Implicit Bias or Racism? Exploring Law Enforcement's Underlying Problems

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Coming up next on Two Cops, One Donut.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Who in here has implicit bias?
And nobody raised their handand I said you're all liars.
And I said y'all have it.
So I want to know this.
And I had a PowerPoint ready togo Hour long PowerPoint they
asked me to have and I said isimplicit bias just a PC way to
say everybody's racist?
And then I said and if that'swhere we're really going here,
does anybody besides straightwhite males need to attend this

(00:24):
course?
Is everybody else free?
Nobody else is.
They didn't even know how toanswer me.
This nonsense that took holdlike we shoot too many people.
In a 2019 survey, the averageperson in the United States
thinks that somewhere in thearea of 78% of the people we
shoot are black.
Not even close to true.
It's in the mid-20s percent,right, I mean, I know racism
exists, but if you're going tostart this nonsense that there's

(00:47):
systemic racism everywhere inlaw enforcement, first off, it's
not true.
And two, you're avoiding thereal problems that are in law
enforcement.
Are you denying there'ssystemic racism in law
enforcement?
I say no.
What I'm asking you to do isdefine what systemic racism is
and is.
Is it different thaninstitutional racism?
And he said well, you know it's, it's, it's, it's really, it's

(01:08):
unseen in the fabric of thefibers of all of the criminal
justice system.
Which criminal justice system?
Now, this is the guy who's gota master's degree and he's he
was actually a chief of policefrom a midwest town.
Which criminal justice system?
Because united states criminaljustice system?
I said there's no such thing.
He goes well of is.
I said how many counties arethere in the United States?
He goes, I don't know.
I go, there's about 3,200.

(01:28):
That's 3,200 different ones.
Right there, you got 50 states,you got townships, you got
individual police departments.
That's about 18,400 to 600,right, you got federal
government with all differentdistricts and circuits all over
the United States.
Are you telling me they're allthe same?
And then he said well, you know,law enforcement started from
slave patrols.
I go, it absolutely did not.

(01:48):
And the most basic stuff, Imean it started in Boston, and
in Boston and New York, chicago,pittsburgh, you know, or
Philadelphia, they're all theones that started the first 24
hour police.
You know, it's not, it hasnothing to do with slaves.
Listen, we have some seriousshit, really some serious shit
problems in law enforcement.
But if we're putting all ourfocus on a problem that doesn't

(02:10):
actually exist and he says waita minute, how many people get
shot and killed by the policeevery year?
And I, when I knew the numbersand so I told him, I said it's
right around a thousand.
I said what percentage do youthink are black?
He goes, well, minimum 50%.
I said, no, it's like mid-20s.
He goes, yeah, but blacks areonly 14% of the population.
I said so you think if 25% ofthe people that are shot are
black and the population is only14%, then that proves systemic

(02:32):
racism.
He goes.
There's no other reason for it.
I said what percentage of thepeople we shoot are male?
And he goes.
What difference does that make?
I said, well, what percentageof the population is male?
I go, it's about 49 and a halfpercent.
It's what percentage of thepeople we shoot are male?
I said it's 97%.
So if you think we hate blackpeople, we absolutely abhor men,
we have systemic problems.
If you really want to look atproblems and I'll tell you what

(02:53):
those two problems are One isleadership and two is training.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Welcome to Two Cops One Donut, its host or
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We do not endorse any guest'sopinions or actions discussed
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Any content provided by guestsis of their own volition and

(03:16):
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Two Cops One Donut and its hostdo not accept any liability for
statements.
All right, welcome back to CopsOne Donut.

(03:40):
I'm your host, eric Levine, andtoday I have a special guest
that I didn't even know was aspecial guest until my co-host,
banning Sweatland, said hey,dude, did you notice this guy
shared our stuff.
And I said no, who's that?
And he's like Dude, it's JimGlennon.
He's from Caliber Press.
So I have with me retiredLieutenant Jim Glennon, caliber

(04:04):
Press.
How are you doing, sir?

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Very good, how about you?

Speaker 1 (04:07):
I'm doing wonderful knowing that I have a
high-caliber guest.
See what I did there.
See what I did there.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
No, thanks for inviting me, man, it's an honor.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Thank you Anytime, sir.
First and foremost, can yougive a little bit of background
on yourself?
I want people to understand.
First and foremost, I'm goingto keep saying that tonight.
You never notice when you keepsaying the same crap over and
over.
So I'm noticing that aboutmyself right now.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah, my wife says that to me all the time.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
My wife tells me all the time on the podcast, quit
saying so.
So that's like my filler word.
I got to quit saying that onetoo.
It's true.
Yeah, the point that I wastrying to get to before I
interrupted myself was Jim,you've been in law enforcement
for how many years?

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Well, I've been in and around it my whole life.
My dad was a Chicago cop, andhis dad was a Chicago cop, and
his dad was a Chicago cop.
Okay, I don't remember at anypoint in my life outside of
thinking I might be aprofessional baseball player for
about eight seconds when I wasnine, wanting to do anything

(05:18):
else but actually be a Chicagocop.
That was my original goal.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Okay, and now for baseball.
Were you going to be a Cubby ora White Sox?

Speaker 2 (05:26):
You know it's funny, I'm the oldest of nine Southside
Chicago Irish.
The Southside is the Sox,northside is the Cubs, but I'm
the only one of the nine of usthat's a Cub fan.
The rest are all Sox fans.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
Now it's funny because we have similar
backgrounds.
My dad retired from the policedepartment that I'm at now and,
for those listening, no, I'm notgoing to say where I work.
You know better than that, andeasy to find out though, and so
he retired from there, and I toothought I was going to be a
baseball superstar, but mine wasa lot longer than just nine

(06:02):
seconds.
I was playing in like fivedifferent leagues.
When I was a senior in highschool and had no clue.
We didn't have the internet.
I mean, the internet was out,don't get me wrong, but it
wasn't like it is now.
You know.
Smartphones, all that stuffnone of that stuff had existed,
so I had no clue how recruitingworked, and neither did our
coaches, cause I came from smallarea in Flint and I just

(06:25):
thought they found you.
I just thought your statssomehow get out there, and they
found you.
And so here I am, my senior year, and I'm like how come none of
these schools are reaching outto me?
And then I didn't find outuntil the last minute.
So I tried to go play forSaginaw State Valley University.
It didn't work out, but yeah,man, and my team's always going

(06:47):
to be the Detroit Tigers, eventhough I'm wearing a Texas hat.
I live in Texas now, so I liketo represent and, if I'm going
to be honest, I wanted tocoordinate my shirt my retro
rifle shirt that I'm wearingtoday, with my hat.
So you being a huge baseballfan, I'm sure, and this is not

(07:10):
to the point of the show, guys,but I just want to bullshit with
Jim for a second.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
Are you a baseball hat guy?
Yeah, on and off, but I startedplaying golf during COVID, so
now I wear them more.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Okay, so for me, you got your hat.
You have your one hat, you gota bunch of other ones, but you
got your main hat.
Now, I've had my main hat since2009, and it just shit the bed
on me this year.
Right where the seam meets thebill.
Both sides ripped open.
I went to put it on, it justwent.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Wow, that's a rough day.
That's a rough day, that's arough day, so yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
So now I've even looked for that same hat.
Now, this is the beauty of theinternet Looking for that same
hat.
I can't find it though, yeah,it doesn't exist anymore.
So it is what it is.
Sorry, tigers, I'll stillrepresent, but today I just
wanted to color coordinate andlook fancy on camera.
So, jim, you obviously have anextensive law enforcement

(08:06):
background, having your your dadbehind you on that and you said
his dad.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah, his dad was a Chicago cop.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Oh man, so you got a long lineage going on.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
He was a homicide detective in the thirties and
forties.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
In Chicago and he died when I was 11 months old.
So I never got to know him, but, um, he was pretty famous
within the chicago ranks.
He had a photographic memory.
I didn't and I didn't man noneof that leaked into my uh, my
dna, but I wish it did.
Yeah, my dad told me that hecould.
Um, you could take a deck ofcards and go, just show them all

(08:45):
52, and he can name them backin a row.
Wow, yeah, that's how.
That's how his memory was.
He was also really tough when hewas a kid.
I think he was born in 18.
He's born in 18.
Let's see, he was 62 when hedied.
Right, he died in 50.
So he was born like 1894.
But he used to, he used to bareknuckle box in bars when he was

(09:09):
like 12, 13 years old, forpeople to just throw money and
him and his friend would beatthe crap out of each other in
bars.
Wow, real tough guy.
Um, he was like 5, 10, he was,uh, he was real stocky.
Um, and my dad said you know,nobody would mess with him,
nobody was nice, he was smart.
Nobody was nice, he was smart,he was an accountant before he
became a police officer with notraining.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Well, things were different back then.
For sure, I could only imagine,when he started being a cop,
that that in patrol having thatphotographic memory just
probably made him stand out.
So much more to the department.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Yeah, yeah, people.
They said, uh, people used tocall him and uh ask him hey, do
you remember this plate being onlike the hot list or something?
And he would go yeah, it's bum,bum, bum.
He would be able to name it.
According to my father, itcould be legend he actually knew
Capone.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Wow, yeah, I mean he went through the great
depression.
Yeah, I mean he went throughthe Great Depression.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, he was a cop during that time.
In fact, they weren't evengetting money, they were getting
the script.
They called it script.
It was like IOUs, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
Holy cow, you can't live off of IOUs.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
No, yeah, and my dad told me all the different
stories about how they mademoney on the side and all that
stuff, wow, which we would callcorruption now, but they didn't
consider it corruption.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
Right, yeah, it gets on my nerves so bad.
People try to bring up thingsfrom so long ago.
Well, the cops did that, butyou have to understand the
culture of policing.
That was accepted, the publicdidn't care, they were okay with
it.
I would say, you know, sinceRodney King and the advent of
putting cameras in the cars,that's what kicked that off

(10:47):
really.
And then body cameras from whatwas that one?
That was Eric, no, michaelBrown.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
The hands up, don't shoot Ferguson, yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
Ferguson yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that kicked off the bodycams which don't get me wrong,
you know, in your era ofpolicing may be a little
different than mine, but I lovethe body camera.
I could not, I feel I get in apanic mode when I realized I
jumped in my car and I'm I'malready out and I don't have it
on me.
I'm like, oh, I gotta go backLike I ain't taking any.
Well, I'm a supervisor now so Idon't take calls to begin with,

(11:20):
but with.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
But yeah, no, no, I, we, we teach over 230 in-person
classes around the country andwe about 100 I don't know 130,
maybe online.
In almost every one of them, wesaid you should have a body
camera.
Everybody should be wearing abody camera because all the
studies and everything over thelast 12 years I know that we
cite 72 studies and really whatthey're all doing is, um, in
most cases, the vast majority ofcases, it helps the, the police
, not the other way around.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah, and that shoot.
I've had discussions on herebefore where our internal
affairs called me and gave me acourtesy call and said hey, we
just want to let you know wecleared up your investigation.
It was unfounded and I was likeI was being investigated, being
investigated, you know, Iactually I'm glad that they do

(12:09):
it the way that they did it.
They told me after the fact butthey're like hey, we just
wanted to encourage you, keepwearing your body cam that
absolved you of everything, andwe give you a courtesy
notification to kind of re.
It's like positive reinforcement, hey yeah, no, it's good you
wearing that camera helped yourass out.
So, yeah, yeah, I love it.

(12:29):
Um, now, jim, you are inchicago area, just outside of
chicago, as a police officer,what I?
I I'm going to assume yourgrandfather and your dad had
some influence over that.
Um, my dad, being a cop, didhave some influence over that.
Um, my dad, being a cop didhave some influence over that,
but he really wasn't the mainreason I wanted to become a cop.
I'm just curious how did youdecide that you wanted to be a

(12:52):
cop?

Speaker 2 (12:52):
You know, I get that question a lot and all I can say
, you know, when I went tocollege, right out of high
school and, uh, I got a degreein psychology, um, and I, I had
a really good group of friends.
About nine of us lived in ahouse and they would sit around
and talk about what they wantedto do after college and I was
never invited into those circlesbecause they all knew I wanted

(13:12):
to be a cop.
I do remember, I mean, my dadactually stopped being a cop
when I was about six because hewas having you know, there's
various reasons he stopped doingit.
He was a cop for about 10 years, um, but he, uh, uh, he was,
you know, having kids like everyother week.

(13:34):
You know, my dad told me backin the 50s and early 60s he was
when he retired or when he quitum because it wasn't retirement
for him I think he was making3200 a year.
They got no overtime, by theway.
No, if you went to court, youwent to court on your own time

(13:55):
and you had to go to court.
So it was a very differentworld.
But I remember, I do remember,about five years old, he put me
in a squad car on his lap and Igot to drive a squad car around
with his hat on my head and youknow.
And then after that he toldstories and when he told cop
stories my dad was pretty goodstoryteller.
They were always just fun andthat's how he kind of my.

(14:16):
It's part of my dna.
I'm the oldest of nine.
I was born then four.
I had four sisters born andthen, right after those four
sisters were born, I had fourbrothers born.
So I've got, like I don't know,like my wife says, a caretaking

(14:38):
mode to my brain.
Uh, almost to the point thatshe says it's irritating because
I'm always, like you know,taking care of her.
I'm always, like you know,taking care of her.
I'm always what do you need?
I mean, you know I got.
I got six kids.
I got 15 grandkids.
I've got 45 nieces and nephewsand all of those people that I
just mentioned.
All of them live within 25miles of my house.

(14:59):
Wow, which is why I can't leavethis stupid state.
But you know, my, my oldest son, and they're this stupid state,
but you know, my oldest son andthey're all in business.
You know, I got three sons andthree daughters the four boys,
the three boys and myson's-in-law.

(15:19):
They're all in business andthey all do really, really well
and they're from the generationwhere they were born in the 80s.
Um, and my son, my oldest sonand I have talked about this a
lot and he said, you know, wewere just talking about it
recently and he said what wasthe, what was the real reason?
I mean, what was it?
And I said, you know, there wasa part of my brain that never

(15:44):
wanted to sit on the sidelines.
I didn't want to be on thesidelines.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
I wanted to be in the mix.
I wanted to be doing things.
I never cared about money, andit's not because I'm such a nice
guy, but I came.
We grew up, you know.
Now you would look at it andsay poor.
My dad quit doing that becausehe was.
My dad was making more moneytwo days a week covering pipe.
He wanted to be in an insulatorthe rest of his life, two days
a week covering pipe.
He made more money in those twodays than five days being a cop

(16:12):
, wow, yeah.
So that's one of the reasons hequit.
And I'll tell you a side notethat's one of the reasons they
didn't care about some of thecorruption.
In fact it was organizedcorruption, or we would call
corruption.
No, my dad would take offenseto that, but they had all these
scams going on.

(16:33):
I asked my dad one time.
I said if you stopped a guy forspeeding or something and I
can't even imagine my dad doingthat but he stopped somebody for
speeding and the guy offeredyou, you know, 30 bucks.
Would you take it to drop theticket?
He goes.
No, I said okay if you stop theguy for speeding, and said okay

(16:55):
, I'm giving you a warning.
The guy gave you 20 bucks andsaid hey, thanks a lot for doing
your job.
Would you take that he goes?
Yeah, because it didn'tinfluence my opinion.
It's a tip, that's how he tookit.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah, I could see that back in the day.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
But like when he was in accident cars for years
before he went to detectives fora while, but he was in accident
cars for years because that'swhere all the money was.
So if there was an accident,you call a tow truck, and this
is in the 50s.
You'd call a tow truck and thetow was 30, which is a lot of
money, and when they showed upthey'd give 15 bucks to the cop

(17:28):
for calling the tow truck oh,okay and that's one of the
reasons all over this, my dad mydad basically is one of the
reasons.
His, his group is one of thereasons that all over the
country you have to have certaincontracts with, with uh tow
companies.
Right, you just can't callanyone you want, but back then
it was anyone you want.
They were all working part-timejobs, like my dad did too.

(17:49):
So when he was on night shiftthey would go to the local
church and the priests would layout blankets and pillows on the
benches and the cops would givethem like 50 cents.
And then they hired kids to sitin the squad cars and if my

(18:10):
dad's number was, like you know,lincoln 27, and they heard
Lincoln 27, the kid would run inand wake up my dad and my dad
to go out and handle the radiocall.
They would, um, they would pickup uh at the end of the night,
go to the bars and pick up theowners, because the owners it
was all cash, so the ownerswould have a crap load of cash
with them, right, and they, theywould get robbed.

(18:32):
So the cops were assigned bythe sergeants at roll call you
got these three bars, you gotthese three bars, you got these
three bars and then the um.
The owners are giving 10, him$10 for a ride home.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Okay, it was all accepted.
Yeah, it was all accepted andthe city liked it, because then
they didn't have to pay the copsextra money.
People wanted to come inbecause there was always this
money on the side.
Now, obviously that got out ofhand, yeah, and then you got
real corruption going.
But I loved his stories and itwas just something I always

(19:09):
wanted to do and I just didn't.
I, I, everybody else was boringto me, you know.
I mean, you know my like.
I got four brothers.
None of them became cops, um,and my brother my brothers are
smarter than I am well, two ofthem became pipe covers, like my
father, and two of them wentinto the financial world.
And you know my brother, bill,who was one of my best friends,

(19:30):
uh, we'd be at parties and hewas a underwriter for allstate
and you know people, if hestarted talking about his job,
people's eyes were rolling backin our head and people would
always ask me questions andstuff and I'm a pretty good
storyt, so I would tell storiesand embellish them.
My brother says you know how,how come everybody wants to
stand around you?

(19:50):
I go, what?
What kind of interestingstories you have as an
underwriter.
You know, he, he, he actuallymet, like Tom Hanks, he did Tom
Hanks house at Mr T's house andpeople go, oh, that's cool, but
then.
But then they want to hear youknow about guys who you know are
jerking off on the side oftracks.
You know, you know it's a lotmore fun listening to you know.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, stories I had about chasing naked guys over
fences, you know yeah, yeah, andthat that's exactly one of the
main reasons I became a cop isbecause when you'd have family
get-togethers, parties, whateverit was, it was always the same
people in my family the, themilitary guys, the firefighters,
the police if they're ambulanceriders, whatever it was that is

(20:31):
who everybody kind of looked upto, that's who everybody wanted
to be around.
And I was like, oh, I wantfamily respect too.
My dad was an influence on it,but I would say the biggest
contributing factor was just howthe entire family looked at
anybody that worked in a life ofservice in some sort of aspect
First responders we call themnow.

(20:51):
So yeah, I'm with you on that.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Okay, yeah, when I got out of college, I actually
spent a year in the Appalachianmountains building houses, you
know, for poor people andworking putting sewers together
and building sept?
Um septic tanks and, you know,putting those in.
You know, it was just somethingI wanted to do before I became
a cop.
But when I I got back, chicagowasn't hiring and, um, a girl I
was dating at the time didn'twant me to go to chicago anyway,

(21:18):
and so she, um, she got anapplication for one of the you
know, honestly, there's got tobe 200 suburbs around Chicago
and she got me an applicationfor Lombard and I'm like I don't
know where that is and she saysit's the mall we go to.
You know town of about 45,000people, like 75 cops, but it's

(21:40):
right outside of the city, it'sin the second most populous
county, right outside of thecity.
It's in the second mostpopulous county.
But I went there with thecomplete intention of leaving as
soon as I could and, um, Iwound up staying for 30 years
and I I absolutely loved my job,I loved the town.
I grew, I raised my family inthat town, got a lot of friends

(22:04):
in that town and it was ablessing from God that she got
me that application and I stayedthere.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Wow, yeah, that's just, that's crazy that you
ended up staying.
And, to put it in perspectivefor anybody listening, like
those suburbs on the outer edges, chicago is that's where all
your bad guys are going to fleeto.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
So everybody's like, well, that's not chicago and
well it pretty much is likethat's where all of that stuff
pushes out to well, yeah, it wascertainly not in the worst
parts of chicago, but we had alot of bleed over you know, know
, from there and you really,honestly, it was.
We had enough action that keptme, kept me satisfied, but not

(22:51):
enough to make me an alcoholic.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
You know, I'm with you as I sit next to my bottle
of smoke wagon.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
I'm with you, okay.
So that that does sum up.
I think that's a goodexplanation.
It's funny, I like to do this.
Little human is like look,you're not dealing with some
robot person that got into thisbecause they have an ego,

(23:29):
because they want to hurt people, because you know this, that
and the other.
You know what the negativepress likes to say about police
officers.
I'm like this person.
It was, you know, like for you,it was ingrained in you.
You grew up around it like notjust your dad which is, you know
, becoming more rare to have thefather, son or father daughter
thing happen anymore but yourgrandfather.

(23:52):
We've had a couple of people onthat.
It went back even farther thanthat.
So for those people Iunderstand.
I've actually got a buddy frommy academy where I went to.
He became a cop.
He's one of my favorite storiesbecause he became a cop on a
whim.
His roommate was going to takethe civil service test to become
a cop and he's like come takeit with me, I don't want to take
it by myself.

(24:12):
So they both go take it.
His friend doesn't pass, hepasses.
He ends up being in my academyclass with me and they make you
stand up in the academy andthey're like, why did you become
a cop?
And he's like it was the thingto do and I'm I'm very jealous
of that story because now he'sone of the best cops I've ever

(24:32):
been around.
He's, yeah, I mean just, and II'm giving him an honest
compliment as a person who'sbeen around the career field his
whole life and was a cop at adifferent place and was in the
military.
I'm still in the air force as amilitary police officer as well
.
So I try to tell people I'mlike man, this is a unique, he's
a unique story like having him.

(24:52):
So it's just, it's just fun towatch him progress in his career
field.
He's a patrol Sergeant now and,uh, he was a really good
detective.
So fun to see that stuff andfun to hear your background
story, because Chicago is such a.
When people think of cops, theyeither think of New York,
chicago or LAPD.
Yeah, that's the three.
And, by the way, chicago uglyas hats.

(25:15):
Sorry, don't dig the checkers.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yeah, you know where those came from, right, I mean.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
It's an Irish background of some sort.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
The checkerboard actually comes from London.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, that's where it's from.
They had blue and white carsfor years and years and years
and years and years, and I thinkthey still have them.
They're not as blue.
They used to be blue, starkblue and white.
Now they're basically whitewith, you know, different logos
on the side.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
I got you.
Yeah, Historic for sure,especially in the world of
policing.
I just was never a fan of thecheckers.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
I don't like the bus driver hats anyway.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Oh sorry, what was that?

Speaker 2 (25:52):
For one of my birthdays.
I was a lieutenant.
At the time I had a picture ofmy, my, my dad, my grandfather.
I still have it my dad and mygrandfather in their uniform,
their Chicago uniforms, and oneof the guys who worked for me,
sergeant and one of mydetectives, got a magnifying

(26:13):
glass and were able to get thenumbers off the badge.
I never even thought about itand then they actually, for my
birthday, got me a replicabadges.
Oh nice, yeah, it's real cool.
I got them in a case andeverything it badges.

Speaker 1 (26:24):
Oh nice, yeah, it's real cool.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
I got them in a case and everything.
It's very, very nice yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
Nice, I did a from when I graduated.
I got my dad's badge and mybadge and did like a black and
white photo with a nice yeah,and then just kind of put them
together and thought that waspretty cool.
I was telling you how crappy mymemory is.
I went into his man cave theother day and that picture's on
the wall in his man cave and Ilooked up.

(26:50):
I goes, oh man, that's cool.
He goes you got it for me,idiot.
I was like, oh yeah, I rememberthat now.
Oh, that's cool, that's niceyeah so, um, all right, sir, you
you've got this lineage.
You've got all these reasonsfor becoming a cop, which I
think are great reasons youbecome a cop.

(27:12):
Now, your career was you had along career, but all of us have
our specialties and what we likefor you.
After you graduated and got toyour city and stuff and got your
feet, you know, settled, whatdid you start going towards and
what ended up being some of yourspecialties?
I mean, I'm assuming you hadone or two or three.
Most don't really have manymore than that.

(27:33):
So what was your top specialty?

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Well, I had a great.
You know, I'll start with this.
I had three FTOs.
I liked all three of them, butthe middle one, um, his name is
dane cooney and he wound upbeing my, my fto, my partner, my
boss, my whole career.
And without him, without a goodmentor, I don't know where I
would have gone.
I don't know what I would havedone.
Um, and he gave me some advice.

(27:58):
I was a.
I was a pretty active young cop.
You know, after I was on anight shift at first, um, always
stopping cars, always doingsomething, always hunting.
I was always hunting.
So I got a pretty goodreputation for a couple things.
One I was I was able to readpeople.
Well, um, I was able to getconfessions from people without
even knowing how I was doing it.

(28:18):
You know, in fact, um, aveteran officer asked me one
time he goes, how did you knowwhich guy was lying?
And I said I don't know, I canjust tell him.
He said how did you get him toconfess?
And I said I don't know, I justbullshitted him.
He goes, oh, okay, so that's areally long conversation between
two males that actuallytransfers no information or
knowledge, right, but I didstart getting.

(28:46):
I'd get calls from guys ontraffic stops and say, hey, come
over here.
And I'd come over and I'd betalking to a veteran guy I mean,
I'm still on probation, um andthey go something about this guy
.
Can you talk to him?
Yeah, talk to him goes.
Yeah, he's got to open the car.
So um, so um, uh, and my mentor, um, said I had a chance to go,
and this, this at the time, waskind of a big deal.
I had a chance to go tobreathalyzer school, become a

(29:08):
breath operator.
You know, now everybody goes,but back then it was, you know,
cost money.
And so a lieutenant came to meand said I want you to go to the
breathalyzer school, but Iactually was going to go on
vacation with a girlfriend, Ithink the same one that got me
the application, and so I turnedit down.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
I'm starting to see a theme.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
Yeah, yeah.
So I turned it down and Danecame to me, my mentor, and says
you're out of your freaking mind.
Cancel the vacation, move it,but you're going to go to this
class.
You know, you've only been on ayear and a half and he's asking
you to go to this class.
Go to the class.
And then he said never turndown anything that they offer

(29:46):
you and volunteer for everything.
You know.
I said okay, so maybe that'swhy I broke up with her.
I don't remember, but, um, Icanceled that, went to that, and
then I just started.
I started volunteering forthings and I realized something
and I talk about it still tothis day in my class I love the

(30:07):
profession.
I loved, you know, I loved,honest to God, almost every
minute of it.
I had a couple of really crappybosses over a few years, but
outside of that, you know.
But it's a very, very easyprofession to be lazy.
It is.
You show up on time, you putyour uniform on, you go out to
your area and you answer yourcalls.
You're pretty much gold.

(30:28):
That's all you ever do, and Iwould guess in my time I'm
describing at least 50% of thecops I was with, not that they
wouldn't back you up and thatthey wouldn't throw their.
You know, throw themselves infront of a bullet but nobody's
really pushing them.
In fact, the opposite happens.

(30:49):
In law enforcement you get alot of bosses who try to get
their their cops to.
You know, slow the hell downhere.
We, you know, the more you do,the more trouble you get into.
And I was the opposite and Idid piss off a couple bosses
because I was almost too active.
And then Dane was always tellingme read case law, read case law
, read case law, he says,because your sergeants don't
even understand what case law is, which was that was true too.

(31:11):
And the thing is I really likedalmost all my sergeants.
I really did.
They were great guys.
They'd back you up.
You know, somebody came in witha bullshit complaint.
They'd get in their face backthen, but they really didn't.
They didn't push themselves toto gain any knowledge in the,
the profession and or on how tolead human beings.

(31:32):
So you know, I was alwaysreading this stuff and I was a c
student until until I went tothe police academy.
I wanted to be the number onein my class and I honest to god,
that shocked the hell out of mebecause I'm not that smart, um,
but anyway.
So I got into the job and I'mpushing myself and the third
year on, uh, there came a chancefor detectives opened up and

(31:54):
dan came to me, said put in fordetectives.
And I said no, you, everybody'stelling me you got to be on
five to seven years to become adetective.
And he goes put in fordetectives.
So I put in, everybody goesyou're nuts, you know.
You know you're a kid, you're,you know you're 27.
At that time I was my third yearon, maybe 26.

(32:14):
, and they picked me.
So I was shocked but very happy.
And just then I had just takena secret service test and I
passed that.
And you have to be a collegegraduate to pass it.
At the time it was called theTreasury Department test.

(32:35):
You had to be a college grad totake it and only 50% passed it.
So I studied really, reallyhard and I passed it.
But I'll tell you a little sidestory to that.
Do you know who Tim McCarthy is?

Speaker 1 (32:53):
The name sounds familiar, but I can't picture
who that is Tim.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
McCarthy is either now or he might have just
retired.
He's the chief of police uphere, but he was the secret
service agent that got shotprotecting Reagan.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
Okay, yes.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Outside the hotel right, and he happened to be one
of my uncle's best friends.
So I passed it and Tim took meout to lunch.
And I'm sure I've seen Timseveral times since, but I don't
even know if he remembers this.
But I just made detectives andDane told me my mentor don't
take this job.

(33:27):
And I go wow, it's a secretservice man, you know.
And so Tim took me out to lunchand he said don't take this job
.
And I said what?
And he goes look, you know,when you see us running next to
the president on TV, it's reallycool, you know.
Obviously you know what I wentthrough.
He was a sack of Chicago at thetime and he said but you're the

(33:52):
oldest of nine, you just gotmarried, you just had your
second kid, or you just had yourfirst kid, second kid, or you
just had your first kid andyou're going to hate it because
for the first five, six yearsthey're going to be, you're
going to be traveling your assoff.
You're never going to see yourfamily and you're going to be

(34:12):
standing in a suit outside someguy's door from midnight to
eight o'clock in the morning.
You won't, you won't.
You know it's, it's not likewhat you see.
He says you're a detective, whatare doing?
I said, well, I just busted aburglary ring and we're doing
some undercover narcotics andstuff like that.
And he goes yeah, he goes,you're a cop, be a cop, um, and

(34:33):
I said okay and uh, so I stayedwith lombard and then, right
after I got the chance to be ourfirst sex crimes investigator
Nobody had ever done it beforeand it was a very new field.
In fact a guy from New York, aguy named Harry O'Reilly, came
to Chicago and taught.
I think it was a I don't knowone or two week class.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
So did you when you became a detective, was that
your first detail Was sex crimes, or were you a general
assignment detective when youfirst got in?

Speaker 2 (35:08):
We were all general assignment.
There was probably about 11 ofus.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
But we had just started to.
This is in the mid 80s, they,you know, again, I look at, I
had some, I had a nicelieutenant and detectives, but
you know he was lazy, yeah, justyou know.
But Dane was the sergeant nowat this point and he said we got

(35:39):
to start specializing, so I hadthis opportunity to go Prior to
that.
We're just, you know, we got tostart specializing, so I had
this opportunity to go Prior tothat.
We're just, you know, we'reidiots.
You know somebody would come in.
And I remember God.
I remember when I was intraining some girl said she was
raped and I was with this guy.
I wasn't still in training butI was a rookie and this veteran
cop goes all right, what we arewearing.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
No oh yeah, brutal.
Jeez, yeah what we are wearing.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
No, oh yeah, brutal, geez, yeah.
And so o'reilly taught thisgreat class and he was one of
the top guys in nypd.
So I mean, I'm coming back withthis knowledge and these
techniques and tactics thatnobody had ever heard of before
and I virtually handledeverything that was closely
related to a sexual assault, alot of of pedophile stuff, you

(36:23):
know, and I was really.
I was good at it because I was,and then I'll tell you.
The main thing is, as soon as Igot into detectives and I asked
why they picked me and thelieutenant at the time said well
, you know, I hear you're reallygood at getting confessions.
So what I asked them to do issend me to every interview and
interrogation school that youknow we could find, and back

(36:43):
then it wasn't.
There was no internet, so youget teletypes from like read
interrogation, which is outsideof Chicago.
So I went to read, which Istill, to this day, highly
recommend read.
They flew me down to FLETC atone point.
So I started learning.
I started to learn consciouslyhow I was getting these

(37:09):
confessions and I had thepsychology background.
In the academy there was a guynamed Stan Kules who taught body
language and I went out andread body language books.
I actually, I got one righthere.
I actually wrote a book aboutbody language.
And I went out and read bodylanguage books.
I actually, I got one righthere.
I actually wrote a book aboutbody language for cops.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Oh nice, what's it called.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
It's called Arresting Communication.
It's been out about 15 years.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
It's yeah, your screen's mirrored, so
everything's backwards.
Pardon me, your screen,everything's backwards.
So I was like what is this?
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yeah, it a rescue communication and it's um,
actually we have an academyaddition to it and that's being
used in academies all over thecountry and we we've sold a crap
load of books anyway.
Um, so I really started to honethose skills down, you know, um
, and then then I had the chancewith dane to be cross-trained

(37:58):
as a fire investigator and thenso I went to Emmitsburg,
maryland.
I went down to Fletsey again, Iwent to the Chicago Fire
Academy and I learned all these.
I learned how to read a fire,go into a fire, you know, look
for poor patterns, right andreally.
And we cross-trained with twofirefighters and I'm still good

(38:19):
friends with them, and I was theworst at reading a fire of the
four of us.
We cross trained with twofirefighters and there's, I'm
still good friends with them, um, and I was the worst at reading
a fire of the four of us.
I was the worst by far.
I mean I could spot a poorpattern and things like that.
But but what I was good at wasgetting the confessions.
So the first three fires, weinvestigated, we the click, we
determined that they were arsonand, uh, all three of those guys
I got to confess okay so youknow that that that became, you

(38:44):
know, kind of my forte.
So I was doing sex crimes andarson.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
So I got a follow-up question, sorry, yeah, this is
the hard part about the internet.
There's a slight delay and Idon't want to stop your flow,
but no problem, I'm.
I'm trying to help peopleunderstand, like today's.
You know, detectives, versuswhat?
What year frame were you inwhen you were doing all this?

Speaker 2 (39:06):
I went in in 83.
In 1990, I made sergeant.
They moved me back to thestreet.
I was there for two and a halfyears.
Then I made lieutenant and Iwent back to detectives.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Okay, so you start doing detective work.
You had to put in to go toclasses to learn how to
interrogate Right Now.
As for stepping in and being adetective, now I can tell you
that even when I started tolearn how to be a detective in,
you know, 2016, 17, somewhere inthere, the training, the field

(39:43):
training, so to speak your FTOwas you learned how to file the
paperwork and where it goes andhow to get it to the prosecutor
and stuff like that.
That was about it.
I was very disappointed at thelevel of training that I got and
that wasn't that long ago forour detective work.

(40:05):
Now, yes, you can put in forReed School and other
interrogation-style schools, butthat's on you.
That's not mandatory, whichblows my mind because, like you
said, reed's an amazing school,reed.
You know I still use Reedtechniques to this day, even as
a street supervisor.
I'll be out there and, you know, try to help out my guys and

(40:28):
get the confessions.
And it's very weird how ourcareers parallel, because that's
one of them that was my specialskill as a detective was the
interrogation side.
You know I'm batting a thousandas far as getting at least
something through omission or aconfession.
So I'm with you on that.
So for you, did you get anyreal training when you stepped

(40:49):
up to?
You know you're a rookiedetective.
Or was it like, here's how youfile the paperwork, all right,
go be a cop?
Like how did that work for you?

Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah, no, pretty much same as you.
They just said here's thesystems we have in place.
And my first day they throwthree or four different cases on
my desk and you kind of had tojust kind of work your way
through it.
You know, and I mean I wouldask questions of some senior

(41:18):
detectives and after a very,very short period of time I
realized which ones were lazyand which ones actually knew
what they were talking about.
And again I had Dane Cooney, whois really.
Dane Cooney is one of thesmartest police officers I ever
met.
You know he's an electrician.
He had all these sidebusinesses, building houses and
stuff.
He's a mechanical genius and hewas very good at interviewing,

(41:43):
interrogation, but a lot ofcommon sense.
So I I learned a lot from himand now when I took over
detectives then I did put in atraining.
There was a training programokay yeah, yeah so when I got
there, there were certainschools everybody was going to
go to.
In fact, we started looking atit as if I knew, um, we would

(42:04):
pick detectives six monthsbefore we moved him in and we'd
start putting him into uhclasses okay, so, okay.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
So they were getting prepped.
Uh, on the way up right, yeah,yeah okay, yeah, and in for
people listening.
Detective work is a littledifferent everywhere.
Some places detective is aparallel to an officer street
officer.
Where I'm at, it's a promotion,so you actually have to take a
civil service test to try to getup there.

(42:34):
Now, what I don't like aboutwhere I'm at is you don't have a
choice, Like if you go topromote, you have to become a
detective.
There's no option to be like astreet corporal.
Like you know, you'll have somestreet corporals out there.
Yeah, and I like the option.
You want to talk aboutproducing lazy detectives.
Nothing will produce a lazyworker in policing than putting

(42:57):
them somewhere they didn't wantto be in to begin with.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
So I don't like forced tracks.
That's a.
So if you're a policedepartment out there and you
have forced tracks, like that isone of the downfalls of having
one is well, you're not going toget the same production out of
that person that you would ifthey got, you know, some other
position that really met their,you know, love tank, whatever

(43:20):
you want to call it.
I think that being forced to dodesk duty, that's man Cause I I
, even though I was a detective,I was in the field all the time
, like I was constantly workingwith the property crimes teams
and stuff like that and goingout and doing buybacks and
things like that, trying to findstolen equipment.
You know things of that nature.

(43:41):
So, yeah, but um, okay, so you,so did you implement that
training program as thelieutenant over detectives?
yeah is that how that worked?
Okay, excellent.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
How was that received , because it sounds like it was
the first of its kind for yourdepartment yeah, I mean, you
know, it was done a little bitas we got, as I was in it, and
then Dane then became lieutenant, so he started doing some of it
and I think I just kicked it upto another notch when I got in.

Speaker 1 (44:10):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
You know we were much more proactive, and by us it's
not a promotion.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
Okay, it's a lateral move.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Which I actually think is better.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah, Well, I mean, do they have to do that to
become?
What's the next rank for y'all?
Is it sergeant?

Speaker 2 (44:26):
Sergeant.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
Okay, so do they have to be a detective to become a
sergeant?

Speaker 2 (44:29):
No, but I will tell you this.
The majority of people becomesergeants were detectives.
The majority of guys thatbecame detectives were FTOs.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
Yeah, You're more well-rounded.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
Well, you know to be an FTO.
When I got on, I mean Iremember my first FTO told me he
goes.
You know I hate doing this, butit's my turn.
I got to do it.
They didn't have any training,but within 10 years we started
sending people to FTO school andit was all voluntary.
So what you got there?
You know people go.
Yeah well, it's proven that ifyou're an FTO you got a better
chance of becoming a sergeant.

(45:01):
No, no, no, no, that's not it.
It's the personality of thepeople who become FTOs.
This is something they put infor.
You know they want to go tothese schools.
So you're looking at peoplewith high initiative.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Right.
You know, yeah, I agree, not somany lazy guys wanted to work
for me in detectives.
I'll tell you that I I find thesame thing as a sergeant in
patrol because I in in a worldwhere proactive police work is,
is fading very quickly.
Um, my team is proactive, butI'm out there with them and you

(45:34):
know, helping, not micromanaging.
I I don't want people to thinkabout their micro and my guys,
but I've got their back and I'mteaching them ways, the backbone
of policing.
And when they set a bad tone itjust reverberates across

(46:06):
everybody that they're incontact with and that can create
a crappy police environmentwhen you're working.
But when you have the sergeantthat is educated, knows, knows
how to read, like you, it soundslike he knew how to read, you
knew how to read each one of hispeople.
That makes such a bigdifference having an involved

(46:27):
sergeant.
And when you look at a lazydetective, the first thing I
look at is I'm like I'm notlooking at that detective, I'm
looking at the sergeant.
What?
Why are you not getting andwhat are you not getting out of
your guy and why?
And so I really start to pushback.
You know, that's why they wouldnever want me as a sergeant
over general assignment BecauseI'd be holding their feet to the
fire.
I'm like look, you've got leadshere.
Either you weren't trainedproperly and you didn't know how

(46:49):
to see these leads, or you'relazy.
Which one is it?
And if it's the latter, well,now we've got problems, and
that's huge in police work thesedays and, like you said, back
in the day it wasn't looked ascorrupt and then, all of a
sudden, it is.
And then today, like you can'tignore leads, technology is not
going to allow you to do that.

(47:10):
It's going to show you all ofyour flaws.
Ai is crazy right now and I'mnot sure if you've kept up with
some of the latest things theygot, but it can look at your
case and be like there's a lead,there's a lead, there's a lead,
there's a lead.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
Wow, no yeah, I've worked with it like that.
And then it can use it on theprivate sector here for
marketing.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
Yeah.
And then it will say not onlyhere's your leads, this
detective, this detective andthis detective worked similar
MOs and may be associated.
Here's those case numbers andthose detectives.
So I know, right, imagine you.
Even for me that would havetaken me weeks, if not months,

(47:50):
to figure out.
And then if you got lazy, ifthe other detectives that are
working that cases are lazy orjust don't give a shit, you're
never going to know.
You're never going to know yourcases were associated.
But these programs, like I said, they're really holding the
next level.
Shit you're never gonna know.
You're never gonna know yourcases were associated.
But this, these programs, likeI said, they're, they're really
holding, uh, the next level.
I think patrol officers, their,their feet are to the fire all
the time and I think that's justbeen historic.

(48:11):
But now these next levels,where people go to hide, so to
speak, the, the lazy ones, arethey, I, I say they go to hide.
Um, it's, it's calling them out, and rightfully so, because
that's somebody else, that's acitizen's case that you're just,
you become callous to, and allthat stuff to this one guy who

(48:38):
is a huge influence, and I justsee good leadership the whole
way and I love highlighting.
This is exactly what I'mtalking about.
This is why sergeants matter.
Look what you just influencedone of the biggest names in law
enforcement, jim Glennon, and itwas because of one dude that
got it started.
That's the catalyst.
It's because of a supervisor ora trainer, whatever you want to

(49:01):
call it.
So I'm sorry, I'll get off mysoapbox, sir.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
No, no, I agree with it, yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
So All right, so you you go through now when you were
going through Reed School andsome of the other interrogation
schools.
I want to give people an ideaIf this is something you ever
want to do and is detective work.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
How long were these schools and how hard were they?
You know well Reed.
And then there's another one,wicklander and Zalowski that's
out of Chicago, which kind ofused the same.
Now they'd probably get mad atme for saying this, but they
used pretty much the same system, which is based off the Reed
system, I think, and I love Reed.
I wrote an article a couple ofyears ago defending them because

(49:41):
somebody ripped them.
You can go to one day, a two day, three day or five day school,
and I always go to five.
I mean, you know, go to five.
I mean I probably went to fivedifferent types of Reed schools.
At some point I also became ahostage negotiator, which what
they all have in common is, andwe have classes that highlight

(50:06):
this.
What people have to understandfrom the outset is this a human
behavior business.
You know, the only reason weexist is because of other
people's behavior, and so wehave to become human behavior.
Experts Doesn't mean you haveto have a psychology degree.
I was a bartender all throughcollege sophomore, junior,

(50:30):
senior year in college and Ialways tell people I learned
more about human psychologyworking behind that bar than I
did in four years of sitting inclassrooms and talking about
that's so funny.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
You say that.
I literally just put a thingout.
I think I even said it onLinkedIn.
I said one of the biggesthiring problems that we have in
policing is we do all thesepsychological evaluations,
mental health, physicalexaminations, all this stuff.
We have nothing to determinethe social skills capabilities
of the people we're bringing inand that, to me, is one of the

(51:03):
best things that we could have.
I would rather have and yousaid it.
I said I would rather have abartender than I would a kid
that has a two or four-yeardegree.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
Yeah, I wrote an article last year and we
actually re-ran it a few monthslater because we had so many
hits and so many emails that weran follow-up where we had all
the emails and my I think thetitle of it.
It's on caliber presscom.
It's something like um, shouldwe rethink college requirements?

(51:36):
And I have a master's degree.
I have a master's degree, butmy argument is college as an
indicator if you're going to bea good cop is ridiculous.
It's stupid.
I know guys with PhDs who aremorons.
Yeah, how many lawyers have youmet working for the district
attorney's office that don'tknow how to get in out of the

(51:58):
rain?
I mean, right, I mean it's true.
I mean some of my best friendsare lawyers and they're
brilliant.
But my god, it's just becauseyou know.
You know, I mean it's a cliche,but book smart or street smart
yeah and I put in there.
I mean, we have departments thatare hiring people who have
never had a job before but theyhave a four-year degree in, you

(52:18):
know, gender studies or someshit.
Right, um, psychology,psychology to me is a worthless
bachelor's degree.
It is sociology completelyworthless bachelor's degree.
How criminal justice is almosta completely worse worthless
bachelor's degree.
And what I mean by that is howcan, how can you take any of

(52:41):
what you learn in that andimmediately apply it to a job?
You can't.
I do believe that a criminaljustice background of those
three it's better to have that,because at least you start to
understand what the realities ofthe law are.
But so I put in the articlerealities of the law.

(53:03):
But, um, so I put in thearticle.
So you got departments thatwere hiring people because they
have a degree in sociology buthave never had a job before.
But somebody who, immediatelyout of college, went to marines
for six years and worked, youknow, flew a helicopter and did
all this other stuff.
When you know from the airforce, all this different stuff
you're doing, you're not justwalking around.
You know saluting at planes.
You, you're learning skill sets.
You know I might one of my he's.

(53:26):
He's like an adopted son ofours who's a nephew that we we
took in.
He's in, he's in the navy andhe's in the ordinance.
Now he's teaching ordinance onaircraft carriers.
Um, we're going to turn theseguys down because they didn't go
to college it?
It doesn't make any sense to me.
So which we and I agree withyou we need to.

(53:50):
We need to, if we're going touse a point system, give people
points for how many freakingjobs they had yeah I mean I, I
when I was in college and andthis is back in the late 70s
there wasn't one person I didn'tknow, one person who was not
working their way throughcollege, not one.

(54:10):
The day I showed up on mycampus I played football for a
Division III school.
The day I showed up they hadtwo jobs for me.
I had two jobs.
When I showed up in the summerI worked two to three jobs in
the summers.
So you know I learned a tondoing that.
All my kids, I made all of themget jobs in high school and I

(54:34):
had one son who was athree-sport athlete and I said
you're still getting a job yeahand he was a straight-A student
too.
Now he's a 40-year-old who'sdoing exceptionally well and we
argue about politics a lot.
But he has said to me and he'smaking a boatload of money In

(54:55):
fact I have a couple of sonsmaking a boatload of money and
they've asked me especially myoldest one, sean if you had
enough money to send us throughcollege, would you have given us
100%?
Because we gave him about 60%and I said no and he goes.

(55:16):
You know I'm going to have thatproblem.
I'm not going to be able tolook at my kids and say I can't
pay for your college, you know.
But you know I'm going to havethat problem.
I I'm not going to be able tolook at my kids and say I can't
pay for your college, you know.
But you know I got a nine year.
I got two nine-year-oldgranddaughters who are already
openly talking about wanting tobabysit to earn money at nine
years old and I'm like, wheneverthey can do that, let them do

(55:36):
that.
They have to start making moneyon their own.
They have to show initiative,no matter how much money you
have.
You know they've got it.
They need shitty bosses like my.
My, my second oldest son,worked more than anybody else.
You know he was deliveringpizzas on his bike for crying
out loud and he goes.
Now he's a boss of a bigcompany and he goes.
I learned more from shittybosses when I was 15 years old

(55:59):
than I did get my sociologydegree in college, you know.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
I put out the argument because I'm like you.
I've got my.
I got a dual master's incriminology and criminal justice
, and the question it comes upall the time Cops need to have
mandatory degrees.
I'm like for what.
I would rather they put fouryears into Brazilian jujitsu.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
No, I try to tell people I'm like the the cop that
knows how to use the mostamount of force is the one that
uses the least.
Because they have theconfidence in their training,
they don't hesitate.
Hesitation is what gets us hurt.
Hesitation is what gets badguys hurt.
So I lean into.
Listen to me as a person whogot the degrees and is in the

(56:43):
streets and I'm telling you someof the best cops I know have a
high school diploma.
Some of the worst ones andbiggest idiots I've ran across
have degrees and claim to begreat test takers.
They don't translate, they justdon't.
College will give you this.
It will give you perspectiveand opportunity.
That's the two things it's goodfor is give you a little bit of
perspective, but it definitelyprovides you opportunity,

(57:05):
because when you apply forsomething internally in the
department, you typically aregiven more points above the
person that doesn't have thepiece of paper.
And that's one of the mainreasons I joined the military
was I didn't have college paidfor, I had to earn it.
Military was I.
I didn't have college paid for,I had to earn it.
So the easiest way to earn itfor me and and still advance my

(57:26):
career, I feel like joining themilitary actually gave me, you
know, eight years of experienceand crammed into four Um now I
ended up staying on in thereserves.
But I did four years activeduty when I first started but,
man, I went in at to become acop.
So now I've got, you know,three and a half or more years
of law enforcement trainingbecause I was an MP.

(57:46):
I got my degree for free and,you know, you got that OJT and
then you get out and you've gotan honorable discharge and, holy
cow, you've got a resume.
I try to tell people, man, it'sa, it's like a cheat code almost
.
But I grew up in Flint, whichMichigan, so it wasn't a whole

(58:07):
lot of ways to escape.
Military was one of those.
So that's what I did.
But it's awesome to hearsomebody with your experience
kind of saying what I've beentrying to say.
You know, and it has a littlebit of weight cause I'm still
out there and been doing it for18 years, but you've got double
what I've got and well-respectedcaliber press and all that

(58:28):
stuff.
So just to hear you say thesame things that we've been
pushing out on the show, likereally I hope that hits some
people to realize like, look,the degree is.
There's so many other.
I'd rather you be a barista atStarbucksbucks that has been
practicing you know some boxingor muay thai or whatever.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
yeah, you know how to deal with people, yeah yeah, I
wrote an article last, uh, lastyear, another one that said
should we keep teach cops how tofight?
Because I said we don't, weteach them how to control and we
don't even really do that.
You know, I was in martial artsfor 15, 16 years until I, you

(59:06):
know, just got, you know, olderand you know shoulders were
going and stuff.
But, like you said, when wetalk about some of our classes,
if you're competent, then you'llbe confident.
If you're confident you'll beable to ward off an undue amount
of you know, you know stress,because if you have too much

(59:27):
stress, if you have too muchstress, as we all know, you
won't be able to make gooddecisions.
But you know.
So I went five, six days a weekand I was listen, I was never
that good, you know, and theygive you a black belt just for
hanging around long enough.
But you know, I worked out with, I worked out with, uh, one guy
who was in one of the originalufcs.
He fought hoist gracie oh yeah,yeah, who was it?

(59:47):
keith hackney?

Speaker 1 (59:48):
yeah, I don't keep, yeah, I don't know, him
personally.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
I know the name, yeah , yeah if you look him up, you
can still find keith the giantkiller.
He knocked out a guy that wassix foot eight, 618 pounds sumo
wrestler yep the elbows.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that fight.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
He originally hit him with a tiger strike.
I would, I would spar withkeith.
Now when I when I mean spar, Istood in front of him while he
did not kill me, you know, Imean so I was never that good,
but I was good enough, like I'min my mid 40s and I'm squaring
off.
You know, when I got now allthis experience and I square off

(01:00:26):
with somebody who's 19, 20years old, who's much faster, I
am at that point but I couldavoid getting kicked because I
understood what a movement was.
I mean, if you're going to do a, you know, if you're going to
do a spinning back kick, youhave to move the one foot this
way first.
So if I saw that foot move, Ijust instinctively move in and
block it.
And again, I was never thatgood.
But my point is you need to gothree, four or five days a week

(01:00:47):
to develop that type ofprocedural muscle memory.
Right In law enforcement, wedon't do anything like that.
And you know when, when, likeyou mentioned Michael Brown
before, when Michael Brown hitin 2014, and I'm old enough, I
was on when Rodney King happenedand and then you know the big

(01:01:08):
one, which is George Floyd, in2020.
The whole world I mean thewhole world exploded over this.
You know that that knee on hisneck for nine minutes changed
the entire world, not just lawenforcement, not just the United
States.
It changed the whole world andit opened the door to for people
just to spew that had no, no,no roots in reality and I had

(01:01:36):
family members who, after GeorgeFloyd, I'd be getting arguments
with them.
You know, I was down in Texasdoing a thing and I had doing a
class and some guy with a PhDgot up and he started arguing
with about systemic racism.
And I go and I looked at him.
I go, what is systemic racism?
He said, are you in this?
And everybody in the room wasuncomfortable and he was.

(01:02:00):
He was a black guy and I teachimplicit bias, I, but we teach
it very, very different thaneverybody else does not the 21st
century policing version, I'msure no, no it's, it's like hey
it first off the d.
And again I want to segue off.
But the doj doj after um, after, uh, michael brown and fergus I

(01:02:21):
had taught for them and theyflew me down to Mobile, alabama,
because they wanted me to puttogether an implicit bias class.
And when they called me aboutit I said, well, I've been
talking about implicit biassince I started teaching
communication and interviewingand interrogation back in the
early 90s.
So I'm sitting there with 36attorney generals from around

(01:02:41):
the United States and I justlooked at them all and I said
who in here has implicit bias?
And nobody raised their handand I said you're all liars.
And I said y'all have it.
So I want to know this.
And I had a PowerPoint ready togo, hour long PowerPoint.
They asked me to have hour longPowerPoint, they asked me to

(01:03:02):
have, and I said is implicitbias just a PC way to say
everybody's racist?
And then I said and if that'swhere we're really going here,
does anybody besides straightwhite males need to attend this
course?
Is everybody else free?
Nobody else is.
They didn't even know how toanswer is.

(01:03:22):
So this nonsense that took hold.
Like you know, we shoot toomany people.
Like the average in a 2019survey, the average person in
the United States thinks thatsomewhere in the area of 78% of
the people we shoot are black.
Well, that's not even close totrue.
It's in the mid-20s percent,right?

(01:03:44):
And then the argument is and Idon't want to get off on this
racism thing, believe me, I knowracism exists, but if you're
going to start this nonsensethat there's systemic racism
everywhere in law enforcement,first off, it's not true.
And two, you're avoiding thereal problems that are in law

(01:04:04):
enforcement.
So this guy said to me he saidare you denying there's systemic
racism in law enforcement?
I say no.
What I'm asking you to do isdefine what systemic racism is
and it's.
Is it different thaninstitutional racism?
Well, obviously he couldn't doeither one of those things.
And he said well, you know it's, it's, it's, it's really, it's
unseen in the fabric of thefibers of all of the criminal

(01:04:28):
justice system.
And I said which criminaljustice system?
Now, this is the guy who's gota master's degree and he's.
He was actually a chief ofpolice from a Midwest town.
And I said to him I said whichcriminal justice system?
He goes United States criminaljustice system.
I said there's no such thing,he goes.

(01:04:49):
Well, of course there is.
I said wait a minute, how manycounties are there in the United
States?
He goes.
I don't know.
I go, there's about 3,200.
That's 3,200 different ones.
Right there you got 50 states,you got townships, you got
individual police departments,that's about 18,400 to 600,
right, you got the federalgovernment with all different

(01:05:11):
districts and circuits all overthe United States.
Are you telling me they're allthe same?
And then he said well, you know, law enforcement started from
slave patrols.
I go, it absolutely did not.

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
So, robert Peel, I mean, you could go back farther,
sir.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
Come on, it's the most basic stuff.
I mean, it started in Bostonand Boston and New York, Chicago
, Pittsburgh, you know, orPhiladelphia.
They're all the ones thatstarted the first 24 hour police
.
You know it's not, it hasnothing to do with slave patrol.
But see, this nonsense catcheson.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
And so my argument is listen, we have some serious
shit, really some serious shitproblems in law enforcement.
But if we're putting all ourfocus on a problem that doesn't
actually exist and he says waita minute, how many people get
shot and killed by the policeevery year?
And I, when I knew the numbers,and so I told him, I said it's

(01:06:06):
right around, right around athousand.
I said what percentage do?

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
you think are black he goes, well, minimum 50.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
I said, no, it's like mid-20s.
He goes, yeah, but we're onlyblack's, only 14 of the
population.
I said so you think if 25 ofthe people that are shot are
black and the population is only14, then that proves systemic
racism, because there's no otherreason for it.
I said what percentage of thepeople we shoot are male?
And he goes what differencedoes that make?
I said, well, what percentageof the population is male?

(01:06:30):
Because I don't know?
I go it's about 49 and a halfpercent.
It's what percentage of thepeople we shoot are male?
Because I don't know.
I said it's 97 percent.
So if you think we hate blackpeople, we absolutely abhor men,
because almost everybody weshoot is a male.
And he's just staring at me likeduh duh.

(01:06:51):
I said listen, we have systemicproblems, if you really want to
look at problems, and I'll tellyou what those two problems are
.
One is leadership and two istraining.
Best case scenario a third ofour leaders are effective
leaders, A third completely suckand a third are, you know,

(01:07:11):
neutral.
Nobody trains the right way.
I own a private company.
I told them and I said if Iowned a police department and I
had competition from anotherpolice department, do you think
I'd run my police department theway we're running them now?
And he goes what do you mean?
I said look, prove to me.

(01:07:35):
So I play this littleexperiment.
In all my leadership games Iwalk up to a chief and I say
were you a successful agencylast year?
All right, so let's say I'm notgoing to name your agency.
I know it well, you know.
So I'll ask you, eric, was yourpolice agency good size police
agency?
Was it a successful policeagency last year?

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
I can only tell you about my little fishbowl, but I
think, yes, I think it wassuccessful.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
Okay, you think yes, yeah, prove it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:06):
Yeah, all I can tell you is lowered violent crime.
That's my measure for personalachievement in the career field.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
Okay, so you, your little unit, lowered violent
crime within your city yes yourunit did yes okay, prove that
you did that can't, can't can't,and at the beginning of the
year did you sit down with yourpeople and go here's violent
crime.
Our goal is to get it here andthis is the process to get it

(01:08:38):
down here.
You did, but you got reallygood cops who are doing
proactive work and you and Iknow they made an impact right,
but you can't prove it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
Yeah, you can't.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
No.
If you ask Lisa Gitchell, whowas the president of Galbraith
Press, were you successful lastyear, she said yes.
And if you said prove it, howwould she prove it?

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
She'd say well, we made this much money, we were
able to pay all these, everybodygot insurance.
We were able to have commissionon our you know, all our
instructors got this.
We blah, blah, blah.
We did all that kind of stuffand we did it because we have
great products, right, right.
So what is really the goal ofgovernment?
And that's coming out right now, without getting political,
it's coming out right now withyou know the whole.

(01:09:26):
You can't you can't so here'sthe question are you chasing
success in government or are youjust avoiding failure?
And I can give you, I guaranteeyou you're avoiding failure.
I'm not saying like you, youaren't you.
You are pushing your people,but you know damn well, yeah,
you work with sergeants who arejust like it's just nobody's on

(01:09:48):
our ass, just just yeah yeah,right, let him show up to work
if we, if I have an instructor Ijust I just talked to an
instructor today we're gonnahire.
I got about 18 instructors and Itold them we send you out there
.
If you don't get excellenceover 90 percent excellence your
first two or three times out,you're done.
And I said it nicer and I justsaid it yeah right, because if I

(01:10:09):
send him to Colorado andthere's five States in Colorado
and let's say his name isJohnson, people aren't going to.
If he sucks, people aren'tgoing to go, johnson sucks,
they're going to say caliberpress sucks.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:24):
I so I can't afford that.

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
Right, so I'm going to fire, I'll let them go.
If I have an accountant whocan't do her numbers, she's gone
In law enforcement and I'm not.
I'm not suggesting we have massfirings in law enforcement, but
there's no fear you're going tolose your job in law
enforcement.
I mean, think about it, You'vebeen on, you're you're.
You're a supervisor, right?
You've been on more than 10years.

(01:10:47):
Right.
Do you ever call a guy in after10 years and go okay, listen,
we've been talking about this,you suck.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
You got to go.
I've told them they suck, but Ican't.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
I have no power to fire them.

Speaker 1 (01:10:59):
I can't fire them.
No, no, I absolutely tell themthey suck.

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
I'm like you're hot garbage.
What do you want to do?
Put me on a performanceimprovement plan.
Yeah, how hard is it for you toactually dump a lousy employee?
It's massively difficult.

Speaker 1 (01:11:14):
Yeah, and I'm service service, so it's hard.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
You're a big town near another big town.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):
Are you ever afraid that other big towns police
department's just going to comeover and take your police
department?
No, because there's ordinancesand there's laws that say it
cannot happen.
If somebody lives in your townand is not satisfied with your
police department service, theonly thing they can do is move
out of your town.
If I go to Walmart don't likeWalmart, I won't go over the

(01:11:42):
Target down the street.
So when you look at lawenforcement, it's a bureaucratic
nightmare to make any changes.
But the areas we need changes.
First off, we need to cultivateleaders.
While they're not leaders, weneed to put programs together,

(01:12:03):
people that work for you.
Eric should evaluate you.

Speaker 1 (01:12:07):
Yes, 360 evals.
I say it all the time yes, 100%, 100% right and we have to look
at.

Speaker 2 (01:12:13):
Training is something more than check the box.
Let me ask you, and withoutusing your agency, your big
agency, how many times a yearare you mandated to go on the
range?
Um twice a year twice a year,yeah, so what's the only real
reason you're going to the range?

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
um.
Um, well, you get, we get.
Uh, we get monthly ammunitionallowance, so every month I can
go shoot um a hundred rounds.

Speaker 2 (01:12:39):
Great, so you have that policy right.
What percentage of yourofficers take advantage of
monthly shooting?

Speaker 1 (01:12:44):
Oh, not a lot.
I would, I probably guess, 30%.
That'd be high balling, so yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:51):
But they're on their own shooting right.

Speaker 1 (01:12:53):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
So there's no, there's no real practical skills
every month on how to win a gunfight.

Speaker 1 (01:12:59):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
So twice a year you go down and your only goal is to
prove that you know how to pulla gun out of your holster
without shooting yourself in thefoot.

Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Point it at a paper target that they're just waiting
to get shot.
Yep, decock that weapon, put itback in your holster without
shooting yourself or somebodyelse on the range.
Yep, how many people get firedevery year for not qualifying?

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
None.

Speaker 2 (01:13:21):
None Right.

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):
Now they figure out a way to limp them through.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
Of course.
Now let me bring you to thishow many times a year are you
mandated to do some type ofcontrol or defensive tactic?
Strength.

Speaker 1 (01:13:33):
Once a year for two hours, maybe Two hours.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
So once a year you go down and some guy who's still
wearing his eighth grade PEt-shirt is standing in front of
the group right.

Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
And then he reads, probably policy for the first
half hour and then he goes allright, get your partner.
All right, all right, everybody, we're going to do straight arm
bar takedown.
So remember, grab the wrist,turn it over, get the elbow bump
.
I do 20 of those and you'relike bump, bump, bump, bump,
bump, done, we're done.

(01:14:05):
You don't know how many I did.
Yeah, the most important thingis that what you do is, when you
leave, you check the box thatsaid you went there.
So in case you get sued, theygo no, no.
Once a year he has to do 15knee strikes.

Speaker 1 (01:14:17):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
Any procedural memory being learned.

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:14:22):
Multiple memory no.

Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
No.

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
No, and then when do cops?
And then much, how muchtraining do you do on how to
deal with the sudden onset ofacute stress and a high, high
event?
You know high pressure, you'retalking like crisis intervention
training stuff no, I'm talkingabout you being able to deal in
a fight.
What happens to your brain withthe science of human
performance?
Oh that under stress, yourheart rate goes from seven 70

(01:14:47):
beats a minute you get that withthat 40 hour block that you're
required once a year yeah, oncea year you get that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So now we're hiring work.
Now we're hiring kids who wereborn in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,
who grew up in an era, in an erawhere we told young boys don't
be aggressive, don't fight withanybody, don't say bad words,

(01:15:09):
we're not going to have you.
Let you have a squirt gun.
No one one's allowed to usefoul language.
Teachers have to, you know,kiss your ass and give you a B,
even though you deserve a C.
And then you come into lawenforcement.
You got some guy calling you amotherfucker at two o'clock in
the morning while they're drunk,you know and spraying in your
face as they're calling you anasshole and your mother sucks
this.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, asshole, and your mother sucks this.

(01:15:32):
And then they're experienced ina stress level they've never
even knew existed.
And then they overreact andthen we throw them under the bus
, say, oh my God, we're aghastat that behavior because that's
not consistent with our valuesand training.
And that's a lie, because it'sperfectly consistent with your
values and training, because youdon't value training at all.
You got half-assed leaders whodon't know the people that work

(01:15:52):
for them, avoid conflict withtheir bad employees, and we
don't train them the right way,and then we expect everything to
work out.

Speaker 1 (01:16:01):
I agree, sir, I mean you.

Speaker 2 (01:16:04):
I went on a rant there, sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
It's like I'm just staring at myself, because these
are the same points that I try.
I was an Academy instructor forthree years.
That's why I promoted.
I just got frustrated.
I love being an instructor.
Um, I'm, uh, I say I'll be alifelong purple belt in jujitsu.
I just don't have the time thatit requires to stay consistent
enough to get a black belt.

(01:16:29):
But I, I attribute.
You know I've done judotraining, I've done boxing, been
doing all that stuff since Iwas a teenager and put more.
I try to tell people I put moreemphasis on doing that.
It can't be block styletraining.
It's got to be.
And I will say one of thethings that I love about my

(01:16:51):
department is our.
Our academy you know the eightmonths or seven months that it
takes to get through is aprogressive style academy, not
block training.
So when you first start, you'relearning how to start.
You're learning how to fightfrom the first day.
You're getting your stance.
You're doing you may learn howto make a fist properly.

(01:17:12):
I mean you do got to dumb itdown.
I call it.
You know army proofing, so yougot an army proof it.
But you start from a standingfight and then by the end of the
academy.
You've got a ton of ton of repswhere you've gone to the ground
.
You've learned how to, you know, do all these different things.
But once that's over withtraining is on yourself, like

(01:17:32):
it's up to you to go and getfurther training.
I always recommend grappling forsure, whether it's catch,
wrestling or jujitsu, whatever,because every a hundred percent
of non-compliant arrests go tothe ground.
It doesn't matter what happensIf they're not compliant.
That arrest process is morethan likely going to happen on
the ground and you need to knowwhat to do.
And the old adage oh, I'm a cop, I should never go to the

(01:17:54):
ground.
Well, guess what?
You shouldn't.
You try to avoid it, but youneed to know what you're doing
when you get there and learningthat grapple.
So I was really pushing thegrappling side of things and
trying to ingrain in my guyslike this is a perishable skill.
You guys are you know shit hotby the end of this.
You know and it's at a beginnerlevel Like you're still in my

(01:18:18):
world, you're still a white belt, you're just starting to get
some concepts down.
Um, you need to continue doingthat.
I think it should be mandatoryblue belt and I think
departments should pay for youto go to approve schools, and I
would.
I would rather you give me thethousand dollar incentive for
passing the fitness test eachyear towards, you know, going to

(01:18:38):
a school and learning how tograpple, versus me running this
bullshit.
You know, fitness test that a400 pound man could pass?
Yeah, I'm like what are wedoing?
We're checking a box, like yousaid, and, and that all goes
into.
Well, recruiting is really hardnow, so we have to lower the
standard.
Are you kidding me?

(01:18:59):
Of all the times you should bepickier is now because you're
going to get the bottom of thebarrel.
You're going to let themthrough because your numbers are
low and that's across the board.
That ain't my department.
I'm saying just in general,that's every department.
And then we see theseknuckleheads on you know the
next viral video and you're like, how the hell did they hire

(01:19:19):
this dude?
He's the only one that applied.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
Yeah, oh yeah, no, yeah, I was, uh, I was over at
an academy a couple weeks ago.
Listen, I and I've I've taughtall over the country over the
last.
I've been teaching nationallysince 1997, I think In 1997,
I've been teaching nationally.
So I've been trying to figureout and not all 50 states, but
about 47 of them, and a lot ofthem have been at state

(01:19:47):
academies and police academiesand over the last 10 years I'm
hearing horror stories.
Now this isn't true abouteveryone.
You know, we actually have aclass on how to teach rookie
cops how to talk to people and alot of communication classes.
But I mean, I was just in anacademy where and the rule in

(01:20:10):
this academy is all males haveto be shaved every day, no
beards, no while they're in theacademy.
And this kid shows up 25 yearsold one day and the instructor,
who was actually one of myinstructors, works for us and
used to work for me.
She walks up to him and sayshey, what happened here?

(01:20:32):
How come you didn't shave?
And he says well, my dad wentto work early.
And she says what does thathave to do with you shaving?
He goes well, my dad shaves me.
I don't know how to shave Firedand I said you're out of your
freaking mind.
I said, come on, you'rebullshitting me.
And the other it was a friendof mine.
We were having lunch with abunch of these guys and one of
them said no, that happened liketwo academy classes ago.

(01:20:56):
They don't let them bring theircell phones in.
Cell phones have to stay out inthe car and several of them
quit after a couple of daysbecause they can't.
They have too much anxiety ifthey're not near their cell
phones.

Speaker 1 (01:21:09):
Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):
Yeah, mother's calling up state police
academies and complaining thatshe can't get a hold of her kid
during the middle of the day.
My son has a weed allergy.
What are you doing about that?
My son cannot sleep with woolblankets.
My daughter can't do this, andwhen they quit their parents, do

(01:21:33):
it for them.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
Oh, my God, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
Hey, listen, I tell you.
So I tell the story all overthe place.
And this happened in an upperMidwest area where a recruit
this is one of these academieslike we have here where
different agencies sendeverybody to this one Academy
for like you know, 16 weeks orsomething, and this one kid, who
was hired by a sheriff'sdepartment, was in the class

(01:21:58):
with a uh, an emotional servicecat on his desk.

Speaker 1 (01:22:03):
And you can't do shit about that.
One Cause, that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:06):
What he said ADA.

Speaker 1 (01:22:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:22:09):
And the sheriff said I, my lawyer said I can't fire
him until he's out of theAcademy and he refuses to get in
a squad car, while the cat andthe Academy didn't have anything
in there.
Because why would you thinkabout this?
That you can't have anemotional service animal with
you while you're in the Academy?

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
Yeah, unbelievable yeah, unbelievable.
Yeah, yeah, I'm making that upman, if I was an academy
instructor now and I had to dealwith this stuff that, like you,
some of the stuff you said isworse than some of the things
I've heard but I would lose my.
I mean, part of the academy isto start that stress inoculation
there, yeah, and that's wherewe need to have the most ability

(01:22:51):
to just shit can.
People and I feel like a lot ofthese academies have lost that,
that power or that autonomy tobe able to.
You know, that's the beauty ofhaving cops as instructors in
there, they, we, we're humanbullshit detectors.
We can see, oh, this guy yousaid I may not be able to
describe it or articulate it thebest way, but I can tell you

(01:23:15):
this guy's a hothead, or thisguy you know doesn't, is going
to get eaten alive out there.
It doesn't have it.
Let's cut the fat now, yeah,and don't let it get out there.
We're now reliable and we'reletting them get out there well.

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
The problem, though, eric, is that now it's, it is
right now starting to turn yes,yes, it's starting to turn.
Yes in a lot, we got to admit,has been since again without
getting into politics since theelection.
In fact, I just heard as I wasdriving here today that the
military has had their best, uh,three months of recruiting than
in the last 15 years.

Speaker 1 (01:23:52):
Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
Yeah, so people want to be cops again.
But my argument about becausewe have a really good class
called recruitment and retentionA couple of my guys teach it,
do a really nice job but myargument is is is this pay cops
a lot more money, but hold themto a higher level of

(01:24:17):
accountability yep invest moremoney in training.
So you know, if you want to havecollege, I believe the only
thing you need from college ishave them if at least two years
of criminal justice, because atleast then they have a
foundation of understanding whatthe system is, but then pay
them a lot more money but holdthem to a higher level of an

(01:24:40):
accountability standard.
I know that they around chicago.
They have dropped the standardsto get people into the academy.
You know 25 year olds whocannot bench press 75 percent of
their weight.
I'm in my 60s and I can benchpress 75 percent of my weight.
Um, they can't run a mile and ahalf at all, let alone within

(01:25:02):
12 minutes.
So but if you make the job moreattractive and I mean make it a
good, solid profession wherethey're making good money and
they have a step system, butalso a system that first of all,
I don't think in your agencywhat's the probation?

(01:25:24):
How long is it?

Speaker 1 (01:25:25):
It's a year.

Speaker 2 (01:25:26):
A year out of the academy.

Speaker 1 (01:25:28):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:25:29):
Yeah, ours is two years.
Okay, and I think that's whatit should be.
You need two years becauseanybody can hide for a year.

Speaker 1 (01:25:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:25:36):
You know, two years is tough to hide.
For two years it's tough tohide your stupidity, your
inadequacy, your, your inabilityto handle people If you're
there for two solid years.
Ftos involved almost the wholetwo years, not ride with them,
but a very strong FTO programwhich you pay these guys a lot.

(01:25:56):
Can you tell me in your areawhat's starting pay right now
for cops?

Speaker 1 (01:26:01):
Oh, I think it's in the 80s.

Speaker 2 (01:26:05):
Yeah, that's up by us .
In Chicago it is too, but likeI was just in Florida last week
and starting pay down there isstill in like 50s and low 60s.
I know one the guy I was withwho was a cop up here, said he
has a friend of his who's alieutenant down there and the
lieutenant is only making$66,000.

Speaker 1 (01:26:22):
Yeah, that's why I left Michigan.
The pay was ridiculous.
I was like I could go be aWalmart manager and make this
money and I had to get outWalmart manager and make this
money and I had to get out ofthere and coming to where I came
.
Even now, the cost of living inTexas in general has jumped
significantly because all thebig companies from California

(01:26:43):
left and they came to Texas andprobably Florida and some of
these other tax relief states,so to speak, and yeah, the cost
of living is just consistentlyshot up.
So even with my agency we justhad a new contract and they're
like we got to bump it up fastbecause we're going to lose
everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:27:01):
And you have to do it .
You know they tried somethinghere in Aurora PD.
When we're all in a panicBecause Illinois, for the first
time, is poaching cops, we'venever done that before.
But now we're all in a panicbecause Illinois, for the first
time, is poaching cops yeah,we've never done that before.

Speaker 1 (01:27:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:27:14):
But now we're poaching in Aurora PD, which is
about 340 officers, and I talkedto the whole agency early last
year.
So I was there six times totalk to the whole agency.
Of course called legallyjustified, but was it avoidable?
And I found out that thatprogram didn't work, because if
you're offering somebody from aneighboring town $20,000 to come

(01:27:35):
over the other 335 officers aregoing.
Well, wait a minute.
What are you offering me tostay?

Speaker 1 (01:27:43):
You know, so that backfired?
Yeah, I think poaching.
I think poaching ultimatelyhelps police departments, think
poaching ultimately helps policedepartments.
And what I mean by that is ifyou realize that your department
is not meeting the standards ofthese other departments, now
you've pitted them against eachother in a good way and on
behalf of the cops.
So I don't mind poaching, butat the same time you have to

(01:28:06):
have a reasonable plan in actionso you're taking care of your
people that are with you andhave been loyal to you, and
encouraging that loyalty to stay.
So I don't mind poaching, butit has to be done properly.

Speaker 2 (01:28:20):
Well, and again, if the agency's in a state or at
least in a region like you're inright Right, at least establish
okay, starting pay is going tobe 85 000 a year.
You make it off probation.
We're going to bump you up to100 000, but this is how much
you're going to train in a year.
This is what we're going toexpect out of you.

(01:28:40):
Yeah, you know.
Uh, no excuses on.
You know.
You know, whatever um fdo isinvolved for the whole two years
.
And here's the other thing youknow, like you mentioned, there
is nobody more important in thecommand structure than first
line supervisors.
Nobody's, nobody's moreimportant.
I mean, if your chief doesn'tshow up for a month, you don't

(01:29:03):
even know it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:06):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:29:06):
The deputy chief stopped showing up.
You know you run out of toiletpaper and napkins.
You know, at some point, youknow, commanders don't?
We don't even know whatcommanders do you know.
But you know, once you get downto the ranks of corporal and
sergeants, there's nobody moreimportant because they deal
directly with the people who are, you know, completing the

(01:29:27):
mission.

Speaker 1 (01:29:28):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:29:29):
And you know Eisenhower said in 1946 um talk
about an interesting cat man.
I've read like threebiographies of eisenhower and
pat um bradley you know uh buteisenhower said 1946 nobody's
more important than sergeants.
that's why they won world war ii.
He said, and and the best sergeare the ones who get to know

(01:29:51):
each and every one of his menbecause they were all men back
then each and every one of hismen as individuals.
What are their strengths, whatare their weaknesses?
Know them as human beings, notas cogs in a wheel.
He said it in 1946, man, thisis 2025.
Let's kick it up a little bitand then hold first in line the

(01:30:12):
supervisors accountable and thenthe commanders accountable.
You know, at the beginning ofthe year, what do you expect out
of your unit, what are yougoing to do, what do you need?
And then fight for your guys,for crying out loud, get the
equipment.
But you know, the samepoliticians who complain that,
oh, the police department madethis mistake are the same ones
who won't give them enough moneyto train properly.

(01:30:34):
So in an agency your size,training obviously should be a
regular, ongoing thing.
But police officers should beon the range once a month, but
not just to fire 35 rounds at atarget.
You know how do you win agunfight.

Speaker 1 (01:30:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:30:49):
What's going to happen to you in a gunfight when
you watch all the videos that Iwatch and I watch videos every
single day- me too how manypolice officers stand still
during gunfights or break coverduring gunfights?
or backpedal or back, but thething is, what they do is
they're doing, and this isn't tocondemn them.
There's a great quote from thefirst Street Survival book,

(01:31:11):
which which was in a crisis, youinstinctively revert to the way
you train.
Now think about how we train arange.
You get in a position, youstand there, take your jacket
off first, stretch a little bit,stand in one spot, wait for
your target to face, you fire,you bump up right.
You do very little trainingshooting behind objects or
running from one object toanother, or working with two or

(01:31:34):
three other police officers in agunfight.
We don't do anything like that.

Speaker 1 (01:31:37):
Yeah, I will say I want to give our guys credit.
I think this year, or maybe itwas last year towards the end,
they got that implemented.

Speaker 2 (01:31:46):
That's great.

Speaker 1 (01:31:47):
Yeah, they finally got Shooting movement, shooting
movement and using cover andconcealment.
So that's the part of thetraining.
And the other thing when I dowant to give when I work Credit
Is the stuff is available.
It's available.
It's just not mandatory.
Yeah, so it's always there.

(01:32:09):
We always have very cooltraining Available for you to do
.
It's just a matter so it'salways there.
We always have very cooltraining available for you to do
.
It's just a matter of one.
Your supervisor's got to let yougo to go do it.
And if you're in patrol and youguys are short sergeant's
probably not going to let you go.
That's part of the.
That's the battle.
You can have all this greattraining but if you can't get to
it, well, what the hell I'm mecan't get to it?

(01:32:32):
Well, what the hell I'm me?
I tell my guys look, the callsare going to be there regardless
.
They're going to.
It doesn't matter.
So unless I have a mandatoryminimum that I need to have in
the field which I, where I'mcurrently at, I don't, I'm gonna
let you go.
You, you got training, you wantto go?
Do you're only helping thedepartment in the long run.
We can't be so short-sighted toworry about the cause of this
weekend, we will handle it.

(01:32:55):
If we're putting ourselves inan unsafe position, we just
won't go into that position,just won't be there, uh and and
the department's going to haveto adjust accordingly.
But if I let four of myteammates go to training, like,
that's an investment and that'sthat's the way that I think it
should be as a supervisor.
So when you talk about theshooting and movement and stuff

(01:33:16):
like that, there's a lot of cooltraining that's out there.
Is your department even awarethat it exists?

Speaker 2 (01:33:23):
Yeah, Well, again it comes down to leadership.

Speaker 1 (01:33:26):
Yeah, yeah, but like you said, I'm invested in this
career.
No-transcript videos we see ofcops.

(01:33:57):
You can't film me, you can'tfilm here, you can't take
pictures.
How are we?
It's 2025, how the fuck is thatstill a problem?

Speaker 2 (01:34:05):
yeah, no, how is that ?

Speaker 1 (01:34:06):
still an issue.
And you, you get these cops.
They just put their foot intheir mouths.
They get their city sued,rightfully so.
And then now we got to have thedebate of all right, it's 2025.
Did that cop deserve to befired for that?
I mean, you are technicallyoppressing somebody's
constitutional rights.
So I don't have a lot ofsympathy, and I don't talking

(01:34:32):
about the money.
When you pay your cops and youpay them well, I think you have
more of an argument of cops aregoing to hold bad cops
accountable because they don'twant you ruining the good thing
that they have going for them.
They don't want you to bring ablack eye to that department.
They don't want you to ruin.
You know well, we just paid youall this money and we got you
all this training, yet you'restill doing this.
No other cops are going to bemore likely to hold them

(01:34:53):
accountable.
And you look back throughouthistory of the corrupt
departments that have.
You know New Orleans was one ofthe.
You know had one of the hugestcorruption cases that's ever
been published.
And when you talk about that,look at what they were going
through.
They weren't getting paid shit,they weren't.
They didn't have the the peoplethey didn't, they didn't get
anything and, lo and behold, itends up turning into what it

(01:35:16):
turned.
They're more susceptible tothat.
But you look at the departmentsthat get paid well, they get
trained well, they like whereI'm at, I, I shit.
We fire and charge cops.
Every year that I've been there, well, every year that I've
been there, wow, every year thatI've been there for the last 14
years, at least one cop haseither been charged, fired or
arrested.

(01:35:36):
Yeah, and I'm not saying thatas that's not a bragging point,
but that goes to my point thatwhen you do it right, good cops
are going to hold the bad onesaccountable immediately, like it
should be done.

Speaker 2 (01:35:50):
Yeah.
Then you have to ask yourselfare they bad cops or are they
poorly trained?

Speaker 1 (01:35:54):
yes, and, and I I don't mean it as that they're
bad but yeah now the ones thathave been charged yeah, some of
them they outright justcommitted crimes and yeah, bye,
um.
But other ones, yeah, I.
I think some of it may comedown to training.

Speaker 2 (01:36:10):
Yes, I'll tell you this as an owner of a private
company, which I never wanted todo.
I mean, believe me, I neverwanted to do this.
I remember getting in the 80ssomething called survival
selections from Caliber Pressand they had a lot of product

(01:36:31):
back then.
It was all male stuff and inthe back it had like the 24
times a year they were teachingthe street survival program.
Never my wildest dreams that Ithink I would own their company,
you know, and I never eventhought about owning a company.
It was you know my wife, whostarted working with caliber
full-time out of our house whenI was an instructor, and then

(01:36:51):
she wound up hiring my sisterand when I was right, when I get
ready to retire, through afluke we had a chance to buy
Caliber and they talked me intoit and we expanded from one
course to 25 courses.
The reason I'm telling you thatis all we.
The reason I'm telling you thatis all we.

(01:37:12):
Geez, we have 15 full-timeemployees.
I have 18 instructors,something like that Of the 15
full-time employees.
I'm related to 11 of them.
Oh shit, oh, it's terrible.
Oh yeah, my sister-in-law, mysister, um, I have a bunch of

(01:37:34):
nieces.
My daughter, my wife, um, my,my nephew's wife, it's just,
it's just nuts.
My brother's sister oh my godhelp me.
I love it, but the thing thepoint I'm trying to make is all

(01:37:54):
we do is talk about this and wehave to think ahead right right,
we have to look ahead.
We have, we have to peek aroundthe corner and what's coming,
and we've been very good atpredicting what's going to
happen, right.
So we develop courses.
I have 18 instructors.

(01:38:15):
These guys I mean of the 18, Imean like five of them are
chiefs.
Everybody's got like minimum 20years experience.
Almost all went to college.
More than half have master'sdegrees.
I mean one of them worked onlike 800 homicides.
You should get Steve on.
Steve Johnson.
He's the chief of police downat Fairview Heights.

(01:38:37):
They actually did a TV movieabout this guy.

Speaker 1 (01:38:40):
Really.

Speaker 2 (01:38:41):
Yeah, yeah, one of his cases.
But and we start putting thingstogether like recruitment and
retention.
We put that together rightafter George Floyd.
We dusted off implicit bias andde-escalation again.
We have four courses forfemales.
This is the mindset that shouldbe also in law enforcement.
We should see this stuff comeout.

(01:39:03):
We have a First Amendment class.
We have two Fourth Amendmentclasses.
You know, to deal with FirstAmendment auditors.

Speaker 1 (01:39:12):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:39:13):
Right.
And then we get calls go hey,do you guys get anything in
First Amendment?
Yeah, we had.
For two years.
We saw this coming.
How come you guys didn't see itcoming?
Now we don't say that, we say,of course we do.
Yeah, and we even know we'veadapted.
I'm in a room, it's called thegreen room and we have a green
screen over here to my, my left,you're right, depending on how
you mirrored this thing.
But um, we, we, uh, record ourclasses, so we rent them out.

(01:39:38):
You know so.
You know so police officers arewatching.
Anyway, I'll tell you one morething, and again, this isn't a
cell caliber press, but we'vebeen around 45 years.
We've owned them for 13, 14,now 13.
And the number one request weget is can I have that video?

Speaker 1 (01:39:59):
Yeah, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:40:01):
And the other owners that I work for.
I worked for three other owners.
Before we bought it, I said no,no, no, no, don't give them out
.
Well, we decided no hell, we'llgive it out.
So we have now something calledthe vault.

Speaker 1 (01:40:12):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:40:14):
And the vault for an agency.
My size 75, and yours is wellover About 2,000.

Speaker 1 (01:40:20):
How many About 2,000.
?

Speaker 2 (01:40:22):
About 2,000, right For your entire agency to have.
I mean your whole agency,whoever you gave, whoever you
want to have, I mean your wholeagency, whoever you gave,
whoever you want to have it.
You gave 2 000 emails to us.
All right and again, I'm nottrying to sell it, I'm just
giving an example of how you,how you can train.
We have 300 videos in there thatare edited for roll call, ftos,

(01:40:45):
stuff like that yeah it wouldcost your agency three thousand
dollars a year, not per personyeah that's it for my agency 75
officers, it's like sevenhundred dollars a year yeah so
you, as a sergeant, every daycould go into our catalog and go
, and, and if something happenstoday, it's going to be in our

(01:41:08):
vault next week yeah so I sit, Ilook at like an hour and a half
video, I edit it down.
Our shortest one is probably 30seconds, Our longest is like 18
minutes, but most of them arethree to seven minutes with
captioning in there for trainingand all that.
That is a way that's forwardthinking.
Now we forward think because ofwhat we do.

(01:41:30):
That's forward thinking.
Now we forward think because ofwhat we do.
But you, as a Sergeant, if yousit with your guys every day for
roll call, you can go to thecatalog, kick it up and go.
Let's talk about this.
We got a lot of first amendmentstuff.
So if a guy gets in your face,fuck you.
I can, I can, I can do this.
What's the difference between,you know, first amendment rights
and obstruction?

Speaker 1 (01:41:48):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:41:49):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:41:50):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:41:52):
What would you do in this case Like when we just put
out was an officer in a gasstation, where a guy actually
pulled a gun out of his holsterand shot himself in the head
right there.

Speaker 1 (01:42:00):
Yeah, that was crazy, right yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:42:02):
That's already.
That's already in our vault.

Speaker 1 (01:42:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:42:05):
You know, but those are the things that good leaders
and good trainers, becausevideo is an opportunity to
expose young officers to amyriad of possibilities.

Speaker 1 (01:42:19):
Right, it's the what if game, but now you get to see
it.

Speaker 2 (01:42:21):
Right, you get to see it because we don't have the
time for physical training inthat.

Speaker 1 (01:42:26):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:42:26):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:42:27):
We get the mental rest we waste time where we
could be training these guys yep, you know yeah, because how
many roll calls you sit through,you know it's a 20 minute roll
call, yeah, and the first 15minutes is grab ass and bullshit
and yeah, you can learn out ofhere yeah, not with mine now.
There are days where we justdon't have anything that we're
going to do that day for rollcall.

(01:42:48):
But, like, like you said, we wehit the hot things that are.
They're coming across.
My guys have the benefit that Ido this podcast stuff.
So I am every day going throughtrying to find videos that I
can make content on, that I caneducate or give some sort of
perspective.
So, but that's just one part,that's just me and I'm not doing

(01:43:08):
it to pat myself on the back.
But that's why I started doingwhat I did, because I never got
this going through.
I had to learn all this shitthe hard way.
I don't want my guys to have todo that and I think that's my
responsibility as a supervisor.
So doing that and just like yousaid, I just quick question on
that video where the dude shootshimself.

Speaker 2 (01:43:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:43:30):
How did he get?
Did you?
Did you find out?
Because that was our question.
How did he get the gun so quick?
We were trying to.
There's a one of my one of myinstructors knows that agency
and they're trying to find outwhat level holster they have.
That's, it didn't seem like ithad any level other than maybe

(01:43:52):
one.
Yeah, because if, if thatinvolved the, the, you know the
button to press, and in a hood,the hood had to have already
been down and a person had toknow to hit that, I mean it was
so fast, yeah, so fast it is.

Speaker 2 (01:44:07):
It is amazing, yeah, and I put in there.
Look how fast somebody can movehere yeah and then what?
What if he pulled it and shot?

Speaker 1 (01:44:14):
another shot, the cop yeah how about another cop?

Speaker 2 (01:44:17):
yeah how would you feel if somebody pulled your gun
out of your holster and shotyour partner?

Speaker 1 (01:44:21):
right it.
I mean, he's already going tohave, yeah, some sort of
post-traumatic stress, I'm goingto imagine, even though you
know it is on that person fordoing those actions.
But it's the again, it's the.
What could I have donedifferent?
What could I?
I mean the debrief.
We debrief every call that wehave.

(01:44:42):
That's you know.
That has some sort of weight toit, which is another important
tool that a lot of sergeantsdon't utilize.
We just had a pretty majordomestic where somebody got
arrested.
Afterwards I would be pullingthe team.
Hey, before we all take offfrom this call, rank doesn't
apply here Would we do good?

(01:45:03):
What could we have done better?

Speaker 2 (01:45:05):
Yeah.
It's rare though, You're at thetop 5% of every serge surge in
this country.
If you're doing that Right.

Speaker 1 (01:45:15):
But that's my point is.
It's something so simple andeasy.
What is your hurry?
The calls are going to be there, they're not going away,
especially the smaller agencies.
You know, the amount of calls Ihave holding is the amount of
calls they have in two months ayear.
Right, like the smalleragencies, those are the ones
that are the most susceptible,the ones that get in the trouble
the most, the ones that go themost viral because they don't

(01:45:38):
have the training, they don'thave the money to do this yet.

Speaker 2 (01:45:41):
But you know how chicago doesn't train?
They, they train like shit ohreally, oh yeah you think, you
know, you guys are big, you guysare considered a big agency.

Speaker 1 (01:45:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:45:52):
But you guys are guaranteed to top 10%.
I mean I go to these otheragencies, yeah, I mean I'm not
going to name them all, but someof these big agencies do the
absolute bare minimum oftraining.

Speaker 1 (01:46:07):
That's crazy, yeah, crazy.
Again.
You want to improve yourdepartment.
That's between backing your,but don't give in to political
pressure.
I get it.
If you're trying to back youknow a shithead, don't, don't do
that.
But you know, like you see NYPDin their, their union, like I

(01:46:29):
their union.
We have a POA, we have anassociation, but we don't have a
union.
People think that that canprotect us.
They really have no power otherthan some negotiation on
contracts.
But then you get places likeNYPD, where their union holds

(01:46:50):
crazy political power and we getlumped into that.
So they automatically assumewhen you're your, your chief's
trying to back somebody, thatthe union's protecting that
person and that's not the case.
But then we've got places andI'm not trying to throw shade at
nypd that it's the system theyhave.
But I look at that and I'm likewhy do we put so much effort

(01:47:14):
into this, into our union, likethat?
How much training does NYPD get?
That's the largest policeagency, right?

Speaker 2 (01:47:23):
36,000.

Speaker 1 (01:47:24):
Yeah, so that's the largest police agency.
I would assume their trainingis on par, if not better,
because they have how do youtrain 36,000 police officers?
I don't know.
It's nothing I can even fathombecause I'm not a part of it.

Speaker 2 (01:47:43):
No, I think Chicago's got the second biggest and
they're supposed to be about13,000.
But last I looked they were1800 behind.
In fact they were taking inretirements and resignations so
quickly.
The system was overloadedbecause it wasn't set up to do
that.

Speaker 1 (01:48:00):
Really.
Yeah, I mean it doesn'tsurprise me.
Yeah, I wouldn't want to workthere.
But you know, you see LAPD,Chicago and that Everybody's.
I mean where I'm at.
We're about the same size asBaltimore as far as land
coverage.
They have 3,500 cops and we'rethe same size like population

(01:48:24):
and everything we're behind.
You know we're supposed to beat two and we're probably 300,
if not more, behind on that.
And I consider where I'm at.
I love my agency.
People are like it's rare inpolice work to brag about your
agency.
I brag about mine.

(01:48:45):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:48:46):
There's a lot of things, a good part of mine is
the next biggest agency next toyou.

Speaker 1 (01:48:52):
Oh yeah.
Yeah, yeah, and we're always incompetition with them.
Yeah, right, right.
So I'll throw shade at them anychance I get.
Now, you don't want to go there, you don't want to go there,
but yeah.
So now I want to get intoCaliber Press.
I want to kind of change modesa little bit, because we're
talking about training.
Now, kind of give the historyof Caliber Press, if you could,

(01:49:18):
and then tell us what'shappening today with it.
So, officers and citizensbecause citizens should be
fighting for stuff like thisthis is what you should be
pushing your departments to do,is is find places like what you
have.
So I want to.
I want to kind of know thehistory, how you guys got to
where you're at and what youguys are putting out today.

Speaker 2 (01:49:39):
Well, the history.
It's interesting because thehistory is from a book.
A guy named Chuck Remsburg,who's still around, wrote a book
with a guy named Denny Andersonback in the late, late 70s and
I think it was published in 1980.
And they used to work for thenat, it would be, chuck worked
for the national inquirer at onepoint, uh, but then also

(01:50:00):
motorola films, and so beforeand I saw these when I was in
the academy, because beforethere were body cameras and
where there were, you know,cameras everywhere, what would
happen is motorola films used toum, uh, reenact with actors,
certain police interactions, butit was all acting, you know.

(01:50:24):
Anyways, chuck would interviewthese guys and he realized there
was a book there.
So he interviewed hundreds uponhundreds of police officers,
never being a cop himself, andhe put together a book called
street survival, and the streetsurvival book was considered to
be like the Bible of lawenforcement and it's still.

(01:50:48):
A lot of it is relevant todayNow.
So what happened is he decidedto start doing seminars based
off the tactics in the book, buthe wasn't a cop, so he started
hiring cops to teach it and sothat you know, it was really

(01:51:11):
famous, the streets revivalseminar was really, really
famous.
I got involved in 2001.
I was teaching a course forNorthwestern university and
somebody from streets revivalGalbraith saw me and said would
you be interested in teachingstreet survival?
They had just sold and someother things were going on.

(01:51:33):
I said hell, yeah, that's likemy goal.
It was a two-day course,sometimes three-day course, so I
started with them and I stoppedteaching everywhere else
because they were paying better.
And then they met my wife, whowent on a seminar with me.
She's brilliant.
She's a brilliant woman, andthey liked her so much they
asked her if she'd come onpart-time and within six months

(01:51:54):
she was the full-time operationsmanager, working out of our
house.
So she wound up hiring mysister to help her, and so the
main office was in texas, ownedby at this point now police one
in in San Francisco, and then mywife and my sister, working up

(01:52:15):
here in Chicago, uh, hired someother instructors.
I became their lead instructorand then, right when I retired
in 2009-10, we had a chance tobuy it.
But my wife my wife had an idea,and the idea was expanded
beyond this.
We only had three instructors.
We expanded it from one classto about 25 different classes

(01:52:38):
that we have now, and in 2018, Isaid I hired a guy named Dan
Marco who is like a tacticalgenius who's written a bunch of
books on the history of lawenforcement.
He's been on the ID channel andstuff like that so he and I
rewrote the street survival bookin 2018 and call it street

(01:53:02):
survival too, and we kept thewhole bunch from the, from the,
from the original book, but weupdated the hell out of it.
But we updated the hell out ofit and we've just been.
We've been going from there.
We had record a record breakingyear in 2019.
And we were all fat and happyand talking about hiring new

(01:53:22):
instructors and then somethingcalled COVID hit Yep, and we
went from about to hire newpeople to laying people off.
You know, we actually literallygot.
We were the first ones to getthe PPP loan in our area.

Speaker 1 (01:53:36):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:53:37):
But then two months later and my my daughter works
for us we were.
We were going to go do onlineanyway.
We're going to start rentingprograms.
We had all these ideas, and sowe started moving in that
direction.
And then George Floyd hit.
And when George Floyd hit, westarted getting a crap load of

(01:53:58):
calls for de-escalation,implicit bias, leadership and
all that stuff stuff we alreadyhad and so we started doing
everything online for a while.
I'll tell you somethinginteresting, though we stand in
front of roughly 25,000 to30,000 people a year, and when

(01:54:18):
COVID hit and everybody's onZoom and all that stuff, we used
WebEx.
And I'm sitting around witheverybody who works for Caliber,
outside of the instructors Noneof them were cops.
I'm sitting around witheverybody who works for Caliber
outside of the instructors Noneof them were cops.
I'm the only cop.
And the whole world was saying,oh, everything's going to
change.

(01:54:38):
You know, everybody's going tobe remote working, right,
nobody's going to go toin-person classes anymore, it's
all going to be Zoom, and all ofthat is one up not being true
yeah look at, look at thefederal government saying
everybody's got to come back towork.
Right, private companies aresaying you guys got to come back

(01:54:59):
to work.
Um, a lot of my people do workremotely, but it works better
for them.
But, but, but what happened is,by the end of 2020, probably
the beginning of 2023, we wereback up to our in-person numbers

(01:55:25):
because cops want to gettogether with other cops.

Speaker 1 (01:55:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:55:31):
The networking that happens on the breaks I often
say are more important thanwhat's going on in the room.
Yep, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:55:38):
I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:55:39):
So we still do.
We still do online live, but Imean, I've done online live with
200 people on it, but now youknow, I did one last week only
had 12 people yeah, people in it.
But now you know, I did onelast week only had 12 people in
it, yeah, um.
So it is interesting that we'reworking our way around this.
We, we do.
We fly guys in here to do theirprogram in front of this green
screen here, and my daughterdoes all the graphics because
she has a degree in this stuff,and then we now so we rent

(01:56:01):
programs.
Uh, we do live online, live inperson, and now we've had this
vault for a little over a year.
We've got about 180 agencies init, but we haven't even
launched it officially yet.
We're launching it officiallyMarch 1st.
It's up and running.

Speaker 1 (01:56:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:56:19):
We just we wanted to get the kinks out of it, not
move too fast.

Speaker 1 (01:56:22):
Going public.

Speaker 2 (01:56:23):
Yeah.
So, we had to build a websiteall the way beyond my pea brain,
yep.
I mean, you sent me the linkfor this and I got nervous.

Speaker 1 (01:56:35):
You figured it out, figured it out.

Speaker 2 (01:56:39):
So that's going to be subscription-based, and that's
where we are.

Speaker 1 (01:56:48):
Can you divulge the prices or anything like that?
Do you want people to know thatyet?
Are you waiting?

Speaker 2 (01:56:52):
Yeah, you know, actually off the top of my head
I don't know.
But like I said to you, likefor the vault, an agency your
size, I think it's over it's athousand.
Then you then Linda, who isalso my sister-in-law, who runs,
she's the VP of sales and alsopart owner.
She just negotiates it with you.
But if you're under a thousandwe have a set price.

Speaker 1 (01:57:12):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:57:15):
And I think that.
So if it's under a thousand, ifyou're under a thousand, is it
under a thousand?
I honestly got, I can'tremember.
Okay, listen, we argued aboutthe prices for two years.
So we let two agencies use itfor three months and one agency
had 45 police officers and hecame in and they said how much
they liked it, gave us a coupleof little suggestions after
using for three months and Ilooked at him and I said how

(01:57:37):
much do you think we shouldcharge a year for this for
somebody your side's agency?
He says I don't know 10 000 andfor his agency it's like 500.
Wow, so we argued about thisin-house.
In fact, my sons who are inbusiness said we should charge
$5,000 to $10,000 an agency.
But part of me is still no, Iwant to get this information out

(01:57:57):
and there's no blueprint forwhat we're about to do, what
we're not about to do, what weare doing.
But most people who have takenit are already signing up for
the second year.

Speaker 1 (01:58:14):
Okay we are doing, but you know we most people have
taken it already, signing upfor the second year.
So okay, uh, because I mean,when you think about it, the
having a set price for thingsunder a thousand, um, most
police agencies, what less than20 cops or something like that,
the average size uh, agency,maybe it's even less oh no, I
could.

Speaker 2 (01:58:23):
I could tell you there's,000 local agencies.
48% of them have less than 10cops.

Speaker 1 (01:58:30):
Yeah, I remember something like that.
It's wild, it's a small amount.

Speaker 2 (01:58:36):
It's really wild.

Speaker 1 (01:58:37):
Yeah, and I think whenever we get into people like
, why do cops waste time on suchsmall potato things?
Why are they?
Why are they worried about yourcar being parked up on the curb
, why are they worried about youdoing five miles an hour over,
and I say, well, if you thinkabout it, you got all these
agencies out there that are lessthan 10 cops.

(01:58:59):
They signed up because theywanted to go out there, catch
robberies, murders and you knowall these cool things.
And then they get this trainingand they get out there and it's
crickets and they're likethere's, there's nothing.
And now they're just grasping tostraws of all the things that
they can do to get as muchexperience as they can.

Speaker 2 (01:59:21):
And you know, Caliber started instilled to this day
our broader audience or smallagencies, because if you're an
agency of 10, 20, 30 people, youdon't have the luxury of having
full-time trainers who aredoing nothing but research.
That's all we do, I mean, everyday I research.
Hey, I got the prices here.

(01:59:42):
One to 10 officers, and I'mliterally about to walk out and
start yelling at people here.
I'm not making that up, I justlooked at it.
One to ten officers 295 a year,not per officer for the agency
for the agency 11 to 50, it's495.
See, this is not the structure Iwanted, by the way.
11 to 50, it's 495.

(02:00:04):
51 to 100 695 okay over 100,you call for pricing gotcha.

Speaker 1 (02:00:10):
Okay, yeah, I mean that makes sense.
That makes sense to me, um, and, and the thing is, people that
are listening like one of theideas that I I was going to do
for this show is, um, one of thejust like you said, you see
these trends, you start to tryto to get ahead of the curve and
stuff.
And one of the just like yousaid, you see these trends, you
start to try to to get ahead ofthe curve and stuff.
And one of the biggest thingsthat I've been noticing is ego.

(02:00:32):
Like I, I see ego as a majorissue in policing.
Right now.
There's no ego classes outthere.
Well, at least I didn't thinkthere was one of my buddies that
I work with actually created anego course because of the
trends I was showing on thepodcast.
He was like this is a problem,so he created it and he actually
got it out to one of our uh,academy classes already.

(02:00:54):
Um, so he sent it to me.
He's like here, take a look,tell me what you think I was
like, dude, we could film thatin like a little short series
and just put it on our YouTubechannel and be like hey, this
officer.
Like, we think this is a clearcut case of this is an ego
problem.
Well, we're not just going tobitch about the problem.
Here's a solution.
Go to our website, check thisout and you can can do this, but

(02:01:16):
if you want real training, yougo to somebody like caliber
pressing and get that stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:01:22):
Yeah, and we do that.
So that's why I think how wefound you.
I can't remember who found yourthing, but we're on.
We do this kind of the samething you do.

Speaker 1 (02:01:32):
We're on, we're on.

Speaker 2 (02:01:33):
Instagram, youtube and LinkedIn and blah blah
wherever, and somebody gave itto me.
I said, oh yeah, let's repostit.
It's fantastic.
Let's repost it because we dostuff just like that and we
we're not, you know, we're aprivate company, but I mean, um,
I've had two of my my owninstructors left and started
doing their own companies and werecommend them and they

(02:01:55):
recommend us because we don'tbleed over too terribly much.
But our main job is to getinformation out, including the
public, so the publicunderstands the reality versus
the fantasy.
They see, when you know, liamneeson, at 72 years old, is
beating up 15 guys at it, youknow right, don't get me wrong
if that's a washington, I lovethe death.

(02:02:16):
I watch all the equalizer moviesover and over.
They're fantastic.
You know he's beating up 10guys with machine guns, you know
yeah, john wick, all that stuffyeah I mean, I'm a guy I love,
love, that shit yeah exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:02:29):
It's mindless entertainment, that's what I
like I don't have to think aboutit.
I can look at it and go, okay,that's tactically sound.
What John Wick's doing, that'sa real thing.
The way he's reloading, the wayhe's checking, press checking,
all this stuff, that's legittraining.
I see the real training in it.
But you're not going into ahouse of 100 people and coming
out the only man standing that'sjust not realistic.

Speaker 2 (02:02:51):
Have you ever gone on YouTube and seen him actually
train?

Speaker 1 (02:02:54):
Yeah, three-gun train and jujitsu and all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:02:56):
Yeah, you know one of the guys, because the guys out
in California who train theactors are either cops or
military, or both.
Yeah, cops or military or both.

Speaker 1 (02:03:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:03:05):
And the one guy who has been training him for years
said he's not he.
He's, without a doubt, the bestactor with a gun shooting and
reloading he goes.
He's not just the best actor,he is one of the best in the
United States.
Yeah, he can beat, you know, exNavy seals.
That's how good he is and howhard he trains.

Speaker 1 (02:03:26):
Yeah.
And I'm talking about his gunmanipulation yeah it's
absolutely amazing when youwatch him watch yeah, and that's
the fun part for guys like usthat have just a taste of that
training.
You know, I've gone, you knowmilitary training and stuff like
that.
I am not a special forcesperson, I'm not a SWAT guy, I'm
not tactical, but I have donesome of the training and I can

(02:03:47):
recognize it when I see it andI'm like dude, he's like legit.
And then, like you said, youstart seeing these videos where
he's out, he's going from pistolto shotgun.
I'm like dang, I can't do thatstuff.

Speaker 2 (02:03:59):
Have you seen the third one, where he goes into
the store and he's acting likehe's ordering dinner, like for
an appetizer.
He's got a little gun.
He goes for a main course.
Yes, yes, every time he picksone up he does a, you know, a
weapons check.

Speaker 1 (02:04:14):
You know, it's just, he's really yeah, all the little
details are right there, I loveit yeah yeah, it's pretty cool.
I do like that.
Um, sir, is there anything thatwe didn't touch that you wanted
to hit on?
Because we covered CaliberPress, where you guys came from,
what you guys got going on, now, what the future's kind of

(02:04:37):
looking like, we definitely hit.
I'm glad that we hit so much ontraining and supervision, kind
of being the, I think, the rootcause of all the good things
that happen to a department, butalso a lot of the bad things,
and that's all I had in mind.
But I wanted to make sure wecovered everything that you had.

Speaker 2 (02:05:00):
No, I think we basically did everything.
But I will finish with this.
When we teach our leadershipclasses, we have several
leadership classes.
The one thing that I always sayis this everything comes down
to your culture.
Yeah, everything comes down toyour culture.
Peter Drucker, who was a famousmanagement guru, died like at

(02:05:21):
95 years old about 10 years ago.
He said culture eats strategyfor breakfast.
And if you're a leader, leaderyou need to create a culture.
You cannot be a victim of aculture.
You have to create the culture.
And really the best way to dois to say it out loud our
culture here sucks.
We're going to change it andthen change it.
But I I you know teaching allover the united states.

(02:05:44):
I talked to sergeants to go, youknow, I believe everything
you're saying, but I'll get alittle kind of he won't do
anything and I'm stuck and I gono, they.
Then you know you're giving up,you're a coward, you know, and
I say it nice way.
But I said no, don't be cowardhere.
You go after him because yourjob is to protect those people.
Teach those people that, in thehierarchy of the of the
organization you're responsiblefor, they're not responsible to

(02:06:04):
you, you're responsible,responsible for those people?
They don't, and my dad said tome they don't work for you.
You work for them, you're incharge, you have the
responsibility, but you work forthem and that's the, that's the
mentality you you have to havethat everything you do.
Every policy that comes out,how is it impacting the mission

(02:06:26):
of the organization and thepeople who are there to
accomplish that mission?

Speaker 1 (02:06:30):
I agree.
My leadership, the way that Ihave kind of developed it and to
put it into a small, simpleexplanation, is my job, is to
make my expectations clear rightfrom the beginning.
Every new cop that comes in,here's my expectations.
Now you tell me the tools youneed to make those happen and my

(02:06:50):
job is to get them the toolsthey need to be successful.
If their job, if they can meetthose expectations, the other
job that I have is I need toknow what their goals are so I
can help them get there.
And that came from military.
I hate to say this.
I didn't get that from policing.
Policing is so far behind onleadership training compared to
the military.
It's embarrassing.

(02:07:11):
It's embarrassing to say thatwe're paramilitary, which drives
some people crazy.
But yeah, policing isparamilitary, whether you want
to admit it or not.
And leadership courses you wantto learn who's got leadership
down it yeah the military themilitary does yeah and?
and why is that?
Because during war we realizedwhen a leader falls, the next

(02:07:32):
person has to be already capableand trained up to handle your
position.
If you fall and I don't want tobe cryptic about it, but it
should be the same in policework my job is to get you to the
next level.
Yeah, so when I talk to people,I'm like listen, and I and I
literally will sit everyindividual officer that comes in
down and be like hey, um, justum, sergeant Levine, this is

(02:07:56):
kind of my background.
Uh, I'm going to let you knowwhat I expect here.
It is.
This is what I want, whichisn't a whole lot for me.
I just want you to be proactiveand remember why you're serving
, and this is what we're lookingfor Guns, you know the three
basic food groups guns, dope andmoney.
That's really what we're lookingfor to try to lower the violent

(02:08:16):
crime in our area.
I said I just need to know thatyou've got everything.
You need to get that done.
If you don't, let me know.
I will get it for you if it'swithin my power.
And then.
But I need to know what yourexpectations are.
What do you need?
And then that goes into that360 stuff like you were talking
about Right.

Speaker 2 (02:08:32):
Right, there was a study I read years ago and I
lost it.
I've tried to find it.
I can't find it.
But a guy did a study on thefour different stressors in law
enforcement and the number onestressor by far was the
interpersonal relationshipswithin the organization.
Was the interpersonalrelationships within the
organization?
It was worse than what you see.
It was worse than the hours, itwas what's going on in there
and you know, basically blamedit on leader.

(02:08:54):
I had a veteran officer tell mewhen I first started remember
this always they can't shove itup your ass if you're sitting on
it.
And that was the philosophy.

Speaker 1 (02:09:04):
Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 (02:09:07):
You only get in trouble if you do.
You don't get in trouble forfor not yeah, yeah, then it.

Speaker 1 (02:09:12):
Yeah, I have tried to cultivate because the way that
and you tell me if you're thesame way.
But I've always followed chainof command.
I've always followed goodleadership throughout.
Yes, my department, I couldgive a shit less what the job is
.
First, I want to see who thechain of command is, who's that
commander, that lieutenant andthat sergeant If it was a good

(02:09:34):
lineup of cops cops I was goingthere and then the schedule and
then what the job is.
That would be second.
But I'm trying to teach my guys.
I'm like you guys are chasinggood schedules, you guys are
chasing where the good parttimes are.
I'm telling you you're notgoing to be happy if your chain
of command is not in line withthe way that you police yeah, no

(02:09:56):
100.

Speaker 2 (02:09:57):
I had six different chiefs.
Uh, I would say one was pretty,one was really good, two or two
or three were good and two suckbeyond belief.
Um and man, those two guys.
Luckily they were there theshortest and together combined
they weren't there two years.
But those two guys, just they,they did so much damage in two
years.
I had find a mentor, you know,and my mentor told me he goes

(02:10:20):
when I first got.
He goes look at, don't, don'tlisten to what they say.
Pay attention to what they do,because some of the worst cops
are the biggest talkers.

Speaker 1 (02:10:29):
Yep, yeah, 100%.

Speaker 2 (02:10:32):
He was 100% right, he was 100% right.

Speaker 1 (02:10:34):
What's funny is doing this podcast stuff.
People hear me talk on herelike within my own agency,
especially the younger rookiesand stuff.
They check it out.
When they hear that somebody atthe department has a podcast, I
get it, yeah.
But then they come to the teamand they sit through a roll call
and they're like that is adifferent motherfucker, because

(02:10:55):
I don't talk the same.
I, you know, I gotta be.
I have to be on my p's and q'shere because I, you know, I
can't.
Even though I don't rep mydepartment, I rep my department.
So if I make them look bad inany way, like right, that's why
I try to tell people that's whatmakes what we're doing
different is we're coming outand we're talking, we're trying
to give police a voice in a way,but we still got to toe that
line because ultimately theycould fire you.

Speaker 2 (02:11:18):
The thing is bureaucracies, hate change, oh
God.

Speaker 1 (02:11:22):
So that's what you got.

Speaker 2 (02:11:24):
When you start getting into the command
structure, even chiefs, I mean,look at again, without getting
political, look at Trump rightnow.
Whether you like him, you don't, he's the president of the
United States and everythinghe's trying to change is being
somehow blocked.
Chiefs of police have told me,man, I always thought if I made
it, I made it to sergeant, I canmake changes, then lieutenant,

(02:11:44):
then captain, then commander,I'm the chief of police and I
can't make a change because Iwork for a bunch of you know
insurance salesmen and you knownurses and things who are on the
board and they don't understandthe reality of law enforcement.
You know bureaucracy is it's.
I mean, just your size agency,my size, just imagine the

(02:12:06):
federal government.

Speaker 1 (02:12:07):
Yeah, yeah, the red tape for us is, you know, a bad.
It's about a year, like ifyou're trying to do something
big, I'd say the red tape'sabout a year.
The federal agents, federalgovernments no, years, years,
and that's from my size NYPD.
I heard theirs is even worsebecause of the red tape.

Speaker 2 (02:12:28):
I've worked for the feds several times a lot, we
work with the feds a lot andI've had guys literally tell me
oh, we just have to ride outthree or four years.

Speaker 1 (02:12:39):
Oh, my God.
I know and that's to get smallthings.
Yeah, I'm in the military andI'll be like you know what the
unit could use this?
This would be good, and they'dbe like all right, well, we'll,
we'll put in for it andhopefully by next year we'll get
it.
Yeah, no, it's not, it's sad,but well, brother, I appreciate
you.
Before we go, how can everybodyfind you?

Speaker 2 (02:13:02):
It's wwwcaliberpresscom C-A-L-I-B-R-E
, presscom, For whatever reasonthey spelled it that way, I
don't know, but it'scaliberpresscom.
My name is Jim and my name isJim at caliberpresscom, if you
want to.
But you can check us out.
We have YouTube and all thatstuff and go take a look at that
stuff.
We put things up there all thetime.

Speaker 1 (02:13:24):
Absolutely.
I found him on LinkedIn as well, under Lieutenant Jim Glennon,
so you guys can find him thereas well.
Stick around real quick, jim,while I end this, and everybody
else.
Thanks for listening, take iteasy.

Speaker 2 (02:13:36):
Thank you.

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