Ep. 124: The Courage to Live - The Media, Public Perception, and Policing

In this episode of the Courage to Live Podcast, Josh and Jenna discuss how media coverage and social media narratives shape public perception of law enforcement and the impact that has on both officers and the communities they serve. Drawing from Josh’s 24-year career in policing, they talk about the pendulum swings in public support, the importance of transparency, and how small human interactions between officers and the community can help bridge the divide. The conversation is a reminder that trust is built on both sides and that focusing on the best in people can help move the relationship forward. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome to the Courage to Live Podcast. My name is Josh Pitzko, and I'm a retired police captain with 24 years of experience out of Las Vegas. Currently, I travel the country and I teach people about courage, resilience, and leadership. Joined today by my wife and co-host, Jenna.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Hi.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

And today's podcast, we're going to dive into public perception and media perception of law enforcement and the impact that has on communities, on law enforcement, on individual officers. Before we get into that, though, I see you're wearing your Michigan State shirt.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

I am, as you can see.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Is there anything you wanted to say about Michigan State since you're wearing the shirt?

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Or I mean, we do record these podcasts in advance. So I don't know where they're going to be when we actually post this podcast, but as of today, they're ranked number 13, which in typical Michigan State fashion, they did really well at the beginning of the season. They were on fire. They were ranked. I think the lowest they got ranked was maybe I want to say six or seven. And then they started falling apart, as they do. And now they're starting to get it back together right before the tournament. And then they usually play well in the tournament. But I really was thinking that they could go all the way to the national championship at the beginning of the season. I don't think I think that I'm a terrible fan, but I don't know if this is this was gonna be their year, but I don't know if this is their year.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Do you think it's because they keep losing to unranked teams?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

First of all, you were a Dodger, you are a Dodgers fan, and they only started winning recently because they're the richest team in baseball.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

So Or they invest in themselves, which is what we talk about on this podcast is investing in yourself. So the Dodgers are just really good at self-care.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Yeah. Until they lose, and then they'll be back to being the worst team in baseball history.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Well, we'll see uh if that happens because of all the self-care. Kyle Tucker.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

So everybody, you want to play for winners, so the best players want to come play for the Dodgers now.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Yeah. Spoken like a true Dodgers fan.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yes. Yeah. Um, you know, the media also really likes the Dodgers.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Because they're winning.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Yeah. You know what they don't like oftentimes? Law enforcement.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

It's like, where are you going?

SPEAKER_01 2:35

How is that for a transition to our podcast? So good. I'm doing great. Um but no, and that that's what we're gonna talk about today, really, is how public perception is driven by social media, by media, uh, even comments on videos really impacts, I I've seen it, impacts officers. And every time, so I can tell you, I have seen this, you know, the a pendulum swinging back and forth. So when I first hired on, you had 9-11. And after 9-11, any first responders, what was that face?

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Wow, that was that was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Yeah, there's a lot of gray in this beard. Yeah, um, after 9-11, you're in a uniform and you go anywhere, people are coming up and thanking you. And I'm like, we are so far away from New York, like, but buying buying your lunch and all that. Like, people were very had a positive, you know, perception of police. And then you and even back before that, you had the Rodney King incident and the riots where you know it was more negative towards police. And then so after 9-11, you know, I you know, fast-forwarded quite a bit, and I'm sure there were other incidents in between, but then you had Ferguson, and then it was all negative, and every news story was negative.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

What year was Ferguson? I'm trying to remember.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

I don't remember the year.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

I want to say it was 2009.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Jamie, pull that up. We we I am Jamie. We don't have we don't have a Jamie on our podcast.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

What I am the I was gonna say I am the producer, but that's that's more you.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

I'm the editor for sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Let's see. Okay, keep going.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

So you had Ferguson.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

2014. That was my initial thought, and then I was like, no, that seems too recent. Anyways, go on.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Should have gone with that.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Um so you had Ferguson, and then Which was some people may not know what that was.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Yeah, you had oh gosh, I I don't really want to mess up the specific details.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

But I can read you what Google says. The shooting of Michael Brown, which triggered major protests and unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, occurred on August 9th, 2014. A white police officer fatally shot the unarmed black teenager, led to widespread protests, riots, and national debate over police conduct.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Yeah. Um, so you had that, and then you had, you know, I can go to like 1 October here locally. Same thing. You can't go, every news story was positive. You couldn't go out in uniform without people coming in thanking you. Then you had um George Floyd. And so I've in 2020, so I've seen this pendulum swing back and forth because having having had such a long career, I was able to see both sides of it. Um, but you have officers that hire on in 2014, and then all they see is just that negative, or people that don't want to become cops because of the negative. And I'm gonna throw out this caveat here is these this these negative incidents, you know, like even George Floyd, or where you see, you know, something that an officer does poorly, or even you see even bad shoots, bad officer-involved shootings. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be accountability there. I'm not even saying that there shouldn't be outrage at times. Um, but what happens is that's generally not balanced in the moment with the millions of police interactions a day that are good. And obviously, there's a lot more than more on the line than say somebody working at McDonald's. But if it was a national story, every time the ice cream ice machine or ice cream machine was broken at McDonald's, it would just be negative publicity for them, right? And this is where I get on my soapbox is we are now as a society driven by, you know, news is big money, especially national news. They're all trying to drive traffic to their, you know, their websites and clicks on a website and you know, social media with chaos and unrest. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

So as as long as there's chaos and an unrest and division, then they'll always have something to report on and they'll always have an agenda to push.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah. And that agenda is so often all cops are racist, all cops are out there just killing people. Like the because what happens? You see that headline and people want to go click on that and oh my gosh, what happened? Oh my gosh, it happened again. But when's how, unless it's these giant events like a 1 October or a 9-11, how often are there positive stories about police in the national news? Local news does a little better job at it, right? You see the community events and you know, an officer saves somebody's life or pulls, you know, somebody out of a fire or whatever it is, even though that's a firefighter's job generally. Um, you know, those things that often make the local news, but the national news, which has just so much more influence over the um the state of you know opinion of people on law enforcement, it's always just negative, negative, negative. And it's not, it's not just law enforcement, it's negative on everything, right? And then it's social media, and then you know, the those same stories just get repeated. Sometimes it's legitimate people with outrage, sometimes it's just bots repeating these sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

It's paid influencers.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Yeah, paid influencers trying to push a narrative. And that has an impact on so many different parts of policing in the country. You see, first off, it drives a wedge between the community and police officers. So you have police officers out have doing their job, doing it well, and you know, there it creates this us versus them mentality. And you have um, you know, I can't during those times of like either Ferguson or George Floyd, how many times just because I'm wearing a uniform, I had somebody people call me racist.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

And I tried to always comport myself with honor as a police officer, had very few complaints throughout the course of my career, um, zero sustained complaints, and just through throughout for 24 years, uh, but you know, it didn't feel good because of the uniform I was wearing to be treated as though I was a racist. And so it drives that wedge, it makes police and community relationships more difficult. And I'll say in Las Vegas, the police department does a really good job building relationships. You know, did we have unrest during George Floyd? Yes. Was it as bad as it could be? I no. I mean, you see other cities that I mean, it was pretty bad.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

We had a police officer that was shot and paralyzed.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

So yeah, we did have that. I mean, it wasn't obviously it wasn't good, but I I will say that that we had our police department didn't burn down. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. It was, you know, we had those in it was just just terrible. Officer McLonis, the his life was changed um from that those that unrest and those riots. And, you know, he ended up, it was a random bullet fired at police, and he ended up getting shot and paralyzed from the neck down. And he survived because he is tough as nails, um, but changed his life drastically. And so, you know, we did have we did have that, but just even as forward as the police department here was with building those relationships, we still had riots. We still had, you know, uh rocks thrown and bottle frozen bottles thrown at officers and all of that. But you know, you look at some of these other big cities around the country, and it was a lot worse.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

So, but that is the power that the media and social media and this narrative that's pushed has, and it it just affects cops. And I tried to lead people through that. So yeah, I was different ranks for through a lot of these incidents. Remember during Ferguson, I was a sergeant. And I mean, I remember I it was right when that was happening. I was a sergeant, but I found we were on a search for a prowler, and somebody was, you know, shaking a door of a back door in a neighborhood. And then when the homeowner opened the door, the the kid ran. And we didn't know he was a kid, it was just there's someone in my backyard they ran when I had turned on the light, someone out in the back, and ran from officers. I get there with Loki. We end up finding, I so I Loki gives me a change of behavior. I go in a backyard and I find a it's like a 15-year-old African-American kid hiding under a table in the backyard. So Loki's barking at him. I'm calling him out. We don't know if he's armed. I don't know anything that happened other than somebody reported someone was trying to break into a house, and then you have um believing the same subject ran from officers, which it turned out it was the same kid that ran from the officers. While Loki's barking at him, it was he had was trying to get back to his own house. It was his own backyard where he was out there, and his parents come out. My dog's barking at him. He's a you know, 15-year-old African-American kid. And I remember saying to them, I'll be with you guys in one second. We safely get him in custody. I go put my dog up and I go end up sitting for 30 minutes and talking to the parents. I'm like, hey, this is what happened. Obviously, because of everything that's going on in the national news, let's have a conversation. I have to imagine it'd be shocking to come out and see in your own backyard and see a police dog barking at your 15-year-old son and let's have a conversation. They were super understanding. Remember, the dad hugged me at the end of the conversation, but you know, those were the efforts that I would put in, but still then the next day get called a racist when we're out there and you're out there just working and doing your job. But it impacts decision making. It impacts, um, you know, I just remember officers like I'm out there trying to do my job and I feel like I'm treated like I'm, you know, a racist or evil or and so then how is even a leader did I were you can you push people past that feeling to make sure that we're still doing our job with honor and it's not developing this us versus them mentality?

SPEAKER_00 12:47

And I think you hit on a key point that I think the that policing as a whole can do better on, and that is being transparent. You went in and you talked to those parents with transparency and you explained what was going on. You didn't just tell them get the hell back inside, like you know, d you you were transparent. And I I do feel like that's where a lot of police departments fall apart is not being transparent with the public on everything. Obviously, you can't on things that are going to hurt an investigation or things like that. But I will say that Las Vegas Metro from the beginning, not from the beginning, but it was under Sheriff Gillespie. So when was it about 2010, I think, that he moved the department to be extremely transparent. Now, at now, if there's an officer involved shooting, they're having 72 a briefing within 72 hours, and they continually have briefings, show updates on the case, like body camera, body camera, all of it. And to that end, if the officers made a mistake, they are held accountable for that, and that is transparent as well. And so I think that is just something that I see some departments moving towards getting better, but they're still look at look at Minneapolis, for example. Like they were not transparent. Like they weren't, they I was in internal affairs um right after that. A couple well, yeah, it was very soon after George Floyd. And I wanted to know, I did a request for their um internal affairs data or early intervention, which is trying to prevent police misconduct on Derek Chauvin. They had none, or at least they wouldn't give me any. They wouldn't say either way if they had none, or they wouldn't give me any. And so um I just I feel like yes, the media spins this narrative. It's easy to do that when departments aren't being transparent and when police officers themselves like that's such a great example. If you want to know how you can be better as a police officer, be transparent. Talk to people, talk to them like a human being. Don't dehumanize them. It's it you're contributing to the us versus them by dehumanizing people. If you treat them as a human being, if you're transparent, if you talk to them, that's gonna get you a lot farther. Our number one complaint in internal affairs with police misconduct was uh interaction with the public. So people weren't complaining that they were getting arrested and all of their freedoms taken away. Their complaints were how they were spoken to by police officers. So it's a lot easier for the media to spend this narrative when when we're not being transparent and we're not treating people like human beings, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Yes. And then also remember that police officers are human beings too. Right. Um it's kind of, I don't know, I think it's a funny story, but um I remember shortly after we get body cameras, I'll I'll say this when a police officer curses on body camera, no matter the situation, it never looks good. Like uh, I mean, I you see body cameras, you see a police officer curses someone, it's like, oh, it just kind of makes it like no that because we expect our cops to be robots, but we sometimes we forget cops are humans and at times get scared, and in times, you know, we have emotions. And I had my dog was biting somebody, and he wasn't releasing immediately. He did. It wasn't like brutal, but I remember like telling the guy it's just an effing dog bite, like, stop screaming so loud, so I can get my dog off. And so it was only a couple of seconds, but usually Loki popped right off when I told him to. And um, and I remember seeing the body camera the next day, and I was like, ooh, because they were new to me. And I was like, I need to rethink how I speak on body camera. But I think we expect our cops also to be robots. So yes, I agree. Um, you can take away somebody's freedom, you can use force, you can use deadly force, but when you speak to somebody like they're, you know, a human, not a human or they're a piece of crap, yeah, then then that's what most likely what you're going to get complained on. But also it's important for us as a community, because I'm no longer a police officer, right? Is remembering that police officers are humans with humans and human emotions and we're gonna make mistakes. And so knowing that everything you see on the media, everything you see on the news is either spun, sometimes outright not true about what happened, because they're they need to push out information now before an investigation is done. So police departments, as you said, can be more transparent and push that information out so that doesn't happen as much, and then know that just everything you see on the news isn't true. And so, like if you're listening to this and you're you're not in law enforcement and you want to know how you can help that, if you're out and about and you see a police officer and they're not like actively doing something, like, I'm not in custody. But you know what? Hey, thank you. I appreciate what you do. And even though in the moment, because it it it happens sometimes, but not a lot, they may not like have like, oh my gosh, thank you so much for saying that. Um it it does mean something when somebody does that, right? And so if you know you see a cop, thank them. Thank them for what they do. And the same thing goes if you're a police officer, like we said, remember, um, don't put everything into what you read online, the comments. People are always like, Oh, I read this comment and it really made me mad that do people actually think this. My response is how many times in your life have you commented on a YouTube video? Well, never. I'm like, okay, most of the time the comments are not like it it don't put too much stock into that. Um, unless you're commenting on this YouTube video, then thank you. But um, you know, if you're a police officer, remember the national media, these websites, they're it's about making money and driving more tra traffic to them.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

And I think too the internal culture of a police department can greatly impact this too, right? If the culture is, well, we're the we're the police, we don't have to answer to anybody, that that's going to impact your relationship with the community. So I I just think there's so many key parts of it. It's there's a lot of people that have an opinion who have never been police officers, but they think that they know how how policing should go or how it should feel. And until you I'm not a police officer, but I'm married to one. So until the person you're married to or you yourself are staring down the barrel of barrel of a gun about to get shot for doing your job, I think yes, policing can get better. I think policing can all any job can get better, right? Any job there there are improvements need that need to be made, but also there needs just like as we're speaking about not dehumanizing, as a police officer, not dehumanizing those people you're interacting with, it goes the other way. It it's the public also has to not dehumanize police officers. We're seeing it happen right now. I'm not giving an opinion on ice on how I feel about them one way or the other, but we're watching that unfold in real life. We're we're watching the dehumanization happen with on on both sides, I would say. I think there's dehumanization happening on both sides of the coin on this. It's not just one-sided. Yeah, I mean But the culture has to be the culture at the police department also has to be, you know, we are gonna be transparent with people. Our interactions are gonna be this. We there has to be that that culture too, so that communities can build trust. And so there's not this perception of us versus them on either on either side.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Well, I think, you know, to bring it all together and exactly what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

I know that was like a really long way around that. I'm sorry, I said a lot of things. No, it was good.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

It's what we do, non-articulate way.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

We just have conversations, but um the us versus them mentality is not solely on the police department and it's not solely on the community. It's it's both because we can't trust national media to fix that, right? Like, so we can though, as a community and as a police department, community can give a little bit of grace, community can understand that police officers are human, you know, reach out and hey, thank you for your you know, your service or thank you for what you're doing. And the police officers can do the same thing. So if you're listening to this podcast, whether you're in the community, whether you're in the police department, you're a police officer, know that everything that you see in the news is not always accurate. And it's mostly never. It's mostly never. And know that yes, police departments can be more transparent. Yes, police officers can do a better job. We are human and are going to make mistakes. But I'll tell you, having been around police officers, and now I travel the country and I've interacted with, you know, hundreds of different departments and you know, or more, and police officers from around the country is most are well intended. Most want to do the right thing, most want to help their community. Um, so you know, always looking for the best in people until they give you a reason not to. And if you approach this issue or pretty much any issue like that, I think you're going to be happier overall. So having that understanding, knowing that uh no, not all cops are racist, and no, not everybody in the community hates you. It's most interactions I've had with people that weren't like when I'm at their house arresting somebody, positive interactions, people that you know, hey, I appreciate what you do. Focus on that. You get to choose what you focus on as a police officer, as a community, as a community member. And then you know what? If you if you're out there as a community member, you see a cop, just don't thank you. So appreciate you listening to the podcast today. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe, share it with a friend, leave a review. And if you like what we talk about, I touch on some of these subjects in my book, The Courage to Live, uh available on Amazon. And thank you for spending time with us today.