The Difference Between Action Guys & Clipboard Cops | TF70 Podcast Ep. 22

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Over 70% of America’s law enforcement agencies serve communities of fewer than 10,000 people. These rural and small-town departments face serious challenges—limited funding, inadequate training, and declining public trust.
The Task Force 70 Foundation was created by experienced rural law enforcement professionals to change that. Our mission-driven training program is grounded in the principles of the U.S. Constitution and enhanced with modern tactics. We prepare officers to respond to today’s threats, save lives, and earn back the respect of their communities.
Despite being the majority of the nation’s law enforcement, these officers receive little to no training support from local, state, or federal sources. That leaves both them and their communities vulnerable when emergencies strike.
You can help. Your donation will support the construction of a dedicated training facility, cover tuition, and offset travel and overtime costs which are the biggest barriers to department access.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey guys, it's Chaffee from the Task Force 70 Foundation. Thanks for joining us on the podcast this week. Guys, this week we're going to be talking about something that's pretty critically important, but isn't really talked about very much. And we're talking about it with uh our newest TF70 cadre member. So we're excited about that too. So, guys, before we get started, like and subscribe, do all that stuff. Uh, also check out the Patreon over at uh Task 470 Foundation on Patreon. Uh, you'll be seeing me and Joe a lot more and some other people were we're getting ready to start a uh kind of a round table type thing over there. Uh so you'll know more about that. Uh hit the merch uh here and on the website at tf70.org. Guys, every penny of that, like your your monthly donations uh that we greatly appreciate, go to executing the mission. And Joe and I just finished executing one not too long ago, uh, along with Liam and Dan as well. Guys, your your support literally makes the foundation move forward and accomplish the mission for small town rural cops. So we really, really appreciate your support. Guys, without any further ado, let's let's talk to Joe. So Joe is a uh experienced cop with a large agency, probably the first, not probably it is, the first statewide agency in the United States. So I'm gonna bring Joe on and we will chat. How you doing, Joe?

SPEAKER_01 1:35

How are we doing, guys? How are we going, Chappie?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

It's going good, man. I really appreciate you being on and and talking to folks. Um, do you mind uh because you're a good cop, nobody knows who you are, which is a good thing. Um, but you're a you're a really good trainer and you've got a lot of experience on the training side uh as a student and some experience teaching, uh, I'd like to introduce you to the audience and or to the to the people who need this the most. Um one of the reasons, and I'll talk about this when you're done with your intro, but uh all of us uh suck at introducing ourselves. So once you go through whatever stuttering uh introduction of yourself you do, I'll actually introduce you. But uh tell everybody who you are, Joe.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Um, so my name's Joe. We keep it uh very simple for the task force. Uh my background, uh nothing crazy, non-military, anything like that. I was at the Football Hope Wool. That's what I chased when I was younger. Um, didn't job due to injuries. However, very thankful for it because I'm standing above everybody today and on here with Chappie. Um grew up in a very gun-oriented household, uh, pro-Second Amendment, uh, all that stuff. And when I was younger, as far as in my in my late teens, early twenties, and I was getting into concealed carry and things like that. I was just basically looking for anything and everything as far as like what I could read, what I could digest, and just I'm carrying a gun, not for professional use. I'm carrying it for personal use. However, I wanted to do it in a serious manner because obviously it's a very serious endeavor. So I was put on to the likes of let's say primary and secondary, some of the early YouTube channels and things like that. One of the things that they always basically were very not bend the knee over was you need to take training. So I'm like, okay, so a bunch of buddies of mine are like, where do we take training? Like, how do we do this? Like, we just keep buying a bunch of guns, like we don't shoot that much. And it was like, okay, like I referenced earlier, we were very center folded in the primary and secondary. So we're like, okay, well, they go to Alliance, Ohio. So we live relatively close to Ohio. I'm like, how far is that? Not far at all. So we all were looking online, like, okay, there's a couple classes by us, let's all go. So this was probably circa 2015, 2016. We're like, we're all gonna go take a low-like class and just we're just gonna show up, and you know what? Like, it is what it is. Like we're gonna learn or we're gonna look dumb, like it doesn't matter. So we all went, and that was like my first entrance into basically training, and that obviously class was taught by Joe Wire of Alliance Police Training Facility, which you ever trained under Joe, best guy you'll ever meet, but uh very uh roof as a mentor, if if we will. Very much so. Yeah, so very much so. I got my start in that aspect, and I was continuing through college at the time, and I was going through my degree at the time would have been international business because I I come from a business-minded family, like I said, non-military, non-anything else that was relatively cool to what our viewers are looking at, and I'm like, what's an easy segue of like a job I can do while pursuing my collegiate career that I know stuff? So I'm like, okay, like guns, shooting, things like that. So my previous background would be I managed a this would have been I'm trying to think of the age time, but I guess getting old sucks. Um You're not that old, dude. Yeah, this would have been the the gun tree club phase. So like when you've seen saw uh gun clubs popping up everywhere, like indoor ranges that full auto rentals, like the John Wick stuff, like the Desert Eagles that were Deadpool like era, like when basically movies were taking over and everybody was like, that's cool, like I want to go do that. Like group on was a new thing. So I was a manager at a gun tree club, and then I had left there as I was uh approached by another company uh while I was managing that place to work into the uh precision brass case manufacturing realm. And then we had a sister company that also made uh loaded ammunition. So anybody years ago that shot the prime branded ammunition in the red boxes that were super awesome, uh Jim O'Shaughnessy was the president, great guy. Um I was kind of behind the lines as far as dealing with that. That would have been my my second to last job before I ultimately did get into law enforcement. And the million dollar question is why did I get into law enforcement or why did I want to? Um coming from a non-military family, however, I did come from a very prominent uh Division I high football family, if that if that makes sense, where everybody played a very notorious place other than me. But for better or for worse, I missed that basically. For us, it would be a patrol room or team room environment, but that would be basically in a collegiate level or high school level, it'd be a locker room level as far as just camaraderie and just you miss that just overall presence with other guys working towards a like-minded goal. So I loved my jobs. I had such a good time. I loved going to school, I loved doing those those jobs, whether it was the the range I worked at, whether it was the ammunition facility, whether we were making a load of the ammo abras at the time. It was so cool and it was so rewarding. But at the same time, like I always felt more. Like we would go do demos with SWAT teams, cert teams, whatever the acronym was in the day. And they're like, hey man, like if you have any interest, like you should you should apply here, you should do this. Like you definitely would would love it. And I'm like, Yeah. And I kind of drug my feet for a while, as most of us, most of us do when we we're making good money and we don't hate our job, which I'm blessed enough to say the the Lord's blessing with a good career as far as I have. I don't think I've hated a job in probably almost 20 years, so that's more that I can say than most, but I started to do some soul searching as I started reaching my mid to late 20s, and I'm like, I need to make a decision as far as what I'm gonna do, when I'm gonna do it, and why. And that ultimately led me to what's basically put me in front of this computer screen in front of you guys and our members. So that's a little bit about my background. I'm sure I probably left out a lot that chap he's gonna yell at me on, but here I am.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Not at all. Yeah, not at all. So you ended up uh going to a state police agency uh as your first law enforcement job. Yes. Awesome. So what drew you to the state police versus a local agency? Was it the higher standards? Because I know you and I know that you're always looking for doing what's harder. Yes. So was it that or was it wanting to do that work so at the state level?

SPEAKER_01 9:09

It's a very, very good question. So when most of us, including you, uh got into law enforcement, it was still semi-hard back then. So I had been putting myself through school, uh, college, if you will, and I basically was like, I'm gonna get this degree as a fallback plan because everybody that you talk to, let's say circa 10 years ago, is like, hey, do anything but criminal justice, do anything but intelligence, get something to where if you hate this job, you're like, you know what, I can put the key in the door, hand my gun in, hand my badge in, and be like, I'm out. So I'm like, okay. Historically, my family's been in small, small to medium scale business. So I'm like, okay, I'll do that as like a fail-safe. My like hard stop personally was I will not go to a law enforcement job to where I have to pay for an academy because I've already paid for my bachelor's degree, which, right, wrong, or indifferent. I don't advise anybody to do that. That was just me being cheap at the time. So um during that, during that sequence of events or timeline during my life, I had uh two federal job offers that were very good offers. However, they were more, let's say, uh, security-based rather than police based. And it was right around that time uh my mother had had some health complications, and I knew that those jobs would take me a significant amount away from Pennsylvania. And during the same time frame, I had received an offer on my original application cycle with a state agency. So I was like, okay, this is gonna keep me closer. Obviously, I can get sent to the will of the department as far as for anywhere that they need new people, but I'm like, this would at least keep me a little bit more centralized. So I was like, I will take that, it's a pay academy, I don't have to fork out anything over out of pocket, and this would keep me a little bit closer to home should I need to be there for any reason. So that was essentially what I don't want to say forced my judgment, but I weighed all the options and that was the best that fit at the time. And to be completely transparent at the time, I had never ever wanted to be a uniformed police officer because I I was young and dumb at the time. I'm like, traffic is dumb. I'm like, that's stupid. He wants to pull cars over. I'm like looking online, and I'm into the the I don't want to say tactical space because that's just a stupid term, but I'm like looking at all these guys doing really cool stuff on this team, this team, and I'm like, man, that's awesome. It's like I just passed a guy, like probably writing grandma like five over. I'm like, who wants to do that? And it's wild because it's completely shifted everything. And a patrol guy at his core is a much more valuable asset than the United States will ever give that man. And right I will die with that.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Well, and in order to be a uh armed tattooed SWAT guy, you gotta be a phenomenal patrol guy first.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

And most gut agencies, yes, including mine, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Right. That's that's how it's supposed to be. Yes. Um, and uh it's it's a constant recruiting challenge, not only from the demographics, but the younger uh kids who came up with social media seeing you know they want to be in the tribe, they want to do the thing, they want to be a SWAT guy or or whatever. It's like bro, you gotta you gotta be a cop first. And and that's a that's a hard thing to to uh educate some guys about about why that's important. So it's good that you came to that realization on your own.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah, I'm very grateful for it.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Yeah. So what drew you to um to the foundation, to to seeking out participating in in the mission that we're doing to serve the small town and rural guys who don't have a pot to piss in otherwise.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Okay, so as far as what what drew me to the foundation, I was I don't even know. It it was a weekday night at work on paper, and I'm like just thinking about career plans and where I want to be and what I want to do. So I'm like, you know, I'm like, I need to start taking some more training, which I try and do like my bare minimum is at least two classes a year out outside the department, because obviously I have a very good department that I can't say enough good stuff about to where they have like I have a paper gear as far as notes. Like there's probably 20 pages worth of departmental classes that are offered, but I'm like, those are free, those don't require any effort. I'm paid, and you know what? Like anybody can get those, but I still would like to pay my way and take other training that's not offered because that's a little bit of a different. How can I say that? Like, I don't want to say motive, but it's a different angle as far as like, okay, this guy's like wanting to seek outside instruction, so it's not just geared towards this agency and this agency. Oh I try and two, I try and do that at least two classes a year from some someone else. So I'm like, I I hop on the Alliance website and I'm like, I wonder what's going on. And I I'd remembered you and Doc from years ago. It was probably my not probably, it was it was my first carbine class. It was my friend and I we took you and uh John Spears' low light carbine class at ages and ages and ages ago. And I'm like, Yeah, like I wonder what John and Chappie, which obviously there's two Johns involved in Forge Tat, but we'll say we'll say Doc and Chappie for those that uh have been around a little while. Like, I wonder what they have going on. And through the interwebs or just aimlessly googling on uh computer that and the internet that's not paid for by me. I'm like, okay, there's like a foundation that that chappies doing. I'm like, and then Doc's maybe supportive of or involved in. I'm like, this is pretty cool. So I started started reading about it, and I had saw what I needed to see, so I fired off an email and I'm like, mm-hmm, like at the time I'm like, I'm a non-married single guy. I'm like, I live to train, I'm like, I love that industry, uh, it's so much fun. I'm like, it's given me a lot of stuff, and it's it's pretty much taken me to where I am in my life now, which is which is also a blessing. I'm like, if I can give back in any way, even by donating my time for free, like I would love to, because I think the first class that I had saw was the MTT that I assisted with uh at Ben Franklin, which is not vocal to me, but it's within an hour drive distance. So I'm like, even if they need somebody to just pace targets or uh that's literally why you emailed me. Yeah. So I'm like, if if somebody needs to just paint target backers or you show up, like I've shot a couple Fisher's classes when he's like, Hey, I had surgery, here's a gun, you're gonna demo it. Don't ask so I'm like, you know what? If I can do anything remotely close to beneficial for these guys, I would do it and I I would pay to get there, which I did. So I was extremely excited to see that you guys are also still active and basically the the greats that I looked up to circa a few years ago are still doing the same stuff that matters today. And I'm like, you know what, if I can be a part of this to any degree, whether I'm literally cooking at the lodge house for everybody, I'm like, you know what? Like I I would very much enjoy doing that.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Well, we appreciate it very much, man. It's it's the kind of support that that we need just as much as like the the support that we excuse me. Yeah, the support that we receive from the public is like we can't do it without it. But also on the reverse side, the support that we receive from you and guys like you that help us do it is critically important as well. Because the guys we're trying to train are the guys who it's 70% of the guys, but they don't have access to the training that you do uh at the large agency. Uh, you and I spoke about this um a couple of times, but agencies that are the size that yours is, training really isn't an issue. Like the the the guys are getting what they need, and that's a fairly new thing, probably the last 10 years or so. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Um they're getting what they want too, which is right completely crazy for most people.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

It's awesome. Um, and the challenge is for the guys who need it the most, they have the least access to it. The the like 0.7% of officers will ever come out of pocket to pay for the training that they need.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

So and I've been a victim of that too. There's there's some trainings that are not the Gucci trainings that I want. I'm like, should I take this first? And it's like you look back and you're right, stop being cheap, just go take the training.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Right. And it's one of our subtle purposes, is we're touching like the guys that we trained uh at Ben Franklin. Yeah, I think we got one of them especially interested in like this might be worth coming out of my pocket to improve my own capability, and giving him the places to look and go see Fisher, go see Pressburg, go see the guys who can really tighten your your shit up. Yeah. Um, because ultimately the community doesn't care who paid for it, they expect results, and and doesn't matter the size of the community, they deserve to to expect that. So you you participating in the foundation is is deeply appreciated. So we we appreciate that. So let's talk about the hard stuff. So let's talk about coming from a big agency who you routinely interact with small agency guys, uh being in a state police agency, and it's the same in all 50 states, they are constantly interacting with different departments who they've never dealt with before. Officers, they don't know where they come from, they don't know uh what their level of capability is, but they have to integrate kind of on the fly. So I'd like to get your thoughts on what large agencies can be doing. And I know we're probably boring the audience because I keep saying this so much over so many different podcasts, but we uh we can only do what we have control over as an individual. So we as an individual have the ability in a large agency to understand what I can do to better integrate these small or rural agency guys into uh an emergency operation. Like, what can I be doing to lead them on the fly or identify the fact that they're gonna be in hindrance, not a help in this situation? Like, what else can I be asking them to do? And then I after we talk about that, I want to talk about what can the small agency guys can be doing to maximize their capability on the individual level to the point where when they show up on a call with a state trooper or a county deputy from a large agency or a federal agent, um, they're immediately able to participate, not just like in a participation trophy kind of way, but like I'm ready to contribute and can actually not be a hindrance to what's going on. So if we can start out with what you think large agencies, office individual officers can be doing to better maximize their ability to integrate small town guys as they encounter them.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Okay. This is gonna be um very multi-faced. We're probably gonna go a little bit in a circle as far as topic-wise, which is good. Um, as far as from myself, being personally from a larger agency, it's very easy for us to write off this local department, this local department, or this multi regional department, because you hear horror stories or you hear like all these guys, these guys aren't up the par, or these guys are just like kind of all congregated and they made a regional regional facility or regional task force or regional department. But like, for example, if I was integrated. With uh your home agency. Guys that guys that have a very good working knowledge of who they are, what they do, and basically what they bring to the table, is one of the most paramount things because, example, if I go with local department I've never never worked with, like, hey, on this side, here's our problem. On this side, here's us, let's meet in the middle and be like, hey, what's everybody's experience? Like, is there a guy here that was Ranger Battalion guy? Is there a guy here that's a PJ? Or like, is there is there guys here with better hard and soft skills than me with XYZ amount of training at the state, at the state level or federal level? If there is, cool. Hey man, you want to be the med guy? Hey man, are you gonna be our entry guy? Hey man, have you served 12 years as a scout sniper? Like, you know what I mean? Like it it doesn't necessarily matter who you work for, what academy you went through. But if guys don't want to step up to the plate, you unfortunately have to be like, okay, I know very hard and fast, I have this block of instruction, this block of instruction, and this block of instruction, and I don't want to step on anybody's toes, but this is how we're gonna do it, unless somebody else steps up and says, Hey, you know what? Like, I'm pretty good at this, or I know this route, I know this industrial park, or something like that. It it sucks to say and it sucks to talk about, but it's very true. But a lot of us just get wrapped up in, okay, if that guy's gonna spearhead it, like whatever, let him. It's like, no, like have a professional conversation with what's going on because this is right, this is a very, very crucial pivotal part of the community here. And you know what I mean? It's like, yeah, we might have all this training behind us, but you guys might have all done it in a different segue or a different theater for real. So it's it's not necessarily just the larger agency guys just assuming or blanket labeling that they know more, they've done more, or they're just gonna run the show. And at least where I've worked, who I've worked for, I've never seen that as far as the case. Um if anything, I've seen it almost at the opposite level as far as people expecting us to come there and and be that or portray that when I don't think I've met a guy yet that I've worked with that's been like that. That's a good thing because it used to not always be like that. But basically, all this boils down to at the end of the day is just a team environment of people coming together and saying, How can we delegate task that each person is either worse at or better at? And you and I talked probably a day or so ago, that it's almost like powerlifting. There's there can't be any ego left in it because you'll either end up injured, paralyzed, or dead. You know what I mean? So I have a hard note here to talk about if I show up on scene with a bunch of guys that are a year out of the academy with no military experience or no other experience, unless you've de-escalated a hostage situation, let's say, for example, with your family or something like that, the highest level of training is gonna dictate how that works because historically, traditionally, whatever you want to call it, that's gonna be the most successful route that this is gonna reach a successful safe outcome. Just because we've preached for years, whether it's an alliance or everywhere that you've been flown to and taught, on your worst day, you're gonna default to your lowest level of training. And it's just the unfortunate reality of the of the situation. And again, I I'm the biggest proponent of cops working together because at the end of the day, it's all the same thing, you know what I mean? Like no matter which agency you work for, you want to go arrest bad people and make the community feel like you know what, our cops are out doing something, not writing grandma Cindy for five hours, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 26:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

So that's my that's basically my uh soap opera as far as entering relations, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

So I've noticed that there's there's obviously many types of personalities in a in a department, no matter how small. The the greatest challenge I've found, because I've I've worn both hats in this. I've been the large agency guy and the small agency guy. And almost always when we when we create less than optimal situations, uh it's almost always based on our ego. And it's it's been interesting as I think it through, in my experience, anyway, the vast majority of time the ego problem comes from the small agency guy. And it's not that he thinks he's great, it's that he lacks confidence in what he's doing, so it feels more comfortable to just to pass off responsibility to the large agency guy, and at the same time, his ego drives him to well, he's not gonna listen to me anyway. Well, you gotta you gotta earn your spot at that table. And the way to do that is individual competency, and and that you can I'm interested in your experience with this, but having pulled up, you know, with a with a small agency guy as the large agency guy, I can feel competency radiating off someone. Oh, yeah. If it you know what I mean, I can tell that that, and you can also, especially the more experienced you get, you can tell the difference between false confidence and actual confidence. Um, and I can feel that radiating off of a guy, and that only comes from him putting in the work for the last number of years, ready for this, because he knows that 99% of the time in his 6,000 citizen jurisdiction, he's taking noise complaints and you know, cats in trees and shit like that. But he knows that something's coming, he doesn't know what it is, but he wants to be prepared for it when it does, so that he can, as seamlessly as possible, it's never going to be perfect, but he can walk into that command post at the back of a pickup truck and say, Where do you need me? And just that statement and the I I hate the the young kid's term aura, but it is a thing. No, it's a uh like like uh you can feel that radiating off somebody and give them a task, like don't ignore them, you know what I mean? But that comes only with years of preparation at developing individual skill and individual knowledge and judgment and and things like that. So I I think your input on that was was spot on. Yeah, if we if we reverse our vision, and I didn't mean to to filibuster there, but I think if we reverse it, what do you think, especially given the large volume of interaction that you have with small agency guys? Uh being state police generally have a lot more interaction than county deputies do with small town guys. Yeah. What would you like to see, or what would you suggest, or what would be the thing that you're seeing missing in the small agency guys that you're dealing with? What can what can we both as a foundation as an and as small town or rural area individual officers, what can we be working on to maximize our benefit to a emergency interaction supporting a larger agency?

SPEAKER_01 30:17

I would say probably the most uh like mainstay thing would be again, this is something that we go back with grade school, but it's like don't jump by its covers because you're from a small agency, that doesn't mean you don't know anything. If I'm from big, I know everything because I could have been asleep through everything and didn't take additional training that was free to me that I was paid to go to. And I also shouldn't take that because you work with a small agency, you have a paid your own way to basically give the community and the citizens and everybody that abides by the constitution your true word that you're gonna do everything in your power to protect them and what's theirs. So, for example, like we go through a lot, we go to a lot of multi-jurisdictional scenes, and it's like, you know what? There's a lot of people and a lot of agencies where we go to a serious crime and they're like, it's like the they hate us on Monday, but on Tuesday they're like, Mom, come get me. I'm scared. But then on Wednesday, we go to a different department, and their county detectives are so good. We're just like, hey, what do you guys need from us? We need to punch this ticket, we need to punch this ticket, we need evidence for you. And it's like they're running the show because they're competent and they're good guys. There's no, I don't even want to say that there's any like difference in any of any of us. It's just at the end of it, which we talked to at Nauseum with uh when we were at Ben Franklin range, it boils down to what truly are you willing to put forth to be the person that you either want to be looked up to or like you you all you control everything. However much you want to be involved or immersed in this job or career, that's on you. However much you don't be, that's also on you. But at the same time, I've worked with sharper guys from literally seven, eight depart seven, eight man departments than than I have been. And um when I leave, I'm like, that's awesome. Like I want to keep training and I want to be like them. Full 40, 50, 60 man departments where I'm like, man, like they need to like fix a couple things, but at the same token, like we're not perfect at all. Neither is a larger agency than me, neither is a smaller agency than me, if that makes sense. But I would say probably the most paramount thing is just giving everybody a chance and everybody basically seeing where everybody at is at. Like, for example, your thing might be sex crimes. I want no part of it. But if I have one, hey man, how can you help me? If your thing is like, you know, I really, I really can't stand like DUI crashes or or fatals or something like that. That might be my thing. And it's like, it doesn't matter. I work for a large or a small agency. It's just, hey, you know what? Like, you're gonna help me on this. Whenever you get one of these, which you all ultimately will in your career, I'll do anything in your power in my power to help you. It's just I again, I beat the ego thing up very much because I've been I've at least tried to be very against it and just kind of turned off because I just I truly don't care from a civilian aspect. I've trained with six man departments, 60, 600, 6,000. I mean, you you've been to Alliance probably more times than you would like to. There's no there's no can never go enough. Yeah, there's no telling who's gonna be there. And it's like I feel like I have a better, I don't know, working relationship with knowing that than most. I I would say at least from the state, like large agency, whether it's uh a big sheriff's department, state agency, federal agency, any any of us, it's assuming that these these these local guys, these small guys don't have training or know what they're doing. And again, to reiterate what we talked about before I went off on this tangent, it's them smaller local guys that maybe only do this three days a week, thinking that, hey, this this big sheriff's department, or hey, this big state agency, or hey, these, these federal guys took all the training. They know all this. Like you're gonna see them on a Netflix special or something like that. Because you know as well as I do, there's guys from every single walk of life and every single walk of the department that some don't care, some are gonna be there because they're a legacy, because their whole family's done it, and then there's the other ones that are literally there every day to do the right thing, and they want to completely keep basically progressing forward and retire, knowing, hey, like we might have never had known one of those guys.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

So yeah. And and the guys who are leading in the field are in a 10-man department, they'll be two of those dudes if we're lucky. Yep, you know what I mean. It's every all the other officers' responsibilities to see what they have to be capable of, yeah. And and that's what we expect of them is we expect you to be capable of these things, and we can smell it on you. We can smell that you don't want to be here, we can smell that you've mailed that shit in for eight years, like we can smell that on you. So don't be that guy, is the real lesson for the small town guys, I think, is if you can't get into foundation training or we're not doing it in your area, find other stuff, like get after it. Like, YouTube training is not great, but it's something what we've had, right? It it's better than the Karenocracy checklist that you've been going through in your CEs every year and watching bullshit training videos on you know, the department did the absolute minimum and gave you a link to a police one account, you know, and had you watch these videos and sign them off. So they're writing a report while they're listening to some training and now they're done for the year, like don't be that guy. Like seek out where you're weak and and reinforce it.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

And and that's the thing that like I drive like a hard stop behind. It's like as a cop, if you're not competent medically or you just like, you know what, like I just don't feel that confident. If you think for any minute that you could just show up in uniform at any of your level one trauma centers or trauma center, if you don't have a level one in your in your area or within a travelable distance, if you don't think that you could drive there and say, hey, like I'm a police officer, I don't really have much money to direct towards training, can anybody just work with me maybe for 20 minutes and just get me a little bit spar up just so maybe if I go to some very bad motor vehicle crash, like I feel better. You think for a semence of a second that somebody's gonna be like, absolutely not, like we're not, no. Like you Yeah, that's not gonna happen. And the same thing goes with shooting. If you go to your Tuesday night outlaw USPSA practice and you say, Hey, like I'm an okay shooter, like I maybe shoot an 80 on Qualls, but I'd like to be better, but I don't know what to do, where to start. If you think some of your A-class, masterclass or GMs are gonna be like, yeah, man, like no, dude, get out. You're crazy. And the same thing, the same thing goes with some of the outlets, which um I don't try and talk about any other either training facility, training place, but as a cop, there's probably a couple places that you're following on your social media inner workings where they give more free stuff as far as case law, update cases, and what not to do and how not to do it, then you could put a price on. So if you're not exploiting these things before you actually pay for your own training, the only person's fault is the person that's brushing their teeth in the mirror every day because it's all out there. Because no nobody that I mentioned is gonna be like, yeah, man, I don't I don't really want to see my one of my local guys just not shooting, not doing good medically, or writing bad case law. Like it's right, it's right. The world is our oyster now is law enforcement, because whether you want to believe it or not, obviously some states are different than others, but the pendulum is swinging back to our favor, as it should be, because we're getting better guys, better trained. And let's face it, if you want to be a cop today, it's because you truly want to be there for for 90% of us.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

Right. Well, it absolutely is, and we have demographic issues. We have we still have law enforcement culture issues that like aren't going to be fixed on their own. No, which which kind of all ties into the cheat code is you have to do the work. Yes, like you have to develop your individual capacity, you have to. In the two mental and two physical aspects of all individual responsibility is knowledge and judgment are built off fitness and skill. Like the two the two physical aspects that you have control over developing your independent physics your your skill level in all things, especially use force tools, but and then your your physical fitness level at some like the physical fitness standard, and I used to get in trouble for saying this uh as a SWAT team leader, but your your PT standard is is to keep up. Like if you're falling behind, you're not the standard. Like that's the standard. And then on the intellectual side, you have to consume and develop knowledge because those three things, knowledge, skill, and fitness, combine to create good judgment in emergencies. And that's really if you're a small town or rural guy and a large agency shows up to support you or you show up to support them, what they're really saying with their decisions on using you for something is whether or not they trust your judgment. Because that's really what it comes down to. And judgment is built upon those three things. So um I like how you how you kind of you did the circle. Uh, you you brought it back to um like the agencies have to, the officers as individuals have to be able to trust one another. The agencies are almost immaterial. Like cops are cops. Yep. Like I will judge when you drive up on scene to support me. I'm gonna look at you for 10 seconds, the way you're carrying yourself, the first question you ask, the like, what can I do to help? What yeah, what's going on? What can I do to help? Like, that's what leads me to trust you to do something. If I hear, well, shit, I was supposed to be off in 10 minutes, and and you're obviously out of your you're you you get uh you get winded getting out of your car, like um, yeah, and you just stand over there and ride down everybody's name. Yeah. Say that again, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

You'll be blocking the road now, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

Right, right. So who do you want to be? Like, and if if you want to be the guy who is constantly getting handed the clipboard, then yeah, you know, knock it out. We need you, but uh, you're not gonna be relied upon. So become somebody who can be relied upon is kind of the individual tasker there. So I really appreciate you, Joe, very much. Um, do you have uh any words of what of deep D1 wisdom for for the small town and rural guys that they can they can walk away with after this episode?

SPEAKER_01 42:01

So I I've worked so a little bit about me. I've got a couple years on uh enough to bounce around. I've been over a handful of uh places I've worked, and that's been that's been extremely rural, where it's basically two of us, and it's like one north, one south, and it's like you may have a supervisor, you might. So it's like, you know what, like go into what you're gonna go to. If someone else is stuck on something or it's a DUI or he's gonna he's gotta be there, like you're it, like you gotta figure it out. Obviously, those calls are mostly infrequent, but they do happen. And then I've also been blessed with working in a lot of places that have I shouldn't say a lot, but at least three, that have tons of local coverage to where you're interacting with that metric ton. So I've been the hero in other places, and then I've been the villain on scene at others, personally, maybe, but it's just the way that it goes as far as working for a larger department. And I've worked for some of the best local guys I've ever. I'm like, you know what? If I can be 80% of them by the time I retire, I'd be like, you know what, I I truly did something. And it wasn't one of the locals that said it, but it came up in conversation just about basically everything we're talking about now. And it's essentially I don't I can't speak for you, Chappie, but when I was a kid, I would watch Westerns with my father, I'd watch obviously police anything. And it's like, you know what? If I could be any semblance of that quote unquote hero that I watched save people on television when I was a kid, if I could live that, do that, and kind of basically mirror myself career wise as if you have a son or daughter and you want to be their hero, and that's like what's important to you, that should be the thing that drives you on how much training you take, how much little that you don't take, your physical. Physical fitness level and just basically all attributes according to your career. That's just something that's stuck with me. Obviously, not married, no kids, anything like that. But it's just it's something that's stuck with me. It's not like a sheriff's department, state, federal, local level thing to where I I have to. Oh, well, this is different in this level, it's different if I work for this small department. That's just something that's that's very much stuck with me because at the end of the day, it's like, you know what? If you didn't want to show up for you or your department, at least do it for your children. Because you know what? You don't want to be remembered as like, yeah, my dad was a cop, but like he didn't really do much, you know, you know what I mean? Like it's it's real. And we need those guys, and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not throwing shade at those guys, but we're in a very different world of law enforcement. So it's like if you can't if you can't justify your existence through one way or the other, and obviously I'm not saying tickets because I am the most anti-ticket guy that exists.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Right. It's just which is ironic giving the agency you work for.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Yeah, it's just it's just a real thing, you know what I mean? Like guys and women and girls, whatever you want to say, they want to see you out arresting bad people in doing what we all grew up watching, which is cops before it was just brutalized in the American Right. That's that's kind of my soapbox, but the way I always the way I always describe it is like, you know what? If you're going to a tryout, let's say this is junior high football, and like say for instance you have a small school that can't meet their meet meet their football requirement, because I've seen it. You're gonna pull from other schools, and everybody shows up wearing the same just red practice jersey, white practice jersey. It doesn't matter now. We're all we all have our seat at the table. You know what I mean? It doesn't it doesn't matter. The the cream will rise to the top, as a former uh very prolific WD WWE wrestler has said. So it's we get so we get so caught up in like the the cog of all this stuff, and it's just like you know what? Let guys that are better than you do things that you're not as confident at and help them. If you want to be better at them, then you look at yourself and you're like, you know what, that's my goal. Right. And it's I love that it's truly as simple as that, but we we we as cops just complicate everything.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

Oh yeah, myself included. I'm not any better, but don't think that I am.

SPEAKER_00 46:33

Well, and same here. And cops are despite despite what we like to think of ourselves, we are still a result of the culture that we come from, uh, and the community that we come from. And the the culture has been feminized, uh, to be to be self-centered and narcissistic. Um, and and we see that a lot spilling over into individual officers. So I guess my my takeaway for the especially the small and rural officers is don't be a bitch. Like, yeah, how about you figure out what you're not good at and fix it? Like, and let us help you, like bang us. And we get we get lots of calls every week, and we'd we'd love for that to continue. And it's only made possible through the support of our donors. But like identify kind of what you said, identify what you're not great at and fix it. Like, let's let's focus on the important stuff. So that's why we appreciate your your input so much, Joe, being a younger guy. I know you don't think you are, but you are, and uh thoroughly appreciate your I'm definitely not a younger guy. We we appreciate uh all of your input and all of your support of the foundation and look forward to a long time of you uh continuing to help the the guys who don't get to help anywhere else. That's that's kind of why we exist. So that's part of this. We appreciate it very much, man. And the next time the audience sees you'll be over on Patreon here in a couple weeks. We're gonna do our first uh I don't know what we're gonna call it yet, but it's functionally the the Jedi round table kind of deal. Um Matt has done it at at primary and secondary, has done it so well for so long, but we're gonna try to try to meet meet some level of that standard, but focus very specifically on the small and rural guys uh to be able to come see us over on Patreon and ask questions and and get that kind of stuff done. So you're gonna be part of that that routine uh that routine Jedi head table. So we appreciate you very much, Joe, and yeah, uh we appreciate everything you've done for the foundation.

SPEAKER_01 48:44

So um we can leave with anything, guys. It's no matter if you're four guys or four thousand, like the job is documented exactly what you make it. There's a lot of social media accounts that or say, hey, this is dead, this is dead. No, it's not. Don't you think the job is dead? I implore you to watch the first few episodes of Cops where you have maybe Gip Worms or Tony D'Mono from Patterson, New Jersey. That is what the public wants us out doing, and we will eventually get back to it. This job is not dead, and I know I personally appreciate every one of you that go out and do this job the same as Shabby does.

SPEAKER_00 49:20

So we appreciate you guys more than you know. It's kind of the whole reason we're here. So uh Joe, thank you very much uh again. Uh guys, for those of you watching, we appreciate you suffering us to the end. Um, check us out uh over at tf70.org. Uh all we asked for is a small monthly donation uh to help us push this mission forward. Uh if you can't tell, we're pretty passionate about it, but we we can't do it without you guys. We really appreciate that. Uh in a perfect world, uh, we'd have you as a monthly donor and you'd pick up some merch. So uh guys, we appreciate you. And until next time, I'm Chappie with the TAP 470 Foundation, and we'll talk to you soon.