Connor came to us as a lateral from Colorado. He has been with GPPD for about 2 years now. He got his interest in law enforcement from his aunt who used to get him ride-outs with narcotics and undercover operations. Conner speaks of his lateral move to another state and his "why" for law enforcement.
Connor got his degree in Criminal Justice from CMU (Colorado Mesa University). He is married with large dogs and brings SWAT experience to GPPD as well.
#firstresponders #mentalhealth #policestories #firefighters #firstresponderpodcast #wellness #police #policepodcasts #coplife #grandprairie #grandprairiepd #grandprairiepolice #thinblueline #firedepartment #investigations #honorguard #swat #fto #intern #jiujitsu #bjj #mindset #lpc #wellnessunit #wellness #emdr #counseling #therapy #therapist #mentalthealth
Check out our department and come join us!
https://www.grandprairiepolice.org/Join-GPPD/Benefits
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/7iXLlroCbjAnjPAIT2zbEO
iTunes:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gppd-podcast-grand-prairie-police-tx/id1647457129
Social Media:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGKcINWcNmiQWqoGebGbpug
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090391688925
https://twitter.com/gppd_podcast
https://www.instagram.com/gppdpodcast/
Connor came to us as a lateral from Colorado. He has been with GPPD for about 2 years now. He got his interest in law enforcement from his aunt who used to get him ride-outs with narcotics and undercover operations. Conner speaks of his lateral move to another state and his "why" for law enforcement.
Connor got his degree in Criminal Justice from CMU (Colorado Mesa University). He is married with large dogs and brings SWAT experience to GPPD as well.
#firstresponders #mentalhealth #policestories #firefighters #firstresponderpodcast #wellness #police #policepodcasts #coplife #grandprairie #grandprairiepd #grandprairiepolice #thinblueline #firedepartment #investigations #honorguard #swat #fto #intern #jiujitsu #bjj #mindset #lpc #wellnessunit #wellness #emdr #counseling #therapy #therapist #mentalthealth
Check out our department and come join us!
https://www.grandprairiepolice.org/Join-GPPD/Benefits
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/7iXLlroCbjAnjPAIT2zbEO
iTunes:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gppd-podcast-grand-prairie-police-tx/id1647457129
Social Media:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGKcINWcNmiQWqoGebGbpug
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090391688925
https://twitter.com/gppd_podcast
https://www.instagram.com/gppdpodcast/
Welcome to GPPD podcast. I'm your host, nate. I'm a lateral transfer officer and I'm currently assigned to the investigations bureau.
Speaker 2:And I'm your co-host KD. I'm also a lateral officer and I'm assigned to the crime prevention unit. We're always looking for great men and women for the police department, but also we need dispatchers, animal control, code enforcement officers and detention officers. So if you know anybody interested, please, please, send them to grandpurepoliceorg. Get that information filled out so that you can apply.
Speaker 1:Don't forget to find us on social media. We have Facebook, instagram, tiktok and YouTube and, most importantly, find us on your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe, activate notifications. Leave us a five star review. Today, you will hear from police officers, their lives and their stories. The accounts may be mature in nature and mature language may be used. Listener, discretion is advised.
Speaker 2:And welcome back to another episode of GPPD podcast. So I'm going to have to hold it down. My boy Nate's got some stuff he's taken care of, so today we have Officer Connor. Appreciate you coming in, bro Happy to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, easy peasy. Before we get started, wanted to mention a couple things. So it's still grandpurepoliceorg Hop online. We need good men and women, as most of the cities that we're talking about you know there's a bunch of us, but we need we need some good people to apply. I don't know, we'll have another test coming soon, so just kind of watch the internet and we'll get that info out to you. We're also needing detention, so we say detention jail. Same thing. We need men and women there as well.
Speaker 2:Get online, because I want to say we wanted the highest paid detention staffs in the Metroplex. So check it out. You won't be mad or sad that you did, I promise Alright, so I think that's it. So, connor, I appreciate you sitting down with me. We want to talk, because I got a lot of questions, especially once you said Colorado. I'm like, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. So I want to save them for now. But, starting off, let's just, you know, tell everybody how you got to where you are as far as like police work and how you got here.
Speaker 3:Well, one of my close family members, my aunt, was actually LAPD. Lapd, yeah, she recently retired after, I believe, 26 years of LAPD. So growing up she would tell me stories all the time. Love tearing those stories and like, oh, this is the coolest job. And then just general mentality that I've had over the years. I think it just fit in the personality-wise and everything like that.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I didn't really see myself doing anything else, especially going to school and everything like that. I got a degree in criminal justice for it, yeah, okay, and loved it. I did an internship for a couple summers while I was in college with my aunt and loved every bit of it, and she was an auto theft detective at that point.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm going to jump in because I don't want to forget this thought. So you said you did an internship with her.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Who was that? So I take it, you were young.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was about 19 and 20.
Speaker 2:I did two separate summers, yeah so she let you or I guess their protocol you could go into the station, hang out with the officers and see and kind of do what they were doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think she kind of, you know, mended or bent the rules a little bit because she got me right along with a lot of the detectives and a lot of the UC Units that were in her station. I was doing it right along with narcotics and vice and property crimes. That was the coolest thing, especially being that young Like I was watching it all happen and watching you know what the real, real, real cops do, yeah, which was, you know, really cool and really fun to do.
Speaker 2:Bro, that's awesome, yeah, Okay, so for the listeners when we say like you see undercover right yeah under car. Normally, if you go, do like a ride along, like you're going to fill out the paperwork and you're going to sit in the front seat with the officer and we may show you some hot spots in the city or what have you, but for you to be able to get in there and go, no, I'm going out with these. You see, guys, you know, let's do some narcotics stuff. That's crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah, I mean it was, it was interesting. And looking about it back at it now and, like you said, it's not not normal at all to do that, so I'm very appreciative. You know my end. Let me do that for months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this man, I'm jealous, I promise. So, auntie, listen, I need you to come in because I want to talk to her. Does she live out that way, or she's?
Speaker 3:now she. She lives in Las Vegas now, which most like LAPD lives at this point oh most of them live in Las Vegas at this point, or Texas or Florida, one of three.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, cool, look, tell me, we appreciate her service. I know it was tough out there too as well, but all right, so what? That's one person. What about did you have military like brothers, sister?
Speaker 3:No, all me. I have two older brothers and you know we're all completely different in every way, shape or form, like you wouldn't think we're related until you like put us together and we kind of look similar, but outside of that, our personalities or professions, everything like that, are completely different, even for my father. Yeah, like my only link to law enforcement was my end. Yeah, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:It's funny. You say that because I always tell people like I have a set of younger, my younger brothers, their twins. Well hell, I'm only like five, seven, but when they I stand next to them. My one brother is five, six, five, his twin is six, three. And you talk about night and day opposite bro, night and day opposite twins. And is you know, one is a coach, one's a doctor, one is very professional, the other was laid back. You know it's funny, but no it, that's cool, that's cool.
Speaker 2:Okay. So she kind of pushed you along and said, Okay, you knew early on you wanted the law enforcement thing. Yeah, See, I was one of those guys where I kind of got into this because it was like Katie, I think you'd be good at it, you know. It's like Okay, cool, Do I get to work outside? Yes, I was, I was, you know, sign me up. But like, do you have the backing now of your family? Because I saw that you're married, so like, and we're gonna I'm gonna go out of order, so to speak. But did your wife say honey, yeah, this is something that are? She's like oh, I'm a little bit more reserved. You want to be a police officer. What are we talking about? What are we doing?
Speaker 3:So we, we actually met while I was already a police officer, me and my wife, and you know she was intimidated just sheer fact because she's never really talked to a cop before. So like it was kind of awkward during the first part of us dating, so it. But eventually she got used to it, especially like hanging out with a couple friends that I had in my previous department and she actually, you know, got used to it. So it was, it was fine in that sense. But you know, my family, my media family, mom, dad, brothers, they, they all encouraged me to do it. I mean, they were concerned, obviously, with the nature of our profession, but you know they wanted to support me. And my aunt, she actually tried to convince me to be a firefighter because she's, she's like this is a great profession, you're going to love it. But you know there's a lot of people that aren't going to like you. And if you want to be liked and you know, not be a stress, become a firefighter.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I wanted to talk to you.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, course, and we give our firefighters a hard time but we love them, we work hand in hand, especially here. I know they're stationed out of the same or the like. The headquarters is here, but no, it's a dangerous job. But you know, yeah, you kind of the people that love you or they want you to do something less stressful. So it is funny because I always ask people I still get it. Now I've been on over 15 years and my dad, I can call him right now and start talking to me. Are you okay? You know, do you like doing that police thing? Yes, sir Pops, newsflash I'm getting ready to retire in five years, you know. So it's like you know, you want the backing, you know, and I'm kind of cool that. I'm glad that your wife is like no, I understand now, but because some people I think it's just hard, like the fear, you know, do you ever talk about that? Like she's scared If you're working nights and it's like, you know, honey, yes, I get scared sometimes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think she's used to it now, especially since I have three massive dogs, two of which are German shepherds. So she's not scared in for like, for well being much, but I mean, she's just scared in general. When you know I'm on duty, she tries to hide it. She doesn't really mention it because she knows you know, I'm going to start thinking about that when I'm on duty, which is, you know, makes it more difficult.
Speaker 3:But, you know it, for the beginning part of my career I didn't really talk much to her about my job because I thought I was trying to basically cover or shield her from her being stressed, because if I tell her those stories, or which would be our Tuesday, and it doesn't really matter to us, but it would matter to her.
Speaker 3:So I was trying to not talk to her about it, but later on I found that it's actually better for me to actually tell her. I'll give her and like, trickle it and like little drops here and there, but it's better to do that than bottle all in and not tell anyone about it.
Speaker 2:No, bro, you're spot on. Like have the conversation sometimes. What we'll do is just try not to go into as much detail. Yeah, and like baby, look, I can tell you something, but this is funny, but it's cop funny.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like, generalize things, not be very specific, then they start getting concerned more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So all right. So I'm an avid like animal lover and when you say three German shepherds, I'm like whoa time out, wait back up three.
Speaker 3:No two German shepherds in a black lab.
Speaker 2:So yeah, okay, so those are just three big dogs yeah, three big dogs. How much is your food bill?
Speaker 3:I don't even I've had a guess like 500. I'll hear something like that a month, like it's kind of depressing, honestly.
Speaker 2:Well, okay, so I have a Kanye Corsair correct pronunciation but a Ken Corso, and he eats half raw and half kibble, so I mix it up. I mean now I think it's costing me about probably $100 a month, you know and it's going up, because I mean, he's full grown, he's three. But man, they eat a lot, so do they shed as much as everybody say they do? Yeah, See, that would drive me crazy.
Speaker 3:It drives my wife crazy. I'm used to it at this point. I've had German shepherds pretty much all my life and I'm used to it. But it doesn't matter how much you vacuum or clean or anything, next day it's going to be the same exact thing. It's a constant struggle in battle. We have a Roomba that goes on twice a day just to keep up with the hair that's everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so do you have that? It's some kind of new vacuum. I see it on TikTok. But you can brush the dog and then push a button and it sucks the hair out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we got that. It doesn't really do much. The only thing that really does much is shampoo and washing them. And bathing them is the only real way to do it. Just brushing them, just maintains it for an hour.
Speaker 2:So have you talked her into? I think it's called a dog washing station or something. If you got three big dogs, you got that bag. Look, I'm gonna build this outside on the side of the house and we're gonna be done with it.
Speaker 3:That will be the next project, for sure to do that. Hell, I was thinking about one.
Speaker 2:I'm like I got one dog, short hair, but just sweeping if I can see a little bit of hair, I mean it freaks my wife out. We need to sweep them out. I'm like, yes, yes, ma'am, it's just one dog. Yeah, short hair, so no crazy, all right. So you went to school, got it. You said criminal justice degree yeah, all right. What school did you go to?
Speaker 3:CMU, Colorado Mason University. It's like Southwest Colorado, like Grand Junction, if you know where that is.
Speaker 2:Okay, man, I'm gonna tell you I've been up to Colorado Springs, the most beautiful city I've ever seen. And so when I went up there and that was years ago I worked for a moving company in the summertime while I was at college, and so we moved some people up there. I'm saying a mansion, it was a three story off in the hills and I mean it was so beautiful that my boss was like, hey, guys were done with the move, but we're gonna go down here to some resort and we camped out for like two days and it was just, it was so beautiful. Now, I think as athletes we go know the air is thin. I'm like what does that mean?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, bro, I ran down the hill. Mind you, I'm in shape because I'm training every day for football. I ran down the hill and it was me and another defensive guy working for the same company, and I mean, we just bent over and we're like we can hardly breathe. My chest is hurting and I'm like, bro, what is wrong? And I'm like I can't breathe. And he was like I can't breathe either. And so we were just sitting there and the other guy was laughing. But did you have any? Did you go through that at all?
Speaker 3:Been up there, absolutely absolutely, even just like walking around, it's much different, like trying to get used to it. When I first initially went to college for the first month, I would get migraines every single day because I was from Southern California.
Speaker 2:So it was completely different.
Speaker 3:So just being up there and even doing, just walking around like to classes and everything like that, would just give me a migraine. It was the weirdest thing. I have no idea if that was mainly because of the altitude or because, I don't know, dehydration, I don't know, but it was just constantly happening for the first month.
Speaker 2:That would drive me crazy. You know, you just pop in Tylenol and trying to get rid of a headache and it's like what's wrong with you? I don't know. I'm from Cali, Colorado, there.
Speaker 3:And I was a cross country runner so I would run pretty much every other day and I couldn't. I couldn't do more like a mile for the first month because of the headaches and because of the altitude and I couldn't breathe.
Speaker 2:Look. So I'm about to ask you well, how long were you a cross country runner, like you know? Kind of look, you're not cutting, you're like coach, I can do it, I'm just trying to get used to this altitude.
Speaker 3:So I did it in high school. I did lacrosse and cross country in high school and then when I got to college I just kind of did it for fun. I was on any team. I was on intramural lacrosse for the first two years, but that's about it. But yeah, I kind of just stopped doing long distance running after the first month. I'm not gonna do this anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, all right. So, and you had mentioned Colorado, so is that where you got your first law enforcement job?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so part of my degree. For the main reason why I chose that school is because my last semester of college is actually the police academy. So in Colorado most academies are actually generalized, like it's region, it's not like four specific police departments.
Speaker 3:Some police departments had them, but most of them were just you know. You go to an academy either you're sponsored by a police department to go to it or you know you could put yourself through it basically. So in my case one of the regional academies was right next to my college and part of getting my criminal justice degree was going to that. Like you had two options either you went the law side of where you know you just took a bunch of classes and you know you plan on being a lawyer or whatever.
Speaker 3:And then the other side is specifically to become a police officer.
Speaker 2:So so were you sponsored.
Speaker 3:No, I was not sponsored. When I first went in, I had paid for all of it myself to do it. Wow Pay to go get your T-Cole essentially, yeah, essentially yeah, it was called Colorado Post, yeah there. So.
Speaker 2:Okay, so then you graduate and then you start trying to find what city or during it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:All right, and so then you got on with the law enforcement. A city up there.
Speaker 3:No, yeah, close by Durango Police Department in Southwest Colorado.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so how long were you there?
Speaker 3:With Durango. I was there for almost five and a half years before I came here. Okay, cool.
Speaker 2:Now big jump. So Colorado, how does well? First I wanna ask so were you there when some of those laws and things started changing, when they were like, oh yeah, it's legal up here now? Could you see, like certain I don't, I guess I wanna say neighborhoods but certain cities, like they, were nice cities and then it's not so much because somebody put in the legislation. Let's go this route.
Speaker 3:I mean, even when I was in college, the town that I was in was very red, very conservative, so they I mean they were still pretty strict. I mean they had a population, but it wasn't really anything I was concerned about when I was in college. But my wife finished her degree in Denver while I was still in Durango. So I would go visit her all the time and it's very sad to see, because Denver in that entire area, the front range is very beautiful and different from anything else, but the actual inner city is disgusting. It's terrible. You can go a block and you will see a line of tents or a bunch of People.
Speaker 3:And she was staying in an apartment in the inner city of Denver and you know she was a basically a basement apartment and I was Always concerned with her because she would add late classes or she was working, she was walking home. I would always be on the phone with her and it Terrified her. She hated it. She hated it because she was always being harassed all the time the entire time, and I mean Unfortunately.
Speaker 3:It's not because of you know, denver police departments, because the letters Laws and the that exists there that prevents them from actually being able to do something.
Speaker 2:Because everybody else on the outside looking in is like no, don't do that, because especially police officers Like we can sit back and tell no if you relax the law in this specific area. Here's what's gonna happen and you got people way up here to make these rules and laws and they're like, oh no, it's gonna be fine, it's gonna bring in, you know, some good revenue. Sure, okay, tax money.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but then you're gonna be paying for it in other ways, in other ways in all criminal elements go up, all of them. So anyway it's.
Speaker 3:It's sad because Colorado is by far one of the most beautiful states that you know that exists and the joke, the inside jerk that we had at my old department and a lot of people that I talked to is that it was Slowly turning into another California Sorry for the people that live in California, but I mean it the you were seeing the red flags that you were constantly like hearing jokes about in regards to laws, in regard, yeah, in California, but it's, it was slowly turning into that and by the time I left I mean we can go into that just in general when I was on patrol there, but it was getting ridiculous to the point of they were trying to discourage you from Enforcing the law.
Speaker 3:Yeah and in every way, whether that's from the judge to the DA, to the actual people writing the laws to. You know my own administration, my own police department, and it's sad.
Speaker 2:So and we were talking about this earlier, but I know, nate and I, so when you say it for the listeners, when you say hey, they're kind of discouraging us from doing police work. Give me an example.
Speaker 3:When I first started, every single controlled substance other than marijuana because marijuana was already legal in Colorado by that time Was a felony. By my third year of being a cop there they changed everything into a ticket for Controlled substance. If you were above Five grams then it would be the lowest Felony, which in Colorado they didn't just have, like you know, misomears and felonies, they had drug felonies which are basically lower than regular felonies. So I mean, essentially it didn't mean anything. You went to drug court for a couple months and then you know, as long as you somewhat passed a drug test, you not not actually pass. If you somewhat passed it, then you know you're good to go.
Speaker 3:So, that's one of the things.
Speaker 2:So right into I Don't know, and I laugh only because here I mean we could. We're gonna give you a ticket, but, man, you better have a small amount of marijuana, you know to me and the driver's license and insurance, up to date registry, like all these other boxes you better be good at. But I I've heard other cities and now I'm hearing it from you like none of no up here we're writing tickets for, like you know, cocaine residue or cocaine period.
Speaker 3:Yeah my, if the Drug or drug dealers or even the people that are using the drugs Figured this out very quickly and they just made sure that they were under that five grams, so they would just get a ticket.
Speaker 3:Like some of them were almost so precise that it was like 4.8 grams or something like that and we would be forced to just write a ticket to them and Beyond that, we were discouraged to even take them on that because it was it was technically a drug misdemeanor, but that's essentially a ticket in Colorado. And you know, in the beginning I began to try to take them still to jail because I'm like that, it's a controlled substance, they need to go to jail for this, like they need to have a, you know, somewhat of a punishment, not just like a slap on the wrist for this. And I was discouraged to do that and they were basically ordering me to just do tickets to take you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, which is frustrating, because I mean that's that was the main thing I did in my old apartment. Was you know a Rest people for drugs? Yeah, and you know, in a small town like that I knew those places, and then they basically took away the thing I love the most doing.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I what you saying is I need to move up there and just I could open up a small business. You know in scales, because everybody's gonna walk right, bro. You know you gotta be up under five, here you go. That's crazy.
Speaker 3:That's not even the craziest thing. People were getting away with, you know, attempted murder there and getting two years unsupervised probation Like one of the cases I handled was specifically for that. It was a drug deal that got bad Guy pulled out a shotgun, shot the dude dude jumped out a window to get away from him. The guy chased him, got in his car, ran him over with his car and we saved him. He survived, like we saved him, and then that guy got two years unsupervised probation for that. And there was like three other females that were involved also and I think one of them got one year's unsupervised probation. The rest of them didn't even get anything for it. That that's that's like. I mean, that's an extreme, but that's the common alley that keeps happening in Colorado. It's really unfortunate, yeah well, so, and what?
Speaker 2:and I tell officers, and how many years on total do you have?
Speaker 3:coming up on eight years now.
Speaker 2:Okay. So you know and I tell especially the younger officers it's like I Try not to and I had my career. I've been doing this along. I've been thinking this way for for quite some time. I don't even, I try not to. It'll sound bad, but I don't care what happens to you after you get arrested and then you go down that judicial process, Mm-hmm, because you can get frustrated. Yeah, you know, it's like hey, I'm a follow-up on this case. What happened? Probation you know I did all of this work XYZ and we, you know, like you said, you had to chase this guy down and he's running over people, shooting people. Probation yeah, it's almost disheartening and you know we're not saying you know it pulled back as a police officer.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you're here, because now you, you know, I actually do things there you go, you can do things. It's like man, that's, that's spot on, that's good. No, he's going to prison. Okay, well, he deserved it. That's what he. He's acting like.
Speaker 3:I just learned after a few years being that it's just do your job as best as humanly possible. You know, if they decide to do that stuff, that's gonna be on them. They're gonna have to justify that. I'm not gonna have to justify that. I mean that's, it's a crappy mentality thinking about it that way but I mean, we're only a branch of a tree. That's, you know, a huge system. And you know, as long as we do our job the way we're supposed to, then you know we just need to hold for the best.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, yeah, well, okay, so how many years total? You said, did you do it there? Five, yeah, five, all right. So what departments did you work at when you were there, or what?
Speaker 3:just just patrol. I was a firearms instructor. I was on SWAT. You know I dabbled in CIT stuff. Yeah, I assisted with that and that was a passion for me to do that in narcotics. Yeah, those and I was on patrol. All that stuff was part-time. It was never. It was never full-time for any of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Okay, so kind of like our SWAT team here is not full-time. Okay, so it's for your position now, and forgive me because I'm not a SWAT guy so I don't know, but we're like sniper team lead any of that stuff.
Speaker 3:So it was kind of disorganizing that. I mean, we had team leaders, we had team sergeants and everything like that. Okay, we didn't have like specific positions either you were a super in a supervisor position, or you are basically a breaching team, or you were the sniper team. Like that's all we had. Like there wasn't like any coordination in that, like we didn't have like breaches point men you know anything like that. It was just either you were supervisors sniper team or you're like that in-between guy that will do anything.
Speaker 2:All right, and so I have to ask let's go into this bar sting. I want to hear funny everything. What happened so Okay.
Speaker 3:So this is the first. This is basically right. When I got off of FTO, we have a lot of bars in downtown Durango, where and we have a college, so we have a huge college scene and you know there's always thousands of people that are downtown, you know, going to these bars Because either you're doing outdoor things or you're getting drunk.
Speaker 3:Those are like the two things that you know college kids or people in their 20s or 30s were doing in Durango, because it was basically a vacation town. It wasn't, you know, anything else other than that. So we have these bar stings where we make sure they're not doing basically underage drinking or selling you know of the this or like over serving people. That was, that was the main thing, and you know me, being a brand new cop, not knowing what I'm doing, was just assigned to make sure that the like underage girl that we had trying to buy beer for us was not going to get hurt. That was solely my job. So it was me, one other guy doing this. And while we're in one of one of the bars, for some reason I had to go to the bathroom or something like that. And I went to the bathroom and there's just like a group of four guys that are basically like huddled all together, like shoulder to shoulder, like looking downward.
Speaker 1:And like that's strange. And then you know in the bathroom like that's like I don't, I don't judge.
Speaker 3:I'm like whatever whatever's going on is. It's what's going on. And while I'm waiting for one of the stalls, one of the guys like kind of looks over his shoulder and sees me and turn around and like does like the stereotypical thing that you like seeing, like when you're teaching, you know, elementary school. Hey, you, you want to buy some coke. And in my head I had to register for a second. So I kind of stared on him awkwardly for like 10 seconds and me, being the new cop I am, I basically like sounded like a robot. I'm like, yeah, sure, I would love to buy cocaine, how much do you have? And this guy being, you know, like completely oblivious, he's like, oh yeah let me show you.
Speaker 3:He takes out of his pocket and he had like a like one of those Ziploc bags, like sandwich bags, just full of cocaine. And he's like, yeah, I got this much. Man, I'm like man, I want to buy some of that. Let me go get some money. And I like walked out and we had. So we had two guys in UC and I was one of them. Then we had two guys in uniform in a, like a unmarked Chevy outside. So I walk up to them like, hey, there's a guy selling cocaine in the bathroom and you know we wait for him to come outside, or I. I encourage him to come outside because I'm like, hey, I have the money.
Speaker 3:And essentially I'm like, hey, I have like $200. How much is it going to give me? He gave me the amount. I'm like, okay, you mind coming out to my car. And when he came outside they arrested him and again the perspective of my department was they want us to do very specific things. And this was basically my first like. First like slap on the wrist for doing this, or in like thinking this way, thinking outside the box of like you know trying to enforce you know, controlled substance.
Speaker 3:They actually got upset with us for doing that Because in their minds they don't want us. Our job was to do the alcohol stuff, not the, not the drug stuff, and so we actually got reprimanded for that. And they also got upset with us because we had the underage girl with us, even though she was still, she was with the other officers, so she wasn't like unprotected or anything like that.
Speaker 3:But they got upset with us, basically saying that we put, we put her at risk by trying to do an undercover sting with this guy with the, you know, I think, with I think it was like 20 grams of cocaine or something like that. That he had on him in total, including, I think he had like mushrooms or something like that also. But they got upset with us.
Speaker 2:Okay, so. So my office is listening. In Colorado is Grand Prairie Policeorg. Okay, get online. We love laterals Y'all. Fill the information out and get your butts down here, bro. That's crazy. Like you know what I mean. I don't have to be up there from what you just told me. That's crazy. One of the things that that makes me love my bike units so much. We could see an issue and I could go hey, sarge, let me do X, y, z, because we were going to do something similar to that. Yeah, I won't let too much out, but it was like okay, katie, get on a bike and put some raggedy pants on or, you know, a shirt, look like that and go out there.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. It's like have fun. Let's be proactive and think outside the box. The fact that somebody threw something up, it landed in your lap. You walked into the bathroom to use the bathroom and then, it's yeah, you shouldn't be paying attention to the. Oh really, Okay, let the Coke go and we'll watch your damn alcohol drink.
Speaker 3:And in Durango's a lot, unfortunately a lot about image because, like I said, it was a vacation town so actually a lot of people from Texas would go there, you know, had their second homes there and like, would go there during the winter time or even the summertime to do outdoor activities, and I you know they would never admit it, but it was all about an image thing of.
Speaker 3:they wanted, you know the rain to look like that small, quaint little town that you know, nothing ever happens here kind of thing when it reality wasn't like that at all.
Speaker 2:Well, let me tell you something. Epic Waters is a family place. Come over there with some cocaine. I guarantee I'm taking you Period point blank, I don't care. Yeah, we'll put that image out there, you and some handcuffs. That's crazy. But again, every city, every department is gonna operate totally different. Just a quick plug guys do the ride-alongs. Did you do a ride-along with them before you join?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I did two ride-alongs before I joined. I was in the academy when they were trying to get me a hired on and I. Did. Uh, yeah, I did two ride-alongs before I actually got through the entire process and it was different, I mean even when I first started.
Speaker 3:It was different from when I when I left okay which, like it, it was more I Don't know how to put it they. They encouraged more proactivity in regards to more than just DWIs and, you know, domestic violence and stuff like that. They encouraged the you know the fighting drugs, finding warrants, finding all these other things when they first came out, which encouraged me to actually Want to join them like, oh yeah, it's a small town.
Speaker 3:It was kind of hesitant to do that because I came from, you know, orange County and shadow millions of people. You know I was kind of, you know, hesitant, but then after did the right on, oh yeah, this is cool, like, yeah, I can, I can do all these things even in a small town, absolutely, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can talk about that for another hour, because and I always say, do the right loss. Number one, every city is different. But number two, you get to see what the culture is because yeah, where I came from is like a police chase. No, we're not chasing anybody, you know, not. When it comes to vehicles, yeah, but you know, here in Grand Prairie I I'm not even making this up it seems like we chase somebody every shift, pretty much, a whole lot more about that than me and it's like, bro, almost every shift.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know you have to do it responsibly, and I think we do because the rules haven't changed. But yeah, the minute we start doing stuff crazy and shooting from the hip, so to speak, and chief will step in and go. Yeah, we go, go ahead and change a few things.
Speaker 3:I mean there's a, there's a lot of accountability, even before he even gets to the chief, for here I mean even with the officers, like if you see something I mean Happen plenty of times or you know, coming from a police department, that I never chased anything to doing you know, chasing here.
Speaker 3:Like you know, I was eating new at it, so it was. It was nice having those officers that were experiencing it and would like either help me with a report or say, hey, this is, this is what I would do next time. Or even the supervisors are like you know, I would just do this next time, just to make sure you get this out. You know, keep you safer. You know, keep you more paying attention to everything like that, which is nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's go and for the right along thing. I, yeah, I encourage everyone to do a ride along for any type of police department they do, and it's all about the person you ride with to. You don't want to have that person. That's robotic, that's like this place is the most perfect place on the planet.
Speaker 3:Then you know there's happy go lucky rainbows like you want the guy that's actually gonna give you the right answers, or just just the answers in general that you might not want to hear? And you know, even at my last department, that I was that guy that you know I'm gonna tell you the answer and if you don't like it, you know it is what it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you ask, I will tell you. No, it's funny because, like now, you know, being in community services, I kind of tell people the same thing. It's like look, and I can be in a room full of people you know the citizens, or whatever HOA meetings. Don't ask me something unless you want to, true, because I'm. If you you want a political answer, there's some other people y'all could call and go. Hey, we want to talk to someone, so you get me in there and you ask me. So I'm gonna tell you and just be honest, because I think a lot of people want honesty. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3:So my wife loves and hates that about me, yeah. I'm that I'm that honest. She loves it sometimes, but also hates it other times. She's like. I wish you would lie to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, about this.
Speaker 3:Yeah instead of being truthful, like I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's cool. So let me ask you how did so? When you're up there, how did you hear about grand prairie police department?
Speaker 3:Actually my wife. My wife is the one that that found me this police department.
Speaker 2:How did she do?
Speaker 3:that she saw that was like very unhappy With my, my current police department where we were living, everything like that. And you know, I was honestly starting to get really depressed and it was starting to get really hard to even be motivated to doing anything. And she took the the step of like you know I'm getting done with school because she was in school at the time. You know, we can go anywhere we want. Like both of our jobs Are essentially anywhere in the states. We could go anywhere.
Speaker 3:So she, we decided basically that we wanted to, you know, jump ship out of to Colorado and go somewhere. Then, you know, will be a better life for us. And we decided on Texas and and she basically just typed in because she, she doesn't know how to search for police department. She just typed in best police departments or top like 10 best police departments in Texas and she basically gave me a list of I think it was like five, and then I did the actual research on it and you know I found here and you know I saw the, the front page and, like you know, I'm gonna apply.
Speaker 3:See what it is. You know, take a chance and you know what actually sealed the deal was. Coming here for the testing, the initial testing and hearing chief says need talk in the beginning. I know he does it every single time. He you know you have these testings. But His speech of like I'll let you arrest people, I'll let you chase people. I trust you if I'm gonna give you a badging gun To do something, you know if I am. If I trust you to have a badging gun into enforce the law, I'm gonna entrust you to do your job correctly. And you know when he said that and when I went through the entire testing, I mean I called my wife. I'm like this. This is definitely the place.
Speaker 3:I want to be and you know, here I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, kudos, miss Connor, we appreciate it. Yeah, so, and I like to ask that because, like you're saying, you can almost think back to the day, the time when you heard that from chief. Yeah and so for me it was you know chief died at the time, but he was like he goes. Katie, your family is just as important as some, this other officer who's been here for 20 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah and I'm like no, because where I come from, you'd have to be on bro, you'd have to be on 18, 19 years to get a weekend off, you know. And I was coming over at six years. I'm like, okay, what am I? All day's, wednesday, thursday, give it to you. No, no, no, no, you're gonna get every other weekend off cuz you need family time. And I was like, okay, he's play, he's messing with me, right?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Oh, patrol, you listen to me, you get every other Saturday off and I was like holy crap. So a lot of the guys where I come from that was just ah, we like man excited.
Speaker 3:So I had similar schedule when I was at my old department. But the one thing that just put the biggest smile on my face is first day of FTO. Here they're like, hey, so go ahead and sign up for a lunch. I mean I'm like what do you mean lunch? Like 15 minutes or something? No, you get like an hour. I'm like what, you Get a paid hour of lunch. He's like, yeah, sometimes you don't get it, but most the time you do. If you get a certain time. I'm like I love it here. And he's like, oh, yeah, you get an extra 15 minutes if you, you know, you work out during during your lunch time too. I'm like I, yeah, I like it here. That's what made me happy, like the schedule thing, you know, I was used to it already, so it wasn't that big of a deal, but the, the getting a lunch that was. That was great.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I say it's the small things, but as officers sometimes you can work and not get a lunch. So when I first started the guys would say put your I forget what you call those little plastic lunch pail, but put it next to you and you eat in between your calls and I'm like, no, we're gonna go to lunch, bro, we're gonna go eat. And they're like you won't have time, holy hell. I mean sometimes there's 20 calls holding and it's just you go and you go, and so Sometimes we were not able to get a lunch and you're right, you just you're snacking and looking at the notes, going to the next call, and so now it's like getting a lunch. And I haven't been in patrol in some years, but I'm thinking most of you guys and girls are getting lunch on a pretty regular basis.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean we have enough people and you know we all see when people have lunch so we try to. If people are about to get lunch, we try to cover them so they can actually get it. Because I mean, even at 12 hours, you know, in the middle of the night, it's good to have that disconnect for an hour. I mean we're still listening the radio and something big pops up and you know we're putting back on our uniforms if we're working out and we go back out there and help. But it's still a good disconnect to have that break, to not, you know, not have to be dispatched to something All 12 hours. And that helps a lot. And you know it beyond like oh, it's cool to, you know, eat and have a break an hour. It like the actual mental side of it just helps. It helps tremendously for that.
Speaker 2:So, and so you mentioned the the hour and 15 minutes for working out, and that's something that was new to me coming over here. Of course, I've never worked out on a lunch before, because you you're actually just trying to throw some food down and you know it's only a matter of time, because if they gave you an hour, maybe 35 minutes, and somebody's on that radio going, hey, can you take this, call you like sure, but so here you're allowed to go work out and they give you an extra 15 because that way you do have time to shower.
Speaker 2:If you want to go eat you go back, change your uniform and get back in the service. So that that was new to me. You said y'all had, so y'all work 12s at your last department.
Speaker 3:It was weird, it was actually 11 and a half. Yeah, see, just a man, I'm already what?
Speaker 3:when do I come back such a clock, clock, I don't know, yeah, we're initially tenants, but then when COVID happened, we can uncover and we didn't have the staffing to cover a third shift for because we had a, you know, a day shift, swing shift and a night shift. And you know, when it got to COVID, we wanted to spread it out. So we didn't even do briefings. We had like staggered schedules, so everyone came in an hour every hour, which is weird, and we didn't do Briefings at all. It was mainly just like on the like, the like this basically online form that we would look at. Yeah, so we did that towards the end of COVID and that's what we stuck with the entire time. So we only technically had two shifts. We had night shift and day shift, like we do here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay. So, yeah, all right, and so I want to kind of talk about the lateral movement or the process, so that some of our other laterals that are listening or gas thinking about it coming. So when you came over, did you do the abbreviated Academy?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, I think it was like three and a half months or something like that in total. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:All right. So GP, we offer the lateral program. If you have the years on, depending on the size, I think, of the previous department, what kind of calls that you answer? You can come over and basically we just take your years of service wherever you were and we plug you right into GP and you get paid on that pay scale.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I get paid on that, which was awesome. Which was about almost a $50,000 pay raise from my previous department, so I was very, very happy about that.
Speaker 2:And so is Ms Connor, she's like.
Speaker 3:Thank you oh yeah, she is very happy about this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's funny, you said that, bro. When I came over I looked at my check and my check doubled and I went I'm doing the same, this is police work. And then my checks doubled and of course I showed it to my wife and she's yeah, bling, that's nice, but I don't know. We've been up near the top as far as pay here for a few years now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think us and one other department, the Metroplex, are basically even right now that we're the highest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you wanna get paid, but I always tell people, if you're thinking about GP, come do the ride alone Because, like I said, every department is different and so you may not be a good fit and you wanna see the culture and talk to these, the men and women that put the uniform on. So please come do the ride alone so that you can see.
Speaker 3:And ask those tough questions. Oh yeah, a lot of these officers are laterals. I mean Knightsby, I'm pretty sure, is like 95% laterals at this point, and no joke on that. I encourage people to do the ride along. It's been not only that. But ask the questions. Don't be robotic and just ask, like, what is the dynamic of this police department? And like what kind of calls are you handling Like? Ask those tough questions, I promise you the officers, especially on Knights, will answer it.
Speaker 2:You know what the young folks say they gonna keep it 100. They gonna tell you exactly how they feel and what's going on. No, I'm telling you, I love that. I know I was asking not just the schedule, but then like to move, because where I come from, you have to promote before you can move. Yeah, at least that's how it was when I was there and I was like I said, what about here? And they were like no, no, no, two years on, then you can go anywhere, you just apply like everybody else. So that is one of the things that you know I loved about GP when I first came. Okay, so now that you're here, you work Knights A or B, b, b, all right. So you said 95% of y'all are lateral. That's cool Pretty much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had to put a number to it.
Speaker 2:Did you have to get used to? What was the hardest thing during the transition Cause, like for me? Most of us will say geography, unless you grew up around here, but was it? No, I had to get used to like some charges or writing tickets this way, or what was one of the things that was just totally just hard to grasp for you.
Speaker 3:Just a switching of laws to be honest.
Speaker 3:Yeah, even geography was actually really easy to me, just because I'm a huge nerd. So seeing that I have a computer with a GPS on it was like the best thing ever created and I didn't have that in my old department. I had to like memorize like streets and everything. So when I geography was pretty simple for the most part, but like just even going through the academy, it was hard to you know. After five years of learning Colorado law, now you're like going basically you know 180 to a completely different type of laws and how they define them. So that part was a little hard. You know I needed I needed assistance with my FTO in regards to that just being like oh, that's an actual crime here, that's great.
Speaker 3:And I'm gonna charge them with that, you know. But yeah, that was the main part of it. Everything else just came with time and just you know, getting used to it. Like the radio, using the radio, like, just like the radio call signs and dynamic of that was different for my old department too. So that was a little, you know, it was a little hard, but I got used to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the things that I had to get used to. So when I first started over 15 years ago, they give you a call and then my trainer would pull over and give you a map and a book and he was like, all right, katie, we gotta go here. And now, mind you, the call is already on my computer, but he's not letting you use the map because that system would go down so frequently. You had to know how to use something other than a computer. So I'm sitting there and I'm like, okay, so I need to go north on this road. And you're getting updates on your computer, like, okay, the suspect is outside now and he's putting the pressure. I'm like, okay, katie, come on, come on, which way we need to go. And I'm like, uh, wait, I don't does this pay?
Speaker 1:And, bro, you could literally turn one page and it puts you in a different place in the city and I'm like this doesn't make sense to me.
Speaker 2:So I had the hardest time with the map scores. We used to call it but. And then they I mean of course these guys now they creating stuff on our computers but I could hit a button and just get directions and it would tell you turn by turn. So to those listening, we need that at GP. You hit a button and it gives you turn by turn, even if you're going cold. Three, which is, you know, license art but, yeah, that's, that's funny.
Speaker 2:You say that cause man, I just, I had some, some visions going on. I was, I was struggling. When I got here I got a cold three call to actually help an officer who was fighting somebody and, bro, I remember I had to pull over and I was starting to put it in my phone and then, luckily, I saw somebody with license iron go by and I'm kind of like yeah, I think it's a situation right there.
Speaker 3:I'm a follow deal.
Speaker 2:So that's crazy. Yeah, good times. So when you want to digress here, you know, with the, the fam, what are you guys doing? What is a day in the life of Connor when he's not at work? What are y'all doing?
Speaker 3:With my wife. I mean, you know, just exploring Metroplex.
Speaker 1:Like we were.
Speaker 3:we're like going out to restaurants and you know, in Durango we had like 10 restaurants in total. So like we're just cycling through that, we're here, like you can go anywhere you want within like a 20 minute drive. So that was nice. And especially going to the stockyards.
Speaker 3:We like that just environment in general, like you're just going there and you know it's like a, it's not just like a bar scene, it's like you know, bring your family, you can like we bring our dogs pretty much everywhere we go and you know going, you know on trails and stuff, walking around outside of just hanging out with my wife, I love going, shooting, I love going to the range. I love doing that constantly, you know, like with friends and by myself. Honestly.
Speaker 2:What? Okay, so you said you worked at the range. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 3:I was instructor so and there we got into the range for free. So I was going like once a week and we would get a stipend.
Speaker 2:I was about to say.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we get a stipend for a amount of rounds because they I mean, that was one of the good things about my old department is that they encouraged us to, outside of work, go shooting and, you know, be proficient in your craft. So you know I would take full advantage of that and go as much as I can.
Speaker 2:So, connor, is the reason that we can't get certain ammo? It's on back order.
Speaker 1:It's on back order.
Speaker 2:No, what a rifle or pistol, or you got a little bit of everything.
Speaker 3:Both, yeah, I like doing both. I really shotgun. I mean, I like shooting shotgun just for funsies and do like ski shooting, but that you know, mainly rifle and handgun.
Speaker 2:All right. So is it true that there's and I'm not my butcher the name, but it's an over under shotgun that's made for competitive shooting, but they say it's like $10,000.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like. I believe it's called the Olympia and it's you know, it's a hunting shotgun Like it's mainly for like foxes, but they use it for skate shooting also. It's a beautiful, beautiful shotgun. My brother's, a father-in-law, actually had a couple and we shot those like a couple of years ago or something like that. Beautiful, beautiful shotgun, beautiful.
Speaker 2:See, I'm so against the shotguns cause it just hurts. You know it's okay to work out your shit. It hurts, I don't yeah.
Speaker 3:Especially when you shoot slug yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it hurts a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So now do you get your wife involved? Does she go to the gun range with you? Does she shoot?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was one of the things we did when we first started dating, and she knew nothing about firearms.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I got her into and you know, especially now, I'm very happy that I did that because I can trust her to be able to defend herself. You know, defend the house if she needs to by herself. Phone encouragement she even I mean she has a concealed carry permit. You know, even when she goes to work right now she still has a gunner and her job encourages it. So, yeah, it's, it's nice doing that, especially for spouses. You know, gives that extra security and you know, feel good. Yeah, and they do.
Speaker 2:Well, okay, so and I know we'll talk off air I'm gonna give y'all some names of some good steak places to go to that you have to take your wife to Now, as far as kiddos do, y'all have little ones.
Speaker 1:No, not kiddos. Okay, that's just dogs, just the, just the pups All right.
Speaker 2:So before we go, I always ask everybody that we sit down with what is some like, I guess, advice that you would give to another lateral or somebody else is just thinking about. Hey, I think I want to be a police officer. What advice would you give them?
Speaker 3:I was always told when I was at my last department that the grass isn't going to be greener on the other side. Like every department's basically the same, like they have their own BS and everything. But that is a fabrication of my life. There it is it is greener on the other side. Like it was scary moving from one state to the other, and especially a area that I've never been in my entire life up until I actually moved here. I encourage you to take that leap of faith and do that. You know, trust that it's going to be the right decision and you know, in my case it was like I don't regret my decision at all coming here.
Speaker 3:It was by far one of the best decisions I've made in my life.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. So, and then one last thing before we go. So when you came down to do the testing, for. Gp? Did we make any special provisions like hey, we know you're coming from out of town so you can do one to a. You know a couple of the processes that day?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I went down for the initial testing and did like the physical and the actual RIN tests, and then I only had to come down one more time and they grouped everything together. They did the polygraph, the OR board, the psych evaluation all that stuff was in that day in like a two days or something like that, so I didn't have to spend basically any money to come here other than the airfare, which wasn't anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah okay, cool, cool. Well, man bro, I appreciate you sitting down with me. It's just, it's cool to see these new faces. You know a lot of us old head officers we don't see you guys because schedules and I'm in a whole different part of the building now, but it was cool to sit down with you, so I appreciate you coming in.
Speaker 3:Thank, you sir.
Speaker 2:Appreciate it Until next time we'll see y'all.