Jason Potts - Police Leadership Through Evidence and Change - LV Department of Public Safety

The CopDoc Podcast - Season 8 - Episode 151

In a great conversation on The CopDoc Podcast, Steve Morreale engages with Jason Potts, Director of the Department of Public Safety in Las Vegas, Nevada, exploring the intersection of modern police leadership and evidence-based approaches to public safety. Potts, who also serves as president of the American Society of Evidence-Based Policing, offers valuable insights that challenge traditional policing paradigms.

Potts' journey through law enforcement is as diverse as it is impressive. Beginning with the Coast Guard and Customs Border Patrol, he spent 22 years with the Vallejo Police Department in California before becoming the chief in Las Vegas, where he oversees a comprehensive public safety operation including deputy city marshals, detention facilities, and animal protection services. With approximately 420 employees and a $100 million budget, his department works alongside the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to maintain safety in the city's parks, tourist corridors, and detention facilities.

What distinguishes Potts' leadership philosophy is his commitment to evidence-based policing, a concept he defines simply as "informing your decisions based on the best available data, science and research." This approach, which originated in evidence-based medicine, involves systematically evaluating policing strategies through data analysis and controlled studies. Potts describes how his perspective transformed after participating in the National Institute of Justice LEADS (Law Enforcement Advancing Data and Science) program in 2016, which changed his career trajectory and ultimately led to his leadership role in promoting evidence-based approaches nationally.

The conversation reveals Potts' practical application of these principles through randomized controlled trials he conducted, including studies on license plate readers and patrol visibility with lights on versus off. These small-scale experiments yielded actionable insights that improved operational effectiveness. Potts emphasizes that evidence-based policing doesn't replace officer instinct and craft but rather complements them with systematic analysis to determine what truly works.

Leadership dominates much of the discussion as Potts reflects on the challenges of entering a new organization and implementing change. He acknowledges making mistakes by "coming in hot and heavy" and learning to "inject change at rates people can absorb." His leadership philosophy centers on building relationships and trust, explaining that "trust is the currency of life" and "trust begets trust." He discusses the importance of setting clear expectations, providing tools and training, and ensuring consistency in discipline and accountability.

Potts emphasizes the critical nature of communication and "owning the message" rather than simply passing directives down the chain of command. He wants "owners, not renters" in his leadership team—people who fully embrace their responsibility for organizational culture and outcomes. This culture-building extends to his collaborative approach to strategic planning, where he involves officers at all levels through a Chief's Advisory Board to create a document they genuinely own and support.

The conversation concludes with practical advice for departments interested in implementing evidence-based approaches: s

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If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com

Chapters

• 0:45 Jason Potts' Journey to Leadership
• 7:55 Vegas Department of Public Safety Overview
• 15:05 Evidence-Based Policing Approaches
• 24:19 Leadership Challenges and Succession Planning
• 31:26 Building Trust and Setting Expectations
• 38:35 Strategic Planning and Organizational Culture
• 45:50 Starting Small with Evidence-Based Methods

Transcript

Intro outro Announcement

00:02

Welcome to The CopDoc Podcast. This podcast explores police leadership issues and innovative ideas. The CopDoc shares thoughts and ideas as he talks with leaders in policing communities, academia and other government agencies. And now please join Dr. Steve Morreale and industry thought leaders as they share their insights and experience on The CopDoc Podcast. 

Steve Morreale Host

00:45

Well, hello again everybody. Hello world, Steve Morreale coming to you from South Carolina today and I'm going to the sunny lands of the desert in Las Vegas, Nevada, and we're going to talk to Jason Potts, who is the director of the Department of Public Safety, the chief of that organization. He'll tell us a little bit about it. He's also the president of the American Society of Evidence-Based Policing, with an upcoming conference coming in Tucson, Arizona. I will be attending, but I want to say good morning, how are you, hey? We're finally connecting. So tell us about yourself. You've been in policing for 22, 24, 25 years in different places and you've certainly made the rounds, so tell us how you started and how you ended up in Vegas. 

Jason Potts Guest 

Good morning, Steve.

01:21

Yeah, so I grew up in Vallejo and so first of all, thank you for having me. I'm honored to be here on your show. I've been a fan from afar for a while. So I grew up in Vallejo in California and was involved in the Police Activities League and, like most young kids, I idolized chips and all that good stuff watching Dukes of Hazzard and all those good things. When I was a kid a police officer. Ever since I can remember, my parents worked for the city of Vallejo, my mom worked at the police department, so I was heavily influenced being around police most of my life, especially when I was a young kid in the police activities league. So I joined the military Coast Guard down in San Diego and up in the Oregon border and had a great time. Thank you for your service. Yeah, I appreciate it. I still do it. I'm a Coast Guard Reserve with the Coast Guard Investigative Service, so, yeah, great. 

Steve Morreale Host

02:01

Coast Guard Investigative Service. So yeah, great organization. I was an MP for a while and MP Investigations and with DEA. We worked with you a lot yeah it's fun. 

Jason Potts Guest

02:07

So did that and you know, got into maritime law enforcement and did boardings and was part of the boarding team and those kinds of things and yeah. And then I hired on with Customs Border Patrol and was signed out in Calexico, did that for about two and a half years and then I had a chance a chance to go back to the city I grew up in in Vallejo and became a Vallejo police officer. I went to the Oakland Police Academy and did that for geez, 22 years or so. I moved up the ranks and got to captain. I was the number two there for a minute and then had our Chief Shawnee Williams, promoted me and he brought in the deputy chief and did that for a few years and then put my name in the hat here in Las Vegas for the Department of Public Safety City of Las Vegas. And here I am been doing this now as the chief here with a great organization for gosh. I'm going on almost three years now, so it's gone by fast. It's been a wonderful experience and I have a great team. 

Steve Morreale Host

02:53

Busy place. We're going to talk about leadership, but I really want to understand more about the organization. So it is not the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police. I'm sure you have a great relationship and work with them, but you also have a tension facility. So talk a little bit about the size of the organization, the area of responsibility that you have. 

Jason Potts Guest

03:09

Great, I love that question. So, just going back on the history of, well, there's a unique model here in Las Vegas. So the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, going back to 1973, they consolidated, and so the city and the county became one, the Las Vegas Police Department and the Clark County Sheriff became one, and this is the only, I believe, model in the country where the sheriff is actually the chief and he's the elected official, and Sheriff Kevin McMayhill is a fantastic leader and a great friend. He's an awesome guy. So they consolidated in 1973. 

03:37

In 1982, though, the city said you know what? 

03:39

We have a jail in Clark County and it's getting overcrowded, and so the city decided they'd create this jail. And then, in 1986, we have fantastic parks here 83 parks total today world-class parks, truly and so they wanted somebody to patrol those parks. So the park rangers came into existence in 1986. And then, in 1992, they called themselves the Deputy City Marshals, and we had detention and enforcement all the way up till 2016, where they changed the name to the department of public safety. So we patrol deputy city marshals patrol 83 parks. We have our two tourist corridors, which is the Fremont Street experience and our arts district, so we're tasked with the Fremont street experience and patrol in those areas. We have an operation safer zone which stands for stronger alliance, for enforcement and relationships, and we patrol from Sahara all the way down to the Stewart and 95, which is on the las Vegas Boulevard, and we want to make sure that our citizens and tourists coming into our city have a good experience and they're not seeing a lot of blights and that kind of thing. 

04:32

And then we have our city jail and it's a misdemeanor facility. Our average daily population is about 500 and about 180 or so corrections officers, and we have our animal protection service, which also is a challenge, believe me, dealing with animals and the vulnerable population. We have a real challenge here in Nevada and I suspect, everywhere there's concerns with animal issues and so we have a total of about 420 employees. Right now we're allotted for 460 with about a $100 million budget. So it's a decent-sized department. 

Steve Morreale Host

04:57

That's a lot of things to be responsible for and obviously you must have a great relationship with the Metropolitan Department. You have to Any friction there? No, we just own a badge as a badge. 

Jason Potts Guest

05:07

Come on and help. Oh yeah, Well, I'll tell you I'm pretty intentional about it. It's something that's been a focus for me since day one. I'm very mindful of we're not the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. When you call 911, you get the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. We have our niche, which is patrolling our parks, and I'm always mindful of staying in my lane and making sure that we are the best version of us and we tinker and we try to make improvements where we can and it's been fun, but there's been some challenges, right, Anytime you get into leadership and I know we're going to talk about that injecting change at rates people can absorb or disappointing people at rates they can absorb. One of my favorite leadership books is Leadership on the Line, and some good nuggets there in that book there are and I wonder, though? 

Steve Morreale Host

05:45

I want to go back, obviously, with the military. I have this conversation over and over again about policing holding themselves in the mindset of the military and being paramilitary, but I'm not sure we're even close anymore. We might have been back in the 40s and the 50s, but with your experience in the military, you're not going to get promoted unless they get you ready for that promotion. That's not the way we necessarily do it in police, right? It's like there's an opening. We're going to leave it vacant for a little while, we're going to advertise it, we're going to see who makes the list, then we're going to put you in there, and one day you're an later Right. You know that. Oh yeah, so you've had that experience, correct? 

Jason Potts Guest

06:25

Oh, I have had that experience. I have a funny story. I've. You know my background. I worked narcotics for a bit and I remember I was a corporal. 

06:31

I promoted a corporal and I'm doing narcotics work for about good three years or so and you know, you get a little rusty and I remember, all right, hey, going back to patrol, you'll be working patrol on Graveyard. And I remember trying to get in the car and turn the computer on. I couldn't do any of it. So you know, I think we do that oftentimes in policing. We just think we expect folks to just get after it, and I had to. I remember my buddy goes, calls the sergeant up and goes hey, sergeant, I think Potts needs to have a little FDO session for a day or two. 

Steve Morreale Host

07:00

He needs a little refresher. Well, that's a really tough. That's a really tough thing when you walk away. I remember going into detectives and coming back into on the police department. It was that and I I thought you, you, you learn the independence, you have some freedom. Uh, you're not driven by calls and now all of a sudden you're back at it. That's a tough thing to do, especially going back at night, right? 

Jason Potts Guest

07:21

so we do a disservice. We do a disservice to our people a lot of times and I think we don't do a good job and I know you know that. But the lack of succession planning sometimes, and sometimes we're just too busy doing the job to do it well, I believe, and too busy putting out grease fires and not really being intentional about it. I know we need to do that and we try to do it but we fall short and you know, but it's no one right, no one's half the battle and we're going to continue to try to do that. But we're designing, we're trying to look at a mentorship program and ad different things like that leadership retreats, all the things that other agencies? 

Steve Morreale Host

07:53

Yeah, and we're talking about that. I'm on the IACP education training committee. I'm saying you know, where are the consistency in training? What are the what in training? What are the major elements of leadership that we need to have people understand before they step into those positions, because everybody does it different. So it's a work in progress. I do understand. So let's talk about your experience. Obviously, you've got some school. You went back to school. You've got some training here and there a little military, a little bit policing, both in California and in Nevada now. So what kinds of things have you been involved in and what are the things you're trying to do, as you see people who have promise giving them those opportunities for training. 

Jason Potts Guest

08:35

Yeah. So the background you know. I got my master's degree from University of California, Irvine, and while I was in that program my capstone was looking at body cameras and how they've been policing strategies and not just video not just body cameras but video recordings in general. And I researched a lot of folks like Eric Piza and Nancy Lavigne and all these folks that I consider friends, now being part of the American Society of Evidence-Based Policing. But I'll tell you my trajectory and my career took a whole different path. I never saw myself as a chief. I had mentors that said hey, listen, you got some talent. I think you should maybe look to do move up in the ranks. I consider myself a cop first and a chief second. I love this profession. I love the men and women in it, and being able to get selected for the National Institute of Justice Leads program, which stands for Law Horse and Data and Science, and changed my trajectory. I was the second cohort in my cohort. 

Steve Morreale Host

09:24

What year was that? 

Jason Potts Guest

09:25

Jason 2016. So talk. 

Steve Morreale Host

09:32

You know, I talked to Nancy Levine before she stepped down at one of our meetings and I said I wish that it was in existence 20 years ago because I would have jumped at the chance. But I see great, great stuff and great people coming in and out of it. Because now I want to be talking about what drew you to evidence-based policing, and is it not an uphill battle? But so talk about that. 

Jason Potts Guest

09:48

So your second cohort with leads Tarrick, yeah, and Shon Barnes, and yeah, all those folks you know. And so what drew me to it? I've always been a curious sort, right. I remember working narcotics and I don't know if you remember way back in the day when we talked to an informant and you know, we'd scribble down some notes on a piece of paper and we put it in our drawer and then we'd say, hey, what was that one informant saying about so-and-so, and we'd dig through the drawers. 

10:10

I just remember going, man, we got to do a better job of trying to how to get that information, and so what we did is we created a simple email system where we could query the information. We did a confidential informant template and then we were able to query in our, in our old email system, how about that person said about 

Steve Morreale Host

Well, you know, being with DEA, that was a NADDIS at that time, right?

Jason Potts Guest

Exactly, we didn't have that, and so we decided to kind of and again, that's the point is just trying to hey, we've got to do things differently and better. 

10:35

And so, you know, the NIJ leads program really just took my trajectory in a different direction, and I was-. 

Steve Morreale Host

10:42

It sounds like it changed your mindset a little bit it did yeah, josh. 

Jason Potts Guest

10:45

Young was my friend how it just cause it really was. Always. I was always looking to try to improve the profession, improve my own experiences as well, and, you know, just trying to fix things and make things better and be a part of something different. And so Josh Young was in that cohort as well, and Josh introduced me to Renee Mitchell and Renee and I became friends and here we are creating this American Society of Evidence-Based Policing. When I got on they were about six months into it already. It was part of the first conference and then we've taken off. We're going on our ninth now, April 30th. We'll be in Tucson in May 2nd. So a little shameless plug for American Society of Evans-Based Policing and we believe it's one of the better conferences. It's a very kind of unique small conference where you get to network with folks like Jerry Ratcliffe and folks like Steve You're going to be there and other people that are heavy hitters in the industry. 

Steve Morreale Host

11:32

I see Dave Cohen coming from Australia, but you know it's interesting and I scratch my head and I talk all of the time. I mean I'm leading a command college at Liberty University and we're talking about evidence based, but many people are afraid of evidence. You know, as cops, we know how to collect evidence, evidence in science, to see what works and what doesn't. Can you imagine that? And so it's. It's. It's a completely different mindset and it certainly is grabbing a hold. I just talked to Peter Nehru, who's working an awful lot with that in Cambridge at Cambridge University, and Lauren Sherman, and you know the players, they're all over the place, but it strikes me that the vast majority of police I'm not talking about police chiefs, but police have no idea what this is. 

Jason Potts Guest

12:16

Yeah, I know, and I think some people the definition is all over the place, right, these loaded terms that are out there de-escalation If you ask 20 chiefs, you'll probably get 18 different answers on what de-escalation is. Community policing has 20. Oh yeah, that too Seedual justice. You name it loaded terms and I rail against them. And I think the best definition I've ever heard is informing your decisions based on the best available data, science and research. Inform your decisions and strategies on that, and so I think it's really being data driven and you know, in its essence, as you know, evidence-based decision-making is really rooted in evidence-based medicine and looking at comparison groups. I'm always looking at data in context and I think evidence-based decision-making does a good job of that. So, just informing your decisions based on the best available data best available data, science and research. 

Steve Morreale Host

12:59

So you know, in Australia and New Zealand I talked with Bruce O'Brien they have units. They have been quite successful. I think they sort of led the charge to this and certainly UK has done it and United States is a little bit behind, but we're catching up. And I'd be curious to know Leeds has certainly created scholar practitioner relationships in a lot of places, right, and those things then open the doors to organizations to come in and take a look and tell us what we're doing, tell us how we're doing those kinds of things. How did that work in Vallejo and how does that work where you are now? How are you beginning to inject that? You know, if you just said I want to do one thing at the Department of Public Safety and you know I want to be a pilot site, is that on your mind? Yeah, no, I see you chuckling. 

Jason Potts Guest

13:44

I see you chuckling. I am chuckling because it's been a challenge. I'll just go back to my time in Vallejo. And so I learned just from my own experiences. I learned just doing things quietly, getting a few people to go along with you, not being really raw, raw about it, and just really trying to inject yourself into places and show value where you can. I tell my kids all the time if you're producing, if you're producing, if you're showing value, you're going to be winning. And so what we did is we the first RCT, if you will. It was a very small, randomized controlled trial. 

14:11

We partnered with Beta.Gov by the way, a little plug for Angela Hawken and Beta.Gov. They created this kind of system for us where they produced, they provided a PhD, a statistician, and they did all the hard work. You know the logistic regression analysis and correlation coefficients. Oh, you're losing me. You're losing me. No, I know, yeah, I know, I'm laughing about it because I don't even understand it half the way. Sometimes I don't either, bud so, and I'm sure our audience might not always understand, but anyway, this is a. They were great, and so we did. 

14:39

We wanted to see if license plate readers work or not, and so we had about 75 days study and we wanted to know if our mobile license plate readers had an effect on getting apprehending folks, stolen cars and wanted people. And we found that it did. It was 140% increase. So what we did is we turned them on and turned them off. Officers didn't know when they were being turned off, they were being deactivated and when they were continued as businesses. This was during the trial, during the trial. So you, as you know, you have the control group, business as usual, and your intervention was the license plate reader were they working or not? And so what we found was that it was 140% increase when folks were using it. When they weren't. And then we also found that the fixed had a better outcome on apprehending more vehicles than the mobiles did the mobiles. You had a lot of what they call ducks, the ones that are just on the side of the road because they're driving along and they're seeing them, the fixed we resulted in many more people in custody. 

15:29

So, it was an interesting study, and it was the first one that we'd kind of done, and it showed that even a regular old sergeant at the time could do a randomized control trial and partner with a person like Maureen Hillhouse and Angela Hawkin with Beta Gov, and it was unique. It was fun, though, and I had some kids that were interested in it. By the way, we had young officers that did want to know about it, and that was. Another interesting thing that I found is that folks wanted to know and they're like, hey, sarge, is that thing working? 

Steve Morreale Host

15:53

At the past, and especially, I think, the current slate of officers in the 20s and 30s are very curious and wonder, and they're always asking questions why, why, why and it pisses a lot of people off why do we do it this way? It's like having your own kids Like Dad. Why do we have to go here, dad? It's the same sort of thing Like why do we do this In? Let's look at it and let's see if there's evidence to support whether what we're doing actually works. What you just said. I see I have the benefit of seeing you on video. You're shaking your head. Go ahead and talk about that a little bit. 

Jason Potts Guest

16:35

You know, sometimes it's not always about proving something works, it's also about showing that it may not work. And that's how I kind of sold it as well. I'll tell you, a lot of folks looked at it like, well, why are you doing this? You know what's the point of this. You know you're trying to win a toaster oven, you know type of thing. And so you know I told him hey, listen, we need to figure out if it works or not. And if it's not this, then let's look at body cameras. 

16:55

You know, at the time body cameras were really just beginning to take off and folks were skeptical, and so we wanted to try to do a body camera study and just getting some buy-in Again, starting small, getting a few things. And, as you know, this profession is about relationships and it's about deposits instead of withdrawals and just constantly having some credibility. And I like to consider myself a street cop and I had some of that credibility with our line level troops and our union at the time, so they bought into it. Maybe I like to say it because of me, who knows, but you know. And then I had a crime analyst that just kind of helped me out with some stuff and then, of course, working with smart people like the folks from Betago and New York. 

Steve Morreale Host

17:34

University. Well, imagine the two questions you know, the who, what, where, when, why and how, questions that we always ask, and that's interesting because that's what we do for a living. Right, we're always asking who, what, where, when, why and how, right On a case and then when we ask about well, why do we do this? 

Jason Potts Guest

17:49

Yeah, you've heard the five whys, right, the root cause analysis, and you know why is that the way? And then continue to drill down on those whys and continue to just go well, why is that? Well then, why is that and why did that happen? And that's where you know fun stuff. 

Steve Morreale Host

18:07

Well, I think part of what I'm really trying to use this discussion with you to sort of drive home the potential. Does it cost money? Why are we going to let somebody come in here and watch us? You know how do we work smarter? I think that's. That's the basis. How do we work smarter? Why? Why are we wasting our time on this when we could be doing other things that are more, that have borne fruit, whatever that fruit is? Absolutely. 

Jason Potts Guest

18:30

Yeah, no, that's exactly right. It is, you know, and here in Las Vegas they really enjoy and appreciate studies and proof of concepts and let's see if it works, you know, and let's figure it out. We also did a lights on, lights off study and I felt like that was the most, that was the easiest, cleanest study that we did. We did a 34-day study and we wanted to know. 

18:50

Cruising around with your Code 2 lights on at the time, we in the East Coast you guys call them blue lights, we only had the amber, yellows and blues and we rolled around in a high-density shopping center during the Christmas season for about 34 days. 

19:02

Very small study. We did 17 days lights on, 17 days lights off. And what we found when we had our lights on and we looked at it and we did spot checks and made sure and we texted them in the morning and say, hey, today is a lights on day or today is a business as usual, lights off. And you're patrolling that high density shopping center during the Christmas and we found is, when they had the lights on, we had zero motor vehicle thefts versus four with the business as usual. And then you know, six versus 12 altogether, just the car break-in. So there was definitely a signal there to inform the profession, inform other folks, and we were inspired by Jeremiah Johnson and he did one in Darien Connecticut, a Lights On, lights Off study and again networking with NIJ Leeds and Beta.gov was a fun project, which is interesting. 

Steve Morreale Host

19:45

I mean what you're saying is visibility counts Absolutely. 

Jason Potts Guest

19:48

We showed it. Did we showed it? Did you know it messes with their OODA loop, right, you think about the criminal element and they're rolling around. They're like these cops rolling around with their lights on right and it's the path of least resistance. They're going to go. You know I'm going to go somewhere else. 

19:58

I don't understand what they got going on here. But let me go somewhere else. I don't want to this the Hawthorne effect. What we found as well is that when folks were in the intervention our kids were, our young cops they were much more proactive. They were running more people because why they knew they were being. It's the old what gets measured gets managed, what gets inspected gets expected and what's counted counts. When they know they're being looked at and they know that hey, listen, the LT is looking at this data, they may be much more proactive, and so that probably had an impact as well, not just the lights on, but the fact that they were in the study. Now they're going to change their behavior a bit, it's interesting. 

Steve Morreale Host

20:33

Yeah, let's go back to leadership and your approach to leadership and your approach to walking into a place you didn't even know. I mean, this was a leap of faith, right, you leave in California that you know and love and you come to Vegas, right, and you're walking into an organization that is a little bit different than you came from, maybe a lot different, a lot different. And what was your approach? How did you start it? How did you begin to get to know people? How did you allow people to know you? What were the things you were curious about, focused on? My assumption is you did a listening tour for a long time, but I may be wrong. Yeah, you're slightly wrong. 

Jason Potts Guest

21:09

Listen, you know I've said this before in other conversations with folks. I didn't always do it well, and what I mean by that is I came in my first hundred days, my goodness you know, I actually reported out to the council and they made a remark like wow, how do you have time to do this? And so we went in pretty hot and heavy and I think for me, I learned a lot. I made some mistakes, of course, I listened, of course I got to know my people and I consider myself a person that doesn't like to stay in my office and I like to get out there and talk to folks and listen to people for your credibility, right. You have your frontline cop and your union obviously is one leg. You have your elected officials as another, and then your third leg is your community and then your fourth, I think, is sometimes we lose sight of that as your command staff. I think sometimes if you don't have all four of those, you're going to get yourself trouble. One, you're going to be wobbly, but you lose. Two, you're pretty much done. And then for me, you know, sometimes I think we're I'm pretty impatient. I like things done yesterday and, you know, very action oriented and I think it's that whole thing about injecting change at rates people can absorb and I think coming in hot and heavy and not really slowing down can be detrimental. So there was a little bit of a disequilibrium, I think, pushing a little bit too hard and too fast, and we've slowed it down and I'm very sensitive now to the rate of change. But I'll tell you I'm almost three years into it and we're still continuing to tinker and change things. 

22:37

Just my personality and I'll be candid, some of it's because we have to they were a little bit different in their approaches to things and their processes were a little bit outdated. And you know sometimes you know it's the old saying, just because you can doesn't mean you should. And I think I've learned that slowing down was really the best approach. And to your point, you know, really getting to know your people and building those relationships, especially with your command staff, is really important because you know you'll come in from an outside and you have all perceived expectations and all the experiences with NIJ and all these different things you do. 

23:09

It doesn't mean that it needs to fit this way with your department. So your report to council City manager is my direct report and, of course, the city council. We have a we're a city council strong city council government. We have a strong mayor. We've always had before that we had the Goodmans for 24 years Again not a strong mayor government, but it's it's a hybrid. They're pretty strong in their own right and our mayor now is fantastic Mayor Shelley Berkeley strong, strong personnel. 

Steve Morreale Host

23:34

So presumably upon hire you were given some direction, some expectations, and you know, walk me into that conversation with command staff. Tell me what the structure is first. 

Jason Potts Guest

23:46

Yeah, so I have an assistant chief. I have two deputy chiefs. So assistant chief right now oversees our deputy sea marshals, our field services, and then we have our deputy chief over retention and we have a deputy chief over our hiring and support service, if you will. We have, gosh, six lieutenants on our detention side and seven on our field services side and, as you know, I always say this, that sergeants are the most important rank in this profession. You're not getting there unless your sergeants are buying into it. I'm starting to think that our lieutenants are quite important, right, and of course, every rank is important, but your lieutenants are the ones that are going to be overseeing your sergeants. And I think sometimes for us in this profession, I think if we're all performing a rank above us I'm acting like a city manager, I tell my staff all this time, all the time or if I'm a lieutenant acting like a deputy chief or thinking like a deputy chief, then you're going to be pretty well. 

24:31

And I think sometimes what happens is in this profession in general we have a lot of folks that are young in their seat, young in their tenure, and that includes me. I'm not a tenure chief, I'm going on three years, we're all learning and we side were promoted under me and I promoted more than half on the field services side. So young department, young folks in their tenure, and with that comes some growing pains and challenges. 

Steve Morreale Host

24:56

I don't want to take retention. 

Jason Potts Guest

24:57

Yeah, our retention, right now we're doing pretty well. 

Steve Morreale Host

25:00

Is it better now than it was Better? 

Jason Potts Guest

25:02

Yeah, it's better. We had a critical labor shortage higher and we've been doing those things and that's actually put a dent in things. We're down to 10%. We were bleeding quite a bit. Our pay is on the lower end and I've been advocating for our folks to be paid. Our younger generation, they do pay attention to pay. So it's been a challenge, but I don't want to paint this picture that you know, just because they're young in their tenure, that they're not fantastic folks and doing a good job because they are. With that comes growing pains. 

Steve Morreale Host

25:26

Well, mentorship and coaching become important. I mean, is that something that you're pushing through your people? I presume. 

Jason Potts Guest

25:31

We are for sure we're doing a leadership retreat. Most chiefs are involved in that and doing some form of that, but we're looking at a mentorship program and making sure that we really train our people up and I've heard this before, but the focus of any police leader is to provide tools, the training and the time. That's our foundation the tools to do their job, the training to get it done and the time to get it done, and so those are things that I focus quite heavily on. We've put two people through the FBI NA Academy. Since I've been here, I haven't gone to NA Academy, nor do I really want to at this point. I'm a chief. I don't need to. I'd rather have my other people. My people allow me to go, and so it's. It's been good. 

Steve Morreale Host

26:06

So you walk into the outsider and you've got the command staff in place. Maybe some people have been passed over, I don't know, but you're sitting around the table and they're trying to get to know you. You've got to rely on them to get to know the department. How did that go? What was your approach? 

Jason Potts Guest

26:20

Well, my approach has been to really get to know them and to to listen to them. But I'll tell you, going back to what I said earlier, where we fell short is I think we're too busy being action oriented. Kind of take a breath, get up and go. Hey, how's the family? How are the kids? You know what do we do? So now we've made much more intentional efforts to try to have time together lunches and different things. 

26:39

So still, you know, I was just taking stock of the other day. I was like man, we owe our folks a lunch. We got to get out there and do some stuff, and even playing golf and hacking it up which I'm a terrible golfer, but it's fun to try to hack it up and do those things. And those are things. It's relationships, as you know, relationships and partnerships and friendship, called the ships, and you got to have those, otherwise you're not getting there. 

26:59

This is a relationship business I talk quite a bit about. You'll have these deposits and withdrawals and you're hoping at the end of the year you're in the green instead of the red. You're hoping that you have many more deposits than withdrawals. Anytime you make a policy change, anytime you change a directive, and it's a withdrawal, and so those are things that we got to be mindful of. At the end of the day, though, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care, as the saying goes, and if people feel that you care, feel like you give a crap to really do things well for the organization, improve the organization, then I think you're going to be doing okay. 

Steve Morreale Host

27:27

Tell me about setting expectations. 

Jason Potts Guest

27:29

Yeah, I think for me, expectation is really important. You know you tell folks, hey, I'm providing you these expectations because I believe in you and I believe you can achieve something. That I say quite a bit and I mean it. You know, hey, I'm giving you this feedback because I believe in you. I know you can accomplish that. Expectations are important to me. When you're clear in your expectations. I actually do write out my expectations for some of my staff and my leadership style is really situational. 

27:52

As you know, folks are usually capable. Sometimes they're not always willing and I think when they're not willing, I think sometimes you have to change your leadership style. As you know, not everyone's the same, but most people truly want to do a good job. And there's that word trust. Trust is the currency of life and the folks feel that they're trusted. Then they're going to trust you back. It's the old trust begets trust. But then the flip side to it distrust begets distrust. And no one likes to be micromanaged. But there's times when sometimes you have to look under the hood a little bit closer and again that's that situational leadership and really trying to figure out who your people are. 

Steve Morreale Host

28:27

Yeah, you got to know your people Right and make sure. If they're willing, are they ready? If they're ready, are they willing or why aren't they? 

Jason Potts Guest

28:32

willing and you know what. And, Steve, our expectations since I've been here, they're kind of outpacing our capacity, and when I say that is that you know I've changed the approach. I tell our folks all the time I want you also engaging in a constitutional, compassionate way on the other, and the two are not mutually exclusive. We could do both. We can actually get after it, but we can also engage in an impassionate, empathetic, just active way, and it's something that we're really intent on doing. We did kind of get involved in peace to police, if you've heard of that, and it's really three tenets where you have to be are you effective, are you just, and are you compassionate or empathetic? So, effective, just and empathetic, and so those are values that are important to us. Our values, the city of Las Vegas are kind, committed and smart, and I love those values and our mission is building community to make life better. It's simple, easy stuff to remember, but if you're kind, committed, and smart. 

Steve Morreale Host

29:31

you're going to do well, so let's talk about that. If those are your values and that's what you're driving through the organization, how do you utilize those through your people, to ensure that people are accountable? 

Jason Potts Guest

29:36

to those. Yeah, I think for me. I repeat myself quite a bit, I use quite a few sayings, mnemonics and heuristics, and I think you have to constantly drive those points home every step of the way. We're looking at a strategic plan right now. We're just about to launch it on a three-year strategic plan and it's really built heavily on 21st century policing. I'm a big fan of that document. Seven principles, right. 

Steve Morreale Host

29:57

I rattle them off all the time, building trust, confidence and legitimacy. Well, it's interesting. I just left a bunch of sergeants the other day and most of them didn't even know what it was, and that's a service we have done a disservice. We have done a disservice. If everybody else in the world knows that those exist, someone's going to hold us accountable to them. It seems to me we should. Everyone who wears a badge should know that this exists. The pillar. 

Jason Potts Guest

30:15

Yeah, and it's important. You know our three focus areas. Number one is employee health and wellness, and sustaining legitimacy and improving morale is the second focus area crime reduction and community engagement, community engagement. But those seven pillars I can rattle them off Building trust, confidence and legitimacy, employee health and wellness, having strong policy, technology, training, Community engagement and crime reduction with an eye toward hiring staff and retention. It's something that I constantly say and I repeat myself, because why you have to kind of bake that into the culture, if you will, and constantly? 

Steve Morreale Host

30:43

Well, culture, we haven't talked about that. So we're by the way, I haven't said this at all, but we're talking to this entire conversation because we've had we've not had much time to take a breath, and I appreciate that we're talking to Jason Potts, who's the director of public safety in Las Vegas, and it seems to me and sometimes maybe I'm being too much of a goody two shoes, and I don't mean to be but policing, and you've said it a number of times about relationships. It's inside and outside relationships, absolutely. And it's not all enforcement, no, it's only a small part. And so, while we watch Chips and we watched Starsky and Hutch, and we watched all of those shows, and it's the rock them, sock them, lock them up stuff, the fact of the matter is 80 to 90 percent of the time, your marshals, your police officers, are not making arrests. 

Jason Potts Guest

31:27

Oh, so how do you? 

Steve Morreale Host

31:28

solve that in the cultural yeah. 

Jason Potts Guest

31:32

I'll tell you yeah, that's difficult because I'll tell you what right now, we don't have good victimization data and I'm actually kind of proud to say that because that's really you know. We measure arrests, citations and contacts. And for me, what's the mission of policing? There's two words I say this all on my staff Fewer, victims and improved crime and disorder. That's really what we're all about, right, in this profession. But we measure arrest, citation, contact. We don't do a good job of the victimization data and I measure the arrest citation contacts only because I want to know the baseline, where they're going and what they're doing. But yeah, we have a problem warning policing team and I know you and I talked about it before we came on. But that problem-warning policing team is four fantastic police officers who are just really doing a good job of building those relationships, partnerships, friendships, in that SARA framework. Right, scanning the environment, analyzing where we need to do better, responding and then assessing whether our interventions work or not. Right, it's the old targeting, testing and tracking, evidence-based framework. 

32:28

On Orange Shirt so you know, I admire Herman Goldstein. He's a person that I wish I would have had a chance to meet. Have you met with Mike Scott? I have just briefly. I've seen him pass and I went to a pop concert in Santa Cruz years ago. It wasn't a concert, it's a conference. 

Steve Morreale Host

32:41

Conference, I say concert. It must have been a great concert. Who played? Who played? 

Jason Potts Guest

32:46

Must have been in my own little yeah a pop conference. I think I met him there in Santa Cruz. 

Steve Morreale Host

32:52

So you know it's interesting. We're talking and you were talking about being, I guess, proactive. You know Jim McCabe uses a term, being nosy, allowing police officers to be nosy, which is a very intriguing term unto itself. But you're right, we're always curious what's going on there? What's going on there? What's going on there? This seems out of place, it's that kind of stuff. So it's being careful, right to always be proactive and give them the time to be proactive and do something about proactive, but sometimes proactive is shaking hands and getting to know the people in the community. 

Jason Potts Guest

33:19

Yeah, actually making a consensual contact. Hey how you doing what's going on. 

33:27

You all right, but that's, yeah, being nosy and having a good eye right Having a good eye, having good instincts and I think we all know those street cops that just know those instincts. That stuff is important. And just being able, it's the craft right, the craft of policing. And you know, a lot of times in the evidence-based decision-making, evidence-based policing world it's not to eliminate or supplant or eliminate the craft. Craft is very important to what you know evidence-based policing is all about, and the same with evidence-based medicine, but it's also aligning that and combining your craft with the data science and search. 

33:59

And you know, I think the future of policing is stratified police is really is making our deployments based on crime analysts and having our crime analysts in a 9 one center, if you will, or deploying our officers in a very precise way. Bill Bratton says this what you need to know about a culture is how you reward, how you measure and how you hold people to account. And I use this kind of funny analogy or huge analogy of fishing with a spear instead of fishing with a net to avoid disparate outcome and be very precise in our approaches. That makes sense. You know Bill Bratton talks about decision policing, so I think there's something to be said for it. Let's talk about discipline a little bit. 

Steve Morreale Host

34:28

You know how heavy handed you might have been or other departments that you've been around have been, and whether that works or not. In using progressive discipline, using some informal discipline, because what I see sometimes is and I hear about this from sergeants all the time I've got a relationship with somebody, I'm coming down on them, I'm telling them not to do that again, but I'm making it informal. Maybe it's an informal write-up, but then somebody else comes along and says you will write that up and that's already passed. You understand it's probably been done to you before where you thought you handled it. Let's talk that through for a minute. 

Jason Potts Guest

35:01

Yeah Well, progressive discipline is worthy, of course, but I think what sometimes, where we fall short is that I call it friends family benefit, and what I mean by that is if you're not consistent in your approach. Because when I first came here and it's one of the benefits right when I first came here to this organization, I don't know anybody, I don't know layers, I'm not institutionalized, and you know my philosophy on just promotions as quickly as you take an assessment center, it pays to be a winner, the Navy SEAL mantra, and I'm going to go down the list one through five, and unless I have a tangible reason to skip you, I won't. And so for us. I think what we run into issues in this profession is when we're not consistent in our application of discipline, and discipline doesn't need to be punitive. I think discipline. 

35:38

Sometimes I actually rail against what we call BOC zero complaints. I want our folks having courageous conversations. I want our people to go. Hey, knock that off, get your head out of your nose. You know what? Let's get this thing going. I believe in you. I have these expectations for you. I know you can achieve them. When people feel that you believe in them and you got their back. They're going to go through a wall for you and I think sometimes what happens, Steve, is that our middle managers, sometimes our frozen middle, what are we doing? Are we going to do that or not? And hey, and listen, I've had to terminate some folks. I hate doing it, but you have to hold people accountable, of course. 

Steve Morreale Host

36:14

You have to do that. That's got to be some serious stuff, you know. Just yes, of course. 

Jason Potts Guest

36:17

On a whim, right of course, and the good people are paying attention. 

Steve Morreale Host

36:22

How are you handling those? If you allow cancers to spread, then if that guy's getting away with doing nothing, why should I do anything? Why should I ramp it up? I agree with that consistency very, very much and I like the courageous conversations. In other words, sometimes you've got to have some very difficult conversations to not ignore it. One of the things that agitates me a little bit is when you hear from people who are saying, hey, I don't care if they're not getting along, that's not my problem, that's personal the job. When somebody slows down on a backup because maybe you know you've got a relationship with their former, whatever, and then it shows up on the job. 

Jason Potts Guest

36:57

Yeah, no, so true, you know how do you do that, and I think you have to have to be able to be consistent, and so you have to have those conversations. You know I want people who own the message, and I think all too often in this profession we'll go, hey, well, the chief wants this. No, I need you, as a lieutenant, to own that message, because I rarely will say, well, the city manager wants this. This is own this message. And you know we need owners, not renters. You know, I think we got too many people renting cars from Enterprise instead of owning, and so I want our folks to own the message. I want our middle managers and our sergeants to own it. 

37:26

And I think for us sometimes what we struggle with is alignment, a lack of alignment. I need us all going in the same direction, and that's really where this leadership retreat is born from. For us is making sure that it's good alignment, and I've talked to my friend colleagues across the country and everyone dealing with this to different degrees about the lack of alignment, making sure everyone's rowing in the same direction. Is that or rowing in the same direction, or are you sticking that? Or up out of the water and not really doing it. Are you owning the message? And those things are difficult, but I want people to have those courageous conversations before it gets to an internal bearers command bureau. 

Steve Morreale Host

37:57

I have to say I love using owning versus renting. I use that in a lot of training. But the question I would ask, not of you but of others, and that is are you letting people have an ownership stake or are you just treating them as renters? Right? And if? Because if that's if you don't get the buy-in, that's a problem. 

Jason Potts Guest

38:13

Yeah, you got to model that too right. And if they perceive that, well, wait a minute. Well then, why are we doing it this way? And if you're not consistent, again starting from the top, and they're going to be infused in that mess as well. And I think all of that comes down to relationship of it this way. And I have a few of my leaders that will come into my office and they'll bounce something off me. They'll know the answer. And now we're at that point where they know the answer and they'll bounce it off me and I go I figured you'd say that you know what I mean. So that's where I know we're starting to make some headway. 

Steve Morreale Host

38:41

That's good. We're talking to Jason Potts, we're from the troops, without jumping the chain of command. 

Jason Potts Guest

38:51

Yeah, that gets me in trouble, and so what I mean by that. 

Steve Morreale Host

38:54

I appreciate the honesty. 

Jason Potts Guest

38:55

What I mean by that is that I like to get out of my office. I like to go over to the detention center. I like to go out to our people. I just love being out in the field with our, with our cops. Keep your finger on the pulse? Yeah, absolutely. But with that comes folks that will have conversations with you and sometimes what they'll do is they'll mince those words, they'll take them out of context and then it'll come back to my lieutenants or deputy chief and I'm like well, that's not exactly how I said it, that's not what we said, and so those things are difficult. So what we do to really make sure we get some good feedback is obviously, I'm very approachable, my personality is approachable, but you have to be very mindful bit. The next thing out of my mouth should be hey, listen, run that chain of command. Hey, listen, this C, that's a great idea. Can you write me a memo? Can you write me an email? 

Steve Morreale Host

39:34

That's what we're doing now Get it to me, but put it through your boss, so everybody knows. 

Jason Potts Guest

39:39

Exactly so everybody's on the same page. And so what happens? I'll say something like, well, that's a great idea. Or sometimes we'll think out loud I so. Those things are difficult and it's been some challenges, and they do exit interviews and you learn a lot from exit interviews. We talk quite a bit about, hey, what are we doing? Well, what are we doing that you wish we'd stop doing? And you know, what are we not doing that you wish we would start doing? And then if you achieve a day right and I'm sure you've had folks on your podcast that say the same sort of things and different chiefs do that because we want to know what we're doing and what we're not so well. 

Steve Morreale Host

40:10

My favorite and I'm just. I'm actually going back to a department next week for the second round, and the question that really piqued their interest was if you were king or queen for a day, what one thing would you change besides getting rid of the top dogs? What one thing would you change to improve the organization? And once you open the door, it's amazing what you get back. So let's just talk about this retreat that you're getting ready for, and even setting agendas for your meetings and allowing that they not be all more strategic, but more of an inquiry, more of a willingness to accept ideas from the floor. How do you do that and how are you putting this together? This? 

Jason Potts Guest

40:48

retreat. Yeah, so we're having a facilitator. His name is Mike Murphy. He was our deputy chief years ago and he has a consultant and he's just a very each person. And so we're bringing in an assistant sheriff to speak Councilman Henderson, Sheriff Seabock, and so he's going to speak on his leadership journey. 

41:03

But I'll tell you what I do in my. I have a weekly meeting every Tuesday with our command staff and I invite every month. We invite everybody in. We have people that come in, some sergeants that maybe don't get to see how the sausage is made. If you will, we actually bring our union president in there once a month to see how we're doing things. 

1:18

How I like to run Miami is I don't want to be the one talking. In fact, if I'm the one talking in these meetings, I'm probably not doing so well. Each person, each time I have somebody on command staff, facilitates differently. It facilitates a different day when we're doing that. We have our agenda, we have our to-do list, if you will. We have our yellow, green and red, and so things that are in the yellow, what stuff we're working on, things that are red are just kind of being in the parking lot. We're just not going to get to them, and so we're really mindful of having a closed loop process and where are we at with that and with that date and where are we going? And so I found that it's working for us to kind of keep us on track. 

Steve Morreale Host

41:50

The strategic plan that you talked about and the strategic plan. 

Jason Potts Guest

41:53

that was something that we created gosh in over a year. Was there not one? 

Steve Morreale Host

41:57

when you got here, there was not. 

Jason Potts Guest

41:58

All right, so let's talk about that. 

Steve Morreale Host

41:59

I'm actually teaching the strategic planning. 

Jason Potts Guest

42:01

I'm proud of this, by the way, Steve. 

Steve Morreale Host

42:03

Well, let's see if you're proud of it, tell me about it. 

Jason Potts Guest

42:07

So I media platforms perhaps, or maybe with the city. So what we're doing is we had for last year, we have a chief advisory board and these are what I call ambassadors. We also have a citizens advisory board. So there's five people picked from each of our divisions five from field services, five from detention and five are professional staff, and so they come in with our facilitator. With the city we have a strategic planner. Facilitator Strategic services is a department in the city of Las Vegas and they just whiteboard things and we all come together and I'm not in the East, by the way, and when the meeting that I am in, you know rank, we don't talk about rank. In fact, facilitator calls me by first name, and so it's important that folks feel comfortable to kind of come up with their plan, their document. 

42:44

Obviously, this document is heavily influenced by me as well. You'll see it. When it comes out, I'll share it with you. It's heavy on evidence-based decision-making, it's heavy on the 21st century policing document and those principles. But it really our three focus areas we talked about building trust, confidence and legitimacy, employee health and wellness and community engagement and crime reduction are born out of those meetings over the last year. So we're proud of it. It's their document. As you know, we're not getting there unless people feel like they own that document, that it's part of them. Some people will look at that document and probably go well, what is that all about? And we always told our I call it ambassadors, our folks in our chief's advisory board, our officers and our staff hey, there's no secrets here. I want you all talking about this document, talking about what we're doing here with everybody else out there on the street, attention center and in the hallways. 

Steve Morreale Host

43:29

Constantly talk about it. This is your doctor. That's great. I look forward to seeing that. It's not an easy thing and I understand and I think, as we wind down, it seems to me that when you are a leader, you can walk in with an idea and you can drive that idea. You can be one dimensional. This is what we're gonna do, no matter what, but the fact of the matter is, I think, as we grow, that I'm going to plant the seed and let's see where it goes Right. 

Jason Potts Guest

43:53

I see you shaking your head. I love that, isn't that interesting, though I say that all the time, steve, I talk about planting seeds and I'll tell you what happens is it gets our folks, our younger folks that maybe aren't having that higher altitude. You know all plant a seed or all talk about hope and where we're going. Hey, we got a DEA task force position. We just got it, we just selected somebody for it and I have been talking about that for months Flex team, a problem-oriented policing team. Now we have motors and these are things I planted and now they're coming to fruition. But you know, yeah, you have to plant those seeds and you have to instill some hope, but with that comes some challenges, because folks want it tomorrow right when you start thinking, but you may have set that up, that expectation, not when you first started and now you're slowing down and it doesn't. 

Steve Morreale Host

44:30

You know, it takes some time. You have to put it in the, in the budget and all of those kinds of things and see people. 

Jason Potts Guest

44:36

Yes, Right Purchasing it. Funny story, not so funny. 

44:40

I was talking about flock safety cameras, which are license plate readers that use some of the artificial intelligence, and I'm a big fan of those. That system we were early adopters in California, in Vallejo, and I started talking about block when I got there, just to give you a sense of how slow things are. Purchasing and IT and all these contracts and different things like that. I didn't get them until a few months ago, three or four months ago, so we're two years into it. Where I was talking about it, it frustrated me and I'll tell you the city has run really well here. They dot their I's and cross their T's. My previous department in Vallejo we were a bit dysfunctional with that. We added some zeros to some lawsuits because they just made things happen pretty quickly. So it was some growing pains for me being able to slow it down and knowing that you can't get things done like yesterday. 

Steve Morreale Host

45:20

Well, we've been talking to Jason Potts. He is from California, now in Las Vegas as the chief director of the Department of Public Safety in the city of Las Vegas, and it's been very interesting to talk with you. You're a whole bunch smarter than you look, Jason. I'm just saying that today. I'm teasing, but listen as we get ready to say goodbye. Let's go back to this thing evidence-based police that you are so enamored with, so much of a believer in. How can someone who is just hearing it for the first time or trying to understand how it works? How do you get started? How do you find a partner? How do you find a question? 

Jason Potts Guest

45:59

Yeah, I would tell those that are interested in it to start small, to gather your people, to join your tribe. You know, and I'll tell you, it fills up my tank when I go out there to the ASBP conference not conference and do those kind of things and meet with folks that are like-minded. Just start small, figure out. It doesn't need to be an extensive, lengthy study, you know. Partner with your local researchers from the local university. You know we're partnering on a SAGE BJA grant. Sage stands for Sound, accountable, just, effective Leasing. I'm partnering with Professor Bill Sousa and Eileen Ma. Oh, I know. 

Steve Morreale Host

46:30

Bill, yeah, yeah, UNLV. 

Jason Potts Guest

46:31

Yeah, UNLV, yes, yes, and so we're doing that, we're starting that and that's going to be a pretty cool thing. It's a policing health metric to see how we're doing and we're at in our organization and we're going to be looking at some hotspot policing. I'll tell you, hotspot policing right now is gaining and dispatch, and so you know the Cobra Curve concept where you know you're patrolling a hot area sporadically every few hours for about 10 to 15 minutes in that hotspot, and we've actually automated it and we're playing around with this idea, with our Pomorinia policing, just to start small and if we find some success, we'll push it out to the rest of the patrol team. You have to explain the why. 

47:09

As a you know, I did a lot of these things as a sergeant. Get some buy-in from your police leadership, explain the value and start small. Gather a few people, get your crime analysts to go along with you, get with agencies like the beta.govs of the world and other researchers and just do it small. Do it small and explain the why. Explain why you're doing it and then at the end of it say, hey, this worked or maybe it didn't work. 

Steve Morreale Host

47:36

And it's just as important to talk about hey, we tried this and we found that it's not working as well as we think it should. So put your time and energy into something else. The next thing I like you finishing with explaining why. Because so often we're told to do something and then we have to go and sell it to the troops, and if we don't understand why because we haven't been told why and just do it is no longer a reasonable approach in my mind. 

Jason Potts Guest

47:53

It is not, not today's society, society, right, and you know, listen, policing is a microcosm of society. We pick from the human race, obviously, and these things are just. You know. We have to explain the why to people. People you know Simon Sinek I've heard you talk about Simon Sinek Starts why and we have to explain that People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it and those things are important and you know our people need to know. 

Steve Morreale Host

48:15

They deserve that, by the way. They do deserve it, and I think it makes it easier. Right, there's less resistance if you're honest with me and you tell me why and it's not just because the chief told me to I understand that and it's been for our organization. I think that's the win-win. 

Jason Potts Guest

48:30

We think about relationships. Anytime you have a relationship with anybody, it's the win-win. It shouldn't be a win-lose. Both folks need to win somehow, some way. 

Steve Morreale Host

48:36

Appreciate it. Well, it's been a pleasure talking with you. I can't wait to get together with you out in Tucson in the next couple of months. But we've been talking to Jason Potts and he is the director and chief of the Department and he happens to be wearing an Oakland Raiders hat no longer. 

Jason Potts Guest

48:52

Las Vegas, las Vegas Raiders, listen to me. 

Steve Morreale Host

48:55

That tells me. But that's pretty neat with what's going on, and you've got a hockey team now and, my goodness, golden Knights yes, it's great. 

Jason Potts Guest

49:04

It's a great sports town, entertainment capital of the world. I love this city. Las Vegas is a phenomenal city. It really is. Is a phenomenal city. It really is. It's a fun place. 

Steve Morreale Host

49:11

Yeah, everybody ends up there eventually. 

49:13

And of course, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. I don't know if that's true or not. Listen, thank you very much. I appreciate it. So that's another episode of the Cop Talk podcast in the can and speaking with Jason Potts. Thanks for listening. And I continue to be amazed that people from 86 countries now and 3000, 3000 different cities are listening, and I certainly appreciate that. I'm not sure why, but thanks for hanging in there and keep me posted if there's anybody I should be talking to who is innovative and forward thinking. And certainly we just finished with Jason Potts. Thanks and have a good one. 

Intro outro Announcement

49:43

Thanks for listening to The CopDoc Podcast with Dr Steve Morreale. Steve is a retired law enforcement practitioner and manager, turned academic and scholar from Worcester State University. Please tune into The CopDoc Podcast for regular episodes of interviews with thought leaders in policing.