Discussion with Ernest Stevens

An interview with Ernest Stevens, a former San Antonio police officer and mental health unit pioneer, discussing his 30-year career, the development of mental health and officer wellness programs in law enforcement, the challenges officers face with mental health stigma, and the impact of the documentary “Ernie and Joe Crisis Cops” on public and officer awareness of mental health issues in policing, along with the importance of communication, financial stability, mission, and faith in officer wellness and community relationships.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The cloud AI. Okay. There we go. All right, Jeff here for Overwatch 5.9. Uh thanks for joining us. We'll get to our special guest in one second. Just wanted to thank our friends at the Hero Company. Uh I have on one of their t-shirts. Uh so I always say a shout-out, and I always forget which way to turn in case you're watching. Uh for the Hero Company. And on the back, this is the uh St. Michael's one for protection of uh the all-first responders. So uh check them out if you get a chance. Uh Hero Company, uh great people. And uh we have with us uh Ernie Stevens or Ernest. Uh sorry, uh as long as I can call you Ernie if that's good.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Yeah, please thank you.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Okay. And Ernie is uh well, I'll let him explain what he does because he can tell tell you about himself better than I can. But uh thank you for taking the time out to be here with us to share the message of uh Officer Oneness, resiliency, and and everything else that you do, and and thank you for for what what you do. Uh came to my attention on seeing several of the uh other podcast things you've done, the HBO special that you were on. Uh so uh Ernie, if you don't mind, just take a minute who you are, your background, uh a little bit about what you do.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah, sure. Thank you, Jeffrey. And thank you for having me on. Man, I want to take a moment just to pause and thank you for using your platform to elevate, you know, a topic as serious as officer wellness and resiliency. Um I know in today's age, it's a topic that uh either gets a lot of attention or it doesn't get enough, right? So I think uh hopefully we can find some common space today and and cover a lot of that ground. But um again, thank you for having me on. Uh my name's Ernie Stevens. I'm I'm in San Antonio, Texas. I worked uh as a police officer in in Texas for 30 years. Uh the last 27 years, I was on the San Antonio Police Department. And, you know, like like most officers, um, usually at a large municipality, uh, you kind of bounce around a little bit, right? Whether you're going from uh one area of town to another. Uh I bounced around through a lot of specialty units. I started out, you know, in patrol and then became a field training officer for a little while. Uh, went to the DWI unit, went to a gang unit for years, and then started a mental health unit in um in 2009. Wow, it's been a I had to think about that for a second.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

So yeah, at the forefront of that then.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Yeah, I was the one of the very I was the first officer selected um when we started. It was going to be a pilot project for a mental health unit. And um, what's funny about that, Jeff, is I'd been asking for years to get this thing going. And um, like a lot of your audience knows, that's in law enforcement, unless um it's a chief's idea, like you're only allowed to be as smart as your rank. So uh until it becomes the chief's idea, it's not quite a good idea yet. So in time, it became the chief's idea to start a mental health unit. He was brilliant, and we got that up and running in December of 2009, and we started very small, uh, just me and one other officer. And over time we grew, and part of that um description of that unit was training officers in crisis intervention training. It was responding to mental health calls that patrol was responding to so we could free them up. But then it kind of morphed into well, what about wellness within the walls in the confines of law enforcement? Uh I remember the first time we had a call to go check on an officer. And you know, I had to pause for a minute and went, Well, we're really good at helping the public, but what do we know about helping ourselves? Right? Uh, because yeah, we know where to take the public and we're gonna do a good job in doing that. But where do we take an officer? Like who's very uh concerned about that, or there's a lot of um speculation of well, how am I gonna be treated? And what if I know somebody or this or that, right? So, you know, we as we grew as a unit, we also had to come up with new policies and procedures. So I did that for 15 years, and then I retired from San Antonio in 2021, January. Uh, I went to work for a few years at the Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council, which we oversaw, I want to say it was 16 counties in uh in Texas, and that was all their emergency response. So my job was to help agencies set up co-responder teams to work alongside mental health professionals. And then I was hired in 2022 by the Council of State Government's Justice Center. I gotta make sure I get all my years right. Uh, so now I'm the managing director here at the Council State Government's Justice Center, where I oversee a portfolio of law enforcement. Uh, majority of that is either working with state and counties um with their crisis response or with the Department of Justice with any of the grants that agencies receive through the Connect and Protect Grant Program, the Justice Mental Health Collaboration Program, or now the new public safety mental health initiative. So uh very, very busy uh working in the area of crisis response.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Wow. So how did how did it kind of get from a basic CIT, as we would call it, Chris Intervention team, uh going out and typically that's usually made up of social workers and or other mental health professionals to where you saw it or the the chief saw it as uh being applicable to officers.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Yeah, it it happened when we received our first call uh to check on an officer because we had some um you know some protocols in place of going out with our local mental health authority on mobile crisis calls. Um we had protocols to go relieve patrol on the scene uh or take over a call at a hospital. That all that was that was every day, right? But then when we got a call one day from uh a sergeant that worked in internal affairs, just happened to be internal affairs of all units, right? Uh to say, hey, uh I got a family friend, uh a wife of an officer who called and who's concerned about her husband uh because he's been out on injury for uh something like six months, maybe even longer. And when she left the house, he he left kind of a like a suicide note in the bathroom saying, if you don't get up and go to work today, you're you're worthless and you might as well just kill yourself. And she read that and didn't know what to do, so she kind of panicked and called her her friend, this family friend she knew, which was a sergeant, because you know, most officers, their friends are other officers. So then we got the call as a mental health unit saying, Hey, we need you to go out and check on this officer. And they told us the circumstances. In fact, I didn't I didn't even know he was out injured, right? You know, very large department, right? 3,000 officers. So, you know, we we went out and talked to him, and and right away he did not deny at all the fact that he wrote that note and how he was feeling. In fact, he was very forthcoming uh with the way he felt about his condition. He said, I'm out injured, uh, I'm not getting any better. This injury is um, I'm not allowed to work extra jobs, so my income is way down, we're falling behind. I just I feel like I'm worthless right now, and this is how I feel. And I was like, Well, you know, you know, as an officer in Texas, you know, there's certain criteria where you are required to take somebody in involuntarily if they meet right. Um, whether they're a danger of themselves, others are meant to be compensated to the point that they're a danger to themselves or others. And in saying this, I mean, he knew exactly what he was saying, and I was like, Well, you know, man, well, based on what you're saying, you know, there's really only two pathways we've got here. And I want to get you help. Um, if you come voluntarily with us, I think there's a lot of flexibility. You know, you can use some sick days, we'll get you to a really good facility, we'll stay with you as long as you need us to. It kind of stays under the radar, right? But if we have to go involuntarily and you say, No, I don't want to go, just leave me alone, get out of my house. Then there's the involuntary pathway. There's a chance that if you actually get committed by a doctor, that you would lose your weapon, and then you could no longer even be an officer. So, of course, you know, the the pathway the least resistance was chosen. Thank goodness. And he wanted help, just didn't know where to go, where to start. And then it became, well, how do we report this? Like, who do we tell? Um, I don't want him to feel like he's in trouble for asking for help because you shouldn't feel that way, right? If you if I twisted my ankle chasing somebody, I'm gonna tell my sergeant, hey, I twisted my ankle. He's gonna say, Okay, well, go get it looked at. But if I go to him and say, Hey, I'm I've been really depressed lately, I'm actually having suicidal thoughts. He's not just gonna say, Oh, we'll go get it checked out. He's gonna say, Hold on, right? And we need to talk. Let me get a hold of a lieutenant and a captain and then a deputy chief and the chief and the and the psychologist for the department, and and and you know, it's just it's not treated the same, which I understand to a point, but it's also unfortunate because I think a lot that stops a lot of officers for asking for help. So it was really just with that first call that we had to start developing you know a protocol of what would happen in the future if this happened again.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

So I guess there's two follow-ups to that. One is uh just thinking about you and your team's overall safety and then the safety of the officer you're checking on. Because what if they had decided that you know what, um I'm gonna do suicide by cop? Right? Yeah, that's one thing to think about. And then the second thing is uh should there be a stigma or should there be any hindrance to their performance evaluations or licensing or however it's it's handled out in your state? But yeah, I mean, you need to take a pause, but you know, one can certainly get better.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah, I so two great questions. I think the first part is, you know, with the thought of could this turn into a suicide by cop, well, could any call turn into a suicide, right? Right, which the answer is yes. Um, if you're dealing with somebody that's um going through a crisis and it's gotten to that point where they uh feel helpless and hopeless. Uh, I think hopelessness is one of the biggest factors to determining next steps, right? And which is usually a tragic outcome. So luckily, I knew this officer for years. Um yeah. So when he when he answered the door, I mean we had that connection. So I in my heart, I wasn't really concerned that that was going to be an issue. Oh, that's great. Um, now did we scan the room? Did we ask where his weapon was? Yes. In fact, were we told you need to take a service weapon and put it in the property room? We were told to do that. Um, again, understand it. We didn't really have a protocol on how things were supposed to be done. This is the first time we'd ever done it. Um, in Texas, if a person is suicidal, they have the means, and their plan is to use a weapon, then we can confiscate the gun, uh, file paperwork through the county clerk's office. And then they have to go through a whole protocol to try to get that back. With this, because it was voluntary, we were able to take it, put in the property room, and then uh we had to do some follow-up um with the officer's exit plan. Uh, there was an ask that he do a fit for duty when he came out. Understandable, right? You've got liabilities, the agency's got to make sure that you're okay. But I think a lot of that fit for duty really is to understand the headspace of the officer to find out okay, what can we do to help you reintegrate one into feeling good and getting the treatment you need, but to reintegrate you into performing your duties, you know, is patrol, if that's where you came from, gonna be the best fit for you in the future? Do you feel like that was too much of a stressor? And maybe you need to work in like a property room, or you know, we we you want to try to find a good fit without the author in fear that they're gonna lose their job.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Um, yeah. So just to kind of follow up on that, um, you had the luxury uh 3,000-person department where there is that lateral type of movement that can occur. Um, so most departments are not as large. Um and then also a lot of states are now going to licensing. So when you have that involved, how do you think that's maybe some sort of change? I know you can really speak to particularly your agency in this narrow sense that we're talking about, but overall, from what you've seen, you know, being on the council and what you advise, uh kind of take us through a little bit of that thought process.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Yeah, you know, so when an officer does uh come back on duty, um, they they do have to do a fit for duty, they do have to meet with uh uh you know the police psychologist or a provider if it's a smaller agency and you don't have one. But again, that's to ensure, you know, is the officer you know receiving the treatment plan and is there continuity of care and wraparound services? And is the department able to, you know, provide an environment that that officer can thrive in and do well in and still, you know, be able to do their job? When it comes to licensing, um, I've only seen a couple of instances where an officer actually lost their license. And that was because they really went against the entire system of healthcare for them. Um, and part one of those officers was uh a case of substance use, right? And it was trying to get this officer voluntarily to go to substance use treatment. You know, sometimes the barrier is um insurance. In this case, it wasn't. We actually have good insurance. Um, but then they're like, well, the deductible. Well, we actually went to, I'm actually wearing a shirt. The 100 club of San Antonio actually said, I'll tell you what, let us help out. We'll pay half the deductible. We don't want to pay at all because we want the officer to have some skin in the game. Right. Yeah, they need to have some skin in the game. You know, that way they just don't walk out and then you've got nothing to loose, right? Right. But that was one of those cases where even during the treatment process, um, you know, and it's just like anybody else with substance use, it's no different from an officer. You truly are not going to do well in treatment unless you truly want to be there and be successful, which is very, very hard. A lot of people have to go through um substance use recovery several times in order to be um to have positive outcomes, right? So, in one of those cases, it was one of those where uh went through the treatment, fell back off. We had to continue to help, continue to help, uh, continued. He had uh some UAs he had to take, continued to fail those. You know, the suspension started to add up, and it was finally one of those things where, you know, hey, uh we're we're not gonna be able to retain you here, we're gonna have to do an indefinite suspension. And usually an indefinite suspension, that paperwork gets sent to the state for review, and that's where they can pull your license. So yeah, it and it's a whole ordeal because you know, for a large department, we have an association, so there's an appeal process. I mean, there's so much that goes into this. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, so it's it, it's if I give you one answer, it could be totally different for a different department.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Of course, yeah, most certainly. But the the whole idea of getting the crisis intervention team or getting people such as yourself is hopefully that there's that voluntary compliance, and then you could provide the resources and and tools hopefully necessary for them to get the treatment that they need.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Yeah, and you know, we introduced that topic at in-service one year. Um, you know, we were told to do some updates to the mental health training, which the updates didn't they didn't change from like three years previous. I'm like, Right, man, this is horrible. We got to teach the same stuff. Like, but as long as we covered the learning objectives, we had some free time. And um, you know, I talked about it before, but Joe asked Joe, my partner at the time from Ernie and Joe Crisis Cops, said, What if we did an officer wellness portion? Um, can we talk about it? And the academy staff was like, Yeah, I guess. Like they didn't know, you know, we've never done it. So Joe was very open and transparent and said, Hey, you know, I struggle for and I'm not telling you anything he wouldn't tell you, but he goes, you know, I struggled for years with uh addiction to pornography, and it cost me a marriage. And then, you know, on top of my PTSD diagnosis from the military, I just I was spinning out of control. And what that did was that that led officers that were there at in-service every week we talked to say, Hey, I see a part of me in him, or I have a problem with prescription drugs, or I have a problem with alcohol, or I have a problem, right? It was something where I have an addiction with addiction to pornography or whatever the case was. But for the first year, we had, I can't remember something like 38 officers come forward to say, Hey, I need help. I heard what you said. Wow. And I want to get in treatment. And had we not been given the um the flexibility to train on officer wellness and just kind of talk about it openly, yeah, because we had three officers die by suicide that year. So it the timing, it you couldn't stick your head in the sand and act like these things aren't happening. They were happening, and they were happening for various reasons. So um we took the opportunity to be very open and transparent to say, hey, we're human like everybody else. We have financial struggles, we have marriage problems, we have all kinds of problems. And sometimes it's compounded because of the stress and the trauma that we see day to day. But there's help available that you knew know nothing about, and we're gonna talk to you about it. And for the first time that year, we had 38 officers come forward, get into treatment, which never would have asked for help. They were able to burn sick days and didn't really have to report things because they were using just sick days and they were getting treatment involuntarily. So that's awesome. It's a good thing, yeah. But you had to get people comfortable with talking about it, and I think that's the hardest thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Oh, absolutely. I I think it it's twofold. One is getting to talk about yourself and your feelings, which, as you know, military first responder cops, you know, it's not the top of the list, right? And then secondly, are you going to get in any kind of trouble or is your job going to be in jeopardy? So, you know, those are the two top ones. If um I think you might be in agreement.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Yeah, in fact, you know, in in Ernie and Joe Crisis Cops, and if if your viewers haven't seen it yet, it is streaming on HBO. Um, I would love for them to watch it and then like send you some feedback on it because we can come back and talk about it. But there's a portion, there's a portion in the film where we are actually talking to an in-service class, and Joe, you know, makes this remark, and it's it's kind of funny because I'm sure there's not one of you that gets home and opens up your this little box and you take out your pen and you write in your journal about what a bad day you had. Anybody starts laughing because he goes, I know what you're doing. You're going home and you're cracking open a beer or or a bottle of bourbon or whatever, like you're doing other things to deal with the trauma instead of channeling that, right? And trying to normalize it and understand that these feelings and emotions, they're oh they're normal. Like we can't we can't say that they're not, right? So that that is in the film. And I think, like you said, that's important to understand. But then you also said, but what about the officers feeling like they might get in trouble? Well, that's where you truly have to buy in. The the command staff has to buy into a good wellness program. And then the officers have to feel safe. And what an incident that really was positive for us that helped us tremendously gain a lot of um trust um throughout the department was we got a call one night to uh to a supervisor's house. Um, the wife called and said, Hey, he's having a mental breakdown. He's uh I don't know what's going on with him. Well, we knew him. We played, we, we played indoor soccer together. We're like, oh, okay, well, we're on the way. So, of course, when we we get there, he's pissed. Like, who called you guys? I don't want you here. And I'm like, hey, relax, man. Relax. We're just here to talk to you. After about a two-hour discussion to find out what was going on and what the root cause of the issue was, he didn't need to go anywhere. He just needed some resources. So we provided some resources. But it is what he did next, Jeff, that I think changed the trajectory of how mental health was viewed, at least at that substation, because he went back to his substation where he held a roll call every night, and he stood in front of 45 officers and said, I want to tell you something because you're not going to hear about it. Because I know these two guys are not going to say that they came out to my house. But let me tell you what happened. I had the mental health unit come out to my house. I was going through a really bad night. And let me tell you, these guys sat down with me. Um, y'all would never know it because I will never tell you. Right. They used empathy, they they understood you know the issues that were going on, they had resources for me. I am now getting counseling and it saved my marriage and it saved my job. So I'm telling everyone of you right now in roll call if ever you are struggling with something, you come to me, I got you. And when it comes from, yeah, when it comes from within the department, especially from super finance. Supervisor, yeah, that helps tremendously. It's so much worse where if somebody gets help and then you know the chief like puts them out on a desk for the next year, who's gonna ask for help? Like you gotta you gotta be prepared for that and then have good solutions for it.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Yeah, I think that brings us back to what we do in in mentorship and officer wellness, and and we break it down into uh four four sort of pillars, I guess you could call it. And it's very similar to what you you speak about, and that is uh uh one portion of it is is your financial stability, however that might look. There needs to be some sort of plan, planning something, because that that's a big piece of things, right? Um faith. Now it doesn't have to be religious, but some sort of belief in something. And then mission and purpose. Um if you lack that like the officer out injured on duty, he lacked that in mission and purpose, right? He he's now at home, he or she uh is now not in uniform, not out doing what they're used to doing, and that can lead to these feelings of you know being kind of left out.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Yeah, for sure. In fact, I I love that you talked about this. I when I speak, um, I don't know if you've had an opportunity to look at the Asher model. Um if your audience has an opportunity to Google Asher model, uh, police one wrote an article about it, and it's uh the former chief of police out of Pannole, California, Neil Gang, that kind of came up with this model, and it's a seven-pillar approach, many of which, all of which you mentioned here just a moment ago, they've got some other pillars in there. Yeah, but you know, you say financial. I cannot tell you like how quick an officer will put themselves into debt once they start making money, or they start relying on this extra job, be like, Oh, I got this extra job, uh, working highway construction at night, traffic control, whatever. And then they begin to budget going out and buying a new car or a boat or an RV, thinking all that money's gonna last forever until that job dries up. And then what? Right? I can't tell you many times I would drive into to roll call and in the parking lot. Man, I'm looking at like F-350s. I see boats and I see motor like Gold Wings and Harley Harley. I'm like, God, man, here I come in a Kia Rio, man, or whatever the heck those tiny little cars were. I'm like, man, I'm paying like $300 a month. These guys are dropping eight, nine hundred dollars. Like, what where are they getting? And I'm working my butt off extra jobs. You've got so I think financial is huge because when is the last time a financial advisor came to in-service and spoke to officers? I can't tell you in 27 years with San Turney, we'd never had a financial advisor come talk to us at a either a roll call or at an in-service training.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

And Ernie, think about it. Imagine if, and it's happening more often, but imagine if you could do it at the academy or at the FTO level.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Oh, yeah, it it should be like one of your checklists going through your FTO phases. Hey, now on Thursday night, be prepared. A financial advisor is coming in to sit down for the next two hours and we're gonna go over your portfolio or whatever, right? Yeah, you're right. And then that should be revisited because things change, your financial situations change, right? Maybe your your wife or husband lost their job now, or you've got a child uh that's got high needs, or this, I mean, that things change, right? Things happen. Faith is huge. I cannot tell you, Jeff. We had access to police chaplains and they are invaluable, uh, especially if you utilized them. A lot of times you'd see the chap walk in, you're like, uh-oh, don't cuss. Chaplain's here, uh you know, standing in the back room at roll call. And it's like, relax, guys. Like he's a he or she is a resource for us. And I loved it when my chaplain rode with me because I ended up becoming one of the board of directors on his ministry. I thought it's great. Although first responders are very cheap, man. They're not the ones to make donations, right? They don't tip very good sometimes, and they don't uh make a whole lot of donations, right? I'm kidding. Um, but yeah, we know they're cheap. All right, man, as long as I get some agreement. I mean, but yeah, our police chaplains were uh very instrumental, and then, like you said, mission and purpose. That's why we join, right? People ask, well, what is your why? You know, and to me, it's like, well, what is your why not? Like, why not? Why why aren't you doing something to serve your community? Uh why not uh do something, you know, to to better um your environment, whether, you know, what it whatever it is that you do. Um, but you gotta have a mission, you gotta have purpose. You get something that has to wake you up each day with that desire to want to go out and serve. And you know, law enforcement is such a noble profession. And I feel like, Jeff, I don't know if you will agree or not agree, but I feel like, you know, that's it's starting to um, you're not seeing as much as that. People are like applying for law enforcement because hey, I needed a job and they were hiring. I'm like you joined because you needed a job.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Like, I'll not only agree with you, but I'll add to that, and that is um, I deal with a lot of recruiters, they do a lot of mentorship. So both at the university and both, you know, privately just helping people. And um boy, would it be nice to start a nonprofit and the first and lose costs, but that's for another day. But anyway, uh being able to do that and bring in the recruiters, I found and they found that a standards are not the same. They've been changed. And secondly, um, an example that was given to me a couple of times was we have uh I'll give you an example. One person in a small department, you know, we need one one guy or gal, and we used to have 600 applications for one spot, now we're getting 40. Um out of the state police used to get 12, 14,000. Now they're getting 2,000. So you know, there's such a disconnect, and uh we attribute it to many things, and as I have in some of my books, when we look back at the history, uh we don't have to go back that far, you know, we look at some uh incidents like George Floyd and some other unfortunate incidents, and we see that there's a stigma now attached to those that could be doing the right thing, but everybody's looked at as not doing the right thing.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Yeah, you know, it's in I don't mean to self-promote, but I'm gonna show this book 101 questions to ask before becoming a law enforcement officer. Yeah, so me and yeah, me and Scott wrote this together.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Yeah, well, oh jeez, I didn't even put that together. So when I had Scott on and we're talking about it, and I actually featured uh your book, I didn't even realize okay, I didn't know you talked about it.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and and so not to revisit an old episode. No, that's okay. Yeah, it was written specifically for what you said. And I had a chief of police send me a picture um of a book that was all filled out. He goes, I handed this to somebody that applied for a job here. I told him, Hey, I want you to read this, fill it out, and bring them back to me as part of the application process. I was like, Are you kidding me? You actually did that? He's like, Yeah. And he said that the the person that was applying for the position said, I didn't even think to ask about these questions. In fact, I truly didn't know the difference between like what does a sheriff's department do versus a police department? Isn't it like there were such simple questions that they didn't know the answers to? But then it's also a pathway development book. Like, what do we do with the advent of new technology or or what about retirement? Or what about mental health? So, you know, when you bring that up about, you know, what type of people are applying for this job, you know, I'm like, please be educated about what you're gonna get yourself because I wish I'd have done some more research. I knew I was applying for a very large department with San Antonio. I'd worked already three years at a smaller agency, but you know, things I didn't consider were well, what are the soft pays? What are the retirement benefits? What is the city match? What you know, what are all you I didn't know, and I just opportunities right and so yeah, so the but you know, power power is knowledge and or knowledge is power, sorry. Um, knowledge is power. And I think the more you know about what the situation, especially in law enforcement, it's not a job, it's a career. Um know what you're what you're getting yourself into.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So oh my apologies. I didn't so now I'm gonna have to get you to send me a signed copy because I got Scott's. So I'm gonna have to get throw his away.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

I'll get you a I'll get you a real one.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Get you the real one for the guy who really wrote it. Um I love Scott. Shout out to Scott Medlin. Absolutely, yes. The Scott Medlin, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Oh, yeah, I forgot he added V to the beginning of his name now. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Uh so tell us a little bit about uh Ernie and Joe. I I I love the uh the documentary, I love the uh the idea behind it. Maybe you can just educate everybody a little bit on what that's about.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Yeah, Ernie and Joe Crisis Cops. Like I said, it's streaming on HBO right now. It was the idea of a filmmaker um from Connecticut, uh Jen McShane, who had done a documentary about women in prison and um single moms that were uh mothers of Bedford uh that were coming out of prison and had to reintegrate. And what she noticed was while she was filming there, there was a lot of people in prison that had mental illness, and it was going like unchecked. Uh, there wasn't a whole lot of treatment form behind. So then she started thinking, well, what does it look like out in the community? And is there any like screening done before they get to so her idea really was like, what does this look like before it gets to prison? And we Joe and I were featured on um ABC Nightline uh with Byron Pitts a few times, and that started getting the ball rolling about some media in San Antonio, and then we were featured in an article in the Atlantic called uh Policing with Velvet Gloves. And those two things caught her attention, and she called us up and said, Hey, I'm a filmmaker, I do documentaries, I'd like to come down and do a ride-along. I'm like, All right. Um, we're used, you know, we were getting a lot of media attention. It was, you know, nothing out of the ordinary. So she flew down, but it's funny, Jeff. She showed up, like, no film crew, no sound crew, she just had like an iPhone following us. I'm like, what is she doing? Like, what is this? Uh I'm not like, she's is she for real? I should have done my research, man. She's brilliant. Her last film had like a voiceover by Liam Nielsen, and yeah, she's won all kinds of awards. Sure. But what she did was she started, she followed us to a few mental health calls, crisis calls in progress. And then she saw the way that we were talking to the people that we were dressed in plain clothes, you know, blue jeans and a t-shirt. We were driving an unmarked car. Um, sometimes we'd have a clinician with us, sometimes we were just doing um, you know, uh an intervention with somebody, but it was the interactions we were having, it was the outcomes. I remember we went to a group home where an individual was brand new to the group home. They had just moved him there, and then he had a change in his medication. And he he they the group home manager called saying, Hey, I'm being threatened by a new resident, so he's gonna kill me. Okay, well, this group home predominantly had people that had mental illness that were staying there. So we got called to respond. And as we were talking to the guy, and it's in the film, um, he had he had awareness about his illness. Uh, there was a new medication change. So we we said, Hey, this could have something to do with it. You're plus, you're in a new location. I said, But what kind of thoughts were you having? He's like, Oh, there's knives on the property, I could probably stab him. I was like, Okay, I said, Well, now that you've told us these things, and based on your new environment, your new medications, and the way you're feeling right now, let's go like, let's get this checked out. I think you would agree that would be best, and we can do it voluntarily, you know. Um, he goes, All right, I'll I'll go with you, but I'm not gonna ride in the back of that car. And mind you, it was just a black SUV, but it had a plastic partition. So I'm like, Okay, that's fine. Well, I mean, do you want to ride in the front? He's like, Yeah, I'll ride in the front. I'm like, all right, that's cool. Do you? And he's like, Can I smoke a cigarette? I'm like, Yeah, go ahead. So I search him real quick. He don't have no weapons. So he's smoking a cigarette. We're talking for a few minutes, and then we get him in the car. And Jen grabs me by the arm. She goes, What are you doing? I'm like, Oh, I forgot to explain. We're gonna take him to me. I'm like, Oh, we're just gonna take him to a treatment facility that's not too far from here. Just follow us over there. I'm gonna walk inside with him, uh, talk to the provider, hand him off to a nurse, and then we'll be back on the road for another call. She goes, Are you you're putting him in the front seat with no handcuffs? I'm like, Yeah, yeah. She goes, Well, what if he attacks Joe? Because Joe's driving. I'm like, I don't care. I mean, I'm in the back with a partition, like, I'll be fine. Like, but in all seriousness, I'm like, that's the problem, that's the stigma. Yeah, she she she that's the bias, and she recognized that in herself and went, Oh, you don't think he's gonna attack Joe? And I'm like, I don't think so. But if he does, I'm sure Joe will pull over and we'll have to deal with it. Like, yeah, but he's not in trouble, he didn't break any laws, he's not coming out of jail, he's going to a treatment facility. I don't normally handcuff people that I need to take to a doctor, you know, let's say committed a crime or something. So she's like, this is like mind-blowing to her, and to us, it's just every day. Like, there's nothing sexy about two white cops from Texas answering mental health calls to us, but to her, from up north from on the East Coast, she's like, you know, NYPD, uh, this this would never work. Like, this is strange. I want to come back and film. So she did come back and she brought an entire crew with her, and she filmed for three and a half years, over 300 hours of film, and it captured a lot, Jeff. It didn't just capture, like, it didn't feel like a ride-along. It wasn't just officers responding to mental health calls in progress. It was, hey, Joe's going through a divorce. Hey, hey, Joe's got $2,500 in child support. Uh, Ernie's going to school at night and waking up super early uh to train for a bodybuilding show, and and they never sleep, and they're and his diet and Joe's diet is terrible. He's drinking Red Bulls and eating Twizzler at night to stay awake. And it started to capture this, right? And then we had the three officer suicides, and all of a sudden, this film took on a life of its own saying, wow, these officers not only are they doing their best to help members in the community find help, but this is a part of culture that's being forgotten about it, and that's their own mental health. So the film debuted in 2019 at South by Southwest. Now, mind you, I know nothing about film or film festivals. And she tells us, Hey, I want y'all to come up to Austin. It's not too far from San Antonio. We're gonna do, we got three screenings throughout the whole week. So if you could come up to one or all of them, that would be great. I'm like, all right. So me and Joe drive up there, and I'm thinking, well, you know, find this abandoned warehouse wherever they're gonna show it. But we get to the address, it's like a draft house theater. And I'm like, man, they're showing the film at like a real movie theater. So we walk up, and yeah, there's the name of the film, and people are are lined up and they got popcorn and soda, and I'm like, and Jen's like, hey, just go sit in the crowd, just go sit in the middle. Nobody knows who y'all are. And I'm like, all right, which is because we're nobody, right? So we go sit in the the middle of the theater, and I'm like, and I'm telling Joe, I'm like, man, what if people walk out? Like, I we don't even know what this film's about, yeah. But we're nervous, and it is packed, people are lined up on the walls. I mean, this was a three, four hundred-seat movie theater, right? And we're and we have two more screenings during the week. So they show the film, and you know, right away I'm like, Man, why does Joe look so fat? And he's like, Hey, why do you sound like that? What's wrong with your voice? And we're like totally critiquing ourselves, and we're missing the essence of what the film is truly capturing, right? So when the film's over, Jen goes up on stage and she goes, Hey, I've got a surprise for y'all. I got Ernie and Joe here, and everybody starts clapping and they're standing up, and I'm like, What? Like, who paid these? Like, so me and Joe go up on stage, and um we start just saying, That's some questions. Y'all have questions, yeah. And it and Jeff, like, I had no idea the power of film, what it could do, because these these people that came walked in complete strangers, didn't know who we were from nobody, and 96 minutes later, they were telling you the most intimate details of their life, and we heard things like, Well, if Ernie and Joe would have would have responded to my house, sorry, I mean, I get choked up. Sure, and um, my daughter wouldn't have hung herself in the closet, or oh wow, or my wife wouldn't have shot herself, or we started hearing all these comments, and I'm like, What, what? And it happened two more times, and then we go home at the end of the week, and Jen calls us and she goes, Hey, we just won the festival. And I'm like, Okay, yay! Like, I didn't know what that meant. And she said, Well, that means we're going on a a tour, boys. Like, y'all need to go find some nice clothes. And I'm like, Night, I had nice clothes, like, what are you talking about? And we went on this crazy one-year film festival tour, and we were told that HBO purchased the film for a five-year contract, and um, so it debuted um later that year in November, um in uh on HBO, and after the five-year contract, they renewed for another two years, and then just last month they renewed for three or four more years. So a total is run now for it's gonna be nine years that it's running on HBO, and then one it got nominated for an Oscar. Uh, we got knocked out, I think, at number 16, and then it got nominated for two Emmy Awards, and it won an Emmy Award. So I spoke a long time about the film, but I can't get enough of it because it captures you know the intersections of criminal justice and the mental health system.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Well, it it's obviously impactful, number one, um just from what I've seen and what I've heard about it, too. Uh, but it you getting emotional kind of speaks to what we try to get across here. And that is if we can change one person's life, right? If we can help one person, then we've done an amazing service. Now, hearing that you know you made an impact on potentially hundreds of thousands of people, you know, by just the film alone, let alone the book and the the things that are being done, um, that has to be so self-fulfilling, and that's why you get emotional, obviously. And I can understand that. And it it just speaks to the kind of person that you are, and it it speaks to the kind of work that you do. Because if you hadn't gotten emotional, it that would have been a little suspicious that uh who was in this film, right? Who wrote that book? Um, I get your personal questions.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Yeah, I get emotional because to be honest with you, I never wanted to work in the field of mental health. Um, when I was when I was on the the department, I was assigned to the gang unit and it was my day off, and somebody signed me up to go to crisis intervention training. I mean, I never heard of it.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

What is this, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:24

Yeah, so I come back to work, they're like, Hey, uh, you got to go to training next week. And I'm like, What are you talking about? They're like, Yeah, it's crisis intervention training. I'm like, Well, it sounds cool. I don't know what it is. They're like, but I know that I'll be off at night for a whole week because I'll go to school during the day and I'll get a weekend off before. Sounds good to me, right? So who cares? And then I go and I'm like, Well, what's the training about? And then I read the description, I'm like, responding to mental health calls and de-escalation and collaborating with local mental health authorities and stakeholders. I'm like, I'm not going to this. So I go to my sergeant, I was like, I don't know, y'all thought it was funny on my day off to sign me up for this, but I'm not going. He's like, I've already turned your name into accounting, quit crying and just go. And I was like, man. So, and then I look at the location the week I get ready to go, and it's like at a church. And I'm like, a church? What do we do? What is this? And and I pull in the parking lot and I walk in, and there's the Houston PD came down to train us because it was the first time San Antonio had received the training, and they handed me a manual like this thick, and I'm like, What is this? And lanyard and go find your name. You've got a signed seating. I'm like, oh my god, like this is y'all taking this seriously. This is police training, like, relax. That's like it was not like in service, yeah. Right. Every officer right now is laughing because you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, and and I tell you, for the first three days, it was it was horrible, right? We had to do role plays, and we were learning about the the brain functions and the psychopharmacology and. Medications and I'm like, I cannot get out of here. Like, why are we having this? We're not social workers. And I'm having like this major pity party, right? Well, then on Thursday, a family member from the National Alliance on Mental Illness came in and talked about her son that had mental illness. And she was elderly. I say that, I'm I'm catching up to her real quick. She was like in her 60s, late 60s, and said, You know, my son Jeffrey, he's been to the hospital a lot of times. He hates the police, he hates politics, and he hates preachers or something like that, religion. And he will fight you the minute he has an opportunity because he just he thinks y'all are out to get him, conspiracy, this and that. I'm like, all right. So she started talking about her son, and when he had his emotional breakdown, um, and all the different times he'd been to the state hospital and what the medications were doing to him, and how he um stabbed the dog because he thought the dog was possessed. He would set the house on fire because it was there was evil spirits in the house. He would take her engine apart at night because he just loved to tinker with things and uh throw all the food away in the refrigerator because it's all poisoned, right? I mean, you know what I'm talking about. You've you've been on these calls. And she goes, you know, there's a chance that one of you officers will have to respond to my house because not because I want you to, I don't, but I don't have anybody else to call. Right. And there's a chance that you might end up shooting and killing my son because he's not gonna understand why you're there, and he's gonna be loud and he's big and he's gonna scare you and he might attack you. And I'm sitting there going, Wow, I can't believe she said that. But then it's what she said next, Jeff, that she goes, but if that happens, it's okay because you've got a family to go home to that you love very much. Wow. And I thought, who says that? So I waited for her to finish and I went up to her and I said, You know, ma'am, why did you say that it's okay if your son ends up tragically killed by police? I don't understand that. And she goes, You know what my biggest fear is? I was like, No, I don't. She goes, My biggest fear is that he will outlive me. I was like, whoa. She goes, and who's gonna take care of him? The state hospital, the jail, the prisons, you and I was like, I didn't have an answer for her, and I'm like, Well, what can I do? She goes, Well, you gotta figure out why you're here. I was like, I get it. That was the aha moment in my life where I said, That's it. I found my calling. It took me 15 years, and here I am, crybaby, don't want to be here. And I said, Okay, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. On Monday, I'm gonna join the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and I'm gonna figure this out, and I'm gonna start a mental health. I want to train every officer. I'm gonna pull myself together, I'm gonna finish this class strong, and I'm gonna get educated because one week of training and in CIT is just not enough. Yeah, and what's interesting about that full circle moment, Jeff, is that I had to hospitalize Jeffrey several times once I got on the mental health unit. She would call us directly and be like, hey, he's at it again. He's he thinks everybody in the neighborhoods, Nazis, and this and that. So we'd have to go out there and and hospitalize him. And he ended up passing away about seven years ago. And it wasn't at the hands of police. He had skin cancer. Um, he didn't trust doctors, so he would never go and get help. But she asked us, she asked me and my partner to speak at his funeral. Wow. So think about that for a minute. Here I am. Who put me in for this training? I don't want to go to this crap. Right. Oh man, what Thursday? I can't when when can I get out of here? And then Thursday listening to her and then helping her family and then speaking at his funeral. You tell me if that doesn't have fingerprints of God all over it, right? Or whatever your faith is, yeah. Well, put in that class for a reason, and it's it changed my life. It it really did.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Not only did it change your life, it has probably changed many lives. So that's that's a good thing, right?

SPEAKER_01 48:07

Um and as I I think we started with, if we can just change one person's trajectory, it it makes a difference, let alone you know, uh countless others, and ones that you may never know about, but yeah, and you know, and I I would tell the the officers now that I I work at the uh council of state governments justice center, and we help agencies all across the United States. You know, I tell my staff, look, you're gonna help people in communities you've never set foot in and save lives of people you have never met right because of the work you're doing. That's why you show up every day. And I think I think it it's it's a true statement. Um absolutely, yeah. I I I just I truly believe in this mission.

SPEAKER_00 48:52

Well, and rightly so. And you wouldn't be as effective if you you did not. I mean, agreed.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

No, I I agree, and you know, and I know that the focus of your of your platform truly is is officer wellness, but well, this speaks to that, yeah. It does, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:09

I mean, we we're we're getting to the root cause of trauma, of trauma's the same stigma of all the things everyone is human, yeah. So human and and you mentioned a couple of words, which was incredible thinking almost uh what nearly 20 years ago, you know, de-escalation, right? Crisis intervention, these are things that you know 20 years ago weren't readily available. And what is de-escalation? What am I gonna do? Go out and be nice to somebody and say, hey, have a great day. And nobody really understood, even to this day, people still don't understand de-escalation. And I kind of wrap it up in one word, and uh, I'd love to get your perspective, and that is just communication.

SPEAKER_01 49:55

Oh, a hundred percent. In fact, I wrote I wrote the book Mental Health and De-escalation. Um, it went number one on Amazon. I had no idea when I wrote this with uh Nick Rogerio that this book would do so well, but it's about communication, effective communication. Um, are you able to build a rapport through empathy, through validation, through ventilation, through all the things you need to do to take the time? Because if you will focus on the person and not the problem, that is your key to success. Because if you do that, then you can look at connection over correction, right? The correction is the behavior and it will mitigate and um right, recorrect itself. But if you can make a connection by focusing on the person and not the problem, you're gonna build lasting relationships. And that's what law enforcement should be focusing on is what can we do to build lasting relationships with the communities we serve? Because right now that's questionable, yeah, that's questionable, and we can do better.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

I know we can, absolutely, and not only for that, but for ourselves, oh for our families 100%. So it's it becomes full circle.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

Yeah, I mean, I the when I remember going through CIT and taking the effective uh the active listening courses and and the de-escalation and the empathy. I remember my wife's like, You're different, you know, you're you're actually listening to what I'm saying, you're repeating back part of the conversation, like effective communication is listening, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

And you know, I thought, you know, for years I really missed out on being an active member of this marriage because I just was checked out sometimes, and most people are, yeah, no matter what vocation, but particularly in first responder world, you know, military first responder world, because you're dealing with things that you're not really gonna go home and talk about, right? So if I'm an accountant, I go home and I say, Well, gosh, this books, and you know, I I helped this person out and now they're making, you know, whatever, kind of different than explaining what scene I just went to or you know what tragedy I just dealt with, you know, very very different.

SPEAKER_01 52:16

Yeah, there were little subtle changes that I made, you know, that no more phone at the table. You know, when it's time to eat dinner as a family, we eat dinner as a family, we don't sit there and check things or oh, text message, let me see who texts me real quick. Like such a great play. Yeah, we we put that stuff away, we focus on each other, we talk and have uh the conversations that are fruitful, that are beneficial, and that add value to us as a family. And it's just we make sure that we have time together throughout the week, or you know, it's just those things where you have to you you've got to slow down and just let that quiet your mind, which is hard to do because you know, first responders uh you know, always always thinking, right? Always got to keep going and going and going. Well, sometimes it's okay to pause, you know, take a deep breath, exhale and enjoy the moment. It's it's possible.

SPEAKER_00 53:09

It is, but it takes knowledge and it takes some forethought, and it it also takes that uh deliberate action. Yeah, and it it's great that uh you have the movie or the documentary people can see and see how that's affected everything in a 360 kind of view, but also um the books. Um now boy, I've written three going on four now, and I haven't seen Amazon top 100 for sure.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

But fortunate that I got it, I got my phone started blowing up, they're like, Hey, we're at number one. I'm like, really? Like, who's buying the book? And so when we started getting the feedback, it was single moms, teachers, nurses, police, fire, EMS, family members wanting to know more about why is my I don't understand this illness about my brother, my sister, my child. Like, and they were buying it, and uh, and it was written. The first one was written really as a kind of a guide to help law enforcement with understanding of CIT and talk a lot about the different foundational courses because not every agency, we know that a many agencies are rural or frontier and don't have over 50 officers, so it's hard for them to get it to a 40-hour course um because it's uh staffing is is difficult. So I wrote that book really to help them uh get a you know, maybe a little better understanding, something they could take back to their own agency and implement some of these ideas, and it just kept taking off and doing well. So very fortunate. Um, sometimes it's just being in the right place at the right time.

SPEAKER_00 54:47

It is, but it's it's also the uh delivery, the material, it's what's contained therein, and you know, how is it accepted? And quite frankly, uh when you look at the author or you look at a bio, right? I'm just even thinking about when I post the bio up and like what does that mean to somebody when they read through it? It doesn't really capture the essence of of who Ernie is or who Joe is or who Scott is, right? But it gives you that idea, but then when you start reading or you start watching, uh then you really get the idea.

SPEAKER_01 55:28

Yeah, you know, I I would encourage um again, uh, for any of your your viewers or listeners, you know, check out the documentary. Um I would love to, you know, flag any questions or comments that anybody has about it.

SPEAKER_00 55:41

Love it.

SPEAKER_01 55:41

Um, yeah, uh the books themselves, they're they're available on ernest stevens.com. I came up with a pretty cool um challenge coin that's on there as well. Um, you know, movie posters, things like that. But the money that is raised on that website is uh I can make donations back to uh National Alliance on Mental Illness, um, you know, organizations maybe they're putting on a peer support training. Um, a lot of times when I go out and I do speaking engagements, I'll bring those, sell them, and then give the money right back to the person that brought us out. That's because you know, I love to reinvest into opportunities for officers to learn or to have those training, um, those training opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 56:20

Yeah, we do the same thing with like our epictimology book, for example, uh, you know, or our internship book. Uh we'll we'll donate that right back to a scholarship fund. I love it. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what we do. So uh, you know, we don't make any money off of it, we just kind of reinvest it in the students. That's it. That's it. So investing in your future. I love that. Yeah, absolutely. And the best thing that we can do is expose them. And uh I I would I'm going to challenge some of the students to watch of the uh documentary, maybe to look at one of the books, um, because it's it's so important. And yeah, thank you, especially in our victimology class.

SPEAKER_01 57:03

Yeah, and if uh there is anybody listening or watching that has a class that they want to share the film to, and you want me to pop in on a zoom and answer some questions afterwards, yeah, get a hold of me. I I I'm not difficult to get a hold of. I'm on LinkedIn um and in Twitter, but like I said, you can uh send me a question or a comment through the website, ernestevens.com. I'm happy to respond to you and and try to accommodate whatever you're trying to do.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

Well, I I I for one will take you up on that, uh for sure. So that's gonna be fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 57:35

Look forward to it, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 57:36

Yeah, that that's definitely gonna happen. And don't think because you know, hey, I'm still a cop for a long time, so I'm probably gonna ask you for that signbook and the challenge coin just because I collect the challenge coins, but I'd be happy to pay for it. But anyway, um we'll donate the money back to victimology. How's that? There you go. There you go, man. Yep, absolutely. So I I was honored to uh speak at one of the the county prosecutors victim witness uh events. They were honoring some victim families, and I got to be the keynote speaker, and that was very uh impactful to me, you know, to see the the families there who went through such tragedy. But then there's something that I never even thought of, even though I was a cop and I taught it. I never thought about the what the prosecutors go through, the special litigation unit, what the victim witness people go through. Um they're living it too, and they're dealing with these people directly.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

Yeah, I think of the videos that they have to review to prepare for cases, they have to watch all that. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's that's tough. You know what? I haven't thought about that either. As far as a target audience that could use some resources, um yeah, the areas that I've worked with within the court system and the DA's offices, uh providing training to help them understand about um individuals that may have a mental illness and how do you defend them and um what resources are available through maybe a mental health docket or a public defender. But what you just brought up, I think, is untapped right now, could use a lot of uh focus.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

I never thought of it till I I spoke there because I heard it, and then being the keynote speaker, you go last, right? So I had a whole speech prepared and I couldn't use it because it wasn't appropriate anymore after what I heard. So I had to go up there, not had to, but I did, and I went for 15 minutes and I just made the whole thing up. That's the best, that's the best kind of thing. But you know, I I recognized the families, I recognized the special litigation unit, I recognized the victim witness unit, and people who that I, even though have dealt with it for you know 30 years, you know, and taught it for for that many years, never really considered it. And you know, I told them that. I said, you know, shame on me, because I should have thought about the impact that it has on on everyone.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:08

Yeah. No, good point. Yeah, good point. Um, yeah, you got my you got my interest peaked. I'm thinking maybe we can do something in the future.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:15

There should be some synergy there. I wrote a whole book on it. Maybe I'll get on the uh Amazon 100 list with you. Who knows? Excellent. Well, I wanted to end on a a positive note. Um, your your offering, which is really great of you to uh people to get a hold of you. You had said it a few times. I I just like you, if you don't mind, just reiterate it again. Uh uh, is it Ernest or Ernie Stevens.com?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:44

Uh Ernest E-R-N-E-S-T Stevenswithav.com, www.earnestevens.com. That'll take you to my website.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:52

Uh LinkedIn, Ernest Stevens. Um, should pop up pretty easy. Just look for my my ugly mug up there and click on that. And then Twitter is uh eStevens845 at ESE5545.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:04

And then one thing that I ask of everybody before we wrap up, if you don't mind, is what would Ernie today say to young Ernie right out of the academy?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:18

I would say don't go out there trying to change the world, figure out how to change yourself first. Because I had a lot to learn. I had a lot to learn.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:29

Wow. Yeah, that's excellent. I I like that, and I'm probably going to steal that. Sharing is caring. That there you go. Well, thank you so much for your time. Uh for the education. That uh of course Scott didn't uh let me know that hey, it was Ernie.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:51

See, I'm always trying to build him up, and this guy just forgets my name all the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:55

No, he he did mention you, but I didn't put I didn't put two and two together. That's my fault on that end. But uh Ernie and Joe, uh Crisis uh cops, yes, uh HBO. Uh a couple of the books, you check it out, check out the website. Um, definitely a resource, uh, certainly somebody that cares. Uh that that if they don't have if Ernie doesn't have the answer, I'll get it for you, I'm sure. So uh thank you for spending the time and and sharing what you did. It's uh very impactful. Thank you. Very humble that you asked me to be your guest today. Thank you. Thank you.