TheDocNCarolynPodcast.com EPISODE 125 (From the Archive)

Published Author, America's Chief,  a Chat with James Craig.

The NP is IN

Kimberly Blake's Kingdom Minute-

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

It's episode 125 of the Doc and Carolyn Podcast. We're doing an archive version because at this point you can rest assured that we're somewhere with a mock tail and an umbrella sticking out of it.

SPEAKER_05 0:11

And the MP is not in.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

That feels good to say, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_05 0:16

Yes, it does.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

Well for the archive episode, we have our friend James Craig. Uh Chief Craig is America's chief. That's what we've called him since we've known him. Uh you call him a down-to-earth guy.

SPEAKER_05 0:27

Yeah, just very kind. He is kind of like sharing his wisdom.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

He's extremely wise. We want to give a heads up about his new book. It's called Beyond the Badge Leadership Lessons from a Life in Law Enforcement. It's rare that you have someone of his uh stature that is so willing to talk and to be candid about the truth of American policing. And uh to hear the mind of this executive leader in professional policing. You don't get this opportunity every day, and when he speaks, people listen. James Craig, episode 125 of the Doc and Carolyn Podcast. A chat with America's Chief is coming right up.

SPEAKER_05 1:06

I'm Carolyn Kilgore, founder and provider at True Healing Healthcare.net.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

Why functional medicine?

SPEAKER_05 1:12

Because you're more than just a list of symptoms. Traditional care often masks the problem, but functional medicine digs deeper to find the root cause.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

What makes true healing healthcare different?

SPEAKER_05 1:24

We move away from the one size fits all approach. We look at your environment and your lifestyle to create a roadmap tailored specifically for you.

SPEAKER_03 1:32

What if someone really wants to make a change?

SPEAKER_05 1:35

If you're tired of feeling fine and want to start feeling great, it's about proactive wellness, not just reactive treatment.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

What's the deal with telemedicine?

SPEAKER_05 1:44

As long as you're 18 and have an internet connection, you can have a visit in the privacy of your own home or anywhere else in Texas. We're able to order labs or prescribe or whatever else you need.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Truehealinghealthcare.net for the great state of Texas. We're kind of dispensing with a regular format because we have a national guest on. And so we're just gonna flow right into that interview. But okay, your NP is in. What is the difference between urgent care and emergency care?

SPEAKER_05 2:13

Urgent care is I have a sore throat that won't go away. I've been coughing. I've been um I sprained my ankle. I have a cut and I need sutures, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

So if I have a sore throat, come to you if I have a sore throat because a knife is lodged in it.

SPEAKER_05 2:30

Then go to the ER.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Very good advice.

SPEAKER_05 2:33

That's an emergency. And if you think you're having a heart attack or a stroke, please do not come to the urgent care to get checked out on your way to the ER.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Waste wasted minutes on that.

SPEAKER_05 2:46

Just go to the ER, please.

SPEAKER_03 2:48

Okay, and that's it for the MP event.

SPEAKER_05 2:50

That's it. Happy wellness.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Awesome, awesome. Our guest from the national stage is uh Chief James Craig, who we got to know a little bit in Cincinnati. And uh you'll hear about this in the interview, but we went out to breakfast with him right before he left and went back to Detroit.

SPEAKER_05 3:05

That was such a generous thing to do at this time.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

We went to breakfast that morning and he gave me so much knowledge that goes way beyond policing. I mean, just leadership, and he's such a bright guy that he can condense those lessons into easily digestible pieces for somebody with a little bit thicker skull like myself.

SPEAKER_05 3:23

And now, without further delay, part one of our interview with America's chief, James Craig.

SPEAKER_04 3:28

This is something I'm very passionate about, and it's unfortunate that more chiefs today don't get it, don't care to get it because they're more concerned about the sustainability of their position. Uh, they could care less. It's all about ego, power. And and so when you get a person like that, and politicians, many of them the same way. It's it's more about what's in it for me. And when you put other folks first, uh and you do it from a place of love, then honestly, that's that's the magic sauce.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

And I'm I'm I'm here with Carolyn, my wife. We do the podcast together, and and right, I'm not sure if you remember, but when I was about to be promoted to sergeant and and you were kind of uh kind of heading out, we kind of got some clue that you might have been leaving our agency. And I and I sent you an email and said, Hey, I'm a I'm a brand new, uh about to be a brand new boss. I've never been in charge of anything, even a Boy Scout troop. So I I I would I would love any love anything, any any little piece of any little nugget of wisdom.

SPEAKER_04 4:27

That's one of my passions, and that's my way of giving back. I remember coming up the ranks and both when I first started in Detroit and got laid off and went to LA. And I was going up the ranks, you know, people, uh bosses didn't always want to give back. You know, they were more, again, concerned with where they were in life and and their career. And so they were just indifferent. And that was something that I remember when I was uh working in the jail in Los Angeles, and I would always study. And a guy cast, it was a sergeant came to me and said, What are you studying for? I said, Chief of police. And he looked, I told him that. And he looked at me. I was a I was a brand new police officer just saw probation of working in the jail. And he said, You'll never, you'll never be a chief. Oh wow. And I said, Okay. And I look back, I've been a chief in three different cities.

SPEAKER_05 5:15

Uh I think that's common in most careers. The people at the top don't want to assist the people at the bottom.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

Well, what? Well, well, and and I want to go back there, but but uh what you did tell me, you you attributed a lot of what you shared with me leadership-wise to Commissioner Bratton, I believe.

SPEAKER_04 5:33

Yeah, it was part of that. And in fact, it was part of Bratton, but it was also other chiefs. Like I had a I had a mentor because I was his adjutant. He was a chief in LA, and I was his lieutenant. And he wasn't really well liked by the rank and file. He was brilliant. I mean, he could get up and regurgitate stuff without even using a notepad, but when it came to his interaction with rank and file, he missed the mark. And I remember going to him as a lieutenant and he looked at me like I was out of my mind. Uh, it was an issue that came up, you know, I think we started the neighborhood police officers or something like that in Cincinnati. And then we had something called senior lead officers in uh LA. He wanted to disband it because he didn't feel like uh it was really the thing to do. And so at any rate, long story short, uh I went to him because I had been a senior lead officer, and I said, chief respect, but I think it's a bad idea to move in that direction. And uh he looked at me like I didn't know what I was talking about. He didn't value, my opinion, someone who was closer to the work.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

Chief, so the so the senior lead officer in that is that a rank in LAPD? Is that what that was?

SPEAKER_04 6:42

It's a pay grade advanced position. I created the same thing in Detroit called MPO or neighborhood police officer. Okay, I'm with you. And it's it's a it's a pay grade advanced position within the rank of police officer. See, we had pay grades, like uh, for example, we had police officer one, which is in the academy, uh on probation, police officer two, that's when you're off probation. Then police officer three, two strikes, uh, like a corporal. Some agencies call it corporal. Uh there it was police officer three, and then P3 plus one was uh senior leadoff.

SPEAKER_03 7:15

I've seen that rank structure many times in LA, even from television. I was like, what is all that?

SPEAKER_04 7:20

Oh, yeah. Well, I I essentially created those ranks in um Detroit, but I just renamed them.

SPEAKER_03 7:27

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

You know, just like hash marks. You know, when I brought the the new uniform shirt to Cincinnati, and that was a process that you might remember.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

I got I got questions too. Yeah, I want to know how you got that done after years and years.

SPEAKER_04 7:40

That was, well, believe me, uh one size doesn't fit all. You can't go into one police department do the same thing in another.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

Ultra thought, Chief. We'll take a break. Be right back.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Welcome to this Kingdom Minute with your host, Kimberly Blakes on the Doc and Carolyn podcast. I want you to think about why your job does not want you to talk about politics and religion. The reason they don't want you to talk about politics and religion is because those two subjects are the subjects that are going to be used in the end time. This is not just about people arguing, okay? Because people are going to argue either way. It's not about that. It's deeper than that. So, what has happened is we have been lulled into this false sense of security, and we think everything is just happening for a reason. The enemy wants to plant that seed that you don't talk about politics and religion because those are the fronts that he's going to use to usher in his agenda. I thought more Christians understood this, but I see that they don't because you have one half of the church saying we shouldn't talk about politics and the other half is saying, yes, we should, because one half does not understand that that's how the Antichrist is going to rise. This is how the persecution of the church is going to happen. That is how Bibles were taken out of schools. Don't you get it? Are any of these dots connected? I know this because I can see it. I can see it because I asked God, show me what's happening. He will tell you, he will show you. Thank you for tuning in to this Kingdom Minute with your host, Kimberly Blakes, on the Doc and Carolyn podcast. You can find me on Facebook at Kimberly Blakes, and I also have a podcast called the Faith Frame Perspective. I'll see you guys there.

SPEAKER_04 9:24

Every police department has its own unique culture. There's some things you just don't do.

SPEAKER_03 9:28

Well, having said that, where did you get the desire to be the to be a police officer in the first place? Is that in your family? Is that some where did that come from?

SPEAKER_04 9:37

Well, you know what's interesting about it? Um, my dad was a military police officer in the Army.

SPEAKER_03 9:42

Mine too. That's way cool.

SPEAKER_04 9:44

Oh, wow. Yes, sir. Okay, yeah. So he was a military police officer, and he uh got out the army and he tried to join the Detroit Police Department. And this is probably in the middle 50s. Well then, you know, uh Detroit Police Department was probably 97% white. The city was becoming increasingly African American. I think then the Detroit population was about 70% black, and so but they weren't hiring black men. It was it was very rare at that time. So my dad got uh disqualified from the selection process.

SPEAKER_03 10:17

This is before his military service? This is before or after. This is after.

SPEAKER_04 10:20

After all, so he was honorably discharged, eminently qualified, eminently qualified, never been in trouble. And so recently I asked him, because when I was on a campaign trail, you know, a lot of people asked me this very question. I wanted to wanted to know what he got disqualified for. He said, Well, like every police department, you know, you take a PT, and uh one of the exercises they have was the rope climb. So the first time he tried a rope climb, he didn't do well. And so they said, Well, you can come back and at some point and retake it. Well, his mom, kind of like my mom, didn't really find the idea.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

Didn't want to do that in the first place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

Right, so it's dangerous. And so my dad, you know, opted to go into city service. He started as a bus driver and then he worked his way up through the ranks in the transportation department, uh, became maybe number two or number three in charge of the uh transportation department. But that said, when I was probably 11 years old, uh my dad became a Detroit police reserve officer. Uh and even though he he couldn't get in on full time, he became a Detroit police reserve. And that was during the time when Detroit had the riots in 1967. So I thought then I would never be a police officer. Because one, you know, it was shooting at the police. We saw I saw tanks going down the street, snipers on the roof. I said, hell no, not me. Not gonna do it. And so um, so as as luck would have it, you know, uh matriculated up, went to one of the top high schools in the city and matriculated in automotive technology because I wanted to be an automotive engineer. I graduated, and right upon graduation, I got a job working online at Chrysler Corporation, now Stillantis. And uh I was on the line, but I was going to engineering school during the day, uh mechanical engineering. So, as luck would have it, I got laid off from Chrysler. I didn't care much for the engineering school. And it just came to me. I guess when I look back, I wanted to be a Detroit police officer at 19 years old. I uh I applied, and like my dad, my first school round, I was disqualified. Disqualified because I didn't weigh enough. My weight to height ratio was not where it should have been. I just holy cow. Holy cow. Yeah, so they they DQ'd me. And so the the background investigator said he said, look, uh, why don't you come back in a month, eat a bunch of bananas and we're saying, okay. So I called him in two weeks. I said, I'm ready to come back. And so I got back, and so upon returning, I had something in my pocket. He could tell I had in each pocket I had something. I put some small boulders in my pocket. And he asked me, he said, What's in your pocket? I said, rocks, and so he uh uh I pulled him out. He said, Wow, you really must want to be a police officer. And he said, guess what? You weigh enough. And that was the beginning. And I always tell that story. It's a funny story, but a true story, I was 19 years old. I couldn't be, I couldn't even buy bullets for my gun. My mother had to get my bullets because in the state of Michigan, you got you have to be 21 to buy bullets. Detroit was one of the few places where Detroit Police Department was one of the few departments and may have been the only one where you could get hired at 18 years old.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

Yeah, I can't think of any others.

SPEAKER_04 13:46

And I don't know of any. And so here I am, a 19-year-old, uh, going through the academy.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

I mean Did your parents ever get to see you achieve all the great achievements in your life?

SPEAKER_04 13:57

Absolutely. My mom passed seven, seven years ago, eight years ago now. I'm sorry. Yes. I appreciate that. Uh, they both, my dad was an influence, my mom was influenced in a different kind of way. But um, the answer is yes. I was fortunate that my mom and dad both saw me get sworn in, uh, not only as an LA police, well, not the Detroit police, then an LA police officer. They flew out to LA for that. Uh, when I went to Portland, Maine as a chief of police, they came to Maine to see me get sworn in that. Came to Cincinnati when I got sworn in as chief of Cincinnati. And certainly uh when I became chief in Detroit, uh now going full circle, uh, my mom was still alive. She had uh died from dementia, so she was uh beginning to really uh go in advanced stages of uh dementia when I got sworn in. But she remembered she knew it, uh, that I was sworn as well. That that was a blessing that I was able, that my parents were able to see me.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

How how wonderful.

SPEAKER_04 14:54

And even uh if I had one governor in Michigan, which I was strong in the polls.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

I gotta talk about that at some at some point here.

SPEAKER_04 15:02

Absolutely. Um, my dad was uh extremely proud, even though we were on different sides of the aisle. Uh there's some very spirited conversations.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

I can see that, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:13

But uh, but it was all out of love, you know. So uh it was good. So I I've had a very uh uh exciting and career. I mean, there's not too many people that can say, oh, they live their life's passion.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:24

And and it's not over yet.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

Well, well, yeah, and on that note, let's get back. So you weigh a buck oh five, you're on the job now, your gun weighs about what you do. And what was what was what was the uh so what was the job like back then as you you you start, you know, shagging runs and doing that work?

SPEAKER_04 15:40

Yeah, you know, in Detroit, uh it was customary. Now what was interesting about that time in Detroit, Detroit had his first black mayor named Coleman Young, and he ran on really creating a situation by that time Detroit was probably, I don't know, 80% black, but the police department was still about 70% white. And he ran on that he was going to integrate the police department, that the police department was gonna better reflect the community that it served. So what he did, he hired a lot of police officers. I mean, we had which you would never see today in any police department, but we were running two new classes a month, uh, mostly a month. Did you say a month? A month, a month of uh two classes a month. I was 77K, I remember, and we had a sister class, and we would classes would run concurrent, about 40 to 45 per class. But here's the other interesting point about what was uh notable about Detroit. So most of the classes were about because we had residency here in Detroit, so had to live in the city. Uh uh You had to live in the city. So of course the classes were largely African American and women. Detroit is one of the first police departments that would have uh academy classes that were, I would say, 20% women. No kidding. And I mean, we I mean, this was in 1977. So, you know, women didn't start really coming into policing strong until probably in the 80s. Even when I left, I got laid off for Detroit. I got laid off after two and a half years. Uh the mayor laid off 1,500 police officers. And the reason why he staffed up his apartment, he was preparing for the Republican National Convention. Of all places, Detroit had the Republican National Convention in Detroit, Michigan. 1980, and so right after, and we knew it was going to happen, the mayor laid off 1,500 police officers. Oh boy. Early time in Detroit, what was notable, you know, most rookies in Detroit would start out walking a footbeat. And so, like every rookie I walked a footbeat on Graveyard Ship, uh, and ironically, the same station, my dad worked as a police reserve, the same station in the area I grew up in. And that was my precinct. So I was working in a neighborhood I grew up in. But that said, I was walking a footbeat on Graveyard Shift. Me and another rookie, he was 18, I was 19. And so we walk in his footbeat, and I said, because we went through a three-month academy. Three months. They were pushing the police officers out so fast.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

And you know, three months is absolutely Yeah, we're doing six, you know, 900 hours, six months, seven months now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:25

And that was before there were any real standards of training. You know, basically uh the mayor was churning out police officers, and you're talking about an 18 and 19-year-old. What do we know about policing? And so here we are walking a footbeat together, and we're down walking in the street on Linwood on the west side of Detroit, not the safest area.

SPEAKER_03 18:47

So, did you was there was there an FTO process baked into that?

SPEAKER_04 18:51

Uh no, not really.

SPEAKER_03 18:52

So no senior officers really to depend on? Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 18:54

Well, so you know, at some point you would graduate to the scout car, and then the scout car you would work with a senior officer, okay, but it was no formulized training officer program like every department has today.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:07

And and so, and point in case, again, I'm working with a uh a classmate who's 18 and um didn't know what we were doing. So we're walking down the street, and all of a sudden we heard shots fired. And this was like, what do we do? Then we saw somebody running. So all of a sudden we see a scout car pull up. It was a sergeant and his driver, went up to the sergeant. I said, Sir, uh, we just heard shots fired. Somebody's running down the alley here. He says, Why are you standing here? I said, Well, what do you want us to do? Go out, rookie, find him and get him.

SPEAKER_03 19:39

No set up a perimeter, no direction to travel, get some get some descriptions out and all that.

SPEAKER_04 19:44

None of that. It was it was wild. I mean, I look back at that.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:48

I said, So we're gonna run blindly down uh an alley, and that's pretty fast because I ran track in high school. Go ahead, sir.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 19:56

And so people knew I was fast. So uh my point is after I got off the foot beat, I walked the uh scout car. And uh wait a minute.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

What happened? Well, what happened on that run? Did you catch the shooter or what we did we catch the shooter? Did we save lives or what did we do? No, he was long gone. We didn't find a dead body. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_04 20:13

It was just what do we do? Imagine that. Yeah. And so I'm thinking, wow. So what was the Detroit Police Department?

SPEAKER_03 20:21

Chief Chief, my my sister uh graduated from Cincinnati also as a sergeant, and I remember when she came on. Um, did what was the culture like then for for women? Because I I hear and understand what it was like for for you, even though you grew up in in that area.

SPEAKER_04 20:35

Well, how how were women adjusting to the new life, to, to the it it was it was difficult for women, it was difficult for black men, and uh I always tell this story. I used to tell on the campaign trail when I was excited enough to whoop the scout car, my partner White, 25 years on the job, and he said, Rook, this is the last and only thing I'm gonna say to you, go to the passenger side of the car. I said, Whoa. So we get in the car and he commences to telling me, he said, first of all, I don't want you here. I said, um, you sit there, you're not gonna drive this car, you're not going to touch the radio. All you need to do is one thing. Just sit there and be black. Wow. And so, oh yeah, I'll never forget it. And so I looked at him, and he did, I uh I said, So what if we get in trouble and need help? I told you, don't talk to me.

SPEAKER_03 21:24

You know. So this is this is a white brother officer that said this to you?

SPEAKER_04 21:27

Yes, 25 years or so on a job. So I said, Whoa. I remember calling my dad at in the shift and said, I don't think this is for me. I think I'm gonna go ahead and uh resign. He said, uh, no, no, no, you don't get it. You don't have a choice. He said, There are a lot of people counting on you, others like you, to be police officers and be part of the change. So you don't have a choice in this. What a great suck it up and keep going. Suck it up and keep going. And so it really inspired me, and I always tell this part of the story. So I realize how important that, you know, I can be part of change uh as as someone who grew up in this community, uh, someone uh who understands and represents this community. He said, but more importantly, as a police officer, I can only make a small amount of chan out of the change. And it was at that point in time, really, and I tell this story. Uh I said, you know, I'm gonna be a police chief. Because if I'm the police chief, I can have a greater impact on the officers and the community.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

And you're about 19, you're still a teenager thinking like this.

SPEAKER_04 22:28

I'm I'm yeah, I'm thinking as a teenager. And I set a goal. And I tell you, I used to tell this story to young people who I said, look, never let someone tell you what you can't do, number one. Two, there's something that's your past right. You set a goal and stay laser focused on it. I didn't know how it was gonna work out. I didn't worry about how it was gonna work out. And uh I know that every step I made, uh, God really put me on a path to this day. Why did I end up in Portland, Maine? I know now why I ended up in Portland, Maine. Maine got me to guess where?

SPEAKER_03 23:00

Cincinnati. Let's continue on. You're you're a rookie in in Detroit. I know enough of your story to know from there you went to LA. How did what what was what was in the mix during that decision process to go to to go to the West Coast?

SPEAKER_04 23:13

I knew I was getting ready to get laid off. I said, wow, now it's August. So me and a good buddy of mine decided, well, it wasn't an automatic decision. So I was laying in bed looking at a cop show, thinking about what my next step was going to be. And so the cop show was Adam 12. Well, as you know, Adam 12 was an LA police show. Yeah, yeah, I grew up on that too. And I'm looking at Adam 12 and I was like fascinated. Malloy and Reed, man. Malloy and Reed, sharp in uniform, yeah, Chris, you know, and just the facts, man, very almost rigid like. But I said, wow, that's Hollywood. So hence was my nickname when I got back to Detroit. Because everybody in Detroit, and the police department got a nickname, I ended up being Hollywood. And then when I was in LA, my nickname was Motown.

SPEAKER_03 24:02

So it's Oh, got you. Yeah, okay. I'm with you.

SPEAKER_04 24:06

And so um, I went on my first trip on a jet from Detroit to Los Angeles to apply to the LAPD. Didn't have any family, didn't know anybody. So I went out, me and my buddy both applied. You're 21 at this point.

SPEAKER_03 24:20

You're 21 at this point?

SPEAKER_04 24:21

No, I'm yeah, about yeah, I'm 20, because I stayed for two and a half years. Okay. Uh I turned 20 in my first year in Detroit. So I was actually 23, turning 24, because when I went to LA Academy, I was 24 years old. So, but no, no family, no residents, never been to LA in my life, and I was just amazed. Palm trees and all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 24:43

A little different than Detroit, just a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 24:45

A little different, just a little bit. Um, and so came back to Detroit and um waited for LA to call, and then LA didn't call right away. It was remainder of the summer, no call. And so uh my buddy, the same buddy, you know, uh Houston, Texas at the time, was really hiring uh police officers. Houston, boys. Houston, Texas. So I said, well, heck, you know, LA hasn't called yet, so we took a road trip. You know, I literally packed the car up with every intention of moving to Houston and Texas.

SPEAKER_05 25:19

You were almost a Texas.

SPEAKER_03 25:21

Yeah, you know that's where we are, right?

SPEAKER_05 25:24

Were you in Houston, Texas?

SPEAKER_03 25:25

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Oh, wow. What a small world. Yeah, I and I'm and I'm happy that you avoided the heat. That would have been your first story if I in the in the in the I can tell you something.

SPEAKER_04 25:35

I got a few Houston stories. I only lived in Houston a month, but I I can tell you stories. Now I moved there with the whole idea that I was gonna get a job because everybody, because a lot of Detroiters were leaving Detroit because of the layoffs, and everybody said Houston, Texas is the place to go.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Huh.

SPEAKER_04 25:50

So this is 1980, November. Okay. November, December 1980. And so moved to Houston, get an apartment on off the loop on the street called Ranchester next to the Galleria Mall. Okay. So I got a job literally either the next day and was uh security guard at a Nordstrom's at the mall. But at the same time, I uh applied for HPD. So I applied for HPD, and the interview was nothing short of interesting. So I get in there, uh, both my buddy and I were waiting to get interviewed, and the way they did interviews, it was a captain and a sergeant. And so I get in there, and uh there's uh a black officer who's sitting outside the captain's office, and so hey, I'm excited. I said, tell me what I need, what I can expect. So he looks at me and says, I got nothing to say to you.

SPEAKER_03 26:41

I said, Well, I don't have anything to say to you.

SPEAKER_04 26:44

I don't have anything to say. I said, Come on, bro. Of course. So I get in there, and the captain wearing a cowboy hat, he must have weighed 375 pounds, and he's sitting back with a toothpick in his mouth, and he said, Well, well, well, look at what we got here. So I see you a Detroit police officer. You're trying to get that uh Yeah, no, you you you you're getting close.

SPEAKER_03 27:16

So we'll get Carolyn to jump in again.

SPEAKER_04 27:19

And so uh let me see if I got this right. You uh boy, you a Detroit police. And this is what I know about Detroit police, and we don't tolerate that here in the in the great city of Houston. Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something. Here's what we know Detroit police, it's cooked. Number two, we know about what you boys do in the back. See, those police cars having sex with prostitutes. Oh, I started laughing. I said, I thought the man was joking. Yeah. He said, uh Mr. Craig, uh, that concludes our interview for today. Since you find humor, I don't think there's nothing else for us to say. Oh man, that's a real story. Chief, that's a real story? That was in 1980, and what was interesting, so it was my friend who came out there, he was a former Detroit police officer, now laid off like me. He went in for the interview. I don't know, his was similar outcome. We both got deselected. But then there was a third Detroit police officer, and he was set to take the interview the following day. And when we told him the story, he said, Oh, hell no. And he didn't go for the interview. He waited two years, and then he joined the Houston Police Department and he retired after I want to say he rose to the rank of lieutenant, and he did about 30 something years there. But he was smart. He waited, he said, nope, this ain't the time. And so uh I'll never forget that.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

What an I mean, but what an embarrassing story. I mean, for for our profession, it really is.

SPEAKER_04 29:04

But you know what? But the profession was very different then. You're talking the late 70s, early 80s, and LAPD was no different.

SPEAKER_05 29:13

It's more of an embarrassing story as a Texan, but what do I always say about Houston?

SPEAKER_03 29:18

What?

SPEAKER_05 29:19

It's the boil on the butt of Texas. I hate it. Houston is the boil on the butt of Texas. I've always hated it.

SPEAKER_04 29:27

Oh, wow. Yeah, and you know, but I I gotta believe it wasn't isolated to Houston. Uh a lot of major city police departments, uh, some finesse it better than others. You're talking about the 70s.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:42

You're talking about, and you know, we just came off of a lot of major cities. You gotta remember, I grew up as a, I was 11 years old when the Detroit riots happened. And this was because of an interaction between black residents and white Detroit police officers. Well, you know, Newark, New Jersey had a riot, uh, and there were just a lot of different places. There was a lot of civil unrest during that time. So here I am uh uh 10 years later, I'm now Detroit police officer. So I'm really part of this new evolution of policing. And so, and LA had its own uh challenges.

SPEAKER_03 30:21

You know, well, yeah, that's the next question, and you mentioned that earlier. So you show up for the academy. I presume you went through the whole how long was that process from your first visit? Six months, six months, six months.

SPEAKER_04 30:34

Um if you're familiar with the the terrain of LA, LA is a very hilly place.

SPEAKER_03 30:40

Our son, our son lives out there in mountains and valleys. It's mountains and valleys. Yeah, it's very interesting.

SPEAKER_04 30:46

Part of our PT, you know, um we had to run hills, and uh I ran hills and uh the class would, and sometimes we would run it in our academy uniform, and because they would have something called Black Friday in the academy. Every class went through it. Black Friday, they would stage an ambulance at the at the end of the hill because they knew at least 20% they were gonna fall out. Yeah. Because you're running up a hill straight up, full gear, and uh again, like I said, I was a runner. I had never ran heels, so that was a whole different experience.

SPEAKER_03 31:21

The Doc and Carolyn podcast powered by powered by powered by Hammock Solutions, Lufkin, Texas, USA.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

I started hammock solutions inside of a small incubator back in 2022. Somebody calls and has a virus or something like that, they can get it removed, or if they need data restoration or anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 31:39

You went to our page. Did you start to weep, or what was your response?

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Oh, I did notice a few issues that needed to be fixed. Your copyright on the bottom of the screen was kind of over some object, so I kind of fixed that. I added an archive page and kind of build it up a little bit. Most of my business, if it has to do with software, anything that can be done remotely, I will typically do it remotely.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

How can someone get a hold of you if they have an issue that you can fix?

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Well, they can find us on Facebook under Hammock Solutions. They can do a general search for Hammock Solutions 936-229-0269. We typically access through WhatsApp or directly to the line.