Nobody wants to talk about this.
I don't know what people arescared of, but truth matters and
, daryl, I just want to.
I want to tell you I'm just soimpressed by what you did there.
I mean, whether people know itor not, we're in a historic time
(25:58):
period in law enforcement.
We may be able to look back atthis time period and know how
much infinitely better theprofession is and the men and
women are because of the actionsof you and a small group of men
and women around you.
What made Phoenix so differentand a small group of men and
women around you?
What made Phoenix so different?
Why was it Phoenix, arizona?
Because, by the way, peopledon't know this, you guys, while
this was going on, otheragencies were encouraged by you.
(26:20):
Memphis held off, louisvillestarted questioning right, and
there's probably even more Idon't know about.
So a lot of people saw what youwere doing and we like to
follow the leader.
You were the leader and a lotof encourage saw what you were
doing and we'd like to followthe leader.
You were the leader and a lotof encourage is contagious and
they sort of followed your leadand started making and started
questioning themselves.
What made your agency and yourpeople and your association
(26:42):
different than everybody else?
Darrell Kriplean (26:44):
Well, I don't know that we're different from
anybody else.
I think I just got to a pointwhere I just wouldn't accept the
fact that this came out likethat.
The way that findings reportcame out, it was so scandalous.
It made us seem like we werethe worst police department,
like you said, like we weretraining, you know, white
supremacists to go out and Ihave a lot of pride in this
department and I know that thatwasn't our department and I
(27:08):
think they attacked the wrongcity, the wrong department, with
the right people in place.
We were able to show anddemonstrate to all these other
groups that you know you weren'tgoing to lose your birth date.
You weren't going to.
You know nobody was going toshow up in a white van and
kidnap you and you know, youknow, take you to Guantanamo Bay
.
You can stand up to the DOJ andyou know, unless they've got
(27:32):
proof which they never do,they're not taking you to court.
You just need to be resilientand weather the storm while it's
going on, but it's a heck of astorm, I'll tell you.
Travis Yates (27:44):
Well, it's an incredible story and I want to
encourage everybody listening tothis.
First off, you can read theentire report at savephxorg.
Then, if you want to read someof the messaging and the media
stuff that was being pushed toyour counselors, you can go to
savephxcom.
But in the show notes we'regoing to put a bunch of links up
.
I think when you read what theydid here, you will be outraged
(28:07):
as well.
Daryl and I are not justshowing off here.
It is one of the mostscandalous, outrageous things
I've ever seen.
It was done by one of the mostpowerful entities in this land
and they got away with it for avery long time.
They've ruined a lot of lives.
Roland fryer, harvard professor,did a peer-reviewed research.
He documented how there havebeen more murders because of
(28:28):
what these things have done andof course, of course anecdotally
.
You know that if you've beenpaying attention to the cities
I've mentioned and, darrell man,the city of Phoenix and your
officers, they owe you a debt.
I know that you're a humble guyand you're not by any means,
you know, making a bow oranything, but I want to make
sure people always remember thistime in our history.
(28:50):
It started in Phoenix, arizona.
I can't thank you enough forbeing here.
Thank you so much.
Darrell Kriplean (28:55):
I appreciate everything you've done to help
us with this Travis.
Your guidance and everybodyaround you has been instrumental
in this win.
I can't thank you enough.
I appreciate you.
Travis Yates (29:08):
Thank you, Darrell .
Thank you so much If you'vebeen watching and you've been
listening.
Thank you, Take this oneserious.
Read what is here.
Spread the message.
Thanks for coming back andvisiting us.
We'll be back soon.
And just remember, lead on andstay courageous.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Thank you for listening to Courageous
Leadership with Travis Yates.
We invite you to join othercourageous leaders at
TravisYatesorg.
Welcome back to the show I'm.
There's a long, protractedfight that was before that.
(00:27):
That was not just some decisionthat was made because a
presidential administration camein and I have the man on the
show today.
That was the muscle, so tospeak, behind so much of that.
There's been a lot of great menand women, courageous leaders,
involved in this fight.
I had the honor of beinginvited to this fight about 18
months ago and we're going tohave a discussion on how we got
(00:49):
here today, and so thank you forjoining us.
You got to tune in on this one,you got to pay attention, you
got to send it to others.
Spread this message.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates,
where leaders find the insights,advice and encouragement they
need to lead courageously.
Travis Yates (01:10):
Daryl Kriplen with the Phoenix Law Enforcement
Officers Association.
How are you doing, man?
Darrell Kriplean (01:16):
That's a good day.
I've had a lot worse days.
I'll tell you that.
Travis Yates (01:19):
Well, you're in the middle of the fight there in
Phoenix and I'm not going totake the time to give people the
background on consent decrees.
If they've been listening tothis show at all, they know what
that is and I would encouragethem.
If you don't know, go back afew episodes, listen to me
discuss this.
I've discussed this in Phoenixbefore.
I've had Bob Scales on before.
We've written tons of articleson this, so we don't want to
(01:39):
waste time on the background ofconsent decrees other than the
fact that they have destroyedcities for the last three
decades.
And they came to your city,daryl, you're the union
representative there.
They came to your city yearsago and they began an
investigation and I'm just goingto kind of give before to you
from those early days and leadus all the way up and and
(02:00):
because I want to really get inthe details of how you were able
to fight this and how thislooks like it turned into a
nationwide fight that is, forthe moment, looks like a
resounding victory.
So tell us about when the DLJvisited Phoenix.
Darrell Kriplean (02:15):
You know, when they first came to town, travis
, you know they harped on thefact that they were going to be
collaborative with the labororganization.
They were going to becollaborative with the
department and work through allof this.
And I can tell you that throughthis almost three, a little
over three year investigation,they were nothing but not
collaborative.
(02:35):
I mean, it was an absoluteatrocity they were doing.
You know, the department wasproviding tens of thousands of
documents, tens of thousands ofhours of body cam footage.
If they felt that they cameacross something, or at least in
my opinion, if they came acrosssomething that was so horrible
that we were doing something sowrong or unconstitutional,
(02:56):
wouldn't you want to bring thatto the attention of the leaders
so that that could be addressedimmediately?
But none of that ever happened,none of it.
And it was just.
And they, they cut the unionout, they cut they cut everybody
out.
Travis Yates (03:09):
And meanwhile your city spent over 10 million
dollars helping them investigatethe phoenix police fire, which
is a whole nother stock, thosestocksville syndrome.
Darrell Kriplean (03:17):
But I can't even describe right on why a
city would do that yeah, they'vebeen over backwards to appease
these folks in the hopes I think, probably because they thought
that if they were cooperative,that they would go lenient on
them and treat them differentlythan every other department that
they've investigated.
Travis Yates (03:33):
Well, yeah, and, darrell, when you came to this,
I know, when we first talkedalmost two years ago now, you
had a really good beat on thehistory of this.
I mean you were calling meabout the history, but you
really knew the history.
And the history is what yousaid.
They're not collaborative,they're not very factual,
they're not very truthful, theydon't really show evidence.
They just sort of twist the armof the agency to get them to
(03:54):
comply.
Now, the reason they have to dothat is hopefully everybody
knows, there's this little thingcalled the 10th Amendment,
where the federal governmentcannot control a local entity
but unless they get the localentity to just agree, so for 30
years that's what happened andso you knew that.
Going into this, and what weresome of the things you did
during this investigation tosort of prep your community,
(04:15):
prep your city leaders to atleast ask a few questions,
because in so many of thesecities they don't even ask
questions, they just agree withwhatever the DOJ says.
Darrell Kriplean (04:23):
Yeah, it's mind-boggling how people do that
, but you know.
So what we did was we compileda bunch of information that
showed the history of theseunsuccessful endeavors with the
Department of Justice, and wetook the hard facts and we went
to all of the city councilpeople.
We went to the community.
We brought Bob Scales down toeducate and host town halls, and
(04:45):
that effort led to our citycouncil going hold.
On a second, you want us toagree to something without even
looking at it first?
That's, that's mind boggling tothem.
So at least we had the majorityof folks to include our mayor
and to her credit, you know,being on the Democratic side,
she.
She pushed back and it didn'tmake sense to her.
So kudos to her side.
(05:06):
She pushed back and it didn'tmake sense to her, so kudos to
her.
But we were able to get thecouncil to hold fast.
And what I think the DOJmisunderstood, or at least
misinterpreted, was how our citygovernment was set up or a city
manager council set up.
In a lot of these previouscities, the city, the Department
of Justice, was able to go inand brawl beat one individual
that typically was the mayor andtypically a Democrat, and in
(05:30):
our case the mayor's one vote ofnine, so they had to get a
majority.
And you know I can't rememberthe fellow's name, but we were
at a NAPO conference a couple ofyears ago where he was talking
about consent decrees.
He was the number two underKristen Clark, and I stood up
and challenged him on what hewas saying and at a break he
came over and talked to me.
(05:50):
I go look, I've had a headstart on you.
You don't understand, You'remisunderstanding how Phoenix is
set up and we're not going tojust bend over and let you bring
this to our city without afight.
And he seemed genuinely shockedby that fact, Because they've
never had anybody push backagainst them before they were.
You know, they're the big.
They're the big machine thatgoes in and just steamrolls
(06:11):
people.
Well, that wasn't happening inPhoenix.
I had anything to say about it.
Travis Yates (06:15):
Well, it's pretty historic, darrell.
I don't write history books,but if I could I would write
this down and let people neverforget that.
You know, people need toremember, man, when we say
destroy cities, we say literallydestroy cities.
You will not vacation in anycity that has done this Seattle,
portland, detroit, chicago, Icould go on and on New Orleans.
You're scared to go to thosecities for a reason.
(06:37):
The Department of Justice hasbeen running those cities for
years, if not decades.
You knew this, you saw this.
It would have been easy just tolay down, but, man, you put
together a coalition of men andwomen very courageously, because
what I know you haven't said,and I'll just say it there were
internal people inside thepolice department, there were
internal city council membersthat wanted this, and we see
(06:57):
this all over the place, right?
That's why I think the DOJtypically picks cities with
Democratic-run councils orDemocrats as mayors, because
it's very political.
I mean, I can't think of oneRepublican-run city that's
agreed to this, because theyjust.
No one would agree to thiswithout seeing evidence, right?
So at least that work.
You've got to give them somecredit, though, because at least
(07:18):
they asked DLJ this twice overthe course of a year.
This is because of all the workyou and your men and women did
twice over the course of a year.
This is because of all the workyou and your men and women did.
Okay, because what DOJ does justso our audience knows, is
they'll do the investigation.
Then they'll come to the cityleaders, which, in your place,
with the city council, and say,hey, what we found was bad, we
can help correct this.
We can support you in this Signhere, sign for this consent
(07:38):
decree, and pretty much everycity for 30 years did it.
But what your leaders did,daryl, is they did something not
even controversial or reallycourageous.
They just said, okay, we'd loveto take a look at it.
Can you show us the evidence?
Show us the report?
And the DOJ refused twice.
That tells you everything youneed to know, does it not?
Darrell Kriplean (07:56):
Right.
They were trying to make aresponsible decision, knowing
full well that this was going toleave a huge or be you know
kudos to them.
And I tell you there were someinternal folks that were working
in our continuous improvementunit that really put their
careers on the line to get methe information that I needed to
(08:19):
be able to educate thesecouncil members and this
community, because without thatthis would have been dead in the
water.
We would have already beenprobably 12 months into a
consent decree.
Travis Yates (08:30):
Well, there's a lot of work to be done, but I
think today you should take avictory lap, and I'll be able to
tell the full story soon.
But let me tell you something.
When we talk about courageousleadership, there was a handful
of people not of high ranking atall, some detectives and
officers and some below levelpeople that literally put their
career on the line to do theright thing, as you said,
(08:50):
darrell.
And now, as a nation, thesehave been eliminated for now,
and, of course, you're workingtowards eliminating them for
good.
And I'm telling you right now,you can tie every bit of that
back to the work of a handful ofpeople.
When I talk about the power ofone of my classes, this is what
I'm talking about.
A small group of men and womenin the Phoenix Police Department
is the reason today, consentdecrees have been eliminated
(09:14):
across this country, and thereason why there is legislation
and a push to give analternative form of that, which
we'll get to in a minute.
People want to jump up and takecredit for that, but guess what
?
I've never seen a police chief,a sheriff, a police
organization state anything thatwe've said up until now.
Oh, they're all on thebandwagon now, darrelll, you get
everybody online now takingcredit for this or that
(09:34):
politicians, but none of themwere saying any of this over the
course of this investigation orbefore.
In fact, many people listeningto this are members of IACP or
the FOP or PERF or whatever else.
Where have they stood on thisissue?
You've never heard a word.
And so it took just a handfulof people in your agency,
(09:55):
darrell, to bring a halt to this, and I'm telling you right now.
That's a story that is worthtelling and we will be able to
give specific details when thetime comes, but you're at the
center of this and that's wherewe stand today.
And so you educated your leadersand they just simply asked the
DOJ to show them the evidence,and, of course, the dlj said no.
Then the pressure came.
(10:16):
They released the summaryreport 132 incidents and if all
you read was a summary report,you would have thought that the
phoenix police department istraining white supremacists
around the country to take oversmall pockets of groups of
people, and it literally.
When you read the report fromDLJ, it is so insane what they
(10:39):
wrote about your agency and howthey wrote it, because, folks,
they didn't give details.
By the way, this is a publicdocument.
The head of the civil rightsdivision read this document live
across the world and I can'tput my mind in her mind, but I
think they were.
My opinion is is they wereprobably irritated that they got
pushback from you.
Darrell Kriplean (11:00):
Oh they were absolutely irritated they
decided they wrote that findingsreport.
They probably I would surmisethat they rewrote it after they
had so much pushback to make iteven more salacious against
these council members who werepushing back.
Travis Yates (11:13):
They were trying to ruin them in the political
realm, and so this report wasobviously one of the most
damning things you could everread.
The media took it and used itand just kept battering you guys
and battering you guys and, ofcourse, the hope is that your
city would just give in, likethat would make it stop Right.
And when you read the report,when I read the report,
(11:34):
obviously something smelled.
Daryl.
What smelled to you when youread what the DOJ wrote?
Darrell Kriplean (11:39):
Well, I was immediately offended by it
because I've been a member ofthis department for 30 plus
years, you know none of it rangtrue.
There was no way any of that.
What was in that report waseven close to being accurate and
it just needed to be vetted outand shown.
But they were all about theshow, right?
They didn't expect someone togo and fact check you know the
(12:02):
DOJ?
Travis Yates (12:03):
Well, yeah, I mean because, Daryl, put yourself in
their shoes.
They've done this.
They've put 41 departmentsunder consent decrees in 30
years.
They've never had anyonequestion this little summary
report they put out to make thedepartment look bad.
But your department, I know,with a lot of support from you
and your team, your departmentdid something pretty amazing.
Kind of talk about that.
Darrell Kriplean (12:23):
Well, so what they did was and it's still I'm
still shocked to this day thatthey had the intestinal
fortitude to do it.
But they took each of theincidents within the findings
report and without any help fromthe DOJ, because God forbid
they would want anybody toactually fact check them.
They were able to pull all ofthe incident reports, the
internal affairs reports, thebody cam footage, you know
(12:47):
anything attached to whateverincident that was listed in that
report, and we put it onlinefor the world to see and that
way our community and anybodywho questioned that DOJ report
could go and get the facts rightthere in plain sight, yeah, and
the way the DOJ wrote thereport.
Travis Yates (13:05):
They never dreamed that anyone would get to see
behind the curtain of what theylooked at.
And, by the way, I want to givecredit to you, when you read
the DOJ summary report, youdon't know the dates and times
and specifics about these cases.
If people aren't familiar withit and I'll put links here in
the show notes is that we'llbasically say something like the
Phoenix police responded to aperson with a behavior crisis
(13:28):
and they tased them and it wasunconstitutional.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Literally.
That's kind of how they wrotethis thing, Ten years.
Travis Yates (13:34):
Yeah, and it's over the course of six years.
You guys responded to fivemillion calls.
You made 300,000 arrestsapproximately.
Your team went out somehow andyou were able to identify these
cases.
You actually identified 120 ofthe 132 cases specifically, and
then you put up a public websitethat's still out there with
(13:54):
what the DOJ said on one sideand on the other side, the same
incident videos and all thereports.
And for the first time in 30years and I believe that's why
it fell today, daryl for thefirst time in 30 years, the
public and the politicians andpeople like me and you can now
see exactly what they did.
And that is really incredible.
(14:15):
And I took it upon myself whenthis came out because I knew
something wasn't right, not justin Phoenix, but elsewhere,
because if you're a criticalthinker, you know something's
not right when you read thesereports, because they've never
had to show them for evidence incourt.
And I spent a long time I won'tgo into the details, but I went
through every single incidentand I compared it to what the
(14:39):
DOJ said and, of course, it'sbeen some of the headlines up to
now.
I found 97% of the time the DOJdeceived, lied, a bunch of
other things to make you guyssound like something you weren't
97% of the time.
There were only four cases outof 120 that the DLJ's narrative
was accurate compared to thevideos and this isn't me, it's
(15:01):
not some opinion.
You can go right now to thesame website and you can see it
for yourself.
In fact, it doesn't even takesome expert to see it.
A college kid or a high schoolkid could read what the deal jay
said, which puts, whichingrains in your mind how bad
this is.
But then when you go watch thevideo you go.
Did I just read that?
Because I mean, there were somecases, daryl, where I thought I
(15:23):
was on the wrong case.
I'm like, wait, this is u02.
Am I watching u02?
This doesn't even look the sameto me and it's just horrific
what they did just, it's justblatant deception.
Darrell Kriplean (15:35):
Yeah, how that's even acceptable in this
day and age is beyond me.
Travis Yates (15:39):
Well, I think they and we're going to link up all
these reports.
I'm going to link up the actualresearch report that I did and
Dr Shea did.
I mean it's a long report but,man, if you want to know about
this, you should really digestthis Because, honestly, let's
just take what we know out of it.
Daryl, the DLJ is one of themost powerful entities in the
(15:59):
land.
If they can come into Phoenixand lie about you 97% of the
time, what could they do toanybody else?
What have they done toeverybody else?
What have they done to otheragencies?
I mean, there's agencies that'sbeen under their thumb for
decades.
What have they done there?
Because those agencies didn'tdo what you did.
It's really horrific, it'sreally scary, and I'm hoping
(16:19):
that this pretty much puts anend to it for good.
We know it's ended today, butthat's not good enough, is it,
Daryl?
Darrell Kriplean (16:25):
It is not.
So I mean, anytime the WhiteHouse changes, we could be back
in this same boat.
So you know, we're working onsome legislation where we would
refocus the DOJ from localpolice departments and put this
in an arena where you know youhave local folks from the state
that, would you know,investigate our police
(16:47):
departments.
If there's an issue, statefolks would investigate them.
I mean, I think even if you'vegot a state that's rogue and
super far left, I think youwould still get a better shake.
I think, even if you've got astate that's rogue and super far
left, I think you would stillget a better shake, a fairer
shake, than you would with anyDOJ.
Travis Yates (17:00):
Well, the DOJ and the federal government's lost
all rights to investigate locallaw enforcement.
You can't make that argument,darrell.
If your officers lied 10% ofthe time and put somebody in
jail, they'd be prosecuted.
You don't get to lie in asupposed investigative report
97% of the time and get a redo,get a reshape and a revamp, so
that's over with.
The other issue is the 10thAmendment prohibits them from
(17:22):
doing this.
So there's no sense that thefederal government should be
involved in local lawenforcement.
Thirdly, if we care aboutpolice accountability, daryl and
you and I do, we all do and youcare about making sure people's
rights are not violated, whywould you want the DOJ in
Washington DC thinking they knowwhat any local agency around
the country is doing?
Because in 30 years they havedone this to 41 police
(17:44):
departments in 30 years.
Now, okay, you could say that'spolice accountability, but
that's not really policeaccountability.
What would be policeaccountability would be is you
take that same authority, yougive it to each state attorney
general, right, and they look atthe departments in their state.
That's more localized and youhave more departments are going
to be subject to that, and so,because the truth is the DOJ
(18:07):
involved, they're never comingto you know Republican
administration in Indiana orColorado, or they pick and
choose for a reason.
We don't know why they pickedPhoenix.
It was probably just a big cityrun by Democrats and they
thought let's get it right.
They did the same thing inDetroit and New Orleans and
Seattle and Portland and Chicago, so those are easy pickings for
(18:28):
them.
There's no rhyme or reasonbecause there's 18,000 police
departments in this country.
But if you empower the states todo the same thing, to just be a
monitor and look out for localagencies and, by the way, they
ought to be doing that anyway,right, the state attorney
generals and the state should bedoing that anyway.
But the federal government cantake those resources, those 33
attorneys and all the moneythat's spent there.
(18:49):
They can send those funding tothe states and let each state
run the local law enforcementthat's constitutional.
We're in a day and age nowwhere everybody talks about
threat to democracy.
Well, guess what?
The federal government runninga local entity is actually a
threat to democracy, and so putit back at the state level.
Darrell, give us some morespecifics, because you actually
not only do you have a plan,you've met with legislators,
(19:12):
you've developed a bill.
This is ready to go.
Let's talk about some of thosedetails.
Darrell Kriplean (19:17):
Well, so it would basically divest the DOJ
from local law enforcement rightand refocus them on federal law
enforcement agencies thatcurrently don't have any
oversight, if you can believethat, and empowering the state,
the top law enforcement officerof the state, the attorney
general, to oversee a newdivision of each state's post.
(19:38):
For so there's peace officerstandards and training for in
each state, and you add anentity to that where they're
part of police oversight, policeoversight standards and
training, and you make it sothat if there is a complaint
right, that it would go to thatboard to investigate, rather
than the department of justice.
Now, the department of justicewould always retain the right to
(20:00):
you know if they believe thatan individual had violated
someone's constitutional rights,they could, you know, proceed
and prosecute that individualcriminally.
But for these civil, for thesecivil investigations of police
departments, the peace officersor the police oversight
standards and training divisionwould oversee those and
(20:21):
investigate those and determinethen whether there's, you know,
cause for an injunction or somesort of consent decree at the
state level right.
But in addition to that, youknow, we want to standardize
training, we want to standardizepolicy because, as it is now,
obviously each department hastheir own use of force policy.
They have their own policy onhow they drive.
Why not standardize all of thatso that way you can go as an
(20:46):
officer?
You can go to any city in thatstate and you know what the
rules of engagement are.
You know what you have to abideby, right, because it's not
independent to each city.
I think that's a better way tooversee police and I believe you
get a better product and moreoversight with that model versus
(21:09):
the model that we have now.
Travis Yates (21:10):
Well, the reason it's better.
First of all, let me back up alittle bit.
Okay, we talked about thefaulty investigations.
Let's talk about the reforms.
None of the reforms that ELJhas ever implemented has made
things better.
They've made things worse.
They've made crime worse.
They've made budgets worse.
They've made staffing worse and, more importantly, the very
metrics that they said they weregoing to fix usually get worse.
(21:30):
Albuquerque is a prime example.
They came to Albuquerque 10years ago that's right down the
road from you, daryl.
Of course, nobody's going toAlbuquerque right now because
their crime's out of control.
They've had about a 65%increase in violent crime since
the DOJ came.
But let's just look at themetrics.
The DOJ came to Albuquerquebecause in the previous three
years they had had 20 deadlyforce shootings, and just
because of that the DOJ has gotto come to town.
(21:52):
Now, obviously, all of thoseshootings were justified, but it
doesn't matter.
That's too many according tothis DOJ pattern and practice
rhetoric.
So after 10 years they justcleared Albuquerque because of a
presidential administration.
They said you're 99% compliant,you're really good now.
This is a great success.
Guess how many students theyhad in the last three years.
(22:13):
It wasn't 20, it was 30, but itwas a success and so of course
we know it's 30, because violentcrime dramatically increased
during the dlj's tenure.
So even the reforms they claimthey're there to fix, they don't
fix, and so anyone that'sfamiliar with dlj and federal
government and especially lawenforcement, they understand
that.
But the general citizens thisis like you said, this is
(22:35):
theater, this is art.
They make this sound sohorrendous and that we're here
to save the day and kind of likethe words of Ronald Reagan,
right, the two most dangerouswords, whatever to you, for
we're from the government, we'rehere to help, right.
So yeah, but I love your stateplan, daryl, and your group's
plan, because the states alreadydo that.
We have standardized trainingnow in each state, right.
(23:04):
So why not take that to thenext step and give standardized
policies and procedures?
And then every department knowswhat the rules are.
That's one of the things withDOJ pattern and practice
investigations.
They don't tell you what thatmeans, meaning they can pick any
department they want and goafter them, which is they would
say.
Here's what this means.
You know, I'm making this up.
If 30% of your shootings areoutside of policy, then that's
going to trigger us to comeinvestigate.
(23:25):
They don't say any of that.
They just they just leave itvague and then just show up to
wherever they want to show up,and so these states really have
an opportunity.
Darrell, what's your chance ofthis?
Because this makes total sense.
I think we can all agree itcan't stay at the federal
government and I think we canall agree that we still want an
accountability arm for local lawenforcement.
But obviously this is politicsright, and you've got different
(23:47):
people and players and power andmoney.
There's a lot of money thatgoes around with these DLJ
things.
Federal consent decree monitorsmake on average a million
dollars a year and most citiesare spending over $10 million a
year that are trying to complythis kind of removes that.
So there's going to be a lot ofpeople upset by this because
they're not really in it foraccountability or law
enforcement.
They're in it for the Benjamins, so to speak.
(24:07):
But you're talking to a lot ofpeople.
You were in DC last week.
Tell us about navigating thisand what do you think the odds
are.
Darrell Kriplean (24:21):
Well, I'm optimistic by nature.
So I think that you know, withthe conversations that we've had
so far on the federal level, Ithink there's some interest.
And I think it's from bothsides of the aisle, you know,
because with the Democrats theywant to make sure that you have
oversight and this increasesthat oversight piece.
But the Republicans they wantbig government out of you know
local issues, right.
So, and I just you know, we'vetalked, I've talked to some
(24:43):
local state legislators.
They were meeting next weekwith them.
I think at the same time we'redoing this on the federal level,
speak with them.
I think, at the same time we'redoing this on the federal level
, I think we're going to startpushing on the local level, the
state level here in Arizona, sothat we're running this
simultaneously.
There's already states outthere that have proven concept
that Colorado, california.
They already have theseprograms set up.
There's no reason why Arizonacan't follow suit and start
(25:07):
doing this on a statewide levelwhile we're working on the feds.
Travis Yates (25:12):
Well, and the 10th Amendment is so strong.
We all know that Statelegislators can actually pass a
law that prohibits the DLJgetting involved in local law
enforcement, and it falls rightthere at the state level.
So I think that's a great planthat you're going to hit this
from a federal government level.
You'd love this legislation tocome out of that, because these
consent decrees come fromlegislation DLJ.
(25:36):
This comes from the 94 crimebill.
That needs to be eliminated,right, but then at the same time
, you present this to all thestates to try to do the same
thing, and so we need a lot ofmen and women that have been
silent on the sidelines to startspeaking up.
I've been amazed how silentpeople have been about this,
even when I post this.
Nobody wants to talk about this.
I don't know what people arescared of, but truth matters and
, daryl, I just want to.
I want to tell you I'm just soimpressed by what you did there.
I mean, whether people know itor not, we're in a historic time
(25:58):
period in law enforcement.
We may be able to look back atthis time period and know how
much infinitely better theprofession is and the men and
women are because of the actionsof you and a small group of men
and women around you.
What made Phoenix so differentand a small group of men and
women around you?
What made Phoenix so different?
Why was it Phoenix, arizona?
Because, by the way, peopledon't know this, you guys, while
this was going on, otheragencies were encouraged by you.
(26:20):
Memphis held off, louisvillestarted questioning right, and
there's probably even more Idon't know about.
So a lot of people saw what youwere doing and we like to
follow the leader.
You were the leader and a lotof encourage saw what you were
doing and we'd like to followthe leader.
You were the leader and a lotof encourage is contagious and
they sort of followed your leadand started making and started
questioning themselves.
What made your agency and yourpeople and your association
(26:42):
different than everybody else?
Darrell Kriplean (26:44):
Well, I don't know that we're different from
anybody else.
I think I just got to a pointwhere I just wouldn't accept the
fact that this came out likethat.
The way that findings reportcame out, it was so scandalous.
It made us seem like we werethe worst police department,
like you said, like we weretraining, you know, white
supremacists to go out and Ihave a lot of pride in this
department and I know that thatwasn't our department and I
(27:08):
think they attacked the wrongcity, the wrong department, with
the right people in place.
We were able to show anddemonstrate to all these other
groups that you know you weren'tgoing to lose your birth date.
You weren't going to.
You know nobody was going toshow up in a white van and
kidnap you and you know, youknow, take you to Guantanamo Bay
.
You can stand up to the DOJ andyou know, unless they've got
(27:32):
proof which they never do,they're not taking you to court.
You just need to be resilientand weather the storm while it's
going on, but it's a heck of astorm, I'll tell you.
Travis Yates (27:44):
Well, it's an incredible story and I want to
encourage everybody listening tothis.
First off, you can read theentire report at savephxorg.
Then, if you want to read someof the messaging and the media
stuff that was being pushed toyour counselors, you can go to
savephxcom.
But in the show notes we'regoing to put a bunch of links up
.
I think when you read what theydid here, you will be outraged
(28:07):
as well.
Daryl and I are not justshowing off here.
It is one of the mostscandalous, outrageous things
I've ever seen.
It was done by one of the mostpowerful entities in this land
and they got away with it for avery long time.
They've ruined a lot of lives.
Roland fryer, harvard professor,did a peer-reviewed research.
He documented how there havebeen more murders because of
(28:28):
what these things have done andof course, of course anecdotally
.
You know that if you've beenpaying attention to the cities
I've mentioned and, darrell man,the city of Phoenix and your
officers, they owe you a debt.
I know that you're a humble guyand you're not by any means,
you know, making a bow oranything, but I want to make
sure people always remember thistime in our history.
(28:50):
It started in Phoenix, arizona.
I can't thank you enough forbeing here.
Thank you so much.
Darrell Kriplean (28:55):
I appreciate everything you've done to help
us with this Travis.
Your guidance and everybodyaround you has been instrumental
in this win.
I can't thank you enough.
I appreciate you.
Travis Yates (29:08):
Thank you, Darrell .
Thank you so much If you'vebeen watching and you've been
listening.
Thank you, Take this oneserious.
Read what is here.
Spread the message.
Thanks for coming back andvisiting us.
We'll be back soon.
And just remember, lead on andstay courageous.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Thank you for listening to Courageous
Leadership with Travis Yates.
We invite you to join othercourageous leaders at
TravisYatesorg.
Popular Podcasts
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Betrayal: Season 4
Karoline Borega married a man of honor – a respected Colorado Springs Police officer. She knew there would be sacrifices to accommodate her husband’s career. But she had no idea that he was using his badge to fool everyone. This season, we expose a man who swore two sacred oaths—one to his badge, one to his bride—and broke them both. We follow Karoline as she questions everything she thought she knew about her partner of over 20 years. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-3 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.