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Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement
2024: Ranked #1 Law Podcast
Host: Tyler Owen and Clint McNear discussing topics, issues, and stories within the law enforcement community. TMPA is the voice of Texas Law Enforcement, focused on protecting those who serve. Since 1950, we have been defending the rights and interests of Texas Peace Officers by providing the best legal assistance in the country, effective lobbying at state and local levels, affordable training, and exemplary member support. As the largest law enforcement association in Texas, TMPA is proud to represent 33,000 local, county and state law enforcement officers.
Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement
#035- "The Godfathers II"
TMPA Executive Director Kevin Lawrence and Attorney Ron DeLord join the show for round 2 of "The Godfathers." Check it out; you won't be disappointed.
email us at- bluegrit@tmpa.org
This episode of the blue grip podcast is sponsored by saving a hero's place. Their dollar is September 23rd in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Speaker 2:We have to have as both sides agree. Having social programs is not social, it's common sense.
Speaker 3:We need to put more resources into these other types of services. Eventually, we will save a bunch of money on this back end. That's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we are back. Blue grip podcast. I appreciate you guys tuning in. We got the uh, got the special guest, Kevin Lawrence and Ron and Lord back for round two. Welcome back, guys. I appreciate you guys stopping in.
Speaker 2:Glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Before we dive off into round two, you guys hit that subscribe button like button. We appreciate you guys tuning in.
Speaker 4:If you didn't, if you didn't hear the last episode, go back and watch the last episode titled the Godfathers and it's Kevin and Ron talking about the genesis kind of of labor in Texas.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 4:Civil service in the early years, 40s and 50s where things went and kind of leading up to where we are today. We talked about the memorial, the state memorial, talked about some of that stuff, and both of these guys are wealth of knowledge on labor, on labor um specific, but law enforcement in Texas and across the country.
Speaker 1:My favorite part was whenever Ron and Kevin argue about where they were from and Ron tells Kevin that he was from the rich side.
Speaker 2:I have orange.
Speaker 1:Our house had a foundation and he has his house. Yeah, his house had a foundation. That was if I'm going to clip, I am going to clip that and that's going to be on.
Speaker 3:And it's important to understand what, when I said, I didn't say peer and beam, I said beer and beam Bottle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly that was the best part. I went back and watched it the other day, so that was awesome.
Speaker 4:Yep, we just finished up the conference. Um, we have national FOP conference coming up here in a couple of weeks. Ron's going to be at the big 50,. Uh, speaking, what are you speaking on there, ron? Well?
Speaker 2:kind of what you want to talk about today, about reform, kind of my things. From my book I started watching what was kind of going on and tracking these reform elections, what, uh, union association or lodges were doing and what they were doing right and wrong. Kind of what happened in 2020, a little slowdown in 21,. There's still a few coming up in 22 or 23. I mean we just had, you know, austin election in San Antonio and LA County uh, past one in 21, a big reform that moves money from the county away from the sheriff's department to community activities and they, the unions, fought it and tried to sue and the court said it's constitutional.
Speaker 2:So just what's happening and what if you're in a group and you think it will not happen to you? I think you're just kidding yourself. I mean, it's probably not coming to Borgher, but it almost the majority of all the police in America work in a blue city, but what's probably the largest city? That's in a red county. So if you just look at the map and you see the little blue spots, that's where all the police are at.
Speaker 4:And the crazy thing, the contradictions you you mentioned the changes that are coming, um, and if you think the circus can't come to your town, you hide and watch. We were talking before we came on Asheville, north Carolina, is becoming a Seattle that I saw a new story where the the shops are closing. The citizens are leaving, the boutique stores are closing. Everybody's fleeing Asheville, north Carolina. Kevin and Tyler found an article yesterday, if you want to share, about what's going on in Oakland. The opposite is happening and it's all. These experiments are happening somewhere at the late stages and they're trying to figure out it failed and others are just now starting the whole experiment. It's odd.
Speaker 3:You know it doesn't happen very often that Ron and I agree on things especially wholeheartedly, but I think we've always agreed that this issue rises and fails at the local level. The local is where you know where you really have to have to key in on everything, and what happened in Oakland is to me, uh, fascinating. The president of the local NAACP chapter and uh, and her co-author for this letter, I believe, is president of the ministerial alliance there in Oakland. They wrote a letter, author a letter that said these policies, these left-wing, anti-police defund, the police policies, have been disastrous for our communities, for our city. We have got to put more resources, more funding into our police force. We've got to go out and enforce the law.
Speaker 3:Our DA has to prosecute criminals, because look what's happening to our city and that's what Ron and I have talked about for these last many, all the way back to Ferguson and even back, even before Ferguson, the, the effort, the, the anti-police effort, is very well coordinated and it is there's an umbrella organization called Campaign Zero that is behind all that. They just they wait for focusing events and then they have a game plan they put out there. But you'll notice, it's always at the local level, it's the they don't forget a lot of traction at the state or federal level. It's always at the local level where things happen and that's where we have to be most vigilant.
Speaker 2:I think I took a look at all legislation on reform at the federal level is over For a couple of reasons, even though at one point the Democrats controlled all three, the two chambers present. In. The reason it didn't pass when they had that opportunity was because the people who want no police or a very small part of the activist deal and and except for a few nutcases on the far left, the moderates, still have to go back and run. And so and even president Biden, nancy Pelosi, all said right up front we're not taking money away from the police, we support reform, which I think is a generic term. We'd like to have a better officer, we don't know how. So all the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act it died and I'll come back to that in a second.
Speaker 2:All the states after George Floyd, 40 something states passed something. We passed something out of Sandra Blanak, so they all passed. None of them did anything, they were only a little chokehold de-escalation, all the things the police were doing anyway. And these things all failed and will not come back, for the most part for a simple reason in the legislative process, once they stick a name on it, they're done, see. So when you come back and like they're going to be a big push to give some teeth to George Floyd Act and somebody goes I thought we already passed that, yeah, but it doesn't do anything.
Speaker 2:But we passed the Sandra Blanak, yeah, but it doesn't do anything. Oh, I'm done with that. So it gets on past. So I don't see any. There's a couple of spots California you can still get some things out of the legislature there but most of the states have moved on. So what's left is the local and in the local. That's where the battle is being fought, because the activists for the most part cannot pass a subsidy bill on the federal level. Even the most liberal states have, just they're not passing anything there.
Speaker 3:The substance, but where they can pass bills is at the local level, and so you're seeing that and you can amend the Austin City Charter to tell your police you're not allowed to enforce marijuana laws. Tell the police you're not allowed to cooperate with the state you know state of. You can tell your local police not to do certain things and you can pass that in a city charter. You know a city ordinance election. You can't get it passed at the state or federal. No, no.
Speaker 2:And so all the reform movement it's. It's sick but it's not dead. So part of their problem was, after George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter got at least 90 million in one year in cash. Money corrupts and they got corrupted by the money and the fame. Yeah, and you know, bought houses, hired their brother and all of a sudden they at least everything. So they just burned through the money. But here's the part of the problem with charity. Everybody out there who also has reform movements by whatever name, went to them and said, well, we're like a little taste of that 90. Well, they didn't want to give it to the people who were suing the police and even local Black Lives Matters couldn't get money, a little bit of money. So they kind of self-destructed and they're out there and they have a lot of money, but the money in the interest kind of peaked in 20 and then started dropping. No, they're out there, but they're not.
Speaker 2:But they're not driving the ship anymore. So I've told people this from about 2018, 2019, then we had George Floyd to the day. Only about one police department has ever defeated a local reform San Antonio. When they tried to take away bargaining, they won Million dollars spent by the local, million dollars spent by the act of Justin San Antonio, and that's a small media market nationwide. Thirty five hundred people made the difference. Fifteen seventeen hundred had changed their mind that day. They'd lost bargaining, which they've had for 45 years. That's our close.
Speaker 2:The second election. The acts of us were emboldened but they went Well. I call the bridge too far, because they came in with all of this pretrial release and changing the law, sapoa. The Union went and fought it. This time they spent, I think, over two million at the local level. The activists have been understand a million, something more, and this time the union ran over them because liberals want the concept of better police but, to remember, they own a big old house there and a big old condo and they didn't believe that they ought to be letting all those criminals out. So the union was able to flip them.
Speaker 2:That's the only two elections that I'm aware of. Everybody else, unless you can think of, one has lost, and they lost for a simple reason. If you put anything on the ballot with the word reform in it in your, in the blue city, the union starts out trying to rally its supporters. Well, you know what the supporters for the police are in Austin Hardcore, a couple of percent. Over on the far side there's probably two or three hundred people running Austin from the activist side. So in the middle is this large minority, I think a large moderate base, and the unions don't talk to them because if you're not for us, you're against us, and they missed the deal. There are things that rich people and moderates, middle class people, will support, but the word is reform. It'll pass, I don't care what it is.
Speaker 3:I cringe. I don't want to name names, but during one of those elections you're talking about, the local president was quoted on the news as saying if you're not for us, you're against us. And I thought he's fixing to get his butt. And, sure enough, that's exactly what happened. You can't take that approach. We have to when I say we, I mean us as law enforcement. We have to, you know, engender our community. We have to engage with them in non enforcement capacities and get them to understand why cops do what they do the way they do it. There's a good reason why we do it and there's and what we do we do very well. We make mistakes, we have problems. We admit that we do a better job of policing our own than anybody else out there. The better our citizens understand why we're doing it the way we're doing it, the more support we're going to have, absolutely.
Speaker 3:We have to take the time to do that.
Speaker 1:I want to hit on that because just recently, three days ago, it was Frisco. Frisco PD stopped the vehicle. It was a African American police officer stops a I think it was a Arkansas lost display the family traveling through Texas.
Speaker 4:Literally a license plate. Probable cause of the. Arkansas license plate probable cause.
Speaker 1:I knew this is where this was going.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:Oklahoma yeah.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:So they're traveling through. Female officer hits in. I think she puts a Alaska instead of an AR. As she's running the license plate, she actually puts it in Alaska.
Speaker 3:Anyway, which means the next piece of legislation will be a bill requiring training on the two digit state.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, or we have, or what I'm scared of is this we're going to have to have probable cause in order to run license plates. That's what I'm scared of, which whatever.
Speaker 3:So I would do the wrong state because they entered the wrong two digits.
Speaker 1:The wrong two digits is what happened. Play came back hot.
Speaker 3:That same plate number was a stolen no it was stolen.
Speaker 1:It came back as a hot beyond the lookout Is what is what?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so. So she does a felony stop in the middle of the highway and they they said felony stop, so weapons were drawn. And she immediately tells, immediately admits listen, I messed up, I'm terribly sorry. What happened explains the entire traffic stop to the family. Now the department issues a public apology and they demand I think it was a met there. They're already, they're already making demands to the department and see it. Of course CNN gets involved. So who knows what the hell is going to happen? But but in my opinion, that officer, immediately on the body cam, she did exactly what she was supposed to do. I could, I couldn't ask for it If I was that police chief. I commend the hell out of her because she did everything right immediately.
Speaker 3:Well, and I would take exception to that, and I think this may be a little bit of just the fact that I'm I'm an old guy, but there are, I'm not sure that every hot read, every stolen vehicle return mandates a felony stop procedure. I think cops, we need to get back to the point of allowing cops to use a little bit of common sense, and I call this the binary effect. Our departments, we've adopted policies that are so cumbersome, so you all encompassing that, we've told our officers every given situation there is an if then equation you have to apply. If this happens, you do this. If this happens, you do that. If this happens, you do that. They're not allowed to go away the minute. What if?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a family ride in a car. Yeah, with the gear in the car.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you got, you got all the little. You know the mother and father and little kids and the soccer balls. On the back windshield you can see kids, all the different heads in the, in the, in the minivan.
Speaker 1:Well, again I can't. And I was some common sense, Well, but again, body cam can be you can't. I have to trust the officers eyes to see what you saw and I have to trust them to see what what happened.
Speaker 3:I do too. I just I think we're training our officers right to automatically do felony contacts in situations that don't necessarily Call for that type of moment, right in that moment. Right yeah, we have to give the officers the leeway to use good Common sense yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, possibly Well, and I think, even if there was just gross error on her part the, the digit. We hire from the human race. Humans make humans make errors from time to time and until we can figure out some way to not hire from the Higher humans and higher robots, there's, there's mistakes, and Kevin's said it before and I don't know his exact quote but humans are flawed and we're expected to be perfect every single time and that's not a realistic expectation. There's not don't.
Speaker 3:I don't matter if I mentioned this in the last segment, but there's a case out of North Carolina. Just a few years ago went to the US Supreme Court and on an 8 to 1 vote. Now think about that. How many 8 to 1 decisions do we get out of the United States Supreme Court anymore? But this was on a law enforcement traffic stop case, on a search case, and the court came back, including Justices Sotomayor and Keegan Kagan, said these officers Acted reasonably.
Speaker 3:Yeah, even though it was later proven they were wrong, right they. They were even wrong about what the law said, but in that moment, from what they knew, from their perspective, what they did was reasonable and therefore they should be granted qualified immunity under this case. And I think that's the key to all this. We do not have a right to expect our law enforcement officers to behave Perfectly right because they're human beings.
Speaker 1:I agree with that and that was my point to telling that story, was it? I think that they acted recently and the fact that she admitted her fault immediately upon her noticing what happened that was my point to that was that she I'm sorry for getting off track.
Speaker 3:No, no, you're good. You're good, but I'm a reasonable. That has to be the standard. Given what that officer knew at that. I don't think that officer behaved unreasonable. I think maybe training we can do some better training with our officers, give them better policies to operate under, uh. But no, I don't think the officer did anything unreasonable at all.
Speaker 2:Right, Well, let me pivot because, in that same vein, there is a disconnect between how the police are trained to act and what the public, how the public expects the police to act now I think the deal is. I don't disagree Because everybody knows more about police work, because we've all seen tv and we know that's how it is yes, we've all seen csi and blue bloods, and we know exactly how it's supposed to happen. You know, 50 years later, I've never known a csi ever show up at the scene of anything.
Speaker 4:All of a sudden, they're fighting terrorists, but.
Speaker 2:And we don't have any crime labs like that. So uh, but I think here's the problem from me, from the association side is getting in a bunker, and because a group comes, not the far side they're going to raise help, but an issue comes up or we have an incident, the association Seems to take the position that they're not going to bend an inch and you will bend or break, and the reason they lose is when they have these things and somebody comes, we don't say Well, we agree with you, we'd like to have a better officer. And here are the things we don't have the resources, we're not hired from a qualified pool. We'd love to have that, but you know, I never get to go to training school, all of these things of which, if you brought to the public, many would find and understand, because the argument is we should all want a better officer. And so I see cities Making a fundamental mistake, which is to I don't call it lower standards, because that always has a racial connotation to it. Let's just say, at a moment when people want a better officer, we should be doubling down.
Speaker 2:I think we're at the moment in Texas that I didn't think we'd ever get to Was where we have wages in many places, I think, above the ceiling and with no Real end in sight. There's an end, but I mean, who would have thought Baytown, texas, would have a hundred thousand dollar patrolmen? But they do, because people will pay for that. And so, at the moment, people come in, I would double down. I wouldn't, I'd raise educational standards, I'd raise the money and because, yeah, but the pool shallow. The pool shallow For a lot of reason. It's not just, you know, bad black lives matter, bad mouth in the police. It's a generational change. Also, not going in the military, it's just what. But Double down, yep, at this moment, double down and make your standards high that the people paying for it think well, I like, I like that.
Speaker 2:We're requiring Our training. Schools are one of the lowest in the world. I've seen some things where you know it takes longer to be a plumber, it does to be a police officer or get a hair license. We act like we got to get them on the street two weeks later, whether we got that officer out there by themselves making stuff. In many European countries Canada and Australia your process and training could be several years.
Speaker 2:You're in academic side, you're out on the street. You may be doing community work. You're back and forth until that's part of your training process and get your education inside of that. We don't. It's all about. We got to have 30 people in that shift, so let's get 30 bodies out there. And I think the associations have got to have, I just a mental attitude that everybody who wants a better officer is not your enemy. In fact, we get offended on our side a lot of times and go oh, those crazy, those limo liberals, those demotards, they're all out there telling me what to do and I've heard many union leaders say this you don't know anything about my job. Well, I don't know anything about the airbound pilot, but damn sure, wanting to be trained in sober and that's what the public's saying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're expecting too much. That's unreasonable. You'll notice the way he he mentions baytown and a hundred thousand company. Points at me.
Speaker 4:Who negotiated?
Speaker 3:that.
Speaker 1:No, he wasn't me.
Speaker 3:He knows that I started my career at baytown making. Seven hundred and thirty six dollars a month, by the way.
Speaker 2:Today you'd have been the chief and make it 150, I'd have been long since retired.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, well that's half a century. I got to your point about leveling down. We're doing nothing at the moment and it's not attracting more recruits. We're still in a recruiting and retention crisis. Lowering standards is certainly not the answer. So I mean the there's got to be an answer. Lowering is not an option. We're doing where the status quo is not attracting good quality, professional candidates, not at the rate we need. That's sustainable. So I mean to your point in in citizens not understanding.
Speaker 4:Years ago at garland we had Occasional riders and came in on deep nights one night and I said, hey, chief, said you got a rider and, by the way, she hates the polis. I was like, oh, that's, that's lovely. So lieutenant pulls me and said her son got arrested and she hates the polis. My god, this is going to be a great eight hours busy night. We get in service first call uh, had to fight a guy Getting the car and we're on the way to jail and he's cussing me up one side, down the other and Leave the jail and she's like man. I can't believe. You have to deal with that, you have to tolerate that and at that point I'm still kind of thinking just stay in the passenger seat and be quiet.
Speaker 4:Next call we go on. A female is cussing me, spits on me, and we go through. We leave the jail and she's like I wanted to slap the nose off. That I can't believe. You stood there taking and I said, man, I, what am I gonna slap around this female? She's like I was. If you weren't, I was ready to. Well, by the end of the night she loved the police and it went for. It was weird. It was a great moment for me. I think it was for her, because I'm like man. This was super important for her to see the sausage making and we're in what we're doing. Um, I enjoyed it, but in eight hours I mean she'd gotten the citizens police academy after that and loved the police.
Speaker 3:That's how we gain converts, it's how we gain ambassadors, it's how it's how we develop the next generation of law enforcement officers. And I will say there are agencies out there that are making these efforts and it's about time. Uh, I know that there's like 30 or 40 cities around the country that have committed to Hiring more female officers. They've committed to try and be have their, their ranks, be 30 percent female by the year 2030.
Speaker 2:It's a 30 by 30 Initiative.
Speaker 3:Good for them good for them because, you know, women make up more than half of our population, but only about 10 of our cops, which by the way, I'll always thought it's because women are smarter than men and they pick better careers than we do.
Speaker 3:But you know, it just makes perfect sense. But let's all, let's talk about our citizens police academies. Most every department of any size has one. They've at least tried it and experiment. Where do we have our citizens police academy? Where do we host those classes? At the police, at the police station or at the sheriff's department right Now? Where do we need to be having them In the community? Yeah, out in the community. There's a lot of people that don't want to come to the police station ever, for anything. They just don't feel comfortable there. Let's go out and have them at the local community center, at the local Baptist church. Let's get out there and start encouraging people that historically or stand office with law enforcement and let them get to know us better and see if we can't develop another pool of potential law enforcement officers right there.
Speaker 4:We were In dc, president towvarni were in dc while back for a national recruiting or attention meeting and one of the things that this thing that stuck with me most when we left is Explorer. Programs generally start as a kid's nearing graduation you know you're 17, 18.
Speaker 4:You've already kind of got an idea of my dad owns a you know pipe business. I'm gonna go to work for my dad or I'm going to military, you know which. One of the really broad thoughts that was discussed throughout that day From people across the country was start identifying these kids before they're 17 years old and realize I'm going to college or I'm committed to play football or whatever that may look like. Start trying to identify them in the eighth grade and then, when they're a senior in high school and they have a co-op program, rather than letting them go Mohyards, you know, have them intern as a PSO helping at the front desk and Start capturing that mind. A little younger, and that was thought of all day. I'm like I've never wrapped my mind. I've never thought of that very common in Australia.
Speaker 2:Australia friend of mine started 16 and you there not everyone is Believe that you have to go to college. You can pick. The government funds you to go into apprenticeship programs. The companies will hire you. Same thing on the police side. Another friend of mine, son's only about 19. He's already entered now. He may or may not be out on patrol or carrying a gun, but he's gone through the police academy and they have programs for you to go while in school, to be paid, similar to explorers, but you're actually employed. You know why we don't do that. That costs money, right? Secondly, there are no value To the department until they can shag a call. Nobody looks at the front end and says, wow, there's an old bob bullock line. It said you want to know how many prisons to build in texas? Why don't you just go down to the ninth grade now as a teacher she'll point them out to you. Who's going to prison?
Speaker 3:So we ought to fix it there. Do a census right now.
Speaker 2:That's right so so in australia.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how many different law enforcement training academies are there? There's eight, eight for the entire country for the entire continent. Yes, well, population about the same as texas, about 30,000 30 million, I mean 30 million people, eight police departments, eight police departments, new south wales police force 21,000, 21,000 officers. That's right, you never heard of new south twice the cell, twice the size of texas.
Speaker 2:But the problem is we made a mistake, going to decentralized policing. But that was america, afraid of national policing in the countries that come from. It's okay, we're here now, right but we've doubled down on it in texas. Oh no, we're just going crazy. Yeah, because we have?
Speaker 3:we have more law enforcement agencies in texas than california, florida, illinois, and we have more than canada australia and all of europe.
Speaker 2:We have 2700 plus Departments. Uh, I'll correct you.
Speaker 3:There's 28, 29, 200 of them don't have any officers, but there's still agencies.
Speaker 2:So. But the problem is I, I tried to get a bill decades ago to stop every state agency from creating a police force, and carlos truan had filed a bill pretty famous as a good guy to give the health department a police department. I don't know if I told you this, but I blocked it and I said why don't you, if you need some police, down to help, but why don't you just call over dps, take some money out of your budget, they'll send a trooper, invest, they'll take it. Well, they need to control their police. So now you know, cemetery association can have police. We can't back it up today. It's not going to happen. But what they do have and what nobody likes to hear, we can command from the top down and we're slowly doing it.
Speaker 2:With tico, with all its uh warts and ups and downs, we were on the first dates to go to licensing. I was an advocate for licensing when other states were advisory fought. All the chief shared no, no, no. In the end, a rising tide lifts all ships and if somebody can walk off the street and take your job, that they can do to teachers and nurses and others. I can show up and teach at a high school more than give me a temporary license. Your job is worthless, so that had slowed down. It does call people to raid, which is fine because that raises salary, but we can. We can really push down. We ought to be putting the pressure to run most of these small agencies out of business. You say, well, they got to have a city, what california does, and 30 percent of all mr Powell's in california Contract with the sheriff, right and so there's consolidation of efforts.
Speaker 3:That's a coordination of efforts. That's right, it works. It works great.
Speaker 2:And in canada the government came in and said we don't need 32 police departments on montreal island. You're gonna have your cities, but montreal metro will be your police. Ottawa, peel, nagra. The government came in the whole panhandle could be run by dps. Okay and so, but we're not gonna do it. So if we're not gonna do it, let's start putting the pressure down. Let's start getting the state to mandate things. I think the federal government ought to be man. I know association leaders, all balk, all. We hate the government. I don't hate the government, but things are like and dislike. We're all americans. I want things we could mandate From the top that every agency meet minimal training standards and put up money from the federal government. And if you know, and you're right, a certain amount of that.
Speaker 3:Some baby steps were taken in this latest T Cole bill, the sunset bill. We opposed the bill ultimately because of other things that are in there. There's some good stuff in the bill and it includes some of that some minimum standards. T Cole will now have the authority that they've never had, apparently to terminate an agency license, some enforcement, some teeth, if they. You know, up until now, if you meet the minimum standards, t Cole has no authority but to go ahead and give you a license as an agency, even though the next day you fall below those standards. T Cole has never had the authority to say, okay, you're not a law enforcement agency, or they will now. I think Phil King Senator Phil King's accreditation bill would have been a logical next step in that process. The accreditation process would go a long way toward forcing agencies to become more professional, and you guys have heard me preach this over and over. You cannot make any organization professional from the bottom up. That's correct.
Speaker 2:You just cannot have it's got to be from the top down and it's. This is something that the associations nationally and statewide are afraid. They're afraid because they like it the way they like it. And so somebody coming in and saying we're going to set the floor and we're going to figure out how to do it, than nowhere, mississippi and all these places that have one or two people but could be better served not having 2900 chiefs, 2900 assistant chiefs, 2900 SWAT themes I think that's what we do.
Speaker 2:We don't come in and deal with us. Just start saying I had a legislator once come to me. We were getting a bunch of civil service bills and how about we just raise the start? And a restaurant trying to get it from 18 to 21? How about we just make it 24? I said it would be perfect. We would only get people who are matured at least some at the time, a lot of people in the military. But I said we just can't do it, that's just too much. But those type of things we ought to be doing. So, but the associations have to get their mind wrapped around. It's not about you in Sunset or Southside Island, whatever his name, that little town, southside place, southside place. Nothing wrong with them. That's probably nice people, but we can't run and get our profession to the point of which the public has trust in. Is no one to invest serious money in us If we worry that some guy can't be a policeman in there, that city should contract or do it. If they don't, then they got to pay the money.
Speaker 3:The two big hurdles always have been and will continue to be the money. We've always tried to do law enforcement on the economy plan in this state and in this country for that matter, and we have got to commit ourselves to putting the resources that are necessary to do it right. And two is this concept of we need to be able to control at our school district, at our city, at our county, at our water control district, who gets arrested and who doesn't get arrested, and that's not the word. Those decisions should be made that should be based upon what you did and not who you are, and often those becoming great in politics not enforcing the penal code.
Speaker 4:They become more involved in politics than the penal code.
Speaker 2:How many city councils have you gone to these at will places? Because I read, many years ago, when Cedar Park was actually a little town, I represented officers. It's already been there 10 years, the longest serving policeman. He arrested the mayor's son next council meeting. They didn't need his position anymore. But here's the thought that I ask people to think about and go back to reform. But the value of Australian system you know we can't go there but the value of compulsory serious standards is every person, regardless of where you live in the United States or regardless of where you're talking about Texas, when I'm dealing with an officer, all to have confidence that officer is trained and was hired, Except for human failure. I'm going to get a professional. You get stopped in Australia and they have the same similar problem. Every officer in that state and in that country all came from the same training source. They're all trained. They spent years in training. They're supervised here.
Speaker 3:And think about the other benefit of that. In Uvalde we had the first 12 officers in that school worked for seven different agencies.
Speaker 2:They've never ever trained Up to 96 at one point Correct, but the first 12 worked for seven different agencies.
Speaker 3:No way they ever trained together. No way they were trained to the same exact standards and tactics. No way. And if they were in the United Kingdom, they would have all gone through the same exact training after Edgman they would at least know what to expect from each other, right? What's going to happen in Uvalde?
Speaker 2:Even if we left the 2900. But the standards were trained Right Uniform standards and mandated. And if you couldn't do it, then contract with someone who has the money and spread the cost out, and here's the other problem.
Speaker 3:You have to have an entity that has the authority to enforce all that.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's in our case.
Speaker 3:It's the commission on law enforcement today which has never had the funding, the resources or the authority. We've got to get to that point.
Speaker 2:When I was dealing with that I opposed Tico have an investigatory powers over individuals Agreed Because and that came from a case up in the Dallas area where some chief got in trouble on the D8 and Inditum and then they go to Tico and say, well, why aren't you doing it?
Speaker 2:And there was another case involved a famous Port Officer Senator whose business was investigated by undercover Galveston officers and he went down and filed a bill to let Tico farm because he couldn't get them fired. He couldn't do anything. So but I am okay with the standards Individually. I'm okay as long as you give all the at well officers just costs for dismissal and due process and a hearing examiner. So then if Tico comes in and says, well, we're just taking that guy's license because we don't like the way he did, because some politician showed up down at a public meeting that's what I tried to explain to the senator was you're going to come to Austin, file a complaint on some officers 300 miles from here and make that officer getting their car and come down here and defend himself. When his own department said he didn't do anything wrong, I said that's not right.
Speaker 3:But aside from that, anyway, every step in that process, the two sessions we went through on this damn Tico sunset reauthorization every step along the way we argued and again this is me and Ron agreeing on something Put due process in there for the cops and we're on board, I am. Put due process. Put a just cause clause. You know it could be two sentences long. You can't be terminated without cause. That's, if you're terminated you have the right to appeal it to an open public hearing in front of somebody. So, and the independent person? Yes, I'm 100%.
Speaker 2:I don't believe in that will employment. I know that's the big thing in the in states. I don't believe in it for public workers because it breeds corruption. It breeds political interference.
Speaker 3:And all we have to do is look back at Texas pre-civil service, look back. The Houston police department, given in any given election cycle, was being run by the KKK prior to the 1940s. It's just. If you go back through our history you know people keep talking about well, the police department needs to do what their local community expects them to do, that that needs to be controlled there. Well, bull conners was doing exactly what the community of Birmingham expected him to do that's right when he turned the fire hose on the protesters All right.
Speaker 4:Well, so go ahead. So let me ask you here Defund became a four letter word and they loved that word. Now they're having to run from defund. Reform it is the reimagine, reimagine. It was reimagined when nobody knows really what that means. Reform is more palatable, so everybody kind of thinks reforms Okay From y'all's perspective. Is Texas ahead nationally in the reform, or are we standing by about to wait and see what happens and it's going to come here? What is what does reform look like to you guys right now and where we're at?
Speaker 3:on that, first of all, I will argue that they did have an idea of what they meant by reimagine, because if you went to the Black Lives Matter campaign zero Austin Justice Coalition websites, they all had on there as part of their objectives Imagine a world without police. So they did in fact, have that as part of their agenda. I personally think Texas is still better off than a lot of the other states in this union. We have had our legislature consist of people who are at least have not gotten pushed so far down that road, and I'm talking about Democrats and Republicans who step back and go wait a minute. This is really not good public policy. This is not a great idea, even when we're working with people like Royce West. He understands the need for good, strong, viable, professional law enforcement, but he's not going to vote in favor of something that does away with that.
Speaker 2:I think what Defund took off? They got about 20 steps down the road and then everybody started backing up from it. So if you look at Minneapolis or Portland, seattle, those were the big ones to an end. So it all came. And then they realized well, really can't defund only the far anarchists believe that. So very small percent. So they realized it. Then it became let's reallocate.
Speaker 2:That's what happened in this LA County bill, that just measure passed, but also what happened in Austin. Well, we're just going to. If we didn't send the police out there, we didn't stop anybody on traffic and we hired all these social workers and had all these social programs, we'd all be better off. Well, my answer is when did it become either? Or Was there ever a point that we didn't know we needed social services that the police were being sent to cause? Some chief said it's just a Christmas tree and everybody just hangs another duty on there. Oh, you're up all night. Go get that dog. Hey, you're up all night. There's a lady mentally ill over here and go deal with that, or her child is tearing up. I'm thinking wait a minute all this stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, the police shouldn't be doing it. That was 1969 when I started, so if we known that all along, then where would a place like Austin who could have had 24 seven mental health professionals? There are a few places that are doing it now or have some squad, but to the degree of which we need, where the majority of calls which end up in some type of shooting is almost all involved someone on drugs or mentally ill. There's a few real robbers, but a lot of those are people suffering mental health crisis. I think 87.
Speaker 3:I think the mental health issue is the perfect example of what Ron is talking about. If we want to save money on law enforcement, on corrections on our criminal jurisprudence system, we have to get better services to people who have mental health issues, who are getting into mental health crisis. But we have to do both for a while. Right now, the number one provider of mental health services in every county in Texas is the county jail, and if you think about just how appalling that is, the problem is that when people get into a mental health crisis, it's typically at three o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 3:Their family is at their wits end. They don't know what else to do. They call the police, the police. Now the police officer gets there and this is a poor deputy sheriff or police officer sitting there going okay, how many options do I have? Let me pick the good ones. Okay, wait a minute, there aren't any good options here. So the cop is putting a position of having to choose the least bad option available at that moment, and that typically is put them in jail for something.
Speaker 1:That, or they have to transport them to the hospital a local hospital and if that option is not there, they have to take them to jail.
Speaker 3:With the vast majority of counties in Texas we don't have those services, which is my point. We need to start providing those services up front. Give these families some place else to take their loved ones to get services before it becomes a crisis that law enforcement has to intervene. But in the meantime we still have to have the cops out there. We still have to have the cops trained on mental health. We still have to have the county jails with the equipment to deal with all that.
Speaker 2:There's not either, or in Austin. The amount of money the activists wanted from the police budget, which I want to say was $150 million or something, was exactly the amount of money they wanted to fund their organizations where they drew their paychecks. I get it. So the deal was can I get the city to give us the $150 million? Their cause is all maybe valid. No, but if I take this slogan and say, why don't you give it to us and you don't have to give it to them, that was just a political move. So the question I have is all the people ranting and raving about some of these calls. I can name one or two shootings, one here in Austin in particular, where the family had tried to get the young woman into a mental health facility. There's nowhere to go. You ever try to put someone? No, you can't. And by the time it ended up, when Austin ended up having to kill her, she was about to kill someone.
Speaker 2:Now say it all the way around, but the problem is elected officials know this, so why don't we have it Now? This is me and I'll guarantee you you'll disagree, but I'll tell you what I think. Let's say, the right side of the political deal doesn't want to spend money on social programs, like here they see a basketball or something. The left side just wants to spend it on that and doesn't want to pay for the police. We have to have, as both sides agreeing that having social programs is not socialism, it's common sense. So if you want the police, then you can have well-trained police and we can reduce the number of contacts because many of these things can be dealt with.
Speaker 2:You might make a call, like, I think, several of them recently. The police had been out there 15, 20 times. They knew this was going to end badly, but there wasn't a word to send them. So had they had mental health now the police stage for everyone. We stage for the fire department to get control. We stage when the MS is in danger. We can stage for the social workers and when the process is down we can go on about the business. But it takes a commitment to understand how we're using the police is not the best use of their time.
Speaker 2:The second problem is that many cities and it's not, I don't know if this is bad as it used to be the police are revenue generators traffic tickets and all these mechanical tickets. That's just money. Now Texas, we did ban the ticket quota one of the few states, so let's put a stop to that. I don't have a problem with people getting tickets, but when the employers deal is well, the police department has to generate millions of dollars for us to run the budget. Well, that's just a tax on mostly the poor, because people with money just pay the dang ticket. That's my, from the left side view.
Speaker 3:I don't know that. That's a left side view, I think I agree that we need to put more resources into these other types of services. We will eventually yeah, right up front if we provide these services up front, eventually we will save a bunch of money on this back end. But we have to go into an understanding. We can't just immediately move the money from here to there because we've still got the problem to deal with in the meantime.
Speaker 2:There aren't enough police, but there is a number of which. They'll be standing on bumping into each other. But the problem is today. That's not the problem Today. From school lunch programs to figuring out how to deal with two people working in latchkey kids, we already know we start seeing those kids showing up. So we have to look at it. I don't like to use it holistically, but holistically. What can we do to change what we're doing? We're a very wealthy state who could do a lot of these things and I think if we'll focus that over time, we'll get closer, closer to what we want.
Speaker 2:There is no panacea, as you've said. I'm okay. Police officers go out, there's an incident, I think justice. I trust the justice system. They may be tried, they may not. The least amount of politics we can get in it, the better. We can't get it all, but I'm okay with that. The Auster has the ability to defend themselves, so let's go forward with that and then I think we'll change this paradigm. But we're not doing that. We've allowed too many of these decisions to be done on a political basis as opposed to saying what could we do to make it better. Well, I'd ask Austin to put 300 million into buying homes for 3,000 people. Well, how about doing that? Because every day the police are down there at that. They're all dying of fintan, all down at the homeless shelter. Why don't we put more resources there and help out Austin police?
Speaker 4:Well, and I think to your point, mental health. I guess in the past some people Kevin said it's not a left, it's not a left idea. The problem is is it needs to be sooner, because you know there was a time not this session, last session where, well, maybe don't need to have pepper spray, maybe don't need to have tasers, can't have choke holds, can't have all this. At some point you get it to where we're either fist fighting or I'm shooting you. And if you're not addressing the mental health on the early end and you only want to address it at 2.30 in the morning, when he's out of control and he's got knives and he's locked in his bedroom going psycho, why you strip me of all my extra abilities to maybe deescalate it? I can't fist fight a six foot three guy with two knives. I got to shoot him and it puts us in a bad spot. It puts that family in a bad spot, because the minute he's shot now they're saying why the hell did you come here? I shouldn't have called you to come murder my kid.
Speaker 4:We got to help the kids. We got to help. We got to help these folks.
Speaker 3:Right, but it also feeds into the recruiting and retention crisis that we have, because more and more we're trying to tell these cops hey, you're going to get into these situations where you're in fight for your life, but you're going to have rules of engagement that the other guy doesn't have.
Speaker 3:Who wants that job? In all honesty, you cannot do that, and I think that's where it does become a political issue, because if you look at, for example, the executive orders that have come out of the last two White Houses, the ones that came out of the Republican White House were like okay, we're going to put these limits on law enforcement unless you're already authorized to use deadly force. When it comes out of the current White House, doesn't have that exception in there. So it does become a political issue at some point. It is something that we need to set. We need to quit letting it be politicized and it needs to be focused on what is good public policy, what provides our citizens with the best chances at living in a safe community, and stop setting our members are law enforcement up for failure.
Speaker 2:Well, I think in looking at this uh, just talking about reform just a couple of thoughts. It's in your town whether it bubbles up. I mean, till San Antonio had the first one to repeal bargaining 80% Hispanic working town, military town, tourist town, civil service 75 years, bargaining 45 years. All of a sudden, a woman got upset about something and she got talking to somebody else who was upset and they formed this. You know, fix San Antonio.
Speaker 2:And the next thing you know, austin Texas Organizing Project gave them half a million to do it, and then the organizers from Austin because they didn't have enough activists there to do it. The town is majority minority, so they do it. The next thing, you know, the union had to spend 900 and something thousand and they got 900,000. That didn't come out of this woman and this other guy. Professional people came in all these elections. You can go to campaigns. You're old black, they have it listed exactly what they're gonna say. So what? I would ask that groups do embrace the concept of reform. Quit arguing and getting out there when someone says, well, our police need better training, we got all the training we need, you don't know anything about my job. Come out here and work in my shoes, I would say yes, we do need more training. In fact, we're gonna ask the city to put more people in training.
Speaker 3:We've never had all the training we need. We've never. You touched on this earlier. The amount of hours necessary to become a licensed police officer in this state is less than half the number of hours required to become a licensed cosmetologist. That's correct. It is insane. We have never, when have we ever, mandated that cops go through regular retraining on arrest, search and seizure law? And, by the way, how often does arrest, search and seizure law change? And it's every stinking day. There are new tactics, there's new science, there's new everything. Call it something besides reform. Call it, I don't know.
Speaker 4:Figuring out how to do it better. That's what point I was gonna say on you. Defunded was so decisive and so divisive. Reform can mean so many different things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, call it the evolution of law enforcement if you want to. Let's continue to evolve as a career, as a profession, but let's continue. It was, I try to remember, the Supreme Court Justice, oliver Wendell Holmes. Was he the Supreme Court Justice? He said you know, the law should be consistent, but it should never stand still. And I think we can say the same thing about law enforcement agencies.
Speaker 2:We should be very consistent, we should never stand still, I would tell you, don't get caught up in the semantics. And so I've been involved with Austin Santone, where they've had these, and I've been bargaining during these things, rather than try to jump back and have a war of words. If the public is voting almost 100% for anything that says reform, then say I'm for reform, but here's the reform that we need. Start off on the same dialogue with how the public sees it, and then interpret reform to mean, from our end and the public's end, we want a better policeman. You think we're, and I've had officers.
Speaker 3:But the way to do that is to give those policemen better training, that's right. Better leadership, better management, better policy, that's right.
Speaker 2:But you have to, when it starts, engage from where you're at. It's devil is in the details. So I had Austin in all of these things. Our position was, even after they voted down the contract, the actress killed it in 17. I said, when we walk out, just say we're reform. We just don't think that you're going to get there by reducing the amount of services the public gets from the police. Don't start off see what. We shouldn't be defensive. People have a right to seek the type of police they're willing to pay for.
Speaker 3:We may disagree about it, but I think we have to be involved in the conversation to have that conversation. Doug Griffiths, from the Houston police officer union, I think, made a great point. He said you know, when people start talking about bad policing and we if we push back, no, no, there is no such thing as bad policing. Everybody knows we're not right. Bad policing happens. The problem is people equate bad policing with bad police officers and there is a huge difference between the two. Bad policing results from a lot of different factors, bad police officers being probably one of the least of those. Bad training, bad policies, bad leadership, lack of funding, lack of resources, lack of equipment a lot of different things that cause bad policing. We can address those, okay, but we have to engage in the dialogue with our citizens and goodsmen to understand it's almost never bad police officers that cause these problems. It's a myriad of other failures.
Speaker 4:Something both of you keep repeating. That I think is important. A lot of times, when people call us, they're like hey, we want you to come in and draw a line in the sand and you just tell them it's going to be this or, you know, screw them. And both of you have both said you have to be engaging, you have to be a part of the conversation, in the mentality that a lot of people have, that you show up and it's my way, or there's no way, or we're not even going to negotiate, because I know you're dead wrong and I'm dead right, so we're not even going to have a discussion.
Speaker 4:Somebody said it best If you're not at the table, you're going to be on the menu. That's right. And if you're not engaging and you're not trying to figure out where Kevin's always wanted to sit down years ago, when Kaepernick was trying to grant stand, kevin's like get them on, let's have a, let's have a discussion. We both couldn't be any farther apart. Let's sit down and have a discussion about it. And I think the old style, or what some people expect from us, is I'm going to come in and tell you this is how it's going to be, or screw you and we walk. You're never going to accomplish anything. And both of you have been around forever, seen a ton, done a lot, have said you got to be engaged, you got to be open minded, you got to sit down, you got to have dialogue, you got to be engaged and if you're not at the table then you're on the menu.
Speaker 3:I used to know a guy whose mantra was drop the bomb and live in the ashes, and I think he learned over the years that you're going to spend a lot of time living in the ashes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm not opposed to it. I always credit Jerry Clancy, though somebody else really said it. But I think it's dark and it's very difficult because the officer out there pushing the car all night on midnight's maybe jaded view of life having, you know, doing this and we do have real post-traumatic and we have like anything, and it's really easy to become jaded in this job.
Speaker 2:It is it is, but from the leadership standpoint, if you want to lead, then you got to be able to get to the membership to understand that the decisions that are going to be made in these cities are not in the group you like. They're going to support you. They don't care what happens out there. Therefore, you know, no matter what happens, that's not your audience. You don't want to hang on there. But that's a small piece.
Speaker 2:What we're in about with Chas Moore says Chas, I like Chas as far as the conversation, but he's got an agenda. Chris Harris has an agenda. Austin Jessica they have an agenda, but they're over here. They're in this Vlog on this youtube channel, in this Metal Thanks, or about 80% of the public who are watching and we have to understand sometimes they don't like what they saw and when there's conversations about what are we gonna do about it, and that starts getting into the council, getting people talking about it. That's where we should be talking to those people, because you can be for better police and not be anti-police and we don't need to be defensive. A lot of people who I consider my friends around the country. I've seen them and I just thought I wouldn't have said that and so it's how you approach it, and very often, they just don't understand why they saw what they saw.
Speaker 3:Sometimes it's just as simple as that. Sometimes it's just as simple as explaining to them. This is why that happened the way it happened. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe it was good police work, but they don't understand it because they've never been, they've never lived in our world. The bigger thing, though, is being willing to take the time to have the conversation, and if we can't explain why we did what we did, maybe we need to accept we shouldn't have done what we did.
Speaker 2:Right, well, but that I like I always tell everybody they'll argue the facts or argue the law.
Speaker 2:all that old story, it's a law school threat yeah but in truth I always use this line never defend the indefensible. So sometimes and I've helped groups, not just in the US I helped a group in a famous city up north where some officers were involved in racial incidents. It was caught on film. They were out of their city, they were drinking and he said well, the press is gonna be at the union office the next morning and I was gonna say well, we defend officers. He's moving his hall. This I said stop. I want you to say I can't comment on what they did because they're under investigation. But I will tell you this this union does not support people having racial bias. And there was a minister calling for this more training and said do it.
Speaker 2:I went in and I looked in the paper. I took the NAACP comments, I took the mayor's comments. I took all these comments and I put them in his press statement, because if you say what someone already believes, they believe you. So I just took her quotes. The chief and these officers were attacking her. I said we don't support that, don't speak to them. And in the end he called and said well, because if you just stood there and said, well, you know we have to defend, they're gonna get whatever they're gonna get, okay, whatever the due process with the law. And they ended up getting fired, and rightly so.
Speaker 2:But from the union side, don't defend the indefensible. If you look at it and you think that's hard to decide, well, back up and say if someone's saying, well, we need more de-escalation training, okay fine, I know we already do it. That's not the argument. I've had some old policemen say quit making school, back to school. All right, do you wanna lose what you got or you wanna go sit down there for 40 hours and get paid? So when I had racial, cultural sensitivity and all of that with Senator West, I had more policemen come up angry. There's a whole state. At the time, 40,000 people had to go back to school, and that was the deal I said.
Speaker 2:So do you wanna listen to this or do you want him to pass that bill that gets you fired? How about we just do it? So I get it. You have a constituency, we have members, but when you're at the leadership stage, these things don't happen in it. These incidents do. But what comes after it? What the council starts thinking they ought to be doing what people doing you should be advocating. Well, I wish we had had somewhere to send them to mental health. I wish we from the union side, we ought to be saying what the people that are listening saying well, I agree with the association. That's what we should be having, and don't let the politician who never allocated any money for any of this jump out and jump on you. I'm sorry, go ahead no.
Speaker 3:I was just gonna say it also. What you touch on this point. We need to manage expectations amongst our own members. Our members need to understand our objective when it talks to their due process is not to get their jobs back for them, it's not to get them out from under suspension or any kind of discipline. It is to get them a fair shake. That's it. Sometimes fair means you get fired. Sometimes we do things that justify us being fired and we should stay fired. Sometimes it justifies us being suspended for a amount of time. Sometimes it justifies retraining or reprimands or whatever. But all we should be offering is we're gonna get you a fair shake. We're gonna get you a fair hearing and a fair discipline, which might include termination. That's just a fact of life. So we have to manage expectations of our members. We have to make them understand why. Why, from a public standpoint, we have to advocate for the process, the due process, not for them.
Speaker 2:A political we can't really. But we advocate. But I've counseled in yourself two over 50 years, so many people who made mistakes, both just goofing up, poorly trained or had mean-spirited or illegal intent. And some deputy called me it was down in South Texas and I don't know how he got my name, but somebody said we'll call him. She calls me like I'm gonna jump up in the fin.
Speaker 2:He told me what he did and he got fired and he was in that will job and I said he said well, now I'm having trouble, I can't get lying. I said let me ask you this what were they paying you down there? It was nothing. I said let me ask you this how old are you? 20, some. I said this is a learning moment. You're never gonna be a police officer in the state of Texas again, probably nowhere else, because it involved hitting a prisoner or something like that. He wasn't arrested, but he was fired and it's on his record. I said how about you just go in with your life? They don't care. Most places no one's gonna look. You worked at some Dinky Sheriff's Department and you got fired. Argument with a prisoner, just whatever you wanna say. But you're not coming back and there's nothing I can do. Any lawyer can do any association can do.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you just have to know that we make mistakes in life, and sometimes they're harsh. I mean, we've got members in prison. So I think I guess just whatever the circle back to this whole issue is, don't get hardy. Power always comes and goes in the upside of a police association. No matter where you're at, you're the biggest fish in town. If you're in Trinity, texas, I guarantee you you're the biggest piece of any budget.
Speaker 3:They make television shows about you. Yeah, it was bad.
Speaker 2:But you're the biggest fish, so you may be weak and there may be times you don't have the supporting votes, but the nice thing about where you're at is you're always still there. You are a concern to the public, You're their biggest investment and you can rebuild that, so don't worry about it. Well, counsel didn't support us. Well, be smart, Be engaged, Kevin said, and be willing to look at things as the people that in your mind say oh, I'm not great with those liberals over there. Well, if you're in a big blue city, they're going to make the decision for you. Yeah, that's all you got.
Speaker 2:That is it? I looked at every election, got it from 2018 all the way to 2022. Not one group had any supporters, not the AFL. They were on the other side. Teachers they're on the other side, all the people. Every once, when you might find a Republican congressman, will say I'm with the police, but all these cases, it's the association against this. Whatever this reform, which is a huge coalition Hell. The Sierra Club came out against Austin police. I mean, I thought they were for clean water. You know Now seeing you know they're out here in San Antonio. You know one of the east side must keep the snail daughter. Oh, they're against bargaining. How did they get in this? They're in it. So it's going to cost you a lot of money, serious business, and you have few friends. But you have an opportunity to have friends. If you don't hate the people, we're going to make the decision. Otherwise, stay over in your bunker.
Speaker 3:Well, and let's face it, if you're going to be a cop, if you're going to be a good cop, you have to believe. You have to truly believe deep in your heart that the mantra is to protect and to serve. Those are the people you're trying to protect and to serve. Why would you not want to be friends with them?
Speaker 2:Well, do you think that? Because they won't change?
Speaker 3:Otherwise they're not worth protecting and serving, and it's time to get out of the business anyway.
Speaker 2:Nobody wants change. Every guy on midnight always tell people don't do anything. That's because you like it the way you like it.
Speaker 3:But that ain't what's going to happen, yeah, but we don't like it the way it is either.
Speaker 2:No well, we all know. So I think, basically it's a separation from what the members believe and see. The association leadership over here has to live in this pond of blue of how the association looks and builds friendships.
Speaker 3:But you mentioned it earlier, we've got citizens out there, more and more citizens. Their expectations of us are completely different than the way we're training our officers.
Speaker 3:And we need to find a way to reconcile the two. There was a case in Virginia a few years ago that's really hit home for me where people were looking at the same exact video and these witnesses are saying, well, yeah, he did that, but he didn't do anything wrong. He didn't do anything wrong. I don't know why. The police were arresting him and the video clearly shows this guy pulling away from the police and fighting and the cops are like he's resisting arrest. We're overcoming the resistance and these witnesses are saying, well, yeah, he did that, but he didn't do anything wrong. You know, they've got a different view and these are the people that are now getting elected to city councils and commissioners' courts and Congress and to judgeships and his DA's, and they need to reconcile those two things or it's going to continue getting worse. That's right.
Speaker 2:I never. I don't deal, never, wrestle with a pig. You just get dirty and the pig likes it. I avoid and I'm pretty probably left. The center would be my statement. I don't try to deal over there with people of which believe in chaos or anarchy. I don't. We mix is misses. All these people that would enjoy you speaking to them. Police unions live in this little bunker. They don't help anybody. If you're not, it's not for us. We don't care, and I think I see more and more groups reaching out. Why isn't the association with all its money and power not helping with the battered women's shelter? Won't they get in that? I know they got my kids play toys and stuff. They have these certain deals. Just expand that and just reach out there, because you build up so many chips and when the day comes that somebody put something on the ballot, at least you know how to talk to them. We can't stay isolated because what's happening to our world is outside the police department.
Speaker 3:And we'll find that that 10% of the public that we're dealing with, that hate cops, don't like those are not the people that we're trying to protect and serve. If we'll get out of our cars, get out of our comfort zones and meet with our citizens, we will meet the 82% of our voters who have said repeatedly we support our police, we want more and better police, we believe in our police officers, we believe in the rule of law. We need to get to know them better and quit letting these 10%ers here jade us.
Speaker 2:And we're headed that way in Austin. But Seattle, portland, minneapolis and Cleveland all had massive reform. Most of the half the police departments quit, all of them with far left councils. All have given new contracts to the police, hiring bonuses including Oakland has a huge time. All of them took the deal and went down the road until they just went too far. And then even that far left Remember in Minneapolis they would have abolished the police department and you say yeah, but it didn't pass. 44% of the citizens who voted Minneapolis voted to abolish the police department. God, that's pretty. 44% Now. But the people that's over on the side said well, that's a little too much. You know they've come back. They can't always get everybody to come back because they all just quit with the suburbs, but they are negotiating new deals and trying to rebuild the beautiful thing happened, our friend in Seattle, Mike Solin.
Speaker 4:You know, for a while they were trying to to to fight back and you know, is it the far out, Is it the far left? And he said one of the things that really helped turn the tide is they quit trying to point out the failures of the far ends and they made a really intentional effort to appeal to you reasonable citizens, because that's the 82% Quit worrying about these on each end and we're about the 82% in the middle. And he said when they could really see a true turn of events and a true shift in the dynamics there locally is when they quit worrying about, you know, this 6%, this 6% or whatever. We're about there. And they and they were very intentional in using you, reasonable citizens. This is what we appreciate, you reason, because everybody wants to be reasonable citizen. And he said they could literally see a sudden shift there on the ground.
Speaker 3:I thought, man, that's, that's pretty profound and you tell them this is what this policy means, and this is what this policy means. Is that really what they don't?
Speaker 2:It's very simple. People like to go to work and come back and find their television is still there. They're like their kid to walk to school and not be surrounded by drug dealers and they'd like to go to the ATM without some guy, a jugging or whatever it is. Now, life is pretty simple for most people and they see something on TV and it gets the news, but at the same time, if they see their police as training, working better, trying, not fighting I think you're going to see it and I think Mike in Seattle, the different presidents in Minneapolis and others, they're all saying look, here are the consequences, but we're here and we want to work and we want to protect your property and your life.
Speaker 1:Well, I, I think we started a segment of the Godfathers. It's going to be pretty regularly, but we did not, we didn't, we don't. I don't think we covered everything, especially with the many, many, many, many, many years that you guys have had had a head in law enforcement.
Speaker 3:We still haven't gotten to the road, and they're social engineering projects, yeah.
Speaker 4:I want to part three. I want um the A's, uh where the funding on these, these extreme DAs, are coming from. Unions specific. We kind of talked about reform but unions and how unions are shifting in the political landscape that unions are facing, uh, Texas, and nationally, where maybe you guys see that headed, there's still some topics that y'alls institutional knowledge on this, I think just put on that list.
Speaker 2:Put on that list You're going to come back for round three. I'm still alive. My age, you don't know how about? Green bananas today, I would put on their police messaging what the activists are messaging which is resonating and what police messaging is not resonating. And I'll leave you on a controversial note there is no war on the police and I'll defend that.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, there's a spoiler.
Speaker 2:There's a spoiler.
Speaker 3:No comment is not message.
Speaker 1:You know well it's about. Wraps it up. You guys stay safe out there. Hit that like and subscribe button and uh, please, please, please, stay safe. God bless you guys and, as always, my God bless Texas. We are out.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
