Interview with Dad. Family is everything - Season 3 episode 14

A heartfelt and amazing conversation with our Dad Brian Jones. We talked about growing up, Grandma as Dads hero and police careers.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to another episode of Just Us on Justice and
other things. I am Scott Jones here with my baby brother,
Dan Jones, and we're here with our daddy. Our daddy
Jones is going to be on the podcast today. Before
we do that, though, just a couple because we haven't
had one for a while. We had our last episode
was in Niagara Falls, which I thought was a really
good one, got good feedback on it. We kind of

(00:24):
reintroduce ourselves. So this is very informal, as everybody knows.
So I'm gonna start out with a little story. I
got to go to La to go to a football
game with my wife and boys, and we're sitting in
Sofi Stadium, which is a banana stadium. It was awesome
and it's gigantic and all that, and the game was great,
but sitting in front of us, there's a whole bunch
of folks, Mexican folks who go to La Chargers games,

(00:47):
it appears, or at least there was a lot of
discount And there's two dudes sitting in front of me
and they're probably my age, so mid fifties ish, and
the one guy has his phone out and he's watching
a video or a live stream of something, and he's
watching a cock fight. He's watching two roosters shred each other.
And Jack, my oldest boy, who used to work construction

(01:10):
for a long time and had a whole lot of
Spanish speaking folks with him, can kind of read a
little bit of Spanish. So Jack looked over his shoulder
and it's like seeing what he's writing, and he's basically asking, like,
how are we doing dollar scient So he's betting on
cock fighting while watching a Chargers game, which was actually
one of the highlights of the trip because it was
just fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
That's awesome. Yeah, that's great. Just a quick thing I
was I want to talk about before. We just talked
about it before this we started. Yesterday, I was biting
my nails in my car and I bit my nails
so bad that I started to bleed, and of course
I don't have anything in my car, so I wiped
the blood on my pants. And then I was teaching
in Scott He's class yesterday and I informed I said

(01:49):
I was biting my nails and he's like disgusting, and
I said, it's the best thing you can do for yourself,
and he said it's the best thing you can do.
It off, not sleeping or eating healthy or drinking water
or exercise. So I learned that I was wrong. It's
not the best thing you can do for yourself. I
still do believe that it does increase your natural immunity.

(02:11):
My doctor cousin told me that not Google, like you found,
that's as bad for me.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
And I would argue then also, like licking the pin
pad at McDonald's will probably boost your immuneism because you
would get to experience all the germs of all the
other people, just like your nails have touched.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Maybe I'll try that next.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Anyway, let's get to our famous guest, Brian Jones.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Our dad. Yeah, we just want to know where were
you born? How was your childhood? Like what did you
guys do? And yeah, just told me that.

Speaker 4 (02:46):
Well, I was born in Westlock on the September nineteenth,
nineteen forty nine. So there you go, seventy five years
old at the Immaculata Hospital and beautiful downtown Westlock. When
I was five years old, we moved to to Edmonton
and we moved to the Bonnie Dune area. We were

(03:09):
a block from the Bonnie Dune Community Community Hall and
we moved into a project. Well, it was like the
only project kind of situation in Edmonton. It was the
original low cost situation where you could people with hardly
any money could come and live. And oddly enough, Bill

(03:31):
Comery and his family lived right beside us, so you
know what happened there. I didn't go to the same
path as Bill and his family, but you know, we did, okay.
I went to Rutherford School in grade one, two and three,
and during the time from I was five years old
to grade three, Gary Jones and his family, Burt and

(03:55):
Vy and Gary and his two sisters moved in a
block away from us. And we always thought we were
cousins and that kind of stuff. And eventually I actually,
as a teenager, I went to work with Gary at
Northwest Seed and Grain and we were patching seed sacks

(04:15):
of all things, and we got like ten cents a
bag for and then we you know, but eventually Gary
Gary joined the police department, and you know, he's he's
a great guy. He's a family guy. He's had his
double trauma, as we know, and I basically thought, holy wow,

(04:35):
that's that's pretty cool. So I've done a lot of
things before that. I was a singer in the band
with my with Susie's sister and brother and her cousins.
He did that for a couple of years, and I
worked out of chair at Gordon Mines for maybe a

(04:58):
year and a half because the band start playing that
pissed me off. I would still be in the band
if I could, I mean, And so eventually I applied
for the police department and that was I applied in
probably March of nineteen sixty sixty nine. And when I applied,
I was two hundred and forty pounds and not really good,

(05:22):
not a really good to forty and two of us
in the class, myself and Chuck mccannon, both had to
get down to around one hundred and eighty one hundred
eighty five pounds, and I did that with the help
of my mother in law on an egg diet. And
you can imagine, you know, on an egg diet how

(05:43):
much you went to the bathroom. So is that kind
of thing. So yeah, joined when I was twenty years old,
well actually three days after my twentieth birthday, so I
wasn't I wasn't even legal to go into the bar
at that time. And we had guys even younger than
myself that Jim Saesford was younger. We had guys that

(06:04):
we weren't turning, weren't turning twenty till January February of
the next year. Dave David Little Davy Smith. What a
wonderful man he was, God rest his soul. He uh,
he didn't turn twenty until till January. Had You know,
we all he is the Milk River cowboy. So yeah,

(06:25):
that's where the that's where the policing started.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
So just taking you back a little bit, did putting
in for policing obviously, Gary had a big influence on that?
Did Grandpa being in World War Two? Was there kind
of a service line to it? Or was it just like, No,
that seems like a really cool job. I think I'm
just gonna try that.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
Well, I just don't. I'd rather not get into what
the relationship I had with my dad. No, No, that's
until until I actually joined the police department. I was
a lost cause, which is good, which is okay, But yeah,
he was uh, he was always very very much law

(07:05):
enforcement kind of guy. He in the army. He was
in the what's called the REMI, which is the Royal
You know, they do engineers anyway, he was, he was
a tank mechanic. He was out He was out there
in the middle of the freaking war, getting a shot
at and losing people and watching a guy right beside
him lose his hand, got a blown right off, you know,

(07:27):
and then the guy kept fighting, you know. And so
and he always he always, I think he always.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
Wanted to be a meathead too.

Speaker 4 (07:35):
Military police was was a big thing that he wanted
to do. But eventually he ended He ended up marrying
my mom in in England right after the war. And
can I tell a story about mom, how she's my hero? Okay,
Well here's my mom, my mom. And if anybody ever

(07:55):
remembers my mom that had met her, she was she
was probably four foot eleven and seventy five pounds when
she passed. And it wasn't because she had gone on
a diet or anything, and she was pretty much that
way the whole time. So, yeah, my dad, my dad
was still in the army. They hadn't been discharged, but

(08:17):
they had a child, they had my sister, my sister Pam.
So she and my sister Pam came across from England
to Halifax on the Queen Mary Pam was one year old.
She was a year old. They came over in nineteen
forty six. My mom, being that little person with a child,

(08:43):
got on a train and traveled all the way across
the country to Westlock, at where she was met by
Gary Jones's mother, Vy Jones, and that's where the family
situation became. And then we had my dad had other

(09:03):
brothers and sisters over here, because my dad was born
in Wales or there's that's up for debate, but he
was when he was two years old, but he had
brothers and sisters here, so there was family here. But
it was Vi Vi Jones that that met her, And
to me, anybody that can accomplish something like that is
just an amazing person. And at her funeral I told

(09:25):
everybody the same story.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
So yeah, I remember that story. I remember I remember
hearing that story. And actually, for some reason in my
brain I thought she was on that boat with y
I forgot that I was already here because there's a
You have a great picture in the house of you,
Auntie Pam and Grandpa at Trafalgar Square in England when

(09:47):
you were I think I was one two years old
and and you hadn't been back to England until we
went back for was that again, Oh yeah, my graduation
from Cambridge And.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
It was kind of cool because we got to go back.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
We went back to Trafalgar Square where that picture was taken,
which was I thought a really cool thing.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
So you become a cop, and I think, obviously Danny
and I have talked a lot about our experiences about
policing and how we start, Like we go through recruit
class and it's whatever eighteen weeks or sixteen weeks or
whatever it was, and then you get a field training
officer and there's kind of a way to help people
be successful. I don't think that was your experience from

(10:31):
the stories I've heard, so just telling a little bit
about what was recruit class or whatever it was called.

Speaker 5 (10:36):
Back then, like and then how what.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
Do you start out of which I know the answer
to these are rhetorical in my head, but a lot
of people won't know that. But how you are not
put with a field training officer typically, and then you
were kind of just out on your own to figure
out what it is you're supposed to do well.

Speaker 4 (10:53):
Recruit training we joined, We joined in September twenty second.
You know, September twenty second, and we graduated December twelfth, so.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
That was.

Speaker 4 (11:08):
And then we got assigned, like I got assigned to
go to the south Side. And I don't know if
how many people know that the old south Side station
used to be a hogwaying station and it's right across
the street from the strathgoing to market and it's still
still there. But that was that was They called it
Number two station and it had a thing in the

(11:30):
back with lockers and we were right beside the firefighters,
which led to some really cool fun stuff. But we
I had one day of recruit training or field training
with Chevy nexon walking Beat seven on downtown and that
Beat seven went from Jasper Revenue all the way up

(11:53):
to Kingsway basically on hunter First Street, and just went
back and forth. And then I had one day in
a car with Bill Sermon. Bill Sermon was my one
day field training officer, and at the time the sergeant
of the day was Cliff Cliff Tedslaft, who we all

(12:16):
know in respect is an amazing human. The big the
big thing about policing when I when I joined, I
mean I went to the South Side. I had my
sergeant I'll leave his name out because I never really
liked him much. He he was an old not English,
but he was from Africa, but some kind of a

(12:39):
thing there he was. He was an old soldier from there,
and he came over in the early fifties with the
other Irish and English and Scottish folks that came. But
he was adamant that if you're a beat man, you're
a beat man. You don't ride in a car, you don't,
you don't get any special privileges. But walking to be
on the south side beat was Beat six. Beat six

(13:02):
went from seventy second Avenue to sixty third Avenue on
one hundred four Street. No sidewalks at that time, no sidewalks,
no nothing. I mean it was out right where they
always fucked chickens. I mean that's we would we really
and we would. We would actually climb up on on

(13:22):
stairways and with the old thirty eight shoot rabbits by
the railway station because there was nobody, nobody around to
hear it. And if they, if they, if somebody heard it,
we'd lie and say, oh my god, where did that happen?

Speaker 3 (13:34):
We'll go investigate.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
So working on the South Side was we we got
to go to the north side every six weeks. But
working on the south side we used the call box,
of course, and it didn't didn't matpen. Okay, Well, there
was a call box on every corner of every beat,
and if you were walking the beat you had to
you had to call in at specified times to so

(13:58):
that they knew that you were safe. Well, that one,
if you do it downtown, if you pick up the
call box, the person on the other end knows exactly
where you are. But on the south side it wasn't
like that. You could lie. You could you could say
you were I mean, if you were walking Beat three
on the south side where you went from one hundred

(14:21):
and ninth Street up up north on ninth Street all
the way to Saskatchewan Drive, you could you could call
in on that call box and tell me you were
at third and White and they wouldn't know the difference.
The only problem was every once in a while the
sergeant would check and find out where did you where?
Did where did Jones call in from? Last time? Oh

(14:43):
he called in from one hundred and second and White
over on Beat two, so he drive drove straight there
and I wasn't there so I got caught for lying
and I wasn't that far away. But those are the
things policing it at that time. The most fun we
ever had was walking around on the buffalo coats. And
it's a cliche, but I spent two years in buffalo

(15:05):
coats and we had great guys on the Ray Richardson
and to name one. We would be in the back
alleys wrestling with buffalo coats and then we'd fall over
with the buffalo coat and have a hell of a
time getting up.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
So just so people know what a buffalo coat is,
it's exactly what it sounds. It's not like a goose
down coat. It's a buffalo coat made out of buffalo hide,
very heavy.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
Very warm.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
And I've seen the pictures of the buffalo coats and
I am now laughing about your shooting rabbits with you
threety eight, thinking obviously there was no limitation on rounds,
like they weren't counting your rounds like you can't really
in today's day, you couldn't really shoot a rabbit with
your firearm. That'd be pretty tough to get your rounds replaced.

(15:55):
So that's funny.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
I remember you telling a story about because it was
a lot easier to.

Speaker 5 (16:00):
Get fired back in the day.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
And you talked about how basically your kind of job
was to go check doors and if a break and
enter happened in your area that you didn't know about,
it didn't do.

Speaker 5 (16:11):
With you were in shit.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
So tell me about because I think you, if I
remember correctly, somebody three times or three breaking editor or
something like that in the area and they got huffed.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
They really all we it was the community policing thing
was was being done all the time. I mean on
the beat. You you had, you had a beat, you
shook doors. And if you had if you had a
district car like like one O eight was a district

(16:41):
that I worked when I went to the West End,
and there was in that inside the boundaries of that perimeter,
you had to go check every door, every overhead door.
And if you if a break in happened on your
beat or on your in your district, you the next
next day you'd come to and there would be a

(17:02):
pink copy of the break and enter thing in and
you had to go to the sergeant and explain why
why you missed this break in or or insecure. I
mean we would we would walk around on the beat
and find insecures all the time, which we we loved.
If you were in the winter, you'd find an into
your door and you'd take your time looking for a

(17:24):
keyholder to come and to come and lock the place up.
But uh, here's another thing that if if that will
blow your mind. We had every district car had diary dates.
So if I was working a property car on the
north side, I would have a stack of diary dates

(17:47):
in my pigeonhole. And those diary dates were Scott Jones
and Terry Jones and their sons are going to LA
for a week. You you, as the officer constable in
that area, had to go check Scotty and Terry's house
and make sure it was secure there. We we had
stacks of those, so you can imagine. But that was

(18:11):
that was well. We never if if you're in a
district car at that time, you never got a call. Whoever,
you never got a call because there was there was
like a two a senior and a second senior, uh
in in your vehicle like Larry Showing Russ McIntyre were
our senior guys. Freddy Cursed I can't remember his last
name anyway, there were our second but unless it was

(18:35):
something serious, you were never sent And and that and
and if a ten six came in, an injury accident
ever came in, holy crap, everybody went there. If an
armed robbery came in, everybody went. It was like the
biggest thing in the world. Now ten six comes in,
everybody goes a different direction, you know, because and I
have to say I wouldn't.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (18:55):
I didn't want to go to ten sixes either because
if I got there before the ambulance I had, I
was I was screwed. And there were some very traumatic
situations that happened during that time. So that things have
changed so much over the time. There's we just we
don't look after our citizens the way we used to.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
Don't.

Speaker 4 (19:14):
We don't protect them in the in the same way.
We just don't have that kind of capability.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Well, I don't know what the population of Edmonton would
have been at that time an hour at one point
four million. But you also how many police officers were
there roughly, like when there's nineteen hundred roughly police officers
in Edmonton. Now, you obviously saw a big change in policing.

(19:41):
But I'm going to ask you who your favorite chief
of police.

Speaker 4 (19:44):
Was absolutely no question, Robert F. Luney the man. And
not only was he our best chief, he was so
forward thinking and such a positive influence on the members
of the m Police service. He we went because up

(20:04):
until Robert F. Loney became our chief, we were wearing
two nicks and crosstraps.

Speaker 5 (20:10):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (20:11):
And if you'd ever gotten a fight down on the
drag with a crosstrap, you wanted to keep your back
away from the bad guy because the bad guy would
grab your crosstrap and swing you around like like you
were doing the dosey dough. Yeah, And it happened all
the time. So Robert, Robert Loney came in and he

(20:32):
he changed all that. He changed the uniform. We had
two different uniforms at that time. We had a we
had a summer uniform on a winter uniform. Different you know,
different level of warmth, you know. But we we and
then and we would wear a white in the summer.
We would wear a white cap basically on our on

(20:53):
our our forge gap. It was ridiculous. So he comes
along and he brought us, brought us from the from
the semi military, like you were talking about earlier, about
getting fired. I know one guy and that was in
the class before me, and we were working the South
Side station. He was late four times in a row

(21:14):
and he was fired. Gone did it was? So it
was so paramilitary back there. I mean I have the
the policy and procedure book still that that we went by.
And you know, intoxication, however, it'slight while on duty. You
know all these all these different different things and they
could fire you in a in a heartbeat. So times

(21:36):
have actually really changed instid.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
So I'm going to fast forward to because there's some
kind of key moments that stand out. And of course
people won't know this, but you were the first police
officer to be media relations with the eminent police sers.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
Correct.

Speaker 4 (21:54):
No, No, that's not that's not correct. I I worked
with Hugh Richards, was in the community CRS we call
the Communeration Section. John Underhill was a sergeant. Hugh Richards
had already been there, and then I got asked, asked
to go there in nineteen in nineteen seventy eight, yeah, yeah,

(22:20):
nineteenth seventy eight. In nineteen seventy eight. April fifteenth, nineteen
seventy eight, the Toronto Star came to Edmonton and so
we you know, so we had that newspaper and they
needed an addictional person. So I went there and I

(22:41):
did that for two years, and that was to me,
it was a highlight because you know, for eight years
I was chasing bad guys and doing stuff like that
and right, you know, regular police work. But this gave
me an opportunity to see things from the other side,
especially from a media perspective.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
You know.

Speaker 4 (22:58):
I got to be great friends. I mean, you know,
Randy Kilburn for one, Bob Layton at the time, and
all of the different folks that worked at CHED Radio
most and I would go into Ched Ightie Keene, who
in nineteen seventy three I was a subject of one
of his situations there for assault, which I was charged

(23:20):
with and I don't know, course, of course, I was
found not guilty.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
So media relations do you do that for two years?
And there's also another thing. You were a really early
promotion for the year time, Like you got promoted at
just about ten years. Ten years and even now that's
kind of a that's still.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
An early promotion.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
It's actually why I put in for promotion at nine
years because I was the oldest at the time. Of
our family to get hired, and you made fun of
me for that because so I put in for promotion
at nine years so I could be the earliest in
our family to get promoted.

Speaker 3 (23:59):
So haha, But can I.

Speaker 5 (24:02):
Just back that up?

Speaker 1 (24:02):
Because you were applying and you write the test and
I'm like, only a fucking idiot.

Speaker 5 (24:08):
Fails this test. Well, guess who fails the test?

Speaker 1 (24:11):
And then I'm like, Okay, I actually feel bad. I
wasn't trying to be hurtful, but yeah, you fail the test,
so that I'm like, oh, so one of those rare
times I fell back.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
You should have felt bad.

Speaker 5 (24:21):
Yeah that's yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
Uh, let's go to because again there's some key and
your career path I emulated at times.

Speaker 5 (24:31):
Because I watched what you did. So let's take a.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Chunk and go with being a crisis negotiator hasted negotiator
and talk about how you got into that and what
that experience was like.

Speaker 4 (24:42):
Well again, I mean, there were so many highlights and
I would do it all over again if I if
I could, And these boys know that I still I
still when I say we, I include myself in in
kind of the policing family still, and we're all retired cops.
But I was selected to go to as a lot

(25:05):
of I mean I was. I was out there a
lot because I was like on the police Association and
I on a media relations situation. And we were on
media relations at the time. We trained, you know, on
how to deal with the media and scrums, the different
different scrums. So I was asked if I would like

(25:27):
to be a negotiator. So I said, oh, absolutely, So
I went, I went to Ottawa, did the did the training,
came back. I was actually a negotiator for twelve years
and at the last for the last four years of
my career, I was I was the team leader for
for Hush Negotiations and we had some amazing, amazing firsts

(25:50):
and amazing first for me for sure. I mean I
had I had two people kill themselves while I was
stalking to them, which which and I know it sounds funny,
but you you develop a relationship with a person over protracted,
uh negotiating negotiation, and you you get you know that

(26:11):
they called Stockholm syndrome or transference or whatever it is.
You get the when you hear their side of what's
going on, you feel for them so much that you
want to you want to save them, and I have.
I have done things like gone to the Avid Arms
and a bunch of patrol guys were trying to Actually
there were tactical guys who they don't negotiate too well.

(26:33):
They they were men of action. They this guy was
on the on the ledge on the window sill on
the twenty fifth floor of Avid Arms, where I used
to live at one time, and here he is, He's
going to kill himself. So they were having trouble. So
they called the hostage negotiator and I happened to be there.
So I spent some time with him, just just getting

(26:56):
into his head. And at the end of at the
end of it, he I must have hit a note
or something and he was He said, if I come
down off, will you give me a hug. I said,
of course, I'll, of course I'll give you hug.

Speaker 3 (27:08):
Come on.

Speaker 4 (27:09):
So you know those are those are the good ones.

Speaker 3 (27:12):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (27:13):
One of the best one we did, the one of
the first explosive entries when we were I was a
host negotiator.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (27:21):
And it was up in the North End. And I think,
who's the head of you of a security Mike Barkers,
Mike Barkers went to a call of a gunshot at
this place. So we we get to this place. He
gets to this place and he thinks he's got shot
at and he jumps off the off the step into

(27:43):
the onto the ground and calls in, you know, shots fired.
So we get there. We got that the old that
magnificent old command post that we used to have with
the big yellow beast. We're there and we're talking and
we're the guy. Everybody's trying to figure out how to
get into this place. So if anybody knows anything about

(28:05):
explosive entries, what what we got was, we had we
get the bomb tech to to build a frame fill
six two liter bottles like coke, coke bottles fulham full
of water wrapped that cord around them. That that cord
around all of these bottles. Because we couldn't get into

(28:26):
in the house without fear of him being shoot shoot
nuts again. So Hugh Richards, again being being Hugh Richards,
said yes, let's do this. So we put the We
had the tactle guys put it up against the wall
and when they let this thing go, it had blew
that figure, the frame and everything right off, right off
the door, so of course now we ought to figure

(28:49):
out what we're going to do. Well, we send in
the robot and the robot was going checked upstairs on
the main floor and couldn't find the guy. Went tried
to go downstairs and tipped over in the middle of
the stairs so so but we could see the guy
and he was he was out cold like uh and uh.

(29:10):
I ended up this guy ended up being the brother
of a very good friend of mine then and I
used to work with with his sister, and uh, I
won't mention his name, but he was just then a
little bit later he hung himself in his in his
mother's basement. That kind of thing, so totally. UH highlight
being being doing that for twelve years and even being

(29:31):
even being called when I was not called because some
because somebody preferred to have me go there and and
they'd call me. So there you go.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
I just have to make a quick comment. I'm laughing inside.
And I know I liked to teasy sometimes about being old.
He started with no sidewalks and and went to no
sidewalks in the South side of Edmonton into a fucking robe.
Like the span of your career, the technological changes that
you had seen. Are it's insane, Like you went from

(30:02):
no radios to cellular phones. Yes, in the course of
your career, Like that's that's an interesting time to police.
Like we've seen changes in our time, but not to
the to the like we started policing before the internet,
both of us, but not to the extent.

Speaker 3 (30:18):
I don't think.

Speaker 5 (30:21):
It's a different.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
It's a different cell phones existed. We never had them,
but the cell phones didn't even exist.

Speaker 3 (30:28):
Just it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
Well, I don't know if you were Tom Falen, you
remember Tom Faalan. So Tom Falen was a retired police
officer that I got to know because he frequented a
place called the Stonehouse because that's where he lived on
the Jasper Avenue. And my friends got heading worked at
the Stonehouse and Tom Falan was a retired cop and.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
He he would drink.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Half pints again us. He drank thirteen or fourteen of them,
but he always drank half pints again us and so
we'd sit there. I met him every couple wednesdays. I
meet with him, and he was telling me about one
hundred and eighteenth Avenue. When he walked to beat one
hundred and eighteenth Avenue. It had wooden sidewalks, So did
you have wooden sidewalks in your computer?

Speaker 3 (31:09):
Just checking?

Speaker 1 (31:13):
So I got to tell a story of I got
to not really observe you as a negotiator, but kind
of so me, you and my friend Ivan Strekorda were
working out at police headquarters and I'm probably eighteen years
old ish with my deadly long hair because I had
deadly long hair back then, and you get a call,
so we go and you're like, oh, you got to
come with me, Like okay, we obviously came in one vehicle,

(31:35):
so we then get to go. Me and Ivan get
to sit in the command post. Inspector House is running it.
He's the inspector in charge of the call. Darryl DaCosta
is a tactical sergeant. And then you're deployed as a negotiator.
So I got to sit for I don't know, two
three hours however long it was, and ultimately you the

(31:56):
guy came out had his handgun stuffed in his belt
and then you wrestled him to the ground.

Speaker 5 (32:01):
Because I saw the news later.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
On, well it was it was kind of funny because
this he had, this this guy had he was came
in armed and barricade. Of course, we we filled that
eventually to try and get him out. The tactle guys
filled the place full of ferrets, you know, the tear gas.
It was just unbelievable the amount of stuff that went

(32:25):
in there, and and and O sea spray and everything else.
So yes, actually I was. I did the negotiation. Then
then I was going to stop, and they and Jim
Templeton arrived and he was going to take over. And
Jim started talking to this guy, and the guy says,
I don't want to talk to you, I want to
talk to Brian. So back I went. So it was

(32:46):
it was kind of a weird situation because he had
let the girl go and he was he was agreeing
to come out with his with his hands up, of course,
and so I'm it was actually a sweet an updown
suite down down downstairs with that had its own separate
entrance and it was a suite, so I'm standing at
the top of these staircases and I was very well

(33:09):
protected if anything were happened. Of course, he comes out
and he did as he was supposed to do. He
put his hands up, but I said, it's gun, and
he had a gun stuffed in there and I grabbed
him and we fell over and all this stuff from
the all the CS gas right in my face. So

(33:30):
then then it was everybody jumped on us. I mean
the tactic grives. I'm on the bottom, I can't breathe.
And then there's a good shot of me, I think
in that that news clip of me walking down the
street to the lady next door to do to get
my eye with a with a big snot ball hanging
out of my about three feet long, out of my
out of my nose. So yeah, that was that was
That was quite a That was a kind of an

(33:51):
eventful one and fun It's.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Funny because people there's not a lot of people that
have been tear gassed and it if you ever tear gases,
I would prefer I would take a taser and pepper
spray over a tear gas every single day of the week.
It is just a nasty, nasty, nasty thing.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
So if you were to.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Tell me what your Hall of Fame Jersey was in policing,
so for me, my Hall of Fame Jersey was walking
to beat one hundred and eighteenth that Scotty's Hall of
Fame Jersey was being a superintendent.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
So what's your hall of fame, Jersey?

Speaker 4 (34:34):
I have to say, street crimes, street crimes. You know what,
when when I first got promoted, and people probably don't
realize this, and if they, if they thought about it now,
I went to a I went to morality control unit.
Can you imagine these days if you had a you
had a section like that, a morality control unit controlling

(34:57):
people's morality. And and and I mean back in that day,
I mean the times have change. Buggery and bestiality used
to be against the law.

Speaker 5 (35:06):
Not anymore.

Speaker 4 (35:07):
No, No, you can do the chicken and the dog
and anything you want now Jesus. But morality was good
because I did about all I did was work with
with the gamblers, and I got to know a lot
of gamblers. I got, I got the rest a lot
of gamblers, and after arresting them, became friends with them
because they weren't violent people. They were good human beings.

(35:28):
They just happened to be bookmakers. Now the whole the
whole world is a bookmaker. The government and everybody else
is a book maker.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
Yeah, for gambling, anything else.

Speaker 4 (35:38):
Absolutely absolutely, And but street crimes by far my best.
Some people street crimes was well. We were a surveiled unit,
basically a surveil unit, and for four and a half
years we worked some of the most amazing files and
got to watch most some of the most amazing rests
that that took place. And I mean the spandex rapist

(36:04):
we were we were following the spandex rapist who had
raped uh several women and raped the same woman who
worked out of the Brownie building. He raped her twice, uh,
And we were following him during the tornado, and we
were and we're we're following this asshole and he's he's

(36:26):
he is so honed in on who he's going to
target next. He didn't even I mean, we could have
been riding, we could have been in the car with him,
he wouldn't know. So we're following this guy. And then
Joan Ashmore who was who was a surveillance person too,
but she was in the she was in the what
was it whiskey the thirty three year the plane and

(36:48):
Frank uh anyway, the pilot uh called we got to
go in. There's a tornado coming, and we said, come on, bullshit.
So throughout that whole tornado ordeal, we maintained the eye
on this guy and after kind of everything went. I mean,

(37:09):
we're driving in water up over the fenders, right, it
was so deep that we were driving. And then he
was living in St. Albert and we were watching him.
All of a sudden he comes out after we've been
sitting there for hours and hours. We actually split into
two daytime and nighttime street crime crew, but he came
out during the daytime. We followed him. We followed him, Jerry, Jerry,

(37:35):
Phil and I were in the same car. We might
have had a drinker rum on the way while we're
going because it was, you know, supposedly after work. We
followed him all the way, all the way to Hinton,
where we turned him over to r CMP Special O
and he eventually ended up in going camping in Grand
Cash is what happened. But some of those things that

(37:57):
I mean, we were working on a on a file
where a policeman tried to kill his wife, and we worked,
we worked solid, and your mother never knew was when
I was coming home because there was no cell phones
back then, of course at all, and to try and
get to a payphone or something else, it just didn't happen. So, yeah,

(38:19):
street crimes is and I still maintain, you know, friendships
with the people from street crimes, well from everywhere I
go basically.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
So, yeah, and so I don't know if this is.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
What was the toughest leadership role that you had in policing,
because you were you. That's one thing that you were
super well known, known for his leadership. Like, I actually
came downtown after you had left, actually went to the
platoon that you were in charge of. I went to
be platoon and then God and you later came to
be platoon with me as well. He wanted to come
and learn from his younger brother about how to police,

(38:56):
So I said, yeah, why don't you come and be
one of the sisters squads and I can teach. I'll
show you the ropes, brother, I'll show you the ropes. Actually,
the funny before I ask you this question, the funny
thing about that is I actually did say that I
would saying that to everybody downtown.

Speaker 3 (39:13):
And hell, that's gonna tell this part.

Speaker 5 (39:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
So I'm already in North Division and I've been a
cop for five years and you've been like, I don't know,
eight minutes or something like that. So back then there
were squad fines. I don't know if there still are.
And what it meant was like, if you were on
the media, then you had to buy a bottle for
the squad. And if you were whatever, you didn't answer
the radio, then you had to pay five bucks whatever
it was your late five bucks. And so before I

(39:35):
even land in this squad, and it is a squad
full of super predators, and I mean that in a
they are triple A personality people, very strong personalities, not
a lot of kindness and gentleness to each other, but
hard charging their good cops. So you and your fucking
arrogance are You're like, yeah, Jones's boys are gonna unite

(39:56):
here and meet up and we're gonna teach all you
fucking losers how to be cops. And so before I
even get there, they're like, Jones, you ole bottle.

Speaker 5 (40:03):
I'm like, for what?

Speaker 1 (40:04):
Because your fucking idiot brothers is talk is spinning out
of his mouth and about how you were going to
teach us how holl to be a cop, I'm like,
oh my fucking god, So I had, yeah, I had
to buy a bottle because he won't shut the fuck up.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
So in honor of how difficult I was to supervise
for many of people. So if any of my former supervisors, sergeants,
staff sergeants, or otherwise are listening to this podcast, I
sincerely apologize for my specifically early career up until twenty
four years I was I think on my twenty fifth year,
I was much easier to supervise because I was with

(40:35):
the province.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
And I, before you answer your leadership question, I also
have a story along that line because I was working
with my partner in the North End. We were also
very strong personalities. I have also a strong bent, so
I remember.

Speaker 4 (40:51):
Those days, the pack of wild dogs and the T shirts.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
I also don't like being supervised, and I am a
challenge to supervise and have my whole time. Maybe not
now because I'm kind of retired so it doesn't matter.
But our sergeant split us up and put us with
other people, and we went and changed the sheets, like
we yeah, And you just made the face because even
when I said told that story in about nineteen ninety four,
You're like, what the fuck are you talking about?

Speaker 5 (41:18):
I'm like, what, he got them wrong?

Speaker 1 (41:19):
So we just fixed them and we even point out, hey, Dennis,
just you know you had the six sheets wrong so
me and him are back to working together, so it's okay,
it's no big deal. And you were like you would
break their arm if you were working your sheets.

Speaker 4 (41:34):
A leadership things, I mean, I always, I always, and
this is so cliche again because I think I even
dealing with you guys when you were becoming cops and
dealing with anybody that that worked for me, I tried
to be fair and I tried to be patient, and

(41:56):
you can only be patient so long. But my philosophy
was always this, treat people with dignity and respect, no
matter what what's happening. I mean, there's times when you
don't have to treat somebody with dignity respect. You treat
them with with vigorously, with with the physical abuse, you know,
but just just treat people good. The thing is and

(42:19):
and and and the philosophy that good people make mistakes.
Good people make mistakes, and they shouldn't have to and
everybody deserves a second chance. And I know there's heinous
things that happened that no one should ever have a
second chance, but believe me, they do. But my my biggest,

(42:41):
my biggest challenge in leadership was working in tactical as
a sergeant. Oh my goodness, I mean talk about triple
A personality personalities, you know, I mean just great guys.
And I won't name them, but everybody knows who they were.
Back then, they were, I mean they were, they were
the best. They were. They were so good that it was,

(43:02):
it was. It was kind of a pleasure and an
honor to work with him until promotion time came along.
So now, back then they had this promotion system where
you got points and all this kind of shit, and
you had to rank your people. Well at promotion time,
I'm in there talking to my inspector, who you know,

(43:26):
Dick Bevan. He wants to know who I'm pushing, so
I you know, at that time, I pushed two people
very strongly, Ernie Schreiber and oh anyway, Ernie Schreiber and
another guy and Ed mcd McFarlane, Ed McFarlane, I pushed

(43:48):
those two and they both got promoted. Well, I was
just I was treated like shit for probably two months
after that from by the other guys. How the hell
did you push them? And not you know, superstars who
they in their own mind and and they were superstars,
but you can only you can only and then their

(44:10):
seniority had to come in in into into play experience
and initiative and all that kind of stuff. And believe me,
some some of the tactical guys their only initiative is
to is to be tacticle guys. And it's they've got
they've they've got a single a single mind, and it's
to be the biggest, the toughest and the strongest, and

(44:31):
you know, and get to be a get a T
shirt that says you benefits three hundred pounds. I had one,
but it almost killed me to do it. To get there.
But that that that was my biggest test in there.
You know, other places were pretty easy to go. My
biggest my biggest complaint about well, about being a staff

(44:52):
start and it was I was moving five times without
any choice.

Speaker 5 (44:56):
I went.

Speaker 4 (44:56):
I was promoted to go back to morality control in
it as a staff sergeant. I've spent thirteen months or so,
fourteen months there. Get called into the office. Oh you're
going to technical support unit, Well what about morally, No,
we want you in technical sport.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
You know.

Speaker 4 (45:13):
So I'm in there, just nicely, getting nicely, getting settled
in another fourteen months with an amazing crew of women.
They were just and I'm friends with them to this day,
and they're just amazing people. They were so dedicated to
their work and you guys know and the wiretaps that
you hung, how good they were at their job. Fourteen

(45:35):
months there, I'm walking. I get a phone call as
I'm walking across the street and it's Jim Henderson. Jim Henderson, Brian,
we want you to go to human resources. Well, I
don't want to go to human resources. I'm just going
to I really enjoy what I'm doing now. I'm writing,

(45:58):
you know, affidavits and doing all kinds of stuff. I know, Brian,
we want you to go to human resources as well.
Of course I went to human resources. He said, we
got to get somebody in there that the people, because
the guy that's there right now, nobody wants to talk
to him, and they refused to go in to talk
to him. So we got to put somebody in there
that that that they're like. So I give him two years.

(46:22):
I said, I'll give you two years in HR. And
then then I said, I get to pick where I go, right,
so I picked I picked tactical.

Speaker 5 (46:33):
I picked tactical.

Speaker 4 (46:35):
Six months later, I'm in internal affairs and and then
and then me and the chief at the time had
differing opinions on discipline. Actually mine was much harsher than his,
but but his, his left wing approach to the stuff

(46:55):
led me to where the hell did I go from there?

Speaker 3 (46:57):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (46:57):
I went to patrol. I went down, down, down, down
town patrol, which was amazing, which was amazing, And I
spent fourteen months doing that, and the fourteen months seems
to come up a lot, but I loved it. The
only trouble is that at five hundred I was falling
asleep at red lights and it was so I got

(47:20):
a place, where would you like to go? Well, I said,
where's there? Opening robbery homicide? So I went to not
robbery homicide that I had armed robbery Asian crime, which
you probably can't say that anymore, and on auto theft.
So I had twenty one twenty one detectives working on
the colectic bunch of files.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
It's interesting too, when you talk about the places and people.
SO talked about Ernie Schreiber, and he talked about street crimes.
So two of the people that were significant mentors of
mine in a homicide were Dennis mcgeiney, yes, and Ernie Schreiber,
and I honestly think that they're I don't know what's
the word. I'm looking for, their affinity or their the

(48:08):
willingness to take this little lady under their wing has
had a direct result from your working with them. Yes,
and then another person I got to work with in
homicide when I was a patrol of a beat cop
and I got seconded to the one homicide was Freadfish
from your Street Crimes Days as well. And then it's
also interesting that of the one, two, three, four, five

(48:30):
of us that have been on the police service, Uncle Randy, you, me,
and Scottie have all worked in internal affairs or professional
standards branch, which is kind of a that's kind of
a crazy.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
Thing, like yeah, and it like.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
And and all three. I don't know if Uncle Randy
was a beat beat cop at all. I don't know,
if you want to beat.

Speaker 6 (48:52):
By the time, by the time he was a cadet
from he joined as a cadet at eighteen years of age,
and then after that he was and then there was
a freeze on hiring and I think he actually went
through class in in nineteen seventy four.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Yeah, so yeah, So it's just interesting that like our
You and Scotti were both negotiators. I don't know if
there's another father's son or or child parent negotiator team, right.
And I think about these things because I am a weirdo,
and I think about just the way that that we

(49:30):
over they overlapped in so many different ways and with
so many different people, and and yeah, it was it's
you know, I am oftentimes critical of the justice system
as well, but at the same time, I was super
proud of my career and I'm proud of yours and
proud of yours, and yeah, I just you you, I

(49:53):
think as the first person in policing in the family,
you and I don't know where I'm rand He sits
on that with his like the the appreciation of his career,
I don't.

Speaker 3 (50:06):
I think he really likes it, do man.

Speaker 4 (50:09):
He did a lot of work with the art.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
He and he had a great career doing really very
cool stuff. And I know, I know, I know Cameron
is you know, he's been he's been in forensics for
I want to say seven years now.

Speaker 4 (50:22):
Six years and he just graduated with a degree in
forensic sciences.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Yeah, so yeah, it's it's it's just an interesting thing
to look at the way the fact, but having a
family that every single one of us on the job
except for one, and you never know, because it's not
impossible that Cameron could get promoted and go to PSB.
So I just think that's kind of a neat neat concept.
So just your take on how you found the policing

(50:47):
culture to be when you were an active member.

Speaker 4 (50:51):
Oh my god, I mean I've I've been gone for
twenty four years, twenty five years and on virtunately, I
feel like I'm in a time where I do I
feel strongly and believing that it's still the same, when
in fact I know it's not even close to the same.

(51:15):
I started policing when there was no charter. You know,
if you found the people off person on the street
to no visible means of support and no fixed address,
you arrested them for vagrancy. That kind of stuff. I mean,
how fucking ridiculous is that. I mean, we've come a
long ways in that regard. My my issue, the police

(51:38):
culture during my time seemed to be everybody was there
because they wanted to be there. It was a calling.
Now it's just a job. Too many people, and and
and the stories that I hear from you guys, and
especially you Scotty, when you were in HR, you'd spend

(52:00):
I don't know how many thousands of dollars training some
guy and and after six months he goes and he
you know what, this this isn't for me. I think
I should go now. Well, and you almost have to
give the guy credit for doing that, but god damn it,
you had to realize during your your training and what

(52:21):
they were teaching you what to do and how to
do it, that you'd realize that it wasn't for you.
And there's and there's been some guys that were pressured.
I remember the guy that he was on the police
commission really good friends with the crew and Chucks his
son joined the police, joined the police army because he
was a police commissioner and friends with and he probably

(52:45):
after about six weeks six seven weeks in there said
you know what, I never wanted to be a policeman.
I'm I'm only doing that because my dad wanted me
to be. But like, the culture is totally different. I
mean we we had the choir practices and I mean
Wayne Ryerson and I sitting at the top of the
hill at Laurier Park watching watching a big bunch of

(53:10):
kids down there having a drinking party and everything else.
And when the timing was right and we had a
couple other cars with us, we put on our red
lights and start driving down. Well, they'd all run away,
they left their booze behind, and we, I mean, we
drove into the old south Side station one fifty one
and stony one time that we could barely the back

(53:32):
of the car could barely make it up because we
had filled it with cases of beer and all kinds.
Of course, it was destroyed, you know, through the regular
process of justice and all that kind of stuff. It was, Yeah,
so it was properly disposed of.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
I think for sure the culture has changed. But I
I went to Northeast as an inspector, and I was
pretty much done by then. Like I was thinking, I'm
wanted to wrap it up. Started North, I'm gonna end North.
I thought that was kind of a cool full circle.

Speaker 5 (54:04):
In my head.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
And then I started hanging out with those folks and
You're like, oh my god, they're so good at their job.
And there's ways that they are so much better at
their job now than we used to. Like when you
were a duty us or Danny, but you'd go to
whatever armed and barricaded call. And the young members now
know exactly where to be, they know exactly how to

(54:25):
set up, they know exactly how to call things.

Speaker 5 (54:28):
In like it is a you don't have to do anything.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
And as I got to be a critical instant commander eventually,
and they made my job so easy and the because
the difference. I think also when you were a cop,
mostly people liked the cops right, So there was a
huge shift since then where I don't know like to
start now, I would be on the same I would
do it over again. I don't want to do it anymore.

(54:52):
And I talk about this all the time when I
do presentations. When we started, all three of us, if
there's a dude passed out on a bus bench, the
expectation is he gets moved along. He doesn't have to
go to jail necessarily, but he needs to be moved
along because Grandma might need to sit on the bus patch.
Now the rules are half the people are like, yeah,
that guy needs to be able to move along, and

(55:13):
the other half are yelling at you with a video
camera in your face or a phone in your face,
going what the fuck are you doing? Why are you
bothering that guy? So I don't know the ground rules
anymore to be a street cop, uh, And I think
it would be it's so difficult for them to make
a decision where they may be completely chastised and put
out there on social media or the news or whatever
doing what I think they're supposed to do or they

(55:34):
think they're supposed to do. But that's it's just there
is such a societal shift and the way police are
looked at.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
Yeah, and I agree, like when I my last kind
of not this sounds operational? Is it's not operational law?
But my last I don't know, I was the inspector
in Downtown Division.

Speaker 5 (55:51):
And so there's your Hall of Fame, Jersey.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
The truth comes out.

Speaker 5 (55:56):
The buildings here.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
So he just said was we went to a funeral
in the west End. And I'll go back to what
I was saying the second we went to a funeral
in the west End and I hadn't been a watch
commander in the west End since I don't know, twenty twelve,
and I'm just like, where'd.

Speaker 3 (56:12):
These buildings come from? They were never here before.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
I'm like yeah, and he's like, yeah, because you haven't
been out in the when I was a Watch commander,
He's like it was twelve years ago.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
So sometimes I'm not that smart.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
But when the same thing and are there, and I
say this all the time, the vast majority ninety five
percent of the cops out there are doing their very best.
And there's some that shouldn't be and there's some that
you know, whatever. But the members I had in downtown,
I had some great members. Like I would I'd have
my door open and I would have members coming in
to talk about football, to talk about what's going on

(56:45):
in their day. I've had members come in, shut the
door and talk about, you know, tragic issues in their family.
And that to me was the best part of being
in that leadership role. And the other thing I that
I I I looked at too from a leadership perspective
for me was I watched I watched myself burnout and

(57:07):
don't and flame out for a period of my career
and not do well. And my goal entirely when I
was in those positions was to make sure that if
I saw those signs in our people that were working
in all those areas, to make sure that they didn't
flame out and I think all you all had that
same mindset when it came to people.

Speaker 3 (57:24):
It was about the people.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
It wasn't about how many calls were taken, how much
dope you can get on the table. It was about
the people that you worked with and that worked in
your area.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
Because there's a lot of talk about legacy and policing,
we always hear that and like we come from a
police family, which is cool, but with the acception of
camera now, no one would know that we were a
police family with EPs. There is no legacy. It's all
it's a falsehood. And it really comes down to on
a day to day basis, how did you treat somebody
and when they think of you, did they go, yeah,

(57:56):
that was I really appreciated that. I think all three
of us not to be arrogant, but I'll say this anyway,
I think all three of us had that impact on
many many people.

Speaker 5 (58:04):
But as far as a legacy goes, already.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
Certainly nobody knows your name, Dad, nobody knows Dang's he've
been gone for two years. I haven't gone a year.
Nobody knows who I am. Right, Like, it's just your
hand out of a bucket of water and that's all good.

Speaker 5 (58:15):
It's just what it is.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
But it's still that no when that person want, I
had this difficult thing. HR is a very tough role
to be in because everyone comes into you. It's very
emotional when they walk into your office because they are
under some kind of stress or strain.

Speaker 5 (58:30):
Perceived or otherwise.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
And if you pick option A, B hates your guts
and if you pick B A hates your guts. Like
it's just it's a tough spot. And I think of
all the places you worked, that one had the most
negative impact on you. Like I could see like you
were there what two years, and when you came home,
I remember you saying this another bad day.

Speaker 5 (58:49):
Every day is a fucking bad day.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
Every day was a bad day. And the EPs was
going through a huge transition at that time. And I
don't know if anybody, I mean you might remember it.
But uh they did away with the inspector rank, right, okay,
so they so they So now we got we got
all these guys that are inspectors. What are we going

(59:14):
to do with them? Are we gonna, you know, are
we going to ask them to retire? Are we just
gonna it's just gonna happen, and they just did away
with the rank and they they made a few of
them superintendents. It was it was a cluster. And I
mean my office there, like you said, I mean I didn't.
I never worked on a computer until I left policing

(59:35):
and went to I went to the A J l
C In Calgary because I had a secretary or a
receptionist or whatever they an assistant do I bev atki
or someone like that, to do bev I need a
letter to this and all I had to do is
sign and it was perfect. Every time I think I

(59:59):
lost my train, You're just talking about HR and how
oh well I would. I would get there at six
o'clock in the morning and I would get home at
six o'clock at night. It was every day was twelve hours,
and every every day, like you said, Scotty, every every day,
someone's in there either in your office and your office too.

(01:00:20):
In HR. You got because we at that at one time,
we were we were taking people right off the street.
You're going, you're going to communications, your your numbers come up.
I have people crying in my office.

Speaker 5 (01:00:35):
I don't want to go.

Speaker 4 (01:00:36):
I mean they're just absolutely crying that they didn't want
to go to communications. And one very famous one that
I saved us has never forgotten. And he was an
older guy to start with because he was a medic
in the army and he his number came up, and
he was just he was just a good cop and

(01:00:59):
he was doing great work on the street, like with
Melburger and him, were doing kind of weird shit in
the drug trade and all that. He was just doing
an amazing job. But he was going to go to communications.
So he every time I see me, he buys me
a rumin Coq and that's that's like that ninety four,
So that's thirty years ago, right, So yeah, but yeah,

(01:01:20):
it was. It was a very difficult time, and I
almost it's the only worst time I've ever had is
after I left the police and worked for Paladin Security
for three years and looking after the contract security for
all the hospitals in Alberta. That almost that almost killed me.
So I never had a vacation. Every time I'd go somewhere,

(01:01:44):
I took my laptop and I was I'd probably worked
four or five hours a day. When we were in Vegas,
when you had your your broken ankle and your own crutches,
I set up, I sat up in a in another room,
and it was it was just ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Anyway, it's funny you mentioned that individual that you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
I can. I'm gonna say his name, Dean.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
That's another person that all every single one of us
worked with you were you were partners. Me and him
work together and and undercover stuff and and work together.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
And you he worked for you in the platoon. Yes, yeah,
so you have.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
Again another one of those connections where and there's someone
else I'm trying to think of that we all there's
a couple of people that I think, at least me
and you Sup, there's a few people that we've all supervised,
I think, which is also kind of funny that they've
worked for multiple Jones.

Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
Is Tammy Buckberger.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
Tammy Buckberg who she you were, her staff sergeant in
B Platoon. She was an s ro O for me,
and she worked in Zebra for you.

Speaker 5 (01:02:43):
I was superintendent and serious crimes.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
Okay, but yes, it's it's interesting and and Tammy is
a Tammy is a family member tops right like, And
it's one of those things and we talk about you
talk about legacy, and I agree with you, there's no
such thing as legacy, but there is him and that's
I think what you're talking about. And there's impact internally
and there's impact externally. Like I sent you guys that
Facebook thing that I got from from my friend Bridget

(01:03:08):
yesterday and I showed it to you, and it's this
person who I've worked with, who has had struggles and
and been involved in the in the law, and I
now she came in and as there's a knowledge keeper
and did a circle for me at my work that
I'm currently in and she posted something and the thing.
It's like, there's no legacy there, but there's human impact.
And I think that's that's what That's what makes this

(01:03:31):
job great, is the human impact. And I think sometimes
leadership in policing, I don't not talking any specific police area,
we don't acknowledge that enough, right, Like you did a
good job of it in North End at the North
End acknowledging like compassionate, cool things that people were doing.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
But that's where it stays.

Speaker 2 (01:03:52):
It doesn't It never makes CTV or or you know it,
none of that, Like the dope on the table makes that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:59):
Who gives a fuck?

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
How about the impact on community and I think when
people see that, if people start to see that, they
would start to change again their mindset on what policing
is and what policing does.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
Because there are a lot of great.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
People out there, and there's a bunch of people popping
into my head right now that are doing great things
and are super involved in the community, but we don't
tend to really strongly recognize that in the policing world
as much as we should is and that's my opinion.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
The other positive to the newer culture or whatever you
want to call it, is there's a way bigger awareness
on the effects of trauma on first responders in general,
so whether it's police, fire, amials, whatever, or military, because
back in your day, there was no talk even was
certainly when I started, there was none of that. Like
you didn't learn anything. You got a gore book, which

(01:04:51):
is insane. They give you a big binder full of
horrible pictures of various people dead, dismembered, et cetera. And
they made you flip through it so that you would
get used.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
To and well, then you have to watch a video
of a guy having sex with a horse, and like,
why do I need to see that?

Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
And I can.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
I'm watching the video right now as I'm saying it,
because they made me watch a stupid video. And then
not just that, we went to a stupid conference where
we watched they we literally watched a woman on like
Facebook live killing herself for her boyfriend, and they literally
made us watch this video as she freaking died. I'm like, why,
and the fuck would anyone? We don't need to watch

(01:05:27):
a video of someone getting killed.

Speaker 1 (01:05:29):
Yeah, so that's still that's not even that long ago.
That's whatever ten fifteen years ago. That those that conference
are those conferences with horrible pictures and all the things.
So I think there's at least the awareness about it.
There's certainly the language around it, what this career or
the effects that this career will have on you. But
like you said, I would do it over again in

(01:05:50):
a second, I just don't want to do it anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
I would do almost all of it over again.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
I would have listened.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
If I could go back and do one thing, I'd
be listening to you, you actually, and not putting in
for the inspector rank as early as I did, because
I eight years, my last eight years I was an inspector.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
Some of it I really enjoyed some of it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
I didn't, and I'm unfortunately verbose and not always towing
party lines, and that doesn't make for fun days sometimes
when you were working in that world.

Speaker 1 (01:06:24):
One other thing that I wasn't great at this either,
because I was the same. I was on call, I
was on association, so all the extra stuff, but your
boundaries were atrocious when it came to source management. And
I'm looking at Danny right now, source management, gang, homicide,
all that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
Oh yeah, we were having this conversation the other day.
I would literally go into work when I wasn't working
and grab a car, grab a radio, log on because
I knew a certain gang member was getting out of
prison and I wanted to go and see what they
were doing and see who they're interacting with. Like I
literally go and just do surveillance by myself, log on
and people be like, Okay, whatever, it's weird. I was
just working by himself, Like who does that? And I said,

(01:07:00):
I was saying the other day, I was, I think
my one of my problems is I watched that movie Heat,
and I thought I wanted to be al Pacino.

Speaker 3 (01:07:07):
And I watched I Was.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
I watched the movie that I'm like, this is how
I thought I was supposed to what I was doing.
And I think there's a quote in that from John
Voyd who says he says to Robert de Niro, He's like,
this guy he might be onto you, blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
He's he's he's uh, he's.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
Had three may failed marriages. Do you think that means
he likes to stay home? And I'm thinking, well, that
fuck that was. I'd just be driving and be like, Terry,
I got to go into work. She's like, what, you
don't work today? I know, but there's this guy getting
out of the Evonton Max today and I want to just,
you know, get on to se who's picking up.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
And she's like, okay, just go into.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
Work, Like what an idiot, And never saying no to
any homicide.

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
I never said no to a homicide.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
I wasn't even working during the one homicide in the
Avonton Max, and I happened to be there and anyway,
like I wasn't even on call.

Speaker 4 (01:07:50):
Anyways, yas we were out for dinner one night with
you and your lovely wife, and you're I think it
was a Patriot at the time, or was it phone
cell phone went off and you had to Yeah. So,
and so he jumps up and leaves him and she
was devastated. Yeah, so were we. We thought, what the
hell's the matter with this guy? Anyway, it's been resolved

(01:08:13):
in in a in a very positive, very positive way.
So I don't know anything else. You guys want to
talk to me? Finish with, well, no, you know what.
I can't tell you how proud I am of both
of you. I love you so much. We are we
are blessed.

Speaker 3 (01:08:31):
We are.

Speaker 4 (01:08:31):
We are blessed because of you and Terry, Jack and
Sam and you and Tara and the girls. You know me,
I'm probably starting to cry right now, but nobody knows
that I cry. H We all do. Yeah, I just well,
I just I'm just I'm so who cares if that

(01:08:55):
there's no fucking legacy. We have our own legacy in
our own minds and our own memories. And are you
know I'm seventy five.

Speaker 3 (01:09:03):
Fuck.

Speaker 4 (01:09:04):
I could dip over tomorrow, you know. And I've had
a good life. I guess if I don't know when
I was gonna live this long, i'd have taken better
care of myself. But other than that, you know, I mean,
I to me, family is everything, and we have that.
There's a lot of people in this world and you

(01:09:25):
that we know that doesn't have that. And as far
as I'm concerned, there's absolutely nothing more important than the family.
We haven't everybody doing well and being healthy.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
Yeah, you know what, I never sent agree with you.
And I also I know where blasts we've got. We
have great families, and I'm now I have I not
only have three daughters, I have two sons. And you
know those boys that married my girls are exceptional boys.
And you know, it's it's cool. It's cool to be

(01:10:03):
I turned fifty next month. I know, I don't look
at I look roughly seventy four, exact same number. But yeah, no,
it's it's been great. Like we've had.

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
We're very lucky, and I think we're all very lucky.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
Like you've been retired for twenty five years, so so yeah,
longer than twenty five years, because I was on for
twenty five years and I'm retired for two and that
bit and I look at that, and you know, you
went on to do a whole bunch of other stuff
and a bunch of other careers like and No Northlands
and gaming and liquor and Paladin and Garda and fuck, you.

Speaker 3 (01:10:40):
Couldn't keep a job.

Speaker 5 (01:10:43):
This one for ten years?

Speaker 3 (01:10:44):
Yes you have.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
You've been at this one for ten years at White Communications,
and you Scottie going onto your extremely fucking weird world
of yoga. Which I'm not saying that in a bad way.
It's just like I'd love unanticipated. It's like the parks
and recu I run and when they ask him, how
much do you drink?

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
One? One?

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
One drink a week? That sounds good, one shelf? Do
you have any how's your sex life epic and private?
Do you have any family members with mental illness? Well,
I have an uncle who does yoga. It's a great
and every time I see that, I think of you.
But you like second arcs, right, like being able to
go and be. And that's the one huge benefit of

(01:11:26):
policing is after policing, and especially and when we started,
like I can't believe at twenty two years old, I
was giving people advice.

Speaker 3 (01:11:37):
On domestic violence calls.

Speaker 2 (01:11:39):
But at the same time, I'm starting at twenty two
years old, meant I could retire at forty seven years old,
And that's a pretty cool opportunity. I think people don't
understand that there's an opportunities after policing and whether you
go into another investigative route like you did, or whether
you go into an educational space like I did and
Hugh Richards did.

Speaker 3 (01:11:57):
Went back to one to Lethbridge.

Speaker 2 (01:11:58):
College and you see a lot of people Stewie Kelly
who at McEwan and so you see this and then
you Scottie with your this world of wellness that you're in.
I think it's really an awesome That's one of the
things that people don't think about policing. And I think
the other positive is as we sit here and talked
about our you know, mostly your career, but we've talked
about our careers, the number of jobs that we got

(01:12:21):
to do, different, different jobs we got to do within
policing makes it one of the best places to ever work.
Like you're not sitting at a at a desk, you know,
typing whatever for twenty five thirty years. You get to
do some cool shit. I think we've all experienced that.
I think that's pretty cool.

Speaker 5 (01:12:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
I think I had my total up around fourteen or
fifteen different jobs and I've stayed usually a couple of
years in most but other than my first five and
North and then just shy five and homicide. So yeah,
I think it's uh yeah, it's a cool full circle
and I'm very proud of all of us for what
we've accomplished.

Speaker 5 (01:12:53):
And I think that's a good place to end it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
Perfect.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
I'm just gonna do the same thing I do all
the time. You are on Treaty six land. I I
think that's an honor for us. We're all Treaty people.
The home of the Meti, the Dane, the Cree, the Sioux,
the Anashnabe, and actually Inuit were the largest Inuit population

(01:13:17):
south of the of the in the south, and I
just want to honor that we are coming across.

Speaker 3 (01:13:23):
We're coming across.

Speaker 2 (01:13:23):
The snow just came, and we're going to be coming
up to the festive season, the Christmas season. And I
was taught Mia Manto Tokisagunsik, which means Merry Christmas in Kree.
And I just had a really great conversation before I
got here a woman I never met before. She works
for Northwest, and we were having a meeting about introducing

(01:13:45):
certain things into the classroom, skills of distinction of what
is it's based on some Indigenous Indigenous research that they've done,
how to change the classroom. I talked to this moment,
never talked to her before, and I was talking about,
you know, just talk about whatever my research, and we
had this amazing conversation. And she is Indigenous woman and
she is just about finished her PhD. And what I'm

(01:14:08):
starting to see and I'm loving so much, is the
increase of post secondary education for Indigenous people. My program,
the Justice Program, one third of our last cohort is
Indigenous from all across the country. And the unfortunate thing
that I'm hoping is changing with this woman I was
talking about and she's getting her PhD. One percent of
people that have a PhD in Canada are Indigenous. So

(01:14:31):
I like to see that increase and I see the
community starting to thrive and education starting to become something
that's attainable and not without barriers. So with that, love
y'all and have a great day.