LEO returns to Groganistan

LEO speaks again with Kevin Grogan - former homicide detective, combat veteran and author of three published books.  Kevin provides his opinions on modern policing and what methods worked for him.

Kevin admits he did not do everything perfectly, but he did give many years to the badge.  We can learn more from mistakes than someone that comes on here telling stories of their own glory.

Tune in!

-LEO

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:07

Good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome back, Kevin.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 0:14

Let's talk patrol philosophy a little bit. You had a beautiful little apartment area known as Hitch Village. Pretty nice side of, you know, the east side of Savannah, Georgia. I think they ended up bulldozing it at some point. Man, I just kind of want to talk patrol theory on what the base uh what the best ways are to patrol an area where nothing's really going on.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Let's see if we have this same philosophy. All right. Here's the thing, first and foremost, on anything, any community-related policing activity. You know, that that's the the big buzzword for a long time was community policing and blah, blah, blah, blah. I I can narrow it down without any buzzwords or crazy jargon or any crazy shit like that. Just be a decent human being. Get out on your feet and talk to people. And if you don't care about the people who are in the neighborhood that you're policing, find a new neighborhood or get a different job.

SPEAKER_04 1:18

Love that, man. Even, I mean, Hitch Village, we talked previously about Kyler Brownville. I'm gonna ask you to put a number on it, even though there's no way to know. But you go to any, you know, housing project or poverty-ridden area anywhere in the country or the world, put a number on what percentage you think are criminals that live on a certain block, and what percentage are just people trying to live their life.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

97% citizens and 3% trouble. Even in Hitch Village. Even in Hitch Village, and I and I would say, I would venture to say that half of that 3% are implants. There are people from outside of the neighborhood who come into a higher crime neighborhood to do dirt because they feel it's a safe place, but they're not from there. All they're doing is they think they can get away with nefarious activity because of the safety that poorer communities provide for illicit activities.

SPEAKER_04 2:22

And there's money to be made there because people come from the burbs and other areas if they need crack, heroin, meth, whatever, fentanyl. So they come in there so you can sit out there and sell dope all day and tote a pistol and make money.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

And and depending on who you are in the circumstance, it's not always this case, but there's security there. Yeah. You're surrounded you're surrounded in where certain behaviors are there's a certain apathy for it. And the non-criminal element turns a blind eye blind eye simply because they're scared or they're tired of dealing with it.

SPEAKER_04 2:58

Yeah, you're out on the gang, your house gets shot up that night. I mean, what are you gonna do? Exactly. You got a baby now.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Exactly. So you No, and that's exactly it. Don't fuck with it. You know, so the the big thing is, you know, I I used to pride myself not only Hitch Village, but a lot of the bigger operations that I was involved in. We targeted neighborhoods. Okay, and our our goal really was to make sure that somebody could let their kids out in the front yard or their grandkids play in the front yard. That was the goal. You know, you you could break it down and use all the all the buzzwords, and you know, it's a domestic counterinsurgency, it's a community policing initiative, blah, blah, blah. Basically, what it boiled down to was the police providing a service to where the community was safe, you know, where where kids could play, you know, play basketball, throw a football around, and not have to worry about some asshole letting shots off and and somebody getting hurt.

SPEAKER_04 3:58

Every freaking night. So I want to revisit what you just said. You focus on neighborhoods because that's so important. Uh, you know, a street like this, we'll take in Savannah, we'll take the 600 block of West 40th Street. Active block, right? I think that's where your little buddy that, you know, stuck his gun at the camera when he robbed a guy. I think that was kind of his stomping grounds. It's always been active over there. You know, if you just target one person, there's gonna be 10 more dudes out there. But I mean, I did an operation there when I was at CNT, and it was the best feeling. When we hit it, it was great. We hit multiple houses. We got like six arrest warrants, we got some dudes off the block. But the cool thing was driving by in the days that followed and seeing ladies gardening their yard, you know, these old ladies out, seeing kids playing. There were zero kids playing when I was doing surveillance because there were 10 dudes with guns outside and stolen cars.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah, man, and and that's the thing. So I remember your operation when you had Shushine and his brother and and those guys. That was kind of like the second half because I think it was a year or two earlier we had gone through and done our sweep. So those guys were, you know, and they all got fed time, so they were gone for 10 years. So when you came in and got the the other half or whatever, the guys were locked up.

SPEAKER_04 5:20

They were trying to re-establish gang shit on that block.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

And right, and you came in and hit it. And and and this is a side note, but this this is one of the problems that I have with law enforcement strategies in the past and currently. The thing is, is none of it is sustained. You know, the the problem we so we went in there, we did almost two-year-long operation in Carver Heights and and Collard Brownsville, two separate neighborhoods, but at least a year of that was spent in the same neighborhood that you went. But for a year we were drilling everything, man. And if it sneezed in Collard Brownsville, I knew about it. Yep. You know, it was one of those.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Your intelligent unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

We we we had so much intelligence on who, what, and the thing is the community had seen because we walked around, we talked to everybody and said, Hey, look, we're coming for them. I know you don't want to talk to us now, but I'm gonna show you that I'm gonna get these people gone. So when they are gone, I need you to help me stay with it.

SPEAKER_04 6:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

That didn't exactly happen because you know, I wound up going to homicide, Toby wound up getting promoted and heading to Charlotte. So, you know, it was a different set of eyes on it. But then you guys came in and and did the a similar type operation and got the people who we didn't go, so it really did for a time clear it up. But when you pulled out of there, who came in behind you? And the answer to that is is nobody. There was no real sustained effort. You, I don't think your operation, I don't know, but I don't think your operation had anything to do with capitalizing on what we had done or anything like that.

SPEAKER_04 6:57

No, mine was just I knew it was a hot block. I knew they toted guns and shot people over there. And I would drive by and tell. Yeah, I'd be like, all these boys shoot people. I've seen all these names on the homicide wall. These dudes are suspects and murders, all of them.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

No, and it was a and it was a honey hole, man. I mean, that that's in 2006, so several years before we did the Osadev thing in there, Expo went through there, and that was where I learned everybody's name and who is related to who, and where they, you know, whose baby mama was here, whose auntie is this, so if they're gonna run, where they're gonna go. Uh all those types of things. But that's the problem with law enforcement is you go in, you quote unquote fix a problem, and then you move on to the next one. Yeah. Well, that problem, as you said, you know, the younger generation comes up and they emulate who was there before, and you're not really solving shit. Yep. So the the thing is, my philosophy was and always will be, is you have to plant yourself in that neighborhood. So if you take a Kevin Grogan, you put him in Hitch Village, you take a Chase Cogswell, you put him in Kyler Brownsville, you take, you know, Glenn Castro and you put him in Hazard County, and and get somebody who does that type of work and make that area of responsibility theirs, yeah. You know, that that's how you get it. But you know, it it always will and always does come down to resources, the time and effort and what's trending, and then you mix politics into it, and so we don't care about drugs anymore. It's human trafficking and blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_04 8:27

Right. Let me tell you how I how I made that case because it was I was super proud of it. And I was pretty new to narcotics at the time. I was on, they called it the React team. I wasn't on major case or anything, but my boss was awesome, my sergeant, and he basically let me just do like three weeks of surveillance. Like I didn't even come to the office. I was just, you know, maybe stop in at the office, but I would just be gone. I wasn't going on deals with the group. I was just out there. So I rode by one day.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

Good supervisors allowing you to do good work is that's the recipe for success.

SPEAKER_04 9:04

He trusted me and enabled me, and they'd be having a group meeting, and I'd be like, Hey, Sarge, do you need me at that meeting? Because I'm trying to like do my job. And he'd be like, I don't need you at this meeting. Like, hey, all we're gonna talk about is this. And he'd just sum it up in three words. I'd be like, all right, cool. Thanks, sir.

unknown 9:17

Bye.

SPEAKER_04 9:18

So I went by there one day, went down 600 block of West 40th, and I feel comfortable saying this now because it's been so long. I don't want to burn a source, but it's been like 20 years or something crazy. So I drive by and there's this dude leaving the porch of one of these houses. And I'm like, I'm gonna follow this guy and kind of see where he goes. He went up, he talked to some guys on a porch, or like three, four dudes on a porch. He goes up, talks to him, and then he leaves. So I'm like, all right, he probably just got some crack. So I follow him. He drives all the way to the south side. Like he drives out to the burbs, and I was trying to get him stopped, but we kept going through different precincts. And the patrol officers, I was calling on the radio, they didn't want to leave their precinct. So they'd be like, ah, he's going into this precinct. We're breaking off. And I'm like, damn it. So I switched channels. I try to get another one. So eventually he pulls into this driveway out in the burbs, and I'm like, hell with this. I'm just gonna talk to this guy. So I went up and I was like, hey man, where are you coming from? And thinking he's just gonna lie. And he was like, Oh, I was coming from one of my rental properties. I was like, Oh, where's that? Just wait, you know, people like that. Oh, if he just bought crack, he's gonna be like, Oh, I'm coming from my sister's house in Pooler in this other suburb. And he was like, Oh, I got this house in 600 block of West 40th. I got this rental, and I there were guys gambling on the porch, and I I'm trying to get it fixed up, and people keep kicking the door in and like gambling in the house. I went over there one day and there was this huge guy in there, and he walked out with a gun in his hand. And like, I'm just trying to make it to where I can rent this house out. He starts telling me about how he gets like 900 bucks a month directly from the government if he rents section eight. He's like, tell me his life story. And I'm like, okay. End up getting a key from him to this house. And he told me what work he needed to do on the house. He needed to like pull up the carpet. He had this weird platform in the house because those houses are from like the 30s or something. And so he's like, Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna rip out that platform, tells me all the work he's gonna do. So I was I had like a white F-150 for my UC truck at the time, and I was like, I'm gonna go work on this fucking house. So he gives me the key. And I was like, Don't even mention that platform again. That thing's gonna be up out of there. And so I went over there, I pull up, like tall, dorky white dude, and just like walking. There's a bunch of dudes out there selling dope, and they're all watching me, bro. And so I just go up, I brought somebody with me, and we just prop the first like two days, we just prop the door. We ripped the carpet up, we brought in like hammers, we you know, ripped it off the glue, put it in the back of the truck, we'd run it out and dump it, come back, get more. So they're watching us, you know?

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Yeah, man, and cops don't do manual labor. So you were in like Flynn.

SPEAKER_04 12:07

I was in there gross the first two days, it was zero police work. I was literally doing free labor. I'd start tearing up this platform. I'm in there hammering the like after we got the carpet up, I'm hammering the wood out and knocking this thing out. And so by about day three, I'm starting to bring a camera in my my toolkit. You know, I'm walking in with my metal toolkit every day. I'm starting to bring my camera. So now I'm going in day three. I'm taking pictures of these guys selling dope, but I'm also like hammering the ground in between, taking pictures of them through the slats in the window or whatever. I ordered pizza.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

And the genius, the genius thing about that is you let them see you doing regular person shit. And that, you know, that block and every other block USA, man. The thing is, if you're not trying to be sneaky, like if you had tried to board stuff up and cover windows and stuff like that, they'd have been like, something's up here. But if you're just acting like a regular human, you know, not standing out is how you not stand out.

SPEAKER_04 13:07

Just work, just working on the house, dude. And so I ordered pizza there one time. I remember I got like dominoes delivered, and I like, you know, a good cop always has some new ports or some kind of cigarettes. So I was like smoking and eating pizza on the porch and like in a wife beater, and these dudes are like straight across the street, like 30 yards away, and they're not even looking at me anymore. They just see me like if they'd have come and asked me for pizza, I'd have been like, yeah, like me, pizza, soup pizza. Like, let's eat some pizza, whatever. But uh, you know, and still the whole time I was there over the weeks, they'd see me show up. I'd show up in the morning, but I was able to develop their pattern of life. Uh you mentioned Shine. I'd see them all go into Shine's house. All the corner boys would go to his house and get the crack from him and then go out and hit the corners. I found out, you know, they're showing up at 8 a.m. They're walking around the right side and just got great pictures of him, you know, serving. He was like an ounce at a time dealer. So he's, you know, the corner boys are carrying about an ounce. He's I had pictures of him, you know, serving them up on the front porch, serving them out the window. But it was it was a really good thing.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

They were so comf they were so comfortable.

SPEAKER_04 14:18

Yep. And when we hit it and I interviewed him, he was like, I know who you are. And I said something like, What you mean? He was like, You've been at that house over there. And I was like, I I can't remember if I lied to him and said, like, nah, that wasn't me. I probably did because I was trying to protect the homeowner, you know. But yeah, he he recognized me immediately. He's like, This freaking guy got me. But it took like three weeks, and uh, you know, that's a you can definitely consider that an unsurveillable neighborhood. It's kind of like Hitchville.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

Oh, no, there's no doubt. There's no doubt. You know, one of one of my heroes in police work is a dude named Rufus Brown. And Rufus could ru Rufus could lock somebody up at Shady's, transport the dude off, change his hair a little bit, turn his hat around, go back and and sell dope or buy dope at at Shady's again. He could blend in anywhere. And that neighborhood, man, the the best story is he was doing surveillance at 39th and Burroughs, and we dropped him off in a car. So he's in the trunk and he's sitting there and he's he's got the trunk open maybe an inch crack and he's just watching what's happening on the corner. And a little old lady who lived there on the so that's a 600 block of 38th Street came walking and she met eyes with Rufus through the little crack. She went up on her front porch, stood there for a second, came back down the porch, walked up a block to 39th Street, and started pointing at the car like hey, the cops are there. You know, so that that neighborhood was extremely difficult to do. We had to do pole cams and basically all of our stuff, all of our surveillance techniques were CI. You know, there was no there was no way I could go anywhere near that neighborhood. They they had known me for years, so it was not like I could it I couldn't put a construction hat on and pretend to be doing anything other than police work.

SPEAKER_04 16:16

I remember Rufus would, and I didn't know him well, but he would put on like a a yellow construction or traffic vest, and he he would just walk places like he owned the place, man. And yeah, top notch.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

So I I left Savannah. I had left Savannah and I about a year later I had to come into Superior Court or whatever. So I drove through. And I'm coming down 37th Street because that that was I got off 16, got off in 37th, and you know, I'm me, so I'm gonna ride through the hood a little bit. And I see this dude on a bike, and he's pulling a he's pulling a lawnmower with him. He's riding his bike, but he's this big dude. And I get past him, I hit Drayton Street, I'm heading north, and it hit me. I'm like, God damn it, that was Rufus. Like that that was good. Rock solid, man. That no tough, tough neighborhood, you know, and I'm sure in Memphis and any any close-knit community, especially housing projects where everybody not only knows everybody, but they're related to everybody, and every they know almost instantly who's who, who belongs, who doesn't belong. And you know, you you law enforcement sometimes they you know they blow their own cover by trying to be too sneaky.

SPEAKER_03 17:31

Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_04 17:32

So I've I have some questions. You are, I would describe as now past middle-aged, pretty Caucasian, like you used to have red hair and a red beard. Now it's not so much anymore.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

I I have long been the whitest white dude in the history of the world.

SPEAKER_04 17:50

Yeah, yeah, you got a lot of that. You got that you're from the mountains of the Caucasus for sure. So Yeah, dude. But and I'm a Yankee's from New England. Hitch Village, not the whitest neighborhood. So a lot of cops, they can feel a separation right there, and they feel that they can't communicate with people. It's just this failure of community-level policing off the rip based on like this weird racial segregation. But you didn't really deal with that. You I would say you were one with the hood a little bit. You you're fine with it. So, how did you do that? How did that work for you and help you to better police an area like Hitch Village, Kyler Brownville, Carver Village?

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Hu huge part of that for me was where I'm from. Right. I was born and raised in a little town in Connecticut, right out the right north side of Hartford. You know, and I grew up around a bunch of Puerto Rican kids, a bunch of black kids. And when I say black, some were Jamaican, some were, you know, there are so many different ethnicities, man. I didn't know race was an issue until I got to high school and we studied studied the civil rights movement.

SPEAKER_03 19:01

Ooh, I think I lost you. Can you hear me now? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Sorry about that. I hit a button. But the thing is, is I didn't know race was an issue. It it never registered with me. And then I joined a gang, the United States Army, and got in there, and I I saw you know a a lot of people from different places. It was the first time I ever recognized, and they say, you know, there's there's no racism in the military, we're all one family. But the military that I saw was pretty clicky. Not so much in Germany, but when I got to Fort Stewart, I'm like, all right, you know, there's some people who got some deep-seated issues.

SPEAKER_04 19:40

Hey, real quick, I you know, I was in the Marine Corps and there's an old Marine general that had a great quote that was something like, There's no racism in the Marine Corps because they treat everyone like they're black. I was like, man, this guy beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Kind of went for it. Yeah. I forgot you were a Marine, dude. Do you need me to speak slower? Get that? That was that was a good joke.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Uh-huh. I didn't get it. No, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

No, anyway. So, like I said, so where I was from the and the way I was raised was a huge asset to me. And it has been my entire life. The army was also a pretty good asset because my eyes got open to a couple things, so I'm like, all right. But then you drop me in downtown Savannah, Georgia, Bo. You know, I'm a Yankee first and foremost. Yeah, you're on the outside white dude. Right, and the whitest white dude that I mean, and then you want to talk about racism. You know, you think people think the South and the KKK and that kind of stuff. You want to talk about some racist folks. Talk to some old black ladies in in the housing projects in Savannah, Georgia. Man, they can't probably with reason though.

SPEAKER_04 20:46

They've probably dealt with some pretty severe bigotry. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

I'm I'm I'm sure you know it all comes from it all it all comes from somewhere. But man, I overcame that just by just by being me. Yeah. You know, just going and my thought, you know, I I've always tried to live by the golden rule. Treat people how you want people treated. I took it, you know, I've been to two police academies in Connecticut and Georgia. And one of the big things that I always thought, especially in training environments, I was thinking, you know, I'm gonna treat people the way I want my mother to be treated if she's stopped by the police. Exactly. And that applies to Puki and Ray Ray on the corner. Believe most people always kind of scoff at me when I say that, but uh it's a thousand percent true. Well, those are your best sources, right? At the end of the day. Well, and before I even knew that, before I even knew what a source was, before I knew how to cultivate that stuff, before I had that type of experience, I just knew that being a decent human being has never has never hurt me. Yeah. You know, it it really never has. And I would get out, I remember, man, I would go I got out on foot and I'm walking through the neighborhood and and one of the One of the, you know, head dope boys was sitting on a stoop. He's sitting on the stairs with two of his boys, and I'm walking through, I'm walking through the hallway and you know, the the sidewalk between all the buildings. And I I look back and he's just got this big smile on his face. So I look back, because I'm sure they're cracking some not so nice jokes about me. So I, you know, you know, me, I'm like you, I couldn't let it go.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

So I stopped and turned. I said, hey man, what's the matter? Y'all ain't never seen a white boy in the projects before. And man, they just started laughing, and Doc said, he's like, Not by himself. So so they taught they thought one of two things. Either I was the baddest dude on two feet, or I was just plum crazy.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

But you know, that's how it started. It that's how you got the tone. I would just laugh and joke with them, you know, just sit and talk to people, man. And, you know, I wound up cultivating the best informant I ever had through patrol, narcotics, homicide, the best informant I ever had. And he told me years later the reason that he cooperated with me was because one day, man, I pulled onto Hitch Drive, and a little old lady was walking up the stairs and her grocery bag ripped, and her groceries fell on the stairs. So I stopped my car like I would for anybody else, to include your mom or mine. And I got out and I grabbed the groceries and helped her upstairs, and that and years later he told me. He's like, Man, I knew you were about it. I knew you were for real. I knew you actually cared because that was my grandmama that you stopped. And I didn't remember doing it, but you know, that's what he told me. And I was like, huh. Wow. A act of just common what I consider common courtesy is what led to great information years and years later.

SPEAKER_04 23:52

Catching murderers, regoing gangs, doing all that because you just did the right thing and treated people with basic human decency.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Well, man, and and the thing is that's that's the thing. Like we're we mentioned Sarden Woodward, and you know, there's so many dudes. Like there's an old line in a ghetto boy song, you know. You ain't gotta flex nuts if you know you got 'em. You know, I I didn't I never had to flex anybody. I was always comfortable in my own skin. I didn't have to pretend to be tough or I didn't have to be overly aggressive to try to get somebody else to back down. Because most people meet aggression with aggression, especially when you're talking about violent neighborhoods. Yep. And the thing is you gotta be careful what you ask for because them boys are about it, man, and they'll give it to you. But I never had to do that, man. I I I put my hands on a lot of people, and by the time it was all done, they were apologizing for making me have to put my hands on them because they knew you know that just that was not where I wanted to go.

SPEAKER_04 24:57

Yeah. I chased a dude one time and I had known him. I knew something was wrong because I waved to him. He sold crack all the time, but I waved to him and he just he had this look. Something was off. And you know how that goes. So I pulled, I went over the hill, I ran in for warrants, he had a warrant, came back over, and he was walking off. So, long story short, I get in the chase, get in a little scuffle. He was way stronger than me. Dude was yoked, like prison strong. And we get in a little scuffle, I get him in handcuffs, and he was like, Man, it ain't nothing against you, Leo. It's in the game. Like, I was just trying to get away. I didn't hit you though. Like, I could have hit you and I didn't hit you. So that's another, again, I'm talking about self-serving reasons. Not you're talking about like altruistic, like I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do reasons. But self-serving, that dude could have lit me up. Like, I'm probably not beating that dude up if he starts dropping hammers on me. But he did.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

Oh, dude, and it no, and that's the thing, man. You you you know how it is. You you get the respect that you give in the in a lot of those, especially in poorer neighborhoods, man, because that's that is how the culture, you know, is is formed. You you give respect if you get respect, and and vice versa. You know, I had a similar situation, didn't know this dude from Adam, but I go, I came in in the morning, started my shift, and he's in a housing project. He's sitting right under the police drug check, drug checkpoint, no loitering by order of the housing authority signs and all this kind of stuff. But the biggest thing was I didn't know him. He was on a block, never seen him before, and I thought I knew everybody. So he stood right out to me. So I get out, and you know, I'm still relatively new, but I I run him through the whole thing, man. What's your name? What's your date of birth? All this kind of stuff. He shot me a name, shot me a date of birth, went, and I said, Look, man. And he's like, I'm waiting for my boss to come pick me up, which was not unlikely, but I'm like, okay. I'm like, but listen, if you don't live here, if you're not visiting a resident, you can't be here because public housing in Savannah is basically private property. And he's like, okay, okay, no, no problem. So I went off, wound up getting a bunch of calls on the east side and in another beat. So I'm riding that beat too and taking reports and doing what I do during the day. And then I came back after lunchtime in the afternoon, so five or six hours later, and the same dude is in the same spot doing the same shit. So now I get out a little tougher. I'm like, hey man, I told you you can't be here. And I snatched him up by his belt, you know, it just to let him know I'm not fucking around. So I asked him his name again, and he shot me the same name. So I'm like, okay. But in his back pocket, I could see the top of his ID. It was a Georgia Department of Corrections ID with the name Danny Jones. I'll never forget that because I'm looking at the dude and Danny Jones, and that's not the name he gave me. And dude, I reached down and I popped the snap on my cuff case, and that dude turned around and hit me harder than I've ever been hit. He hit me, he caught me right, he just spun, it caught my finger in his belt, and he hit me so hard right on the button, dude. Like I'm seeing, I was like Sylvester in Looney Tunes, dude. I'm like, uh like, ooh. Thankfully, he didn't know where he was going. So he starts running around the building. I'm running around, you know, it was like a cartoon, dude. I'm chasing him around the building. We're doing laps around the same building, and I'm calling it out on the radio, but I'm I'm dazed, dude. I've been hit a few times in my life. That was one of I'd say top ten good shots. He caught me, he hit me right on the button, you know, to where your knees are a little bit shaky. I was like, oh, baby, yeah. But turns out he had escaped from coastal, got a ride to Hitch Village, and that's where he was hiding, and he didn't want to go back to prison.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

But dude, as soon as we go, you know, I'm calling the cavalry, everybody gets there, we get him in cuffs, and he came right to me. Like he's pulling, he's in cuffs, he's pulling the people to get to me to tell me, look, man, I didn't want to hit you. I didn't want to hit you, man. He's like, he's cool to me. He he's like, I just couldn't go back, bro. It was it was not personal. And the thing is, he wasn't telling, he knew he was going back, he knew he it, but it was not personal. It was he didn't want to go back, I was the obstacle, and that's how he dealt with it.

SPEAKER_04 29:33

He's like, I didn't hit you with a two-piece and a biscuit and go for your gun. I hit you with a one-piece and a run. That's different.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

Exactly. I was trying to get away. And you know, you did your job and caught me. I did my job to try to get away. But what would have happened had I been an ass to him the first time? You know, to bring it back to what we were talking about. If I had been a dick to him in the morning, whatever, maybe that would have been a different set of circumstance. And again, all that was he didn't apologize to me because he was a bad person. Yeah. He was a you know, he was a dude in a really bad situation, and I just happened to come in contact with him. And that's that's how all police encounters go. You never know what somebody's going through when you encounter them. So the rule of thumb should always be be decent. Because if they're in a great mood, have a great time with them. If they're in a shitty mood, be cognizant of that, and just treat people with common courtesy.

SPEAKER_04 30:33

Yeah, man. I was I had a ride along with me. I used to be in the National Guard, and one of our lieutenants who I was based out of Atlanta, and he came down and did a ride along with me. And we like we went through some projects, and like I was playing like Drake or something. I was blasting, I was blasting uh Be Humble that song. And like kids are dancing, like, we're having a big time. I'm not making TikTok videos, I'm just having fun. I'm playing music and cutting up, whatever. And then we went and went to some other apartments, and there were some old dudes with like a trash can with a bonfire in it, and we got out and talked to them. So we get back in, and he's like, Man, this is what you do at work all day. Are you kidding me? And I was like, Yeah, because what you just said, they might not kill me given the chance. And even more so, one of my brothers or sisters, you know, if I treat them bad, say it's after arrest, and I'm still roughing them up, and you know, even if I'm not assaulting them, I'm just like, I still have them in a wrist lock while I walk into the car. This unnecessary shit. They might punch or shoot the next cop they meet, and we don't really want that.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

And how many times have you seen that, man? I, you know, I I've worked with some assholes. Not a lot, thankfully. Not a lot, but guys who, you know, get the extra shot in or twist the arm while you're walking. Like there's a there's never I've never had a need for that. You know, like I said, by the by the end of most encounters, I was either getting apologies or thank yous. I mean, they were actually thinking, like, hey man, thank you. I appreciate you being cool and blah, blah, blah. You know, and I'm sure because you you have a very similar personality type, but you know, it it's one of those Well, I can't fight, so I have to be nice because I can't fight. Yeah, that's that's a big thing too, man, because let me tell you, there have been some times where I could have been yoked, and thank God they thought I was funny. So it it just didn't happen.

SPEAKER_04 32:24

The dudes that fight the police usually aren't bad fighters. They've been in some scuffles before.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Yeah, man. If they're not afraid to fight the police, they're not afraid to fight. That's that's for sure. But it the thing is, you know, it it's sad, and and I call it the post-Ferguson effect. You know, everything after basically 2014, you know, the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson in Missouri is where all eyes went to use of force and police corruption. And it existed before, but that was the that was the explosion of it. But man, so everybody's calling for de-escalation training and all of these kind of things. And I don't believe in any of that shit. All right. There's no it starts your first day on patrol. It starts your first day in a uniform. You're developing that reputation of who you are and how you treat people. Okay. You shouldn't have to go through de-escalation techniques and stuff like that. Follow the common courtesy, treat people decently, and all of the fancy terms of de-escalation and conflict resolution and whatever this year's bud buzzword is.

SPEAKER_04 33:38

Can you be police in the world?

SPEAKER_01 33:39

What are you covered?

SPEAKER_04 33:40

You name it.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

You're absolutely covered if you're just a decent person. And again, I don't think you can train that. You're either a decent person or you're not, and you have to care. You have to care about the community that you're in.

SPEAKER_04 33:54

Well, I'm gonna disagree a little bit because I think a trainer can influence a new a rookie a lot.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

And I think I think influence, yes. But you're you're not gonna make you're not gonna make somebody who's not a decent person a decent person. Not and not to argue with you, but I I but yeah, I'm just I'm arguing with you.

SPEAKER_04 34:14

I started the argument, but shit, you know, if if your trainee is being a jerk to people, I think you can fix that. If you're you know, I put a lot on leadership and I see a lot of, just to put it bluntly, a lot of sergeants, a lot of first line supervisors, whatever agency, whatever that may mean to you, whether it's sergeant, lieutenant, resident agent in charge, not holding their people accountable. And I feel like it's just really a disservice to the officer, the agent, the investigator, if they're not held accountable early and the standard isn't set.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

No, I I see your point on that. That that's a good one. And the thing is, but that kind of self weeds itself out. I'll give you an example. So before I was officially a training officer, you know, every every department is short staffed. So especially at that time, we were short staffed or riding downtown, and no training officers, like no certified training officers, were on duty for a midnight shift. And they had you know recruit just out of the academy on field training, and they said ride with Grogan. So I'm like, all right, dude. So I take him in the car and we're going, and I'm like, all right. I'm like, I'll I'll show you what I do. I'm like, you know, take take what you like and keep it. Don't keep the stuff you don't like. I said, I do things how I do, and I'm not gonna change the way I do things because you're in the car with me, and you need to know that. You know, I'm not saying I'm always right or whatever, but I'm not a training officer, I'm just gonna be me. So we go and we pull into the projects you were just talking about, and there's three of my all-stars posted on the corner, doing what they do, you know, and it's one o'clock in the morning. There's no no law-abiding citizens don't hang out on this corner if they're not doing something, you know, the people just don't do that.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

So I'm like, hey, let's go talk to these dudes. But I'm like, they're they're all yours. You want to stop them? And he's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm like, cool. So we stop the car and we get out. I'm walking around the I'm walking around the front of the car, and they all greet me like that. What's up, Boosu? What's going on? Da da da and then they got quiet, like dead quiet. I'm like, wait a second. So I look back to the recruit, and dude, he's putting his black gloves on and he's doing this, and he's flexing his fists and putting his gloves on and walking towards him, and I'm like, oh shit, Billy Badass is here.

SPEAKER_04 36:52

We about to get beat up.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

So I didn't say a thing. Well, I knew he was gonna be okay because I knew these dudes. Now, yeah, I'm not saying they're the best dudes in the world, but you know, you know how you know your your clientele. Yep. And these dudes, they're they're wrong. But he walks up to him and he looks at me and I'm like pointing to them. And he turns to them, he's like, you know, I need to see some ID. So they start putting them through it, dude. They're like, We ain't got no ID. We ain't got any and they're going, man, by the they're looking at me, and I'm like nodding my head, like, go ahead. He's yours. And they're like, they're like, All right. So man, by the time that encounter was done, he was him and his black gloves were shaking. They were fucking with him so hard. The the whole, well, where do you live? Who, me? What are you doing? Huh? Round the rock. They put him, they put him through, yep, rounded corner. Who you here to see, my folks? It's like, man, this dude was shaking. But it was a great training point. All right. And he got back in the car with me. I said, dude, look, I'm like, I know those dudes. I'm like, they're you don't have to come at people like that because you basically now he hadn't thought of it. He didn't think what he was doing was challenging them. What he thought he was doing was establishing his presence. I'm like, dude, that ain't how you do that. And this ain't and if you're gonna do that, you better be ready because those boys will they will go.

SPEAKER_04 38:19

They'll hurt you real bad and they'll leave.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Yeah. Exactly. They'll leave you in a little, they'll leave you curled up. But it wasn't six months later that dude was gone from the department.

SPEAKER_04 38:30

Yeah. Those folks don't last. Well, man, I appreciate it. I wanted to talk police philosophy with you, and we got way into it, man. I think you did the job well, and I really appreciate your feedback, and I hope it influences somebody to do it well themselves.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

I certainly hope so, and just remember the cardinal rule don't be a dick.

SPEAKER_04 38:52

Let's end with that. Thanks, brother.

SPEAKER_01 38:55

Later.