May 15, 2022 • 40 mins
This week on "Create. Build. Manage." I talk with Toni Brinker, Founder and CEO of One CommunityUSA, and the Chief of Police of the Arlington Police Department, Chief Al Jones, about the mission of the One Community foundation and the Build Away Crime program, as well as the difficulties faced by law enforcement and how as citizens and business owners we can help improve relationships in our own communities.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:10):
Welcome to create, build, managethe entrepreneurs Toolbox. Here's your host,
Scott Miller. My guest tonight,our Tony Brinker. She is a founder
and CEO of One Community, USAand the chief of Police for the City
of Arlington, Texas, Chief AlJones. Welcome to the studio. Thank
(00:31):
you, Thank you so much forboth for being here. Tony, I
want to start with you. Iwant to talk about the mission of your
foundation and why we are here tonight. The mission of our foundation is to
build cities of opportunities for everyone.That involves our wonderful law enforcement and community
(00:52):
stakeholders. So bringing those two groupstogether is key critical to creating a better
world for Everyone's quite a lofty goal. And you were on our Daily show
earlier this month and we kind oftalked about that. Just real kind of
quick for people that are meeting youfor the first time. Why this passion
Because you could have done anything,You could be enjoying the beat somewhere,
(01:15):
enjoying a trip to Europe, andhere you are, rolling your sleeves up
and working. That's so true.Well, one this all started basically with
my late husband who started a restaurantchain as known as Brinker International, But
I saw the philanthropic effort that hemade on a daily basis and how that
(01:38):
transcended into his employees. So hemay be taking them down to be at
a food kitchen or whatever, buthe felt that that was the best way
to build a great culture within acorporation and then expanded at the same time
over and above that. I witnesseda march on the streets in New York
(01:59):
City in twenty fourteen late and thatis the first time that I ever heard
what do you want dead cops?When do you want them right now?
And so I made two back toback calls, one to our mayor and
one to our police chief and said, we need to be doing something differently.
We have a serious problem in thiscountry. So that's kind of the
(02:23):
birth of One Community USA. Andthen you have to build Away Crime program.
What's that about? The Build AwayCrime program is really patterned after what
law enforcement does now, but bringingour community stakeholders together and the youth to
work hand in glove with law enforcementacross the United States. Community based programs
(02:45):
that cause bridges of trust to bebuilt because sometimes we don't have them,
and that creates a unity and thenwhat happens is your business owners and your
citizens become key critical and helping supportthe great work of law enforcement, but
they become leaders in their community,and then that's paid forward into the community.
(03:07):
So everyone wins. Now, ChiefJones, I'm curious what your reaction
was when you picked up your phoneand there's Tony Brinker, or perhaps outside
of your office and there's Tony Brinker. What was your reaction when you first
met Tony and heard her passion andheard her heart. You know, I
think it was I was probably aboutfour months into the job, so I'm
(03:27):
still trying to learn the city ofArlington. But Tony came to the office,
who sat down, and she says, Chief, I have an idea.
I want you to take a partof this one Community USA. So
we talked about what it was about, and I instantly said, you know
what, I'm all in. It'ssomething that we need to do as a
(03:50):
city, we need to do asa policing profession. It's about really engaging
our community to the best that wepossibly can. And I think partner up
with one community is allowed us todo that. And I'm really fortunate enough
that she chose Arlington to come hereto bring the program. Now you've been
in law enforcement, says since nineteenninety five, is are correct? That
(04:12):
is correct. I started my lawenforcement career in Baltimore County. I worked
my way up to the second rankingperson in the agency. After twenty five
years, I haven't realized it wastime to find something else. And you
know, I was fortunate enough tocome to Arlington. They at this job.
That's great, that's great. Soyou've seen a lot in your career
as far as relationship between the communityand law enforcement. You certainly can speak
(04:39):
uniquely to what we've seen in theproblem that Tony was mentioned she saw in
New York. So speak to thatfrom your perspective. Is it something that's
getting better? Is it getting worse? Well, you know, let me
say this, it's been twenty fiveyears in law enforcement. You know,
we have been tasked to do alot of different things that we shouldn't been
(05:00):
doing, and a lot of itis animal control issues. Now we're into
the mental health profession. Now we'reinto all these different areas that I'm not
sure if we have the true expertiseto be there, but it's all put
on our shoulders and we do whatwe do as cops, and if they
say, hey, we need todo that, that's how we respond.
(05:20):
But I can tell you just lookingat what's been happening across the country,
the relationship between police and communities orsome of them are fragmented. What I'm
going to say is it's not everycommunity. So you know, we probably
have about a five percent, maybeseven percent of our community who we don't
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have a relationship with. And thisis what this is about. We have
to find ways to go into thosecommunities, break down those walls, build
those bridges. But what I'm goingto say is sometime we can't do it
by ourselves, and we need partnersto help us get into those community.
When you have partners working with you, it's so much easier to build a
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relationship with communities that really don't trustthis as much. That makes sense.
And when you say five to sevenpercent, I appreciate you putting a number
to that. You know, we'vetalked about before. You know, working
in media, I'm going to speakto my profession. We tend to fan
the flames. We tend to talkabout the negative. We tend to be
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a part of the problem, notpart of the solution. I could say
that, right, and so let'stalk about what the solution is. So
your vision, because you've done somepretty unique things, like you're you're not
just talking the talk, you're walkingthe walk. And I'm trying to picture
this and television doesn't do it justice. But you know, here we have
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Tony Brinker, small partique lady goinginto some really rough neighborhoods and having some
tough conversations. Talk about that.Oh, and that is a true statement.
So I have been in more thanone conversation where I can hear gunshots
going off in the background. You'reused to that, but I can tell
you I was not but going intothe neighborhoods and actually seeing what people are
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experiencing on a daily level. Thatalso is employees of companies they sometimes experience.
These things allowed me to put togetherprograms with quantitative and qualitative data points
tracked by universities, so that atthe end of a specific year or something,
I can take a report back tothe chief because how would you gauge
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numerically that trust has been created?So I have to do this and I
have to tie it back to economicdevelopment and from a business company's perspective again,
I'm a businesswoman as well. Iwant to be able to expand my
business and hire more people. Iwant to do it from neighborhoods where maybe
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they deserve an extra break. Sothat means that I'm I'd actually put in
my case or Breaker International's case,a restaurant in a neighborhood. But it
has to be safe. So inorder for it to be safe, we
need the good help from law enforcement. Law enforcement needs our help because they
can't police a community to safety becausethen it appears to be too heavy handed,
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and a community citizens we may thinkwe can do everything, we can't.
We always look to the fellows inblue to handle the problems that we
don't know how to handle. Soif you bring the two groups together,
you can make a difference. Butwalking the walk and talking to talk took
me about two years to get areally good idea that the same problems in
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Baltimore, even Baltimore County, arethe same in La same in Phoenix,
same in Chicago, same in NorthTexas. People want to feel safe and
they have to have that to beable to grasp the American dream. Both
sides need each other. So thisone community is the bridge to bring both
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of them together. So we startthis initial healing process and this process where
people get their voices heard, theyhave some value, and then they get
involved and they can help reduce crimeby just feeling comfortable enough to call Chief
Jones or people on his staff andsay, we have an issue over here,
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and I trust you now to tellyou that there's an issue, rather
than you coming in and be sayingno problem or nothing right, And you're
speaking to something that I think everyhuman wants. Everyone wants to live in
a place they feel safe, right, Chief Jones is not just It's not
just one group of people. Weall want to be No. I think
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everybody wants safety. They want tofeel safe in your community. This is
one thing that I've learned since beingin the business for so long. People
won't play, they won't live,and they won't shop in the place they
don't feel safe. And we haveto make sure that we're providing that safety
for them. But what I'm goingto say is we can't do it alone.
Crime is not a policing issue.Crime is a community issue. And
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if we can actually work together,and it has to be more than just
us and the community it has tobe the faith based leaders. It has
to be the school system, hasto be hospitals, it has to be
business. They have that all totake part or have ownership business. And
we all have to sit at thistable to figure out what problem that we're
trying to solve, and we cansolve it together, especially if we put
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the smart people in room, wecan get it done. It's just a
matter of are they willing to sitat the table to get it done.
It's an interesting topic and we haveyou for the whole hour to talk about
this. We're going to dive intoit some specifics, some things that are
going on, and we're also goingto address how you and the business community
can get involved. You have aresponsibility as well stick around. This is
(10:56):
create, build, and manage tovisiting this hour with Tony Brinker as well
(11:37):
as Chief Al Jones, and wewere talking that last segment and I want
to kind of dive into it alittle bit more, this connection between the
business community and law enforcement, andI think, and really i'll throw this
out there for both of you.I think often and you address us as
well, we tend to look atlaw enforcement as Let me give you everything
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I don't want to handle right,I don't want to handle that dog.
I don't want to handle this person. You know. Rather than walking over
and having a conversation with my neighbor, I'll just call you and let you
deal with it. And that happensa lot. So as a business community
is watching this and they're thinking,well, how does this relate to my
cash flow and hiring employees and marketingmy business. But you make an interesting
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connection between safe communities and success inbusiness. Oh, no question about it.
And a lot of people really don'tget They don't connect the dots.
You cannot put an asset and I'lluse the restaurant industry or a grocery store.
Typically they are not put in neighborhoodsthat are not safe. So even
a restaurant, we are aware thatthe possibility that someone may burn the facility
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down. We also are quite awarethat food products get sold stolen. Probably
excuse me, food products do getstolen. So I'm very aware that someone
might be cooking a steak and itmay go out to a patron, but
there might be another stake that's putinside a pocket, and when they have
a break, they may go sellit to someone or maybe take it home
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and feed a small child. Ihope the latter. But we have a
fiduciary responsibility to the people that orwe employ and the customers that we have.
So safety is key critical when youmake a decision in terms of where
you're going to put a business,if you are going to expand, and
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how you're going to do it.So you have to take care of your
employees and they need to feel comfortable, otherwise they won't come to work and
then obviously you won't have a thrivingbusiness. So again, safety is important.
The other thing that is also keycritical is making sure that the employees
know that they're valued. So corporationsneed to be uber sensitive to supporting causes
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that their employees can relate to.One of the things, if you are
born in an underserved community and thenyou are able to get a good education
and move yourself out of a communityfor whatever reason, you may still have
relatives who live in an underserved community. So these employees need to know the
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guy in the corner office relates tothem, and a good way to do
that is through community engagement, neighborhoodbuilding programs that integrate law enforcement. Because
then again you bring the two sidesneeded to create a better world together.
And you mentioned about how you're partneringwith faith leaders and schools. What about
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businesses? How do businesses help you? How can the business community come alongside
and help what you're doing. Sowe actually really work well with the Police
Foundation there, Religion Police Foundation here. They are being an extreme great partner
for us unforced in law enforcement.In government. Maybe our budgets art and
as big as we would like,and we can't get some of the items
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or some of the things that weneed as to do our job really well,
whether it's training for our officers oreven assisting in funding youth programs.
The foundation and the business community theycome together and they say, hey,
listen, what do you need andthey will go out and they will make
sure that they provide us funding forus. So those are the things that
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they that's how they help us.The other way they help us is they
asked our biggest supporters. You know, they want to make sure that we're
doing well, because if we're doingwell, they're doing well. And it's
about making sure that we're growing ourtax base here in Arlington. We want
to make sure that our businesses feelcomfortable coming here to opening up headquarters and
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opening up plants, because I saidbefore, if they don't feel safe,
they're not coming. And you havea unique position because you know, for
people Arlington, Texas, we knowit well, do our show here in
Arlington, but for those in LosAngeles and Boston, they're like, Arlington,
where's that it again? So Arlington, I mean, you're the forty
six largest law enforcement agency in theUS. People don't realize how big Arlington
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is. It's where the Dallas Cowboysplay, It's where the Texas Rangers play,
and so you've got a lot.In addition to this, you have
a lot of guests that are comingin, so you're responsible for a lot.
And I'm guessing you don't have avery large department, meaning you know,
it's not like you can be everywhereat the same time. So you
need that support to help you,right. Absolutely. The rs our agency
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is about nine hundred strong. That'sbetween SWE and nine SWE members. You
know, we cover nine g eightsquare mouse. We are, which I
like, we are the most diversecity in the country, and I think
that's important because you want to makesure that you're engaging everybody in the community
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want everybody to feel that they're partof the police department. Unfortunately, we
can't be everywhere. We can't beeverywhere in this city. So we need
our communities, the bbiyes and earsfor us. We need their partnership,
we need their relationship, and weneed them to actually give us a call
when see something wrong. And Ithink that's how we get it done.
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It makes sense, it makes sense. And so you've been going into barbershops.
Have you done that in Arlington?Yeah? Yeah, Oh, this
is wonderful. So when I talkedto Chief Jones about it, I said,
we have this absolutely wonderful barbershop programand beauty salon because you don't want
to leave the women out, Okay, So we have the corresponding course to
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that. Also, it's called UnaCommuni Dog, which is in the Hispanic
community. So shoptalk is primarily inthe African American community. So we engageing
minority owned business leaders who have takenthe big step to start a business and
maybe some area is that are reallyunderserved, but to give them the support,
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allow the law enforcement to come inand have these very very hard conversations
because that's usually what happens in thebeginning about well what does law enforcement do?
Do you have any bad officers?How do you report the officers?
Why is it that I always getstopped when my son and I drive through
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X, Y Z zip code?So it allows through one community USA an
opportunity for Chief Jones and his officersto say, now, let's talk about
that. And you're in a businessenvironment and these owners are usually considered pillars
in their community. So it's thissafe environment where also the youth get involved
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and you get to see each otherfrom each other's perspective. That's where you
bring in our build bridges of trustand create unity. That's the hardest question
you've been asked, Well, prettymuch traffic stop, traffic stops or everything,
because we do that more as highfrequency for us, so more people
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get pulled over? Why that Iget pull over? And they just don't
understand that. But I can tellyour funny story from being in one of
the barbershops, actually a couple ofthem. So it's been nude here to
Arlington. So when we are goingto places that we normally don't go,
you know, people will look,Okay, what's going on? Are they
doing a search one here or they'redoing well. So it's so their customers
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are coming in and they're doing aboutface and say, man, I'm in
the wrong place. So we sowe have to go grab them and say,
hey, you know what, No, you're not in the wrong place.
And this is how the conversation starts. When you saw me in the
barbershop, what was your first thought? And that's how the dialogue began,
so that they understand we're not herebecause of crime, We're here to try
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to do it a relationship. Andonce you actually have that conversation for hour
and a half and they are ableto ask anything, they start building that
to us and they want you tobe in that barbershop. And that's what
we've been experiencing over the last year. We've been talking about One Community USAY.
The website if you want to findout more information about Tony Brinker's organization
is one Community USA dot org.If you see it there on your screen.
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We're going to be right back.We're gonna have a more conversation and
I'm going to ask what questions shouldwe be asking in the community to stick
around. This is create, Buildand bandage. The back to create,
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build and mants We're talking this hourabout the really the serious issue of law
enforcement and their relation in the communityand how we can improve that and improve
relationship as it relates to business aswell. And my guests is our Tony
Brinker and chief from Arlington, Texas, Chief Jones, And I kind of
give you a little clue when Iwanted to talk about going into that,
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because I think there's questions we shouldbe asking as a community that we are
uncomfortable asking. So I'm going tothrow it out there to the table.
What questions should we be asking?He wants to go first, You want
to start, Yeah, I'll start. I think one of the questions that
you know, everybody really wants toknow is why do we use force on
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some of our calls, because that'swhere we see all of the protesting,
that's where we see all of thethings that are negative that the media portrays
for us, but sometimes their validright. So we have to have that
conversation, and we do here inArlington. Why do we use force?
Why do we you know, becauseI'm one of the first questions they always
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say is why can't you shoot thegun out of person's hand? But that's
not how we're trained. We're trainedto stop the threat, whatever that threat
may be. But we have tohave that conversation so that everybody understands we're
not waking up in the morning andsaying, Hey, I'm going out there
and shoot somebody, because that's notwhat we want our community to think about
us. But the other part ofit is, and I've been saying it
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since i've been here, is thatyou know, there has to be some
type of piece of compliance as well, because the old responsibility can't be just
on the police. If I'm askingyou to stop doing what you're doing,
if you stop doing what you're doing, then maybe we can actually work the
problem out together and then you know, we can get rid of the force.
But it's really truly about making surethat the community understands. The other
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thing I think it's important to askis what should I do on a traffic
stop? You know, because that'swhere we see most of the time,
where we're dealing with our citizens.So you know, you got to have
that conversation. Make sure you keepyour hands on the wheel, make sure
you turn the dome light on,make sure you don't make any third of
movies. Why the officers making contactwith you once the officer makes contact with
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you. So all of those differentthings, I think the community needs to
ask and we have to be ableto ask explaining it to them, because
that's when you start the light bulbsstart to click, where they start understanding
what we are and what we're about. You mentioned working with educators. Is
this something that is being talked aboutin assemblies in high school and that kids
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start to drive that. Is thatsomething you guys are addressing. Yes,
and you know it's we're working andit's right now. We're working on a
video and I can't wait for itto come out. It is what you
should do if you get a trast, stop by an office or so that
the kids understand, so that we'retaking it taking a message to the community.
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And it's not just about the kids, it's about everybody, because we
get some of growing adults who's sixtyseventy years old who still don't want to
comply with us. So it's abouteducating everybody, and that's what we're trying
to do. Educate about how towork with us to keep everybody safe.
You know, a lot of what'scome out of this has been the issues,
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you know, the names that weknow George Floyd, and while Arlington
has not been perfect in its history, even not had the headlines that other
cities have had, what do youdo proactively with your officers to really continue
to train them to prevent that fromhappening. Because you know that officer,
you know, wherever the community is, they didn't wake up expecting to be
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headlines that day. That's on youright right, So you know, what
we implemented is the twenty first centurypolicing strategies. We actually looked at the
six pillars. You know, wewant to make sure that you know,
we're building trust and legitimates. Seein our community, we're teaching our officers
procedural justice, So those things areingrained in our culture and I think that
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that's important. The other thing isis that we're very transparent in Arlington.
We're trying to share as much informationas we can with our media, with
our communities, but we also wantto make sure we're sharing information with our
office because we don't want them tonot know what's going on. So here's
the other thing too. So whatwe're working on the seven year strategic plan
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here in Arlington, and it's focusedaround these areas here. So it's called
treat the acronym treatment. If wetreat people with dignity and respect, we
can build trust. So the teais for transparency. We want to be
transparent in everything that we're doing.The ours for respect. We want to
make sure we're respecting our community,make sure that we're treating with dignity and
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respect. We want to engage them. We want to engage them on every
level possible. We want, asI said, we have the a diverse
city and in the country. Wewant to make sure everybody feels a part
of Arlington Police Department. And wealso have to have that accountability piece.
We have to make sure we're measuringhow successful we are. And then the
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last piece is not only training inwhich you talked about making sure we're training
our officer properly, but also makingsure that we're educating and training our communities.
And those are the areas that we'refocusing on. And I think if
we can actually continue on that path, I think we're going to build a
lot of trust here in Arlington.That's great, that's great, great stuff.
These are the same questions that wemy officers again who are retired that
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work in shoptalk. They are retiredformer police officers. They now see everything
from the citizen side, and sothey'll typically show up at shop talk,
una community dog and we also havea reentry in a diversion program. So
when we're talking through this anytimes,the officers will go is there any question
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that you want to ask Chief Joneswhen he comes in, and the barber
will go, well, you know, I think I'd like to ask him.
It's a good question. Go ahead, you think I can. He
said, yes, absolutely, thisis the right time to do it.
So it's always about traffic stops.Maybe something that happened, particularly with George
Floyd we had in the cities wherewe were working. We actually had long
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conversations about George Floyd, and whenmany of those conversations ended, our barbershop
owners would say, oh my gosh, we should have been doing this all
the time. When are you comingback? And we get the same thing.
For our salon owners, they seemto have some time different issues.
Their issues are I don't want toclose at five o'clock on the afternoon because
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I'm too scared to leave my salonbecause many times that you fill up the
parking lot, so we're able tothrough those conversations notify jurisdiction and say,
if you haven't had any calls,then you might want to send black and
white around. And so this willhelp that female keep her business open for
two extra hours, so she'll makeadditional money, her employees will make additional
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money, so it becomes a winwin for everyone. We have on the
table today a ribbon that you broughtin, which is really really nice.
Why don't you talk about this andwhat it symbolizes. Well, this is
what we call a unity ribbon.So the yellow down the middle represents citizens.
That's you and me, okay,And the blue on either side are
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first responders that are here to protectus, like Chief Jones and his officers.
A first responder incidentally, the definitionis anyone who's taken an oath to
serve and protect, So included inthe law enforcement category. You're also going
to have your city council. They'vedone it, Your teachers have become first
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responders. People now know because ofCOVID that nurses and doctors or first responders.
So what we tried to remind peopleis that those who are in the
blue happen to be citizens. Theymay live right next to you. They
just get up and put on auniform. I put on a dress,
but we are still one, andthat those of us in the yellow sometimes
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become a first responder. There wasa young man who was killed in the
Parkland High School shooting. He savedsix of his friends. He didn't go
to school that day deciding that hewas going to be a first responder.
But at that young, tender age, he did become one. So that
is why we call these unity ribbons. We like to work with police departments
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to get everyone, including media,to come out, church leaders, barbershop
owners, s, line owners,businesses. This is where employees can get
involved. We wrap neighborhoods so thatwhen you have a police officer going home
at night, he's worked deep nights, he is dead tired. He drives
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by a house that's got this ribbonon it. He knows that the people
in there, they may not knowhim and he may not know them.
But we all want one thing andthat is to live safe. We want
to be one community. And itis a visual branding way of saying,
let's do better. How does thismake you feel when you see this?
(30:27):
It's special, it's special. Youknow, it really shows that, you
know, there is community out therethat really appreciate what we do. There
are a community out there that reallywant to partner up with us. And
I can tell you, Jess,you know, from being an officer,
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when we hear those things, becausenobody think about this. They don't usually
call us when they're having a birthdayparty, right right, They're calling us
when they're out there worst. Andjust to see something like that saying hey,
we accept you, we accept whatyou do when we love what you
do. That makes me feel good. That's good. That's a good point.
It's kind of I kind of usethe you know, football analogy.
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You're kind of like the offensive lineof the of the city. Right.
The only time you ever get mentionedis usually negative news, not the positive
news exactly. You know, peoplearen't saying thank you for keeping the streets
safe. Hey I went to thatfootball game. There was no incident.
You know, I go to churchhere in Arlington, Texas, and there's
about three of your officers that arekeeping our campus safe every Sunday morning.
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This constant things that we don't thinkabout. So we got about twenty seconds,
so we're going to pick up theconversation when we come back on that.
By the way, we've been visitingwith the Chief Jones. The website
is Arlington PD dot org is whohe represents, Arlington PD dot org.
Stick around, this is create,Build, and Manage. We're bout that.
(32:00):
H is out Tony Blinker. She'sa founder and CEO of One Community,
(32:39):
USA, an organization that is reallyworking to connect the community with law
enforcement. And then we also havethe police chief of Arlington, Texas,
Chief Jones with us. Tony,this is one of these topics that and
we said this last time, whichis why we invited you for a weekend
show. We could probably spend hourson this topic and still not even scratch
the surface. So as we kindof begin to wrap it up, I
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really want to give people action itemsthat they can walk away with. So
let's start from the business perspective.People that own a business, run a
business. What would you want themto walk away from this conversation? Okay?
So I have two things, Okay. One, to all your business
owners, you need to move toArlington, Texas because you've got a great
chief okay, and he understands theconnection. Two, for those of you,
(33:27):
you need to make sure that theHR department in your company is actively
engaged in community engagement, and bythat I mean understand what your employees want.
They may look like you, buttheir concerns about what's happening in the
United States may not be the sameas the person that works at the c
suite level, and so my talkingto them about serious contemporary issues is very
(33:54):
important, but also giving them theopportunity to get involved with law enforcement,
to come and get it like inour case, and come to a shop
talk. We renovate one barbershop orsalon in each jurisdiction every year, and
it is so cool to see acorporation that comes in and says I want
(34:15):
to do that, let me makea donation, or my people want to
come in there and help renovate,and we typically will do the thing that
sits on the back of a barbershopchair. We'll put their emblem, their
company's emblem there so that every timesomeone gets to get their hair cut,
they are able to see their corporation. If I'm an employee, that lets
(34:37):
me know that the owner of thatcompany, whether they're based in Sweden or
wherever, truly understands my concerns.That makes me a better employee. So
having hard conversations are necessary. Withthe programs that Chief Jones has that we
have, you get not only totalk about it, but you have actionable
(35:00):
where that means getting involved. Andby doing that, you know you don't
care what the guy next to youlooks like. Black football game, I
don't care if the guy next tome is a cop. I don't care
who he is. I don't careif he's black, white, ran,
whatever. I'm still pulling for myteam. That's what we have to do
in our community. Just to backup what you're saying, we're seeing market
(35:22):
research where people, even this youngergeneration, particularly my kids generation, they
care more about what the CEO thinkson issues than ever before. When I
was growing up, I didn't carewhat the CEO of Coca Cola thought.
There was no discussion with the CEOof Disney thought. Thanks. You know,
but that's something that's very important.So I think business leaders do have
(35:44):
to think about that. They haveto be mindful that not only their employees
but also their customers care what theythink. Well, let me leave you
with one final thought. They donot these young kids do not need to
get involved with causes that destroy America. So we want our want our business
leaders to give to causes that actuallybuild things in America and also don't cause
(36:07):
hatred. So getting involved in positivebuild away crime programs, twenty first century
community building programs, that is important. Everyone wins in that scenario. I'll
give you an opportunity for the viewerthat's watching at home. Obviously they have
different opinions on law enforcement in general. What's the one message you would want
(36:30):
anybody to walk away from this conversationknowing about law enforcement? So I think
the important thing that they really needto know is we're human. We're no
different than them. We put ourpants on one leggative time, just like
they do. Unfortunately, because wewere a certain uniform, we are painted
(36:50):
a certain way and they have tostart trying to move away from that.
You know, we are truly outhere to be their partner, to be
their friend, to help mentor theirkids, because we do that in schools.
So we do a lot of thingsthat people don't think about that all
the things that we do, whetherit's from mentoring, we do social work,
(37:14):
we do mental health, taking careof people through mental health. We
do a lot and I want themto understand when we go out every day
and we're out on patrol, we'reout there to serve and to make the
community much better and much safer.That's the bottom line. That's great.
And your Blue Fit program, that'sa cool program you've started with your law
(37:37):
enforcement. Yeah. So one ofthe pillars for the twenty first century policing
is making sure you have officer wellnessprogram. We have been doing a fantastic
job here in Arlington making sure thatwe're taking care of our officers. Not
only do we have the Blue Fitprogram, but we have a blue Chip
program too. And I'll explain thedifference between both. The blue Chip program
(37:59):
are officers we can get issue thema blue Ship where they can go and
seek anonymous treatment from any clinician thatis under our service provider for us.
They can go there and it's allconfidential where they can go in and see
someone and talk about whatever issues thatthey may have. And that is the
(38:21):
first in the time, first inthe country for a program like that.
The second program is the Blue Fit. We actually just hired on an instructor,
a fitness instructor for the age.She works for our staff. She
puts our about twenty five thirty officersthrough a program thinks about ten week program
ten weeks where they actually are doingexercise, learning how to eat right,
(38:45):
doing all the things that really takecare of them, and making sure that
they're able to serve our community.What I do know is if our officers
aren't well, they're not going tobe able to do positive things in our
community, and we have to makesure that we're taking care of them and
treating them and making sure that they'regetting the help they need. If they
need that help, that's great.One other thing I'll add is there is
(39:07):
a large percentage of first responders inlaw enforcement who are former veterans. So
for those companies that are veteran focused, getting involved in programs like this not
only helps the employees because it getssem an opportunity to get involved, but
also it speaks to the needs thatmany of our veterans have. They serve
(39:29):
the country, they came back,they want to serve again. So that's
the reason why we have such ahigh percentage of veterans in law enforcement.
At about sixty seconds, I wantyou to speak to the person who is
at home, who, like you, could choose anything, maybe it's time
for them to step up and gettinginvolved. What would you tell them,
(39:49):
I would tell them, don't wasteany time, give me a call.
We can. We would love tohave a lot of people in this world
that say that Americas were fighting forand that we also need to support our
wonderful law enforcement as well as ourcommunity. So if they want to make
America better, they just need toget up off their couch place a phone
(40:10):
call. Because I can assure youI've got them on my team as of
tomorrow. That's great. I rememberwhen your first time, you know,
you told me the mayor of Dallassaid, what are you going to do
about it? You're like little olme. Well here you are, you're
doing something about it. Jony.I appreciate it. Appreciate you bringing this
topic to our attention. Chief Jones. Thank you for your time as well,
(40:30):
and appreciate you tuning in. Thisis a topic that we need to
continue to have the conversation. It'snot just one hour of television. We
need to continue out of the conversationon TV as well as in your community.
Thanks so much for watching. Thisis create, build, and manage
Welcome to create, build, managethe entrepreneurs Toolbox. Here's your host,
Scott Miller. My guest tonight,our Tony Brinker. She is a founder
and CEO of One Community, USAand the chief of Police for the City
of Arlington, Texas, Chief AlJones. Welcome to the studio. Thank
(00:31):
you, Thank you so much forboth for being here. Tony, I
want to start with you. Iwant to talk about the mission of your
foundation and why we are here tonight. The mission of our foundation is to
build cities of opportunities for everyone.That involves our wonderful law enforcement and community
(00:52):
stakeholders. So bringing those two groupstogether is key critical to creating a better
world for Everyone's quite a lofty goal. And you were on our Daily show
earlier this month and we kind oftalked about that. Just real kind of
quick for people that are meeting youfor the first time. Why this passion
Because you could have done anything,You could be enjoying the beat somewhere,
(01:15):
enjoying a trip to Europe, andhere you are, rolling your sleeves up
and working. That's so true.Well, one this all started basically with
my late husband who started a restaurantchain as known as Brinker International, But
I saw the philanthropic effort that hemade on a daily basis and how that
(01:38):
transcended into his employees. So hemay be taking them down to be at
a food kitchen or whatever, buthe felt that that was the best way
to build a great culture within acorporation and then expanded at the same time
over and above that. I witnesseda march on the streets in New York
(01:59):
City in twenty fourteen late and thatis the first time that I ever heard
what do you want dead cops?When do you want them right now?
And so I made two back toback calls, one to our mayor and
one to our police chief and said, we need to be doing something differently.
We have a serious problem in thiscountry. So that's kind of the
(02:23):
birth of One Community USA. Andthen you have to build Away Crime program.
What's that about? The Build AwayCrime program is really patterned after what
law enforcement does now, but bringingour community stakeholders together and the youth to
work hand in glove with law enforcementacross the United States. Community based programs
(02:45):
that cause bridges of trust to bebuilt because sometimes we don't have them,
and that creates a unity and thenwhat happens is your business owners and your
citizens become key critical and helping supportthe great work of law enforcement, but
they become leaders in their community,and then that's paid forward into the community.
(03:07):
So everyone wins. Now, ChiefJones, I'm curious what your reaction
was when you picked up your phoneand there's Tony Brinker, or perhaps outside
of your office and there's Tony Brinker. What was your reaction when you first
met Tony and heard her passion andheard her heart. You know, I
think it was I was probably aboutfour months into the job, so I'm
(03:27):
still trying to learn the city ofArlington. But Tony came to the office,
who sat down, and she says, Chief, I have an idea.
I want you to take a partof this one Community USA. So
we talked about what it was about, and I instantly said, you know
what, I'm all in. It'ssomething that we need to do as a
(03:50):
city, we need to do asa policing profession. It's about really engaging
our community to the best that wepossibly can. And I think partner up
with one community is allowed us todo that. And I'm really fortunate enough
that she chose Arlington to come hereto bring the program. Now you've been
in law enforcement, says since nineteenninety five, is are correct? That
(04:12):
is correct. I started my lawenforcement career in Baltimore County. I worked
my way up to the second rankingperson in the agency. After twenty five
years, I haven't realized it wastime to find something else. And you
know, I was fortunate enough tocome to Arlington. They at this job.
That's great, that's great. Soyou've seen a lot in your career
as far as relationship between the communityand law enforcement. You certainly can speak
(04:39):
uniquely to what we've seen in theproblem that Tony was mentioned she saw in
New York. So speak to thatfrom your perspective. Is it something that's
getting better? Is it getting worse? Well, you know, let me
say this, it's been twenty fiveyears in law enforcement. You know,
we have been tasked to do alot of different things that we shouldn't been
(05:00):
doing, and a lot of itis animal control issues. Now we're into
the mental health profession. Now we'reinto all these different areas that I'm not
sure if we have the true expertiseto be there, but it's all put
on our shoulders and we do whatwe do as cops, and if they
say, hey, we need todo that, that's how we respond.
(05:20):
But I can tell you just lookingat what's been happening across the country,
the relationship between police and communities orsome of them are fragmented. What I'm
going to say is it's not everycommunity. So you know, we probably
have about a five percent, maybeseven percent of our community who we don't
(05:42):
have a relationship with. And thisis what this is about. We have
to find ways to go into thosecommunities, break down those walls, build
those bridges. But what I'm goingto say is sometime we can't do it
by ourselves, and we need partnersto help us get into those community.
When you have partners working with you, it's so much easier to build a
(06:03):
relationship with communities that really don't trustthis as much. That makes sense.
And when you say five to sevenpercent, I appreciate you putting a number
to that. You know, we'vetalked about before. You know, working
in media, I'm going to speakto my profession. We tend to fan
the flames. We tend to talkabout the negative. We tend to be
(06:24):
a part of the problem, notpart of the solution. I could say
that, right, and so let'stalk about what the solution is. So
your vision, because you've done somepretty unique things, like you're you're not
just talking the talk, you're walkingthe walk. And I'm trying to picture
this and television doesn't do it justice. But you know, here we have
(06:46):
Tony Brinker, small partique lady goinginto some really rough neighborhoods and having some
tough conversations. Talk about that.Oh, and that is a true statement.
So I have been in more thanone conversation where I can hear gunshots
going off in the background. You'reused to that, but I can tell
you I was not but going intothe neighborhoods and actually seeing what people are
(07:12):
experiencing on a daily level. Thatalso is employees of companies they sometimes experience.
These things allowed me to put togetherprograms with quantitative and qualitative data points
tracked by universities, so that atthe end of a specific year or something,
I can take a report back tothe chief because how would you gauge
(07:35):
numerically that trust has been created?So I have to do this and I
have to tie it back to economicdevelopment and from a business company's perspective again,
I'm a businesswoman as well. Iwant to be able to expand my
business and hire more people. Iwant to do it from neighborhoods where maybe
(07:56):
they deserve an extra break. Sothat means that I'm I'd actually put in
my case or Breaker International's case,a restaurant in a neighborhood. But it
has to be safe. So inorder for it to be safe, we
need the good help from law enforcement. Law enforcement needs our help because they
can't police a community to safety becausethen it appears to be too heavy handed,
(08:20):
and a community citizens we may thinkwe can do everything, we can't.
We always look to the fellows inblue to handle the problems that we
don't know how to handle. Soif you bring the two groups together,
you can make a difference. Butwalking the walk and talking to talk took
me about two years to get areally good idea that the same problems in
(08:43):
Baltimore, even Baltimore County, arethe same in La same in Phoenix,
same in Chicago, same in NorthTexas. People want to feel safe and
they have to have that to beable to grasp the American dream. Both
sides need each other. So thisone community is the bridge to bring both
(09:05):
of them together. So we startthis initial healing process and this process where
people get their voices heard, theyhave some value, and then they get
involved and they can help reduce crimeby just feeling comfortable enough to call Chief
Jones or people on his staff andsay, we have an issue over here,
(09:26):
and I trust you now to tellyou that there's an issue, rather
than you coming in and be sayingno problem or nothing right, And you're
speaking to something that I think everyhuman wants. Everyone wants to live in
a place they feel safe, right, Chief Jones is not just It's not
just one group of people. Weall want to be No. I think
(09:48):
everybody wants safety. They want tofeel safe in your community. This is
one thing that I've learned since beingin the business for so long. People
won't play, they won't live,and they won't shop in the place they
don't feel safe. And we haveto make sure that we're providing that safety
for them. But what I'm goingto say is we can't do it alone.
Crime is not a policing issue.Crime is a community issue. And
(10:13):
if we can actually work together,and it has to be more than just
us and the community it has tobe the faith based leaders. It has
to be the school system, hasto be hospitals, it has to be
business. They have that all totake part or have ownership business. And
we all have to sit at thistable to figure out what problem that we're
trying to solve, and we cansolve it together, especially if we put
(10:33):
the smart people in room, wecan get it done. It's just a
matter of are they willing to sitat the table to get it done.
It's an interesting topic and we haveyou for the whole hour to talk about
this. We're going to dive intoit some specifics, some things that are
going on, and we're also goingto address how you and the business community
can get involved. You have aresponsibility as well stick around. This is
(10:56):
create, build, and manage tovisiting this hour with Tony Brinker as well
(11:37):
as Chief Al Jones, and wewere talking that last segment and I want
to kind of dive into it alittle bit more, this connection between the
business community and law enforcement, andI think, and really i'll throw this
out there for both of you.I think often and you address us as
well, we tend to look atlaw enforcement as Let me give you everything
(11:58):
I don't want to handle right,I don't want to handle that dog.
I don't want to handle this person. You know. Rather than walking over
and having a conversation with my neighbor, I'll just call you and let you
deal with it. And that happensa lot. So as a business community
is watching this and they're thinking,well, how does this relate to my
cash flow and hiring employees and marketingmy business. But you make an interesting
(12:18):
connection between safe communities and success inbusiness. Oh, no question about it.
And a lot of people really don'tget They don't connect the dots.
You cannot put an asset and I'lluse the restaurant industry or a grocery store.
Typically they are not put in neighborhoodsthat are not safe. So even
a restaurant, we are aware thatthe possibility that someone may burn the facility
(12:43):
down. We also are quite awarethat food products get sold stolen. Probably
excuse me, food products do getstolen. So I'm very aware that someone
might be cooking a steak and itmay go out to a patron, but
there might be another stake that's putinside a pocket, and when they have
a break, they may go sellit to someone or maybe take it home
(13:07):
and feed a small child. Ihope the latter. But we have a
fiduciary responsibility to the people that orwe employ and the customers that we have.
So safety is key critical when youmake a decision in terms of where
you're going to put a business,if you are going to expand, and
(13:28):
how you're going to do it.So you have to take care of your
employees and they need to feel comfortable, otherwise they won't come to work and
then obviously you won't have a thrivingbusiness. So again, safety is important.
The other thing that is also keycritical is making sure that the employees
know that they're valued. So corporationsneed to be uber sensitive to supporting causes
(13:58):
that their employees can relate to.One of the things, if you are
born in an underserved community and thenyou are able to get a good education
and move yourself out of a communityfor whatever reason, you may still have
relatives who live in an underserved community. So these employees need to know the
(14:20):
guy in the corner office relates tothem, and a good way to do
that is through community engagement, neighborhoodbuilding programs that integrate law enforcement. Because
then again you bring the two sidesneeded to create a better world together.
And you mentioned about how you're partneringwith faith leaders and schools. What about
(14:43):
businesses? How do businesses help you? How can the business community come alongside
and help what you're doing. Sowe actually really work well with the Police
Foundation there, Religion Police Foundation here. They are being an extreme great partner
for us unforced in law enforcement.In government. Maybe our budgets art and
as big as we would like,and we can't get some of the items
(15:05):
or some of the things that weneed as to do our job really well,
whether it's training for our officers oreven assisting in funding youth programs.
The foundation and the business community theycome together and they say, hey,
listen, what do you need andthey will go out and they will make
sure that they provide us funding forus. So those are the things that
(15:28):
they that's how they help us.The other way they help us is they
asked our biggest supporters. You know, they want to make sure that we're
doing well, because if we're doingwell, they're doing well. And it's
about making sure that we're growing ourtax base here in Arlington. We want
to make sure that our businesses feelcomfortable coming here to opening up headquarters and
(15:48):
opening up plants, because I saidbefore, if they don't feel safe,
they're not coming. And you havea unique position because you know, for
people Arlington, Texas, we knowit well, do our show here in
Arlington, but for those in LosAngeles and Boston, they're like, Arlington,
where's that it again? So Arlington, I mean, you're the forty
six largest law enforcement agency in theUS. People don't realize how big Arlington
(16:14):
is. It's where the Dallas Cowboysplay, It's where the Texas Rangers play,
and so you've got a lot.In addition to this, you have
a lot of guests that are comingin, so you're responsible for a lot.
And I'm guessing you don't have avery large department, meaning you know,
it's not like you can be everywhereat the same time. So you
need that support to help you,right. Absolutely. The rs our agency
(16:36):
is about nine hundred strong. That'sbetween SWE and nine SWE members. You
know, we cover nine g eightsquare mouse. We are, which I
like, we are the most diversecity in the country, and I think
that's important because you want to makesure that you're engaging everybody in the community
(16:56):
want everybody to feel that they're partof the police department. Unfortunately, we
can't be everywhere. We can't beeverywhere in this city. So we need
our communities, the bbiyes and earsfor us. We need their partnership,
we need their relationship, and weneed them to actually give us a call
when see something wrong. And Ithink that's how we get it done.
(17:19):
It makes sense, it makes sense. And so you've been going into barbershops.
Have you done that in Arlington?Yeah? Yeah, Oh, this
is wonderful. So when I talkedto Chief Jones about it, I said,
we have this absolutely wonderful barbershop programand beauty salon because you don't want
to leave the women out, Okay, So we have the corresponding course to
(17:41):
that. Also, it's called UnaCommuni Dog, which is in the Hispanic
community. So shoptalk is primarily inthe African American community. So we engageing
minority owned business leaders who have takenthe big step to start a business and
maybe some area is that are reallyunderserved, but to give them the support,
(18:03):
allow the law enforcement to come inand have these very very hard conversations
because that's usually what happens in thebeginning about well what does law enforcement do?
Do you have any bad officers?How do you report the officers?
Why is it that I always getstopped when my son and I drive through
(18:26):
X, Y Z zip code?So it allows through one community USA an
opportunity for Chief Jones and his officersto say, now, let's talk about
that. And you're in a businessenvironment and these owners are usually considered pillars
in their community. So it's thissafe environment where also the youth get involved
(18:48):
and you get to see each otherfrom each other's perspective. That's where you
bring in our build bridges of trustand create unity. That's the hardest question
you've been asked, Well, prettymuch traffic stop, traffic stops or everything,
because we do that more as highfrequency for us, so more people
(19:10):
get pulled over? Why that Iget pull over? And they just don't
understand that. But I can tellyour funny story from being in one of
the barbershops, actually a couple ofthem. So it's been nude here to
Arlington. So when we are goingto places that we normally don't go,
you know, people will look,Okay, what's going on? Are they
doing a search one here or they'redoing well. So it's so their customers
(19:32):
are coming in and they're doing aboutface and say, man, I'm in
the wrong place. So we sowe have to go grab them and say,
hey, you know what, No, you're not in the wrong place.
And this is how the conversation starts. When you saw me in the
barbershop, what was your first thought? And that's how the dialogue began,
so that they understand we're not herebecause of crime, We're here to try
(19:55):
to do it a relationship. Andonce you actually have that conversation for hour
and a half and they are ableto ask anything, they start building that
to us and they want you tobe in that barbershop. And that's what
we've been experiencing over the last year. We've been talking about One Community USAY.
The website if you want to findout more information about Tony Brinker's organization
is one Community USA dot org.If you see it there on your screen.
(20:18):
We're going to be right back.We're gonna have a more conversation and
I'm going to ask what questions shouldwe be asking in the community to stick
around. This is create, Buildand bandage. The back to create,
(21:06):
build and mants We're talking this hourabout the really the serious issue of law
enforcement and their relation in the communityand how we can improve that and improve
relationship as it relates to business aswell. And my guests is our Tony
Brinker and chief from Arlington, Texas, Chief Jones, And I kind of
give you a little clue when Iwanted to talk about going into that,
(21:26):
because I think there's questions we shouldbe asking as a community that we are
uncomfortable asking. So I'm going tothrow it out there to the table.
What questions should we be asking?He wants to go first, You want
to start, Yeah, I'll start. I think one of the questions that
you know, everybody really wants toknow is why do we use force on
(21:48):
some of our calls, because that'swhere we see all of the protesting,
that's where we see all of thethings that are negative that the media portrays
for us, but sometimes their validright. So we have to have that
conversation, and we do here inArlington. Why do we use force?
Why do we you know, becauseI'm one of the first questions they always
(22:11):
say is why can't you shoot thegun out of person's hand? But that's
not how we're trained. We're trainedto stop the threat, whatever that threat
may be. But we have tohave that conversation so that everybody understands we're
not waking up in the morning andsaying, Hey, I'm going out there
and shoot somebody, because that's notwhat we want our community to think about
us. But the other part ofit is, and I've been saying it
(22:36):
since i've been here, is thatyou know, there has to be some
type of piece of compliance as well, because the old responsibility can't be just
on the police. If I'm askingyou to stop doing what you're doing,
if you stop doing what you're doing, then maybe we can actually work the
problem out together and then you know, we can get rid of the force.
But it's really truly about making surethat the community understands. The other
(22:59):
thing I think it's important to askis what should I do on a traffic
stop? You know, because that'swhere we see most of the time,
where we're dealing with our citizens.So you know, you got to have
that conversation. Make sure you keepyour hands on the wheel, make sure
you turn the dome light on,make sure you don't make any third of
movies. Why the officers making contactwith you once the officer makes contact with
(23:19):
you. So all of those differentthings, I think the community needs to
ask and we have to be ableto ask explaining it to them, because
that's when you start the light bulbsstart to click, where they start understanding
what we are and what we're about. You mentioned working with educators. Is
this something that is being talked aboutin assemblies in high school and that kids
(23:41):
start to drive that. Is thatsomething you guys are addressing. Yes,
and you know it's we're working andit's right now. We're working on a
video and I can't wait for itto come out. It is what you
should do if you get a trast, stop by an office or so that
the kids understand, so that we'retaking it taking a message to the community.
(24:02):
And it's not just about the kids, it's about everybody, because we
get some of growing adults who's sixtyseventy years old who still don't want to
comply with us. So it's abouteducating everybody, and that's what we're trying
to do. Educate about how towork with us to keep everybody safe.
You know, a lot of what'scome out of this has been the issues,
(24:22):
you know, the names that weknow George Floyd, and while Arlington
has not been perfect in its history, even not had the headlines that other
cities have had, what do youdo proactively with your officers to really continue
to train them to prevent that fromhappening. Because you know that officer,
you know, wherever the community is, they didn't wake up expecting to be
(24:45):
headlines that day. That's on youright right, So you know, what
we implemented is the twenty first centurypolicing strategies. We actually looked at the
six pillars. You know, wewant to make sure that you know,
we're building trust and legitimates. Seein our community, we're teaching our officers
procedural justice, So those things areingrained in our culture and I think that
(25:07):
that's important. The other thing isis that we're very transparent in Arlington.
We're trying to share as much informationas we can with our media, with
our communities, but we also wantto make sure we're sharing information with our
office because we don't want them tonot know what's going on. So here's
the other thing too. So whatwe're working on the seven year strategic plan
(25:30):
here in Arlington, and it's focusedaround these areas here. So it's called
treat the acronym treatment. If wetreat people with dignity and respect, we
can build trust. So the teais for transparency. We want to be
transparent in everything that we're doing.The ours for respect. We want to
make sure we're respecting our community,make sure that we're treating with dignity and
(25:51):
respect. We want to engage them. We want to engage them on every
level possible. We want, asI said, we have the a diverse
city and in the country. Wewant to make sure everybody feels a part
of Arlington Police Department. And wealso have to have that accountability piece.
We have to make sure we're measuringhow successful we are. And then the
(26:11):
last piece is not only training inwhich you talked about making sure we're training
our officer properly, but also makingsure that we're educating and training our communities.
And those are the areas that we'refocusing on. And I think if
we can actually continue on that path, I think we're going to build a
lot of trust here in Arlington.That's great, that's great, great stuff.
These are the same questions that wemy officers again who are retired that
(26:33):
work in shoptalk. They are retiredformer police officers. They now see everything
from the citizen side, and sothey'll typically show up at shop talk,
una community dog and we also havea reentry in a diversion program. So
when we're talking through this anytimes,the officers will go is there any question
(26:55):
that you want to ask Chief Joneswhen he comes in, and the barber
will go, well, you know, I think I'd like to ask him.
It's a good question. Go ahead, you think I can. He
said, yes, absolutely, thisis the right time to do it.
So it's always about traffic stops.Maybe something that happened, particularly with George
Floyd we had in the cities wherewe were working. We actually had long
(27:18):
conversations about George Floyd, and whenmany of those conversations ended, our barbershop
owners would say, oh my gosh, we should have been doing this all
the time. When are you comingback? And we get the same thing.
For our salon owners, they seemto have some time different issues.
Their issues are I don't want toclose at five o'clock on the afternoon because
(27:44):
I'm too scared to leave my salonbecause many times that you fill up the
parking lot, so we're able tothrough those conversations notify jurisdiction and say,
if you haven't had any calls,then you might want to send black and
white around. And so this willhelp that female keep her business open for
two extra hours, so she'll makeadditional money, her employees will make additional
(28:08):
money, so it becomes a winwin for everyone. We have on the
table today a ribbon that you broughtin, which is really really nice.
Why don't you talk about this andwhat it symbolizes. Well, this is
what we call a unity ribbon.So the yellow down the middle represents citizens.
That's you and me, okay,And the blue on either side are
(28:32):
first responders that are here to protectus, like Chief Jones and his officers.
A first responder incidentally, the definitionis anyone who's taken an oath to
serve and protect, So included inthe law enforcement category. You're also going
to have your city council. They'vedone it, Your teachers have become first
(28:52):
responders. People now know because ofCOVID that nurses and doctors or first responders.
So what we tried to remind peopleis that those who are in the
blue happen to be citizens. Theymay live right next to you. They
just get up and put on auniform. I put on a dress,
but we are still one, andthat those of us in the yellow sometimes
(29:18):
become a first responder. There wasa young man who was killed in the
Parkland High School shooting. He savedsix of his friends. He didn't go
to school that day deciding that hewas going to be a first responder.
But at that young, tender age, he did become one. So that
is why we call these unity ribbons. We like to work with police departments
(29:41):
to get everyone, including media,to come out, church leaders, barbershop
owners, s, line owners,businesses. This is where employees can get
involved. We wrap neighborhoods so thatwhen you have a police officer going home
at night, he's worked deep nights, he is dead tired. He drives
(30:03):
by a house that's got this ribbonon it. He knows that the people
in there, they may not knowhim and he may not know them.
But we all want one thing andthat is to live safe. We want
to be one community. And itis a visual branding way of saying,
let's do better. How does thismake you feel when you see this?
(30:27):
It's special, it's special. Youknow, it really shows that, you
know, there is community out therethat really appreciate what we do. There
are a community out there that reallywant to partner up with us. And
I can tell you, Jess,you know, from being an officer,
(30:48):
when we hear those things, becausenobody think about this. They don't usually
call us when they're having a birthdayparty, right right, They're calling us
when they're out there worst. Andjust to see something like that saying hey,
we accept you, we accept whatyou do when we love what you
do. That makes me feel good. That's good. That's a good point.
It's kind of I kind of usethe you know, football analogy.
(31:11):
You're kind of like the offensive lineof the of the city. Right.
The only time you ever get mentionedis usually negative news, not the positive
news exactly. You know, peoplearen't saying thank you for keeping the streets
safe. Hey I went to thatfootball game. There was no incident.
You know, I go to churchhere in Arlington, Texas, and there's
about three of your officers that arekeeping our campus safe every Sunday morning.
(31:34):
This constant things that we don't thinkabout. So we got about twenty seconds,
so we're going to pick up theconversation when we come back on that.
By the way, we've been visitingwith the Chief Jones. The website
is Arlington PD dot org is whohe represents, Arlington PD dot org.
Stick around, this is create,Build, and Manage. We're bout that.
(32:00):
H is out Tony Blinker. She'sa founder and CEO of One Community,
(32:39):
USA, an organization that is reallyworking to connect the community with law
enforcement. And then we also havethe police chief of Arlington, Texas,
Chief Jones with us. Tony,this is one of these topics that and
we said this last time, whichis why we invited you for a weekend
show. We could probably spend hourson this topic and still not even scratch
the surface. So as we kindof begin to wrap it up, I
(33:01):
really want to give people action itemsthat they can walk away with. So
let's start from the business perspective.People that own a business, run a
business. What would you want themto walk away from this conversation? Okay?
So I have two things, Okay. One, to all your business
owners, you need to move toArlington, Texas because you've got a great
chief okay, and he understands theconnection. Two, for those of you,
(33:27):
you need to make sure that theHR department in your company is actively
engaged in community engagement, and bythat I mean understand what your employees want.
They may look like you, buttheir concerns about what's happening in the
United States may not be the sameas the person that works at the c
suite level, and so my talkingto them about serious contemporary issues is very
(33:54):
important, but also giving them theopportunity to get involved with law enforcement,
to come and get it like inour case, and come to a shop
talk. We renovate one barbershop orsalon in each jurisdiction every year, and
it is so cool to see acorporation that comes in and says I want
(34:15):
to do that, let me makea donation, or my people want to
come in there and help renovate,and we typically will do the thing that
sits on the back of a barbershopchair. We'll put their emblem, their
company's emblem there so that every timesomeone gets to get their hair cut,
they are able to see their corporation. If I'm an employee, that lets
(34:37):
me know that the owner of thatcompany, whether they're based in Sweden or
wherever, truly understands my concerns.That makes me a better employee. So
having hard conversations are necessary. Withthe programs that Chief Jones has that we
have, you get not only totalk about it, but you have actionable
(35:00):
where that means getting involved. Andby doing that, you know you don't
care what the guy next to youlooks like. Black football game, I
don't care if the guy next tome is a cop. I don't care
who he is. I don't careif he's black, white, ran,
whatever. I'm still pulling for myteam. That's what we have to do
in our community. Just to backup what you're saying, we're seeing market
(35:22):
research where people, even this youngergeneration, particularly my kids generation, they
care more about what the CEO thinkson issues than ever before. When I
was growing up, I didn't carewhat the CEO of Coca Cola thought.
There was no discussion with the CEOof Disney thought. Thanks. You know,
but that's something that's very important.So I think business leaders do have
(35:44):
to think about that. They haveto be mindful that not only their employees
but also their customers care what theythink. Well, let me leave you
with one final thought. They donot these young kids do not need to
get involved with causes that destroy America. So we want our want our business
leaders to give to causes that actuallybuild things in America and also don't cause
(36:07):
hatred. So getting involved in positivebuild away crime programs, twenty first century
community building programs, that is important. Everyone wins in that scenario. I'll
give you an opportunity for the viewerthat's watching at home. Obviously they have
different opinions on law enforcement in general. What's the one message you would want
(36:30):
anybody to walk away from this conversationknowing about law enforcement? So I think
the important thing that they really needto know is we're human. We're no
different than them. We put ourpants on one leggative time, just like
they do. Unfortunately, because wewere a certain uniform, we are painted
(36:50):
a certain way and they have tostart trying to move away from that.
You know, we are truly outhere to be their partner, to be
their friend, to help mentor theirkids, because we do that in schools.
So we do a lot of thingsthat people don't think about that all
the things that we do, whetherit's from mentoring, we do social work,
(37:14):
we do mental health, taking careof people through mental health. We
do a lot and I want themto understand when we go out every day
and we're out on patrol, we'reout there to serve and to make the
community much better and much safer.That's the bottom line. That's great.
And your Blue Fit program, that'sa cool program you've started with your law
(37:37):
enforcement. Yeah. So one ofthe pillars for the twenty first century policing
is making sure you have officer wellnessprogram. We have been doing a fantastic
job here in Arlington making sure thatwe're taking care of our officers. Not
only do we have the Blue Fitprogram, but we have a blue Chip
program too. And I'll explain thedifference between both. The blue Chip program
(37:59):
are officers we can get issue thema blue Ship where they can go and
seek anonymous treatment from any clinician thatis under our service provider for us.
They can go there and it's allconfidential where they can go in and see
someone and talk about whatever issues thatthey may have. And that is the
(38:21):
first in the time, first inthe country for a program like that.
The second program is the Blue Fit. We actually just hired on an instructor,
a fitness instructor for the age.She works for our staff. She
puts our about twenty five thirty officersthrough a program thinks about ten week program
ten weeks where they actually are doingexercise, learning how to eat right,
(38:45):
doing all the things that really takecare of them, and making sure that
they're able to serve our community.What I do know is if our officers
aren't well, they're not going tobe able to do positive things in our
community, and we have to makesure that we're taking care of them and
treating them and making sure that they'regetting the help they need. If they
need that help, that's great.One other thing I'll add is there is
(39:07):
a large percentage of first responders inlaw enforcement who are former veterans. So
for those companies that are veteran focused, getting involved in programs like this not
only helps the employees because it getssem an opportunity to get involved, but
also it speaks to the needs thatmany of our veterans have. They serve
(39:29):
the country, they came back,they want to serve again. So that's
the reason why we have such ahigh percentage of veterans in law enforcement.
At about sixty seconds, I wantyou to speak to the person who is
at home, who, like you, could choose anything, maybe it's time
for them to step up and gettinginvolved. What would you tell them,
(39:49):
I would tell them, don't wasteany time, give me a call.
We can. We would love tohave a lot of people in this world
that say that Americas were fighting forand that we also need to support our
wonderful law enforcement as well as ourcommunity. So if they want to make
America better, they just need toget up off their couch place a phone
(40:10):
call. Because I can assure youI've got them on my team as of
tomorrow. That's great. I rememberwhen your first time, you know,
you told me the mayor of Dallassaid, what are you going to do
about it? You're like little olme. Well here you are, you're
doing something about it. Jony.I appreciate it. Appreciate you bringing this
topic to our attention. Chief Jones. Thank you for your time as well,
(40:30):
and appreciate you tuning in. Thisis a topic that we need to
continue to have the conversation. It'snot just one hour of television. We
need to continue out of the conversationon TV as well as in your community.
Thanks so much for watching. Thisis create, build, and manage
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