First Response with PepperBall CEO Bob Plaschke
"First Response," is an interview series hosted by PepperBall CEO Bob Plaschke. This series aims to shine a spotlight on the thought leaders within the public safety industry and provide a platform for these individuals to share their experiences, insights, and the valuable lessons they've learned through their careers in law enforcement.
First Response with PepperBall CEO Bob Plaschke
First Response with Bob Plaschke Episode 17 - Chief Ken Wallentine: You Matter Like I Matter: Rebuilding Trust in Law Enforcement
What does it mean to carry five generations of law enforcement legacy? Ken Wallentine, the Chief of the West Jordan (Utah) Police Department, takes us on a remarkable journey through 150 years of family policing history—from his great-great-great-grandfather who served as a Deputy US Marshal during the Civil War to his daughter who texted "Dad, I'm okay" after a tense armed standoff just yesterday.
Behind the badge lies a profound philosophy that guides Chief Wallentine's department: "You matter, like I matter." This simple yet powerful approach recognizes the humanity in both officers and community members. As policing has evolved from six-shot revolvers and minimal training to AI-powered body cameras and comprehensive mental health support, the fundamental mission of connecting with people remains unchanged.
Chief Wallentine offers candid insights into how modern officers navigate expanded responsibilities as frontline mental health responders while carrying public expectations that often seem superhuman. He reflects on his own emotional journey through critical incidents without support, contrasting it with today's robust resources for officer wellbeing. The conversation explores how technology has transformed policing—from body cameras that translate dozens of languages in real-time to training that teaches officers to "speak to the camera" when creating permanent records of their interactions.
The most compelling revelations come when discussing de-escalation—not as a tactic but as a goal dependent on creating conditions that help subjects modify their own behavior. This perspective challenges conventional thinking about use of force, suggesting that tools like PepperBall can actually facilitate de-escalation by providing alternatives to deadly force.
Subscribe to hear more authentic conversations with the real heroes behind the badge—the voices that are "a lot louder and, frankly, a lot more interesting" than the headlines might suggest.
The front line of policing is loud, but the voices behind it, you know they're a lot louder and, I think, frankly, a lot more interesting. Hi, I'm Bob Plaschke and this is First Response. This is the number one podcast that takes you behind the badge and uncovers real stories and experiences of first responders from all walks of life and the topics that shape public safety today. If you're curious about the guy or the gal behind the hero and they are indeed truly heroes and the topics that they care about, take a listen. This is kind of your front row seat to hearing some of the really interesting voices out there and, more importantly, the heroes.
Bob Plaschke:This podcast is sponsored by PepperBall, where I have the honor to serve as CEO. PepperBall creates unlethal alternatives to guns, at least used to keep themselves and the public safe. Just excited as heck to have Chief Walentine join me. Chief Walentine is 40 plus years in public service and serving the community. He is currently the chief of police of the West Jordan Police Department. It's been there since 2018. Most interesting to me or at least most surprising when we kind of chatting before we started here, when we were kind of chatting before we started here is that he comes from a family of 150 plus years of policing. I don't think I've met a family that is Blue Bloods chief in every respect. Welcome to the podcast. Tell me and tell our listeners, how does one have 150 years of policing experience, so to speak?
Ken Wallentine:Well, thanks for that introduction, Bob, and my kids would tell you we have blue blood, tan blood, green blood, because we've had Deputy Sheriff's, Deputy United States Marshals, one federal agent, my son a federal agent serving overseas.
Ken Wallentine:But it all started with my great-great-great-grandfather during the Civil War or the War of Northern Aggression For all of your listeners down in the South and he had occasion to tip back a few drinks with Ulysses S Grant and, after the war, became appointed as a Deputy United States Marshal in Dodge City, Kansas, ultimately came west and became a Deputy US marshal here in the territory now the states of Idaho and Utah, and that just that started us on a roll. We skipped a generation, but as a kid I lived with my grandfather, who was the town marshal where we lived and would drove a pickup truck, and often his gun was locked up in a cabinet and he had a 12-inch thick stick that pretty much ruled the roost in that little town.
Bob Plaschke:Well, you know what, appreciate that, appreciate the history of service and to see that your children are following your way, that's always a good sign. That tells me at least, that you've served a good career and have been a good role model. You know it's interesting Policing, ivo, and I still believe it is a profession, it's a calling and you see it passed down from generation to generation. Do you still see that from your perspective? I've heard a number of chiefs say that you know, that's a bit of that luster is kind of worn off and it's not as much of a calling, it's more of a job these days. But you know, what do you see when you're out there?
Ken Wallentine:I do think some of the luster has worn off, but I also think that it's incumbent on us who are police executives, sheriffs and directors and chiefs of police to keep that luster well shined. Shine it up to be in our departments. We have a five-word saying in my department that really is the premise of how we treat each other and how we treat the public, and it's you matter, like I matter, and we look out for the humanity among ourselves and in our community. And I think by recruiting officers who have that concept that they're there to serve Because for me it really is a service career and when you find the officer who is there because she wants to get out there, serve the community and really help people solve problems, that's what restores the luster, that's what restores the pride and nobility that I felt when I joined the police department many years ago and I think that's incumbent on all of us. I think we can do it, but sure, bob, I will admit that we've lost something, but I feel like many out there are trying to regain it.
Bob Plaschke:I would agree, and you I think you know it's these. These things are a bit of a pendulum. They kind of swing back and forth to some degree and I think I feel like over the last couple of years the policing as a police, as a, as an industry or as a as a vocation has started to pick up a bit of momentum. Started to pick up a bit of momentum and you know what Kudos to a lot of police chiefs that have had to deal with a pretty tough decade of public reaction. But I do think it is swinging back and I think people appreciate what a police agency and a police staff and a police officers do on a day-to-day basis. In that context, how have you seen policing change? I mean, you've seen it over the last 30 years. You've seen it, probably good times and bad times of you. If you had to describe the last, you know the last decade or so, how have you seen from your peers, what big changes have you seen in that time frame?
Ken Wallentine:Well, I think we've all got to talk about technology. You know, when I started, we carried revolvers and some still do. My daughter, that's a deputy sheriff, has inherited my first six-shot Smith Wesson revolver and she's also inherited to pass down to my grandson who's headed into law enforcement at some point my 26-inch second-growth hickory stick that I use as a baton. We certainly didn't have electronic control devices. I remember the training session where we were introduced to those and learned some of the limitations and some of the abilities of those tools. And now my officers. We live in a community where at least a quarter of the people in our community at the dinner table they speak a different language other than English. Their first language is something other than English and we have dozens of languages. My city is home to Utah's largest mosque and we see folks from Pakistan, from all of the Middle Eastern countries as well as sub-Saharan African countries. And the amazing thing is my officers can go up, push a button on their body-worn camera and translate right there with their body-worn camera. That kind of technology certainly did not exist. We used to get on the phone and call around and see if we could find a French speaker. We had some Spanish speakers. So that has certainly changed. The level of training has, I think, improved and there's still a great area for us to improve there.
Ken Wallentine:When I started you didn't have to go to the police academy, and I didn't. I had four days of training and at the end of four days, the fifth day, we went and bought uniforms, got a badge, went to the city clerk, got sworn in, and the next workday I showed up and I rode around to someone for two weeks and then I was a full-fledged police officer with a 1976 Pontiac LeMans. That still is the fastest police car I was ever in. But I think one of the most significant changes in law enforcement is that our job descriptions have changed.
Ken Wallentine:Sure, we are there to serve and protect, we are there to mitigate the threats in the community, but we're also expected today to be mental health caseworkers, to be the front line in a society that has oh, I don't know how to describe it. I still say that it's a crisis in the world of the mentally ill and the profoundly emotionally disturbed in our community, and when I started that it just wasn't really much of an issue. And I think the final change that I've seen is the expectation that we have from the community about our police officers. You know, post-covid, post-george Floyd, post many of the influences that we saw in the last 10 years. People expect officers to be almost superhuman in their performance Unrealistically so, but we still try and meet that expectation.
Bob Plaschke:Yeah, and that's a great kind of overview of what has, I think, of what has, I think, emerged over the last 10 to 20 years.
Bob Plaschke:And you know, if I'm kind of repeating it back, you know the safety nets that used to be there for whether it be the families themselves or churches or communities, and then the government entities that would manage folks who are in distress, to your point, those safety nets have by and far disappeared and they've been thrust onto the police, and police primarily.
Bob Plaschke:I mean obviously EMS folks and the fire departments have to deal with it, but they're always the ones called in. The police are the first on the scene to have to engage, and I think it's forced agencies, you know, in a reactive context, to have to try to change their training and change their preparation and, to your point, start to apply tools, to bring in technology, to try to help. In that sense, when you and I and I let me ask this question when an officer joins now, do you think they really they have a full sense of the, of the, of that expectation of that job description, or do they still think of it as protecting, you know, in that context, protecting from, you know, from bad guys, or do they really begin to understand how much wider the scope is?
Ken Wallentine:I think that most officers, when they join, they do not understand the breadth of the responsibility and expectations that will be placed on them and don't understand how heavy that mantle is to carry day after day. And it's our responsibility in the profession. Whether you're a sergeant and, by the way, I think that the sergeants, patrol sergeants in my world are the real heroes of policing. They really run the world. You know, you can have a culture, either by default or a culture by design. And and your patrol sergeants, those are the folks who who enforce the culture that you're trying to create.
Ken Wallentine:But, um, I think, officers come in and they, they learn bit by bit and some people fairly quickly figure out this isn't for me and others. Others embrace that role and say, yeah, I can do this, I can be a true servant leader if you will, in uniform and wear the badge, that's. You know. We talk about the origin of the badge, going back to the. You know the Knights and being the Knight's shield, and many of our officers, I think they do develop that mindset. I will tell you this, bob when I see that in one of my cops, when I see that in one of my officers, my heart just jumps. I love going down the hallway in the floor of our building that houses our patrol unit and our training folks and just seeing officers who I know are out there to serve and to protect and not just, in this context of catching bad guys and, you know, having shootouts and driving fast.
Bob Plaschke:And I think that's where I think the tide is turning with the public, because I think I think there's an acknowledgement and a recognition. You know, this is the maybe the benefit of body cams is that now you know I, my sons tell me about watching body cams on Tik TOK, you know that um um, which you know I find amazing, um and the um um, and that they are um, they're empath, increasingly empathetic to what situations officers have to deal with, and I think the nature of what that officer looks like and what they are and the kind of expectations is changing. Hopefully maybe I'm an optimist hopefully in an increasingly positive way, where people acknowledge that that role is different and the type of and that the empathy they have to have for that officer needs to be different. Right, this is no longer the cop on the sidewalk on a beat. This is someone completely different.
Ken Wallentine:In that context, I think that's true and, at the same time, we need to make sure that we're providing our officers with the tools that they need to support their own sense of who they are, their own sense of nobility as police officers, and the safety nets, if you will, for them to address the challenges that they had. You know, I think back to a critical incident, gosh, nearly 40 years ago, when, when, afterwards, I had no clue what to do and so I went and banged on some uh, some neighbor's house and called the only attorney I knew to meet me at the police station. And when I got to the police station, you know, they took me to the police station and put me in a room. And, uh, only after about 45 minutes, when I really had to go to the bathroom, did I find that I was locked in one of our interview and interrogation rooms. And, uh, I still can't think about that incident without becoming very, very emotional. And at the end of the day, when I came back to work out for a few days, I remember sitting in the locker room, on the floor you know, rows of lockers in this big, big locker room and on the floor just crying because I didn't know how to process what I'd done and and we oh my gosh, we have done so much better in providing our officers tools to deal with their own uh challenges. Here in utah we have a wonderful program called safe ut, where officers can put an app on their phone and 24-7, 365, they can engage in a voice call or a confidential web chat with a licensed clinical social worker that has been trained and experienced in dealing with first responders, police officers, paramedics, firefighters and so forth. We provide mental health resources within our organization. In our agency, we have yoga programs. Officers can use their phone to do some relaxation techniques, some stress relief techniques.
Ken Wallentine:One other major advance that we've seen in public safety is we're teaching our officers about the duty to intercede or the duty to intervene when we see another officer about to make a consequential mistake, whether it's a use of force or a Fourth Amendment intrusion, a potentially wrongful search. We're teaching officers you are, in fact, your brother's keeper. We're teaching officers you are, in fact, your brother's keeper and it is your responsibility and part of your oath to step in and help other officers from making mistakes. And that's great to say. And I hear a lot of people say yeah, you have a duty to intervene, but we've got to teach officers how to do that, and so we've. We've seen some great programs, starting in new orleans. The ethical policing is courageous. The epic program which gave birth to the nationally circulated, now ABLE program Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement that's a program our agency uses with great success. So we're focusing on giving the officers the emotional and mental tools to not just survive a career as a cop but to really thrive, to be a whole person.
Bob Plaschke:So at the end of the day they go home and they are the greatest father, mother, husband, wife, parent and a member of the community that's proud to be a police officer community, the community that's proud to be a police officer, you know, and that's that is absolutely the the the right goal, and I always try to tell my people that I come in contact with, because the majority of folks that I know personally in fact, I can't think of anyone I know personally that's involved in in law enforcement. And I say, you know, we, we always have to remember that the person that's walking up to you, you know, have you been pulled over? They are a father, mother, brother, sister, parent. You know their, their kids are in schools with your kids. It's.
Bob Plaschke:You know there's a, there's a. They are, they're just like us and they're under a tremendous amount of stress and a tremendous amount of you know they have leeway, you know, not in a, in a way that would be, you know, inappropriate, but you, you, you just have to appreciate what they're going through. Um, and it's, it's not easy. I, you, you, you, were telling me before we, we started this podcast, that your, um, your daughter, who's a deputy Marshall, um, you said yesterday, on Sunday, what did she text you? Which I thought was a great example of what police officers deal with. What happened again on Sunday?
Ken Wallentine:Well, first off, I'm grateful she didn't text my wife. She sent me a text early in the morning saying she sent me a text early in the morning that just said Dad, I'm okay, talk later. And I had received a text like that from her many many years ago, right after a gunfight and yeah, that was.
Ken Wallentine:I tell you what. You can be involved in a deadly force incident and walk away with some emotion. But you know, when one of your kids, your own daughter's involved in a gunfight, that's a whole different bottle of wax and she and some other deputies yesterday folks she works with at the sheriff's office they had responded on a burglary alarm at a gun club and you know, when you find a gun club you often find guns and ammunition. The suspect was able to get away before they had a perimeter and they were able to track him down, found the trail and he had holed up in a car in a campground. Now it's summer here in Utah, just like it is everywhere else, and people were in that campground. This was a very precarious situation and he was armed with a long-range rifle. Obviously we know as cops that our vests are not designed to protect against rifle rounds, the calibers that we see in hunting, like a .300 Winchester Magnum or a .270. So they had to deal with them at a standoff distance and every one of those deputies I know my daughter was, because we spoke later, but every one of those deputies was mindful of the fact that just last week here in Utahah we lost two very fine police officers uh to a domestic violence perpetrator who ambushed the officers with with long-range hunting rifle. Uh, fortunately yesterday the uh negotiations worked. After about an hour this, this guy surrendered, um, but that's the sort of thing you know. We still police humans
Ken Wallentine:with humans. Sometimes people forget, as you said, everybody who walks up to the car, everybody who investigates the, the burglar or the armed robbery. They are someone's son, daughter, maybe husband, wife and and parent. I think of this. Uh, over the weekend the police officers who were killed were killed in a very small town in rural Utah I think the town has maybe 2,000 residents at most. It was a 16-officer police department and there were a couple of high school kids did not know these officers and they had high school football kids and they went out and set up a lemonade stand and were able to collect about a thousand, a little over a thousand dollars at a
Ken Wallentine:lemonade stand. The county fair was this last weekend. They didn't cancel it, but there was a third deputy who was shot and his police service dog was shot and fortunately he was able to be there in the rodeo arena. But to see the response of a small town, everybody in that town turning out grateful for their police officers, and I just think how many of you thought to thank a cop before two officers died and left, in each case, families and in in one of them this morning in the newspaper there's a picture of this, this officer with his, his little league team that he coached. The impact is just tremendous. So every time you deal with a police officer, pause and think, pause and think. What is this officer? What is, what does he or she bring to the table today?
Bob Plaschke:Amen to that.
Bob Plaschke:I mean, I think that's you know, I think the policing has done, you know, I think, to its credit, it's done a great job of being infinitely or significantly more empathetic to the situations they're encountering. I mean, the, the old police chiefs used to tell me it was um, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to tell you and I'm going to make you right, um, and you know the uh and that was you know, I guess maybe appropriate if someone's breaking the law. But in the situations that police deal with, now that you know that that isn't, you know, that isn't the, you can't do that and they don't do that. They, you know, that's a lot more about engaging, listening empathetically, trying to understand the situation the person's in, while keeping everyone safe. You know, you, you want the citizens to have the exact same empathy for the policeman walking up to the police officer walking up to the car, because you know to your point, you have no idea what they, just what they may have been through that morning or that night or that last week.
Bob Plaschke:What is, if it is, if the old is ask, tell, make. What is the new? What do you train your officers to do? Now, in that context. What's the analogy for that?
Ken Wallentine:I just bristle when I hear ask, don't make. If I had to simplify it, I would say ask, explain, persuade, direct and when you have to make, and very often by using effective communication techniques, by listening. And we have a great training program it's called Developing and Implementing an Outward Mindset, by teaching officers how to listen for the needs of the other individual and figure out how do I address this person's needs, how do I get them to do what I need them to do and how can I help facilitate that process by seeing what their needs are. You know, much less force is used, and you're absolutely right. I do remember an instructor 43 years ago telling me ask, tell, make. And boy, I did that for a long time and it didn't work so well.
Ken Wallentine:No it really didn't. And now we teach officers really to engage the viewing audience and so you get to choose what will be recorded for posterity in your actions. And remember this when you make people angry, when you tell people don't cooperate, they don't consent, they don't confess. So the worst thing you can do is make tell they don't confess.
Bob Plaschke:So the worst thing you can do is make tell Amen to that. No, I think it's right. It's not easy, though, and that's what my sons tell me. And I see the body worn from when people use our technology, use the pepper ball, and I see those probably three or four times a week and, and you know, you, just, you gotta, you, um, you gotta I don't know if the right word take a deep breath and really appreciate what these officers have to deal with, because these people, whether they're mentally challenged and having a bad day, you know they are um, they are not Um, it's. You know, this isn't like talking to your neighbor Um, it is, it is.
Bob Plaschke:It is a hard environment. There's a lot going on around you. There's a lot of noise, there's, you know, people videotaping you. It is. You know, to your point, you're a, you're an actor, but you it's. You're like being thrown into a play you didn't want to write, right, I mean, it's not what you, it's not a play that you wrote, and then you have to figure it out on the run. You have to figure it out in real time. How do you try to respond and how do you try to deal? You know, on that note. How many hours of training do police officers get per year? I mean, how does that break down? I mean, is it weeks of training? Is it days of training? I mean I don't think I've ever asked that question.
Ken Wallentine:Well, it really. It depends on a couple things First, the state statutory or administrative requirements and then the agency's commitment and resources. Many states have mandatory continuing education requirements ranging from 12 hours I've seen 12 hours in a few states up to 40 it's. It's 40 hours where we're at, and sometimes there are mandatory training subjects such as firearms qualification, de-escalation, those sorts of things, and that, to me, that's the bare minimum we say. Every day is a training day.
Ken Wallentine:For years I've been associated with a company called Lexipol that provides daily training bulletins. Officers get trained literally every day, six minutes at a time, and I don't know how many hours that works out to over the year. In our agency we have a few more resources. In our agency, we have a few more resources. We're able to do much more training than 40 hours a year and able to be pretty responsive to things that we see in the community. Where we've got a need to address, we can put together a training program. I'll give you an example. Recently we did training on how to produce a quality body-worn camera video helping officers speak to the camera so that they're creating a record for success, whether it's in prosecution of a criminal case or in defending a civil case because someone says they did something wrong, and you know we've seen a notable improvement. We were in a good place already. We've seen a notable improvement. We were in a good place already, but still seeing a notable improvement in how some of our officers are speaking to the camera, if you will.
Bob Plaschke:You know you mentioned de-escalation. We talked about that before. I you PepperBall, is a quote-unquote de-escalation tool, but I loved how you talked about de-escalation and, if you wouldn't mind, just going back over that topic as we discussed it.
Ken Wallentine:Well, and you know, PepperBall is something we have in our inventory of de-escalation tools and it's a fabulous option for standoff de-escalation tools. And it's a fabulous option for standoff de-escalation. One thing some people don't understand, bob, is that a use of force can actually be de-escalation. If we can cause someone to modify their behavior with a chemical irritant, with a pepper ball in place of shooting and killing them, I'll take that any day. That's a success. But many people think that de-escalation is a tactic. It's not a tactic. It's a goal that officers try very hard to achieve through communication, through other soft skills. It's not a single magic technique.
Ken Wallentine:De-escalation is an end state. It's a goal that's dependent on factors that largely involve the subject's behavior. De-escalation isn't something that a cop does to a subject. You know. Really de-escalation is when an officer recognizes and creates conditions that facilitate the suspect in de-escalating his own aggressive behavior. There's a lot that we have yet to learn about de-escalation. You know what it really means and what are the best practices for de-escalation in dynamic circumstances. But at the end of the day de-escalation always takes a back seat to sound officer safety tactics. We teach officers they've got to have situational control in order to really de-escalate the situation.
Bob Plaschke:Well, you know, I think we're running up to, we're getting near. I got two more questions for you before we finish up. We're getting near. I got two more questions for you before we finish up. The second to last question for you is if you're, if one could go back to 1869 and talk to your. I can't. I mean great, great, great, great, great, greats there are in there.
Bob Plaschke:And what would you think they would say about what you're doing or what your children are doing? What, what do you think they would? What, what, what, what would come to mind?
Ken Wallentine:Well, first off, I hope there would be pride. My, my grandson, the son of my daughter, the deputy sheriff, is named for my great, great great grandfather and I hope that he would be proud of that. But I also hope that he would. He would say, yeah, you got some fancy tools and he'd be so confused by electronic control devices and to a radio host and and and pepper spray. But. But I hope you would say, well, you're still talking to fellows and that's you know. He would go out and go into the wilds to arrest folks on warrants, all by himself, put them on the back of a horse and take them literally a day or maybe two to where he turned them into a federal magistrate. And he did that by talking to people, he didn't do it by shooting many. So I would hope, first off, pride. And secondly, I hope he would say you're talking to fellas.
Bob Plaschke:You know, and I think that is isn't that the? That is the essence of policing is talking right and then communicating and and empathizing um, and avoiding the um, as you say, the telling and the making um, and it's the more we talk and the more we talk about policing, frankly, probably the better off we are and the more that people can understand policing, and that, obviously is the purpose of this podcast. Well, that last question for you, chief, is uh, we'd like to make a small donation in your name. Where can we make a donation for you?
Ken Wallentine:The Utah Law Enforcement Memorial Foundation. It's an organization that I helped start many years ago. We built a beautiful, beautiful memorial to the fallen officers on the grounds of our state capital and now are engaged in a project where local agencies can receive some assistance in erecting smaller memorials for the fallen officers in their organization. So thank you very much. It's important that we remember the sacrifice of those who gave it all so that we could continue to live in a free society.
Bob Plaschke:Absolutely Amen to that. I appreciate it. I couldn't agree more. For the 150 to 170 officers that die each year in the line of duty, it's only appropriate. It's. The least we can do is to make sure that their ultimate sacrifice is acknowledged and recognized and people you know 100 years from now can look back and understand that they paved the way for keeping our cities and towns safe and it's the right thing to do.
Bob Plaschke:Well, folks, thank you for taking the time, chief. I don't think I've ever talked to a chief or someone involved who's had 150 years of a legacy of public service. But they live a creed, they live a duty and they see it and their children see it and their grandchildren see it. And you know what, if you think about what you'd like to emulate, if you think about your parents and your grandparents, what you want to emulate, that is not a bad thing to emulate which is serving the public. My name is Bob Plaschke. I am the CEO of PepperBall. This is First Response, kind of a look behind the badge. Thank you for taking the time and we'll see you on the next go around. Be safe out there.
