Chris Baker Addresses "Occupying Force" Comments

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, now I gotta I'm gonna. I had to
just kind of sit back and let this lay, because
you know, I don't want to step in and try to,
you know, take over fights people picking fights with Gene
Stothart here, and so I just sat back and I
just I just waited. I don't want to burn any

(00:22):
bridges with our mayor's office or anything like that. But
finally now I can talk, and I want to talk
about what happened. So for those of you that may
not know, and the kickoff party for sheriff candidate Mark Martinez,
the mayor who now we know, or at least now

(00:45):
it's publicly known, who was quite instrumental in bringing Mark
Martinez into the body politic, into the world of politics,
called the Douglas County Sheriff's office basically an occupying army.
And that is that's a horrible thing for him to say.

(01:10):
And I'm just going to tell you right now, I
don't think that he came up with that. I believe
that the mayor received very bad advice from someone. I
have an idea who, but I don't know yet. Someone
gave him really bad advice to say that. And I

(01:30):
think just me, Chris Baker. I think that Guy owes
law enforcement an apology, and I don't think that anybody
should look upon him critically if he gives one. And
this is not a personal attack on the mayor. But
this is what I've seen, this is what I know
is going on, and I believe that that comment saying

(01:55):
that referring to the Sheriff's department as an occupying force,
that rings so loudly as a researched, focus group tested
political line. You see, because as I have talked about

(02:17):
on my radio show in the past and now, there's
a thing called neuro linguistic programming, and I want you,
if you haven't looked it up yet, I want you
to take a look at it. Neural Linguistic programming is
a form of hypnosis where it's all over the politics. Now,
it's everywhere. Just all right, I gotta stay focused. Neur

(02:41):
Linguistic programming is a hypnosis strategy that attacks people's subconscious
It paints pictures in your brain and you don't even
know it's happening. So by referring to the Sheriff's department
as an occupying force, well you may not realize it,

(03:05):
but what that just did was put a subliminal suggestion
into your subconscious that you now see those sheriff's deputies
as goose stepping storm troopers, and you see this all
over the body politic. But I want to talk about Omaha, Nebraska.

(03:25):
This is an amazing city. You have one of the
best police chiefs that I have ever covered as a
radio blowhard. You have hands down the best sheriff in
the country. And these two guys are not strangers. They've
worked together for decades at OPD. They know each other

(03:47):
very well. And I get it. Also, when you get
into a leadership position, sometimes egos come into play. But
right now we're getting into an election season and it's
good guys versus bad guys. The bad guys want to

(04:07):
take Omaha, Nebraska down the road of the failed soft
on crime policies, the proven failed soft on crime policies. Okay,
and Mayor Ewing being a former police officer, he knows
how this works. But it's my opinion that someone because

(04:31):
now he's gone from being a policeman and he's jumped
into the world of politics, which is basically showbiz for
untalented boobs. Now I'm not saying the mayor is an
untalented boob. Nope, I think somebody realizes that a nice
guy like that, a guy who comes off so nice

(04:52):
and so friendly, a guy with his background, is a
really good candidate. But this is what is not talked
about publicly. Oh, Chris Baker will talk about it loud
and clear. When a guy goes into the world of politics,
when a person starts running for office, there's a lot
of big people with a lot of big bank accounts

(05:13):
that start trying to steer them. Now, some of them
resist it, some of them is in candidates resistant. Some
of them who finance a lot of this stuff also
resist that temptation. So I'm not saying everybody's a bad guy,
but right now, in the body politics, here's what they

(05:33):
want to do to Omaha, Nebraska. You ready. First of all,
just so everybody knows, the chief law enforcement officer in
Douglas County is Don Kline, the county prosecutor. Right, that's
the chief law enforcement officer in Douglas County. It's not
the mayor, it's not the board of whatever, not the

(05:55):
county board. It's Don Klin, the county prosecutor. Number two
in the chain. Of command. For those of you that
understand chain of command. Number two in that chain of
command is the Douglas County Sheriff. The Douglas County sheriff
is an elected position. The Douglas County sheriff the sheriff
position around the country. That is a constitutional position, right,

(06:21):
It's mandated in the United States Constitution. That's why you
see all those whack job civil whatever. Guy, these guys that, oh,
I don't have to talk to you. You're not a
real law enforcement officer. Actually, I'm a policeman. I have
a badget, says policeman. No, no, no, no, I'll only
talk to the sheriff. You know those guys, what are
those guys? The sovereign citizen nutballs. So back to my

(06:46):
original point. By going out and calling law enforcement occupying forces,
that kind of language gets people killed. And I find
it a little surprising that the party who constantly tells
us words are violence don't recognize that. Now, again, I

(07:08):
don't think that the mayor even means that. I think
the mayor got bad advice, That's what I think. I
think the mayor got bad advice. But calling law enforcement
an occupying army, it's vibe. That's a vile statement. And
not only does it demonize the men and women who

(07:29):
put on that badge and face guns and knives every day,
but it also helps the Midwis of the world justify
acting violently toward police officers, resisting police officers. And then

(07:52):
when people resist the police, well, guess what this is
going to get? Rough work is not pretty. It's not
like people see on television. It's not oh, a bunch
of a bunch of people driving ferraris and wearing you know,
thousand dollars suits, walking around, throwing each other against the wall,
making out, you know, having affairs with everybody, and all

(08:15):
the other nonsense you see on TV police shows. That's
not it. And I'll be honest, it enrages me that
that type of comment would be put into the body
politic because this is a really great city. This is
an amazing city full of amazing people. And I'm not
from here. I chose to live here because of that.

(08:38):
And we don't need political hacks, and that's what I'm
calling campaign managers. We don't need a bunch of unaccomplished,
unaccomplished campaign hacks polluting the discourse between the man who
runs the city of Omaha and deserves respect and the

(09:00):
people that he serves. And to say that the Sheriff's
department is an occupying force is a dangerous smear. And
I believe the mayor owes them an apology, and I
think he's a big enough man to do it. I
think he got really bad advice because all you have

(09:23):
to do is look at any political coverage right now.
All it is is people trying to get the sound
bye to the day. It's just the sound bite of
the day. You're all gonna die. I was watching that
Chris Murphy, that senator trust fund baby from Washington, just
freaking out over the weekend. Iran the We're all gonna die.
People are gonna die even after it's over with. The

(09:45):
straits hor mules are full and closed and people are
just gonna starve to death and die. That guy was
just he's just trying to get the sound by to
the day. Does he believe that, well, I don't know.
He is an idiot, But that's the sound bite of
the day. That line from the mayor was a SoundBite

(10:07):
of the day line and those lines are tested before
focus groups and given out to party politicians on a
daily basis. So you know, the mayor when he ran,

(10:28):
he talked about his experience as a policeman and what
a great foundation that made for him to be the
mayor of Omaha, Nebraska. And you know what, I agree.
I agree. I think more retired officers ought to enter
the world of politics because they've seen the dirty and
they know how to prevent it. And maybe, you know,

(10:52):
the mayor and his switch from law enforcement to the
world of politics just got a little just Liz started
listening to the wrong people. And for him to demonize
these officers and call them an occupying force, it's just
not true. Okay. The sheriff is the his area to

(11:17):
patrol is Douglas County. It's always been Douglas County before
Aaron Hanson was the sheriff. I saw Douglas County deputies
driving all over Omaha. It's not nothing, and it's nothing new.
And those two agencies work very well together. I know,
I've witnessed it. But to say that, and then for

(11:43):
somebody in that office to say, you know, I don't
think you should go on the air with Jeens Stothard,
I mean, come on, man, I mean Butcher up, Sally,
this is it's a radio show. I mean, you know,
it's like my mom used to say, it's just a
radio show. That's it. It's a radio show and news

(12:05):
radio Elevnton k for you know, last not tell it.
Let me take a break. I gotta come back. I
got so much to say about this. I'm really bothered.
And I'm not holding it against the mayor in any
way whatsoever. I think he got bad advice. I think
somebody fed him that line and said, yeah, yeah, go
with that, go with that. Now I know why. And
we'll talk a little bit about Mark Martinez coming up

(12:26):
next Chris Baker's show. All right, So this was we're
talking about, uh, the mayor of Omaha using a line
calling the Douglas County Sheriff's Office basically an occupying force,
as if they don't belong here, as if they don't
belong here. And then they asked Mark Martinez, well, what

(12:47):
do you think Mark Martinez? Well, uh, I don't know.
I really don't know what he was saying, but uh,
he made some he made some comments along the lines
of uh, you know, uh, we used to we used
to know where we were supposed to be or some
kind of nonsense like that. Let me tell you about
that guy. I am being barraged with emails and messages

(13:08):
and phone calls telling me that Mark Martinez is nothing
more than a placeholder candidate. Now is that true? I
don't know, but I can see where people would say
that a guy that age, who's already had a successful
career and all of a sudden somebody drug him out

(13:30):
of the retirement and seventy at over seventy years old,
Hey why don't you run for sheriff? Oh yeah, I
got nothing better to do. Yeah, you do fishing, hanging
out with your family, you know, all those wonderful things
that we all work for to someday retire and enjoy
our life. But a huge number of people have been

(13:53):
telling it. This has been They've been telling me this
for months. Even before he was in the race, I
was hearing these rumors. So there's a there's a lot
of people who think he is a placeholder candidate, and
that the goal would be to get him in that position, somehow,

(14:14):
drag him across the finish line, and then later he
would retire and name somebody else to replace him. So
that would give you an unelected sheriff. Now is that true?
I don't know, but you know, if you look at
it and you listen to the people I'm talking to,

(14:38):
h yeah, nothing. Nothing surprises me in the world of
politics right now, Like don't don't we already have a
big beef going on that some guy running for Senate
as a Democrat is some Pete Rickett's puppet or whatever.
Don't we have that going on right now? He's not
a Democrat guy. He voted for Trump. Well, so I

(14:58):
thought all you people were telling that everybody hates him now,
But that's what I'm hearing, and you know, we'll just
see how all that works out. But I'm dead serious man.
For the mayor to say that and call these officers

(15:19):
an occupying force. Let me tell you something. When I
worked at that courthouse for about three years, I saw
it all. I saw it all. And let's just give
you an example. Every day I would see several officers

(15:40):
come in in uniform and they had to go to court,
they had to testify. You'd see them come in. They'd
have a folder. They would have that folder because they
were testifying about a case they made, and they of
course had to study that case so that they could
answer questions and know what happened and over a sometimes

(16:02):
a year ago. I also used to watch these officers
come in after working all night an overnight shift. They're
out all night. They get off their shift. Say, let's
say six in the morning, six seven. I don't know
what the time is, oh, I said, six seven. A
bunch of little teenagers just jumped and went crazy. But

(16:23):
you see them come in every day. They've been up
all night chasing bad guys, facing knives and guns. Then
they got to get prettied up in their uniform and
come down to the courthouse with a file of the
case they're testifying over, and spend half a day down
at the courthouse. Now some people will say, well, come on,
they're getting paid. Well, yeah, they should. I mean, it's

(16:46):
not like it's a bonus. They're getting paid to do
their job. But think about it. You're up all night
chasing bad guys. Then you got to go to court.
Then you sit around court for four hours and then
you don't even testify. Now you leave and you go
home and try to get enough sleep so that you

(17:10):
can be sharp to save your life and the lives
of others. In just a few hours because you go
back to work. Okay, I mean that's These are the
things that nobody ever sees because the men and women
that do this job, and I'm telling you, I watched
them all day. Every day I saw them, I talked

(17:32):
to them, great people devoted to protecting their community. And
then suddenly out of the body politics, why you're an
occupying force? Really?

Speaker 2 (17:45):
So?

Speaker 1 (17:45):
Is the Sheriff's department an occupying force when they're working
on say, I don't know, dodge when a bunch of
morons are doing one hundred and twenty one hundred and
thirty hundred and forty miles an hour down dodge racing?
Or are they an occupying force when when they stop that?
Are they occupying force? When they stop gun sales? Are

(18:06):
they in occupying force when they stop people from blocking
traffic and taking over intersections and doing donuts and driving
like a bunch of maniacs? Or is that an occupying
force or is that good solid policing. People have complained
about these idiots racing all over town for years and

(18:32):
finally the sheriff says, well, well I know we can do.
Boom puts together a special team the community action team,
and then they focus on these morons who were endangering
you by racing up and down the street and the
car Mommy and daddy bottom right. And then if I

(18:53):
could just say one more thing about the sheriff, right,
I've known the sheriff for a long time, full disclosure,
we've been friends for years. But you know what he
has always been. He's been a person who looks for
solutions without smearing or injuring people. If people knew the

(19:14):
number of times that guy, on his own time and
on his own dime, has worked with people who are
in trouble, right, people who've been in jail, and he's
worked on his own time, you know, not looking for
any cheerleading, not any applause, nothing, but because that's a

(19:34):
very involved guy. And when I listen to Mark Martinez
talk about a lack of experience, well, again, a respected
career of Mark Martinez. Absolutely, he's been out of it
for quite a while. But when you look at our sheriff,
our sheriff, a canine officer, a gang officer, a fugitive

(19:55):
task force officer, and now he's the sheriff, I can't
tell you what a better sheriff to have than a
guy who has always through his career been a guy
boots on the ground. He knows where the bad guys are.
He knows who the bad guys are, and he also
knows that in his heart, instead of put him in jail,

(20:17):
he'd like to get them to take a job. And
that is a fact, and I've seen it in action,
you know, when it comes to these racers, these nuts.
What did the sheriff do? And this is was genius.
So instead of the sheriff just saying, Okay, we're just

(20:39):
gonna we're gonna pull you over, we're gonna take your car,
we're gonna confiscate your phone, blah blah blah, what did
he do? He went an extra mile. He went over
to Iowa and talked to the guy who has all
the drag strip, has the drag strip and a race
track and a big place where everybody can do their
donuts and goof arounds. All right there, it's all eagle

(21:00):
and pretty much safe. I guess it is safe, you know.
And normally if you want to take your hot ride
out there, you got to pay. What does the sheriff do?
He went and he got a giant stack of free passes,
and then he said, if you would like to get
your hot rod and go do your donuts, and go

(21:23):
drag race and go do all this other kind of
stuff instead of doing it on our street, here's a
free pass to a place that is designed and built
just for that, and you can go there and you're
not going to be breaking any laws. You're not going
to go to jail, you're not going to lose your car.

(21:43):
And that's what he said. You want to come by
the office and pick him up, no questions asked. You know,
if that's not community policing, then I don't know what is.
This whole thing is just it's infuriating to me, and
the and the rave men and women that put that
badge on every day deserve more than to be used

(22:05):
as some political prop And I know, I believe, well,
I believe the mayor got bad advice. That's it. He
got bad advice. You know, maybe quit listening to these
political guys because they'll lie, cheat, steel, they'll they'll sell
their mother's soul to get a win. Not the mayor,

(22:30):
but whoever's driving that campaign. Now, I thought, hey, why
don't I get Mark Martinez on the show today. We
can see what he has to say. I'll let you
know how that's going next on the Chris Bakers Show.
Let's get some phone calls. Four two, five, five, eight,
eleven ten, Brian, I really appreciate you hanging on through
that very long break and welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
All right, Hey, no problem, Hey Chris. I would like
to say that I am I'm a big fan. You
and Peyton are doing a great job.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Very kind. Thank you. It's all paint.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
I will say though, that you went you got me
out of my I felt pretty triumphant when I went
to Walmart and got the last two packages of shredded potatoes.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
Oh good, good, good good yep.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
But then I got back in the pickup and I
heard this business about the county sheriff. And I'm going
to be honest, I am seeving. I personally think that
everybody ought to be lining up to be giving the
men and women that worked for the law enforcement, whether

(23:43):
it's State Patrol, the Omaha, the Omaha Police Department, the
Douglas County Sheriff, the Sarby County Sheriff, they would be
lining up to give them sandwiches, pizza, coffee, anything.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
What about shredded potatoes.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Well, I tell you what, I don't know, you're gonna
have to take that up.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Oh look at you? Look? Oh yeah, okay, I got you.
I got you. Yeah. The wife deserves her shredded potatoes.
I got you all day, all right.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
But well, I mean, like I said, you guys, like
I said, borderline seizing. And I also think that if
if the mayor, if his uh wow, what do you
call election campaign managers, if he's stupid enough to listen

(24:34):
to them, he had time to think about what he
was saying. Well, if he can, if he can, if
he can have that time to think about that, he
can be held accountable for it.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
Well uh, well, well you know what. I hope that
we'll all have cooler heads prevail, you know, and I
hope that your shredded potatoes are delicious this evening. Nothing,
you know. That's what I like to do at Easter.
Uh we at the Baker house. I hide a shred
of potatoes all over the yard and the because easter eggs.

(25:06):
I mean, who can spot those things a mile away?
Send the kids out with a basket looking for a
shredded tater? Try that? Yeah, uh huh, I have some
overachiever egg hunters at the Baker House anyway, Chris Baker program,
that's me. Yeah, I just look. I know I've talked
about this for a very long time, but it is
so important. Can we please, if you want to, if

(25:30):
this is a wonderful city, this is such a great city,
and maybe someday I'll just lay out about eight billion
reasons why. But we cannot allow ourselves, at least this
is just my humble opinion. I'm just one guy on
the radio, but we cannot allow ourselves to have our leaders,

(25:51):
regardless of party, to be steered by nincom poops who
just look at You know what, if we can get
everybody mad at the sheriff Sheriff's department, then we can
get our we can get our you know, placeholder candidate elected, right,
and that'll be great. It'll be great. It'll be great.
No wanting to be horrible. It would be absolutely horrible

(26:13):
because while the people in the world of politics, the
people on the on the other level, the upper level,
while they're up there, you know, walking around and trying
to decide what's the next SoundBite I'm gonna hit, there's
a lot of people on the ground level that need
they need good policing. Okay, there's bad people out there

(26:34):
that need to be arrested and taken off the streets.
There's people out there under horrible influences that are committing
crimes that really don't want to, but they don't really
know any other path at the moment, and they need
to be told that they count and that they are
of value and their life means something. And you're not

(26:56):
going to do that when you start telling people it's
an occupying force, because what you just done is you've
turned law enforcement into these evil goose step and Nazis,
and they are the furthest thing from it.