A Life Inside Law Enforcement

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Would you like to hear what a life in law
enforcement is like?
On this episode of the Meaningof the Minds podcast, I will be
speaking with my friend who Iworked with for years in the
Minds podcast, the podcast forarmchair psychologists and

(00:41):
philosophers, and, as always,this is Jason.
The friend I interviewed forthis podcast requested that I
keep his identity anonymous andI will honor that.
It's a great interview and wecover a wide variety of topics,
such as how he got into lawenforcement, politics and law
enforcement, misconceptionsabout law enforcement, and

(01:01):
mental health and lawenforcement, amongst other
topics.
To start with, are you ready totry the beer?
Yeah, okay, what did we get?
This is was it Meet your MakerFrom Monkless Brewing?
Monkless in Bend, oregon, whichis an amazing place.

(01:23):
It feels like a church withoutany sort of religious.
It does Iconography.
Is that what it's called?
Uh-huh, yeah, it's a reallybeautiful place that makes some
really beautiful beers and it'sabsolutely gorgeous on the
inside yeah, gorgeous, thewoodwork and everything is super
cool.
What drew me to this place wasits lack of ipas.

(01:46):
I know you dig ipas.
I know you love them.
Well, I'm more of a dark guy,but you accept ipas into your
life.
Oh yeah, I'll drink them.
No, I just, I just don't likethat very specific.
You just don't like hoppy taste, yeah, but you like the
banana-y taste of belgians, ohyeah.
Yes, I'm not a huge banana guy,it's not, it's not my, my gig

(02:09):
so much.
But there are some good, darkerones that I've had that I've
really enjoyed in the past, andI've had this before and I've
liked it.
So what is your rating system?
For your bears that you weretalking about earlier?
Uh, use the notes notes app inmy phone so you can put little
yeah emoticons, emojis in there.
Right, and it's a check mark.

(02:31):
If I've tried it, okay.
It's a thumbs up.
If I liked it, yeah.
And it's a money sign if Iwould like it enough to buy it
in like a supermarket, goodpoint, okay, easy.
And if there's a checkmark andnothing else, like, okay, you
tried this, you don't need totry it again.
Very simple.

(02:51):
And what did you give this whenyou had it in the past?
It got the checkmark, thethumbs up and the money sign.
Oh boy.
So I would buy this.
I would buy this.
If I saw this out in the wild.
I was hoping that you had nothad this, but I'll still be
happy because it's going to be agood beer.
Yeah, I appreciate it, thankyou.
All right, let's, let's try ithere and see what we think of it

(03:12):
.
All right, cheers to you.
My friend, that's good, I likeit.
Yeah, it's got the initial rich, almost chocolatey flavor when
it first hits carmel, carmel,yeah.
And then, as it passes over thetongue, there's a little tingle
of no, no, this is good for you.

(03:34):
Do you get the belgian flavorin this?
I don't so much, which isprobably the reason that I like
it.
No, no, no.
But I still like sweet stuff,so it is sweet.
This is no, but I still likesweet stuff, so it is sweet.
This is I get it, maybe alittle bit on the back end, a
little bit on the finish.
I feel like I can taste it atiny bit at the end.
I just had some chips and salsathat can be impacting.

(03:57):
The Mexican is battling withthe Belgian.
You need some warning cultures.
Yeah, I love it, yeah, I dig it.
Man, it's good.
No, thank you.
And it's got a high abv, whichis yeah, it is no, it's courage
for discussion.
It's not a daytime sipper.
I mean it can be.

(04:19):
You just might not do much withyour day.
You're sipping up, all right,are you ready?
Ready to get crazy on this?
Fire away?
Okay, so you have a prettysignificant history in law

(04:39):
enforcement and I think, in themilitary as well.
Yeah, you could choose toengage with that as much as you
want to.
But the first question is justgive us kind of the history of
why you wanted to be a cop.
Like, what is your story ofwanting to be in law enforcement
and what?
What led you to that place ofbeing in law enforcement?

(05:01):
It always seemed like a funoccupation, an enjoyable job,
not like the drive fast and kickass.
Like 1990s, watching episodesof cops like cool, yeah, cool,
but that's not what I was into.
It like I, I was a.
I was a nerd growing up.

(05:22):
Okay, I'm still a nerd.
I was going to say I enjoyreading for pleasure, fiction or
non-fiction.
I enjoy solving the puzzleMajored in history in college.
What is that?
But just reading a bunch andanswering an obscure question
using a bunch of differentpieces of that puzzle.

(05:44):
My job in the army was anall-source intelligence analyst
Answering an obscure questionusing a bunch of different
pieces of that puzzle.
My job in the army was anall-source intelligence analyst
and that's pretty much takingdifferent pieces of information,
figuring out why they'reimportant, discarding the ones
that are not important andpainting a more complete picture

(06:05):
for my boss.
Okay, I'm not, I'm not makingrecommend or I'm not telling
anybody what to do, but I canmake recommendations like right,
listen, sir or ma'am, based onyour objectives, based on your
mission, here's what I'm seeing,here's what's going on in your
area of responsibility.
How did that seeing here'swhat's going on in your area of

(06:27):
responsibility, how did thattransfer over into your time in
law enforcement?
Then, uh, patience in reading.
More important, patience inwriting.
I remember talking to a lot ofreports and stuff like that.
Oh, yeah, yeah, talking to alot of co-workers like if I had
known that there was so muchreport writing in cop work,
maybe I probably would have doneit like that.

(06:47):
Yeah, it's, sometimes it sucks,like the mandatory ones that
are going to go nowhere.
There's like, yes, Iinvestigated this, there are no
leads, there's no insufficientevidence.
Like here are the steps that Idid right and we've got to write
that out to prove or show thatI have done my due diligence for

(07:08):
the boxes.
I checked on this.
We have to check boxes?
Yeah, well, we.
And why do we have to do that?
Because our predecessors beforeus decades before didn't.
Yeah, I was like, oh, and badthings happened as a result of
that, exactly, yeah, you knowsomeone's crying out.
It's like hey, I was wronged.
And some assholes like whohappens to be a uniform, who was

(07:33):
expected to do a job?
Like, I don't want to do that?
Yeah, okay, well, this is howwe get to where we're at today.
That makes sense.
Yeah, so it that sense?
Do you have law enforcement inyour family?
No, both my grandfathers, mymom and my dad's side were in
the army.
Okay, they only did enlistment,or two Step family had a decent

(07:59):
amount of firefighterexperience.
So there had been a lot ofinfluence.
First responders then, yeah,yeah, a lot of influence for
service occupations.
This is not going to be an easyjob, but it is a good job and

(08:21):
it's worthwhile.
It's worth doing and it's theright thing to do.
Maybe not a service job, maybenot a first responder job, but
whatever occupations my father,stepfather, father figures, guys
in the family had, it was uh,oh, you're doing this because

(08:42):
it's right.
Yeah, okay, makes sense.
So you, you feel like it notonly this history in your family
, but also then your history ofbeing in the military
transferred into this professioneasily then, yeah, that was
part of the reason why I signedup, right, because you wanted to
be a cop eventually or orsomething like yes, some doing

(09:03):
some sort of work like that,like I didn't know, like fbi, oh
, okay, local law enforcement,yeah, just trying to get into
the door.
Yeah, yeah, get out of collegein 2008.
What happened a year beforethat?
You know the world's on fire,right, you know the crash, the
whole deal.
Yeah, by the time I get out,I've got this bachelor's degree.

(09:26):
Applying for jobs like oh,congratulations, you have a
piece of paper to show that youwere in school staying safe for
the last four years,congratulations.
I'm gonna take this guy whojust came back from iraq.
I see this guy who just cameback from afghanistan like I am
behind the curve for the thingsthat I want to do.
I see I kind of did it assbackwards.

(09:47):
I went to college and thenjoined the military.
How long were you in for?
It was the army national guard,so I was in eight years.
Oh, you were so one weekend amonth, two weekends a year, like
the commercial said, plus, andwithin that eight year time
frame I was on active dutyorders for two of those years.

(10:08):
Okay, so it was like a six-yearreserve status and then two
years of federal serviceMobilization, okay, deployment.
You say deployment and peopleimmediately think, oh, where did
you go overseas?
What is the difference?
I actually don't knowTechnically, push my glasses up
on my nose.
Technically, if a reservist, aNational Guardsman, reserve,

(10:31):
whatever, gets on federal orders, they're cut from the state's
obligations, like each state'sgovernor is responsible for
their National Guard, and youget paid directly by the federal
government for a federalmission.
That federal mission could besupporting the survivors of

(10:54):
hurricane katrina, supportingwildlife fires or deploying to a
combat zone or deployingoverseas just going on active
duty service.
So my first mobilization was toupstate new york.
Okay, so I don't like saying,yeah, I had two deployments like
, oh, where'd you go?
You know where syracuse, newyork is.

(11:17):
Let me tell you about thisplace outside of there.
Yeah, oh man, yeah, thefallujah was bad.
Yeah, nobody, I'm not gettingany respect for that.
So I was like, no, I was, I wason active duty for a minute.
Yeah, you know, doing, doing ajob, what did you do up there?
So there was a old air forcebase that was converted into

(11:42):
like an Air Force laboratoryOkay, that hosted a Navy
reservist intelligence unit andI was an Army intelligence
analyst embedded in that Navyimagery unit.

(12:04):
So our customers, our purposewas supporting for deployed
troops or units that weregetting ready to deploy.
Okay, so you're in an activeduty unit, you're in a national
guardian, whatever.
You're in a unit getting readyto go to iraq, go to africa, go
to afghanistan.
It's those months leading up toyou getting on a plane and

(12:26):
going away.
You're doing the very basicservice member skills, like your
marines, doing the work insouthern california, preparing
for whatever terrain environment.
You're in the army, gettingyour mind ready, going through
the mock runs of this is whatwe're going to do if we get

(12:50):
attacked on our convoy.
This is what we're going to doif we get one of our people gets
hit in the field, injured inthe field, shot, wounded,
whatever.
Yeah, so you don't have time towork up on your own
intelligence needs and this iswhere you fit in.
Yeah, yeah, like the boss wantsto know what's going on in an
area that he, she, is about totake ownership for, Sometimes

(13:14):
the unit that they're takingthey're replacing, we'll be able
to provide a pretty robustpackage of information, and
sometimes that unit who'salready in place.
I'm just ready to go home, sowe are supporting that
intelligence preparation of thebattlefield.
Is it mostly satellites goingoverhead and taking pictures and

(13:35):
then you take that informationand distill it into like a
report that is viable for thepeople that are on the ground?
Is that what you're doing or isit something else?
There is, or is there a bunchof different aspects of it?
Yeah, there are differentintelligence disciplines.
So that satellite part thatwould be imagery intelligence.
Okay, there's, what was yourpart?

(13:58):
Human, all source.
So I'm taking those satellitephotos that somebody else has
taken, that somebody else hascalled out like yeah, based on
these factors, from this veryclear image, I can tell you that
it houses this many people.
It was occupied at this time.
Like you, look at google earth,like the stuff that I'm really

(14:19):
trying to not break top secret,oh, yeah, yeah, things, yeah,
but you, we do this all the time.
Look at google earth and lookat the area that we're at right
now.
You can use google earth to seea time frame.
Yeah, a slideshow, yeah, yeah,like, oh, three years this part

(14:43):
of the forest was completelyfull.
Now it's been cut down andthey're building a subdivision
here, parked in front of thishouse, for however many years,
and all of a sudden the car isgone.
Right, maybe somebody sold it.
Yeah, they moved, they finallycleaned it up, who knows.
So we're taking some of that.
We're taking some of that.

(15:04):
We're taking a humanintelligence reports, so that's
people trained to interviewlocal nationals, people like
from the country that we're in.
I was like what's, what's goingon?
You're, you're living in adistrict in afghanistan that is
plagued by the taliban.
You're obviously talking to mefor one reason or another.

(15:26):
How can I help you?
Oh, you want to get rid of thetaliban.
When we help each other, yeah,tell me where the taliban live,
tell me how they live.
Were you ever directly involvedin those conversations with
people?
No, out of country.
No, we would advise for somequestions that they can ask.
But those people were the humanintelligence.

(15:48):
The humans were really good attheir job.
We've got the commander'sintent, the commander's mission,
and from there we're going todevelop a set of questions that
we're going to askscientifically, kind of like ask
everybody the same questionsand we can get enough
information that corroborates apretty consistent message.

(16:10):
The nerds that are looking atthese reports all day might be
able to find something.
Yeah, exactly, exactly, perfect, yeah.
So the first mobilization wassupporting forward deployed.
And, as I was finishing up this, we left iraq a couple of years
prior and this weird fringejihadist group was really coming

(16:39):
into play.
They were really gainingtraction.
They were taking over iraqbases that iraq army had.
We, we'd given them this base,we gave them these humvees, and
the iraqi army is yeah, cool,thanks americans, we'll hold on
to this.
And this group just startsrolling through and beheading
people.
And were they called isis?

(17:00):
They were called isis.
They were sort of like theislamic state, the islamic state
of iraq and levant.
Nobody knew what levant was, soit got changed from islamic
state of iraq and syria isis.
Interesting.
So that was my first.
That was the ending of my firstmobilization.
That's cool, yeah, yeah.
And the second one was actuallygoing to the Middle East and

(17:24):
supporting units that weredealing with ISIS.
Oh, interesting, yeah, in whatway did you support them?
I developed target packets forISIS strongholds, for lack of a
better term.
Explain that.
What's a target packet?
What's a target packet?

(17:54):
It is uh like a dossier ofjustification.
To focus energy on a building,like there were some people that
would make.
Uh, some people in the cell ordifferent cells are focused
purely on high value targetslike I'm hunting this guy, I'm
hunting down abu dick bagbecause he's a bad dude and I
know when he goes to sleep, Iknow when he wakes up, I know if
he's smoking three cigarettesin a day, then he's having a bad

(18:16):
day.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, when these certain sets,these certain circumstances
happen, uh, we're going to callin some sort of strike, oh,
interesting.
Or we're going to make surethat he's home so tough dudes
can bust down doors and put abag over his head and bring him

(18:36):
to justice.
Cool, I was mostly buildings.
So, based on satellite imagery,and what people who live, people
like refugees who used to livein whatever village that we're
looking at, that we'reinterested in, are saying?
Like we're looking at an autoshop, a garage that got

(19:01):
converted into a vehicle, born,improvised explosive device
manufacturing site.
Okay, v-bed, vb, ied.
Yeah, now you see a bunch ofscrap metal just hanging out
outside for no good reason.
That doesn't look like they'repart of a car.
You see a bunch of fertilizer.
A bunch of fertilizer hangingout outside and weird wires,

(19:24):
military-aged men walking aroundwith what appears to be sticks
hung slung over their shoulders.
You know people aren't drivingrandom cars to this shop anymore
.
When vehicles come out, theylook like some sort of weird mad
max garbage, just just rollinglow writing.

(19:44):
Yeah, bbeds, yeah.
So based on all of thisinfantry, based on all of these
reports, based on these patternsof life, there's a high
likelihood that vehicle bornieds are being made inside of
this garage.
So automobiles are gettingpacked with explosives.
They're getting additionalmetal scraps slapped onto the

(20:08):
sides so it'll be harder forpeople on the ground to shoot
and disrupt their movements.
Like that's the only reason whyyou're slapping extra metal on
the sides of these things.
So if we let this garagecontinue its manufacture, it's
going to affect us friendlies inthese ways.

(20:31):
We're in this scenario.
Where would you get all thisinformation?
Like?
Where does this come from?
How do you gather?
We can control a lot of imagerylike drones, unmanned drones
going out and just taking photos.
Satellites is a lot harder toget.
Human intelligence, humanintelligence, so human

(20:52):
intelligence.
We're looking at refugee camps.
We're looking at how does thatwork?
Like, does somebody literallydrive into a camp and start
asking people hey, on the cornerof so and so you know all these
motor plays like, is that?
Like, how does this work?
How does that happen?

(21:13):
Do you know?
So think of um, think of yourneighborhood.
Yeah, you run away from yourneighborhood because gangsters
have moved in.
You fear for yourself, you fearfor your family.
They've destroyed yourlivelihood.
They've maybe they've takenover your house.
Maybe they've harmed some ofyour extended family.

(21:35):
Who knows you?
There's reason for you to haveno love.
Yeah, for isis, it's shockingfor a bunch of guys that cut
people's heads off.
Yeah, yeah.
So where are you gonna go?
You're gonna go someplace safe.
Yeah, you're gonna findsomeplace safe that's probably
not controlled by them makessense.
That's where we would go.
We're assisting the homecountry that we're in to.

(21:58):
You know, get your food, getyour water, your aid.
If anybody wants to talk aboutthe gangster influence of your
neighborhood, come by.
So you stop by and like, yeah,fuck these guys.
Oh, tell me, where are thesegangsters operating?
Like, I used to love going tothis Mexican restaurant, but a

(22:21):
couple of months ago they tookthat over and they meet a couple
times a week.
Everybody knows they meet acouple of times a week.
In the back, the food wentdownhill really quickly.
Everyone sees these guys inthere.
It's just they're there all thetime.
Yeah, all of a sudden it'sfalafels.
Yeah, tell me what days.
Yeah, but like, what days ofthe week are they at?

(22:41):
Oh, we know that we can't gothere on tuesdays and saturdays.
Awesome, what do they look like?
I don't know, I didn't see whatthey look like.
Okay, do you know what theydrove?
I'll let me tell you what theydrove.
All right, so does?
Does this look familiar to you?
Yeah, it looks like you justpulled out a map of my
neighborhood.
Cool, where was that?
Uh, where's that mexicanrestaurant right here?
Oh, okay, good to know.

(23:03):
Thanks, good luck, god bless.
Okay, so then they compile that.
Then there's some type ofsorting mechanism to be like hey
, this guy's in charge of theMexican restaurant here, so
we're going to shoot thatinformation over to him, along
with other info, the drone infoor satellite info and stuff like

(23:24):
that.
Is that how that works?
And then you compile like adossier on this place and what's
going on there.
We are one step back on thatdescription.
So people are humanintelligence collecting all this
information, but they're not,and they're writing their
reports Like, hey, I talked tothis guy who used to live in

(23:45):
this neighborhood and he'ssaying that the mexican
restaurant is now look like this.
It ceases to be a mexicanrestaurant, just nothing but
hummus.
Yeah, yep, whatever thesegangsters are, whatever these
gangsters are using, yeah, andso that gets uploaded into a
searchable repository of reports.

(24:08):
Okay, and it's up to thefrontline all source analyst to
just start searching.
You have to make a good query,you have to ask a good question
to get good information.
Okay, it's either garbage in,garbage out or take your time
and get good stuff.
So there's just this ginormousdatabase of all this information

(24:29):
that's sometimes several huh.
Just because we're not, we asthe military are not that
efficient with, uh, what thegovernment, how we do things,
it's surprising.
It gets big enough.
Surprise.
Yeah, like I would.
My soul would be taken if I lostan accountable item out in the

(24:50):
field on exercises.
Now, that accountable item iswhatever higher up is deeming
important, like this.
Flashlight is new, it's uniqueand if you lose it you're dying.
You're staying out here,everyone's staying out here, no
one's leaving.
We're staying in the fielduntil you find this flashlight.

(25:11):
And at the individual linelevel, okay, we learned that.
And then you read the news andyou know the pentagon loses 800
million dollars, but they'reable to find 900 million dollars
to fund a special project.
Yeah, it's weird how that works.
Right, oh, responsibility's abitch, yeah, okay.

(25:34):
So you go through all that stuffand then it seems like you had
the initial thought in the backof your head of being a first
responder of some type.
What made you gravitate towardsbeing police?
Then I didn't want to be toldwhere to live anymore, like I

(25:54):
wanted to sleep in my own bedfor a solid month without having
to go somewhere else.
So if I went federal, you know,I could have like a wish list I
would love to go to seattle,portland and san francisco.

(26:14):
I would say, like the fbi, like, oh, okay, cool, well, we
really need somebody in tulsa,oklahoma.
Yeah, so you're going there.
Welcome.
For how long?
Ask that question after you getthere.
The idea of just having a stableaddress that sounds terrible.
The idea of having a stableplace to just no, I am not going

(26:39):
to go anywhere unless I don'twant to for work Seems kind of
like a basic human desire.
That that's pretty clear.
Yeah, yeah, I think you getused to not having that after a
while.
Mm-hmm, that's just.
That's just how it is, as somany people in the military or
in any uniformed service.
John was like it is what it isright.
I hate that saying like, yeah,so you can make it different, it

(27:03):
is what you make it.
So I tried to get into policefor a while and did you apply
multiple places?
I lost count after a dozen.
Are you serious?
15, holy shit, that's somethinglike 15 agencies from the state

(27:24):
to the county, to the locallevel.
God, I wish I would have savedit.
One city sent me a letter hey,thank you for taking our test.
You scored 93%.
At this time, we're only takingapplicants who scored 93.25% of

(27:47):
it, so we appreciate you tryingout Thanks.
So all of this a jail is whatgave me a shot.
All of the police side ofthings.
A jail like, yeah, sure, comeon.
And I only applied therebecause I worked at a coffee

(28:09):
shop and, uh, local sheriff'sdeputy that would come in
regularly.
Like, yeah, I started in thejail.
Like, really, yeah, yeah,before that I was in the air
force, so his story didn't sound.
It sounded similar to mine,like, okay, I can do this, I can
.
Yeah, all right, I can do astepping stone and I applied to

(28:30):
one jail and they're like comeon, I'll take you.
How long were you at the jailthen?
Four and a half years, andthat's where our lives
intertwine.
That's where I met you.
Yeah, yeah, there are a lot ofrules and suggestions on how to
run a housing unit in a jail.
So much of it is individualdependent and I appreciated that

(28:54):
for the uh, the consistencyneeded to keep these people
maintained, to keep them fromworrying so much that they cause
a nuisance for themselves tothe other people around them.
The discrepancy that each jaildeputy had was really really

(29:14):
vast and I appreciated that.
Quite a bit of autonomy and howyou were gonna run your own
unit, right, right, like a goodday is when nobody gets in a
fight.
Right, that got a little boring, but you had a yardstick to
major success if you maintainthat tranquility.
Cool, good job.
You earned your, you earnedyour pay, see you tomorrow.

(29:36):
Sometimes you can't do that andthat's just human nature.
One of those kind of basictenets is like you can't let
them get too, too overly excitedtoo, jacked up too, like
playful, even like these.
These are grown men,sequestered from the world.
All they have are a couple oftvs, some phone calls if

(29:58):
somebody wants to talk to them,and a bunch of strangers.
And sometimes they meet someother people that they knew from
the outside, like, oh man,you're in my neighborhood,
you're a good friend of mine.
Oh, what's going on?
There are a million people inthis city, hundreds of people in
this jail, and you have likefour friends in here.

(30:19):
What is that saying about yourcircle?
What are you who?
How are you living your life?
So it's easy to get the horseplay.
It's easy to get excited.
It's when you don't have a lotof excitement in your life
because you've been in jail fora couple of months.
It's easy to get riled up overa game of cards.
You're not even bettinganything.
Maybe you're like betting somecandy, yeah, some, some snacks.

(30:40):
And if you're not, it's a bigthing.
It thing.
It's a big thing If all yourlife, if your entire life, is
boiled down to the lettersyou've received from home, some
snacks that you've purchased anda couple extra pairs of socks
that the jail guard doesn't knowyou have.
You take any one of thosethings out and like your day is

(31:01):
ruined Like that's all you'vegot things out and like your day
is ruined like that's allyou've got.
Yeah, that's one thing that Ifeel like is hard to explain to
people that don't know thesystem, like your average joe
doesn't really get that.
Little things make very, verybig differences to incarcerated
populations especially live ordie sometimes.

(31:22):
Yeah, things that other peoplein the real world would be just
shocked or horrified thatsomething had such a unnecessary
value for them.
I've had to send I had to sendgrown men to a disciplinary unit
the whole because they didn'tget a brownie on their lunch
tray and they didn't like howslow it was for me to request

(31:48):
another brownie from the kitchento come to them.
Like your brownie's gonna come.
I've called for the kitchen.
I have requested your browniewhen it shows up.
It shows up.
I'm not leaving to get thebrownie and I'm not gonna force
somebody else, some other jailworker, to go out of their way
to bring your one single brownieup here right as he's serving

(32:09):
hundreds of other people.
Fuck you.
Everyone else gets a brownie.
That ain't fair.
Like shut, calm down, calm down, fuck you, I'm not gonna calm
down, slams the tray down, like,okay, now you're using that as
a weapon.
You're done.
Here we go, we're, I'm callingmy friends and you're leaving.
Now, you're not going to get abrownie.
Now, your lunch is going tocome from a paper bag.

(32:30):
Yep, you're gonna get somebologna sandwich.
I would come home and I'd tellmy roommates these stories.
And he's a high functioningadult, a normal human being, and
he, like you, were saying likehe just didn't get it.
Like I understand why.
He's like what, why would theydo that?
Don't?
Don't they know?

(32:51):
They're just get in trouble ifthey did this thing.
That's not the point.
If they knew they were going toget in trouble, they wouldn't
be in jail in the first place.
Yes, if they could make gooddecisions, they probably
wouldn't be here.
Yeah, oh, fairness was such aweird concept to to work with in
there.
Like life isn't fair, butgovernment has to be.

(33:15):
I am the man I got the uniform.
I gotta, I gotta be fair.
Yeah, I've got to be fair witheverybody I treat and if they
see anything less, oh, he's gotfavorites.
Fuck that guy.
Yeah, like well, you gave thisto him.
What are you talking about?

(33:35):
These guys are just losing itbecause I cut their shower short
and they thought they didn'tget enough time in the shower
compared to the other guy.
Like, I'm watching the clock it.
If it wasn't five minutes,maybe it was five and a half.
Like, excuse me for someonegetting 30 extra seconds in
there.
Yeah, but if that's all you got, that 30 or seconds like that
means a lot, make a difference.

(33:56):
Yeah, like you said that wecould turn the tv on at 10 am, I
did say that I didn't expect aguy to have a seizure in the
middle of the housing unit,forcing everyone to go to their
bunks, go to their cells, getmedical staff in here, make sure
this person who's having aseizure is safe and get them out

(34:17):
of here.
That kind of slowed some thingsup.
Yeah, but you said but it's not10.
We could watch TV at 10 am andit's past 10.
What are you in here for?
Oh, theft, oh, but it's notfair that you didn't get your tv
at 10 o'clock.
Like you're in here for highlevels of theft or whatever.

(34:40):
Yeah, you going to tell meabout an honor system?
Yes, I will.
Yeah, yep, yep.
Okay, there's limits.
Damn it.
Yeah and doubt.
Those were the rules that we hadto play.
We didn't plan.
It was interesting.
One of those rules that we,just as jail deputies, really

(35:04):
was like just no yelling.
The only person who should beyelling was the correction
officers trying to maintainorder.
No yelling, they're just.
Everyone's getting jacked up.
Everyone's people get excited.
Yeah, just no yelling.
And I would break that rule onone occasion and that was when

(35:25):
you would walk into the housingunit Because all the inmates
would just look over to you.
Yo, shut the fuck up.
Jason's here.
And you know what?
I'd agree with them.
They're card games done, tablesgetting pulled together, people
who I would never expect to besitting together, like white

(35:50):
guys with big old swastikastattooed on their arms, sitting
next to black guys with gangsigns tattooed on their neck,
sitting together quietly in raptattention as this guy just
walks in with a folder.
Hey, deputy, you mind if I hangout for a bit, like well, I was
gonna go on my break, but thisis the calmest I've seen them

(36:12):
all week.
I'll burn a break for this,absolutely.
Do you need anything?
Can I get you anything?
No, I'm pretty good.
I'm pretty good, like.
If you say so, man, I'm gonnasit back here and let you run
this.
I've always thought that was socool.
Well, I appreciate it, man, itwas awesome.
I well, you guys kept me safethe whole time, so sometimes I

(36:33):
think that was the easy part.
There's always a good reminderthat the, the power of your
personality can go a really,really long ways, and that
applied to me.
I think that applies to youguys too.
I think it applied especiallyto you.
I can't think of a time where Iever heard an inmate shit
talking to you.
I'm sure it happened, but ithelped that I didn't try to look

(36:56):
up their charges.
I wasn't ever seeking it out.
I didn't want to know what theydid.
A lot of you guys didn't dothat.
I would typically know way moreabout the charges than you guys
did.
It is easier to run the day.
Yeah, like what if everyone'sgot some sort of trigger issue
thing that's like, oh, thatthat's what they're in here for,
right, right, I don't know howI could do something fair

(37:25):
knowing that about that person.
The less I knew, the better.
Yeah, it couldn't even bejudged from, like, week to week.
It had to be day by day.
Like you're in a good mood,well, you don't have to be in a
good mood.
As long as you're not in ashitty mood, we're good.
Let's do what I need you to.
Yeah, versus like the next day.
Like okay, someone peed in youroff-brand cheerios and it's

(37:46):
just gonna be one of thoseshitty days, no, and the day
after that I can't hold a grudge.
I cannot hold a grudge againstyou.
What made you finally get to thepoint where you wanted to make
the leap from the jail systeminto to go to road, because
that's a very I don't know ifpeople know that, but that's a
very significant leap to go from.

(38:06):
Yeah, it's two sides to thesame coin of law enforcement,
like one is apprehension and oneother is detention.
They're necessary.
You can't have one without theother.
Yeah, flip sides of the samecoin.
Yeah, and it's all in supportof pushing through the court
system.
You know either findinginnocence, guilt, compromise of
something in between.

(38:28):
They're very different jobs,like they've got similarities.
You know jail and patrol bothhave to.
They wear uniforms, they bothuse tools.
They both deal with people allday long.
You have to be difficult people, difficult people.
Yeah, it's yeah, customerservice at.
You know fast food places.

(38:48):
Like I said, I work at a coffeeshop like.
There are people.
There are crummy people aroundthe holidays, but there are also
some good people too.
Yeah, not so in the lawenforcement there are good
people that get caught up in badthings.
Yes, for sure.
We're just not talking to themwhen they're in that state,
right at their at their best.
Yeah, for sure, and you can't.

(39:09):
You try not to hold that toomuch against them.
But yeah, apart from like,worrying about your own safety
and the safety of your, uh,other innocent people around you
, you know the jail is a mentalmarathon.
You're constantly getting mindgames played against you.
You have to be strong enough topush that aside and maintain

(39:32):
order and discipline.
Control is a different beast ofknowing when to flip that
switch of yeah, you are a victimof a crime.
Yesterday, you are a victim ofa crime.
Yesterday, you are a suspect ofa crime was the triangle?
And tomorrow you're going to bea witness.

(39:52):
So if I treat you today like Itreated you yesterday, you're
probably not going to help meout tomorrow when you see
something else.
Yeah, the patrol is just adifferent marathon.
Did you know how significant thedifference was before you went

(40:12):
to the road?
No, no, like it was.
I knew it was going to bedifferent.
I knew it's going to be uh,more exciting.
I knew I would be challenged alot more.
Those are the things that gotme interested into it.
I was burning through paperbackbooks every month, working in

(40:34):
the jail.
I was ready for the next step.
I was ready for a challenge.
There's nothing wrong withpeople who work in the jail.
I mean, there's something wrongwith everyone who works,
chooses law enforcement.
But those in the jail I havenothing but respect for those
people.
I was those.
It's a necessary positionabsolutely in society.
Not too easy, incrediblyfucking difficult, and also the

(40:55):
environment is really tough towork in.
Some people say, oh thanks, itcan't be that bad, you can't
have a gun there.
And the other side of that isyou have to deal with what comes
at you without having a gun.
You've got to use your words.
If that doesn't work, you'reusing your hands, you're using
the other tools.

(41:16):
You learn really quickly what'seffective and what's not.
It's a hell of a learningenvironment, that's for sure.
Yeah, it was a hell of alearning environment, that's for
sure.
Yeah, yeah, it was a greatlearning environment.
Patrol is just more.
Your attention is more divided,just way more divided.
Explain some of the differencesbetween road and I would say, a

(41:37):
big, the big issue.
Everyone's got something.
When they're in the, the fieldtraining program, you're put
with a coach, you're learning,you've got the journeyman, the
apprentice kind of set up, thejedi and the padawan however you
want to say it right the knightand the squire.
Yeah, did you have a rat tail?
No, no, no, I kept my hairshort like I was still in the

(42:02):
military and a clean face.
Yes, it was the dividedattention with the radio, the
computer in the car, traffic,traffic.
Some coaches have the primarychannel, where everybody knows
what's going on, going on in the, the radio in the car, and then

(42:24):
have the secondary channel thathas specific information
happening that not everybody ismonitoring in your ear.
So there are two differentvoices speaking not directly at
you, but you should be aware ofwhat's going on while you're
driving.
You should be aware of what'sgoing on while you're driving,

(42:50):
either in traffic at 5 pm on aweekday or 3 am in the morning,
while you're going 70, 80 milesan hour to a hot call to a house
where someone's fighting,looking at a computer, looking
at a laptop in the car, drivingquickly trying to determine
which house is the house thatyour buddy's at, calling for
backup because he's in a fight,and not hitting vehicles that

(43:17):
are stopping in the middle ofthe road because they see lights
and sirens.
The rules of the road say pullover to the right as far as safe
as possible when you see anemergency vehicle coming up
behind you, and that's all goodand well, you're taking a test.
But when that actually happensand you're, no one knows that

(43:39):
you're fumbling around.
Yeah, you're messing with yourradio, you're texting on your
phone, you're not payingattention at all and all of a
sudden you look in your rearviewmirror and the cherries and
berries are just blaring at you.
First thing you do just slam onthe brakes.
I don't know what to do.
Yeah, that causes the firstresponder behind you whether
it's a fire truck, uh, anambulance, a cop car to have to

(44:02):
swerve to avoid you.
Do we swerve into oncomingtraffic and pray that they see
us?
Do we swerve into a slower laneand worry about you remembering
what you're supposed to do?
And you pull out in front, onthe right side, and cutting off
again.
Yep, that's oh.
And then your partner.
She's saying that everything iscalm and you can turn off your
lights.
Now, oh, cool, disregard.

(44:24):
Oh, everything's fine, okay.
Okay, I'm gonna go about my day, thanks.
Report writing not too difficult, I mean initially.
Once you know, once you learnthe format, okay, I can do that.
You know, I've been doing thatfor a couple of years for
academic military no big deal.
Then I get so deep into mythought process, thinking about

(44:44):
looking at my notes, writing,writing what I'm supposed to
write, and then here on theradio, oh yeah, there's a theft
happening in Target right now.
I didn't hear that.
I definitely didn't hear that.
It was the Target that's rightdown the road which I could go
to and support.
Nope, just Wilson in my headtrying to think of what to put
next for this sentence and type,type, type, type, type.

(45:05):
Hey, hey, new guy, do you hearthe radio Like what?
No, absolutely not.
Why would I be listening to theradio?
I'm typing a report.
I'm trying to get off work ontime.
We're 20 minutes late already,as it is.
Nope, pack your shit up.
We got to go.
I don't even know what we'regoing to.
What's happening right now?
Yeah, that was that took alittle while to learn.

(45:25):
The radio is weird, I, it'sbizarre.
I only feel comfortable nowwhen I'm working and I'm
scanning, so I'm listening toeverything at the same time,
which is complex and there's alot of things that are happening
there, but it I something isnot right.
When I don't have that on, it'sreally weird.
But at the same time, I mean,there's just so much happening.

(45:47):
It's it's hard to pay attention.
When I'm having direct contactwith a client, I'll either turn
it totally down or turn it off,even just because I cannot focus
.
So I don't know how you guys dothat.
Like you're you're standingthere engaging and then you're
getting you know, know, statusupdates from dispatch to see how
you are and being mindful oftalking to witnesses or

(46:08):
directing subjects, and itboggles my mind that you're all
are capable of managing that,because I struggle to do that.
I would guess when you'rescanning your passive brain,
your system two brain system,one brain as you would, yeah,
would be just triggered withwords like acting erratic,

(46:31):
mentally unstable, unable tocontrol family member running in
the street naked.
Mental, mental health is themental health, mental health,
mental health.
Yeah, you're listening to somevery specific things, like when
your brain passively hears theftin progress.
You're like, I don't care aboutthat.
When you hear someone call outa traffic stop, I don't care

(46:52):
about that, you don't care abouta lot of the things that are
happening on the radio, you'reworried about some very specific
things.
It's like the cocktail partyeffect in psychology basically,
okay, do you know what?
No, okay, so, uh, it's thephenomenon where if you're at a
cocktail party and you hearsomeone speak your name from
across the room, you will tuneinto that.

(47:13):
You'll be like, wait, what theyjust said, my name over the
even if they're not, you know,necessarily speaking about you
or whatever.
Right, yeah, it's like a knownpsychological phenomenon.
It's because your, your brain,is just exactly what you're
saying.
It's attuned to very specificthings and then when you get a
cue that triggers thatresponsiveness, then you'll be
responsive in that moment to it.

(47:34):
It's the same thing with thecop side of things.
Yeah, you have a call sign.
Yeah, that call sign is yourname for the day.
If you're lucky enough, thatcall sign is your name for the
week.
The shift rotation you get toknow it very well If, for
whatever reason, you're workinga different shift and somebody
has your regularly assigned callsign, or you're getting onto a

(47:56):
different shift and somebodyelse has the call sign that you
had for the last rotation.
You want to respond when they,when dispatch calls for it's
like oh wait, that's not meanymore, that's not my nickname,
yeah, that's not who I'msupposed to be.
I am this today.
I'm this set of numbers andletters.
So it's your name.
The radio is that cocktailparty?
Yeah, and I'm ready to hearthat name get called, my name

(48:23):
get called at any moment.
And for the agency that I workedat, it was broken down into
four digits.
The first digit was the agency.
The second digit was the shiftor the special team.

(48:44):
Digit was the shift or thespecial team.
The third digit was the, thebeat or the district, the
geographical representation on amap which I'm assigned, yeah.
And the fourth digit is yourpersonal identifier.
So I could have threeco-workers in the same beat, the
same district, and we might beon two different shifts.

(49:07):
So if I'm hearing the radio sayagency, then maybe it's.
It's the same shift, but it's adifferent district.
Oh, it's on the other side ofour uh, area of responsibility.
Whatever that guy is going to,I'm not going to make it in time

(49:27):
, or oh, they're calling for her.
I don't even know why I wouldhave to worry about it, because
that's so.
It's such a far distance likeif things start popping off, I
better get on a map and figureout where the heck my partner is
.
I can help her out.
But that district number islike oh, you called for my buddy
.
I'm not worried about thingsyet, unless it's dispatch saying

(49:51):
, hey, you and any of yourbuddies, can you go to this
thing right now?
Like, okay, you may not havecalled my name, but you called
my buddy's name and I'm close tothat area.
I've got to start rolling thatway, yeah, or pay attention to
see what exactly is going on,start worrying about things.
Yeah, just like that cocktailparty.
You and I are having aconversation and my significant

(50:14):
other might say my name and I'ma little keyed up, like what's
untuned to her.
She's good, okay, we're fine.
Maybe I hear her voice.
She starts screaming becausethe dog got loose.
Oh, oh, hey, oh, I don't knowwhat we were just talking about.
I've got to go deal with this.

(50:35):
Excuse me, I'll be right back.
Hold on a second.
Hold on a second.
Yeah, did I get your phonenumber?
I gotta call you back.
Maybe I'll call you back in 10minutes, maybe two hours, I
don't know.
Yeah, but whatever you and Iare doing right now has now
become less important to what mysignificant other or, in this
case, co-worker got involved in.
Yeah, exactly that's how youmaster the radio.

(50:57):
At least that's how you livewith the radio.
I try every day.
I had a great time doing specialteam things.
I had a great time doingspecial team things.
I had a great time doingspecial assignments, additional
assignment things.
How many special teams are youon?
The crisis negotiation team?
Mental health team yeah, I diddefensive tactics instructor for

(51:18):
a little bit.
Oh, I didn't know.
You did that.
Yeah, it was mostly, um, mostof my time was spent in the
hitman suit Okay, so I was.
Yeah, it was mostly, um, mostof my time was spent in the
hitman suit okay, so I wasgetting beat on.
I was the dummy.
Yeah, that was a dummy.
That was fine this.
And I'd just gone throughfirearms training firearms to be
a firearms instructor.
Oh, okay, was that?
The most fulfilling part of thejob for you was being on the

(51:39):
special teams.
My mental health one was themost fulfilling.
Yeah, everyone's got theirniche.
Everyone's like you.
You can go one of several ways.
You're probably going to go oneof several ways, going into
something like, you know, patrolwork or jail work, and people

(52:00):
really love the, the thinkingpart of it, the, the solving the
cases, the, the deep work, the.
This is not going to take oneshift to open and close, but
weeks, months.
You know that delayedsatisfaction of I got it.
They become detectives, peoplewho are highly trained, highly

(52:25):
skilled, proficient, justathletes of the department.
You've got to be fairlyphysical fit to do the job to
begin with, all the gear thatyou're wearing, the physical
expectations, and maybe you takeit a step or two further.
You're tactically proficient.
Two further you're tacticallyproficient, you're physically

(52:49):
capable and you go to the SWATteam, the special weapons and
tactics and the, that higherelite warrior.
You know, if you're not doingthe military thing and you're
not in the warrior culture,what's the next, what's another
one?
Well, what's?
What's the law enforcement one?
You know it's that thatguardian side of the or the
warrior side of the warriorguardian, yeah, so it's got.

(53:11):
It is cool that there's a bunchof different, yeah, the types of
specialties.
I think it would be easy,especially for a lay person, to
look at law enforcement as justkind of the singular entity, as
opposed to all of thesedifferent.
You know it's like saying, well, it's a football team, so
there's no specialization, right, they all wear in the same
uniform, they can all be put inthe different positions.
It's all the same stuff, right?

(53:33):
Exactly, exactly like that's.
That would be the samecomparison to to falsely assume
that, yeah, yeah, you know, andthat's what made things so much
fun.
People have a passion forteaching, for educating.
Educating for passing onknowledge, for making people get
better.
They're field trainers, they'reinstructors.
There's all sorts of differentspecialties, like the mental

(53:58):
health part.
What did you like about that?
Where were you attracted to it?
It took a little while for me toget into it.
I enjoyed being a substitutedeputy law enforcement guy that
drove the clinicians around.
Clinician handler, if you willout in the field, well, you're
doing the real work.
Just make sure that you get toand from safely.
I enjoyed doing it every nowand then.

(54:22):
I didn't think I would likedoing it as a full-time gig and
then a couple of people likethis would be fun.
You would have a good time.
You enjoy talking with people.
You have patience, like, yeah,I can, I can talk to people.
Yeah, sure, the crisisnegotiation training teaches

(54:44):
it's pretty much, if somebody isin a state of crisis, they're
not thinking straight.
High emotion, low considerationof secondary, uh, issues from
their actions.
It's like, okay, well, how dowe calm them down?
How do you calm anybody down?

(55:05):
Who's angry, who's yelling,who's out of control?
Yeah, time, how do we gain thattime?
I'll start talking to them.
See what's going on.
It sounds like you're pissed.
You're goddamn right, I'mpissed.
Yeah, yeah, that sounds like itsucks.
What's happening?
Now?
You don't care, nobody listensto me.
Well, I'm, I'm asking you, man,what's literally listening?

(55:28):
What's happening?
Yeah, then maybe you hear theirstory.
And the longer they talk, themore that deep brain that that
stem to starts coming out and,like you know, and that's why
I'm having trouble at work, okay, well, thinking internally, it
doesn't make sense why you'dkill your cat, but okay, that's

(55:51):
your story, you know, and somuch of the mental health field
was dealing with people who arenot high functioning adults, who
are not having a normal day.
Yeah, this is, or that is,their normal day.
Yeah, their baseline is yellingat themselves and having
conversations their heads.
You know, and I've got, I'vegot empathy for that.
I did not think this soundsterrible, to admit.

(56:14):
But I did not put a lot ofthought or consideration into
mental health until I startedworking in a jail like, even
after going through so much armystuff, you know the whole
culture I was like you're fine,don't be a bitch, keep it up,

(56:36):
let's go.
Are you applying this toyourself or to the subject
culture, the culture of thepeople that work in those
environments?
Yeah, yeah, like the military,it's like, yeah, the army sucks.
We're not Marines, so it couldbe worse, let's go.
It could be worse, it couldalways be worse.
Right, like, oh, that's whatI've got going on for me,
awesome, that's why I'm going toreenlist, because it could be

(56:56):
worse, no, and jail actuallycoming in contact with people
who are dealing with mentalhealth issues for their whole
lives that's what really turnedthat light bulb on for me.
I remember working in the uh,the medical wing and the jail

(57:19):
downtown.
That was like the sickest ofthe sick yeah, d, 40, oh, yeah,
yeah.
And guys just sitting on hismattress.
That was like the sickest ofthe sick yeah, d, 4d, oh, yeah,
4d, yeah.
And the guy's just sitting onhis mattress playing with his
feces.
He had already got done playingwith his feces on the wall,
mm-hmm, and he's just lookingand not focusing on anything,
moving his head around, movinghis hands trying to catch

(57:42):
imaginary fireflies, imaginarybugs, mm-hmm, and he has a
little bit of a smile on hisface.
And I asked the person that'salready been working there for a
while, like what's going on?
Do we need to go in and get him?
I don't want to do this.
He has so much poop on hishands.
Don't worry about it, hedoesn't need it.

(58:03):
We're good for a bit.
We'll clean out his mattress.
We'll get him some cleanclothes.
We'll get a couple more peoplein here to keep it safe.
We'll shower him eventually.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but he'sabout on time for the schedule.
This makes sense.
He's already eaten, so he'sgood.
We'll get to him is a regularthing.

(58:24):
We just this is a Tuesday forhim.
Yeah, you can't stop it.
So that's when I really startedto get an exposure to the 12th
and seeing these people sufferLike this is your day you wake
up and this is your day youdon't.
You may not even know thatyou've woken up, like your brain

(58:46):
could just be constantly firing.
Mm-hmm, growing up, you're likehot drugs are bad.
They.
They cause you to look likethat, like drugs caused this,
get pointed to some unfortunatefuck on the road, mm-hmm.
And then grow up and you put onthis uniform and you actually
deal with that sudden puncher atfuck and like, maybe, maybe

(59:10):
drugs cause this, or maybe sheis pursuing drugs to calm the
effects of that.
Yeah, who knows, it doesn'tmatter.
At that point, who am I to judge?
Who the fuck am I to judge?
Who the fuck am I to judge?
Are you able to go about yourday in a safe manner that
doesn't impede other people Rockand roll?

(59:32):
The libertarian to me says cool, go for it.
You get to that point where youare adversely affecting the
environment for the safety ofyou and others.
Okay, now we should step in,because other people shouldn't
have to worry about that whilethey're eating at burger king,
right, oh, taking their kids out, and you're naked, screaming in

(59:52):
the middle of the street.
Yeah, yeah, you're doing thatat home, okay, cool, yeah, at
least you're safe, even ifyou're on the sidewalk.
I don't know, even if you wereon the sidewalk, like, well,
depending on the weather, itsucks, maybe I can give you some
pants.
Yeah, it's time and space, asironic as it is, wearing one

(01:00:14):
uniform or another for almosttwo decades of my life.
I do like to consider myselfvery libertarian in that sense
and I know a lot of people whoare.
No, I hate the big government.
Like you, have been a publicemployee for 15 years.
What are you taught?

(01:00:36):
Like there are so many?
Was it ron swanson?
Yeah, yeah, like that's it's.
It's an ironic character, he's.
It's funny and so many of uscan relate to that.
I certainly can.
Yeah, I've definitely been inthat position.
Yeah, like, how are you gettingpaid through public funds?
And I don't know, maybe we'vegot the best view of the

(01:00:59):
hypocrisy of some of the things,that's for sure.
I had a great time doing themental health thing.
It was, uh, it was reallyrewarding.
There's turnover in lawenforcement, of course.
Like some, maybe maybe somebodywill do something bad and they
see the wrongs of their ways andthey get better, and maybe

(01:01:20):
we'll see him in a couple ofmonths when they get out of jail
.
Maybe we'll see him in a coupleof years when they come home
from prison.
Maybe they got away and we'llsee him in a couple of months
when they get out of jail.
Maybe we'll see him in a coupleof years when they come home
from prison.
Maybe they got away and we'llsee him tonight.
There's no less turnover in themental health game.
A lot of my coworkers are.
I'm glad you got this jobBetter you than me.

(01:01:42):
Yeah, that's fair.
That's okay.
I'm willing to take that forsure.
You were good.
You enjoy investigating the carcrashes because you are really
good at math.
Well, thanks, man.
That means a lot.
That means a lot.
I think it was rewarding becauseso often we're dealing with

(01:02:02):
people who are not victims orsuspects of crime, just a shit,
chance of circumstance, victimof circumstance.
Yeah, yeah, their own poormental health or substance use
or whatever.
There are a lot of stories, somany stories.
One of the more successfulfeel-good ones is's like this 17

(01:02:25):
year old, 16, 17 year old girlsteals grandpa's truck and
drives off the beginning of theday and I heard from the
clinician that I was with that.
This girl took like seven oreight cops to subdue her.
Jesus, because she was just,she was in her zone, yeah, yeah,

(01:02:47):
she was in her superhuman zone.
She had that Marvel magic right, mm-hmm.
And when she gets spotted, Ithink somebody called her in a
grocery store.
Like, hey, this girl's actingreally weird.
She's been looking at thegardening section for the last
three hours and no one's comingto get her.
Oh, what does she look like?

(01:03:08):
And everyone's like, oh, oh,it's her.
So I'm working with outsideagency.
It's in their jurisdiction.
Show up, put on the gloves.
We're all getting ready for thefight, right?
Like, oh geez, oh geez, this isgoing to suck, it's going to be
in public.
We got to defer that fight foras long as possible until maybe

(01:03:40):
grandparents can show up, untilshe agrees to come with us.
Whatever we got to do, we gotto.
We don't want to hurt her.
It's not her fault that shejust doesn't fire on all the
cylinders.
So we show up.
She sees my uniform, sees myclinician.
Clinician gets someintroductions out of the way,
like, oh, perfect, perfect,perfect, hey, what are you

(01:04:00):
planting?
What is this?
And she's very guarded at first, and then, with enough probing,
genuine questions like why areyou interested in this?
She just opens up and justtalks about the different types
of tomatoes, the goats that sheraises with her grandparents.
How, like she, if theapocalypse comes, she is going

(01:04:24):
to be homesteading and she'sgoing to outwit all of us.
I am thoroughly convinced and itwas, it was a thing to note
watching my cover officer fromthat other jurisdiction, that
home jurisdiction, that they'reon the other side of the aisle
just kind of peeking his corner,peeking his head around the
corner like waiting corner, likewaiting, like we have to fight

(01:04:45):
this one again.
I remember the fight from lasttime and she's just opening up
more to me.
We're talking more.
We're just we're having it,we're having a conversation.
We're having a legitimateconversation while the other
officers are working their assesoff trying to get a little
family member it's.
It is hard trying to maintain aconversation when you know

(01:05:08):
where the conversation is going,like this has to end.
I am not trying to be yourfriend.
I wish you the best in life.
I am not trying to become arole model, a big brother for
you.
Let's go, you know.
So you start losing your placein the conversation.
Mm-hmm, my clinician just kindof walk up, ask her about the

(01:05:30):
soil.
So you've been checking outthis very specific type of soil.
What's the difference?
Like this one looks cheaper.
No, you don't want any of that.
That's got all this weird loamin it and this is like.
So you, you that assistance,you need that support, that
secondary set of eyes.
What about drainage?

(01:05:52):
Good call, good call.
Hey, what about mold?
How do you drain these things?
No, you just got to poke theholes.
That's very similar to like CNUin that way Exactly Christmas
negotiation, yeah, andultimately she gets that guard
comes down.
It's very similar to like cnuin that way exactly negotiation,
yeah, and ultimately she getsthat guard comes down.
Last time she dealt with thecops she had to fight a bunch of

(01:06:12):
.
She's talking, she's using adifferent part of her brain,
she's engaged.
She kind of forgot that.
She's been wandering friendmeyer for several hours and
grandpa shows up like hey, joe,I heard all about you and how
you make goat cheese.
You sound like a pretty handyguy.

(01:06:33):
And he's just looking at melike what did she tell?
It doesn't matter.
Well, looks like grandpa's here, looks like it's time to go.
She's just got this.
Look like I guess it is time togo.
He's grandpa's here.
Yeah, all right.
Hey, I had a great time talkingwith you.
Take care, bye, see you nexttime.
And she just goes home.
That's great, everything's fine.

(01:06:55):
You know, we talked, we, weengaged with her for something
like two hours, oh my god.
And we didn't have to fight her.
We'd have to fight her into acop car.
We have to fight her into anambulance.
We didn't have to fight herinto a hospital because she was
not working within the confinesof normal good society.

(01:07:17):
Right, she can't, she can'tstay in the grocery store
forever.
It's got to close sometime.
It's a win.
Yeah, yeah, that was a win.
That was exhausting.
It was exhausting and that'spart of that.
The warrior guardian coin,that's.

(01:07:38):
That's the other part of it.
Like, hey, she's fine, we'refine, nobody else got hurt.
Drive on to the next.
Yep, how long were you in lawenforcement then?
Patrol?
Five years, jail, four and ahalf.
So shy of ten, almost ten, yeah, yeah, why do you think someone

(01:07:59):
should be a cop?
It's not for the pay.
You can do a lot safer thingsfor maybe not as much money, or
maybe something harder but lessdangerous.

(01:08:19):
Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, it was good,I didn't.
You can go on some vacationsevery now and then.
Okay, when you could get themoff.
Yeah, yeah, when I, when I hadtime to get off, that was I
thought I got out of themilitary.
Yeah, you did sleep in your ownbed.
Okay, I should have saw thatcoming.
Um, because you have a sense ofservice, you have this weird

(01:08:49):
moral obligation to put yourselfin front of danger for a higher
purpose, for a higher cause, abetter cause.
Do you feel like you had thatdrive?
I had to have.
I think you did.

(01:09:10):
Yeah, whether it was working inthe jail making sure you weren't
going to get beat up, orworking on the road making sure
you weren't going to get beat up, like you were a central tool
to a very specific problem and Iwas there to make sure you were
going to be fine, just like acut out MHRT cut out the mental

(01:09:30):
health part of it.
Yeah, I am a very specific toolto solve a broad range of
problems that other people donot want to deal with.
I had a drill sergeant whostarted off the grenade

(01:09:51):
orientation day.
It's like 7 in the morning,real early.
Alright, guys, gather aroundand shut the fuck up.
We've got some friends who arewaking up right now, who are
going to work at best.
Buy, that shit is stupid.
You're gonna be throwing somegrenades now.
Listen up so you don't getblown up, and this is just that.

(01:10:15):
That's that idea.
Like we could all get a jobsomewhere.
Yeah, get a job.
Just doing things, coming home,it's like, okay, cool, like
you're, you're living for thingsoutside of your life, yeah,
yeah, you've got to find apassion and a reason to show up
for law enforcement every day,because there are so many things

(01:10:39):
that you give up, there's somany things that that suck about
it and you you've got to find abetter reason than it sucks,
less than something.
Something like get out becauseit's it is taxing to the mind,
to the body, to your socialcircle.
Yeah.

(01:10:59):
So the opposite end of thequestion who do you think should
not seek a job in lawenforcement?
People who want power orauthority over people, people
that are badge heavy, yeah,authoritarian, do it, because I
fucking said so.
If you want to do that, if youwant to have that job, that's a

(01:11:22):
great place to be able to do itfor a bit until it catches up to
you.
And no, it's not, and for goodreason.
Yeah, like you're being anasshole, like there's assholes
in every industry, right, it'sjust really easy to hate on cops
because these cops get in yourbusiness for things that you

(01:11:43):
think that shouldn't be.
Like I wasn't speeding, okay.
Well, according to thisinstrument that measures
concepts of physics.
This is how fast you were going, like I didn't run that red
light.
You almost struck a child inthe crosswalk.

(01:12:04):
We could talk to that kid andsee how he feels.
People just going about theirday, that thing you can think of
that's it.
Like.
There's asshole footballplayers.
There are jerk CEOs.
But a bad person who is a CEO,who makes bad decisions, will
directly affect her company andher workers, her employees, and

(01:12:27):
may indirectly affect theconsumers.
You just avoid those products.
An asshole dentist is like well, I just won't go to that
dentist, fuck that guy anymore.
Cops, law enforcement, is aboundand nobody wants to deal with
them until until something badhappened to them.

(01:12:48):
Why should you not get into it?
If my kids were to grow up likeI think I want to do that, all
right.
Well, you should do some jobshadowing and really dig into it
, check it out, see it like withanything, any job, whether it's

(01:13:08):
uniform service or financialsales, fucking food industry, I
don't know.
It might sound cool, it couldbe glamorized, maybe that's it,
maybe that's it, maybe that's it, maybe it's.
There's so much cool stories orcool movies, cool videos, of

(01:13:30):
all the glamor and the cool youget to do cool things like, yeah
, and a lot of time you arewriting about it, you are
reporting it, you are waitingfor it to happen.
You're like, there's there arefun times and there are times
just like what am I doing withmy life right now?
And that's the same with themilitary service.

(01:13:50):
I mean, you watch a, arecruiting video, a recruiting
commercial.
They're not showing the sailorswho are painting the side of
the ship.
They're showing the sailors whoare flying in the aircraft
doing cool.
Yeah.
They're not showing the marineswho are changing the oil to the

(01:14:17):
vehicles.
They're showing the marinesjumping out of ospreys and
hitting boots on ground andkicking ass and doing the
mission.
Yeah.
But why are we showing this?
Why are we highlighting this?
Because it's fun and it's fewand far between.
Yeah, of course.
Oh, that's the fun part, yeah.
So it sounds like what you'resaying is that it's important

(01:14:38):
for anybody curious about thejob to know what you're getting
into.
There are a lot of things thatsomeone has to give up, someone
has to sacrifice to keep thatgoing.
I, I had always accepted thatit was really easy getting
indoctrinated with the military.

(01:14:59):
Yeah, what were the kind ofthings that you had to give up
or sacrifice for this.
I missed a best friend'swedding, I missed a couple of
good friends' weddings, mygrandpa's funeral, countless
birthdays, holidays, holidays.
A lot of planned things thatjust didn't align with either

(01:15:26):
the training schedule, the joband that's for, like either
uniform.
There's just so much that youjust cannot get out of.
Hey, I, I really want to dothis fucking bowling league on
Wednesday nights.
It's like well, you're in luckbecause your days off are Monday

(01:15:47):
, tuesday and Wednesday.
Awesome, cool, cool.
Can I take my kids to the parkSaturday morning?
Well, you're scheduled forSaturdays.
For how long Got this scheduledfor a year?
Oh, so after this year, will Ibe able to take my kids to the

(01:16:07):
park?
Probably not.
Well, you just get wednesday,thursday, friday off.
Yeah, like I was just sayinglike I, um, I got to go to my
brother's wedding it was on asaturday, very recently and I
didn't have to trade shifts withanybody, I didn't have to burn

(01:16:29):
precious vacation time, I didn'thave to feign sickness, I
didn't have to do any of thelittle tricks, weird things that
people do to be able to getthat time off.
Do to be able to get that timeoff like.
Nor would I want to have to dosomething tricksterly dirty to
be able to get that time offright like.

(01:16:51):
This is my job, this is my duty, this is my assigned post, and
everyone else in a normal lifehas saturdays off.
I'm sorry, grandma.
No, I'm not coming to Easterdinner because I don't have
Sundays off right now.
Yes, grandma, I will see you onThanksgiving.
Of course I'll see you onThanksgiving, and you know what

(01:17:14):
Christmas aligns with Thursdays,so I'll see you Christmas too.
How cool is that, grandma?
Yeah, I know I didn't get to dothat last year or the year
before that.
Yeah, I know, I didn't get todo that last year or the year
before that.
So it's the stuff outside ofwork that you give up.
I didn't realize howindoctrinated I was when I was

(01:17:36):
on the crisis negotiation team,and part of that is the
willingness to carry your workphone and keep it on you and
ready and active 24 7.
My girlfriend had made a reallycomplicated dinner.
I can't remember.
She knows she now, you know,knows exactly what it is.

(01:17:58):
I don't know.
It was like a chicken carbon.
It was something took a coupleof hours Labor.
Yeah, it's a big deal and I got.
I think I just served up and Iwas just taking those first
couple of bites and the workphone goes off.
I'm like well, I'll see youlater.

(01:18:19):
Love you, bye, went off, it'slate at night, didn't get home
till early in the morning.
The problem was, of course,resolved.
We're high-fiving.
Good guys win, of course,because we do.
Good guys will always win.
Good guys win.
Come home Don't even thinkanything of it, and then, a

(01:18:43):
couple of years later, she'stelling this story.
Like yeah, you chose the job,you always choose the job, you
will always choose the job.
Like, no, no, that's not true.
Why would you say that?
Why wouldn't she say that I wasputting myself in positions to

(01:19:04):
always do the job?
They had us, they gave us a bookat both jail and road academy
called Emotional Survival forLaw Enforcement.
Who wrote that?
Dr something Gilmartin, yeah,yeah, gilmartin.

(01:19:26):
Yeah, yeah, gilmartin.
It's not a big read, not hard.
I read it a couple of times,once at the beginning of jail,
once for patrol and then halfwaythrough our time in patrol, and
it spoke to me in differentstages.
Just like you know, you mightread a book that you read before
and you just pick something updifferent from it.
Yeah, no man steps in the sameriver twice, kind of thing.

(01:19:50):
Right?
And joe martin talks aboutkeeping your identity after you
put on that uniform.
Make sure you've got thosehobbies, make sure you're going
out and doing those things thatmake make you, and it is so hard
to do those if you are notconscious about it.
Yeah, I can imagine.

(01:20:10):
All right.
Oh, my days off don't alignwith my golf buddies anymore.
Well, I'll catch up with themlater.
Hey, john, do you still golf?
Nah, I don't have any time forthat anymore.
It's not like you've lost time,you just lost time, you just
lost interest.
Yeah, because you're not doingit with that circle of friends.
I was like, oh, do you, do youstill have family game night?

(01:20:33):
No, I gotta work these evenings.
Like, oh, do you, do you doanything else?
Like I am just so tired at theend of the work week.
I don't, I don't want to.
I always thought like I'llnever do that, I'll never do
that.
But I kept signing up for littlethings that would mess with my
work schedule, that would makeme the inconsistent factor in

(01:20:55):
friends or family's plans.
So I would have to be doing myown thing, doing my own hobby,
doing my own interest, which isfine.
It's fine, but it's on me nowto make sure that I'm doing them
.
Nobody else is doing them withme.
Do you think that that was justan aspect of the job or were
you doing that intentionally?
No, I don't think it wasintentional.

(01:21:17):
I wasn't trying to hide fromanybody.
I wasn't trying to avoidfriends, avoid family.
I know.
I know there are a lot ofpeople in law enforcement like I
hate crowds, I hate big groups.
Yeah, I get that, and there aresome who use it as an excuse
like I don't want to do that.
I got to do that with my family.
I remember I think it was 2020,covid like mid 2020 everyone's

(01:21:43):
still trying to isolate.
They're trying to maintain thesix feet.
All that's like law enforcementfirst responders.
First responders are likeessential workers, like crime's
not stopping and we're seeing anincrease in all sorts of weird
things, and we can't keep peoplein jail because jail's bad and
it's full.
It could be full of corona too.

(01:22:04):
And we can't keep people injail because jail's bad and it
could be full of corona too.
And the agency had put out apolicy to support its workers.
Like hey, you're essential.
You can't do your job from home.
So the last workday of yourpayday or your pay week pay

(01:22:27):
schedule, I guess you could sayyou'll'll just have that off and
we'll just pay for you to stayhome.
Oh, because everyone else isgetting to work from home,
everyone else is getting to stayhome.
You get to do that too.
And this was written from thecomfort of someone's home
because they were in higher upadministrators positions.
Like hey, cool, you recognizethat awesome.
I remember sharing this newswith a more senior guy.
Like how cool is that?

(01:22:47):
We're gonna get paid to likestay home for a day?
Like there's stipulations youcan't, you have to be on call,
you have to stay close in thearea in case something happens,
sure, so I'm like all right,it's an extra sunday of like
yard work and chores, whatever.
I'm telling the senior guy howpretty, how cool is that?
That's pretty sick.
He's like no, why, what's wrong?

(01:23:11):
Why are you mad about this?
Like I gotta go home and I'mgonna have to stay home with my
kids.
I gotta be with them.
Like I'm at home.
As it is, they can't leave.
They never leave.
Like he was complaining that hehad to be with his family?
Yeah, god forbid.
Yeah, and that guy's now likein a managerial position.
Nothing wrong with him, he's agood guy.

(01:23:33):
Yeah, it's just the mindsetthat just creeps in.
You do what it takes tomaintain whatever semblance of
uh in a law.
Do.
What do you think are some ofthe bigger mental health issues
that officers deal with on theirown coming from the job?

(01:23:56):
Not in subjects?
Yeah, yeah, what do they bringhome Exactly?
Yeah, I think a lot of peoplefrom the outside think like, oh,
she's got to make, she's incontrol while at work.
She likes control, she has tobe in control.

(01:24:18):
She probably comes home andcontrols the household and
bosses everyone around.
He likes getting in fights atwork.
You know, he likes gettinggetting active, mixing it up.
He probably comes home and he'sjust waiting to get off the
handle and makes life hell forhis family.
I saw a lot of the opposite.
We are making decisions all day.

(01:24:40):
They're very importantdecisions that directly affect
the people that were working.
You know.
Come home it's like what do youwant to do?
I don't care.
What do you want for dinner?
Whatever you want.
What do you want to watch?
Doesn't matter, just turn it on.
What do you want to do thisweekend?

(01:25:01):
Do we have to do something thisweekend?
Just apathy, just you're zapped, just a absolute lack of energy
once the work boots come offand I was guilty of it for a
little bit until it was broughtto my attention do you care
about anything like, yeah, Icare about also?
Oh, I see why you asked oops,yeah, I get that.

(01:25:24):
They talked about that in thatbook that they gave me an
Academy, mm-hmm, shit, mm-hmm.
A lack of that awareness couldaffect an officer's outside life
, mm-hmm.
Sense of isolation, becausenobody in their thought process,

(01:25:45):
the world, doesn't understandthe evils that are happening,
the shit that's happening.
Don't go to that barbecuerestaurant, why not?
What are you talking about?
We're going out.
No, dirtbag works there.
What fine, we'll go somewhereelse.

(01:26:06):
We'll do this like.
I don't want to.
I don't want to do that.
That's uh.
That kind of event is full ofnasty people who do these things
like why do you know thatinformation?
Oh, because I had to deal withthem.
This is what I found Blah, blah, blah, blah.
You're carrying a bunch ofcynical knowledge of the world.

(01:26:30):
If the officer doesn't live inthe community that they're
working for, it might be better,it might be easier.
A lot of people do that in yourfield I've noticed.
Very few people live in thecommunities that they police.
Why do you want to know thesecrets of your neighbors?

(01:26:54):
That's bad enough.
Trying to keep what you do awayfrom your neighbors.
Either you don't tell anybodyshit or you live next to a bunch
of other cops.
You've got your back becauseyou're all in the same
neighborhood.
For 10 years I didn't tellwhoever was cutting my hair,
what I do.
It was almost easier justshaving my head at home and

(01:27:16):
going to the barber.
Like oh, what do you do forwork?
Like I, I'm a student.
I, I work at a coffee shop.
I, I'm a garbage man, I work inan office, whatever.
It sounds boring that I don'twant to keep talking about, so
you lose interest.

(01:27:37):
One of our co-workers I wastalking to the other day and he
said he will introduce himselfas a firefighter.
Everyone loves firefighters.
Yeah, that's why.
Yeah, everyone lovesfirefighters.
They're always the heroes.
Yeah, shoot, I lovedfirefighters.
Like if there was a problemthat required a firefighter
skill, a paramedic skill, emt islike awesome, you are the

(01:27:59):
professionals.
Like I'll, I'll do cpr untilyou guys show up so you know
what you're doing, like I'm.
I know what I'm doing, but youguys have those skills and it
goes both ways.
Hey, can you get the cops here,because this guy inside this
car is very much alive and wedon't want to deal with this.
You know it's a symbioticrelationship.

(01:28:21):
Sure, I came across thisfirefighter meme page on social
media.
I don't know how, I don't knowwhat the algorithm saw in me
that required me to put my eyeson this.
But so much of the humor dealtwith firefighters not actually
going to fight fires.

(01:28:41):
So many medical calls, so manyassist police for welfare calls.
I would be curious to talk witha firefighter.
I don't really know anyfirefighters as well, but I mean
, it's got to be a tinyproportion of the calls that
they go to that are actuallyfires, tiny like they're.
I mean, I see them constantlyand I never see them at fire.

(01:29:04):
They're rarely in their fireuniforms.
Yeah, yeah, god, when there isa fire, there is an actual fire,
and here they're like block offtraffic or whatever.
Get the fuck out of their way.
They are professionals.
They've been training for thisall month.
Waiting, just waiting.
Is there anything I can do?
No, you were so nice to me atmy last call.

(01:29:26):
Whatever, yeah, they're in thezone.
Direct traffic they're in thezone.
God bless, that's awesome.
How many times did you have youwatched some member of the
public call in about somethingtrivial that could have been

(01:29:58):
solved?
Oh my god, someone decided thatthe only way to solve the
situation is to call men withguns to show up to the most
ridiculous situations you couldpossibly imagine.
There's no other solution tothis other than calling a bunch

(01:30:18):
of dudes with weapons to show upand solve this problem.
For me.
You have gotten to a pointwhere this is where you, where
you feel comfortable about this.
Yeah, I went to this disturbancecall with a buddy, their
co-worker, and it was aneighborhood beef.
Where we're in an apartmentcomplex, multi multifamily

(01:30:41):
residential downstairs andupstairs were having issues and
neither resident.
Both of those residents werefairly new to this country and
their country of origin was notthe same, so English is their
second language.
They're arguing with each otherabout noise trash lending

(01:31:06):
agreements Right, about noisetrash linting agreements and get
things calmed, get thingssettled.
One guy agrees like yeah, Iprobably don't need to be
stomping around on my floordisturbing my downstairs
neighbor when I'm mad at him.
The other guy's like, yeah, Ishould probably not go out of my
way to put my trash bagsupstairs against his front door.

(01:31:27):
Like we can, we can agree to be, we can be really simple, cool.
And so, as my partner and I areliving with partners like they
have nothing better to argueabout, they have nothing better
to worry their day away, liketheir brain is consumed, their,
their, their being, theiressence is consumed with hatred

(01:31:48):
towards the other right now,because there's nothing worse in
their life that they have to,they have to worry about.
And my partner is uh, he's gota lot of family in ukraine.
This is a couple of years ago,like right after russia decided
to uh, expand some borders.
And so our partner is likeworrying about his relatives,

(01:32:13):
like his first cousins, hisaunts, his uncles, his, his
parents's siblings in westernukraine.
It's like me and my family havebeen here for decades doesn't
mean that I'm not worried aboutmy family, that I see all the
time.
Yeah, in an emerging war zone,their neighbors aren't getting

(01:32:36):
mad at each other, they'relooking out for each other.
It's almost like absurdity is aluxury.
Uh, yeah, like this ability toreact to a completely ridiculous
degree is merely just a luxuryof our society.

(01:32:58):
It is an indication that welive in a society where you
really don't have to worry aboutanything else.
It's like abundance ofdifferent types of foods, right,
obesity now from a hundredyears ago.
I know I can't speak about thisas much as you could, but like,

(01:33:19):
what is the?
What is the history of mentalhealth issues as a as as a
population in differentsocieties has it?
Is there an increase, like doesthe literature talk about?
Oh, there's X percentage ofpeople suffering from these
things compared to the 1800s?
Yeah, I mean, the issue is notonly the diagnosis changes over

(01:33:42):
time, but also you never reallyknow if the disorder is there
and we just don't know about it,or something Underreporting,
yeah, yeah, like exactly what isplaying into the development of
it.
But that's meaningful questions, right?
Are these children, do thesechildren truly suffer from this
Mm-hmm?
Or do we just not know how tohandle them and we're just going

(01:34:04):
to drug them up and make themgood little boys and girls,
absurdity as a luxury should beyour bumper sticker.
I think it's fitting.
It appears to me that there is a, and you have to understand
from my perspective as well.
Okay, so I come from a fieldthat is as well.

(01:34:30):
Okay, so I come from a fieldthat is, by and large,
controlled by leftist ideology,so much so to the point that
college I won't say everyincident of it, but most college
in my field is basically likefinishing school for liberals is
the way that I look at it.
That's not to say thatimportant things aren't taught,
but there is a blatant ideologythat controls that.

(01:34:54):
To your former field, wherethere is a very large number of
conservatives that work there,first of all, I'm, I guess I'm
curious like do you agree withthat?
Do you think that there's a lotof conservatives that are

(01:35:16):
police?
And if so, why is that?
I think there are a lot.
It seems like a disproportionatenumber of law enforcement
Compared to the rest of society.
The rest of different jobs yeahWell, certainly different jobs,

(01:35:37):
I mean, especially incomparison to mine.
I mean it's 180 difference.
It could literally not be anydifferent.
But even as far as society goes, in a sense, like both, both
professions are dealing withpeople right.
Both professions are requiringthe individual to justify their
stance on things like they.

(01:35:58):
They need to have an unbiasedopinion to make that argument of
whatever argument they'remaking.
But personal beliefs, personalpreferences, I mean I don't.
I do not believe someone'spolitical ideology affects the

(01:36:32):
person in law enforcement.
The victim, the suspect, couldwear uh, I voted for this person
in 2008 shirt.
Like, yeah, okay, well, didthey?
If that's the suspect?
Like I'm using this as anidentifier because somebody said
, yeah, the person was wearing,and I voted for this shirt, like
, okay, well, that matches theperson that I'm wearing.
Right, right, it's not going tohave any, um, it's not going to
take into account of.
Is it more likely than not thatthis person committed this

(01:36:54):
crime?
Yeah, so I don't think a biasspills out into that work, as
opposed to what I'm thinking ismore on your side of the field.
Like, do you feel like yourfield is influenced by political
uh, by political leanings?

(01:37:14):
Absolutely, a good example ofthat is the push for social
justice is huge.
I mean, it's predominant in myfield.
That is a blatantly politicalstance.
When you say social justice,you do not mean gun ownership
rights and second amendmentrights.
No one means that, right, theymean very, very specific things.

(01:37:39):
I think those in uniformservice.
They can have their personalbeliefs, but when a decision is
made to act as hey, here's thenew rule.
This is how we're following it.
You may like it, you may notlike it, I don't care.
This is what's happening andthis is how we're moving forward

(01:37:59):
, like when I think it was don'task, don't tell got repealed.
The marines were the very firstbranch to put out hey, this got
repealed.
Nobody's going to do anythingnegative about this to any of
the brothers or sisters in thecorps who express whatever

(01:38:23):
belief that is not going to betolerated.
Like they were the very firstones to say hey, this is the new
law of the land.
Shut the fuck up if you don'tlike it.
More recent example uh, was itmeasure 110 for oregon,
decriminalizing user quantity ofdrugs?
Like A lot of good cop work wasdone.

(01:38:43):
Through the search of smalluser quantities of drugs.
We could find a lot of badthings.
We could tie a lot of people toa lot of crimes.
Yeah, it's not illegal anymore,don't worry about it.
That is terrible.
It's not a good call and we sawthe effects of that from the

(01:39:08):
last several years.
Whether you want to think it'sa good thing or a bad thing, you
know that's.
That's up to you.
But I knew a lot of people wholike a lot of people in uniforms
.
It was a terrible idea, butthis is now the law, okay, cool.
Hey, sir, you can't smoke thathere.
It's legal.
Well, it's kind of gray.

(01:39:29):
You're in public, you're infront of a pizza parlor.
Go away with that, get out here.
Don't use that.
No, ma'am, these are needlesfull of heroin inside your purse
.
I'm gonna go to jail.
I was like nope, actually,you're not.
You're not gonna go to jail,but if you keep using this, you

(01:39:50):
are gonna kill yourself.
I pray for you.
I hope you're doing, you'regonna do well, you're gonna do
the right thing, and this isyour get out of jail free card.
Literally get out of jail freecard.
Call this number and try toseek counseling, try to seek
help and try to get clean.
You're not going to arrest me.
Like nope, like yeah, I willnot disagree.
There are a lot of conservativeleaning people in uniform.

(01:40:13):
Do you think it isdisproportionate?
Like it's over 50%?
I would not be surprised.
I would not be surprised.
I would be surprised if it waslike 80%.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't surprised.
I would be surprised if it waslike 80%.
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know.
I'm curious what the numberswould be.
I've met a lot of people whowere left leaning, both military

(01:40:35):
and local law enforcement, alot of people who were left
leaning.
You know, we shared a lot ofbeliefs, because that's why
we're doing the job together.
Shared a lot of beliefs becausethat's why we're doing the job
together.
But a lot of things werespecific things that
left-leaning people were.
This is morally right.
And then right-leaning peoplelike this is not morally right.
This is morally wrong.

(01:40:55):
They're still gonna do the jobtogether because they have to
yeah, they have to rely on eachother.
You know, I can agree with youon A, b, c, d, but we will never
agree on F.
Okay, well, fortunately, fdoesn't matter in this situation
.
So let's do our job Right.
Okay, cool, let's do that.
Do you think that conservativesare more likely to be drawn to

(01:41:19):
law enforcement or do you thinkthat the job of law enforcement
drives people to adopt moreconservative positions?
Conservative is values,tradition, self-governing,
self-responsibility, liberals,progressive, open to new ideas,

(01:41:49):
maybe not as communal, but moreindividual.
There's some very basic tenets.
I guess you could say that wecan agree.
Yeah, conservative is moretraditional where liberal is
more progressive, okay.
And I think from there, yeah,tradition means following the

(01:42:16):
rules.
Color within the lines.
Maintain those standards forthe community.
Progressive might be more.
Express yourself if it's nothurting anybody else.
Why would you care if myactions are my own?

(01:42:40):
What does it matter what othersthink?
If that's the case, I guess I'mkind of getting around about
way.
I can't really answer thatquestion.
People who are in lawenforcement believe in rules.
They believe in a consistentsystem, a fair system.
Society needs a consistent,fair system to work.

(01:43:04):
If we didn't have that, that'sokay.

(01:43:27):
We're not a society of warlordsWhoever's the biggest and
strongest gets to make the rules.
We're a society of rules toprotect those smaller, weaker
people who don't have a chance.
Do you think that they have thatmindset mindset and that's what
leads them to become lawenforcement or do you think they

(01:43:49):
get into the?
And maybe it's a falsedichotomy too?
I'm not.
I don't mean to present it inthat way.
Yeah, how do you defend thoserules?
How do you maintain those rules?
How do you maintain that thatstructure?
Through controlled violence,through the threat of violence,
threat of violence through toolsto include firearms, through

(01:44:13):
necessary tactics to maintainpeace?
A lot of that doesn't sit wellwith people.
Why would you do that that'snot fair, that that's just how
they are.
Like, okay, well, they can behow they are, and mine to
themselves, because how they areright now is wrecking

(01:44:34):
Somebody's small business, ispreying on somebody's child, is
stealing your car, like you arejustifying their actions.
Why are you justifying theirdecisions?
I don't know if that's aconservative, more of a
conservative mindset than aliberal mindset.

(01:44:54):
If that is the case, I would bemore conservative.
I'm like no, you're the personcommitting the crime should not
be the victim of that crime.
Like, oh well, you know, we gotto make excuses for this person
who's breaking into cars andstealing backpacks because they

(01:45:14):
had a rough childhood and theschool was bad and all of these
other environmental factors,family issues, what have you?
All of this stuff, all of thishas created a product and that
product sits before us.
Who happens to be breaking intocars?
Okay, or this person decided towake up and break into people's

(01:45:38):
cars.
Law enforcement is not themorality police, not the arbiter
of judgment based on somebody'shistory leading up to that
person.
You know cops aren't looking ata holistic picture of this
individual's past experiences.
That make up the person infront of them that got caught

(01:46:04):
beating up his wife.
They don't have the capacity orthe time frame to be able to
make an attempt andunderstanding to that kind of
degree, anyways, I mean, unlessit's maybe somebody that you've
had multiple contacts with inthe past, where you know
something a little bit moreabout their history, or even so,
someone can act the exact sameway 99 times and that hundredth

(01:46:29):
time you're like you know what.
I am tired of the cops coming inand telling me to stop yelling
when I get drunk and I'm causinga nuisance in my backyard,
screaming slurs at theneighborhood kids and throwing

(01:46:49):
things at dogs.
This hundredth time I'm goingto show them what's up.
I'm going to grab this baseballbat and I'm going to tell them
that I am tired of this.
I'm going to swing it at thefirst pig's head.
Hey, bobby, been here 99 times.
Oh shit, he has a bat.
Things have changed.
Yeah, we can't.
We can't stop and think whydoes he have a bat?

(01:47:10):
Where did this bat come from?
Is he going to use the bat?
You have to be responsive inthe moment to right the
situation that you're thecontext of the situation that
you're responding to, for sure,for sure, and it is very easy to
armchair quarterback and go.
Bobby just had an extra bad daythat day because we he got
fired because he showed up towork drunk, but it's not his

(01:47:30):
fault.
Because he's an addict ofalcohol and he's trying to get
into treatment, but he didn'tget into treatment this month
and blah, blah, blah.
None of that matters becausethis guy's about to swing a bat
at your head, right?
Do you want to go through someof these questions on defunding
the police?
Yeah, sure, I'm curious whatyour thoughts are.
Okay, if you want me to takethe devil's advocate position, I

(01:47:52):
can, in order to explain thesethings better.
Yeah, absolutely no.
What are your thoughts on theargument that reallocating funds
from police to social serviceswould better address the root
causes of crime in society?
I won't deny that socialservices would better address
the root causes of crime insociety.
I won't deny that socialservices are underfunded, for
sure.
But it would be veryinteresting to have a group do a

(01:48:17):
study on all the differentpolice agencies, all the
different law enforcementdepartments, and think you know
what?
These cats over here don't needthat much money.
We're going to take that.
You look at any agency and tellthat chief, tell that sheriff,

(01:48:38):
you got to work with 20 lesswhat you had last year.
Like what?
What are you cutting?
You're cutting quality byreducing training hours.
You're cutting quantity byreducing bodies on the street
Officers yeah, you're it.
Maybe there's not even moneyfor overtime, so you're forcing

(01:49:05):
the officers.
You have to decide.
Okay, what am I not going to do?
What work am I not going to doIf I have less to do with?
I have fewer beat partners,district partners.
I have more obligations, moreresponsibilities.
What am I going to cut?
Well, I'm going to cut the lessimportant stuff, so I'm not

(01:49:26):
going to respond to the lessimportant things.
What's less important, like theworst day of somebody's life is
the worst day of somebody's life.
If that's because a loved onedied in a horrific car crash,
okay that that seems reasonable.
If life is pretty good, youhaven't had a lot of adversity,

(01:49:47):
and you find out that your cargot stolen, that's like the
worst thing that's ever happenedto you.
That's the worst thing that'sever happened to you and that is
subjective to each person.
To a cop, what's worse fortoday?
Somebody's car got stolen.
That happens all the time.
Somebody died in a wreck.
That happens not as often.

(01:50:08):
Where are we going to spendmore time.
How did the wreck happened?
Is there more evidence at thewreck to point to uh crime, like
maybe that person's car isbeing used for something else
and we just cops don't knowwhat's more important at this
point?
I think that could be a bitmore objective.

(01:50:31):
It's the person that got theircar stolen.
Nobody's coming.
Why is anybody coming to takemy report?
Why is anybody coming to takemy ring footage that I got from
my car or from my house?
This is how I get to work.
My tools of my trade are insideof here.
I am the sole breadwinner formy family.

(01:50:52):
This is the worst thing thathas happened to us.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Is anybody seriously hurt?
I'm dead from it all.
We're probably going to putresources to that instead.
Yeah, it might be a while.
It might be a while.
It might be the next day whenPortland was dealing with its

(01:51:15):
social justice riots I havequestions about those for you
too.
Yeah, and it got to the pointwhere they did not have enough
officers to patrol their fringeareas of the city, so they were
inviting other agencies to comeon a mutual aid agreement that

(01:51:35):
those other officers would bepatrolling and helping out a
little bit.
Where's the services for thosepeople who live in a less
at-risk neighborhood than thosewho live in more high at-risk
spots downtown, those businesses?
What happens if those peopleare victims of crime?

(01:51:56):
Portland police is not going totalk to them.
We're still at a point where,if you call 9-1-1, you're going
to be on hold for a while,especially in portland.
I have watched two groups ofpeople, two groups of males, get
in a fight.
I called 9-1-1 and I'm waiting,and finally one group separates
from the other, one's limpingalong and the dispatcher's like

(01:52:19):
do you see any weapons?
No, they're both walking away.
All, both groups walking away.
Yeah, all groups are walkingaway.
Yeah, all right.
Well, if we get a chance, we'llget an officer to come by and
check things out, like somebodyjust got assaulted.
This is a degree of assault,mm-hmm.
Yeah, we'll get there if we canSee you later.
Yeah, wow, wow, welcome toPortland.

(01:52:41):
Yeah, so, wow, wow, welcome toportland.
Yeah, so do social services needmore funding?
For sure, there's a lot of goodfor that.
And what else is causing crime?
It's not just social servicesare not going to be the only
answer to the problem, like youwant to look at, like community
policing.
What else is causing crime?
I think that's what theimplication that they're saying

(01:53:02):
is.
It's because of a lack ofsocial resources that people are
committing crimes.
So if we just take all the Idon't agree with this at all, by
the way, but if we take awaythe money that's funding
government agencies like police,just put that into those social
services, then that's goinggonna solve these problems.

(01:53:24):
So people aren't going tocommit crimes of opportunity by
taking that backpack at the busstop if their social services
are adequately funded.
I think that is the argumentthat they would make.
What is going to stop somebodywho already has a mindset of
gaining by someone else's illfortune?

(01:53:45):
How will that stop it?
Right, you go to the grocerystore and you use one of those
carts to put your food in.
You take the cart to thecheckout aisle, you get the bags
, you put them in the cart.
You take the cart to your carin the parking lot, you load up

(01:54:05):
your vehicle.
Do you return the cart or doyou just maybe just like leave
it in an empty stall next to you?
Maybe you think you're good andyou just like put it up on one
of those islands with thoselittle trees so it doesn't roll
into somebody else's car.
But you don't take it to thelittle deposit area.
Yeah, there is no advantage,there's no benefit to somebody

(01:54:28):
from placing the cart where it'ssupposed to be.
You don't put a deposit down touse the cart.
You don't get some sort ofpositive social credit score.
If you return the cart, noone's going to pat you on the
back saying thanks for being agood person.
There's no intrinsic value inreturning the cart.
You return the cart becauseyou're a good person or you make

(01:54:50):
excuses like I'm running late.
I'll just put it right here.
I'm pretty sure it's not goingto affect anybody.
Uh, you know it's blockingsomeone's spot, but there are
other parking spots.
Some of them are farther away,some of them are closer.
It's it's going to be else'sproblem.
You're gonna make thatjustification of whatever it is
to not return the cart becausein your mind it's okay, because

(01:55:14):
it doesn't affect me anymore,because I'm driving off.
I'm leaving this problem tosomeone else.
They pay somebody, the storepays somebody to corral all
these things, to grab them andbring them back.
Why do I need to worry aboutthis car?
All right, now magnify that.
I got a job.
I don't make a lot of money.

(01:55:35):
I really deserve these sneakers.
The company makes so much moneyoff of sports advertisements
and full price of things.
It's not gonna go broke if Itake these sneakers.
It can even go to food likeyeah, my position in life is so

(01:55:57):
bad and so terrible that it'sokay if I do this, this
shoplifting, or it's okay if Ibreak into this store.
It's okay if I do thisshoplifting or it's okay if I
break into this store.
It's okay to break into thishouse.
They're gone.
It's a nice house.
It's a much nicer house thanmine.
They're obviously better offthan I am.
They can afford it.
They can handle it.

(01:56:19):
Humans who already have thatmental disposition to get up in
their way in their life willcontinue to do that.
So removing police is not gonnawould take away from this.
These fundamental problems ofpeople acting anti-socially in

(01:56:39):
the community is what you'resaying.
People who are committingcrimes of opportunity are going
to weigh those out with whateverfactors that are presented.
Do I steal that wallet at thecoffee shop?
Well, no one's around.

(01:56:59):
Someone just left it there andit's empty.
I'll take it.
What if there's a videosurveillance system at the front
door, facing inward watchingthe patrons.
So as I walk out I see that myface is on camera.
Someone is eventually going tofind out that I am the one who
took that wallet.
Someone wants to tag the sideof this 7-eleven.

(01:57:22):
Just throw some graffiti up, itdoesn't hurt anybody.
It's just a symbol.
It's just some art.
It's a plain ass wall anyways.
Who the fuck cares?
But now there's lights outsideand it illuminates that wall and
it's going to illuminate me andthere's a higher chance
someone's going to see me dothis crime.

(01:57:43):
Is it going to deter all crime?
Is it going to deter everybody?
No, but these littleenvironmental changes will
affect other people and slowthem down and make them second
guess.
That thought like a turnpikesystem for public transportation
you go through, you pay yourticket, one click one.

(01:58:04):
You go through, you pay yourticket, one click one person can
go through.
If there is a chance thatsomebody's in that booth
watching through that one-wayglass, the amount of people that
are just going to jump over.
That reduces dramatically.
There's a crime preventionthrough environmental design.
If I put just a little tinyfence around my small ass yard

(01:58:28):
in my cul-de-sac, the chances ofsomebody crossing that
threshold entering my propertydecreases by just a little bit,
and if it reduces the potentialfor crime by 2%, is it worth it?
I would say so.
So you're saying that's whatpolice presence in the community
does?
Police presence as well ascommunity's efforts, all right.

(01:58:55):
Nobody deserves to be the victimof any crime.
Nobody deserves to be thevictim of any crime.
Nobody Nobody's asked for itdeserves to be the victim of any
crime.
Nobody, nobody's asked for it.
Nobody should be told well,that's what you get.
That's not fucking fair.
And we should not be surprisedif we leave our vehicle doors

(01:59:22):
unlocked and an iPhone sittingon the dashboard in a
neighborhood Doesn't matter,good neighborhood, bad
neighborhood, doesn't matter.
That setup has provided anopportunity for someone who may
never have ever thought in theirmind like I'm not going to go

(01:59:44):
through somebody's car andrummage through shit.
I would never do that.
Oh my gosh, the door was leftopen and I see an iphone.
No one's going to stop me.
No one can prevent this.
I'm going to take it like ifsomebody really wants to take
that iPhone and the doors arelocked to a car, okay, break the
window, take the phone.
We can't stop that.

(02:00:05):
If the doors are locked, thedoors are even closed.
It forces people to no, I mightget caught, I might get caught,
I'm not going to do it.
So little choices that we'reable to make I might get caught,
I might get caught, I'm notgoing to do it.
So little choices that we'reable to make deter those kinds

(02:00:28):
of crimes.
So placing those choices infront of potential offenders
helps to reduce the likelihoodof criminal activity in the
future.
Yeah, and increased policepresence is one of those things
that can do that.
Yeah, it is another factor,like if you know this is an area
where the cops are going toroll around in.
Okay, maybe you're going to doyour bad stuff somewhere else

(02:00:51):
and you start doing your badstuff somewhere else.
The community sees this.
They react by funding a streetlight to illuminate that area.
People are going to see you.
People are going to see youdoing your bad stuff.
You got to go find another spot.
Law enforcement alone is notthe deterrence of the
communities, because lawenforcement can't be everywhere

(02:01:13):
at once.
Random control it's not themost effective way of deterring
crime, but it also is random andif somebody's like I got a
chance of doing this, the copsaren't going to find me because
they rarely come over hereversus it's pretty busy street

(02:01:34):
and I know the cops come aroundhere every now and then.
I'm'm going to have to be on myguard or find an easier target,
find a softer target.
If your living room is on thefirst floor of any sort of
structure and the curtains arewide open and mail is stacking
up because you didn't stop it,and the lawn is growing and it

(02:01:55):
just appears that no one's homefor a while and everyone's on
vacation, the lawn is growingand it just appears that no
one's home for a while andeveryone's on vacation.
And you got a really nice TV,video game system, computers out
there.
It's inside.
You deserve to have areasonable expectation that
people should not be coming intoyour home and the curtains are

(02:02:16):
wide open.
Those things, those goods, areexposed to the world.
Do you deserve to be a victimof a crime?
No, fuck that guy who tries tobreak in and steal your stuff.
That guy knows that your stuffis there because he has a view
to it In a criminal, spideysense.

(02:02:36):
Yeah, what are your thoughts onthe argument that reducing
police will necessarily decreasecases of police brutality and
use of force Because there'sless cops to be engaging in
police brutality and uses offorce.
Uses of force.

(02:03:00):
I'd heard this author, I thinka psychologist, talk about a
study about social media and howit was consumed by certain
people.
I think it was during like thesocial justice intensity, and
the study asked how many blackmales, how many African-American

(02:03:21):
males, were unarmed and shotand killed by police in like
2020, 2021 in America, and theaverage answer was something
like a thousand, a thousand,according to the data, according

(02:03:45):
to mandatory fbi reportingstatistics.
I think the answer is like 12,and so this educated group who's
also consuming social media,who ought to know and agree with
facts, hard statistics, datascience, right science, it's
like oh yeah, well, probablyabout a thousand.
The answer is not even a tenthof that fraction of that.

(02:04:08):
So what police brutality areyou talking about?
There are absolutely instanceswhere people get roughed up way
beyond what is needed tomaintain control.
That happens Just like anyother profession.

(02:04:28):
Bad things happen and anybodywith a cell phone camera can
start recording something that'slike oh man, do you see that?
They just slammed that guy tothe ground?
How fucked up is that?
But that cell phone camera didnot catch was whatever happened.
I don't know, you don't know,nobody knows, because we're

(02:04:50):
missing the first 30 seconds ofthat interaction.
What led up to that?
Was it?
Was it nothing?
Was it just someone going hey,you come here?
Oh, you're not going to comeover here.
I've got a badge and a gun.
Listen to me.
Nope, you're going on theground.
Okay, that happened, was it?
Hey, I gotta talk to you.
Whoa, put the knife down, don'tswing that fist at me, let go

(02:05:12):
of my gun.
Whatever slam on the ground, wedon't know.
That's so much eyewitnessaccount uploaded to twitter or x
, formerly known as twitter.
What do you want to call it?
You know so much.
Stuff is okay.
This is not journalism.
Where is the full story?

(02:05:32):
If the full story says, yeah,this was excessive cool, that
person should be heldaccountable.
Law enforcement professionalsshould be held accountable.
And if it wasn't excessive cool, now you've put that law

(02:05:55):
enforcement professional inundue stress and anxiety because
they were doing their job andyou cried wolf.
That happens all too often.
That kind of raises the questionof police body cams as well.
What are your thoughts on that?
I worked in a secure facilitythat was always recording my
actions four and a half years,okay.

(02:06:16):
So now a camera's going to beon my chest, cool.
Did it affect how I acted,interacted?
Maybe, initially when I startedwearing it, but after a while
you kind of forget about it.
I know a lot of, a lot of oldco-workers like we're going to
get in so many complaints, we'regoing to get so many reviews,

(02:06:39):
blah, blah, people are gonna bemad at us.
And people were complaining.
And then there were reviews.
I was like, oh look, the personwe were interacting with was
acting like a shithead.
Yeah, the officer did tell youto fucking shut up because you
wouldn't stop yelling andswearing and that's the only way

(02:07:00):
to get you to listen to him.
Yeah, is it kind?
Is it nice?
No, but the person who iscursing like a sailor to begin
with isn't a nice and kindperson anyways, and they only
understand anger, violence,display of power to verbally

(02:07:22):
control, to be verballycontrolled.
So, okay, we're going to usethat.
So it helps to give anobjective, at least more of an
objective viewpoint, and toprotect, kind of, all parties
involved.
Right, like, not only thesubject.
Also, I mean, you're going tobe less inclined, say, if you're
a dirty, quote-unquote officer.

(02:07:44):
You're going to be lessinclined to perform a dirty
action if you know that yourbody camera is recording you
doing something right, and thenit protects the officer as well
when you get false accusationsplaced against you.
And it's not a perfect view, itis not a bird's eye view, it's

(02:08:05):
not an omniscient God's eyewatching everything.
Of course it could be facedthis way, like I am facing, my
shoulders are aligned with myfeet and I am facing forward in
this chair, but I've been turned.
My head has been turned 45degrees to my right.
I'm looking more over my rightelbow talking to you for who

(02:08:30):
knows how long.
So my shoulders are facingforward.
The camera is facing forward.
The camera hasn't seen shit.
Whatever you've been doing, youcould have been flipping me off
the entire time.
You could have grabbed thatknife underneath that monitor
and started waving it around.
The camera facing forwarddidn't see any of that.
It didn't see your facialexpressions.

(02:08:51):
It may have heard you startingto breathe loudly, start huffing
and puffing.
It didn't see you startclenching your fist, checking to
see if anybody else is lookingbefore you grab that knife,
making the decision to attack mewhile we conduct this interview
.
Yeah, so the camera's in perfect.
I remember watching it footageafter I'm having to, uh, deploy

(02:09:13):
my patrol rifle.
The strap to that rifle coveredthe camera the entire time
other people were looking atwhen they're pulling their
service pistol, for whateverreason.
Camera doesn't see anything.
It just sees a couple of armshands in the back end of a gun.
The fight's going on.

(02:09:33):
You think the camera's going tocatch that?
Like you are body to body witha person, you might hear voices,
they might be muffled, theymight be clear and articulate.
Camera's not going to catchthat.
Yeah, so it's, but at leastit's something, though it's
something for sure, but itshouldn't be.
It is a piece of informationJust like we were talking about

(02:09:59):
earlier.
Right simply because one personsays the taliban live here, isis
lives here, al-qaeda lives here.
Oh, we need to destroy thatplace right now.
That's working off bad intel.
Militaries in all of historyhave dealt with bad intel.
You know the civil war generalswere making terrible decisions

(02:10:23):
on bad intel up to yeah, we'rein iraq.
Oh you, you're saying your,your neighbor is al-qaeda.
Cool, we'll bag him,interrogate him.
No, your neighbor was just adifferent religious sect than
you.
You just believed in adifferent strain of islam and
you were smart enough to go tothe cia and go.

(02:10:44):
Hey, I got some information foryou.
Like, relying on one piece ofinformation is going to result
in inaccuracies.
You're not going to go to thecar dealership like, oh, the
sticker price says it's, uh,twenty thousand dollars.
Well, I've got that piece ofinformation, I better give you
twenty thousand dollars.
Did you do any researchbeforehand?

(02:11:05):
Well, no, the sticker saystwenty thousand dollars.
Oh, okay, well, have fun withthat.
And it seems like that isreally what people are doing,
especially when it comes tosocial media posts about
perceived injustices beingvisited upon people of color
specifically.
Right, that really is what theintent I guess of the public is

(02:11:32):
is to misconstrue intentionally.
People are going to see whatthey want to see in those kinds
of statements of passion.
I have been raciallymisidentified my entire life.
I am almost with a good pair ofwork boots on.

(02:11:52):
I'm damn near six and a halffeet tall.
You're a big boy.
Yeah, I have been asked if I ampart japanese, mediterranean of
some sort, both, uh, north andthe south, part of that little
body of water, african, haitian,dominican republic?

(02:12:12):
Uh, all sorts of just.
You're not just a white guy.
I have never been asked.
Are you part hispanic?
Are you part mexican?
Do you have parents fromcentral or south america.
No one has ever asked me that.
Look at my mom, small littlehispanic lady whose entire

(02:12:35):
family was from texas beforetexas was texas, whose entire
family was from Texas beforeTexas was Texas.
Never would have guessed it.
No one would ever guess it.
I don't know how many times.
So, with all that to say, Ihave had people in jail,
misidentify me, like hey, areyou one of us?

(02:12:56):
Whatever racial group they'relooking like, that's one that's
none of your business to keepmoving.
And on the patrol side, like you, fucking racist, you white
supremacist, piece of shit,people saying this to you yeah,
like how dare you do this thingin your uniform?
You have no idea who I am.

(02:13:18):
You have no clue who I am, whatI made up of, what I have done.
Like I am here to investigate avery specific or maybe several
different crimes, or maybe I'mnot even here.
I'm just trying to calm shitdown and figure out what
happened.
Like no, nope, it's just easycalling you a white fascist pig.

(02:13:40):
Yeah, I buddies who are variousshades of white, brown, black.
Nope, you're a sympathizer ofwhite supremacy and that's why
you're wearing the uniform.
Uh, you are upholding thenarrative and the status quo.

(02:14:01):
You are a uh traitor to yourcommunity.
Community of what I have more incommon with the people I live
around than the people I looklike.
My community is where I'mliving and I'm not living where
you're living yes, not living inyour shitty apartment complex.
And if you're in a shittyapartment complex and that's the

(02:14:23):
best you're doing, then, godbless, that's awesome.
That is the cool thing aboutcrime.
I've been in some amazing homesand some filthy, filthy
residences For the same crime,for similar crimes, yeah, for
the same issues.
Mm-hmm, doesn't matter how muchmoney you make, you're a piece

(02:14:46):
of shit.
You're still a piece of shit.
Transcendence class for sure.
Okay, second beer, are you ready?
Yeah, wow, so this is theboulevard, kansas city.
Yes, bourbon, barrel aged quadcheers, torel-aged quad Cheers
to you, friend.
Ooh, that is barrel-aged,that's quad.
Indeed, that's nice.
Ooh, yeah, see, this is my kindof Belgian right here.

(02:15:09):
Mm-hmm, there's no banana-yanything on this at all.
Yeah, that's a big boy beer.
That's really nice.
It reminds me of like a barleywine more than anything.
Really, it's very barley wine-y.
It might as well be wine.
It doesn't need bum wine.
Yeah, it's good.
Oh, I like that a lot.
No, it's really tasty.
I give it for sure.

(02:15:30):
Three, six, maybe three, sevenOut of five.
Mm-hmm, I'm very stingy with myratings.
You've had a lot.
You've had a few, that's, I'vehad quite a few.
Yeah, yeah, closing down 10 000now and you're able to track
all that?
Well, that's a cool for me,yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do you ever get sad looking foryour favorite beer or whatever

(02:15:53):
beer that you're looking for,and on that brewery closed down?
That's totally yeah.
How often does that happen?
Well, unfortunately, more oftenthan not, we lost modern times,
which was my favorite breweryhere in portland.
There's been some big closuresrecently actually, which is kind
of sad.
Yeah, I don't know.
Uh, I think bursells haveactually declined a little bit

(02:16:15):
in america over the last year.
I've heard that, but why?
It's not that people havestopped drinking, certainly
that's.
I don't think that's ever goingto happen, but I think it is
more like a shifting in tasteprofiles.
They're moving either towardsthings like cider, seltzer yeah,
probably that's popular wine,maybe two, I don't know exactly

(02:16:36):
where everybody's going to, andit's not like a precipitous drop
, but no, it is a drop.
I remember a few years ago,cider was coming in and taking
more taps than other brewerieswere expecting.
What do you mean?
You're not going to take mythree barrels, you're only going
to why?
You're only going to take two.
Yeah, what is hard cider?
And now that seltzer's more andmore prevalent, yep, all those

(02:17:02):
skinny bitches drinking seltzers, seltzers, yeah, like five
percent seltzer.
I have some questions.
I'm just curious about yourthoughts on misconceptions about
law enforcement.
For example, what don't peopleknow about law enforcement that
they probably should know?
Okay, there's serious and ajoke.

(02:17:22):
Oh good, serious and humorous.
Humorous would be.
Tv is not real.
Movies are not real.
I mean, it's not like CSI, thatpart.
Oh, my god, I don't know howmany times I would have to

(02:17:44):
disappoint somebody like thankyou for your shitty ring camera
photo of a vehicle that drove byaround the same time that you
thought your package was stolen.
Maybe you could just hit theenhance button.
You guys have that at the labblurry.
Yes, we are garbage in, garbageout.

(02:18:06):
Yeah, I remember going tosomeone called like hey, we
found a weapon in the street.
I'm thinking, oh man, ifsomebody found a gun and that's
that's rough, that's not a goodthing.
Yeah, okay, let's, let's gocheck this out.
It was a kitchen knife.
It was like a steak knife.
We found this in the street onour walk.

(02:18:27):
We can point to exactly whereit at.
Where it was at.
This looks like it's beenoutside several dust.
It for prints?
Yeah, yeah, like, what do youwant for this?
Like, I think you should takesome cardboard, wrap the blade
inside that cardboard and safelyput it in your garbage can?
Uh-huh, you don't, you don'twant this for evidence.
Evidence for what?

(02:18:48):
Yeah, we just didn't know ifthere was, like, a crime that
occurred and you would need this, like you know as much as I do.
Thank you, no, even if I didwant it for evidence, how did
you pick it up?
Oh, with your hands, technologycan do some really cool things.
I got to do some really coolthings to indicate people and,

(02:19:09):
like, no man, the evidence showsyou were using this credit card
.
It's right there.
Yeah, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Yeah, wasn't your credit card.
It was stolen.
No, you're real on video.
Yeah, okay, maybe, maybe you'renot getting charged with the
theft of the credit card.
How about the usage of thisstolen like?

(02:19:29):
I guess that would be thehumorous part of it.
Binge watching law and orderdoes not make you a trial and a
serious part would be okay.
Two things one, as witheverything in life, things are
shades of gray.
Intent plays a big factor in somany things.

(02:19:51):
He was clearly harassing mebecause I am harmed by his foul
words.
It struck my ears.
According to the statedefinition of harassment, you
are not a victim of such.
No, I was harassed.

(02:20:14):
He even said it again onFacebook.
No, that does not count.
No, this is what harassment is.
This is what theft is.
It's like you are not robbed.
You are a victim of theft.
You are not robbed.
No, I know what I know.
This is robbery.
Was it taken by force from you?

(02:20:35):
What?
What do you mean?
This was taken overnight.
Nobody knows who did it.
This was theft.
This was not robbery.
There's varying levels of that.
Not everything is a crime andthere's a lot more autonomy in

(02:20:59):
the decision-making process thatto the officer in the field.
So many people have thispreconceived notion of military
police just being thesejackboots, thugs who just go out
.
They've got one purpose andthey're unthinking and
unwavering.
Some of the smartest peopleI've ever met in my life are

(02:21:21):
everyday street cops.
Just through their reasoning,their logic, the calmness in
which they approach a problem,they're some great thinkers,
great minds, just hanging out inthis profession, loving it,

(02:21:44):
having a good time.
Yeah, I've met several of them,you included.
Yeah, you make a brown manblush at a tactical level for
the military.
You don't want the servicemembers questioning orders in
life or death situations.
The nothing things that need toget done right now won't get

(02:22:08):
done.
Hey, you got to go take thathill.
Can we schedule a zoomconference to talk about this
first?
Because I've got some ideas,I'll make a.
I'll make a powerpoint.
Talk about this first.
Because I've got some ideas,I'll make a.
I'll make a powerpoint.
Talk about this.
You've got like three secondsto tell me why you can't take
that hill.
There's a bunch of ieds rightthere.
I'll get blown up.
Okay, well, I need, I need somesort of elevation.

(02:22:30):
Oh, cool, I'll go over on thatbuilding.
Awesome, make it happen, figureit out.
Solving problems at the lowestlevel same with some of any
other law enforcement uniformservice.
It's not just like this blind,absolute devotion to order.
Like law says this we've got todo this.

(02:22:50):
I will do like.
There are absolutely somethings that have to be carried
out because of certaincircumstances, so much of it can
be answered with the phrase itdepends, which isn't the answer
because it can't be answered.
An example from my day-to-day isthat I am consistently shocked
at how few times I have beenwith officers when they've

(02:23:13):
pulled over traffic and notgiven a ticket.
It is the vast majority oftimes oh yeah, that we pull
people over it's way over 50that they will never ever ticket
someone.
I think I was something likefive to one.
Yeah, it's crazy.
And that one time out of thosesix total, it was like hey, you

(02:23:36):
ran the red light and somebodywas walking in the sidewalk they
had to stop so they wouldn'tget hit by you.
Or the person talked themselvesinto the ticket, like, hey,
this is what happened, is it?
Are you justified in getting aticket?
Yeah, I'm not gonna probablysay that in the in the speech.

(02:23:57):
It more for education, more forawareness.
And half the time people arespeeding on a certain highway,
they're like well, I thought itwas 65.
I'm like, no, this is 55.
It's like well, I was onlygoing five miles over.
No, you were going 15 over.
Like, not the worst thing inthe world, still Not really
acceptable.
So this is what's up.
Oh, okay, well, thanks, thanksfor telling me about like, yeah,

(02:24:18):
be safe, have a better day.
You just drive on.
Yeah, cool.
So much of it is education.
What's what's the point of aticket?
It is a financial incentive foryou to not do it again.
I'm just even just gettingpulled over, like shit.
My driving was so erroneous thatit was bringing the attention

(02:24:45):
of law enforcement upon me.
I should probably straighten up.
People are kind of swervinginto the bike lane like roll up
to them.
They're so oblivious, they'reso into their own world.
They have no idea that I'mwatching them text and drive.
They got to a point where I wasjust flipping the horn a little
bit if no one else was aroundand startling people at

(02:25:06):
stoplights.
I'm watching you scroll onFacebook.
I saw you like multiple thingson Instagram.
Yeah, you had no idea I washere.
It's not like I'm hiding.
I'm in this giant white SUVwith all sorts of markings.
Oh shit, the cops are here.

(02:25:26):
The cops have been here, buddy.
They've been here since you'vebeen liking these inappropriate
photos that you shouldn't belooking at, with your girlfriend
sitting in the passenger seat,and is the driver going to be
using their cell phone again fora while?
Probably not, so maybe the nextlight after you guys turn off.
You know you can only do somuch.

(02:25:51):
So we talked about what peopledon't know about law enforcement
.
What should people know aboutlaw enforcement?
Your participation in theprocess can influence our level
of interest.
Explain that more.
If you're calling the cops andyou want to report something,

(02:26:14):
okay, we have some questions foryou.
Please explain some of thesequestions.
I don't have time for this.
You just just just just goarrest him like nope.
You claim that your neighborpoisoned your dog.
I'm gonna have some questions.
Why do you think this?
Tell me about this history.
Has your neighbor threatenedyou with this?

(02:26:35):
Do you let your dog out on thatside, like I don know?
There will be a battery ofquestions.
No, I'm done.
I don't want to do this anymore.
Okay, I don't have enough to gooff of or anything.
This is not the 1600s in Salem,massachusetts.
I need a little more to go offof it.
Cast a spell on me.
Stone them to death, I gotbetter.

(02:26:55):
Huh, pass the spell on me.
Stone them to death, I gotbetter.
What do people think that theyknow about law enforcement?
That they really don't know atall?
Oh man, the law Kind of goesback to the no.
I read this on the internet.

(02:27:15):
When I hear someone like, Iknow my rights, that is an
indication that you are preparedto have an argument.
Maybe you are educated about it, maybe you did spend some time
to understand the nuances ofcertain things.
But law is so big when lawyersgo and get their education, go

(02:27:45):
and get their education there'ssuch a wide breadth of knowledge
and into options, disciplines,uh, specialties I guess you'd
say criminal law is just sosmall compared to that fraction
of that giant shelf of law books.
What you're describing maybeagainst the law, I don't know, I
didn't go to law school.
But it's not a crime.

(02:28:07):
Like, yeah, she sounds like ajerk.
Still not a crime, not illegal.
You get that a lot with whatthis person is.
They're crazy.
She sounds like a jerk.
Still not a crime.
Yeah, not illegal.
Yep, you get that a lot withwhat this person is they're
crazy.
That doesn't work.
The best answer although youcan't say it in this way, but it

(02:28:27):
is true is it's not illegal tobe crazy.
No, no, it's not illegal.
You can be crazy.
There's a lot of people thatare crazy.
Go to downtown Portland, youwill.
There's a lot of people thatare crazy.
Go to downtown portland.
You will see hordes of zombielooking people that are crazy
and on drugs everywhere.
There was a guy who's sittingoutside of a restaurant like a
patio and just causing a sceneand the restaurant staff's like

(02:28:51):
he doesn't want to orderanything, he just wants to yell
at people.
We don't want him here.
Okay, restaurant has that uhauthority to do that trespass.
Show up, hey, you're notallowed to be here.
I'm in public, I can do what Iwant.
Actually, you're not.
You're clearly inside thisrestaurant's property.
Fuck you, I've already killedyou in my dreams, you peruvian

(02:29:12):
bitch.
There's another one.
Yeah, I forgot about that.
Like that was a very distinctquote.
That's a little bit closer.
Actually, that was a distinctquote that I had to put in the
report.
I was like, yeah, I recognizedthe individual because of the
orange cat shirt he was wearing,because I had dealt with him
three hours prior up the street.
Therefore, I'd already hadidentified him.

(02:29:33):
Yeah, he called me a Peruvianbitch and he told me that he had
already killed me in his sleepbefore he agreed to walk off,
yelling additional profanities.
I asked him to go and he leftNot illegal, but according to
some people.
I was harassed.
Was he white?
I don't know.

(02:29:53):
That's a racial crime.
That's a hate crime Against aperson of color.
Oh yeah, yeah, quite possibly.
So you could have got him,could have hooked him.
You know he did what I askedand the report was that much
shorter, so I'll be okay withnot pressing charges.

(02:30:14):
There's one that people shouldknow my roommate is a terrible
person.
He is eating all my food.
He's destroying my property.
Is it your property or is itshared property?
Oh well, if it's my TV in theliving room, like okay, now we
gotta go down this path.
I gotta worry like the dreadedword residency.

(02:30:36):
Yeah, resident, like okay, itteaches everything.
Yeah, it's like this is my, my,uh, my husband is taking these
things like okay.
So you, you say that theseheadphones are yours.
Well, I gave them to him as agift.
But I gave them to him.
I paid for him.
How long you been married?
How long when'd you give themto?

(02:30:56):
Like, this is nuances.
Nuances if it's completely likeit's a stranger or a known
acquaintance, whatever.
It's not our domestic partner,whatever.
I don't want to get him introuble, I don't want to press
charges, I just.
I just want him to know thatwhat he did was bad.
Like he obviously doesn't care,like I, so you could have told

(02:31:19):
him that before we showed up.
Yeah, if that's all you wantedto do, you could have done that
yourself.
Yeah, like I am doing paperworkwithout solving this problem
because we have really goodcrimes like this is an
arrestable offense, whatever theindividual has done.
But if the victim's like I don'twant to participate in the
criminal justice process, I willnot show up to court to testify

(02:31:40):
that she, whoever did thisthing.
Okay, well then, we're notgonna be able to arrest this
person.
That goes with the.
I just want them to get help.
Right, I don't want them to getarrested, I just want them to
get help.
Okay, it's like, well, we can'tforce them to get.
What do you think I'm gonna do?
You, I'm going to kidnap thisperson from the road and shove

(02:32:00):
them into the back of thevehicle and then drive them to
some magical treatment facilitythat's going to lock them up
against their will and forcethem Like what do you think is
going to happen here?
No, that's not.
No, that's not how the worldworks.
Like, you are bleeding from thenose.
I don't want to get them introuble.
Okay, well, I'm going to leave.

(02:32:22):
You're going to leave them inmy neighborhood.
You don't want them to bearrested.
You're actually going to takethem somewhere else.
Hey, buddy, you want me to dropyou off a couple of blocks away
from here?
Piss off.
I guess he doesn't want to gowith me either.
Sorry, 0 for 2.
Yeah, I guess he doesn't wantto go with me either.
Sorry, 0 for 2.
Yeah, what do you expect?
So, yeah, if people choose tonot want to participate, they

(02:32:44):
don't want that person arrested,don't be surprised if that
person returns and continues tocause trouble for you.
Give them loose and muffin.
He's going to come back for therest of that stereo.
That's a great mixed analogy.
It totally makes sense.

(02:33:04):
Why do you think that someracial or ethnic minorities
disproportionately commit morecrimes?
I think that's where I willagree with the social justice.
Uh, what'd you say?

(02:33:25):
Um argument in favor of?
They came from bad upbringing,they came from a bad community,
they didn't have strong rolemodels, they had unstable family
life, everything, like you canguess a list of all the things

(02:33:52):
that has put this person at adisadvantage to the otherwise
law-abiding peers.
And if you don't feel like thesystem is working for you
because you always find yourselfdown and out.
There's no reason to feel likethe rules apply to you.

(02:34:16):
It goes back to that.
This person's obviously doingbetter than me.
Life has been rough.
I'm not killing him.
If I take their magma or thisperson disrespected me.
I can't stand this.
I can't stand for this.
My peers are with me.
I have very little in my life.

(02:34:39):
Respect is something that I dohave that I can force upon other
people, and if this individualin public or a known
acquaintance, known associate,has disrespected me, if I don't
retaliate like for like or morethan then, I will be seen as
weak and if I'm seen as as weak,others will come and pray after

(02:35:01):
me.
I have to do something aboutthis slight.
I have to do something aboutthis disrespect.
Is that physical violence?
Probably so it could.
It could be a skewed vision ofculture of uh, what is good,
what is right?

(02:35:22):
Gangs.
I am a man.
I am perceived as masculinebecause of the actions that I
commit, and if I don't maintainthis code, this very unique
moral obligation to our creed,then I will be cast out.
This is my tribe, this is mygroup, this is my clique, this

(02:35:43):
is my gang, this is my family,and if I don't follow along with
the rules and the customs thathave been established I'm sure
that's exactly what they'refucking saying in their head
Then I will be cast aside andI'll be a stray.
I'll be ostracized and I amweaker by myself out in the
world.
So that's why I had to punchhim in the face, cause he said

(02:36:07):
my gang's colors were stupid,and he said it in public where
other people could hear it.
If I don't defend my gang'scolors, that other people will
think that we are weak.
Does that make sense to me?
Or you?
In a weird mental gymnastickind of way, sure Are you going

(02:36:29):
to get in a fight Because I saidhey, your gray Nike shirt is
stupid and fuck you for wearingit.
Nike sucks is stupid and fuckyou for wearing it.
Nike sucks now.
Now you have to fight me foryour honor, for your history,
for everything you stand for.

(02:36:49):
It's just as dumb.
The issues are just as dumb.
Is that because people who arein gangs are more minority
ethnic?
What have yous I mean?
You know there are a lot ofwhite majority people who are
getting in all sorts of shittytrouble in their own gangs as

(02:37:10):
well.
It is a combination ofupbringing and the environment
that they're in, whoever theyare, for anything that just
doesn't allow someone to grow upand be a part of a normal
society, where you live out inthe middle of the woods, dodging

(02:37:35):
your taxes and threatening anylaw enforcement, any
governmental agency that comeson your property, or live in the
impoverished part of aimpoverished neighborhood and
impoverished city or anywhere inbetween.
Oh, what do you think?
I think that culture plays thebiggest part in it.

(02:38:00):
We live in a very tribalizedsociety, even though people
don't like to admit that, a verysegregated society in a wide
variety of ways, not justracially racially, yes, but
politically, class wise, andthat if you have a culture that

(02:38:21):
extols the virtues of misogynyand criminality and drug use,
prostitution, broken families,it should not be terribly
shocking when members of thatculture or community abide by
those social expectations andnorms that are set upon them by

(02:38:45):
popular media.
You're out to get yours andalso you got to defend where you
came from.
I think the tribal something ishuge.
There's always going to be aclique, a class Day shift versus
night shift, working on patrolversus working in the jail, law

(02:39:10):
enforcement versus governmentsocial services.
They all get paid by the samelocal government entity.
They all get paid by the samelocal government entity.
Inner organizational conflictcomes from what?

(02:39:33):
Scarcity of resources,disagreement on how to attain
official goals.
Operational tactics are usedthat are frowned upon by the
other side.
If the city council has proppedup a office to solve problems
like crime in a neighborhood ordisenfranchised youth, and that
money is coming from somewhereelse, whatever office, that is

(02:39:57):
somewhere else.
Whether it's law enforcement,transportation, who cares?
No, the problem to solve thisis more gyms and pools, it's
more parks, recreational spaces,it's more libraries, it's
whatever pot of money thatyou're taking it from.
That you're they're going toargue the hardest.

(02:40:17):
But that government entity,that all seeing government
entities, official goals, is tomake life better for its
community.
So it's those inner groups.
Yeah, the inner groups aregoing to be arguing about that.
So it'd be silly to think thatwe wouldn't act like that
outside of those organizations.
What are you doing?
Like taking care of myself?
It's like at the expense ofwhat?

(02:40:39):
Who cares?
All right, there's thedifference.
Here's where we start divergingfrom what is good, what is
right, what is moral.
I think a lot of that politicalangst is a lack of an ability to
agree on some very basicprinciples of this is

(02:41:01):
unacceptable.
Well, no, that's a matter ofdifference.
That's a matter of opinion thatgoes on both sides of the aisle
.
Yeah, no, I would agree withthat, and it makes it even worse
so when the government isco-opted by specific political
elements that force their viewsor use.

(02:41:23):
Legal recourse to redirectnorms and expectations towards
whatever their politicalideology dictates is essential.
Are you talking about 2022 or2018?
It could be both.
It could be both.

(02:41:43):
Yeah, yeah, it could be.
It could be either.
Yeah, it could be either.
That was a problem.
The co-opting of the governmentby political entities is
detrimental when it's controlledby a political cabal.
That's a problem.

(02:42:04):
I had read some popular historyabout the presidency slowly
gaining more and more power witheach passing administration and
congress's power eroding alittle bit more, a little bit
more, a little bit more.

(02:42:25):
So everyone can be focused onoh, nothing gets solved in
congress.
Now that I did 20 years ago,like we have never had so few
legislation bills passed, yeah,meanwhile, like the president's
30 years ago, could enactsomething.
That's like oh my gosh, whatare we doing then 25 years ago?
It's wait, we're going to what,what?

(02:42:47):
And then, 15 years ago, well,yeah, I guess it would make
sense that the president couldlook at our unit, wait, hold on
and just it just keeps going tothe point where the president
can kind of do whatever theywant quietly.
There's, yeah, ways that youcan certainly manipulate the

(02:43:07):
system in your favor.
It's especially bad when you ifyou get, for example, the media
on your side to act as apropaganda wing for your to push
a narrative of, yeah, of athousand unarmed

(02:43:30):
african-american people dying atthe hands of police brutality.
Statistically, that is not thecase.
You know, it's really hard.
I actually was looking up someof these numbers last night and
that the number of blacksunarmed killed by law
enforcement is virtuallyimpossible to find in google.

(02:43:51):
It's not easy by any means.
You can find the number ofblacks killed by police, which
is a little bit in debate, butit's around 250.
It's anywhere from like 229 to290.
What about whites?
You find that number too.
Those aren't the colors thatmatter, though in America Sorry,

(02:44:14):
it's a brown person.
The number of blacks killed bypolice 2023.
Let's take the guardiansnumbers, because it's a brown
person.
The number of blacks killed bypolice 2023.
Let's take the guardiansnumbers, because it's the
highest number and they're super, super liberal, right?
So if anyone's gonna like skewit in one direction, it's gonna
be them.
290, right?
So 290, okay, black peoplekilled.
That, what's the lowest number?
But what do you mean if that'sthe highest?

(02:44:35):
If the Guardian's saying that,what would be like a Statista's
got 229.
Okay, okay, yeah, so the numberof blacks that were murdered I
don't have 2023 numbers, but2022, closest right.
How many blacks were murdered,not by police?
It could include that, but likeblacks killing other blacks,
white people killing blacks,whatever, it's just black people

(02:44:57):
getting killed, violent,unalived action.
Ten and a half thousand Blackskilled by police in 2023 is 290.
So let's say that those, let'sassume that the numbers are
relatively equivalent.
Let's assume that in 2023,black murders are similar to

(02:45:20):
that, similar to the ten and ahalf thousand.
Yeah, enforcement.
So, proportionally, when youthink of blacks being killed and

(02:45:45):
, for example, like news storiesrepresenting that, what comes
to mind first, more thananything else, it is for sure
the three percent that died atthe hands of law enforcement, as
opposed to the 97%, themajority of which were killed by

(02:46:06):
black-on-black crime.
Just like any violent car crashstatistics airplane malfunction
, deaths, gun violence.
Look at gun violence numbers,like how many people died by the
hands of firearms in america.
Those numbers are often skewedby the media as well because

(02:46:28):
they include, um, firearmsuicides.
Yeah, that's, that's what I'msaying, just not even being the
same thing like suicide.
Awful, regardless of how you go.
Yeah, why is that number beingincluded?
What is the purpose for thatnumber?
Too inflated, too intentionallyinflated?

(02:46:49):
Is that violent murder?
It's violent.
Sure, it's self-murder it is.
Yeah, it's self-murder, it is.
Yeah, that is very easilyarguably not the same thing as
one person, in an act of passionor desperation or just wanton
violence, slaughtering anotherhuman being with a firearm.

(02:47:09):
They're completely different.
What's the number one choice ofsuicide?
Was it South Korea, beijing,some city, some Southeast Asian
city with a lot of tallbuildings, a lot of jumping?
One of these cities is justyeah, this is how you go out,

(02:47:31):
it's the easiest, it's the mostaccessible, it's very guaranteed
versus many other uh options.
Well, especially if you'rerestricted to firearm access,
for example, that makes sense.
Yeah, yeah, brutal way to go.
I wonder if they include thosenumbers in brutal, violent

(02:47:51):
deaths.
Well, I see what you're saying.
Yeah, would that?
Would that be considered amurder.
I seriously doubt that thatwould fall within that category,
isn't that the same?
Well, and in those countriesthey don't have the same
political arguments that we doover there.
Hard to argue for gun rightswhen you don't have any in your
country.
So, after talking about allthese things, do you, do you

(02:48:15):
have anything that you would dodifferently?
Regrets when it comes to yourhistory of being in law
enforcement.
I would have gone slower.
I wouldn't have been so anxiousto do so many cool things as
soon as possible.
I think that helped createburnout.

(02:48:36):
Your success early on ismeasured by your intensity, but
your success over the long termis measured by your consistency.
For anything Otherwise, as longas you get burned out, whatever
hobby, job, I'm trying to bemore mindful of, mindful of the

(02:49:01):
time that I have.
You are now I am left the field.
I never had a day where I wokeup like, ah, shit, I gotta go to
work.
I never had that day.
Like there'd be times like Ican't believe I'm awake right
now, but it was never.
Now I have to go.
Like people have bad days atwork.

(02:49:23):
Yeah, I totally had bad days atwork.
I never started the day peoplecan call me.
I never started the daythinking I really don't want to
do this.
Um, it's great, same way.
Yeah, that's one of the waysthat I know that this is what I
want to do, because this is thefirst job I've ever had where

(02:49:44):
I've not felt that way and I letmyself give up a lot of stuff.
I let a lot of my own time passlike justifying, like no, no,
I'm gonna say no to this.
I'm gonna not do that.
I'm gonna not try.
It's easier to stay at home,it's easier to chill out, it's

(02:50:06):
easier to push off this project.
I I do a lot of hard stuff.
I don't need to do any morehard stuff in my off time, my
off days, my off, whatever theburnout that you talked about
before, yeah, I'm not making upfor it.
I am not getting paid to shootguns and practice and call it
training, and I left work acouple hours early today.

(02:50:33):
I'll make up for it tomorrow onmy weekend.
But it's fluid.
If I'm able to do that, I'mable to have my responsibilities
and take care of them.
If I do it fast, if I do whatI'm supposed to do well, I got
some time to play, some time toenjoy.
If I need to switch things up,I can dictate that to my

(02:50:55):
schedule.
I can manipulate my time.
There's a lot of power to that.
There's a lot of power to that.
There's a lot, of a lot ofsatisfaction, a lot of outside
work satisfaction to that.
Yeah, it's not like I.
I don't hate my job right now.
I don't not like my job rightnow.
I'm very fine, I'm very happy.
Yeah, it's pretty easy.

(02:51:16):
When I've been dealing with alot of emergency related issues
and people at the office, theymight get spun up like, ah, is
somebody actually dying?
Oh no, let's calm down, let'schill out.
Let's talk about this.
Sometimes I'm worried that I'mgetting too soft.
I got to get back intojiu-jitsu.

(02:51:39):
You can always fight man.
Yeah, back into jiu-jitsu.

(02:51:59):
You can always fight man.
Do you have any?
Put all of your reliance on onesystem and that system doesn't
work.
Where does that leave you?
I can keep that really vague orbe very specific, like if you
are out in public and you'rejust assuming that nothing bad

(02:52:19):
will happen to you becauseyou're in a society with rules
and laws, what happens ifsomebody chooses to break those?
Yeah, learn how to take care ofyourself and others.
No, cpr, it's not hard tomaintain.
Yeah, you don't have to gothrough the class to get the

(02:52:41):
card, to get the job as thelifeguard of the pool, but just
being aware of basic life-savingskills, not be afraid of hey,
this is, this is a traumaticevent and we need to apply a
tourniquet to someone's leg.
Oh, I know that I can use abelt because I've been

(02:53:03):
familiarized with this.
Well, I told you earlier and Itotally meant it that you know
I'm glad you're in a good placenow and I miss you.
I know other people miss you.
It's kind of weird becausewe've known each other for years
now at this point and I'verelied on you to ensure my

(02:53:23):
safety in multiple situations.
I've never considered that.
I always try and be mindful ofthat.
You know that my life has beenin your hands multiple times and
I've never, ever doubted yourcapacity or willingness or your
engagement or anything like that.
You're missed and appreciatedeverything that you've done.

(02:53:46):
If there's one thing that I doworry about is a a legacy of
sorts, I guess you could say, ora reputation, after all the
that you just talked about, likewho the cares everybody at the
last job that I just worked atthe shit that we just talked
about, like who the fuck careseverybody?
At the last job that I justworked at, fuck that guy.
He was lazy.
Nobody liked him.
That's not gonna.
That should not affect me.
But every now and then I doworry, like does somebody think

(02:54:13):
that I didn't uphold my end ofthe bargain?
But that was one thing thatwould worry me.
It wasn't the shit that you gothrough every day, it was
worrying about my co-workersperception.
Do they think they can trust me?

(02:54:35):
Because if they can't trust me,they're not going to be able to
do their job.
If I can't trust them, I'm notgoing to be able to do my job.
I'm just too worried aboutmyself.
Yeah, trust is essential in ajob like that, for sure.

(02:54:56):
When you're reliant upon otherpeople for your safety is
essential in a job like that,for sure.
When you're reliant upon otherpeople for your safety, yeah, I
think so much emotion can getwrapped up in this profession
because of that you.
You have heard enough peopletalk where the lazy, the

(02:55:19):
slackers, those phoning it inlike nobody wants to work with
them, nobody wants to show up ona call again.
Nobody trusts them.
Their safety, yeah, nobodytrusts them with anything, and
that part meant so much to mebecause that's that, that that
tribe, that that environment.
It can cause someone to reallyinvest everything to make sure

(02:55:42):
that that mission gets takencare of, that everyone's safe,
that everyone's good.
When you rely on somebody likethat, when you're putting your
faith, your trust, your lifeinto their hands, it creates a
certain bond and it's veryapparent when people don't have

(02:56:03):
that with others.
Yeah, well, you're the kind ofperson I know that it is very
easy for you I don't know if yourecognize that, but it's very
easy for you to form bonds andmeaningful relationships with
other people, work-wise andotherwise.
I think from my personalexperience I have whatever

(02:56:23):
you're curious or cautious aboutfrom your legacy, from
everything I've ever experienced, I have never once had somebody
speak disparagingly of you oranything that you've done, and I
think that's a testament to thekind of person that you are and
the kind of law enforcementofficer that you were.

(02:56:45):
I mean it just speaks to yourcharacter more than anything
else, like who you are as ahuman being.
So I appreciate that.
Yeah, yeah, I appreciate you.
It means a lot to me that youwere willing to come out and
talk about these things anddelve into it.
I feel fortunate and almostannoyed that it's taken so long

(02:57:08):
to get to know you to thispersonal level.
Like annoyed, like I shouldFuck.
I've like missed out on havinga good friend for all.
You know like I do this coolfor a long time, but I feel very
privileged to be in a positionwhere I consider you a friend
I'm assuming you consider me afriend and that just really
means a lot to me.
I'm looking forward to gettingto know you more and continuing

(02:57:29):
to foster a good relationshipwith you, because you're a great
dude.
All right, thank you again.
Thank you to my friend thatallowed me to interview him for
so long and for his thoughtful,intelligent and insightful
discussion regarding his careerin law enforcement.
Thanks for listening and Ican't wait to talk to you all

(02:57:50):
again soon.
Did it record when I wastalking about fairy porn?
No, that's the outtake, but wecan do a whole.
We can do a whole thing onfairy porn if you want to.

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