Why Cops Laugh at the Worst Times EP. 3

What looks like “dark humor” on the outside is something very different on the inside.

In this episode of Broken Perspective, Jeff and Colby sit down with another law enforcement veteran to unpack the reality behind humor in high-stress careers. Is it a coping mechanism… or something deeper?

From traumatic scenes and life-or-death decisions to the moments that make you laugh when you probably shouldn’t—this conversation reveals how exposure to the worst parts of humanity reshapes your perspective, your relationships, and even what you find funny.

We also dive into:

• Why humor in policing is misunderstood
• The balance between being human vs. being “robotic” on the job
• How repeated exposure to trauma changes your worldview
• Why some officers struggle without humor at all
• The moments that still hit hard—especially involving kids
  
  

This is an unfiltered look into a world most people will never experience… and the mindset it takes to survive it.

🎙️ If you’ve ever wondered what really goes on behind the badge—this episode pulls back the curtain.

Appreciate you all for tuning in! Be sure to share some feedback or differing perspectives. We welcome it all. For most the action, follow us on Instagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/brokenperspectivepodcast?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Like I I think it's hilarious that we're expected to be a robot and then on the flip side people want us to be more human. You're like, well, well, which is it? Because if you want the human side, you're gonna get the you're gonna get the the dark humor, you're gonna get the inappropriate remarks. Or if you want me to be a robot, then I'm gonna come in with no sympathy, no empathy, just the facts, ma'am, you know, and just and people don't like that version either.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

People don't want, they don't they want the they want the middle of the bell curve.

SPEAKER_05 0:30

Welcome to Broken Perspective Podcast, where we challenge beliefs, learn from others, and aim to be better people. My name is Colby.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

And my name's Jeff, and today we're gonna be talking about the importance of humor in stressful careers.

SPEAKER_05 0:43

Why is it that people who work in stressful careers or positions laugh at things that most people would find to be terrible? Well, to answer that question today, we have our really good friend, Mr. Jeff Kozak, the one and only. But before we get into chatting with the other Jeff, Jeffrey Daigle, what are we drinking today?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Uh we got a wonderful gift delivered by Mr. Kozak, and maybe he can uh share where he got this from.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Yeah, this is uh this is a local brewery in Chico. Uh it's called Ramble West. I think they've they've hit a year or two. Uh they got about half a dozen beers usually out. Uh it's it's actually my neighbor that does it. Um and he was a previous brewer for Laganitas, so he's doing doing very well. The beer that I chose is Kers, which is their version of a light beer. Uh Kers, Coors. You can kind of picture that. Yeah, you can figure it out. I gotta move this microphone over my beer.

SPEAKER_05 1:47

Go for it. I like the um I like the feel of the can. It's got like a matte finish.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

Yeah, they throw the labels on there. I have no idea uh about beer. I have an idea, but I like it.

SPEAKER_05 2:03

All I know is that me nor Jeff Daigle is the one who messed up the pore this time, though. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

Cheers. Cheers. Cheers, brother.

SPEAKER_05 2:12

I'm about to reach over there for you guys. Cheers, cheers. Cheers, try this out.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Where can uh can people buy these beers? Um, yeah, absolutely. Trader Joe's carries them. I don't I don't know what their distribution looks like down here. I I came a little bit unprepared. But uh yeah, Trader Joe's. Tasty. Yeah, some uh I'm sure they do some. I know Costco and Chico has it. Oh, fantastic. They have like a couple uh that they sell from time to time.

SPEAKER_05 2:39

Nice. So he's doing good. He's actually getting the beers out there.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

Yeah. Very cool. We were we were lucky enough to be uh part of the tasting taste testers, you know. So everyone's got a job. Oh, yeah, I know, especially when they're just like, here you go. He would brew him in his garage and then uh we'd go over there and be like, this is delicious. That's awesome. Yeah, that's pretty great.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

That's awesome. Now, do you want us to refer to because we're gonna have this Jeff problem emerging, or do you want me to refer to you as Xerxes? Zerx you will find that I'm kind. Yes, that was uh a nice running joke that we had while you while we worked together.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

Yeah, that was a good nickname. I love nicknames. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 3:16

Sure, we'll talk about that in a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

But uh before, do you mind just uh uh letting the viewers know a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_03 3:23

Yeah, so uh I I work uh in a Northern California. I work for a law enforcement agency there. I've been doing that for about 17 years. Um three had a short stint of working together for about three. And then um, yeah, I don't know what what else? I don't I don't really want to talk about it. Nobody wants to talk about themselves. I don't want to talk about work. Like uh I have a daughter, she's 12, she plays volleyball. She's taller than most of my friends.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Um Well, let's just get the let's just figure that out. How tall are you? I'm six foot ten. Six foot ten.

SPEAKER_05 3:56

Yeah, setting up today. I had to ensure that the tripod was positioned a little different than normal. Yeah. Make sure I get you fully in frame.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

Yeah, they cut the legs off my chair, so it was a normal height.

SPEAKER_05 4:07

Yeah, we had to put you down a little bit lower. Well, thank you for coming, first of all. No problem. It was awesome for you to drive down here. Yeah. Um, we haven't seen you in a little while since you left us.

SPEAKER_03 4:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:17

And uh we missed the humor around the PD.

SPEAKER_03 4:20

I do uh I do miss uh working with you guys. I miss the people, not so much the area. Uh and I I do get a lot of text messages of trading memes and trading jokes, and we miss you, Jeff. And so every once in a while somebody will be in briefing and mention my name and I'll get a text immediately. So it's it's nice to be loved. So yeah, absolutely. It's nice to be here. It's nice to see you guys.

SPEAKER_05 4:43

Yeah, you too. Yeah. Well, as we have already mentioned, the the theme of this show today is really about humor and how it plays a role in reducing stress in you know, different professions like law enforcement or any other profession out there where you are exposed to tragedy on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

And I think have is common. I think even military, I mean, yeah, I think those are the most common that I just come to the top of my head is uh we'll often utilize humor almost as a defense mechanism, but I think it's a healthy way to do it.

SPEAKER_05 5:18

Yeah, 100%. And so to kick things off, we're gonna ask uh the first question, which is for Mr. Kozak. Based on your experience, you know, having been in law enforcement for how many years now?

SPEAKER_03 5:30

Uh almost 17. 17 in June.

SPEAKER_05 5:33

Okay, so you have a pretty pretty good understanding of the role stress plays in our in our lives. Yeah. And you know, how humor can really help with that. You know, what has been what is your experience? Like, why do you think it's important to have humor?

SPEAKER_03 5:49

Well, you know, uh when you guys invited me here and you sent me some questions, I had to think about it because um, you know, like in the academy, you know, your instructors are these archaic dinosaurs are probably haven't been in the field for 10, 15 years, and uh some of them, not all of them. And they're sitting they're like, oh humor, we have this dark humor, and uh it's a coping mechanism, and you know, it's like I believe that in the first part of my career, uh, but then as I'm getting older, I'm like, I don't think it's a coping mechanism. I think it's more of like the standard for where our humor is. I mean if you think of like regular people not in law enforcement, you know, and you think they go to comedian comedy shows, you know, and they have like this level, this threshold which makes them laugh, and they're just like, Yeah, it's because I can relate to that. And then you think of like people like us are in our professions, and our standard is a little elevated because we come across things that some people never witness in their life. And so I think it's just a you know, I don't I don't mean to brag about it or or boast, but I think it's we are lucky enough to be given an intimate look at humanity and to see all the different things that some people will never ever see in their life. And so now we're part of this club that relates to this trauma or stress or or whatever, and and it's like, well, might as well make a joke of joke about it. Like it's kind of like the comedians make a joke about, oh, I was at home and I'm doing laundry and my wife and everybody laughs because they can relate to it, where we sit around and we're like, oh yeah, this guy was killed by a train, and the conductor's like, I tried to swerve, and we're like, oh, that's that's morbid, but hilarious, you know, because we can relate to it, you know. So I look at it more of a like because of our relationship with humanity. I think that uh our humor evolves into something that's that regular people see as much darker, and it's like, well, I mean, it's not really dark because it exists, it's just we're exposed to it and they're not.

SPEAKER_05 8:00

So Yeah, and what would the job look like without humor? Like imagine going to the calls and the things that we see and not being able to make light of some of it.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Well, I was thinking about that, and it's my thought was is that maybe it it goes almost like like a bell curve. Right? I think when you first start, um, you try to take everything seriously. You try to uh you know, you try to portray stance, you know. Right. You take everything seriously, um, depending on when you started in your life, but you look at it, it's like, okay, I want to do a really great job in everything. I think the first time we've probably gone to a death investigation, um, the first one you're like, okay, I'm gonna do all the things, make sure I it's not a homicide. And you know, it could just be natural causes. Right. Um and then by the the 20th time you've gone there to the same sort of call, it doesn't affect you in the same way. And so it's like, okay, now I'm dealing with this. And you can kind of have uh a little bit, it doesn't affect you in the same capacity. You still want to show empathy for the family, you still want to be professional, um, but amongst your peers, it's not it doesn't feel like a big deal because you I've gone to a gajillion of these, so then it goes up and then it becomes not doesn't become funny, but you find humorous things that can be involved in that, right? Um but then I was curious as like, does it get to a point where you've gone to so many of them that the humor almost goes away? And that's when you kind of become the salty, yeah, uh jaded officer, and it's like that's okay, is it now you're you're nearing the end of your career during that time? And that's why I think originally they put you know, such a like a 30-year career is like what you should do, you shouldn't go beyond that, kind of like military. They put a short time frame on it because if you keep going to these uh critical incidents or keep going to these um traumatizing events, um you can't help but have that affect you.

SPEAKER_05 10:16

Yeah, and I I would say even 20 to 30 years is probably probably too much for most people.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 10:23

You know, I was there was a thing on uh the internet the other day, or maybe it was on Instagram or something. It was like the the amount of trauma that the average person will see in their lifetime outside of what we do is, you know, maybe one or two really major incidents.

SPEAKER_03 10:37

Right. That's not much.

SPEAKER_05 10:38

Whereas someone who works in law enforcement or you know, like a critical ER nurse or something like that will see hundreds, thousands of situations, and you have to process that out throughout your career. You don't get to see a traumatic incident and just leave and go have a beer and relax. It's like, oh, I got more calls to go to.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_05 10:56

So yeah, I think it's definitely a um it's a process over a career, you know. But like you said, the more you see some of these situations, like the things you observe and notice change. You know, for like you said, a death investigation. I remember the first couple, I was just so never seen it, right? Yeah, it's like boys in the hood, y'all ever seen a dead body? Yeah, you know, you just you're looking at it and you're like you're processing it and you really don't know how you're supposed to respond, even you're just like, I was like a 22, 23 year old kid going to a death investigation. Like, I never even had a death in my family at that point.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Right.

SPEAKER_05 11:33

And I'm like, I'm processing this thing, and you know, you're nervous and you're trying to do a good job, like you said, be professional, take good notes, be empathetic. But then yeah, after like 20, 30 of these things, then you start walking into noticing, oh, I've never seen one in that position before.

SPEAKER_03 11:47

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Or did the part where he's like, he felt funny.

SPEAKER_05 11:51

Yeah, starting starting my career in Arizona where it's super hot, you get monsoon hum humid season, yeah, and it's like a trailer, it's 110 degrees, and the swamp cooler's been running, right? And you walk in and there's this body that's just bloated like it's about to explode. You can't help but kind of like think you just you kind of laugh at it. You're like, I don't want to be in here very long. Right. And you start kind of making fun of your coworkers, and you're like, hey, drawing straws for ones with the weak stomachs.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

Who's gonna go in there?

SPEAKER_05 12:22

And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Get in there, get in there, new guy.

SPEAKER_05 12:28

The beauty the beauty of having trainees at some point in your profession, and that's when the humor comes, I think a little stronger.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Well, I think it's also important to note. Um, I think in all of our conversations, one of the things that I think would be important to, you know, just come across is like we have to have a separation of thoughts, and then the separation of thoughts and actions, and then thoughts and then words, and then actions. Those are all different things because you know sometimes you have thoughts and you're like, oh, I'm not saying that.

SPEAKER_05 13:02

Um unless you're my daughter, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Unless you're unless you're like yeah, our kids. Um, but it's important to kind of know in some of these stories that we're going to tell, uh, very likely it's like we'll have thoughts in it, then we'll have things that we said, but then there's actions, and all those things are very uh very separate. And I think it's important to know.

SPEAKER_05 13:26

Yeah, 100%. We're not a bunch of cold animals.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

So you censor what you say uh on scenes like that. Yeah, yeah. It's a supervisor here, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 13:37

I mean, we're in the the age of the body worn camera now, and even that's a that's kind of an interesting thing to to think about how we're forced to kind of shut things down, how we would normally respond on on a call, yeah. Having a camera constantly recording your every word, your every babysitter. Yeah, you know, and now we're not even thinking just for ourselves of like how do I process this? It's like how is my body worn camera going to be perceived if I laugh in this moment, which adds a whole nother dynamic to just how we operate.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

Yeah. I know I've said some stupid things and done some stupid things on body worn camera, but you know, like, oh, if I cuss, I talk to the camera, it's like, oh, I'm sorry. Sorry for using profanity, you know, like it just comes out. Like I I think it's hilarious that we're expected to be a robot, and then on the flip side, people want us to be more human. You're like, well, well, which is it? Because if you want the human side, you're gonna get the you're gonna get the the dark humor, you're gonna get the inappropriate remarks. Or if you want me to be a robot, then I'm gonna come in with no sympathy, no empathy, just the facts, ma'am, you know, and just and people don't like that version either.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 14:50

People don't want they don't they want the middle of the bell curve.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Even when they're the suspect in a crime, it's like if you're robotic, they like you can't get any connection, and it's just they don't like that because you're like, dude, what are you? Yeah. Versus I mean, I think we could probably all speak to it how many people that we've taken to jail for horrendous crimes that like thank us for just the people that we are.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

Yeah, like when we when we treat them like how we would want to be treated. Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yeah. And I mean, you can get them sometimes to laugh a little bit. You have you you create a uh a weird connection, but it's like you're just treating them like a person, you don't begrudge them separate of their act, like you're just like, hey, I'm doing my job, I'm taking you where you need to go. Yeah, you know you did it, yeah. Um, but I don't have to be a jerk to you or anything like that. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 15:48

That kind of reminds me of a call that I had. And it was a laughable moment. I'm glad the guy laughed. So I was taking a guy on a 5150, and so for those outside of California, basically it's a mental health call where someone you know is feeling like they want to harm themselves. So, long story short, went through all the motions and got him in the car. And as I usually do, because I don't really like silence, so I usually put music on. Yeah, you know, ask him what kind of music they like. Yeah, yeah. When I'm driving to wherever, the jail or the hospital or whatnot. And I didn't ask what kind of music he liked, I just turned on the radio, and as we're pulling away, all of a sudden the song I think it's from Papa Roach comes on, the suffocation, no breathing. Right. Cut my arms, blah, blah, blah. And this song comes on as I'm taking this dude who just told me that he felt like maybe cutting himself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:44

And we kind of had that moment where I look back in the rearview mirror and we kind of locked eyes for a moment when the song came on. And I was like, shoot, man, I'm I was like, I'm sorry, bro. I didn't know that was gonna be on. I turned it down. He starts laughing though. And I think in that moment there was a bit of like human connection of like the the irony in what just happened. Yeah, it was kind of funny. I couldn't have planned for it, you know. I didn't do it to be, I didn't know. I just turned the radio on. I'm like, I want some tunes, right? And boom, we lock eyes, and it's like talking about suicide as I'm taking this guy, and we laugh. Yeah, that was kind of a funny moment. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

No, it's definitely those like my ringtone on my phone is uh Bob Marley uh Three Little Birds, where it starts singing, you know, don't worry about a thing. It's always interesting when I'm arresting somebody uh and my phone starts playing that just randomly somebody's calling me, and it's like almost everybody likes that song, so yeah, it works, but then it there's a little humor in that.

SPEAKER_05 17:43

Let me ask you guys this have you ever intentionally played a particular song while transporting somebody?

SPEAKER_03 17:52

I'm not that clever. Like I have a tough time just linking my Bluetooth to the Tahoe.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

I don't that sounds like something I would a hundred percent do. I don't remember uh any particular story that goes along with that, but I'm sure you do.

SPEAKER_05 18:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:07

Not a particular song, however, however, I uh I used to put like the Disney station on. I would you know plug in my uh my phone to the Bluetooth and the Tahoes, because we can do that now, and I would just put like Disney music on. Just the most random, happy, happy music at a time where someone might be a little, and that's probably only I guess if that's if people think that's mean, I think it's pretty mild.

unknown 18:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:33

What do you guys think?

SPEAKER_03 18:34

You want to build a snowman? I mean, come on, really? Yeah, like just funny music. I'd rather build a snowman than be sitting in the back of this Tahoe.

SPEAKER_05 18:39

So yeah, uh, you know, so it was just funny, humorous music, and it, you know, people would respond differently. Some people would laugh, some people would sit there and just, you know, mean stare me. Yeah, but I don't know, it brought me humor. It was my little joy, and when I just got done dealing with somebody who was a total ass and arguing with everybody, making everything more difficult, like it's the little things, right? Getting in the car and just putting on, you know, Elsa singing.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

It's changing your perspective, it's changing your mindset and you know, putting something to that. Not that it goes into just kind of goes along that, not the general overall topic, but I remember um going to a call that I thought was extremely dumb, and for some reason I just wasn't in the mood for it. But somebody called, and it was the most ridiculous call. It was like, oh, there was like a dead squirrel on their like in front of their house. And I was like, this is this is not something that police should be responding to.

SPEAKER_05 19:37

Like another adult can't take care of this.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

This is something that this is an ad this is a problem a simple adult, not even kids could deal with most of this. Yeah, hey, you guys want to make a squirrel hat? Yeah, right. Right. So I remember going there and being almost frustrated, like, this is dumb. What am I doing? Why is somebody calling and then why was this actually dispatched? Like, why was I just make the board? This is ridiculous. Um, and while I was going there, uh my wife called me, and I kind of was venting a little bit to her about how stupid this call was. And she's like, why don't you just like have fun with it? And it totally changed my mindset. And so then I got on scene, put the spotlights on it, started putting crime scene tape around it, did the chalk outline, little placards. I did a whole whole scene on this. And meanwhile, while I'm doing this, knowing it's totally over the top and ridiculous, but it entertained me only. Um, the the RP comes out, and I kind of like look over, like, oh shit, like this. They might not find this nearly as funny as I'm doing, but it's funny watching all the people like drive by and try to see what I'm doing, and it's just basically I'm doing a homicide scene for a squirrel. And um can you call detectives out? Yeah, right. And she she comes out and she says something derogatory about her kids and how frustrated she is with them. I'm like, how old are your kids? She's like 15 and 13. I'm like, why don't you bring them out? And so I just hand them and just verbally walk them through how to deal with this said problem. And one of them looks over at me during the process, like, why are we doing this? I was like, is why was I called to do this when you guys are crushing it? You guys are doing a great job.

SPEAKER_04 21:20

You got some gloves there, Junior C. Here's some gloves.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Yeah, here's a bag. Now you do the twirling thing, you tie it in a knot, and then you put it in the trash. Take the bag inside out. There it goes. And it was just, but it was a humorous way to deal with it. Something that I was for some reason, whatever mood I was in, I was like, it was frustrating because I was like, This is I don't want to say beneath me, but it was. It was beneath the job title. It's like this is not what I should be spending my time. They have we have more important things to deal with.

SPEAKER_05 21:48

Yeah. The things that we do in law enforcement that people don't realize, you know, when they think about police work, they're always like, Don't you have something better to be doing? Most of the time we agree. Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, we really probably do, but here we are. Yeah. These are the calls that come in, and unfortunately, we're not really always allowed to just be like, yeah, we're not going to go to that because it's dumb.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

You mean like the people that constantly say, I know this is probably a waste of your time, but you're like You nailed it. The first we agree on Bingo. Nailed it. But ultimately, um, I think the point of that is you do because I took the pictures, I took the CSI type photos, and I shared it with dispatch, and people got a kick out of it that I actually set up this very, very well uh put together crime link.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

Hey man, you want to be a CSI? We got some openings.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Yeah. Oh, you did a really good job. Wow, you nailed it. Like, because yeah, so that the it brightened me, which again made helped me throughout the process, and I think helped uh my co-workers um just taking a a humorous mindset to something that was otherwise dumb or frustrating and just changing the the scope on that. Yeah. Have you ever um can you think of a a time where humor really helped you or your team uh navigate uh maybe a more stressful event? An event. Or just in collective.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

Like I know there's you know, um working working deceased bodies, whether it's homicide or or like, you know, just a dead body or suspicious death. I think there there always seems to be some humor that sneaks its way in. Um but usually it's I remember doing uh it was a homicide suicide and um both both parties were in the room deceased, and um the victim was in the bed, kind of propped up with their eyes open. And I'd been in that that room, you know, taking photos and what have you, and I find I find it humorous. And and so I'm just processing processing the scene, you know, in the moment, got my uniform on, taking CSF, very serious, very serious time, like got to get all the evidence and blah, blah, blah. So I step out of the room and I just kind of take a breather, and I happen to look back into the room, and the victim is looking at me, you know, they're deceased, and I about shit myself. I'm like, oh God, and did a little jolt, and then I immediately started laughing because I I recognized I'm like, that person is deceased, they can't hurt me, but here I am letting my guard down. And then I look over and I'm like, geez, what are you looking at?

SPEAKER_01 24:43

You know, and macho libre, oh natural person pulls the the coin off their eye.

SPEAKER_03 24:48

Yeah, yeah. And it was it had me dying laughing, and then I, you know, like unfortunately for their their circumstance, but but it was like one of those moments where I'm like, I'm glad I don't take a lot of this stuff too seriously, you know. It's like this is a part of life, but it definitely helped me, you know, throughout the rest of the scene because I'm like, I can't believe I just scared myself, you know.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Right. Something you already knew was the had had occurred. Yeah, yeah. I can't start.

SPEAKER_03 25:18

I can't change that. Yeah, and and and here I am getting getting uh a surprise, and I just laughed it off. So it wouldn't be like something that I had done, like I didn't introduce a joke, which I've done plenty of, but um that one that one had me laughing for a bit. I still laugh when I'm like, oh, I feel so sorry for the people you know involved, but it's it's like but can you wear all that? Like I think Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

I think the point of it is like I think we use humor a little bit to kind of protect ourselves in itself, because if you took if you wore all of it all of the time, um and you let every tragedy that you deal with, kind of like you were alluding to earlier, uh, where we go to hundreds, if not thousands, of critical incidents, which would shock the senses, a critical incident being somebody, something that you know really shocks your coping mechanisms. And if you just took all of them, you know, with the heart and compassion. Oh, absolutely. Like could you could you survive a 20, 30 year career with your sanity, or would you just be completely tapped out with all of the having to bring like professionalism, like that kind of a professional all the time? I think it would be I think it would be extremely difficult. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:36

I mean, you look at the guys that you that we work with or that we have interactions with that don't have a sense of humor, you know, and and they look at everything so seriously and like this is a serious thing. And you're like, bro, there are eight billion people on this planet, and there are far worse things happening right now. In our world, sure, this may be very traumatic, but like it kind of our job kind of puts it in perspective, uh, comparatively speaking, you know, like there are far worse things out there. And so the people that uh like you say wear it, uh you know, I think they're gonna have a a difficult time because they can't process that this is this is normal everyday life.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Right. Do you find it hard to um I guess I guess what I'm trying to ask, like for some people um who are close to that, sometimes they get um bothered a little bit by our lack of decorum. Yeah, like I have a good friend and you know, his say his son was involved in like a car accident, and so he can show up being like Papa Bear, being scared and terrified. We're already there knowing that his son is fine, right? And he can get mad the fact that we're not as shooken up as he is, right? And it's like no, you wouldn't want us to be shooken up like you are, like could you imagine us breaking down and being being like spinning every time something bad happens?

SPEAKER_03 28:18

I think they call it code black. Yeah, we uh we wouldn't be good at our jobs if that was the case, right? And and there are people out there that are like that, or there are people with little to no experience that act that way, but right, but they almost get mad at you for not being them.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Yeah. And you're like, I I want to be able to do that. Do you want me to overreact, but you want me to react in the same emotional capacity that you're acting? It's kind of unrealistic.

SPEAKER_03 28:43

Yeah, and that's that whole like we want you to be human to that extent, or do you want me to to be a robot? Because like uh I'm not gonna overreact if it doesn't bother me. You know, like I take the subjective feelings out, you know, the empathy and sympathy. And people are like, You're a robot. I'm like, nah, I can just turn it off. Right. Like if when when my wife and I, when we had our daughter, uh, we had this this crazy call. This guy was just we call it like the rampage, you know, he created like 13 different scenes of chaos around town, like stealing. He stole a tow truck, crashed into a family. It was like mom and dad and two little kids. And so I'm at the scene where he runs, like I'm at the intersection blocking traffic because of the pursuits coming our way, and when he crashes into this family, and like pulling, opening the opening the back door, and there's like the the infant is in a a rear-facing seat, totally clamshelled with like their little arms sticking out. And I'm like, whoa, that's traumatic. And then the the like the toddler, he's in a front facing one, and he's like leaning out the out the smash door, and he's like, What happened? I'm like, bro, you were in a you were in a crash.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

Gnarly.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Yeah, you you pooped yourself and you're in a crash. And so I pick him up and wear him, and I'm totally like vapor locked because I have to deal with the parents. Dad's got a head injury, mom's freaking out. I'm like, get your baby. I'm like putting her to work because like I got your toddler, I can't, you know, so infant was totally fine. I'm like, thank God for those child seats. But it's it's like I was at an elevated um awareness, you know. I was like, uh oh, I'm probably pushing code black here, and then just having a baby, I'm relating these kids' welfare to my own kid, and I'm like getting angry, and then uh, you know, I have to triage mom and dad, and then all the spectators are coming out. I'm like, okay, cool. You're from the restaurant, he needs some towels for his head injury, and you know, it was it was that threshold. I was I was teasing, um but like you know, I had to remain calm, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:56

And I think that brings up a good point is um I think what things do you think are universally kind of just like off-limits, like in terms of humor? Uh dead kids. I think anything like anything with kids. With kids. I I yeah, we don't joke about like there's nothing funny about it. No, like which which kind of shows us how how seriously we take those incidents. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 31:23

Like when people when people critique the police and they talk about what they think they know we do or what's horrible in the world. Uh this is um our our good friend who worked with all of us. Um he he asks Um think of the worst thing, think of the worst crime that you know to adults, and they'll be like, Oh, it's rape or homicide. And you're like, Okay, now think of that crime being perpetuated against children. And people are like, you can see their heads explode. They're just like, oh, that happens? You're like, that happens. Think of the worst thing that an adult can do to another adult and then apply it to kids, and they can't fathom it. Like they they have no understanding of it because it's not even on their on their menu, and it's like, well, that's that's what we deal with, and that's sometimes the reports that come across our desk or some of the stuff that people divulge to us, and it's like we just have to take it in stride because that's the expectation from the public, you know, that's the expect expectation from my boss.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

So with that kind of evil, I think one of the things that separates um you know, nurses, doctors, law enforcement, I think having having seen those things in such a almost routine, like we see it so often. Yeah, it's part of the job. Right. Um do you think that separates um and how drastically do you think that separates um our viewpoint on humanity?

SPEAKER_03 33:02

Oh yeah. I you know, as as much as I want to say it separates, I think there is something to that. But like, you know, when you go to a party, all the cops hang out together, they they don't hang out with, you know, quote unquote regular people. But you know, part of me thinks that it gives us, like I said before, that intimate look at humanity, but I think it makes us appreciate humanity for what it is. Uh and like it it lets us appreciate the really good connections that we have with people, you know, and so um I think the part where it separates us from the rest of everybody is like we see what's important to us being in this profession and and professions alike, and then we look at the things that are like frivolous. Like we don't need the drama, the I'm gonna talk about the weather, you know. It's like, oh, have you seen the newest movie? The superficial conversation. Yeah, like I don't really care. I don't really care. Like, I'll go see a movie for entertainment, but I'm not gonna sit here and have a 30-minute conversation about something that doesn't that I don't even care about. Celebrities. Celebrity. That's exactly that's exactly it. Like celebrity, all that, all that stuff that people just like have to have you seen the new cell phone? I'm like, uh, you know, that's great. Uh that's really cool technology, but let's move on. You know, I'd rather I'd rather sit here and talk about things that mean mean something to me. So yeah, I think it does it it does create a bit of a rift. You know, like I have my cop friends, uh, which I probably don't hang out with outside of work, and then I have my regular friends, and they're they're a pretty tight group, and they're the same demographics. We're we're parents, we have kids all the same age, our kids play sports together, and that's important to me. Um but you know, sometimes my social battery gets a little do you so depleted quickly.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

So it's funny you bring that up, and I'd be curious. Like for my friends, I grew up with like a core group of friends. Uh, we're still friends to this day, we've been friends since elementary school. Um, and our love language is like making fun of each other. Yeah, like that's I think that's where we that's where we hit it off. Right. The core the core concept is pretty much it was really funny when my wife came into the group, and I think they first uh when they first met her, they spent the first like half an hour just like making fun of her and ripping her apart. Welcome to the group. She didn't have no idea what was happening. And I'm like, oh, like they love you. That's why they're doing that.

SPEAKER_03 35:35

That's that's that's true in our profession. Correct. As well. Like, you know, you you come, you come in as a rookie, and there's that salty old guy. And if that salty old guy doesn't talk to you, then you're doing something wrong.

SPEAKER_05 35:47

You know, you should be worried.

SPEAKER_03 35:48

Yeah, but as soon as they like welcome you in or they share something with you, or they bring you under their wing, or they include you in the op or whatever, and you're like, I think, I think I've just been accepted into this group.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Or you make a or you make a mistake and they they they roast you, yeah. The briefing the following day is is filled with oh man, because you you don't want to take yourself too seriously. Like we've all worked with people that take themselves very seriously and they're non-relatable. You're like, yeah, we we make mistakes, like things happen. We want to be really good at our job and we want to improve ourselves and and not just be like, oh, it's okay to make mistakes, but ultimately you'll say something dumb over the radio, yeah. You'll you know, you say something in person where you know they throw you kind of rattle your earlip and you say something dumb and you're like and people hear it, yeah, and you're like you're like awkward. Exactly. And I think you know, I think it's I think it's healthy. I think it's generally healthy um because I don't I don't enjoy working around pe people that take themselves too seriously. And I it's funny when we do like sign-ups for teams and stuff like that. I I definitely evaluate it. Yeah, I definitely look at the team and go, okay, will anybody understand my movie quotes? Yeah because I can quote like a handful of movies um in their entirety, but I can quote like a gajillion movies.

SPEAKER_04 37:16

You want to start from the beginning? Let's do it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

An hour and a half. But sometimes it'll like I'll send a message with a movie quote that relates to something. Yes, and when nobody gets it, it like hurts. Why do I even try here? Like, am I too old for the rest of like But that's a that's a good uh that's a good question there.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

Am I too old? And and I've noticed like the newer generation coming online, like they're this 15, 30 second attention span, and you're like, Do you even know what a movie is? I mean, I remember briefings with with us. Uh there were some young youngsters on the team, and they're like, Tombstone, what's that? And we're just like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Why do I it's outstanding is what it is.

SPEAKER_03 37:57

Yeah, yeah. You gotta watch it. I mean, come on.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

So um I don't know if we've kind of covered this already, but do you believe that humor hides or heals stress?

SPEAKER_03 38:13

Well, I my gut is telling me it doesn't hide stress. I mean, so I think that if you have a good coping mechanism to begin with, you know, whether you're working out, exercise, jujitsu, you have a solid family, um, like uh your spouse is on board, you debrief incidents, you know, it's it there's all these different things that you can use to cope. I think uh humor is like the seasoning uh for our job, and it may ease you into a coping mechanism because like you know, you see something nasty, you find the humor in it, and it depends on your coping mechanism. Can you cope to begin with? Let's say no. Okay, so you're gonna be thinking about that trauma, like that incident with the I told you about the family. That one still stings a little, but like throughout the whole the whole thing, I find I find some humor in it, not much. Um but it helps me it helps me talk about it. Like it it's like uh I don't know. Do you go through segue into the coping mechanism?

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Do you use humor with your coworkers the same way that you would with your wife? Or is because like I wouldn't share the same things, like I tell my wife about some of the incidents, maybe kind of omit some of the details, which she understands, and yeah, that's kind of a uh an agreement we've had. Like she wants to know what I'm dealing with, but she may not want to know the details if they're too horrific. Um, she doesn't get probably the humor version of any any major thing because that's for her, that's not her jam. Yeah, that's my co-workers. Um that's more of our jam. So I don't know if that's if that's her uh reasonable response to that.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

I don't I don't sugarcoat things with my wife, and she's she's been fairly receptive for the most I mean like I I can't think of anything where she's like whoa, hard stop. Like, I don't want to talk about that. Um so I think I've been lucky in that in that aspect. Um the the sense of humor part though is is when I make like when I was talking about um the different degrees of where we find humor, like normal people find humor here, and we're at a higher level. I think that my jokes are a little too much sometimes, you know, because sometimes I'll talk to them, I'll I'll I'll say career related jokes in my regular friends group, and they're just like, Oh, come on, like uh, you know, they don't they don't really laugh, and I have to wait, I have to wait for one of them to bring a certain topic up that's their comfort level or their world. You know, like you know, one of my friends is a doctor and he's doing surgery and he brings something up, and and I'm like, oh man, I've got six jokes loaded in the in the cylinder right now, you know, and so he'll he'll he'll say something off-color or humorous or whatever, and I'll be like, oh man, here we go. It's for mine. Yeah, he just gave me a green light, and then I will add a joke of a similar nature. And so, like, there's a part where I bring my sense of humor down, and he has now elevated his because he's coming across a new new topic or new genre of humor in his life. And so I think I think the it's like the you know, what do they call them? The Venn diagrams where they got the two circles and then the middle part bleeds. It's like regular friends, cop friends, and then their humors, sometimes they interact.

SPEAKER_05 41:54

It's learning to read the room too. Yeah, yeah. I found myself in scenarios before where I'm like, especially doing what I do now, owning a business, and that's probably been one of the biggest challenges I've had in working amongst people in different fields. Like, I'm so used to if I was instructing or teaching cops the way I present and the language that I use and the things that I say or I reference, like joke-wise, yeah. Versus going and dealing with you know, owners of businesses that were talking about making them professional marketing material.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

Right.

SPEAKER_05 42:31

And there's been times where I'm like, oh, I got a funny idea, and I mentioned something, and they just kind of hard stare at me like confused. Why is that funny?

SPEAKER_03 42:40

That makes me uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_05 42:42

Yeah, and I'm like, man, I gotta I gotta remember my audience, you know, like who I'm dealing with, and it's yeah, that's a process for me, having worked in law enforcement for so long, transitioning out of law enforcement now as a business owner. And yeah, that humor thing is it's important though to realize though.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

Do you think it makes um a difference on even how like potentially you leave law enforcement versus like a you know, you're you're retiring, you're calling it quit versus kind of maybe even for somebody um like a mutual friend who you know has to medically retire or something like that. It's like do you think there's a difference in um being forced to kind of almost change yourself to get back to uh identifying and I guess resonate with regular people who do who share a different profession versus yeah, yeah, I definitely think so.

SPEAKER_05 43:44

I I feel very fortunate that throughout my career I've always maintained a variety of hobbies outside of work.

SPEAKER_03 43:52

Yeah, I think that's that's big.

SPEAKER_05 43:54

Yeah, and I all shout out my father in law for giving me that advice before I became a cop because he was. A cop for many years. And I just remember one of the small conversations we had together when we were chatting about me going to the academy was he just I just remember him simply saying, like, just all the friends that you have now, keep them and just keep doing all the things that you enjoy doing.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

Yep. And still be your still be yourself, still be Colby.

SPEAKER_05 44:18

Yeah, still be me. Don't get so wrapped up in the seriousness of the profession, like we've already mentioned. We know a lot of people, we've all met people that yeah, the guys that take it really serious and like law enforcement is their identity.

SPEAKER_03 44:31

It's their identity. Yeah, that's wild.

SPEAKER_05 44:33

I I don't know how well I can imagine how challenging it would be to have a career cut short or due to medical injuries, due to whatever. There's a variety of reasons.

SPEAKER_01 44:45

Most people don't finish their most people don't do 20, 30 plus years.

SPEAKER_05 44:49

Right. You know, and that's the reality, and it's only getting probably more common. Yeah, all the people. But the for the people that yeah, that didn't maintain a variety of hobbies and you know outlets, right? I think it would be a lot more difficult to transition into something different.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:07

You know, whereas I I was always interested in doing media and social media and filming and had a wood shop business for a while, you know, and like I've always been an entrepreneur. And so I think I spent enough time keeping myself busy outside of the profession that this transition has been a lot easier. That being said, there's still some elements of it that are hard to break.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:28

You know, with like I think my my threshold, like you mentioned, is different than a lot of people in terms of humor. Things that I really even give a shit about, you know, people that have small talk with you.

SPEAKER_03 45:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:41

And you're just like, this is so minimal, or not being able to relate to the struggles people have.

SPEAKER_03 45:48

It's kind of like, yeah, it's kind of like the guys, guys and gals in the military, you know, when they're active overseas and they come back and they gotta adjust to regular life. They're like, hmm.

SPEAKER_05 45:57

This is what we're complaining about?

SPEAKER_03 45:58

Right, right. Like I just got shot at it.

SPEAKER_05 46:00

I just spent a day going to three or four different households that were 10 times worse than what you're bitching about. And it it's one of those things you have to put yourself in check and remember, like, well, to that person, that is the most difficult thing they've experienced. Right. And so there's always this balance, I think, as cops. You're always trying to like fine-tune of who you're around, how you're presenting yourself, are you being empathetic, and all of that. So yeah, it's it does make a difference how you carry yourself throughout your profession.

SPEAKER_03 46:32

It's difficult. I mean, 12 hours, 12 10 or 12 hour shift of having to deal with other people's problems, and you're like constantly trying to balance okay, where is this on the important scale? You know, like I have to get rid of that, I have to do my job, A. But then it's like, how do you your little personal bias by uh biases and they sneak in?

SPEAKER_02 46:53

Like, this is boring. Let's get out of here. Let's get out of here, Jeff. Old Chico Jeff. Yeah. Sit there and oh, I got a call. Immediately it's uh I didn't hear that.

SPEAKER_05 47:07

Yeah, got a priority, gotta go.

SPEAKER_01 47:09

Gotta go.

SPEAKER_05 47:11

Yeah. So speaking of um different calls working together, you've been on a in your career, you've worked amongst a lot of different teams. Yeah. A variety of people. And I think one thing would be good to kind of point out as we have this discussion is because the general public probably sees a lot of cops as they're all the same.

SPEAKER_03 47:32

Yes. However, I was just having this conversation with somebody.

SPEAKER_05 47:35

However, we know inside of law enforcement, like any other profession, there's so many different individual personalities and character traits and the way we operate, the the way we were brought up, you know, and the way we do the job. And so having been a part of many of those teams, I would just kind of like to hear your perspective on different personalities and you know, maybe even share some different inside jokes or like perspectives that you had on one team versus another team, and just kind of hear your experience on that.

SPEAKER_03 48:09

Oh my gosh, where do I start? So many teams. I think uh so I worked uh uh a team for a few years that dealt primarily with our college um clientele. You know, it was like a certain area where there were always drunks, fights, bar issues, DUIs, drugs, shootings, stabbings, you name it. That was probably the most fun I've had um in my career. So uh we would we would go out on foot, you know, we would a couple of us would grab our sight book and we would just do proactive enforcement. We found we found that driving around in the cars, people would see you a mile away, they'd start problems, cops roll up, and then the problems was disappear, you know. And so we found that certain areas where the problems were concentrated were like, if we just go out on foot, give some people a little love uh in the in the version of a citation, then maybe we'll be able to like give them the hint, you know, it's that broken windows theory, you know, like give them the hint that this is not the area to to fuck around. So we would go out and we have like so many shticks or like things that we would do with people when they're like, Oh, don't you have anything better to do? Like you said before. It's like, oh yeah, well, we just got off a double homicide. We're you know, we'd figured we'd come out here and write some tickets for a while, and people's they would just be like, Oh my god, I'm so sorry. And we'd totally be joking, and we're just like, Yeah, just you know, whatever, here's your ticket, have a good day. And they're like, That guy has it rough, you know, and so that was we'd have certain things like that. Um we found like the college, the college age group, they were probably the most adversarial, you know, like you have your career criminals that knew that if the cops showed up, they were caught, whatever. They try their best to run away, sure. But these college kids, man, they they look at you like their mom and dad, and they're like, I'm gonna pull one over on my mom and dad right now. And it was just like it was very difficult, so you're gonna get creative with how we dealt with them. Um I don't know, man. There's so many things that come to mind. Like we would be writing a ticket, and I would say something to a partner, like I'd be I'd be flagging our next our next um citation receiver, you know, I'd be like the next violator. I'm like this one right here in the red skirt or whatever, and some girl would get offended and she'd be like, What what are you talking about, a girl in a skirt? And we're like, hey, mind your business, you're interrupting, you're not that important, and these kids would just get deflated when you tell them they're they're not important, you know, because they're sticking their nose in our business and stuff. And that that happened more times than um like people would have to meander into whatever investigation you're doing. You're like, Do you do you even have any saying in this? Are you a witness? Get out of here, dude. Like, what's going on here? I have the right to know. You're like, okay, what what amendment is that on the Constitution? You have the right to know. Like, yeah. So do you have one?

SPEAKER_05 51:07

Some stuff we'll save. Okay. What what are some personal like things that you've experienced with the teams you've worked on? Like I don't know. What are some things people have given you shit for?

SPEAKER_03 51:19

Oh, God, when I was new. I worked I worked with a sergeant who uh he was very hard on me. Um almost to a part where it was like condescending. And so, but it still made me a better cop. And so, like, I remember we had this group of car thieves. We knew who they were. We had the little hot list, I'd be sitting in my little heidi hole, you know, and then that 90s Honda cord would blow by me, and I'm like, oh, there it is. Immediately a pursuit. Chase him around, you know, they'd foot bail, and I remember footbailing at the end of this cul-de-sac. And it had uh a gate at the end of it, which led into uh an apartment complex. And so this person TCs into the gate or you know, crashes acronyms. Um crashes and get out. I put my traffic out, I'm I'm chasing him, and they make it through the gate, and I don't see if they've turned left or right. And so I you know, clear the gate, step through, and I'm like, Okay, lost him. And they're like, Hey, hey, where are you at? Where where to go? And I'm like, nah, I don't know, I don't know where he's at. Like, totally, totally shit the bed. Right. And so that that got some replay the next briefing. Or like uh we had these two these two dogs get hit on the freeway, and so uh me and my partner roll up. One is totally dead and the other one is still alive, and I get on the air and I'm like, hey, can I dispatch this dog? Can I, you know, finish this dog off? And they're like, negative, take it to the take it to the shelter. I'm like, okay, so we load it up in the rain jacket, throw it in my car, take it to the vet. The vet euthanizes it. And then the next uh the next day in briefing, I'm watching um I'm watching Reno 911, the the episode where the the guy's like the neighbor's dog. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:09

He's like, my dog's got cancer, and he shoots the dog, and then the the owner comes out and she's like, You killed my dog. Yeah, yeah. And my sergeant's like, this may or may not pertain to somebody in the room, you know. So it's good for a laugh.

SPEAKER_05 53:26

That's a weird one. That's like a California thing. I remember as a deputy sheriff in Arizona where I started my career. We were allowed to dispatch domestic animals. Yeah, like I remember a dog getting hit and it was like its guts were strung across the road. And I'm like, that was my favorite. How cool would this be to put it like on a bag in the back of my car and drive for 30 minutes to a to a vet?

SPEAKER_03 53:47

I thought I was being reasonable. I'm like, this dog is suffering.

SPEAKER_05 53:50

Yeah, I I dispatched a couple dogs in my profession, like in Arizona, and when I moved to California and realized it wasn't like the rule book or whatever, I was like, we can't dispatch dogs.

SPEAKER_01 54:00

I'm like, so you have to watch these where there's just they don't have any tolerance for the um discharging your firearm, like in a city or something like that. You're like, nope, that is not in the policy to yeah.

SPEAKER_05 54:12

There's something about a dog though, too, or you're just like you it's like the old Yeller movie, right? Like, you don't want to see this thing suffer. Like why I don't I don't know where that came from in California, why you can't do that.

SPEAKER_03 54:23

Well, it's it probably came from somebody that never had to put a dog down, you know, or never had a dog suffer. They're like suffer as a PET man's best friend, you know. Yeah, it's always and then we have our our our teammate when we were all working together who probably dispatched like three deers in one rotation. I'm like, we're like quarter. Yeah, I mean we were giving them the grim reaper. Oh, yeah. We were like cordoning off streets, you know, because school's getting out, and we're like, oh, how are we gonna time this one? You know, it's like use the cars, block it. Okay, I'm gonna get this last group of students leaving school. Yeah, I think you have a good window, go for it. Yeah, that's funny.

SPEAKER_05 55:02

I remember when I first started in Rockland, I uh was driving, it was like a graveyard shift. I was driving back to the PD from beat four, and I was going down the road, and uh I see this deer coming across the street. It's doing that stutter step. Like, I'm like, don't do it, don't do it. All of a sudden it hits my rear or my side view mirror, busts it off, and it bounces, and then I'm like, oh shoot, get on the air. I'm like, hey, I just got hit by a deer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:28

The deer is party one.

SPEAKER_05 55:30

Yeah, yeah. I think it broke its leg and ran off a little bit, and then we found it in the field and had to dispatch it, but it's kind of funny.

SPEAKER_03 55:36

Yeah I had to dispatch one on what is that sunset that goes through there. I had to shoot it twice because I my cold shot like it moved its head and it went through the jaw.

SPEAKER_04 55:46

And I'm like, oh no.

SPEAKER_03 55:48

Finished him off. I'm like, two shots fired, and then my phone's blowing up like two? Two.

SPEAKER_05 55:55

Like me, myself, and Irene.

SPEAKER_03 55:57

Yeah. At one point, I'm you know, it's like uh on the body cam, I'm walking up to the deer and it looks back at me all suffering. I'm like, don't look at me. I'm talking to the deer like I remember you.

SPEAKER_02 56:09

Don't look at me.

SPEAKER_03 56:10

So that was like a that was like a trend now. Every time somebody would kill a deer, somebody would rattle off the don't look at me. Oh man. You guys are sick though. Killing deer.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

I'm like, Yeah, I guess I'm sick though. It's humane. It is absolutely circumstances. The humane thing too.

SPEAKER_05 56:33

What about you, Jeffrey Daigle? When was the last time you had a good laugh on on duty? Anything recent?

SPEAKER_01 56:40

Um I mean, one of my I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I d I tend to laugh a lot at everything. Um It's good.

SPEAKER_02 56:53

It's hard not to.

SPEAKER_01 56:54

Depends on who you're around, but it's good.

SPEAKER_02 56:56

Yeah, you gotta do the whole like who's in here right now.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

Yeah, um, the one that kind of just first thing that comes to mind, and again, it probably won't be funny uh for all people, but we used to have this guy um and we nicknamed him Snakes because he whenever he did meth, he imagined a bunch of invisible snakes eating him.

SPEAKER_05 57:18

That's reasonable.

SPEAKER_01 57:19

Yeah. And the funny part was is he would always strip down naked, and he was like like 6'3, 6'4, he was a big black dude, and the first time I ever got called to deal with uh snakes is he was naked in a subway, like like a restaurant, like a subway restaurant. Oh, and he was like the sandwich place the sandwich place, and he was fighting off all the snakes, and but he was super compliant where he could be, like when he wasn't fighting the snake, he'd be like, Hey, can you ignore them for a second and come on out and put some clothes on? Yeah, and he would maintain fighting the snakes, but would follow your commands, yeah. Um, and it was awkward because he like he always traveled, you know. We dealt with him, we ended up dealing with him, felt like hundreds of times. Um, and he always had a had a uh a wheelchair. But when he was on meth, he miraculously didn't need a wheelchair because he would be running around just fine.

SPEAKER_05 58:24

It's a miracle drug, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

And whenever he was paying attention, yeah. Whenever you you arrested him, he had meth on him, but he would get really like as complaining as he would be, he'd be really mad if you accused him of using meth. We're like, can you stop using the meth? Because the meth makes you see the snakes, and the snakes make you strip down naked and start fighting yourself. Like basically his fight with himself. He wasn't connecting the dots, right? And then, again, sounds tragic, after months of dealing with this dude, probably two, three times a week, and you take him to the hospital, you take him to jail, you take him to all the things, and he'd come back, use meth. Um he ended up getting he ended up using the wheelchair to like cross a major intersection, and ended up getting hit by a car and actually got paralyzed so that he actually needed a wheelchair. Manifest. Which became kind of which was kind of funny to me because it was like ironic. He used the wheelchair all the time, despite the fact that he had all the ability to walk.

SPEAKER_03 59:29

Right.

SPEAKER_01 59:30

And then chose to use the wheelchair to cross a road against the red into traffic, and you know, some poor person like didn't see him because you wouldn't be looking for somebody to do that. Right. Why is there a man in a wheelchair in a right, and then he he actually becomes the person he pretend pretended to be?

SPEAKER_03 59:50

Yeah. And it's one of those, like, did God just have enough of watching this debacle? They're like, okay, forget it and zap him. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:03

So he got the nickname for our team of snakes. It's like, uh, here's snakes again anytime because I mean every call that was snakes. Yeah, every call that came out, it was so identifiable that who we were dealing with. It wasn't like it was like you'd hear it'd be like some male black screaming about snakes.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:25

Snakes, and you're like, You already know who it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

Like, uh, can you run out so and so because uh he's dealing with snakes again? That and he was like he had a brush that was also very important. It was like the verticole of like a brush brush? Yeah, like a brush brush. And if like you he would ask you five times whether or not you booked that brush into his property when you took him to jail, he'd be like, Hey, do you got my brush? And it's like Yes. I'm glad this is a good thing. Is it gonna make you compliant? Yes, we have your brush. We got your brush, dude. A man and his brush, the most important thing is. I don't that was always comical to me, and just in terms of like it was so frustrating during the time. He was like, dude, snakes, stop. Stop with the man, please stop with it.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:04

We had we had a guy that would would uh talk about certain types of rodents and how they are prepared, like grilled squirrel, barbecue, barbecued woodchuck. You know, he'd get all drunk and in the bushes, and you're like, hey man, you all right? And he's like, fuck you, you barbecued woodchuck. And you're like, Oh, I'm out with a guy that talks about grilled rodents, and they're like, Oh, I know that person. You know, some of the skilled dispatchers would know who you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:29

But it don't be like they're actually more fascinating to talk to. Like, it's not that super sh superficial, mundane conversation. Yeah, you're like they had a different perspective.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:38

It's totally wild, that's totally wild.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:39

And like I wanted like there was one guy who he would take pictures of you with his eyes. He'd be like, click, click, like if you said something he didn't like, he would be like, click, I got you. I caught you, I caught you in the camera doing that. And you're like, Oh, that's a new one. That's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:56

What millimeter is that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:57

And then when I'm taking to jail, he's screaming out of the back window that I'm kidnapping him. He's like, he's kidnapping me, and the poor citizens in the cars next to me are like, You're fine, just gotta calm down. Just roll with it, man. And he'd be like, click, you're dead. And he'd like take a picture.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:13

You're like, all right, just picture of me without my consent.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:17

That is one of the good things about the job is although we have to deal with a bunch of these yahoos.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:23

Yahoos.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:24

You get it's a nice way of putting it, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:26

Yahoo's like stupid dorks. Stupid dorks. That's what these stupid dorks. These turds. These stupid dork. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:34

But we get you get a lot of funny stories out of it. And well, you'd learn them learn some good things.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:40

But I think that's what uh don't do drugs. Don't do drugs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:44

Referring to earlier, where it's like the humor, it's it's almost difficult to join or to to uh have the same humor as people because you see things are so outlandish that the mundane is like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's uh alright. It's like where people start going, oh, yeah, is where that's where the humor starts for most of us because it takes a little bit more. Unfortunately, like that's not a not a blessing, it's almost a curse to us. Like, I wish I could laugh at the same time.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:19

Unsee some things, or I was gonna say, unsee some things.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

Yeah, oh, I definitely wish I could unsee some things, but um, I wish I could laugh at more simplistic things, but it's like it doesn't shock the senses anymore because you've seen all the things you've seen. You're like right.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:32

It's kind of like chasing that high, you know, like these adrenaline junkies that do all these wild sports and are just like, oh, I'm gonna put a squirrel suit on and jump out of a plane and you know, fly through the Alps. Right. You're like, you're crazy. You're crazy, but I like you. Um But like for us, you know, it's like regarding humor, we hear these mundane jokes and we're like, meh, that's that's a good one. But then when somebody really gets a good one in there, we're just like, Oh, yes, I love that. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:05

It makes you thankful for these wild, dumb things we go to, especially if it comes off the heels of like a sad call. Like I remember one night, most of my funny stories are usually as a field training officer because it's always funnier when it happens to your trainee.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:19

Yeah, because yeah, you get that perspective from the outside. You're like, oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:22

You watch him about to do the things and you're like, uh, here we go.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:25

Yeah, but I remember one night to process it, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:29

They're like, I don't know what I'm looking at. You're like, neither do I, but go go get him, Tiger.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:33

Yeah, yeah. I remember one night, I think we came from a pretty bad accident, and I had a trainee with me. If he happens to listen to this, he'll he'll recognize the story, but it was funny. We um ended up going to do an area check with a couple other of our patrol team members at a local hotel that generates a higher volume calls of service in our area. Yeah, yeah, might be by a freeway. Sure. Uh it's frequented mostly by probationers and parolees. And uh yeah, it was like one in the morning, and we cruise through, and sure enough, there's a vehicle running at one in the morning, and that's usually a sign of like it is like a minivan family who just got into town. Right. You know, you run the plate and it came back, of course. You know, guys on probation status and searchable and everything. So there's a few of us there, but my trainee in particular goes up and makes contact with the driver, and he admits he's on probation, and so he proceeds to ask him to step out of the car. And as he starts to do his initial pat search, like we can hear some noise in his pocket. Oh no. We're standing around and we're like, like my initial thought was like, oh, he probably called the buddy and said, Hey, I'm going to jail, or his girlfriend, or whatnot, or his mom telling her the car's gonna get towed again. So, you know, because I hear a voice, like a voice in this guy's pocket, and this trainee's searching him, ungloved, and he pulls the mistake, yeah. He pulls the phone out of his pocket. Pocket and he hands it over to me, and I have gloves because I'm more experienced. And it's just some uh couple of dudes, gay porn going at it, just totally going at it on a popular uh porn channel. And so yeah, I go and set that phone over here and I look at my trainee, and he has this look of disgust on his face as he's putting the guy in cuffs because he just touched his phone.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:23

Like, bro, this is normal stuff here.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:24

Yeah, so he proceeds to sit him on the ground, and we're kind of laughing a little bit, me and some of the other guys that are there, and we kind of peek in the car and we're starting to do our initial check, and there on the passenger seat was a a contraption, a homemade device, if you will. And it it involves like a pump and a tube and some saram wrap. And I don't know if it was already used or maybe in progress when we arrived. But you think of what was on the phone, you see this device, and we're so we're laughing, and we tell our trainee, we're like, hey, there's some potential paraphernalia on the passenger seat that might be related to what's going on right now. So, like, you really need to go, you need to grab it and you need to question your guy. And so he grabs it, and at this point, he does put on gloves. We do him a solid and say, Hey, you should probably glove up, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:14

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:14

And he grabs the gloves, and this particular trainee that I had is the most wholesome guy you would ever meet. Younger guy at the time, still pretty young, but like he's so wholesome and he probably hasn't seen many things, and so it just makes it that much funnier.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:27

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:28

But he grabs this device and he brings it over.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:31

Bring that humor up.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:32

He brings it over and he's questioning the the j the guy on the ground, and he's like, Hey, what is this? You know, and the guy has this embarrassed look. So we already saw what was on his phone. Yeah, and he doesn't want to answer the question.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:43

He's like, I can't say I can't say the words. He can't process what it is, right? His wholesome brain can't process what it is. And so he's genuinely wondering what it is.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:55

He's genuinely wondering what it is, and so he's asking this guy, like, what is this? Like, is it could be used for drugs, whatever, who knows, right? And so he's kind of saying that he's like, I don't know, is this used for drugs? What is it? And the guy's like, You know what it is, man. And let's just say it's not used for like, you know, filtering fish tanks, it's uh some sort of other pump device, right? And it was just so funny because this wholesome moment of his younger trainee like catching this guy in this moment, right? And this unfolding before him, and you see his own thought process, like, man, this is the stuff I have to deal with as a cop now.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:28

Yeah, which of police work.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:30

Yeah, we proceed to find obviously the meth that is in the car as well, and the guy goes to jail for possession of meth and everything else, but just kind of funny calls that you can do.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:39

What do you want me to do with your fish tank pump, bro? Like Austin Powers, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:45

This is my bag, baby.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not what it is. It's not my bag.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:50

Yeah, what about this book here that says? Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:00

Do you think that the humor or having a sense of humor builds a camaraderie, or can you even have camaraderie? It how much more difficult is it have is it to have camaraderie with somebody who not everybody's funny. Like I can I can like attack like I'm not a funny person, I just like to laugh at things. Yeah. Um, can you have camaraderie on a team with somebody who just like doesn't have any sense of humor who or do you kind of just like go, okay, they're it's not for them, so I'm just gonna kind of steer more clear. How do you handle somebody on your team who's like, hey, they're not gonna laugh at any of this stuff?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:44

Oh well, my first go-to is if if I find somebody that has a tough time laughing, I try and get them to laugh. You know, I'm I'm gonna use my um my close friend as an example. So he's he's from Germany, his dad was very serious. And when I met him, I'm like, oh, his dad doesn't laugh. But I'm gonna try and get him to laugh. And when I and I didn't this was before I was a cop, and so I forgot what I said, but he like wholeheartedly laughed, and that was that was almost the best feeling in the world. You're like, I made you laugh. Right. I win I win. Yeah, I win, yeah. And so I think uh that's my go-to with if I find somebody that's a little uptight, I try and find out what makes them tick and see if I can't like loosen them up. Because if you laugh, man, like that's gonna put you at ease. And so even if you're uptight, even if the job is so stressful for somebody and you get them to chuckle or something, you're like, I just loosened you up. I just gave the old uptight bolt a turn and loosened you up or whatever, you know. And so that's my go-to. But then you know, there are some people that are just like they think they're super cop and everything's everything's professional, and I can't use swear words, and I can't I can't break policy. Yeah, we know we can't break policy in the law, but like that is their absolute hard line is they cannot do anything outside of what would be perceived as funny or I don't I don't know how to describe it. No fun. No fun, no fun, no fun. Yes, absolutely no fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:27

Here they come. Officer, no fun. Yeah, yeah. That's somebody I like, yeah. Here they come. Comedy are everyone's fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:33

Let's Yeah, yeah. The fun police. Yeah, yeah. Let's take that.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:37

There's a couple of those, but um, it's usually because I think they lack life experience or they just take themselves seriously, and that yeah, not I think we all think we take ourselves seriously, but it's it's healthier to like be able to poke fun. I used the um like growing up playing sports. Um part of the fun of practice and games was the laughing about it afterwards when you made a mistake. Absolutely. Yeah, you could beat yourself up over it, you can hang your head like, oh man, I gave up that touchdown or I struck out or hands, feet, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:14

But there is a it's it's more fun when your teammates can openly rip on you a little bit, and you're just like, I know, and you just laugh with them because you're not gonna win.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:26

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:26

Like being setting up that wall, the defensive wall, like, don't make fun of me, guys. Like, oh, that doesn't stop it. Yeah, it's just gonna make it makes it worse. It makes it worse. Um and I think that's I think that's why a lot of people who who play sports um oftentimes go into law enforcement because there is that camaraderie, there is that um there's a little bit of uh a joking uh component to it that I think that's that's healthy in that.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:57

And with all the you know, all the uptightness about being PC and making inappropriate remarks and canceled culture like just running rampant, it's like can you just give us a little sense of humor? People are like, I don't find that to be funny. I'm like, well, I don't find you to be the serious person that I should be hanging out with.

unknown 1:13:15

Right?

SPEAKER_05 1:13:15

Sometimes you just gotta take risks too. Speaking of what are some things that you guys may have done that have broke the rules a little bit? That you you did it in the name of humor. You were like, you know what, I'm gonna do it anyways.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:32

Just telling, just telling jokes. I wouldn't say they're against the rules, but definitely against um like the mood or decorum.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:42

Oh no, like sending emails on behalf of someone else or anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:46

So like pranks? Yeah, like pranks that I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:49

Um when I say breaking rules, I mean not like legal rules. I mean like that's probably not something you should do on a work computer with everybody to see, or yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:59

I definitely um if somebody leaves their computer open in their email and I can access their email, an email's being sent to somebody. An email's being what's being sent. Uh I like to I like to write poems um on behalf of it. Very sentimental, loving. Like overly.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:19

I love working here poems. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:22

I can't believe the chief did me a solid hired me.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:25

Yeah, especially two teams. Uh yeah, I like haiku poems. Um, haiku poems are really good because like the 575 is ridiculous. Um I one of the things that just stood out, I hadn't really given it much thought, but like several several years ago, um, it was April Fool's, and so um I just started responding to calls with my gas mask on. And so I would always leave the car with my gas mask on. And when people looked, they were like, uh is everything alright? I'm like, oh, it's just precautionary, you'll be fine. Yeah. And again, I don't know if it violated any rules, but it was funny in my head. Nobody said that I couldn't wear a gas mask to a call for service, right? And just giving no perspective of why this was happening. Right. And some people, you know, some people uh participate in uh April Fools and some people celebrate it. And um sometimes I just I'm like, this is where this is what's happening right now, and I'm doing this, and you know, if I get in trouble for it, I'll sign it. Yeah, I'll say the document account. I'll sign it, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:40

It's worth it to me. The umbrella conduct on becoming frame it on the wall.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:44

Yeah, but like it made me smile, it made a couple of people smile, willing to take that shot.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:50

We used to do the old um, like if we had a partner with us, it would be okay, I'm the FTO. You know, we'd both be right experienced officers, and he's like, I'm the FTO and you're the trainee. Okay, cool. So they'd they'd do the like the bladed stance and the gun away and the all right, ma'am, and they'd ask all these officious questions and they'd say things like verbal altercation, you know, and they talk like a robot and right. And then at the end of the call, the person being the FTO, they'd come over and they're like, All right, on a scale of one to ten, how did my trainee do? And they'd just be like, Oh yeah, how was his attitude? Okay, did he answer all your questions?

SPEAKER_05 1:16:21

You know, and it was like this this uh fluffed up interaction, but he was actually giving the RP like an evaluation on the trainee.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:29

Yes, yeah, yeah. The RP, the RP was answering the questions on a scale of one to ten. That's it. It was good for a laugh, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:35

Yeah, that is good.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:36

Makes the day. What about you?

SPEAKER_05 1:16:40

I had one not not too long ago, actually. It was um wasn't planned. I came into my shift on Sometimes those are the best ones. Yeah, and I I see I seize the opportunity. The open the door opened. Yeah, it was I came in uh so I was working weekdays and I came in on a Monday morning. It was a weekday day shift, and I'm doing my you know, because I'm so professional, I'm doing my pre-shift inspection of the vehicle before I get in it, and there's uh a hair weave, an extension in the back seat. And I'm like, that's odd.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:13

That's normal.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:14

So my first thought is like, okay, one, I don't know anybody in the department patrol-wise that wears this. Two, it's obviously probably someone that got booked or whatever. And so, you know, I had a couple decisions I could make. I'm like, I can go throw it away. But that's not necessarily the right thing to do either because it's someone's cherished property. It's probably been out on a few nights and they probably want it back.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:40

Want back, you know. I mean, if I wore a weave, I mean Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:43

So so I take it inside and I have my morning cup of coffee and I sit down at the computer and I open up the department email and I take a nice photo of this weave hair extension, whatever your terminology is. And I just I send a nice email. I'm like, hey, I you know, good morning, everybody. I uh starting my shift today and I found this beautiful weave in the backseat of my car. I would imagine the owner would like it back. I did you a favor and I cleaned it up nice. It'll be sitting in my patrol room mailbox for whoever would like to claim it or return it back to its owner. I thought it was pretty innocent, pretty mild. Apparently, somebody took exception. Apparently, a couple like two weeks go by, and I get a call to go meet with one of the captains. And I'm good morning, sir, whatever, sit down, and I proceed to get a talk about how unprofessional, even though it may have been a little funny to some, it was unprofessional, and someone felt that there might have been some like racism behind it. And I'm like, racism? I'm like, what are you talking about?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:53

Is there a different name to call it?

SPEAKER_05 1:18:55

Or is there like not even a direction that I even like thought in my brain, like I don't first of all, I still don't even get where that is from necessarily. But he proceeds to tell me, well, someone thought you calling it a weave was like you were being racist.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:09

There's the difference between a wig and a weave, and a and I'm like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:13

Here's the here's the deal. The only experience I had with like hair extensions was to be honest, was like my mom had cancer and she like had some of these. And we used to make fun of my mom for a little bit, even though she had cancer, we were like, nice weave, mom, you know, and uh, you know, talking about humor, talking about humor, you know. And uh so I didn't get in any any formal trouble, but it was uh, you know, it was one of those like chats like you know, appropriate use of department email, and they were like, why don't you just go ahead and book it and uh you know do the right thing or whatever. I'm like, I honestly don't think what I did was that wrong. Yeah, it was a humorous thing in the moment and capitalized on it, and it was funny because I did get a lot of replies that were thinking it was hilarious. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:56

So people need to lighten up.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:05

Definitely.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:06

Take yourself seriously, not too seriously.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:08

Um what can you can you remember the last time you were offended?

SPEAKER_03 1:20:15

I I think I've been more offended lately by the people who are so uptight that like they they presume the worst and they just you're just like you're you're getting in your own head, you're getting in your own way. And like these people that presume the worst, and you're like they need to relax. You know, which works great, especially in negotiations. That always wakes that always make people relax. Can you surrender? And by the way, uh take a deep breath. You need to relax.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:43

My wife always relaxes when I tell her to relax.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:45

Yeah, yeah. Works every time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:49

Nothing gets somebody to calm down.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:51

Yeah, are the feds are the feds paying attention? I got this great new negotiation strategy they can teach. Just tell them to relax, it works every time. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:01

So do you have any advice? Or I guess what advice would you um give for somebody who maybe starting a career in law enforcement or just in a uh stressful um any other stressful field about humor, maybe dealing with tragedy, or just um how to maintain, I guess, a successful uh outlook on life.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:31

Get some life experience before you become a police officer or any other stressful job. Like I find that these these young guys that this is their first job, but like they may have worked a retail job for a year and then they decided to become a police officer. Like they're the most uptight because they have no idea what they're getting into. Get some life experience. Uh know yourself. Like keep yourself grounded. Like have those people in your life where they're just like, these are my friends, that's my spouse. These are the people that remind me that this is me. Uh if you have kids, kids are great for that. Um yeah. I don't know. I see a lot of people that already have these preconceived notions of what policing is when they become a cop and they're just coming in knife handing everybody, and you know, they're like, I'm the authority, and I go, are you really? Right. Like, you know what, you could probably catch more bees with um not knife handing somebody. You know, like if this parole wasn't sitting on the ground with three of your buddies watching your back, uh, he'd probably punch you right in the face, and uh rightfully so. So I mean that's been a lesson for me too. Like don't come into this job and assert your dominance like you're the authority. People the authority's been created, like people know their rights. Everybody is more aware of what police can and can't do nowadays. Um just look at the problem, solve it the way you can, don't be a jerk. I don't know. Golden rule, treat people like you want to be treated.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:13

Yeah. At the very least, don't make things worse.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:15

Don't make things worse. Yeah, it's it's not that hard. Uh I mean some people are are really pushing the envelope in that department. You know, you go to a call and somebody shows up and you're like, you can clear, you know, like or you cancel them before they get there. I know I'm ousting, I'm outing myself right now, so if you're Maya cover and I cancel you, that's not always the case.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:38

Some people are definitely uh they draw that line in the sand really quick and they're un unwavering.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:44

Unwavering, yeah. It's like contempt of cop.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:47

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:48

And you're and so I think uh I don't know. I think you I think you have to study people a lot, talk less, listen more, uh for for people to kind of grasp how humanity actually works. You know, it's like we we get everything dished to us on the this is the law, these are the these are the elements that you have to enforce. Uh these are the this is the criteria uh that in which if this is filled, then yes, you can arrest somebody, but it doesn't they don't teach you on like how to be a good person or how to be a funny person or how to cope with the stuff you see. I mean this job makes you a weirdo. Um even if you have a good coping mechanism and you have a good sense of humor about it, like I am not the same person I was seventeen years ago. I mean I think I am for the most part, but I definitely have a skewed sense of what I care about and how I think humanity um operates, you know. So I don't know. I'm skeptical or paranoid, you know. Be prepared to do the job and be a little paranoid, uh, keeps you sharp, but don't let don't let your police career consume you. Don't let it be your identity.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:07

Yeah, I think I think um you know you guys were referring to that earlier, and I think that'd be the best some of the best advice you can give is like you don't put all your eggs into that basket. Like this is a be a versatile person and be able to be able to talk about other things. Like I think early, you know, people that go to the academy together, start training together, and then they get on the same teams earlier, then they like they go um out after work and what do they talk about? They just talk about the job. And it's like be able to, you know, be more versatile and and talk about other things, yeah. Like life.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:47

Like you know, I think I I do believe that it takes a certain type of person to succeed in careers like like these. But I mean, they've been functioning for quite quite a long time now. Anybody can do this job, uh, whether what was this what was this the quote that we were talking about before? It was um don't take yourself seriously, or you're not gonna make it out alive kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:09

Yeah, don't take life too seriously. Yeah. You'll never make it out alive.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:12

I mean, especially if we dive into like police suicide, you know, and and I I look at, you know, I think I've had one co-worker commit suicide, and and I look at them as a person and you know, I have have a hard time like evaluating was it because they didn't they took themselves too seriously? Were they not funny enough, you know, or do they not have a sense of humor? Like what was were there other issues involved, you know, and and it's like that's one of those things that sits back there that you know you hear about it, people talk about it, but it's like are we doing anything about it? Well, yeah, we could talk about it. I'm like, but if I tell a joke that's uh you know a little too robust, people people think I'm a weirdo. I'm gonna tell the weird jokes, I'm gonna tell the funny jokes, I'm gonna make people laugh. Right. If somebody says that's inappropriate or unprofessional, I'm like, well, sorry, you don't you don't share the same sense of humor I have.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:13

Right. Yeah, it's a tough one too, though, because in law enforcement we work in a profession where we can actually be really like mean to people we work with.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:25

You know, we're really hard on or it may not even be the intent to be mean, but like we're pr we're practical. We're practical, but we all want to be perceived well by our peers. And so it could be so much more impactful when someone critiques you, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:27:40

Absolutely. And they may they may do it in like a humorous fashion. And if you can't take that, people are gonna be like, Well, I'm not I'm not gonna throw criticism your way. I'm not even gonna talk to you because you take yourself too seriously. Right. And then that person is gonna be stagnant because they're not learning from their peers. They're not learning anything, they're just in their own little Echo chamber.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:01

Yeah. Well that's a tough one though, because you always hear it. Like, what can we do? Or we need to do more for, you know, suicide prevention and law enforcement and then the military and like what are the proactive things we could be doing that you guys see every day that we probably fail at?

SPEAKER_03 1:28:17

Well, I think it's a two-way street. You know, it's like reaching out and having a reasonable relationship with somebody is one thing. But like if they're if they're, you know, closing themselves off or they don't want to reach out for help, you know, it's like we see it. We see it on our calls for service, you know. It's like if somebody doesn't accept that they need help or that they want help, then that's a that's a dead end. You could offer all the help you want to somebody and they'd be like, sorry, I'm just not in that space.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:47

So right. I I I think the important thing is to have people that are willing to reach out and recognize like you have a uh a group of people and that's what that's what's the value of a team, and you can you get a a basis of their behavior, and you can kind of hopefully with uh observers be able to see a a change. Um and just have caring people that reach out and then have resources available. I think that's the strength of any like um peer support program or wellness program is essentially like okay, it's not for the officers necessarily to have all the answers, it's to be able to recognize, reach out, and be like, hey, are you are you alright? Um I think if if officers tend to do that decently well, um I don't think we ask for help very well. And that's and I think where um I try to talk to like people on our wellness team is just like understand it can look like a right uh uh I don't want to say a cry for help, but an uh but it can look like a A U available for a beer. And understand that if that's not a a weekly thing or something like that, if that's not common, that that could be a indicator. An indicator. Yeah, absolutely. Um and so I think it's important to be able to recognize um when somebody's maybe going through something or maybe um there's a potential that they're struggling from it, because we like to protect not only ourselves um from our department, but also from our families a little bit. Like we don't want to create the stress on our family. So a lot of times there's a there's there's a gap in there the person that's in between is is the officer. Maybe there's family life struggling, well, they keep that from the department. Maybe the department life or their career life, but they keep that from the family. And it's like all the cards are really in the hand of the person going through it. Um and sometimes you hope that before they hit that I don't want to say breaking point, but if before they hit that point, um somebody can recognize something, or there's at least a connection enough to where there's a trust built up that they're willing to say a little bit more.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:13

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:13

And say something that indicates and having the wherewithal, if you hear that to be like, uh oh, that's that's something, not that's not just somebody just throwing something against a wall. That's something that somebody's looking for uh for uh for an ear or a kind heart.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:30

And that's a challenge, right? Is how do we decipher, like you said, some people appear as though they just they don't want help, but how do you or us or people decipher is that someone saying they don't really want help or they are just afraid to be vulnerable enough to say they need help? Vulnerability, absolutely, and that could be a difficult thing because some people might be like, hey, fuck, they don't want help, I'd reached out, they kind of shut me down.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:54

It's that text if you need anything, let me know. Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:57

And I think that's if I had to say there, like I had a complaint, not a complaint, but just like where I think people could do better, it would be going deeper than just a hey, do you need do you need anything? Yeah, because when you send a message like that, it feels very much like you are just doing it to check a box.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:16

Especially if you're someone who on the day-to-day has never really stopped to say, how's it going? Right. Or when maybe we stopped in the hall and said, Hey, how you doing? You never really followed up with something meaningful beyond doing good, sir. Like you know, the go-to. What's the name of your kid? Yeah, you know, and I I can speak on this just a little bit. You know, I didn't have any major issues throughout my career. I was very blessed, but like, you know, with just injuries and stuff like that, I can say there was very few people who really genuinely I felt when I was off duty from an injury, like when I had my neck surgery. There was very few people who I can I could feel the emotion when they messaged me and said, like, hey, do you need anything? It was different than someone who never speaks to me saying, Hey, let me know if you need anything.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:07

Just checking in.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:08

And when my instant in my memory, the last time I had an encounter with that person checking in was me saying, Hey, how you doing? like blah, blah, blah, and them just being like, Good, yeah, walking through the hallway.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:21

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:22

Or me trying to ask maybe a more personal question, like, oh, like you know, what do you do outside of work and they're real short with you? And then now that person's in a role where the expectation is to check in and you get a let me know if you need anything, right? It almost puts it almost makes you more negative. You're like fucking text. Don't text me. You've never messaged me before.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:42

Right. I and um like I look at it uh from a peer support peer support side where it's like if you were like involved in a uh officer-involved shooting, oh yeah, and you get the the thousand text messages the day of, and we're like, hey, just checking in. And when it comes from a number, like you see the digits, yeah, yeah. Like, hey, let me know if you need anything. I don't know who that I don't know who you are. I don't even know who this is.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:14

Like, oh, this is the chief of police. You're like, snap.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:18

But yeah, it but then it gets um having gone through it, it's like you you get it, and then you get a couple the next day, a couple the next day, and then it just goes quiet. Yeah, it gets so quiet, and it gets really it gets it can get real uncomfortable in the quiet when it's like okay, now two weeks have gone by and there's nobody reaching out, which is what happens because everybody as a circle, and I've been on the other end of it too, where I've been part of a text where it's like, hey, like can we reach out to so and so?

SPEAKER_05 1:34:46

Yes, and you do it, and yeah, it can be tough because yeah, it goes quiet, and then you start thinking, like, oh, that shit was all fake, you know. And so I think I don't know, my advice or my my thought on it is can we or just something we can all ask ourselves? Can we do better in the day-to-day? Yeah, like the small things. How do you treat people on the day-to-day? Are you connecting with them? And even if you're joking with them and making fun and doing all that, like are you following that up with some positive feedback too and being like, hey, you know, I'm just busting your balls, or hey, good job on that call, or you know, just treat people that you work beside better on the day-to-day in the little ways.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:31

Yeah, and also also be that example, you know, like treating somebody is is one thing, but if you're if your example is like you're the one walking around talking shit about everybody behind their back, you know, people are like, I don't really trust this guy because he talks about everybody else.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:45

Right, you know, it's yeah, which is yeah, I've always thought that to myself too. And I think I read in a book somewhere. It was like I read it once. Yeah, I read it once, it was like in a book, be careful the way you speak about others because like even with amongst your own friends group, right? Because if you're known to be the person that is always talking shit about other people, even in your own friends group, you might think, like, well, fuck, they're always talking about that person. Like, I know I'm not perfect, right? What are they saying about me? What are they saying about me when I'm not the one in the room that day? And I've been a part of circles where that's been a case, even on teams where it's like I remember back home on the the motor unit that I was on, I felt like whichever one of the motor units that wasn't there that day is what everyone's talking about.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:34

Plus, yeah, I mean, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:36

You know, and then you start to think when you leave sometimes, even if you're the one, and I'm not saying I'm perfect, I've definitely talked shit about people as well. But this is something with wisdom and time you realize, like, well shit, I'm out of the room sometimes, and I wonder what they're saying about me. And then you start to question, like, oh, who's really even my friends? Who really cares? Yeah, who is genuinely there for me versus not there for me? And I think the only way to combat that is again taking the time to in the day-to-day to give some positive feedback to people and you know, show that you care, not not when something big happens, like you know, so when you do send that text, how are you how are you? Is there anything we can do for you? It's felt and not just like a checkbox, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:20

Yeah, and I I think um you know, going back to our original thing, it's you know, just to add a different perspective on it, it's like how do you balance the humor with you being authentic, right? Like, for example, whenever somebody calls in sick um for my shift, it's like I always announce that they they called in scared. And everybody starts texting them, they're like, Whoa, bro, you're right, like hey dude, yeah, he he called in scared, he's scared today. The job's too scary for him right now. And I think it's funny, but it's like if somebody doesn't have a sense of humor and they think, oh, does he really think I'm scared of this job? Yeah, right? No, no, I don't, but it's better than just saying you called in sick. Yeah, so uh, but also um, I think when you have genuine, authentic relationships with people, then you know they're coming from a good place, even when they're making fun of you or when they say something versus um you know taking it like making it derogatory, it's right. And so I think it's uh always a fine balance, but I think when you make the calls, you make the connections and you you reach out to people, that's when it becomes authentic. Um, and that's where they know the person that you are, um, so that when you do make fun of them, like I said, for some of the players I coach or from my friends or whatever, it's like making fun of you is my love language. Like for people, like I like if I if I just don't engage in any of that, then that's a bigger red flag than if I openly make fun of you.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:59

Yeah, that's a hard, that's a hard road for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:01

And they don't like not a lot of people like that uh from a supervisory role because they're like, oh, don't think okay, you're professional. It's like, yeah, that's fun. Okay, so I won't do it in briefing, maybe. Right. Uh we'll do it more at coffee or do it over at lunch.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:13

It's like no, it's it's like I've had a whole bunch of supervisors. Some I mean one supervisor called me Mega Mind. He's like, You in your big head, Kozak, Mega Mind. And I just thought it was hilarious because I knew it came from a good place. Right. Um, but he had established that relationship long, long before making fun of me, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:32

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:35

Sincerity, gen uh being genuine. Don't be less than sincere. People people don't like less than sincere.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:44

Right. You're doing a great job.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:51

Yeah. That's a hard road for me. Sometimes I it depends on the day. I'm like, oh, are we gonna have some shitty radio traffic from you today? Like, great. Stand by, stand by for so-and-so to panic. You know, they're like, and then I'm like, they're just human, they're new. You used to be new, right? It's it's difficult, man. I mean, for me it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:14

I can't just but that's it's the most fun to make fun of those flaws versus getting actually upset by it. Right. You can get mad by you can get mad about hearing it, but like, why don't you get your radio track? Oh, yeah. It's not gonna make it better.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:27

Yeah, it's not like that, it's more of like annoy annoy, being annoyed.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:31

Yeah, you know, but I feel like you earned that sometimes though, over the over the course of a career, though. Absolutely because that happened to you, yeah. And so it's like you earn that saltiness a little bit where you just make fun and rouse people.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:45

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:46

I want people to succeed. Sometimes I just want them to succeed faster and more efficiently.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:51

Good way to put it.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:52

Like, can we step this up, man? I've been listening to you talk for an hour.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:57

Meat and potatoes, just get the meat and potatoes.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:00

Why are you asking about their intimate relationship? Just establish that they're a boyfriend, girlfriend, and move on. Yeah, yeah. How long did a crime happen? How long were you intimate with each other? Whoa, bro. Like, take a chill pill.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:13

Does that have any bearing on the decision I'm about to make from this call?

SPEAKER_03 1:41:18

The best advice somebody gave me is here's Calcrim, study the elements, ask your questions accordingly. I'm like, well, that makes uh homicide way simpler.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:26

Yeah, that's why I stab the guy in the neck. What was your intent?

SPEAKER_03 1:41:31

Oh, okay, cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:32

I'm done here.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:32

I'll see you later. Yeah, that was always my advice to trainees. Like, just ask the initial like elements so we know what we have.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:42

And then you can decide if you want to let them vent a little because we have the time and we have nothing going on. Sure. But at least if we do have something going on, you can make a quicker decision. Yeah. Like just get to the meat and potatoes real quick. Are we making an arrest or not? Because you know, most calls that we we have gone to, you know, within the first like three minutes.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:01

Like, if not sooner. You know on the way, unless something on the way. On the way, you know if you're making a rest.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:07

You read the call and you hear how the dispatcher says it, and you're like, This is a frivolous call. This is unfounded by the time I get there. Totally. What did they tell you exactly? Well, they said basically, basically, and you're like, Oh, why is this guy so holding me accountable for what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_05 1:42:22

Yeah. Well, three years ago, it's like, no, no, no. What happened like the last 30 minutes? What happened?

SPEAKER_03 1:42:26

Right, right.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:27

Yeah, but you get good at that. But uh yeah, on that note, I think the only other advice that I would have when we're talking about someone who's not done this job yet or going into a stressful career is it's kind of conflicting with what I just said, but have patience. Patience. Or know maybe know when to have patience. Oh, yeah. I say that because when I think about most calls or most times cops either get in trouble or get hurt, it's usually setting some sort of like time constraint on what needs to happen when there's no constraint really that's needed. You know, for example, it's like I'm telling someone to do something and I'm getting worked up and frustrated, they're not listening. And I'm not talking about when there's like some sort of you know imminent officer danger, but like someone's just annoying you or being frustrating, and we tend to like want to take control sooner, and then you end up using more force than you have to, or you do, you know, whatever. So I think just being patient, you know, there's very few calls that I feel like I've ever responded to in this profession where it was like we have to make a decision right now, right? You know, but I look back at, you know, when I was maybe in my rookie years, when I was at a call that I knew I was making an arrest and someone's being difficult, maybe they're under the influence or they're you know drunk or whatnot. And you go hands-on because you're like, Well, I told him he's under arrest and he already knows, and I'm just doing it, where I could have maybe just let them vent a little bit longer.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:59

Talked him into handcuffs, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:01

And I looking back, I always think like, what is the rush to make decisions sometimes when we're on calls? Like, what else were we doing when we're not here?

SPEAKER_01 1:44:10

Right, you have control of all the other elements.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:12

Right, we're paid to be here compliance. We're paid to respond when a call happens. So when that call happens, sometimes I'm like, why are we in such a rush to just clear it? What are we doing next? To go back in the car and sit and hang out and wait around, or can we let this call breathe a little bit? Yeah, you know, so obviously that's that comes with context, right? Like there's times where it's like there's officer danger and it's like you need to make a decision. Exigency. Exigency, throw someone in handcuffs, and then you can breathe. But in general, just have patience.

unknown 1:44:45

Patience.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:46

I think that's what I the more years I get on in service, the less patience I have.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:51

Which makes it hard, right? It's like you should get more, but you get less.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:54

It's almost you know, I had a I had a field trainer and um he would he had like this clairvoyance about things, you know, something would come up and he would basically predict what was gonna happen. And nine times out of ten he was dead on. I'm like, how do you do that? And he's like, it's just experience, man. Like we go to the same calls every day, the same types of problems. I mean, the our work is literally cut out in laws like battery. Oh, how many batteries do we go to in a day? Like, they're all the same. They have to be because that's the way the law is written. And so once you get like that clairvoyance, you're like, hmm, I can see where this is going.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:35

And it's like, can you get there sooner, please? You know.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:39

Yeah, and that's why I said it's kind of conflicting because yeah, you get so good at predicting what the outcome is gonna be to every call.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:46

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:46

It's almost annoying to sit there and deal with it. You're like, I already know what my role is here, I just want to end it and be gone.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:53

But going back to like maybe the um, I don't know, what do we call people that we respond to? They're not consumers, they're not customers, they're uh they need our help, right? Yeah, and so you show up and they're there for you to parties, the involved parties, you know? Kind of a funny way to think about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:10

Yeah, we're not selling products really.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:12

You know, but sometimes you're like, well, at the end of the day, like we are representing a profession that is not just me as an individual. It's you know, and do I want to reflect poorly on that profession? Right. And so even though I already know this call, I already know the outcome, do I take the time to let someone explain their feelings? You know, and that's hard, but that's where I think maybe having patience there can I don't know, improve the image of law enforcement at times when we're not so in in a rush to just shut down a call and you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:47

I start doing that with my friends, you know, when they come to me with their concerns. They're like, hey, are you working? I have a question. And then I have to sit there and I'm like, ooh, negotiator Jeff, put that hat on. And I do like active listening as eye messaging, you know, eye messages. It's like, oh, I I understand. And what I what I'm hearing is and then throw some empathy in there. Yeah, and a positive little active listening, yeah, and then just give them the solution. And they're just like, this is great. That worked. Customer service. Yeah. Yeah, customer service. Sometimes it's good. I have my opinions on that. Not right now, not right now. We're a big customer service department right now, and it's as it's we're gonna edit this out, right? This part.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:42

Maybe.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:43

Yeah, we could talk about it afterwards.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:46

Fair. All right. Any other stories you guys got? Anything we're leaving out on humor?

SPEAKER_01 1:47:53

Stories. Oh. You can go forever on stories.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:56

Yeah, stories. Uh if you when people give you, we had this, you know, we're out on foot doing our our thing, and this guy was giving us grief. And I immediately was like, you are now my victim of my jokes. And so he was with a group of his friends, and he had like these shiny gold underwear hanging out of his pants. And I'm like, Did your girlfriend let you borrow her underwear and you take him out? And then his friends started laughing, and I'm like, I have you now. Like, if your friends are laughing at my jokes about you, you're done. Like, if I was a fashion police, I'd write you a ticket for those gold underwear, and he was just you could just see him get defeated. And I'm like, next time don't open your mouth. You know, like we're just out here doing our job. But yeah, humor can get the best of you sometimes. It's like, this is my superpower. Like, if I make your friends laugh at you, you're gonna be ridiculed for the rest of the night. So totally not professional in today's standards. Uh, this is you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:56

One of the funny stories that you know it involved somebody we uh used to work with, uh, but we got a call for um a lady at that same hotel you were talking about earlier. It's a popular place. Who was um who was uh threatening suicide to I actually maybe it wasn't called from her, it was called from somebody else who she was trying to jump out of a window. So I was the day shift supervisor. So we roll um and I get their graveyards this kind of handling, and we get there, and she looked like uh like what's that lady, uh Greta Thunberg or yeah, the the activist, yeah, the climate activist, the climate activist, yeah. She looked like her, she was in a like a giraffe onesie footy pajamas. Oh my gosh, and she was like halfway out of the window, and uh so an officer and I roll up, and she's only on the second floor, so it's not like she would plummet to her death or anything like that. And she's yelling at us, she's like, Hey, the cops are coming, help.

unknown 1:49:59

And I'll

SPEAKER_01 1:50:00

Kind of you kind of look down and you're like, oh no, wait, we are the cops. Right. I don't know. You think we're weird, but so she she's like, quick, hold this, and she tosses down a meth pipe.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:10

Oh, and I vaguely remember this story. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:12

So like catch the meth pipe, and it's like, she's like, Help, the cops are coming. And uh there, you could hear him like knocking on the door, asking her to open the door. And so uh she starts like trying to climb down, and uh the other officer's like way taller than me, not quite as tall as you, but significantly taller. So he's able to like grab the bottom of her foot. And she's like, grab my other foot. And I'm just like, I totally can't. I'm just like, you know, a full foot shorter. I'm like, I can't reach any part. So then she ends up uh kind of jumping, we catch her, and the uh AMR is just sitting there right there. So we just like carry her like a baby over to like the uh the gurney, the gurney and put her on it, strapping her down, and she's like, I don't have any meth on me. You can check, you can check my fallopian tubes, and we both stop, like it just rattles us. We're like we just grab our butter and we are not we are not checking those, we're not checking your is this where this fight came from? Yeah, yeah. But it was just like the things that people say. It's like no thanks, yeah. Not doing that, yeah. Path, like just looking at the camera, like you heard that right? Cool, we are not doing that. You're crazy. But again, it was just funny that she's trying to escape the police by jumping out of a window.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:32

It was almost like reverse psychology where she was trying to like psych you guys out. I don't know if that was smarter. If I run to them, they'll think I'm I'm not guilty. Right. I don't know. Smart, kind of, no?

SPEAKER_01 1:51:47

Yeah. It was wild. It was wild, but that just one of those things that just adds a little bit of a story that I was just kind of just stuck, just stuck in there with it.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:58

Just jumped in there. I had a trainee one time, he was he was very charismatic with people. And this was the time of was it COVID? It was probably COVID. And he pulls this lady over for a traffic violation. She has a mask, she's all by herself in her car, and she's very like that way, you can't come, six feet. I'm requesting you, and she's yelling at us while we're walking up. I'm requesting you stay six feet away from us, and he goes, request denied, and he's like brand new, brand new, and he just does like he waves her hand trailer. He's like, request denied, and I'm just sitting there chuckling. I'm like, Oh, relationship with the public, seven, like seven out of seven.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:40

I'm like, dude, that made my day, man. Just crack me up.

unknown 1:52:44

That's funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:45

Yeah, there's some wild people out there.

SPEAKER_05 1:52:47

Yeah, it's an interesting profession. It's an interesting profession, to say the least.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:53

It's a great profession, it's fun, and it's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:56

Oh, absolutely. That's I I think one of the the most positive thing about the profession is the stories that you get. Unfortunately, like we've kind of talked about, it they don't resonate with everybody.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:12

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:13

And some people are like, well, that's imagine what they're going through and they're just like, Oh, they're going through like they have some hard. Right. And you just sit there and be like, yeah, I mean, if we if we took all the things and didn't recognize any of the humor, it's like God, this job would suck. Like it would be a horrible job.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:31

It'd be an emotional drain.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:33

But some of the people that do all the things based on my stories, meth is related to a lot of them.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:41

Probably 90% of them. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:43

Well, it's I think it's also uh when you when you have experience and you start taking all the subjective feelings out of things, and you can just evaluate the scene for what it is. Um it also I think it it brings to light some of the humorous things because you're like, I'm not being I'm not being um influenced by their feelings or this empathetic perspecti perspective on them or like using sympathy or trying to relate to them right now. I just got rid of all that. We're gonna deal with the problem because I've I have so much experience and it's X, Y, and Z. And then it opens up to all the funnier things because you're not worried about all this subjective stuff, and you're just doing the job real quick. We're gonna practice patience though. Um but then like because you're not clouded, your judgment's not clouded, and you sit there and they do something silly like that, and you're like, oh, that was well, you didn't contribute to the issue.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:44

Right, right. You got told about this issue, this issue was ongoing, right? And you get there, you're like, I'm gonna fly on the wall. Right. And then you sit there and you just kind of just kind of look, and you're just like, okay, well, I didn't nothing I did let us here.

SPEAKER_04 1:54:59

Right, right. This is all you. This is it's not me, it's you. Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:03

Yeah, it's always funny to me, like when people get so mad at the cops for showing up, you're like, I didn't just decide to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:09

I didn't somebody called me the victim andor witness.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:12

Someone from your home, the presence around you.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:14

Your nosy neighbors called me. Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:16

Do you think I want to be here? Yeah, someone called me to be here, and here we are. How can we make the best of it?

SPEAKER_01 1:55:23

Oh my gosh. One of my this might be a long-winded story, but it always it always made me laugh. And so I had a supervisor who he lived for this job. Um, he was like almost like imagine like Lieutenant Dan, but of the police officer. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:40

This is my destiny. Yeah, yeah. This is his journey, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:55:44

So he never missed work, whatever. So one week he was he was gone. He was like, he was gonna go visit his marine buddies, and they were gonna have some thing. And so uh, I was kind of one of the more senior, I was the senior guy on the team, and so he kind of left me in charge. Quasi. But he always used to rip me for like he'd put me on like some sort of assignment and be like, hey, go write up uh stuff for a search warrant on this house and get in a pursuit of a a known like drive-by vehicle or something like that. And he'd be like, You always chasing shiny shit, stop chasing all the shiny shit. Anyway, so he leaves me in charge a little bit, and so I'm like, hey guys, let's go uh let's go chase all that shiny stuff, let's go get it. So ended up being a wild week. But the second day we had two good officers and they were going by a drug house, like they were gonna go just trying to swing by, see they see a car that's loaded three deep, and so they're like, Oh, there's no plates on this car, we're gonna force a stop. Well, this car starts going in pursuit, and it's just a slow speed pursuit, but like I'm on the like I'm way far away, so I'm trying to catch up on the freeway. So inevitably, like I'm hearing all this radio traffic, and I'm trying to catch up, and I hear it's like, hey, we need a we need a uh a marine unit. He just jumped off the bridge. Oh, Jesus. And it's like this bridge is hundreds of feet tall. Yeah, and I'm like, oh shit. And then we're like, oh, we need an air unit. He just got onto a boat, and I'm like, Oh my god, what's happening right now? Like, I'm totally like, I've never even heard of this. It was like, it's like, was this James Bond theft audit?

SPEAKER_03 1:57:22

Yeah, five stars, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:23

He's wanted and so lo and behold, they wash the boat, like takes him over to the shore, and then he like starts stripping all his clothes and he starts running through the forest, and he ends up getting apprehended by like a uh like a CHP motor or something like that. But the distance that he fell off this bridge was so incredible that it's like, how did he even live? Yeah, uh pure adrenaline. Right. So I'm like, I I have to go talk to this person, like I have to go to the hospital and and figure out like what that was. Yeah, did you scream all the way down? So I so it was really funny because I like I go to the hospital and I kind of you know, it's like you kind of want to shake his hand, like that was impressive. Yeah, it was good effort. A for everything was amazing, right? And so I asked him, like, dude, what was it like falling through the air like that? Because while I wasn't on scene when he originally jumped, I saw the body warrant, I saw the uh the dash cam, and it looked like he hit the railing because he went from the driver's seat, climbed over the passenger, and hit the railing almost like a Titanic when they were like the people would be falling and hit the blade and start spinning. Oh that's how he went over the ledge, like his feet went over when he and it was like incredible. And so I was like, what was it like falling through the air like that? And he was like, honestly, I I passed out. Oh, and I was like, okay. I was like, then then what happened? He's like, the next thing I know, I'm being pulled out of the the water by white people, and I'll never forget the way he said this. He's like, I fucking love white people because they're always boating and shit. He's like, then they pulled me into the their boat and they're like, they were genuinely concerned, like, what happened?

SPEAKER_04 1:59:06

Oh my god, you just like fell from the sky. Like, oh, I got scared.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:10

People were chasing people and they just see a a sea of policemen. Yeah, and they're like, and they're like, and they just like they just go round jar and get out of here. He went, like, he just went and started hoofing it on foot. But I always thought that was the funniest thing. I laughed so hard when he was like, I love white people because they're always boating and shit. Can't make this stuff up.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:35

Such a great line.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:39

Yeah, it was yeah, it was, and we we still don't know why he was running. Like, are we sure he had a gun or something on him, or but he hit that water and it just exploded off of him? But but it was still like I just wanted to shake his hand. Yeah, you're like, good job, dude. Yeah. So that that was always funny. My uh my sergeant came back and he was very uh I don't want to say impressed, but he was he was the amount of things that had been his one week off. Of course this happened when I got in a foot pursuit where the guy got hit by a car. Oh, and like we ended up arresting like a news report. Like all these things like occurred. It was like the busiest week of our of our busy team's career. That's like came in threes. Yeah, he just came, he came back like you guys. That's funny. Where leave you alone for one day.

SPEAKER_05 2:00:30

That's how it happens. It's like when you have a substitute teacher, you know, just everything goes to chaos.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:34

Yeah, exactly. It was rad.

SPEAKER_05 2:00:37

Well, cool. I think that's um about wrapping up this episode of Broken Perspective Podcast. Hopefully, this maybe enlightens some of you a little bit on the minds of those who work in profess or stressful professions and why we may laugh at things that from the outside might appear, I don't know, sensitive, a little insensitive or awkward to laugh at, but yeah, gets us through it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:02

Thank you, Xerxes, for joining us.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:04

Anytime. Appreciate you coming. I enjoy podcasts. Love it. Thanks for having me. Yep. All right, good chat.

SPEAKER_05 2:01:11

Those of you who stayed till the end, thank you. We appreciate you, and we'll catch you on the next one.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:15

See ya.