Retired Chief Steven Casstevens

Over the past 50 years, Steve Casstevens has served his country, has served small-town and suburban Illinois policing, and held statewide executive leadership positions as the past President of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, and past President of the International International Association of Chiefs of Police. Steve began in military police with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division in 1976, worked for the Mendota and Peru police departments after leaving the Army in 1979, joined Hoffman Estates in 1981 and retired there in 2011 as assistant chief, then served about two and a half years as chief in Cary before becoming chief in Buffalo Grove where he served until 2022. He served as ILACP president in 2016-2017 and IACP president in 2019-2020. Steve holds a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice Management from Judson University, served as an adjunct instructor for Northwestern University Center for Public Safety, and authored articles for Police Chief Magazine, Command Magazine, and Law and Order. Throughout his career he has been focused on global roadway safety, police response to active threats, and officer suicide prevention.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Over the past 50 years, Steve Cass Stevens has served his country, has served small town and suburban Illinois policing, and held statewide executive leadership positions as the past president of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police and past president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Steve began in the military police with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division in 1976, worked for the Mendota and Peru Police Departments after leaving the Army in 1979, joined Hoffman Estate's Police Department in 1981, and retired there in 2011 as Assistant Chief. Then he went on and served two and a half years as a chief in Kerry, Illinois, before becoming the chief in Buffalo Grove, where he served until 2022. He served as ILACP president in 2016 to 2017, and the IACP president from 2019 to 2020. Steve holds a bachelor's degree in criminal justice management from Judson University, served as an adjunct instructor for Northwestern University Center for Public Safety, and authored articles for Police Chief Magazine, Command Magazine, and Law and Order. Throughout his career, he has been focused on global roadway safety, police response to active threats, and officer suicide prevention. Welcome to the Moline Police Podcast, where you will hear conversations about our people, our cases, and our community. Moline is located in the heart of the Midwest along the Mississippi River, just three hours from Des Moines, Iowa, in Chicago, Illinois. The Moline Police Department has served our community since 1872. Our agency is guided by core values of professionalism, teamwork, and integrity that help us provide high-quality policing to improve the safety and quality of life in our community. This is the Moline PDK. Hello everyone. Mike, how are you today? Good chief. Good afternoon. Mike was honored by Representative Greg Johnson for his work on the Trudy Appleby case and being the 2026 uh criminal investigator of the year. So it was a really nice honor. They also honored uh Dick Durbin during that ceremony, so it was a pretty interesting day uh down there. Yeah, that was a neat experience, and it was uh very nice of Representative Johnson to uh to honor our team like that. Yeah, so uh we are really excited today to have uh an esteemed guest in the uh on the podcast line, Steve Cass Stevens. And as I uh opened with his bio, you can tell he has done a lot over his uh 50 years in serving the community from the military and in law enforcement. Steve's been a mentor of mine and uh been a really good friend uh over the last several years. Uh he's got an extensive uh network uh throughout uh the world, really, because of his uh time at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and he's still very active. I think he's probably uh busier now than he ever was. Uh Steve, how are you? Uh thank you very much for joining us uh in the podcast today Well, thanks, Chief.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

I'm doing well. I I appreciate the invitation, and you're right. I think I'm busier than I thought I would be in retirement.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

So for listeners who uh really don't know much about Steve Cas-Evans or even the titles, what's the short version of the Steve Cas-Evans story?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Well, as short as I can make it, because you've covered a lot of interesting information in the introduction. Um I always talk to my friends and say that I would have never thought that a shy young kid from Triumph, Illinois, where I was born and raised, by the way, it's in LaSalle County, and the population at that time was 62. I would have never thought that a kid from Triumph, Illinois would eventually be sitting down at the White House and interviewing the Attorney General and having one-on-one meetings with the president of the United States. It's been an interesting ride and quite a career, and I'm very blessed.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

For those in the law enforcement circles, particularly in Illinois or the Illinois Chiefs Association, which I'm involved in, everybody knows who Steve Cass-Evens is. You know a lot of people, uh, but you've been doing it for a long time. Why did you get into policing?

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Um the number one question, I think, to any cop, especially someone who rises to the level of police chief, why did you get into policing in the first place? Um I I grew up in, I won't say my family was poor, but we didn't have uh money to send me to college, and I certainly wasn't smart enough to go to college. Um, I wasn't what you would call a star student in high school. Um but my father was in the military, and I thought that would be a smart and honorable thing to do, and I'd always been interested in law enforcement. I had chatted with uh several police officers in my hometown outside of Triumph in Mendota, where uh I went to high school, and uh just the way that they talked to me, they they helped me build an interest in law enforcement. So I thought I could kill two birds with one stone, I could join the army, uh, and I could join the military police, and so I would get some uh military service and also some law enforcement training very early on in my career. So I went into the delayed entry program. I signed up for the army before I even graduated high school in 76.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Well, your career certainly runs uh a long path and winding through many different areas from Army, military, police, as you mentioned, Mendota, Peru. You worked a long career at Hoffman Estates, uh, and then two stops as Chief Carrie in Buffalo Grove. Um, what did each stop teach you that then the next stop required? Uh, how did each one of those set you up for the next position?

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Well, um, you know, so 46 years total in law enforcement, and I can honestly say even in my 46th year, I never stopped learning. I always knew that um I didn't know everything. I didn't know everything about law enforcement, I didn't know everything about being a police chief or about being a leader, because there's always something new, there's always something you're going to encounter that you had never encountered before. And at every stage in my career, I learned something, and in many cases it was uh observing people and learning what not to do, uh, as opposed to this is a good idea to do. Um because I I think back, and I'll I'll try to make this long very long story kind of short, but I think it'll illustrate your point. When I was a sergeant in Hoffman Estates, I knew I wanted to get involved in uh Illinois Chiefs Association because I knew I wanted to be a chief someday, and I thought, well, what better way to learn than from other chiefs? But I was only a sergeant, so my agency wasn't about to pay for my membership, and certainly not for my time and money to go to a conference. So I paid my own way and uh my own membership and took vacation time and went to the conferences and I went to all the board meetings, and I sat in the back of the room and I just watched and listened, and I observed all of these police chiefs, members of the association. And I sat back and I watched and I said, Well, I like how that guy operates, I like how that person talks, um, I don't like that guy at all, and I don't like the way that guy said that, and you learned a lot on both sides. And then when I became a lieutenant in Hoffman Estates, I thought, okay, now's the time to get involved in the association. And I remember, like it was yesterday, I called up uh George Kirchy, who at that time was the executive director of the Illinois Chiefs. And I said, Mr. Kirchy, I know you don't know me. Uh my name's Steve Cass Stevens, I'm a lieutenant in Hoffman Estates. I'd like to get involved in the association. He said, I know who you are. And I said, I'm I'm not sure you do. I don't know that we've ever met. And he said, No, I know you. He said, You're that guy that's been showing up at all our board meetings the last few years and just sitting in the back of the room. And I said, Yeah, that's me. And he said, Well, what can I do for you? I said, Well, I have a passion in traffic safety. I'd like to get involved. I understand you have a traffic committee. Is there any way that I can get on the committee? I said, uh, I'm trying to find out who the chair of the committee is, and I can't find any information. He said, Well, you are. I said, No, you misunderstood me. I'm I'm trying to find out who the chair is, and he said, You are. I said, All right, Mr. Kirchy, I'm missing a joke here. He said, We haven't had a chair of the traffic committee in probably eight to ten years, and you're the first person that's called and showed interest. So by the powers vested in me as executive director, you're now the chair of the traffic committee. And I said, Well, that's interesting. Have you ever had a non-chief chair the committee before? He said, Not till just now. And that's how I got involved in the Chiefs Association and then started on my path of contributing and getting more and more involved and learning from more people.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Well, you mentioned your passion for traffic safety. Uh that uh started in Hoffman Estates. Or can you can you tell us a little bit about your time as um you know the traffic enforcement and and what got you interested in that?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Yeah, um, it actually started in the military police. We um at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, we had regular road police, uh, but we also had a traffic unit. And I I wasn't assigned to the traffic unit, but I had two good friends that were involved in it. And uh they were very specific in their duties, they would respond to serious injury crashes or fatal crashes. They did uh specific uh traffic enforcement in problem areas, and I thought, wow, that is that's really kind of cool. I like that. And so I hung out with them and I learned a lot more, and I really got interested in that. And then I got more interested in when I found out the reasons behind it. It's not just enforcement, it goes beyond that. It's you know the basics of changing driver behavior so people aren't running stop signs, aren't speeding, aren't passing on the shoulder, aren't doing those things that cause traffic crashes, because the ultimate goal is to reduce crashes so you reduce the number of people who are hurt or killed in traffic crashes. And then when I got into what I'll call civilian law enforcement and started responding to some of these horrific crashes, it's just something that stuck with me. And I said, this is actually an area in law enforcement where I can truly make a difference.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

What are you concerned about with Illinois and the way that some of the accountability, particularly with traffic, has uh eroded over the last uh five to ten years? Do you are you concerned about the future of traffic safety?

SPEAKER_01 12:38

I am, and I have been for quite some time. Um this goes back a while, like I say, probably the last 10 years, and it's for a variety of reasons, either through defunding the police. Um if you think back to 2008, uh we had our issues with the stock market, and we had uh a crash, and a lot of people lost a lot of money, and a lot of police departments uh had to lay off police officers. Uh there were over 30,000 police officers across this country who were laid off. Um and I remember being in Hoffman Estates at the time, and we had to lay off five police officers. And so your core function is always patrol. You have your specialty units, detectives, and your traffic units and your community relations, and we have problem oriental policing, you had all these other things. But patrol is your core function, they answer your calls for service, so you can't short the staff on patrol. So when we laid off five officers, what did we do? Well, we disbanded the traffic unit and we took those officers and reassigned them to patrol. So suddenly traffic enforcement not only now no longer became a priority, it was no longer existent because now that unit didn't exist. Now, I'm the type of chief that I think every officer should be a traffic enforcement officer for the obvious reasons I said earlier. Um, the these are the ways that you change driver behavior and you can reduce injuries and crashes. And so uh I thought that was disturbing. And then we came to the defunding of the police, and then as part of that whole thing over the past several years, people started to question traffic stops. Well, what is the purpose traffic stop really? Is it just a fishing expedition? What are you really accomplishing? Shouldn't we be the kindler and gentler police, et cetera, et cetera? And I got frustrated because I I'm still going back to my days of, but wait a minute, traffic stops not only are one of the core functions of law enforcement, but if we want to increase police community relations, you know how we do that? We do it one traffic stop at a time. Because if you think about it, there have been a number of studies out there. The typical citizen of a community in Illinois, how do they first encounter a police officer in their life? It's not because their home got burglarized, it's not because they got robbed, it's because they got stopped by a police officer, a routine traffic stop. So if that's how most people initially encounter a police officer for the first time, that's where community policing starts. That's where we have to teach our police officers, and this is what I used to call it every traffic stop is a public service announcement for your agency. That's what I told my police officers. It's a PSA for Buffalo Grove police every time you stop somebody in Buffalo Grove. And you have to treat them right, and you have to treat them with courtesy and respect, and you don't shake your finger at them and you don't scold them, because every time we make a traffic stop, we've encountered somebody who's done something wrong. And what is our goal? Our goal is to change driver behavior. Now that could be through a verbal warning, that might be a ticket, who knows what it could be. Um, but when we go away from that, and when we say traffic stops should no longer be a priority for whatever reason, we're not only losing the ability to change driver behavior and make our roadways safer, but we've lost the ability of the tip of the spear of community policing.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Well, you mentioned Buffalo Grove, and uh it's a good uh transition to community policing. You're you retired a few years ago from Buffalo Grove. Uh, your official retirement release credited you with creating the community relations unit, implementing department-wide crisis intervention teams, adopting the 10-share principles, and leading one of the first Illinois departments to complete the One Mind campaign. Tell us uh about the community relations unit. What problem were you trying to solve when you built that unit?

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Well, it it's been an interesting transition in what we in the profession call community relations. Because, you know, we go back to community-oriented policing, as they called it back in the 70s, which really started in Orlando, Florida. They were the first police department nationally known that said, hey, we're adopting this community policing thing. And people were struggling to understand what that meant. And I did my research way back when, and it it's not a specific unit. Community relations or community policing, if you will, is not a unit in your department like a traffic unit or a detective unit. Community policing is a philosophy, it's a way of doing business. And so that's really how it started. Every police officer is a community relations officer. And really all that means is you know, over the years we've learned it's important for officers to get out of the police car, to park and go talk to kids, go talk to parents, walk up and down the streets in your town, uh, walk into businesses, shake people's hands, introduce yourself. You're building a relationship in the community. That's what community policing is. And it's it's building relationships between the police and the community, and it's building partnerships with the police and the community. And so that's really uh how it started. But then as you transition through the years, there is an advantage once you have your agency has adopted and believes in the concept of community policing. Now there's an opportunity that I saw to develop a community relations unit that can spend more quality time doing those exact things, um, specifically working on community-oriented policing and community relations while the patrol officers are busy going call to call to call to call and may not have the time to do those kinds of outreach. So, this is this is what I really saw. I saw a unit of two to three officers that can specifically do outreach. And so I had them doing outreach to uh places of worship, to uh synagogues, to mosques, to churches, to chapels, uh, to local businesses in town, and and going back to the original principle of community policing, but they spent more quality time doing that. And I I thought it was really successful, and the community did as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Well, you talked about building relationships uh just a few uh weeks ago. Uh the police chiefs here in this area re-signed the NAACP ILACP 10 shared principles framework. We had previously signed that a few years ago, but uh several of the chiefs turned over, so we took it as an opportunity to re-engage and uh have the new chiefs that have uh come on board and some of the neighboring agencies sign that. Uh you when you were installed uh back as the ILACP president, the Illinois Chiefs president in 2016, you talked about highlighting agencies that truly live by community policing and telling the professions good stories more skillfully. Uh and at the same time, uh ILACP was building that framework, that 10 shared principles framework, and working with uh the NAACP in the state of Illinois. Can you tell our listeners what the 10 shared principles is and uh why it was important for ILACP to partner with the NAACP on this endeavor?

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Yeah, so you know, I I I thought it was a great move, and I I give a lot of credit to um Chief Jim Kruger, uh, who followed me as president, and he was the one that that finally put the final pen to paper in 2018. He was he was uh president of the Illinois Chiefs 2017-18 after I left 2016-17. Um but the the 10 shared principles is essentially a document where between the Illinois Chiefs Association and the NAACP, we acknowledge and agree as organizations that throughout history there's been uh reasons of mistrust between police and communities of color. Uh but both organizations, we Also recognize have a passion for protecting and defending the rights of all citizens, keeping our communities safe and our citizens safe, and that maybe we should work together because as organizations we're more alike than we are different. And so we work together to draw up these principles that we both agree with. And I think it sent a strong message, not only to the general public, but it sent a strong message to law enforcement across the state. And I think you see that by the number of the hundreds of law enforcement agencies that have adopted these principles. And the principles, you know, I won't go through them all, but I mean the principles are basic and common sense. We value the life of every person. Consider life to be the highest value. And we believe all people should be treated with dignity and respect. That is a foundational value. And I don't think anybody has a problem with that. And both organizations agree. We reject discrimination to anyone based on color, religion, race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, disability, etc. And we briefly talked about uh the president's task force in 21st century policing, that we endorsed the six pillars, we endorse the pillars of procedural justice, uh, which is fairness. And I just think it was a really good move, and it helped build uh a higher level of trust and relationship between the NAACP and their members and the Chiefs Association and our members.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

So you mentioned Jim Kruger uh was the chief when that was signed, and then Lou Jogman was the police uh the president of the Illinois Chiefs from 2022 to 2023. And uh he worked on a campaign called Two and Eight throughout the state. And uh, of course, you you mentioned all persons should be treated with dignity and respect. Um, but number eight was we believe that law enforcement and community leaders have a mutual responsibility to encourage all citizens to gain a better understanding and knowledge of the law to assist them in their interactions with law enforcement officers. And I think that was important. We've seen um you know increased attendance in citizens police academies, we've seen different groups um make uh presentations on you know how to act with law enforcement officers on traffic stops. As you mentioned, traffic is a um an important and core function of law enforcement, but they can also be dangerous encounters and they can go bad quickly for reasons that certainly are preventable on both parts. And so it's um the education component is certainly uh very important, and both sides agree that uh that in this framework that we have a mutual responsibility of education uh uh of uh the public and the police officers, and we've seen that uh work well, I think, in uh many of the dialogues that we've participated in statewide over the last few years, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 25:17

I agree, and and I'm glad you mentioned citizen police academies because I remember um starting the Citizen Police Academy in Hoffman Estates in uh whether it was late 80s, early 90s, and a lot of people thought the whole concept of a citizen police academy would be a fad or a flash in the pan, or it's like somebody's somebody's checking a box to make sure they're doing something in their community and that it wouldn't last. And well, uh they couldn't be further from being wrong because uh I still see citizen police academies across this state, across this country, that are incredibly well attended, have waiting lists, and many agencies based on the uh makeup of their community have citizen police academies, they have Hispanic citizen police academies, and uh youth citizen police academies. And I think that's one of the smartest things that law enforcement can do, because what better way to not only, again, build relationships between police and your community members, but also educate the community. Joe Citizen Your Community has no concept what day-to-day police work looks like. They have no concept of let's go back to the traffic stop. Well, when the officer stopped me, he shined the flashlight and it almost blinded me, and he stood behind my door where he couldn't see me, and I think that's so rude. Well, you go to the Citizen Police Academy, then you learn why police officers do that. As you mentioned, uh traffic stops are one of the most unpredictable, most dangerous things a police officer can do. And so there's certain ways that we're taught to conduct those traffic stops. So why don't we teach the public the exact same thing that we teach our officers? And there'll be a better understanding.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Well, you certainly had a very uh substantial role in both statewide and global policing with your presidency of the Illinois Chiefs and the presidency of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. So just to um give everybody an understanding, the state of Illinois has an association called the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, ILA C P the abbreviation, and is a membership of uh command level or mostly police chiefs, deputy chiefs, and uh focusing on Illinois uh issues primarily uh legislation, education, training standards, professionalism. Uh and you were the president of the Illinois Chiefs, but another unique thing about you is that you are also the president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, uh the largest uh police association with well over 35,000 members globally. Um some of our listeners may know, or probably some in the local media here, I ran for International Association of Chiefs of Police uh last year. I I did not win that election. I fell a couple of hundred votes short of that. But you were um uh instrumental in getting me to do that uh one April uh evening at the ILACP conference when you uh convinced me to run for IACP. Can you tell us about IACP uh and uh what the association is, why it's important and how you got involved?

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Sure. Um so you've touched on a little bit. So the IACP International Association of Chiefs of Police is not just chiefs of police, it's command-level law enforcement. Um we have almost 36,000 members right now in 175 countries. And it's the oldest law enforcement leadership organization in the world. It was formed actually in 1893 in Chicago during the World's Fair. And there was a chief named Weber Seavie who brought together about 35 or 45 police leaders from across the country to talk about how they can share information and share ideas on how better to uh run law enforcement in this country, and that was the start of the IACP in 1893. I got involved in the IACP because of back to my passion of uh roadway safety. So the IACP has a roadway safety committee, and just to put it in perspective, so the IECP has a number of working committees. There are 27 committees in all, one of them being roadway safety. And each each of those committees are limited to 30 members, and they're all appointed by the incoming president. And so I contacted IECP and said, hey, this is who I am. I'm a member. I've been I joined originally, I think, in 1997, 1998, and uh said I'd like to be involved in this committee, and they happened to have an opening and appointed me to the committee, and I wound up serving on that committee for 15 years uh until I had to step down when I was running for vice president. Uh but I I had uh a first-hand look at how not only national policy but global policy is made in our profession because much of that comes from the IACP. Uh when a police chief in New Jersey, New York, California, Texas, Florida, wherever, uh is looking for a new policy on something, they don't need to reinvent the wheel. They go to IECP and they say, What's your what's your model policy on this? And can I take that and then make some changes specific to my agency and adopt it? That's one of the things that IECP does. It provides our members with model policies. It also provides our members with resolutions, which essentially are uh statements from the IECP saying this is our stance on this certain topic. And so I I became incredibly involved uh in that manner through the roadway safety committee. And then the more uh time I spent and saw how incredible this organization was, I just wanted to find another way to get involved. And when it came to running for office, I will uh if you want me to tell that short story, I I will blame um Chief Russ Lane, God rest his soul, because he was my mentor and he was the one that talked me into it.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Well, yeah, good segue. I was gonna ask you about Russ Lane, because Russ Lane also uh was a uh police chief in the in Illinois and a past president of IACP, and you just received the Russ Lane Lifetime Achievement Award this past uh April from the Illinois Chiefs Association. What did that award mean to you uh because Russ Lane, the the award is named after Russ Lane, who was obviously uh a mentor of yours as well.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

It uh it meant a really lot to me. Um Russ Lane and I were friends for quite a number of years, and he broke the mold when it came to being a police chief. Um, you know, we say that across the country the typical lifespan of a police chief is three to five years. And, you know, a new mayor comes in or a new city manager comes in and says, You're out, I'm bringing my new chief in that I know from somewhere else. Russ Lane was the chief of police in Algonquin, Illinois for 30 years. That's unheard of. I don't know of another police, and I know a lot of chiefs, I don't know of another police chief that was chief in one community for 30 years. It's incredible. And uh as you said, he was a past president of both the Illinois and the International Chiefs of Police, and I would rely on him a number of times as I was coming up through my career and ask for advice. And uh one day he just called me up out of the blue and said, We need to have breakfast. And so I met him for breakfast, and he said, and I quote, I have the rest of your career planned out for you. And I laughed and said, Do you now? So what's that look like? And he said, uh, and I was in, I was the deputy chief in Hoffman Estates at the time, and he said, uh, you need to find a police chief's job outside of Hoffman Estates. And he said, once you do, you need to run for vice president of the Illinois Chiefs. And I said, Oh, really? Okay. Um, thought about for a while, and I said, I'm, you know, I might be able to do that. Depends on obviously where I find the police chief's job and if my mayor or city manager supports that kind of thing. And he said, Well, I'm not done. And he said, and then once you do that, he said, I want you to run for vice president of the international chiefs of police. And I laughed. And uh had I not known that Russ Lane didn't drink a drop of alcohol in his life, I would have told him he was drunk at breakfast. But he's I said, You're kidding me. And again, this is a guy who I'd known for years, and you know, he flat out told me. He said, I believe in you. He said, I believe you're the type of future leader we need in this organization. He said, I'll help guide you through the process. He said, but it's important that you do this. And so I did. I listened to Russ and you know, fast forward, I was elected president of the Illinois Chiefs, and then when I was serving as third vice president of the Illinois Chiefs, I got elected as fourth vice president of the IECP. So I was chief and vice president and vice president all at once.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

Well, similar thing to me. You've you've uh been very good to me and uh encouraged me to do a lot of things. I'm currently the second vice president for the Illinois Chiefs, and uh you talked me into running for IECP. We fell a little bit short last year, but uh was a great experience. What people probably don't know about IECP is it's a big commitment. When you run for vice president of IECP, it's a seven-year commitment. You're gonna spend a year campaigning, which I did in 2025, flew all across the country to various states. So there's a year there, and then you run you sit through the four vice president chairs, uh, then you're the president for a year, and then past president for a year. So it is a big commitment, and uh and there's a lot of work to it, and including globally. You traveled uh across the United States as uh president and of course vice president of IECP as well, but also internationally. You did some uh some trips for IECP internationally, correct?

SPEAKER_01 36:55

I I did. I did a number of international trips uh to some places that I actually had to look on the map to find out where they were. Um because I wasn't sure where North Macedonia was when they asked me to go there. Had to look that up. Um I had an idea where Laos was, but wasn't exactly sure. I knew it was over near Cambodia and Thailand and that area. Um but yeah, I've been to anywhere from Panama City to uh the Caribbean Police Commissioners meetings to uh Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France, uh, and many areas in between. Some some really, really interesting trips on behalf of global policing.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Well, in 2019, when you were sworn in as the president of IECP, you you gave a speech uh that evening and laid out three priorities uh before, of course, 2020 ended up uh uh kind of changing the world. And of course, uh you you uh had to lead through that as well. But you laid out three priorities in that speech of global roadway safety, active threat response, and officer suicide prevention. Why did you choose those three as your presidential priorities?

SPEAKER_01 38:22

So the um the one on global road safety uh uh is probably obvious. Um, I mentioned at that time that uh, and again, sometimes sometimes police chiefs in this country forget that IACP has an I in it, meaning the International Association of Chiefs of Police. So again, we have membership in 175 countries, and so really some of the the topics we should be talking about are not just what's happening in the US, but what's happening globally in law enforcement. And so I touched on that one. My first one is uh global road safety. And and here's an example of a reason. So uh in this country alone, we lose, give or take, 40,000 people a year in fatal traffic crashes. I mean, this is staggering. And so this is what I look back at my speech now, and uh I roll my eyes because who would have known what was about to happen with COVID? But this is what I said in my speech in October of 2019. I said, we lose over 40,000 people in fatal crashes every year, which is staggering. Imagine if there were a virus that claimed 40,000 lives a year, the nation would stand in horror until the issue was resolved. And by March of the next year, we had COVID and we were shutting down the country. But uh that fact remains 40,000. However, let's think about it in a different way. Those numbers are unacceptable. Uh, and as a profession in this country, I think we've really done a great job in addressing the issues of traffic crashes, as I talked before, changing driver behavior and those kind of things, and reducing traffic crashes. We've done an excellent job through education, through enforcement, through roadway engineering, different ways to reduce traffic crashes. We're building safer cars, things like that. But there are other countries out there that haven't attacked the issue like we have. I worked with the IECP on a roadway safety project in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Now I'll give you a perspective. I just said we had 40,000 uh fatal traffic crashes a year. In 2009, Brazil was listed as number eight in roadway deaths by country by the World Health Organization. They had 42,000 traffic deaths, but they have a population of a hundred million less than the United States. That's incredible numbers. And so that's just one example. So I had traveled to Sao Paulo uh three times during my upcoming presidency and presidency uh to assess a project that we were working on, and this was funded at that time by the Bloomberg Philanthropies, they funded nearly three-quarter million dollars, and they focused on speeding. And interestingly, what's contributing to a lot of the fatality crashes in Sao Apollo, uh reckless operation of motorcycles and impaired driving. And with the technical assistance and a lot of operational recommendations that we made through this IECP program, increased education enforcement for motorcycle violations, we expanded the use of preliminary breath testing equipment, which we take it for granted here. Every police department has a PBT. Um, they didn't have it. So part of that grant provided them with that equipment and the training and the education. Those efforts yielded an 84% increase in the efficiency of screening and detection of the paired impaired drivers, and the big takeaway, a reduction of 1,100 traffic fatalities from those efforts. So that's an example of not only why global road safety is important, but how the IACP can take a leadership role in reducing those fatalities in other countries. So based on the success of that program in Sao Paulo, um we were, we, the IECP, were awarded another $16 million over a five-year period, which allowed the IECP to partner with uh 14 additional cities in seven other countries to kind of replicate what we did in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

Well, sticking with uh highway safety, you're you're even still doing that in retirement. Uh I know that you've been doing a lot of work with uh coalition against bigger trucks. And uh for people that don't know what that is, um, can you can you explain the concern about uh where truck the trucking industry is trying to head with uh heavier bigger trucks and why that that is a uh concern and for roadway safety?

SPEAKER_01 43:52

Yeah, absolutely. So I I've been working with CABT Coalition against Bigger Trucks for a number of years. I'm on their board. Of directors, right now. And it's an interesting name because people kind of chuckle at a coalition against bigger truck. It's not the coalition against trucks, it's a coalition against bigger trucks. Actually, some of our biggest partners are in the trucking industry. Uh, our biggest partner is OIDA, which is the owner-operator independent drivers association. Uh, we also partner with the rail industry, which I believe is a much safer way to transport goods than on roadways. Um, but this is what CABT does it's a not-for-profit 501c3, and we travel to Washington DC, we meet with members of Congress, and we talk to them on why certain transportation bills are a bad idea. And every year for the past 20 plus years, there has been a bill proposed in Congress, typically through uh TI, the Transportation Infrastructure Committee, that looks to increase truck size and weight across this country. And so the current bill that's going to be coming up again this year, and it's come up again the last five years, is the larger portion of the trucking industry, we call it the Shippers Coalition, uh, they want to increase truck weight from the current federal maximum of 80,000 pounds to 91,000 pounds. And so I talked to members of Congress on why that's a bad idea for a number of reasons. Certainly for traffic safety reasons. Um, number one, more weight means it's harder to stop the vehicle, it takes more distance to stop. And by the way, most drivers that you talk to, over-the-road truck drivers, they don't want the extra weight. They know how dangerous it is. Uh, but you know, like anything else that occurs in Washington, D.C., you have two sides, and some sides throw a lot of money at the topic, and then other sides like us that don't have a lot of money, we just have voices, we come in and try to speak common sense. And so I spoke with a member of Congress earlier this year, and he said, Well, I don't understand your problem with this, because the Shippers Coalition says this will only affect federal highways. It's not going to be on your state roadways, it's not going to be on your county roads, it's not going to be on your local roads. This is only on federal highways. So, why do you care about the extra weight on federal highways? Because I think if we can put more weight on each truck, there'll be fewer trucks on the road, and won't that be a great idea? So I said, well, here's my two-part answer to that. I've been in the job long enough to remember uh back in the 70s and the 80s when the maximum weight in this country was 73,280. And at the time, the push was, and it was successful, to increase from 73,280 to 80,000 pounds. And the argument then was the same as it is now. There'll be fewer trucks on the road, and won't that be great? I said the truth is if you talk with any representative from Federal Motor Carrier Safety uh organization within USDOT, they will tell you the number of million miles traveled by heavy trucks has increased on our hideways every single year since the day that we increased to 80,000 pounds. So the fewer trucks on the road is not a valid argument. Secondly, the argument of, well, 91,000 pounds only occurs on federal highways. I asked the legislator, when's the last time you saw a truck load or unload on the shoulder of a federal highway? It doesn't happen. They have to exit the federal highway, and they will get on state roadways, county roadways, sometimes local roads for purposes of food, fuel, rest, repair, loading, and run unloading. That's just the truth of the matter. And there's never been a transportation bill asking to increase truck size and weights that also says, by the way, here's $600 billion that we know you're going to need for infrastructure repair because these heavier trucks are going to damage roads and bridges. And so our organization did a study on every state on how many bridges, local county, state bridges, would be unable to accommodate 91,000 pounds. And the numbers were staggering. And Illinois alone, I believe the bill would be $600 million to repair or replace the number of bridges that could not accommodate that weight. So that's a very long explanation of your short question on why is this important.

SPEAKER_00 49:16

Yeah, and even Illinois eliminated, they they had kept the 73280 standard up until 2010. I used to work uh when I was on the road back years ago, I would do a lot of overweight sometimes. We used to get them all the time in East Moline. They would be coming off of the interstate, and um, they'd be cut through town, and a lot of them were cutting through town because they were even over the 80,000 pounds that were trying to avoid the scale, the interstate scales. And uh and you know, they they were either you know 80,000 pounds or they were maybe 82, or they picked up a gypsy load or something, they were 83, 85, 80,000 pounds. How how is uh electric semis or electric vehicles playing a part of that? Is that part of the argument as well that they want to uh displace the weight of electric semi-batteries because they can't carry the same then cargo load?

SPEAKER_01 50:09

Absolutely correct. That's all part of a larger bill, and they've been trying to split it up in smaller bills. So there's one smaller bill that's trying to increase the weight of car carriers by 8,000 pounds so they can add one more vehicle to the car carrier. Uh, there are a number of bills that are trying to increase the weight of log trucks, which by the way, already have a number of exemptions in the states where those are a big thing. Um, they are some of the most dangerous combination vehicles on the road today is the log trucks, and they want to increase those as well. But one of the latest arguments last year, as part of this transportation bill, uh, was the conversation of well, we're trying to be more efficient, so battery-powered over-the-road trucks, the number of batteries it's gonna take to accommodate so they can travel a decent distance without having to recharge every hundred miles, they're gonna weigh about nine to ten thousand pounds. And so there was a bill that said the weight of batteries should be exempted from the total weight of the truck, which made me literally laugh out loud because I said when that truck crosses a bridge, the bridge doesn't care if that total weight consists of batteries or gravel or magazines or steel, it's still the total weight that's the issue. You can't just exempt the weight of the battery and pretend that the weight goes away.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Yeah, so if you're an elected official or even a citizen in Moline and you're listening to the podcast, you're you're thinking this is a local issue. This is important work that you're doing on behalf of local municipalities because of the damage or the risk, at least, uh, of what they will, the heavier trucks will do to the infrastructure. And the cities are bearing the cost of infrastructure repair. You drive around Moline right now, there's more construction, I think, than we've ever had. The the city council has done a really good job of trying to focus on roadway repair, but that can be undone by a 91,000 pound and uh semi-in-a-hurry, right?

SPEAKER_01 52:24

Well, absolutely. And like you, I worked overweight truck enforcement in my earlier years as a traffic officer. And you know, first of all, there's a 2,000-pound tolerance on either gross or axle for any truck that you investigate for overweight. So if the maximum weight is 80,000 pounds and the truck weighs 82,000 pounds, you got to let them go. You give them that tolerance. And many of those trucks take advantage of that. So now, if you're talking 91,000, you're really talking 93,000 pounds. And so it it just, like I say, it's gonna get worse and worse, and all you're going to see in your local communities is damaged roads and bridges.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

Now, and uh you you had mentioned being the president during COVID in that uh 2020 year, in May of 2020, uh, we also had the George Floyd uh murder in uh Minneapolis. Uh you publicly described that as tragically tragic and disturbing. Uh and then in Senate testimony shortly after that, you argued for a national consensus policy on the use of force, mandatory data participation, and stronger discipline standards while also arguing that defunding the police was not a real solution. Looking back on that time period about six years ago now, what do you think came out of this period in American policing history?

SPEAKER_01 53:55

Uh I think a lot of good things came out of that. I mean, you know, there were pro there were a lot of bad things. There were a lot of protests, and you know, we've all seen the difference between a protest and a riot. Um, I I am all for the right for people to protest, and I have no problem with that. Um, but to riot and to destroy property, um, that's not protesting. That's a crime. Uh, and unfortunately, we saw too much of that. Um, but some of the conversations that came out of that I thought were good. Um because I talked uh to several reporters at one time about different variations of an early warning system for police departments for their officers. And I said at that time that I believed that there has been two or three incidents in the last couple of years on police use of force that if those agencies had some type of early warning system, that maybe though those incidents wouldn't have happened. Maybe the supervisors paying closer attention to the officers that work for them would have seen some red flags and would have pulled those officers aside and say, hang on a second. Uh, over the last year you have been part of X number of critical incidents, and nobody's sat you down and talked about it. Nobody's made sure that you've spoken to a police psychologist or psychiatrist. Nobody has had you uh talk to um any anybody through an early warning system, and in many cases, early warning systems just didn't exist. And so I think that was a good part of the conversation. The other part of the conversation was the argument over really how many use of force incidents are occurring, nobody really knew the number. Um, and at that time there was a database that was coordinated by the FBI, but it was voluntary for law enforcement agencies to contribute the data to that database. I thought, well, that makes no sense at all. Why have a database when it's voluntary to contribute? And if you only have eight to ten percent of police departments in this country contributing, any data that you get out of there is completely worthless. It's too small of a sample size. And so uh part of the thing I argued for was uh mandatory reporting of police use of force and having a mandatory early warning system in your agency, and having things like critical incident stress debriefing when an officer is involved in a critical incident, because uh officers are human beings like everybody else, and we tend to bottle things inside, and we uh are expected to go from a horrible suicide call to a barking dog call and act the same in both incidents, and that's just not realistic. And I have told the story many times to reporters that I was speaking with a woman one day, and she was telling me the story about how she was driving into town to go grocery shopping, and she saw something in the ditch, and she said she thought it was a mannequin, which by the way, it's never a mannequin. And she said she backed up and realized it was a body in the ditch. Clearly, it was a pedestrian who was a victim of a hit and run. Somebody drove by, hit, struck, and killed this pedestrian. And he was he was really messed up. And she was describing this to me, and as she's describing this incident, her hands are shaking and her voice is kind of choking. And I'm thinking, good lord, did this just happen like last week or yesterday? And I said, Well, when did this happen? And she said, Oh, that had to be like 20 years ago. And I said, What? 20 years ago, this is the only dead body she's ever seen in her life, and she still chokes up about it now. Think about how many traumatic incidents like that that a police officer sees in their career suicides, homicides, um people who are are murdering their spouses and their children, officers responding to traffic crashes where three or four teenagers are killed by a drunk driver, all these incidents. And if we as police chiefs don't pay attention to that, that our police officers are seeing this kind of thing every day, we're missing a boat. And we're doing our officers a disservice by not tracking that kind of information and make sure that they're getting the attention in some cases they need, which of course kind of segues into why I've also adopted police officer suicide as one of my priorities.

SPEAKER_00 59:24

Well, let's talk about that. You you uh um had that as one of your priorities. What do you think chiefs have got historically gotten wrong about officer wellness?

SPEAKER_01 59:35

Um so I I've I've never I've never mentioned the agency or name, and I never will, but I but I will say this. And this is an example of how chiefs get it wrong. Um, this is a number of years ago, and there was a law enforcement agency in Illinois who had lost three officers to suicide in 18 months, same agency. And uh the police chief was interviewed by one of the newspapers and asked the question obviously, what does he attribute this to? And one of the statements the chief made is he said he felt those officers were weak. And I was absolutely outraged at that response, both personally and professionally, outraged. And I can only imagine how the families of those three officers felt when they read that their officer's chief thought that they were weak, and so it goes back to we're not paying attention, we we're doing a lot better job now, but we're not paying attention. And when I talk about it in my speech, and I think the numbers kind of shocked people, and again, this is nothing new to the U.S. or or solely to the U.S., it's a it's a global issue. So we all go, many of us go to National Police Week in Washington, D.C. every year, and I went for 25 years, and I'm always bothered by the number of names added to that granite wall every year, police officers who are lost in the line of duty. And you know, every one of those officers left behind a family and an agency in mourning, the deaths are tragic, they're heartbreaking. Um, but I noticed a disturbing trend that nobody talked about. So in 2019, when I was incoming president, we had lost at that time, year to date, 128 officers killed in the line of duty, but we lost 228 to suicide. Those numbers shocked me. And we pay so much attention, and rightfully so, to those officers who are killed in the line of duty. But why aren't we paying the equal amount of attention to those officers that we've lost by suicide? And one of the biggest reasons is the the stigma behind it, because so many uh police chiefs feel, well, that was a conscious choice on their part, as opposed to somebody who was shot and killed in the line of duty or killed in a car crash. Um but I I read a report that same year. Uh nearly 70 police officers in France died by suicide in the first 18 months of 2019. Suicide rate for police officers, by the way, in France is 36% higher than the general population. In Italy, 37 officers died by suicide in the first 18 months. In the UK, the Labor Party called for a review in the police welfare reporting that 336 officers died by suicide in the last 18 years, last three in of the last four years being the highest on record. And so I I literally said, you know, we live in a world where if you break your arm, everybody runs to you to sign your cast. And if you're suffering from depression, people run the other way. And I can guarantee you, because the the brain is an organ just like every other organ, if you have a heart attack, nobody runs away from you. If you have lung cancer, nobody runs away from you, they sympathize. But if your brain gets sick, nobody wants to talk to you. It's a stigma that we have to get rid of. And we have to send the message to our officers that it's okay to not be okay, because it's not your fault, and there are ways of helping you, and we're doing a disservice if we don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:03

Well, Steve, you've had an amazing career. You've done a lot over your uh what did you say, 46 years in law enforcement, 50 years of public service. You're retired now, but uh as we talked about, you're uh seem like you're busier now than you were before. I know you're doing uh coalition against bigger trucks. Uh you I uh see you a lot traveling. I think before the we started the podcast, you say your uh your airline miles say 2.6 million miles flown. Where are you off to next? What what are you what are your other adventures in retirement?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:40

Uh so Monday I leave for New Jersey. Um I also sit on the board of directors of LEED, which is law enforcement against drugs and violence. I've sat on their board for a while, and it's another uh organization that I believe strongly in. Um most people ask what LEED is, and my simple explanation is think of it as the new DARE. Uh we've had drug abuse resistance education or DARE training in our school for decades. Um, and LEAD is, I think, the first organization, it's been around for 10, 15 years, uh, that's really shining a new light and a new way to educate uh both grade school and high school on the dangers of drugs and violence and bullying and things like that. So I'm going to their annual conference. Um I also work with uh consulting with a company called Extra Duty Solutions, which I think is a great company that helps police departments manage their outside officer overtime. Uh I obviously uh missed a meeting and got talked into serving another year as parliamentarian for the Illinois Chiefs.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:04

I might have been messing with uh yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:08

And uh and uh lastly, I'm doing some uh consulting work for a uh cybersecurity company out of Budapest, Hungary.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:17

Well, I uh I really appreciate your friendship, Steve, and we probably could talk uh at at length about a lot of your endeavors. Uh I really always enjoy uh a bourbon and a cigar with you wherever we're at, and you have uh so much knowledge, so many stories, so many people that you know, so many things you've done. I hope our audience has enjoyed it. I really appreciate you coming on the podcast today.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:40

I appreciate the invite. Appreciate it, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

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