Paul Butler - Unlocking Your Inner Leader

The Tell City Indiana Police Department experienced a tragic incident, taking a toll on many of the officers. Some left the profession altogether. Paul Butler traveled to Tell City to help them get through this event. Everything went well, the officers and their families were in a good place, and Paul returned home to South Carolina. Then, the unthinkable happened.

Paul Butler
The Law Enforcement Death Response Team
Go Law Enforcement

Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to the First On Scene Podcast from the Law Enforcement Death Response Team. Join us as we explore the experiences of first responders and their families. We will discuss some of the obstacles they face throughout their career and beyond, along with ways to stay healthy during and well after retirement.

This podcast will provide resources for first responders and will share real life stories to inspire and show the heroic strength we all have. My

Todd Thomas: name is Todd Thomas and I am the former Chief of Police for a mid sized apartment in the Midwest. This podcast is brought to you by GoLawEnforcement. com. If you are looking to recruit highly qualified candidates for your agency, or you're looking for a job in law enforcement, GoLawEnforcement. com has one of the largest and most popular listing of law enforcement job openings.

The Law Enforcement Death Response Team, or LEADER, is a passionate group of law enforcement professionals. Who volunteer their time to assist agencies and survivors who have experienced a law enforcement death, regardless of the circumstances. Team is comprised of current and former law enforcement officers, licensed mental health providers, and other professionals.

Leader provides an immediate response and help with death debriefings. We're counseling and family support. They also help with funeral planning, media coordination, and the long term work of obtaining benefits and other services for the survivors. Today, we hear from our friend, Paul Butler, an amazing person and leader.

One of those people that once you meet him, he is your friend for life. He's going to share a moving story about his friend, Heather, and the power of love and the importance of being brave enough to be vulnerable. Reach out to others that need help.

Paul Butler: Thank you for allowing me to be here. I want you to know I'm always excited for every opportunity to make a difference. And the podcast world has really changed the game. Every time I go and speak these days, older people ask me, have you written a book and younger people are asking, have you done a podcast?

So, I appreciate you giving me that platform that will allow some of those folks to be able to reach out and hear this message. I'm Paul Butler. I'm from the great state of South Carolina. 27 year veteran of law enforcement, all right in Horry County, South Carolina. I live on Butler Road in Aner, South Carolina.

And that's where I've lived all my life and been able to make a difference and raise my children there and have my family there. And as my daddy used to say, the next move I plan to make is to the graveyard. So that's where I'm gonna be for the rest of my time. I get to travel and train now. What I did is after I stopped working in law enforcement, I started my own little business, Paul Butler Presentations at paul butler.

com. And I thought that I would go out and travel and train and kind of talk about some of the things that I've learned in life. And what I found out is I learned more while I was out there trying to teach. As a matter of fact, I've always said that if I ever write a book, I'm going to title it all the things I learned while I was out teaching.

Because the message that I'm delivering today is just so far different than not just what I started delivering, whatever thought that I'd be capable to deliver. And a lot of that is about the leaders that I have met who have not just changed the game for me, but kind of changed opinions and perspectives.

There are a lot of great people out there today knocking it out of the park and making this incredible difference. Well, one of the largest differences that I'm seeing being made in law enforcement, especially since my retirement eight years ago, is in that area of health and wellness. That was just something that we never talked about, never really addressed.

When I was in leadership, I'd have to be honest, it's not something that I really understood or placed the proper value on. And when I look back on that career, we probably lost some people that we didn't have to, but it's because I didn't know any better. So one of the things that I say now is that when I go out to train, I'm going to tell everybody what I wish someone had told me.

And that way, if they choose not to make a difference, they can't use the excuse that they didn't know any better. They just decided not to do any better. I think that leadership is an incredibly important component to health and wellness. I think that too many times we don't necessarily view them as working in concert with one another.

We believe leadership kind of allows us to do this health and wellness program, but that's not true. Health and wellness is all about leadership. And leadership is the ability to influence others from wherever you stand. So it doesn't matter what rank you are, what position you are. All it takes to be a leader is to be passionate enough.

It's not about the position. I learned that a lot in the tail city, Indiana. I mean, that's a place most people have never heard of. I know I've had never heard of it before. Uh, one night I received an email and then when I woke up that next morning, I'd received an email overnight. From a sergeant, Heather Glenn, and she'd press send on that email button at about 3 a.

m. So, I knew she was working overnight, and I read that email, and I don't know, it just kind of caught my attention, because she said the things I guess every speaker wants to hear is, Hey, on my shift, when in my department, we watch some of your videos that we can find online, and everybody really gets a lot out of it, and we really enjoy it, and we just watched one of your videos tonight.

And I was just thinking, we've had some struggles here at Tale City. We had a suicide by cop situation, where a citizen commits a crime, pulls a gun on law enforcement, and forces them to kill him. And, to show you what kind of people they are, I mean, they're just the sweetest people in the world, I mean, this is a small town in the Midwest.

They ended up having three officers leave the job, resign, because they felt bad about what they did, even though they did nothing wrong, morally, ethically, certainly not legally. And they lost them just because of the good hearts, that they hated to be involved in something like that. Well, they had been struggling with that morale for some time, and Sergeant Glenn reaches out to me and says, I know that We could never afford to bring someone like you in, but if you're ever in this area and could just stop by and say, hello, I believe that you'd make a big difference.

You have a lot of fans here in tail city, and I think that would be a big morale boost. Well, I don't want to miss an opportunity like that. This is a business and you do have to make money, but I never want to let money stand in the way of making a difference. So I contacted Sergeant Glenn and she and I talked and she was just as nice as I thought she would be.

She was just so complimentary and certainly humbled by the fact that somebody like me would call her. I always laugh at that because I feel like she's the hero in the deal. When you talk about how leadership plays into these things. She contacted her chief, Derek Law Allen, and they did a conference call.

So I'm on the phone here within 24 hours or so with Sergeant Glenn and Chief Law Allen, and we're talking about making this thing happen in Tales City. I mean, which was so exciting to watch it unfold that quickly. I mean, they are ecstatic. That we're going to do it. And so we put that thing together and they ask something that I rarely get asked.

They say, could we do a training in the morning? And then later that afternoon, when the staff hears you, could we do a training, a little get together, a presentation where they bring their families? And that's usually not a popular thing. I'm going to ask people to bring their families in on their days off.

Most families don't want to go to some police thing anyway. But whatever they wanted to do, that's what I wanted to do. So we sign on to that four hour training block in the morning. We're going to get together, have dinner that evening. They're going to bring their families, and I'm going to do an hour or two hours, whatever it was.

In the evening and they line everything up and it's beautiful like they really work together and made it so nice. I mean, it's memorable to me to watch them work together. So well, and they got food. They got catered. We all sat in the little. Uh, high school cafeteria area where we ate and so many people poured in that night.

The training was fantastic that day, but so many people came that night with their families that they had a little daycare going. I mean, like they're keeping their children and we're just going to get together and spend some adult time talking about how to get along and how to support one another. I mean, it was just a moving moment for me.

So we do that. And everybody has like the best time at the end of it. This is a one thing that stands out in my mind. The end of it, we're going to take a picture on stage, me with all of the families and Heather's daddy is a retired sheriff. Bob Glenn is a retired sheriff in Indiana. And her mom, Ms. Jane Glenn, still works for the sheriff's office.

So we get on that stage and we all kind of lock arms and take a big picture. I have my arm around Heather. I mean, it was just a good night. And after it's over, everybody cleans up and we go outside and we're still, like, carrying off the trash. Like, the chief at La La Land and Heather, they're still taking off the trash type thing.

But when it's all over, all the dust kind of settles, it's probably nine or ten o'clock at night. Heather and I are the only two left there. And we sit on this little bench out in front of the high school, and we just start talking. And she's so proud of what we did in Tale City. I mean, she gave me a little bit of her history, a little bit of her story, where while she was raised with these wonderful, loving, professional parents, they weren't touchy feely, hugging kind of parents.

And that kind of relationship. And then she got out there in life and had policed for 20 years and said that she got in a relationship with a guy and it fell apart, you know, 10 years or so. And I mean, after she'd really believed this was going to be her lifelong partner and that devastated her, you know, she felt like she wasn't at an age where she could jump back in and get married and still have children and all.

So she realized she wasn't going to have children in her life. And. And she got in a motorcycle accident. And was out of work for, I believe, two years, something like that. I mean, it was a terrible accident that really had her down and she had the depression set in with that. I mean, her life's kind of falling apart.

She told me that she'd moved away from her faith, but chief law Allen wouldn't, uh, Allow that to happen. He started asking, he and his wife, Brie, started asking Heather to come to church with them and Heather said that they were just relentless. Come with us. Come with us. It'd be good for you. Come with us.

Not, not giving up. And she told me on that bench, it was kind of cute the way she said it. She said, so I ended up going to church with him just to shut him up. But she said, when I got to church, I realized that I liked, it's not only familiar to me, it's, it felt good to me and it's where I belong. And she told me that night that she had found her faith again, that she had reestablished her relationship with Jesus Christ, just by the Blurted that out to me on a, on a little bench in front of the school.

She told me that she'd hugged her parents that night. They told her that they loved her and she told them that she loved them. And they took that picture together, which she didn't like to do. It's take a lot of pictures. And I sat on that bench listening to her talk, kind of reflecting on her life and the moment that we just had.

And she said, tonight, after your training today, you're going just like it did. She said, I want you to know that tonight, I'm the happiest I can remember being in a long, long time. We hugged and I told her I'd see her again and I got in my car and I went back to the hotel and I thought about what a beautiful thing that was that we did in Tail City.

I flew home the next day and I text Heather that I made it home, thankful for the opportunity and she text me. She said, you tell your family how much we appreciate them allowing us to have you. Two days later, one of the dispatchers called me on Monday, July 2nd, on that night shift as it bled over into July 3rd.

My friend, Sergeant Heather Glenn, was shot and killed in the line of duty.

I was devastated. Couldn't believe it. Just about 48 hours earlier, she and I are hanging out, and now she's gone. I hung up that phone. My wife didn't ask me, Are you going back to Tel City? She said, When are you going back to Tel City? She knew it. And I booked a flight and I flew back there about 48 hours later, and they welcomed me back to Tail City and took me to meet with her mom and dad, Mr.

Bob and Miss Jane. They weren't really seeing anybody on the outside, so I was honored that they chose to see me. And we sat at that table and talked and we prayed and we cried a lot, laughed a little, but I was able to tell them what I believe every parent in the world would want to hear, it's what she told me that night, on that little bench, that she was the happiest she'd been in her life, that she'd found her faith, that she's in heaven today.

We met at the department, they hosted a lunch and they told everybody that, You can come if you want to, bring your families, Paul Butler will be here and we can just talk to him or hear from him a few words of encouragement, I didn't know if anyone would show up, we had to add chairs at that restaurant, and I left there and I wasn't able to attend the funeral, I was flying to Africa to speak, just a couple of days later, and so I missed some of that closure that a funeral can sometimes provide, they sent me the videos and all, but that's not the same, and I knew I had to do more.

But I don't know how much more I'm qualified to do because while my heart's in the right place, I don't necessarily have the experience to navigate through those. We'd lost two officers during my time at the Horry County Sheriff's office. We lost two deputies, but someone else kind of handled those processes.

So I reached out to my dear friend in Wisconsin, Sarah, with Wisconsin leader and ask her, could she help me over in Indiana? I didn't know if that was even legal. I didn't know how that worked, but I know she immediately said, give me their number. Let them know I'm going to be calling. And it was her idea that we need to raise funds to be able to get them to police week.

And we had to start early. That's what I didn't realize is there are deadlines to meet with that. And she started these Zoom calls where they got a committee going, and they're going to do this fundraiser. And she called me and she said, when can you be back in Tell City? Because we're going to do this fundraiser when you can show back up there.

And we picked a date I could be there. She flies down her own dime, her own time, and we go to that fundraiser, and I have to say it was beautiful. And it helped me get some of the closure I think I was missing from not being able to attend the funeral, just to watch them happy again while we were there.

Met some of the people who had been involved in the original shooting that caused Heather to be given me the call. And after I talked and met with him and we hugged and did those things, it was obvious he was very emotional and all that. I talked with Sarah. A couple of days later, and she said, can't you see that there's a lot of trauma going on there?

There are people who just have these unsettled traumas in their lives, and they're going to need some attention. They're going to need some help. And I'm one of those guys who believes that when people need help, we ought to get it to them. I just sometimes believe it shouldn't be me helping them. But Sarah taught me a lot about leadership that day.

What she said is that everyone can be a leader when someone is in crisis. That all you have to do is care the most. All you have to do is be bold enough to engage them. All you have to do is not be afraid that they're somehow going to turn you down or be upset or never want to be your friend again.

That doesn't even make sense when you think about it. They need you in their lives. And if the worst thing they can say about you is, oh, my God, you care about me so much, you won't leave me alone trying to get me some help. That's actually something you ought to wear as a badge of honor. So I'd established this contact with this young man who was struggling, but somehow I just couldn't pull the trigger on asking him, did he want some help?

They had an incident happen where somebody had been out of work up in Wisconsin and It just sat too long, and next thing you know, while everybody else was waiting around to say what's the right time to do something, that man took his life. And Sarah called me that day, and she said, I need you to reach out to him now.

I said, I just don't know if now's the right time. She said, now's the only time. You gotta be bold. He needs it. He probably wants it. All he's waiting for is for somebody he can trust to ask him. And I reached out to him through a text. It was amazing that he furthered the conversation. And next thing you know, he's excited about it.

And at the end of that offer to get him some help, not only do I believe this is going to help me, I'm going to be able to help others. Because of this, it was beautiful. And I just hate to think that if I'd have sat there for another week or two or a month or two, no telling what would have happened.

This is what I say about leadership. Is that leadership isn't about doing easy things. And it's not even about doing things at the right time. And it's not even sometimes about doing things that feel right. It is about doing what everyone else is afraid to do, knowing that it needs done. And what I would say to people out there who are dealing with trauma, this is what I've learned.

In this business, everyone is struggling with something. Home life, work life, personal life, private life, spiritual life, wherever it is, everyone is struggling with something. And most people are waiting for someone to just say, can I help you? I said in training the other day that there's an old saying, I like it a lot, an old quote, it says, at every crossroads of the future, stand a thousand guardians of the past.

And what that means is that every time we're at a new joint venture in our lives, we're at a new intersection in our lives, there's a thousand people telling you to turn back, to not try, to not do. Well, I say this, everyone who's having a traumatic experience, a traumatic response, is standing at that crossroads.

And every leader in their life, every friend in their life, well, you're not just a guardian of the past, you are the crossroads and you're either going to convince them that they have to stand still or go back in life, that they can go right or left and just put it off for a few more days, a few more weeks, maybe a few more months until it's unbearable.

Or you're going to be the person who welcomes them into your arms and under your leadership they are unafraid to move forward in this life. Everybody's looking for a friend. And friends look a lot like leaders. And leaders sound like people who are bold enough to ask the tough questions. And who care enough to get people the help that they want, that they need, and that they deserve.

Derek Law Allen was that kind of leader for Heather in her spiritual life. I tried to be that kind of leader in her professional life. And she put me in a position to bring in people like Sarah, and we're going to be leaders in their emotional lives. We

Todd Thomas: want to thank our friend and now yours, Paul Butler, for sharing this very personal and emotional story with us. We hope you feel moved and motivated to be bold, to take that chance and be vulnerable. Like Paul said, we are all standing at the crossroads of someone's life and we may not even know it. Take that step.

There's five simple words. How can I help you? Can truly make a life-altering difference. 

Announcer: I hope you enjoyed this episode of the First On Scene podcast from the Law Enforcement Death Response Team. If you did, please subscribe. Also, check out the listings of law enforcement job openings on Go law enforcement.com.

Thanks for listening.