2 Cops 1 Donut
We were asked “what exactly is the point of this show?”Answer: social media is an underutilized tool by police. Not just police, but firefighters, DA’s, nurses, military, ambulance, teachers; front liners. This show is designed to reveal the full potential of true communication through long discussion format. This will give a voice to these professions that often go unheard from those that do it. Furthermore, it’s designed to show authentic and genuine response; rather than the tiresome “look, cops petting puppies” approach. We are avoiding the sound bite narrative so the first responders and those associated can give fully articulated thought. The idea is the viewers both inside and outside these career fields can gain realistic and genuine perspective to make informed opinions on the content. Overall folks, we want to earn your respect, help create the change you want and need together through all channels of the criminal justice system and those that directly impact it. This comes from the heart with nothing but positive intentions. That is what this show is about. Disclaimer: The views shared by this podcast, the hosts, and/or the guests do not in anyway reflect their employer or the policies of their employer. Any views shared or content of this podcast is of their opinion and not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything. 2 Cops 1 Donut is not responsible and does not verify for accuracy any of the information contained in the podcast series available for listening on this site or for watching shared on this site or others. The primary purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. This podcast does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services.
2 Cops 1 Donut
From Egypt to the Academy: A Police Officer's Tale
Join us as we uncover the remarkable journey of Ms. Sarah Shendy, an inspiring law enforcement officer and immigrant from Egypt, whose story is as diverse as it is compelling. From her pursuit of U.S. citizenship to her role in encouraging diversity within law enforcement, Sarah's unique perspective as an Arab American Muslim woman adds a rich layer to her experiences on the force. We explore her belief in maintaining physical fitness as a cornerstone for mental health, discovering how her transition from running to weightlifting and hot yoga has fortified her resilience in this demanding career.
Sarah's path to becoming a police officer is marked by both internal conflicts and familial challenges, yet her dedication and passion shine through. She candidly shares the momentous decision of joining the police academy without initially informing her parents, fearing their disappointment, only to find them as her staunchest supporters. Her career is further enriched by advancements in law enforcement technology, like Peregrine and Insight LPR, tools that have transformed the way officers tackle property crimes and enhance communication.
Throughout the episode, we delve into the cultural influences that shape Sarah's approach to policing. Her commitment to empathy, compassion, and accountability stands out, revealing how her cultural background fosters a deeper understanding and connection with the community. By sharing personal anecdotes, Sarah illuminates the significance of continuous training, communication skills, and police-community relationships. This enriching conversation underscores the value of diversity in law enforcement, emphasizing the profound impact that empathy and cultural awareness have on forging enduring bonds within the community.
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We'll see you next time by guests is of their own volition and listeners are encouraged to form their own opinions. Furthermore, some content is graphic and has harsh language, viewer discretion advised and is intended for mature audiences. Two Cops, one Donut and its host do not accept any liability for statements or actions taken by guests. Thank you for listening. All right, welcome back to Cops Window, and I'm your host, eric Levine, and today I have with me Ms Sarah Shendi. How are you, ma'am?
Speaker 2:Good, how are you?
Speaker 1:Well, did I pronounce that correct, Shendi?
Speaker 2:You did.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Okay, and for those wondering what this episode is going to be about is we're going to get the one, the female law enforcement perspective. But, more importantly, with Ms Sarah here, she is a worldly traveler, meaning she did not originate necessarily. Well, were you from the United States and your parents were outside, you came over, got your citizenship correct.
Speaker 1:Yes correct, so got her citizenship and I believe you guys know me, I don't do a whole lot of research on my people. Egypt, was that what I read? Yes, yes, yes, yes, excellent. So it's going to be a very unique episode, very cool perspective to have somebody that is world travel. It's going to be able to give a law enforcement perspective of how. What I probably am guessing is how blessed we are over here in the United States and the way law enforcement is.
Speaker 1:But not everybody holds that opinion because they haven't been anywhere other than maybe their own little fishbowl in their city. And, sarah, you are from Ohio, correct, correct? You're in Ohio. I won't call out your agency or anything. I never do that unless somebody else wants to do that, because you know how law enforcement is. We can get in trouble for the things that we say if we don't represent our departments in the proper way. So I don't put your business out there and I'm not going to put my business out there. If you open that door, then we'll go down that road. But how are you doing today, ma'am?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great, considering you know I've been up since four. I went to the gym this morning, had a full day of work and now I'm here, but I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1:I like it. Fitness very important for law enforcement.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm really big on self-care and it's such a big part of my mental health to stay active. I did long distance running for about five years. I'm afraid to say that those days are over, so I have to substitute it with you know other things within the gym.
Speaker 1:Now, when you say long distance, what's long distance?
Speaker 2:I think I ran about 19 half marathons in a full and between that I ran like 10, 12 miles a day.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, okay Now.
Speaker 2:I had a problem 12 miles a day.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, okay, now I I had a problem. I I'm a runner myself, I like to run. I probably run two or three times a week. Um, my long run is usually a 5k. Like I'll do. One long run I'll do. I should take that back every once in a while. I just want to do a super slow once in a while. I just want to do a super slow. Just listen to a podcast, listen to a book, and the paces I mean agonizingly slow, but I just I just go until it's okay, until I'm done, and sometimes five, six miles, sometimes it's you know almost 10 miles, but that doesn't happen very often yeah because it eats a lot of time.
Speaker 1:but 12 miles that they're half marathon itself, that's no joke. So what? What are you doing now? Um, what's your typical workout today?
Speaker 2:So I do love cardio. Um, I have been trying to run again just to see how my knees and hips feel. I got off the road, uh, two months ago and I feel like my body is slowly transitioning to being outside a full uniform and outside of a cruiser and I love, love, love weights and I do hot yoga.
Speaker 1:Oh, hot yoga Okay, You're on your own on that. I've tried it one time. I could not breathe. I was like this is not for me. I felt like I was going to panic and I should have known. I don't like saunas. I know they're good for you. I feel claustrophobic. I don't like the sensation.
Speaker 1:I've tried to do it. I guess I can say the one place I did do this really fancy resort and it had, I mean, the room was huge. It was probably like a 40 by 30 room. It was ginormous, but it was just a gigantic sauna and I was like this, I can do Like I felt. I didn't feel so trapped I guess. Yeah Well, ma'am, first and foremost, thanks for agreeing to do this. We linked up on LinkedIn and I will be sharing Sarah's LinkedIn when we get to that a little bit later. But I want people people know my format. I want people to just kind of get to know you first and you know figure out what type of person they're dealing with before we get too far into the weeds.
Speaker 2:So who are you, where are you from and what got you into a life of service? First of all, thank you for having me on here. I jump at every single chance and opportunity to tell my story, to raise awareness, to humanize the badge and to get more qualified individuals into law enforcement. Um, and because of my background, I do target women and minorities. Um, and that doesn't mean we don't mean we don't need everybody else in the profession, you know.
Speaker 1:You mean as a recruiting?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Because that sounds really bad.
Speaker 2:I'm just messing with you. You don't know me that well's. Sad that I always have to preface this, but we just. I just talked about this this weekend in Dearborn on a panel. That it's my entire.
Speaker 2:Purpose of the conversation was to humanize a badge and dispel a lot of the myths and fact that law enforcement is a predominantly white male profession. People say that like it's a negative thing and of course we as a police department should aim to mirror our community. However, aside from maybe a handful of women, all of my mentors throughout the career were white males. White males in the profession are our partners and advocates and it's great to work on diversifying the profession and that's something that I think I have done since day one in uniform, because when you find something that's really cool, amazing and exciting, it's like a little kid at a candy store you want to tell everybody about it and you want to tell everybody about your experience and that's kind of how I approach the whole conversation about law enforcement.
Speaker 2:But 40 years ago last week I actually turned 40. Last week I was born in Saudi Arabia. I was born in a bedroom in an impoverished village that's not even on the map to my parents, two very hardworking people. My mom is a teacher and my dad is a chemist, and we were in Saudi Arabia because my mom was working there right out of college as a teacher in a small local school. Until about the age of six, I lived in Saudi Arabia, in Egypt. We came to the when I was about six years old and I always tell people and I said this this weekend we're always one decision away from a completely different life Good, bad or indifferent. My dad could have turned down his job offer after he got his PhD and he could have been nervous about living here. It's a completely different country, different culture, different language, different way of doing things and, as we all know, although our country is not great and we have had some recent highs and lows, like we said before we started the show, we're better off here than a lot of other countries and it's a lot of people's dreams to come here to the United States and kind of work towards and achieve the American dream, however that may look like to them. So my dad was offered a job after he finished his PhD in polymer science and we have been in the US since we have been.
Speaker 2:We lived in Ohio the entire time. I love Ohio. A lot of people don't. I love Ohio. We are known for our national parks, the price of living is very affordable and we kind of get four seasons depending on the day. Sometimes you get the four seasons all in the same day.
Speaker 2:Um, but yeah, it was crazy. Like it's a crazy experience growing up here. Even though I was only six years old and it's really young, it's still like I. I think about it every day. You know, like a lot of the things that I went through, that my family went through the assimilation, having to learn, like we spoke very basic English, because they kind of teach English everywhere in the world I know they do in the Middle East. At a very young age my mom learned how to drive. We transitioned, you know, from a smaller family to a bigger family, from an apartment to a house, and it's awesome because my parents still live in the same home that they bought when we were kids. So going back there to visit them as an adult is so nostalgic and so amazing.
Speaker 2:And I went to college and my first couple of years were not good because I was only 16 and I didn't go to college at 16 because I'm smart Like I have to get that out the way. My parents, like a lot of other immigrant parents, wanted us in and out of high school. They did not feel like high school was a great place. They didn't feel like high school was a safe place and they didn't feel like we were around a lot of people that we would consider to be a good influence, you know. And the high school I went to was not bad, and we know that there are like a handful of kids at every school that tend to make bad decisions. I don't think they're bad kids at such a young age. I think that they're kind of a product of their environment. But my parents didn't care what the explanation was. They wanted us through high school in three years.
Speaker 2:So we actually took summer school and we graduated early, which landed us in college at the age of 16, which I don't recommend, especially if your kids were raised in a conservative home, whether it's conservative, muslim, conservative, jewish, conservative, christian College was just like a huge adjustment, because we went to going to high school and having a very strict environment at home and then feeling complete liberation in college, and I still lived at home. We didn't have the option of moving out and I was around a lot of people and I made bad decisions. I was definitely a follower. I lacked like confidence and, for whatever reason, I really at that time of my life did not feel that my life would amount to anything. And when you think that about yourself, of course you're not going to care about the decisions that you make. So the first two years in college were not good for me. They were not happy memories, and it's it's. I take a hundred percent accountability. It's because I chose to do nothing with myself and nothing with my life.
Speaker 2:And I went to Kent State University and I remember getting pulled into the Dean's office because I was on academic probation and they were going to kick me out. And I, um, yeah, if you kick me out, my parents are going to kill me. Like this is not good for me. And um, they said, what are you going to do to change your grades? Because you, you're basically failed all of your classes and then you're barely passing your classes. So you have to make some kind of decision to change or we're going to dismiss you. So I switched my major from what my dad desired to what I wanted, and I switched my major to criminal justice and you can see like a transition on my transcript which is embarrassing and funny and I hate explaining it, but it's like C's, d's, f's and W's and then A's, b's and C's and I think I graduated like on the merit role or whatever it's called, the Dean's list.
Speaker 2:I loved criminal justice. It's been my passion forever. And one of my professors who got to know me really well throughout my junior and senior year, came up to me one time and he's like hey, sarah, kent State is bringing the police academy back. And I was like, okay, cool, good conversation, thanks for telling me. And he's like you should, you should really go. And I don't remember talking about this, but when I made the paper in the news a couple times here, my counselor and a couple other teachers from my middle school and my high school told me that I always talked about being a. But when I made the paper in the news a couple times here, my counselor and a couple other teachers from my middle school and my high school told me that I always talked about being a police officer. I don't remember it, but obviously I must have verbalized my goal at some point and they were like that's really cool, I see what you're doing. You always talked about being a cop and I was like I did, like that's great. That's really hard for me to believe that I actually told someone that.
Speaker 2:But I had dare in school and that was like my first um really close one-on-one contact with an officer. You know, like I've seen cruisers on the street, we pass officers doing traffic stops but I had dare in school and I just fell in love. I fell in love with the uniform, the cruiser, how the officer was there for the purpose of being your friend and not so much in an enforcement role. And that's really where my desire to go into law enforcement started, at a very young age I think I was in like fourth grade maybe. But everybody remembers their dear officer. Every single person I've spoken to remembers their dear officer. So I went to the police academy after I graduated from Kent 2007, I believe, maybe 2008.
Speaker 1:What made you, as you switch your major, how did you know to switch to criminal justice? Because you don't sound like your mind was made up as far as law enforcement goes yet. But what made you switch over to that?
Speaker 2:law enforcement goes yet. But what made you switch over to that? So I've always loved it. I've always taken an interest in like justice and fairness in general. I guess we can call it in my mind like if I had to articulate it at a younger age I would not have called it criminal justice, but I was very interested in like. I took I think one of my favorite classes that I took in college was crisis intervention and boy like, do we do that as cops today? Like 90% of the time. So that was one of my favorite classes. I took a lot of classes on juvenile delinquency, which I worked in juvenile corrections for a little bit before I became an officer. Mental health it was really like the social work and the human aspect of law enforcement that I fell in love with. And then the police academy that conversation. That was the one decision that changed like the course of my life.
Speaker 1:Okay Now you had to have this conversation at some point with the mom and pops. What was, what was dad's reaction to you wanting to get into law enforcement?
Speaker 2:Okay, eric, so I actually did not have that conversation with my parents and they didn't even know when I went to the police academy.
Speaker 1:Oh no.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, and listen, I talk a big game about my parents. They are the sweetest, kindest, most gentle people on the planet the sweetest, kindest, most gentle people on the planet. But you know, when you're a kid and you're raised in a culture and a religion where everything's about respecting, loving and honoring your parents and your tradition and your parents wishes, I'm like, oh my god, my dad wanted all of us to be doctors, and what is he gonna do? And how is he gonna feel when I tell him that I don't want to do what he's doing? I have his work ethic. I don't have his brains. My dad is extremely smart and I just didn't want to disappoint my parents. So, at however old I was 21, 22, I didn't have like the bravery or maturity to have that conversation with them, so I just did it. So I just went to the police academy, of course.
Speaker 1:Eventually they found out, but now you have the ability to take somebody's freedom away. I don't have the mental maturity to handle my parents.
Speaker 2:Well, I was, I was young. No, I get it, I get it.
Speaker 1:You know, I look back at my career and I tell people a lot of times like if you would have asked me at 21, if I thought I was ready to be a cop, I would have told you, yeah, if you would have asked me at 18, you couldn't be a cop at 18, but at some point you could, but not when I was going through. I would have told you at 18, I was ready. But me now, you know, for 42 years old, and you know 18 year career, looking back, I was not ready. I don't think I was ready until I was about 25, 30 years old.
Speaker 2:I agree with you 100% and it's so crazy and I'm really really, really big on leadership and mentorship and I make sure not to make our new hires I don't use the word rookie, I don't like it. I try not to make our new hire feel any kind of negative way. But I'm like you're how old 23, 24? Like any kind of negative way. But I'm like you're how old 23, 24 like what are you doing here?
Speaker 2:because that's so young, I know but when we were 22 and 23, you couldn't tell us nothing, like we were ready to go out and kick the doors and take over the world yep so I'll tell you. When my parents found out, I was in a police academy when I came.
Speaker 1:When I came home after I got pepper sprayed not something that you can hide from the general public yeah um so I got crying all day because you know yeah yeah, and that you would like want to visit hell.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't a good visit, it was terrible. So one day we got pepper sprayed and then, and then the next day we got tased and I remember my dad saying what are they going to do tomorrow? Shoot you, um. So they thought it was cool and I'm kind of the black sheep of the family. So my dad said it was a phase. And he's like oh, sara's going through a phase, just let her get her out of her system. And 16 and a half years later, here I am it's a long phase um yeah, very long phase, lifetime, um.
Speaker 2:But after the police Academy they saw how much I love what I do. They saw how good I am at what I do. And I mean you and I know every officer out there can like write a book about the lives that they've changed and influence and how all of those amazing, wonderful people have also changed us. And they are extremely, extremely, extremely supportive. My family are like my biggest cheerleaders.
Speaker 2:I mentioned earlier that I was in Dearborn this weekend, which is about a two and a half three hour drive from where we live. I went down there to accept an award from the Arab America Foundation. I was recognized as one of the rising leaders 40 under 40 program and my entire family drove three hours to see me just walk across the stage. I mean, they are just the most amazing people I'm so blessed to have. You know their love and their support and kindness. And you and I and every officer out there knows that when you commit to the job it impacts your family, that when you commit to the job it impacts your family and like how we do things and missing events and activities and family functions. And they've never you know they tease me but they've never like, guilt, trip me or made me feel bad. They come and visit me at work all the time so I don't feel you know too left out. But yeah, they're really my biggest cheerleaders and such a huge blessing to have.
Speaker 1:But yeah, they're really my biggest cheerleaders and such a huge blessing to have. So now when you decided to switch over, you go through, you do your college. Policing is a little different everywhere, so part of the education part that I want to get into is when you go like for me, the department that I went to that I'm at now they have their own police academy. Now some places I was a cop up in Michigan for a little while you didn't go. The departments were too small. They didn't have their own police academy. So they have college led academies that you can either be sponsored or you can pay for yourself to go through. How was yours?
Speaker 2:So I will give you some facts and figures about Ohio. Ohio is not a post state. There is open enrollment academies, like the ones that you just mentioned, and then closed enrollment, where you're hired first by those bigger departments and you either go through their own academy or you go through the Ohio State Highway Patrol or another academy. I went through open enrollment. I paid for my academy out of pocket and at the time I worked full time as a server and a manager at a restaurant, a Lebanese restaurant that I love, that I still go to today. In the state of Ohio. Last time I checked, we have 960 police departments and 33,000 sworn officers foreign officers and I want to say that around the time that I went through the police academy is when a lot of people started going out of pocket. They used to send way more people and then the market crash or whatever in 2007 changed a lot and a lot of officers that I know went to open enrollment academies and had to pay for everything out of pocket.
Speaker 1:One of the things that was happening in Michigan and this is why I got out of there is departments were no longer. They weren't sponsoring you and you're putting yourself through an academy and there was no guarantee you were going to get hired because everything was so hard pressed. And the other thing that they were doing which they're still doing to this day, which really irritates me is they won't hire you full time, they'll only hire you as a part-time officer, so you got cops working for two different agencies just to get their 40 hours in. I've roughly got about 18 years of law enforcement under my belt and I've seen a lot of really cool advancements in law enforcement. The biggest advancements in law enforcement, I think, are like fingerprints, dna testing and then, more recently I would say, license plate readers. Those things have all changed the game in law enforcement and now I think Peregrine is on that level. That's going to change it up. But I've had people ask me what is Peregrine, and I want to talk about that. Now there's a caveat to it. Peregrine is so in-depth I'm only going to talk about one small feature that it's able to do, because I can't fit everything that they do in one little ad. All right, I'm going to take you on a little mental journey.
Speaker 1:So if you're law enforcement, you work for an agency. This is for you guys. So follow along with me. Imagine you're an investigator and you're working on a property crime. We'll say a property crime specifically like air conditioning thefts. That's a big one in Texas. You've had two cases this week alone and, typically speaking, unless you go talk to the other detectives that you work with, you're not going to know for at least a week or maybe a month or two that they also have AC thefts that are related to your thefts.
Speaker 1:In investigations there's like this internal gap of sharing information. Here's where Peregrine starts to flip things on its head, so to speak. Peregrine can sift through your reports and start to identify the detectives and the cases that match the similar MO to your cases that you're working, and it can bridge that information and present it to you in an easy-to-read package. Well, hold on, it gets better, I promise. Peregrine can scan your CAD calls for related incidents and can even comb through suspect history in your report writing system. Like RMS, it's able to match possible suspects based on the mo and the geographical locations.
Speaker 1:Oh wait, the rabbit hole goes deeper if you've got a suspect name, peregrine has the ability to analyze your stored body cam videos and search for that suspect's name and find videos of them to give you up to the most up-to-date contacts with that suspect. And what's great about that? As an investigator, you know your body cam has the ability to geolocate, so you can see the latest locations, specifically where your suspect was last seen. This is just the tip of the iceberg and all I wanted to do with it is tease you guys enough just to seek out more information. So please reach out to me personally, dm me, or reach out to Peregrineio and just tell them that Eric Levine from Two Cops One Donut sent you. I don't endorse things I don't believe in and I would stake my reputation on their product. Please check them out, because I know it's going to change law enforcement Because the departments don't want to pay the health care and the benefits that are required if you work 40 hours a week for them.
Speaker 2:I don't like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is shady stuff. I'm not a big fan of that. So it's why I tell people like I consider I tell cops, you're a recruiter, whether you like it or not. You know if you've got a positive, if you've had a positive impact or law enforcement's been positive in your career, you you tend to be able to pull more people and I've had. I love law enforcement, I'm like you I I try to get it.
Speaker 1:People are like is, should I be a cop? Like hell, yeah, I'm. Like it's fun, like you just gotta pick the right place to go and that's for sure of the thing. And so when I want people to understand when you went through, I call them prima donna cops. They only know like the top of the tier stuff because they were hired, they were brought into this privatized academy for their department and it's all of their training and everything. They got all this money. And there's people like you and me that had to put ourselves through an academy at one point and we didn't even know if we're going to get hired.
Speaker 2:And I'll tell you, eric, when I graduated that police academy so I was like a sworn officer in that academy, which was awesome, and obviously like we didn't have any arresting powers, but I at least got to do ride alongs and see things from another perspective than the classroom. And my very first police job was an hour away from my house, in a small village. I got paid eight bucks an hour. What I got paid didn't even cover my gas and I had to pay for my uniform and my vest and my gun out of pocket. And in 2008, I remember, and it cost me around $2,800, which is still a lot of money today. So, and I worked corrections during the day and then, um, because that was my full-time job, and then I worked night shift for that department.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, when I, when I hear entitlement today, I don't take it well, because I am so glad if things were easy for you, please appreciate that and like, don't take, like, don't take advantage of everything and everybody around you, because you didn't go through what we went through to get to where you're at. You know whether it has to do with, like uniforms or side jobs or shifts or having weekends off for the first time in my entire career. After 16 and a half years I'm working eight to four, with weekends off. It took me a little over half of my entire career and that's okay. And, like I said, when people have it easier than me, I cheer them on. I'm not mad at you, but like do not take that for granted and like don't throw it in people's face, because a lot of people don't take kindly to that kind of attitude.
Speaker 1:And I think a lot of times they just don't know any different to them. Their experience is how it is for every cop and I'm like, listen, you got to understand like you were getting paid while you went to the academy. There's people out there coming to our department. You're looking, you got your nose turned up because like, oh, it's a transfer. You know, I'm like they had to put themselves through an academy they didn't have the luxury of. You know where I'm at? We've got a training facility that's a quarter mile long. It's one of the largest in the nation. I'm spoiled, like I know I'm spoiled, but I've got the outside perspective that we didn't always have that. So I call him the. I call him purist.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're a purist because you didn't know any different. You just that's all you knew. But now, with you going through the academy and stuff, and then when you get done, first off, how long was the academy for you?
Speaker 2:Six months because I went full-time here. If you go full-time, it's six months, If you go part-time it's nine months.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then in that, while you were going through, once you passed, I'm sure, the state exam or whatever it is you guys have, were you being groomed by any other departments, whereas how, I'm sure, as a female, everybody was trying to get you because, like you said, there's not a lot of females out there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So again, statistically speaking, in the entire country we have 13% female and out of those 13%, 2% are in leadership positions. So at the time I actually applied with, like I think, five departments, and I remember applying to one department where I had to work corrections first, and I swear this happened they told me that I was overqualified because I had a degree and spoke another language and that they couldn't hire me because then they would have to pay me like a certain salary and they couldn't afford to do that. So I was like, oh OK, that's interesting. Um, but I did get hired I would say fairly quickly um, in a township here in the state of Ohio and I was with them for um almost 15 years.
Speaker 1:Roughly how many cops um does your department have? 39. 39.
Speaker 2:Okay, and then about how many do you know? About how many cops does your?
Speaker 1:department have 39. 39? Okay, and then about how many? Do you know about how many calls for service a year y'all are taking?
Speaker 2:Oof. You know, right now I'm on a college campus and I came from not a college campus, so it's been.
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Speaker 2:My first couple months on the road was an eye-opening experience. Couple months on the road was an eyeopening experience and I will also tell you 85% of the police departments in the state of Ohio are what I label medium size.
Speaker 2:They are like between small and medium, like they have between 30 to 50 officers, and then you have departments that are way smaller, and then you have departments that are a lot bigger and have hundreds of officers. So I would, I always worked for like a medium sized department, except my for my very first job, where I got paid $8 an hour. That was a village and I think they had like 10, 10 or 12 officers. Um, but we're busy, we're busy, we're um, we're in the Cleveland area, so we're busy. I hate the summer because we all know it's busy.
Speaker 2:It's when it's hot out. I don't know what happens to people Me, I just want to stay inside and be at peace or sit by the beach somewhere. But yeah, we're busy, especially as we know second shift is a lot of times the busiest shift. Our night shift is not as busy. It does get busy sometimes, but I would say that we're a busier department.
Speaker 1:Okay, so just given you get on shift, right, let's say you work second shift, you get on. You get your vehicle all checked out. Log in how many calls are sitting there waiting for you?
Speaker 2:No, we're not that busy, thank God. Oh, you're not Okay.
Speaker 1:No, I say like for me there's probably 30 to 40 calls just sitting on the screen. No.
Speaker 2:I have never experienced that. I don't want to. I have a lot of close friends that work for bigger departments like Cleveland and Columbus and I'd be on the phone with them as they're getting into the cruiser, logging onto the MDT and that's exactly what happens. They have like 20 pending calls and I'm like the amount of stress and adrenaline and cortisol dump that you would have at the beginning of your shift is not healthy. So I commend the men and women in uniform that work under those circumstances.
Speaker 2:Again, I I've never dealt with that like even on my busiest shift, I was just call hopping. I was going from call to call to call. I never, ever ever had more than like five or six pending. Excuse me, um, but yeah, yeah, that's, that's stressful, okay.
Speaker 1:The reason I ask is it just helps give people you know 16 years of law enforcement trying to understand. You know what level of calls that you're having to handle out where you're at and stuff like that. Now were you how many females were on the department?
Speaker 2:so so right now the agency that I'm with now I've been there for only a year and a half the other department that I was with I was there for almost 15 years and sometimes there was one other female okay and some, and I think maybe for a little bit I was by myself, if I recall correctly, but there was one other female and um that department, like again, we didn't hop on the mdt and have like 20 pending calls.
Speaker 2:We were definitely busy. I worked night shift. I loved night shift. I'm with you, I love night shift I'm on midnight yeah, oh, I know it's.
Speaker 2:You know sometimes it sucks the whole sleep thing and the fact that you're operating polar opposite of society. But I love night shift. I loved doing traffic stops and OVIs and we had the usual domestics and the fights and shoplifting. I worked night shift half of my career because, aside from maybe my first five years in law enforcement, maybe five years I've always had a second job, always had a second job. So I worked night shift so I can have time during the day for my second job. And I didn't ever work my second job for money. I always worked it for experience and networking and building my resume and because it was super fun and amazing and opportunities that I could not say no to. And I did DARE for six years and I was a school resource officer.
Speaker 2:My biggest passion in life is kids. I love working with kids, which is why I went into corrections for a little bit, which was another job. That was like a huge shock to my soul. But I love, love working with kids a lot. I'm a victim advocate at heart, so I love working with victims and survivors in general. But if I was to work with like one group of people for the rest of my life it would be kids.
Speaker 1:So you like the juvenile system, huh.
Speaker 2:I think ours needs redone, but I, I just love working with kids, yeah like and when I worked corrections, it was such an eye opener for me and it's crazy thinking about how naive I was At 2122. I worked in a institution that had 20 males and 20 females and I remember all the females were in there for like domestics and running away and truancy, and then all the males were in there for like more violent crime, like robbery, assault, crime like robbery assault. And I remember, you know, my mom used to call me a lot because she was just very nervous with everything I was doing in life. And I was joking around one time and I was like, oh my God, my mom's calling me again. And one of the girls was like I wish my mom would call me.
Speaker 2:And I learned so much about those girls and like about their life and for the for the first time in my life I was like, wow, people did not have the same childhood that I had and they don't have the parents that I have or the siblings that I have and like, mind you, like we, I didn't have anything growing up.
Speaker 2:Like my parents did a phenomenal job, they took care of us, but but like we never had luxury items, we never went on fancy vacations, we never drove fancy cars, but we were always so taken care of and so loved and so cared for and these kids that I worked with have never experienced that. A lot of them were, like, sexually abused by family members and, honestly, after I met their parents, I'm like, oh well, no shit, your kid's running away Like what this is? You're the mom. And then I look at the kids and I'm like, oh, not everybody has the same childhood that I had and not everybody has the same loving family, which is, it's so sad to say out loud and at the time it was mind blowing for me, but I do love the kids, I do. There was, like there is another decision that I made in my career that changed my entire life.
Speaker 1:There is another decision that I made in my career that changed my entire life. It's one of the things that's caused arguments a lot between my wife and I is she'll get upset with our kids. You know, I've got a. What is she now? 13 and 15 year old really anything? Because in the street I've seen, you know 10, 12 year olds that have stolen vehicles and, you know, committed violent offenses and things like that.
Speaker 1:And then here my kid was sassy, yeah, talk back, and I'm just like, all right, relax. And she's you know my wife she's like you need to do something more than just I'm like it's really hard for me to get upset. You have no idea how awesome our kids are and have it, but that's not fair to her either, because she didn't have the same perspective. She is starting to see it now, though, because she went to nursing school a few years back and now she's into the nursing role and she's starting to see some of the you know, not so nicer sides of society through nursing, and she kind of understands where I'm coming from now, where she'll see because she does labor, delivery stuff like that. So she'll see parents you know females that they're giving birth to the eighth kid that they're giving up for adoption, and you know my wife's just like what the hell.
Speaker 2:Like quit having kids.
Speaker 1:you know, yeah, so we do. We do tend to get a little jaded when, when we see stuff like that Do you have kids?
Speaker 2:I don't.
Speaker 2:And people are, like always shocked because my phone is full of pictures of me and kids, primarily my nieces and nephews, but also other people's kids. Yes, yes, I am, and I think parenthood is like the hardest job on the entire planet Of course, the most fulfilling, but the hardest. And, to be honest with you, like before law enforcement, I did not want my own kids. I don't know why. I think I like always being on the go and doing whatever I want, Like the second.
Speaker 2:You know you have a child. Your entire life has changed forever. Um, there's even when they turn 18, even when they turn 30, 40, you're still worried about them. And after spending time in law enforcement, I'm like no way, no way, no way Am I bringing someone into this world and going to be on the receiving end of some of the visits or some of the calls that I've had to make, especially when the child did nothing wrong and when the parents did everything right and the kid was just there, the wrong place at the wrong time. You know, and like how you're talking about, like the difference in perception with how you see things when kids misbehave and how your wife sees it.
Speaker 1:we really coexist in two completely different worlds yeah, we do, and it's, it's, it's I hate saying it, it's you know, front row tickets to the greatest show on earth it? It could be a great show, it could be a really bad show, but the way that we deal with trauma and stuff like that in this career field, everybody's a little different. I think I'm well-adjusted. I've just got lucky. I've always been pretty well-adjusted in the way that I cope and deal and and have outlets, and I was never really taught. I just kind of figured it out as I went and it worked for me.
Speaker 1:Um, do I think we all have a little PTSD in this career field? I absolutely think we do, um, but like you said you, you did marathons, half marathons, workout, found a shift that works for you. All these little things good diet, exercise all these things help. They all help combat that Me. Being a married guy, I've always made sure I told my wife everything. I didn't try to hide it from her, like so many people in our career try to do. Hide it from her like so many people in our career try to do yeah, and then what ends up happening?
Speaker 2:you only end up talking to cops, and now your wife feels isolated, isolated.
Speaker 1:And now what? Now she doesn't understand you and now you kind of set the catalyst to this whole thing. But you're blaming her and I'm like that's just I, I don't. I. I just saw the writing on the wall very young in my career, because my dad was a cop.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Retired from the department that I'm at now. So, and in the military, you know, I joined. I joined the military first, became a military cop for the Air Force and then, when I got done with active duty, I jumped in the reserves. But then I became a cop in the civilian world and even military. It's the same stuff, Same type of traumas and whatnot. A little different with war, but the divorce rates high.
Speaker 1:Being away from each other is a problem, but you get it. I want to get to. You have such a unique perspective, so I'm trying to figure out the direction I want to go. Before we dive deep in your career. You had the perspective as one or two of females on your entire department. One or two of females on your entire department. So for those females that are out there and this is not a, females can't do the job. That's not where I'm going. What I'm going with this is what were the hurdles, what was the stigmas and stuff that you had to deal with. So any females out there listening that may want to get into law enforcement, they can kind of have an idea from somebody that was there and lived through it well, first of all, let me just preface this by repeating something that you said, that this is, like I want to say, yes, the greatest show on earth.
Speaker 2:This is the best job on the planet you can. I'm speaking arabic with a master's degree. I know that I could be doing a whole bunch of other things and making double or triple what I make now, and I choose not to, because the fulfillment that we get from this job is unmatched. And I will tell you like I think it's fair to say that, like being a woman wasn't by itself my biggest challenge, wasn't by itself my biggest challenge. I know for a fact that how I was raised and my culture and religion that have primed me for a successful, fulfilled career in public safety were really the ones that presented me with the biggest challenges. And I'll tell you why. And, of course, I will agree with you 100% to say that, like there's nothing in this job women can't do. But I also know that we are created very, very, very different, extremely different, which is great. It is why we complement each other, Like I have strength and weaknesses and you have strength, strength and weaknesses, and we may go on a call together and you may do better dealing with the suspect, especially if he gets physical, and I may do way better dealing with the survivor or the kids. So when people talk about like the difference between women and men in law enforcement, if we didn't work together we would have way more problems within the profession than we do now. We have to recognize that we bring like different talents to the table, different passions, different perspective. You know whether it's like education. When I say education I'm talking. I'm not talking about just degrees, I'm talking about like being in the military, living elsewhere in the world, having awareness with different cultures and different religions. All of that stuff is such an asset to you as an officer.
Speaker 2:And when it comes to so, I just posted something on LinkedIn last week when I turned 40, and it was kind of like seven or eight bullet points of things that I learned that I wish I would have known at 25 or 30 or 35. And it is insane. You know my nephew jokes around with me all the time and he's like are you, are you sad post 40 birthday? And I'm like hell, no, I was like the amount of growth and maturity that I feel and like I don't know if it's being courageous or feeling brave, and I would have been unstoppable at 25 or 30 had I had the same growth and maturity and mentality that I do now. And a lot of the things that I went through that like really hurt me were definitely at my own hands. Number one. Number two it was because I lacked the things that I have now. Like, when I say I lacked the maturity, I'm not saying that I was immature, I'm saying that I lacked the maturity to have boundaries, to keep certain people out of my life, to have healthy relationships. And you know, a lot of of the issues that I think I encountered was because I was raised to be extremely compassionate, extremely empathetic. Everybody's problem is your problem. You do everything you can for everybody that you meet.
Speaker 2:And I remember one of like the most saddest and most traumatic calls that I've had. Nobody died, like no traumatic call that I tell involves death, but it was traumatic for me for other reasons. It was an overdose at one of our homes, one of our communities, and I pull up to the house and there is three kids sitting there, probably like an eight-year-old, a six-year-old and a two-year-old, and the two-year-old was sitting on the six-year-old's lap drinking a bottle of milk. And the kids. You could tell they were terrified but they were trying so hard to be brave and they were like I could feel their nervous energy but they didn't want to freak out because the older one knew that the two younger ones were relying on her to stay calm and I was like hey guys, are you okay? And they're like, yeah, mommy's in there. We don't know what's happened, Like she passed out or went to sleep in the bathroom and I said, okay, well, you're doing a great job. Stay out here on the patio, Take care of each other. There's a couple other officers showing up. Don't be afraid. If you see more police cars, they're my friends and they're just here to help.
Speaker 2:So I go in this house and the mom has overdosed and she's a bigger woman. I can't get in the bathroom because she the bathroom, she fell on the bathroom door. To make a long story short, Narcan, her, she survived. And those kids broke my heart because they were so cute and so innocent and the house was in disarray. There was nothing in the fridge. It was terrible. Um, I, I think I was off for like three days, two days, whatever. And I come back and I'm car to car with another officer and I'm like I have to go check on these kids and he's like, oh, did you hear about their mom? I was like, oh, yeah, the overdose, yeah, I was there last week. They're like, no, she died. And when I tell you that like a million pound boulder fell on me, I like I don't even know why that was so painful to me. But all I thought about what those was, those kids you know.
Speaker 2:And there are people that I met 14 years ago on death notifications, on homicides, on suicides, that I still talk to today and I remember people at work telling me like you can't do that, you can't take your work home with you, you have to disconnect. Once you're done here, you're done here. Ever since I've been an officer, aside from when I was on vacation in Egypt, I check my email all the time. I don't care if I'm off or not, and I know that like I'll just I'll agree to disagree with a lot of officers on this and you have to do what's best for you and our boundaries look very different. I don't treat the job that way. We don't work in a factory. We work with people and for people that rely on us for healing and recovery, and if I can send an email or an encouraging text or return a phone call to let someone know the case update or answer their question about their car that got towed or whatever, I'm going to take 60 seconds out of my day and do that and that's how I've been since day one and it's never. It's never. Um, you know a lot of people are like oh, I don't use my phone for anything work related, I don't get emails on there. That's okay. If that's what works for you, that's completely fine. That's not how I operate.
Speaker 2:When I say that, like I am committed to this profession and the communities that we serve, I'm committed, that doesn't mean that I'm committed when I'm on the clock. I'm committed when I feel okay. I'm committed when I'm having a good day. No, I am unconditionally committed to the community and that's that's what I think. Really.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, anytime that I felt isolated, it has been because I felt like I cared so much more than a lot of the other people around me and I'm not saying that they didn't care, they are great people, they're great officers, Um, but the way that I was raised are the Arab American culture, the Muslim religion is so, so big on compassion and empathy and forgiveness and kindness, and taking care of the people around you and like taking care of people that need help is a form of charity in Islam. So I was taught that growing up, that behavior was modeled around me and as an officer, I just I replicate it, Um, and that's really aside from my work ethic and the fact that, like I do give 110% every day, Um and I do I do go above and beyond for people, regardless of how they feel about me, regardless of how they like me or not, and that's really, I believe, what brought me so much success in this field.
Speaker 1:I think when you made the point that you're not saying that you care more than the other officers, I think what you're pointing out without pointing it out is it's the culture of policing, because, just like you said, you can't just turn it off. And how many salty veteran officers have you told, tell you no, when you leave, when the uniform comes off, it's off. It's got to be gone. So what you're saying is the culture of policing has kind of instilled that into a lot of officers, and I think the ones that are more successful are the ones that realize that old culture is there's a reason why there's a ton of alcoholism, a ton of divorce rate, a ton of suicide, because that is the old school way of thinking.
Speaker 1:And if you're the ones like us that are out there talking about how much we love this career and why we are successful in it, or why we at least, why we feel we're successful in it, it's because we're doing it different. We're not. We're not listening to that. You know, if it works for you, that's great. It doesn't work for me and I don't want to become one of those. You know salty veterans. You know I'm salty about certain things that are work related, not not anything that's going to affect my health physically. I'm old school, quit trying to use AI and all this stuff to write your reports. Write your damn reports, check it Work-related. But when it comes to dealing with people and the humanizing part and the empathy and all of that, I would say 99.9 of us got into policing because we want to help people for sure there's some of us that want to chase bad guys.
Speaker 1:Run lights and sirens and you know, go shoot guns and stuff like yes, that's all fun part of it. But I think that the root cause is we want to help people.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it's great when you're able to do both Right. And I said this to someone the other day like I am so professional and cool comment collected, I don't use profanity. You really have to, like, do something crazy for me to get upset. But it's a switch. If you put my life in danger, if you put anybody else's life in danger, guess what? I will use profanity. I will have you a gun point. I will do, I will get the job done. If I need to, I will go there, but that's not who I am, you know, and I feel like really good veteran officers walk that fine line.
Speaker 2:And another thing, eric, that I think is so important when you talk about women in law enforcement and the difference vulnerability. Vulnerability is like gold. I think it is like the one of the biggest and most important currency for us to have in law enforcement. And I I I've heard officers say that, like you know, sometimes women can be too emotional. Of course you have to get your emotions in check on the job. Of course you you can't, you know, give into anything that's going to compromise your safety or officer safety or scene safety or whatever. But, like um, I remember, like every single time I've cried at work and almost every single time it has been in my cruiser, it was for three to five minutes because another human being was in suffering. And the one time, um, and I just spoke at a high school last week and I told them about this cause, they're like have you ever cried at work? I was like, hell, yeah, I've cried at work, like what, do you know what we do? And, um, it was on a, uh, a DOA on on mother's day. Um, a DOA on Mother's Day where a mom that was like 86 or 85 choked on something and died during the Mother's Day brunch with her husband and they were married for like 50 years and it was terrible. But I don't.
Speaker 2:I spoke at an SRO conference and there was like 300 officers there and I was talking about officer suicide and I locked eyes with one of my really good friends in the room that lost her husband to suicide and he was an officer. And I was talking about officer suicide. And I locked eyes with one of my really good friends in the room that lost her husband to suicide and he was an officer, and I started crying and, like you know, when people get emotional, they're like oh, I'm so sorry. I'm like, I'm not sorry. Take a moment to yourselves. If I start ugly crying, just give me a minute and um, and we will resume. I am not sorry for being emotional, zoom. I am not sorry for being emotional, I'm not sorry for crying, because some people have shit situations that they have to deal with and people appreciate vulnerability, especially kids. Like I'll tell you, um, in 2017 or 18, uh, the officer that kind of took my place and was teaching there did something so leadership like and so courageous, and he asked me to speak at the their graduation and I was like, thank you so much. Like you know how much these kids mean to me.
Speaker 2:I miss teaching there. I wasn't teaching there at the time because I had left full-time. I was there part-time but I had left and I was working for the attorney general's office. And I pull up to the school, I get a call from the secretary at the middle school, who's one of my good friends, and she knows that I've been kind of keeping track of these three kids. Um, one of them was in like first grade, one of them was in sixth grade and one of them was in like eighth grade or high school Cutest kids ever.
Speaker 2:And I swear to God, I pulled up to the school, I put my cruiser in park and she calls me and she's like Sarah. And I was like, hey, what's up, I'm here, I'm pulling up, I'll be in there in a second. She's like I have some bad news. And I said what? What's going on? And she was like 36 or 37 and I was like, oh, my god, again it was like a mountain fell on me.
Speaker 2:Um, so of course, I went to the school and I yeah, I try not to it's not like I give into my emotions right away, but I stood at the podium and I never, I never speak from script, ever.
Speaker 2:Um doesn't matter if it's like on this kind of platform or um in schools or whatever, I always like to speak from the heart and I was like sobbing and I was telling these kids it was the entire eighth grade class, the teachers, like the janitorial staff, everybody was in the cafeteria and I was like I'm so sad today, you guys, because three of um the students from our community lost their mom and i'm'm very sad for them and like coming off so human, first of all, like the adults were crying, but like vulnerability is like something that, like as women, we don't hesitate on showing and it's so great. Men, I understand, like we're built differently. We're built. We're going to have different emotional reactions, we're going to deal with things differently, we're going to de-stress differently, but I think, as like as female officers, one of our biggest gifts is our ability to be so compassion and so empathetic and so vulnerable effortlessly. It is a part of our genetic makeup. It's who we are. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I, I find you know effortlessly. It is a part of our genetic makeup, it's who we are. Yeah, I, I find you know I've worked around where my department's a big department, so nearly 2000 cops, so there's a lot of females. And I, just like you were saying on the complimenting each other, my experience working with females in the field has always been more preferable because any situation we go on, we can attack it two totally different ways. It's not to say that another male can't do that or that you know two females on the same team isn't you're not going to have the same. That's not what I mean at all. What I'm saying is, overall, the tools that you have available just naturally tend to work really good with each other. And I got to the point where, you know, if it was, you know, you had to double up.
Speaker 1:That night I'm looking for my female buddies on the team. I'm like, hey, let's you know, let's knock these out. So you know, because, especially where I'm at down in Texas, working around Hispanic culture was new to me, being from Michigan, like I was constantly putting my foot in my mouth and just not understanding the dynamics of the culture of their families and stuff like that. So it really helped out to have female available to work through that. But when it comes to people, I don't want them to think that we're sitting there saying that a female is all of a sudden just going to break down in the middle of a call. I don't think I've ever experienced that ever. I think every woman that I've ever worked around has handled business. And then when the calls you know wrapped up everybody you know it's secure anyway, then maybe you know and it's not to say that I haven't either.
Speaker 1:I have absolutely had my shoot. I've had moments on the podcast where I'm sitting here crying because my guests has hit me. They had you know some crazy you knowinvolved shooting stories and stuff like that. So I had a guest on that had served 26 years for a crime they didn't commit.
Speaker 2:Oh no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how do you?
Speaker 2:hear that and not cry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just sitting there. I'm like God your entire life. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving life in my 40s, uh, but this person didn't even know what a cell phone really was. They went in before they had come out and by the time they got out, we had smartphones.
Speaker 2:so that's terrible, that's so hard to even like imagine yeah, so so I'm with you.
Speaker 1:I understand, and I just didn't want people to confuse and start thinking that we're talking about you. Know, you got your gun out and you're like show me your hands and you start crying or what?
Speaker 2:No, I've never seen that happen with anybody and I think you and I and every officer out there have been on enough assist calls that you can also speak to. You know what happens in other departments. I've never seen that. You know what happens in other departments. I've never seen that. And, um, you know, another piece of advice that I always give women is like don't, don't feel like you have to change who you are. And I say that because, like, men are stronger than us, like I.
Speaker 2:We were at a fight call in a hotel and a weapon was mentioned, like the suspect that we were trying to find was armed and I don't remember what happened. Um, we took him to the ground and he was fighting with us and an officer literally carried me by my vest and put me in the bushes and went back in there to fight. And there was a couple other female officers on scene from another department. They're like who is he to do that? And I'd be so pissed and I'm like dude, I'm about to go, thank him, I don't want to fight that dude. If I had to, I will. I will absolutely handle business every single time, but the fact that he looked at me as a little sister and he did something to try to protect me. Thank you yeah, yeah I mean.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean yeah, I'm, I'm.
Speaker 1:So I've been doing jujitsu since I was six. I I've been in martial arts pretty much my whole life. I box, I judo, I do it all. I just like it. It's fun. My dad was a judo instructor and all that stuff. So it's just talk about culture and our families and what's instilled in us. So for me, going hands-on is just second nature, what's instilled in us. So for me, going hands-on is just second nature. If you're in my way and I know I can get something done I might push you out of the way.
Speaker 1:I've done it before, Not just to guys. You're getting in my way. Move and just push them out of the way. So it happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and likewise same thing with de-escalation. If I feel like an officer, even unintentionally, is coming off too aggressive, or he's six foot two and he's talking to someone that's four foot two or whatever, I'm going to gently and respectfully take over because that person can relate more to me and it's going to de-escalate the situation. It's going to help us both, so it just goes back to like our strength and weaknesses.
Speaker 1:Yeah I think that's an important thing. To point out that where we're screwing up in policing I think a lot these days and I this is where I keep seeing these videos go wrong is five officers yelling at one person, nobody's stepping up and saying, ah, shut up, you shut up to point them out if you have to. I've told this is what I tell my officers because I'm a supervisor. I'm like look directly at the officer. That's, that's the problem for you right now. Tell them hey, you know, whatever his name, lee, shut up, I got.
Speaker 1:Let me talk for a second, because sometimes we get stuck in that OODA loop. We don't realize how we're coming across. Right in that OODA loop, we don't realize how we're coming across and it's important for us to, one, have the humbleness to understand, like, okay, let me let this person give it a shot, it's obviously not working. And two, having the self-reflectiveness to be able to say, oh, maybe they're right, maybe I'm not coming across. Worst that happens is they give it a try and it doesn't work, and then you can go back to trying your way but, we in law enforcement, we ego is a big thing in police work and holy, it's so terrible I know.
Speaker 1:So I like the fact that you're stepping up and saying like, hey, hey, let me, let me give it a go, let Let me see how.
Speaker 1:I come across and that's huge. So if I could give some advice to anybody listening to us right now and you're getting into law enforcement, learn you could be a seasoned person and may not know this about yourself. Learn to step back, shut your mouth or learn to take control and get other people to stop talking, because this is where we get in trouble in law enforcement. There's too many people trying to be the boss, the bad guy, bad girl, victim they may not even be a bad person is confused.
Speaker 2:Did you?
Speaker 1:see that Boiling Water Lady video.
Speaker 2:Yes, sonia Massey, yes, Sonia Massey, how could I forget?
Speaker 1:So that is. I keep using that example for people. I'm like the partner just needed to say oh well, partner, hold on. Yeah, okay, as soon as he was reaching your fucking face or whatever it was that he said, like that was his opportunity, like oh, we're they should have left so many different times.
Speaker 1:I would have been yeah, I wouldn't have been. Yeah, like this is the victim of a, a person that's not here, yeah, obviously got some mental issues going on. Maybe we can refer her and get some, you know, crisis intervention team mental help, whatever it is. But it didn't need to be right then and there, because there was no threat, you needed to leave. They were so stuck on getting an identification.
Speaker 1:The one guy was and I'm sitting like bro, like I guarantee you've been called to this house before. Just right, go find your id somewhere else yeah, priorities yeah it's not that big a deal. So I, if, if anybody takes anything from some of the stuff we're saying today uh, yeah, listen, learn to step back and and either take control when you realize there is no control, or or call out somebody else. Hey, sarah, take it, you got this. It's not working for me. Hey, talk to this other officer. You obviously don't like me.
Speaker 1:So, I think it's hard for cops right now. I don't know why.
Speaker 2:I don't know why either.
Speaker 1:You're recruiting. Are you noticing social skill issues? Is this the almighty cell phone? Is it as bad as what people are saying? Because you're into recruiting a lot more than me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I am seeing issues. So my niece, who's 11, kickboxes and I took her to practice yesterday because she has a competition coming up next weekend, and I was asking her stuff and she was giving me, yes, no answers. And I'm like no. And then I said something like because I was in Dearborn, and I was like, oh my god, I'm so tired. No response.
Speaker 2:And I was like Zuzu, when people around you say certain things, you have to listen and you have to give them a response. What are some responses that you can give your friend? If your friend said, oh my gosh, I'm so tired, and she gave me a couple of responses, but they were all blaming and negative, like you should have went to bed earlier yesterday, you should do this. And I said, what if it's your mom? What if? What if your mom is so tired because she's doing things for you and your brother? What, what nice thing can you say? And I kind of guided her and coached her through it and I was like how about we say like I know you're so tired, I know today's been long, you're going to get through it and maybe you can go to sleep earlier tonight? So I'm definitely not letting my nieces and nephews get away with that.
Speaker 2:But I have noticed not just with the communication, and people don't understand that like okay, aside from being like tactical and safe and a lot of other things that the job requires, communication is basically a number one. If you cannot keep because you are going to fail to deescalate situations, you are going to escalate situations. You're never going to make it into leadership and if you are, you're not going to be a respected leader. You're going to be a positional leader, which is like someone that people follow because you have to, because they have stripes or bars or whatever, and that's terrible. I never want to be thought of in that manner. But I've noticed like and thank God it's not everybody, but definitely like they lack energy within communication or like compassion.
Speaker 2:So even when we do like scenario based stuff with not just police, dispatch, security, and we do a scenario where, like a survivor of a sexual assault is calling in, we do a scenario where, like, a survivor of a sexual assault is calling in and the dispatcher hears the person saying like I think I've just been sexually assaulted by a guy that was in my apartment, and the dispatcher would be like okay, where do you live? Instead of like I'm so sorry, are you okay? Do you need EMS? Like they're very black and white one, two, three. This is the protocol and I'm like listen, it is okay to talk to these people Like they are your friends. It's okay to be compassionate, empathetic. Think about what you can do to keep them calm, always ask them about their safety, always ask them if they're injured.
Speaker 2:But they get so stuck and you know a little bit of it could be the fact that they're nervous and like oh, I have to make sure that I cover policy and procedure and all this other stuff, but like, if that person has a shitty experience with you on the phone, they're never going to call us ever whether it's because they need help or they have information about a case that we're, that we're working.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it it's definitely a challenge and I have like very mixed feelings about technology. Like, I love technology, but I can also see how it could be like a huge inhibitor when it comes to our communication or in our human skills in general, you know. So it's, it's definitely a struggle and I always think of like creative ways to help our officers develop really good communication skills and habits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been a growing. I've been noticing them like all right, especially with my younger officers reading their reports, and I know every sergeant that's ever existed has always probably complained about the reports that they're getting. Yes, I'm reading it. I'm just so little description. You haven't been learned enough in court. Yes, I'm reading it and I'm just like there's so little description. You haven't been learned enough in court, okay.
Speaker 2:That's it.
Speaker 1:So that's one reason for it. But the other reason I just don't think the imagination is there. They've never had to. Everything that they have learned in communication is get as short, into the point as possible. So what I mean when you think about what emojis are, that's another way for us to not have to write out or describe anything. So the use of it. Like I make this joke a lot, I go, but mark my words. Eventually emojis are going to work their way into courtroom stuff.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, don't judge me, but like I may use them in my emails, that's different, it's informal, but what I'm getting at is the lack of having to have real communication. You know, and I get a lot of officers ask me how do you do a two hour podcast? How do you do three hours with these people?
Speaker 2:What I could talk all day.
Speaker 1:I'm like that is this, that's just. I cut them off at three hours. I was like I can almost talk to anybody continuously that long and I said if you know how to ask questions, you know in law enforcement anyway, you don't really have to say a whole lot, you just let them go and then when you're, you feel like chiming in or given a perspective, like you can do that. But for the most part, when it comes to just talking to people, like on these platforms, I'm not the focus. You are, sarah is the focus. I don't need to speak a whole lot, I just need to prime Sarah up and let her go and that's how it should go. So I've been noticing, you know, it's just. I feel like it's getting going to get harder and harder for our officers to talk to people and, like you said, it's the most important skill that we have is talking, because 99% of the time it's not an arrest, we're not arresting. I would say Probably conservatively, we'll say 90% of the time it's not an arrest.
Speaker 2:I'll agree with you.
Speaker 1:It's not an arrest. It's just us showing up, talking and figuring out how we don't have to arrest.
Speaker 2:Because not everybody needs to go to jail.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think most of the time I'm trying to figure out. It's not that I'm trying to get out of work. Sometimes it is, but most of the time it's I'm like all right, let me look at the big picture here, all right, look at the big picture here.
Speaker 1:All right, nobody needs to go to jail on this you know, uh, oh, karen kicked over the neighbor's garbage can because she put it too close to their curb line like no ticket. Nobody needs to go to jail for this. So let me figure out how I can talk karen off the cliff and uh see if we can't somehow do some mediation between the two neighbors. Um, so that's, that's generally what I've been seeing. So I was just curious if it's been the same for you in recruiting people in general, because if your focus is minorities and females and like holy cow, I mean, you really are looking for unicorns in this career field Because, like you said it is, the bulk is white males, it's. You know, I don't know why certain things appeal to certain people. It just seems to be that that's what appeals to police.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like what you said about court, so I teach right now. Ever since I've been off the road, I'm in charge of training and professional standards and I taught a report writing class and that is the same exact thing I told them. I said you guys are lucky, because it takes like one time for you to be dragged through the mud in court and make the same mistakes again. So I tore up reports, tore them up, and I'm sure they didn't like it, but I was not punitive about it. I always had a conversation with the officer and I would say things like okay, so what do you think is missing here? And how would someone on the jury visualize the crime scene if you left A, b and C out? And why did you use the term whatever victim instead of survivor? The A, b and C out? And why did you use the term?
Speaker 2:whatever victim instead of survivor. I asked clarifying questions to think about not just the survivor story, but also prosecution and painting a picture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one of my favorite things to do. He was an academy instructor for a few years. But one of the things I like to do is I'll invite one of my prosecutor friends or defense attorney friends in and we'll watch a one minute clip of a scenario and then I'll tell these guys all right, write your report on this. And so I will already have a pre-written report that I've done or that somebody else has done. That was really well written. And then we start. We'll put them up on the board, you know, and kind of go through it and then, all right, all right, let's see your report. Okay, cool, here's the defense attorney that's going to look at your report. And they haven't seen it, so they don't know. And then my defense buddy will get up there and he's like all right, you said my client was, you know, smoking weed. Okay, is smoking weed illegal?
Speaker 2:They're like well, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like you can't smoke marijuana. Oh, how do I know it's marijuana? You didn't say that it's marijuana, did you test it? And then they just start going down and just tear them apart. It's really fun to do and see, but I'm trying to tell people if you have not been put through the ringer by this in real court. Holy cow, it's embarrassing. You feel like the worst cop ever.
Speaker 2:Right A failure.
Speaker 1:Yes, but that is one thing we need to encourage with our police when they're training is to fail, fail often. Learn from your mistakes. That's the best teacher.
Speaker 2:Yes, I agree.
Speaker 1:We're not going to learn very much from being right all the time, and it took me a lot of years just to get to where I'm at now, and I'm still wrong a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, and I I say that a lot to people too, because I talked about this weekend. I said failure is your friend. Challenges are your friend. You are are your friend. You are never going to grow when you're comfortable or within your comfort zone. It's not going to happen. So people like they hear the word. I told them don't stigmatize the word challenge. Challenge is a beautiful thing because if you're not challenged and if you're not failing, you're not working hard enough, you're not doing enough and you're absolutely just probably just operating at the bare minimum and that's not a great life to live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now one of the tell me here's part of the problem with our career choice is we're getting closer and closer to where the public is not allowing us to mess up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's the rough part is now they're almost demanding perfection in a job where we screw up daily Like you're not going to get perfection here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're not, and perfection is such an illusion and it is so not a real thing and it's actually very unhealthy, like I, I want to say, used to be a perfectionist, like kind of am, but I'm trying to get away from it because I know that it's a extremely unhealthy trait to have. Um, I think that when police departments become more community oriented and more transparent, I think the public will really begin to humanize us and understand that we are human beings in uniforms and that we are going to make mistakes. And yes, can I step away for two seconds?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's fine For those that are into this part. She's using her natural light from her house and, uh it, it's slowly getting dark outside right and so I just sent her a message like hey, you have light because all of a sudden you're blending into your. She's wearing a black shirt, she's got black hair. I was like we're gonna lose her in a few minutes because that sun's gonna be gone.
Speaker 2:We're not gonna be oh my god, okay, that's better oh wonderful yeah so.
Speaker 2:So I think a lot of like the challenges that we face with the public is because of that divide, right like that us versus them mentality, the like they're the police, we're the community and it's not, that's not. I always tell people I'm very clear about this when, when I speak publicly which I try to do as often as possible is that we need you. We cannot do this job without you. I'm trying to think of where I heard this. Oh, I was at an amazing leadership conference in Buffalo, new York, and I heard this, this study cited from someone that worked in public relations for some really high caliber people within law enforcement, and she said that they did a study and I forgive me, I forget, I forget the state, but they did a study where they A big agency, community relations was not a priority and the police made that very clear. And they did the same exact study in another agency, similar size, similar crime, where the police and the community were almost like this yeah.
Speaker 2:And in one study they had 85% or like some crazy high number of their homicides were cold cases, and in the other study 15%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the statistical significance is enormous.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's and it's something that I preach that I've been doing this podcast for years, so I've been pushing that same agenda. I'm like, listen, the us versus them is terrible. Like it's, I think it will always exist. There will always be a part, but it doesn't need to be something that is so polarizing that we will get to the point where it's the police just trying to do all the police work. It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1:I was like just like a baseball team or a hockey team or a basketball team, they can't go out there and win like they could when they have a coach. They got to have a coach, they got to have some financial backing, they got to have all of these little factors, and that's how police work is. Can't do this job without a city council that supports us. I can't do this job without a community that backs us, and we will do 10 times better when all of those things flow really well together. Now you'll see cities where the citizens support the cops and the cops are really tight with the community, but the politics get in the way where the mayor and the city council doesn't support them. Well, that is I think that's kind of. I think that's kind of where a lot of places are at right now. I don't think it's necessarily that the citizens don't support them. I just think it's the politics getting in the way.
Speaker 2:So if we can get the politics out of the policing, it would make things a lot easier, a lot better, and we could work together a lot, a lot better yeah, and you know, like I also think that it's super important for us to apologize when we make mistakes, like, like you brought up the Sonia Massey case and look, look, how many officers spoke out about that.
Speaker 2:you know, and that really I hate to use the word shocked, but that really shocked the community, because they're under the preface of like we're going to back our own regardless, and I'm like that's not how it works.
Speaker 2:And sometimes, when, when it appears that we're backing our own regardless, it's because of something that you don't understand, or like you saw a five second clip of a 60 second interaction and like I've made mistakes at work before and I swiftly apologize to the citizens. Whether it was something so minor like I'll give you just one example One night when I was O citizens. Whether it was something so minor like I'll give you just one example One night when I was OIC, when I was officer in charge, we were super busy. We were getting all these calls and I went to an alarm drop at a house, a very nice house in a really nice neighborhood, and our alarm drops were always a two man response, but because we were busy, I disregarded the other officer. It was winter, there was snow on the ground and I did not go upstairs to check the balcony door of the house because there was no footprints in the snow unless someone levitated up there or was dropped in.
Speaker 2:There was no footprints. So I did not check the house. I left an alarm card, I cleared and then an hour later dispatch comes on the radio and she's like the homeowners just got home. They said thank you for stopping and checking the house and leaving the card. They figured out what tripped the alarm and it was the upstairs balcony door. Go figure, I was so sad and upset and disappointed and I wanted to stop by and talk to them and I didn't because we were busy and by the time everything settled it was like after midnight.
Speaker 2:So I went through the next day and I was like yeah, so I just wanted to let you guys know that I am not a reckless person. That's not the department that is here, it was an honest mistake. And I'm going on and on and on explaining and they're like what are you talking about? I'm like your, your balcony door. They're like um, we're, do not worry about that. Like it was the kids, whatever excuse or reason that they gave me, but like, no, when I make a mistake, if it's that, if it's on the report, if it's on the rest, if, if, whatever the case may be, I'm going to apologize, whether it's to the officer because I used offensive language, whether it's to the citizen because I forgot to do something, whether it's to the prosecutor. Accountability is so important and when we show that accountability, we're going to gain respect and support from the public.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head too when you said a lot of times when we're we appear to just be backing the blue blindly, it's not, it's where there's we've learned, you know, like, look at, my favorite one is the I think it's michael brown the michael brown thing where we've had like three separate, you know, independent investigations. All come to the same conclusion. And what does that matter? Now, nothing, because everybody had the whole hands up, don't shoot movement. And that that's one of the things I like to point out is like, listen, you have to let these investigations go. And they're like well, they're, it's their police in their own, wasn't in that case? You had the doj, you had, uh, you had, you know, state troopers and you had whatever, whatever other agency looking into the same thing and all coming to the same conclusion. And that is part of the problem that we run into is we, as law enforcement, we never take the time to explain like, hey, here's why I'm saying what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Does it look bad Sure, it looks bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It looks terrible, but I've learned to keep my mouth shut until these investigations go out. And then, by the time they come out, nobody cares anymore, especially if it doesn't meet the narrative that they thought it was going to meet. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I also think it's important for us, as law enforcement, to recognize the fact that the majority of people do back us and that they do support us and they do love us and even if we're not their favorite person if I was getting my ass kicked on the side of the road they're going to stop and help. Yeah, I think sometimes the media makes it seem like our country and our citizens and like people are so anti-police and like, especially, you know, the defund the police movement. Are there people out there that want to defund the police? Absolutely, it is by no means the majority of the public, because they know what life could be without us. And I tell people all the time like you want accountability, I want accountability. You want to go home at the end of the night. You want to go home at the end of the night, I want to go home at the end of the night.
Speaker 2:You know, and I think it's like people, civilians and officers that have not been on the job long, don't understand how long it takes to pave that road of trust and respect and you know it's not going to get done with, like you, driving around with your windows up and you have an attitude and an ego on every call. It's like every single face-to-face interaction we have, every single encounter we have with adults, with the kids, like talking to kids before you clear domestics, before you clear a traffic stop, so they don't see you as an officer, as the big man or women in uniform that just hurt their mom or hurt their dad or took their dad to jail. I don't care if that dude is a piece of crap, that's still their dad.
Speaker 2:And that was like one of my biggest things when I taught domestic violence. I'm like don't ever clear without talking to the kids, ever, because the parents aren't going to do it, the other adults are not going to do it. Everybody is so entrenched in, like trying to post bond and the trauma of the entire domestic and everything else. No one's going to be like, oh, let me talk to my child and explain to them the traumatic event that unfolded tonight. Um, so it's all of the little things that we do every single day that help us, like build that community bank account and gain trust and respect and backing from the community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you know not calling stuff out, you know like we were talking about the Massey case and stuff like that. I think that's huge. I think it really helps. One thing I've been on a kick lately with the First Amendment auditors showing cops suck Constantly, failing at falling for these First Amendment auditors, and I'm sitting there like Jesus. It's 2024. We've had body cameras now since Michael Brown case. It's pretty much been a while.
Speaker 1:I'm like how are we still falling for this stuff where you can't take my picture and you don't have a right to record and I'm like they're on a sidewalk? It's the public Like you should. We should not still be falling for this and so I'll call out the cop. I'm like this is what you need to do better. We need to do better training. We need to hold each other accountable, to not be afraid to say, hey, this was not your best day and you need to use a little peer pressure. It's not Monday morning quarterbacking. I hate that. I won't do that.
Speaker 1:But if I can make a teaching moment and hope other officers watch it and do better, that's really what the goal is. And if that hurts your ego if you're the officer that got called out, or if you're the department that that officer was on, you feel defensive. I think you need to step back and say is this my ego talking or do I have a legitimate point? Oh, the investigation's not done, there's more things to it. You didn't know. Fair enough, and I'll eat my words Like you were just saying. If I mess up, I'll say, oh shit, I didn't know that. Okay, cool, and fine.
Speaker 1:I won't even retract. I'll show what I said and then I'll say here's an update to that. I screwed up, why the person told me this, but that hasn't happened yet. And I think in our career field, ego is a huge thing. With alphas man, I think that's a big problem with policing. That's one of the things that we really need to work on, but it makes me change gears a little bit, wondering for you being able to reflect on other countries policing. So when you visit and you go back uh, did you go to egypt, saudi arabia?
Speaker 2:egypt okay.
Speaker 1:So when you go, did you, do you ever go talk to law enforcement and talk to them in in a professional standpoint?
Speaker 2:so my uncle was actually like a really high ranking officer for cairo um for a while, I think, until 2015, and cairo's like the second or third biggest city in the world after tokyo and I think it's got like 28 million how do you police that?
Speaker 1:I don't even begin to know my city, where I'm at's about a million, 1.2 million and to me I'm like holy cow, like it's, it's exciting, it's fun, it's just yeah. To me it's just enough, like I couldn't be sure, getting that's too much for me anymore. Um, we could use a few more offers that would help, but yeah like we're able to manage it with what we have it. Just it would be nice and convenient to have more. Trust me, yeah, 28 million. I can't 28 million Last time I checked.
Speaker 2:That was the population. And you know a lot of other countries in the world not every single country, but a lot of other countries. They have military police which operates very different. Yes, which operates very different, and I see you know, like in Egypt and in a lot of other countries because, like when I travel back and forth, we sometimes use the airport in Munich, germany. We landed in Romania one time and their officers have rifles and canines. So things are very different.
Speaker 2:And that's another thing that's so intriguing about law enforcement here in America is the fact that, like the police do care about you, like the idea of community policing and DARE and SRO and community engagement and all of the little things that we do and I should say little, all the big things that we do they don't even exist in other countries at all. Like if you think about the many different hats that officers wear here, like being a victim advocate, a social worker, a teacher, a parent, a counselor, a therapist. Police in other countries don't do that. Their primary goal is to protect the country and the government. And if you as a civilian require, you know, police contact, it's probably not going to go very well because that's not their priority, and that's not to say that they're bad or aggressive people. We just police very differently.
Speaker 2:For sure and I've said this a million times that like policing in America is unlike policing anywhere else. We're not perfect. Like you said, there's a lot of officers, not a lot, some officers out there making bad decisions, letting ego take over, doing things that they shouldn't be doing. They don't take constructive criticism, they don't want to listen to how you know they could be doing better, and that's really what, what, what hurts us and what hurts our image. And it's so important whether it's on this podcast or this weekend when I was speaking in Dearborn. It's really important to give people figures and say things like there's 33,000 sworn officers in the state of Ohio, because when you see one or two or five officers that have been arrested or indicted or fired for an excessive use of force, that's not even 1% of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and the other part that I try to tell people that like, well, how many times have you ever arrested another cop Like you're? You're not policing, you're not? I was like, do you understand, just at my own department, for every year I've been employed, an officer has been fired and arrested. Every year that I'm just and that doesn't mean that multiple haven't been, but every year at my department alone. So now let's take every agency. There's 800,000 cops approximately across the nation.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You think that my department's the unique one? No, cops are constantly policing their own.
Speaker 2:You just don't hear about it because it's not fun.
Speaker 1:It's not fun that cops are doing their job. It's fun for the internet and for media when they're not. So those are the ones that you're seeing and they get shared and shown so many times. And then the other thing that I like to point out is when you're showing me a video, cause I get you know, cause of the platform I get people sending me videos. See, look at there's thousands of videos of cops doing this.
Speaker 1:I'm like you realize you're cycling through stuff that's years old, like that's not new, Like that's part of the problem with the internet is like okay, there's okay.
Speaker 1:Let's say there is thousands let's say 5,000 examples of cops doing dumb shit. There's 350 million calls for service last year over the nation. You're still statistically insignificant numbers that you're pointing out. On the grand scale of things, you're less than a percent, just like you're saying. I think it's like 0.006% is like one of the UCR things that I saw and I'm like holy shit, that means use of force or some sort of sustained complaint. 0.006% is what falls into that. That is so tiny.
Speaker 2:So insignificant. So I say that it's extremely insignificant and one time when I was speaking about this, I said every single one of those incidents where use of force was involved is super significant. But when I say insignificant, I'm talking about those officers that choose to make us look bad. And I also think that we as a profession need to do a lot better writing our own narrative and telling our own story.
Speaker 2:And I remember like a couple of years ago Toledo police posted Toledo is one of the biggest departments in the state of Ohio and their previous chief of police is one of my biggest mentors and supporters and cheerleaders and I admire him so much as a person.
Speaker 2:And I remember on their social media they shared the numbers of calls for service they had during the year. I was blown away and I was like that is an insane amount of calls for a department to handle. That is an insane amount of calls for a department to handle. And then they said they put on there the number of arrests and then the numbers of use of force. I believe Very transparent about their numbers and I reshared it and I was like do you guys understand that? Like it's so crazy the amount of calls. And NYPD, I remember, did the same exact thing because I was blown away by their numbers also. But yeah, it's so crazy and I wish that more departments really valued technology and social media to get their numbers out there, to spotlight their officers, to, like you just said, the media.
Speaker 2:If we don't write our story, the media is going to if we don't control our narrative is going to, and I I'm not speaking ill about the media, because they have been nothing but good to me, but we still need to do better. It's not like they're out there trying to target us, but I had a reporter tell me if it bleeds, it leads.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If it, if it's not going to stir up controversy, like controversial feelings and emotions and a little bit of disruption like why? Why air the story to begin with, you know, but you have a lot of reporters out there that are doing phenomenal jobs, like every single person that I have worked with that are like look here is like an Arab American woman and this is how her culture and religion, like helped her be the officer she is today, and I put myself out for that reason, because I want to kill the stereotypes about arab american citizens, islam, law enforcement, like I come from such a unique background and all three facets that I associate with are highly misunderstood yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I'm one of my um, one of my beat partners. Uh, at the time Amin, if he's listening um, arab, american, same. I knew nothing of Muslim faith and we would sit side by side when it was slow and just I rapid fire question like, all right, I was like what about this? I was like what about this? I'm like what about this? Okay, you can't have bacon, but what if I got bacon-flavored donuts? It's not actual bacon, can you have that? He was like no, that doesn't work that way. I was like, man, you're missing out on one of the best things in the world. It was just us bullshitting but taking the time to sit there and understand him. And Christmas time come around, he bought me a Christmas gift even though he doesn't know about Christmas, and so to me just taking the time and learning that stuff. So what's frustrating?
Speaker 1:as we're having this discussion, I know how interesting this conversation would be to me as outside of law enforcement or as a law enforcement officer and wanting to hear.
Speaker 1:I would want to hear, which is why I wanted to do the podcast, because to me this is interesting. I know for a fact that the stuff that ends up doing better for me is the controversial stuff. When I'm talking, you know, I don't want to say badly, but when I'm calling out police for bad police work, those are way more popular than something like this. And this is like the main point of why I started the podcast, because I want people to understand law enforcement perspectives and just criminal justice in itself. That's why I've had people that have been, you know, felons and people that have been wrongly convicted and stuff like that. We're hitting all aspects of police work. So for you coming from outside the country and and having that cultural difference and coming in here and policing like it's awesome to me coming in here and policing like it's awesome to me it's fun, it's fun to talk and it's interesting. I'm just curious how has, would you say, your cultural differences have worked in your favor in?
Speaker 2:a hundred percent okay, they have.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, they are the primary thing that has really so. This weekend, when I was talking about this cause, I was on on a panel, um, featuring different Arab American women from across the country that were considered rising leaders within their career. And every interview that I've done, every article that I've wrote um, and I just put something on my LinkedIn about. I wrote an article for the Arab American Foundation and I it's so funny, I could talk forever and I can write forever and I sent them like a 3000 word article and they're like yeah, no, you have to take 2000 words off, and I'm like what? So they published, you know, a very condensed article about just some things that I highlighted that I felt absolutely contributed to how I police. And I'm telling you, eric, I mentioned it every chance I get because I want people to understand that Arab American citizens in the United States are an asset, islam is not a violent religion, and because I was raised, I'm a product of those two things, of being Arab American and being a Muslim woman, and it is why I police the way that I police, like, like again, the compassion, the empathy, that taking care of the people around me. And I'll tell you one thing also that is like ingrained in us from damn near birth is that like we are told over and over and over again that we're going to be held accountable for every single thing that we do, which I think, like the majority of human beings that believe in God know that but like even your intentions, and we keep talking about arrogance and ego. Having an ego is a major sin in Islam, and when I was growing up, I was like what? Like why it's up there with? Like murder and rape and like violating the 10 commandments that are commonality in every religion, and I never understood why, until I became an adult and until I saw what ego can do. And the reason why ego is so sinful and considered a major sin is because it aids you in in hurting other people and you don't care. So and and I'm talking about as an officer, as a politician in America, across the world whatever, like when you, when you have ego and you think you're better than someone else, or you think your life is worth more or your kids deserve better because of whatever, and someone else doesn't deserve to have the same exact thing that you have, that's extremely harmful and extremely detrimental to your home, to your body to your home, to your body, to our society and to the world. So my religion and my culture are the biggest reasons why I hold myself to such high accountability when it comes to dealing with people, and I've been criticized on this before and I've said it. I've said it in promotional interviews and I've said it in other settings where I openly and strongly admit to the fact that I absolutely care about how I make people feel. Now, if you're trying to take advantage of me, that goes out the door. In an officer safety situation, that goes out the door.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about in general. I'm talking about when I'm speaking to a victim, a survivor, a suspect that's not doing any harm to me, that's not trying to hurt me, kill me, nothing. Um and I and I remember this one call at a hotel Uh, this kid was 21 years old, never been arrested, no criminal record, poor, okay, doesn't have a bed. Um has never had a bed, comes to the hotel every once in a while to sleep in a bed and someone left their credit card on the um the table where they check in. He took it, stole it, felony. Um went to his room, spent like I don't know, I don't even remember he bought like shoes and clothes online or whatever, and, of course, because the hotel had surveillance, um, we were able to track him down and find out like what room he was staying. We got the card back, the charges were disputed, the victim didn't really lose on any money and it's a felony Like in our department.
Speaker 2:If someone commits a felony, you take them to the county jail. And I I had a conversation with him and he was so sorry and he was crying and he was disappointed. I'm not making excuses for his behavior, but I'm going to think twice and three times before I take someone to jail and give them trauma and ruin the rest of their life because of a single decision that they made. You know, and a lot of officers will disagree with me on that, you can call me soft, you can call me whatever you want to call me, and I'm not making excuses. I'm not telling him that his behavior was okay. I still I still um arrested him.
Speaker 2:I just didn't take him to the County on a Friday night where he would have to stay there for two nights. He has never. He has never been arrested and he doesn't have a criminal record. I'm not dealing with a hardened criminal. So I did my job and I had a conversation with him and I felt that he was truly sorry and he cooperated. He's like, yeah, that was me, I'm so sorry. Here's the card, I'll pay the money back, whatever. And I decided not to take him to jail because I have that discretion to do so. Other people they're like who cares? He, he, he did what he did. He knew what he was doing was wrong. It is what it is. Take him to jail. That's not how I operate.
Speaker 1:To say that well, she's a woman, she doesn't know what she's doing, she's too empathetic, she's just that. The other, when nine times out of 10, had they been there in the same situation that you were in, more than likely realizing seeing the bigger picture, they probably wouldn't have done that either. But when their ego gets in the way, they think they know better. Simply one, just because you're a woman or whatever reason they want to go with. But they. That's where the ego and I'm hoping some listeners are hearing this, and did that run through your mind real quick where you're like well, she doesn't know the fuck she's doing, she's a chick like. Did that go through your head? Was that one of the things you said?
Speaker 1:I mean, the only you can answer that question yeah, but I've heard other officers say stuff like well, she doesn't know what she's doing, she's a girl.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Hearing what she just said. You have to trust other cops to make the right decision. That's one of the beauties of being a cop. Is I make big boy decisions or big girl decisions for myself? I'm my own boss for a lot of it.
Speaker 2:There's only certain times where my hands are tied and you're not going to get a lot of jobs where you get to make the call no, you're the boss, it's awesome and you know too, like a lot of people that we deal with, that is the first and the last time that they deal with law enforcement, whether it's on that call, whether it's a shoplifting call, whether it's a locked auto, an accident, whether you take enforcement action or that is the only encounter that they're going to have with an officer and, because of how you treated them, they're either going to be on the side that says F the police, or, when someone says that, they're going to be like hold on man, like it's not all of them.
Speaker 2:I dealt with an officer on this call and that dude or that chick arrested me and they were so polite and so respectful, so they're not all like that. We were either building advocates or we're building enemies. And, um, when I was a younger officer, maybe someone having that kind of opinion like oh, she's soft, whatever Maybe that would have bothered me. I'm so confident in how I do things now that, like you, can tell me your opinion, you can vocalize your opinion. I know what I'm doing works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and and I think you, certain people have a way of um it's you're disarming people. Yes, that's a great word to use. You're disarming people and they think that they're manipulating you.
Speaker 1:You're disarming people and they think that they're manipulating you. You know it's hard to explain. I use it a lot when I'm talking with people. I don't want to say I'll play dumb, but I'll just kind of downplay whatever it is and it ends up. You know, de-escalating that seems to be the hot word these days.
Speaker 1:I can de-escalate a lot of things simply just by kind of acting a little naive or relaxed or whatever, and I I get the same vibe from you where they'll mistake your kindness for a weakness that you know that's what they're doing. You know sarah knows that. Oh, they think that I'm this, but keep thinking that I'm going to let you think that until I get what I'm looking for or you make the decision for me that I have to step it up and you're going to realize real quickly that I'm not kind when I don't need to be. So I could see that working for you really well. Yeah, as we're talking about how your culture and what you grew up with helped you, I'm glad to hear that it helped you in your policing.
Speaker 2:Oh, it absolutely did, and I'm trying to remember this post that I saved, and it said something along the lines of like don't assume that someone who has mastered peace is unskilled at war.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Do not assume that that switch won't flip.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to let you hurt me, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like the whole warrior, guardian mentality. I'm confident, like when we were in the beginning of the call, when we were talking about like, oh, like, if we try to gauge your level of policing, I feel confident to respond to any call you send me to. I will handle business. I have handled business as a younger officer, like did I do dumb shit and sacrifice officer safety? Absolutely, absolutely I did. But like as an older, mature, seasoned officer, like this is who I am, this is how I operate and if you get another side of me, you chose that. That's not who I am. Naturally. That's like where I need to go to keep myself and everybody else safe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, if you hear me cursing and and getting in a what I would call an aggressive posture like y'all better be doing the same thing, because that's not how I am. I'm pretty relaxed, pretty laid back and again, it's not an ego thing, it's just a seasoned confidence that it works. When it works, you have a recipe, especially us, the longer our careers go us the longer our careers go. We've gone this far and stayed healthy-ish, for a reason For sure.
Speaker 1:Because we've learned from the dumb stuff that we did earlier in our careers, which is that's a part of what I want people to understand is that zero to five-year officer is the ones that you're probably seeing in the media the most, and they need some grace. They can't. The level of perfection that is expected is unrealistic in a job that expects so many hats. Because we're not lawyers, you expect us to know the laws perfectly verbatim, like I'm not going to do that. Can you repeat the Constitution? I can't. I can tell you roughly what some of each one is, you know. If you hit me with what's the third amendment, I'll be like, uh, quartering truth.
Speaker 2:That's about all.
Speaker 1:I know and we don't deal with it that much, but I deal a lot with the First Amendment, fourth Amendment, you know, like the Fifth Amendment, like a certain Fifth Amendment. So I think in what we do we need to have that level of grace and try to convey that to people that aren't in this career field. Like how many jobs do you do at your work?
Speaker 2:And what?
Speaker 1:if I told you now I'm going to videotape you doing that wherever you go, you need to videotape it as well. And if I ask you a question about something that you're enforcing, you should know it verbatim. Judges don't know that stuff. Lawyers don't know the laws verbatim. But you want your cops to that. You don't want to pay a lawyer's salary and you don't want to send them to an academy, for you know, it just depends on where you're at. You went to a six month academy. I went to a. My first one was like six weeks, because I'm a military cop.
Speaker 1:So, like this and I can tell you right now I was not prepared. They did not give me enough training. I can fully admit that I'm just lucky I didn't get myself in trouble and then, uh, when I came to where I'm at now, that academy was like eight months and then okay it changed my complete way that I put. I mean it was, it's amazing, it was an amazing academy. So yeah really opened my eyes.
Speaker 1:You don't know what you don't know right, you know what I mean, yeah um, but, sarah, I want to switch gears a little bit what is it that you are out doing now? Because you see you. You had your long patrol career. Seems like it was it evenings and midnights was your. That was your your bag and then and then, as you started, you know because cause? 16 years you're, you're getting, you're, you're right on the cusp of 20 years, that's a long time in this career. So, what is the what's the future looking like right now?
Speaker 2:So, as I mentioned earlier, right now I'm in training and professional standards. I was in the training, so I've been teaching in some way, shape or form since 2010. And um, you know that started with there and then in 2012, I put my class uh, I put a class together that's titled um interacting with the Arab, american and Muslim population, dispelling the myths and misconceptions, and I've taught that like hundreds of times, primarily in the state of Ohio, but also in other states. And I'm really, really, really big on training, really big. And when I say training and education, again, I'm not talking about degrees, because we can have all the degrees in the world and if you don't know what you're doing when you step out of your cruiser, into a domestic, whatever the case may be, it's not going to go well for you. Like, books are not going to help you deescalate. We learn. We know for a fact that we learn so much more in the field.
Speaker 2:So I'm really big on like scenario-based training and like engaging with the public and I've spoken at, I've done speaking engagements at, like middle school assemblies and I've and I was a featured speaker at a women's prison up here in Cleveland. I talk a lot about leadership, resiliency, mental health, the importance of failure. I love, love, love public speaking and people think that that's crazy because it's like the number one phobia worldwide, but it's because, again, I'm not afraid of vulnerability. I want people to know my story. I want people to see that there are officers out there that are just like me, that care, that are in this job and in this profession for the right reason In the future, like so.
Speaker 2:I always say that like I hope to make it to be a police chief sometimes, but, man, I am like super happy where I'm at now because training I'm equally passionate about training as I am about law enforcement, and now I'm in the point of my career where I get to train in uniform, which is like the best best ever. So people ask me that all the time, like what's next? What's next? You did this, you did that, like you achieve this, like what's next for you? And I just tell them that, like every single day I wake up, I'm extremely grateful for my position, my profession, my health, my mentors, my sponsors, my leaders, my friends, my family, my faith, everything that my leaders, my friends, my family, my faith, everything that I have in life. I just have an attitude of gratitude. I do my absolute best. I seek out opportunities where they may be like the one that we have now, and I just wait to see what comes next.
Speaker 1:Now you brought up teaching about Arab communities and stuff like that. Where I was at and that just happens to be one of the reasons I think Amin, my buddy, was in the area is we did have an Arab community over there. Now, this has been my experience. I've never and I worked that beat for a few years I never received a call in there for them ever received a call in there for them.
Speaker 1:I would receive calls of people from the outside like breaking into their cars or you know doing dumb shit, but it was never inside the community itself. I wasn't getting domestic violence calls. I wasn't getting. It was never that way. I don't know if that was a unique experience for me and I never really asked Amin about that. I guess because you were wrapped in it, you don't really think of it, but as we're having discussion, I'm just curious is that a cultural thing too? Do they not use police?
Speaker 2:So that's a really great observation that you made. And if you look deeper, it's not just with the Arab American community, but that's something that minority communities share in general. So, like Columbus, police, who has the second largest Somali population in the country after Minneapolis, may say the same thing about the Somali community. And it's it's a mixture of we don't involve the police in family matters. There could be a little bit of distrust there. There could be lack of awareness.
Speaker 2:When I worked for the attorney general's office, I did a presentation for a large Somali Muslim population in Columbus and it was an hour and a half and I went through the different kinds of police the cruiser and our uniform 911. When people call 911, what kind of information that you have and when I tell you that all of their 911, what kind of information that you have and when I tell you that all of their information, all of the information that I presented, was brand new to them like, but I knew. That's why I was prepared, like I started, super, super basic. Because whether you're dealing with, like, a first generation immigrant or a second generation immigrant, second generation is going to know more about policing and the way of life here and everything else, first generation, like my parents, they're going to abide by the rules and expectations of what they had when they were growing up.
Speaker 2:Like in other countries, you don't call the police when you lock the keys in your car or when someone parks in front of your house or when there's a domestic, like you handle things within the family, parks in front of your house or when there's a domestic, like you handle things within the family. And, like I said, if the police gets involved, it's probably like not good and it's not going to be a good turnout for whoever's involved. So, yeah, that's, that's why and that education is so important and like you know explaining to them like the difference between, like, local police and the sheriff's office and the Ohio state highway patrol, and you know the radar and seatbelts. I mean it was super because 98% of the people in the room have never had contact with an officer before.
Speaker 1:Interesting that is. So, yeah, I guess I I never really think about the immigrant perspective. Largely, where I'm at, it's Mexicans. People go. No, they're literally from Mexico, folks, I promise you. So what we were running into is people were victimizing them, stealing, robbing, whatever. And they weren't calling police and we were trying to. We were trying, yeah, why, like? Why are you guys not kind?
Speaker 1:they thought they they just been told that we were going to get ice involved and get them I'm like, that is not like, that's not how we roll, like we're yeah we don't want any victims here, like that's the thing. We don't want you being victimized um but that's exactly it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're going to target vulnerable communities, whether it's Mexicans, whether it's Arab Americans, whether it's LGBTQ. They're going to target people that they know. Number one they're less likely to call the police and, because of stereotypes and prejudice, if they do call the police, they're less likely to be believed. So they're, going to they're on purpose they're all over there.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, and we've got. Uh, we have, you know, arab community. Um, trying to think of all the unique ones that I worked a deaf community, uh, that was. That was an awkward one because we didn't know, death like oh okay, okay, I'm sorry, death.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, okay, wow, that's unique, yeah I had a domestic at one of those and we just hear stuff being thrown around and ringing the doorbell. We didn't know you know, and then, finally, I had to kick the dang door open and they're like across the room from each other but like throwing stuff, and they see us. And then I'm like you know what's your instinct get on the ground, yeah, and they can't hear you and they're not saying anything, and so I'm like what the fuck is happening? Right?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean yeah, like how do I deal with this?
Speaker 1:yeah, luckily we figured it out. Um dealing with the arab community. Uh, you know, it was cool to have amin around. Uh, yeah, because for me it's like separate them, talk, you know, do all the stuff where when amin would be there, he would immediately talk to the I think, if I can remember correct, has been so many years since I've dealt with it but I think he would talk to the, the man of the household, and then explain and say we may have to talk to your wife, but if we do, we'll do it this way, be respectful and um, all of that stuff. And if pictures needed to be taken like there's just just there's things that I consider.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hadn't thought of any of that stuff, so for me it's, it's cool that you're out there doing classes like that, educating the community I would imagine, more so than even police and that is a huge way to bridge the gap between us and the people that we're sworn to help, and that's what I like. I like the education part and I don't want to give away any of your classes or anything like that. So I won't go into the weeds. But how long are your courses typically when you're teaching?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, sure. So I actually got it certified for like CPT this year, continuing professional training hours, and I do it for four hours, but when I worked for the attorney general's office it was an eight hour class, um. But I am speaking at a victim advocacy conference, coming up and they're giving me an hour and 15 minutes, which is great, um. So it really all depends on how much time I'm given.
Speaker 1:Um.
Speaker 2:I I also trained for like, like Children's Services Bureau in the state of Ohio, and their classes are six hours. So yeah, it really all depends on how long I have.
Speaker 1:I'll have to get you down where I'm at, I think they'll be happy to have you, it'll be fun, it's such a great class.
Speaker 2:It'll be fun. It's such a great class. Amongst all of the classes that I've taught in my career, I would say it's the funnest to teach and the most successful and the best evaluations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I bet the evals are always fun. I'm being an instructor myself. I teach up at TCU. Occasionally it's always called Controversial Police Topics. So I'll go up there as a guest instructor and we'll hit on whatever hot button item there is. And then the whole point is I don't really even need to have a format as far as like, here's a lesson plan, it is all right, here's the topic, you know whatever just happened. And then we'll say the Massey case and all right, let's go down, start talking.
Speaker 1:What are your issues? What do you think? Okay, cool. Well, consider this, consider that, and that is how that's how the course goes. It isn't meant to be necessarily academic and you know you need to be able to answer this question and that it's. That's not law enforcement.
Speaker 2:More thought-provoking yeah.
Speaker 1:We've got to share perspective. We've got to look at all aspects of it. We can't get so funneled in. It's not like criminology, right? That's what my master's is in is criminology and criminal justice.
Speaker 2:Oh, cool, okay.
Speaker 1:I try to tell people I'm like criminology degree did not help me become a better cop. What it did help me do is look at stats and go oh, that's bullshit. Like here's the whole thing, right, here's the whole thing. Them stats, they doctored them to fit a narrative and so that helped me and you know, I think kind of what you were alluding to is it's a degree, gives you perspective and it gives you opportunity that you normally wouldn't get.
Speaker 2:That's really all, really all for us in police work.
Speaker 1:Everything else is just through practical application yep and being being on the road and being in the thick of it yeah, yeah and and the more you're out there, the more chances you're going to give yourself to screw up, go viral, whatever. So that's kind of the balance right now for people. I just want to answer calls, I don't want to do anything proactive. And then you got guys like me and my entire team where we're nothing but proactive.
Speaker 1:And people are like how are you doing that? Why are you doing that? I'm like because this is what we signed up to do. I want to pull out. I want to get guns off the street that you know gangbangers and whatnot are using to shoot innocent people like that that's a goal of mine. So much work to do, I know, but, um, has there anything that we haven't hit that you wanted to hit right about the two hour mark?
Speaker 2:So um, I would just say that if someone's hesitating on whether or not they should go into law enforcement, do it, because it'll be. Give them the opportunity to show you who they are and what they do and, more importantly, why we do what we do. And I'm just seeing this from, like I said earlier, someone that has lived in two other countries and someone that has you know, have kind of been through it in my career, internally and externally. This is the absolute best job on the planet. It is so fulfilling, it is so amazing. You get to meet so many people, you get to be a part of people's story, people's narrative, people's healing and recovery. There's so much to do, there's so much work to be done, and if you are serious about being a change maker and a leader in your community and if you're serious about establishing your legacy like this is the place to do it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. If you guys are listening and you want to know how to find Sarah, it is Sarah S-A-R-A-H, shendy S-H-E-N-D-Y, and you will see her in uniform on the front cover of her LinkedIn page. So it's Sarah Shendy. Make sure you guys check that out. You see a little MS next to it in uniform. The picture should have some cherries and berries, as I like to call them, a police light bar going across the thing We've got an about and all that stuff. So make sure you guys check that out. Let me get this off of here real quick and thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to do this. This was great and when I end this, just stick around for a second. I'll kind of let you know what we're going to do, but thank you for being on.
Speaker 2:Thank you, eric, and thank you guys for tuning in and listening.
Speaker 1:Take it easy.
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