#JandR 10-23-25 Jenn and Rick Talk W/ The Host of the Inside the PD Podcast

Jenn interviews the creator of The Inside the PD podcast, Assistant Chief Cox of Austin ISD PD.

Check out his show here after the episode:

https://open.spotify.com/show/4bPPiiKScaE9Xg6xJ5EXvw

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-jenn-and-rick-show--1889252/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello friends, we have a moment so that we may
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Hi.

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The following program contains course language and adult themes. Listener
and discretion is.

Speaker 8 (02:42):
Advised Yesterday, December seven, nineteen forty one, a date which

(03:16):
will live in infamy.

Speaker 9 (03:25):
Were achieving the goal before this decade is out of
landing a man on the moon and returning him safety
to the Earth.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
We choose to go to the moon and disdain and do.

Speaker 10 (03:39):
The other thing, not because they are easy, but because
they are hard.

Speaker 9 (03:52):
Freedom is never more than one generation away from the
speech we didn't pass it on to our children in
the blood streets.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
The only way they.

Speaker 9 (04:00):
Didn't hair out the freedom we have known is if
we fight for us, protect it, defend it and then
handed to them with the well trought lections of.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
How they am their lifetime. Must do the same.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
And Happy Thursday night, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Welcome into Kayla Radio.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Hopefully you guys are hanging around from disasters in the
making which wrapped us a few minutes ago. Now we're
live with Jinn and Rick right here live I'm Palor Radio.
Don't forget to join us tomorrow night as well for
the day of the year. Soo's still presented by Kalin
Radio players. Tomorrow night, eight thirty pm Eastern Live rady
on kale On Radio. But without further ado, we're going
to get into the Jinn and Rick Show.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
I'm Ricked, She's.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Jen, and we have a guest, So I'm gonna let
her introduce the guest after I asked her this question.
Good evening, miss Jen.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
How are you?

Speaker 4 (04:51):
I'm doing okay? How are you?

Speaker 1 (04:55):
I'm alive. It's gonna week.

Speaker 4 (04:57):
It's surviving all the things. The shriek they're still trying
to kill me. Yes, and the allergies have been bad
here too. So we've kind of talked about this a
little bit for a couple of weeks since I first
heard this podcast. And full disclosure, the guests we're having

(05:18):
on is actually part of my family. He is technically
my cousin in law. But he launched a podcast project
called Inside the PD earlier this fall and I've been
listening to it, and of course I know him well,
I know of what he's done, but I thought it
would be a great opportunity for him to come on
and share with our audience and to learn a little

(05:41):
bit more. I think there's a lot of misunderstandings about
school based law enforcement and just kind of what all
they do. So I'm going to introduced. This is Assistant
chief of the Austin Independent School District Police Department, Lance Cox,
how are you doing.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
I'm good, Thanks for thanks for having me. That's a
link title there.

Speaker 4 (06:03):
I know, I know, especially when I have to do
I can't just say ai SDPD because there's so many
different as ds. And then there's people in other parts
of the country that don't know what an ISD is.
They didn't know what that stood for, so I have
to explain it. So I have to be like Austin
Independent School District Police Department. It's a lot and I'm

(06:23):
a former ai SD public school kid and graduate, and
so we'll just I want to talk to you a
little bit about your your background, how you got into
law enforcement, particularly school based. But first I just want
to say, like this is I think that they're a

(06:47):
lot of people that don't understand that there are a
lot of these actual public school pds, not just a
resource officer programs that work with maybe their local police
departments or sheriff's departments.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
There.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
They're particularly I think there's like three hundred and nine
in Texas out of the over four hundred in the
country or in Texas alone, So this is obviously a
place where Texas is kind of leading force on school districts.
Having you know, their own police departments. So why don't

(07:21):
you take us through your your involvement, how you got involved,
how you came to be where you aren't a little
bit of your kind of directions or career.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
Absolutely, I'll love I'll give you the full bio. Born
and raised here in Austin. I'm you know, like yourself.
I'm one of the unicorns. There's not many of us left.
Back in the mid nineties, I was working at a
bar in Austin. We had police officers that worked over

(07:55):
time shifts there at the bar, and I got to
know some of them. At the time, I was driving
a truck for a text doc for the state and
I didn't want to sit behind the windsheld of a
truck for the rest of my life, and so I decided,
you know, why not want to become a police officer.
I loved what they did. I went on ride alongs
with them when I wasn't working the bar. It was

(08:17):
something different every night. It was challenging. So this was
around nineteen ninety five. I believe the City of Austin
put a hiring freeze on for all city agencies, including
a police department, and they were looking at about a
two year hiring freeze, so I put myself through a
regional academy. I knew one of the guys. He was

(08:41):
a sergeant with AID at the time, and he said, Hey,
why don't you come to work for us? And never
did I ever want to be a school police officer.
One of the guys in my academy class was sponsored
by them, and we literally made fun of him every day, so,
you know, it just it was something that was on
my radar. So I went through the academy, I graduated.

(09:05):
I didn't have any job prospects lined up. I put
in three applications. I applied with the City of Georgetown,
I applied with the Williamson County Sheriff's Department, and I
applied with AI s D. At the just to appease

(09:26):
my friend AI st called me first and said, hey,
we'd like to bring you in run you through the
We had to do a PT test and do all
the normal hinding procedures, and they basically gave me the
job first. So I started with them in August of
ninety six. I was campus based initially. I did four

(09:50):
years at Marcuson Middle School in Northwest Austin. From ninety
six to two thousand. I was, like I was telling
you before we started, I was very at the time.
I was twenty four when I started, so I was
pretty you know, I wasn't far removed from the ages
of the kids that were on campus. You know, some
of these kids twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old, right, So

(10:12):
I related to them. You know, I'm a very personable person.
I think I am. Yeah, you know, the kids at
the time seemed to enjoy having me there. I enjoyed
the interactions that I have with them. I always looked
at it more as a learning opportunity. I was a
police officer, but this was a different setting. Back then,

(10:36):
I coached football at Murkison. They actually allowed us to
coach outside of the PD for a stipend, so I coached. Yeah,
I coached football, middle school football there for a couple
of years, and then in two thousand, the position at
Anderson High School, which is the feeder high school for Murkison,

(10:58):
came available, and it was such an easy transition. I mean,
I knew the kids. I've been with them for three
or four years. So I moved to Anderson for the
next four years and stayed up there and basically graduated
the entire class that I started with seven years earlier,
which was was kind of cool.

Speaker 11 (11:18):
It's it's yeah, I think that's a little one of
those unique things about being in uh, like being a
school resource officer and being designated to a campus for
as long as you were, is that you really get
to walk through the entire stage of their high school
life with them or middle school or where.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
In this case, you got to do middle school and
high school with these kids.

Speaker 2 (11:40):
And I'm friends with I'm friends with a bunch of
them now as adults. I mean they're in their forties.

Speaker 4 (11:46):
Well, like I said, they're they're me and I had friends,
and I had cousins that went to Anderson that everybody
and I went to volleyball games and football games, and
everybody knew Offstercocks. Everybody knew off Stercocks. Even I knew
after and I went to school on the other side
of town. So it was just funny when later on,
you know, it was like, wait, that's the same guy me,

(12:08):
But yeah, everybody knew you. You made your presence known,
but like a in a very positive way. Everybody wanted
they could joke around with you. They knew you had
their back. Like all of that, it was always talked
about in a very positive way.

Speaker 10 (12:21):
It's a very unique relationship building setting, right And like
I said, I'm friends with a lot of I say kids,
but I'm also friends with a lot of their parents
to this day, you know.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
And I really started to understand that the school based
law enforcement side was truly about building those relationships, you know.
And I'll fast forward a little bit to what I
do now. I teach a lot of school based law
enforcement classes around the state, and the one thing that

(12:57):
I always talk about is that every interaction that we
have with a child, every interaction that we as law
enforcement officers have with a child, should be a teachable moment.
You know. There's that there. They're going through so many
changes physically and mentally, uh in middle school and even
in high school that they sometimes truly don't understand what

(13:21):
what's happening. And I think we have the perfect opportunity
to use that as a teaching moment. But back to
my timeline, So I stayed there for a while, I
finished up. I went to two different high schools after Anderson.
I went to the old lan Near High school, and
then I was at LBJ and in two thousand and seven,

(13:43):
I promoted to our current investigation division as a detective.
I worked gangs for a while, I worked child abuse.
For my first three years, I worked child abuse. I
was co located with the Austin Police Department in Travis
County Sheriff's child abuse units. Uh, there has.

Speaker 4 (14:00):
To be a lot of inter cooperation between agencies.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
There there is, and and actually we we were all located,
so all of the child abuse detectives in the city
are located in the same place, right They're They're housed
in a building at the Center for Child Protection, which
gives them access to all of the resources in one place.
The CPS unitser embedded with them. You had the forensic

(14:26):
center there to do interviews, and it was it was
a great I loved it. But it's very heavy. Yeah,
you know, And and my daughter was young at the time. Uh,
you know, Malie was only four or five, and I'm
working cases every day with young kids. It just it
got to be a lot. So Yeah, after you know,
a couple of years, I moved to something else. I

(14:47):
finished up in gangs, which I absolutely loved. Uh, there was,
you know, something totally different from what I have been doing. Uh,
And from there I moved on, I started my supervisory career.
I'm to sergeant lieutenant and then now where I'm at
as an assistant chief. So it's you know, we are

(15:07):
a very unique We're in a very unique situation in Austin.
And you touched on it, right, there's there's almost four
hundred school district police departments in the state of Texas,
right and if you go back three or four years ago,
there was only about two hundred, you know, and these
are school district police departments that are you know, that

(15:30):
that have been formed under the Texas Education Code. So
that speaks volumes to what the state of Texas is
doing and trying to protect the kids and just protect
these campuses in general.

Speaker 4 (15:46):
Now, go ahead, I was just gonna say, because in
Austin alone, you know, you've got he's got over one
hundred schools, so you know, you've got seventeen high schools,
you know, then almost a little more than that of
middle schools, and then almost eighty elementary schools. So you know,
it's in these bigger metro areas, it's it really only

(16:08):
makes sense to have them have their own police department
to then be able to work in conjunction if they
need to with other authorities, but so that that is
their dedicated sole purpose. And I think that's kind of
the new It's the new Norman Texas for sure, and
it's slowly spreading outside of it, I think as people
become more concerned with school shootings and all of those things.

(16:31):
But yeah, it's a large it's a large school district.
We're not talking about, you know, twenty schools. We're talking
about one hundred and sixteen.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
So Texas, Texas is one of or I'm sorry, Texas, Austin, Austin,
I see, my police apartment is the fifth largest ISD
police department in the state of Texas. Right, so we're
we currently we stand at one hundred and five badge
positions from the chief down. But two years ago this
state passed House built three, which said that every campus

(17:04):
that houses students must have armed security on that campus,
either a guardian marshall or police officer. AISD decided they
wanted police officers and all those and on all those campuses,
which means all the elementary campuses, middle schools, high school
So we're in the process right now. We're in a

(17:24):
heavy recruiting process because our strength of staff will be
about two point fifteen once fully staffed. Wow, so yeah,
I mean we will literally double in size. So that's
kind of what is happening right now. Again you touched
on it. We have one hundred and twenty properties in

(17:46):
ais D. That's schools, transportation facilities, athletic facilities, you know,
properties that the district has interest in that we cover.
And then just a little fun fact, AISD has about
seventy four thousand students currently right it's twenty four thousand

(18:09):
more than UT brings into Austin. We run about six
hundred bus routes a day, which you know, ultimately my
officers are responsible for responding to any any calls on
those properties or on those buses. Any interest the district
has in a property, we're responsible for. So we try

(18:32):
and handle as much of that in house as possible.
We are a school district police department inside of a
major metropolitan city, but we operate like a traditional law
enforce agency. We have a criminal investigation unit that has
eight detectives, a sergeant and the lieutenant that handle all
of our criminal investigations from deaths, sexual assaults, any kind

(18:57):
of criminal activity that involves staff. I mean, you name it,
you know, we we take care of it. We have
a full C I T Unit, which is five dedicated
mental health officers and a sergeant, and we have a
we have a social worker, a civilian social worker that's

(19:17):
attached to that unit and all they do is liaison
mental health calls every day. Which we were the first
id police department in the state of Texas to to
have a fully functioning C A T. Unit, And we
may still be the only one, but you know, we

(19:37):
have obviously our campus officers. I mean, everything that you
could think of within a UH Metropolitan Police Department program. Right,
we have a drone pro we have a we have
a drone program with five drone pilots.

Speaker 4 (19:54):
I thought that got interview you did with Sergeant Rodriguez
was fascinating talking about the drum.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
So that was something that he actually spearheaded, you know.
I mean, we we have we we identified the the
need for drone technology. Right, It's like we we can
integrate it into the things that we do every day.
And honestly, we we put up a drone probably twice

(20:24):
a week, whether we're looking for a suspect we're looking
for kids and just just trying to get eyes on
something that officers on the ground can't see. And it's
been an amazing it's been an amazing program. We have
the we have a drone called the Matrise, which at
the when we got it, the only other agency in

(20:44):
the state of Texas to have one was DPS. It's
a huge drone. It's got Flear, which is a forward
looking infra red spotlights, red and blues, I mean everything.
It's got all the bells and whistles. Yeah, but this
has been an amazing program for agency.

Speaker 4 (21:02):
I just think it's so cool because it really, like
he was talking about, how you when you know, if
you have to put it up in a certain kind
of situation, whether it's an emergency or what, then it
can help you not direct officers towards kind of you know,
dead ends or lostly like you know, they can see like, no,
this is traveling this way, or that's not the car

(21:22):
you need to follow, follow this, you know, all of that, which,
like I guess we all think about those things coming
and being involved in law enforcement, obviously we think of
like all the tech ways that they can do stuff
now but you don't think about your school PD needing
that or using that. But actually it seems to me

(21:43):
like it might be even more valuable for for y'all
in particular, you know, certain campus type situations. So it's
really cool that there's a dedicated program.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
You know, it is and the one thing that we
always think about, right, and we call it overwatch when
when you have someone above you watching basically watching over
the ground units and you know, think about I mean,
I hate to even talk about this, but think about,
you know, any any school shooting across the nation, right,

(22:15):
how valuable would it be to be able to put
a drone up you can see on top of every building.
You can drop it down in in like into interior
courtyards before officers ever get close to that scene. Now,
depending on the situation, right, if it's a very active situation,
and obviously we're not going to use the drones and
the officers will go in and handle business. But you know,

(22:39):
if a lot of people want a drone unit, right,
but there isn't there's a need for it, and if
you use it correctly, I mean, it's just it's another
tool on our tool belt that has been and it's
been great for us.

Speaker 4 (22:55):
Yeah. So since we're on this kind of vein, let's
talk a little bit about how how you saw the
job change. The schools change, police departments in general change
kind of after the like the hallmark for what people
remember of American school shootings or as Columbine.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
Sure so, and and realistically, when you ask anyone, hey,
what's the first school shooting that that you know, when
when was the first school shooting, They're always going to
point to Columbine, right, And I think it's important because
that was the that was the start of the information age. Right.
We all remember Columbine because we watched it play out

(23:36):
on TV.

Speaker 4 (23:37):
Mm hm.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
There were there were so many shootings before Columbine, but
we actually got to watch what happened in the school. Uh.
And I think that really shifted our responsibilities as law
enforcement officers inside the schools. And I also think it
shifted what the parents thought we should be doing as well.

(24:03):
It's it's one of those necessary evils, right. The parents
love us when they need us, but when they don't,
they want us to just stay in the shadows. Well,
it doesn't. Proactive policing doesn't work that way, right, And
and I would rather, I would rather put forward acting

(24:24):
police officers on a campus to keep uh, you know,
the evil away, rather than to stay in the shadows
and wait till something happens and now let's all react
to it. So I think that shift in Columbine really
made us move into the proactive policing that we're doing now. Right,

(24:45):
get out there, get to know your kids, the good ones,
the bad ones, the loaners, the you know, the ones
that are shy. Get to know who these kids are,
because if you look at historically the you know, any
type of mass casualty event that happens on campus, it's
not the popular kids, right, it's the kid that nobody

(25:05):
talk to, you know, everybody made fun of, you know,
and unfortunately this person felt like they had something, you know,
to take out on the rest of the population in
the school. So as law enforcement, right, we see and
I always give this example, I see your child awake

(25:28):
more during the day than you do during the school day. Right,
your kid gets up for an hour day, breakfast, go
to school. I'm with him from seven thirty to five,
five thirty six, they go home, they eat, take a shower,
go to bed, right up tomorrow, repeat the whole thing. Right,
So we should be able to recognize changes in attitude. Right,

(25:50):
what are the red flags that we're seeing? You know,
this kid that I see every day is not talking
to me anymore. I see that he's isolated himself from
his friends or his friends of ice related, you know, them,
away from everybody else. So instead of sitting back and
watching that, step up and find out what's going on. Right,
have a conversation. A conversation costs nothing, right, just have

(26:13):
a conversation, Say hello and ask, hey, how are things going?
Because I notice, I notice you don't hanging out with
your friends anymore. What's going on? And you know, it's
it's difficult being a child period, you know, especially nowadays
with the open access to everything technology. You know, these

(26:36):
kids are battling a lot of things outside of trying
to make friends. So somebody on that campus has to
be their friend. And if we are doing our job proactively,
we see them. We let them know that we see them.
We say hi every now and then, just to maintain
that contact that hey, I see you, and I think

(27:01):
before I think, Before Columbine, we were just there as
a reactionary police force, not just I say we, but
not just us, but I think everybody. You know, if
you think back before that and you ask somebody, hey,
did you have an officer on your campus? Growing up?
I had a dare officer, right, I mean there was
big in the eighties and early nineties.

Speaker 4 (27:24):
But a state like they kind of remember a security
guard that maybe milled around the front of the school,
you know, every now and then, but not anything truly
dedicated like they were, like we see now.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Well, when I started in ninety six, I was assigned
to two campuses, right. I was at Marcuson from eight
to twelve and from twelve to four I was at
Betterzech Middle School. We didn't have enough officers to cover
all of our secondary campuses, so that school went without
an officer for half a day. And I don't think
it was probably ninety maybe the next school year ninety

(27:59):
seven ninety eight, that they said, hey, you're going to
stay there full time. And then we've come a long
way from obviously in the last twenty nine years from that,
but you know, we're still we still preach proactive policing. Right.
The school based law enforcement is the biggest community policing

(28:23):
organization that's out there. I mean, you're literally embedded with
your community every day. It's not like you have to
get in a car and go drive into the community.
You show up and you're with your community every day,
regardless of if there's twelve hundred of them on a
middle school campus or three thousand out of high school.

Speaker 4 (28:43):
Yeah, which I do think, especially in some of these
larger areas with the dedicated school pps, I think there's
sometimes from people from the outside looking in don't really
get that. Like I just know, even my husband when
he's like, yeah, I mean in high school, when I'm like, okay,

(29:04):
my high school had thirty seven hundred kids, Like he
went to a university that he went to a college
that was smaller than that, and like my university, I mean,
my my high school, you know, was a mini college
campus was the size of a lot of community college campuses.
And so it's it's a lot of kids, it's a
lot of people, and also it's a lot of staff

(29:25):
and admin. Which I'm curious how you know, if there's
some protocols in place with like you said, you're going
around trying to notice, trying to be proactive see if
there's any changes in patterns with kids that you see
every day. Is there sort of some sort of system
or protocol in place for this for the teachers or

(29:45):
various staff members to be able to communicate with the
officer about what they're seeing, even that the officer themselves
are not.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
Oh. Absolutely. And the one thing that we always encourage
our officers to do is be a part of that staff, right, Like,
don't just don't to show up on the campus and
isolate yourself, you know. The open door policy needs to
apply to everybody, not just kids. So they're constantly making
contact with the staff, you know, and we encourage them
to talk with the staff about the kids that that

(30:17):
they notice, you know, an attitude change in maybe a
little bit of a flag correct, So they're all on
the same page.

Speaker 4 (30:25):
I wonder too, though, if there's any I know, like
where and being in Austin is different than being in
Luling so as far as political leanings and kind of
the flavors of the moments of all of that. If
there's been any difficulty, particularly post twenty twenty BLM kind

(30:46):
of all that stuff, there's been any difficulty in receiving
like cooperation from some of the educators that may reject
some of the efforts of police presence.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Have been I mean, this is Austin. We're the capital seat.
You know, we we understand that. I mean, we operate
in a very political environment, and we understand that there's
a lot of districts around us that look at Austin
to see what we're gonna do. But at the same time,

(31:20):
we do our officers operate on campus with a lot
of teachers who are not pro law enforcement that would
probably rather not have that officer there. And you know,
we we try and understand that and respect it as
much as we can. And you know, we don't We're
not in the business of trying to put it in
their face. I mean, we're we're here. If you need help,
we're gonna help you, regardless of you know, what you

(31:42):
think about us. If you're in a situation where you
need some help, then we're gonna help you. I mean,
we get it. Most of most of the people that
that work for me have been with us for a
long time. They're very familiar with Austin, very familiar with
the politics of Austin, and and understand that, you know,
the seven thousand educators that we have in our district,

(32:07):
you know, don't align with the way you know, they
may not align with the way that.

Speaker 4 (32:12):
We think, or just with what is typically kind of
a they don't align with what is typically kind of
a back the blue type situation.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
Correct.

Speaker 4 (32:22):
Yeah, But I think I wanted to point out something
and I was going to pull it up, and then
I couldn't figure out how to find it because Facebook
has terrible search features. Like I like that if I
could go on your page and just search for something
I want to see and I have to scroll the
way back through it. But you had posted a really
poignant kind of open letter to law enforcement, to the community,

(32:48):
and it can be pretty much to the country when
during twenty twenty, when there was the height of kind
of the be able and protest. Obviously COVID is in
full screen swing already, making it super challenging for law enforcement,
but particularly school law enforcement because schools were shut down.
But you wrote this beautiful kind of open letter to

(33:10):
everyone about amidst all the calls for the blue flu
and for kind of you know, being people being defensive
and upset, and some of it for very good reasons,
some of it for not in the face of kind
of all the f the police, and you know, all

(33:32):
of the acab stuff that was going on that didn't
have to be some hon as with BLM, but became
synonymous with those protests and riots. And you talked about how,
I mean, I didn't sign up for this for nothing,
like I'm still here to protect. I'm going to rise
to the challenges and there does need to be accountability,
and we do need to modernize, we do need to

(33:53):
adapt with the public. Can you talk a little bit
about your perspective on that, because I think you got
a lot of support, but there's also some puss back
from kind of old guard being like, yeah, no, screw that.
If they don't support us whatever.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
And it's that's the easy way out right, Hey, if
you don't support me, then then I'm leaving. And but
if you if you take a look at the big picture,
the agitators are a very small minority of the population.
They're the ones getting the most exposure right now. That's it.
And if you, if you truly take a look at it,

(34:29):
there there's very few of them. And you know, in
the grand scheme of things, in the city of Austin, Texas,
or the population of over a million people. I can't
give up my job because you don't like me because
five people don't like what the police department's doing. Or
you know, the city of Austin wants to defund the

(34:50):
police that that didn't last very long. I mean they
did it. No, you know, there's a lot of political
pressure there and they did it, but they quickly gave
them money back because you I mean, you know, you
cannot jeopardize public safety for the entire city for a
handful of people and allow us.

Speaker 4 (35:08):
In the room are the ones that are getting the
attention and are making it seem like a bigger group
than it is.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Correct And and you know, I knew a bunch of
police officers that were upset and you don't want us
and we're not going to be here. Well, that's not
fair to everybody else, you know, It's it's not fair
to the rest of the citizens that that want us
there and that meet us. You know, if they have
a problem and there's there's a call for service, who's

(35:33):
going to answer that call? Oh nobody? We all stayed
home today. Well, I mean, who are we really showing
the people that want us to stay home are happy
that we did. Uh? And and the the other millions
that didn't want us to stop at home are upset
that that we're not there. So you know, I think

(35:54):
you just you have to take your emotions out of
the equation, right, and and look at it for what
it is. I never stopped working during COVID, right, I
mean COVID hit and they told us to put a
teacher over our face and keep going. Yeah, and that's
what we did, you know.

Speaker 4 (36:14):
And and well you still had at Lage students that
you know, needed things. You still had a community to support,
because I think I think there is a little bit
of a disconnect when people think of your campus police
and that it stops at the campus edge. And for y'all,
that's really not.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
True, correct, And we support the awesome Police Department in
a lot of ways, and we supplement officers when we can.
And at the time, you know, the city was in
such an uproar, so many resources were being were being
taken up downtown that we had to deploy officers into

(36:52):
the community to help out where it was needed. And
you know, people don't always see that we have a
great relationship with the Awesome Police dement. You know, if
there's a problem on campus and we need them. They're
there if there's a problem in the community, and we
we can show up where you know, we're there to
back them. So it's you know, and I think this

(37:15):
kind of goes into why I started this podcast right
that I was sitting around and for years, I mean
my twenty ninth year, there have been so many misconceptions
about what we do and if we don't champion it ourselves,
who is going to right The people that we work

(37:35):
with every day inside the schools know what we do,
but everybody else does not.

Speaker 4 (37:42):
But they're not going out and like feeling the need
to like champion that or like clear up misconceptions. You know,
it's just part of their part of their life. Y'all
are part of their work. You're a part of the staff.
You're part of what they encounter every day. It's just
like you don't go around You're like, Okay, will you
understand that this kind of account manager is different from
that kind of accounting. You know, people don't do that

(38:03):
in real life. So yeah, if anybody and it's kind
of way I wanted to have you on too, because
I think it's important for people to hear from this.
I think your podcast is great in getting out kind
of the misconceptions, clearing up some things, and then also
promoting why school based law enforcement is so valuable to
not only each individual school, but the community at large,

(38:26):
the students, the parents, like you've talked about I and
it's just really interesting. And the different guests you're having on.
You've had on someone that does work in what you
talked about, your SAT unit in mental health. You've had
someone on that has talked about the drones. You've had
people on that have worked in other law enforcement agencies
and that have come over to this and the experiences

(38:47):
they've had, been involved in shootings, had, you know, kind
of all of these things going on, and I think
it just shows the kind of the broadness of what
school police department you know, does cover and deals with
in a way that I think the general public would

(39:09):
never expect.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Correct. And that was fifty percent of what I wanted
it to do. The other half I was wanting to
use it as a recruiting tool. Right if if you're
curious about what we do, how can you find out
how we operate? Right if you're another if you're maybe
looking to retire and come over to the school Bay

(39:31):
side and you want to work in Austin, or you know,
you're a young officer and you're wanting to work in
the city, but you're not wanting to work for the
city police department. Where can I go to learn about
your agency? And you know, I drive an hour and
a half every day into work, an hour and a
half back home, and all I do is listen to podcasts,

(39:52):
And I thought, you know, why not, right, I mean,
nobody is in this space doing what I do, talking
about what I talk about, and you know, why not
put this out there? And you know what, it's crazy
just the amount of feedback and people that have contacted me,

(40:13):
like giving me their story and they're like, hey, if
you want, you know, if you want to have me on,
just let me tell Yeah, okay, okay, you know, and
I really I want to. I want to highlight what
happens inside of my agency. But I kept it. I
kept the title generic enough that I want to talk

(40:35):
to other agency officers. I want to talk to other
agency leaders. I want to get their perspective on how
school based law enforcement has changed and what they're seeing
because ten years ago, you cannot get a municipal officer
to come over to the school base side. I don't

(40:56):
want to work with kids now. It's full of them.
Mean's ISD started their own police department. They're all retired
APD officers. Lake Travis has uh Lake Travis D as
a police apartment. They're all most of them are retired
APD officers. You know round rock Leander Lander Ice need
to start up a police apartment. It's mostly retired also

(41:19):
police officers.

Speaker 4 (41:20):
Which the way is crazy to me as being one
of the other bigger districts in the Austin area that
they just started their department. I know they get covered
by multiple agencies because part of l A. S D
is an Austin, part of it is in Leander part
of it, you know, So it's it's a weird shape
of what Leander is and then what the district takes over.

(41:40):
But yeah, I remember seeing them being like wait because
my kid's in l A. S D and being like,
wait a second, we don't have a dedicated and you
know what I found out. So I have seen uh
an A s D p D car go back and
forth between our middle school and our high school almost
every morning. At the same time I go, I take

(42:01):
my credit to the school, and I walk a couple
of miles and almost every day I see the same car,
and I happened to mention it, and uh found to
a friend who knew somebody who knew somebody, and found
out that's because they come circulate that campus and they
have they are kind of helping with one of the

(42:23):
lander I knew Lander I s D pds to kind
of establish, you know what, replicate and establish what has
been done for a SD to work for l A
s D.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
Yeah, they're they're a brand They're a brand new stand
up agency. Uh. Chief Shaye Rogers is their chief. She
came from Houston. Their assistant Chief, Tris Marrabel is a
great friend of mine. She came from Plug Plugervill PD,
you know. And and realistically, ai SD wants to be

(42:54):
the model id police agency in this area. I mean
we you know, we want people to come and find
out how we operate, right, I mean we've been successful.
I mean we've been a standalone police agency since nineteen
eighty six.

Speaker 4 (43:10):
And for a large metro area, relatively few incidences of
any kind of major concern on a regular basis, correct,
I know, you know, all of the insight stuff, so
you know what you're sporting every day. But I'm talking
about as far as the public and like major issues,
and we've got you know, we've got football games that

(43:33):
twenty five thousand people attend. We've got you know, major
sporting events where that's where people come, you know, they
come to Austin for the regional or for the state
or for whatever. And you know, ASDPD is in charge
with you know, helping with security on all of that.
And so I think it's it's kind of remarkable. I
think the job, I think the standard has been set,

(43:54):
so it makes sense. And I think it's awesome that
ASDPD is cooperating with these other departments that are training
to get up and running to model what can be
done and should be done, you.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
Know, and we want all of them to be successful
because we all share the same goal. Right behind every
student on every campus is a parent at home that
expects us to take care of our child, right and
that's what we want. So why would we not help
these other agencies, you know, and give them the blueprint

(44:27):
and say, look, this is what we've done, modify it
to how you need and if you have any questions
We're here for you one hundred and you know, we
want them to be successful. I mean, I've got kids
in another district that are not in Austin, and I
talk with the officer of my kids' school all the
time because I want them to know, Hey, this is

(44:48):
you know, I've been doing this. I talk to their
chief all the time. If there's anything that we can
do to help you, to help train you, whatever the
case may be, let us know. You know, we started
a little more behind the scenes. About a year and
a half ago, we started a quarterly collaboration between all

(45:12):
of the ISD chiefs in the area. My agency. You know,
we can't We sat down and talked to one day
and we're like, hey, we all need to get on
the same page. How do we do that. So every
three months, we meet with all of the chiefs or
their designatees from around the area, any security agencies that

(45:34):
are working inside of private schools, private school security directors,
you name it. We have the FBI that the FBI
shows up, DPS shows up, all local law enforcement is
is represented, and we have about a two and a
half hour meeting once every three months just to make
sure that we're all on the same page as what

(45:56):
we're doing. Does anybody have questions the legal updates that
just came out, how are you perceiving them? This is
what we're looking at, just so that everything is standardized
in Central Texas. Yeah, you know, so, I mean we're
we're really putting our foot out there and trying to
make a difference. You know, I mean, we're we're the

(46:17):
largest in the area.

Speaker 4 (46:18):
So yeah, you know, one heaven forbid, if there was
the need to coordinate because of some mass event, then
you know each other, you know, the avenues to go down.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
And you know, and that's it happens all the time.

Speaker 4 (46:32):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
You know the incident they had just a couple of
weeks ago, the APD officer was shot and zilkra Part,
the guy that shot the officer, ended up on one
of our campuses, you know, walking on the sidewalk right
in front of one of our campuses, and one of
our officers is the one that stopped them. So, you know,
everything that they do in the city overlaps and intersects

(46:54):
with us at some point and vice versa. So it
it it always we have to keep that a lot
of communication. Yeah, so that when something does happen. We
we are all operating on the same page.

Speaker 4 (47:06):
Okay, so gives me as we kind of wrap this
up a little bit, I want to talk about a
couple more things, one of which is, give me what
you think is kind of your greatest reward being being
a school based law enforcement officer. Say that one more time,

(47:27):
like what like what what do you feel like are
your biggest rewards being in a school based law enforcement agency?

Speaker 2 (47:33):
I honestly, I think it's the relationships that I've made
over the years, you know, and the impact that we
get to make at that level. Uh Uh. A traditional
law enforcement officer shows up, gets in a car, and
they drive around until somebody calls them. You know. They
they may visit uh citizens, you know, every now and

(47:57):
then if they see them out about. We get to
we get to see our citizens, if you will, every day, Right,
We get to build those relationships. And you know, I've
had interactions with kids that had no one else, right
and and there's these kids would come in and seek
out that conversation every day, and at the end of

(48:20):
the day, they had no one else to talk to, right,
and and even if it was just like, hey, what's up,
how's your day going. I'm good man, how are you?
You know, just casual conversation, but nobody else talked to them, right,
And I meet those kids now as adults, you know,
and they're like, hey, Officer Cocks, you know you remember me?
And I'm like I don't. And they're like, oh, you're

(48:43):
an officer and Murkison, I was like, but I wasn't
a bad kid. I'm like, you don't have to be
a bad kidn't I didn't talk to just the bad kids.
But I think that, you know, the biggest thing that
I've gotten out of it is just that the relationship piece.
And I'll give you my little catchphrase. Children appreciate what

(49:05):
we do as law enforcement officers. Adults expect it out
of us. Right, if an adult is having a problem,
they expect us to come and solve it. Kids appreciate it. Yeah,
and you and you really see that when when something
is wrong and you step in, regardless of what it is.

(49:25):
It could be. It could be the smallest little skirmish
between two friends, or it could be something major. Right, you,
as a law enforcement officer the one that solved that
problem for them, and they appreciate that. If you do
that for an adult, Well, I called you, I expected
you to come here, this is your job, like, yep,
you're right, it is, and then you drive away many

(49:48):
times without a thank you. But I think that's the
biggest takeaway is that children truly appreciate what we do
for and I use children loosely. I'm you know, em
element you to high school, but they truly appreciate what
we do and how we help them, whereas adults expected
out of you because that's your job.

Speaker 4 (50:10):
Very well said that is like a very astute observation,
and I can see that being so true that they're like, oh, yeah,
you're here, you helped or just even you said hi
to me, whereas adults are like, why okay, don't come
and let's I call you. So kind of on that note,
I know every year you've done you've organized various projects

(50:33):
within the communities that you served. I know for years
you kind of did a boys camp and you usually
do a trunk or treat. That's all of isd A
SDPD talk about how a little bit about those kinds
of events and how that extra step in connecting with
the community is not only important for them, but for y'all.

(50:55):
As well.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
Sure. So when I was in the gang unit, we
taught program in the school is called GREAT and it
was Gang Resistance Education and Training. That's what the acronym
stood for. It was. It was literally an anti bullying curriculum.
We taught it to fifth graders. It was a fifth
grade and eighth grade curriculum. We taught at the fifth

(51:18):
graders and the four years I taught it, I wanted
to do something for all the kids that went through GREAT,
and I wanted to do a summer camp, right, So
we did two one week sea summer camps for all
the you need to apply that went through Great, just
to give them something to do and have a little

(51:39):
more interaction with law enforcement and they kind of got
to peek behind the curtain, if you will, during that week.
The last camp that I did, I think we had
three hundred and twenty or so kids that went through
the camp, which was probably the largest that we had.
Now Truck Retreat which is coming up this week in

(52:01):
if we have Trunk of Treat on Saturday. I started
trunk or Treating. I started our trunk and Treat program
in twenty nineteen. We had never done anything like that.
I wanted to do something at the time to kind
of give back to the community. We decided to do
it in Northeast Austin. We do it at Nelson Field
Berkman in two ninety because historically that area has been underserved, right,

(52:25):
and I love I love Halloween. I love it, and
I wanted I want those kids to enjoy it, right
And it's not the safest of neighborhoods, So I wanted
to provide a safe space for them to dress up

(52:46):
to come, you know, get candy, talk to officers. And
it's just it's grown from there. So this year we
will probably serve over three thousand UH family members. They'll
they'll we'll have about three thousand that come through, come

(53:07):
through in three hour time event.

Speaker 4 (53:10):
That's incredible.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
Yeah, it's massive. But I have right now, I have
like fifty six community I call them community partners. Every year,
I reach out to different UH organizations and companies that
the families can benefit from. I don't I never wanted
I never wanted people to come out and just pass

(53:32):
out candy to the kids. I wanted something that the
families could could come and benefit from. So every organization
that that comes to Truck or treat as a vendor
pledges that you know that their company will benefit the
residents of that area in some way, some fashion other

(53:55):
than just passing out candy. So like this year we
have City of Boston is going to be doing immunizations
on site. Right, They're like, hey, can we can we
do immunizations along with this event. It was a great idea.
In the past, we've had a dental trailer out there.
We've had community dentists that show up. We've had we've

(54:15):
had an ophthalmologist that showed up and are an atometris
not entomologists. An atomistris that showed up and they were
doing vision checks for kids on site. You know. Plus
I mean just an array of other social services and
you know, everything that you can think of. Plus there's

(54:36):
a ton of police officers out there. We have free food,
free drinks, everything that we everything that we do for
them is free. I wanted them to come and experience
this and not have to pay for anything. So all
year long, I work on my vendors, I work on donations.

(54:58):
I have a great vendor or one of my better
community partners at Domino's, Chris Sanchez, donated one hundred and
fifty large pizzas this year, you know, and that's I mean,
that's a lot for his store. But you know, they
they see the worst of what we're doing, and you know,

(55:20):
it makes it all worthwhile. This year we actually have
hook them coming out this year.

Speaker 8 (55:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
I've invited them every year and typically there's been a
game or something and they can never come. And so
this year I finally hooked up with Andy Taylor, who
is the director of Texas Spirit, was like, dude, we
can make it like we're coming. So so that do.

Speaker 4 (55:44):
They do a lot of like neighborhood involvement stuffy, particularly
for underprivileged. Yeah, I just think things like that, you know,
they don't get quite the publicity. And I know there
are a lot of you know, law enforcement agencies that
do all kinds of things for their community. They don't

(56:05):
always get highlighted. I know, y'all aren't in it for
the media. And I'm not talking about the accolades. I'm
talking about it being important so that people understand, no,
they're really in there and doing good beyond just the
stuff that you see that's the highlight of the news.
And like the last couple years, y'all have someone's brought

(56:27):
a drone out and done some stuff for your trunk
pet treats and it's just been really cool to see it,
or or at some of the high school graduations, you know,
when you've brought all your cars and lined them up
for the seniors, the graduating seniors. There's just there's very
much like a dedication. There's some things very special. I
think about the school based law enforcement that is absolutely

(56:49):
I think not on those people's radar. I don't think
they even know or understand. And like I said, it's
not that common outside of Texas. I know there's a
push for it to be more common in other states,
and hopefully they will, they will take the lead. As
we wrap up here, why don't you tell us where
everybody can find your podcast and any any last any

(57:11):
last words you have.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
So yeah, right now I am. I'm shreaming on Spotify
and Apple. Uh, you know this is grassroots. I kind
of have to learn how to do all this. So
those are my two platforms right now. There's an inside
the PD Instagram page that probably doesn't get up updated
as much as it should. You know, working a full

(57:33):
time job and you know chiefing an agency this size
and trying to do a podcast is it's a little challenging,
but I put it out there as much as I can,
And like I said, I've gotten uh, I've gotten a
ton of support from other school based law enforcement officers
around the state. I think I'm gonna go. There's a

(57:53):
there's a large school based law enforcement conference every summer
in San Antonio, So I'm gonna set up this year
as a vendor and try and do yes, some live
podcasts from from there, just to kind of get the
word out. But yeah, I mean, I push it out
on all my platforms.

Speaker 11 (58:10):
And and I was going to say, you're talking about
juggling all of the things.

Speaker 4 (58:18):
One of the things I know that you have talked
about on kind of almost every I think almost every
episode of your loft of your podcast, at some point
you've talked about being just Lance and not always being
Officer Cox or assistant Chief Cox or in some way
related to that. I know you do a lot of
work for your for your baseball youth league. Obviously within

(58:41):
the family. Anybody that knows us knows the Lance is
very active with our kiddos. We go to all the
Texas games, you know, all this stuff, and so I
think it's great that you have. It's obvious that your
passion for your work does carry over into real life
and vice versa. But it's important that you do get
to separate the two so you can decompress into joy

(59:04):
life and kind of recharge to bring back into the
position that you've that you hold there.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
So yeah, and I appreciate that. I never I never
want to be defined by a title, right, I mean,
it's you know, assistant, cheap is I always tell people like,
that's my day job, right, what what do you do? Like,
that's that's your job? This is my job, people.

Speaker 4 (59:25):
I mean, it doesn't keep us all from calling you
with all the little things like okay, can we can
we use her? Can you put your badge on for
a minute so we can talk about this. But you know,
my husband works for a major corporation and people tell
him about how to do stuff on his site all
the time too. And of course you is you always
handled that with grace. There's always going to be a

(59:46):
little bit of that, but you know, nobody, nobody is
around you in a regular setting though, and being like,
oh gosh, I know I can hang out today because
all for croxes who like and that's you know, that's
a regular dude.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
And that's kind of that's why I run the podcast
the way I do, Right, it's kind of gorilla style.
I don't and everybody that I talked to you about
being honest to say, Look, man, I'm not going to
give you the questions ahead of time, right, I have
I have a sheet, I have a run of show,
and I know what I'm gonna say, but I want
it straight from you. And and you know, I introduced

(01:00:22):
them by their title, but then I called them by
their first name because you know, this is you're you're
you know, the last one I talked to was, yeah,
Sergeant Wooden, Right, he's Kevin. Like that's you know, you're
you're Kevin to me. And I want that. I want
that personal piece to come through and and you know,
not be stuck on just the title like you know,

(01:00:46):
we're you're right. I mean, I'm I'm I'm a dad,
I'm a husband, I'm I'm on our little League youth board.
I coach Aubrey's team, like I do all those things
outside of my day job, just like everybody else. Yeah,
and I don't tell a lot of people what I do.
I mean, half the people that I that I coached
with for the last couple of years had no idea.
They're like your police officer, Yeah, well.

Speaker 4 (01:01:08):
What's funny to me? I always feel like, you know,
especially like when we were still like when I was
still in my twenties, and you would come around and
I'd have like my still like my college friends coming
to meet us for tailgates or whatever, and it'd always
be funny because eventually it would come out and then
so it'd be half of them would be like wait what,
and then or like the party on the lake with
us or something, half of them would be like wait what,

(01:01:29):
and the other half would be like, totally makes sense.
He's definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
Well, you know, I've learned over the years you can't escape.
Well then Chris, Chris can tell you as well. Right
when when people find out what I do, they're attitude,
you know, and and I don't like that. And you know,
when when Chris and I, your cousin, first started dating,
I said, look, this is what's going to happen. You

(01:01:54):
need to understand that. And she was like, oh, that's
not that big a deal. Well, when it started happening,
I was like, that's what I'm talking about, like, and
she's like, I don't get it. I go I don't either,
but it's no, it's just part of it, right. So
you know, I'm not real big on putting it out
there because I want you to see me for who
I am. I don't want you to treat me differently.

(01:02:14):
I don't want you to treat my wife differently. Just
we're normal people, just like you are. But you know,
it's it is something that we deal with and you know,
we work through it. But for the most part, you know,
it's It's been great. I've had a great twenty nine years.
I'm looking forward to to getting out eventually hopefully when
my daughter guys are at college and doing something else.

Speaker 4 (01:02:38):
Well, we appreciate you coming on and good luck and
all of the efforts and thanks for taking us because
I think it is an important topic. And I think
in this day and age, particularly with all of the
kind of mixed emotions about policing and then when you
say put them in schools, people gasp. I just think

(01:02:59):
it's like good to have someone like you being a
spokesman and being a force of positivity about you know,
about school based law enforcement. So thanks for coming on
and maybe we'll do a follow up sometime in the.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Next Yeah, I appreciate it. I appreciate the opportunity just
to just to talk about it. You know, it's probably
not what you typically talk about, but I mean there's
you know, there's a lot of things happening out there
that people don't know about, and you know, the more
I can spread the word, I will, so thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:03:30):
Alrighty, well, great, well, Rick, you want to take us out.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
All right, So in case anybody's interested, we actually have
a QR code up on the screen. You can scan
that right there and check out his show at your leisure.
It'll take you straight to a Spotify page. Again, we
are going to get out of here. There is no
saloon tonight beus. He's feeling under the weather and I
think he's prepping for his role in the play anyway.
So just a reminder tomorrow night at eight thirty pm,
Easter and the Kaylor and Radio players will be presenting

(01:03:57):
the Day of the Year Stood Still. It is our
contribution too, Ookie season here on KLAR Radio. And then
don't forget Saturday night. We also have from Ports Forensics,
followed by Juxtaposition as we continue our foray into the
encryptid experience.

Speaker 4 (01:04:10):
Again.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
This has been the Gin and Mick Show. Podcast version
will be up probably here in just a little bit,
and then I'll get finished with the archives from last night.
But this will conclude our broadcast day for the evening.
I want to thank everybody for hanging out with us,
and even though I didn't get to say much, I
greatly appreciated the guests coming on. I didn't really find
a way to jump in anywhere.

Speaker 4 (01:04:37):
We just took it chaut all the time anyway, So.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
Have a great night, guys, and thanks for hanging out
with us. We'll see you next week and I'll be
back tomorrow