Overwatch 5:9
Important safety, survival, and security topics including firearms safety, first aid training, PTSD help, firearms instruction and training, NJ permit to carry a handgun topics, and many more!
Overwatch 5:9
Discussion with Al from Offset Tactical
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Al is the lead operator instructor with 20 years policing experience in Cook County (IL) agencies. Al is also a retired Infantry Marine Gunnery Sergeant with 21 years of service to the Marine Corps and has deployed numerous times overseas in support of OIF and other missions in the Pacific Area of Operations. Al is a Combat Action Ribbon and Purple Heart Recipient.
Al delivers a variety of combat tactics and firearms deployment methods based in combat experience and delivers instruction with survival at the forefront of all training. Whether you’re working as a police officer, a soldier, or are a civilian who carries concealed, a gunfight is a fight for your life. Al trains you to “Win By An Overwhelming Margin” by training what you can do, and when you can do it.
Al is a Nationally Certified Instructor in firearms training. He is also a certified State of Illinois Master Firearms Instructor-Trainer, a Red Dot Optic Instructor-Trainer, a Tactical Trauma Care/Basic First Aid/Tourniquet Instructor-Trainer, Rapid Deployment and Rescue Task Force Instructor, a Reality-Based Scenario Instructor, De-escalation Instructor and a Use of Force Instructor among other disciplines. Al is also a graduate of the Marine Corps’ Advanced Infantry Unit Leader’s Course and Combat Lifesaver Course.
The discussion involves varies facets of training, officer safety, military and civilian tactical topics. Including leadership, development of training, winning mindset and other great topics.
Thanks for listening! Please see the links below for more info!
For in-person training options, click below to contact Nate:
https://poplme.co/Paf6W7Ok/share
Online Course: https://shopmtgsafety.com
Book info: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DS2YL89W/
Martell Training Group YouTube Website and Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClJxybli0pJX7qYymwwrE2A
Strategic Safety & Security Group, LLC.
Crosshair Tactics Website and YouTube Channel:
https://crosshairtactics.com/
https://youtu.be/F5ipAjog-cs?si=fadAbS97flAbji1u
www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-schwartz-phd-b9b899249
Hi, Jeff here from Overwatch 5.9. Uh wearing our uh red signature t-shirt and whatever we do tapings on Fridays for Remember Everybody Deployed. Uh this would have to be from uh Grunstyle. Uh I typically wear uh the hero company stuff, but today I pulled out the uh the Grunstyle one. So uh we have with us a special guest. Uh it's Al Bello from uh Offset Tactical. He's gonna talk to you a little bit about uh his company, what he does. He is an active uh police officer, he'll discuss that. Um just touch real briefly on his uh military career, how he got where he is today, uh, and then how he's used that um in his training and in his everyday life uh in uh some special operations and what he does. So uh thanks for joining us today, Al.
SPEAKER_02My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, please go right ahead.
SPEAKER_02Uh sure. Uh well, as you stated, uh Al Bello here. Uh I am currently uh a police commander uh with the Cicero, Illinois Police Department. Um probably about the only time I mentioned the PD, right? But as you well know, when you're still actively employed uh by the police organization, um it comes with certain restraints on what you can discuss and what you can't discuss, right? But that's all public knowledge, nothing, no worries there. Uh so I am the commander uh that oversees the training division there. Um, like you stated, uh I have all of my foundations and roots uh based in uh Marine Corps. Um and I know that you said um we'd talk a little bit about uh transitioning out of the military. Uh and uh I spent the overwhelming majority of my time in the Marine Corps uh in the reserves. And so for me, um specifically, uh to me, uh the transition was not that big of a deal because I was living on both sides of the fence for very, very long, right? For a very long time, uh, which kind of led to other benefits as well, right? Having the ability to have maintain touch points on both sides of the fence and all of that. Um my uh my time in the Marine Corps started uh right around the 9-11 era. Uh I found myself uh in Iraq shortly thereafter, um, the global war on terrorism, right? That so many of us were able to uh be a part of. Um and, you know, uh most most guys, uh, and and you know this as well, Jeffrey. Most guys are in one of two camps when it comes to the Marine Corps. You either love it or you absolutely hate it, and you can't wait to get out, right? Uh for me, uh as the 21 years uh plus that I did would indicate, I was one of the fortunate guys that loved everything about it. Uh and so when I got back from my first deployment, um you know, I I did what so many guys do uh and I stayed uh in the reserves uh and I made a career out of it. Um I, you know, 21 years later, I retired uh as a gunnery sergeant, uh, you know, ready to move on to first sergeant. But, you know, other things had had come up and I made the decision to retire as a gunny. Um, but yeah, I found myself deploying again. Um ended up in in in um in in many countries around the world doing uh you know uh good work. Um and the the benefit that I had uh from my time in the Marine Corps, which was all of it in the infantry, um, was that I was able to understand structure in a way that law enforcement and civilian side will never understand. I I, you know, and and and the structure and the order of things and the discipline that goes into running platoons of Marines is something that unless you've been in that environment, you'd have a hard time understanding, right? Um and so, with that, all of that fueled what uh became my police career. Uh at the same time, uh I founded and started offset consulting, which is the parent company for the two divisions of offset consulting and offset tactical, which we'll get into here in a little bit. Um but the overwhelming uh foundation of everything that I'm doing at uh at work and everything that I do within the offset space is based in structures that came from the Marine Corps. Uh, you will agree with me, Jeff, um, and I'll turn it back over to you here shortly. Uh, you will agree with me that the Marine Corps gets uh very few things wrong, and they get a lot of things right. Um, and if you remove personal opinions and emotions out of that, the Marine Corps exists for one thing, efficiency, right? And they exist and everything that they structure, everything that they put together by way of processes, systems, um, you know, curricula, the things that they impart are all of it in the name of efficiency in the job of war fighting.
SPEAKER_00And yeah, please go ahead.
SPEAKER_02And then that's right around what I was gonna, you know, say to you, yeah, please, your feedback.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. I was also gonna say that it it it drives leadership from you know the Lance Corporal all the way up to whatever rank you are. So uh when you spoke about uh uh how it it drives your you at work, uh it it certainly does. Uh it certainly uh laid that foundation. And when you said, you know, uh leading a platoon of Marines, you know, uh as a company commander leading the Marines uh or as the gunnery sergeant leading the Marines. So always lean on your NCOs, you know, for sure. Right? And you know, have always lean from the front, and it it taught you a lot. So uh like you had mentioned uh the foundation being paramilitary in and of itself in law enforcement, uh especially if you're in a the training unit and you're taking it uh seriously what you do, uh then you can put those lessons that you've learned and hopefully let those who haven't been in that situation or avoid being in an untenable situation from from what you've you've done, experienced, and learned.
SPEAKER_02100%. And uh, you know, we'll get into what we do here. Um so offset consulting as the parent company was founded with uh classroom side training in mind uh for law enforcement. We are a law enforcement and military-specific training group. Um, and we live on both sides of the fence classroom side training and tactical side training. And I will also share with you where that came from because you are gonna understand uh deep down in your heart why I'm I'm doing it this way. You've been on both sides of the fence as well, having served in the uh green uniform and then in the blue uniform, right? So in the Marine Corps, the same Marine, the very same individual, is expected to be two different people. There is Garrison Marine and then there is field Marine. Garrison, for those of you that are listening and don't know or don't have time in the military, garrison is everything that is associated with being on base in a formal setting. That Marine, that version of that Marine, let's just call him Bill. Marine Bill, right? PFC Bill has to have, you know, uh squared away uniform. He has to uh be clean shaven, he has to know customs and courtesies, he has to be well educated on the history of the Marine Corps. He needs to know what rank people are wearing, when to salute, when not to salute, all of the things that go into being in garrison in an environment where the formal side of you is expected. But that same Marine, PFC Bill, if he's in an infantry unit or in a combat arms MOS, can then be dropped in the field. And now PFC Bill is expected to go from formal poster child marine to savage tactician.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02And that same Marine is now expected to know how to lay down tripwires, plant claymores, engage enemies at 300 yards, right? And close with, right? Locate, close with, and destroy the enemy.
SPEAKER_00With iron sights at 300 yards.
SPEAKER_02With iron sights, exactly right. Because that's exactly what it was when I started uh back in the early 2000s, right? ACOGs didn't become a thing until way after, right? So based in that, having spent so much time on both sides of the fence, um, when I transitioned over to law enforcement, I realized very quickly the same is true in law enforcement. You can find yourself as a cop at a gas station or at a local mini mart, high-fibing a kid and being the poster child for community engagement. That side of you, that side of that officer needs to be, let's just call him Officer Bill. That side of Officer Bill needs to be well spoken, professional. He needs to look the part in uniform. He needs to be, you know, respectful and courteous to the citizens. That side of him needs to know how to write good reports, how to manage a scene, needs to know how to be a leader, right, within the community. So you're done high-fiving that kid. Officer Bill gets back in his squad car after he gets his coffee, whatever. And as he's leaving the parking lot for that mini mart, he sees a traffic violation. And right then and there, Officer Bill decides that he's going to conduct a traffic stop. Upon approach to that vehicle, that's the one. He is met with the muzzle of a weapon. Now, Officer Bill, who was just a professional leader, needs to shift the needle back to savage tactician. And now this side of Officer Bill needs to know how to come out of the holster quickly, how to get on sights quickly, how to get on target quickly, how to take cover and back up and create distance and engage the threat accordingly, right? So I found myself wondering, having spent as much time as I did in the Marine Corps and having been a cop for as long as I was at that point, if the requirement of the individual officer and Marine are the same from a training perspective, why is it that training on the law enforcement side is so lacking? Unfortunately, yes.
SPEAKER_00Why is it number one?
SPEAKER_02Why is it that we we fall into this category of mandates and eight hours a year is good enough?
SPEAKER_01Right?
SPEAKER_02I read an interesting uh snippet the other day on LinkedIn, something to the effect of a barber has more annual required training than a police officer does in some states of the country, which is horrible.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so there is no national standard right for local and state. Yeah, no, no national standard.
SPEAKER_02So what are Marines do the best, Jeff? We uh find deficiencies in systems, we create new efficient systems, and we fill the fill the gap with whatever innovation we have. And offset was born. So we all figure it out, right? Yeah, we as a company uh are one of the few companies. I know that there's a few other companies out there that handle both sides of the fence. Administrative side training, where we teach report writing, leadership. Um, and you'd and you'd appreciate this because our adaptive leader program is taught on four different levels. Um, non-ranked police personnel, field training officers, mid-level supervisors, and executive staff. And the reason we do that is because I have traveled the country teaching adaptive leader, and I cannot tell you how disappointing it is to find as many agencies as there are that will not even consider sending people to leadership training until they pick up the rank of sergeant. You're right. And that's a horrible concept, and it's a horrible approach because, as you know, in the Marine Corps, leadership training begins day one of boot camp. The expectation is that you will be a leader in some capacity at any given moment. And for law enforcement as a community to take the approach of unless you're a supervisor, you don't need formal leadership training, I think is doing the community a disservice. So, so classroom side, we have report writing, we have uh leadership, we have critical incident management. We do one of the country's most immersive critical incident tabletop exercise classes, um, all of it based around uh ICS um and then we have uh performance evaluations and mentoring. And and and again, right? Here's another big gap that we have found over time. Jeff, the amount of agencies that do not do performance evaluations for their people is astounding, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00And have you found man there is sometimes no actual standard for hiring for interview process that there are no anchors, there are no uh there's no formal way. It's hey, do we like this girl guy or girl or don't like then you hire? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and and so what we've done is you know, we don't we don't sell any particular performance evaluation system. We're not selling you a method. What we're there to do is open your mind up to how we are grading cops. Most cops fall into one of three camps. Uh, I've never been given a performance evaluation. Uh, I've received the same performance evaluation for the last 10 years, right? Or my my department treats them as um you know currency for promotion, right? And the people that are gonna get promoted, the guys that we know are making it to the top, they will receive good performance evaluations because it helps support the decisions from the higher-ups, right? Now we we take those three camps and then we look at all of the documents that come with that. And even for agencies that do have performance evaluations, nine out of ten of them are using performance evaluations that are based in 1990. And the performance evaluations that we're looking at, the care, the characteristics that we want out of police officers, is still dated back to before 2000, right? We are a completely different police community than we were 20 years ago, than we were 10 years ago, right? And so just to give you a snippet, we'll have discussions about okay, can we grade characteristics in a cop? And are we looking at foundational characteristics such as decision making, uh, leadership, integrity, uh, communication skills, and leaving those as the foundation, but then moving forward to a place of how good are you with technology? Uh, how good are you at de-escalation? How good are you at dealing with mental health issues? How good are you at doing any of the things that we are now required to do since 2021, right? Since police reform around the country has reshaped everything, right? Yes, and and perspective. 100%. So suffice it to say that good cop back in as early as 2000 is not the same standard of good cop today in 2026. And performance evaluations fail to capture that in most instances. So that's why we devote as much time as we do on that, right? Um, and so shifting over to the offset tactical side, um, we have a ton more programs. Um, and and and and I gotta say, I you know, leave it to a cop to enjoy shooting a gun better than working on report writing, right? I think that's any one of them. Unless you tell them they have to go clean it. Then yeah, right. That's another thing. And and and you kind of understand why we have so many more offerings on the tactical side. Um, but we have again filled gaps that just needed needed addressing. Um, you know, for example, uh the revolution that is pistol optics in the last 10 years in law enforcement. Now, I've been working with optics in the military as far back as 20 years ago. The competition world has had optics for much longer than law enforcement has. Um, but just to give you an idea, right? So we see this transition happening in law enforcement. Uh many agencies are revolutionizing uh, you know, their their firearms instructor, their firearms programs, bringing optics as a standard now and things of that nature. Um, but we are not seeing the items that instructors need to be trained in being offered anywhere, right? For example, if you are one of the agents, or if you come from an agency that orders Glock pistols with hollow sun optics, and you get them put together and they ship to your department, awesome. Everybody now has something that's put together. You don't need to know anything about the maintenance of it. If it breaks, you down it, you send it back. But nine out of ten agencies don't have that luxury. Nine out of ten agencies will have officers buy their own optics and then install it on the gun that they're carrying. If something breaks, who takes care of that? So we have an armor's course for optic installation and more importantly, zeroing. The amount of cops that carry optics that don't know how to zero their guns properly is is mind-blowing, right? Oh, yeah. Another thing that we really focused on and and trained out was low light engagements with optics. And sure, it is anybody that has shot iron sights and optics uh knows that the entirety of the visual aspect is 100% different. No pun intended, it is night and day, right? So literally, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if we take it to the scientific end, it's there's so much to talk about where it comes to the rods, cones, why we're why we're discussing uh about low light, and let alone what are you system are you using? Are you using handheld? Are you using weapon-mounted? You know, what are you doing with it? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And and so uh, you know, we we we saw that there was an overabundance of low light classes out there, but then they're having shooters come in, students, cops come in with either iron sights or optics. And you can't teach the same, uh you can't teach low light engagements the same way because, as you well know, an iron sight weapon requires to have a front sight focus. An optic weapon requires target focus, and white light will have different effects on your target and your front sight acquisition given your environment. So we started addressing that gap by having a specific class devoted to low light engagements with red dots. And and these are just a few of the examples that I have where we address gaps that are kind of affecting law enforcement training. Um, you know, low-powered variable optics, we teach that. We have a designated marksman course. Uh, and I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm interested to pick your brain on a concept here in a minute. Um, because we teach DMR, which is designated marksman rifle. Um, and I I read a very interesting stat the other day. I still haven't confirmed it to be true. Uh, I would imagine it is because of the source that I read it from. But I read that to date, the longest rifle engagement in any law enforcement environment here in the US has been right around 170 yards. 170 yards, right? So if that is true, I I I dare ask the question, why do we need police snipers?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well my count my my thing is they don't want to say counter because that's the answer, is because of counter-sniping. So if you do have an engagement where you're doing some sort of dignitary protection or uh some other sort of EP, you know, on the civilian side, where you need that counter sniper, uh that I think that's where it might come in at. Um 170 yards, that's interesting. I I'd have to see where that source was and kind of discuss that with you and I'd be interested in knowing about it. Uh because I would suspect that we look back at the uh the LA uh bank robbery uh where uh they were going to the sporting goods store and grabbing the long guns with the optics, and they weren't trained uh at that time to use those. And that may very well have been where that that shot came from because they did engage from a long distance.
SPEAKER_02From distance, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I was having this discussion with one of my other instructors, right? And and in the DMR environment, we train out to 300 yards, and even that is almost twice as far as the longest recorded shot in law enforcement, if that data is true.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02And you know, we all know our fair share of team guys. Um, I was a team guy myself, and I know that on their long days, when you go to the 40-hour basic sniper course, they're putting you out to 800 yards as a cop.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_02And I, you know, I I I the utility of a sniper in basic operations at the police level, I think, is um very minimal. I think there's a lot bigger utility, a lot heavier utility in the designated marksman space. Um, because you can take any.
SPEAKER_00I like that terminology and I like that thought. Now we can also then kind of take it over to the handgun situation of how far are we really well, even taking a step back from not only how far, but the average hit ratio during a stressful situation, three to seven yards is you know, is the typical you know, firefight, uh one out of four is is the hit ratio. So Why are we when when I first started way back when we were actually doing qualifications at 50 yards with our handguns? 50 yards with revolvers at the time. Are we really going to engage somebody at 50 yards with a with a handgun? With a revolver.
SPEAKER_02So you know that that I think likens a I am I'm I'm happy to dive into this just a little bit. Um I think you would appreciate a study that came out uh from the National Law Enforcement Uh Firearms Instructors Association and Lefia, right? Um these guys put out a study uh involving uh cops that had been involved in officer involved shootings, all of what all of them had optics. And the study uh was qualitative in that they were able to uh get insight from the officers that came out of that event with how much faster you were able to acquire your target, did the dot help you out, the fact that you could keep both eyes open, did that help and all these things. And the study for for as short as it was, and I think they only had a three to four year window that they that they looked at for the study, um, really just drives home the benefits of having optics. I will also tell you um that a 50-yard shot with an optic is easier than ever when you when you compare it to shooting um iron sights, right? Um, because you can maintain depth perception with having both eyes open, a single focal plane, and now you can estimate your holdover with your dot if it is that you have one and such, right? But um I'll I'll I'll tell you cops find themselves in situations that are very unpredictable. And I think that, and here's the thing in Illinois, we have a 15-yard maximum distance for our yearly qualification. 15 yards. That's as far back as I need to go. But 100% of the cops that I've interviewed or I know that have been involved in uh active shooter events will always approach the scene and park about 50 yards away. Sure. They get their rifles out of their trunks and then they close the distance on foot. And so I think in my own mind, what we're seeing is an evolution in tactics like everything else that changes over time. I think that now we are entering a space where cops need to know and need to be capable of engaging at 25 to 50 yards for those approaches to a hot zone.
SPEAKER_00Agreed. And I also think now more than ever, we're also seeing the individual application of having a ballistic shield. No, where we have not seen that ever before. Yeah. So adding the ballistic shield to whatever system you have, and then thinking about supplemental lighting, where do we have a shield light that's remote, and then we can also then have our you know pistol or our long gun with you know working in conjunction as a team, you know. Uh we can talk tactical salting long, of course. But for sure, you know, thinking about it though, in a grand scheme, um, how much are we practicing that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, not nearly enough. And right I and and and I think that that is at the root why offset came to be. Um, I I I I I'll double down on the fact that we just do not train enough on the law enforcement side of things. And yeah, you know, I'll I'll repeat the words of a very wise first sergeant that I had once. Um, and he told me that as a Marine, we had two jobs uh to train for war and to conduct war. Right? So when you when you are in an environment like that, where a Marine that is not at war is training for war, the same is not true on the law enforcement side. And this is why we can never maintain a training tempo that is ever going to come close to what we do on the military. That's your job, is to train to go and do things right. And when you are conducting operations in the military, those operations are usually what you trained up to. On the law enforcement side, operations are constant. And operations are the priority. Street operations, investigations operations, narcotics operations, all of the things that are never going to go away. And it is around the clock, it's like the mail, it just keeps on coming. And now training takes a um training takes a a lesser degree of priority uh than it would in the military. Because there's no unit that's going to swap you out. You're not getting replaced by another team. Your people are on the street consistently, and you make time to train in accordance with state standards.
SPEAKER_00So and I I have to say that is probably the biggest key right there. Uh, and that is budget constraints, overtime, uh, liability. Uh, we can go on and on and on about the different things that are going to come into play, uh even leaving politics out of it, just budgetary alone. Uh it is just not the same. And now we also have to fit in in the law enforcement realm. Um, you mentioned it, de-escalation, what that is, but uh suffice it to say, uh I wrap it up in one word, communication, because that's the and then you have the mental health aspect because of what we're dealing with. Yep. Now you have, as the Supreme Court said in in Graham V. Connor, you know, split second decision, rapidly evolving tense situations, right? Um what what is going on there, what we have to do, and then you look at some of the work from people like uh Force Science Institute.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, those guys are great. I reference those guys all the time in my training.
SPEAKER_00Doing some great stuff. And uh I had actually had Brian Baxter, CEO of Force Science, uh, on the podcast. And at the time I was taking one of their courses. Um I I take their courses all the time. Sure. Uh I held up the book and he's like, Yeah, you know, I did the just I said, Yeah, just did your segment, you know, when when he was on there. I'm like, they are really uh on the cutting edge of some of this stuff. And looking at and that's why I asked you to be on the show, actually, uh, because of the things that you have out there, the things that you're doing and the training that you that you have, uh really timely, uh really efficient. Uh it it drives home the point that we need to be ready, and and I'm always willing to bring on people who have that mindset that are doing it for the right reasons. That you want people to be safer, and it's not that we're selling a course or selling a system, it's that you're having a mindset.
SPEAKER_02And I I think Yeah, and I I I appreciate that. I I would imagine you are referring to our uh weekly uh drills for the firearms instruct instructors base, right? And and and you know, uh police officers, shooters. So yeah, so I thanks for bringing that up. Um, you know, little little known fact about our social media presence. Um, we didn't start on social media until this year, 2026. Oh, no, up until 2026, January, our only presence, our only footprint was on LinkedIn. Um, and you know, I got I gotta tell you, my wife, God bless her, she kept pounding me about having a presence on social media. She said, Hey, it's the only way that you're gonna be able to be successful. Um, and you know, in my own stubborn, old school way, I said, Well, I don't know any police chiefs on Instagram, right? Which is why I'm not gonna devote any time to those platforms. Um, but she was right. She was right, right? Um, we have had no lack of engagements on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, uh, Facebook. And and I just I'd like to give you uh first, I'd like to thank you for bringing it up, but but then secondly, I'd like to explain to you what it is we're doing. So so far, uh you know, we're all familiar with YouTube. I have been on YouTube any number of times trying to get information on either uh a gun system or an installation on something or tactics or hey, let me see how these guys do X. Sure. Man, and it seems like every time you log in to try to get something uh by way of info, the first two minutes of the video are sponsors. The the next 10 minutes of the video are guys talking about themselves. Uh and then there's three minutes of actual information, and then two minutes of, hey, here's another sponsor, and here's the gear that we used. Go get a discount with this discount code. Now I got it. There's a place for that. I know these guys are all in agreements with the companies that they're promoting. Uh I know that there's sponsorships, all that stuff. And that's great, right? But what it does is it doesn't make it any easier for me, the end user, to find the information that I'm looking for. So you've noticed all of our videos are shorts, and the majority of them are reels or shorts. And what we do is we intend to bring value by way of time saving to anybody that's on our channel. If you've followed us for the last six months that we've been on all social media, hey, it's Al from Offset Tactical. Here's the drill we're running today. Here's why we're running it. Here's what it's gonna train, and here's the loadout for your screenshot. And then we demo the drill. And as soon as we're done with that, get 1% better every day, guys. We're out of here. See you next week. Right? Yep. Fast to the point. And now, as a firearms instructor or as a student yourself, you can take us a screenshot of the loadout. Now you're never gonna be in a place where you're on the range with your guys and you'll be like, hmm, I don't have any good drills to run today. Right. And we solve that problem now, right? And and and it's free. We aim to bring that value to to everyone that follows us. Um, and so yeah, so I I appreciate you bringing that up, man, because it it's good to see to hear that you are taking away that sentiment because that is the reason we put it out. We want it short, to the point, go and execute. Excellent.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's very Marine Corps focused in in that sense, and and I like it. And it also brings out that's a good point. I never thought of it that way. Yeah, it does. And it also brings out the the law enforcement mentality of I want to be safer and I want to share that. Yeah, that that really drove that point home to me, and that is the whole purpose of this podcast. And the podcast is uh yes, we have very specific times where we're discussing some of the darker things of you know the lack of mission of purpose, uh faith, and and then the financial pillar, and we talked about the four pillars, and making sure that people are you know ready to transition and then they don't fall into dark spaces and things like that. And yes, there is a place for that. But we also love to discuss how do we make somebody safer. We want people who have not only are like-minded but also have that ethic and are coming from the right place. Yeah, so typically a Marine's gonna have that as a base anyway. Yeah, nearly all the time. A police officer hopefully is gonna have that as a base. Hopefully. Yeah. When you combine the two and you do it the right way, then then you have something that should work. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02100%. I I was just discussing this with uh a chief out of New Mexico, um uh Chief Jeremy Story. He's the chief over in uh Las Cruces, New Mexico.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um we were talking about some things where um, you know, deficiencies were identified in uh something that um was perceived in one of our programs. And and I told him, I was like, hey, listen, uh, because he's a jar head also, right? And so I was like, you're gonna understand this when I say this, but we're always chasing perfection. Right? We are always chasing perfection. And whether or not we achieve it or not, right, whether or not we achieve it, we are always looking for that 1% improvement. Now, you will have uh you'll get a chuckle out of this because I'm sure I'm gonna take you back years here. But in the Marine Corps, you'll agree when we do proficiency and conduct marks, you can only rate up to, if you are a rock star, a 4.9. You'll you recall it. Even though the highest standard to get, the highest score to get is a 5.0. Why why do we not give the 5.0? Because you can't, because there's always room for improvement. That's right. It is an unattainable score because if anyone is ever labeled at a 5.0, that would indicate that you are perfection. Done. And there's no such thing, right? And so with that mentality, and and man, and and and again, this goes back to one of the things that the Marine Corps does right. That establishes a culture of always chasing next best level, next next upgrade, next level of great, right? Um, the the culture of it all is just self-improvement, drive yourself to be better, one percent every day gets you there.
SPEAKER_00There you go. So, culture is the key uh to all this, and we can we can take mentalities and foster a culture that embraces improvement. Because when you say change, every cop in the room is going to say no, no, no, thanks. I'm good, I'm good, right? Yeah, 100%. Yeah, so driving that home and saying, okay, well, I'll do it if it's a lawful order, but you know, I I don't like this. Okay, well, you know, that that's not the way to do business.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, I and I have to say, you know, when you talk about train change, um, in our adaptive leader programs, 80% of what we talk about in that program is Marine Corps leadership principles, marine corps leadership traits brought and translated for law enforcement. The Marine Corps gets it right in those realms, right? I usually open the class with a simple question. Outside of your uniform inspections and chain of command on paper, what else about your police department is military? Good question. And I'll have classes of 40 people and it's crickets. Every so often you'll get a guy who will say, um, well, tactics, we bring military tactics. And then, you know, the conversation will go back and forth to, okay, well, when are we actually able to use those tactics? Oh, SWAT teams or something. Okay. Well, now we're talking something very specific and niche, right? But the overall, the broad brush approach to the paramilitary that paramilitary that we always talk about is I have to wear a uniform, I get inspected every so often, and I have to address certain people by sir or ma'am because there's a chain of command. Outside of that, the law enforcement community didn't bother bringing all of the leadership stuff that the military was putting out. Because holy cow, could you imagine what law enforcement would look like if we ran police departments with the same level of accountability and leadership that units are run with in the military? Absolutely. We wouldn't have 80% of the problems that we have today.
SPEAKER_00I would even suspect it would be higher. But yes, I agree. And I I think the operative word here is accountability. Yeah. It's not only accountability on the organization side, it's personal accountability. And you'll agree with that, I'm sure. I agree.
SPEAKER_02I agree. And yeah, yeah, you know, it it's a different environment. It requires adaptation, it requires flexibility. Um, in the military, you'll you'll agree, right? You can do a duty station for three, four years somewhere, and then you are plucked out and taken somewhere else. Um, and then you are now operating in a brand new environment with new people. Not the case in law enforcement, right? Not the case in law enforcement. 90% of cops will work with the same people for 20 years. And the guys that you go to the academy with, one of them might be the chief. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right. Because most departments are 50 people or less.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_02And I I think the average, I think the average police department size around the US is like 18 or 19 cops or something like that, right? Yeah, it's it's right around that 20 mark, you're correct. Yeah. Um, so so the environments are different, which means the application of leadership needs to be different, right? And when you when you come up through the ranks for 20 years with the same guys that you're drinking beer with, grilling out with, going to baseball games with, I have identified, uh, and I've worked for two police departments in my my 21-year career. Um, I have identified that that right there is the single greatest friction point um with the accountability piece in law enforcement. Unless the leader is able to truly separate friendship from professional relationship and um exercise the concept of no fraternization, like we do in the in the military, um, you are going to find yourself with a lot of the struggles that come with being connected to someone for so long.
SPEAKER_00And I think it goes back to not only the accountability piece and the evaluation piece, but also the idea of the military structure. So yeah, I I think that's what we tend to see when uh people need to have that ethical approach, and sometimes politics are gonna get in the way and that's gonna happen. It's a reality, yeah. Right? So, yeah, we have to deal with that. Um but one other thing we expect most officers to know everything. Yeah, we wear a thousand hats, and it really isn't like that, especially in a dynamic, stressful situation. So when it comes down to that, that's where training is a key because we default to training, I think. And when we have a change in training because of some tragic incident, and that's usually what it takes to to to make a a change in the training, um, and then we check that box. And it's not necessarily because we've trained it properly, it's because we've done whatever the attorney general said, or yeah, whoever uh had given us the guideline of directive.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I I hate to agree with this statement here, but you've heard it your entire career. I've heard it my entire career. We are reactive, not proactive. Yeah, um, and and it sucks to admit that in most cases that is true. Now, one of the benefits that I've had in traveling the country and training police departments all over the place is um I have come across some police departments that are very progressive in their training and they get ahead of it, and they are proactive, not reactive. And those are the best, those are the best built responses. One of the things that I like to drive home uh to any administrator that will hear me out, any administrator that listens is this training is how you guarantee responses. It's not a matter of let me get eight hours of training so that I meet the mandate, because that is not going to create an improvement in tactics on the street. That is not going to create a change in mindset in the average cop after a six-hour block of instruction, right? Because you factor in the four, 15-minute breaks and then the one-hour lunch, your eight-hour day is now six hours of actual meat and potatoes. So training is how you train responses, it's how you guarantee responses on the treat on the street. And to look at training in the um in the way that we have done up to this point in the law enforcement community is doing our people a disservice. And what do I mean by that? I mean that anybody that looks at training as a one day a year in any given discipline is failing their people. Training should be much more consistent than that. Now, I can tell you that in Illinois specifically, and that's the state that I work in, so I can speak to this, we have a number of mandates that we need to meet that are governed by the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board. What that translates to for most agencies, mine included, is you have to break it down in quarters. And now you're having now you have quarterly training within your calendar year. And the first three months we're training this, second three months we're training that to meet the mandates. And what that does is it eliminates time to do most other things. But once you come in for that quarter as the street level cop, you have met your mandates. Nine out of 10 police departments will not come to you again until it's time for you to go back to the second quarter training.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_02And then again, the third. And so your average cop will receive four blocks of instruction in a year, all of them with mandates in mind. The most progressive departments, the ones that get ahead of it and are proactive, are bringing people in for micro training sessions, something that we call in-shift training. We have made it a point to drive this home. We bring people off the street for 10 to 15 minutes, quick refresher on policy, quick refresher on a tactic. We we just transitioned to a new um ocular irritant. It's not OC spray anymore, right? Um, but we are we are utilizing these moments to ingrain and And reaffirm the use of force policy, the um de-escalation policy, you know, tactics and policy. And then we issue these these new items out. And with that, outside of quarterly training, we are able to touch with with our you know, touch points with our officers on things that are not quarterly training related to continue that that that interval of training.
SPEAKER_00So I would say that that hits at least three three levels. And one is it shows the officers that you have some sort of empathy or care for their their safety and their well-being. Yeah. Two, you're also doing a service for the department and the city town, wherever it is, because now we're not getting charged with failure to train, failure to supervise, uh, and all those other things that come in the civil realm. And then the other piece is I think you're going to improve your retention of officers. Yeah. Yeah. That is a really big point because you're spending a lot of money to get that officer on the street, right? 100%.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01100%.
SPEAKER_00Now, if we can retain that officer and have that officer have more satisfaction, uh, we're gonna have better performance.
SPEAKER_02And I can tell you that we have had officers leave for other police departments. Um, and you know, we touch base with them months later, and or or they stop in to say hello or whatever. Um the amount of times we have heard I missed the training here. There you go, is is ridiculous, right? Because it tells us that we are doing it right to the point where people are seeing a humongous difference once they go somewhere else that isn't doing it this way. Now, one of the things that I would um and let me let me see how I can word this. One of the things that I have proposed in the past um is something that I refer to as a one in 20 schedule. Now, I I do this with the idea that I'm trying to get to an interval cycle of training so close to what we do in the military that uh as possible. In the military, again, right, your Monday through Friday when you're on base involves some sort of training or maintenance or something to, again, continuously stay prepared for deploying to go and do war at war action. On the police side of things, operations has to be cycled in that. I need to be on the street as a patrolman, right? I can't be in training all the time for when I go to patrol. No, I need to be on patrol the majority of my time. And every so often I start training. So one of the things that I have looked at in the past to create a consistent interval in training is a 120 schedule. And what I mean by that is for every 20 days that an officer spends on the street, I have proposed in the past to bring them in for a full day of training. And if you scatter that across a schedule, whatever your schedule looks like, and it doesn't need to be 20 days, it just happened that for my agency size and the tempo that we had, 120 was the number that I landed on based on my assessment of personnel and all that stuff. It could be 125, it could be 115, um 130, maybe, right? But for every X amount of days worked, that officer gets brought in for a training session. And what that does is if you're bringing it down to one every 20 days, you're gonna have touch points with that officer 15, 16 times a year.
SPEAKER_00Amazing.
SPEAKER_02If you do it if you do it 130, you'll have touch points with that officer 12 times a year.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Right?
SPEAKER_00Certainly beats the four mandated uh if you're at that's my point.
SPEAKER_02And that's my point. The bare minimum, bringing cops in four times a year for eight-hour blocks with as much accountability as is now being forced down the throats of police chiefs around the country. I think that we are gonna see legislation in the next 10 years that understands why police departments continuously fail to provide the training that the public thinks we're already getting, and we're not.
SPEAKER_00Well, the public thinks a lot of things, and as an expert witness, um spend a lot of time just explaining that what they see on TV in the movies and what they it's just not reality, right? So you're explaining it, and unless they have been in the military or a first responder were or are friends with one, you know, intimately, uh they don't understand right what what it's really like. And and then the physiological piece nobody's really touching on, right? So are are you really prepared from sitting here and talking? You know, I pull up to another officer I'm talking and we're just saying, Hey, how's it going? You know, and then you get that call and instantly you're in potentially a life and death situation. So the what it does to you physically, mentally, it's it's not taken in consideration most of the time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I was just having this conversation with um a group of brand new officers that uh I have right now. Uh there's eight of them. I was just talking about it with the I was just talking about this with them this morning, Jeff. It's so funny that you're bringing this up because just this morning I was explaining to them how it's important that we maintain a good health balance, um, a good nutrition balance throughout our time as cops. Um, and the reason for that, and the reason it's much more important in our line of work than most other lines of work is because of the amount of abuse that we subject our bodies to by being in this environment, right? So, what do I mean by that? Uh Gary McCarthy, the uh former chief of Chicago, the former superintendent, he has a podcast and he just had a doctor on there that was going into cardiac events. Oh, yeah. So, okay, so you maybe you watched it. All right. So yeah, very phenomenal, man. He's talking about how cortisol over a 20-year career, you know, affects cops. Um, and and this, you know, this is something that we all know. And it takes for a doctor like this to come on on board and say it for a little bit more awareness into it, but the scientific data is now supporting all of these wellness programs that are a huge must. Now, here's the thing: the one thing I briefed these uh new cops on this morning was this. The average human being will go through about 20 to 25 critical incidents in their lifetime.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02In their lifetime. As cops, especially in a town like the one that I work in, you are going to go through 25 critical incidents in a week.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Now, with that, your body is subject to the consistent and constant adrenaline dumps. Your heart rates are spiking more than the average person's. Yep. You are um more stressed than the average person because of the high-risk environment that you're working in. Um, and all of that takes a toll over 20 years.
SPEAKER_00And just what you see alone, because most people don't get exposed to what is, I mean, you don't call 9-1-1 and say you're having a good day.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you don't call the cops on your best day. Exactly right. Exactly right. So, you know, in addition to the high adrenaline, high liability, high risk things that we do, then there's the psychological effects of going to a dead baby call. Absolutely. Or a homicide call uh or an officer being injured call, right? Like all of these things take a toll. Yeah. Just death in general. Yeah. Death in general is a part of the job. Uh dealing with it, understanding it, knowing how it affects others when you have to deliver that news, if it is that you're ever in that position. But you are you are seeing it constantly, and that takes a that takes a toll. Um, so you know, I I wish there were an easy way to prepare newer police officers for what they are about to, you know, become exposed to. Um, but like most things, you have to go and experience it for yourself to understand what it is that we're talking about. No book in the world, no training in the world is ever going to prepare them for what they are entering.
SPEAKER_00Talking about it, yeah, and exposing them at least in part to it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That that's important. So I had a he's now a good friend of mine, uh, actually, Marty Greenberg. I don't know if you're familiar with him because he's in the Chicago area. Uh he started the actual first trauma medicine where he he was an orthopedic surgeon who then became a SWOT operator. So he could are you familiar with him? I am, yeah. Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, his story, his story is a very well-known one in the Chicago area.
SPEAKER_00Okay, great. Yeah, so it's just amazing what he did, and and I I'm I'm proud to call him a friend of mine. Uh and he wrote the um encyclopedia of tactical medicine, or uh really, really cool book. Uh but the chapters it breaks down, just amazing. So it kind of goes along with everything that you're mentioning now. And uh he actually gave up being a doctor to go out and be out in the field, uh, because that's how strongly he felt, right? So um he brought level one trauma uh centers to to where there weren't. So uh what what groundbreaking work and uh just amazing.
SPEAKER_02So I have uh one one of my cops um is um a trained medic. Uh and I am currently discussing with him how we can um keep him certified as a medic as a police officer. And one of the one of the people that he just mentioned was a doctor, and I can't remember his name, um, but this doctor is a surgeon in the emergency room at Stroger Hospital, which is the old Cook County Hospital in Chicago. Um most shooting victims in the city go there, right? And we get a lot of shooting victims in in the city. So this guy is very well versed uh in um in tactical trauma, uh or trauma rather, but um the officer that I know that is trying to get this this program off the ground with me, uh he made me aware of the fact that, and I think this is the guy that may have taken Marty's spot because he doubles as a medic on the Chicago PD SWAT team, is my understanding. So he does the hospital thing, uh, and he's on call uh for any SWAT-related callouts for the city. Um or at least that's how the story that he told me goes. But it's not outside of the realm of possibility that that's what happens, right? Um, so yeah, it it and again, right? This is just another one of the hats that we have to wear every day doing this job.
SPEAKER_00Who thought that an officer would be wearing an IFAC, individual first aid kit, right? Um who who would have ever thought that that's going to be something you handout?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, never. Never. Not not 20 years ago, anyway, right? 20 years ago, you brought up tourniquets to most cops, and they're like, What? Yeah, right. And now we're at the point where um we are very close to issuing IFACs to everyone so that they have on their on their uh body uh while they're out in the field. Uh, because that's just the new reality. Yeah, that's just the new reality, and sure, everything evolves.
SPEAKER_00Brings us full circle back to the idea of training. So that's why I love what you do and what you stand for. Uh not only being biased to the Marine Corps tactical idea and leadership idea, but also because you you take it and you've adapted it into law enforcement. And that's that's where it really uh we need to see more of that type of training. Not that we're and I hate to use the word guardian and warrior and throwing that stuff out, and you know, uh I spend a preponderance of time, you know, when I'm doing expert witness stuff, uh, talking about you know somebody's mindset and you know where where is it coming from? So no, we we we're not training everybody to go out and just shoot, and you know, that's what we do, but you need to be prepared, and can you really be prepared for what you don't know is gonna happen?
SPEAKER_02Right. And and it's it's it's being prepared for the unpredictable, right? And and everybody there was a there's a very there was a very famous quote that we use all the time in training. It came out of Chicago. I want to say it was a former lieutenant in their training division that said this, but we we exercise this all the time. Know what you can do when you can do it, and then be prepared to do it immediately, right? Know what you can do when you can do it, and be prepared to do it immediately. And and and Jeff, that's that quote lives on so many layers on so many different levels, because it's it's not only knowing what you can do physically, it's knowing what you can do psychologically as well on on this job, right? There's a concept out there called scripting where you run through something in your head and you visualize yourself doing it before you actually physically do it. Um and I I cannot tell you the amount of times I have asked this simple question of newer police officers and sometimes, unfortunately, um veteran police officers. If you had someone point a gun at you or your partner today, are you prepared? Are you prepared to draw your weapon and stop that threat? Yep. Newer cops, 50-50. Uh, I don't know. And then the other half will be like, oh, absolutely, sir. But then you have the veteran cops, the veteran cops that have now taken an approach to use of force as something that they want to completely avoid, right? Yeah, because they're afraid of litigation. And and and that's just it, right? Their experiences have created this environment where they are now hesitant to do their jobs. Um, and and just go going back to the multi-layered approach of that saying, know what you can do, when you can do it, and be prepared to do it immediately. I, you know, it's it's disappointing sometimes to see that the folks that have been on the job the longest are no longer mentally prepared uh to do what they're supposed to sometimes, right? Um and I think it's a training issue, Jeff. And and again, it's it's just a matter of, and and let me pause right there. One of the mantras that we live by at Offset Tactical is this, and this came from a friend of mine whose son is a uh a black-belted jujitsu instructor. He said once, confidence is manufactured. And I clung I cling to that with for with all of me because he is what was 100% right. As trainers, we are in the business of manufacturing confidence. And when cops are not confident that what they are doing is legally sound, sound within use of force, sound within policy, and sound within ethical constraints, then that's where that's where we need to be.
SPEAKER_00So there you are. So it's interesting when I go across the country and I ask a question, and the question is posed from the Chiefs on Down to Patrol. And I say, Are you morally, ethically, and psychologically prepared to use deadly force? Yeah. And I said, Who in this room has thought about that? Who has sat down and thought about it? Well, in the military it goes without saying, right? Because when you sign or you you get brought in, uh you know what it is that you're training to do. However, in the law enforcement realm, are you ethically, morally, and psychologically prepared to execute deadly force? Yeah. And that goes back to exactly what you just said. And are are you doing it judiciously? Meaning that are you meeting all the right legal and departmental and other guidelines that are out there?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_00And absolutely right. So hundred percent. Couldn't say it anyway. That's exactly right.
SPEAKER_02And I think that you know, sometimes police departments uh relinquish the responsibility of saying yes, you did good or no, you didn't do good, to cops, to parties that are not um necessarily in the know. Uh, what do I mean by that? Um civilian oversight boards, let's just say those have an effect on morale and operations on the street more than you know. I know Chicago has had one. I know of a couple of other cities that have had uh officer-involved shootings that led to uh fatal shootings of bad guys. The officers were cleared by the prosecuting office, by the state's attorney's office in Illinois or by the DA's office in another state, but then they were still found to be deficient in some realm internally by a civilian oversight board. So even when you do things right, some cops have been hung out to drop. And these are the stories that will then shape the perception and shape the decision making of future cops or cops that are currently in that environment as well.
SPEAKER_00Um and as you know, sometimes it's not even necessarily the truth. So sometimes it it'll be blown out of proportion as to why this happened.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and I wasn't I wasn't gonna necessarily go down that route with this, but what I what I was going to say is though those boards have more power and influence in the overall demeanor of your police agency than than they than they know, right? Um I I can think of a few instances where cops were cleared of any wrongdoing criminally, but then internally they're still suffering the you know consequences, um, and and not even civil consequences, right? It's not it's not a consequence from like uh uh yeah, it's all administrative stuff, um, to the point where they leave. So um, you know, all of this feeds into the training piece as well. Uh because when we can demonstrate a pattern of consistent responses, when we can demonstrate and and lay out a pattern of good results and good outcomes over time, you know, whether or not an officer did something uh right or wrong, given the stimulus of the circumstances, should be a no-brainer, right? Um, but unfortunately, we except for the 10th circuit, who well, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that's too that that depends too, the circuit that you're you're you're in. I don't want to use created, somehow managed to come up with this officer-created jeopardy. Yeah, uh, they're changing case law, they're changing the precedent of Graham v. Connor. So you know, when you do that, how do you adapt your training and how do you adapt telling people what what it is that they're held accountable to? Um you have to know all these things, look at all the different case law, look at all the the circuit court cases, of course, everybody knows the Supreme Court cases, but you know, when it comes down to it, uh you know, back in 1985, Tennessee v. Garner, you know, started the whole thing of we're not shooting fleeing felons anymore, right? Right. Um and then we see right after that Graham. And and now we see other cases and it's just snowballs. So rather than then turning this into uh a legal class, which I don't want to do, uh be cognizant of whatever your department says is right, whatever the oversight says is right, whatever the guidelines tell you, whatever the district court said, whatever the circuit court said, whatever the supreme court said, you know, you have to know all these things, and then it's the job of not only the trainer, but the chief executive to make sure that these are implemented properly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, 100%. And if I had a magic wand and an unlimited budget for overtime and then and an unlimited uh ability to bring people in off the street, my one in 20 would be more like one in 10. I would bring cops in every 10 days for at least four hours so that I had 30 touch points, 35 touch points a year with them.
SPEAKER_00But those micro trainings where we're getting five to 15 minutes and we're doing something. That is I found and I'm sure you you'll agree that that makes a big impact. Yeah. Huge impact. And then I'll liken it, circle back to some of the things that I I've seen uh your company do and appreciate that that's being noticed. Um that that is out there that those things actually help because now here's a drill or here's this or here's this, this is what we're gonna do, this is why, you know, here's the outcome, here's what you can do, here's the list. And I love how it's up there for a second. Like you said, you can take a screenshot or a picture, now you got something to work with, it's great. Whether you like it or not, who cares? It's something that's why there's one every week. Yeah, there you go. You'll find one. Yes. Pick one that you like. Absolutely. So one question that I ask uh law enforcement guests is this uh what would Al tell younger patrolmen Al.
SPEAKER_02Okay. You know, it's man, it's almost like we planned this. I had this conversation this morning with the eight new cops that I was talking about again. I literally talked about this this morning. So yesterday, uh yesterday in their schedule, uh, they had their financial wellness piece. And if I could go back 20 plus years to talk to 25-year-old me, 24-year-old me, however old I was when I got on the job, I would say this put as much money as you can into your deferred compensation and find hobbies that will pull you away from the job as often as possible. Here's the one thing that I told the guys this morning. I had one of my very first field training officers. God bless him, he's no longer with us anymore. Um, but his name was Jerry. Jerry was the guy that loved to fish. And he told me once something that stuck with me forever. He said, Al, don't become one of these guys that lives to be at work. Okay, he says the happiest cops in the world are the cops that spend the least amount of time being cops.
SPEAKER_00There you go.
SPEAKER_02And here's the figure that out stuck right in there. It's stuck right in there, right? And I briefed the the new guys with that this morning. Uh, with that, right? I I told them all make sure you have a healthy relationship with time off, make sure you have a healthy relationship with a hobby, and make sure that you surround yourself with people that will take you outside of this cop culture environment, right? Because here's the thing misery loves company, Jeff, right? Right, and cops, you put a bunch of cops in a room together and all they do is complain about the agency, right? Yep. There's very few cops that'll get together in a room and they'll be like, oh man, I love work. Man, the chief is awesome. My squad cars are great, and everything about work is awesome. That that just doesn't happen, right? We deal with we deal with people at their worst, and I think with that comes a very disconnected um uh approach to humanity. Um and and and sometimes, you know, we we fall victims to we fall victim to forgetting to be empathetic because we just deal with people making the same mistake over and over and over and over that it turns you off, right? So many cops have said this in the past. It desensitizes you, right? Right? And that's a real thing. You stop feeling bad for people sometimes, right? Yeah. So I would I would go so far as to say if I had the opportunity to go back 20 plus years, I would say invest in your deferred compensation as much as you can for as long as you can. Um, and two, find a way to spend as little amount of time on the job so that being on the job is a pleasant experience, right? And again, Jerry, you know, this one goes out to him. The happiest cops in the world are the cops that spend the least amount of time being cops. And Jeff, I don't want you to take take that the wrong way or get me wrong. I love my job. I love my job.
SPEAKER_00Matter of fact, I'm gonna supplement it by saying that is actually the key to what we try to tell when we're mentoring people. Yeah, we're taking people who are in that transition phase, we're mentoring people, or we're taking interns or students or whomever. And that is it can't be your identity because if it is your identity, when you leave that, then there's no nothing else to turn to. Yeah. So it it's it's perfect. It it's definitely not that you don't love what you do, because it's evident that you do. You you're invested in in your people, you're invested in everyone, right? Uh in overall in law enforcement and military, and it it speaks to what you do and what your company does. So no, it's it's definitely not that. Um, so people that are listening don't get it wrong. It's the fact that it can't be who you are. Yeah, it just can't be. And if it is, then there's that deficiency of all the things you just mentioned. Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_02And and I'll say I'll say this, right? One of the things that we touch on in in the adaptive leader class for uh mid-level supervisors is is the concept of culture at the agency, right? We talk about the new generation of cops that are coming into the environment, right? Now, as the training guy, the FTO program falls under my purview. And I cannot tell you the amount of times either the FTO coordinators or my FTOs have said to me, man, all these new guys want is time off.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Right. And so let's explore that for a second. It's a generational shift in the way that people are viewing work. We as a law enforcement community are not going to be able to change an entire generation's way of looking at the world, right? And for those that would say that it's a cop-specific problem only, where new cops don't want to be at work anymore. Anymore, excuse me, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. It's anybody that's going into the fire service, it's anybody that's becoming a doctor, it's anybody that's going to be a lawyer, an engineer, a mechanic, a pilot. Nobody wants the workaholic culture anymore. And I don't think they're wrong, Jeff. Right now, there's a balance, there's a balance to be had, and I think we stand to learn as the older generation as much from the new guys that as the new guys stand to learn from us. We're here to teach them the way of things, but we're also here to learn from them because mentoring is a two-way street.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02We can learn something from these people, right? We can learn something from the new generation of cops. Now, here's the thing if you were to take a if you were to take a lens and look into the past 20 years of policing where everybody was living to be at work and everybody took the overtime, let's just take a look at the law enforcement community and what it was suffering through back then. We have cops that are drinking way too much. We have cops that uh are having marital problems, we have cops that are eating unhealthy because they're at work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. We have cops that are not sleeping, right? We have all of these things that are negative that come with that way of approaching life and work. And as a culture, as a community, what do we do when a new generation comes in and says, Yeah, I don't want the overtime, I think I'll take the comp time. What is wrong with these people? How do they not right? Like now we make them feel guilty for wanting to do better, right?
SPEAKER_00Yes, but understanding that, knowing it, and then being able to train toward it, because my thing has always been even in the military, it's the the the sergeant in in the in the sense of whether you're e5, d7, whatever that might look like, whatever branch you're at, you know you're you're the leader there. And then in the police department, if you have a corporal maybe or a master police officer or whatever you call it, up to a sergeant level. Um if you don't have the right training, the right people in those positions, uh I challenge you to find a department that can function properly.
SPEAKER_02Yep. You're right. You're right. Those those unofficial leaders, yes, the instructors, the subject matter experts, the go-to guys, right? Um, yeah, and I I I pride myself um on developing people at work. Um, you know, unfortunately, so many departments are still operating under the uh umbrella of you can't teach anything unless you're a supervisor, right? And and nothing could be more detrimental to the development of your younger officers. We want to challenge our officers. We want to give them opportunities to grow, opportunities to develop, opportunities to own something outside of just showing up to work and taking in calls. Uh like, hey, we want to make you a defensive tactics instructor. Well, now I own just a little bit more of the police department and how I can affect the future of it through my instruction, right? And and I uh I aim to do that across all levels at at my own police department.
SPEAKER_00Uh because and then you bring that with you to your training, and it really helps. So uh people that were looking uh that are forward thinking or they're at least entertaining, hey, there's an other way to do things. Um, how'd they get hold of uh your company or you know, Al?
SPEAKER_02Sure. So um, like I said earlier, and this is how you found me, right? We are now on uh all the major social media platforms. Um you can find us uh on LinkedIn under Offset Consulting or Offset Tactical. Uh my name is Al Bello, and that is the name on my account. I do most of the posting um from my personal account. The company account is uh just a supplement to repost or some stuff like that. The main the main account is mine, uh my personal account. Um, but on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, um, Facebook, we are Offset Tactical. Um now our website is offsetpoletetraining.com. Um, and on that landing page, you can select which one of the two realms you want to dive into, classroom side training or tactical side training, and then take your pick on what it is that drives you. Um we are uh a national uh training group. We have instructors uh all around the country. Um and we are you know, funny enough that you bring that up right now because uh we are currently a few days away from receiving California Post certification as as a training provider. Um and anybody in the training space nationally knows California Post is like the standard to get, right?
SPEAKER_00So yeah, as a matter of fact, um I'm part of the California use of force uh instructors association.
SPEAKER_02Ah, very cool. Yeah very, very cool. So you know the standards that California puts any vendor, any training provider through. Uh very stringent, very, very high, high standard.
SPEAKER_00And I liken it to uh New Jersey's uh very much that standard as well. So we have New Jersey and California are pretty high up there in what they do. So rounding it off, uh just want to say uh thank you for the service that you you've done for the country, that you've done uh for your community and the the training that you continue to do, and hopefully you're spreading the uh the idea of uh safety and uh changing culture. It's really good stuff. So if anybody's interested, uh look up Al. He'll talk to you, I'm sure. And Al, thank you for taking the time to be here uh at Overwatch 5.9. We we thank those of uh the audience that's still listening because uh I find that if somebody's listening, they either listen to five minutes or they're here for the whole time. So yeah, thank you for staying with us. Um Al, I really appreciate you taking out the uh the time for your day to be here and and all the uh information that you shared.
SPEAKER_02And Jeff, thank thank you. Um it's my pleasure. Uh thank you for your service as well to both country and and community. Um, right? It it it uh it goes hand in hand. So I really appreciate that as well. Um and it's always good talking to a uh a fellow jar head and talking to a fellow cop. Um I think that uh just to wrap things up, one of the things that people in your position and my position, where we have lived on both sides of the fence, we have an easier time in bridging the gap that exists between those two worlds. Um not everybody has that ability. And I think that um we we should continue to bridge those gaps to make law enforcement a much more efficient operation. Um I'm not by any means, I'm not by any means recommending the militarization of law enforcement, but some of the structures that we bring from the military side can definitely benefit law enforcement. So thank you for the opportunity to be here, Jeff. Uh, I really appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00And I also wanted to end with um the fact that uh education plays a very big piece. I don't want to play too much in academia, even though that is my third vocation now. Uh in an academia, but um I I know that you're you're going for your PhD as well, which is fantastic. So uh having an educated workforce um also helps with that diverse group and helps connect everyone.
SPEAKER_02It just brings more perspective, absolutely and and and I think that's what matters. Yeah, having different ways of looking at the same problem, 100%.
SPEAKER_00So being a lifelong learner, you've um walked the walk and you talk to talk. So thank you for for everything you've done. Thank you for being here. I appreciate it, Jeff. Stay safe, everybody.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Jeff. Stay safe.