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
Implicit Bias or Racism? Exploring Law Enforcement's Underlying Problems
This episode explores the pressing issues of implicit bias and systemic racism in law enforcement with insights from former Lieutenant Jim Glennon. He emphasizes the importance of accurate statistics, impactful leadership, and effective training as key factors that can shape police culture and community relations.
• The discrepancy between public perception and actual statistics of police shootings
• Definitions of systemic and institutional racism
• Importance of effective leadership and accountability in police forces
• The evolution of training standards in law enforcement
• The role of Caliber Press in advancing police training and education
• Insights on police culture and the need for change
Please visit CalibrePress.com
#police #lawenforcement #cops #bridgethegap #bethechange
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Speaker 2:Who in here has implicit bias? And nobody raised their hand and I said you're all liars. And I said y'all have it. So I want to know this. And I had a PowerPoint ready to go Hour long PowerPoint they asked me to have and I said is implicit bias just a PC way to say everybody's racist? And then I said and if that's where we're really going here, does anybody besides straight white males need to attend this course? Is everybody else free? Nobody else is. They didn't even know how to answer me.
Speaker 2:This nonsense that took hold like we shoot too many people. In a 2019 survey, the average person in the United States thinks that somewhere in the area of 78% of the people we shoot are black. Not even close to true. It's in the mid-20s percent, right, I mean, I know racism exists, but if you're going to start this nonsense that there's systemic racism everywhere in law enforcement, first off, it's not true. And two, you're avoiding the real problems that are in law enforcement. Are you denying there's systemic racism in law enforcement? I say no. What I'm asking you to do is define what systemic racism is and is. Is it different than institutional racism? And he said well, you know it's, it's, it's, it's really, it's unseen in the fabric of the fibers of all of the criminal justice system. Which criminal justice system? Now, this is the guy who's got a master's degree and he's he was actually a chief of police from a midwest town. Which criminal justice system? Because united states criminal justice system? I said there's no such thing. He goes well of is. I said how many counties are there in the United States? He goes, I don't know. I go, there's about 3,200. That's 3,200 different ones. Right there, you got 50 states, you got townships, you got individual police departments. That's about 18,400 to 600, right, you got federal government with all different districts and circuits all over the United States. Are you telling me they're all the same?
Speaker 2:And then he said well, you know, law enforcement started from slave patrols. I go, it absolutely did not. And the most basic stuff, I mean it started in Boston, and in Boston and New York, chicago, pittsburgh, you know, or Philadelphia, they're all the ones that started the first 24 hour police. You know, it's not, it has nothing to do with slaves. Listen, we have some serious shit, really some serious shit problems in law enforcement.
Speaker 2:But if we're putting all our focus on a problem that doesn't actually exist and he says wait a minute, how many people get shot and killed by the police every year? And I, when I knew the numbers and so I told him, I said it's right around a thousand. I said what percentage do you think are black? He goes, well, minimum 50%. I said, no, it's like mid-20s. He goes, yeah, but blacks are only 14% of the population.
Speaker 2:I said so you think if 25% of the people that are shot are black and the population is only 14%, then that proves systemic racism. He goes. There's no other reason for it. I said what percentage of the people we shoot are male? And he goes. What difference does that make? I said, well, what percentage of the population is male? He goes, I don't know. I go, it's about 49 and a half percent. It's what percentage of the people we shoot are male? He goes, I don't know. I said it's 97%. So if you think we hate black people, we absolutely abhor men, we have systemic problems. If you really want to look at problems and I'll tell you what those two problems are One is leadership and two is training.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Two Cops One Donut, its host or affiliates. The podcast is intended for entertainment and informational purposes only. We do not endorse any guest's opinions or actions discussed during the show. Any content provided 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. All right, welcome back to Cops One Donut. I'm your host, eric Levine, and today I have a special guest that I didn't even know was a special guest until my co-host, banning Sweatland, said hey, dude, did you notice this guy shared our stuff. And I said no, who's that? And he's like Dude, it's Jim Glennon. He's from Caliber Press. So I have with me retired Lieutenant Jim Glennon, caliber Press. How are you doing, sir?
Speaker 2:Very good, how about you?
Speaker 1:I'm doing wonderful knowing that I have a high-caliber guest. See what I did there. See what I did there.
Speaker 2:No, thanks for inviting me, man, it's an honor.
Speaker 1:Thank you Anytime, sir. First and foremost, can you give a little bit of background on yourself? I want people to understand. First and foremost, I'm going to keep saying that tonight. You never notice when you keep saying the same crap over and over. So I'm noticing that about myself right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my wife says that to me all the time.
Speaker 1:My wife tells me all the time on the podcast, quit saying so. So that's like my filler word. I got to quit saying that one too. It's true. Yeah, the point that I was trying to get to before I interrupted myself was Jim, you've been in law enforcement for how many years?
Speaker 2:Well, I've been in and around it my whole life. My dad was a Chicago cop, and his dad was a Chicago cop, and his dad was a Chicago cop. Okay, I don't remember at any point in my life outside of thinking I might be a professional baseball player for about eight seconds when I was nine, wanting to do anything else but actually be a Chicago cop. That was my original goal.
Speaker 1:Okay, and now for baseball. Were you going to be a Cubby or a White Sox?
Speaker 2:You know it's funny, I'm the oldest of nine Southside Chicago Irish. The Southside is the Sox, northside is the Cubs, but I'm the only one of the nine of us that's a Cub fan. The rest are all Sox fans.
Speaker 1:Now it's funny because we have similar backgrounds. My dad retired from the police department that I'm at now and, for those listening, no, I'm not going to say where I work. You know better than that, and easy to find out though, and so he retired from there, and I too thought I was going to be a baseball superstar, but mine was a lot longer than just nine seconds. I was playing in like five different leagues. When I was a senior in high school and had no clue. We didn't have the internet. I mean, the internet was out, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't like it is now. You know. Smartphones, all that stuff none of that stuff had existed, so I had no clue how recruiting worked, and neither did our coaches, cause I came from small area in Flint and I just thought they found you. I just thought your stats somehow get out there, and they found you.
Speaker 1:And so here I am, my senior year, and I'm like how come none of these schools are reaching out to me? And then I didn't find out until the last minute. So I tried to go play for Saginaw State Valley University. It didn't work out, but yeah, man, and my team's always going to be the Detroit Tigers, even though I'm wearing a Texas hat. I live in Texas now, so I like to represent and, if I'm going to be honest, I wanted to coordinate my shirt my retro rifle shirt that I'm wearing today, with my hat. So you being a huge baseball fan, I'm sure, and this is not to the point of the show, guys, but I just want to bullshit with Jim for a second.
Speaker 2:Are you a baseball hat guy? Yeah, on and off, but I started playing golf during COVID, so now I wear them more.
Speaker 1:Okay, so for me, you got your hat. You have your one hat, you got a bunch of other ones, but you got your main hat. Now, I've had my main hat since 2009, and it just shit the bed on me this year. Right where the seam meets the bill. Both sides ripped open. I went to put it on, it just went.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a rough day. That's a rough day, that's a rough day, so yeah.
Speaker 1:So now I've even looked for that same hat. Now, this is the beauty of the internet Looking for that same hat. I can't find it though, yeah, it doesn't exist anymore. So it is what it is. Sorry, tigers, I'll still represent, but today I just wanted to color coordinate and look fancy on camera. So, jim, you obviously have an extensive law enforcement background, having your your dad behind you on that and you said his dad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, his dad was a Chicago cop.
Speaker 1:Oh man, so you got a long lineage going on.
Speaker 2:He was a homicide detective in the thirties and forties.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:In Chicago and he died when I was 11 months old. So I never got to know him, but, um, he was pretty famous within the chicago ranks. He had a photographic memory. I didn't and I didn't man none of that leaked into my uh, my dna, but I wish it did. Yeah, my dad told me that he could. Um, you could take a deck of cards and go, just show them all 52, and he can name them back in a row. Wow, yeah, that's how. That's how his memory was.
Speaker 2:He was also really tough when he was a kid. I think he was born in 18. He's born in 18. Let's see, he was 62 when he died. Right, he died in 50. So he was born like 1894. But he used to, he used to bare knuckle box in bars when he was like 12, 13 years old, for people to just throw money and him and his friend would beat the crap out of each other in bars. Wow, real tough guy. Um, he was like 5, 10, he was, uh, he was real stocky. Um, and my dad said you know, nobody would mess with him, nobody was nice, he was smart. Nobody was nice, he was smart, he was an accountant before he became a police officer with no training.
Speaker 1:Well, things were different back then. For sure, I could only imagine, when he started being a cop, that that in patrol having that photographic memory just probably made him stand out. So much more to the department.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, people. They said, uh, people used to call him and uh ask him hey, do you remember this plate being on like the hot list or something? And he would go yeah, it's bum, bum, bum. He would be able to name it. According to my father, it could be legend he actually knew Capone.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I mean he went through the great depression. Yeah, I mean he went through the Great Depression.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was a cop during that time. In fact, they weren't even getting money, they were getting the script. They called it script. It was like IOUs, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Holy cow, you can't live off of IOUs.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, and my dad told me all the different stories about how they made money on the side and all that stuff, wow, which we would call corruption now, but they didn't consider it corruption.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, it gets on my nerves so bad. People try to bring up things from so long ago. Well, the cops did that, but you have to understand the culture of policing. That was accepted, the public didn't care, they were okay with it. I would say, you know, since Rodney King and the advent of putting cameras in the cars, that's what kicked that off really. And then body cameras from what was that one? That was Eric, no, michael Brown.
Speaker 2:The hands up, don't shoot Ferguson, yeah.
Speaker 1:Ferguson yeah, yeah, yeah. So that kicked off the body cams which don't get me wrong, you know, in your era of policing may be a little different than mine, but I love the body camera. I could not, I feel I get in a panic mode when I realized I jumped in my car and I'm I'm already out and I don't have it on me. I'm like, oh, I gotta go back Like I ain't taking any. Well, I'm a supervisor now so I don't take calls to begin with, but with.
Speaker 2:But yeah, no, no, I, we, we teach over 230 in-person classes around the country and we about 100 I don't know 130, maybe online. In almost every one of them, we said you should have a body camera. Everybody should be wearing a body camera because all the studies and everything over the last 12 years I know that we cite 72 studies and really what they're all doing is, um, in most cases, the vast majority of cases, it helps the, the police, not the other way around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that shoot. I've had discussions on here before where our internal affairs called me and gave me a courtesy call and said hey, we just want to let you know we cleared up your investigation. It was unfounded and I was like I was being investigated, being investigated, you know, I actually I'm glad that they do it the way that they did it. They told me after the fact but they're like hey, we just wanted to encourage you, keep wearing your body cam that absolved you of everything, and we give you a courtesy notification to kind of re.
Speaker 1:It's like positive reinforcement, hey yeah, no, it's good you wearing that camera helped your ass out. So, yeah, yeah, I love it. Um, now, jim, you are in chicago area, just outside of chicago, as a police officer, what I? I I'm going to assume your grandfather and your dad had some influence over that. Um, my dad, being a cop, did have some influence over that. Um, my dad, being a cop did have some influence over that, but he really wasn't the main reason I wanted to become a cop. I'm just curious how did you decide that you wanted to be a cop?
Speaker 2:You know, I get that question a lot and all I can say, you know, when I went to college, right out of high school and, uh, I got a degree in psychology, um, and I, I had a really good group of friends. About nine of us lived in a house and they would sit around and talk about what they wanted to do after college and I was never invited into those circles because they all knew I wanted to be a cop. I do remember, I mean, my dad actually stopped being a cop when I was about six because he was having you know, there's various reasons he stopped doing it. He was a cop for about 10 years, um, but he, uh, uh, he was, you know, having kids like every other week. You know, my dad told me back in the 50s and early 60s he was when he retired or when he quit um because it wasn't retirement for him I think he was making 3200 a year. They got no overtime, by the way. No, if you went to court, you went to court on your own time and you had to go to court. So it was a very different world. But I remember, I do remember, about five years old, he put me in a squad car on his lap and I got to drive a squad car around with his hat on my head and you know. And then after that he told stories and when he told cop stories my dad was pretty good storyteller. They were always just fun and that's how he kind of my. It's part of my dna.
Speaker 2:I'm the oldest of nine. I was born then four. I had four sisters born and then, right after those four sisters were born, I had four brothers born. So I've got, like I don't know, like my wife says, a caretaking mode to my brain. Uh, almost to the point that she says it's irritating because I'm always, like you know, taking care of her. I'm always, like you know, taking care of her. I'm always what do you need? I mean, you know I got.
Speaker 2:I got six kids. I got 15 grandkids. I've got 45 nieces and nephews and all of those people that I just mentioned. All of them live within 25 miles of my house. Wow, which is why I can't leave this stupid state. But you know, my, my oldest son, and they're this stupid state, but you know, my oldest son and they're all in business. You know, I got three sons and three daughters the four boys, the three boys and my son's-in-law. They're all in business and they all do really, really well and they're from the generation where they were born in the 80s. Um, and my son, my oldest son and I have talked about this a lot and he said, you know, we were just talking about it recently and he said what was the, what was the real reason? I mean, what was it? And I said, you know, there was a part of my brain that never wanted to sit on the sidelines. I didn't want to be on the sidelines.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I wanted to be in the mix. I wanted to be doing things. I never cared about money, and it's not because I'm such a nice guy, but I came. We grew up, you know. Now you would look at it and say poor. My dad quit doing that because he was. My dad was making more money two days a week covering pipe. He wanted to be in an insulator the rest of his life, two days a week covering pipe. He made more money in those two days than five days being a cop, wow, yeah. So that's one of the reasons he quit.
Speaker 2:And I'll tell you a side note that's one of the reasons they didn't care about some of the corruption. In fact it was organized corruption, or we would call corruption. No, my dad would take offense to that, but they had all these scams going on. I asked my dad one time. I said if you stopped a guy for speeding or something and I can't even imagine my dad doing that but he stopped somebody for speeding and the guy offered you, you know, 30 bucks. Would you take it to drop the ticket? He goes. No, I said okay if you stop the guy for speeding, and said okay, I'm giving you a warning. The guy gave you 20 bucks and said hey, thanks a lot for doing your job. Would you take that he goes? Yeah, because it didn't influence my opinion. It's a tip, that's how he took it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I could see that back in the day.
Speaker 2:But like when he was in accident cars for years before he went to detectives for a while, but he was in accident cars for years because that's where all the money was. So if there was an accident, you call a tow truck, and this is in the 50s. You'd call a tow truck and the tow was 30, which is a lot of money, and when they showed up they'd give 15 bucks to the cop for calling the tow truck oh, okay and that's one of the reasons all over this, my dad my dad basically is one of the reasons.
Speaker 2:His, his group is one of the reasons that all over the country you have to have certain contracts with, with uh tow companies. Right, you just can't call anyone you want, but back then it was anyone you want. They were all working part-time jobs, like my dad did too. So when he was on night shift they would go to the local church and the priests would lay out blankets and pillows on the benches and the cops would give them like 50 cents.
Speaker 2:And then they hired kids to sit in the squad cars and if my dad's number was, like you know, lincoln 27, and they heard Lincoln 27, the kid would run in and wake up my dad and my dad to go out and handle the radio call. They would, um, they would pick up uh at the end of the night, go to the bars and pick up the owners, because the owners it was all cash, so the owners would have a crap load of cash with them, right, and they, they would get robbed. So the cops were assigned by the sergeants at roll call you got these three bars, you got these three bars, you got these three bars and then the um. The owners are giving 10, him $10 for a ride home.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Okay, it was all accepted. Yeah, it was all accepted and the city liked it, because then they didn't have to pay the cops extra money. People wanted to come in because there was always this money on the side. Now, obviously that got out of hand, yeah, and then you got real corruption going. But I loved his stories and it was just something I always wanted to do and I just didn't.
Speaker 2:I, I, everybody else was boring to me, you know. I mean, you know my like. I got four brothers. None of them became cops, um, and my brother my brothers are smarter than I am well, two of them became pipe covers, like my father, and two of them went into the financial world. And you know my brother, bill, who was one of my best friends, uh, we'd be at parties and he was a underwriter for allstate and you know people, if he started talking about his job, people's eyes were rolling back in our head and people would always ask me questions and stuff and I'm a pretty good storyt, so I would tell stories and embellish them. My brother says you know how, how come everybody wants to stand around you? I go, what? What kind of interesting stories you have as an underwriter. You know, he, he, he actually met, like Tom Hanks, he did Tom Hanks house at Mr T's house and people go, oh, that's cool, but then. But then they want to hear you know about guys who you know are jerking off on the side of tracks.
Speaker 2:You know, you know it's a lot more fun listening to you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, stories I had about chasing naked guys over fences, you know yeah, yeah, and that that's exactly one of the main reasons I became a cop is because when you'd have family get-togethers, parties, whatever it was, it was always the same people in my family the, the military guys, the firefighters, the police if they're ambulance riders, whatever it was that is who everybody kind of looked up to, that's who everybody wanted to be around. And I was like, oh, I want family respect too. My dad was an influence on it, but I would say the biggest contributing factor was just how the entire family looked at anybody that worked in a life of service in some sort of aspect First responders we call them now. So yeah, I'm with you on that.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, when I got out of college, I actually spent a year in the Appalachian mountains building houses, you know, for poor people and working putting sewers together and building sept? Um septic tanks and, you know, putting those in. You know, it was just something I wanted to do before I became a cop. But when I I got back, chicago wasn't hiring and, um, a girl I was dating at the time didn't want me to go to chicago anyway, and so she, um, she got an application for one of the you know, honestly, there's got to be 200 suburbs around Chicago and she got me an application for Lombard and I'm like I don't know where that is and she says it's the mall we go to.
Speaker 2:You know town of about 45,000 people, like 75 cops, but it's right outside of the city, it's in the second most populous county, right outside of the city. It's in the second most populous county. But I went there with the complete intention of leaving as soon as I could and, um, I wound up staying for 30 years and I I absolutely loved my job, I loved the town. I grew, I raised my family in that town, got a lot of friends in that town and it was a blessing from God that she got me that application and I stayed there.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, that's just, that's crazy that you ended up staying. And, to put it in perspective for anybody listening, like those suburbs on the outer edges, chicago is that's where all your bad guys are going to flee to.
Speaker 2:So everybody's like, well, that's not chicago and well it pretty much is like that's where all of that stuff pushes out to well, yeah, it was certainly not in the worst parts of chicago, but we had a lot of bleed over you know, know, from there and you really, honestly, it was. We had enough action that kept me, kept me satisfied, but not enough to make me an alcoholic.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm with you as I sit next to my bottle of smoke wagon.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm with you, okay. So that that does sum up. I think that's a good explanation. It's funny, I like to do this. Little human is like look, you're not dealing with some robot person that got into this because they have an ego, because they want to hurt people, because you know this, that and the other. You know what the negative press likes to say about police officers. I'm like this person. It was, you know, like for you, it was ingrained in you. You grew up around it like not just your dad which is, you know, becoming more rare to have the father, son or father daughter thing happen anymore but your grandfather. We've had a couple of people on that. It went back even farther than that. So for those people I understand.
Speaker 1:I've actually got a buddy from my academy where I went to. He became a cop. He's one of my favorite stories because he became a cop on a whim. His roommate was going to take the civil service test to become a cop and he's like come take it with me, I don't want to take it by myself. So they both go take it. His friend doesn't pass, he passes. He ends up being in my academy class with me and they make you stand up in the academy and they're like, why did you become a cop? And he's like it was the thing to do and I'm I'm very jealous of that story because now he's one of the best cops I've ever been around.
Speaker 1:He's, yeah, I mean just, and I I'm giving him an honest compliment as a person who's been around the career field his whole life and was a cop at a different place and was in the military. I'm still in the air force as a military police officer as well. So I try to tell people I'm like man, this is a unique, he's a unique story like having him. So it's just, it's just fun to watch him progress in his career field. He's a patrol Sergeant now and, uh, he was a really good detective. So fun to see that stuff and fun to hear your background story, because Chicago is such a. When people think of cops, they either think of New York, chicago or LAPD. Yeah, that's the three. And, by the way, chicago ugly as hats. Sorry, don't dig the checkers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know where those came from, right, I mean.
Speaker 1:It's an Irish background of some sort.
Speaker 2:The checkerboard actually comes from London.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's where it's from. They had blue and white cars for years and years and years and years and years, and I think they still have them. They're not as blue. They used to be blue, stark blue and white. Now they're basically white with, you know, different logos on the side.
Speaker 1:I got you. Yeah, Historic for sure, especially in the world of policing. I just was never a fan of the checkers.
Speaker 2:I don't like the bus driver hats anyway.
Speaker 1:Oh sorry, what was that?
Speaker 2:For one of my birthdays. I was a lieutenant. At the time I had a picture of my, my, my dad, my grandfather. I still have it my dad and my grandfather in their uniform, their Chicago uniforms, and one of the guys who worked for me, sergeant and one of my detectives, got a magnifying glass and were able to get the numbers off the badge. I never even thought about it and then they actually, for my birthday, got me a replica badges. Oh nice, yeah, it's real cool. I got them in a case and everything it badges.
Speaker 1:Oh nice, yeah, it's real cool.
Speaker 2:I got them in a case and everything. It's very, very nice yeah.
Speaker 1:Nice, I did a from when I graduated. I got my dad's badge and my badge and did like a black and white photo with a nice yeah, and then just kind of put them together and thought that was pretty cool. I was telling you how crappy my memory is. I went into his man cave the other day and that picture's on the wall in his man cave and I looked up. I goes, oh man, that's cool. He goes you got it for me, idiot. I was like, oh yeah, I remember that now.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool, that's nice yeah so, um, all right, sir, you you've got this lineage. You've got all these reasons for becoming a cop, which I think are great reasons you become a cop. Now, your career was you had a long career, but all of us have our specialties and what we like for you. After you graduated and got to your city and stuff and got your feet, you know, settled, what did you start going towards and what ended up being some of your specialties? I mean, I'm assuming you had one or two or three. Most don't really have many more than that. So what was your top specialty?
Speaker 2:Well, I had a great. You know, I'll start with this. I had three FTOs. I liked all three of them, but the middle one, um, his name is dane cooney and he wound up being my, my fto, my partner, my boss, my whole career. And without him, without a good mentor, I don't know where I would have gone. I don't know what I would have done. Um, and he gave me some advice. I was a.
Speaker 2:I was a pretty active young cop. You know, after I was on a night shift at first, um, always stopping cars, always doing something, always hunting. I was always hunting. So I got a pretty good reputation for a couple things. One I was I was able to read people.
Speaker 2:Well, um, I was able to get confessions from people without even knowing how I was doing it. You know, in fact, um, a veteran officer asked me one time he goes, how did you know which guy was lying? And I said I don't know, I can just tell him. He said how did you get him to confess? And I said I don't know, I just bullshitted him. He goes, oh, okay, so that's a really long conversation between two males that actually transfers no information or knowledge, right, but I did start getting.
Speaker 2:I'd get calls from guys on traffic stops and say, hey, come over here. And I'd come over and I'd be talking to a veteran guy I mean, I'm still on probation, um and they go something about this guy. Can you talk to him? Yeah, talk to him goes. Yeah, he's got to open the car. So um, so um, uh, and my mentor, um, said I had a chance to go, and this, this at the time, was kind of a big deal. I had a chance to go to breathalyzer school, become a breath operator. You know, now everybody goes, but back then it was, you know, cost money. And so a lieutenant came to me and said I want you to go to the breathalyzer school, but I actually was going to go on vacation with a girlfriend, I think the same one that got me the application, and so I turned it down.
Speaker 1:I'm starting to see a theme.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I turned it down and Dane came to me, my mentor, and says you're out of your freaking mind. Cancel the vacation, move it, but you're going to go to this class. You know, you've only been on a year and a half and he's asking you to go to this class. Go to the class. And then he said never turn down anything that they offer you and volunteer for everything. You know. I said okay, so maybe that's why I broke up with her. I don't remember, but, um, I canceled that, went to that, and then I just started. I started volunteering for things and I realized something and I talk about it still to this day in my class I love the profession.
Speaker 2:I loved, you know, I loved, honest to God, almost every minute of it. I had a couple of really crappy bosses over a few years, but outside of that, you know. But it's a very, very easy profession to be lazy. It is. You show up on time, you put your uniform on, you go out to your area and you answer your calls. You're pretty much gold. That's all you ever do, and I would guess in my time I'm describing at least 50% of the cops I was with, not that they wouldn't back you up and that they wouldn't throw their. You know, throw themselves in front of a bullet but nobody's really pushing them. In fact, the opposite happens. In law enforcement you get a lot of bosses who try to get their their cops to. You know, slow the hell down here. We, you know, the more you do, the more trouble you get into. And I was the opposite and I did piss off a couple bosses because I was almost too active.
Speaker 2:And then Dane was always telling me read case law, read case law, read case law, he says, because your sergeants don't even understand what case law is, which was that was true too. And the thing is I really liked almost all my sergeants. I really did. They were great guys. They'd back you up. You know, somebody came in with a bullshit complaint. They'd get in their face back then, but they really didn't. They didn't push themselves to to gain any knowledge in the, the profession and or on how to lead human beings.
Speaker 2:So you know, I was always reading this stuff and I was a c student until until I went to the police academy. I wanted to be the number one in my class and I honest to god, that shocked the hell out of me because I'm not that smart, um, but anyway. So I got into the job and I'm pushing myself and the third year on, uh, there came a chance for detectives opened up and dan came to me, said put in for detectives. And I said no, you, everybody's telling me you got to be on five to seven years to become a detective. And he goes put in for detectives. So I put in, everybody goes you're nuts, you know. You know you're a kid, you're, you know you're 27.
Speaker 2:At that time I was my third year on, maybe 26., and they picked me. So I was shocked but very happy. And just then I had just taken a secret service test and I passed that. And you have to be a college graduate to pass it. At the time it was called the Treasury Department test. You had to be a college grad to take it and only 50% passed it. So I studied really, really hard and I passed it. But I'll tell you a little side story to that. Do you know who Tim McCarthy is?
Speaker 1:The name sounds familiar, but I can't picture who that is Tim.
Speaker 2:McCarthy is either now or he might have just retired. He's the chief of police up here, but he was the secret service agent that got shot protecting Reagan.
Speaker 1:Okay, yes.
Speaker 2:Outside the hotel right, and he happened to be one of my uncle's best friends. So I passed it and Tim took me out to lunch. And I'm sure I've seen Tim several times since, but I don't even know if he remembers this. But I just made detectives and Dane told me my mentor don't take this job. And I go wow, it's a secret service man, you know. And so Tim took me out to lunch and he said don't take this job. And I said what? And he goes look, you know, when you see us running next to the president on TV, it's really cool, you know. Obviously you know what I went through.
Speaker 2:He was a sack of Chicago at the time and he said but you're the oldest of nine, you just got married, you just had your second kid, or you just had your first kid, second kid, or you just had your first kid and you're going to hate it because for the first five, six years they're going to be, you're going to be traveling your ass off. You're never going to see your family and you're going to be standing in a suit outside some guy's door from midnight to eight o'clock in the morning. You won't, you won't. You know it's, it's not like what you see.
Speaker 2:He says you're a detective, what are doing? I said, well, I just busted a burglary ring and we're doing some undercover narcotics and stuff like that. And he goes yeah, he goes, you're a cop, be a cop, um, and I said okay and uh, so I stayed with lombard and then, right after I got the chance to be our first sex crimes investigator Nobody had ever done it before and it was a very new field. In fact a guy from New York, a guy named Harry O'Reilly, came to Chicago and taught. I think it was a I don't know one or two week class.
Speaker 1:So did you when you became a detective, was that your first detail Was sex crimes, or were you a general assignment detective when you first got in?
Speaker 2:We were all general assignment. There was probably about 11 of us.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But we had just started to. This is in the mid 80s, they, you know, again, I look at, I had some, I had a nice lieutenant and detectives, but you know he was lazy, yeah, just you know. But Dane was the sergeant now at this point and he said we got to start specializing, so I had this opportunity to go Prior to that. We're just, you know, we got to start specializing, so I had this opportunity to go Prior to that. We're just, you know, we're idiots. You know somebody would come in. And I remember God. I remember when I was in training some girl said she was raped and I was with this guy. I wasn't still in training but I was a rookie and this veteran cop goes all right, what we are wearing.
Speaker 1:No oh yeah, brutal. Jeez, yeah what we are wearing.
Speaker 2:No, oh yeah, brutal, geez, yeah. And so o'reilly taught this great class and he was one of the top guys in nypd. So I mean, I'm coming back with this knowledge and these techniques and tactics that nobody had ever heard of before and I virtually handled everything that was closely related to a sexual assault, a lot of of pedophile stuff, you know, and I was really. I was good at it because I was, and then I'll tell you. The main thing is, as soon as I got into detectives and I asked why they picked me and the lieutenant at the time said well, you know, I hear you're really good at getting confessions. So what I asked them to do is send me to every interview and interrogation school that you know we could find, and back then it wasn't. There was no internet, so you get teletypes from like read interrogation, which is outside of Chicago. So I went to read, which I still, to this day, highly recommend read.
Speaker 2:They flew me down to FLETC at one point. So I started learning. I started to learn consciously how I was getting these confessions and I had the psychology background. In the academy there was a guy named Stan Kules who taught body language and I went out and read body language books. I actually, I got one right here. I actually wrote a book about body language. And I went out and read body language books. I actually, I got one right here. I actually wrote a book about body language for cops.
Speaker 1:Oh nice, what's it called.
Speaker 2:It's called Arresting Communication. It's been out about 15 years.
Speaker 1:It's yeah, your screen's mirrored, so everything's backwards. Pardon me, your screen, everything's backwards. So I was like what is this? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it a rescue communication and it's um, actually we have an academy addition to it and that's being used in academies all over the country and we we've sold a crap load of books anyway. Um, so I really started to hone those skills down, you know, um, and then then I had the chance with dane to be cross-trained as a fire investigator and then so I went to Emmitsburg, maryland. I went down to Fletsey again, I went to the Chicago Fire Academy and I learned all these. I learned how to read a fire, go into a fire, you know, look for poor patterns, right and really. And we cross-trained with two firefighters and I'm still good friends with them, and I was the worst at reading a fire of the four of us. We cross trained with two firefighters and there's, I'm still good friends with them, um, and I was the worst at reading a fire of the four of us. I was the worst by far. I mean I could spot a poor pattern and things like that.
Speaker 2:But but what I was good at was getting the confessions. So the first three fires, we investigated, we the click, we determined that they were arson and, uh, all three of those guys I got to confess okay so you know that that that became, you know, kind of my forte. So I was doing sex crimes and arson.
Speaker 1:So I got a follow-up question, sorry, yeah, this is the hard part about the internet. There's a slight delay and I don't want to stop your flow, but no problem, I'm. I'm trying to help people understand, like today's. You know, detectives, versus what? What year frame were you in when you were doing all this?
Speaker 2:I went in in 83. In 1990, I made sergeant. They moved me back to the street. I was there for two and a half years. Then I made lieutenant and I went back to detectives.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you start doing detective work. You had to put in to go to classes to learn how to interrogate Right Now. As for stepping in and being a detective, now I can tell you that even when I started to learn how to be a detective in, you know, 2016, 17, somewhere in there, the training, the field training, so to speak your FTO was you learned how to file the paperwork and where it goes and how to get it to the prosecutor and stuff like that. That was about it. I was very disappointed at the level of training that I got and that wasn't that long ago for our detective work. Now, yes, you can put in for Reed School and other interrogation-style schools, but that's on you. That's not mandatory, which blows my mind because, like you said, reed's an amazing school, reed.
Speaker 1:You know I still use Reed techniques to this day, even as a street supervisor. I'll be out there and, you know, try to help out my guys and get the confessions. And it's very weird how our careers parallel, because that's one of them that was my special skill as a detective was the interrogation side. You know I'm batting a thousand as far as getting at least something through omission or a confession. So I'm with you on that. So for you, did you get any real training when you stepped up to? You know you're a rookie detective. Or was it like, here's how you file the paperwork, all right, go be a cop? Like how did that work for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, pretty much same as you. They just said here's the systems we have in place. And my first day they throw three or four different cases on my desk and you kind of had to just kind of work your way through it. You know, and I mean I would ask questions of some senior detectives and after a very, very short period of time I realized which ones were lazy and which ones actually knew what they were talking about.
Speaker 2:And again I had Dane Cooney, who is really. Dane Cooney is one of the smartest police officers I ever met. You know he's an electrician. He had all these side businesses, building houses and stuff. He's a mechanical genius and he was very good at interviewing, interrogation, but a lot of common sense. So I I learned a lot from him and now when I took over detectives then I did put in a training.
Speaker 2:There was a training program okay yeah, yeah so when I got there, there were certain schools everybody was going to go to. In fact, we started looking at it as if I knew, um, we would pick detectives six months before we moved him in and we'd start putting him into uh classes okay, so, okay.
Speaker 1:So they were getting prepped. Uh, on the way up right, yeah, yeah okay, yeah, and in for people listening. Detective work is a little different everywhere. Some places detective is a parallel to an officer street officer. Where I'm at, it's a promotion, so you actually have to take a civil service test to try to get up there.
Speaker 1:Now, what I don't like about where I'm at is you don't have a choice, Like if you go to promote, you have to become a detective. There's no option to be like a street corporal. Like you know, you'll have some street corporals out there. Yeah, and I like the option. You want to talk about producing lazy detectives. Nothing will produce a lazy worker in policing than putting them somewhere they didn't want to be in to begin with.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I don't like forced tracks. That's a. So if you're a police department out there and you have forced tracks, like that is one of the downfalls of having one is well, you're not going to get the same production out of that person that you would if they got, you know, some other position that really met their, you know, love tank, whatever you want to call it. I think that being forced to do desk duty, that's man Cause I I, even though I was a detective, I was in the field all the time, like I was constantly working with the property crimes teams and stuff like that and going out and doing buybacks and things like that, trying to find stolen equipment. You know things of that nature. So, yeah, but um, okay, so you, so did you implement that training program as the lieutenant over detectives?
Speaker 1:yeah is that how that worked? Okay, excellent.
Speaker 2:How was that received, because it sounds like it was the first of its kind for your department yeah, I mean, you know, it was done a little bit as we got, as I was in it, and then Dane then became lieutenant, so he started doing some of it and I think I just kicked it up to another notch when I got in.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:You know we were much more proactive, and by us it's not a promotion.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's a lateral move.
Speaker 2:Which I actually think is better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, I mean, do they have to do that to become? What's the next rank for y'all? Is it sergeant?
Speaker 2:Sergeant.
Speaker 1:Okay, so do they have to be a detective to become a sergeant?
Speaker 2:No, but I will tell you this. The majority of people become sergeants were detectives. The majority of guys that became detectives were FTOs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, You're more well-rounded.
Speaker 2:Well, you know to be an FTO. When I got on, I mean I remember my first FTO told me he goes. You know I hate doing this, but it's my turn. I got to do it. They didn't have any training, but within 10 years we started sending people to FTO school and it was all voluntary. So what you got there? You know people go. Yeah well, it's proven that if you're an FTO you got a better chance of becoming a sergeant. No, no, no, no, that's not it. It's the personality of the people who become FTOs. This is something they put in for. You know they want to go to these schools. So you're looking at people with high initiative.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, I agree, not so many lazy guys wanted to work for me in detectives. I'll tell you that I I find the same thing as a sergeant in patrol because I in in a world where proactive police work is, is fading very quickly. Um, my team is proactive, but I'm out there with them and you know, helping, not micromanaging. I I don't want people to think about their micro and my guys, but I've got their back and I'm teaching them ways, the backbone of policing. And when they set a bad tone it just reverberates across everybody that they're in contact with and that can create a crappy police environment when you're working.
Speaker 1:But when you have the sergeant that is educated, knows, knows how to read, like you, it sounds like he knew how to read, you knew how to read each one of his people. That makes such a big difference having an involved sergeant. And when you look at a lazy detective, the first thing I look at is I'm like I'm not looking at that detective, I'm looking at the sergeant. What? Why are you not getting and what are you not getting out of your guy and why? And so I really start to push back. You know, that's why they would never want me as a sergeant over general assignment Because I'd be holding their feet to the fire.
Speaker 1:I'm like look, you've got leads here. Either you weren't trained properly and you didn't know how to see these leads, or you're lazy. Which one is it? And if it's the latter, well, now we've got problems, and that's huge in police work these days and, like you said, back in the day it wasn't looked as corrupt and then, all of a sudden, it is. And then today, like you can't ignore leads, technology is not going to allow you to do that. It's going to show you all of your flaws. Ai is crazy right now and I'm not sure if you've kept up with some of the latest things they got, but it can look at your case and be like there's a lead, there's a lead, there's a lead, there's a lead.
Speaker 2:Wow, no yeah, I've worked with it like that. And then it can use it on the private sector here for marketing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then it will say not only here's your leads, this detective, this detective and this detective worked similar MOs and may be associated. Here's those case numbers and those detectives. So I know, right, imagine you. Even for me that would have taken me weeks, if not months, to figure out. And then if you got lazy, if the other detectives that are working that cases are lazy or just don't give a shit, you're never going to know. You're never going to know your cases were associated. But these programs, like I said, they're really holding the next level. Shit you're never gonna know. You're never gonna know your cases were associated. But this, these programs, like I said, they're, they're really holding, uh, the next level.
Speaker 1:I think patrol officers, their, their feet are to the fire all the time and I think that's just been historic. But now these next levels, where people go to hide, so to speak, the, the lazy ones, are they, I, I say they go to hide. Um, it's, it's calling them out, and rightfully so, because that's somebody else, that's a citizen's case that you're just, you become callous to, and all that stuff to this one guy who is a huge influence, and I just see good leadership the whole way and I love highlighting. This is exactly what I'm talking about. This is why sergeants matter. Look what you just influenced one of the biggest names in law enforcement, jim Glennon, and it was because of one dude that got it started. That's the catalyst. It's because of a supervisor or a trainer, whatever you want to call it. So I'm sorry, I'll get off my soapbox, sir.
Speaker 2:No, no, I agree with it, yeah.
Speaker 1:So All right, so you you go through now when you were going through Reed School and some of the other interrogation schools. I want to give people an idea If this is something you ever want to do and is detective work.
Speaker 2:How long were these schools and how hard were they? You know well Reed. And then there's another one, wicklander and Zalowski that's out of Chicago, which kind of used the same. Now they'd probably get mad at me for saying this, but they used pretty much the same system, which is based off the Reed system, I think, and I love Reed. I wrote an article a couple of years ago defending them because somebody ripped them.
Speaker 2:You can go to one day, a two day, three day or five day school, and I always go to five. I mean, you know, go to five. I mean I probably went to five different types of Reed schools. At some point I also became a hostage negotiator, which what they all have in common is, and we have classes that highlight this. What people have to understand from the outset is this a human behavior business. You know, the only reason we exist is because of other people's behavior, and so we have to become human behavior. Experts Doesn't mean you have to have a psychology degree. I was a bartender all through college sophomore, junior, senior year in college and I always tell people I learned more about human psychology working behind that bar than I did in four years of sitting in classrooms and talking about that's so funny.
Speaker 1:You say that. I literally just put a thing out. I think I even said it on LinkedIn. I said one of the biggest hiring problems that we have in policing is we do all these psychological evaluations, mental health, physical examinations, all this stuff. We have nothing to determine the social skills capabilities of the people we're bringing in and that, to me, is one of the best things that we could have. I would rather have and you said it. I said I would rather have a bartender than I would a kid that has a two or four-year degree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wrote an article last year and we actually re-ran it a few months later because we had so many hits and so many emails that we ran follow-up where we had all the emails and my I think the title of it. It's on caliber presscom. It's something like um, should we rethink college requirements? And I have a master's degree. I have a master's degree, but my argument is college as an indicator if you're going to be a good cop is ridiculous. It's stupid. I know guys with PhDs who are morons.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how many lawyers have you met working for the district attorney's office that don't know how to get in out of the rain? I mean, right, I mean it's true. I mean some of my best friends are lawyers and they're brilliant. But my god, it's just because you know. You know, I mean it's a cliche, but book smart or street smart yeah and I put in there.
Speaker 2:I mean, we have departments that are hiring people who have never had a job before but they have a four-year degree in, you know, gender studies or some shit. Right, um, psychology, psychology to me is a worthless bachelor's degree. It is sociology completely worthless bachelor's degree. How criminal justice is almost a completely worse worthless bachelor's degree. And what I mean by that is how can, how can you take any of what you learn in that and immediately apply it to a job? You can't. I do believe that a criminal justice background of those three it's better to have that, because at least you start to understand what the realities of the law are. But so I put in the article realities of the law. But, um, so I put in the article. So you got departments that were hiring people because they have a degree in sociology but have never had a job before.
Speaker 2:But somebody who, immediately out of college, went to marines for six years and worked, you know, flew a helicopter and did all this other stuff. When you know from the air force, all this different stuff you're doing, you're not just walking around. You know saluting at planes. You, you're learning skill sets. You know I might one of my he's. He's like an adopted son of ours who's a nephew that we we took in. He's in, he's in the navy and he's in the ordinance. Now he's teaching ordinance on aircraft carriers. Um, we're going to turn these guys down because they didn't go to college it? It doesn't make any sense to me. So which we and I agree with you we need to.
Speaker 2:We need to, if we're going to use a point system, give people points for how many freaking jobs they had yeah I mean I, I when I was in college and and this is back in the late 70s there wasn't one person I didn't know, one person who was not working their way through college, not one. The day I showed up on my campus I played football for a Division III school. The day I showed up they had two jobs for me. I had two jobs. When I showed up in the summer I worked two to three jobs in the summers. So you know I learned a ton doing that. All my kids, I made all of them get jobs in high school and I had one son who was a three-sport athlete and I said you're still getting a job yeah and he was a straight-A student too.
Speaker 2:Now he's a 40-year-old who's doing exceptionally well and we argue about politics a lot. But he has said to me and he's making a boatload of money In fact I have a couple of sons making a boatload of money and they've asked me especially my oldest one, sean if you had enough money to send us through college, would you have given us 100%? Because we gave him about 60% and I said no and he goes. You know I'm going to have that problem. I'm not going to be able to look at my kids and say I can't pay for your college, you know. But you know I'm going to have that problem. I I'm not going to be able to look at my kids and say I can't pay for your college, you know.
Speaker 2:But you know I got a nine year. I got two nine-year-old granddaughters who are already openly talking about wanting to babysit to earn money at nine years old and I'm like, whenever they can do that, let them do that. They have to start making money on their own. They have to show initiative, no matter how much money you have.
Speaker 2:You know they've got it. They need shitty bosses like my. My, my second oldest son, worked more than anybody else. You know he was delivering pizzas on his bike for crying out loud and he goes. Now he's a boss of a big company and he goes. I learned more from shitty bosses when I was 15 years old than I did get my sociology degree in college, you know.
Speaker 1:I put out the argument because I'm like you. I've got my. I got a dual master's in criminology and criminal justice, and the question it comes up all the time Cops need to have mandatory degrees. I'm like for what. I would rather they put four years into Brazilian jujitsu.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:No, I try to tell people I'm like the the cop that knows how to use the most amount of force is the one that uses the least. Because they have the confidence in their training, they don't hesitate. Hesitation is what gets us hurt. Hesitation is what gets bad guys hurt. So I lean into. Listen to me as a person who got the degrees and is in the streets and I'm telling you some of the best cops I know have a high school diploma. Some of the worst ones and biggest idiots I've ran across have degrees and claim to be great test takers. They don't translate, they just don't.
Speaker 1:College will give you this. It will give you perspective and opportunity. That's the two things it's good for is give you a little bit of perspective, but it definitely provides you opportunity, because when you apply for something internally in the department, you typically are given more points above the person that doesn't have the piece of paper. And that's one of the main reasons I joined the military was I didn't have college paid for, I had to earn it. Military was I. I didn't have college paid for, I had to earn it. So the easiest way to earn it for me and and still advance my career, I feel like joining the military actually gave me, you know, eight years of experience and crammed into four Um now I ended up staying on in the reserves. But I did four years active duty when I first started but, man, I went in at to become a cop. So now I've got, you know, three and a half or more years of law enforcement training because I was an MP. I got my degree for free and, you know, you got that OJT and then you get out and you've got an honorable discharge and, holy cow, you've got a resume.
Speaker 1:I try to tell people, man, it's a, it's like a cheat code almost. But I grew up in Flint, which Michigan, so it wasn't a whole lot of ways to escape. Military was one of those. So that's what I did. But it's awesome to hear somebody with your experience kind of saying what I've been trying to say. You know, and it has a little bit of weight cause I'm still out there and been doing it for 18 years, but you've got double what I've got and well-respected caliber press and all that stuff. So just to hear you say the same things that we've been pushing out on the show, like really I hope that hits some people to realize like, look, the degree is. There's so many other. I'd rather you be a barista at Starbucksbucks that has been practicing you know some boxing or muay thai or whatever.
Speaker 2:yeah, you know how to deal with people, yeah yeah, I wrote an article last, uh, last year, another one that said should we keep teach cops how to fight? Because I said we don't, we teach them how to control and we don't even really do that. You know, I was in martial arts for 15, 16 years until I, you know, just got, you know, older and you know shoulders were going and stuff. But, like you said, when we talk about some of our classes, if you're competent, then you'll be confident. If you're confident you'll be able to ward off an undue amount of you know, you know stress, because if you have too much stress, if you have too much stress, as we all know, you won't be able to make good decisions. But you know.
Speaker 2:So I went five, six days a week and I was listen, I was never that good, you know, and they give you a black belt just for hanging around long enough. But you know, I worked out with, I worked out with, uh, one guy who was in one of the original ufcs. He fought hoist gracie oh yeah, yeah, who was it?
Speaker 2:keith hackney?
Speaker 1:yeah, I don't keep, yeah, I don't know, him personally.
Speaker 2:I know the name, yeah, yeah if you look him up, you can still find keith the giant killer. He knocked out a guy that was six foot eight, 618 pounds sumo wrestler yep the elbows.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that fight.
Speaker 2:He originally hit him with a tiger strike. I would, I would spar with keith. Now when I when I mean spar, I stood in front of him while he did not kill me, you know, I mean so I was never that good, but I was good enough, like I'm in my mid 40s and I'm squaring off. You know, when I got now all this experience and I square off with somebody who's 19, 20 years old, who's much faster, I am at that point but I could avoid getting kicked because I understood what a movement was. I mean, if you're going to do a, you know, if you're going to do a spinning back kick, you have to move the one foot this way first. So if I saw that foot move, I just instinctively move in and block it. And again, I was never that good. But my point is you need to go three, four or five days a week to develop that type of procedural muscle memory. Right In law enforcement, we don't do anything like that.
Speaker 2:And you know when, when, like you mentioned Michael Brown before, when Michael Brown hit in 2014, and I'm old enough, I was on when Rodney King happened and and then you know the big one, which is George Floyd, in 2020. The whole world I mean the whole world exploded over this. You know that that knee on his neck for nine minutes changed the entire world, not just law enforcement, not just the United States. It changed the whole world and it opened the door to for people just to spew that had no, no, no roots in reality and I had family members who, after George Floyd, I'd be getting arguments with them.
Speaker 2:You know, I was down in Texas doing a thing and I had doing a class and some guy with a PhD got up and he started arguing with about systemic racism. And I go and I looked at him. I go, what is systemic racism? He said, are you in this? And everybody in the room was uncomfortable and he was. He was a black guy and I teach implicit bias, I, but we teach it very, very different than everybody else does not the 21st century policing version, I'm sure no, no it's, it's like hey it first off the d.
Speaker 2:And again I want to segue off. But the doj doj after um, after, uh, michael brown and fergus I had taught for them and they flew me down to Mobile, alabama, because they wanted me to put together an implicit bias class. And when they called me about it I said, well, I've been talking about implicit bias since I started teaching communication and interviewing and interrogation back in the early 90s. So I'm sitting there with 36 attorney generals from around the United States and I just looked at them all and I said who in here has implicit bias? And nobody raised their hand and I said you're all liars. And I said y'all have it. So I want to know this. And I had a PowerPoint ready to go, hour long PowerPoint. They asked me to have hour long PowerPoint, they asked me to have, and I said is implicit bias just a PC way to say everybody's racist? And then I said and if that's where we're really going here, does anybody besides straight white males need to attend this course? Is everybody else free? Nobody else is. They didn't even know how to answer is. They didn't even know how to answer me. They didn't even know how to answer me.
Speaker 2:So this nonsense that took hold. Like you know, we shoot too many people. Like the average in a 2019 survey, the average person in the United States thinks that somewhere in the area of 78% of the people we shoot are black. Well, that's not even close to true. It's in the mid-20s percent, right? And then the argument is and I don't want to get off on this racism thing, believe me, I know racism exists, but if you're going to start this nonsense that there's systemic racism everywhere in law enforcement, first off, it's not true. And two, you're avoiding the real problems that are in law enforcement.
Speaker 2:So this guy said to me he said are you denying there's systemic racism in law enforcement? I say no. What I'm asking you to do is define what systemic racism is and it's. Is it different than institutional racism? Well, obviously he couldn't do either one of those things. And he said well, you know it's, it's, it's, it's really, it's unseen in the fabric of the fibers of all of the criminal justice system.
Speaker 2:And I said which criminal justice system? Now, this is the guy who's got a master's degree and he's. He was actually a chief of police from a Midwest town. And I said to him I said which criminal justice system? He goes United States criminal justice system. I said there's no such thing, he goes. Well, of course there is. I said wait a minute, how many counties are there in the United States? He goes. I don't know. I go, there's about 3,200. That's 3,200 different ones. Right there you got 50 states, you got townships, you got individual police departments, that's about 18,400 to 600, right, you got the federal government with all different districts and circuits all over the United States. Are you telling me they're all the same? And then he said well, you know, law enforcement started from slave patrols. I go, it absolutely did not.
Speaker 1:So, robert Peel, I mean, you could go back farther, sir.
Speaker 2:Come on, it's the most basic stuff. I mean, it started in Boston and Boston and New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, you know, or Philadelphia. They're all the ones that started the first 24 hour police. You know it's not, it has nothing to do with slave patrol. But see, this nonsense catches on.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so my argument is listen, we have some serious shit, really some serious shit problems in law enforcement. But if we're putting all our focus on a problem that doesn't actually exist and he says wait a minute, how many people get shot and killed by the police every year? And I, when I knew the numbers, and so I told him, I said it's right around, right around a thousand. I said what percentage do?
Speaker 1:you think are black he goes, well, minimum 50.
Speaker 2:I said, no, it's like mid-20s. He goes, yeah, but we're only black's, only 14 of the population. I said so you think if 25 of the people that are shot are black and the population is only 14, then that proves systemic racism, because there's no other reason for it. I said what percentage of the people we shoot are male? And he goes what difference does that make? I said, well, what percentage of the population is male? Because I don't know? I go it's about 49 and a half percent. It's what percentage of the people we shoot are male? Because I don't know. I said it's 97 percent. So if you think we hate black people, we absolutely abhor men, because almost everybody we shoot is a male.
Speaker 2:And he's just staring at me like duh duh. I said listen, we have systemic problems, if you really want to look at problems, and I'll tell you what those two problems are. One is leadership and two is training. Best case scenario a third of our leaders are effective leaders, A third completely suck and a third are, you know, neutral. Nobody trains the right way. I own a private company. I told them and I said if I owned a police department and I had competition from another police department, do you think I'd run my police department the way we're running them now? And he goes what do you mean? I said look, prove to me. So I play this little experiment. In all my leadership games I walk up to a chief and I say were you a successful agency last year? All right, so let's say I'm not going to name your agency. I know it well, you know. So I'll ask you, eric, was your police agency good size police agency? Was it a successful police agency last year?
Speaker 1:I can only tell you about my little fishbowl, but I think, yes, I think it was successful.
Speaker 2:Okay, you think yes, yeah, prove it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all I can tell you is lowered violent crime. That's my measure for personal achievement in the career field.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you, your little unit, lowered violent crime within your city yes your unit did yes okay, prove that you did that can't, can't can't, and at the beginning of the year did you sit down with your people and go here's violent crime. Our goal is to get it here and this is the process to get it down here. You did, but you got really good cops who are doing proactive work and you and I know they made an impact right, but you can't prove it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't.
Speaker 2:No. If you ask Lisa Gitchell, who was the president of Galbraith Press, were you successful last year, she said yes. And if you said prove it, how would she prove it?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:She'd say well, we made this much money, we were able to pay all these, everybody got insurance. We were able to have commission on our you know, all our instructors got this. We blah, blah, blah. We did all that kind of stuff and we did it because we have great products, right, right. So what is really the goal of government? And that's coming out right now, without getting political, it's coming out right now with you know the whole.
Speaker 2:You can't you can't so here's the question are you chasing success in government or are you just avoiding failure? And I can give you, I guarantee you you're avoiding failure. I'm not saying like you, you aren't you. You are pushing your people, but you know damn well, yeah, you work with sergeants who are just like it's just nobody's on our ass, just just yeah yeah, right, let him show up to work if we, if I have an instructor I just I just talked to an instructor today we're gonna hire.
Speaker 2:I got about 18 instructors and I told them we send you out there. If you don't get excellence over 90 percent excellence your first two or three times out, you're done. And I said it nicer and I just said it yeah right, because if I send him to Colorado and there's five States in Colorado and let's say his name is Johnson, people aren't going to. If he sucks, people aren't going to go, johnson sucks, they're going to say caliber press sucks.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I so I can't afford that.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Right, so I'm going to fire, I'll let them go. If I have an accountant who can't do her numbers, she's gone In law enforcement and I'm not. I'm not suggesting we have mass firings in law enforcement, but there's no fear you're going to lose your job in law enforcement. I mean, think about it, You've been on, you're you're. You're a supervisor, right? You've been on more than 10 years. Right. Do you ever call a guy in after 10 years and go okay, listen, we've been talking about this, you suck.
Speaker 1:You got to go. I've told them they suck, but I can't.
Speaker 2:I have no power to fire them.
Speaker 1:I can't fire them. No, no, I absolutely tell them they suck.
Speaker 2:I'm like you're hot garbage. What do you want to do? Put me on a performance improvement plan. Yeah, how hard is it for you to actually dump a lousy employee? It's massively difficult.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm service service, so it's hard.
Speaker 2:You're a big town near another big town.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Are you ever afraid that other big towns police department's just going to come over and take your police department? No, because there's ordinances and there's laws that say it cannot happen. If somebody lives in your town and is not satisfied with your police department service, the only thing they can do is move out of your town. If I go to Walmart don't like Walmart, I won't go over the Target down the street. So when you look at law enforcement, it's a bureaucratic nightmare to make any changes. But the areas we need changes. First off, we need to cultivate leaders. While they're not leaders, we need to put programs together, people that work for you. Eric should evaluate you.
Speaker 1:Yes, 360 evals. I say it all the time yes, 100%, 100% right and we have to look at.
Speaker 2:Training is something more than check the box. Let me ask you, and without using your agency, your big agency, how many times a year are you mandated to go on the range? Um twice a year twice a year, yeah, so what's the only real reason you're going to the range?
Speaker 1:um. Um, well, you get, we get. Uh, we get monthly ammunition allowance, so every month I can go shoot um a hundred rounds.
Speaker 2:Great, so you have that policy right. What percentage of your officers take advantage of monthly shooting?
Speaker 1:Oh, not a lot. I would, I probably guess, 30%. That'd be high balling, so yeah.
Speaker 2:But they're on their own shooting right.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So there's no, there's no real practical skills every month on how to win a gun fight.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:So twice a year you go down and your only goal is to prove that you know how to pull a gun out of your holster without shooting yourself in the foot.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Point it at a paper target that they're just waiting to get shot. Yep, decock that weapon, put it back in your holster without shooting yourself or somebody else on the range. Yep, how many people get fired every year for not qualifying?
Speaker 1:None.
Speaker 2:None Right.
Speaker 1:Now they figure out a way to limp them through.
Speaker 2:Of course. Now let me bring you to this how many times a year are you mandated to do some type of control or defensive tactic? Strength.
Speaker 1:Once a year for two hours, maybe Two hours.
Speaker 2:So once a year you go down and some guy who's still wearing his eighth grade PE t-shirt is standing in front of the group right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then he reads, probably policy for the first half hour and then he goes all right, get your partner. All right, all right, everybody, we're going to do straight arm bar takedown. So remember, grab the wrist, turn it over, get the elbow bump. I do 20 of those and you're like bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, done, we're done. You don't know how many I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the most important thing is that what you do is, when you leave, you check the box that said you went there. So in case you get sued, they go no, no. Once a year he has to do 15 knee strikes.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Any procedural memory being learned.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Multiple memory no.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:No, and then when do cops? And then much, how much training do you do on how to deal with the sudden onset of acute stress and a high, high event? You know high pressure, you're talking like crisis intervention training stuff no, I'm talking about you being able to deal in a fight. What happens to your brain with the science of human performance? Oh that under stress, your heart rate goes from seven 70 beats a minute you get that with that 40 hour block that you're required once a year yeah, once a year you get that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So now we're hiring work. Now we're hiring kids who were born in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, who grew up in an era, in an era where we told young boys don't be aggressive, don't fight with anybody, don't say bad words, we're not going to have you. Let you have a squirt gun. No one one's allowed to use foul language. Teachers have to, you know, kiss your ass and give you a B, even though you deserve a C.
Speaker 2:And then you come into law enforcement. You got some guy calling you a motherfucker at two o'clock in the morning while they're drunk, you know and spraying in your face as they're calling you an asshole and your mother sucks this. Blah, blah, blah, blah, asshole, and your mother sucks this. And then they're experienced in a stress level they've never even knew existed. And then they overreact and then we throw them under the bus, say, oh my God, we're aghast at that behavior because that's not consistent with our values and training. And that's a lie, because it's perfectly consistent with your values and training, because you don't value training at all. You got half-assed leaders who don't know the people that work for them, avoid conflict with their bad employees, and we don't train them the right way, and then we expect everything to work out.
Speaker 1:I agree, sir, I mean you.
Speaker 2:I went on a rant there, sorry.
Speaker 1:It's like I'm just staring at myself, because these are the same points that I try. I was an Academy instructor for three years. That's why I promoted. I just got frustrated. I love being an instructor. Um, I'm, uh, I say I'll be a lifelong purple belt in jujitsu. I just don't have the time that it requires to stay consistent enough to get a black belt. But I, I attribute. You know I've done judo training, I've done boxing, been doing all that stuff since I was a teenager and put more. I try to tell people I put more emphasis on doing that. It can't be block style training. It's got to be. And I will say one of the things that I love about my department is our.
Speaker 1:Our academy you know the eight months or seven months that it takes to get through is a progressive style academy, not block training. So when you first start, you're learning how to start. You're learning how to fight from the first day. You're getting your stance. You're doing you may learn how to make a fist properly. I mean you do got to dumb it down. I call it. You know army proofing, so you got an army proof it. But you start from a standing fight and then by the end of the academy. You've got a ton of ton of reps where you've gone to the ground. You've learned how to, you know, do all these different things. But once that's over with training is on yourself, like it's up to you to go and get further training.
Speaker 1:I always recommend grappling for sure, whether it's catch, wrestling or jujitsu, whatever, because every a hundred percent of non-compliant arrests go to the ground. It doesn't matter what happens If they're not compliant. That arrest process is more than likely going to happen on the ground and you need to know what to do. And the old adage oh, I'm a cop, I should never go to the ground. Well, guess what? You shouldn't. You try to avoid it, but you need to know what you're doing when you get there and learning that grapple. So I was really pushing the grappling side of things and trying to ingrain in my guys like this is a perishable skill. You guys are you know shit hot by the end of this. You know and it's at a beginner level Like you're still in my world, you're still a white belt, you're just starting to get some concepts down. Um, you need to continue doing that. I think it should be mandatory blue belt and I think departments should pay for you to go to approve schools, and I would.
Speaker 1:I would rather you give me the thousand dollar incentive for passing the fitness test each year towards, you know, going to a school and learning how to grapple, versus me running this bullshit. You know, fitness test that a 400 pound man could pass? Yeah, I'm like what are we doing? We're checking a box, like you said, and, and that all goes into. Well, recruiting is really hard now, so we have to lower the standard. Are you kidding me? Of all the times you should be pickier is now because you're going to get the bottom of the barrel. You're going to let them through because your numbers are low and that's across the board. That ain't my department. I'm saying just in general, that's every department. And then we see these knuckleheads on you know the next viral video and you're like, how the hell did they hire this dude? He's the only one that applied.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah, no, yeah, I was, uh, I was over at an academy a couple weeks ago. Listen, I and I've I've taught all over the country over the last. I've been teaching nationally since 1997, I think In 1997, I've been teaching nationally. So I've been trying to figure out and not all 50 states, but about 47 of them, and a lot of them have been at state academies and police academies and over the last 10 years I'm hearing horror stories.
Speaker 2:Now this isn't true about everyone. You know, we actually have a class on how to teach rookie cops how to talk to people and a lot of communication classes. But I mean, I was just in an academy where and the rule in this academy is all males have to be shaved every day, no beards, no while they're in the academy. And this kid shows up 25 years old one day and the instructor, who was actually one of my instructors, works for us and used to work for me. She walks up to him and says hey, what happened here? How come you didn't shave? And he says well, my dad went to work early. And she says what does that have to do with you shaving? He goes well, my dad shaves me.
Speaker 2:I don't know how to shave Fired and I said you're out of your freaking mind. I said, come on, you're bullshitting me. And the other it was a friend of mine. We were having lunch with a bunch of these guys and one of them said no, that happened like two academy classes ago. They don't let them bring their cell phones in. Cell phones have to stay out in the car and several of them quit after a couple of days because they can't. They have too much anxiety if they're not near their cell phones.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mother's calling up state police academies and complaining that she can't get a hold of her kid during the middle of the day. My son has a weed allergy. What are you doing about that? My son cannot sleep with wool blankets. My daughter can't do this, and when they quit their parents, do it for them.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Hey, listen, I tell you. So I tell the story all over the place. And this happened in an upper Midwest area where a recruit this is one of these academies like we have here where different agencies send everybody to this one Academy for like you know, 16 weeks or something, and this one kid, who was hired by a sheriff's department, was in the class with a uh, an emotional service cat on his desk.
Speaker 1:And you can't do shit about that. One Cause, that's it.
Speaker 2:What he said ADA.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the sheriff said I, my lawyer said I can't fire him until he's out of the Academy and he refuses to get in a squad car, while the cat and the Academy didn't have anything in there. Because why would you think about this? That you can't have an emotional service animal with you while you're in the Academy?
Speaker 1:Yeah, unbelievable yeah, unbelievable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm making that up man, if I was an academy instructor now and I had to deal with this stuff that, like you, some of the stuff you said is worse than some of the things I've heard but I would lose my. I mean, part of the academy is to start that stress inoculation there, yeah, and that's where we need to have the most ability to just shit can. People and I feel like a lot of these academies have lost that, that power or that autonomy to be able to. You know, that's the beauty of having cops as instructors in there, they, we, we're human bullshit detectors. We can see, oh, this guy you said I may not be able to describe it or articulate it the best way, but I can tell you this guy's a hothead, or this guy you know doesn't, is going to get eaten alive out there. It doesn't have it. Let's cut the fat now, yeah, and don't let it get out there. We're now reliable and we're letting them get out there well.
Speaker 2:The problem, though, eric, is that now it's, it is right now starting to turn yes, yes, it's starting to turn. Yes in a lot, we got to admit, has been since again without getting into politics since the election. In fact, I just heard as I was driving here today that the military has had their best, uh, three months of recruiting than in the last 15 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so people want to be cops again. But my argument about because we have a really good class called recruitment and retention A couple of my guys teach it, do a really nice job but my argument is is is this pay cops a lot more money, but hold them to a higher level of accountability yep invest more money in training.
Speaker 2:So you know, if you want to have college, I believe the only thing you need from college is have them if at least two years of criminal justice, because at least then they have a foundation of understanding what the system is, but then pay them a lot more money but hold them to a higher level of an accountability standard. I know that they around chicago. They have dropped the standards to get people into the academy. You know 25 year olds who cannot bench press 75 percent of their weight. I'm in my 60s and I can bench press 75 percent of my weight. Um, they can't run a mile and a half at all, let alone within 12 minutes. So but if you make the job more attractive and I mean make it a good, solid profession where they're making good money and they have a step system, but also a system that first of all, I don't think in your agency what's the probation? How long is it?
Speaker 1:It's a year.
Speaker 2:A year out of the academy.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ours is two years. Okay, and I think that's what it should be. You need two years because anybody can hide for a year.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, two years is tough to hide. For two years it's tough to hide your stupidity, your inadequacy, your, your inability to handle people If you're there for two solid years. Ftos involved almost the whole two years, not ride with them, but a very strong FTO program which you pay these guys a lot. Can you tell me in your area what's starting pay right now for cops?
Speaker 1:Oh, I think it's in the 80s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's up by us. In Chicago it is too, but like I was just in Florida last week and starting pay down there is still in like 50s and low 60s. I know one the guy I was with who was a cop up here, said he has a friend of his who's a lieutenant down there and the lieutenant is only making $66,000.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why I left Michigan. The pay was ridiculous. I was like I could go be a Walmart manager and make this money and I had to get out Walmart manager and make this money and I had to get out of there and coming to where I came. Even now, the cost of living in Texas in general has jumped significantly because all the big companies from California left and they came to Texas and probably Florida and some of these other tax relief states, so to speak, and yeah, the cost of living is just consistently shot up. So even with my agency we just had a new contract and they're like we got to bump it up fast because we're going to lose everybody.
Speaker 2:And you have to do it. You know they tried something here in Aurora PD. When we're all in a panic Because Illinois, for the first time, is poaching cops, we've never done that before. But now we're all in a panic because Illinois, for the first time, is poaching cops yeah, we've never done that before.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But now we're poaching in Aurora PD, which is about 340 officers, and I talked to the whole agency early last year. So I was there six times to talk to the whole agency. Of course called legally justified, but was it avoidable? And I found out that that program didn't work, because if you're offering somebody from a neighboring town $20,000 to come over the other 335 officers are going. Well, wait a minute. What are you offering me to stay?
Speaker 1:You know, so that backfired? Yeah, I think poaching. I think poaching ultimately helps police departments, think poaching ultimately helps police departments. And what I mean by that is if you realize that your department is not meeting the standards of these other departments, now you've pitted them against each other in a good way and on behalf of the cops. So I don't mind poaching, but at the same time you have to have a reasonable plan in action so you're taking care of your people that are with you and have been loyal to you, and encouraging that loyalty to stay. So I don't mind poaching, but it has to be done properly.
Speaker 2:Well, and again, if the agency's in a state or at least in a region like you're in right Right, at least establish okay, starting pay is going to be 85 000 a year. You make it off probation. We're going to bump you up to 100 000, but this is how much you're going to train in a year. This is what we're going to expect out of you. Yeah, you know. Uh, no excuses on. You know. You know, whatever um fdo is involved for the whole two years. And here's the other thing you know, like you mentioned, there is nobody more important in the command structure than first line supervisors. Nobody's, nobody's more important. I mean, if your chief doesn't show up for a month, you don't even know it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:The deputy chief stopped showing up. You know you run out of toilet paper and napkins. You know, at some point, you know, commanders don't? We don't even know what commanders do you know. But you know, once you get down to the ranks of corporal and sergeants, there's nobody more important because they deal directly with the people who are, you know, completing the mission.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And you know Eisenhower said in 1946 um talk about an interesting cat man. I've read like three biographies of eisenhower and pat um bradley you know uh but eisenhower said 1946 nobody's more important than sergeants.
Speaker 2:that's why they won world war ii. He said, and and the best serge are the ones who get to know each and every one of his men because they were all men back then each and every one of his men as individuals. What are their strengths, what are their weaknesses? Know them as human beings, not as cogs in a wheel. He said it in 1946, man, this is 2025.
Speaker 2:Let's kick it up a little bit and then hold first in line the supervisors accountable and then the commanders accountable. You know, at the beginning of the year, what do you expect out of your unit, what are you going to do, what do you need? And then fight for your guys, for crying out loud, get the equipment. But you know, the same politicians who complain that, oh, the police department made this mistake are the same ones who won't give them enough money to train properly. So in an agency your size, training obviously should be a regular, ongoing thing. But police officers should be on the range once a month, but not just to fire 35 rounds at a target. You know how do you win a gunfight.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What's going to happen to you in a gunfight when you watch all the videos that I watch and I watch videos every single day- me too how many police officers stand still during gunfights or break cover during gunfights?
Speaker 2:or backpedal or back, but the thing is, what they do is they're doing, and this isn't to condemn them. There's a great quote from the first Street Survival book, which which was in a crisis, you instinctively revert to the way you train. Now think about how we train a range. You get in a position, you stand there, take your jacket off first, stretch a little bit, stand in one spot, wait for your target to face, you fire, you bump up right. You do very little training shooting behind objects or running from one object to another, or working with two or three other police officers in a gunfight. We don't do anything like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I will say I want to give our guys credit. I think this year, or maybe it was last year towards the end, they got that implemented.
Speaker 2:That's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they finally got Shooting movement, shooting movement and using cover and concealment. So that's the part of the training. And the other thing when I do want to give when I work Credit Is the stuff is available. It's available. It's just not mandatory. Yeah, so it's always there. We always have very cool training Available for you to do. It's just a matter so it's always there. We always have very cool training available for you to do. It's just a matter of one.
Speaker 1:Your supervisor's got to let you go to go do it. And if you're in patrol and you guys are short sergeant's probably not going to let you go. That's part of the. That's the battle. You can have all this great training but if you can't get to it, well, what the hell I'm me can't get to it? Well, what the hell I'm me? I tell my guys look, the calls are going to be there regardless. They're going to. It doesn't matter. So unless I have a mandatory minimum that I need to have in the field which I, where I'm currently at, I don't, I'm gonna let you go.
Speaker 1:You, you got training, you want to go? Do you're only helping the department in the long run. We can't be so short-sighted to worry about the cause of this weekend, we will handle it. If we're putting ourselves in an unsafe position, we just won't go into that position, just won't be there, uh and and the department's going to have to adjust accordingly. But if I let four of my teammates go to training, like, that's an investment and that's that's the way that I think it should be as a supervisor. So when you talk about the shooting and movement and stuff like that, there's a lot of cool training that's out there. Is your department even aware that it exists?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, again it comes down to leadership.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but like you said, I'm invested in this career. No-transcript videos we see of cops. You can't film me, you can't film here, you can't take pictures. How are we? It's 2025, how the fuck is that still a problem?
Speaker 2:yeah, no, how is that?
Speaker 1:still an issue. And you, you get these cops. They just put their foot in their mouths. They get their city sued, rightfully so. And then now we got to have the debate of all right, it's 2025. Did that cop deserve to be fired for that? I mean, you are technically oppressing somebody's constitutional rights. So I don't have a lot of sympathy, and I don't talking about the money. When you pay your cops and you pay them well, I think you have more of an argument of cops are going to hold bad cops accountable because they don't want you ruining the good thing that they have going for them. They don't want you to bring a black eye to that department. They don't want you to ruin. You know well, we just paid you all this money and we got you all this training, yet you're still doing this. No other cops are going to be more likely to hold them accountable.
Speaker 1:And you look back throughout history of the corrupt departments that have. You know New Orleans was one of the. You know had one of the hugest corruption cases that's ever been published. And when you talk about that, look at what they were going through. They weren't getting paid shit, they weren't. They didn't have the the people they didn't, they didn't get anything and, lo and behold, it ends up turning into what it turned. They're more susceptible to that. But you look at the departments that get paid well, they get trained well, they like where I'm at, I, I shit. We fire and charge cops. Every year that I've been there, well, every year that I've been there, wow, every year that I've been there for the last 14 years, at least one cop has either been charged, fired or arrested. Yeah, and I'm not saying that as that's not a bragging point, but that goes to my point that when you do it right, good cops are going to hold the bad ones accountable immediately, like it should be done.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Then you have to ask yourself are they bad cops or are they poorly trained?
Speaker 1:yes, and, and I I don't mean it as that they're bad but yeah now the ones that have been charged yeah, some of them they outright just committed crimes and yeah, bye, um. But other ones, yeah, I. I think some of it may come down to training.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'll tell you this as an owner of a private company, which I never wanted to do. I mean, believe me, I never wanted to do this. I remember getting in the 80s something called survival selections from Caliber Press and they had a lot of product back then. It was all male stuff and in the back it had like the 24 times a year they were teaching the street survival program. Never my wildest dreams that I think I would own their company, you know, and I never even thought about owning a company.
Speaker 2:It was you know my wife, who started working with caliber full-time out of our house when I was an instructor, and then she wound up hiring my sister and when I was right, when I get ready to retire, through a fluke we had a chance to buy Caliber and they talked me into it and we expanded from one course to 25 courses. The reason I'm telling you that is all we. The reason I'm telling you that is all we. Geez, we have 15 full-time employees. I have 18 instructors, something like that Of the 15 full-time employees.
Speaker 2:I'm related to 11 of them. Oh shit, oh, it's terrible. Oh yeah, my sister-in-law, my sister, um, I have a bunch of nieces. My daughter, my wife, um, my, my nephew's wife, it's just, it's just nuts. My brother's sister oh my god help me. I love it, but the thing the point I'm trying to make is all we do is talk about this and we have to think ahead right right, we have to look ahead.
Speaker 2:We have, we have to peek around the corner and what's coming, and we've been very good at predicting what's going to happen, right. So we develop courses. I have 18 instructors. These guys I mean of the 18, I mean like five of them are chiefs. Everybody's got like minimum 20 years experience. Almost all went to college. More than half have master's degrees. I mean one of them worked on like 800 homicides. You should get Steve on. Steve Johnson. He's the chief of police down at Fairview Heights. They actually did a TV movie about this guy.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, one of his cases. But and we start putting things together like recruitment and retention. We put that together right after George Floyd. We dusted off implicit bias and de-escalation again. We have four courses for females. This is the mindset that should be also in law enforcement. We should see this stuff come out. We have a First Amendment class. We have two Fourth Amendment classes. You know, to deal with First Amendment auditors.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Right. And then we get calls go hey, do you guys get anything in First Amendment? Yeah, we had. For two years. We saw this coming. How come you guys didn't see it coming? Now we don't say that, we say, of course we do. Yeah, and we even know we've adapted. I'm in a room, it's called the green room and we have a green screen over here to my, my left, you're right, depending on how you mirrored this thing. But um, we, we, uh, record our classes, so we rent them out. You know so. You know so police officers are watching. Anyway, I'll tell you one more thing, and again, this isn't a cell caliber press, but we've been around 45 years. We've owned them for 13, 14, now 13. And the number one request we get is can I have that video?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2:And the other owners that I work for. I worked for three other owners. Before we bought it, I said no, no, no, no, don't give them out. Well, we decided no hell, we'll give it out. So we have now something called the vault.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And the vault for an agency. My size 75, and yours is well over About 2,000.
Speaker 1:How many About 2,000.?
Speaker 2:About 2,000, right For your entire agency to have. I mean your whole agency, whoever you gave, whoever you want to have, I mean your whole agency, whoever you gave, whoever you want to have it. You gave 2 000 emails to us. All right and again, I'm not trying to sell it, I'm just giving an example of how you, how you can train.
Speaker 2:We have 300 videos in there that are edited for roll call, ftos, stuff like that yeah it would cost your agency three thousand dollars a year, not per person yeah that's it for my agency 75 officers, it's like seven hundred dollars a year yeah so you, as a sergeant, every day could go into our catalog and go, and, and if something happens today, it's going to be in our vault next week yeah so I sit, I look at like an hour and a half video, I edit it down.
Speaker 2:Our shortest one is probably 30 seconds, Our longest is like 18 minutes, but most of them are three to seven minutes with captioning in there for training and all that. That is a way that's forward thinking. Now we forward think because of what we do. That's forward thinking. Now we forward think because of what we do. But you, as a Sergeant, if you sit with your guys every day for roll call, you can go to the catalog, kick it up and go. Let's talk about this. We got a lot of first amendment stuff. So if a guy gets in your face, fuck you. I can, I can, I can do this. What's the difference between, you know, first amendment rights and obstruction?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:What would you do in this case Like when we just put out was an officer in a gas station, where a guy actually pulled a gun out of his holster and shot himself in the head right there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was crazy, right yeah.
Speaker 2:That's already. That's already in our vault.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, but those are the things that good leaders and good trainers, because video is an opportunity to expose young officers to a myriad of possibilities.
Speaker 1:Right, it's the what if game, but now you get to see it.
Speaker 2:Right, you get to see it because we don't have the time for physical training in that.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:We get the mental rest we waste time where we could be training these guys yep, you know yeah, because how many roll calls you sit through, you know it's a 20 minute roll call, yeah, and the first 15 minutes is grab ass and bullshit and yeah, you can learn out of here yeah, not with mine now.
Speaker 1:There are days where we just don't have anything that we're going to do that day for roll call. But, like, like you said, we we hit the hot things that are. They're coming across. My guys have the benefit that I do this podcast stuff. So I am every day going through trying to find videos that I can make content on, that I can educate or give some sort of perspective. So, but that's just one part, that's just me and I'm not doing it to pat myself on the back. But that's why I started doing what I did, because I never got this going through. I had to learn all this shit the hard way. I don't want my guys to have to do that and I think that's my responsibility as a supervisor. So doing that and just like you said, I just quick question on that video where the dude shoots himself.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:How did he get? Did you? Did you find out? Because that was our question. How did he get the gun so quick? We were trying to. There's a one of my one of my instructors knows that agency and they're trying to find out what level holster they have. That's, it didn't seem like it had any level other than maybe one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because if, if that involved the, the, you know the button to press, and in a hood, the hood had to have already been down and a person had to know to hit that, I mean it was so fast, yeah, so fast it is.
Speaker 2:It is amazing, yeah, and I put in there. Look how fast somebody can move here yeah and then what? What if he pulled it and shot?
Speaker 1:another shot, the cop yeah how about another cop?
Speaker 2:yeah how would you feel if somebody pulled your gun out of your holster and shot your partner?
Speaker 1:right it. I mean, he's already going to have, yeah, some sort of post-traumatic stress, I'm going to imagine, even though you know it is on that person for doing those actions. But it's the again, it's the. What could I have done different? What could I? I mean the debrief. We debrief every call that we have. That's you know. That has some sort of weight to it, which is another important tool that a lot of sergeants don't utilize. We just had a pretty major domestic where somebody got arrested. Afterwards I would be pulling the team. Hey, before we all take off from this call, rank doesn't apply here Would we do good? What could we have done better?
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's rare though, You're at the top 5% of every serge surge in this country. If you're doing that Right.
Speaker 1:But that's my point is. It's something so simple and easy. What is your hurry? The calls are going to be there, they're not going away, especially the smaller agencies. You know, the amount of calls I have holding is the amount of calls they have in two months a year. Right, like the smaller agencies, those are the ones that are the most susceptible, the ones that get in the trouble the most, the ones that go the most viral because they don't have the training, they don't have the money to do this yet.
Speaker 2:But you know how chicago doesn't train? They, they train like shit oh really, oh yeah you think, you know, you guys are big, you guys are considered a big agency.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But you guys are guaranteed to top 10%. I mean I go to these other agencies, yeah, I mean I'm not going to name them all, but some of these big agencies do the absolute bare minimum of training.
Speaker 1:That's crazy, yeah, crazy. Again. You want to improve your department. That's between backing your, but don't give in to political pressure. I get it. If you're trying to back you know a shithead, don't, don't do that. But you know, like you see NYPD in their, their union, like I their union. We have a POA, we have an association, but we don't have a union. People think that that can protect us. They really have no power other than some negotiation on contracts. But then you get places like NYPD, where their union holds crazy political power and we get lumped into that. So they automatically assume when you're your, your chief's trying to back somebody, that the union's protecting that person and that's not the case. But then we've got places and I'm not trying to throw shade at nypd that it's the system they have. But I look at that and I'm like why do we put so much effort into this, into our union, like that? How much training does NYPD get? That's the largest police agency, right?
Speaker 2:36,000.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's the largest police agency. I would assume their training is on par, if not better, because they have how do you train 36,000 police officers? I don't know. It's nothing I can even fathom because I'm not a part of it.
Speaker 2:No, I think Chicago's got the second biggest and they're supposed to be about 13,000. But last I looked they were 1800 behind. In fact they were taking in retirements and resignations so quickly. The system was overloaded because it wasn't set up to do that.
Speaker 1:Really. Yeah, I mean it doesn't surprise me. Yeah, I wouldn't want to work there. But you know, you see LAPD, Chicago and that Everybody's. I mean where I'm at. We're about the same size as Baltimore as far as land coverage. They have 3,500 cops and we're the same size like population and everything we're behind. You know we're supposed to be at two and we're probably 300, if not more, behind on that. And I consider where I'm at. I love my agency. People are like it's rare in police work to brag about your agency. I brag about mine. I love it.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of things, a good part of mine is the next biggest agency next to you.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and we're always in competition with them. Yeah, right, right. So I'll throw shade at them any chance I get. Now, you don't want to go there, you don't want to go there, but yeah. So now I want to get into Caliber Press. I want to kind of change modes a little bit, because we're talking about training. Now, kind of give the history of Caliber Press, if you could, and then tell us what's happening today with it. So, officers and citizens because citizens should be fighting for stuff like this this is what you should be pushing your departments to do, is is find places like what you have. So I want to. I want to kind of know the history, how you guys got to where you're at and what you guys are putting out today.
Speaker 2:Well, the history. It's interesting because the history is from a book. A guy named Chuck Remsburg, who's still around, wrote a book with a guy named Denny Anderson back in the late, late 70s and I think it was published in 1980. And they used to work for the nat, it would be, chuck worked for the national inquirer at one point, uh, but then also motorola films, and so before and I saw these when I was in the academy, because before there were body cameras and where there were, you know, cameras everywhere, what would happen is motorola films used to um, uh, reenact with actors, certain police interactions, but it was all acting, you know. Anyways, chuck would interview these guys and he realized there was a book there. So he interviewed hundreds upon hundreds of police officers, never being a cop himself, and he put together a book called street survival, and the street survival book was considered to be like the Bible of law enforcement and it's still. A lot of it is relevant today Now. So what happened is he decided to start doing seminars based off the tactics in the book, but he wasn't a cop, so he started hiring cops to teach it and so that you know, it was really famous, the streets revival seminar was really, really famous.
Speaker 2:I got involved in 2001. I was teaching a course for Northwestern university and somebody from streets revival Galbraith saw me and said would you be interested in teaching street survival? They had just sold and some other things were going on. I said hell, yeah, that's like my goal. It was a two-day course, sometimes three-day course, so I started with them and I stopped teaching everywhere else because they were paying better. And then they met my wife, who went on a seminar with me. She's brilliant. She's a brilliant woman, and they liked her so much they asked her if she'd come on part-time and within six months she was the full-time operations manager, working out of our house. So she wound up hiring my sister to help her, and so the main office was in texas, owned by at this point now police one in in San Francisco, and then my wife and my sister, working up here in Chicago, uh, hired some other instructors. I became their lead instructor and then, right when I retired in 2009-10, we had a chance to buy it.
Speaker 2:But my wife my wife had an idea, and the idea was expanded beyond this. We only had three instructors. We expanded it from one class to about 25 different classes that we have now, and in 2018, I said I hired a guy named Dan Marco who is like a tactical genius who's written a bunch of books on the history of law enforcement. He's been on the ID channel and stuff like that so he and I rewrote the street survival book in 2018 and call it street survival too, and we kept the whole bunch from the, from the, from the original book, but we updated the hell out of it. But we updated the hell out of it and we've just been. We've been going from there. We had record a record breaking year in 2019. And we were all fat and happy and talking about hiring new instructors and then something called COVID hit Yep, and we went from about to hire new people to laying people off. You know, we actually literally got. We were the first ones to get the PPP loan in our area.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But then two months later and my my daughter works for us we were. We were going to go do online anyway. We're going to start renting programs. We had all these ideas, and so we started moving in that direction. And then George Floyd hit. And when George Floyd hit, we started getting a crap load of calls for de-escalation, implicit bias, leadership and all that stuff stuff we already had and so we started doing everything online for a while.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you something interesting, though we stand in front of roughly 25,000 to 30,000 people a year, and when COVID hit and everybody's on Zoom and all that stuff, we used WebEx. And I'm sitting around with everybody who works for Caliber, outside of the instructors None of them were cops. I'm sitting around with everybody who works for Caliber outside of the instructors None of them were cops. I'm the only cop. And the whole world was saying, oh, everything's going to change. You know, everybody's going to be remote working, right, nobody's going to go to in-person classes anymore, it's all going to be Zoom, and all of that is one up not being true yeah look at, look at the federal government saying everybody's got to come back to work.
Speaker 2:Right, private companies are saying you guys got to come back to work. Um, a lot of my people do work remotely, but it works better for them. But, but, but what happened is, by the end of 2020, probably the beginning of 2023, we were back up to our in-person numbers because cops want to get together with other cops.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The networking that happens on the breaks I often say are more important than what's going on in the room. Yep, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I agree.
Speaker 2:So we still do. We still do online live, but I mean, I've done online live with 200 people on it, but now you know, I did one last week only had 12 people yeah, people in it. But now you know, I did one last week only had 12 people in it, yeah, um. So it is interesting that we're working our way around this. We, we do. We fly guys in here to do their program in front of this green screen here, and my daughter does all the graphics because she has a degree in this stuff, and then we now so we rent programs. Uh, we do live online, live in person, and now we've had this vault for a little over a year. We've got about 180 agencies in it, but we haven't even launched it officially yet. We're launching it officially March 1st. It's up and running.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We just we wanted to get the kinks out of it, not move too fast.
Speaker 1:Going public.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, we had to build a website all the way beyond my pea brain, yep. I mean, you sent me the link for this and I got nervous.
Speaker 1:You figured it out, figured it out.
Speaker 2:So that's going to be subscription-based, and that's where we are.
Speaker 1:Can you divulge the prices or anything like that? Do you want people to know that yet? Are you waiting?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, actually off the top of my head I don't know. But like I said to you, like for the vault, an agency your size, I think it's over it's a thousand. Then you then Linda, who is also my sister-in-law, who runs, she's the VP of sales and also part owner. She just negotiates it with you. But if you're under a thousand we have a set price.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And I think that. So if it's under a thousand, if you're under a thousand, is it under a thousand? I honestly got, I can't remember. Okay, listen, we argued about the prices for two years. So we let two agencies use it for three months and one agency had 45 police officers and he came in and they said how much they liked it, gave us a couple of little suggestions after using for three months and I looked at him and I said how much do you think we should charge a year for this for somebody your side's agency? He says I don't know 10 000 and for his agency it's like 500. Wow, so we argued about this in-house. In fact, my sons who are in business said we should charge $5,000 to $10,000 an agency. But part of me is still no, I want to get this information out and there's no blueprint for what we're about to do, what we're not about to do, what we are doing. But most people who have taken it are already signing up for the second year.
Speaker 1:Okay we are doing, but you know we most people have taken it already, signing up for the second year. So okay, uh, because I mean, when you think about it, the having a set price for things under a thousand, um, most police agencies, what less than 20 cops or something like that, the average size uh, agency, maybe it's even less oh no, I could.
Speaker 2:I could tell you there's,000 local agencies. 48% of them have less than 10 cops.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember something like that. It's wild, it's a small amount.
Speaker 2:It's really wild.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think whenever we get into people like, why do cops waste time on such small potato things? Why are they? Why are they worried about your car being parked up on the curb, why are they worried about you doing five miles an hour over, and I say, well, if you think about it, you got all these agencies out there that are less than 10 cops. They signed up because they wanted to go out there, catch robberies, murders and you know all these cool things. And then they get this training and they get out there and it's crickets and they're like there's, there's nothing.
Speaker 1:And now they're just grasping to straws of all the things that they can do to get as much experience as they can.
Speaker 2:And you know, Caliber started instilled to this day our broader audience or small agencies, because if you're an agency of 10, 20, 30 people, you don't have the luxury of having full-time trainers who are doing nothing but research. That's all we do, I mean, every day I research. Hey, I got the prices here. One to 10 officers, and I'm literally about to walk out and start yelling at people here. I'm not making that up, I just looked at it. One to ten officers 295 a year, not per officer for the agency for the agency 11 to 50, it's 495.
Speaker 2:See, this is not the structure I wanted, by the way. 11 to 50, it's 495. 51 to 100 695 okay over 100, you call for pricing gotcha.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I mean that makes sense. That makes sense to me, um, and, and the thing is, people that are listening like one of the ideas that I I was going to do for this show is, um, one of the just like you said, you see these trends, you start to try to to get ahead of the curve and stuff. And one of the just like you said, you see these trends, you start to try to to get ahead of the curve and stuff. And one of the biggest things that I've been noticing is ego. Like I, I see ego as a major issue in policing. Right now. There's no ego classes out there.
Speaker 1:Well, at least I didn't think there was one of my buddies that I work with actually created an ego course because of the trends I was showing on the podcast. He was like this is a problem, so he created it and he actually got it out to one of our uh, academy classes already. Um, so he sent it to me. He's like here, take a look, tell me what you think I was like, dude, we could film that in like a little short series and just put it on our YouTube channel and be like hey, this officer. Like, we think this is a clear cut case of this is an ego problem. Well, we're not just going to bitch about the problem. Here's a solution. Go to our website, check this out and you can can do this, but if you want real training, you go to somebody like caliber pressing and get that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we do that. So that's why I think how we found you. I can't remember who found your thing, but we're on. We do this kind of the same thing you do.
Speaker 1:We're on, we're on.
Speaker 2:Instagram, youtube and LinkedIn and blah blah wherever, and somebody gave it to me. I said, oh yeah, let's repost it. It's fantastic. Let's repost it because we do stuff just like that and we we're not, you know, we're a private company, but I mean, um, I've had two of my my own instructors left and started doing their own companies and we recommend them and they recommend us because we don't bleed over too terribly much. But our main job is to get information out, including the public, so the public understands the reality versus the fantasy. They see, when you know, liam neeson, at 72 years old, is beating up 15 guys at it, you know right, don't get me wrong if that's a washington, I love the death.
Speaker 2:I watch all the equalizer movies over and over. They're fantastic. You know he's beating up 10 guys with machine guns, you know yeah, john wick, all that stuff yeah I mean, I'm a guy I love, love, that shit yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:It's mindless entertainment, that's what I like I don't have to think about it. I can look at it and go, okay, that's tactically sound. What John Wick's doing, that's a real thing. The way he's reloading, the way he's checking, press checking, all this stuff, that's legit training. I see the real training in it. But you're not going into a house of 100 people and coming out the only man standing that's just not realistic.
Speaker 2:Have you ever gone on YouTube and seen him actually train?
Speaker 1:Yeah, three-gun train and jujitsu and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know one of the guys, because the guys out in California who train the actors are either cops or military, or both. Yeah, cops or military or both.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the one guy who has been training him for years said he's not he. He's, without a doubt, the best actor with a gun shooting and reloading he goes. He's not just the best actor, he is one of the best in the United States. Yeah, he can beat, you know, ex Navy seals. That's how good he is and how hard he trains.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'm talking about his gun manipulation yeah it's absolutely amazing when you watch him watch yeah, and that's the fun part for guys like us that have just a taste of that training. You know, I've gone, you know military training and stuff like that. I am not a special forces person, I'm not a SWAT guy, I'm not tactical, but I have done some of the training and I can recognize it when I see it and I'm like dude, he's like legit. And then, like you said, you start seeing these videos where he's out, he's going from pistol to shotgun. I'm like dang, I can't do that stuff.
Speaker 2:Have you seen the third one, where he goes into the store and he's acting like he's ordering dinner, like for an appetizer. He's got a little gun. He goes for a main course. Yes, yes, every time he picks one up he does a, you know, a weapons check.
Speaker 1:You know, it's just, he's really yeah, all the little details are right there, I love it yeah yeah, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:I do like that. Um, sir, is there anything that we didn't touch that you wanted to hit on? Because we covered Caliber Press, where you guys came from, what you guys got going on, now, what the future's kind of looking like, we definitely hit. I'm glad that we hit so much on training and supervision, kind of being the, I think, the root cause of all the good things that happen to a department, but also a lot of the bad things, and that's all I had in mind. But I wanted to make sure we covered everything that you had.
Speaker 2:No, I think we basically did everything. But I will finish with this. When we teach our leadership classes, we have several leadership classes. The one thing that I always say is this everything comes down to your culture. Yeah, everything comes down to your culture. Peter Drucker, who was a famous management guru, died like at 95 years old about 10 years ago. He said culture eats strategy for breakfast. And if you're a leader, leader you need to create a culture. You cannot be a victim of a culture. You have to create the culture. And really the best way to do is to say it out loud our culture here sucks. We're going to change it and then change it. But I I you know teaching all over the united states.
Speaker 2:I talked to sergeants to go, you know, I believe everything you're saying, but I'll get a little kind of he won't do anything and I'm stuck and I go no, they. Then you know you're giving up, you're a coward, you know, and I say it nice way. But I said no, don't be coward here. You go after him because your job is to protect those people. Teach those people that, in the hierarchy of the of the organization you're responsible for, they're not responsible to you, you're responsible, responsible for those people? They don't, and my dad said to me they don't work for you. You work for them, you're in charge, you have the responsibility, but you work for them and that's the, that's the mentality you you have to have that everything you do. Every policy that comes out, how is it impacting the mission of the organization and the people who are there to accomplish that mission?
Speaker 1:I agree. My leadership, the way that I have kind of developed it and to put it into a small, simple explanation, is my job, is to make my expectations clear right from the beginning. Every new cop that comes in, here's my expectations. Now you tell me the tools you need to make those happen and my job is to get them the tools they need to be successful. If their job, if they can meet those expectations, the other job that I have is I need to know what their goals are so I can help them get there. And that came from military. I hate to say this. I didn't get that from policing. Policing is so far behind on leadership training compared to the military. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to say that we're paramilitary, which drives some people crazy. But yeah, policing is paramilitary, whether you want to admit it or not. And leadership courses you want to learn who's got leadership down it yeah the military the military does yeah and?
Speaker 1:and why is that? Because during war we realized when a leader falls, the next person has to be already capable and trained up to handle your position. If you fall and I don't want to be cryptic about it, but it should be the same in police work my job is to get you to the next level. Yeah, so when I talk to people, I'm like listen, and I and I literally will sit every individual officer that comes in down and be like hey, um, just um, sergeant Levine, this is kind of my background. Uh, I'm going to let you know what I expect here. It is. This is what I want, which isn't a whole lot for me. I just want you to be proactive and remember why you're serving, and this is what we're looking for Guns, you know the three basic food groups guns, dope and money.
Speaker 1:That's really what we're looking for to try to lower the violent crime in our area. I said I just need to know that you've got everything. You need to get that done. If you don't, let me know. I will get it for you if it's within my power. And then. But I need to know what your expectations are. What do you need? And then that goes into that 360 stuff like you were talking about Right.
Speaker 2:Right, there was a study I read years ago and I lost it. I've tried to find it. I can't find it. But a guy did a study on the four different stressors in law enforcement and the number one stressor by far was the interpersonal relationships within the organization. Was the interpersonal relationships within the organization? It was worse than what you see. It was worse than the hours, it was what's going on in there and you know, basically blamed it on leader. I had a veteran officer tell me when I first started remember this always they can't shove it up your ass if you're sitting on it. And that was the philosophy.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:You only get in trouble if you do. You don't get in trouble for for not yeah, yeah, then it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have tried to cultivate because the way that and you tell me if you're the same way. But I've always followed chain of command. I've always followed good leadership throughout. Yes, my department, I could give a shit less what the job is. First, I want to see who the chain of command is, who's that commander, that lieutenant and that sergeant If it was a good lineup of cops cops I was going there and then the schedule and then what the job is. That would be second. But I'm trying to teach my guys. I'm like you guys are chasing good schedules, you guys are chasing where the good part times are. I'm telling you you're not going to be happy if your chain of command is not in line with the way that you police yeah, no 100.
Speaker 2:I had six different chiefs. Uh, I would say one was pretty, one was really good, two or two or three were good and two suck beyond belief. Um and man, those two guys. Luckily they were there the shortest and together combined they weren't there two years. But those two guys, just they, they did so much damage in two years. I had find a mentor, you know, and my mentor told me he goes when I first got. He goes look at, don't, don't listen to what they say. Pay attention to what they do, because some of the worst cops are the biggest talkers.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah, 100%.
Speaker 2:He was 100% right, he was 100% right.
Speaker 1:What's funny is doing this podcast stuff. People hear me talk on here like within my own agency, especially the younger rookies and stuff. They check it out. When they hear that somebody at the department has a podcast, I get it, yeah. But then they come to the team and they sit through a roll call and they're like that is a different motherfucker, because I don't talk the same. I, you know, I gotta be. I have to be on my p's and q's here because I, you know, I can't. Even though I don't rep my department, I rep my department. So if I make them look bad in any way, like right, that's why I try to tell people that's what makes what we're doing different is we're coming out and we're talking, we're trying to give police a voice in a way, but we still got to toe that line because ultimately they could fire you.
Speaker 2:The thing is bureaucracies, hate change, oh God.
Speaker 1:So that's what you got.
Speaker 2:When you start getting into the command structure, even chiefs, I mean, look at again, without getting political, look at Trump right now. Whether you like him, you don't, he's the president of the United States and everything he's trying to change is being somehow blocked. Chiefs of police have told me, man, I always thought if I made it, I made it to sergeant, I can make changes, then lieutenant, then captain, then commander, I'm the chief of police and I can't make a change because I work for a bunch of you know insurance salesmen and you know nurses and things who are on the board and they don't understand the reality of law enforcement. You know bureaucracy is it's. I mean, just your size agency, my size, just imagine the federal government.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the red tape for us is, you know, a bad. It's about a year, like if you're trying to do something big, I'd say the red tape's about a year. The federal agents, federal governments no, years, years, and that's from my size NYPD. I heard theirs is even worse because of the red tape.
Speaker 2:I've worked for the feds several times a lot, we work with the feds a lot and I've had guys literally tell me oh, we just have to ride out three or four years.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God. I know and that's to get small things. Yeah, I'm in the military and I'll be like you know what the unit could use this? This would be good, and they'd be like all right, well, we'll, we'll put in for it and hopefully by next year we'll get it. Yeah, no, it's not, it's sad, but well, brother, I appreciate you. Before we go, how can everybody find you?
Speaker 2:It's wwwcaliberpresscom C-A-L-I-B-R-E, presscom, For whatever reason they spelled it that way, I don't know, but it's caliberpresscom. My name is Jim and my name is Jim at caliberpresscom, if you want to. But you can check us out. We have YouTube and all that stuff and go take a look at that stuff. We put things up there all the time.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I found him on LinkedIn as well, under Lieutenant Jim Glennon, so you guys can find him there as well. Stick around real quick, jim, while I end this, and everybody else. Thanks for listening, take it easy.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
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