Surviving Policing: Insights with JT of Survive Policing

Welcome back to Project Sapient! In this episode, we dive deep into the realities of law enforcement with JT, the mind behind the popular Instagram page "Survive Policing." JT joins us to share his journey from a military police officer in the Air Force to a 10-year veteran of a large county agency in Maryland.

JT discusses the complexities and challenges of the policing profession, emphasizing the importance of both on-duty and off-duty dedication. He shares his experiences dealing with personal trauma and the evolving landscape of law enforcement post-George Floyd. We explore the critical role of training, the impact of lowering standards, and the need for physical fitness in the profession.

JT also sheds light on his mission with Survive Policing, aiming to provide raw, unfiltered insights and practical advice to officers navigating their careers. We discuss the importance of behavior assessment, situational awareness, and maintaining high standards despite the pressures of the job.

Whether you're a seasoned officer or new to the field, this episode offers valuable perspectives on how to survive and thrive in policing. Don't miss JT's actionable advice and inspiring message about taking the job seriously and living up to the standards of the profession.

Stay safe, stay sapient.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Project Sapient is a podcast meant to engage our brothers and sisters in the
law enforcement and military communities in conversations that we all know we need to have.
All opinions you hear are our own, and they are protected by the First Amendment
of the United States Constitution.
They are in no way reflect or meant to reflect the opinion of any specific agency,
officer, or service member.

(00:20):
Some opinions may be controversial. Listener discretion is advised. Enjoy.
Music.
All right, everyone, Project Sapient is back.

(00:46):
Don't have Jake again. He's out hunting elk. So hopefully he's enjoying himself.
I know he sent us a text, me and the other head of the Cerberus,
Gabe, that his daughter almost got that elk that she's wanted to get but it
eluded her it's like watching Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote with those two but I,

(01:10):
Today is going to be another fantastic episode and, you know,
this wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for our supporters, listeners,
everybody that shares our podcast.
I mean, we grow through word of mouth more than anything else.
And same thing with Instagram and everything.
And, you know, especially one of our biggest sponsor supporters, AAA Police Supply.

(01:32):
I just head over there, aapolicesupply.com and make sure you buy whatever you
want, anything Anything police related for your job, any duty gear,
off-duty gear, whatever you want,
they have it and use the code HYBRID10 and get 10% off your entire order.
So like I said today, great episode. I actually came across this Instagram profile

(01:56):
when I'm scrolling through the interwebs and various things pop up on my feed
and kind of got to look at this Instagram page called Survive Policing.
Policing and really like everything.
Yeah. His name is JT who runs it. JT puts out there because it's all the stuff

(02:17):
that I've been talking about for the years, you know, whether it's writing about
it and have a journal or any other media platform,
Epoch times, same thing.
All my publishing has to do with, you know, essentially how to survive policing,
you know, in terms of the actual dedication and work it takes both on and off duty.

(02:42):
It's a career, it's a craft, and it's something that really you need if you're
looking into the profession to take seriously.
And part of it is, I'm not saying to change your entire identity into just policing
policing, but it's not a... Actually, just like yesterday, I was working with
one of of my SWAT teammates.

(03:04):
It's not like a job you do at Target, you know, nine to five or whatever. It's a lot different.
So without further delay, let's bring on JT. How you doing, man?
Man, thanks for having me. Yeah, no, no. Thanks for coming on, man.
And like I said, it's been a wild ride for us for the past, I'd say,

(03:26):
I mean, I've been a cop almost 20 years.
And it seems every year the pendulum either goes one way or the other.
And it's just interesting to really see how the profession just keeps getting
beat down over and over and over again.

(03:47):
And like I said, I like what you post.
I like what you put out, the realities of the job and what it takes to be in the job.
And you know i'm gonna start back on kind of you know where you came from how
you started in the profession and what led up to survive police and so jt by all means go right ahead.

(04:10):
Yeah i appreciate that yeah so i mean my journey kind
of started you know we were just talking about a little bit about you know september
11th and i was when 9-11 happened i was in just starting 10th grade and again
i kind of look back at that as like the most the first real significant event
that I kind of witnessed as a teenager that kind of opened my eyes to what the world is about.

(04:31):
But, you know, my grandfather was a police officer for essentially his entire life.
He spent 27 years in Washington, D.C. as a police officer, ended up leaving.
You know, he was working back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, had a lot of significant
incidents happen back then, you know, with the race riots.
And he ended up leaving law enforcement, bought a farm and became a cattle rancher

(04:53):
for about eight years, and then ended up going back to law enforcement,
became a chief of police down in a small town in Virginia for another eight years or so.
So growing up, again, I didn't really have any,
I didn't really think I'd be in law enforcement, but once I started getting
to that age, you know, 17, 18 years old, I didn't really know what to do.
But the one thing I knew was I saw my grandfather living pretty well for a lot

(05:15):
of years and he certainly worked for it.
But, you know, it was one of those things that probably a lot of us look at
when we're looking at law enforcement is like the job security.
Right. And, you know, my grandfather, he's been retired for many,
many years, just turned still alive, just turned 97 last month and still, still kicking.
But, But, you know, I just kind of I was trying to figure out what what I wanted to do.

(05:36):
Ended up going to college, was going to study and try to do something in business.
That was kind of one of my passions. But again, I had no idea what to do.
And so I graduated high school in 2004, you know, kind of right in the heart
of when, you know, the last 20 years of war were kind of kicking off.
And honestly, at that point, I hated college. It was I was absolutely bored

(05:57):
out of my mind. And I just wanted to kind of belong to something.
So I ended up going military. military, went the Air Force route for a couple of different reasons.
One, I get seasick. So the Navy was kind of out, even though all of my family went through the Navy.
The Marine Corps is actually my first pick. And I had some interesting experiences
with a recruiter and some guys I kind of met that honestly, it just kind of turned me off.

(06:18):
In the Air Force, one of the things that they kind of offered was,
you know, I had finished almost two years in college.
And, you know, one of the things that my parents were very emphasized highly
was finishing, you know, a college degree.
And the Air Force kind of gave me that opportunity to say, hey,
like they were the one branch that said, hey, you know, if you want to do it, you can do it.
So ended up enlisting when I was 20 years old, spent four years active duty

(06:42):
in the Air Force, pretty, you know, insignificant kind of time to serve my duty,
got out and I was a military police officer in the Air Force.
And then I got out, wanted to go into civilian law enforcement. That was my whole goal.
Ended up going to the Police Academy in 2011, spent 10 years with a large county
agency in the state of Maryland, worked patrol, was a field training officer pretty early on.

(07:06):
Got selected for two different specialized units. One was a uniform street crimes unit.
The next was a plainclothes covert surveillance unit and ended up going through
quite a bit of personal trauma, family issues, and ended up finding my way out
of law enforcement back in 2021.
You know, again, following kind of George Floyd, 2020, personal things,

(07:28):
and then getting an opportunity outside of law enforcement that I just felt
like I couldn't pass up. So I've been in the private sector ever since.
And I've dabbled in the idea of going back to law enforcement.
Again, I have close relationships with, still to this day, working with law enforcement.
But, you know, back in 2021, based on kind of a lot of the things that I saw
near the end of my career, a lot of the things that I had dealt with personally,

(07:51):
I wanted to, I knew I wanted to give back somehow to the community.
I knew that some of the things that I was told coming in, I just found were just bullshit.
You know, there was a lot of cold hard truths that I learned over my career
that I wasn't, I felt like wasn't being shared.
And so Survived Policing, honestly, was just kind of a way to somehow give back to the community.

(08:14):
I didn't really know what that
meant. But at the same time, I was also learning a lot about marketing.
Again, like back to my kind of passion for business back when I was younger,
I always had this passion for entrepreneurship.
And I wanted to kind of some, you know, start a business one day, whatever it was.
I didn't know what to do, but near the end of my police career,
I also started kind of, kind of stumbled into the world of digital marketing

(08:36):
and social media and stuff like that.
And I said, you know, I actually started doing some freelance work for clients
and I was never big into social media, but I knew that at the time,
like I had to kind of understand it to really make this something significant on the side.
And so I started an Instagram account, you know, call it survive policing kind

(08:56):
of on a whim and just started posting.
And for about the first year or so, it just was posting honestly,
like kind of generic type of stuff.
And soon after, you know, I started getting a lot of messages from people,
obviously like active police officers that were just sharing their experiences,
kind of asking me questions.
Right. I was kind of like a faceless Instagram account, but they're,

(09:19):
you know, they're coming to me asking me questions and kind of sharing their
concerns and like telling me kind of the types, you know, the bullshit that
they're seeing on the job and how to deal with it. Right. Yeah.
And so I realized that whatever I was kind of posting was resonating with people.
And so then I just kind of really went out there and started posting as raw thoughts as I could.

(09:40):
Right. And the message is just I don't want to exaggerate, but I would get hundreds of messages.
And at the time, I maybe had a couple thousand followers, but it was resonating.
And I think what resonated most was I was saying things that I think a lot of
people thought, but just couldn't say, you know, again, whether it was because
of backlash from their own agency,

(10:02):
just, you know, not wanting to put a spotlight on themselves,
completely understandable.
And now, you know, I'm kind of on the other side in the private sector at that
point, and I can say these things.
And so I just kind of leaned into that. And once I kind of realized that,
like what I was saying and my own thoughts and kind of beliefs,
although I think somewhat unique, obviously, I think we all have unique experiences

(10:23):
and thoughts on things, you know, something about it was clicking with people.
And so I just leaned in and kept going, posting every day.
And, you know, we're at over three years now with Survive Policing.
It's been growing, have added some training components.
And then also, you know, was fortunate enough to join the Police Post team back
in December at Police Post on Instagram, probably the biggest law enforcement

(10:45):
Instagram page there is, and to join their team and kind of,
you know, we're growing there too.
So that's kind of been my journey again, really just saw that the community
was sharing a lot of the same thoughts and experiences that I saw.
And I really wanted to do my part to kind of peel that blindfold off of people,

(11:08):
especially young officers and officers that may be thinking about getting into
law enforcement and not deter anybody.
Because again, I love law enforcement. I've told people before,
you know, what I got to do in law enforcement, I don't think I'll ever do anything
as fun as that yeah but but there's realities of it and there's there's sacrifices
that are made no matter who you are and how long you're in it and we need to

(11:28):
talk about those i think similar to the military right like we have that open
discussion with each other no one's going to do it for us yeah the leadership's
not going to do it society's not going to do it.
Politicians aren't going to do it we have to do it for our for ourselves and
for each other yeah i've always said kind of one of the biggest mistakes law
enforcement does administration does is they don't talk about these things they don't talk about,

(11:53):
you know let's say for example an excessive use of force right yes bad all day
long whatever But what they don't mention is that same officer in that same
day dealt with an infant death, right?
Yet he still had to go out there, do the job, and, you know,

(12:13):
pull the car over a random stop sign violation, whatever it might be.
Yet that trauma, right, that he just dealt with was never addressed, right?
Was never like, hey, dude, take a couple hours, go relax, like,
you know, stay in the station, whatever. whatever, you know,
whatever you want to do, but that's what they don't talk about when something goes wrong. Right.

(12:37):
And now I'm not defending every officer and all that. Like, you know, like I get it.
There are some, there's always bad apples in every profession that,
that is well known, whether you could have the best doc, you know,
like the doctors, you know, you got your good and bad, like every profession
has its good and bad, but I always look at it as,
yeah, this This dude had a really bad day, yet you kept pounding him call after call after call.

(13:03):
And you're talking like I come, you know, where I work is a pretty good size,
a medium city, you know, size city in Massachusetts.
And, you know, we it's just constantly like all kinds of stuff. Right. And.
Again, like like I said, it.
The administration does not talk about those things enough where,

(13:24):
yes, my officers deal with these types of things all the time and,
you know, advocating for, yeah, hiring a lot more police officers.
That way we're able to, you know, give a cop a week off if needed,
you know, without having them to burn their vacation time, sick time, whatever it might be.
I know I talked to a Bakersfield PD, you know, I went out there, helped train them.

(13:47):
And, you know, one of the great things that they do is in their CAD system,
it's like an automated thing, an AI thing, where if an officer sees or deals
with one too many traumatic events, they get quote unquote flagged and not bad, but flagged.
And that name gets brought up to the administration like, hey,
you might want to check in on this guy, which is, I think is a fantastic idea, you know, for.

(14:10):
Super interesting. You know, I've never heard of that.
That's the first I've heard of an agency that does that.
But not enough do that though
and it's one of those things I like I said
the whether it's the administration all the way up to and most of
my blame I always say is the politicians you know it's
always the politicians that are the ones that drive the

(14:31):
divide in the community and you
know and again I don't know I'm sure you've seen
it in your neck of the woods when you
were on the job and even still to this day you still see it and the messages
that you get I mean I get messages same thing and you know a couple of posts
that i've read that you've written again i was like yeah that's like 100 true

(14:55):
you know like you know the the whole idea behind training like.
You know because the department's not going to do it for us right that's why
we got to go seek out good training you know and i don't know what it was like
for you you know you're in service or or whatever that you ended up having to do?
I mean, what was it like in Maryland when you went to these types of trainings?

(15:17):
Did you feel like you were really getting anything out of it,
or was it a check the box type training?
So many great points. I mean, again, just going back to your original point
about the difficulty of the job itself, like, I always, I always said that,
like, if I ever wrote a book about the job, I would probably title it impossible perfection.
Yeah, because that's kind of the phrase I always kind of I was like,
Oh, yeah, like, again, we're as police officers, you're expected to be perfect.

(15:41):
And it's impossible to be perfect.
Yeah, it's just not. And, you know, it's a great point about just,
you know, I wish we I wish as a profession, we tried out more things like you
were just talking about, like flagging, like, look, if you've if you've,
you know, if you've done a job, you're going to be perfect.
Experienced you know four traumatic incidents today like maybe we should give you a break right,
i think that's also something you talk a lot about supervisors

(16:02):
you know their role is just huge right and
how do we put supervisors how do we give them the training to say to
be able to look at their officers and say hey man like come to this like come
to the station like let's have a talk sit down like take your like take your
off sit here like maybe you need to go home like let's sit here and take a breath
right but you know in terms of training you know i i always felt that,

(16:26):
and i i think i was fortunate the agency i was with actually had some very good in-house training.
In service was in service right it's it's probably it was probably similar to
any in-service that you that you go to and of course the problem with you know
there's a lot of problems with our approach to training in law enforcement, I think.

(16:46):
One is, you know, law enforcement is its own discipline.
And I think what we've seen particularly over the last 20 years is,
you know, we have a lot of military, a lot of veterans coming out that get into
the training space, which is great, right?
There, you know, one of the problems is, is that, again, I think there's not

(17:08):
a lot of, we don't respect the law enforcement profession as its own discipline enough.
Know there's obviously certain things that we can take from the military from other disciplines but,
you know working the road going out on the street doing the job you know roadside
investigations street side investigations you know looking for bad guys like

(17:29):
that's its own thing and we can.
Take tactics from the military we can take strategies and
different lessons from the military or other you know
professions but again we have to develop law
enforcement as its own discipline i feel like that's where we fail a
lot you know i also think
that the by far the best

(17:51):
way the best training that cops can get is actually doing
the work doing cop work being on the street there is
no substitute for that you know you go through the police academy
and again i think we all accept the fact that the police academy
can can provide you a foundation for what
the job is about and again there are certain things that in
the police academy we can actually learn

(18:13):
really well right we can be effective in teaching report writing
and case law and constitutional law but there is
no substitute for getting out there and and you know then we transition to
field training right and field training in my experience was i think we did
16 weeks of field training which is pretty i feel like a good amount of time
but honestly it's probably not enough right and And the level of field trainers

(18:35):
out there is questionable for some legitimate reasons, right?
Like I was essentially voluntold to be a field trainer three years on with my department.
Now, luckily I had some experience and, you know, military experience,
some law enforcement experience.
I had a lot of life experience too. So I think I ended up being a pretty good field trainer.

(18:56):
And I was also passionate about it, which is important. Yeah.
But, you know, if we're sending guys out that have been on one,
two, three years to then train the next crop of guys, like that's just not going
to work. It's not sustainable. No.
So that's that's something that we have to look at so how do we do that do we
keep people in fto for six months a year like probably in a perfect world that

(19:17):
probably would make sense,
the the challenge with that is just logistics but also the fact that like again,
if you're going to be riding solo which you know when i was on patrol we rode
solo you have to get out there and do it it's the only way to learn it's the
only way to develop that intuition tuition, the decision-making,
just the ability to go out there and actually handle the day-to-day of the job. Yeah.

(19:41):
You know, I think one of the other things that on my department,
I actually was thinking about recently that I thought was a benefit was we had
kind of overlapping shifts.
So one day a week, we had one day where I think it was broken up into like two months.
So for two months, we were like the training shift for one day a week.
So we could, you know, in theory, we go out there and just spend the day doing

(20:03):
training, team training, whatever it was, sometimes catch up on casework.
But that gave us a day to like, all right, this is our day to kind of come together
and work on whatever it is that we need to work on.
And then, you know, every two months, that would kind of flip flop.
Again, not logistically possible in a lot of agencies, but also I think something
like that is beneficial.

(20:23):
You know, two days of in-service year is not sufficient in any way whatsoever.
I also, you know, on the other hand, again, I think when we get a lot of the
law enforcement profession gets a lot of feedback from the military side.
Right. And, and, and I think, you know, one of the, I think the,
I've heard this a few times from like Jocko where, you know,

(20:43):
he's talked about, you know, the cops need to be training like 50% of the time.
Well, that's completely impractical and it's, you know, all respect to him,
but that's just a complete lack of understanding of, of what the profession is.
And also, again, maybe the most important point is, is a lack of understanding of what,
again, back to the point of the best training you can get as a cop is doing the cop work.

(21:04):
It's not going to the academy and clearing rooms all day. That's great.
But if you're going to be great at the things we talk about,
the avoiding the excessive use of force, dealing with the traumatic events back
to back to back, going out there and still being effective,
looking for bad guys, locking them up, doing it in a way that's legally effective and efficient.

(21:26):
The only way to do that is on the road and on the street. Yeah.
So then where does that kiss? Right? Well, I think it's, it's two things.
One resources, like taking away money from law enforcement agencies is the worst
thing you can do because that means you're not hiring enough people that can then work the road.
So other people think and go spend their time, more time training, right?

(21:49):
Whether it's one day a week, two days a week. Hey, if, if every cop was able
to train half their week we'd have we'd have a whole different profession i
think oh yeah but find one agency in america that that can handle that and i'll
buy you a drink because it doesn't happen,
and then you know and one of the you know also one of the reasons i started
survive policing and have and us at police post have really been emphasizing

(22:13):
what we can do in terms of the training side is you know following you know
we talked about earlier like how things change so so often the ups and downs, right?
And you talk to guys that worked in the 90s and they talk about Rodney King.
And then, you know, out here in Maryland, you know, we obviously had Michael
Brown. And then I think it was two years later, out here in Maryland, we had Freddie Gray.

(22:34):
And Freddie Gray happened. And I remember I was actually training a rookie and
we came into work and we were sitting there, we were watching kind of the riots
unfold on our MDT, like sitting there at work and just being like, you know.
That's going on you know 30 40 miles north of us and we're just like damn yeah
and from that moment things changed and then when george floyd happened things
exponentially changed even greater right so what happened then and i'm sure

(22:59):
you know some guys that left after that too was they're just like i'm done you know and,
when guys leave earlier than they either wanted to or expected to their experience
goes with them that knowledge is gone yeah,
so you know the big question is how do we retain that experience and that knowledge,
because there is no, we can't give, there's no book that we can give the cops

(23:20):
to say, Hey, like, this is, this is what you need to learn, right?
You have to have that experience.
And so much of it is just indescribable in terms of how, you know,
veteran, you know, when we talk about like a working cop, right?
Like it's almost, they, they can't even see straight because there's so much going on. Right.
Whereas if you compare that to a veteran officer who can actively observe everything

(23:45):
around him, pick out the, the people that are suspicious, actually suspicious,
be able to articulate that when they go to a report and say,
Hey, this is why I stopped that person and have the reputation or the experience
to, to make that credible. Right.
Yeah. Those are the things that just can't be taught in a police academy.
They can't be taught by going to the range once a week. Like those are things that you have to teach.

(24:08):
And so maybe I'm almost talking myself into the idea of like having a,
you know, kind of a long-term field training program where it's like,
you know, once a week, your supervisor rides with rides with you.
You know what I mean? Like, and again, certain ideas, there's no, there's no easy answer.
I think at the end of the day, it's about retaining great officers and putting

(24:28):
people in a position to learn from them.
But also understanding, like when we talk about, oh, well, cops need more training.
I mean, well, most people that say that don't know exactly what that means. They think that.
You know you ask them for the follow-up questions they don't actually know what type
of training they need and i think that's extremely important to note
yeah there's a lot of things just you know a lot of the things
i talk about because i'm really passionate about it is you

(24:50):
know behavior assessments right like assessing behavior understanding
you know when the whole job is kind
of based on this idea of reasonable suspicion right most
people there's a great video recently i don't know if you saw it but and
great as in really bad but the officer gets
out and you know the two officers get out and they they
stop a father and a son who are walking I

(25:13):
think it's 530 in the morning and the officer
gets out and stops them and the father's like you know why are you stopping
me and there's kind of this back and forth about the officer
saying well you know it's you're out here walking really early
it's it's suspicious and the father's like
well why is that suspicious you know I think he also
mentions like his son has autism which if anyone has

(25:33):
any experience with that there's there's good reasons why
you would take that child out before the before
the sun comes up before you know the a lot of
activity is going on to have that walk yeah and you
kind of hear like this the officer going through his mind of like yeah well
it's not suspicious well you know it's kind of weird though and you can even
see like he's already lost because he's not unable to formulate and articulate

(25:57):
in his own mind why this is suspicious he's just jumping out and saying hey
like stop here and the whole situation goes away that it shouldn't have gone.
Yeah. Those are basics, right? The basics of reasonable, articulable suspicion.
It's the, it's, it's so basic. It's, you probably learn it in day one of the
academy, but we're at a point where we have officers out there that can't tell

(26:17):
you what suspicion means.
And they can't tell you what observations they're seeing and articulating them
to say, Hey, like, this is why this is suspicious.
And those are, I mean, at the end of the day, that's all we do as cops.
Yeah. And going back to like the difference between a rookie officer and an
experienced officer, that's something that you learn and they can do without thinking about it.
But we have to like start that process way earlier and get cops to the point

(26:40):
where like, they know what suspicious behavior is.
So when they make that stop and things go wrong or things escalate to the point where force is used,
they can articulate it and they can articulate it in a way that's credible and
is substantiated, not just saying, Hey, you know, I got out,
I thought this person, it was odd that they were walking around the alleyway. Well, why?

(27:01):
And then what happened? Well, we threw him on the ground because he wouldn't
give us his ID. All right. Well, now you have to explain yourself.
And if you can't explain yourself, you've lost already. Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. And then, so it's funny to say that when I was at FTO,
now I'm a sergeant on my PD. I've been a sergeant for like three years now.
So, I mean, I spent most of my time patrol, plainclothes,

(27:22):
detectives, federal task force with the dea so you know when i went back to
the pd after i did my stint with dea it you know became a socks and everything
and i i really got to see how.
Like you said unable to really articulate why they
did what they did right and so without

(27:44):
giving too many specifics you know recently we we came
you know dealt with the situation by the time i showed up you know the officers
were pat for skin people whatever it was like an attempted b e to a motor vehicle
type thing and so i mean i was good with it all like oh okay you know they're
doing their thing and just making sure the guys are good to go and all that and you know go back and,

(28:06):
you know, that, so I, you know, Hey, what, what's going on? You know,
so what is it that you had?
And they had it, but they weren't able to say it.
Right. Like you said, you know, like they had all the, the, the,
the behaviors, like they, they just couldn't put it together on paper.
And that's, like you said, the veteran officer is able to do that really easily,

(28:27):
you know, where they're like, Oh yeah.
Yeah. And, and these observations, a veteran officer makes in split seconds,
Like boom, boom, boom, you know, sees all that.
So going back when I was a FTO, I used to make officers, the recruits go and walk the city center.
And I told them, I want you to talk to every single individual in the center. Like, I don't care who.

(28:50):
I was like, is there any law that prevents you from talking to anybody?
Like, no. I'm like, then go talk.
You know, I'd park the cruiser and I'd make them walk, you know, walk and
talk just to get them used to seeing the
behaviors of what a normal conversation looks like
and what somebody who is suspicious you know
has that you're suspicious of them how they react when

(29:12):
you talk to them you know because again you know you create that baseline okay
this is what a normal human does when i'm talking to them just shooting the
with them oh but this guy when i get there and he matches a description of whatever
he's being very like different versus,
you know, more conversational.

(29:33):
So, so that's, that's one of the things I used to do a lot with my brand new
officers, like their first week, I must've been like a nightmare for them because
their first week I'm like, get out, walk, like talk to people.
But that, that like simple thing is like so invaluable.
And like, even, you know, one of the things I talk about is again,
like, and I was doing an Instagram live, I think the other day,
and someone asked, you know, we were talking about, you know,

(29:55):
getting out and making contacts and, and just convert, you know,
having conversations with strangers. Right.
And I think the question was like, well, how do you do that?
Like, how do you approach it? And I think someone commented to like,
it's just like, you're being a
human being, like, just because you put a uniform on doesn't change that.
Right. And the best cops are realized that, you know, I think some of the worst
cops are the ones that think they're super cops. Oh yeah.

(30:16):
Yeah. They're going to change the world. Some of the best cops understand that
they are just one small cog in the wheel, right?
But you can be powerful, you can make a huge impact just by being able to actually
conversate with people.
And so again, we talk, it's like so basic and it seems like we're talking about
some things that are so simple, but yet we get them so wrong. But again, like.
Back to your point, too, about going out and one of the things that maybe people

(30:41):
don't realize is how difficult it is for any officer, whether we have life experience
or not, to go out there and have everything that we're thinking about,
knowing that, hey, at any point, like someone could pull a gun or a weapon out
on us and also be able to have that conversation.
Conversation, you know, you have to develop that muscle memory of actually being
able to have that conversation without having to think about it. Yeah.
Because the more you're thinking about it, if you think, you know,

(31:02):
a rookie comes out on their, on their first day and they make their first traffic stop.
And what's the first thing they're thinking about is like, oh shit, what do I say?
Yeah. And they're thinking about what's my, you know, what's my monologue, what's my intro.
And I'm thinking about my intro. So I'm getting out of the car and okay,
I'm officer so-and-so, and this is why I pulled the door, blah, blah, blah.
Like people don't realize that you actually have to get to a point where you
have to do it so many times that like you don't even think about that introduction

(31:24):
yeah and it's important and the reason it's so important is because if you're
focusing on what you're saying to someone whether it's on a traffic stop a subject stop or whatever.
Your mental energy is is towards thinking about what you're saying whereas once
you get past that and that becomes almost automatic now what can you do well
then you can focus on the person's reaction to what you're saying you can focus

(31:45):
on the small non-verbals that that you can pick up up on that could perhaps
lead you to believe that, hey, this person might be dangerous.
They might be planning to, you know, they might have some type of hostile intent. Yeah.
They might be trying to conceal something. Yeah. And these small things that,
again, happen very quickly, you know, especially under stress.
Yeah. You know, we think about fight, flight, or freeze, right?

(32:08):
When the most common indicator that someone's engaged in some type of illegal behavior.
Once they know that they're in the presence of law enforcement is just that
stress, stress those signs of stress right and they can be very subtle it can
be just that that head snap
or the wide eyes or you know you i'm sure every cop seen this where you drive

(32:28):
by someone they're on the corner or even you know they pass by you in a vehicle
and they see you and they spot you and they're like oh like you don't even have
to hear it that you just you just mouth it and those things happen within seconds yeah.
Being able to do that is so critical because those are the things that you pick
up on to then once you become experienced with this, you can distinguish between,
all right, this is actually abnormal or suspicious behavior compared to the

(32:53):
baseline, which is, all right, this is just normal.
And if we don't teach those basics and we don't get that experience into our
officers, they're going to make mistakes.
And the first mistake is pulling over someone that has no suspicious nature to them.
They're not engaged in illegal activity they you know they
they may be displaying normal nervous behavior yeah as

(33:14):
anyone would when they're pulled over but they're not displaying the the behaviors
that would then lead to that reasonable suspicion to
keep investigating further yeah because you think that there's actually
something else going on and so i mean how many use
of force situations do we see that turn bad because the
officer kept going when they should have just said hey like this
is not i don't have anything here like yeah this person might

(33:35):
be an they might be showing subtle signs of
nervousness but there's nothing that's actually leading to suspicious yeah
or suspiciousness yeah let's cut this person
and move on to the next one and we can't distinguish between actual
suspicious behavior and not again fundamentally we have a broken profession
yeah and again what police academy teaches what actual suspicious behavior is

(33:58):
i don't remember that i had to learn that on the street yeah and a lot of that
again sometimes Sometimes it's because a few reasons,
one, because it's the only way you can do it is learn on the street because
you have to be able to observe that behavior.
The other thing is going back to the training piece too, which is also something
to keep in mind is how are we, who and how are we placing people in those training positions?

(34:19):
Right. And the police academy, when I went to the police academy,
there was, it was probably split down the middle.
We had some officers that like, you know, we knew that like these guys were legit.
They spent 20 years in the busiest areas and they knew what they were talking
about. But then you had others.
And, you know, as I went through my career, I, you know, there's people that
I went to the police academy with that were spent a few years on the road and

(34:40):
then went back to teach at the academy. Yeah.
And, you know, in some cases, those were not the people you want to be teaching.
And one of the problems there, one of the challenges is at least like in my
case, at no point did I ever have any interest. And now I love training. I love teaching.
However, I was not giving up what I was doing to go teach at the academy. Yeah.

(35:01):
You know, I wasn't giving up doing the actual job for real to then go teach
it because I was loving it. Yeah.
And so if you have these guys that like probably in a lot of police academies,
unless they're forced, you know, if they're loving the job and doing it as well
as, as we want them to, they're probably not going to like volunteer to then
just give it up and go back to the academy.
So you're getting instructors in a lot of cases that probably aren't the best to be there. Yeah.

(35:22):
That's a challenge to deal with. But, you know, we have to, you know,
at some point it seems like we, we, the profession developed into such a complex profession.
Profession but we still pay the same and
we expect the same i i
guess level of person to enter the profession yeah but

(35:44):
it's extremely complex i mean we talk about human you know we're talking about
sociological things we're talking about human psychology human behavior these
are things that like most people in general don't understand yeah and now we
expect police officers to understand it without teaching them how to do it and
paying them very little to figure it out yeah on top of that we add all the
traumatic experiences and we don't help them deal with that Well,
now we have a profession where we have a lot of broken people that can't handle

(36:08):
it and no fault of their own.
We don't give them the resources to do it. And then we wonder why there's these
situations that go bad when force isn't utilized correctly.
You know, are we even teaching people the right force to use?
Yeah. These are very new concepts. People don't, don't understand this,
that like, you know, even the explosion of martial arts over the past 30 years,
like actual combatives, effective combatives really didn't even enter the law

(36:32):
enforcement space until probably the last five to 10 years, maybe.
Which, which I know it's getting a lot better. I laugh about that because I've
always been, I grew up in the martial arts since I was five years old.
And, and what's funny to me is when I first got on the job in 2007,
after, you know, eight years in the army, I, they, I was told that I,

(36:56):
those, what I'm, what I learn in the martial arts are not, how was it worded?
Oh it's not certified by the state therefore it's illegal
for me to use and i'm like all right
i want you to really do an armbar takedown
on me and i'll show you how ineffective it is
you know like like it was it was the funniest conversation i had with the admin

(37:19):
right and and i'm like so you expect me to yell at someone to get back with
my baton and what like try to take him into custody or what do you think?
And so me, I laugh at the explosion of combatants in martial arts and in the

(37:41):
law enforcement space because to me I'm like.
It's serious enough that it's also a joke to me. I'm like, this should have been a no-brainer,
we should have been we should have been ahead of
it and again now we're at a point where yeah a lot of
i think probably more than ever more cops are training but more people are

(38:02):
training yeah so as the skill level of cops grows
great the skill level of everyone grows and
now we're you know in 10 years you know
you have kids now that are growing up in in
legitimate you know martial arts you know jiu-jitsu and
muay thai stuff like that and they're going to be problem i mean you see if you've you
know anyone that's followed even just the ufc over the last 30 years

(38:23):
like it's gone through several trans transformations where
even the the kind of what you would consider the
greatest fighters of all time 20 years ago they would get destroyed by
the fight the fighters that are coming up now because you know these kids are
they're starting their martial arts journey young and
they're getting to a point where they're you know in their early 20s and
the previous generation i mean some of my favorite fighters like

(38:45):
a matt hughes a chuck liddell those types of guys they
wouldn't make it you know they might not even make it past the prelims and
i say that with all respect but it's just like that's we're talking
about that type of evolution we have to talk about in law enforcement because
that's what we're dealing with we don't get to like you know we're if we're
not at the standard we don't just like be able to we don't just get to get to
the standard and then like all right we're good no like the what we're dealing

(39:07):
with on the street only gets worse it only gets more violent it only gets more
you know now again with cell phones.
Like, and we're talking, we haven't even talked about body cams, right?
I, you know, my agency was one of the first agencies, I think in probably the
entire country to get body cams. We got it before we were required to get them.
And so we, I remember the first kind of generation of, of body cams and people

(39:29):
might not realize this, like they were not good.
I mean, you would look at this footage and be like, I can't see shit.
You know, the, the it's, you see one very isolated view of things.
And again, like today, just the mechanics of them, it's the same thing.
Like you see one picture of the entire scene.
Yeah. And do we, how do you, you know, how do cops deal with that now? You know, luckily it's.

(39:53):
On one hand it's it's a great training tool right now we
have you know how many hours of footage that we can pull
up at roll call and say hey like look at this you know we used to
have the dash cams which are great but like body cam is a whole different thing yeah
it it's just you know it's a complex profession we have to treat it like the
you know we have to treat ourselves as professionals we have to treat it like

(40:15):
the profession and treat it with the respect that it deserves yeah and until
we do that we're going to recruit the wrong people we're not going to retain the right people.
And we're going to deal with situations that, you know, for better or worse,
whether we, we can, we could dissect every significant in custody death of the
last 10 years, they're going to be all over the place. Right.

(40:36):
We are always going to deal with criticism one way or another.
There's always going to be situations that aren't handled correctly,
but until we even get to the point where we're at least getting it right.
And again, with all that said, right out of the millions and millions of interactions
that police officers have,
you know, every year a vast vast majority of
them end with no use of force oh yeah we're actually

(40:57):
at a point where like the statistics are so minimal it's almost
silly that we're even talking about it yeah but back
to the point like we have to be perfect yeah that's the expectation so we have
to get as close to perfect as possible and we only get there by ensuring that
the training we're putting on is great and you know one of the things that i
not necessarily learned but i i had to be kind of reminded of over the last few years was,

(41:21):
you know, I would kind of put some different ideas out there.
And I was like, I came from a department that probably had 1100,
1200 officers, which I think is a pretty good.
Pretty good size. It's not too big, but not too small. The problem is,
is there's, you know, a vast majority
of the police agencies in the United States at least are very small.
I mean, talking under 50 officers probably.

(41:43):
So if you think about that, like the resources, the experience they have at
those departments is nothing.
And so like, for me, where I was fortunate, like some of the best trainings
I ever went to were in-house trainings, in-house schools. A lot of agencies don't even have that.
So that's why, again, it's so important to figure out how do we retain that
knowledge and experience that leaves the job,

(42:04):
keep it, you know, make it accessible to officers, not have to charge people
thousands of dollars to get a hold of that information because the cops need
it and they need it in every region, every town, every small area.
Like everything is, again, the good thing is a lot of these concepts are like very universal.
Like when you talk about, you know, assessing behavior, right?

(42:26):
Like that's a universal thing, human psychology.
Yeah. And if we can get that, that type of information in the hands of cops,
the people that truly need it out there in the world, we'll be doing better.
But again, like it's, it's no, there's no easy answer to it.
I think we can all just try to do our part. And unfortunately,
and it's another thing that I post a lot about is unfortunately it,

(42:48):
as with every walk of life or profession,
there's going to be people that fall below the standard, whether they choose
to, or they're just incapable.
There's a reason it's called average is because some people are going to be, be below it.
And some people are going to be above it. And we can't lower the standard for
the people that, that can't meet it. We have to keep the standard high.
And whether that means that we just are.

(43:10):
Highly critical of those who we hire and get through the academy and get through field training.
That's what it has to be. We have to live up to a higher standard or the standard
is just always going to be behind the curve.
I don't know if you've seen this, but I know in my neck of the woods,
the PT standards have changed or are getting ready to change or whatever they're doing.

(43:31):
They've gotten rid of sit-ups because people can't do sit-ups.
So now they have him do planks.
And I think, I don't know if this is actually happening, but there is word of
getting rid of like the mile and a half run. And I'm like, what are they doing?
I said, you know, I was like, you know, again, when I got on the job,
I mean, the standards were pretty high to get on the job.
Like, yeah, you had to work to get on the job.

(43:53):
And I'm like, now you're going to hire what the, the, the slob that's never
done anything in their entire life.
Now you're going to put a badge and gun in their hand.
They're not going to, they wouldn't even pass the academy based on
their you know the level of fitness they're at right now
and to me i remember when i first went
to the academy and you know the di's there were all marines you know all veterans

(44:15):
and combat veterans and you know we had a few drop out obviously but you know
their thing was like you know day one is the shark attack and all that shit
but it's like they were like you'd better be in shape when you get here,
we're not going to make you get in shape.
We don't have time to do that, which is true, because there's a lot of shit

(44:38):
crammed into that six-month academy that they need to get through,
and they can't be dealing with someone who can't run.
So that's the way I've always taken it is, and I completely agree with you,
lowering the standard is only going to make the job worse, not better.
You know and and doing that you're setting up the agencies for failure you know because,

(45:03):
now i mean these days never mind trying to get cops hired we're we're like going
out of town out of state like no one no one's taking the job and the ones who
are taking the job you really don't want them to take the job you know it's
it's it's really such a weird weird time right
now and I don't think the general public really realizes what's been going on

(45:27):
and and again I mean this I put it on the admin to actually talk about you know yeah.
There's so many nuances, I think, especially when we like when we hear the opinions
of either anyone outside of of the profession.
Like, again, we were just talking about how it's important for,
you know, young officers to just be comfortable with like talking to somebody.

(45:49):
So then they can put their focus on like just observing them.
Right. Same thing with fitness.
Like if if someone's not in the physical shape, they need to be.
Now their focus is on that. And other focuses on one, again,
if you're not in physical shape and you, and you aren't, and you aren't lacking
in confidence, then there's probably a problem.
Cause that means then now you think you can do more than you, than you actually can.

(46:10):
They'll say my adrenaline will help me like, no, that's not the way adrenaline works.
Which is, that's something like someone that's ever been in an actual fight will say, right?
Exactly. And again, like the, the, the, the good thing is now you can go to
any BJJ gym in America and spend 60 seconds underneath a black belt and they'll,
you know, you'll have your world turned upside down, right?

(46:31):
Which is what we need. But, you know, if we're focused on like,
Hey, like, I'm not even sure if it's like, I'm, you know, just coming up to
a car and you see a guy that's like, it's seriously jacked. And you're like,
Oh shit, I don't even know what I'm going to do with this guy. Yeah.
Now, now everything in your mind is now focused in on that word.
Now you can't even focus on all the other things. And if we can't get those
fundamentals right, like you're saying, like we're hiring people that aren't even in shape.

(46:54):
We're, we're, you know, we're putting them in a situation that it's,
they're not going to win because everything that they have to focus on prevents
them to then focus on the things like decision making and good judgment to where
we can't even get to that point.
And I think a lot of when we see a lot of the opinions on law enforcement and
what's required or who we should

(47:15):
be hiring, it's just a complete disconnect on the nuance of the job.
And even those small things that we just expect people. And I mean,
here's a good point, right? And.
It's not even a topic we got into yet, maybe on like another episode,
but when we think about like active assailant, active shooter situations, right?
I do quite a bit of active shooter training for the, for civilians,

(47:37):
for the corporate world and the no vice level of understanding of situation
like that would probably stun people, right?
But look at the world as, as human beings, our level of situational awareness
is about nothing. It's about zero, right? In general.
Whereas cops, we have to be situate situationally aware. Right.

(48:01):
And, you know, if, as police officers, we're not situationally aware,
we can get hurt, we can get killed, we can get other people hurt or killed,
but you know, disconnect where it goes to the old adage, like you ever heard
someone like, well, why didn't you just shoot him in the leg?
Well, that comes from a complete, a plea, you know, that's just from space of

(48:21):
so much ignorance that it's not, it's almost not even worth having the conversation
because they're not even at base level, right?
They don't understand how wrong and how like, how, how, like how inaccurate that idea even is.
So we have to, as a profession, like we, we have to teach the public of like,
Hey, like the reason I don't shoot the person in the leg is because of this,

(48:45):
obviously, or the reason that we need officers that are fit is because if they're
focused on, you know, questioning themselves,
whether or not they're, they can handle this, this subject, like they're going
to make decisions based on that thought, right?
Like even the case of a, you know, you, you, you pull someone over and they
have a warrant. I'm just using it as like hypothetical.

(49:07):
You pull them over and they have a warrant and they're like jacked.
And you know, like if I go to pull this guy out of the car, it's going to be
an all on fight and I'm probably going to lose.
Is that like, that goes through your, your decision -making
whether or not it's it's conscious or not so you
know obviously we need to have good guys that are capable
of dealing with bad guys yeah but the

(49:28):
conversation like we have to we have to own the conversation and and teach the
public and and again that starts from the top right that's when you see these
these leaders that just like they throw their officers under the bus and it's
completely ridiculous when you know we haven't even explained to the public
why we did certain things. Yeah.
It you know it's and if if you're gonna get into this job too you have to be

(49:49):
prepared to live up to the standard.
You know, back to kind of my, my point, which I kind of lost my train of thought
there, but the, the, the public does not, the police officers would probably
be stunned at the level of ignorance
the public has in terms of what they do and why they do it. Yeah.
It's just, you know, when they see responses to certain things and again,

(50:11):
whether when we do them right, we have to explain why we did certain things when we do them wrong.
Then we have to even double explain what was supposed to be done and why we
didn't do it. Right. Yeah.
We have to, we have to own that conversation. But again,
like we also have to, you know, own the conversation of, all right,
if we put a physically unfit person on the road, or we put someone,

(50:33):
allow them to become physically unfit and put them in a position to have to
apprehend someone, well, things are not going to go right.
Like if luck is not on their side, things that someone's going to get hurt simply
because they're not in the physical shape or have the capacity to deal with that person.
And then what do they resort to? They resort to things that probably aren't the best techniques.

(50:53):
And so we're putting people in a position to fail from the beginning.
Until we start there, the conversation is going to continue to the point where
we're making bad choices and we don't really have a leg to stand on.
Yeah. I think when me and you first started, we could talk about this for hours.
So there's definitely a lot for us to dissect,

(51:17):
through these conversations and, you know, it's kind of like,
you know, like I told you, it kind of takes it on us to amplify that voice,
to talk about these things and make sure people really know and understand what this profession is.
It's not just a job, it's a profession.
You need to have this holistic approach when it comes to training.

(51:37):
And, you know, without taking more of your time, I know you've got a hard stop coming up.
And we'll end the show in a minute but if there is one thing you want to tell
officers tonight you know for today or even the public today if there's one
thing you want to tell them,
you know what would that be take the job seriously don't take yourself so seriously yeah um,

(52:03):
have humility understand that again we're just
the job will go on when you're when you're gone
when i'm gone when everyone's gone it'll keep going the the day you retire the
next day your spot will be filled right yeah and just understand that because
once you accept that i hope that gives people a little bit of um uh just peace

(52:23):
of mind and understanding like it's not up to,
every single one of us to like change the world it's not going to happen and
that's okay but you can make a huge impact on your neighborhood your community your agency agency,
by just living up to the standard that you want to set for yourself and for the people around you.
Again, don't take yourself so seriously because we're all going to make mistakes.

(52:49):
We can only live up to the standard that we set and that we strive for.
But the job must be taken seriously.
And that's part of that. You have to take the job seriously because that's the
only way you're going to be motivated to live up to that standard yeah um and just take again,
everyone has to have some type of some level of autonomy and themselves and personal sovereignty,

(53:12):
you know take some pride in yourself and your job in your in your reputation in your day-to-day um,
be prideful in just putting the uniform on and wearing it the way it should
be worn and going out there and mastering the basics like those things matter
and when you when you leave the job, whether it's in five, 25, 35 years, like.

(53:33):
You know, I want everyone, I would hope that everyone that gets through this
career looks back and is proud of what they accomplished.
And if you're kind of sitting around
not doing anything, you're kind of floundering, just think about that.
Like think about what you want to do in 10, 15 years.
And do you want to look back and be proud of the work you did,

(53:54):
the cases you worked, the, you know, the bad guys you took off the street,
or you just want to, you know, look back and see that you tried to sit in a parking lot all day.
Like it's, I mean, there's other things you can do to with similar,
better money and a lot less stress.
So if you're going to do the job, just do it correctly. Because I think,
uh, if you don't, a lot of people will get out of this profession and just kind

(54:14):
of be, have a somber, um, feeling about it when they look back.
Um, but yeah, just, you know, take it, take it seriously.
Um, have some humility humility and just
have a standard and and live up to it yeah what a
great what a great way to end man i've always um been the type to say uh and

(54:35):
this comes back from my commander when i was in iraq i'm a battalion commander
and he always said and this is us young 20 21 year olds you know 19 20 21 year
olds and he would say to us you know during battalion meetings you know his his.
Uplifting talks with us he would tell us like what legacy are you going to leave
behind what What are you going to want to be remembered for?

(54:55):
What are you going to look back? And when you're 60 years old,
and are you going to look back on your time and think it was a waste or you
actually had a positive impact?
So, man, that's a great way to end it, JT.
If you want to hang out for a minute, I'm just going to do a quick outro and
we'll talk offline real quick.

(55:15):
Sounds good. Thank you. Man, what a great episode.
I hope everyone enjoys it. I hope everyone really takes to heart what JT just
said there and even throughout the entire episode.
Make sure you follow him on Instagram. I'll put up all the show notes for you

(55:37):
guys to go and follow and share all this stuff because it's really,
really important stuff.
In the meantime, stay safe, stay sapient.
Music.