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 Podcast with Bob Plaschke, Episode 19: Chief Scott Hughes, Hamilton Township, Warren County, OH: From Hypervigilance To Better Training: A Chief’s Case For Major-League Policing
The front line is loud, but the mindset behind it is louder. Chief Scott Hughes joins us to unpack the lived reality of hypervigilance, why officers won’t sit with their backs to the door, and what constant scanning does to stress, health, and family life. From there, we dig into an uncomfortable truth: we expect “major league” perfection from police while funding “T-ball” training. Hughes argues for a new model built on daily fundamentals, stress-inoculated scenarios, and real coaching that turns good judgment into second nature.
We also tackle the swelling scope of police work. Understaffing and attrition have left fewer veterans to mentor new officers, even as the call mix expands to mental health crises and social conflicts that law enforcement shouldn’t always own. Hughes lays out practical alternatives: triage that reserves cops for genuine public safety threats, partnerships with clinicians, and clear guidelines that reduce needless escalations and liability. When seconds count and less-lethal tools don’t always work, policy must meet reality.
Use of force sits at the center of public debate, and we confront the myths head-on. Objectively reasonable force often begins when instructions are ignored, and what the public sees in a five-second clip rarely shows the chaos officers face. We offer simple, actionable tips for safer traffic stops—hands visible, dome light on, wait for direction—and a candid look at why force never looks “good” on a sidewalk. If communities want fewer errors and better outcomes, the fix is straightforward and hard: fund meaningful practice, align responsibilities with expertise, and keep talking about the why behind tactics.
If this conversation helped clarify the how and why of modern policing, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review telling us which change you’d fund first.
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 uh 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. 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. So today, super excited, uh, joined uh by uh Chief Scott Hughes, the chief of police of the Hamilton Township in Warren County, Ohio. It's just north of Cincinnati. Uh and being born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. Cincinnati was always the rival uh city. It was always the big city, actually, when we were in Louisville. So it's fun to talk to someone close to where I grew up. Uh uh Chief um has been the chief there since 2016. He's got a decades-long and wonderful experience in policing and spends a lot of his time, his off time on the road doing um consulting, helping other agencies across the country really um um understand the challenges that they're facing, whether it be leadership or training, and help them kind of come to the the uh the solutions that they can uh control and enact in their own local agencies. Chief Hughes is a graduate of the FBI National Academy, um, which is a very prestigious part of the training that uh a select set of chiefs get to go through, and um uh has a number of degrees in topics that are relating to public safety and policing. So, Chief, you know, when we were talking before, you mentioned you like to tell or like to help the folks um that don't have a lot of experience in policing kind of understand why police officers do what they do. Here's my first question. When I take a police uh officer out to lunch um or to a meeting, they always want to have the chair that has their chair backs to the back of the of the restaurant. So why do they do that? Why do they do that?
Speaker:Well, well, first of all, Bob, thanks for having me on your program. It's an honor to be here. Yeah, that is a that is a classic, you can always tell when you walk into the restaurant who the cops are because they always have their, they don't have their back to the door. You know, we are brought up in an environment where situational awareness is critical. We want to be that first line of defense, and we are in this constant state of what I'm gonna call hypervigilance, where we are always on the lookout for threats, and we never want to be caught off guard. So anytime you're you're gonna see us in a public place, you can expect somebody in that group's job is to watch the door and watch the surroundings. Uh, in fact, uh when I first started dating my wife, it drove her nuts. Now, now her and our two children, they just know don't even try to sit in that chair or in that booth where your father can't see the door. And if if we're really feeling paranoid, we're gonna ask to be seated close to an exit. So in case we have to make a quick escape, we have uh we have a direct route. So yeah, it just comes from it just comes from the training and the in the uh experiences that you know you never want to get you never want to get caught off guard. We are protectors, we want to protect everyone. Well, we can't protect them if we don't have the upper hand. So that is that is a classic law enforcement um uh uh thing. That's an official that's yeah, that's an official cop term thing, is uh you don't sit with your back to the door. So next time you go out and you see three or four police officers in uniform and they're forced to sit at a round table, uh probably rank or paper rock scissors picked who has to sit with their back to the door. So yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I appreciate that. It's um um when I first started to um um uh serve or you know, uh sell to and um and meet with police officers, the first couple of times I would um I would take the the the seat furthest away to out of courtesy could it make them have not have to walk as far. And uh the first couple of dinners, these poor police chiefs sitting there and and they were just noticeably uncomfortable. And finally, I think it was my second or third time. One of my um advisors who was a former police chief, um Chris Moore from San Jose, he pulled me aside and he said, he said, you know, could you be any more rude? Rude? What he goes, he goes, you know, these you know, police officers to your point, they they need you know that they're they're constantly vigilant and they and and so you're making them uncomfortable. So why don't you be be respectful and give them the chair?
Speaker:It's that or that or you gotta carry the gun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly right. It's like one or the other. Yeah. Um, you know, um and uh out of curiosity, does that follow you to, you know, um, when you're out watching a baseball game, when you're out, I mean, I you know, I and I this is something I always have deep uh sympathy for. I can't say empathy because I'm not a police officer, but sympathy in the sense to are you when you're in public, I guess you're always hyper-vigilant, even when you're on your free time.
Speaker:You know, you you really are. And you know, uh, you know, you just unfortunately with what goes on in society today, you know, we um like I said before, we we have to stay that hyper-vigilant because we want to we want to be able to detect these threats. And uh, you know, that's also there's also another side of that argument, and that is that that constant state of hypervigilance. And there's a lot of experts out there that that get way more uh educated and smarter than me on this on this topic. So I'll just I'll give you enough to sound like I know what I'm talking about, and that is that this this constant state of hypervigilance uh actually can be unhealthy for you. And what I mean by that is the added stress, you know, what that stress does to your cortisol and and and just just you know your heart, just everything, right? I mean, there's a there's a ton of folks that need to come on here and they can explain what all that actually does to you internally, but it does add stress because you never really get to relax, right? Like you never get to just calm down. I mean, even on a quote unquote vacation, you know, you're on a beach with people, you're scanning around, you're looking. You never really get to let your guard down. And, you know, that's just kind of I don't want to say it comes with the job, but it kind of just comes with the job. I mean, uh I think it like it comes with a job.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think, you know, um, and it's it's unique to police officers, there's correction um officers who I think to some degree um can contain that because theirs is based on a facility. Um, and firefighters don't have that same issue. They don't actually, they don't really feel that kind of stress because for them, absent of a a fire or a health issue, they aren't really looking for it. They're more reactive. I, you know, and I think I don't for for me, I've just become super appreciative. It's one of the few in um professions that I can think of that has that that constant stress, even you know, kind of on the job, off the job, on vacation, you know, traveling. You're that's it, it comes with the job, but that's a it's a it's a huge sacrifice, a physical and mental sacrifice that officers make when they um when they when they swear uh an oath to the badge.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely correct. And there's been a lot of cases. When I say a lot, I can't quantify that number, but there's there there's there's been there's been cases in the news over the last several years where you know good Samaritans in the right spot have have ended threats or you know have have been phenomenal witnesses that have led to the arrest or you know, apprehension of folks. And you know, it's not just really police officers. We need everyone to kind of remain vigilant, right? You know, especially with what's going on in the world today. And, you know, right or wrong, there's people out there that don't like us. You never know where you're gonna be and you know what what might occur. So to some degree, you want everyone to remain vigilant. What we what law enforcement officers do is I guess we're just a little more extra vigilant when we're around those that may not be as vigilant. How's that?
Speaker 1:Well, and and again, I just think it's um, you know, it's it's it's a simple question, but it leads to a bunch of um of outcomes um that you don't think about, which is the stress that police officers um sit under. Um the um, you know, the one of the topics, um, there'll be two things we'll talk about today. Um, one is the the work you do in terms of helping people understand use of force and when you used it and when you can avoid it and how how to think about that. Um but the other topic, it's uh you just was one of a blog that you recently wrote and talked about um we call um um policing a profession, which it definitely is, but we don't treat it like a you know, I think you use the reference like a major league uh profession, right? Where you know those those athletes have the trainers, the mental health, the physical, the every all the tools they need. And when you in a policing context, when you have people that are literally hold life and death in their hands every day, they don't get that same level of training. Um so on on that topic, let me just open the floor to you. You know, what what is the state of policing today in terms of getting the right level of training? Is it going in the right direction, the wrong direction? What needs to happen?
Speaker:I think I think that's a very loaded question. I'm gonna sound like I'm talking out both sides of my mouth. So I hope your your viewers will will understand this. That's a very complex question. Um, let me start off by saying this. Here in my state of Ohio, to be a police officer, it takes approximately 740-ish hours to complete the police academy, right? 740, 750, somewhere in that range. For for sake of just argument, we're gonna say less than 800. That's that's fair. It takes 1,800 hours in my state to be a barber, and it takes 1,500 hours in my state to be a cosmetologist. That is nothing, uh, I'm not I'm not downplaying what it takes to be a barber or cosmetologist, um, because I've never I've never done that job. What I have done since the mid-90s is law enforcement, and I can tell you that the situations that we are thrusted into and decisions that we are expected to make, there's no room for error. And in law enforcement, we've seen this around the country where officers are are are are vilified, criminally charged, etc., for quote unquote making an error when we're not giving them the types of training to not make those errors. To your point about that blog post that I wrote, my comparison to the Major League Baseball uh team is this I've heard that the an average Major League Baseball player shows up to a baseball stadium uh six to eight hours before the game starts. And in that time frame, they'll do everything from have a meal to work with the physical trainer, you know, getting stretched, getting loose. They will do fundamental exercises to include batting practice, uh, ground balls, they'll do fielding exercises, they watch film, they'll stretch again, six to eight hours before the game starts. And the reason they do that is because these individuals have one job, and that job is to go out there on that field and do the best job that they can do. Major League Baseball players are conditioned to never make an error. That's why, when a routine fly ball gets dropped in the outfield, that's why every sports channel is replaying it over and over and over again because that baseball player is trained to never let that happen. We give our officers minimal, minimal ongoing training to to uh on fundamentals, right? We give them very minimal, minimal. So then we we we give them things like um watch this video online, watch this webinar, and that's just check the box training. We don't give them stress inoculation where we're making it like second nature, if you will, right? A baseball player, you you you you can see this analogy, right, Bob? Like baseball player, fly ball off the bat, he he knows where he reads it off the bat, he knows where to go. It's just another catch, right? We're not conditioned in law enforcement to that same to that same standard. So I compare, you want us to be Major League Baseball players, never make an error in law enforcement, but you give us T-ball training. My my 12-year-old does the does fundamentals 45 minutes to an hour and a half before every one of his baseball games at 12 years old. The average police officer shows up, you know, 15, 20 minutes before his shift starts, goes into roll call, gets briefing, and then he has to go out and start answering calls, right? Yep. And and he and he and he and he's and he and he's not so the so so now your listeners are like, well, what's the answer? What's the answer? What's the answer? Well, I think I think that's the loaded question, and that's where it gets very, very complicated because I think it comes from several different sources. The the the first one, the elephant in the room is somebody's got to pay for it.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker:Uh somebody's got to pay for the funding to to pull officers from the streets, backfill it with with with overtime, so that the officers can get that kind of training, right? That's the first thing. The second thing is I think the profession as a whole is not designed to give us the kind of training we need. Now, when I say the kind of training we need, I mean instinctive responses where cops don't have to think about it. Well, the only way you can do that is constant, ongoing, daily, right? Daily type of training. Again, back to my baseball analogy, other than the four or six teams that are still left in the majors right now in this season, all the other baseball players, they're back at their homes doing what they do in their offseason. But I guarantee you this every day they're doing something baseball related to stay ready for the for the upcoming season. We don't do that in law enforcement, right? So so that's kind of the miss. But then again, when an officer goes out here and he makes a traffic stop at two o'clock in the morning, it's pitch black, and he engages in a in a foot pursuit, and the suspect turns around and points something at him like that real fast, and he pulls his gun, he doesn't realize, is that a gun or was that the cover to the camera? Like, you know, right, and they make those split second decisions. So a long-winded answer or a long-winded statement, I guess, to your question, with probably no answer, other than law enforcement is notorious, notorious, absolutely notorious for whatever whatever the the big pressing issue is. That's what we're gonna, we're gonna we're gonna start training in that, right? So, you know, a couple years ago, it was all about de-escalation, de-escalation, yeah. We've been de-escalating before the word de-escalation ever came into play, right? It's just communication. All de-escalation, all that is is communication. And and and there's and there's a group of people who think that de-escalation is this magical say this, don't say that. Like use this phrase, and this will always de-escalate people. And that's not reality. You're dealing with individuals who are under the influence of alcohol, drugs, suffering from mental illness, a combination of all three. You can be the nicest person you can, and they're not gonna be de-escalated. So, somewhere along the way, there was a group of folks that felt like, well, officers should de-escalate every situation. We have police departments putting words in policies like officers must de-escalate. Well, that's not fair to the cops. They must de-escalate, but we're only gonna give you uh 20 hours of training for the entire year, and that's gonna be on everything but de-escalation. If we do give you de-escalation training, you're gonna watch a webinar, check a box, and say you were trained, but that's not gonna be the realities of the street. So I digress.
Speaker 1:No, no, no. I mean, I mean, I think you're just articulating um you had said on earlier before we started, you said it's the uh uh same crap, different badge is that every off every same crap, different same crap, different patch.
Speaker:Yeah. Different patch.
Speaker 1:Sorry, different patch, yeah. Um, and which means that, you know, and I and I because I hear the same theme across the country as I visit police chiefs in my work. Um, and one um I I can only think of uh maybe uh the vast majority of the agencies I visit are understaffed, and they've been understaffed since COVID and since George Floyd. Um the under being understaffed, and you know, and and and that is with the 700 hours or seven, eight hundred hours of of uh training. Um they have to, you know, they have to get people through the academies and get them through and get them trained. So they're they've got their existing staff is facing lots of overtime, which is additional stress, where they before used to have the old, you know, in the you think about what you see on TV where you have the old grizzled veteran sitting shotgun with the the new guy, that doesn't happen. Um these new guys are on their own. And you got kids training kids. Kids training kids. And you have um, and then I think the range of of issues that police face now versus 20 years ago is you know almost 2x in terms of mental illness, mental, uh mental challenges, societal challenges, the the type of protests, the and the and finally not to add it, you know, kind of uh fire, you know, kind of sell past the close, but you have a uh you have a unfortunately you have a group of citizens who are unfortunately trust has dropped. I think trust in public safety has dropped and police officers drop below 50% for the first time ever, where the majority of people do not trust, do not have a sense of full trust in the police officer, which makes the job even harder.
Speaker:Yeah, well, the the other thing we have is is we we should, we as a profession, law enforcement, law enforcement should not be going to some of the calls that we are sent to. We should not be the, well, I don't know who else to call, so I just called 911, and you know, well, we have to go. Like we that is a that is a uh another area in this profession that that needs to be addressed. The issue is nobody knows what's the answer, right? Like, am I going to be liable if I don't go and something happens? Uh what if, you know, if if if here's an example. If there's a guy or a gal in their house by themselves and they've called 911 and said, I am suicidal. Sir, is there anyone else anyone else in the house with you? No, I'm by myself. Okay, if the officers can verify there's no one else in that house, it is a suicidal threat, not a homicidal threat. What's law enforcement supposed to do? Right? And if because here's what's gonna happen. If we go to that call, it's gonna turn into a barricaded situation. We're gonna notify the SWAT team, SWAT's gonna come out. Some SWAT teams are gonna do what's called a surrounding call out. They're gonna surround the house, they're not gonna go in, they're gonna yell in the bullhorn for hours. They're gonna fire tear gas, pepper balls into the house and try to get the individual to come out. If they don't come out, we're gonna send a robot in. If the robot doesn't find them, eventually we're gonna send police officers in, and then they're gonna find them, and now the officers are gonna have to be forced to use deadly threat because the guy or gal is gonna charge at them with a knife. Then that family, the estate, is gonna sue law enforcement, and they're gonna say we caused his death, or what the whatever the case might be, or worse, a cop's gonna get hurt or killed. Correct. Why are we even there? So we have to stop using law enforcement as this last resort and forcing these guys with 740 hours. We are not mental health experts. We are not trained to go to these homes and talk about feelings and beliefs and this kind of stuff. We're cops, and that's a that's part of that whole big problem. So I will digress again.
Speaker 1:No, no, but I I think it's it's reality and it's what it's you know, and I we hear it again and again on this podcast is um um police chiefs coming in and and and just articulating the challenges. Um to you to your point previously, we've the the the industry's made great strides in servicing the issues around mental health and putting mental health training and and and kind of a buddy system as best one can do, and having mental health professionals available for police officers. So that's been a I think an improvement in the acknowledgement that those mental health issues are there. I think I've seen uh um uh the focus on your personal health and the uh the facilities and the training so you can get the the the the physical training that you need and the and the frankly the the kind of the a way to to burn off a lot of the stress through physical exercise. I've seen improvements there. I think the the but they're uh to some degree they're band-aids to a much larger challenge, which is as you've described, a set of sits a set of circumstances that um officers shouldn't are not trained to deal with. They have to because they're the only people that answer 911, but you you don't want them to do it. Um turning our attention, um, at least I'd like to turn and talk about this notion of use of force. Um I try to explain to my friends, and I say, look, the uh police officers have been trained in a in a and the majority of their training talks about how to de-escalate a situation, how to communicate, and how to only, if necessary, um increase the use of force to gain control of the situation. And I and I try to talk about it in the sense of that their focus is to gain control of the situation, you know, and it may or may not lead to an arrest, but it's get control so that the safety of the officer, the safety of the subject you're dealing with, and the people around them, you you know, you you focus on that first. But with that as a context, can you describe when when you hear the word use of force and increasing use of force, what does that mean? How do how should we as a as a non-officer think about that?
Speaker:Every use of force begins because of three words that the individual uh causes. Well, let me let me say that again. Individuals cause officers to use force because of because of three words failure to comply. Every use of force would be preventable if individuals complied. Right? So let's let's just say that right now, right? Uh all the cases that you've seen around this country, whether they're you know, uh no matter what they are, it started with an individual did not comply. So it's we gotta put some of the responsibility back on the individuals who are putting our officers in these positions, okay? The use of force by law has to be what's called objectively reasonable, right? So, you know, again, this is a much, much, much more longer, in-depth, you know, conversation, and there's a lot of folks out there that are that are that are that are way smarter than me. Um, but in in essence, every force that we have to use, we we want to try to accomplish an arrest using the least amount of force as possible. Now, that doesn't mean it's always going to work, right? Every there there there's a there's a uh portion, if you will, of population who, because of TV, movies, their own self-belief, they think that every every time you use any type of less than lethal weapon, whether it's a taser, a pepperball, an asputon, um, other technology, it's out there, that well, that will always work. And you know, you know, you're the CEO of the comp of pepperball, you know, hey, that's not always the case, right? We know that there's a high percentage of cases that do resolve themselves, but not every one of them. So for a police officer, if my intent is I'm gonna go with this less lethal option, if it doesn't work, there's only most likely one other option then if the less lethal option doesn't work, right? Nowhere does it say that a police officer has to get injured, hurt, or certainly killed to defend themselves or someone else. And you know, this does not sound sexy or politically correct to some, but the only way to overcome violence is more superior violence, right? I mean, again, that doesn't sound like that's not friendly, but that's the reality. I mean, if if someone's punching you and punching you and punching you and fighting, fighting, you have to be a better fighter to win. Using force is no different. The issue for law enforcement is we we're not street fighters, right? So, I mean, we're not just out there just throwing haymakers, just you know, going. We we do try to follow some some sort of a system or some sort of a of a policy, but you can have all the policies and procedures in the world. And the reality is this use of force is ugly. I have a friend of mine who often says the only place the use of force looks good is in the mat room. The mat room is where cops are trained on the mats, right? That's the only place that looks good. On the street, it never looks good. There's so many variables that you're concerned about on the side of the road. And and until you stood next to a car and you're trying to put someone's hands behind their back who don't want their hands behind their back, or until you've you've tried to break up a fight where people are screaming and they're jumping in and they don't want to be separated, until you've been in that position, it's hard for anyone to truly understand what it's like. It's kind of like back to my baseball analogy, it's kind of like me sitting on the couch a couple weeks ago watching my favorite baseball team yelling, swing the bat. You don't you don't know what a 104 mile an hour forcing fastball looks like coming out of someone's hand. And then the next pitch is an 80 mile an hour change. Like, who am I? Like, you don't know what that's like to stand there. And I and again, I'm not I'm a firm believer in this. And this, you know, some are just gonna not believe me at all, and some might actually turn off the podcast after I say this, but I'm a firm believer that the that most police officers, the overwhelming majority of them, get in this profession for the right reasons and come out here every single day and they do the right thing for the right reasons. I believe we do a really good job of holding those who need to be held accountable accountable. I also think we do a bad job sometimes at explaining why cops do what they do, which is why when you reached out to me, yes, sign me up, let me get on. As I told you before, we we recorded, the more folks that I can talk to who will listen to my me, um uh uh my dumb brain here, the more the better, right? The more folks that I can hopefully help educate, especially non-law enforcement folks. Um, you know, I do this when I travel the country speaking and and and whatnot, I I always do this analogy. I always ask, or I'm not analogy, I always do this exercise, Bob. And that exercise is this. I always ask those in the room to point their fingers at me like they have a gun in their hand. Okay, so I'll get the whole room to point their finger at me. And then I take my gun and I point it at my own head, and I and I tell the audience this I'm gonna say the alphabet from the letter A to the letter D as in donkey. When I get to D as in Donkey, I'm taking this gun that's currently pointed at my head, and I'm gonna point it at you. All you have to do is yell bang. That's it. I'm gonna say the out, I'm gonna say the alpha the uh A B C D just like you were taught in preschool, there's no there's no tricks, I promise. So they all got their fingers pointed at me, they're all ready to go. And I go, A, B, C, D, and I point my finger at them. And every one of them is late at yelling bang. And I say to them, You did not beat me. You know, and I hear things like, Well, that was fast. Well, yeah, that's law enforcement, right? Like you knew, you knew when I was gonna take this gun from my own head and point it at you. Now, can you imagine an officer makes a traffic stop and a guy jumps out? Of his car, and he's got his hand to his he's got a gun to his head like this, and the police officer gets out of the car and goes boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. He would be criticized to the end of the world. Well, why'd you shoot him? The gun was pointed at himself. He wasn't a threat to you. I just proved to you how quick I can do that. An officer on the street doesn't know if I'm gonna take the gun from my head and point it at D as in donkey, Q as in Queen, Z as in zebra, or A, he doesn't know when he's gonna do it. And nowhere does it say that I should have to wait and see what he's gonna do before I decide to use force or defend myself or someone else. So that same friend that tells me the use of force only looks good on the mat also says that law enforcement's the hardest job in America. And I yeah, I I I agree. It's the hardest job in America, and as a profession, we've got so much work to do with how we're training, and it's it's it's a much deeper uh issue than you know just money and and it it's how we're it's it's scheduling, it it's just it's it's everything, you know. When you you said it a couple times, you know, law enforcement training. I don't know if we're trained or if we've we've gathered information, right? Like to be trained to where it's second nature, we're back to that whole major league baseball player analogy or any sport for that matter. So, you know, we are making progress. We got a lot of work to do. Uh, I feel like sometimes we just kick the can down the road. I think there's some chiefs and some executives who just hope it doesn't happen here, and uh, that's probably the wrong mindset to have. Uh that's not my style. You know, I'm gonna do what I can at my department and worry about my people. Uh, try to have this influence through podcasts like yours to get people thinking. Um but you know, I I I say this. This is still without a doubt, I believe, the greatest job in America. If we don't support the men and women who are out here doing it, if we don't defend them, we're hit we're gonna have nobody left to do it. We saw what happened when you defund and you, you know, you do away with these departments and you start down that road, you have complete anarchy. Um, you know, I I believe in what's called the thin blue line. I don't believe in the political part of the thin blue line. I think the thin blue line is what separates good from bad. Uh, and from those that want to commit evil, it's sitting with your back not to the door. So you can spot that evil, quite honestly. And uh, you know, I I think we have to we have to stick up for this profession or nobody's gonna want to do it, and then we're gonna be in a world of hurt.
Speaker 1:Oh, I for sure. And I think, as you said, trying to educate um folks like myself and um folks who are not in the profession to understand what what a police officer deals with so that when they get pulled over, they will comply. Um, because you know the um that's that is as you said, the that uh if they if someone does not comply with instructions, then the use of forced progression begins, and it's an escalation clock of which the the officer is to defend himself and her and herself or and around this and the folks around them, they're they're forced to.
Speaker:Well, you talk about traffic stops, and and just real quick, if if I may, you know, uh we I have a saying that is that is this I want officers to be prepared, not paranoid. Right? I need you out here prepared, but not paranoid to where you can't do the job. Having said that, we deal with the unknown, and we do not know who we're pulling over, we don't know who's gonna answer the door at that domestic, we don't know who's gonna be at that business on the alarm drop. You know, bad guys, that's air quotes, don't wear shirts that say, hey, I'm a bad guy. We don't know. So when someone's pulled over, it's it for them, for the violator, it might be their only interaction with law enforcement. For us, you might be the 12th car we've pulled over that shift. So we try to remind our officers, hey, treat everybody as it's if it's the first car you stop, it's the first time they've ever had any interaction with the police. Understand that they may not, they don't know what we want them to know in all cases, right? Like in our world, we pull you over, you keep your hands visible, you don't reach for anything, you wait till we get up there. If it's nighttime, you turn your dome lights on, roll your windows down, that puts us at ease, you know, but not everybody's gonna do that, not everybody's required to do that. So if we don't see that compliance, right, we're gonna we're gonna be probably a little more cautious until we get to kind of we get to kind of um you know feel you out, evalue or observe you and and and get an idea of who we're dealing with. If if it starts off in a negative tone, or if it starts off adversarial, it's very hard for anybody then to just flip a switch and calm down. You know, so I think we have made some strides in that area with with with uh you know community outreach and trying to you know remind folks what to do when they get pulled over. But you know, we don't know who's in that car, who's at that house, who's at that business. We don't know what you know you to you, you know, you're an upstanding guy, you know, you you support law enforcement. I stop you tonight driving down the street. Yeah, I don't know who you are. You know who you are, but I don't. So sometimes just remembering that. And you know, law enforcement officers are human. We're we're human, we're gonna make mistakes, we're gonna say things that might not always make sense, but um, for the most part, we do a really, really, really good job. I'm proud of that.
Speaker 1:Oh, I I well, you're you're preaching to the choir, so to speak. Um, you know, it's um I I try to uh you know I try to uh articulate on these podcasts that uh police officers are brothers, sisters, um, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, um, they have bad days, um, and they have good days. And, you know, um if you've ever had a boss, you know, who had a fight with his wife, you know, that's gonna be a tough day for you. You know, imagine if you're a police officer and then you have to go up and and deal with someone who's um who's not particularly respectful. It's not a and and to your point, you you know, it's the highest level of professionalism because you have to you have to kind of troll yourself, you have to um kind of get through it and not not let your your emotions get the best of you. Um it so it is it is the uh one of the it is the one of the if not the toughest professions. Um unfortunately, um um I I'm uh I only have one last question because I'd love to sit in on this thing for another hour and just keep chatting. Um but the last question for you, uh Chief Hughes, is um it's really a thank you. Thank you for for joining us, sharing your perspectives and um uh we try to make a small donation, Pepper Ball does, to um the charity of your choice. What uh what charity can we make a donation to in your name?
Speaker:Bob, I am honored uh to sit on the board of directors for the National Law Enforcement Officers Hall of Fame. Uh the National Law Enforcement Officers Hall of Fame is designed to do exactly what the title suggests, and that is recognize officers across this country who have gone above and beyond in the line of duty, as well as recommending, excuse me, recognizing some of those who are no longer with us. So uh my charity of choice would would undoubtedly be the National Law Enforcement Officer Hall of Fame. Um the induction ceremony is coming up in April in Fort Worth, Texas, and uh we would be honored to have your listeners um support that organization, come to the induction ceremony, partake in anywhere they can. That'd mean a lot.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's that's great. That's a great um, it's a great venue for uh and for our um uh a way to say thank you. Um well folks, um, you know, um this has been a just a um a really um uh educational, I think is the right word for it. Um I what I really appreciated about Chief Hughes is that he he speaks plainly. Um and you know, um, you know, you talk about the only um good-looking use of force or you know, a uh normal use of force is one that's inside a training facility. Every time you see a body cam, um you're gonna see a messy situation because it is messy, and it's messy because you're putting officers out in um harm's way who have to make split-second decisions about how to engage with typically what you see in body cams is unfortunately you typically see people who are not um letting the officer do what he's he or she is designed or is instructed to do, and that is to gain control of a situation and absence of control or compliance, um, those messy things happen. And and you know, what we learned today is this, you know, the the use of force is escalation, but it's escalation based off what the subject does, frankly, not necessarily and typically not what the officer does. And the other thing that uh I think we learned was I loved his analogy of uh a professional team. You have a, if you think about a professional player who only has to catch fly balls and ground balls, you've got who gets thousands of hours of training. You have officers who get hundreds of hours of training who have to deal with thousands of different situations. Imagine it would be like a thousand different pitches coming your way that you may only see once um in your career. Um, no way to really prepare for that. And and to some degree, I think we just have to have uh, as I always say, a lot of empathy um for what these officers go through when they put their lives on the line and their their their lives and and by definition their families at risk. So um wrapping up, um again, you've been listening um and hopefully enjoyed listening to me. Um uh my name is Bob Plaschke, um, and this is First Response. It is a podcast dedicated to understanding the stories behind the people that wear a badge, who um the very brave first responders, more than a million out there in the United States. Um, and um I am very um privileged um that this is sponsored by PepperBall, the company that I have the honor to be the CEO of. And again, PepperBall, you we deploy non-lethal tools that allow police officers to um uh do their jobs um but not have to use our guns and um and and not have to suffer uh and keep themselves and uh and the and the public that they serve safe. Uh until next time, appreciate it and uh and be safe out there.
