Allen Police: Behind the Badge

From Trooper to Trainer: One Officer’s Path to Wellness

• Allen Police Department • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Welcome to a transformative conversation with Officer Will Brindza, part of the Allen Police Department's commitment to wellness and fitness. In this episode, Officer Brindza shares his inspiring journey from a sporting upbringing to becoming a dedicated law enforcement officer who champions health and fitness within the police force. 

We dive into the innovative FitForce initiative aimed at ensuring officers are physically and mentally prepared for the challenges they face daily. With candor and humor, Officer Brinza recounts both the serious and light-hearted moments from his career, revealing the multi-faceted nature of policing that often goes unseen. His experiences highlight how fitness programs like CrossFit not only aid in individual officers' wellness but also contribute to better overall community safety.

This episode serves as a reminder that police officers are much more than their badge; they are individuals with personal stories and commitments, making efforts to engage with the community and foster positive relationships. Join us as we explore the connection between proactive health and effective law enforcement. Share your own fitness journeys with us and don’t forget to tune in, subscribe, and leave a review!

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Welcome back to another episode of Allen Police. Behind the Badge, we're your hosts, officer Sam Rippamonti and Alexus Birmingham.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

And today our guest is Officer Will Brindza. Thank you for joining us.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Thanks for having me Tell us a little bit about who Will Brindza is as far as a person, not so much an officer. We'll get into all that.

Officer William Brindza:

Yes, sir, I was born in Camp Lejeune, north Carolina. My dad was a career Marine, so I lived there till I was like 12 years old. My dad retired and then we moved out to Portland, Oregon, area.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Okay.

Officer William Brindza:

And I lived there until college. I was a sports kid baseball, basketball, football Loved sports, always active, always working out, was always interested in law enforcement and like military employment when I was getting older.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

So that sparked my interest in that. So how long have you been in Texas?

Officer William Brindza:

Been in Texas about four years now.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Consider yourself a Texan. Yet I'm getting there. I hope I can Work on that Texan accent.

Officer William Brindza:

Yeah, I need to work on that. So what'd you do, were you an officer in Oregon? When you go to Academy, it's very boot camp-ish. It's actually on a reserve base. I think it's Army National Guard out in Astoria Oregon.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Okay.

Officer William Brindza:

And so you're isolated Oof and it's the whole meal deal.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

You don't get to go home at night.

Officer William Brindza:

You don't get to go home at all, no, and you live in barracks and you live that whole paramilitary life. But it instills the discipline and it's kind of a controlled, you know stress environment type academy. Yeah, as a trooper I was very fortunate in gaining a lot of experience. I was a field training officer, taught defensive tactics. I was a SWAT officer for um a long time. Also was on a mobile response team, which is like a riot squad, um. I spent a stint as a major crimes detective, also taught health and wellness at our academies. Oh nice, I would teach uh recruits just basic health and wellness fitness. Also on a team called the Critical Incident Response Team, which was a you could think of it as a peer support team that went out in the field whenever we had officer-involved shootings, major incidents or if we had a troop having some type of a you know personal issue or issue at work that needed that peer support. So I did that for a long time as well.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

Do you have any good stories you can share about, like when you were a trooper?

Officer William Brindza:

Yes, I have lots of stories. You know, I worked in a metro area the Portland metro area for about nine to 10 years and then I was a detective and then I went in the rural area. So I have had the experiences of the city and the rural and I've got all kinds of funny stories and depressing stories. To be honest, as a trooper like I said, it's kind of paramilitary You're always ready to get deployed somewhere in the state and especially as a SWAT officer, I got deployed all over the state for all kinds of major incidents. Some funny stuff that came to mind we had a bad snowstorm one year, and I'm talking like two feet of snow.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Like real snow, not like Texas snow, real snow.

Officer William Brindza:

So I mean a ton of snow and then it got warm really fast. So all this snow melted and we had flooding problems. And so I'm going down Interstate 5 and I take an exit and I know that at the next exit, underneath the overpass, it gets it's like a low point and it is, I mean, 5-6 feet of water. There's no way a car can get through it. And I come up to a stop sign it's a 4 way stop and on my right there's this little Honda Acc. Get through it. And I came up to a stop sign it's a four-way stop and on my right there's this little Honda Accord that stops and I'm looking in it and there's two young kids in it.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Don't do it.

Officer William Brindza:

And I'm sitting there going. Is he gonna go straight?

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Oh, my goodness.

Officer William Brindza:

So he goes straight and I watch him go in the water and I watch him stall out and then I watched both of them get out and they could have waited the other way, but they wait back. And so I contact them and the driver is a 19-year-old kid and he's intoxicated. Oh my goodness, he's drunk as a skunk and I remember just giving the guy a little bit of comedy to him, Because if you just go the other way, bud, like I never contact you.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

You never get arrested. Now you're going to jail.

Officer William Brindza:

So that's one of the stories. Me and I have all kinds of stories. If you want to talk about CrossFit, eventually, and fitness, I have a good story about that too, oh yeah.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

I want to know do y'all wear hats? We wear hats, trooper hats, campaign hats. So, people listening, I need y'all to comment in and let us know. Do we need hats here in Allen? I think we need hats, I think we do. What kind of hats, though, is the question? Cowboy hats, cowboy hats all the way? Yeah, 100%.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

So what brought you to Allen?

Officer William Brindza:

Well, I have some family here. I have a cousin and some other family. My parents moved to East Texas and my wife and I visited here several times some friends and my family and we just loved it. We love the country, feel it's a lot more laid back. The schools are really good here overall. It's just a different vibe and it kind of fit both our personalities. So we just fell in love with it and the second we came, the second we landed here. We're like that's where we're going.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

So what do you do for the department?

Officer William Brindza:

So, uh, my primary duty is, uh, through the traffic team, I'm a commercial vehicle inspector, so I enforce uh state and federal commercial vehicle law. Um, and now I'm heading up our initiative on fitness and I am a level three CrossFit instructor, and through CrossFit we created a affiliate of CrossFit called CrossFit Virtue, and so I'm the head coach of that, and so we have classes mostly in the morning right now for our officers, I participated in one of those workouts last week.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

It's the first CrossFit workout I've ever done. I've always been scared of it. It's just because I don't know a lot about it, right, and it was everything and more than I expected. I was sore for a few days, but it was a good soreness, yeah, so I'm excited to get back in there. I know we have a lot of guys all the way up to our assistant chief that are taking your classes.

Officer William Brindza:

Yes, Our two morning classes are actually very busy. Didn't mention, I owned a CrossFit gym in Wilsonville, oregon, for about nine and a half-ish years and when I moved to Texas I sold it to one of my coaches and they're still doing really, really well. I think that we just hit 13 years, total 13 or 14 years. So it's not new to me to run a gym. It's not new to me if like scheduling and teaching and coaching and all that. So our first two classes of the day 5.30 AM to 6.30 AM on most days where we are teaching those from Monday through Thursday, we're having those classes and the 5.30 am is consistently about 7 to 13, maybe 15 people that's awesome, officers and the 6.30 is pretty consistent from like 5 to 10 people. So just those first two classes. I mean we're getting you know a good 10% of the department.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Yeah, that's, that's a great. That's a great start. I think it'll continue to build, because you know words, get now you know how good the workouts are and you're not. You're not just going in there and killing us either, and so I've learned with CrossFit the workouts can be very tailored to your you know fitness level.

Officer William Brindza:

So that was good to know going in. Yeah, I mean, our overall goal is, um, to support our officers through their duties, right, get them more physically fit. Uh, to perform their duties, but just overall health, you know, uh, chief Dye is really into um. You're not just a number here at Allen PD, you're not just the badge number. We care about our officers and we want them to live happy lives outside of police work and when we retire we want to still have, you know, life left in us to go do the things we want to do.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Absolutely Hang out with our family for years to come, and the fitness is just one of the cornerstones of this FitForce program. You also oversee that as well.

Officer William Brindza:

Yeah, I'm a big part of the FitForce program. We develop the fitness tests that we're taking in October every year. But you know there's different pieces to the FitForce the spiritual, the financial, the mental and I'm a part of the peer support team here as well and that's been great. Not only were we having success helping our officers, but we've been fortunate to go to other departments and help them as well Multiple departments actually in the area and go help officers navigate through. You know the emotions of officer-involved shootings, officer deaths. You know personal things on and on there.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Yeah, and that's always been the thing Officers don't like to talk about stuff they're going through, but I feel like more and more you know that we're evolving and people are more open to. I think it's 53 or 54 percent more likely to commit suicide.

Officer William Brindza:

And that is a huge stat compared to you know, your normal citizen. And that's because we deal with so much trauma, so much emotion and we're human. So how do we cope with those things? So peer support, honestly, is a lot of just how can I help my fellow officer cope with whatever they're going through? And a lot of that, can you know, a normal citizen can relate to, because they go through a lot of the same stuff.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Got to talk about it. Yes, you do so. You said you had a funny or an interesting CrossFit story.

Officer William Brindza:

Yes, so I've always been an athlete. I was a college baseball player, university Pacific in Stockton, california, so you know I had athletics in my background. I was in pretty good shape when I graduated college, but when I went to Academy which was not too long after I graduated, but, um, I wasn't in shape. And so when I got, I got through Academy right, which was fine, cause I've been an athlete and you just adapt Um. But when I got on the on the road, I started, you know, realizing I gotta get better shape. So I actually went to um, an MMA gym, and on Saturdays they would run CrossFit classes, and this is in 2007. So CrossFit was kind of like pretty new, pretty brand new, so we would do the workout of the day from the CrossFitcom and I was like this is awesome, and I had probably been doing it for like two months and I was working nights and I stopped the vehicle pretty late at night, it was probably like one in the morning. It was going South Island I-5.

Officer William Brindza:

I remember this distinctly just outside of Portland it was a California plated Chevy Impala and it had tinted out windows. There was three individuals inside. Anyway, I had indicators of possible criminal activities. I got them out of the car and I was working with one of our drug canines. His name was Joe, and so Joe brought the drug canine, beckett, sent it to the canine and runs the canine around the car and the canine gets on the trunk and he opens up the trunk and there's a bag like a gym bag that's pretty much is flopped open and there's like five or six crown royal bags, purple crown royal bags, and one of the bags is like pretty much open. It's not cinched up and the dog jumps up in there and gets his nose inside this thing and I mean that cocaine is like going everywhere. And so joe turns around and he's like hey, whose bag is this wear? And so joe turns around and he's like hey, whose bag is this?

Officer William Brindza:

So this kid one of the kids is 19 years old is like what bag? And and joe's like this bag. And so what bag? So the kid walks up to the trunk and like, looking back on, I was like I shouldn't let that kid do that. Joe said the same thing, like I don't know what I was, but he was like so flabbergasted that this is just open bag of dope here. And the kid walks up to the car and then he's like what bag? He grabs like two or three of the bags and he goes to like this and Joe kind of grabs his arm and I mean money is in one, there's money everywhere, and then cocaine going everywhere, and then the kid runs across I-5. He starts running across I-5. And so hat story too. I had my hat on at the time, because as a trooper you always have your hat on, and so I'm running after this kid right away. When my hat flies off, I'm looking back and he gets run over by a semi. Oh no, and I'm like dang it.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Oh, now you're even. Now you're really mad. We can trouble.

Officer William Brindza:

Loose my hat so he runs across southbound lanes, jumps guardrail, jumps guardrail, runs across northbound lanes, jumps guardrail down into brush. And basically I was right on top of him. I tackle him, I get him into custody and the kid, he's yelling at the script. He's like I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have ran, you know. And then I'm like looking behind me and I'm he's yelling at the scrimpter. He's like I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have ran. And then I'm looking behind me and I'm like where's Joe? I'm sure he put his dog away.

Officer William Brindza:

I had another trooper there too, but he stayed with the other two guys. I'm like nobody came to run. And I'm sitting there thinking, man, I did that pretty. You know, I'm not even winded. This CrossFit thing works. And like five minutes later I picked this guy up, walk over the guardrail and here comes Joe and he's like what the heck man, that was awesome. And he's like what have you been doing? How are you not like? And I was like I've been doing CrossFit man Like, I feel great. He's like. So when I opened my gym, joe was one of my first clients and stayed with it for a while.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

You even mentioned that you were level three. What is?

Officer William Brindza:

So CrossFit coaches have to get certification and there's a level one, a level two and a level three. There's actually a level four too. Your level one is like your basic broad topic certification. It's two days. They give you a study guide, you go in. It's a lot of academic too. You have to take a test, but they put you through three workouts in two days and they show you how to run a class, how to manage a class, and then the biggest thing is how to scale the movements for all types of ability levels, and that's really what we're looking to do here too, to keep it safe. The level twos is a lot more in depth, especially in your demonstration, presentation, leadership skills on how to actually run a class. And that's another. I think it's two or three days. They give you a study guide. Again, you have to pass another test and you have to do a lot of demonstration and explanation of movements in small groups. They break you up in small groups and then they critique you.

Officer William Brindza:

It's kind of brutal, but it's all growth right it's all to grow as a leader and managing classes, demonstrating the movements, all that kind of stuff. And then the level three is strictly a test. It takes about three to six hours depending on how good you are in the test realm, but I mean it is, you know, I think it's 450 questions that are graded and 500 questions total. It may be less than that now when I first did it. It's been, it's been years. I just redid it last year, I believe. Believe, yeah, but it's strictly a test on anatomy, medical, all of the movements, crossfit philosophy, a lot of like life coaching, life counseling type stuff. Yeah, it kind of encompasses everything in wellness.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

Did it take a long time to prepare yourself?

Officer William Brindza:

Yes, the first time I took it, I literally studied about six months for it and it was hard, it was still hard.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

I saw this week we got an email about new CrossFit coaches. Yes, so what level will they be certified in?

Officer William Brindza:

Yeah, very excited about this. We have five officers that will go to level one certification off the bat so they'll help you run the workouts.

Officer William Brindza:

Yes. So the goal would be to get them trained up, get them comfortable leading a class, and the number one thing again is modifications. How do I modify this for all ability levels? Previous injuries, current injuries, and then you know there's even more considerations, because if we get, I've had a few graveyard officers come in the morning after work. That's a totally different thing, that's rough Than when you've slept, and so you need to know how to modify that, how to have the consideration for what they where they're at, coming up 12 hour shift.

Officer William Brindza:

Yeah, so they'll be level one certified and they'll also shadow. They'll coach with me. I'll coach with them until they're comfortable. That's super cool, yeah.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Very exciting so you do a ton for the department Like what do you do to you know in your free time? I mean, I hear you're a scratch golfer. Is there truth to this?

Officer William Brindza:

Yes, I'm a good golfer, and not as good as my son. Yes, I've heard that too. I enjoy golf. It's probably, yeah, more of a relaxation thing for me, and getting out on the course I enjoy peace and quiet.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

It's the opposite for me. I usually I go play and I'm like, usually after one or two holes I'm like how do I play this two-game game? I'm ready to break my gloves and go back to the house and quit man.

Officer William Brindza:

I have some of the same thoughts, but golf's one of those things like a lot of things in life, it's rewarding when you get that one good shot. When you finally figure it out. It's rewarding. I enjoy golf because I think it's just such a challenge. It's so hard to master it, it's just you too. It's just me right. You can't rely on anyone else, so it takes a lot of time and energy and focus, but I enjoy it. My son is really good at golf.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

He just came from Atlanta. Yeah, my son is really good at golf.

Officer William Brindza:

He just came from Atlanta, yeah, so we just went to Atlanta, georgia, to a place called I believe it's called the Kingdom at Reynolds and it's like their full fitting facility so they will completely fit the kids and the pros, so they do elite juniors, elite amateurs and pros there and the public. You can sign up and pay their fee to get fitted. So we went there. It took about three to four hours of just tinkering with clubs All the way through the bag putter too, and so he's going to get new clubs here in a few weeks, wow that's exciting.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

That's really cool. They'd look at me and be like we ain't got nothing for you here, man.

Officer William Brindza:

Oh, they'd figure it out.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

They'd give me a putt-putt-putter and say have fun, yeah, they'd figure it out, so it's been really fun to travel.

Officer William Brindza:

My son is homeschooled right now and he's just focused on that in school, so it allows us to travel.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

So he's golfing daily.

Officer William Brindza:

Every day he's on a golf course.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

Wow.

Officer William Brindza:

Most of the time from the same tees. He's probably going to beat me. So I'm like close to a zero handicap. I hang out a zero or a one, he's a plus one. So that means he's shooting at least a stroke or two better than me 12 years old.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Oh, 12 years old. He has so much to learn still, even I know it's depressing.

Officer William Brindza:

It's okay though.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Yeah, the opportunity started a lot younger than you. Yeah, you're stronger still, right.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

Yeah, so do you have anything that you can share about Allen?

Officer William Brindza:

Yeah, number one, I would say this community is very supportive of our police department. It's much appreciated. I have worked in areas before where that's not the case and so as a lateral, we feel it. One story is this will tell you the danger of what we do here, even here in Allen, is that we had a report of a wrong way driver. One night I was working graveyard, going north down the southbound lanes. It was coming up from Stacy, so it's coming north from Stacy in the southbound lanes and I jumped on a McDermott and, sure enough, here comes this thing and it's in the dang left lane and the report was it's going very slow. And when I'm looking at it coming up towards me I'm like, yeah, this thing's going very slow. It was probably going 20 miles an hour.

Officer William Brindza:

This is like one in the morning or two in the morning. First thing I remember this is drunk driver, got back on the highway the wrong way, doesn't know, doesn't know where it's going, and uh, so I get over in left lane and this thing is coming at me and I'm like here we go, I'm gonna have to take it head on because you have to stop it. You don't want it, it's gonna hit somebody in the left lane a high rate of speed, you know. Everyone in the left lane is going at least 70, more like 80 and uh. So I'm ready to take this thing on, turn my lights on. It's approaching me and you and I think the lights got the driver and we slowed down and literally comes to a slow stop right in front of me oh my goodness, barely taps the front push bumper and then I get out and sure enough, the driver was really intoxicated.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

We just take him into custody right away type of thing, the fact you're you're willing to go ahead and, like I gotta say, I mean it's a risk to all those other voters yeah, I mean that's.

Officer William Brindza:

I think that specific scenario probably comes up in our career at least once or twice yeah and so um, but I've had a very positive experience here at Allen. Like I said, the community is amazing here. You're a Texan now. I'm a Texan now. Yeah, that's right baby.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

So what's new in your unit?

Officer William Brindza:

In the traffic unit. I mean, some of the things we're doing that people may not know is we do these traffic initiatives where we partner with uh outside agencies such as DPS, collin County, mckinney, um, and maybe some other agencies, where we do, uh, you call them traffic saturations on 75 and the tollway, so we're trying to slow people down, um, and also uh deter uh dangerous, reckless driving. So the the vehicles are in and out of traffic at a high rate of speed, no turn signals following too close, um, and so we saturate it with a bunch of officers and just I mean we're just stopping everybody we can, yeah, um, and not necessarily giving citations, but being a presence out there.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Slowing people down, just being a presence. It's not uncommon to see triple digit speeds up on.

Officer William Brindza:

It's not uncommon at all, Any time of the day. You're going to see it within 30 minutes.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

That's scary.

Officer William Brindza:

Especially on the toll road because it's a lot more open than 75. 75 is kind of hard because the traffic is usually pretty saturated.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Well, I think if y'all keep that up, the word will spread. Slow down Going through Collin County is what we want it to get to. We want this to spread to other agencies, other cities, and just safe driving.

Officer William Brindza:

Yeah. So I would say that's probably the biggest thing. That's maybe new.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

If you could tell the community one thing.

Officer William Brindza:

what would it be? Well, I would stress that the police department is on a great path right now to where Chief Dye has really pushed this leadership of FitForce keeping our officers healthy well, not only physically but mentally and spiritually and helping us with. We also dive into the financial part of it. Which you have to understand about officers is we're so much different with the way we are deployed. If you think about special operations or military that get deployed overseas, yeah, they're all ramped up at that time, but they get to come back home and ramp down.

Officer William Brindza:

Officers are deployed all year long. So from week to week, we experience things that the normal person doesn't. So our path as the as allen police department is on the right. We are doing everything possible to make our people well and that is going to show in the service we give to our citizens, and there's no doubt about it, and I've already seen it with our guys and just the way we are communicating with each other and with the public. So the path is right, we've got to stay on it, and I think that's the public. So the path is right, we got to stay on it and that's I think that's the goal.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

We're going to be the fittest police department around. That's right, that's the goal.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

We'll be one shape now.

Officer William Brindza:

Yes, there's a lot of participation. You know people are wanting to do this now.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

They're that drive.

Officer William Brindza:

Yes, so it's like you show them the way they'll do it right. Yes, so it's like you show them the way they'll do it right, and that's really what's happened lately.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

And it's available for them. It's free. Why not take?

Officer William Brindza:

advantage of it. It's crazy Basically, you're the member of a CrossFit gym for free. That's one of the things that really is. A barrier is money. Crossfit gyms aren't cheap.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

No.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

Same thing with the boxing gym. I mean they can get in there and train as well. I mean there's so many opportunities here.

Officer William Brindza:

Yeah, you mentioned the boxing gym. I mean, it's another thing for the community to know, like not only are we taking care of our officers to better serve the community, but we are reaching out into community and we're bringing in these youth and really showing them how to work hard, discipline, how to interact with police officers you know, giving them a little education of what we do every day and how we take care of ourselves. I mean, there's no better way to do it.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Great relationships being built, a hundred percent. Well, we appreciate you coming on today.

Officer William Brindza:

Thanks for having me. Thank you so much. A lot of fun.

Officer Sam Rippamonti:

Appreciate you guys For those listening and watching. If there's any of this information or events you want to know more about, you can go to our allenpoliceorg website and all that information is listed there.

Outreach Coordinator Alexus Birmingham:

Yeah, and make sure to like and subscribe, and if you have any questions, leave them in the comments below.