July 30, 2025 • 54 mins
Roman Gaskey of the Roman Recap on Sub Stack and a recent college graduate will be today’s guest. He running to unseat an incumbent in the 66th State House District in the State of Michigan and represents the future leadership for the State of Michigan. The 66th District was the scene of a shooting at the Oxford High School with claimed four victims in 2021. We will discuss school safety, the 2nd Amendment, his support of Law Enforcement and other policy issues as time permits.
We will lead off the show with another Gavin Newson lie.
https://kgradb.com/briefing-with-the-chief/
We will lead off the show with another Gavin Newson lie.
https://kgradb.com/briefing-with-the-chief/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:36):
Good afternoon. This is Briefing withYour Chief. I am your host,
Patrick Jordan here on kg r Ad B dot com k g RI Digital
Broadcasting. I am so excited tobe here. This is my first show
Briefing with the Chief, and Iwant to thank you to thank you k
g r A for giving me theopportunity on this platform to talk about one
(00:57):
of my favorite subjects, and thatis long and enforcement. You know,
over the last ten years, thelaw enforcement's gotten a bad shake. Mainstream
media and the liberal left have vilifiedlaw enforcement. And I decided a couple
years ago when I retired, thatI was going to speak out and speak
up to defend the men and womenin law enforcement and to present another point
(01:17):
of view, one that you're notgoing to see in mainstream media. So
on this show, we will addressthe news, public policy, and politics
of the day and whatever else comesup. And I unapologetically support law enforcement.
Now, I did thirty eight yearsin law enforcement, but not only
that. I am the son ofa police officer, so the law enforcement
has been part of my life formy whole life. In fact, I
(01:38):
still have a sister who's on thejob today and I can't think of anything
better to do with my time thanto support the men and women in law
enforcement share my lived experience. Ifyou ever pay attention to the left,
lived experience means that's their truth.Well this is my truth. But I
hope to support my truth with enlightenedexperiences and data to present a different point
(02:04):
of view than you're gonna hear onmainstream media, because you know they're just
playing dishonest. The mainstream media andthe liberal left are just playing dishonest about
law enforcement and have vilified them forfar too long. And I want to
be a counterweight or a counterbalance towhat is being said today. Now on
this show, we're gonna we're gonnatalk about a very serious subject and that's
(02:27):
police suicides. But before I getinto that, I want to talk about
what's coming up also on this showKGr dot com Briefing with the Chief.
You can catch a show every fiveo'clock Eastern Standard time and two o'clock Pacific
Standard time, and the line upfor the next several weeks includes talking to
a somebody running for a district Germanyin Los Angeles. He's challenging a Soro's
(02:50):
funded DA in LA. That's GeorgeGascon George Sorow spent twelve million dollars to
put that guy in office, andone of the earliest and frequent critics has
been Jonathan to Tommy, he's goingto join me next week. The following
week, I'm gonna have some expertson the border. We're gonna talk about
excellent drug cartels. And then afterthat we're gonna talk and and the week
after that, we're gonna talk abouthomicide detective and the debilitating effect of post
(03:15):
traumatic stress on him, his storyand his career and what he did to
recover. These are all great storiesthat need to be told. These are
all stories that the public needs tohear. You're gonna hear it from me,
You're gonna hear it from my guests. Many of them are gonna be
law enforcement officers who do not geta chance to share their experiences because the
(03:38):
mainstream media doesn't cover it or itdoesn't cover it enough. Now, today's
show, you know, I wantto talk about police suicides. This wasn't
exactly the first show that I envisioned, but it is. It is a
subject that kind of erupted into themainstream media and went national because my old
(03:58):
department sucked for four suicides in atwenty four hour period of current and recently
retired deputy sheriffs. And you know, and and it's just one of those
things you don't hear a lot aboutpolice suicides. And as I did research
for the show, I mean,I had been tracking suicides in the general
public, and I've seen a spikeamong suicides and men in the general public.
(04:20):
Police officers are fifty four percent morelikely to commit suicide than the average
public. Now, we already ata crisis level for suicides and in the
public, and then you add thatfifty four percent increase. Clearly suicides amongst
law enforcement is at a critical leveland it's finally hitting mainstream. I think
(04:42):
if you look at the CNN headline, you're gonna see that CNN is even
covered now. In the last tenyears, I didn't see a lot of
positive press coming out of the mainstreammedia. And see if we can pull
up that CNN article, Amanda,and it is shareful, and he's talking
about what's going on there is he'sbeen in office for about a year,
(05:05):
and he is talking about what's goingon in terms of suicides in his department
and In addition to this one,I saw an editorial finally, an editorial
in the La Times where they talkedabout how being a cop is a tough
job. And it doesn't help thatthe mainstream media is bashed law enforcement for
(05:26):
a very long time, unfairly,unnecessarily and for doing exactly what the policymakers
asked us to do over the lastfour years, and that's lower crime and
save lives. Now, we've beenaccused of a lot of things, and
people, human beings take that kindof accusation seriously, and it's been negatively
(05:46):
impacting law enforcement in general, butmore particularly the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
And and so I want to bringup an investigative journalist, C.
C. Woods and her article becauseshe kind of lays out what's going on
with the Los Angeles County Shriff's apartmentand what is likely contributed to the mess
(06:08):
that's going on in Ellie County andwhy we may be seeing a higher number
of supersides with the Los Angeles CountyShriff's Department versus other agencies. And one
of the articles that caught my attention, I'll just give you the headline and
then we'll get in with CC andwe'll talk a little bit about it.
And it is the vultures are circlinga new just a Deputy letter, which
(06:28):
is an anonymous letter written by adeputy sheriff surfaces amid department suicides and crushing
morale among the rank and file.And I just did a pic of her
headline and you can catch CC atthe current report. She's the editor in
chief and in addition to that,she also is a contributor recently to the
Epoch Time. So congratulations, CC. You can take that headline. Bring
(06:51):
cec up. So, CC,you wrote the article, and you wrote
a series of articles that support thisnotion. Can you tell us what going
on with the Sheriff's apartment in termsof morale that would cause deputy sheriffs they
have this crushing morale and not feelsupported well. First and foremost, they
(07:11):
have a boss, which is SheriffLuna, who is not supporting his rank
and file. And I don't thinkhe ever intended on supporting his rank and
file when he was elected. It'spretty clear that he is a puppet and
was meant to be a puppet forthe Board of Supervisors who were desperate to
(07:34):
get rid of Alex Vianueva are formersheriff. They had a very contentious relationship.
They wanted more control over the Sheriff'sdepartment, and that meant bringing in
somebody who will do what they want, when they want, how they want,
and Luna proved that he was goingto do that. And case in
(07:54):
point is the Board of Supervisors adoptedthe Citizens Oversight Commission recommendations on deputy gangs.
Deputy gangs is a very small problem, very small that exists at a
handful of stations throughout the department.The department has eighteen thousand members and nine
(08:18):
thousand are sworn. The amount ofCLICK members subgroup members is very very small.
And as with any organization, youget some bad attitudes. Whether it's
you know, a law firm ora hospital. You know, you're going
to get some bad apples everywhere yougo. It doesn't matter. It's not
(08:41):
just law enforcement. So what I'mhearing is they have a small problem.
You know, I remember the campaignand they vilified vienn Aueva, and they
embellished the problem for political reasons againstvien Aueva, of course, and now
they're broadly discipline in the department,and it's like every deputy you know,
(09:03):
and here here's the issue that Ihave, and this is, you know,
I really want the public to understandthis. When they talk about criminal
justice reform, the low hanging fruitfor politicians is accountability of police because that's
the easy thing to do, becausein reality, criminal justice reform should mean
investing in the community, to toto develop, to develop solutions for the
precursors that lead to crime. Thoseare hard policy things to do, but
(09:26):
it's really easy to say, allcops bad, Let's hold them accountable.
It's kind of like passing new gunlaws. All guns bad, Let's pass
one more law that won't impact anything, but it makes a lot harder for
people to possess guns. And let'spass one more law the whole cops accountable
and make it really hard for themto do their job. But also they
don't feel supported. And I thinkthat's what I read in your article.
(09:48):
Well that's that, yes, Andso it started there with you know,
him just cow chowing to the boardof super I mean to the citizens oversite
and the Board of Supervisors and saying, oh, we're going to take care
of this big problem we have,and even yesterday in his one year anniversary
address, even though there was adeputy involved shooting that he didn't even mentioned,
(10:13):
but anyway and justified, I mightadd, so he even mentioned in
his press conference that the deputy gangissue was a small issue. He even
said that, okay, which isshocking. Okay, buddy. But now
they've taken the stance of having instituteda whole new command structure at the quote
(10:37):
problem stations by putting two captains there. Basically they're saying, you're bad little
boys and girls, so we're goingto give you an extra babysitter. Okay.
So look, I don't care.Optics are not good in that situation.
It just makes you feel like you'renot doing your job even though you
are doing your job. And someof them don't give it crap, you
(10:58):
know what I mean. It's butthen some of them do. Like some
of them, it's like, whydo I have to have another, you
know, another prying eye over me? You know, you know, accountable.
I was a cat, And itreally comes down to leadership. You
have to own your command and takeresponsibility. But there are two other issues
(11:18):
I want to address, particularly inthe article that you wrote and one of
them is such a glaring thing.A friend of mine son was killed,
Ryan Clinton Bloomer, and I workedwith his dad, Mike, and we
have a sorow's fund at DA.George Gascon, who is ideologically driven on
a lot of things that he did, and he made a blanket statement when
he ran for office that he wouldn'tseek the death penalty. So Ryan Clinton
(11:41):
Boomer was basically executed at work andhe stated publicly, this is George Gaston
in front of the sheriff, thathe would not seek the death penalty.
And I can't just I can justimagine the lack of support that all deputy
sheriffs would feel if their boss saton their hands and did not challenge the
(12:05):
DA and say, I would expectyou to go for the death penalty on
this case. That's what every deputysheriff would expect. It's an easy thing
for the sheriff to do. Whyhe couldn't do it? I have no
idea. I do well, Igo ahead and share, but I think
it's you know it is it doesn'tmatter what your political persuasion is. You
support your troops no matter what pickingset work. So I'll go go ahead
(12:28):
and share your feud. Percent That'skind of where I was going. I
was giving you the chronological order ofwhy these guys are in such a desperate
state right now. So you startedwith the deputy gangs and all that bs,
and then you moved to the twouse of force incidents at at Palmdale
in Lancaster, where they were bothjustified in what they were doing. And
one of the incidents was dragged outfrom a year before under the former sheriff.
(12:54):
And here the deputies are losing theirjobs. They're being roasted for following
procedure, thrown on the bus,thrown to the wolves in social media,
and the sheriff did not support themat all. Even though they followed procedure,
they were cleared by their their higherups. Okay, so you've got
the deputy gangs, then you've gothim roasting them publicly no support like and
(13:16):
then you've got Ryan's execution right outsidethe station and he still didn't support them.
So when when the two years offource incidents happened? That started?
This just a deputy letter, okay, and that in those letters, a
deputy from Lancaster gets in depth aboutwhat's really going on in the department and
(13:39):
it is not good. It reallyis, and you can understand the uh,
just despair that these deputies are feeling. Now all of those things are
already bad enough. Then you've gotmandated over time. Yeah, which is
that's the you want talk about thebiggest final nail on the coffin, you
(14:03):
can get it before you get tothat, because I want to talk about
that. I really want to getback to this the death penalt thing.
And and let me clarify the biggestthing. No, no, no,
Gus gone. Gus gone, therelationship between him and guest, Like,
oh my god, I did seethat. That that that that Luna Seraph
Luna has a relationship with Gasco andthat goes back decades. But I want
(14:24):
to explain because part of our show'sgoal is to educate people. So when
a DA goes for the death penaltyagainst a suspect, it's a negotiation.
Whether he ultimately gets a death penaltyand goes to trial or not really depends
upon the evidence in the case.But I'm actually okay if the DA says
(14:45):
I'm going for the death penalty andthen settles for life without the possibility of
parole, because because I understand it'sa negotiation and the DA's the way.
The DA's case really will dictate theoutcome. Right. But when you go
for the death penalty and somebody saidfor life without the possibility of parole,
that's still a win. But whenyou take the death penalty off the table,
(15:05):
what happens and this is for ourlistening audience, understand this. When
you take that off the table,your starting point is life without the positive
parole, and the defense is seekingnow life with the possibility parol or twenty
five years with the possibility of parole, and that is the chance. That's
why guess Going is so irresponsible andblanketly saying that he will not seek the
(15:28):
death penalty. And that's why thesheriff. Not only does the sheriff have
an obligation to support his troops,but the sheriff has an obligation to keep
the community safe, and he shouldbe challenging did use all those tools in
his toolbox and the DA has takenthat off the table. He's a Soros
foot of DA. That's why that'sa problem. That's why you shouldn't do
that. You've automatically reduced the leveragethat the people have to keep their community
(15:52):
safe by having these blanket rules.So the next thing I want to get
into CC, and you brought itup, is the mandated overtime. And
this, in my opinion, isan outgrowth of the defund the police movement.
They stopped funding law enforcement, theystop funding positions, which ultimately leads
to a large number of vacancies.Vacancies mean, because what they said is
(16:15):
we're going to defund the police,so we're going to reinvest in the community.
Well, that hasn't resulted in lowercrimes, which means the workload of
the deputies has not has not juststayed the same, it's actually increased.
And so and now you have shorta shortage of personnel, so people are
mandated to work overtime. So talka little bit about that, because that
leads into my discussion with our withour final dealt. I mean, just
(16:37):
backtracked for two seconds and just sayduring that time at the press conference when
they announced not doing the when theywhen Gascon announced he was not seeking the
death penalty, Uh Luna setback,didn't say a freaking word, and he
knew he was not going to seekthe death penalty, did not bother to
tell the Clink and Boomer family theyfound out while standing on that stage while
(17:03):
there were national cameras in their face. Can you imagine being that family?
Okay, so imagine all the stuffI told you these guys have been going
through. Okay, the deputies watchingthat, Okay, on top of everything
else. Now you put all thaton top of mandated overtime, a minimum
(17:26):
of two overtime shifts per week perdeputy. It's like it's insanity. Insanity.
I heard somebody say that at onepoint it was ten overtime shifts a
month. Ye okay, mandatory,yeah, or you're gonna get drafted.
And by drafted, it means ifyou don't sign up for it, they're
(17:48):
gonna come and get you and putyou on it whether you like it or
not. Okay, that's what thatmeans. Let's clarify. That's sixty hours
a week. And you know,for the average person who's working out there,
remember some these shifts are like I'veworked them. Well, you start
at ten and that night you goto six in the morning and that's your
first shift. Then you go tosix to two and that's your second shift.
(18:11):
So when we talk about mandated overtime. You're talking double shifts in which
people are exhausted, and in myexploration of police suicides, one of the
one of the precursors, or oneof the causal factors, is fatigue for
law enforcement officers to lead the highlevel of depression and then of course suicides,
which is why your article is mostimportant. And I got to finish
(18:33):
up with you CC, but youhad one issue that I didn't really get
a chance to talk to you about. You said that there's you know,
one of the things the Sheriff's Partnerhas is they're supposed to have a support
system called psychological services for people whoare going through postumatic stress or other emotional
issues that could be precursors to policesuicides or just disruption in the family.
(18:53):
And you you recently did an articlethat there's some disruption or problems with the
shriff psychological service. Could you explaina little bit of that. I'm actually
working on it right now. I'mkind of in it. I'm in it,
and I'm going to be talking toa source on Friday who was working
in the department. I received amessage after one of my most recent suicide
(19:17):
articles that I did about the LASDsuicides, and I was they reached out
to me and told me it's reallybad. Understaffed, underqualified people that don't
know how to handle these cases.It's just it's a mess. I can
only say that it's a mess rightnow, and I'll have to unravel that
(19:38):
with you at a later data.Yeah. I think one of the things
you have to realize when you defundthe police antellar re units get defunded first.
Training gets defunded before they cut personnel, and so I can see where
they might have cut staffing and reliedmore on interns in psychological services versus people
(19:59):
that have their hours and are trainedsore. Where were that? Where can
they find that article? CEC?Is that going to be an Epoch time
article? Is that going to bea current report art? You know it's
going to be on both, I'msure so, But always default to the
current report because I don't have controlover how and when they do it.
So just check the current Report dotcom first and then go from there.
(20:21):
Okay, So just to clarify,CC will be a regular on my show.
She is an investigative reporter locally andone of the things I'm going to
focus on is the campaign coming up, particularly with the District attorney's race.
It is the largest local prosecutor's officein the country. It has been reported
that George Soros spent twelve million dollarsto put George Gascon in place, and
it is destroying our city. Andwe are in campaign season. So the
(20:45):
dirt is coming out, and Ineed somebody that's going to stand on top
of that dirt. And you canfind that dirt on the Current Report dot
com and occasionally as a contributor tothe Epoch Time CC. Before I let
you go anything for the cause,you know, just support your law enforcement.
Just you know, there's nobody elseon this planet who can keep us
safe other than them. Okay,they need our support, and you know
(21:10):
they need to be called out toowhen they're bad apples. And that's that's
my specialty. So well, youknow what, I here's the deal.
I'm not going to genuflect to theleft and say that there's something I support
law enforcement. I understand that youhave to do your job as an investigative
reporter, but there are so manyoutlets that attack the police on a regular
basis, many times unfairly. Ido appreciate when you do articles that are
(21:30):
supportive of law enforcement. They arefew and far between in the mainstream media,
and it's my main focus. Mymain focus is supporting law enforcement and
really telling the true story. Everyonce in a while, I have to
throw a little you know, curveballin there just to keep it fair,
you know. Okay, so youcan catch CEC on the current Report current
report dot com. Is that correct? Yeah, okay, and keep yourye
(21:53):
on Epox Time. Occasionally she'll geta quote from me for the Epoch Times
in summer articles. So yeah,that's a regular gig though, so good.
Don't worry, you'll see yourself more. And congratulations on that that new
gig on the Epochs Time. Ido like it. They they have a
variety of subjects. I like theCalifornia Insider podcast, which I would recommend
(22:15):
people check out. One more thing, The Epoch Times does not censor my
work at all, and that isa very important thing for everybody to know.
So they should be supported because theydon't censor. They don't like every
word that I write gets put inthere. So yeah, they either choose
to be either choose to publish ornot. Well, thank you for joining
me. We will see you inthe future. I'll be in touch about
(22:36):
you the next show. Okay,all right, Audio CC And so you
know, before we bring up ourmain guests, and our main guest is
Danny Kohon. He's an author andyou retired sergeant for the Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Partment. I'd like to putup an article from Boston Boston University,
and you know, this is anarticle that talks a little bit about the
(22:57):
data regarding police suicides, and thisparticular slide is really an important one.
It shows where police suicides are mostproblematic, and it's actually in our smaller
department. Although the Sheriff's Apartment,La County Shriff's Partment is going against the
grain in that it has a veryhigh level of suicides for its size.
(23:18):
But you can see usually larger agencieshave some level of support which causes less
suicides. I guess this is perthousand than smaller departments. If you can
see there, fifty or less hasa suicide rate of forty three point seven
eight percent, which is which ishuge. That's a huge number for small
(23:40):
agencies. So if you're listening aroundthe country and you live in a community
that has a small police department anda small sheriff's department, here's how they
do commit suicide. I want youto take this important. If you're a
policy maker, if you're an influencerin your city, if you're a police
chief for sheriff, please pay attentionto this subject. We do not know
(24:00):
the suffering that is going on withthe men and will and women in law
enforcement. Culturally, it's not somethingthat police officers will talk about and and
likely in smaller agencies they don't havethe same level of support that they might
have at larger agencies. People needto pay attention to that so that we
can save the lives of the menand women in law enforcement who are serving
(24:21):
you every day. And you knowit's it's the thing about law enforcement is
you can see the car crashes,You hear about the shootings when when law
enforcement has physical injuries, but youknow, you don't hear a lot about
the emotional injuries that they suffer nearlyevery day that have a lasting impact and
many times contribute uh to to thefeeling of despair and depression. And you
(24:44):
can see as we're strolling the linebelow cop line and other numbers that you
can call. If you are astruggling police officer, you can call those
lines and get help. And Ithink it's time to bring up our primary
guest, Danny Kohon Now. Dannyis as a retired sergeant for the Los
Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and healso wrote a book called Broken and that's
(25:07):
Understanding the effects of traumatic incidents.And there is a copy of the cover.
And I read his book and Ithought of him as soon as I
wanted to do this subject. Danny'sbeen on another podcast of mine and we
have talked about post traumatic stress,but I hadn't read his book, and
I read his book in preparation forthe show. Let's bring Danny coon up
(25:30):
and welcome him to the show.Danny, how you doing. I'm real
good, pat thank you, Andthat's an honor to be on your first
show. Yeah. Yeah, thisis my first show. And like I
said, I really would have likedto do a different subject. But I
am happy that I'm able to dothis subject because it doesn't get a lot
of play, and it's very important. As you heard me talk about fifty
four percent more likely to come tosuicide. Law enforcement and you have a
(25:56):
great deal of data that can youshare what is actually going on in the
Sheriff's apartment recently regarding suicide in thelast thirty days and then for the year,
and comparing contrast that with what's goingon nationally. Well, November sixth
was a very dark day for thelast Angele Shriff's Department. Going to be
a little emotional here for a second. In a twenty four hour period,
(26:18):
four members died by suicide and itmarks the fifth department related suicide in less
than thirty days, and overall thisyear so far, unfortunately, there has
been nine reported suicide or LA CountySheriff's department suicides, and there's rumors that
I hear every once on on socialmedia that that number could be as actually
(26:38):
as high as seventeen. But withjust what we know right now, the
Los Angeles Sheriff's Department represents roughly tenpercent of all the suicides this year,
and that's unusual, right. Imean, we're yeah, just a clarified
because we have a national audience andwe have people listening internationally, so I
(27:00):
think I need to frame this.I worked for the Los Angeles County's Heerff's
aparmer for thirty eight years. DannyKoune has commented, why did you stay
so long? To me in thepast, But I retired at the rank
of chief. Now my last commandI had twelve hundred employees, but the
Sheriff's apartment has eighteen thousand employees andten thousand of them are sworn. We
run the largest jail system of thecountry. We do policing for about three
(27:23):
point two million, meeting general,law enforcement, and investigative services just like
any municipal police department. We arethe largest sheriff's department in the country.
We also run the largest jail systemin the country and oversee the security for
the largest court system in the countryhere in La County. La County has
ten thousand residents, So that justgives you the scope and size, because
(27:47):
there's some states who don't even haveten thousand residents. And so that's the
size of the sheriff's department. Andfor us to have that level of suicides,
particularly in one year, that's actuallyunprecedent, right, Yes, it
is. A couple of years ago, I believe Chicago had seven. They
also had experience a in the monthof December where they experienced I think four
(28:08):
suicides in one month, but Ithink they're Highway seven. Cincinnati had or
excuse me, Police Department, SanAntonio, Texas had about six or seven,
and New York Police Department there wereabout five or six in one year.
So we're above the national average,well above the national average. And
(28:32):
I think you did send me somestats and you know it's so law enforcement
suicide stats. In twenty twenty two, we had one hundred and sixty two
reported, so there could be alot more reported suicide. Now, is
that guys actually working or recently retired? Is that just working guys, because
that includes working and retired, andit includes all police offers, including correction
(28:56):
officers, corrections officers. Okay,and so that's every fifty four hours.
But contrast that to the number ofpeople killed in the line of duty that
year, and that was seventy four. So you're you're much more likely to
suffer a tragic death at your ownhands due to trauma that you experienced at
work than you are to be killedin the line of duty. That's what
(29:18):
that number represents. And that's notan unusual number that happens year after year.
Right, that you are much moreat threat to the psychological damage done
to your career than somebody who's totinga gun and shooting at you. That
accurate. Pre COVID, the suiciderate was twice is what it is now.
(29:38):
So pre COVID it was pushing forlaw enforcements, pushing up to three
hundred a year reported, and postCOVID, I think during the last couple
of years, this arena on educatinglaw enforcement about the law enforcements suicide.
It's a huge arena and there's alot of people into the law of US
(30:00):
are getting into it, and Ithink that we're making a difference slowly,
but just by education, we're tryingto get reach out and get people well.
I think to talk about broader trendsbecause I was tracking suicides prior to
COVID, and you saw a spikein suicides in the general population as well,
particularly amongst men and white males inparticular, and then it dipped during
(30:23):
COVID, which was shocking to me. And I was tracking it because you
know, I was looking for datapoints, which is typical me. I'm
looking for data points to show whetherthe treatment first model instead of law enforcement
is actually having a positive impact,because if you're treating folks that are using
narcotics, if you're treating folks thatare into life because a lot of people
(30:45):
who commit suicide are also dealing withaddiction issues and they tend to intersect with
law enforcement. So for if we'vetaken law enforcement out of that role and
we focused on treatment, are weactually having an impact? And I saw
a dip, and that was probablya COVID dip, because that would be
consistent what you're talking about. ButI recently checked those numbers and they're spiking
back up again. So suicides aregoing back up in the general population,
(31:07):
and suicides appear to be going upin the lawnch So this is part of
a wider trend. But law enforcementssuffer disproportionately because of the trauma they face
at work. Yeah, that's correct. We are. We are down,
I want to say, somewhere aroundtwenty five percent from last year, and
last year was down slightly from thepre COVID year, so it were slowly
(31:33):
making something. But at the sametime, I mean just two days ago
or yesterday, a small police fartmentCalifornia experienced a LANTA or a suicide by
death and or death by suicide andso bringing the number up to ninety six
this year, and that's the ninetysix represents a law enforcement suicide every three
point two days. So I thinkone of the things that I read your
(31:56):
book and this was I think inpopular belief that post traumatic stress injuries are
a big precursor to suicide. AndI think people can understand that because we've
had a lot of discussion regarding postumaticstress in spousal abuse and rape victims.
So it's entered into the language ofpopular culture postumatic stress. But what really
(32:22):
hasn't been addressed is the level oftrauma that police officers face on a day
to day basis that could be contributingto that. Can can you shed some
light on first defined postraumatic stress injuryand then shed some light on the challenges
that police officers face in relationship tothis injury. Well, on second here,
(32:42):
I'm going to read this. Posttraumatic stress is defined as a condition
of persistent mental and emotional stress occurringas a result of injury or severe psychological
shock, typically involving disturbance of sleepand constant, vivid recall of the experience
with a dulled responses to others andto the outside world. And that's the
(33:05):
American Psychological Association's definition of ptsc HIyou can you give a can you clarify
to our listeners and our audience forpeace officers and actually first responders in general.
You know, how what is youknow, how often do they face
these challenge of post traumatic stress?How frequent is it? And comparing contrast
(33:29):
to maybe the general population. Thegeneral population, there has been researchs shows
they see approximately twelve traumatic experiences intheir lifetime in one shift. A police
officer can experience twelve traumatic events.Over a thirty year career, You're internalizing
(33:51):
thousands of traumatic events and that justeventually it's going to build up on you
and it's going to cause issues.And so so this has a you know,
I want to get into a littlebit about this. So would you
say this is the primary reason forpolice suicides or this is accumulative with other
issues. It's a cumulative it's oneof the many causal factors. There's a
(34:16):
former Air Force veteran, former policeofficer, and now founder of the Blue
Wall Institute. Her name is OliviaJohnson. She holds a doctorate in occupational
management and leadership. And she isa nationally recognized expert on law enforcement suicide,
and she came up with what shecalls the fatal ten and it's been
(34:40):
around. Other people who have studiedlaw enforcement suicide have also come up with
something similar. But what she cameup with is just the main ten reasons
why people end up taking their ownlives. And the first one is interpersonal
relationships. We all have relationships withothers. That's in the general public.
(35:04):
I think domestic violence is huge,and murder suicide where you're killing your spouse
and then committing suicide and the generalpublic is huge, and just in the
law enforcement and I know of atleast one, maybe two officers over thirty
(35:27):
years that died by suicide because ofa lot with other stuff. Is because
of interpersonal relationships or four to fifteenor family discernances. Another one is substance
abuse. It's been studying. Numerousstudies have shown that at least thirty percent
of all suicides are alcohol related.And it's also known that in the law
(35:51):
enforcement culture, alcohol is deeply engraved. In fact, I can only think
of one television show or movie thatdoesn't address alcohol in it, and that
would be Adam twelve. Every othermovie or TV show, they're having choir
practice, they're going out drinking aftera bit case, whatever, it's an
issue. The build up is stress. What we were talking about earlier than
(36:12):
those thousands of incidence, just thatconstant stress that it builds up Indian.
It keeps you on the edge,It keeps you in kind of a hypervigilant
area where you're always going up anddown, burning and burning, then crashing
and causing depression. And then that'sthe other concern is on the mental health
issues. It is believed that thirtypercent of our police officers suffer from depression.
(36:39):
And then one of the other onesis medical issues. I know of
one or two deputy sheriffs that diedby suicide because they had elevating injury.
Nobody wants to be classified is unfitfor duty and that because that's what we
do. We want to go outand go to work. It's kind of
funny that they put access to firearmsin there, because we all have access
(37:01):
to firearms. And you know,I saw your stats, doctor Johnson.
She to her research shows at abouteighty six percent of all Lewis suicide law
enforcement suicides or by firearms, andwhere the general population was substantially less.
(37:22):
And another one is the being underinvestigation, internal affairs investigation, and some
departments have an internal criminal So you'regoing both sides. Either where you're going
to go to jail, you're gonnalose your job. Those play on people.
Those built up with all the otherincidences that are going on, the
stresses and the fights with your familyand you're drinking too much. That's all
(37:44):
contributing factor. This is a strangeone. I don't see it, but
it's the pending or actual retirement.In twenty nineteen, there was a deputy
chief for the Los Angeles or excuseme, for the New York Police Department,
and he was being forced to retire. He died by suicide a couple
of weeks before his retirement. Hejust couldn't see himself being retired and put
(38:07):
out the pasture. And also inthe same year, in January twenty nineteen,
there's a retired sergeant from the LongBeach Police Department who died by suicide,
and it was two years he retiredtwo years before. He had gone
to his old station and died bysuicide in the parking lot. One of
the saddest things is most of ushave major life threatening or life altering events.
(38:30):
You know, we get depressed becauseof several things, but loss of
a child, silin or a parent, those are some causal factors. You
know, a lot of people whenthey become empty nesters, not having a
house fuld of people around anymore,that wears on them and causes depression.
And then there's a spouse with alife threatening health issues. I've done dealing
(38:51):
with this for five years and itdefinitely works on you. But the big
one on the fatal ten is sleepdisorders. According to research, and a
lot of this comes from the SleepFoundation, but there's a bunch of research
out on it. A person withoutsleep for roughly eighteen hours is like having
(39:12):
the impaired judgment equal to a pointzero five blood alcohol, and after twenty
hours it's equal to a point zeroeight, which is the legal limit in
California most states, and at twentyfour hours it's equal to a point one
to Oh. Now, there's apsychologist, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman. He's
(39:35):
a retired Army ranger and he's asleep expert and instructor at West point.
He claims that sleep deprivation is thenumber one reason officers commit suicide, make
ethical mistakes, and use excessive force. And I can see it because when
you're we're sitting there around a pointoh five to and oh eight, you're
not really thinking as good as youshould be. Right, Well, I
(39:58):
so let's let's so you went throughall these ideas, and some of these
are just occupational issues that many professionsdeal with. But when you you add
in the the post traumatic uh stressinjuries or events that police officers deal with
every day, it compounds all ofthose issues. Is that an accurate thing?
(40:20):
Because one people can listen to theshow and say, well, you
know a lot of people go throughthis when they go to work. They
got they got a terrible boss,and you know, they got to work
long hours, but they're not dealingwith life and death issues, and they're
not dealing with traumatic issues every singleday as well. And so when you
say cumulative, you'd say these occupationalstresses and you add in the postematic stress
injury, and this is the commulativeeffect that you talk about. Is that
(40:44):
correct? That's correct. It's onething that the general public doesn't realize is
that when a law enforcement uster goesto work, he's expected to die for
his community. M And that's that'sa burden that we put on every day
and it's hard to take. Youknow, Well, there's the one I
want to There's one I want toadd to you, because you know,
(41:06):
I handled the Chatter train crash.Twenty five dead, forty five injured,
and they asked me to interview thefirst respond the people the first of the
first responders were there who are dealingwith the dead and dying. I mean,
they were pulling bodies out of trainedand they were assisting fire guys and
they had to cut through bodies toget the live bodies. It was really
ugly. And as I talked tosome of these guys, they were the
(41:29):
only they sat with the people thatthey knew were going to die, and
there was nothing they could do forhim. And one of the things that
I think it's because I felt thisin my career, is you you live
with the guilt of not being ableto save a life, the guilt of
not being able to prevent the badthing from happening, and that is a
(41:50):
traumatic impact that most people really can'tunderstand. You want to talk a little
bit about survivor's guilt, or theguilt of failing to be that hero that
you thought you signed up to be. You'd go through it. The best
depiction of that would be the bookof the movie The Onion Filled the Carl
Headinger's story. Carl head injuring hispartner where Los Angeles Police House is there,
(42:14):
kidnapped, and Ian Powell, thepartner, was murdered and Carl Headinger
escaped And for the rest of hislife he could not handle the fact that
he lived and that he did notdie with Ian, and he became a
full blown alcoholic, had all kindsof issues at work, ended up leaving
(42:35):
LAPD and moving up and he actuallybecame successful somewhat in his career because he
became a current county Board of supervisors. But it was all of the stress
that build up from that one incident. Now, it's what that basically is
called. It's called critical incident stress, and it's the adverse physical reaction derived
from tragic events and so serious injury. It's not natural to go drag down
(43:00):
the freeway outward. Yeah, youknow, see what the guys at the
train accident saw death mask mask casuallyor anyone not that puts their life in
danger or your life is threatened byit. That's all critical stress. And
it's sadly it's a or maybe it'sa good thing. It's a natural response
to our body's natural response to unusualevents. Yeah, let me let me
(43:22):
tie your research or your notes intoor the or the issues in your book
to some of the things that wetalk about with CC. So the lack
of departmental support or the over thetop criticism of law enforcement aparticularly over the
last five to ten years, thathas and it has an effect as well,
(43:43):
right, because you're doing the jobas you're trained to do and suddenly
you don't feel like you had thesupport or you become cannon fodder. I
mean, I'll give you the oneat these two Torrents officers. They were
involved in the shooting and they werecleared by the last DA, and the
current DA decided that he was goingto charge them, so he could they
go from being cleared and within justifiedfor the shooting to now being charged.
(44:05):
And so when law enforcements see thathappening, they feel like they don't have
the support of the political class.They don't have the support of the public
and that weighs upon them. Right, Yes, that's emotional betrayal. And
when you find that either your community, which we have found over the last
sense the beginning of COVID, ourcommunity doesn't support us anymore. They would
(44:29):
rather go out and send one hundredpeople into rb walgrains instead of sending one
hundred people down and supporting law enforcement. The community doesn't report or support you.
The law doesn't support you, andthat would be the DA's office and
the lawyers and everything. They havetheir own agenda, and that weighs on
(44:50):
you. That that just builds upthat emotional stress inside the on it because
you're being betrayed when your own partners. A lot of that's coming out now
is your your own partners aren't backingyou up and they're betraying and lying on
you and doing things. And that'sthat's real hard to accept. But you
(45:15):
know what gets me is you broughtup psychological services or CC did. And
when we talk about suicide, suicideis something we all know, but we
don't discuss it. And that's whythe tagline on ninety percent of everything I
put online on social media is startthe conversation because that's what we need to
(45:35):
do. It was a publication cameout in the early two thousands, I
want to say about two thousand andone, two thousand and two, and
it came out by then it wascalled Employee Support Services Bureau. Now it's
Psychological Services. I guess they can. In their research they said that a
department the size of the Los AngelesSheriff's Department could expect two members suicides per
year. And that's that's outrageous.That to me, that's a failure of
(46:00):
leadership. Well, I want tothe thing that you know, so I
want to send a message to ourpublic because you know, I will disagree.
I do think that the public forthe most part is supportive us,
but they're not speaking up because theydon't want to be tagged as whatever.
You know, and you have tospeak up, whether you're whether you're a
business owner who's getting your place ratedby these criminals. You have to speak
(46:23):
up and support law enforcement. Youhave to come out publicly and support them.
And you know, it's funny.There's a state center up up northern
California who is an altered liberal andsuddenly he's starting to support law enforcement because
he's running again, and it's becomea political issue, and I just feel
the betrayal of the political class,whether it's Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden,
(46:43):
and those folks who passed the toughthree strikes laws and the tough on crime
law legislation back in the nineties andhave moon walk away from law enforcement.
And you know, even George Gasconwho implemented, who implemented community or in
policing for Bill Braddon here in La. Now he says that that's racist.
Well, you implemented it, youpushed it, and now you're turning your
(47:05):
back on law enforcement after they've donea good job in lowering crime. But
the other thing I want to getinto is, so the defund the police
movement and CC talked about it,the defund the police movement call for the
defunding of law enforcement and the reinvestmentin community and that would lower crime.
But that has not happened. Andall that has done is lower the number
of personnel that we have available todo more work because crime has gone up,
(47:30):
and the administrative burden placed on lawenforcements created a more work for law
enforcement. So now we have mandatoryshifts and when we talk about occupational stress.
Working seven at night or eleven atnight till seven in the morning automatically
fatigues you. But now when you'recompelled to work a double shift based upon
your research and your data, thathas a negative impact on your mental health.
(47:52):
So this defund the police movement ispushing police suicides. Would be the
linkage I would make. Would youmake that same link? Yes, I
would. By working the double shifts. I alluded to it before. It's
a hypervigilant cycle. It's something that'sbeen around for a while. Kevin gil
(48:13):
Martin, he's a retired lieutenant fromPeon County and he has a PhD in
psychology. Now he calls what theycall the emotional roller coaster. So you
take a police officer before he goesto work, probably an hour or two
before he goes to work, he'sstarting to get amped up a little bit.
He goes to work and the firstcall out the gate, maybe a
(48:34):
busy call, maybe not, buthe's at a higher sense of what's going
around him and he's just paying attention. He goes and he says, that's
why you see cops sit with theirback stains to the wall and instead of
not in front of windows, allkinds of weird stuff. But he's sitting
at a certain level. Then hehas to go on to another shift.
So now your body's going sixteen,eighteen twenty hours at a hyper level of
(49:00):
awareness. Your blood pressure, everythingis already amped up. So you get
off work, you have to beback at work in four to six hours.
You go home, You're not gonnajust calm down, and you just
can't turn it off like a lightswitch. You're gonna stay amped up until
you crash. And then when youcrash, it's just going to be a
crash and burn. You go fromfunny and energetic at work to getting home
(49:23):
and getting a couple hours of sleepmaybe, and your cash matiaty, you
crash and burn, and that thatcontinually wears on you. It wears on
your amigula and your hypocam comments.Excuse me, I blew that word sort
circuit short circuits your brain, andthat's where the problem's coming with the post
(49:45):
traumatic stress issues. Well, wegot a few more minutes, and so
I want to I kind of wantto wrap up. I don't want to
say in a positive way, butwhat chiefs and sheriffs can do around the
country and let's let's first address supportingyour troops. So message to Robert Luna.
If you have a police officer ordeputy sheriff killed in the line of
duty, step up and support themand say I want you to go for
(50:07):
the toughest penalty possible and that wouldbe the death. None of that.
That's the easiest thing you could doto support your troops, right, But
in reality, most of our chiefs, our sheriffs and mid level managers throughout
the country, they need to belooking for certain things. You need to
understand these dynamics. So reading yourbook would be one thing, but they
(50:29):
need to take assertive action to protectour police officers and our first responders.
For that, can you take andtalk a little bit about what they should
do. And you've got about threeminutes, Okay. In the last ten
years, the loss Ange Shriff's sufferedtwo murders or two deputies who were murdered.
(50:51):
Ten years. This year we've hadnine department suicides. That's outrageous.
And you know, suicide awareness education, it's a training issue. We're not
being talked about it. For myentire career, we never talked about it.
In fact, when I was workingpsychological services that you were lucky if
(51:14):
you had someone worked there for morethan three to five years. Usually they
were in, they'd get their hoursand there they were gone, get some
little bit experience. And that's sad. We constantly train an officer survival,
but not in mental health awareness andthat's or even officer wellness. Just taking
care of your own When it wasthe last time you heard a briefing or
(51:35):
or someone talk about financial health ortaken other than the runners doing Baker to
Vegas or some physical stuff. Youdon't hear a lot about that anymore.
As a matter of fact, Idon't even think the gym at CJ is
open anymore. But you just gotto get into that start talking to people.
Pure support is probably one of thebest things that could happen when you
(52:00):
can talk to someone. Many statesnow peer support is considered confidential, and
that's one of the reasons people don'twant to talk about their issues is because
they don't believe that everything it's confidential. They believe the department can find out
where or that you need help andeverything like that. There was a survey
in twenty seventeen by the University ofPhoenix and fifty percent of the people the
(52:23):
police officers that were in that respondedto the survey said they feared facing the
repercussions if they went and seek soughthelp, and forty percent of those thought
they would either be demoted or terminated. And that's that's what we have to
change. We have to management.Instead of going golfing on Monday morning at
(52:44):
Carver Washington golf Course, they needto start thinking about quick kicking the can
down the road and let's look atwhat's going on. Let's talk about suicide.
We don't really need to talk aboutverbal judo. We can talk about
mental health awareness. So just clarify, I don't golf, and you know
so I'm always a little sensitive whenDanny says that kind of stuff. I
(53:06):
don't golf, I never did golf, and I think I got to wrap
up here. First of all,Danny, thank you for coming on the
show. If you're a chief ofa police or a sheriff in a small
area where you get very little support, or you're a mayor or city councilman,
please look at this issue and figureout ways that you can help solve
this problem in your community. Departmentsfifty or fifty officers or less are most
(53:30):
at risk. We are talking aboutthe largest sheriff's department in the country and
they have problems, and they allegedlyhave support. Clearly something is broken and
I want to thank you for joiningus here today. I want to thank
Danny Koons for coming on today.You can see cop line is listed below.
Call that number if you're struggling.Danny, thank you for coming on
(53:51):
and talking about this is a veryimportant subject and we will have you on
in future shows and maybe delve intosomething a little more in depth like post
dramatic stress. If I want tothink, I want to thank you very
much, and I p and dropit real quick. There's a couple of
foundations that you can go to freeof charge. Ones Mighty Yaks Foundation,
Reboot Recovery, and First Responder Wellnessas a local Organization. These are three
(54:15):
organizations that offer support and offer helpfor people that need it. And like
I said, it's free of charge. Okay, well, thank you,
Please stick around for debrief and let'ssee Amanda, it is now yours.
You can take it away
Good afternoon. This is Briefing withYour Chief. I am your host,
Patrick Jordan here on kg r Ad B dot com k g RI Digital
Broadcasting. I am so excited tobe here. This is my first show
Briefing with the Chief, and Iwant to thank you to thank you k
g r A for giving me theopportunity on this platform to talk about one
(00:57):
of my favorite subjects, and thatis long and enforcement. You know,
over the last ten years, thelaw enforcement's gotten a bad shake. Mainstream
media and the liberal left have vilifiedlaw enforcement. And I decided a couple
years ago when I retired, thatI was going to speak out and speak
up to defend the men and womenin law enforcement and to present another point
(01:17):
of view, one that you're notgoing to see in mainstream media. So
on this show, we will addressthe news, public policy, and politics
of the day and whatever else comesup. And I unapologetically support law enforcement.
Now, I did thirty eight yearsin law enforcement, but not only
that. I am the son ofa police officer, so the law enforcement
has been part of my life formy whole life. In fact, I
(01:38):
still have a sister who's on thejob today and I can't think of anything
better to do with my time thanto support the men and women in law
enforcement share my lived experience. Ifyou ever pay attention to the left,
lived experience means that's their truth.Well this is my truth. But I
hope to support my truth with enlightenedexperiences and data to present a different point
(02:04):
of view than you're gonna hear onmainstream media, because you know they're just
playing dishonest. The mainstream media andthe liberal left are just playing dishonest about
law enforcement and have vilified them forfar too long. And I want to
be a counterweight or a counterbalance towhat is being said today. Now on
this show, we're gonna we're gonnatalk about a very serious subject and that's
(02:27):
police suicides. But before I getinto that, I want to talk about
what's coming up also on this showKGr dot com Briefing with the Chief.
You can catch a show every fiveo'clock Eastern Standard time and two o'clock Pacific
Standard time, and the line upfor the next several weeks includes talking to
a somebody running for a district Germanyin Los Angeles. He's challenging a Soro's
(02:50):
funded DA in LA. That's GeorgeGascon George Sorow spent twelve million dollars to
put that guy in office, andone of the earliest and frequent critics has
been Jonathan to Tommy, he's goingto join me next week. The following
week, I'm gonna have some expertson the border. We're gonna talk about
excellent drug cartels. And then afterthat we're gonna talk and and the week
after that, we're gonna talk abouthomicide detective and the debilitating effect of post
(03:15):
traumatic stress on him, his storyand his career and what he did to
recover. These are all great storiesthat need to be told. These are
all stories that the public needs tohear. You're gonna hear it from me,
You're gonna hear it from my guests. Many of them are gonna be
law enforcement officers who do not geta chance to share their experiences because the
(03:38):
mainstream media doesn't cover it or itdoesn't cover it enough. Now, today's
show, you know, I wantto talk about police suicides. This wasn't
exactly the first show that I envisioned, but it is. It is a
subject that kind of erupted into themainstream media and went national because my old
(03:58):
department sucked for four suicides in atwenty four hour period of current and recently
retired deputy sheriffs. And you know, and and it's just one of those
things you don't hear a lot aboutpolice suicides. And as I did research
for the show, I mean,I had been tracking suicides in the general
public, and I've seen a spikeamong suicides and men in the general public.
(04:20):
Police officers are fifty four percent morelikely to commit suicide than the average
public. Now, we already ata crisis level for suicides and in the
public, and then you add thatfifty four percent increase. Clearly suicides amongst
law enforcement is at a critical leveland it's finally hitting mainstream. I think
(04:42):
if you look at the CNN headline, you're gonna see that CNN is even
covered now. In the last tenyears, I didn't see a lot of
positive press coming out of the mainstreammedia. And see if we can pull
up that CNN article, Amanda,and it is shareful, and he's talking
about what's going on there is he'sbeen in office for about a year,
(05:05):
and he is talking about what's goingon in terms of suicides in his department
and In addition to this one,I saw an editorial finally, an editorial
in the La Times where they talkedabout how being a cop is a tough
job. And it doesn't help thatthe mainstream media is bashed law enforcement for
(05:26):
a very long time, unfairly,unnecessarily and for doing exactly what the policymakers
asked us to do over the lastfour years, and that's lower crime and
save lives. Now, we've beenaccused of a lot of things, and
people, human beings take that kindof accusation seriously, and it's been negatively
(05:46):
impacting law enforcement in general, butmore particularly the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
And and so I want to bringup an investigative journalist, C.
C. Woods and her article becauseshe kind of lays out what's going on
with the Los Angeles County Shriff's apartmentand what is likely contributed to the mess
(06:08):
that's going on in Ellie County andwhy we may be seeing a higher number
of supersides with the Los Angeles CountyShriff's Department versus other agencies. And one
of the articles that caught my attention, I'll just give you the headline and
then we'll get in with CC andwe'll talk a little bit about it.
And it is the vultures are circlinga new just a Deputy letter, which
(06:28):
is an anonymous letter written by adeputy sheriff surfaces amid department suicides and crushing
morale among the rank and file.And I just did a pic of her
headline and you can catch CC atthe current report. She's the editor in
chief and in addition to that,she also is a contributor recently to the
Epoch Time. So congratulations, CC. You can take that headline. Bring
(06:51):
cec up. So, CC,you wrote the article, and you wrote
a series of articles that support thisnotion. Can you tell us what going
on with the Sheriff's apartment in termsof morale that would cause deputy sheriffs they
have this crushing morale and not feelsupported well. First and foremost, they
(07:11):
have a boss, which is SheriffLuna, who is not supporting his rank
and file. And I don't thinkhe ever intended on supporting his rank and
file when he was elected. It'spretty clear that he is a puppet and
was meant to be a puppet forthe Board of Supervisors who were desperate to
(07:34):
get rid of Alex Vianueva are formersheriff. They had a very contentious relationship.
They wanted more control over the Sheriff'sdepartment, and that meant bringing in
somebody who will do what they want, when they want, how they want,
and Luna proved that he was goingto do that. And case in
(07:54):
point is the Board of Supervisors adoptedthe Citizens Oversight Commission recommendations on deputy gangs.
Deputy gangs is a very small problem, very small that exists at a
handful of stations throughout the department.The department has eighteen thousand members and nine
(08:18):
thousand are sworn. The amount ofCLICK members subgroup members is very very small.
And as with any organization, youget some bad attitudes. Whether it's
you know, a law firm ora hospital. You know, you're going
to get some bad apples everywhere yougo. It doesn't matter. It's not
(08:41):
just law enforcement. So what I'mhearing is they have a small problem.
You know, I remember the campaignand they vilified vienn Aueva, and they
embellished the problem for political reasons againstvien Aueva, of course, and now
they're broadly discipline in the department,and it's like every deputy you know,
(09:03):
and here here's the issue that Ihave, and this is, you know,
I really want the public to understandthis. When they talk about criminal
justice reform, the low hanging fruitfor politicians is accountability of police because that's
the easy thing to do, becausein reality, criminal justice reform should mean
investing in the community, to toto develop, to develop solutions for the
precursors that lead to crime. Thoseare hard policy things to do, but
(09:26):
it's really easy to say, allcops bad, Let's hold them accountable.
It's kind of like passing new gunlaws. All guns bad, Let's pass
one more law that won't impact anything, but it makes a lot harder for
people to possess guns. And let'spass one more law the whole cops accountable
and make it really hard for themto do their job. But also they
don't feel supported. And I thinkthat's what I read in your article.
(09:48):
Well that's that, yes, Andso it started there with you know,
him just cow chowing to the boardof super I mean to the citizens oversite
and the Board of Supervisors and saying, oh, we're going to take care
of this big problem we have,and even yesterday in his one year anniversary
address, even though there was adeputy involved shooting that he didn't even mentioned,
(10:13):
but anyway and justified, I mightadd, so he even mentioned in
his press conference that the deputy gangissue was a small issue. He even
said that, okay, which isshocking. Okay, buddy. But now
they've taken the stance of having instituteda whole new command structure at the quote
(10:37):
problem stations by putting two captains there. Basically they're saying, you're bad little
boys and girls, so we're goingto give you an extra babysitter. Okay.
So look, I don't care.Optics are not good in that situation.
It just makes you feel like you'renot doing your job even though you
are doing your job. And someof them don't give it crap, you
(10:58):
know what I mean. It's butthen some of them do. Like some
of them, it's like, whydo I have to have another, you
know, another prying eye over me? You know, you know, accountable.
I was a cat, And itreally comes down to leadership. You
have to own your command and takeresponsibility. But there are two other issues
(11:18):
I want to address, particularly inthe article that you wrote and one of
them is such a glaring thing.A friend of mine son was killed,
Ryan Clinton Bloomer, and I workedwith his dad, Mike, and we
have a sorow's fund at DA.George Gascon, who is ideologically driven on
a lot of things that he did, and he made a blanket statement when
he ran for office that he wouldn'tseek the death penalty. So Ryan Clinton
(11:41):
Boomer was basically executed at work andhe stated publicly, this is George Gaston
in front of the sheriff, thathe would not seek the death penalty.
And I can't just I can justimagine the lack of support that all deputy
sheriffs would feel if their boss saton their hands and did not challenge the
(12:05):
DA and say, I would expectyou to go for the death penalty on
this case. That's what every deputysheriff would expect. It's an easy thing
for the sheriff to do. Whyhe couldn't do it? I have no
idea. I do well, Igo ahead and share, but I think
it's you know it is it doesn'tmatter what your political persuasion is. You
support your troops no matter what pickingset work. So I'll go go ahead
(12:28):
and share your feud. Percent That'skind of where I was going. I
was giving you the chronological order ofwhy these guys are in such a desperate
state right now. So you startedwith the deputy gangs and all that bs,
and then you moved to the twouse of force incidents at at Palmdale
in Lancaster, where they were bothjustified in what they were doing. And
one of the incidents was dragged outfrom a year before under the former sheriff.
(12:54):
And here the deputies are losing theirjobs. They're being roasted for following
procedure, thrown on the bus,thrown to the wolves in social media,
and the sheriff did not support themat all. Even though they followed procedure,
they were cleared by their their higherups. Okay, so you've got
the deputy gangs, then you've gothim roasting them publicly no support like and
(13:16):
then you've got Ryan's execution right outsidethe station and he still didn't support them.
So when when the two years offource incidents happened? That started?
This just a deputy letter, okay, and that in those letters, a
deputy from Lancaster gets in depth aboutwhat's really going on in the department and
(13:39):
it is not good. It reallyis, and you can understand the uh,
just despair that these deputies are feeling. Now all of those things are
already bad enough. Then you've gotmandated over time. Yeah, which is
that's the you want talk about thebiggest final nail on the coffin, you
(14:03):
can get it before you get tothat, because I want to talk about
that. I really want to getback to this the death penalt thing.
And and let me clarify the biggestthing. No, no, no,
Gus gone. Gus gone, therelationship between him and guest, Like,
oh my god, I did seethat. That that that that Luna Seraph
Luna has a relationship with Gasco andthat goes back decades. But I want
(14:24):
to explain because part of our show'sgoal is to educate people. So when
a DA goes for the death penaltyagainst a suspect, it's a negotiation.
Whether he ultimately gets a death penaltyand goes to trial or not really depends
upon the evidence in the case.But I'm actually okay if the DA says
(14:45):
I'm going for the death penalty andthen settles for life without the possibility of
parole, because because I understand it'sa negotiation and the DA's the way.
The DA's case really will dictate theoutcome. Right. But when you go
for the death penalty and somebody saidfor life without the possibility of parole,
that's still a win. But whenyou take the death penalty off the table,
(15:05):
what happens and this is for ourlistening audience, understand this. When
you take that off the table,your starting point is life without the positive
parole, and the defense is seekingnow life with the possibility parol or twenty
five years with the possibility of parole, and that is the chance. That's
why guess Going is so irresponsible andblanketly saying that he will not seek the
(15:28):
death penalty. And that's why thesheriff. Not only does the sheriff have
an obligation to support his troops,but the sheriff has an obligation to keep
the community safe, and he shouldbe challenging did use all those tools in
his toolbox and the DA has takenthat off the table. He's a Soros
foot of DA. That's why that'sa problem. That's why you shouldn't do
that. You've automatically reduced the leveragethat the people have to keep their community
(15:52):
safe by having these blanket rules.So the next thing I want to get
into CC, and you brought itup, is the mandated overtime. And
this, in my opinion, isan outgrowth of the defund the police movement.
They stopped funding law enforcement, theystop funding positions, which ultimately leads
to a large number of vacancies.Vacancies mean, because what they said is
(16:15):
we're going to defund the police,so we're going to reinvest in the community.
Well, that hasn't resulted in lowercrimes, which means the workload of
the deputies has not has not juststayed the same, it's actually increased.
And so and now you have shorta shortage of personnel, so people are
mandated to work overtime. So talka little bit about that, because that
leads into my discussion with our withour final dealt. I mean, just
(16:37):
backtracked for two seconds and just sayduring that time at the press conference when
they announced not doing the when theywhen Gascon announced he was not seeking the
death penalty, Uh Luna setback,didn't say a freaking word, and he
knew he was not going to seekthe death penalty, did not bother to
tell the Clink and Boomer family theyfound out while standing on that stage while
(17:03):
there were national cameras in their face. Can you imagine being that family?
Okay, so imagine all the stuffI told you these guys have been going
through. Okay, the deputies watchingthat, Okay, on top of everything
else. Now you put all thaton top of mandated overtime, a minimum
(17:26):
of two overtime shifts per week perdeputy. It's like it's insanity. Insanity.
I heard somebody say that at onepoint it was ten overtime shifts a
month. Ye okay, mandatory,yeah, or you're gonna get drafted.
And by drafted, it means ifyou don't sign up for it, they're
(17:48):
gonna come and get you and putyou on it whether you like it or
not. Okay, that's what thatmeans. Let's clarify. That's sixty hours
a week. And you know,for the average person who's working out there,
remember some these shifts are like I'veworked them. Well, you start
at ten and that night you goto six in the morning and that's your
first shift. Then you go tosix to two and that's your second shift.
(18:11):
So when we talk about mandated overtime. You're talking double shifts in which
people are exhausted, and in myexploration of police suicides, one of the
one of the precursors, or oneof the causal factors, is fatigue for
law enforcement officers to lead the highlevel of depression and then of course suicides,
which is why your article is mostimportant. And I got to finish
(18:33):
up with you CC, but youhad one issue that I didn't really get
a chance to talk to you about. You said that there's you know,
one of the things the Sheriff's Partnerhas is they're supposed to have a support
system called psychological services for people whoare going through postumatic stress or other emotional
issues that could be precursors to policesuicides or just disruption in the family.
(18:53):
And you you recently did an articlethat there's some disruption or problems with the
shriff psychological service. Could you explaina little bit of that. I'm actually
working on it right now. I'mkind of in it. I'm in it,
and I'm going to be talking toa source on Friday who was working
in the department. I received amessage after one of my most recent suicide
(19:17):
articles that I did about the LASDsuicides, and I was they reached out
to me and told me it's reallybad. Understaffed, underqualified people that don't
know how to handle these cases.It's just it's a mess. I can
only say that it's a mess rightnow, and I'll have to unravel that
(19:38):
with you at a later data.Yeah. I think one of the things
you have to realize when you defundthe police antellar re units get defunded first.
Training gets defunded before they cut personnel, and so I can see where
they might have cut staffing and reliedmore on interns in psychological services versus people
(19:59):
that have their hours and are trainedsore. Where were that? Where can
they find that article? CEC?Is that going to be an Epoch time
article? Is that going to bea current report art? You know it's
going to be on both, I'msure so, But always default to the
current report because I don't have controlover how and when they do it.
So just check the current Report dotcom first and then go from there.
(20:21):
Okay, So just to clarify,CC will be a regular on my show.
She is an investigative reporter locally andone of the things I'm going to
focus on is the campaign coming up, particularly with the District attorney's race.
It is the largest local prosecutor's officein the country. It has been reported
that George Soros spent twelve million dollarsto put George Gascon in place, and
it is destroying our city. Andwe are in campaign season. So the
(20:45):
dirt is coming out, and Ineed somebody that's going to stand on top
of that dirt. And you canfind that dirt on the Current Report dot
com and occasionally as a contributor tothe Epoch Time CC. Before I let
you go anything for the cause,you know, just support your law enforcement.
Just you know, there's nobody elseon this planet who can keep us
safe other than them. Okay,they need our support, and you know
(21:10):
they need to be called out toowhen they're bad apples. And that's that's
my specialty. So well, youknow what, I here's the deal.
I'm not going to genuflect to theleft and say that there's something I support
law enforcement. I understand that youhave to do your job as an investigative
reporter, but there are so manyoutlets that attack the police on a regular
basis, many times unfairly. Ido appreciate when you do articles that are
(21:30):
supportive of law enforcement. They arefew and far between in the mainstream media,
and it's my main focus. Mymain focus is supporting law enforcement and
really telling the true story. Everyonce in a while, I have to
throw a little you know, curveballin there just to keep it fair,
you know. Okay, so youcan catch CEC on the current Report current
report dot com. Is that correct? Yeah, okay, and keep yourye
(21:53):
on Epox Time. Occasionally she'll geta quote from me for the Epoch Times
in summer articles. So yeah,that's a regular gig though, so good.
Don't worry, you'll see yourself more. And congratulations on that that new
gig on the Epochs Time. Ido like it. They they have a
variety of subjects. I like theCalifornia Insider podcast, which I would recommend
(22:15):
people check out. One more thing, The Epoch Times does not censor my
work at all, and that isa very important thing for everybody to know.
So they should be supported because theydon't censor. They don't like every
word that I write gets put inthere. So yeah, they either choose
to be either choose to publish ornot. Well, thank you for joining
me. We will see you inthe future. I'll be in touch about
(22:36):
you the next show. Okay,all right, Audio CC And so you
know, before we bring up ourmain guests, and our main guest is
Danny Kohon. He's an author andyou retired sergeant for the Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Partment. I'd like to putup an article from Boston Boston University,
and you know, this is anarticle that talks a little bit about the
(22:57):
data regarding police suicides, and thisparticular slide is really an important one.
It shows where police suicides are mostproblematic, and it's actually in our smaller
department. Although the Sheriff's Apartment,La County Shriff's Partment is going against the
grain in that it has a veryhigh level of suicides for its size.
(23:18):
But you can see usually larger agencieshave some level of support which causes less
suicides. I guess this is perthousand than smaller departments. If you can
see there, fifty or less hasa suicide rate of forty three point seven
eight percent, which is which ishuge. That's a huge number for small
(23:40):
agencies. So if you're listening aroundthe country and you live in a community
that has a small police department anda small sheriff's department, here's how they
do commit suicide. I want youto take this important. If you're a
policy maker, if you're an influencerin your city, if you're a police
chief for sheriff, please pay attentionto this subject. We do not know
(24:00):
the suffering that is going on withthe men and will and women in law
enforcement. Culturally, it's not somethingthat police officers will talk about and and
likely in smaller agencies they don't havethe same level of support that they might
have at larger agencies. People needto pay attention to that so that we
can save the lives of the menand women in law enforcement who are serving
(24:21):
you every day. And you knowit's it's the thing about law enforcement is
you can see the car crashes,You hear about the shootings when when law
enforcement has physical injuries, but youknow, you don't hear a lot about
the emotional injuries that they suffer nearlyevery day that have a lasting impact and
many times contribute uh to to thefeeling of despair and depression. And you
(24:44):
can see as we're strolling the linebelow cop line and other numbers that you
can call. If you are astruggling police officer, you can call those
lines and get help. And Ithink it's time to bring up our primary
guest, Danny Kohon Now. Dannyis as a retired sergeant for the Los
Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and healso wrote a book called Broken and that's
(25:07):
Understanding the effects of traumatic incidents.And there is a copy of the cover.
And I read his book and Ithought of him as soon as I
wanted to do this subject. Danny'sbeen on another podcast of mine and we
have talked about post traumatic stress,but I hadn't read his book, and
I read his book in preparation forthe show. Let's bring Danny coon up
(25:30):
and welcome him to the show.Danny, how you doing. I'm real
good, pat thank you, Andthat's an honor to be on your first
show. Yeah. Yeah, thisis my first show. And like I
said, I really would have likedto do a different subject. But I
am happy that I'm able to dothis subject because it doesn't get a lot
of play, and it's very important. As you heard me talk about fifty
four percent more likely to come tosuicide. Law enforcement and you have a
(25:56):
great deal of data that can youshare what is actually going on in the
Sheriff's apartment recently regarding suicide in thelast thirty days and then for the year,
and comparing contrast that with what's goingon nationally. Well, November sixth
was a very dark day for thelast Angele Shriff's Department. Going to be
a little emotional here for a second. In a twenty four hour period,
(26:18):
four members died by suicide and itmarks the fifth department related suicide in less
than thirty days, and overall thisyear so far, unfortunately, there has
been nine reported suicide or LA CountySheriff's department suicides, and there's rumors that
I hear every once on on socialmedia that that number could be as actually
(26:38):
as high as seventeen. But withjust what we know right now, the
Los Angeles Sheriff's Department represents roughly tenpercent of all the suicides this year,
and that's unusual, right. Imean, we're yeah, just a clarified
because we have a national audience andwe have people listening internationally, so I
(27:00):
think I need to frame this.I worked for the Los Angeles County's Heerff's
aparmer for thirty eight years. DannyKoune has commented, why did you stay
so long? To me in thepast, But I retired at the rank
of chief. Now my last commandI had twelve hundred employees, but the
Sheriff's apartment has eighteen thousand employees andten thousand of them are sworn. We
run the largest jail system of thecountry. We do policing for about three
(27:23):
point two million, meeting general,law enforcement, and investigative services just like
any municipal police department. We arethe largest sheriff's department in the country.
We also run the largest jail systemin the country and oversee the security for
the largest court system in the countryhere in La County. La County has
ten thousand residents, So that justgives you the scope and size, because
(27:47):
there's some states who don't even haveten thousand residents. And so that's the
size of the sheriff's department. Andfor us to have that level of suicides,
particularly in one year, that's actuallyunprecedent, right, Yes, it
is. A couple of years ago, I believe Chicago had seven. They
also had experience a in the monthof December where they experienced I think four
(28:08):
suicides in one month, but Ithink they're Highway seven. Cincinnati had or
excuse me, Police Department, SanAntonio, Texas had about six or seven,
and New York Police Department there wereabout five or six in one year.
So we're above the national average,well above the national average. And
(28:32):
I think you did send me somestats and you know it's so law enforcement
suicide stats. In twenty twenty two, we had one hundred and sixty two
reported, so there could be alot more reported suicide. Now, is
that guys actually working or recently retired? Is that just working guys, because
that includes working and retired, andit includes all police offers, including correction
(28:56):
officers, corrections officers. Okay,and so that's every fifty four hours.
But contrast that to the number ofpeople killed in the line of duty that
year, and that was seventy four. So you're you're much more likely to
suffer a tragic death at your ownhands due to trauma that you experienced at
work than you are to be killedin the line of duty. That's what
(29:18):
that number represents. And that's notan unusual number that happens year after year.
Right, that you are much moreat threat to the psychological damage done
to your career than somebody who's totinga gun and shooting at you. That
accurate. Pre COVID, the suiciderate was twice is what it is now.
(29:38):
So pre COVID it was pushing forlaw enforcements, pushing up to three
hundred a year reported, and postCOVID, I think during the last couple
of years, this arena on educatinglaw enforcement about the law enforcements suicide.
It's a huge arena and there's alot of people into the law of US
(30:00):
are getting into it, and Ithink that we're making a difference slowly,
but just by education, we're tryingto get reach out and get people well.
I think to talk about broader trendsbecause I was tracking suicides prior to
COVID, and you saw a spikein suicides in the general population as well,
particularly amongst men and white males inparticular, and then it dipped during
(30:23):
COVID, which was shocking to me. And I was tracking it because you
know, I was looking for datapoints, which is typical me. I'm
looking for data points to show whetherthe treatment first model instead of law enforcement
is actually having a positive impact,because if you're treating folks that are using
narcotics, if you're treating folks thatare into life because a lot of people
(30:45):
who commit suicide are also dealing withaddiction issues and they tend to intersect with
law enforcement. So for if we'vetaken law enforcement out of that role and
we focused on treatment, are weactually having an impact? And I saw
a dip, and that was probablya COVID dip, because that would be
consistent what you're talking about. ButI recently checked those numbers and they're spiking
back up again. So suicides aregoing back up in the general population,
(31:07):
and suicides appear to be going upin the lawnch So this is part of
a wider trend. But law enforcementssuffer disproportionately because of the trauma they face
at work. Yeah, that's correct. We are. We are down,
I want to say, somewhere aroundtwenty five percent from last year, and
last year was down slightly from thepre COVID year, so it were slowly
(31:33):
making something. But at the sametime, I mean just two days ago
or yesterday, a small police fartmentCalifornia experienced a LANTA or a suicide by
death and or death by suicide andso bringing the number up to ninety six
this year, and that's the ninetysix represents a law enforcement suicide every three
point two days. So I thinkone of the things that I read your
(31:56):
book and this was I think inpopular belief that post traumatic stress injuries are
a big precursor to suicide. AndI think people can understand that because we've
had a lot of discussion regarding postumaticstress in spousal abuse and rape victims.
So it's entered into the language ofpopular culture postumatic stress. But what really
(32:22):
hasn't been addressed is the level oftrauma that police officers face on a day
to day basis that could be contributingto that. Can can you shed some
light on first defined postraumatic stress injuryand then shed some light on the challenges
that police officers face in relationship tothis injury. Well, on second here,
(32:42):
I'm going to read this. Posttraumatic stress is defined as a condition
of persistent mental and emotional stress occurringas a result of injury or severe psychological
shock, typically involving disturbance of sleepand constant, vivid recall of the experience
with a dulled responses to others andto the outside world. And that's the
(33:05):
American Psychological Association's definition of ptsc HIyou can you give a can you clarify
to our listeners and our audience forpeace officers and actually first responders in general.
You know, how what is youknow, how often do they face
these challenge of post traumatic stress?How frequent is it? And comparing contrast
(33:29):
to maybe the general population. Thegeneral population, there has been researchs shows
they see approximately twelve traumatic experiences intheir lifetime in one shift. A police
officer can experience twelve traumatic events.Over a thirty year career, You're internalizing
(33:51):
thousands of traumatic events and that justeventually it's going to build up on you
and it's going to cause issues.And so so this has a you know,
I want to get into a littlebit about this. So would you
say this is the primary reason forpolice suicides or this is accumulative with other
issues. It's a cumulative it's oneof the many causal factors. There's a
(34:16):
former Air Force veteran, former policeofficer, and now founder of the Blue
Wall Institute. Her name is OliviaJohnson. She holds a doctorate in occupational
management and leadership. And she isa nationally recognized expert on law enforcement suicide,
and she came up with what shecalls the fatal ten and it's been
(34:40):
around. Other people who have studiedlaw enforcement suicide have also come up with
something similar. But what she cameup with is just the main ten reasons
why people end up taking their ownlives. And the first one is interpersonal
relationships. We all have relationships withothers. That's in the general public.
(35:04):
I think domestic violence is huge,and murder suicide where you're killing your spouse
and then committing suicide and the generalpublic is huge, and just in the
law enforcement and I know of atleast one, maybe two officers over thirty
(35:27):
years that died by suicide because ofa lot with other stuff. Is because
of interpersonal relationships or four to fifteenor family discernances. Another one is substance
abuse. It's been studying. Numerousstudies have shown that at least thirty percent
of all suicides are alcohol related.And it's also known that in the law
(35:51):
enforcement culture, alcohol is deeply engraved. In fact, I can only think
of one television show or movie thatdoesn't address alcohol in it, and that
would be Adam twelve. Every othermovie or TV show, they're having choir
practice, they're going out drinking aftera bit case, whatever, it's an
issue. The build up is stress. What we were talking about earlier than
(36:12):
those thousands of incidence, just thatconstant stress that it builds up Indian.
It keeps you on the edge,It keeps you in kind of a hypervigilant
area where you're always going up anddown, burning and burning, then crashing
and causing depression. And then that'sthe other concern is on the mental health
issues. It is believed that thirtypercent of our police officers suffer from depression.
(36:39):
And then one of the other onesis medical issues. I know of
one or two deputy sheriffs that diedby suicide because they had elevating injury.
Nobody wants to be classified is unfitfor duty and that because that's what we
do. We want to go outand go to work. It's kind of
funny that they put access to firearmsin there, because we all have access
(37:01):
to firearms. And you know,I saw your stats, doctor Johnson.
She to her research shows at abouteighty six percent of all Lewis suicide law
enforcement suicides or by firearms, andwhere the general population was substantially less.
(37:22):
And another one is the being underinvestigation, internal affairs investigation, and some
departments have an internal criminal So you'regoing both sides. Either where you're going
to go to jail, you're gonnalose your job. Those play on people.
Those built up with all the otherincidences that are going on, the
stresses and the fights with your familyand you're drinking too much. That's all
(37:44):
contributing factor. This is a strangeone. I don't see it, but
it's the pending or actual retirement.In twenty nineteen, there was a deputy
chief for the Los Angeles or excuseme, for the New York Police Department,
and he was being forced to retire. He died by suicide a couple
of weeks before his retirement. Hejust couldn't see himself being retired and put
(38:07):
out the pasture. And also inthe same year, in January twenty nineteen,
there's a retired sergeant from the LongBeach Police Department who died by suicide,
and it was two years he retiredtwo years before. He had gone
to his old station and died bysuicide in the parking lot. One of
the saddest things is most of ushave major life threatening or life altering events.
(38:30):
You know, we get depressed becauseof several things, but loss of
a child, silin or a parent, those are some causal factors. You
know, a lot of people whenthey become empty nesters, not having a
house fuld of people around anymore,that wears on them and causes depression.
And then there's a spouse with alife threatening health issues. I've done dealing
(38:51):
with this for five years and itdefinitely works on you. But the big
one on the fatal ten is sleepdisorders. According to research, and a
lot of this comes from the SleepFoundation, but there's a bunch of research
out on it. A person withoutsleep for roughly eighteen hours is like having
(39:12):
the impaired judgment equal to a pointzero five blood alcohol, and after twenty
hours it's equal to a point zeroeight, which is the legal limit in
California most states, and at twentyfour hours it's equal to a point one
to Oh. Now, there's apsychologist, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman. He's
(39:35):
a retired Army ranger and he's asleep expert and instructor at West point.
He claims that sleep deprivation is thenumber one reason officers commit suicide, make
ethical mistakes, and use excessive force. And I can see it because when
you're we're sitting there around a pointoh five to and oh eight, you're
not really thinking as good as youshould be. Right, Well, I
(39:58):
so let's let's so you went throughall these ideas, and some of these
are just occupational issues that many professionsdeal with. But when you you add
in the the post traumatic uh stressinjuries or events that police officers deal with
every day, it compounds all ofthose issues. Is that an accurate thing?
(40:20):
Because one people can listen to theshow and say, well, you
know a lot of people go throughthis when they go to work. They
got they got a terrible boss,and you know, they got to work
long hours, but they're not dealingwith life and death issues, and they're
not dealing with traumatic issues every singleday as well. And so when you
say cumulative, you'd say these occupationalstresses and you add in the postematic stress
injury, and this is the commulativeeffect that you talk about. Is that
(40:44):
correct? That's correct. It's onething that the general public doesn't realize is
that when a law enforcement uster goesto work, he's expected to die for
his community. M And that's that'sa burden that we put on every day
and it's hard to take. Youknow, Well, there's the one I
want to There's one I want toadd to you, because you know,
(41:06):
I handled the Chatter train crash.Twenty five dead, forty five injured,
and they asked me to interview thefirst respond the people the first of the
first responders were there who are dealingwith the dead and dying. I mean,
they were pulling bodies out of trainedand they were assisting fire guys and
they had to cut through bodies toget the live bodies. It was really
ugly. And as I talked tosome of these guys, they were the
(41:29):
only they sat with the people thatthey knew were going to die, and
there was nothing they could do forhim. And one of the things that
I think it's because I felt thisin my career, is you you live
with the guilt of not being ableto save a life, the guilt of
not being able to prevent the badthing from happening, and that is a
(41:50):
traumatic impact that most people really can'tunderstand. You want to talk a little
bit about survivor's guilt, or theguilt of failing to be that hero that
you thought you signed up to be. You'd go through it. The best
depiction of that would be the bookof the movie The Onion Filled the Carl
Headinger's story. Carl head injuring hispartner where Los Angeles Police House is there,
(42:14):
kidnapped, and Ian Powell, thepartner, was murdered and Carl Headinger
escaped And for the rest of hislife he could not handle the fact that
he lived and that he did notdie with Ian, and he became a
full blown alcoholic, had all kindsof issues at work, ended up leaving
(42:35):
LAPD and moving up and he actuallybecame successful somewhat in his career because he
became a current county Board of supervisors. But it was all of the stress
that build up from that one incident. Now, it's what that basically is
called. It's called critical incident stress, and it's the adverse physical reaction derived
from tragic events and so serious injury. It's not natural to go drag down
(43:00):
the freeway outward. Yeah, youknow, see what the guys at the
train accident saw death mask mask casuallyor anyone not that puts their life in
danger or your life is threatened byit. That's all critical stress. And
it's sadly it's a or maybe it'sa good thing. It's a natural response
to our body's natural response to unusualevents. Yeah, let me let me
(43:22):
tie your research or your notes intoor the or the issues in your book
to some of the things that wetalk about with CC. So the lack
of departmental support or the over thetop criticism of law enforcement aparticularly over the
last five to ten years, thathas and it has an effect as well,
(43:43):
right, because you're doing the jobas you're trained to do and suddenly
you don't feel like you had thesupport or you become cannon fodder. I
mean, I'll give you the oneat these two Torrents officers. They were
involved in the shooting and they werecleared by the last DA, and the
current DA decided that he was goingto charge them, so he could they
go from being cleared and within justifiedfor the shooting to now being charged.
(44:05):
And so when law enforcements see thathappening, they feel like they don't have
the support of the political class.They don't have the support of the public
and that weighs upon them. Right, Yes, that's emotional betrayal. And
when you find that either your community, which we have found over the last
sense the beginning of COVID, ourcommunity doesn't support us anymore. They would
(44:29):
rather go out and send one hundredpeople into rb walgrains instead of sending one
hundred people down and supporting law enforcement. The community doesn't report or support you.
The law doesn't support you, andthat would be the DA's office and
the lawyers and everything. They havetheir own agenda, and that weighs on
(44:50):
you. That that just builds upthat emotional stress inside the on it because
you're being betrayed when your own partners. A lot of that's coming out now
is your your own partners aren't backingyou up and they're betraying and lying on
you and doing things. And that'sthat's real hard to accept. But you
(45:15):
know what gets me is you broughtup psychological services or CC did. And
when we talk about suicide, suicideis something we all know, but we
don't discuss it. And that's whythe tagline on ninety percent of everything I
put online on social media is startthe conversation because that's what we need to
(45:35):
do. It was a publication cameout in the early two thousands, I
want to say about two thousand andone, two thousand and two, and
it came out by then it wascalled Employee Support Services Bureau. Now it's
Psychological Services. I guess they can. In their research they said that a
department the size of the Los AngelesSheriff's Department could expect two members suicides per
year. And that's that's outrageous.That to me, that's a failure of
(46:00):
leadership. Well, I want tothe thing that you know, so I
want to send a message to ourpublic because you know, I will disagree.
I do think that the public forthe most part is supportive us,
but they're not speaking up because theydon't want to be tagged as whatever.
You know, and you have tospeak up, whether you're whether you're a
business owner who's getting your place ratedby these criminals. You have to speak
(46:23):
up and support law enforcement. Youhave to come out publicly and support them.
And you know, it's funny.There's a state center up up northern
California who is an altered liberal andsuddenly he's starting to support law enforcement because
he's running again, and it's becomea political issue, and I just feel
the betrayal of the political class,whether it's Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden,
(46:43):
and those folks who passed the toughthree strikes laws and the tough on crime
law legislation back in the nineties andhave moon walk away from law enforcement.
And you know, even George Gasconwho implemented, who implemented community or in
policing for Bill Braddon here in La. Now he says that that's racist.
Well, you implemented it, youpushed it, and now you're turning your
(47:05):
back on law enforcement after they've donea good job in lowering crime. But
the other thing I want to getinto is, so the defund the police
movement and CC talked about it,the defund the police movement call for the
defunding of law enforcement and the reinvestmentin community and that would lower crime.
But that has not happened. Andall that has done is lower the number
of personnel that we have available todo more work because crime has gone up,
(47:30):
and the administrative burden placed on lawenforcements created a more work for law
enforcement. So now we have mandatoryshifts and when we talk about occupational stress.
Working seven at night or eleven atnight till seven in the morning automatically
fatigues you. But now when you'recompelled to work a double shift based upon
your research and your data, thathas a negative impact on your mental health.
(47:52):
So this defund the police movement ispushing police suicides. Would be the
linkage I would make. Would youmake that same link? Yes, I
would. By working the double shifts. I alluded to it before. It's
a hypervigilant cycle. It's something that'sbeen around for a while. Kevin gil
(48:13):
Martin, he's a retired lieutenant fromPeon County and he has a PhD in
psychology. Now he calls what theycall the emotional roller coaster. So you
take a police officer before he goesto work, probably an hour or two
before he goes to work, he'sstarting to get amped up a little bit.
He goes to work and the firstcall out the gate, maybe a
(48:34):
busy call, maybe not, buthe's at a higher sense of what's going
around him and he's just paying attention. He goes and he says, that's
why you see cops sit with theirback stains to the wall and instead of
not in front of windows, allkinds of weird stuff. But he's sitting
at a certain level. Then hehas to go on to another shift.
So now your body's going sixteen,eighteen twenty hours at a hyper level of
(49:00):
awareness. Your blood pressure, everythingis already amped up. So you get
off work, you have to beback at work in four to six hours.
You go home, You're not gonnajust calm down, and you just
can't turn it off like a lightswitch. You're gonna stay amped up until
you crash. And then when youcrash, it's just going to be a
crash and burn. You go fromfunny and energetic at work to getting home
(49:23):
and getting a couple hours of sleepmaybe, and your cash matiaty, you
crash and burn, and that thatcontinually wears on you. It wears on
your amigula and your hypocam comments.Excuse me, I blew that word sort
circuit short circuits your brain, andthat's where the problem's coming with the post
(49:45):
traumatic stress issues. Well, wegot a few more minutes, and so
I want to I kind of wantto wrap up. I don't want to
say in a positive way, butwhat chiefs and sheriffs can do around the
country and let's let's first address supportingyour troops. So message to Robert Luna.
If you have a police officer ordeputy sheriff killed in the line of
duty, step up and support themand say I want you to go for
(50:07):
the toughest penalty possible and that wouldbe the death. None of that.
That's the easiest thing you could doto support your troops, right, But
in reality, most of our chiefs, our sheriffs and mid level managers throughout
the country, they need to belooking for certain things. You need to
understand these dynamics. So reading yourbook would be one thing, but they
(50:29):
need to take assertive action to protectour police officers and our first responders.
For that, can you take andtalk a little bit about what they should
do. And you've got about threeminutes, Okay. In the last ten
years, the loss Ange Shriff's sufferedtwo murders or two deputies who were murdered.
(50:51):
Ten years. This year we've hadnine department suicides. That's outrageous.
And you know, suicide awareness education, it's a training issue. We're not
being talked about it. For myentire career, we never talked about it.
In fact, when I was workingpsychological services that you were lucky if
(51:14):
you had someone worked there for morethan three to five years. Usually they
were in, they'd get their hoursand there they were gone, get some
little bit experience. And that's sad. We constantly train an officer survival,
but not in mental health awareness andthat's or even officer wellness. Just taking
care of your own When it wasthe last time you heard a briefing or
(51:35):
or someone talk about financial health ortaken other than the runners doing Baker to
Vegas or some physical stuff. Youdon't hear a lot about that anymore.
As a matter of fact, Idon't even think the gym at CJ is
open anymore. But you just gotto get into that start talking to people.
Pure support is probably one of thebest things that could happen when you
(52:00):
can talk to someone. Many statesnow peer support is considered confidential, and
that's one of the reasons people don'twant to talk about their issues is because
they don't believe that everything it's confidential. They believe the department can find out
where or that you need help andeverything like that. There was a survey
in twenty seventeen by the University ofPhoenix and fifty percent of the people the
(52:23):
police officers that were in that respondedto the survey said they feared facing the
repercussions if they went and seek soughthelp, and forty percent of those thought
they would either be demoted or terminated. And that's that's what we have to
change. We have to management.Instead of going golfing on Monday morning at
(52:44):
Carver Washington golf Course, they needto start thinking about quick kicking the can
down the road and let's look atwhat's going on. Let's talk about suicide.
We don't really need to talk aboutverbal judo. We can talk about
mental health awareness. So just clarify, I don't golf, and you know
so I'm always a little sensitive whenDanny says that kind of stuff. I
(53:06):
don't golf, I never did golf, and I think I got to wrap
up here. First of all,Danny, thank you for coming on the
show. If you're a chief ofa police or a sheriff in a small
area where you get very little support, or you're a mayor or city councilman,
please look at this issue and figureout ways that you can help solve
this problem in your community. Departmentsfifty or fifty officers or less are most
(53:30):
at risk. We are talking aboutthe largest sheriff's department in the country and
they have problems, and they allegedlyhave support. Clearly something is broken and
I want to thank you for joiningus here today. I want to thank
Danny Koons for coming on today.You can see cop line is listed below.
Call that number if you're struggling.Danny, thank you for coming on
(53:51):
and talking about this is a veryimportant subject and we will have you on
in future shows and maybe delve intosomething a little more in depth like post
dramatic stress. If I want tothink, I want to thank you very
much, and I p and dropit real quick. There's a couple of
foundations that you can go to freeof charge. Ones Mighty Yaks Foundation,
Reboot Recovery, and First Responder Wellnessas a local Organization. These are three
(54:15):
organizations that offer support and offer helpfor people that need it. And like
I said, it's free of charge. Okay, well, thank you,
Please stick around for debrief and let'ssee Amanda, it is now yours.
You can take it away
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