Navigating the Thin Blue Line: The Journey of Female Officers in a Male-Dominated Field

In this episode, Juette interviews two accomplished female law enforcement officers, Jordan Sydney, about their careers, experiences training new recruits—especially in officer survival—and navigating a male-dominated profession. They discuss the challenges of gender bias, the importance of mentorship, and the unique strengths women bring to policing. The conversation covers their backgrounds, the realities of police work, the need for thorough hiring practices, and the evolving landscape of law enforcement. Both officers share candid insights on resilience, leadership, and their commitment to shaping the next generation of police professionals.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
I don't I don't know how to describe these two ladies,
but they are some of the best female officers I've
ever worked with, and I thought a good way to
start this introduction is that one of the things that
they also do as well as being officers is they
also trained the up and coming officers, And so I
want them to start out with a little back and
forth about what it's like to treat to teach new

(00:30):
recruits in officer survival.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
What is it like to herd cats? I mean.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
So, so tell us a little bit about what what
what you do and how they react to y'all. In general,
I've gotten used to you, and even now it's like
it's kind it still shocks me a little bit. So
what is it like the things we say? Not just
in general?

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Well, so I guess to explain my officer's survival is
for those I don't know, it's basically like the big
thing at the end of the Police Out of Me,
where you're going to back to back scenarios that are,
you know, real life calls for service you may answer.

Speaker 4 (01:06):
And what happens is.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
The recruits are paired up with what's called an escort
and they take around to each scenario where there's role
players and they act out the scenario and the officer
basically has to put together everything they've learned within that
last six months. So that's kind of like what officer
survival is. But it's definitely been.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
So what what what role did you play?

Speaker 3 (01:29):
So I've done both. I've done role player, which is
fun because you get to wrestle and fight and stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:36):
And then I'm the.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
You're a girl. You don't like to fight, right, yeah, huh.
That's why you're both. That's why you're both here is
because I want to hear from from what it's like.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
Do they like to fight? Yes? And we fight dirty
and you.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
And you're good at it. I think, Jordan, didn't you
have somebody that was complaining about how rough you were
with them? You made somebody cry a grown man probably.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
A couple of times at least.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
And these are just the people. That's just the people
you work with.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
Yeah, So anyway, I am really glad both of y'all
are here. Tell us a little bit about how I'll
start with you, Yeah, I mean, Jordan, whichever way you
want to go, but just talk about where you grew
up and how you ended up in law enforcement, and
a little bit of a twist, I think. I think,
especially when y'all first entered this, I would say, did

(02:28):
you have family members who are like, this is not traditional.
You're a girl, you should not be out here with
the grown ups.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
Well, I guess I'll go first.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
I was born in Virginia but grew up in a military.

Speaker 4 (02:40):
Family, so I know.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
No, No, I mean maybe it's a good brand. They
take care of their people, they do.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
So grew up in the My dad was in the
Navy Jordian. My childhood was in Florida.

Speaker 4 (02:55):
He retired. They're from this area, so they wanted to
come back home.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
They've never had the opportunity to do that, so I
moved back to Virginia when I was a freshman in
high school. I've always wanted to do police work, always
grew up interested in it.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
It did not surprise my parents' one bit.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
So I never really faced any of like the we're
worried about you because you know you're a girl, or
like I never had.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
They saw you grew up fighting, right, No, actually you
didn't fight when you were little.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
No, No, that's the twist.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
It's like I'm very like not confrontational, Like my waiter
brings me something wrong, I'm like, thank you so much,
and I you.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Know, okay, well I want to get back to like
how we make that transition to like thrive in law enforcement. Jordan,
what about you?

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, I was born and raised in Nelson County. My
dad was a police officer. He retired a couple of
years ago, thirty year career. So growing up, I mean
I kind of grew up in a police car in
the front seat bag but is surprising not the back
but you know, for the longest time watching him and everything,
you know, he had all this cool stuff. You know,

(04:06):
he got to go out at night time, and back then,
you know, law enforcement was a lot different. You could
actually do your job to a different degree. So for
the longest time growing up, you know, I thought my
dad was batman until I realized we weren't rich and
we had a mediocre basement. But you know, they weren't
surprised when I grew up, you know, to become a
police officer. I think the denial came when I graduated

(04:29):
college and came home and I was like, hey, I
just got a job at the Sheriff's office, and they
didn't talk to me for a couple of days. They
were scared because my dad, you know, with his career
and everything, you know, he had a few snafoos there
where he was actually injured and had to endure some things.
And my mom, you know, living with him doing it

(04:51):
now she has her baby going out. You know, she's like,
you could have been anything else, you know, But they
got over it. They both have been very supportive of
me and have all always supported me and everything I've done.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
So they've embraced somewhat embraced like, Okay, this is your choice.
So talk about said I'm gonna let her go first
this time. Talk about what it was like when you
started at the Sheriff's office. You went into the academy.
What was the academy like for you?

Speaker 2 (05:18):
I was exhausted by the time I got there already
mentally because I just graduated college. But I had this
mindset like, you know, if you're going to do it,
you just need to go because I was worried that
if I took a break, I would never do it. Okay,
So I just kind of powered through those six months.
I wasn't really nervous about the physical part. I was
more so nervous about, you know, having to learn everything

(05:42):
like from scratch, you know, because you see it on
TV and it's like, oh, that looks easy, and then
you get into it and it's like, you know, this
is a lot to remember and it's a huge responsibility.
So for me, it was just being able to pay
attention and stay in the mental game, you know, because
once I got out, I just wanted to be the
best officer I could be.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
What was it like for you at the academy.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
I mean I enjoyed it. It is like what she said,
it's a lot to learn, and I think for me
it was a lot of like self reflection because you
never know if you're going to be capable until basically
your feet hit the fire. And so I remember in
the academy just thinking, you know, do I have what
it takes, you know, can I do this? And honestly,

(06:27):
like Officer Survival, that's where everything clicked and I'm like, oh, yeah,
like I got this.

Speaker 4 (06:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
You think that influenced you in the decision to like
train other officers and Officer.

Speaker 4 (06:37):
Survival, Uh, yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Because you were like, oh, I can actually do this, and.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
I think it helps, especially when we have recruits that
are an officer survival. Like you can tell a female
officer stuff until you're blue in the face, but sometimes
it may not click like it does if it comes
from another female officer.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Right, So what so describe that? Like what what does
that mean? Like I feel like somewhat as a mentor, like, hey,
you can do this. I've done it, I have fought,
I've done it exactly all these dudes that are here
instructing you. I've done the same thing that they've done
and I've come out of it and I'm I'm a female.

(07:18):
Is that what is that? What you mean?

Speaker 4 (07:21):
Yeah? Yeah, like you can do this?

Speaker 3 (07:23):
And I think sometimes too, well, something that I've seen
is a lot of I think society says.

Speaker 4 (07:29):
This, and I think we've seen it in the female recruits.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
There's a lot of like meekness and I don't want
to say like they're scared to like raise their voices,
but it's almost like I want to be polite. So
it's just trying to explain like you can be polite
and professional and still take control of a situation, okay,
and like things like that.

Speaker 4 (07:47):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, so what do you think.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
I mean, my big thing, especially with female recruits is
when they you can kind of since when they're they're
not feeling comfortable or they're really really timid, and usually
give them a go at it to see where they're at.
But then I'll just pull them aside. And I mean,
I don't want to say I'm mean, but it's more
of a more of a stern talk, like you know,

(08:11):
when you get out.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Here on you're not great, you're not my mom, You're
being so mean to me right right, somebody has to
have that conversation. It's not it's not a conversation they
want to have on the side of the road with something.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah, when you get out on the street, you know
you're probably going to be by yourself for what feels
like an hour, even if you're not, and you have
to be able to hold your own you know, because
in the academy we care about them, we want to
see them succeed. But it's not like that on the street.
You know, no one's going to have your back, but
you sometimes.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
So can you either one of you all think of
any conversation that you have with the recruit or something
that you're like it clicked, and then you see them
later and you're like, man, this actually worked.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
So a couple of classes ago, out of Survival, there
was a female recruit that was struggling. And sometimes when
you're getting corrected depend on your person, you get more
and more in your head. Right, it's like I'm messing up. Yeah,
and she had she was nice as can be. She

(09:08):
had what I describe like a Disney princess voice, and
it's just like I pulled her aside and I'm like,
you have got to find some command presence. You have
to speak like you mean it, you have to go
hands on like you mean it like. And again it
was like one of those things where I feel like
she was trying to be polite in the scenarios and

(09:28):
I'm like, when you're in an argument with your husband,
like that is I know that's not how you sound.
And she's like, no, you're right, you're right. And then
it clicked. She went with a FTO. She was with
our agency, went to our FTO did.

Speaker 4 (09:41):
A great job and you know, did great.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
And so that was the first one where after FTO,
I was like, I'm so proud of you, like just
to see that progress and her grow confidence.

Speaker 4 (09:51):
And be like, oh yeah, I can do this.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
I got this, So it has to be rewarding. I
don't think people appreciate what people like you have done
to make it easier for them, because like there are
but you also have a lot of females that have
like paved a way in a really negative way for you,
and that expectation is like, oh God, I got to

(10:13):
deal with a female, and I know from working with
both of you that is not the case. Like I
would take you any day over a lot of males,
And it's just because you know how to deal with people.
You know when it's time to go hands on, you know,
when it's time to go to work. What do you think, Jordan,
anything like that for you?

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah, I mean a similar situation. You know, I had
one one time, you know, she came in and just
wasn't she would grab a hold of you, and it
wasn't there you could slip right out of it and
kind of square up against her, and I took her
out and I was like, you know, this can't happen
because you're going to get to a point when you
get out here on the street, you know, your shift partners.
They need you, you know what if they're in a

(10:53):
bad situation. I mean, you've got to be able to
handle that. And we talked for like five minutes, and
you know, it's kind of her last shot at it,
you know, because it is stressful, it's testing, and I've
never been a good test taker. I hate testing. I
hate going to the range and shooting for score because
I just have bad test anxiety. But I'm not a
bad shot, you know. And that's what I was trying
to get through to her, like, you're good at this, right,

(11:14):
but we have to we have to see it. And
you know, she goes out and the next thing I knew,
I was looking at the ceiling.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
She got it.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Got you get through somehow.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
So so let me ask you this. And I think
one of the benefits I've seen with working for females,
working with females and dealing with them is I feel
like y'a are a lot better than we are as males.
In just like in your description of being in the academy,
how many dudes do you think are like, oh god,
I don't know if I really belong here, you know,

(11:44):
I need to really like they don't get stressed out.
They're like, oh, I just want to do all the
cool things. Like y'all are very like analytical with what
you do. You think through things, you think through all
those things, and I feel like, from my standpoint as
somebody that's done it for a period of time, like
I do think that, like not only it's not really
a glass ceiling anymore, but it's almost like I have

(12:06):
got to, like I think the description. I'm not going
to tell you who said it, but you know who
I'm married to. And she was like, I can't do
my job like a dude would do because they're gonna
say I'm a bit Oh yeah, okay, so talk about that.
What is that like?

Speaker 4 (12:24):
It's kind of frustrating.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
I can't go to your job but you're a.

Speaker 3 (12:26):
Bit yeah, Like I can think of a prime example
of this was like years ago, I sent an email
out it's very professional because you know, I even get
people to check to make sure it's not bitchy before
I send it out, you know, and somebody came up
to me and they're like, damn, that was kind of
like bitchy. I'm like, oh, like why would.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
Like because I want to correct it? You know what
I mean, and they're like no, they literally couldn't say anything.
I mean, it was just professional.

Speaker 3 (12:52):
But because it came from me, it was being perceived
as being bitchy. But if it would have come from you,
it would have just been professional. So I can one
hundred percent understand where she's coming from because that's accurate.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
Like if I'm.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
Putting my foot down and telling you, like no, you
have to do something like a B and c. Oh, yeah,
I can be potentially perceived as being bitchy.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
What about you too well?

Speaker 2 (13:14):
I mean, you know, it's one of those things where
if you do your job and you do it well,
you're a bitch. But if you're too nice, you're a slut. Okay,
you know, so it's like, what would you like me
to be? Because yeah, you can't win sometimes and it's like,
you know, you listen to a mail all day long,
you know what he has to say, and you respect

(13:34):
him for it. So why don't I get the same,
you know, just because of my gender, because you know
I can do the same job.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
And in many cases, many cases, I think you do
it better. I just think like the way both of
you have processed information. I know you worked an Intel
for a while, so you didn't and that's the investigations.
But but but that is collecting information, like going into
a lot of detail. I know you were in investigations

(14:02):
to Jordan, like look at your reports and then look
at one of ours, like honestly, like seriously, like let's
have an honest conversation.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
Well yeah, it'd be like asking my husband like tell
me about this story and he's given me and I'm like,
well what about this?

Speaker 4 (14:18):
What about And he's like I don't know. I didn't ask,
and I'm like, well, then why are you telling me
the story if you don't have all the information?

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Makes you wonder how we ended up married, Like when
it comes to our husband's like.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
Did they have was a club involved? Like somebody knocked
you over there drug you back and they're like now
we're married, but no, like so seriously, like how how
how do you deal with that? Like you don't want
to be perceived as bitchy, but like you look at
it and you're like are you serious? Like and I
know I've dealt with some dudes before, and I'm like, seriously,
like I think if you wrote through report and crayon,

(14:52):
I would respect you more. Because like, my kid could
do better than this. But then I look at my
reports compared to someone I've read your I've read your report.
I've read your reports, Jordan, let's smack it. Like I've
read your reports and it's like the detail, it's like
I don't have any questions at the end of it.
But like other reports reports, all right, you know I

(15:13):
don't do great right reports. So that's that's another thing.
So like, what is it like to sit there and
the expectation is for you to like stay silent, be dainty,
be whatever it is that our expectation is for you.
What is it like to have the answer but have
to go through that thought process? And what is the
thought process like for y'all to be like I know
the answer, Like can can I answer and make this better?

(15:37):
Do you want like I want to know?

Speaker 4 (15:39):
Answer like I don't.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
I don't give a fuck like and I mean not
in a sense of like don't confuse. What what I'm
saying is like every mint, every man and my agency
acts like that.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
They don't okay, they know better, they've learned.

Speaker 4 (15:54):
They don't act like that. It's only certain basically, like
it depends on the type of man, but so it's
really rare.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
But like, for example, that Emi, I said, like the
male that came to me, I'm like, get the fuck
out of here, like and I'll tell him like shut up, dude,
Like it's fine.

Speaker 4 (16:11):
But I don't.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
I don't feel like a sense of like, oh, like
I know the answer. I don't know if I know,
like if I have information that's going to better investigation
better a investigat.

Speaker 4 (16:25):
Right, it does sound.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
Or I said, you were decided.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
If I have like information that's going to make a
process or procedure better, Like I'm not going to hold
back because I didn't get promoted, I didn't get where
I am from doing that. And I think I mean
Jordan too, Like I think we've earned credibility in our
work ethic and work product where like those encounters are
less and less.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
What about Jordan, I think his female You have to
set the standard pretty early on in your career, like
you pretty much have to come right out of the
gate with it, like you know, one, you're not gonna
talk to me like I'm below you. That's not gonna
fly at all, you know, So if we need to
have that conversation right out of the gate, so be it,
because I'm not gonna treat you know, a male counterpart
in that way. You know, if you outrank me, then

(17:19):
I respect you. If you're the same rank as me,
I still respect you. It should be, you know, no
different whatsoever. And as far as comments, you know, because
you hear not all of them, as Sid said, you know,
not all the men are like that. Most are very respectful,
you know. I will say when I started in law enforcement,
on my shift, the guys were great to me. You know,
they treated me like one of the guys. I mean,

(17:41):
they probably learned a few dirty jokes from me, honestly,
you know, yeah, yeah, you know, because you have to
fit in and everything, but you know, they were great.
They never they always kind of looked out for me though,
because I mean physically, I've always understood, you know, I'm
not as strong as a man. I know, elementations when
it comes to like the physical aspect, but you know,

(18:03):
I have a brain and they kind of let me
run with that. You know, the same thing in investigations.
So I've never had really someone come right out and
insult me in that way. But we've been kind of
at that line where I just went ahead and asked
it like right then and there.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
So for both of you, what would you tell women
getting into law enforcement? Like how do you get to
where you're at the right way and not be in
a situation where number one people are looking at you?
Like I just think it would be very difficult as
a minority in a department and you hear all this
deep I was, I just like when Trump, you know,

(18:44):
the attempted assassination, everybody was talking about that girl. But
you know what, the one thing about that girl that
his secret started at the agent. She went to him.
I don't give a shit if he did. She isn't
tall enough. She did exactly what everybody else did. In fact,
if you watch the video, she's the one that's getting
the train moving. So it isn't it isn't. But how
do you get through that when everybody in their brain

(19:04):
is going like, oh, this is a diversity, this is this,
this is that? Like with that going on, how do
you get through that as a as a as a female.
And you said, like what you said as far as
females are concerned, is like, I'm not physically, but if
you're more aggressive than a bigger dude, guess what most
people will back down.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, And I think it's about like understanding those things
and then figuring out a way to work it towards
your advantage. Like I think we both know, like if
you and I got into a physical fight, like you're
stronger than me, but I can do other things and
work other things to my advantage to win that fight.
And you just have to understand and realize that that
we're not. You and I cannot fight the same, right,

(19:43):
And I know if I'm talking to a six foot
five male that's nothing but muscle, like, I'm going to
probably have to do my.

Speaker 4 (19:50):
Best to de escalate it verbally.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
Versus hands on, which is what you know most people
should be doing anyways. Right, So I think it's understanding that.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
So it's like an honest assessment of who you are,
which helps you assess your situation.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
Yeah, And I think bottom line is if you show
up to work, you do a good job. You have
earned the respect and trust of your coworkers. Like nobody's
going to care what gender you are, Like, they just
care about what type of work you put out.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
Okay, what about.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
You, Jordan, No, I agree with that. You know, for me,
it's always been about the work. That's all I've ever
wanted to do is just work. You know, wherever you
put me, I'm going to work so it can work together.
Or you know, get out of my way. Yeah pretty much.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
Yeah. Well I think of a quote it says you
might be on the right path, but if you don't
get out of my way, I'm going to run over you.
And I feel like both of y'all have that mentality
of like, all right, just because you're a dude, you're
still occupying a space that could be useful. Either get
out of the way. And same thing for females. What
do you think about the females that are in law
enforcement and give you all a bad name, like making

(20:58):
dumb decisions? How does that? How does it? What does
that do to y'all? As far as female officers.

Speaker 3 (21:03):
Well, I mean it, it like pisses me off because
it's like, well shit, I've worked really hard to prove
that I've gotten everything I've gotten where I'm out in
my career because of my work product.

Speaker 4 (21:13):
And then here you go and it's just like like
come on, like seriously.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
But I imagine like you would feel the same way
you had a male officer do something dumb because I mean,
like you guys have your stereotypes too, like clubs.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah, like not like nightclubs, like you know, we're going
to beat you into things like that.

Speaker 3 (21:32):
Yeah, like you guys are just out there to beat
people up and yeah, don't give a ship, asshole douchebags.

Speaker 4 (21:38):
Yeah, like so we face it.

Speaker 3 (21:40):
But so I would imagine like you would be pissed
off too, just like that the female cop that was
all over social media because she had a lot of
relations in her department.

Speaker 4 (21:52):
And you know how time out. Yeah, like it does suck.
It sucks because it's just like you're feeding into that stereotype.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
What sorry, I had to walk into that one. All right,
we'll let thee go, all right? What about you, Jordan?
What do you think?

Speaker 4 (22:08):
I mean?

Speaker 2 (22:08):
It's frustrating because it's hard enough, you know, trying to
get started as a female law enforcement and trying to
hold your ground and go out there, you know, and
then something like that happens and you feel like you're
back at square one because it's like, you know, are
you kidding me? You know, we already have that going
for us, and now I feel like I'm in this
category that I have to climb my way.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
Back out of I got a makeup for what you
did wrong. Yeah, So talk a little bit about your career, said,
like where did you start? Like you start in patrol,
like and talk about each one of the disciplines or
areas that you worked in.

Speaker 3 (22:41):
Yeah, so I start off in patrol. I was in
patrol for roughly two years before I got promoted to
detective of criminal investigations. And at our agency, that's you know,
we're not divided by a person or property crime. You
kind of work a homicide or you know, felony, dozzleman,
you kind of work everything. At the time, it was

(23:01):
not common to get a specialized unit that early on
in your career.

Speaker 4 (23:05):
But I was very.

Speaker 3 (23:06):
Fortunate where my openings came up, and like we had
talked about, like, I had worked hard, so I had
a good reputation and I was lucky enough to get
into investigations. I was there for about four years and
then I got promoted to sergeant, thinking like twenty twenty
one and then all right, at our agency, when we
get promoted, you go back to the field. So I

(23:27):
was a sergeant in the field for about a year
and then I got moved to personnel and recruiting, so
hiring people, recruiting, that type of thing. And then now
I was in there for about two years and I
just recently got moved to I'm over at the forensics division.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
That's really cool. All right, what about you, George?

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Yeah, I started in patrol as well. I was there
for about two years, so similar situation. And then I
was approached by the sheriff and he was like, what
do you think i'd being a school resource officer? And
I was like, no, I don't want to do that,
you know, I thought maybe I'd done something wrong. I
was like, why do you want to Why do I
need to go in the schools, you know, or whatever,
And he just felt I'd be good at it, and
I mean, you know, I thought about it and I

(24:08):
was like, well it might be okay, I'll give it
a shot, and I mean it was. It was a
good time. Learned a lot. I started getting to some
investigations because in the schools, you know, that's kind of
like a playground. No pun intended for investigations with children,
because you'd be surprised, you know, you start building a
rapport with kids, they just come right in your office

(24:30):
and start talking to you and they just tell you
all kinds of things and it's like, oh my gosh.
You know. So that's where I kind of got my
niche for investigations and I was like, hmm, I might
be onto something here, you know, I kind of want
to pursue that. Started writing more and more search warrants
on stuff, getting into like some some phone you know things,
and the opportunity came available and I was promoted to

(24:52):
criminal investigations as well.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
So all right, so what else did you do specialized?
During that time?

Speaker 2 (24:58):
I got to go to the forensic cat to me,
so I was a certified crime scene technician.

Speaker 1 (25:03):
Any story, like a really cool story you want to
talk about on any type of investigation that you worked
that you found extremely interesting and people reacted to it
without going into like an extreme amount of detail.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
I mean, where would you want me to start? But yes,
there is one in particular. So a couple of years
ago I had the opportunity to help out there was
a case where we had a missing individual located a vehicle.
It was in water system, so it was full of

(25:36):
mud and debris and Sid probably knows with forensics, you know,
anytime you have something like that. You have to sift
through it all by hand because you can't miss anything.
It's very, very meticulous, lots of hard work. This happened
in the dead of summer. It was hot, but we
had to use our resources, and you know, it's pretty

(26:00):
it's pretty basic, you know, just use buckets to collect
things and go from there. Well, we ran out of buckets,
so I was sent to Low's to acquire more buckets.
So I bought like seventy buckets with the credit card. No,
we're not talking about little buckets.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
They were the five.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Five gallon buckets, had carts loaded with them. And you know,
I go to the checkout counter and I'm covered in mud,
I have boots on, just dirty. I probably smelled awful too,
you know, just everything in my hair. I just I
didn't care. I was ready to get back into the
ac and the little girl behind the checkout counter there,

(26:40):
she's just like scanning, just happy, go lucky. She's like,
what are you doing with all these buckets? I was like, oh,
I'm probably gonna put some body parts in them, and
she's like just blank stare. She's like what what? And
I didn't I do want to repeat myself because I
was waiting for someone to come out of the back,
like you know, all concerned and everything and serial Yeah yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
So think, I guess go back to like your experience
in each one of those and I'll give you time,
but like in each one of those disciplines that you
were in, in the in the agency that you were in,
was there anything that you were like, Man, this is
my wheelhouse, not just professionally, but like for me in
the way I think, in the way I process information.

(27:29):
This is what I really really enjoy.

Speaker 4 (27:32):
Oh yeah, investigations one hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
Okay, tell us why Well, I honestly.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
I would recommend everybody take us to have investigations because the.

Speaker 4 (27:41):
Things you learn in regards to the different codes.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
Of you know, law, like as a patrol off, so
you don't think in depth about codes because it's a
lot of the same thing like domestics or traffic stuff.
Where investigations you're dealing with all types.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
Of things, yeah, like actual crime.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yeah, and you're you're deep diving in and you're learning
so much about different charges you can do, and so
it's a wealth of knowledge. And even when I went
back into the field like that, was very helpful to
the patrol officers because I'm like, hey, you can actually
charge for this or that.

Speaker 4 (28:15):
And I liked investigations.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
Because I feel like you actually get to see the
reward of solving bringing justice to somebody, right, And I
feel like it used like WATSI factors of your brain
at the same time, which I enjoyed.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, So are there any cases that you can talk
about or that you've thought about that were like this
is really rewarding. I'll even preface this by saying, like
one that I had. I had one when I was
in Bedford and it was a sexual assault victim and
it was just photo and I tracked her all the
way back to North Carolina. And I think the thing
that stood out to me the most is like it

(28:56):
was just like a job for me, you know, like
I'm gonna track this person down founder I got all
this information together. It was a lot to put it
to trial. But the end of the trial for me,
I was like, stude got like ten years, this is nothing.
And she came up to me and she said, I
never thought that somebody would come back and like actually
care what happened to me twenty years ago. Yeah, thank you,

(29:19):
and like that was worth more than anything I possibly
could have done in my career, because like, here's somebody
that is just like man, the systems forgot me and
everything else in any cases like that, for either of
y'all that you think about, I mean, I.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
Think it's the same line like a sexual assault victim,
because let's face it, like a lot of times they're
not believed and so just gave me somebody the time
of day and the effort and you never know which
way is going to go in court. And the one
I'm thinking about, we actually lost that in court and
it wasn't anybody's fault. It's just the reality of sexual

(29:50):
assault cases in court, right, And she was so thankful,
like you said, just you believed that. Yeah, like you
gave me the chance and it was a historical rape
and just the fact that you were willing to investigate
and try, like it meant a lot to her.

Speaker 4 (30:07):
Such like things like that.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, yeah, pretty much the same situation, you know. And
it's it's sad really when you talk to victims and
they're like, well, I don't see the point because no
one's gonna believe me or no one's gonna care because
it's so easy to say these things like this happened,
and I'm like, but you know, not really, because I
mean you're a victim. I mean, why can't we work it?

(30:31):
You know, why can't we help you just because you
think no one's gonna believe you. I mean, that's just
that's always been so sad to me. So to help
someone like that, I mean, it means a lot, you know,
to take it all the way to the end. I
recently had a case happened probably three years ago, and
it was it was pretty violent sexual assault. I mean

(30:51):
it was. It was horrible, you know, interviewing this person
because I just I wanted to cry with her, but
you know, being a female, of course, you know that's
another thing to emotion, but you know, you kind of
have to stay strong and everything. So, you know, he
when he was convicted and sentenced, it was it was
a great feeling for not only for me, but like

(31:12):
I just felt like so great for her because she
can finally start learning to live in peace again.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
So I guess, like from my standpoint, when I hear
you talk about cases like that, and I think about
like all the things that we go through on cases
and just getting them ready for court and prepare for court.
I just wonder from from your standpoint in the way
that you work cases, I just I don't know. I'm
trying to think of the right way to word it.
And but like cases, I don't think people appreciate the

(31:44):
level of violence and the things that happen. So there's
two things I want to do. My wife has told
me I need to like compartmentalize. You get it with
the skittles and everything else. We'll tell you that story later, ADHD.
One thing I want to talk about is what you've
seen on the street as far as like in your job,
like the level of violence and just the vile things

(32:06):
one human will do to another. But I also want
to think about, like, with the way law enforcement is
right now, how many victims do we have out there
that are like I'm not even going to bother I'm
not gonna call the cops, I'm not gonna be interviewed.
I'm not gonna put myself out there because they're going
to lose. All they care about is driving around. So
first I want to talk about like the vile things

(32:27):
that like how do you react to that as a
wife and a mother and as a wife going home,
like dudes can go home and you know whatever, but
like you are supposed to be the softer side of
that marriage, correct, and that's it, But that's the expectation.
The expectation is like my wife is supposed to be

(32:49):
the safe place for me to land, the soft place
for me to land. But like you were dealing with
the violence of the vile, how do you deal with that?

Speaker 3 (32:58):
It's kind of hard to answer that because I can say,
like pre child, like before I had myself.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
Being completely different as a mother.

Speaker 3 (33:05):
As a mother, so when I was a detective, I
worked I can't even tell you how many infant deaths,
which are like devastating to begin.

Speaker 4 (33:14):
With, right, but I was able to.

Speaker 3 (33:19):
Handle that right exactly child, yes, And I was always
like I didn't know that child, Like that's how I
kind of thought about it, right, But now I have
a son, and like the thought or just it just
hits so different. And people used to tell me that
years ago, and I was like, whatever, you just need
to do a better job at you know, putting it

(33:40):
in that box.

Speaker 4 (33:41):
But you really can't. And so it's hard and it
makes me.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
Like paranoid almost like in a sense of like my
son going to daycare, because I've investigated daycares and like
the stress of that or like the stress of you
know what, you know, my son just turned to and
it's like you can have nothing in his crib, like
nothing like and then it's just like, you know, you

(34:09):
don't want your children having social medias or cell phones
or sleepovers, and and so just trying to be responsible
but not be.

Speaker 4 (34:18):
Psycho about it. It's just it's really hard.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
And yeah, I think what's hard. I think for me
what it's hard is like it is the connection as
a father to a child is nothing compared to the
connection to someone who carried a child, you know, And
so I do think that it's totally it's I think
about these dudes that are like, this is horrible. I
would never I couldn't. I know, I couldn't do it.

(34:42):
I couldn't imagine multiply that by the amount of time
that you actually carry a child. It's just crazy.

Speaker 4 (34:47):
Yeah, it it's hard, and especially if it's just the reason.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
We've had some very violent child crimes and I wasn't
even directly in, but just dealing with an aspect in
which I had to be involved.

Speaker 4 (35:04):
Was just like crushing.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
I remember like calling my husband and just being like,
this is just awful, like because I can't imagine somebody
doing that to an infant, and then yet here we are.

Speaker 4 (35:14):
It's just mindlaning to me.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Well, I appreciate you sharing. I know it's not easy
for I thought you were going to do the smitty thing.
I got to pull it together. No, you did good.
What about you, Jordan as a wife? I mean I
feel like, I mean, you say, like I have to
be tough, but like there's still that expectation. Both of
y'all are in public service. We'll just oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
I mean, I'm a very protective person, so I never
want to like burden anybody with my feelings because it's like,
man like, I don't want anyone else to be upset
by this. So I do the whole box thing and
just try to like push it to the back of
my mind. And that works for a little bit. But
you know, you find it kind of like sneaks up on.

Speaker 1 (35:52):
You because I mean when you least expect it.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
Yeah, yeah, I mean like sometimes you know, a few
years ago, I was in vite at my church to
get up and do like a little law enforcement. It
wasn't a celebration, was like an appreciation And I wrote
a little speech and got up in front of my
church and like I was just talking, like having a
good time, like reading my paper, and like out of nowhere,
I just started bawling, crying. I don't know why, like

(36:17):
it just.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
I can tell you. Yeah, the latest incident that I had,
I had to go talk to some professionals. And one
of the things that they told me that's called bleeding.
You've put it in a box, but eventually it's going
to leak out, and that's what it is. And nobody
wants to talk about. Nobody wants to be like, Okay,
you've seen all this trauma. You've gone through all this trauma.

(36:39):
At some point, it's got to leak out because you
don't have any place for it to go. You stay
so busy, you go on and on and on, and
like you're getting that routine. It's coming out, yeah, and
it usually doesn't come out at a really good time.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
Oh no, no. And in law enforcement, you know, you
could be having a totally normal day. You could be
like eating your favorite meal or telling a joke, and
then all of a sudden, you're on your way to
see something horrible, you know, and it's like, that's that's
not normal. I'm very fortunate because I have a very
supportive husband. You know, he's never held me back. He's
always encouraged me to do what I want to do.

(37:11):
He's always a listening here if I want to talk
about it. You know, he's a first responder, so he
he sees some things too. So you know, I'm very
lucky that I have him as that support system.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
Okay, but you but I think, yeah, I feel like
I shut out Regie because she just praised her husband
up and down.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Praise can you give it?

Speaker 1 (37:30):
I promise they are. They're they're newly married.

Speaker 4 (37:34):
That's true.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, I still get over and I'm just kidding. That's
a joke. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about
like the way that you work cases and everything else,
and where law enforcement is right now. My personal feeling,
and obviously it's just my feeling, but it is my show.
So I want to tell you how I feel, and
the way I feel about it is is I think
people don't expect anything from us anymore. They they look

(37:59):
at us as an ex tension of the government. Like
the government as a whole, the bad government that taxes them,
that doesn't care about what they do or anything else.
And we further that by putting out Facebook posts about
us changing tires and doing stuff like that. Nobody's going
out there and actually addressing crime. In my opinion, I
was in a big city not long ago, and the
guys like, yeah, we pretty much don't do anything like

(38:21):
we we we have like an agreement with the gangs
and everything else. We're not going out When I say agreement,
I'm saying like from a standpoint of like we're not
going to go in there and start the pot. Yeah, don't, don't.
Don't leave a bunch of bodies on the street. And so,
without going into detail, because you're both both still in it,
but is that is that what you see in law

(38:43):
enforcement in general is like we're going to play it safe,
We're gonna write your ticket. But as far as us
being proactive and going out there and actually doing something,
it's it's a scary place. You don't have to answer that,
it's just answer it in a way that is most
comfortable for you with the people you work for. Because
I know, like I know there are people in different agencies.

(39:05):
Let's just talk about it as a whole, Like when
you go to the academy, Like, are these people prepared
to like actually go out there and interdict and.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
After crime like straight from the academy.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Well, just in general, I think it's changed.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
I think, you know, we would hope so, but the
media and a lot of these other things have kind
of put, you know, a totally different picture in people's heads.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
I think, well, and I think it's like kind of
frustrating because I see what goes on behind closed behind
closed doors in the investigative division and whatnot, and.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
I can see how hard they're working. I can see
what they're doing. But because the cases are ongoing or whatever, like,
we can't share that information.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
So to the public's eye, it looks like we're not
doing shit. But that's really not the case. It's just
we just can't tell you what we're doing.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
So how so, how do we have an honest conversation
with the general public to say we're working on it,
we got we still have stuff that we need to
get done. How do we have that conversation in a
way that it doesn't give away an investigation but it
also makes them away like you're not gonna have to worry, like, yes,
we're at we're at a standstill, and justice takes time,

(40:18):
you know, but at the end of the day, we
still care about what happens in our communities. We're just
retooling this and trying to make it work.

Speaker 3 (40:27):
And I think some of it, too, is like an
educational piece, because the public watches these crime scene shows
and they think like results are an instant, and that
is far from reality. I mean, if somebody goes for
an autopsy, it can take two months before we get
the autopsy report, and sometimes we cannot do anything until
we have that report. So it's just some educational pieces,
like if you send DNA to the lab, it's not

(40:48):
like boombam and you're done and we got a result.

Speaker 4 (40:50):
It's like months and months.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
And months later, you're like we're getting hit. And so
I think some of us just like educational pieces. But
then I think also bottom line is like some people
like you're never going to make them happy, and you
just have to have the knowledge that, like you, you're
doing everything that you can and basically like don't worry
about the outside noises.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
Okay, what about you, Jordan?

Speaker 2 (41:13):
I mean be an investigator is one of the hardest
jobs because you always want to do the best job,
but sometimes it's just not there. I mean, sometimes a
case can't be solved, maybe ever, maybe not right now,
you know, and it's hard, but it's not your fault,
you know. And unfortunately, I mean there's all kinds of

(41:34):
things like I would love to talk about and let
people know, like, hey, this is why you know, just
calm down, but you can't because then you've roamed the
whole thing and it's completely gone.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
At that point, we don't have an example of a
case like that locally at all. But anyway, that's a
different story for a different day.

Speaker 4 (41:50):
Well, and that's like another thing too.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
It's like it's not just like the police, it's like
the common auth attorney. Sometimes they need stuff that like
we just can't give them. And it's like all these factors,
but unfortunately the law enforcement tends to take all the blame.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
All right, let's talk about wow the laws. No, No,
let's talk about law enforcement taking the blame. So like,
from my standpoint, one of the things I struggle with
is I hear people talk about like, well, that's a
bad cop, this is a bad cop. This is a
bad cop, But like, what are we doing with the
ones that are actually like bad When I say bad,

(42:24):
like they do a horrible job, they don't really care
about the public they serve, and they are using that
job for their own benefit. What do we do, like
in general terms, to like read these people out, because
like it is a struggle for me because I feel
like we always should look out for each other, but
there are people that are doing like really dirty things
that are in this occupation, and it to me, it

(42:48):
causes me, Like when I look at my badge, I'm like,
I'm not like you, Like you might have the same
badge as me, but like the way that you just
handle that case is not even from a humanity standpoint
the right thing to do, much less is somebody that's
supposed to be fixing this for somebody I don't know,
Like I know that's a tough one, but like, in
general terms, what is that?

Speaker 3 (43:10):
Well, I think one thing is decertification, okay, but that obviously,
of course you have to meet certain standards. But they
did recently change that because I would get frustrated. Being
personal recruiting, I was in charge of my agency's recruits
that were in the academy. And you know, if you're
in the academy and you lie whatever, like you're still fired,
but you're not. You wouldn't be decertified because you're not

(43:33):
technically sworn.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
So you haven't had you haven't gotten that official d certification.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
Yes, you couldn't desertify it.

Speaker 3 (43:40):
Well now they've changed that, okay, And so like if
you are fired in the academy for line or whatever
the criteria is that matches the decertification, now your agency
can file for you to be desertified. So like you
won't have the opportunity. I think that's where we mess up,
is like you leave and then you can go on
to a sheriff's office or wherever, and you kind of

(44:00):
slip under the you slip through the cracks where now
like you can find a certification for those that are
in the academy and still training and whatnot, which I
think is helpful. But I also then gets on every
agency to do a proper hiring process and a real
background and not one of these like just phoning a

(44:22):
friend and being like oh yeah you good, all right, cool,
Like I mean, like a real background, So did.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
You work in background investigations.

Speaker 3 (44:29):
It was part of my personal recruiting experience in that unit.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
All right, so what does it look like? What does
a good background check look like?

Speaker 3 (44:38):
So it would be like a personal history statement, which
is like in depth, like we're asking you all types
of questions in regards to drug history.

Speaker 4 (44:45):
Have you ever been involved in a number of things?

Speaker 3 (44:48):
Right, then you're going to a polygraph, and then from
the polygraph, you're going into a background investigation. And then
we use the background and people don't understand like that
background is.

Speaker 4 (44:56):
Compared to your poly compared to your personal history.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
Statement to make sure there's no DBA yeah, okay, and
then our background investigation like they are speaking to your parents,
your roommates, your girlfriend's husbands, ex fiancees if need be.

Speaker 4 (45:13):
So it's these coworkers.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
They are if you're a sworn individual, they are going
to your agency and pulling IA files and speaking to
a lot of people. Sometimes come with attorneys like they're
going in depth to make sure like you meet our standards.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
And so it is it's the depth of the interview.
It's not just taking one person's word for it. It
is what both of you have proven really good at,
which is like, Okay, here's my surface. I'm going to
go three layers.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
Down and I can and I can tell you, like,
not everybody has the same hiring standards and in regards
to doing that end depth and background investigation. And I've
seen it from people we've turned down. I go to
other agencies and I'm like, did they cause? For example,
like if somebody applies with us and we find out

(46:06):
they've applied with the surrounding jurisdictions, like we also go
to them say hey, what do they put on your
application to make sure it lines up?

Speaker 4 (46:12):
And I can tell you how everybody is doing that.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Okay, well, I can say when I went through the
background process, you know, I mean they called everybody. I
had friends calling me, They're like, yo, the police just
called me, like what did you do? And I'm like, well,
I'm trying to get a job actually, so I hope you, like,
you know, dis your best, but yeah, and I mean,
when it all comes down to it, it's one of
those things. For me, it's always been really frustrating because

(46:38):
it seems like we promote people instead of calling them out.
So it's kind of a waste because you have these
if you want to call them, you know, bad cops
or ones that don't live up to the standards. They
under the radar.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
They're not workers, so they don't get complaints, right, they don't.
They don't. They don't put themselves out there. They play
it safe inside their car. They know more about the
information about their fellow officers than they do about the
criminals and like, but they're clean by the time they
hit that next level.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
And that's when the problem comes out though, because you
can skate, you can skate by you know, just being whatever.
But once you get promoted, it's gonna come out eventually,
and by then, you know, it's too late. So like,
now you know, you have all these problems, you have
people on leave, you know, you might have to fire somebody,
and we're just we're back at square one. So it's
like for me, it's all my question has always been,

(47:31):
you know, why can't we start strong that way we
can avoid you know, losing officers and having to put
people on leave and having to do investigations and facing
you know, negative media. You know, why don't we just
put forth all that extra effort in the beginning instead
of wasting all this time and resources.

Speaker 3 (47:49):
You know, when I think sometimes people struggle with having
crucial conversations.

Speaker 4 (47:52):
They get uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
Women aren't good at crucial conversation, never get back. Y'all
are like, really really good at it because I think
I think I don't know why. I mean, why are
y'all so much better of having those honest conversations like
like what you describe, Like if you go up to
dude and are like, hey, are you okay, They're gonna
be like, yeah, I'm fine. But like if you go up,

(48:16):
y'all will tell y'all will tell like, no, I feel
like shit, Like I don't like this, I don't like
the way this is going. Like, tell me about that,
Like what is it like to be in that situation? Uh?

Speaker 3 (48:28):
Well, I think that's just comes down to, like one,
how you're raised into like societal expectations, like I'm.

Speaker 4 (48:35):
Sure you feel like you need to be like manly,
don't talk about your feelings, YadA, YadA, YadA. Right, We're
like I feel like, like you asked me a question.
I'll tell you, Well, if I like you and I'm
friends with you, then yeah, I'll tell you Like if
we ain't like that, then yeah, I'm fine, too cool.
See you later.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
But y'all do y'all it seems like it seems like
from what I have, and maybe it's just more exposure
to strong women like you, it is like y'all are
more apt to say. I remember Jordan before coming into
my office and being shutting the door and being like
we have a problem. And I was like, what, no,
we don't.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
You know.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
I was like I want to get under the desk
and hide, like if she's coming in here, something's really bad.
And I remember the project that you've worked on with
the schools, and like you just kept running the obstacle
obstacle after obstacle when it's a very clear thing you
were trying to make the school safer. And they're like,
you're hurt my feelings because you're getting it done. I
was giving it for two years and I didn't do

(49:33):
anything on it. But I'm getting it done. So I
don't know, like from from your standpoint, going back to
like I'm being a bitch, I'm doing this, Like how
do you how do you power through that?

Speaker 2 (49:45):
I call it five foot nothing syndrome, Okay, And I
definitely have that.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Okay, you have heels.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
Yeah, I mean, you know the tinier you are. It
seems just like it just it just comes out, and
I don't know if it's like a defense mechanism, like
I feel like I need to be tough because I'm not,
you know, very strong or tall. But you know, it's
it's just one of those things. I just have always
stood my ground, and I'm like, you know, if something's
not right, I'm gonna say something. If we need to

(50:13):
fix something, We're gonna fix it now because I don't
want to be bothered with this again.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (50:19):
I mean yeah, I feel like sometimes I feel that's
when I get frustrated because I'm like, okay, let's go,
let's make a decision. Let's like I've got it figured out,
like let's roll with it.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
And it's just like, so, I'm gonna give you a
scenario that my sweet wife gave me not long ago,
and she was like, you dudes have meetings that last forever.
She's like, can you just.

Speaker 4 (50:45):
Like bullet point it.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
Let's go, yes, yes, So talk about what that's like
the meetings, and You're like, can we please just get
to the point, like I don't know what y'all are doing,
so you like have.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
Meetings about meetings and like no, and not only this
was a waste of my time, Like nothing was like
nothing progressed from text, decisions were made, and it's like
everybody's just trying to see who has it. And she's like,
let's let's go thought no I took it back.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
No, but you it's like a measure It's a measuring contest,
like who is the smart who's the smartest person, who's
the most tactical, Who's this, who's that? But like, for y'all,
what is it? It is just like, let's what is
the job? What is it that you want me to do?
And how do we get there? Yeah, to talk about that,
talk about what that looks like to be in a
room full of people. And You're like, and it is

(51:34):
an exposure thing to me. It's an exposure thing to me.
I I had had some positive experiences with some of
the females that I've worked with, but like then the
other ones, I'm like, did you get this job? But
then I run into Jordan over there, and I'm like,
every time something is assigned to her, she comes back

(51:54):
with something that's better. Same thing with you is like
when I call I know you have your jokes about
when I come to where you're at. But like, in
all honesty, I knew if I called you like you would,
you would tell me what the deal was and make
it work. And so what is it like to be
sitting in a meeting with a bunch of people talking
and you're like, like I have an answer, Like I

(52:15):
want to raise my hand.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
Well, so it depends like if I'm in a room
full of captains and my upper command staff, it's probably
not the time.

Speaker 1 (52:23):
To but you ever pull into the side.

Speaker 4 (52:26):
Oh absolutely, oh absolutely.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
But you've earned that. To me, I feel like you've
earned that right, and I feel like they do respect
you because like you've been right.

Speaker 3 (52:35):
Well, and I feel like I would hope and I
think like my supervision knows like if they give me
a task, like I'm going to get it done and
it's going to get done quickly and it's going to
be right and they're going to.

Speaker 4 (52:46):
Be happy with the product.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (52:48):
So I feel like because I've shown that, when we're
in a meeting about something and I have, you know,
an idea or whatever to talk about later, like they
will listen and they're like, yeah, you're right, Like run
with it. And show it to me when you're when
it's complete.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
Okay, what about you, Jordan.

Speaker 2 (53:05):
I've just never been a fan of meetings.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
I don't like them either.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
I'm just very like quick to the point and if
I'm hungry, everybody's in danger, shorty.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
I'm so So what you're saying is if you're going
to have a meeting, you better have snacks. Yes, if
you're going to extend my stay, yes there's going to
be snacks.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
I've had people like trying and talk to me and
they're like, are you hungry? And I'm like yeah, and
they're like, never mind, we'll I'll talk to you after
you eat.

Speaker 4 (53:28):
I'm like, good.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Choice, because you might get a better answer. So I
don't know if this is a question that y'all can answer,
and if it isn't, we'll move on to another question.
But like, what do you think from your standpoint, where
are we add in law enforcement currently and how can
we get better? And I'll preface it by saying what

(53:49):
we talked about earlier, which is you have these kids
that have all these talents. You both worked in investigations.
You know how labor intensive it is. Why are we
not going to these colleges with these kids that know
how to use social media, know how to do all
these things. Why are we taking them, recruiting them and
putting them in a police car when they could act

(54:10):
as a force multiplier of three officers. Because like I
think about law enforcement right now, what are we doing
different Like we're not doing We have technology in our cars,
we type on our computers, we have like lights that
show up at night, all this different stuff, but like, realistically,
what are we doing differently? Are we giving our patrol officers, Hey,
these are people that I am looking for, this is

(54:32):
what I need and everything else. Are we getting that
information out there?

Speaker 3 (54:37):
So at my agency, yes, because we just well I'm
sure you're familiar, Like it's different styles of policing and
it always kind of changes, and yeah, so we have
a new model of policing which we get like a
I can't think of what it's car right now, but
an email gets sent out to everybody like these are
like prolific offenders, like so you know, and everybody's designated.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
So it's called targeted enforcement. That's the incorrect, that's the
politically incorrect, but that is like these are the people
that are committing the crimes. This is the kind of
crimes they're committing you. As a patrol officer, this is
what you need. This is situational awareness. This is what
you need to look for.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
Yeah, and everything's broken up into sectors, and there's you know,
certain people are in charge of certain sectors and prolem areas.
Like for example, if this one area has had a
ton of vehicle arsenies, like they are sent to pretty
much address that.

Speaker 4 (55:29):
Whether it's like DPS or whatever, it's more like intelligence led.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
Okay, all right, so like the way you were there,
you go go ahead.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
So I try to use my powers for good and
not evil. But you know, I graduated from Lynchburg College,
which is now the University of Lynchburg.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
And is that because of you or No?

Speaker 2 (55:54):
No, that was not because of me. But you know,
I get to go back to the criminology department and
I get to guest appear in some of these courses
and talk about things, you know, and I'm very blessed
because I've done patrol, I've done investigations, I've done crime
prevention SRO, so I have like all kinds of knowledge

(56:15):
about those things. So some of the students, you know
that are genuinely want to know and are in that program,
you know, because the way you said it earlier, the
TV depicts it like, Oh, I'm gonna graduate college and
go right in the FBI. That's not realistic. You know,
you got to know what you're doing before you get
to that level. So I'm just brutally honest with them.
I'm like, you know, this is how it is. It's

(56:36):
gonna suck for about three years. But if you can
hold on, and I mean genuinely hold on, because like
anybody can grab the bull by the horns, it's the
holding on part that's hard. And you know, I just
tell them that. I'm like, but if you really want it,
you can do it. And once you level out and
you get that experience, you can pretty much go in
whatever direction you want to go. It's just staying dedicated

(56:59):
to it and holding on.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
So I guess my next question is, so where you're at, Like,
both of y'all are using your knowledge and the power
that you have with the knowledge and also who you
are as individuals to make things better. So how does
law enforcement continue to get better? I guess I have

(57:22):
a very jaded view of law enforcement from a standpoint
of I see dudes riding around hoping they're going to
bump into something, and then when they do, they really
don't know what to do with it when they get there.
So I guess like I would like to have you back,
like in about two years to see if the way
that you're doing things are working. Do you see the

(57:42):
results yet or we're just in the startup.

Speaker 4 (57:45):
I think it's too new, okay to really.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
But conceptually it sounds amazing.

Speaker 4 (57:51):
So I would like to think it's worky.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Just kidding, just kidding.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
I like the idea of it, but like you said,
I want to see like the stats and the data
and and well. I think also bottom line too is
like we have all these things, but that requires staffing,
and as you know, it's like very hard to get staffing.

Speaker 4 (58:13):
It's very hard to get people to stay.

Speaker 3 (58:16):
Now, when they say you're recruiting, you're not recruiting for
the twenty year veteran.

Speaker 4 (58:19):
You're recruiting for somebody that's gonna be there for like
five years. Like what work are you get out of
them in five years?

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Yeah? And how much do you invest in somebody that's
passing through?

Speaker 4 (58:27):
Yeah? So I think that's like one thing.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
Well, I'm sure every agency would say that, Like I
wish we had more staffing so we can do more
and be involved more. So that's what I hope in
the next two like, like you said, the next two years,
I hope we have a little bit more staffing to
maybe do some of these things, to.

Speaker 4 (58:46):
Be more hands on and more proactive.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
Because when you're short staffed sometimes all you can be
is reactive because you just don't have the staffing and
do what you need to do.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
But here's the question, Okay, this is a tough one.
Tough one is how much of all that is related
to the individual though, because like from my standpoint, I've
worked with people where they just look really pitiful and
when they go in there and they're like like what
you said, like a sector, like your sector is getting
beat and you're not doing anything. We've given you all

(59:17):
the tools. At what point do we pull the trigger
and go, you're not accomplishing, you're a mission. We need
to find something else for you to do. So, like
for you, as the leader's coming up, how do you
hold people accountable? Like like what is the measure? Like
you have this great concept, but what is the measure
of like, hey, you're doing a really good job. Because

(59:37):
what I've seen in law enforcement is man he writes
a lot of tickets. He is proactive. And that's not
I mean no offense to anybody that writes tickets.

Speaker 4 (59:48):
Thinking it's like going to be coming for you.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
Now, yeah, I've got a lot of people. But in
all honestly, like I understand that, but like that is
a you're exactly right. Your traffic unit, that's what it's for.
They're looking for DUIs, they're looking for all these other things.
Put your average officer on the street that goes I
can either serve a warrant, it's your department calling. Yeah,

(01:00:10):
you can either be proactive, go out serve warrants, go
out there and actually deal with criminals, or you can
deal with somebody that likes to drive fast. You know,
I mean, you have a traffic unit that is for that. Like,
from my standpoint, law enforcment is much deeper than that,
is being part of the community and getting in there
and rooting out the criminals.

Speaker 4 (01:00:28):
Well, I think a lot of the I think it's
not one thing. I think it's a lot of things.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
I think it's again crucial conversations like are this is
the supervisor having important conversations with their officers that maybe
are not performing at the level that they should be
to its morale. And it's if that supervision is leading,
you know, leading the charge, then their officers are.

Speaker 4 (01:00:47):
Going to fall online.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
And if you have the majority of your shift or
platoon that's go getters, they're getting deep into you know,
gain activity or the firearm charges or whatever. Then like
we talked about before, they're either going to get on train,
they're gonna get the fuck out. So, I mean, I
think those are key components.

Speaker 4 (01:01:05):
Is just those things, Yeah, but you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
I mean, everybody wants a little bit of recognition to
a certain point, and I think that's that's part of
the problem. Is you have these hard workers that are
going out here and they're like busting their tail, doing
everything they can to be a good officer, and they're
trying to learn. But you know, because some supervisors they
might be overwhelmed or they might be burnt out. You know,
they're not recognizing their officers. And I'm not saying give

(01:01:34):
them a participation trophy or anything by that, you know,
but every now and then, you know, give them a
little support, give them a little pound on the back, like, hey,
you know, I noticed that arrest last week and the
investigation that followed. You know, that's really good for a
patrol offster. Keep it up, you know, like encouragement along
the way. I mean, it goes a long way, because
rookie officers are like kids, you know, you know, and

(01:01:56):
it's not an insult, but I mean it's it's true.
You know, you're looking for val and you're looking to
be successful.

Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
Yeah, and I think too, especially like with this younger generation,
they want to know the why behind it, and if
they can understand the why and support that why, they'll
be all about it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
It's interesting you said that. As the liberty students that
we brought on here, I asked them that. I was like,
how do we engage your generation? And they said, set
guardrails and tell us what we need to do your idea. Like,
obviously there is a way from point A to point B.
But if you just give them guardrails and say come
up with an idea and fix it, you know most

(01:02:35):
of them can a lot of them can do that. So, yeah,
phenomenal talk. I really do appreciate both of y'all coming on.
I hope neither one of you get in trouble, but
in all honesty, like both of y'all work at phenomenal agencies.
I personally know, I don't know a lot with yours,
but like with yours, like you have some really good

(01:02:56):
people at your department, top down, and I just I
appreciate the fact that, like you are like the core
of what's trying to make it better. And for both
of y'all, like you with where you're working and you
what you're doing, you're changing it like you really are,
Like they might not feel like it some days, but

(01:03:17):
you really are. And I appreciate everything y'all have done
and what you're going to do. So I'm retiring soon.

Speaker 4 (01:03:24):
Yeah, okay, have you been saying that's like