Cwic Show- Protests, Riots & Cops
Jul 29, 2020
Joe Adams talks about what it's like to be a cop right now with the protests, riots, Antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement. What does he think about "Defund the Police"? How are police departments coping, how does this affect recruiting and how does training play a role?
Raw Transcript
all right so joe welcome back thanks for
having me back
uh you know it's been almost a year
since i had you on here
wow um and it's interesting because i
went to the interview a little bit and
there's a lot of topics that we covered
that are even more relevant
today based on what we see going on out
there yeah
what's happening so i wanted to cover a
few things we already did
maybe you've got a different take on
some of those things maybe
um they're more relevant or less
relevant than they were
but um one of the things that we had uh
one of the things that we had talked
about was the difficulty of the job
yep right and and the fact that okay
you're going out there every day
and you don't know what's going to
happen anything could happen
it might be a stressful day it might be
an easy day
but you're obviously always in a
position where you're
the the likelihood of some type of
minimum to major confrontation
is always there yeah how do you prepare
for that
it's mental it really is so
when since we last spoke i'm in a whole
new
position if you will i have a whole
different view on things
as a supervisor it's preparing yourself
mentally every day that you come to work
how you get ready to go out on the
street how you get ready to do that it's
very different for every person
some people will just come they can come
to work throw the uniform on
do whatever but everybody should and we
talked to guys about this look when you
get ready to go to work
you should have something that when you
put on the uniform when you turn your
radio on whatever it is that is your
mental switch to
get ready to go to work for me i don't
wear my uniform
home to work either nothing so when i
get to work and i get dressed and i
get my uniform on the last thing i do is
throw my vest on and that is my mental
okay hey it is now time to go to work
that and mentally i am ready at that
point to
deal with whatever is going to come up
you're going into character
yeah pretty much yeah yeah many
characters so
so based on what's been going on right
all the protests
and and i do think it's important that
uh for the audience that we that we
you know it's funny even even with the
religious stuff that i do
it's i'll have and i you know i'll apply
some things to
what's going on out there yeah and
inevitably the comments come back
on two different sides right it's like
it's like oh you're talking about the
protesters
why are you why are you dissing the
protesters
or the other side is is how can you
how can you give that much leeway to
what's going on out there you know
it's like and it's all and it's all
political it all depends on which side
you're coming from politically it's in
crazy it's crazy how it's divided
but for me as i look at it for for what
and it's still happening today i just
pulled up some information again here
today and a lot of people may have seen
the videos in portland and chicago and
kansas city and other places but it's
you have those that are out that are
peaceful protesters
and they want to put their voice out
there and a lot of it is just support
yeah right yep um whether you agree with
it or not
it's like okay that's part of america we
do peaceful peaceful protesting
and then you've got the other side where
it's like you've got everything from
anarchists and anti-fascists to
people that just are out to grab what
they can
right looting destroying
they're out for a fun night even
whatever right so you do have two
different sides so i think that's
important to lay that down
oh absolutely and understand that and
yet
for you guys you
your job is to protect in a way in a
sense almost both things right
right you've got to go out and protect
the property you've got to go out and
protect the individuals you've got to
protect the protesters
you've got to be careful of the
confrontations you're going to have with
anybody who may get
violent um
that's a mess out there right now i mean
it is a mess what what
what and then beyond that i think that's
what's important is that
a lot of the emphasis and i don't
believe that it's all this way but a lot
of the emphasis
is against the cops to begin with
right it is so so it's like okay
i'm going to go out and i have to
protect the protesters i have to protect
the properties i got to protect
innocent bystanders and at the same time
i'm a target
yeah what what do you do
it's kind of one of those things that
you understand that when you when you
get when you
sign up for the job or you should
anyways
we know that going out there yeah we are
stepping right into the line of fire if
you will
they're going to throw rocks they're
going to throw broken bottles they're
going to they're going to do all those
things and not all of them and i think
that's the biggest distinction that a
lot of people miss
is that this isn't everybody
constitutionally every single person
should have the right to peacefully
assemble and voice their opinions that
is given to us in the constitution and
that is a
vital right that we go out and we
protect the problem is there's a group
of people that get in there that are
instigators that are looters that are
those that are just there to
cause trouble and that has
and that gets the headlines and that
gets the headlines well they don't all
be lumped together and they scream about
being hey well we're not those guys well
yeah you're right you're not those guys
problem is is when you talk about the
officers that make mistakes or do
something wrong you're lumping everybody
into that same group
so it's both the problem is nobody is
taking the
not nobody a large group of people are
not taking the opportunity to step back
and really evaluate okay hey
look there's bad apples in every single
bunch for the most part
every single person that comes to work
wants to do a very good job 99.9
of every officer comes to do exactly
that protect hey you gotta whether
that's property people
the constitution whatever it is but
those aren't those aren't the headlines
that
are going to grab attention so when
something unfortunate does happen
now we find ourselves in the political
climate in the situation that we are now
yeah you're not going to get news
stories about you know
how you diverted something you know to
begin with or de-escalated
something i mean nobody knows about
those things ever it happens every day
sure absolutely every single day yeah
and so and so there's
there's heroic things happening
constantly
where good people are doing a good job
yeah
and but you know you just don't hear
about it no you're not you're not going
to know about that yeah
go forward um what would you
say nationally right now the
relationship is
between civilians and cops
it's all very localized
so it depends on where you are and where
i work we have a great relationship
with the majority of our community we
have the support of our community we
have the support of business owners we
we have that support
they're not boisterous they're not loud
but every single day we come in
somebody's delivering
some something whether it's food whether
it's masks whether
whatever it is we have deliveries at
every one of our stations and every one
of our precincts
all you know of everything from
community members are like look we still
have your back
we still support you we go out on the
street and
just working monday for example i had we
had somebody tell us hey we appreciate
and we
respect everything that you do so it's
there
but like i said it's very localized
depends on where you are
what type of climate is going on within
that area is what you'll find
um so i want to go over a couple stats
here
on on things um
because in some ways i mean look look
every
everybody saw what happened with george
floyd yeah
right and so that's that's just like
impressed on our minds if anybody's
watched that
what was it eight minutes something long
and and uh
um it's tragic i mean it's it's
absolutely absolutely
i don't know how you get around it right
there is no like there's no way it's
like this is malpractice this is
this is really wrong it is and
and uh but at the same time i just want
just for context you know
in in going through some things here i
think it's important
to see some some stats that are out here
this is from the fbi
this is from 2019. these are felonious
deaths
right from police officers to
citizens and this is this is uh
this is in the u.s and puerto rico
combined
and the number of officers let's see
this is first the no the number of
officers that are killed
uh was 48.
yeah 48 in the line of duty were killed
um there were 56 in 2018
over half of those in both instances
were from armed
civilians yep they were shot and killed
so the officers were shot and killed on
those
on the side of the
of the citizens here and looking back at
and
from what i see it actually looks like
it's dropping
from 2017 to 2020
20 it obviously isn't done yet but uh
it's it's it's
over all the numbers dropping but if you
break it down by ethnicity
um it's you know it's
it's overwhelmingly white we're an
overwhelmingly white nation
still um it's uh for example in 2019
there were 370 white deaths
there were uh
235 black there were a hundred
and fifty-eight hispanic
and then others are unknown that that
went beyond that so
the numbers are disproportionate yeah
right
by race um
how do we explain that
it it it's a it's a statistic so you can
explain it in any number of ways
however it doesn't it doesn't lie when
the number of black or hispanics that
are killed by law enforcement officers
are less than those that are white
now you can go into any number of you
know factors in that
but like i said the largest portion of
our society in the largest portion of
our population
are white male white females still now
we're getting close to where that's
about 50 50 but that is the largest
portion of of our demographic
so and it also depends on where you work
in chicago in atlanta
in houston and some of these other areas
most of their contacts are with
african-americans because of the
demographics that they have
in the area that i work hispanic or
white
we're getting a larger black population
but for the most part it's still
hispanic or white on the west coast
it's the majority when you get kind of
west of the mississippi in most those
areas yeah
a lot of that is white males and females
are being contacted by the police
so that's the other thing that we don't
get in context of
how many contacts did you know officers
make with white males and white females
black males black you know all those
things
we don't have those numbers either so
but what we look at is especially within
our department we give out those
statistics every year and the number of
contacts content
con tax with the public we have
hundreds of thousands of contacts every
year hundreds of thousands
and our use of force cases are
minimal to the number of you know when
you talk about the proportion of the
number of contacts that we have
our use of force is very very low very
low
do they you know you know you had the
whole thing in the 90s we went over this
last time
where you had the the clinton era
changes with law enforcement they threw
out a hundred thousand new officers
nationwide
um you had the broken windows type of
theory where it's
okay we're gonna go out and every little
thing we're gonna check out more and and
and you do end up getting violent crimes
that drop
significantly because they had they had
come up to a point in the late 80s
where i mean it was getting out of
control yep yeah and so then it so it
starts to drop but
the flip side of that is i mean so so
what you're doing actually i mean the
theory is is that you are
stopping more people you're finding more
people that have got
illegally got a gun or whatever because
there's more contacts
right and you're putting more of those
people away in jail that would have
maybe been a violent
criminal correct right on the flip side
of that
you've got more especially young males a
lot of young black males
that end up going to jail because of
that
right the more contacts that maybe
you know that if they wouldn't have had
the contact with the police
they'd never gone to jail they would
have never gone to jail correct
is there a way to balance that out i
mean i mean because it seems to me like
like we're just gonna
like right now we're on the other end of
the pendulum here where there it to the
point of defund the police
where in the 90s it was you know throw
all this money and new officers out
there
and then the crime's gonna rise again
and then we're gonna go back the other
way again yeah you know
how do you balance that out
i don't know if you can you know you
know i mean because you you wanna
individuals that live within any
community they want a safe community
well you've seen what happened when they
say hey we don't want the cops around
the whole autonomous zone or whatever
was called in seattle supposed to be so
peaceful you had shootings stabbings you
had
robberies i mean all these things it
just went it just went nuts
you have to have that balance where do
you find that balance that's hard to say
i mean it really is but there has to be
that balance
yeah you want more officers out there
making contacts deterring crime you want
to be
you want to be proactive and not
reactive reactive all that means that
we're going to show up after the fact
and we're going to
say hey yeah sorry you know your house
is burglarized your car was stolen
whatever it was
you know your son was shot your daughter
was shot yeah you know
sorry about that we'll find the guy and
then you know if we arrest him he'll go
to jail
he said but if you're out there you're
making those contacts you ha even if
it's just a visual presence
alone typically is a deterrent for those
types of crime
so it where do you find that balance
that that's hard to say
and i don't think there's just a blanket
statement or an answer that you can give
to just say
this is how it's fixed well of course if
you're defunding even if
you know and a lot of that movement at
its core is like get rid of the police
yes
yeah right and that's i think people
need to realize that's
really what at least the biggest movers
and shakers are after
in that movement but even if you're
saying okay well let's cut back 50
percent
then is it even like you said even the
idea that you have a patrol car coming
around every once in a while or
you know if you're hardly seeing that
anymore it's hard to imagine
that there's not gonna be some more
shenanigans going on
oh absolutely yeah you know like you
said i mean there's no deterrence
there there's no deterrent and people
become emboldened so when they know
there's no deterrent when they know
nobody's watching or anybody's going to
be coming around
people get more bold and they do you
know you get
their likelihood of being caught in the
act is very low
what uh
you know a couple of things i i had
listened to jocko willink on joe rogan
a while back and and he had gone over a
few things on thoughts
and so i'm going to pull a little bit
from him on some of the thoughts that he
had done he was uh
he was our navy seal yeah i think he was
a commander of navy seals he's got
you know not not not police background
but but he's got
training and military background and and
uh
he one of the things he was saying
actually first thing he was going over
was similar to what you're saying how
important it was when they were out in
iraq or afghanistan
on tours to go out and meet everybody
yeah
you know and say well you couldn't just
have a try a drive-by presence they
would say you know it's got to be
you're getting out of the car of the of
the the humvee or whatever you're in
you're meeting people you're talking to
the kids you're you're doing all these
things
so that there's some type of a
relationship there that way
you get some kind of you get more of a
humanization yep
right it's like okay we're here to get
the bad guys but almost everybody here
is not a bad guy
and so we need to humanize the situation
and then
in return you get the same thing right
it's not like okay these are just
invaders here
in iraq these are like these are people
i like right
and uh how important that was but but he
had he had mentioned
um about the idea
of of how crucial it would be
to train for their missions
for even those types of even the human
to human
contact they would put themselves in
positions
where they are constantly trying to
de-escalate the situation
yeah his opinion was that
cops should be in training 20 of the
time
their entire their you know you go out
work five days a week
one of those five days is training all
day that would be awesome
and and his point was that
he he brought it back to the george
floyd situation
and he said look there were four cops
there two of them were were
close to rookies at least he said very
bright they were very very new yeah very
new
they didn't really even know yet who
knows how much training for even this
type of a situation
they would have had by then he's like
look if they would have been trained
properly even being newer it would be
like okay this guy's had his
knee on that guy's neck for two minutes
in this situation
this is how i do this let me take over
buddy i can do this for a couple minutes
you know or
take the situation over something that
would happen
whereas if you haven't gone through that
type of training
you know it's you don't
it's not it's not something that you you
think of doing yeah necessarily yep
so you think it would be a good idea to
to do that it would be good
yeah it would be great if we had the
ability to train that much
realistically training is the first
thing that gets cut when budgets get
tight
because it's just an expense and so they
cut it when we had the the
when the economy tanked in 2008 that was
the first thing that went away was all
of our training
and we have not got back to that level
of training now granted it has changed
we've done some other things there's
some more
there's different ways of providing
training however we have not got back to
the same level of
in-person tactical training that we had
prior to that so once that budget kind
of goes away it's really hard to get
that back so yeah i do agree yet
training should be
the first thing that should be brought
back in these situations because it's
it when you look at the totality of that
situation with george floyd and what
happened
should it have happened absolutely not
there's no way to justify what happened
there's no way to even say you know that
that was absolutely tragic
but when you start peeling back the
layers of that there were so many
mistakes that were made prior to that
the
the control hold quote unquote that he
was using
was approved by his department that was
in their policy that was an approved
hold
with the knee on the neck should never
have been there
no i didn't get more examples of that
yeah so so is that
is that a the police department by
police department type
absolutely yeah there that is and that
and that's the other thing is when you
start cutting budgets when you start
doing these things there's a lot of
agencies especially when you get
towards the midwest and the east coast
that they're using tactics and using
things that
we have not taught in decades
we we're constantly evolving department
and so
a lot of it boils down to is just the
lack of funding and the lack
of departmental budgets for training
so it all comes back to that whole thing
of training yeah there should be
way more training way more so that flies
right in the face of the whole defund
the police
i mean i mean if if it's
if that is the issue if that's the major
issue is training
and it is a pure expense then
it would be the opposite yeah right i
mean we need more money going into the
police departments
so that they can be properly trained and
when you and the other thing that
that needs to be looked at is staffing
levels continue to drop across the
country
like it is difficult to get people to
want to do this job
and so our levels are lower than they
were in 2008 and yet the population is
still growing
crimes are still increasing all these
things that's still happening
yet we have fewer officers on the street
now than we did
12 years ago so you have guys that are
constantly going and so instead of
having the coverage we had where guys
could get a break or there would be more
officers working be able to handle it
it is just a constant one call to the
next one after another
almost consistently on a daily basis
depending on the shift and the
and where you work now is the drawback
on the on on the number of
of cops out there because of budgets
part of it was budgets yeah
what about recruiting it's difficult
right now especially
now yeah it's very difficult so so now
we're also saying we're not only
not only is there a movement to defund
which of course part of that would be
having fewer cops out on the
on on patrol right but but the other and
and
less training but it's
how many people want to be a cop now
yeah
who wants a target on their back as far
as
you know if there's more and more of a
negative stigma
the way at least the the media is
creating the narrative here
is you're going to get
are you going to get lower quality
people that are going to be applying are
you going to have to settle for less
are you you know what i'm saying i mean
it's yeah you've got less to choose from
we do have less to choose from now our
standards haven't dropped at all
so part of that is is we have created
our own pool of people to pull from
and they're still in and it's small
because we have not reduced our
standards so our standards are still
very high
but the the pool of people that get
through the application process is just
getting smaller and smaller for
any number of reasons when the economy
is good nobody wants to be a cop yeah
politically now
it's not a good time to step into this
career
so all those things that you know if
when the economy is bad we had thousands
of people that were looking for jobs
that would have made great officers
but for one reason or other hey may we
and the because of the economy and we're
only hiring a few we only took a couple
here and there
had we continued to hire and built the
you know and main even if we just
maintained the same number that we had
our pool of quality applicants at that
time was
astronomically higher than it is now is
there any type of a
national bar
no or set that says hey we at least need
this and this and this it's for you to
come in so
arizona has their own standards and a
department can meet those basic
standards but they can never
go below them now they can have higher
standards and you can
raise your own standards but arizona has
their own standards and every state
has their own and none of them are the
same they are all
very very different yeah which means
that in a lot of places they can be
pretty low
very low yeah i mean certain states yep
yeah
yeah that's uh that's that's again i
mean it's a hard job
it's a hard job it it seems to me like
we should be
focusing on getting the best possible
people in there agreed
on that have have you had any
of your training or
practices changed since all this erupted
not yet but it's coming but it is coming
we have always we've always used
de-escalation training whether it was
termed something different even 16 years
ago plus now that i got hired on
at the time it was called verbal judo
and all it was was just a way to talk to
people to de-escalate a situation rather
than
immediately resulting to force so we've
always done that
we've always had that in our in in our
department in our training and
and we've done that almost yearly if not
maybe more than that at least sit for
the last 16 years
so we've had that now what is changing
are little tweaks here and there to
policies and procedures some of it is
nothing more than hey we haven't updated
this in a while so let's just make sure
that the verbiage is
reflecting the times that we have now
even though it doesn't change how we do
business
at least our policy now has the verbiage
in it to show
you know that it's that we addressed
a not even even though it's a non-issue
would they still address an issue
so the carotid control technique which
we
what is it called it's the carotid
control technique or with somebody
carotid so carotid so like a carotid
artery
we we have that authorized within our
our use of force policy
which basically means hey you if it and
it rises to the level of deadly force if
you are in a situation where you were
fighting for your life
you can reach up sink in or what would
somebody would call a rear naked choke
if there you in mma
you know whatever it might be and you
can you know
put somebody to sleep with that very
quickly very painlessly and
it does not cause any issues with it's a
lot better than knocking them over the
head with something
yes so so we but again it
it was there was some verbage in our
policy that they changed that okay hey
it doesn't really
affect the way that we are ever going to
use it because it still is on the deadly
force continuum it is not you know that
is the only time that
we can use that is when hey you it's
your last resort
so but again the verbiage was changed
we're going to just update it a little
bit make it
you know change it make it have it to
where it says hey look this is how it is
when it is only authorized so but again
it didn't really change much in the way
of how
or when we would use it are there any
other
things that have changed since then as
far as i mean
you guys got a locker room you've got
you got the the uh
uh i mean what is the talk you know
that's that's going on right now with
what's happening here and
what's the feel for things
it depends on where you are uh depends
on who you work with
you got a lot of the old guys that have
been around forever that it doesn't
matter if things are good bad or
whatever they're
they they're just they're going to be
negative about whatever and they're not
all of them but
that's kind of sad the younger guys are
still pretty motivated to go out do
things
some of them are concerned but it it
takes the leadership to step in and just
have conversations with them hey guys
yeah
it might be bad but a lot of us have
been through this before we've been on
this side of the fence and we know what
this is and it's gonna come back
but we still have the support of our
community we're not missing that the you
know yeah you might see it on
tv you might see it on the news and you
know all the social media whatever
but when we're out you know focus more
on the people that
say thank you every day you know focus
on that and it's the best way to combat
the negativity that
that is bound to see ben but what about
in some places where
it is negative you know so i mean what
do you do in minneapolis
right now i don't know they're they're
they're legitimately
past something that says they're going
to get rid of the police force
what does that mean i mean can you
imagine anything of what that
result is going to be pure chaos
i mean to be honest with you it'll just
be pure chao and as an officer
i would have i would have already walked
away because you know at that point that
you have
zero backing from the chief to the mayor
to the city council to the public
what is the point of going out and doing
a job when even if you do something
right you're still going to be wrong
because there's just especially when
you're going to be in situations where
where i mean you better have some
support yeah
and and because both legally and for
your own
safety and yeah um
which is why they have guys leaving i
mean they've had
so many officers just pack up and leave
which
and i can't i can't blame them can you
see any scenario where
social workers can come in none
whatsoever none whatsoever so
so do you understand because that's one
of the things that they're saying
right is is can you
i don't understand how somebody can
actually think this
so we work with the department of health
services we do we work with them
but if they're going to go out and
contact somebody they call us to go with
them
because of the potential of violence and
because a lot of times this
these mental health crises that are
going on or these issues
have something else there whether it's a
legal drug that they're taking that's
not working or whether they're
self-medicating with illegal drugs so
their behavior is
absolutely unpredictable so we go out
with counselors and social workers all
the time
but we're usually there first to make
sure that everything's safe
and then they show up so to send
somebody into a
situation like that or just asking for
lawsuits in trouble when somebody gets
killed
or some you know because that will
happen they absolutely will get killed
well there must be i don't know if
people have this idea that the
verbal judo is so amazing and incredible
that any social worker can go in there
and take care of the situation i mean if
somebody's
i just don't get it i i do not
understand how somewhere
you think that that you cannot have some
type of authority
and force around when it's needed
there are some groups out there that
that have developed a a model of
communication that they
truly do believe that as long as you say
these key phrases you're gonna
you're gonna reach somebody and you'll
make everything better
and that's just not the case there are
some people that no matter how much you
talk to them no matter what type of
rapport you gain with them
whether again whether it's the drugs or
it is severe mental issues
you cannot rationalize or speak to
people like that
because it just and not because your
communication is lacking it's just
because
whatever is firing in their brain at
that time it
it just doesn't matter it does not
matter
yeah again and like you're saying here i
mean if there's something where where
you are
able to bring somebody in that's trained
specifically and de-escalating or
they're they're they're you know it's
like the psychology behind it and
everything else great but
but to think that uh
crime is not going to go up when
everybody knows that there is nothing
that
is there is no force to stop them
right because even even
so somebody going to to take to steal
something at some mom-and-pop shop
yeah well you know the social worker is
not going to stop them no
or or the idea that there could be a
social worker around the corner is not
going to stop it no
and it it's gotten to the point to where
there's even and i
i wish i could bring it to mind right
now but there's an agency in california
that just
came out said we will have no officers
doing traffic stops
basically it's all meter mains they will
have civilians that will be doing all
their traffic stops
which is the single most dangerous thing
that we do that's where most of the
violent encounters occur
is on a traffic stop or a contact with a
person
and yet they're gonna just now give this
to a bunch of
billion ticket riders to go out and deal
with
their traffic issues well the idea there
right is what they're saying
is that if there's if there's not force
met with force then that original force
is not going to come out
to begin with it's like okay there's no
threat so
therefore the criminal is not going to
escalate in their violence
yeah but wow that's quite the risk
it is and and that's the thing is
you stop somebody that maybe this person
just sees them speeding and they have no
idea that they just committed
a murder or a homicide or they're a
wanted armed you know felon
and they go to light up their you know
they turn their lights on on their
non-patrol car if you will the chaos
that ensues is just
unimaginable and it's naive to think
well why even stop
uh and again why even stop why even stop
yeah you know what's the point what they
they're not a police officer they don't
they have no authority to arrest me so
i'm off i go yeah yeah that's that's uh
that's odd that's really really odd to
me
what else did you see in the in the uh
in the george floyd incident
that that bothered you there was
there was a lot of things um and by the
way i mean that's one incident where
there there the argument is look he
wrote a
he wrote a bad check for 20 bucks and
look what ends up happening
because of the police yet yeah and it's
like
well there there was a long history
there i mean he it wasn't like he was a
random good dude that wrote a check
he had a pretty checkered past
none of this justifies what happened to
him that man should not have died that
day
however there was drugs on board there
was a lot of other things that came into
play with that
and the one of the main issues we're
dealing right now is
perception is now the truth
so that video regardless of what came
out regardless of what happened
that video is the truth and in a lot of
other videos that are being released
regardless of what the context is and
what
the story behind the video is what is
being spun on
facebook and instagram and all the other
immediate platforms and even the
mainstream media themselves
they are perpetuating their own truth
based off of the perception
of a video so
what i really was hoping to see was to
add a lot of
context to that eight minutes of
who knows how long it was that they had
contact with them i was hoping to have
something so where we could come back
and say
look now we have the whole story and now
we can say yeah again this
is still absolutely unacceptable and
we're going to address it
but to go from this happened on monday
firing on tuesday
charging on wednesday booked into jail
on friday
was i i it's difficult to
just say that okay hey we had this eight
minutes of video released we didn't
have anything else and this is where
we're gonna go my hope was to have some
truth within you know and context to
be be shared and unless it's just local
we're not getting to nashville i haven't
really seen a whole lot to
at least shine some light on to what led
to that
well that'll be that'll be a show trial
yes i mean that's going to be and
hopefully
you know things are gonna come out there
at least and and and we'll be able to
see a little bit more
on that but regardless right i mean
regardless of the context
the content what that should have never
happened yeah that should have never
happened
but will i place the blame solely on
that officer no
i'm gonna go to his department i'm
placing the blame on the department i'm
placing the blame
on their training because if that was
allowed which it was
within their policy that is a training
failure through and through and that
apartment is liable for
those actions there's no way to get
around it
and i and i can't even see a situation
or scenario where that would even
be allowed with as far as a
control hold if you will it just it's
not
i i just can't even see it yeah so
and there are probably like you said
there are probably a lot of departments
oh yeah that are deficient
in the right type of training nationally
where you could have problems yeah so in
that way i mean if i if i was saying
okay i've got
i've got a beef with the cops that would
be a legitimate
one right oh 100 we need more training
we need more training yeah we need cops
that have more training
and you look at let's just talk about
the medical profession okay doctors when
there's a failure for doctors surgery is
not working something
that is causing issues over and over
again it's not they don't just go oh
okay well we'll either get rid of it or
there's developments there's training
there's continuous training
just because you went to medical 20
medical school 20 years ago doesn't mean
the things you learn there are relevant
today and it's the same thing in police
work in law enforcement
i went to the academy 16 years ago i
just left the academy
where i was there helping and training
and the training and the things that we
have
now are all improvements on what i went
through
but i've constantly been keeping up with
training and doing those things and
our department does a very good job in
that so everybody in our department has
been continually training in these
techniques but there's a lot of agencies
that when you
leave the whatever academy some of them
the academy's not
near as extensive as ours and the ones
in arizona and they're just out and
ready to rock and roll
is is the only so is the only thing
that's holding back the training funding
funding manpower i mean are there are
there are there you know whatever
wherever that comes from the the the
chief or
or uh i don't know where it comes from
honestly from politically but where is
there
do you hear of constantly okay we need
more training we need this and
where do you hear that from where where
would you be getting that from who would
be
pushing that usually it's
it's the people within the training unit
we
we have leadership now that is very much
on board with training
and we have new training squads that are
being developed so we we are stepping
into
that hey we're going to be training a
lot more and we're going to be giving
everybody more you know constant
training
so we have that support we have the the
budgetary
abilities to add that and to bring that
training back
so we're lucky in that sense but the
chief doesn't
create the budget city council city
managers
and the mayors they create the budget
the economy creates that budget
so when you had the economy that was
suffering for years and years and years
well it's just not going to be added
into the budget
yeah so there's so many things that come
into play there and it's not like we can
just say all right we're going to throw
100 million dollars into training
well where's that 100 million dollars
come from do we pull it from different
areas does another department within the
city go without it
would it would you be better off with
fewer cops and more training no
no no no response times are higher the
the use of forces and and that's the
other thing is just our presence alone
is a level of force so when you talk
about an officer showing up to a call
whether it's a let's say it's a fight at
a bar
one guy shows up and it's four or five
dudes fighting
he doesn't really have a whole lot of
help and it's not going to go well
you have eight guys that show up that
show of force
usually causes things to calm down so
with more officers more training better
training because
even if it could be yeah we're going to
training more but it can still be poor
training
there there's money that has to go into
the development into
the understanding of the new techniques
that that are out there
and the better techniques that are out
there so
all you know just those different things
there has to be that there has to be a
balance somewhere yeah we have to find
it
yeah um
do you guys do any training on
mobs we do yeah you know
large groups yes because you think about
how
you know there was a number of years ago
it was popular for people to do videos
of these flash mobs yeah right and they
were both good and bad like you'd have a
bunch of people they'd get together and
they do some synchronized dance in the
middle of the mall
or something right yeah because they're
all on social media and they can talk to
each other and they all do this together
right
and on the other side it's like okay
we've got 20 people that are going to
get together
and loot this store all at once so that
nobody can really do anything about it
right and you can see that that's
something that could happen and
and kind of massage more and more
into bigger and bigger problems and
bigger and bigger crimes
where you're emboldened because of the
number of people
right the mob mentality yeah mentality
right
um so you do training for for
yeah our department has a specific unit
that trains to handle those issues yeah
and is that the same unit that would
that would work on like protests and
things like that
okay and here's
what i've noticed in in you know now of
course you don't have to rely on a few
different
letter channels to see this stuff you
see it everywhere but
looking at these groups that are caught
really causing problems
right these are not the peaceful
protesters no these are not
demonstrators
these people are they're they're putting
things on fire
they're breaking windows they're
damaging cars
they're going after buildings yes um
they're looting they want anarchy they
they you know there's probably for a
number of them there's political
aspirations there for
a revolution i mean it's that far it
really is that far
and and like i said and there's some
people
that are just like honestly i mean
they're they're dumb young
guys that are out just for the night
right yep
cause some problems and and get an
adrenaline rush
but if you watch these videos
you see these people are trained
they are trained and they've got leaders
that are you know going out with a
loudspeaker telling them what to do
how to aggravate how to get up in the
face of the cops
how to and with the shields you know
they're moving forward one
one foot at a time one step at a time
they're trained i mean they're going out
there and they're bringing these people
together and they're
training them do you know much about
the counter training for that
so we they're they're we do have
training specifically to handle those
types of things and there are ways to
handle those types of
when they do get together like that and
you have those formed you know groups
that are really pushing that they're
they're
yeah there's training to to deal with
that and how to properly handle those
types of things
a lot of times it just doesn't look
pretty you know like i said
these aren't these aren't demonstrators
these aren't the the people that truly
want to have their voices heard that are
out there to
really affect change these are those
that are out there just to cause chaos
and there there is a big difference the
problem is is the ones that are
causing chaos mingle in with these you
know the protesters
and those are just really trying to get
their voices heard and
once and they'll just get that mob
mentality going and then it just
it just turns ugly real quick my concern
is that
if they if they can if they if they are
able to
train up enough based on laws
and um a narrative against
cops i i i'm concerned
it seems to me that because of those two
things
there the way that some of these these
groups are trained
they are able to get away with more
and and a lot of times because of that
and because of the narrative a lot of
places the cops are just standing down
yeah and they target those places they
don't want they don't want the conflict
and and these types of people they know
where those places are and they target
those places you think they know
absolutely yeah i know that
word of mouth they're the every every
agency has a reputation
every agency knows look that will allow
you to do certain things up to a certain
point
within my own agency we had 400 people
that showed up to protest
400. we gave them told them hey yeah by
all means is this where you guys can be
this is where it's at we worked intel we
got information
and the groups that were coming out that
were causing all the problems and doing
the damage
we're sending messages via social media
do not go to that agency
they are the ones that will not allow it
and they will put you down and put you
down fast
so we're not going but they went to our
neighbor a couple of our neighboring
agencies
now they got and some of those were were
a little bit
less stand down yeah and there was just
absolutely
in your community you want a department
that is not going to stand there yeah
and our chief sent that message out as
well he's like you can come here you can
protest
but we will not tolerate criminal
activity
that's what we won't we won't tolerate
it and that should be the message you
have the right to peacefully assemble
and voice your opinions and we will give
you the space and the area to do that
we're not going to allow you to damage
businesses we're not going to allow you
to disrupt the
you know the public transit systems and
do all that stuff but you
will have the ability to do exactly what
you want to do which is voice
your concerns and peacefully assembled
but how do you get to a point i mean
this is
like the chop zone you know i mean or or
or even in new york i mean i've seen
video where there
there is literally they are shooting
fireworks and fire bombs and
uh um molotov cocktails
yeah and just i mean just destruction
everywhere and
in through the video comes a patrol car
this is in new york
yeah right drives through and just keeps
going
you know and so you've got these major
cities seattle chicago kansas city new
york
where
what the the there obviously is a
message from the top yeah yeah
you you the the cities that you named
have traditionally been a certain
political demographic
and they are bending to the will of
this type of behavior they're allowing
it but why would they do that i mean
because again i mean i understand that
there's
that's why i wanted to lay that down to
begin with at the beginning of the
podcast there's two different types of
people
but in this type of an argument it seems
to me like that just gets conflated
you know what i mean and why would you
would allow that i i couldn't i can't
even imagine it
i can't imagine when a governmental
leader
at any level whether that's the governor
the mayor city count
whatever would willingly
and knowingly go out and just say yeah
hey just
run roughshod over our community you
guys want to take over a sick city block
in fact i'll let you into the city
council building
i i can't even fathom that
well again you're taking away you're
you're doing this in the name of almost
like
rights you know or or first amendment
yes but you're taking away the rights of
the community yeah right i mean you
can't do that
and and not pull from everybody else
around there
there is something to be said that we
are in the i mean we're coming up on
elections
there's something to be said that this
there's a lot of us that is political
100 percent
i agree with that a hundred percent
there's a lot of this is political
and you have people that are running for
office again that are just looking to
get the votes
and i think there's a little bit of that
there's a lot of that behind a lot of
the decisions that are being made
i think that that's where in some of
these areas yeah that
that is most definitely happening and it
is sad to see
it'll be interesting to see if come
after the first week in november
everything settles down yes it will
i mean one way or the other right
because it can be used on both sides
right
absolutely you know a trump supporter
for example would be
you know look what's going on we need
law and order and somebody else would be
on the opposite end would be look what's
going on
no one has control of anything yep right
and and
so both of them almost feed into each
other
oh absolutely oh 100 100 yeah there's no
there's no side that's not
that's not responsible for some of this
i mean and that's and
i'm not trying to take be any side there
yeah both of them are
already i agree absolutely absolutely i
think that's the way it's going to work
and unfortunately
it just adds to you know
the fire here with what we've got going
on is that it's an election year
it is an election year there's a lot of
people that are just really
i'm quite they're just pissed off
because they've been quarantined or
they're not allowed to go do their
normal activities so
there's a lot of external factors that
are playing into a lot of this as well
allows people to get out and socialize
and do things there's quite a few people
that i know that have gone to these
protests just because they're allowed to
be out and
and be social again right and that you
know and whether they support it or not
i didn't really you know
they're like yeah i went down there i
was out with all kinds of people we were
outside it was great
and yeah you know what i wanted to i
wanted to have my voice heard for a
little bit i was like
by all means you know so i think there's
there's just so many different
i mean we were just in that perfect
storm for something to pop off and it
did and it's just
not slowing down so i was reading here
um which is kind of this is just today
right trump and barr are to expand
anti-crime surge to several u.s cities
so they've got federal
they're not troops but they've got
they've got
federal federal officers officers yes
out in in uh uh
portland portland correct right now and
so they're gonna be adding them to
kansas city
and chicago and a few other places like
that
um what this is something that's
interesting i don't know anything about
this but
these are people under dhs yeah homeland
security they're under homeland security
correct
that is really new to me i mean my my
thought was is that if this was going to
start happening
it was going to be the national guard
that would be out there
who who are who are the dhs officers
so department of homeland security
they're attached to
border patrol that it's basically
the security for the the country if you
will it's almost like
a national police uh in essen sort of
but
in this sense it kind of is they're
they're there to protect
national monuments national park you
know the or in in cases like this
they're the ones that hey you're you are
in essence responsible
for the nation security you will be out
you
you know like portland hey they're there
because of the federal buildings
yeah those are the areas that they have
responsibility over
so that's what they're they're not out
enforcing local laws they're not out
they're there to protect the government
interest which is okay the federal
courthouse federal buildings
uh the national monuments that were
basically being targeted
those types of things hey you guys that
that is what they fall under
that so that's what the national park to
be a part of that uh that's
if if there was something that falls
under i don't think that falls under
homeland security that falls more under
uh i'm trying to remember what they fall
under now
like bureau of land management i think
something like that yeah yeah
okay so so you've got these the
you've had you've had guys sometimes
right or you've dealt with have you
dealt with like fbi or anything like
that before yep what is that like
is it what's the relationship like there
it depends it depends on what
under what you're doing when i was doing
it i was working in a
different capacity i was on a specialty
unit and we worked with dhs
fbi the dea and a few other agencies so
we worked with all them
so it kind of depends
it it really just depends on you know do
they
take the torch pretty much in those
circumstances
depends on the circumstances um some of
them are
very good investigators they have
technical skills they are really really
good
at doing that type of stuff when it came
to doing the
more in-person exchanges the groups that
we worked with
we did that stuff for them mainly just
because we had better practice at it
right okay yeah i just wonder i mean how
that
again with the politics that are going
on right now
yeah anytime dhs right now is going to
be put out somewhere
it's going to be trump's troops oh yeah
you know what i'm saying yep it's that's
the way on both sides that's
you know again half the country is going
to say great uh we're behind you about
time you got them out the other half is
going to be like
these are the oppressors coming out yeah
to get the peaceful protesters right
and again they're not enforcing anything
other than protecting
the federal buildings basically in that
area so beyond going
to a federal property yeah they're not
they're they're not going to be out
battling against antifa or anybody else
no
no and then in portland they're doing
the same thing they are all they're
doing is keeping the protesters away
from
the government building and it and in
all the if you look at the videos and
you read the articles when it gets
in down to it portland police are the
ones who are coming in
making the arrests taking care of all
those things
and the agents that are
with the homeland with department
homeland security they're just basically
standing in front of the building
that's pretty much the extent of what
they are doing okay
i don't think most people know that no
they and and again
the perception is truth at this point so
whatever it is that they're seeing the
facebook videos the social you know all
the social media videos
all it's their perception is the truth
yeah
i i am surprised at how much
all of these protests and and
um non-protests
have continued yeah i thought that we're
looking at a couple weeks few weeks
i mean and again it's mostly localized
in a few
few areas yeah but i'm surprised it's
gone on this long
i'm not and the only reason why i'm i'm
not surprised is because of
the areas where the departments are
standing down
it's just policy it's just policy it's
political
it's it's basically i just said hey
you guys are going to just hang out
seattle specifically they were told to
they were told to just
leave that precinct and just let them
have it
and then once they decided not to it was
over in a day it was over
yeah that's really strange
once they make the change then you think
it'll be pretty quick and easy to
no no not in those areas not in those
areas no okay
no i mean you could i mean we had a
couple weekends here locally
of protests a couple of them got out of
hand and then they died off yeah just
about a mile or two from here yep
okay but they died off the minute that
they knew that they were not going to
have that behavior or allow that
behavior they died off
now granted there's
we still have some peaceful assemblies
we still have people that are out there
doing that which is
100 acceptable and again encourage that
that is something that should happen
that's how change happens so and i'm not
i would never tell anybody not to do
that because that absolutely
should take place
but it's it's turned into a peaceful
more
okay hey this is now a demonstration
this is a this is this is what we're
trying to do is get our voice heard
by all means even when we had some
incidents that didn't look you know that
came up in the media here locally
we still didn't have you know you had
your localized things that took place in
the communities but that was about it
yeah do you see a
a way of
healing this yeah
i mean is it just time is it is it just
will people get over it
and change or or is there something
that's required to
try and heal this it's going to take
time
one yes two there the other thing that
they're missing the part that they're
really missing is
creating the dialogue that's what
they're missing who
both both sides they have to meet in the
middle and create the dialogue
so there has to be the ability to come
face to face
with community leaders with those that
want to affect
change and have them have a voice but
also have them understand
what policies and procedures and why
things are done the way they're done
that that i think is the missing piece
in a lot of communities
again we are very open within our within
our agency giving information and
telling
individuals why things happened and you
know look this is what happened and why
it happened
good bad or indifferent and the outcome
of it
that needs to happen nationwide need you
need to have that dialogue you need to
do that now is the perception going to
change
the police overnight 100 no no is it
going to change
for some people ever no they're going to
hate us regardless
they're going to spin it they're going
to have this view of that we are
murderers and killers
because it is a video yeah you you can't
ever get away from that
no but if and and that is another thing
that
we talk about a lot when i do go to work
is look you guys are on video whether
it's your camera or somebody else's
camera
act accordingly but at the same time if
you need to act you
act you still take care of business you
still do things to make sure that things
are safe
but man just treat people with respect
treat people kindly and you'd be
surprised at
what can happen what is the policy on
the cameras
typically as far as as far as body cam
so we
we are to when officers go on calls
there to have those on
and which we have thousands of videos
recorded every day from
offices that are wearing them and
working you know and i don't think
there's a patrol officer that doesn't
have them now
within our own department so there's
hundreds of cameras out there
recording right so we have those and
they're on
and they capture just about everything
yeah
which also means i mean you're always
you got to be on your toes all the time
yeah but and on the bad side of that
you have agencies that are just throwing
these videos out without any context
without anything and again it's just a
video you don't get
and that's where i think the the
misunderstanding of a lot of this comes
from is like well you had video
yep you can watch a video all day long
and you don't have the sounds the smells
the emotions and
everything else that goes in with the
decision making and what is happening at
that moment
all you have is a video
it doesn't it doesn't give you the
context doesn't give you
everything that goes into what made that
video
yeah so that there needs to be better
cases that have a knee-jerk reaction oh
absolutely absolutely like that
if you think you know what's happened
you don't necessarily know no
what has happened in in in a situation
like that one thing i was
i was it was an interesting stat to me
was that
since all of this be since the protests
began
um personal gun sales have gone through
the roof
oh yes right i mean as far as i mean i
was going by a gun store the other day
and i looked and there was
yeah this was a couple weeks ago but
there was you know they still have the
social distancing
but you had a line out in 105 degree
weather
there were probably 30 or 40 people in
line
six feet apart yeah you know waiting for
their turn to be able to go in
and buy a gun yeah and usually the gun
sales
are from gun enthusiasts right where you
you know it's like i've already got this
i've got a glock i've got this i've got
that you know and
they're adding another shot whatever and
but
40 of all new guns are first-time gun
buyers
yeah during this time and so people are
arming up
and and you have to think well i mean
it's
part of that is because of the standing
down
i mean i mean that's right i mean it's
like look if they're not going to take
care of things
yeah well they'll protect themselves i
better take care of it yeah yeah
so the very people that might not
like that idea by
defunding the police or allowing that to
carry on
or actually helping to build up
the the gun sales in the united states
yeah
so i just thought that was a really
interesting stat that a lot of people
are out there buying their first gun
right now all the video that they're
saying what's going on
yeah um
appreciate your time yeah and uh you
know it's we'll see what happens in the
next year here
yeah yeah that kind of changes happen
and
hopefully good changes hopefully good
changes yeah so but
appreciate it anytime
Black Lives Matter
Defund the Police
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