August 21, 2025 • 45 mins
The silent epidemic ravaging our first responder community takes center stage in this raw, unfiltered conversation with Jess, an 18-year law enforcement veteran from California. Her story unfolds against a backdrop of unimaginable loss – five officer suicides in her jurisdiction within a devastatingly short timeframe, including colleagues she worked with daily. Despite California's relative wealth of resources for first responder mental health, the deadly stigma surrounding help-seeking remains deeply entrenched.
What makes this conversation uniquely powerful is Jess's perspective as a female officer navigating the male-dominated world of law enforcement. She articulates the distinct challenges women face in the profession while offering crucial insights into how gender influences trauma processing. As both she and her husband serve in law enforcement while raising their children, Jess reveals how parenthood fundamentally transformed her emotional responses to traumatic calls involving kids – creating a vulnerability that many officers struggle to acknowledge.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when exploring the physical manifestations of trauma. Jess describes feeling distinct sensations in her chest when triggered, while fellow guest Jake identifies a knot in his stomach as his body's early warning system. These somatic responses represent critical early intervention opportunities that many first responders miss until they're already in crisis. Their candid sharing offers listeners practical tools for recognizing their own trauma responses before they become overwhelming.
Perhaps most hopeful is Jess's observation about the newest generation of officers coming through the academy where she teaches. Unlike their predecessors, these recruits demonstrate a refreshing willingness to discuss mental health concerns openly – potentially transforming department cultures from within as they advance in their careers.
Whether you're a first responder, love someone who is, or simply care about the well-being of those who protect our communities, this conversation offers rare insight into the true cost of service and the urgent changes needed to support those who sacrifice so much. Listen, share, and join the 10-42 Project's mission to break the stigma around first responder mental health before we lose another hero to suicide.
If you or someone you know is in crisis and at risk of self-harm, please call or text 988, the suicide and crisis lifeline.
To contact us directly send an email to Dan@10-42project.org or call 515-350-6274
Visit our website! 10-42project.org
Check us out on social media!
Youtube: @1042project
Facebook: www.facebook.com/1042project
Instagram: 1042_project
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome back to the Shared Voices podcast from the
1042 Project.
This is the founder and thedirector of the 1042 Project,
Dan Deffenball, and welcomeIntroduce you all to kind of
covering the globe here, Well,at least part of the United
States anyway.
We got Jake from Iowa.
(00:27):
He's an Iowa boy, local boy.
We have Jess from she's aCalifornia girl out there, but
she ain't no sissy Californiagirl.
She kick your butt, Californiagirl.
But her and her husband I'mwearing the badge, wear the
badge.
I'll let her tell her story.
But I really wanted to bring heron, Jess, because we don't
(00:53):
bring on enough females to talkabout the female side of the
first responder world.
You know, and I'm smart enoughto know to not pretend to tell
women what to do or how to gothrough their career as a guy,
as a guy.
So we're really wanting to growour organization and grow that.
They can, you know, have agroup to lean on as well,
(01:13):
Because in our organization welike to.
This is just because I knowhurt people hurt people and I
want to be very careful with thefirst responders that come to
our organization or ambassadorsof our organization that we keep
it male help male, femalehelping female when we're, when
we're matching up people thatare struggling and mentors and
stuff, because I just it's.
(01:34):
It gets messy when you, whenyou don't.
So we really need to build upour female community.
So, if're listening, you're afirst responder in the Midwest.
Reach out to us.
We would love to be one of ourambassadors.
We need your help.
We need your help.
(01:55):
Start the and build thecommunity up to the powerhouse
Life-changing.
Thank you for joining us, Jess.
I'm going to tell us a littlebit about you, your family and
where you're working us.
A little bit about you, yourfamily and where you're working.
A little bit of your history,because I think it's kind of
fascinating.
You and your husband both dothis job and what a unique thing
to have both parents.
(02:15):
It's got to be unique for yourkids to have both parents you
know, kicking butt, saving livesand making names.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, so I've been in law enforcement this is my 18th
year and started off patrollike everybody does when you go
into law enforcement at a localsheriff's office.
So broke worked in a very ruralarea even though it's
California, there is rural areasout here.
So sometimes my nearest backup,40 minutes away, there was
areas I worked.
Where I was, that was me.
(02:48):
I was the deputy 40 miles or 40minutes at least, had some
sticky moments, learned to holdmy own.
I'm only 5'2 so I'm not supertall or anything by any means.
But met my husband on the jobabout 14 years ago.
Friend of ours thought he'd bea good fit.
He was right.
(03:08):
He asked us to name our firstchild after him and my first
child was a girl.
So that didn't happen.
But he worked for a stateagency.
My husband's only got a couplemore years before he retires if
he wants to, but he's ininvestigations now, so he's not
on the road anymore oh goodfunny enough.
I don't think our kids reallyremember us on the road um.
(03:33):
My daughter might haveremembered very oh really yes, I
was always at investigationunit after she was born, um, and
she's going to be 12.
So, and my husband was aninvestigator.
That's the blessing yeah, sowhen they see a patrol car they
don't think that that's what wedo.
Um, I'm in the.
(03:54):
I'm in the DA's office now, soI'm inside um working cases from
the angle with the attorneysand going to court a lot more.
Um, I also testify as adomestic violence expert in our
cases.
So my kids sometimes don't,they don't think I'm a cop.
Sometimes that's a littlehurtful, but that's fine.
(04:17):
Whatever, you know, I don't, Idon't.
I don't let the ego there, butwhat do they think you are?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I don't.
What do they think you are?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I have no, they don't think I'm an attorney, so I
know that much.
I don't know.
So I, my son, is like you don'tyou don't drive a patrol car and
I'm like it's still a cop car,it's just undercover, it's
unmarked and but and thenteaching at the academy as well.
I do that with the recruitswith certain classes that I can
(04:47):
obviously help with and then tryto help, especially some of the
female recruits that ended upfrom the academy going into law
enforcement I still stay intouch with, so we still talk and
actually, speaking of femalesin the law enforcement community
, I've talked to a couple of thefemales, some that graduated
last class and that graduatedthe class before.
We're talking about possiblyorganizing something to where
(05:10):
our incoming recruits that arefemale because there's a lot of
questions that come up withgoing through the academy as a
female that don't have to dealwith.
So some of those things thatwe're going to possibly put a
group together where we sit downwith the new recruits and
explain to them things that theyneed to know specifically to be
helpful for them.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So how long have you been in the academy then?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I started in 2019.
So we're called adjunctteachers, so we just come in for
like a four hour block here andthen I had yesterday.
I did a four hour block.
I'll come back in a month doanother four hour block and then
, um, I teach again towards theend.
Um, and it's going to be moreinvestigative style is what I'm
(05:58):
teaching, so the investigationson specific crimes, not just
general law enforcement stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
So, but it's mostly the book stuff, um, yeah, that's
what I teach the nerd stuff,yeah, the stuff that most cops
don't want to sit down for, butthey need.
They need more than anything,is that part of it.
But we just want to go on.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
We just want to go out and kick in doors and yeah,
yeah I have to explain thembefore they can kick in those
doors, those doors.
There are certain things I haveto explain them before they can
kick in those doors.
There are certain things theyhave to do first before that can
happen.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Other doors you got to open first, right, yeah, yeah
, well, cool, well, that'sawesome and you are.
So I think what's interesting,you're out in California and we
are, and here we are in Iowa,but yet really, and it's two
(06:50):
completely different states andyour guys' crime rate's probably
higher than ours, but stillit's kind of the same setting as
Iowa, meaning that yourbackup's a long ways away, like
this isn't like LA where youjust turn around and there's a
cop every 13 feet, right, I meanyeah, where you just turn
around, there's a cop every 13feet, right, I mean you, yeah,
so you, so the people listening,especially the iowa we have
listeners listening all over,but the iowa people, man, yeah,
(07:12):
she can relate to what that'slike to to be out there on your
own and and really learn how touse verbal judo.
You know, yeah, to talk, talkthings down.
That's the seems like in ruraliowa.
That's the key the power of thelips, right?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Yes, very much so, Very much so.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
So we had talked and I know you're passionate about
first responders, mental health,and you're passionate about
people getting help, getting ridof the stigma that's behind it
all.
You're tired of seeing peopledying, just like I am, and I
know you're hard on it because Igot to hear you talk about it.
But explain to me why I alreadyknow.
(07:54):
But explain to our listenerswhy you're so passionate about
it.
Because when you shared with methe situation out in your area
over the last I forget thetimeline, year or two, maybe
less, I forget what it is butwhen you told me what's been
going on out there, it kind ofreally surprised me that there
was that many issues.
And we're talking about suicidesfor first responders, because
(08:18):
California, florida and the EastCoast you guys have have.
You still don't have enough,but you have the most resources
of first responder, inpatient,outpatient retreats and all this
stuff because we're sendingpeople out to california all the
time for treatment.
Um, so are we not gettingenough treatment out there?
(08:39):
Are people not utilizing it oris there just more to the
picture?
We haven't figured out yet tostop this, because and I'll let
you tell the numbers, but Ibelieve it's somewhere around
five suicides that had happened.
But can you tell me, tell us alittle bit about that and
because I know that's you'vealways had a heart for it, but
that's one thing that's reallytriggered you lately, where
you're like tired of it, you'reready for some change.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
So tell us about that yeah, so working actually on
patrol at the time.
I I was a detectives, I think,at the time when, um I first
started seeing more of a pattern.
Um, but to kind of start at thebeginning, my daughter so my
daughter's born in 2013.
So 2014,.
It would have been January 10thof 2014.
Um, I had learned my former FTO, who was no longer in law
(09:22):
enforcement, some mental healthissues.
Um ended up committing suicide.
I was actually on my way it wasactually the 9th, I'm sorry,
because I was on my way to mybest friend's wedding in a
different area.
So it was the night before herwedding when I got a phone call
and we knew he had issues.
But it was one of those things,I think he what.
Luckily, we had a really goodsheriff at the time and he was
(09:46):
trying to help him.
But you can only help peoplethat want the help.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And it just kind of got to the point where they
couldn't help.
Wasn't I guess he wasn't takingthe help?
And you don't think much of it.
You think, ok, that's one in mycareer.
You know, in this job I knew itwas bound to happen.
But 2018, we ended up having alocal police department.
They had a officer whocommitted suicide and at the
(10:17):
time I didn't understand.
I felt like a bad person andlater on I go back and tell my
buddy, who I was very close withat that police department.
I had to profusely apologize tohim, which he understood.
But at the time when everythinghappened with that officer, it
was an off-duty incident.
He went out early in themorning and committed suicide
(10:41):
and nobody really knew that hewas fighting these demons, that
he was fighting, um.
But my department got put incharge of doing the
investigation just to make surethere was no, it is a suicide.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
It wasn't, uh, suspicious yeah, and at the time
the police department was kind.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, they were kind of treating it like an
in-line-of-duty death.
They were watching over thebody the 24 hours around the
clock.
An officer stood by him and Ikind of didn't understand it at
the time because I'm like, well,it's not an in-line-of-duty
death.
This is me being extremelynaive.
And about a year later we hadone of our own from my
(11:25):
department commit suicide um sothis is the third one this would
be number three.
So this is, under the samecircumstances.
Uh, as kind of the, as kind ofthe one in 2018 from the
neighboring city.
Um, a lot more fam.
It wasn't necessarily the jobitself.
There was some job aspects thatwere coming up, but a lot of it
was stemming from family life.
(11:46):
But I think they just clenched.
They were trying to help him.
The agency was actually doing areally good job trying to help
him, but, again, I think thestigma was always there and he
was a former Marine when he camein, so the stigma was always
there for him.
So I think that might have beenharder to take the help, but he
(12:08):
, from what I understood, he wasvery much taking help and
trying, but I think it just gottoo overwhelming.
So when my friend died, I wentto my buddy who worked at the
agency.
That I was like well, why areyou guys treating this as an
inline of duty death.
Then I understood.
I understood and I apologizedto him because he came from this
(12:29):
police department and came toour sheriff's office and helped
us with and we brought Tom backfrom Bakersfield, um, and we did
the procession and he came andhe was right there and he was
helping us organize everythingbecause we were falling apart
and I profusely apologized tohim and I profusely thanked him
for everything he's done and himand I bonded very.
(12:52):
We were very, we still are,we're still very close.
And then, about a month later,we had a murder suicide.
It was one of their officersfrom the same police department
that lost the gentleman in 2018.
They had a murder suicide.
I just came back from a family,well, that lost the gentleman in
2018.
They had a murder suicide.
I just came back from a familytrip with my husband and I got a
phone call and they said, hey,are you able to come out?
(13:13):
And I said it's an officer whowas killed.
I said, yeah, I'll be out there, find out who the officer is.
And then we found out theperson who killed him was also
another officer, um, off duty ata party.
Um, the suspect was trying todo some harm to his girlfriend
(13:34):
and, and jonathan was theofficer that was killed.
He saved, he saved her.
He saved her life um, got herout of there.
She ended up being.
She survived, um, thank god.
Yeah, he was in the process ofkilling her.
If jonathan would have walkedin, he she probably would have
been dead, um.
So he saved her life, but hepaid the ultimate sacrifice for
(13:56):
saving her life, um.
So then we we had two there.
At that point I was like I don't, I don't really want to be on
patrol anymore.
I need to go into an officesetting.
I need to kind of get away fromall this.
I want to help, but this isbreaking my heart and it's too
much.
Memories being at thatdepartment my old department is
(14:18):
fantastic.
They handled everything super,super well.
They did absolutely nothingwrong.
They did everything they weresupposed to do for us.
I just it was just memories.
So I left, and when I startedmy new agency last year we ended
up having a suicide.
So I kind of left thinking that, okay, we're all in the office,
(14:40):
we're not out in the field,we're not being reintroduced to
trauma every single day in ourjobs like we were when we were
out in the field.
And then we had another one.
So and this was a person whoour agency is very small, not a
very big agency within the cops,and so we know each other very
well and I got to know him andhe helped me through some tough
(15:04):
times, um, you know, kind ofchanging job focus and how
things work and, um, being newerto the county that I'm in now,
and so that I, I, we all, ourwhole agency took it very hard
when that happened.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I can only imagine that's talking about devastating
to the community.
That is five in a very shortperiod of time.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, we also have.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
I can imagine what that was like to go through.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah, we also had another officer.
I did not know him.
My husband actually went to.
He actually worked with himbeforehand when they worked like
their civilian job.
My husband, he worked for alocal agency within the county
even now and he committedsuicide, I believe in April of
2023, on duty.
He was on duty when it happened.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, how far is that fromwhere you live.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
So actually, from where I live it's only about 30
minutes, but from where I workit's within the same county, so
it's about 15 minutes from wheremy, like our big city is.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Wow, so that's six.
Yes, are there any other onesthat you've heard about that?
We don't know that you haven't.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
You know I I'm trying to think of, like the more
surrounding areas.
There might have been a few,but I know that Well, like kind
of around.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yeah, it's a lot.
I do think our people arepretty resilient and we do have
people who want to help, but Istill think, like you said, I
think the stigma is still therewith a lot of us, a lot of old
(16:49):
schoolers.
Um, I think I told you, dan, Ithink we are trying to change
things, but the real change isgoing to come with all these
kids that are just I call themkids because I feel like they're
my children the ones that aregraduating the academy, the ones
that are going into lawenforcement right now.
I think they're going toactually be the real change.
They're going to be a realchange in this.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
I do too I think Jake would agree, like so, when I go
to the academy now, when I goto the academy now, I've never
seen such a young group that hasno issue talking about their
mental health.
It is so refreshing.
And it's not all of them, butI'm just comparing them to like
our generation, right, like Iwent through the Academy 25
(17:25):
years ago, nobody talked aboutany of this stuff.
But now it's amazing, thisyounger generation is more open
to it.
They don't look down on it,they don't judge people on it
and really I've noticed and Iencourage them to do so a lot of
them are kind of leading thechange in their departments the
(17:46):
younger ones of just talkingabout it openly around the table
and and just kind of startingtheir own change.
I think that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I agree with you yeah , I, I see it.
I see it just because,especially, like you know, when
we would go on these calls thatwere pretty horrific, we
literally cleared the call andgo to the next.
I think I told you, dan, we hadan incident where we had a
little boy that drowned.
I was in the office, I wasworking background, so I was
(18:15):
just getting ready to leave andI heard the call over the radio
and my buddy, who was a sergeantat the time.
I knew he was busy and I calledhim.
I said don't got to sayanything.
All I'm asking you is you doyou need me to go to the
hospital and meet the deputythat's driving these, this mom
and dad, to the hospital?
And because I said he's byhimself, he goes, yes, go.
So I drove to the hospital, Imet that deputy to make sure he
(18:38):
was not by himself with thesegrieving parents.
Little boy ultimately died.
He, I, we were actually theparents were in a room while
myself and the other deputy werebasically at the bedside of
this child and watched, watchedit and my sergeant showed up
(18:59):
because he knew the family andwe brought them in to say
goodbye and my sergeant had tophysically grab the child from
them and take him out into thecorner van, because it just how
everything was going it was.
There was no way we were gonnabe able to get how we normally
do everything.
It wasn't to work that same way, and I mean literally call was
(19:20):
done, okay, everyone, go home.
Go home, have a good night.
Um, and I remember a couple ofdays later I have a fence around
my pool, don't?
be late tomorrow.
I have a fence around my pooland my kids were little.
They were little.
We were outside playing.
The fence is secure.
I knew they can't get in andall of a sudden I started
feeling really hot and my heartstarted beating and I was like
(19:42):
what is going on with me?
I'm like they can't get in thepool.
They can't.
I'm right here.
And I realized later it was myanxiety because we'd just gone
through that and it's a trauma Ihad, because I saw this little
boy and I thought he had aheartbeat because it kept going,
that he had a rhythm.
And I go oh, look, they'rebringing him back.
(20:02):
And the nurse comes up to meand she puts her hand on my
shoulder and she goes honey,that's just us doing CPR.
I go what?
And she's like no, he's, hedoesn't have a pulse.
That's our, our, us moving his.
And I went and that's when itlike hit me.
So when I got home I kind ofbrought that home, not realizing
I brought that home you hadmentioned.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
When you were saying that and Jake probably caught it
too you said you felt it inyour chest.
Um, jake was telling me uh, um,one of his counselor, what
somebody was talking to, but helearned that there's signals in
your body that are our earliesttriggers, that if you learn, you
can find them, and and I don'tknow if this is exactly what you
were talking about, but, jake,where you tell me a little bit
(20:49):
about it, I feel like I gotkicked in the stomach.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
It's like a knot, like a big knot, like right
below my rib cage, in my like,in my stomach, is the the first
sign that I'm having a responseor an activation?
Personally and I learned thatfrom a trauma coach, actually,
who does uh somatic, uh somaticprocessing work, and it was for
me immensely beneficial just tofigure that out, because prior
(21:12):
to that I was just oblivious towhat any of those sensations
meant at all yeah, for ourlisteners.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
The reason why we're talking about this is because
the sooner we can notice thetriggers in our body that's
reacting, the sooner we canidentify them, the sooner, the
sooner we know what we'refighting against and what we can
.
Now.
We can put in our we can, wecan start to use the, the coping
mechanisms.
We have the safe copingmechanisms.
We have to kind of de-escalateit.
(21:40):
Go for a walk, run whatever itmay be, pray and but um, but
jess, or is that right?
So do you feel it in your chestfirst?
Is that what yours is?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
yeah, definitely I'll never, even now, talking about
it.
It kind of brings it back.
I remember that very well, very, very busy you feel it.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
You still feel it today, like, yeah, I can still
feel my heart rate a little bit.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
It's going up, but I can remember it clear as day,
like clear as day feeling, andI'm like what's wrong with me?
Why am I, you know, doing thisso?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I uh during during my career, I unfortunately uh
attempted cpr on three infantsand and failed all three times,
and so you're telling the storythree infants and and failed all
three times.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
And so you're telling the story.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
I mean it didn't work .
I didn't bring it back.
Um, and the story you just told, I've had, I've, I've lived
that exact story, uh, with a fewminor details, but that exact
thing.
But as you're telling the story, I'm feeling, I'm like all
right, that's, that's hitting me, that's triggering me a, a
little bit too.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, yeah, it's weird because of all the things
you see, and I know it soundscorny a little bit, but it's
things with kids that really getto you, um, and I never really
had these issues until I had myown, and that's when it happened
.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Yeah, yep, I 100%, I would agree five years ago and I
so I'd been an officer for Idon't know a little while, but
yeah, that changed everything.
And then, when you know, webrought our, our son, home and I
could not stop watching himbecause two of the two of the
three were cases, which is justyes, no one knows what causes,
(23:17):
and so it created this massivelevel of anxiety.
I put a camera on him.
We got a pulse ox, like theoutlet pulse ox Like I don't
think I slept for a year justbecause I'm so worried about it.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah, my a little extra for my son, who's just
extra in life, my daughter'soldest he's very extra and he
was extra from day one, so hewas born at 35 weeks.
I mean, he literally justpunched his way into the world
and so, yeah, that was a very hewas very dynamic, but when he
(23:55):
was delivered he was notbreathing.
So I just remember, becausewhen my daughter was born she
was a screamer Like I'm like, oh, she's fine, he wasn't.
I just remember looking at myhusband saying he's not, he's
not crying, he's not crying,he's not crying.
They get him onto the elevatorstill not crying.
They said the minute they gothim into the elevator he started
crying.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
He's like seriously but he had to have the c-pap.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
He had to have all that.
He was in the NICU for six days.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
You don't, and you don't forget that.
You don't forget those imageswhen my second child, Andrew,
was born.
He was.
He was born in the hospital.
We were told he was fine.
And then we're we're gettingready to go home, we got the
bags packed, we're getting readyto walk out, We've got the bags
packed, we're getting ready towalk out of the hospital.
They come up and check Andrewone more time and they hear
something weird.
Weird with his heart.
And next thing we knew theywere.
(24:42):
They were rushing him to asurgery in Iowa city, um two
hours away, and his heart wasapparently built backwards.
It's called transposition ofthe great arteries, where his
heart was flipped.
So instead of the main arteriescoming in this side and then
coming in this side and out thisside, his heart was flipped so
they crossed and he had a bighole in the middle of his heart.
So it was all like purple blood.
So they didn't think he wasgoing to live.
(25:03):
So they took him there and didan open heart surgery on him and
again we thought we were goinghome.
Man, we balled all the way toIowa city so we had to.
We stay at the Ronald McDonaldhouse for a long time where
Andrew was recovering and welost.
They apparently lost him on thesurgery room but they got him
back and we just seen your kidin those NICUs with all those
tubes.
It's like once you go throughthat, being a parent's hard
(25:27):
enough, Then when you go throughthat, then when you go on these
calls it's like can becrippling.
It was for me.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
For sure my my can be crippling.
It was for me, for sure, forsure, my my, sorry so, my second
son no, I almost forgot aboutthis, which is probably speaks
to the amount of therapy I'vedone.
But uh, he was born with a, hisumbilical cord wrapped around
his neck twice.
And the only reason, the onlyreason it didn't do any
permanent damage is for somereason the umbilical cord was
(25:54):
like twice as long as it'ssupposed to be.
The doc, the delivering doctor,said she she'd been doing this
for I don't know 20 years orwhatever.
She said I've never seen anumbilical cord that long.
Call it a jump, a jump man.
It was.
I mean, it was crazy.
But when he but when he poppedout, so he started to uh, what
do they call that?
His oxygen started it.
(26:15):
What do they call it d cell?
Or in the womb, okay, ready todeliver.
You know, my wife would startpushing and he was.
I think they call it d cell,right, like, or something like
that he started his eyes I don'tknow.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
That's a battery that I used in flashlights back in
the day.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
The big old mag light .
Yeah, but so then they allfreaked out.
So then you know, everyonecomes rushing in with carts and
gloves and everything and I'mstanding in the corner and I'm
feeling all the I mean I washaving essentially a panic
attack internally.
While that was going on Poppedout and then that was the reason
, and then he's just fine, likehe's just fine, like he's just
(26:56):
fine, but he's just fine.
But it was just that moment.
That moment was not just fine.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
No, I'm guessing he's the one that keeps you on your
toes.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
No, he's actually a lot more mellow.
The first our oldest you talkabout being extra.
My five year old is extra, likeextra, needs attention,
attention all the time, neverstops talking.
But my younger son, he'll justlike do his own thing.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, funny.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
It's a different pain when it's your kids, man.
It's a different pain.
It just is.
You know, what's awesome aboutparenthood is you kind of learn
a little bit about the love ofJesus, what God has for us.
Think about how much we loveour kids and the things we would
do for them, how much more heloves us.
We can't even fathom that whenyou become a parent.
(27:45):
In my opinion, it helped builda relationship with Christ
because you kind of get thatparent-father-child relationship
.
Die for your kids at any cause,protect them at any cause, but
yet you still want to disciplinethem and make sure they're not
turning into Jake's or Dan's.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I just want to be good people.
That's all my.
That's all.
My goal is at this point Begood people, be kind, don't.
Don't go to jail, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yes.
So question for you, jess.
Maybe this is a stupid question.
I love asking stupid questions,just so you know I didn't used
to.
I used to be embarrassed to askthem, but I love.
Have you noticed that thefemale, do female officers told
(28:38):
you to be stupid?
Do female officers?
Do you see the female officersand male officers process trauma
differently and have adifferent?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
vision or a different view of the stigma.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Or is it the same?
I truly don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Sometimes I think that there is a difference only
because, I mean, you guys knowthis, we like to talk, women
like to talk, and most femalesnot not all, but most females in
the job we have our core groupof friends are out of the job.
Uh, I have two female friendsin law enforcement.
(29:06):
The rest are from high school,um.
So, and one of my friends fromhigh school she's I see her more
often because she still liveshere and, um, she's very
understanding, which is great.
She's actually gone on ridealongs with me so she is easier
to talk to her about thesethings, because she knows these
(29:27):
things are going to be a littlemore traumatic than what she's
dealing with.
But she gets that I need totalk to somebody.
I think a lot of guys, guys, mypersonal opinion is you, you
form a friendship within lawenforcement and then you kind of
make that your core group offriends, which don't I don't
think anybody any but male orfemale shouldn't do that um, you
need to have some outsidefriends.
(29:48):
But no right.
I just you need to have otherpeople to bring you out of the
cop talk and all that jazz, butI think just women are more
willing to talk about ourfeelings and about how we're
feeling, and guys have alwaysbeen taught, you know, I think
(30:08):
that's also another stigma is,women are taught, you know, we
can talk about our feelings, butwe need to be kind, we need to
always be courteous, we alwaysneed to be, um, you know, kind
of kind of that way where menare taught you don't cry, you
don't talk about things, youdon't talk about your feelings,
um, so I think there is adifference with how we process
(30:29):
it, just with how our upbringingis.
Um, I know I'm saying I'm a lotbecause I'm trying to think I.
I do see, though, that we, like, when we went through our stuff
, I was probably one of the onlytwo females at the time that
really knew a lot of thesepeople, um, in my department.
So the nice thing was theseguys, we all kind of responded
(30:52):
the same way, and they knew weknew we could talk to each other
and we knew we can be verybrutally honest.
I knew I just needed to go cry,I can.
One of the guys would follow meout and be like let's go, let's
go get some coffee, and we justliterally drive around and I
would just cry and then he wouldcry, that's just you had said
this to me before that and Ithink that's kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Cool.
You really praised yourdepartment for how well they
have each other's backs, supporteach other, you know,
understand the mental healthside of it, right yeah, my, the
sheriff's office, especiallywhere I came from.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
The sheriff was amazing.
Um, he was fully on board withwhen.
When we lost tom, he's like,look, whatever you need,
whatever you need, and heactually relayed to one
particular sergeant who's afriend of mine, because he knew
that sergeant was going to neversay who said what, never going
(31:48):
to give names, and so he becamelike the liaison with our HR
department.
And so he just call and say, hey, I have somebody going to an
appointment, this is a day andtime.
And no name was given, notnothing.
He actually went and met with atherapist first that we were
using, and she actually calledhim out and said you're here to
(32:09):
vet me, aren't you?
So how did you know your guys'sdebrief?
Everyone was looking at you wowso yeah, so he took on the role
um, so he's not like thateverywhere, yeah, that changes
he's.
He's a very important person inmy life.
He had to medically retire.
Um, he was a go-getter.
(32:29):
I worked with him for a verylong time and he was very
hyperactive, um, but he gotinjured on the job and he had to
medically retire.
But I mean through and throughone of the best people on the
planet that I've ever met, andhe will literally give you the
shirt off his back.
So that was just hispersonality.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
That's cool.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really cool.
That was not my experience ateither department I worked for,
unfortunately, really.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
That was not my experience at either department
I worked for, unfortunately,really yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
I've told Dan this story, but in 2019, a friend of
mine another cop was involved ina shooting where he got hit in
the face multiple times with CO2pell.
Co2 pellet pellet rounds likelittle metal beam from point
blank and I was the first one toget there and uh and and help
(33:22):
him and his it.
I mean at the time we didn'tthank God it was a pellet gun
and not an actual gunner.
You know he would not hewouldn't have made it.
But, uh, it looked.
It looked the same, I mean it.
Just his face is covered inblood and he had the most in the
most, fear I've ever seen on aperson's face, um, and he asked
(33:42):
me if he was gonna make it.
And I had to, I did, had to.
Well, I didn't end up lying tohim, but in the moment I didn't
know and I had to just decide tosay, yeah, I think, yeah,
you're gonna be fine.
I can hear the ambulance coming, um, but uh, so then from there
, that was that was the first 10minutes of my shift that day,
and from there I was just givenan order to go take calls,
because it was, it was a midsizedepartment and an incident like
(34:03):
that takes up all a lot of ourstaffing resources, and so I
spent the rest of the you knowthe rest of my shift call to
call.
I worked in a pretty busy townand and most of our calls we
would send two officers on, butit was just me.
I went to domestics by myself.
I went to, I mean, I.
That was normal where you were.
It was not normal for me.
Uh, none, nothing about thatday was normal, and so I was
(34:25):
just counting down the minutesuntil I could leave.
And then I got the order to goto the hospital and sit with the
suspect who he had, he had hehad shot her.
Uh, and I, that's, I mean I, I,I freaked out, I and prior to
this I was like an officer ofthe year, like I had all this
extra duty stuff.
I, I mean, I was my, my careerwas thriving.
(34:46):
I'd never been disciplined, Inever, never even voiced an
opinion different than thancommand.
And I drove to the station andfreaked, just freaked out.
And, uh, and my Lieutenant andSergeant at the time, just they,
they waited until I stopped andthey said, are you done?
And I was like, yeah, andthey're like, then go to the
hospital, and that was it.
And so I had to go and sit withher at the hospital for another
(35:09):
four hours after that.
And now, looking back, that'swhere that's where my PTSD
started.
It's not the only but that.
That looking back, uh, that'swhere that's where my ptsd
started.
It's not the only but that.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
That's the culture, that that's the culture I came
from, and that was that was likenormal where I worked see, and
it's crazy because I think about, like I, when you're talking
about situation, when you'retelling what's happening, I was
like, okay, how would my, my olddepartment because again I'm
not on the streets anymore, buttaking myself back to the
sheriff's office when I workedthere what would my sheriff,
what would he have done?
(35:39):
We have jail staff.
We're lucky and fortunate forthat.
They would have sent jail staffto go watch, and actually most
of them like doing that overtime, so they would have sent
jill's uh, jail staff to go dothat.
Um, she probably would havecalled in another shift.
He would have called in thenext day shift or maybe a shift
that's completely off, or we'vedone this before um, when we
(36:00):
went to funeral for our funeralfor tops and things like that,
because he didn't want to stopanybody from going is we'll have
the neighboring cities come andcover the calls yeah, that's
what he would have done that.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
I've heard of that happening, but this day it just
Wow.
Nobody cared, nobody ever evenasked to this day.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
So, jess, when you were starting your career and
going through it, did you earlyon, did you struggle with it
right away?
Did you struggle with yourmental health or are you doing
fine?
Tell us a little bit about yourjourney through your career.
What was it like?
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Yeah, so where I saw the switch I think I said it
before is when kids came along.
I was, in my career, single.
I mean, of course, my mom wasalways scared to death.
Again, I'm an only child, sothat was a lot.
Um, my parents were always mydad never voiced a whole lot,
but, um, I took my mom on a ridealong, um, scared her at one
(37:02):
point, didn't mean to it, justit just happened.
I don't know, things happen, um.
And then my dad went with mewhen I did some overtime detail
on us.
It was like a click at herticket thing and and my dad
actually helped me catch one ofmy P's Like hey, look that kid's
standing up in that car.
So my dad secretly wanted toalways be a cop.
(37:24):
So at the beginning I didn'thave I don't think I noticed it,
maybe because, again, it wasingrained in us not to show our
feelings and not talk aboutthings.
And it wasn't really ingrainedin us not to show our feelings
and I'll talk about things andum, it wasn't really ingrained
in that point.
So I think I was just livingday to day, um, and I'm trying
to look back and think ofanything really flagged and I
(37:45):
think it mostly started flaggingonce I had kids yeah and I
started seeing it's not justabout me anymore If something is
to happen to me, like now.
I've got two other human beingsthat are depending on me.
So I think that's where itreally started to kick in.
It took a while before itreally hit.
(38:05):
I think it some people hitsreally early in their career,
depending on what you go through.
Some people it's later in theircareer.
Most of the stuff that I've gonethrough was mostly later in my
career, which in a way, I kindof thank God for that, because I
had a little bit of afoundation.
But I know there's people thathave been in their first
(38:26):
shooting, their first week onFTO, and I'm like I don't know
how you, that's a really hardcomeback.
Yeah, there's someone who'sjust starting.
You know, if you've been inthis career 10 years and you get
in a, that's a really hardcomeback through someone who's
just starting.
Um, you know, if you've been inthis career 10 years and you
get in a shooting, that'susually you can handle a little
bit better than someone who'sbeen in one week.
So I really do think it's how,when and how all these trauma
(38:47):
events happen.
I think now they're comingearlier in people's career than
they used to, for sure.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah, and I think that a lot of it has to do with
untreated childhood trauma.
I know it was for me, I know itwas for Jake, you know it's
just a lot of it is trauma thatwe're not aware of or we are
aware of and we're running fromand taking care of before we
start our career.
So we're carrying all thatbaggage right into our mess and
we just try to keep coping andkeep coping.
(39:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
And I think some people yes, some people come in
with trauma already.
Um, I learned this fromteaching at the academy.
I felt absolutely terrible.
But, um, I also teach sexualassault, so I I kind of I have
to have role players that are,that are cadets.
I don't have the ability tohave role players come in.
(39:36):
I would love to change that.
But sometimes I have to use thecadets and I felt terrible
because I actually had picked arole player, realizing that that
person had childhood traumathat involved what I was
teaching.
And after I figured that outnow I immediately the first two
(39:57):
seconds of class, I explained tothem what we're going to be
doing and I explained to them ifyou get this yellow sticky note
on your desk and you do notfeel comfortable, please tell me
on the next break that you donot feel comfortable and I want
to have any questions and I'llmove on.
Learned Lesson learned Smart.
Don't ever want to all move on.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Learned lesson learned Smart.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Ever want anyone to feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Yeah, you're not there to trigger them.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Right and so I learned very quickly.
But I I'm not trying to boast,but I was very fortunate I had a
great childhood, my parents arefantastic people.
My mom and I are still veryclose.
She's probably my best friend Iyou know my parents are very
involved with my children.
They probably see my kids twice, maybe three times a week.
(40:44):
They live about a mile or twofrom me.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
They don't live that far.
That's awesome, that's great.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Yeah, so I didn't have that kind of trauma coming
in, but I know that some of mycoworkers did, so I do think
that plays a factor.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Yep, Definitely a part of my story, and exactly
what you were talking about waswas a part of my childhood too.
I and I, I came into lawenforcement having never told a
soul and I, I wish, I, I wish Ihad.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
I have now it's.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
I've let go of it for the most part now, but I could
see how that would have beendifficult for that cadet for
sure.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Yeah, yeah.
So we talked, we talked, wetalked.
Trust me, and I told her not toever.
Whenever she wants to tell her,he wants to tell their story.
That is their decision.
They do not need to be ever bepressured to tell their story
and they never have to.
But I also think I told thatcadet, I said this may give you
the drive to go a specificdirection in law enforcement.
(41:44):
And they told me yes.
So it sounds horrible to say,but I think with you guys, even
though you had those traumas inchildhood, it gave you a purpose
when you came into lawenforcement.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
God didn't want us to go through those hard times.
You know, god gives humans freewill because he has to give us
free will, or it wouldn't belove If we were forced to love
him.
That's when we programmedrobots right.
He gives us.
He gives us that free will, butthere's a cost that comes with
that free will and people getvery.
People can be very ugly to eachother, and that's why we need
God, that's why we need Jesus,because we we fall short of that
(42:21):
on our own.
What were you going to say,jake?
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Oh, for me, I, I quickly realized I needed to
stay away from those types ofcases when I was a cop, because
I would get, I would get too,too angry at the suspect and not
I mean, you can't be aneffective cop if you're, if
you're, if your own emotions areinvolved, you know, of any kind
, but especially anger, you knowit's I, I, I, I'm sure, had I
(42:48):
had I gone into, you know,especially the investigative
side of a child, child sexcrimes, I would have, you know,
been doing things like you knowyou're guilty, before I even
really investigate it.
And I'm going to try to chargeyou with every single thing I
can, even if it doesn't.
You know I could.
I just knew that I shouldn't dothat and I and I did.
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
for that reason, no-transcript the child, but
(43:25):
then somebody else talks to thesuspect.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
We did that all the time yeah, you're probably right
, but that was my take is I justI'll focus on other things yeah
, yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Self-control and self-knowledge.
You they frown when you beatthe piss out of them, so it's
good that you're not.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
You know your control and not saying I would have,
but I wouldn't want to all right, we're going to close out this
episode.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Um.
Thank you guys for joining us.
Um, we're going to have themback on if they will allow us to
, although we kind of ran latetoday because we were having all
sorts of issues withelectronics.
But if they can stick around,we'll do another short one
because I want to hear some morefrom Jess.
If they can't, we're going tohave them back on multiple times
.
You'll hear them in the future.
(44:09):
I want to thank you guys bothfor being on and hopefully we'll
see you on the next episode.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Thanks Dan.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Thank you the 1042 Project Shared Voices podcast.
Thank you for tuning in andjust a reminder, we are a 501c3.
If you guys can support us, youcan go to our website.
Or if you know an organizationor a company or your church may
want to get involved insupporting 1042 Project's
mission of equipping, restoring,repurposing.
(44:41):
Our first responders, pleasereach out to us at
10-42projectorg.
There is a giving page on there.
We need your help.
We need your support If youcan't get financial.
Welcome back to the Shared Voices podcast from the
1042 Project.
This is the founder and thedirector of the 1042 Project,
Dan Deffenball, and welcomeIntroduce you all to kind of
covering the globe here, Well,at least part of the United
States anyway.
We got Jake from Iowa.
(00:27):
He's an Iowa boy, local boy.
We have Jess from she's aCalifornia girl out there, but
she ain't no sissy Californiagirl.
She kick your butt, Californiagirl.
But her and her husband I'mwearing the badge, wear the
badge.
I'll let her tell her story.
But I really wanted to bring heron, Jess, because we don't
(00:53):
bring on enough females to talkabout the female side of the
first responder world.
You know, and I'm smart enoughto know to not pretend to tell
women what to do or how to gothrough their career as a guy,
as a guy.
So we're really wanting to growour organization and grow that.
They can, you know, have agroup to lean on as well,
(01:13):
Because in our organization welike to.
This is just because I knowhurt people hurt people and I
want to be very careful with thefirst responders that come to
our organization or ambassadorsof our organization that we keep
it male help male, femalehelping female when we're, when
we're matching up people thatare struggling and mentors and
stuff, because I just it's.
(01:34):
It gets messy when you, whenyou don't.
So we really need to build upour female community.
So, if're listening, you're afirst responder in the Midwest.
Reach out to us.
We would love to be one of ourambassadors.
We need your help.
We need your help.
(01:55):
Start the and build thecommunity up to the powerhouse
Life-changing.
Thank you for joining us, Jess.
I'm going to tell us a littlebit about you, your family and
where you're working us.
A little bit about you, yourfamily and where you're working.
A little bit of your history,because I think it's kind of
fascinating.
You and your husband both dothis job and what a unique thing
to have both parents.
(02:15):
It's got to be unique for yourkids to have both parents you
know, kicking butt, saving livesand making names.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, so I've been in law enforcement this is my 18th
year and started off patrollike everybody does when you go
into law enforcement at a localsheriff's office.
So broke worked in a very ruralarea even though it's
California, there is rural areasout here.
So sometimes my nearest backup,40 minutes away, there was
areas I worked.
Where I was, that was me.
(02:48):
I was the deputy 40 miles or 40minutes at least, had some
sticky moments, learned to holdmy own.
I'm only 5'2 so I'm not supertall or anything by any means.
But met my husband on the jobabout 14 years ago.
Friend of ours thought he'd bea good fit.
He was right.
(03:08):
He asked us to name our firstchild after him and my first
child was a girl.
So that didn't happen.
But he worked for a stateagency.
My husband's only got a couplemore years before he retires if
he wants to, but he's ininvestigations now, so he's not
on the road anymore oh goodfunny enough.
I don't think our kids reallyremember us on the road um.
(03:33):
My daughter might haveremembered very oh really yes, I
was always at investigationunit after she was born, um, and
she's going to be 12.
So, and my husband was aninvestigator.
That's the blessing yeah, sowhen they see a patrol car they
don't think that that's what wedo.
Um, I'm in the.
(03:54):
I'm in the DA's office now, soI'm inside um working cases from
the angle with the attorneysand going to court a lot more.
Um, I also testify as adomestic violence expert in our
cases.
So my kids sometimes don't,they don't think I'm a cop.
Sometimes that's a littlehurtful, but that's fine.
(04:17):
Whatever, you know, I don't, Idon't.
I don't let the ego there, butwhat do they think you are?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
I don't.
What do they think you are?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I have no, they don't think I'm an attorney, so I
know that much.
I don't know.
So I, my son, is like you don'tyou don't drive a patrol car and
I'm like it's still a cop car,it's just undercover, it's
unmarked and but and thenteaching at the academy as well.
I do that with the recruitswith certain classes that I can
(04:47):
obviously help with and then tryto help, especially some of the
female recruits that ended upfrom the academy going into law
enforcement I still stay intouch with, so we still talk and
actually, speaking of femalesin the law enforcement community
, I've talked to a couple of thefemales, some that graduated
last class and that graduatedthe class before.
We're talking about possiblyorganizing something to where
(05:10):
our incoming recruits that arefemale because there's a lot of
questions that come up withgoing through the academy as a
female that don't have to dealwith.
So some of those things thatwe're going to possibly put a
group together where we sit downwith the new recruits and
explain to them things that theyneed to know specifically to be
helpful for them.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So how long have you been in the academy then?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I started in 2019.
So we're called adjunctteachers, so we just come in for
like a four hour block here andthen I had yesterday.
I did a four hour block.
I'll come back in a month doanother four hour block and then
, um, I teach again towards theend.
Um, and it's going to be moreinvestigative style is what I'm
(05:58):
teaching, so the investigationson specific crimes, not just
general law enforcement stuff.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
So, but it's mostly the book stuff, um, yeah, that's
what I teach the nerd stuff,yeah, the stuff that most cops
don't want to sit down for, butthey need.
They need more than anything,is that part of it.
But we just want to go on.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
We just want to go out and kick in doors and yeah,
yeah I have to explain thembefore they can kick in those
doors, those doors.
There are certain things I haveto explain them before they can
kick in those doors.
There are certain things theyhave to do first before that can
happen.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Other doors you got to open first, right, yeah, yeah
, well, cool, well, that'sawesome and you are.
So I think what's interesting,you're out in California and we
are, and here we are in Iowa,but yet really, and it's two
(06:50):
completely different states andyour guys' crime rate's probably
higher than ours, but stillit's kind of the same setting as
Iowa, meaning that yourbackup's a long ways away, like
this isn't like LA where youjust turn around and there's a
cop every 13 feet, right, I meanyeah, where you just turn
around, there's a cop every 13feet, right, I mean you, yeah,
so you, so the people listening,especially the iowa we have
listeners listening all over,but the iowa people, man, yeah,
(07:12):
she can relate to what that'slike to to be out there on your
own and and really learn how touse verbal judo.
You know, yeah, to talk, talkthings down.
That's the seems like in ruraliowa.
That's the key the power of thelips, right?
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Yes, very much so, Very much so.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
So we had talked and I know you're passionate about
first responders, mental health,and you're passionate about
people getting help, getting ridof the stigma that's behind it
all.
You're tired of seeing peopledying, just like I am, and I
know you're hard on it because Igot to hear you talk about it.
But explain to me why I alreadyknow.
(07:54):
But explain to our listenerswhy you're so passionate about
it.
Because when you shared with methe situation out in your area
over the last I forget thetimeline, year or two, maybe
less, I forget what it is butwhen you told me what's been
going on out there, it kind ofreally surprised me that there
was that many issues.
And we're talking about suicidesfor first responders, because
(08:18):
California, florida and the EastCoast you guys have have.
You still don't have enough,but you have the most resources
of first responder, inpatient,outpatient retreats and all this
stuff because we're sendingpeople out to california all the
time for treatment.
Um, so are we not gettingenough treatment out there?
(08:39):
Are people not utilizing it oris there just more to the
picture?
We haven't figured out yet tostop this, because and I'll let
you tell the numbers, but Ibelieve it's somewhere around
five suicides that had happened.
But can you tell me, tell us alittle bit about that and
because I know that's you'vealways had a heart for it, but
that's one thing that's reallytriggered you lately, where
you're like tired of it, you'reready for some change.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
So tell us about that yeah, so working actually on
patrol at the time.
I I was a detectives, I think,at the time when, um I first
started seeing more of a pattern.
Um, but to kind of start at thebeginning, my daughter so my
daughter's born in 2013.
So 2014,.
It would have been January 10thof 2014.
Um, I had learned my former FTO, who was no longer in law
(09:22):
enforcement, some mental healthissues.
Um ended up committing suicide.
I was actually on my way it wasactually the 9th, I'm sorry,
because I was on my way to mybest friend's wedding in a
different area.
So it was the night before herwedding when I got a phone call
and we knew he had issues.
But it was one of those things,I think he what.
Luckily, we had a really goodsheriff at the time and he was
(09:46):
trying to help him.
But you can only help peoplethat want the help.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And it just kind of got to the point where they
couldn't help.
Wasn't I guess he wasn't takingthe help?
And you don't think much of it.
You think, ok, that's one in mycareer.
You know, in this job I knew itwas bound to happen.
But 2018, we ended up having alocal police department.
They had a officer whocommitted suicide and at the
(10:17):
time I didn't understand.
I felt like a bad person andlater on I go back and tell my
buddy, who I was very close withat that police department.
I had to profusely apologize tohim, which he understood.
But at the time when everythinghappened with that officer, it
was an off-duty incident.
He went out early in themorning and committed suicide
(10:41):
and nobody really knew that hewas fighting these demons, that
he was fighting, um.
But my department got put incharge of doing the
investigation just to make surethere was no, it is a suicide.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
It wasn't, uh, suspicious yeah, and at the time
the police department was kind.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, they were kind of treating it like an
in-line-of-duty death.
They were watching over thebody the 24 hours around the
clock.
An officer stood by him and Ikind of didn't understand it at
the time because I'm like, well,it's not an in-line-of-duty
death.
This is me being extremelynaive.
And about a year later we hadone of our own from my
(11:25):
department commit suicide um sothis is the third one this would
be number three.
So this is, under the samecircumstances.
Uh, as kind of the, as kind ofthe one in 2018 from the
neighboring city.
Um, a lot more fam.
It wasn't necessarily the jobitself.
There was some job aspects thatwere coming up, but a lot of it
was stemming from family life.
(11:46):
But I think they just clenched.
They were trying to help him.
The agency was actually doing areally good job trying to help
him, but, again, I think thestigma was always there and he
was a former Marine when he camein, so the stigma was always
there for him.
So I think that might have beenharder to take the help, but he
(12:08):
, from what I understood, he wasvery much taking help and
trying, but I think it just gottoo overwhelming.
So when my friend died, I wentto my buddy who worked at the
agency.
That I was like well, why areyou guys treating this as an
inline of duty death.
Then I understood.
I understood and I apologizedto him because he came from this
(12:29):
police department and came toour sheriff's office and helped
us with and we brought Tom backfrom Bakersfield, um, and we did
the procession and he came andhe was right there and he was
helping us organize everythingbecause we were falling apart
and I profusely apologized tohim and I profusely thanked him
for everything he's done and himand I bonded very.
(12:52):
We were very, we still are,we're still very close.
And then, about a month later,we had a murder suicide.
It was one of their officersfrom the same police department
that lost the gentleman in 2018.
They had a murder suicide.
I just came back from a family,well, that lost the gentleman in
2018.
They had a murder suicide.
I just came back from a familytrip with my husband and I got a
phone call and they said, hey,are you able to come out?
(13:13):
And I said it's an officer whowas killed.
I said, yeah, I'll be out there, find out who the officer is.
And then we found out theperson who killed him was also
another officer, um, off duty ata party.
Um, the suspect was trying todo some harm to his girlfriend
(13:34):
and, and jonathan was theofficer that was killed.
He saved, he saved her.
He saved her life um, got herout of there.
She ended up being.
She survived, um, thank god.
Yeah, he was in the process ofkilling her.
If jonathan would have walkedin, he she probably would have
been dead, um.
So he saved her life, but hepaid the ultimate sacrifice for
(13:56):
saving her life, um.
So then we we had two there.
At that point I was like I don't, I don't really want to be on
patrol anymore.
I need to go into an officesetting.
I need to kind of get away fromall this.
I want to help, but this isbreaking my heart and it's too
much.
Memories being at thatdepartment my old department is
(14:18):
fantastic.
They handled everything super,super well.
They did absolutely nothingwrong.
They did everything they weresupposed to do for us.
I just it was just memories.
So I left, and when I startedmy new agency last year we ended
up having a suicide.
So I kind of left thinking that, okay, we're all in the office,
(14:40):
we're not out in the field,we're not being reintroduced to
trauma every single day in ourjobs like we were when we were
out in the field.
And then we had another one.
So and this was a person whoour agency is very small, not a
very big agency within the cops,and so we know each other very
well and I got to know him andhe helped me through some tough
(15:04):
times, um, you know, kind ofchanging job focus and how
things work and, um, being newerto the county that I'm in now,
and so that I, I, we all, ourwhole agency took it very hard
when that happened.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I can only imagine that's talking about devastating
to the community.
That is five in a very shortperiod of time.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, we also have.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
I can imagine what that was like to go through.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah, we also had another officer.
I did not know him.
My husband actually went to.
He actually worked with himbeforehand when they worked like
their civilian job.
My husband, he worked for alocal agency within the county
even now and he committedsuicide, I believe in April of
2023, on duty.
He was on duty when it happened.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, how far is that fromwhere you live.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
So actually, from where I live it's only about 30
minutes, but from where I workit's within the same county, so
it's about 15 minutes from wheremy, like our big city is.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Wow, so that's six.
Yes, are there any other onesthat you've heard about that?
We don't know that you haven't.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
You know I I'm trying to think of, like the more
surrounding areas.
There might have been a few,but I know that Well, like kind
of around.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yeah, it's a lot.
I do think our people arepretty resilient and we do have
people who want to help, but Istill think, like you said, I
think the stigma is still therewith a lot of us, a lot of old
(16:49):
schoolers.
Um, I think I told you, dan, Ithink we are trying to change
things, but the real change isgoing to come with all these
kids that are just I call themkids because I feel like they're
my children the ones that aregraduating the academy, the ones
that are going into lawenforcement right now.
I think they're going toactually be the real change.
They're going to be a realchange in this.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
I do too I think Jake would agree, like so, when I go
to the academy now, when I goto the academy now, I've never
seen such a young group that hasno issue talking about their
mental health.
It is so refreshing.
And it's not all of them, butI'm just comparing them to like
our generation, right, like Iwent through the Academy 25
(17:25):
years ago, nobody talked aboutany of this stuff.
But now it's amazing, thisyounger generation is more open
to it.
They don't look down on it,they don't judge people on it
and really I've noticed and Iencourage them to do so a lot of
them are kind of leading thechange in their departments the
(17:46):
younger ones of just talkingabout it openly around the table
and and just kind of startingtheir own change.
I think that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I agree with you yeah , I, I see it.
I see it just because,especially, like you know, when
we would go on these calls thatwere pretty horrific, we
literally cleared the call andgo to the next.
I think I told you, dan, we hadan incident where we had a
little boy that drowned.
I was in the office, I wasworking background, so I was
(18:15):
just getting ready to leave andI heard the call over the radio
and my buddy, who was a sergeantat the time.
I knew he was busy and I calledhim.
I said don't got to sayanything.
All I'm asking you is you doyou need me to go to the
hospital and meet the deputythat's driving these, this mom
and dad, to the hospital?
And because I said he's byhimself, he goes, yes, go.
So I drove to the hospital, Imet that deputy to make sure he
(18:38):
was not by himself with thesegrieving parents.
Little boy ultimately died.
He, I, we were actually theparents were in a room while
myself and the other deputy werebasically at the bedside of
this child and watched, watchedit and my sergeant showed up
(18:59):
because he knew the family andwe brought them in to say
goodbye and my sergeant had tophysically grab the child from
them and take him out into thecorner van, because it just how
everything was going it was.
There was no way we were gonnabe able to get how we normally
do everything.
It wasn't to work that same way, and I mean literally call was
(19:20):
done, okay, everyone, go home.
Go home, have a good night.
Um, and I remember a couple ofdays later I have a fence around
my pool, don't?
be late tomorrow.
I have a fence around my pooland my kids were little.
They were little.
We were outside playing.
The fence is secure.
I knew they can't get in andall of a sudden I started
feeling really hot and my heartstarted beating and I was like
(19:42):
what is going on with me?
I'm like they can't get in thepool.
They can't.
I'm right here.
And I realized later it was myanxiety because we'd just gone
through that and it's a trauma Ihad, because I saw this little
boy and I thought he had aheartbeat because it kept going,
that he had a rhythm.
And I go oh, look, they'rebringing him back.
(20:02):
And the nurse comes up to meand she puts her hand on my
shoulder and she goes honey,that's just us doing CPR.
I go what?
And she's like no, he's, hedoesn't have a pulse.
That's our, our, us moving his.
And I went and that's when itlike hit me.
So when I got home I kind ofbrought that home, not realizing
I brought that home you hadmentioned.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
When you were saying that and Jake probably caught it
too you said you felt it inyour chest.
Um, jake was telling me uh, um,one of his counselor, what
somebody was talking to, but helearned that there's signals in
your body that are our earliesttriggers, that if you learn, you
can find them, and and I don'tknow if this is exactly what you
were talking about, but, jake,where you tell me a little bit
(20:49):
about it, I feel like I gotkicked in the stomach.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
It's like a knot, like a big knot, like right
below my rib cage, in my like,in my stomach, is the the first
sign that I'm having a responseor an activation?
Personally and I learned thatfrom a trauma coach, actually,
who does uh somatic, uh somaticprocessing work, and it was for
me immensely beneficial just tofigure that out, because prior
(21:12):
to that I was just oblivious towhat any of those sensations
meant at all yeah, for ourlisteners.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
The reason why we're talking about this is because
the sooner we can notice thetriggers in our body that's
reacting, the sooner we canidentify them, the sooner, the
sooner we know what we'refighting against and what we can
.
Now.
We can put in our we can, wecan start to use the, the coping
mechanisms.
We have the safe copingmechanisms.
We have to kind of de-escalateit.
(21:40):
Go for a walk, run whatever itmay be, pray and but um, but
jess, or is that right?
So do you feel it in your chestfirst?
Is that what yours is?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
yeah, definitely I'll never, even now, talking about
it.
It kind of brings it back.
I remember that very well, very, very busy you feel it.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
You still feel it today, like, yeah, I can still
feel my heart rate a little bit.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
It's going up, but I can remember it clear as day,
like clear as day feeling, andI'm like what's wrong with me?
Why am I, you know, doing thisso?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
I uh during during my career, I unfortunately uh
attempted cpr on three infantsand and failed all three times,
and so you're telling the storythree infants and and failed all
three times.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
And so you're telling the story.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
I mean it didn't work .
I didn't bring it back.
Um, and the story you just told, I've had, I've, I've lived
that exact story, uh, with a fewminor details, but that exact
thing.
But as you're telling the story, I'm feeling, I'm like all
right, that's, that's hitting me, that's triggering me a, a
little bit too.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, yeah, it's weird because of all the things
you see, and I know it soundscorny a little bit, but it's
things with kids that really getto you, um, and I never really
had these issues until I had myown, and that's when it happened
.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Yeah, yep, I 100%, I would agree five years ago and I
so I'd been an officer for Idon't know a little while, but
yeah, that changed everything.
And then, when you know, webrought our, our son, home and I
could not stop watching himbecause two of the two of the
three were cases, which is justyes, no one knows what causes,
(23:17):
and so it created this massivelevel of anxiety.
I put a camera on him.
We got a pulse ox, like theoutlet pulse ox Like I don't
think I slept for a year justbecause I'm so worried about it.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah, my a little extra for my son, who's just
extra in life, my daughter'soldest he's very extra and he
was extra from day one, so hewas born at 35 weeks.
I mean, he literally justpunched his way into the world
and so, yeah, that was a very hewas very dynamic, but when he
(23:55):
was delivered he was notbreathing.
So I just remember, becausewhen my daughter was born she
was a screamer Like I'm like, oh, she's fine, he wasn't.
I just remember looking at myhusband saying he's not, he's
not crying, he's not crying,he's not crying.
They get him onto the elevatorstill not crying.
They said the minute they gothim into the elevator he started
crying.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
He's like seriously but he had to have the c-pap.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
He had to have all that.
He was in the NICU for six days.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
You don't, and you don't forget that.
You don't forget those imageswhen my second child, Andrew,
was born.
He was.
He was born in the hospital.
We were told he was fine.
And then we're we're gettingready to go home, we got the
bags packed, we're getting readyto walk out, We've got the bags
packed, we're getting ready towalk out of the hospital.
They come up and check Andrewone more time and they hear
something weird.
Weird with his heart.
And next thing we knew theywere.
(24:42):
They were rushing him to asurgery in Iowa city, um two
hours away, and his heart wasapparently built backwards.
It's called transposition ofthe great arteries, where his
heart was flipped.
So instead of the main arteriescoming in this side and then
coming in this side and out thisside, his heart was flipped so
they crossed and he had a bighole in the middle of his heart.
So it was all like purple blood.
So they didn't think he wasgoing to live.
(25:03):
So they took him there and didan open heart surgery on him and
again we thought we were goinghome.
Man, we balled all the way toIowa city so we had to.
We stay at the Ronald McDonaldhouse for a long time where
Andrew was recovering and welost.
They apparently lost him on thesurgery room but they got him
back and we just seen your kidin those NICUs with all those
tubes.
It's like once you go throughthat, being a parent's hard
(25:27):
enough, Then when you go throughthat, then when you go on these
calls it's like can becrippling.
It was for me.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
For sure my my can be crippling.
It was for me, for sure, forsure, my my, sorry so, my second
son no, I almost forgot aboutthis, which is probably speaks
to the amount of therapy I'vedone.
But uh, he was born with a, hisumbilical cord wrapped around
his neck twice.
And the only reason, the onlyreason it didn't do any
permanent damage is for somereason the umbilical cord was
(25:54):
like twice as long as it'ssupposed to be.
The doc, the delivering doctor,said she she'd been doing this
for I don't know 20 years orwhatever.
She said I've never seen anumbilical cord that long.
Call it a jump, a jump man.
It was.
I mean, it was crazy.
But when he but when he poppedout, so he started to uh, what
do they call that?
His oxygen started it.
(26:15):
What do they call it d cell?
Or in the womb, okay, ready todeliver.
You know, my wife would startpushing and he was.
I think they call it d cell,right, like, or something like
that he started his eyes I don'tknow.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
That's a battery that I used in flashlights back in
the day.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
The big old mag light .
Yeah, but so then they allfreaked out.
So then you know, everyonecomes rushing in with carts and
gloves and everything and I'mstanding in the corner and I'm
feeling all the I mean I washaving essentially a panic
attack internally.
While that was going on Poppedout and then that was the reason
, and then he's just fine, likehe's just fine, like he's just
(26:56):
fine, but he's just fine.
But it was just that moment.
That moment was not just fine.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
No, I'm guessing he's the one that keeps you on your
toes.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
No, he's actually a lot more mellow.
The first our oldest you talkabout being extra.
My five year old is extra, likeextra, needs attention,
attention all the time, neverstops talking.
But my younger son, he'll justlike do his own thing.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, funny.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
It's a different pain when it's your kids, man.
It's a different pain.
It just is.
You know, what's awesome aboutparenthood is you kind of learn
a little bit about the love ofJesus, what God has for us.
Think about how much we loveour kids and the things we would
do for them, how much more heloves us.
We can't even fathom that whenyou become a parent.
(27:45):
In my opinion, it helped builda relationship with Christ
because you kind of get thatparent-father-child relationship
.
Die for your kids at any cause,protect them at any cause, but
yet you still want to disciplinethem and make sure they're not
turning into Jake's or Dan's.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
I just want to be good people.
That's all my.
That's all.
My goal is at this point Begood people, be kind, don't.
Don't go to jail, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Yes.
So question for you, jess.
Maybe this is a stupid question.
I love asking stupid questions,just so you know I didn't used
to.
I used to be embarrassed to askthem, but I love.
Have you noticed that thefemale, do female officers told
(28:38):
you to be stupid?
Do female officers?
Do you see the female officersand male officers process trauma
differently and have adifferent?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
vision or a different view of the stigma.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Or is it the same?
I truly don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Sometimes I think that there is a difference only
because, I mean, you guys knowthis, we like to talk, women
like to talk, and most femalesnot not all, but most females in
the job we have our core groupof friends are out of the job.
Uh, I have two female friendsin law enforcement.
(29:06):
The rest are from high school,um.
So, and one of my friends fromhigh school she's I see her more
often because she still liveshere and, um, she's very
understanding, which is great.
She's actually gone on ridealongs with me so she is easier
to talk to her about thesethings, because she knows these
(29:27):
things are going to be a littlemore traumatic than what she's
dealing with.
But she gets that I need totalk to somebody.
I think a lot of guys, guys, mypersonal opinion is you, you
form a friendship within lawenforcement and then you kind of
make that your core group offriends, which don't I don't
think anybody any but male orfemale shouldn't do that um, you
need to have some outsidefriends.
(29:48):
But no right.
I just you need to have otherpeople to bring you out of the
cop talk and all that jazz, butI think just women are more
willing to talk about ourfeelings and about how we're
feeling, and guys have alwaysbeen taught, you know, I think
(30:08):
that's also another stigma is,women are taught, you know, we
can talk about our feelings, butwe need to be kind, we need to
always be courteous, we alwaysneed to be, um, you know, kind
of kind of that way where menare taught you don't cry, you
don't talk about things, youdon't talk about your feelings,
um, so I think there is adifference with how we process
(30:29):
it, just with how our upbringingis.
Um, I know I'm saying I'm a lotbecause I'm trying to think I.
I do see, though, that we, like, when we went through our stuff
, I was probably one of the onlytwo females at the time that
really knew a lot of thesepeople, um, in my department.
So the nice thing was theseguys, we all kind of responded
(30:52):
the same way, and they knew weknew we could talk to each other
and we knew we can be verybrutally honest.
I knew I just needed to go cry,I can.
One of the guys would follow meout and be like let's go, let's
go get some coffee, and we justliterally drive around and I
would just cry and then he wouldcry, that's just you had said
this to me before that and Ithink that's kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Cool.
You really praised yourdepartment for how well they
have each other's backs, supporteach other, you know,
understand the mental healthside of it, right yeah, my, the
sheriff's office, especiallywhere I came from.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
The sheriff was amazing.
Um, he was fully on board withwhen.
When we lost tom, he's like,look, whatever you need,
whatever you need, and heactually relayed to one
particular sergeant who's afriend of mine, because he knew
that sergeant was going to neversay who said what, never going
(31:48):
to give names, and so he becamelike the liaison with our HR
department.
And so he just call and say, hey, I have somebody going to an
appointment, this is a day andtime.
And no name was given, notnothing.
He actually went and met with atherapist first that we were
using, and she actually calledhim out and said you're here to
(32:09):
vet me, aren't you?
So how did you know your guys'sdebrief?
Everyone was looking at you wowso yeah, so he took on the role
um, so he's not like thateverywhere, yeah, that changes
he's.
He's a very important person inmy life.
He had to medically retire.
Um, he was a go-getter.
(32:29):
I worked with him for a verylong time and he was very
hyperactive, um, but he gotinjured on the job and he had to
medically retire.
But I mean through and throughone of the best people on the
planet that I've ever met, andhe will literally give you the
shirt off his back.
So that was just hispersonality.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
That's cool.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really cool.
That was not my experience ateither department I worked for,
unfortunately, really.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
That was not my experience at either department
I worked for, unfortunately,really yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
I've told Dan this story, but in 2019, a friend of
mine another cop was involved ina shooting where he got hit in
the face multiple times with CO2pell.
Co2 pellet pellet rounds likelittle metal beam from point
blank and I was the first one toget there and uh and and help
(33:22):
him and his it.
I mean at the time we didn'tthank God it was a pellet gun
and not an actual gunner.
You know he would not hewouldn't have made it.
But, uh, it looked.
It looked the same, I mean it.
Just his face is covered inblood and he had the most in the
most, fear I've ever seen on aperson's face, um, and he asked
(33:42):
me if he was gonna make it.
And I had to, I did, had to.
Well, I didn't end up lying tohim, but in the moment I didn't
know and I had to just decide tosay, yeah, I think, yeah,
you're gonna be fine.
I can hear the ambulance coming, um, but uh, so then from there
, that was that was the first 10minutes of my shift that day,
and from there I was just givenan order to go take calls,
because it was, it was a midsizedepartment and an incident like
(34:03):
that takes up all a lot of ourstaffing resources, and so I
spent the rest of the you knowthe rest of my shift call to
call.
I worked in a pretty busy townand and most of our calls we
would send two officers on, butit was just me.
I went to domestics by myself.
I went to, I mean, I.
That was normal where you were.
It was not normal for me.
Uh, none, nothing about thatday was normal, and so I was
(34:25):
just counting down the minutesuntil I could leave.
And then I got the order to goto the hospital and sit with the
suspect who he had, he had hehad shot her.
Uh, and I, that's, I mean I, I,I freaked out, I and prior to
this I was like an officer ofthe year, like I had all this
extra duty stuff.
I, I mean, I was my, my careerwas thriving.
(34:46):
I'd never been disciplined, Inever, never even voiced an
opinion different than thancommand.
And I drove to the station andfreaked, just freaked out.
And, uh, and my Lieutenant andSergeant at the time, just they,
they waited until I stopped andthey said, are you done?
And I was like, yeah, andthey're like, then go to the
hospital, and that was it.
And so I had to go and sit withher at the hospital for another
(35:09):
four hours after that.
And now, looking back, that'swhere that's where my PTSD
started.
It's not the only but that.
That looking back, uh, that'swhere that's where my ptsd
started.
It's not the only but that.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
That's the culture, that that's the culture I came
from, and that was that was likenormal where I worked see, and
it's crazy because I think about, like I, when you're talking
about situation, when you'retelling what's happening, I was
like, okay, how would my, my olddepartment because again I'm
not on the streets anymore, buttaking myself back to the
sheriff's office when I workedthere what would my sheriff,
what would he have done?
(35:39):
We have jail staff.
We're lucky and fortunate forthat.
They would have sent jail staffto go watch, and actually most
of them like doing that overtime, so they would have sent
jill's uh, jail staff to go dothat.
Um, she probably would havecalled in another shift.
He would have called in thenext day shift or maybe a shift
that's completely off, or we'vedone this before um, when we
(36:00):
went to funeral for our funeralfor tops and things like that,
because he didn't want to stopanybody from going is we'll have
the neighboring cities come andcover the calls yeah, that's
what he would have done that.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
I've heard of that happening, but this day it just
Wow.
Nobody cared, nobody ever evenasked to this day.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
So, jess, when you were starting your career and
going through it, did you earlyon, did you struggle with it
right away?
Did you struggle with yourmental health or are you doing
fine?
Tell us a little bit about yourjourney through your career.
What was it like?
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Yeah, so where I saw the switch I think I said it
before is when kids came along.
I was, in my career, single.
I mean, of course, my mom wasalways scared to death.
Again, I'm an only child, sothat was a lot.
Um, my parents were always mydad never voiced a whole lot,
but, um, I took my mom on a ridealong, um, scared her at one
(37:02):
point, didn't mean to it, justit just happened.
I don't know, things happen, um.
And then my dad went with mewhen I did some overtime detail
on us.
It was like a click at herticket thing and and my dad
actually helped me catch one ofmy P's Like hey, look that kid's
standing up in that car.
So my dad secretly wanted toalways be a cop.
(37:24):
So at the beginning I didn'thave I don't think I noticed it,
maybe because, again, it wasingrained in us not to show our
feelings and not talk aboutthings.
And it wasn't really ingrainedin us not to show our feelings
and I'll talk about things andum, it wasn't really ingrained
in that point.
So I think I was just livingday to day, um, and I'm trying
to look back and think ofanything really flagged and I
(37:45):
think it mostly started flaggingonce I had kids yeah and I
started seeing it's not justabout me anymore If something is
to happen to me, like now.
I've got two other human beingsthat are depending on me.
So I think that's where itreally started to kick in.
It took a while before itreally hit.
(38:05):
I think it some people hitsreally early in their career,
depending on what you go through.
Some people it's later in theircareer.
Most of the stuff that I've gonethrough was mostly later in my
career, which in a way, I kindof thank God for that, because I
had a little bit of afoundation.
But I know there's people thathave been in their first
(38:26):
shooting, their first week onFTO, and I'm like I don't know
how you, that's a really hardcomeback.
Yeah, there's someone who'sjust starting.
You know, if you've been inthis career 10 years and you get
in a, that's a really hardcomeback through someone who's
just starting.
Um, you know, if you've been inthis career 10 years and you
get in a shooting, that'susually you can handle a little
bit better than someone who'sbeen in one week.
So I really do think it's how,when and how all these trauma
(38:47):
events happen.
I think now they're comingearlier in people's career than
they used to, for sure.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Yeah, and I think that a lot of it has to do with
untreated childhood trauma.
I know it was for me, I know itwas for Jake, you know it's
just a lot of it is trauma thatwe're not aware of or we are
aware of and we're running fromand taking care of before we
start our career.
So we're carrying all thatbaggage right into our mess and
we just try to keep coping andkeep coping.
(39:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
And I think some people yes, some people come in
with trauma already.
Um, I learned this fromteaching at the academy.
I felt absolutely terrible.
But, um, I also teach sexualassault, so I I kind of I have
to have role players that are,that are cadets.
I don't have the ability tohave role players come in.
(39:36):
I would love to change that.
But sometimes I have to use thecadets and I felt terrible
because I actually had picked arole player, realizing that that
person had childhood traumathat involved what I was
teaching.
And after I figured that outnow I immediately the first two
(39:57):
seconds of class, I explained tothem what we're going to be
doing and I explained to them ifyou get this yellow sticky note
on your desk and you do notfeel comfortable, please tell me
on the next break that you donot feel comfortable and I want
to have any questions and I'llmove on.
Learned Lesson learned Smart.
Don't ever want to all move on.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Learned lesson learned Smart.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Ever want anyone to feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Yeah, you're not there to trigger them.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
Right and so I learned very quickly.
But I I'm not trying to boast,but I was very fortunate I had a
great childhood, my parents arefantastic people.
My mom and I are still veryclose.
She's probably my best friend Iyou know my parents are very
involved with my children.
They probably see my kids twice, maybe three times a week.
(40:44):
They live about a mile or twofrom me.
Speaker 1 (40:45):
They don't live that far.
That's awesome, that's great.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Yeah, so I didn't have that kind of trauma coming
in, but I know that some of mycoworkers did, so I do think
that plays a factor.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
Yep, Definitely a part of my story, and exactly
what you were talking about waswas a part of my childhood too.
I and I, I came into lawenforcement having never told a
soul and I, I wish, I, I wish Ihad.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
I have now it's.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
I've let go of it for the most part now, but I could
see how that would have beendifficult for that cadet for
sure.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Yeah, yeah.
So we talked, we talked, wetalked.
Trust me, and I told her not toever.
Whenever she wants to tell her,he wants to tell their story.
That is their decision.
They do not need to be ever bepressured to tell their story
and they never have to.
But I also think I told thatcadet, I said this may give you
the drive to go a specificdirection in law enforcement.
(41:44):
And they told me yes.
So it sounds horrible to say,but I think with you guys, even
though you had those traumas inchildhood, it gave you a purpose
when you came into lawenforcement.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
God didn't want us to go through those hard times.
You know, god gives humans freewill because he has to give us
free will, or it wouldn't belove If we were forced to love
him.
That's when we programmedrobots right.
He gives us.
He gives us that free will, butthere's a cost that comes with
that free will and people getvery.
People can be very ugly to eachother, and that's why we need
God, that's why we need Jesus,because we we fall short of that
(42:21):
on our own.
What were you going to say,jake?
Speaker 3 (42:23):
Oh, for me, I, I quickly realized I needed to
stay away from those types ofcases when I was a cop, because
I would get, I would get too,too angry at the suspect and not
I mean, you can't be aneffective cop if you're, if
you're, if your own emotions areinvolved, you know, of any kind
, but especially anger, you knowit's I, I, I, I'm sure, had I
(42:48):
had I gone into, you know,especially the investigative
side of a child, child sexcrimes, I would have, you know,
been doing things like you knowyou're guilty, before I even
really investigate it.
And I'm going to try to chargeyou with every single thing I
can, even if it doesn't.
You know I could.
I just knew that I shouldn't dothat and I and I did.
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
for that reason, no-transcript the child, but
(43:25):
then somebody else talks to thesuspect.
Speaker 3 (43:27):
We did that all the time yeah, you're probably right
, but that was my take is I justI'll focus on other things yeah
, yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Self-control and self-knowledge.
You they frown when you beatthe piss out of them, so it's
good that you're not.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
You know your control and not saying I would have,
but I wouldn't want to all right, we're going to close out this
episode.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Um.
Thank you guys for joining us.
Um, we're going to have themback on if they will allow us to
, although we kind of ran latetoday because we were having all
sorts of issues withelectronics.
But if they can stick around,we'll do another short one
because I want to hear some morefrom Jess.
If they can't, we're going tohave them back on multiple times
.
You'll hear them in the future.
(44:09):
I want to thank you guys bothfor being on and hopefully we'll
see you on the next episode.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Thanks Dan.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Thank you the 1042 Project Shared Voices podcast.
Thank you for tuning in andjust a reminder, we are a 501c3.
If you guys can support us, youcan go to our website.
Or if you know an organizationor a company or your church may
want to get involved insupporting 1042 Project's
mission of equipping, restoring,repurposing.
(44:41):
Our first responders, pleasereach out to us at
10-42projectorg.
There is a giving page on there.
We need your help.
We need your support If youcan't get financial.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.