Lee Peck - When Seconds Matter: The power of preparedness and partnership before the crisis strikes.

In this episode of the Forged by Design Podcast, Daniel Badillo welcomes Lee Peck, District Training Officer for the Columbia County School District Police, to discuss one of every community's greatest responsibilities: protecting its schools. Drawing on 17 years of law enforcement experience, including service as a School Resource Officer, Lee shares practical insights on emergency preparedness, leadership, and building safer learning environments where students and educators can thrive.

Lee reflects on the experiences that inspired his commitment to school safety and explains how his Master's degree in Public Administration shaped his approach to strategic planning, effective policy, and proactive leadership. Rather than focusing solely on responding to emergencies, he emphasizes prevention, preparedness, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

The conversation examines the evolving landscape of school safety. While school shootings have occurred worldwide, the United States continues to experience them at a much higher frequency. Lee discusses how modern law enforcement training has expanded beyond active shooter response to include comprehensive planning for medical emergencies, severe weather, fires, hazardous materials, mental health crises, reunification procedures, communication challenges, and many other critical incidents.

A central theme throughout the episode is that effective school safety depends on strong partnerships. Lee explains how educators, law enforcement, parents, students, counselors, and community leaders all play essential roles in creating safe schools. Built on trust, communication, and shared responsibility, these partnerships help identify concerns early, reduce risk, and strengthen coordinated responses during emergencies.

Drawing from his experience as a School Resource Officer, Lee highlights the importance of early intervention and relationship-building. Working closely with counselors and student support teams taught him that many situations can be addressed before they become law enforcement matters, creating a safer and more supportive environment for students.

The discussion also explores the human side of emergency preparedness. Through realistic training and regular drills, school personnel and officers develop the confidence, communication skills, and decision-making abilities needed to remain calm under pressure. Lee explains that successful emergency response depends as much on leadership and judgment as it does on procedures.

The interview concludes with practical advice for parents, educators, administrators, and community leaders, encouraging every community to invest in preparedness before a crisis occurs. Lee also discusses firearms training for new officers, emphasizing that professional policing requires not only marksmanship but also restraint, accountability, ethical decision-making, and a lifelong commitment to continuous training.

Ultimately, this episode delivers a powerful message: the safest schools are built long before emergencies occur. Through intentional leadership, comprehensive planning, ongoing training, and strong community partnerships, schools can create environments where students and educators feel secure, supported, and prepared. Lee Peck reminds us that true school safety is built not on fear, but on preparation, collaboration, and an unwavering commitment to protecting the next generation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Forge Bind Design Podcast. This is your host, Daniel Badigel. Thank you so much for all your support. You can always find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and of course our YouTube channel, Forge Bond Design. Today, a great event. We have the district training officer for Columbia County that is has 17 years of experience in law enforcement and is also a sergeant with the Columbia County District Office or community. And I want to for you to be very vigilant, take a lot of notes because today we're going to talk about public safety, a very important topic in today's day and age with so many events happening. And what more, to have a subject matter expert to talk to us and lead us, guide us on what we can do to become a safer environment and create a space where all students and of course every civilian can prosper and have a great lifestyle. Help me welcome Sergeant Lee Peck. How are you, sir? Doing well. How are you today? Great. I want to start by saying for all those that uh we almost changed the podcast because we started talking about public safety and the risks and drills and so forth. And what I didn't know is that he sings and he plays guitar and he's multi-talented. So what an amazing gift. And I'm not sure if all the uh the district offices in Columbia County knew that, but now they know. Well, there's plenty of students in Columbia County that have heard me sing. Outstanding. I'll send you first of all, thank you so much for taking this opportunity to honor you, honor us with your visit here on the Forge by Design Podcast. And I thank you for your service for what you do to keep not only Columbia County but the CSRA safe uh as you train a multitude of professionals, not only leading them, guiding them, and uh and laws and bylaws and all the safety aspects so far from the Forge by Design Podcast. Thank you so much for what you do. Thank you. I appreciate it. So tell us a little first of all a little bit about yourself. You have 17 years in law enforcement and you've served as a district training officer. Uh where in your career led you to such a noble career?

SPEAKER_02 2:27

Um, I actually fell into law enforcement by accident. Um, so I was uh you know, I did my odd jobs here and there. I worked uh security at Target for a little while. Okay. And uh there was a there was a moment that I was wanting to shift careers, and I just happened to apply um as a dispatcher for, I guess, University Police Department, and I got hired on, and from there they were like, You're really good at this job, so we're gonna send you to the academy. So I'm gonna standing. Okay. And then I became a police officer. And ever since then, I've just been uh wort the road for almost 10 years, and then uh I became uh school resource officer in elementary school, progressed to a high school, and then got promoted to sergeant of training, and then eventually the district training officer.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

So all this all throughout the CSRA, or were you in another were you in like a North Augusta?

SPEAKER_02 3:13

No, it was through uh so I Augusta University Police was where I did most of my road control. Well, I was started at MCG Police, but then I moved over to Columbia County, so that's where I've been the Columbia County School District for the last uh seven, eight years of my career. So seven, eight years.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

So that's a lot of changes and so forth. How was your experience throughout the academy? Was it all you thought it would be?

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Well, I had a very old school instructor for my academy class, so uh there was a definite change in the way that the culture was from when I was in the academy, because I went through one of the last few classes in Blythe, and then when I came to the road, I was like, ah, and then it was a oh, this is policing in you know the early 2000s, so I was like, oh, it was a definite culture shift for me, but um they the the instructors that I had trained me very well to to manage on the road when I was on the road, so it's always good to have the the mentor, the guy.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

You know, there's always one thing about you know textbook knowledge, you have a theory of of laws and you memorize laws and you've rehearsed it, but it's not until you're in the trenches that you're able to experience and and grow. I always say that uh you have to grow through the situations, and uh for what I've seen, of course, you know I have a son that's also in law enforcement uh that um once you make the that first stop or series of stops, then all that training really comes to fruition and uh empathy, sympathy, uh tolerance, and so forth. Uh we have uh seen a uh drastic change, I guess, in law enforcement and the and so the training is extremely valuable again for that. So public safety has evolved um throughout the years. What are the what are the biggest changes you have seen with public administration and school district safety?

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Well, with with law enforcement, there's then been a definite shift towards more mental health support and working with those who have uh mental health situations, uh, verbal judo is what they in in a sense the other topic that they discuss, but we're starting to see a shift more towards de-escalation. Um yes, there is still use of force training and all that, but I'm starting to see more of a shift of how do we help people in need more so let's lock everyone up all the time. You know, it's it's I like the way that it's going because it's definitely allowing us to it's allowing us to identify the situation in a better way and find avenues to deal with the situation that wouldn't like you know, the old school policing breaking kneecaps. We don't do that anymore. So you're seeing a definite shift towards that. You're also seeing, especially in school safety, um, the Georgia State uh created a school resource officer certification. And in that class, there are some specialties in helping build relationships, working with children, restorative justice, those kind of things, where we're starting to see more about cops becoming more mentors, correct? Cops building relationships and working with children more so. I know everyone's afraid to of the school to prison pipeline, but we're starting to see more of a shift towards how do we help children more so let's lock every child up. Let's how do we help them with their issues?

SPEAKER_00 6:17

And we're speaking about children, we're saying uh middle school, high school, or they as as as young.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

Yeah, we're talking pre-K all the way through twelfth grade.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

I think one of the things, of course, uh anytime I see a police officer or law enforcement individual, uh, there's that uh respect for authority. Uh there's the the the you know the yes, sir, no, sir, and you know, being more engaged. And I love the fact that you said that they're they're trying to build relationships. And uh by building relationships, of course, uh students would be more prone to to talk to officers, alerting them about dangers or certain things that they heard, that they've seen uh to potentially de-escalate a situation that be can can become dangerous or peril uh on that. Absolutely. So over the time, you know, we've had historically since the year 2000. I was doing some research and uh it says that the the National Center for Education Statistics from the year 2000 to the year 2022 says that there were 328 casualties in active shooters, incidents at elementary schools and secondary schools, and 157 casualties at post-secondary institutions, with uh 75 that had perished and 82 wounded, and with the 328 casualties, there were 131 killed or and 197 that were wounded. Those are uh alarming numbers when I did the research and and the the reality of the importance of having a presence of uh of law enforcement in the school system in the in Columbia County, but as as a whole, uh throughout the United States. How do police officers whole how do you uh bring to to the awareness to the students that this this activity that we're doing, this training, this building relationships, this getting you know, patrolling the the facilities or or the grounds is because there is a present threat that can happen at any time?

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Well, with with regard to teaching like showing the students, I don't really go in and tell the students what we're training. You know, I want the fruits of the labor to be on the officer themselves. So when we when we train our officers on de-escalation tactics, active shooter response, um building relationships, anything that we're doing, I want to see the reaction, the the interaction between the officer and those students. And for me, it's not so much that we tell the kids, hey, this is what's going on in the world today, this is what we're doing to address it. I want them to see it actually happening in their schools. You know, when they we talk about the trusted relationships between students and officers, officers shouldn't be seen as just the guy who shows up or the guy or girl that just shows up when bad things happen. I want them to see them as a person that they can go to and trust and talk to. So when when we build these relationships with students, it's not so much of, hey, be scared of the world. It's there's a guy that I can go and talk to at any point in time. There's a girl that I can go and talk to at any point in time. And if there's an issue that I have in in front of me, if there's something that's going on, I've had I've had students come up to me that have asked me about current situations, current events going on, and they're like, What are you doing to protect me? I said, I walk the halls every day. I talk to every one of you. I know every and I knew every kid at my school's name, every one of them. Outstanding because that was something that I felt was necessary to show them that I cared. So I try to of course you when I went to the high school, I went from a school elementary school of 490, 460-something kids. So I knew all their names. When I went to the high school, I had 1,400. I really couldn't know all their names, but for me, it was at least I I interacted with as every student as I possibly could throughout the day because they could come to me and ask me questions about that. But I don't they see us do the drills, they've heard some of the trainings that we do because our officers talk about it, but I don't really make it an effort to go out and tell them because I don't want to scare them into thinking that yes, the statistic numbers are high. But statistically, it is the least likely thing to happen in a school district. You're actually more likely to have an active shooter situation happen at Walmart than you are at a school. And that's just one of those things. Like I'm not I'm not saying that it shouldn't that couldn't happen. What I'm saying is I'm trying to keep the kids not insulated, but I want the fruits of the labor of the training to be on that officer individually at the school so they can build those relationships with their students. Outstanding.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

So it's all about preparedness then. So what what are some of the um in in general, you have to go specifically, some of the the drills or the programs that have to do with preparedness or predictive response? Do you do you do drills? Uh do you walk the grounds? Yeah, what's what's the activity like as far as that training curriculum for for officers?

SPEAKER_02 10:55

So we you know we have our yearly mandatory training that we do every year that's uh that's required by post. But one of the things that I and POST is uh police officer standards and training council. That's the overarching entity that controls our training. So like I'm a post-certified instructor. So they're all that's the people that set the standards for the state of Georgia police uh law enforcement. Um so we have our standards. Um one of the things that I'm excited about this year is I'm actually um coordinated with uh Georgia Police Officer Standards and Training Council, which is the largest training facility in the state of Georgia, they're down in Forsyth. Um I've coordinated with them, and all of our officers this year will be certified SROs. So they're all getting that training, they're all getting that specialized training. But um one of the things that I'm very big on is preparedness is yes, you know, I I I told my chief when I first took this position that, you know, I want our he and I discussed it. We want it to be a hub of training. I've been an active shooter instructor since 2016. I've I've multiple, multiple classes on instruction that I've ever went through. And one of the things that I've learned, especially with responding to that situation, is repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. Repetition is a key learning. It is because, you know, in any crisis situation, people you don't generally see people rise to the occasion. You see people fall back on their training. Sure. So making sure that they have that repetition and you know, and building the building blocks. Correct. Like we I went through a uh a pretty exciting training um through Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Fletzi down in Glinco. And it's the first time I've ever had PTSD from a training class. Oh wow. Oh, they had oh, it was insane. But the thing about it is that for me, it was they built those building blocks, they put the small steps in place first, then they built up to those big things. But I want my officers to have the training to respond to these situations because I don't want them to react to the situation and not know what to do. Correct, yes. So we do that, we do active shooter training yearly. Um, we get them together, we do bus assault training, we do all different kinds of things where they might have to deal with a situation. But I also put them through training. Like we put we partnered with um, oh, who was it? It was the uh Child Advocacy Center to put on training for building relationships with children that are involved in crises. Because you know, it does take a different kind of talking to someone who has just gone through a crisis. So we put our officers through that training because I want them to be prepared for every eventuality. It's not just they're not just guns in schools, they're mentors, they're competents, they're people that these children see as protectors. So I want them to not just have one avenue of training. I want them to be trained on gamut, uh, on the gamut of all different topics they give for preparedness.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

That's that's uh working with someone holistically. Exactly. So just just not not only mental stress, but also tact. I like the fact that you mentioned that you know, but having the building blocks, and so you know, Lord forbid, a situation would occur uh that the reaction would be instinctively. I went through uh our uh our counselor called YouTube and I was I was watching some of the uh the training drills that that officers do uh for active shooters uh in the hallways, how they they lock the doors and how how that as a unit they split tactically and to ensure that uh you know one by one by one every classroom is is safe and and students are are safe as well. And it that's a lot of stress. Uh even in in the portion of the drill, uh after the fact where they interview the the the party, the team uh unit, uh you can tell even with the with their voice was cracking about how how this can become a real scenario. And one thing is to to have a drill and then have an active scenario. You mentioned about uh building relationships with with students. How how does the the police officers build relationships with educators and parents?

SPEAKER_02 14:46

That's uh that's a big one. Um one of the things that we law enforcement in school needs to understand is education has their expertise. They do not think like law enforcement. Correct. Educators the sense likewise need to look at law enforcement in the sense that they're not educators. Half the time, you know, and I hate to say this, but half the time SROs do not know what educators do. I know they know that teaching, but there's a whole lot more that goes into education than just teaching the lessons. Correct. So I think it starts with that trust, understanding that we both have separate jobs that work for the child. So for them, building that relationship, I and you know, I would joke with my teachers, I would go talk with them. I actually taught, um, I partnered with my fifth grade teacher, and I was teaching kids about their civil liberties. And I was teaching about their uh I taught them about their amendment rights and those educator. Having her bring me in, shown as a subject matter expert on the law, it helped build not only the relationship with students, but it showed her that I was willing and invested in the students. Outstanding. Because in reality, you know, I I've been in law enforcement 17 years, as we talked about. The focus on law enforcement is always law enforcement. But when you're working in a school, the product is not law enforcement, the product is education on these students and and enriching their lives and and building them up for tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

So that's one of the things that the teachers in law enforcement need to see is that they're working towards the same goal, just in different aspects. Correct. And with the community, you know, with your law enforcement, with your parents, I would have conversations with my parents because I need to talk to them and they need to trust that I'm going to communicate with them truthfully about everything. Correct. And so for me, trust is the biggest thing between all of those entities because if there is no trust, information does not flow freely. And that's where breakdowns of of belief in the same, you know, if an officer lies to a parent about something that's going on, is that parent going to trust that officer to protect their children?

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

You know, and so that's that's my thing is like you've got to have open lines of communication through all avenues. Sure. You know, we talk about school safety, the biggest thing about that is the culture of safety is is building that culture that people are free to come and talk and report things that they find are suspicious.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Do you see that there's uh um an increase in in uh receiving or welcoming uh your training, or do you see that over time there's been resistance? You know, before the podcast, I was saying that, you know, from uh in the north and in Boston, New York, and in many, many other uh upstate states, uh, you know, a high school can be or middle school can be three to five thousand students, multi-level, many floors, hundreds of rooms and so forth. So there's a there's a lot of anonymity, there's there's a lot of information that just does not get captured. I always believe that, you know, um discipline and of course respect and and it's starts at the home, right? Working with the parents, and sometimes, you know, whether we we we can't be naive that not every student is the best student, and uh that there's that there but the students do know the information that they can share with law enforcement if that trust, if that trust is there and uh b bridge the gap between information that's uh absent and so forth. So how how does that work in your world regarding the the parents working with those parents?

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Well, you know, one of the things that I I I want my parents to do is to tell me what's wrong. Because, you know, I I read uh there was a situation that happened a while back that I was um it kind of floored me a little bit. It was an 18-year-old girl. Um I don't remember exactly what state she was from, but she's 18 years old, well liked, loved in the school, had a lot of friends, you know, your typical, you know, class A student high grades. And um her father was so invested in her life that he started noticing a slight change in her behavior. And what did he do? He started going through her journals and he found out that she had written that she wanted to be the next fem the first female Columbine shooter.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

He found uh guns, she had shotgun, uh shotgun in her in her attic closet area. He found uh materials to make pipe bombs, all these kind of things. But that's what I'm trying to explain to my parents like engage with your students, know who your children are. I've got a six-year-old that thinks she's gonna have a phone that I won't have access to, and she's looking, she's gonna learn otherwise. But I mean, and that's the thing. Know what your children are doing, build that relationship with your own children first because I need you to try to know your children so you can bring those things to me. Because I I'm not here to to ruin your child's life. My job is to protect your children. And I tell my students all the time, you know, I'm here to protect you, even if it means I have to protect you from yourself. Correct. And I will use every avenue I can to help you with this problem before it becomes a criminal matter. And so my parents started trusting me that I wasn't just there to, you know, because they see law enforcement with their badges and they think, oh, they're there to lock my child up. That's not my job. My job is not to come here, lord over your child, and and lock them up. My job is to protect your children. You know, you protect them at home, I protect them here. I'm not their parent, but you know, I am here to help you with your job here at the school.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Absolutely. Well, it's it's uh amazing that you brought up um that how how easily information is on the internet where uh students can can learn how to do A, B, C, D, you know, whether it be pi poms and so forth. And I always tell my kids, you know, regardless of, you know, there's always a digital trail of what you do. You can delete your history, you can do this, you do that. But uh when it comes to law enforcement, uh uh a person with your access uh can go and and have you know dig up your history and and re and uh actually bring you to to account and that's how things start. But what a great uh event that that did not happen. Yes, exactly. Uh is wash was she okay?

SPEAKER_02 20:30

That was this person I don't know exactly what happened to her after that. I know she faced some charges because there was some there was some um she had researched a lot. She actually followed her school resource officer, found out where she went after school, those and that information. She found out what type of vest she wore and identified that it could not stop a knife. So she had actually planned on stabbing her SRO to do the thing that she wanted to do. And in, you know, for me, that's where mental health and counseling support is one of the most important things we can do for any child that is expressing homicidal ideations like this. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

We recently had uh Danny Parks who spoke about suicidal prevention and and stress and and uh how these teenagers they bottle it up and and what a what a great uh opportunity that they have a law enforcement to to go to, you know. Uh and that that would also work with with the principal, with the directors, count and um counselors and so forth. And do you have a liaison? Yeah, I mean I know there's a principal and and a director, and and um is there like a teacher liaison between the the law enforcement and the school, or do you guys just work directly with the school principal and their in their staff?

SPEAKER_02 21:39

There is no l there's no official liaison or anything like that. It's more just working directly with the staff and the team and the principals of the school.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

So Okay. So from the the human side of training when it comes to your drills, so training is it's just not about procedures, right? It's about, like you said, people. So how do you prepare your officers and school staff to remain calm? Communicate effectively and make good decision under extreme stress. And this is the lead or the segue for that. We're talking about stress. Uh, because you you do have the the rookie cops, you have the senior cops and uh people with your experience, 17 years in law enforcement. You've seen a lot. You know, and uh for also from the emotional side, the things probably that rattled you in that first, second year. But after 17 years, you've seen that you got the t-shirts, you got the souvenir, been there, done that, so so to speak. Um, you know, dealing with the with the uh new officers, how how do you train them to remain calm under these stressful situations, especially when, you know, uh maybe I have a little bit of bias because I do respect law enforcement and I and I do honor and and I'm very appreciative of the service, dealing with disrespectful students toward law enforcement, creating scenarios where where it makes it a little bit more difficult uh for for you to do your job. How do the officers remain calm in those situations? Well, so they can't go to the manual and read the first. What does page 23 say? They've got to act on the spot.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Well, one of the things that I've um one of the biggest things that I teach officers, I was an FTO on the road, um, and I was an FTO with our school district when I was that mean for the field training officer. I apologize.

SPEAKER_00 23:19

Field training officer.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Yeah, the guy who the guy who trains the people in the field. I I train in classroom, but I'm also a field training officer. Uh, one of the things that I tell people all the time, like you can't take offense to anything a student says to you.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

But how how do you build that character?

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Well, I let the badge take it. Okay. They're insulting the badge, they don't know who I am. Sure. And so I, you know, it's like a little mind trick that I've done for many years because I I'm a redhead, obviously. I get a little angry pretty quickly. So for me, you know, and I learned this skill on my own. Like I there was really no training process that taught me this skill, but I realized that these people have no clue who I am. They don't know. I had a kid tell me that I was the uh uh what was it, great value Brock Lesnar. That's what she told me to look like. And I said, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But instead of being insulted, I took and I kind of I try to turn it around. Like there are kids that are yes, you get disrespect anywhere, but I tell people all the time, like, don't let it affect you because the badge is the one being insulted. It's not you, they don't know you personally. So let the badge the badge can hold a lot of insult. Sure. Let the badge take the insult and just roll it off your shoulders. Now, if they become to the point that it becomes criminal, you you gotta do what you gotta do. Sure. But in the face of it, especially with juveniles, they're gonna say things, they know what buttons they can push. And and if you don't think these kids don't know you as an officer, you got another thing coming. Okay, because they they they could pay very close attention, and and that's one of the things, like going back real quick to the parent thing, your parents should be paying attention to your kids because your kids know a whole lot more about that school than you do. Absolutely, they know what student is planning on doing stuff, they know the rumors and the things that are going around because they pay so much attention to everything that's going on around them. I know we talk about everyone's paying attention to their phones, but people forget there's a lot of information going through that phone. Correct. Yes. So they're watching you. I mean, I I I they're watching me. They know the routes that I take in the schools, they know the things that I'm doing. So don't take offense to the things that they say because they're trying to find your buttons. They're trying to find what's gonna rile you up and get you angry.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

That's amazing. You know, you would nowadays with the camera, you know. Back then, obviously, I mean, uh in my day, I mean, I can't pull up pull up a beeper and you know what I mean. What is it? 143 means I love you on the beeper. Something like that. You know, I was uh I'm dating myself with the beeper days and whatnot. But uh, you know, nowadays with with technology and any incident, whether whether it be a fight in the locker room, a fight in the hallway, uh in the lunchroom, whatnot, or any sort of commotion, especially from law enforcement, the first thing that people will do, unfortunately, is everybody every teenager has a phone. Oh, yeah. And uh unfortunately, some some live stream on Facebook and whatnot, and and you know, how do the officers again they so when they do that, they have to realize that there's an audience. Now that what audience of maybe three students became the entire CSRA via vis-a-vis via uh a cell phone. So that then has to play a lot of uh stress and and acting in the moment.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

You know, I let it when when I when I first started law enforcement, it was when body cam started making a really big hit. Sure. And I I'll never forget I walked into the case. I'm glad I was gonna ask you about that. Yes, you guys wouldn't have. But you know, when when body cameras first started coming out is when we started seeing a large surgence of people recording law enforcement interactions with phones. And I uh I had an interaction with a gentleman um at a store and he pulled out his phone and looked at me and he was like, What you gonna do? Yes, and I said, What do you mean? He said, Doesn't this upset you? I said, I live my life on my job every day as if I'm being recorded. I'll stand every day. That's good, good because if you live that life and you live like you have a camera on you, you're not and now I'm not saying I'm you you shouldn't hide the things, but if you live your life every day as if you're being watched, you have a better chance of making better decisions. Because, you know, there's been I know that we've had countless times where you've seen law enforcement do horrible things on camera, and then they go, Give me that phone. No, you can't do that. Correct, you know, they everyone has a right to record us. So I'm recording you, and I told the guy, I said, Are you offended? He said, Why? I said, Because I'm recording you right now. He goes, Well, no. I said, Then why should we be offended? I'll yeah, because if you live your life every day like you're being recorded, there are no problems.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

So um, so this the stress um at the end of the year, going through all the scenarios, I'm assuming you you interview your police officers, the good, the bad, the ugly, uh, lessons learned. It's called a SWAT in the SWOT analysis. What were the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats uh that you you as an individual experienced throughout the year, what lessons learned, and then you as a unit learned. And and based on that, you you make assessments on what stress programs or uh the or or procedures you would implement or amend uh based on their experience, or is it based on the uh the state per se?

SPEAKER_02 28:16

So the state there there is no required stress training in the sense, it's more about in instilling stress in the training itself. Okay. So like firearms, they instill stress by certain time strictures and those kind of things. Active shooter is inherently a stressful class if it's put on correctly. You know, it is an inherently stressful class, but there's no there's no they have a resilience training. There, there is a resilience training that the state offers, but um, it's not seen a big push in the state of Georgia yet, as far as like high stress level training classes to help you handle stress. We do have a uh health and wellness class that is really good. It's um I I I took that early in my career. Um, I have to admit I was 365 pounds at some point in time in my career, and I realized that I was killing myself by drinking six Thirstbusters a night.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

I can't envisage that. You gotta have to show me a picture of it. I'll show you a picture of it.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

I was I I was about as big as this chair. And, you know, it was one of those things I took that class and it made me realize like, you know, because the amount of stress that we deal with in law enforcement, I I've explained to my wife, my wife and I were having a conversation about this the other day. I said, you know, there's a lot of inherent stress with wearing a bulletproof vest every day and a badge. Like you never know if someone's gonna attack you. And I and I'm not saying that cops are always getting ambushed and we should always be fearful, but you know, sure the level of awareness that a law enforcement should have is inherently stressful because you're paying attention to everything around you. So one of the things that I try to help my officers with during training is that repetit repetition training does help build confidence and it also helps reduce stress. Because when I I I've been in some hairy situations that I thought, and I looked back and I went, man, I was really calm. Sure. And it was because of the training that I had, because I did I didn't know what I was doing. I've been in a situation where my gun was in my hand before I even realized it. Correct. And it was because of the training that I had, because I had a subconscious thought that recognized the threat. And it was like, yeah, and uh in that moment I had peace. It was it was a strange experience.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Well, that's that's amazing. You know, it's all the opposite, like athletes uh that, for example, a boxer, you know, uh runs for many miles, shadow boxing, uh, does uh boxing with with others, what's called sparring, um, and so forth. So when they go in, there's a lot of muscle memory during that uh the boxing event, they're there to fight physically. Yeah. Whereas officers, it's all about mental. It's about preventing that that event, uh preventive uh risk management, stress management, and it's uh, you know, sometimes uh like like I said, a lot of the videos that are out there, you know, it's amazing the type of resilience uh a police officer would have before they make an arrest, giving that individual all the opportunity to confess, to come clean, to to tell the story, to to uh to you know, just to to to tell the truth, so to speak, before they make a uh uh lawful uh um uh arrest. So I see the opposite. It's it's all mental. It's uh before you make that that arrest. You know, when it comes to uh leadership during emergencies, and that's probably your role, you hold a master's in public administration, which gives you a a leadership perspective on many on many realms. So, what leadership qualities become the most important when an emergency unfolds and everyone is looking for direction? Something happens, and all eyes on Sergeant Leep, you know, what say you?

SPEAKER_02 31:42

Well, one of the things, and I this is uh this is something that I train because I teach um alerts, uh advanced law enforcement rapid response training. I teach their air class, which is active attack integrated response. It's a training where you combine law enforcement fire and EMS to do active shooter training. And one of the things that when I teach that class, I make sure that officers understand it does not matter the stripes on your shoulder, it does not matter the bar or the gold leaf or the chief badge, doesn't matter. He who takes control of that situation is leading that situation in that moment, and you have to begin making decisions because you have incident command, you have the room boss, the first person responding has to make decisions. But the one thing that I I feel that is I've seen this, it's it's flexibility because you can't have a rigid response to any emergency. If you expect to follow the rule book when you're dealing with an emergency, nothing's gonna happen the way that you want it to happen. Things change in the most inherently weird ways. Um, calm under pressure is another one. Making sure that you can maintain composure, even though you may have internal turmoil. Correct. Being composed, giving and reacting to the information you have at that moment. I'll tell you right now, um, Parkland, Florida, the active shooter situation at Parkland, Florida, there was a situation that happened um there that kind of showed ingenuity dealing with on the fly and dealing with the information you have at hand. Um communication was one of the first things to go. Okay. They started relying on runners. The incident command started sending out officers as runners to relay information because they couldn't get anything out on the radio. Oh, wow. That's amazing. You're talking old school tactics. Yes. But that's where that comes into play. Like they, you know, we've become so reliant on radios. In that situation, they're like, oh, we've gotta, we've gotta adapt and do something different. And for me, that's those are the three things that you really need to be able to deal with these situations is that calm under pressure, that ability to compose yourself, to communicate clearly with your people, um, being able to react to the information you have at hand, making decisions. You need to make decisions. And you know, I tell my officers all the time, do something, don't freeze. Correct. Because freezing in this moment is the one of the worst things that you could do. If you're if you're the first officer on scene, I teach when I teach active shooter, I teach one man response. One man. Because most of the time it's one guy going one guy or girl going in right then. And so I tell them, you have to make decisions completely bereft of any chief or captain or sergeant on the road. You have to be able to think with composure and do things.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

And time is of an essence, you know. When I when I when I see that, and then sometimes as and and maybe I'm I'm guilty of saying this, but you know, sometimes like we will you know react faster or do this. Why did you take so long? How come you and the fact that we're not there assessing the situation, we're not there sending runners or or or sending relaying information, there's a method to the madness, so to speak. So from the out from the outside looking in, we were like, oh, but but you know, at the time, uh again, it's like you know, you're the subject matter expert, you know what you guys are doing. Uh and and your in your leadership uh position, uh maybe the the younger you, was there something that you could have done? Did you say once everything was set was said and done, and we they you had a situation, you don't have to go into detail, but um you had a situation, uh people looked for you for leadership for direction for instruction, whatnot, and uh things were resolved. But then when you were at home, you say, you know what, we could have done it a little different. Have you had those situations?

SPEAKER_02 35:10

Yeah, I I am uh as I said before, I'm a redhead. So composure is something that I struggle with and have struggled with for many years. I tend to get very excited about situations. So passionate. Passionate. I like that. I like that. I like that word better. Passionate.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Passion.

SPEAKER_02 35:26

Um, so there's been sometimes during training that I've gotten frustrated with the ways that certain officers have done things. And instead of addressing it in a calm, composed manner, I have let my passion come through. And even though the task got completed, the training was successful, everything was good. I sat back and reflected and I said, Okay, I need to, I need to tone this down a little bit. Because if I need to, and my my my boss, my captain, he he always lets me vent in his office for a second so he knows that I'm gonna get my passion out for a second, and then I can go into the room. It happens. But that's the one thing that, you know, especially. We're all humans, we're all humans. Yeah, yeah. But in law enforcement, you know, when you let when you let passion control your decision making, you're not gonna make the best decisions. So there's been times on the road that I've done things that when I when I let my frustration or anger or passion take control of me, probably didn't make the best decision. It worked out in the end, but that's where I started realizing that regardless, I have to keep that calm composure. I have to keep the calm. That's where I started doing the whole let the badge take the take the beating.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Yeah, that's experience maturity in your in your position. Wow. You mentioned uh uh earlier about internal turmoil for the officers, you know, keeping it in, that there can be internal turmoil turmoil, but the ph physical manifestation is different, right? You can you can be stressed out, but what what you're doing is controlling your emotions, though there's a specific turmoil. Um a lot of officers, I'm assuming, would deal with it better than others. Um so the the the is there is there a when it comes to public safety, uh is there a large turnaround in safety officers uh turnover where you had an academy of 50 and 10 years go by and this seems to be a little less because people cannot withstand the the pressure of the position?

SPEAKER_02 37:15

Yeah, um out of my academy class, I think there's only currently six active officers. Uh the rest of them have either retired or moved differently. And that is that is pretty that's pretty common in a lot of agencies where you see we we joke, you know, if you make it to 10 years, you're you're stuck in law enforcement for a while, but if you make it to 15, you're gonna die a cop. Sure. Because generally you see people start fizzling out in and in the academy, you can pretty much pick out who's gonna be the one that's gonna last for a little bit longer. I never thought that I'd be in for 17 years, but here I am. You know, you are here I am, but yeah, there is there is some turnaround that you see. Um I like that they're starting to add more resilience training to it because I want those people to decide in the academy. I tell people all the time, because I I do I'm an adjunct instructor at our academy. Figure it out now because you don't want to figure out that you're not a good cop on the road.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Oh, that's you wanna you want to figure out in the academy. This this merits repeating.

SPEAKER_02 38:11

Can you please say that again to that middle camera? Figure out whether or not you're gonna be a cop in the academy, because if you get on the road, that's not the time to figure out you're gonna be a bad cop. That's that's the bad truth. And I I don't I don't speak disparagingly of any of my officers, but I tell my people all the time, like, if you can't speaking of active shooter, sure, if I tell my officers that one of the biggest things is the when they're we're taught in the academy that I'm going home at the end of the day. That's what we're taught. I'm going home. Whose life is most important? Mine, I'm going home. An active shoot response that changes. The life priority scale changes from you, civilian, and bad guy to civilian, you and bad guy. Outstanding. If you're not willing to risk your life to go into this school by yourself to address someone that's that's uh harming innocent civilians, you don't need to be doing this. And I'd rather them figure that out in training than being on the road and going in that incident. Yeah, I don't want causing more more chaos. Exactly. I don't I don't want that.

SPEAKER_00 39:09

I I'd rather all the mistakes happen in training than ever happen on the road. That's why you know it's this is stress that it's uh uh it's service, service to others. Yeah, yeah. So in in the advice for for the communities, for parents, school administrators, and community leaders listening today, what are some practice step practical steps they can take right now to make their schools and communities safer? So somehow parents, administrators, counselors, everybody. What what from your perspective, from your leadership role and experience, what what can they do to make the it safer?

SPEAKER_02 39:45

Well, school safety is so much more than the brick and mortar and the devices that we install in schools. It's so much more than that. And it's a shared responsibility. Like it's not just the cop at the school's responsibility to protect those kids. It's not just the administrator's job. It's everybody, including the community. You know, um that is one of the things that people need to take home is school safety doesn't start at the school, it starts at the home. You know, working with your children, talking with them, building your own relationship with your students, getting to talk to them is one of the biggest things. But one of the things that really hit me is I went through a training where we got the chance to speak with an active shooter. And they called the active shooter in jail, he responded to us, he answered our questions in the classroom, and he said something that really, really struck home with me. He said, I went to school on Friday, because he did the shooting on Monday. He said, I went to school on Friday, and I went to talk to anybody a counselor, a teacher, the janitor, the officer, anybody at that school that would listen to me and taught me out of what I was gonna do. Everyone brushed me off. No one spoke to me, some people didn't even respond to me. Oh, they were all complicit. He came to school on Monday, shot and killed two, and injured six. And the thing about it is that was one of those moments where I realized everybody has a part to play in this. Including the students, so even our students. If you see something, this is the biggest thing that I'm pushing this year. If you see something that is concerning to you, speak up. Byster effect is real, diffusion of responsibility is real. Surely that other person is gonna report it. Surely their parents will report that their kid's doing something suspicious. That's not how it works. I'd rather have six reports from six different parents than no reports because everyone else thinks that they're someone else is gonna report it. If you find something suspicious, tell me.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 41:30

Tell our schools, call your administrator, call a teacher, make make a statement to somebody.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 41:34

Because I I've heard countless times when these active shooter situations happen, well, we knew something was gonna happen. We knew it. We just knew it. Little too early. Or my kid knew it. And he he knew then why didn't you speak up? And yes, there are times that people speak up and nothing is done. I get that, but I can't work with something I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 41:53

So for me, the biggest takeaway is shared responsibility. Safety starts at home, it builds into the school, the teachers and the teachers. I'm gonna say right now, one of my favorite people in the schools, and I truly believe they watch everybody, is the janitors. Our custodians, I involve them in every in every training that I have because they are my eyes and the ears in the hallway. Well, in the lockers, and in the stadium under the bleachers everywhere. There have been several active shooter situations that have been thwarted because the custodian. Outstanding. There have been. And you know, my thing is this like everybody has a part to play. So if you see something, report it. Sure. If you have something that tickles the back of your neck, I don't care how meaningless it is. I tell my teachers all the time, I'd rather investigate the the mundane than not investigate something that's gonna get you killed.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

That's so in this case, the the the saying, no news is good news, yeah, is opposite. It's opposite. No, I want to know all news. No news is bad news. I want to know everything. Outstanding. So legacy and calling. When when your career is over, which you know, I thought he was so much younger when I when I first met him. Um he has a very calm personality. When I first met you, it was uh in a project management PMI meeting over there in uh was it Newberry Hall, Aiken. Yeah. Newberry Hall. And we met outside. And me being the the timid guy that I am, which is uh which is a lie. Um uh your personality, yeah. I thought uh uh obviously you were much lung younger physically, but then of course when when we spoke, uh the maturity comes out uh about what you do. So legacy and call when your career is over, what do you hope people remember most? Not just about training, the training you delivered to them over the years, but about the impact you had on students, edu educators, and the community you served.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

I truly hope that people remember that I just genuinely want to protect kids. That's what I hope. I I want a teacher to make a decision that was in light of something that I may have said, and her to realize that man, he really just wanted to protect. kids because that's that's what I want to do. You know, I've I went through a lot of changes in my law enforcement career, traffic doing all this stuff, but I have found that protecting kids is one of the most important things that we can do. Especially in this day and age with all of this crazy stuff going on. That's that's what I want. Correct. That's I'm I'm just here to protect kids.

SPEAKER_00 44:19

You know, there's a there's a big difference between you know being uh a patrol officer on the streets uh you know everybody I I always fear the GSP when you know they're in the bypass and and you went through the bridge and you saw them up to the I still get tingles. Yeah you know I still get you know you know I you know you always see them and of course uh we we pray for their safety every every night everybody like you say everybody goes home safe to their families and and whatnot you know a lot of the there's there's active there's an active shooter and they're active shooters plural and a lot I was doing the research and a lot of that uh were from the ages of 14 to about 22 uh that you know the the the middle school high school type type things and now what what I see is that uh because of social media because of uh video games that become increasingly violent uh you know I used to play Mortal Kombat and everything was just an impact right yeah now they have fatalities and now they're ripping off spines and do you know just an array of things and um yeah yeah finishing yeah our producer has has played that right gory games and whatnot how they infiltrate in the minds and everybody's trying to role play a particular character in video games and uh you know when there's an active shooter uh typically of course dysfunctional families trauma vengeance uh or trying like this young girl that wanted to be the first a female uh notoriety uh some sort of glory because of that and um unfortunately we live with we live in a in a society where once it's uploaded to social media people from Italy are watching it you know it's just worldwide it's no longer just in the United States and I'm not saying that it it doesn't it doesn't happen outside of the United States but you know our our social media imprint or footprint sometimes becomes faster and instant when dealing with this with the the the the plural active shooters uh have have you seen uh uh that in the CSRA because we we've been here for quite some time or have the incidents become uh less less frequent uh here in in C SRA outside of this uh in as far as the CSRA goes I know that um it was the 9394 school year they had a uh uh young student bring a gun to Harlem high school okay and shot and killed one and injured another but outside of that you know I tell my teachers all the time like you know who your potentials are.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

Sure. But it's mostly so that they're aware of the kids that might be on the radar.

SPEAKER_00 46:53

And we spoke about um the the metal detectors right with active plural once again active shooters with their multiple entrances in school and you know you have the training but what are there installing metal detectors is is that the solution putting barbs on the windows is that a solution it was a combination of many things.

SPEAKER_02 47:15

I am not in the business of building prisons and schools. Sure sure but you know for me you know I think a holistic porch approach is much more beneficial um if you look at if you look at a lot of the the ways that people are dealing with active shooter situations the lot of the knee jerk reactions is to put in metal detectors clear bag policies all of those kind of things do they help? I would say that sometimes okay but here's the thing and and this is something that I learned in law enforcement if someone's gonna do something they're gonna find a way around whatever things you have in place. So that's where I feel like early detection is one of the most important things we can do. Being aware of the children that we have in our building being aware and not even just the children because I think it's like 65% of connect uh active shooters were connected with their school either current or former students. I I can't don't quote me on that I know it's somewhere around that statistic number but there are people like Sandy Hook wasn't even connected to his the school I mean that's that's the thing. So the community at large needs to be aware of what's going on around them. And I'm not saying police state and watch everybody what I'm saying is we know when something's wrong and we know that when something is wrong we can address it. The thing that we need to focus on one of the biggest things that they're pushing in the state of Georgia right now is behavioral threat assessment management. Okay. So taking threats the kids are saying putting them and and investigating them determining what kind of things we can put in place to help mitigate that. Correct. And so for me that's that's prevention is so much more important than the reaction on I I I tell people all the time you know when we train active shooter response what we're doing is we're putting a band-aid on the issue. The biggest issue is how to address the mental health aspect of what's going on because you you're not going to be mentally healthy to commit an atrocity such as so how do we address these situations? So the state of Georgia I feel is pushing towards the right way you know they're requiring um suicidal ideation training uh awareness suicide awareness violence prevention awareness and behavioral threat management is a big thing that's the state's pushing this year and to me for students or for the for police officers for students of course for students yeah I mean it's well they're they're also doing it for faculty and staff. So faculty and staff can do the training um that's that's a big push the state's doing right now with House Bill 268. And I like this idea because it's focused more much more on the preventative measures and dealing with things before they become a crises. So getting children the help that they need mentally to be able to deal with the situation before it escalates to a point that homicidal ideations are a part of it or even suicide. You know because right now the statistic on suicide is is astronomical in in children juvenile aged so for the for them for me it's much more important on the preventative side than it is much more on the reactive side. Now I teach the reactive side but I want people to be aware of their surroundings situational awareness with their children and find those avenues that we can help stop them on the pathway to violence before things escalate to that point.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

Is is there a a a s uh a database central database national database for the state of Georgia that you know when something does occur at a specific school that what happened that that incident is recorded or uploaded to this database to say what happened when it happened how it happened how we mitigated it and what lessons learned can can be transferred you know to to all high schools or to all all schools across the state of Georgia is there a particular central database uh there have been a couple that have tried it um I know that alert um they're through uh Texas State University if I remember correctly they um they do data review of incidents and they always adjust their training based off of new things that they have learned okay through active shooter situations.

SPEAKER_02 51:03

So advanced law enforcement rapid response training has a lot of good information. Fletsi likes to adjust their training based off of current situations so it's it's really good stuff. The FBI does a really good job after action reviews um I don't know if you've read um the the Department of Justice has um after action reviews for all major active shooters like they had one for Uvalde. It was a very interesting read but they talk about next steps and best practices that go out but as far as like Georgia's database there's really not outside of I know that there have been a couple but Barrow County the most recent one we had at Appalachie High School I know that they're still waiting on the court case to go through before they do an active act after after action report but um yeah they we do learn from good things in the mistakes of our past so there's a lot of especially and so Appalachie was the one that sparked House Bill 268. It was the one that sparked this idea that we need more robust mental health care and early detection situations that don't involve physical infrastructure. We need to build the culture of safety in school not just throw money at metal detectors equipment we need to train people to recognize what's going on so that was a big push this year because of that.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

I went to Butler High School and you know there were some incidences of course people bringing you know students bringing knives pocket knife it was not a pocket knife this thing was a like a crocodile dundee type type of this is a knife. This is a knife remember that saying this is a knife on the subway that was a good movie by the way that was a really good movie. That was a great movie he but he did have a knife you know police officers were like uh you know they they he had a wand right at at Butler High School you know a wand trying to trying to wand your backpack or whatnot you know creating quite the bottle bottleneck students on the outside you know one by one so that definitely didn't help mechanically of course but I'm I'm I'm all for some sort of you know assistance to officers how many how many police officers are there typically in a in a school does that vary by by the number of students it varies by jurisdiction by jurisdiction but in a specific school if I have let's say a hundred students I have one officer if I have 500 students I have two officers is it something like that or or is it by size producer picture.

SPEAKER_02 53:25

Sure sure is it by size or uh he's showing you the knife he had the he pulled up the crocodile with honey picture what are you talking about no clue so how how does that work in staffing of uh there is no standard as far as the state of Georgia goes um it's about resources maybe it's about resources and and you know the state of Georgia is is pushing pretty heavily for law enforcement you know Columbia I I I'm in a very blessed county we have uh an officer in every elementary and middle school and we have two at every high school um so we're very blessed in the people that that really wanted to see law enforcement presence not again as a as a I'm gonna arrest everybody but they wanted to see officers build relationships with their kids and you know it also provides that that natural protection of law enforcement saying hey you know we're here you know that that first use of force officer presence but so we're we're very blessed in that but I do know several counties there where it might be one officer for a cluster of four schools.

SPEAKER_00 54:19

Correct so there's no standard right now I know the state's pushing pretty heavily to get more officers in schools because they see the benefit of it but there's there's not a standard you said you did a lot of uh field training uh so when developing judgment alongside I guess marksmanship when training new police officers on firearms accuracy obviously is important right but equally important is the judgment how do you teach recruits that carrying a firearm is ultimately about restraint accountability that mental turmoil right restraint accountability and making sound decisions again here we go under pressure you know you know marksmanship is a skill sure it is a skill I mean judgment is a more important thing because that tells you when to use that skill and you know I I tell I you know I'm a firearms instructor and and one of the things that I tell my officers is you got two L's for every bullet every bullet that comes out of that gun has a life and a lawyer attached to it.

SPEAKER_02 55:18

Oh wow so I love it I'm gonna have that that on a t-shirt a life and a lawyer attached to it you got that those two major things because you know you know when I teach I when we teach our officers in active shooter situations one of the things that I tell them is you need to be very aware of where that bullet is going because you don't want to be shooting 50 yards down the hallway with a pistol at a guy that's got a rifle at you with 200 kids surrounding him because the chances of you making that shot yeah I I yeah you're not John Wick. I'm good I'm not that good sure especially under stress and you know people don't realize that when you're into you know going to qualifications is one thing learning how to shoot during qualifications is one thing learning how to shoot under stress is a whole nother situation and so you know I'm I'm big on de-escalation now when I first started in law enforcement I was a gung ho let's fight everybody kind of guy sure but I started realizing I didn't want to go to court and get punched a lot.

SPEAKER_01 56:10

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 56:10

So I started learning how to talk with people build those relationships and and communicate better with people because yes you should be able to draw your weapon and fire accurately should you need to but there are so many other avenues that you can take to try to deal with a situation before it escalates to that point. Sure. Of course there are sometimes it's just going to happen and that's where those mark marksmanship skills come into play but you still need to have that judgment skill you've got to you've got to build that portion of your brain we do um we do um something that I'm gonna start introducing soon is um target acquisition and detection of what you're gonna shoot. So putting multiple colored plates up and saying oh shoot green plate and it's got a red yellow green or there's no green and they have to make the decision on shoot or not we had a we have another drill that we do with our taser situation because um weapons identification is a big thing. I know that you've heard of the story there was a law enforcement officer who was trying to tase an individual and she ended up shooting him with her gun because she wasn't pulling the right weapon. So one of the things that we do is we run them through a drill where we have a simmunition gun and we have their taser and we present them with situations either non-lethal or lethal force. And so they have to identify whether or not they should pull their gun or pull their taser and then they have to make the decision on what they're going to do in that situation. Correct. So that's something that we're it's a little bit more of an advanced training they don't really I mean they teach it but we're trying to get people to understand like judgment is so much more important than just marksmanship. You have to have the marksmanship fundamentals to be able to accurately shoot but you also have to be able to judge whether or not you're going it's it's not even just I'm going to use force in the situation but is this situation something I really need to use this level of force in you know so it's it's we got to work on that.

SPEAKER_00 57:50

But that that that life and lawyer those are the two big things that are attached to every bullet and it'll make an officer thing oh absolutely I mean and are they qualified annually have qualified and you know four times a year uh state requires one just one okay you know I'm gonna I'm gonna tell myself this is this is a a very embarrassing story for for the sake of the podcast here we go so I went to shooters right the outside range you know because I I went through that phase you know sharp shooters so I got a 38 magnum this thing was heavy on my hand I have no muscle memory right just just paid paid a lump sum for the bullets and I'm trying to shoot and I probably the first one I hit the target. I I didn't hit the man I just hit outside that man and everything else all the other rounds was just hitting the ground oh wow I was just that recoil yeah just just just anticipating recoil I had no skills whatsoever so the the the person there assisting the people came up to me said son are you okay you know you're right I mean and obviously he knew I had the the the incorrect firearm right because you know I probably had needed a 49 block or something lighter or something you know something uh you know it's just uh to try to get home uh home security whatnot and uh but obviously I did not qualify so I mean it's all about you know being sharp you know qualifying make sure you have the muscle memory and of course judgment uh for for for police officers at the time we just did it as a hobby but uh I was that what that particular gun was out of my element at that time you know at the time so um so they qualify only once a year if once a year well well okay let's just continue they need more they need more they need all right I was just I'm gonna leave it at that that's not my that's not my area I definitely don't want to get in trouble no so confidence through continuous training uh so firearms proficiency isn't something that that's mastered in a single academy course so it requires continual practice evaluation by someone as yourself so what mindset do you encourage new officers to adopt regarding lifelong firearm training and how does ongoing training contribute to both the officer and the officer's not only his safety but other people's safety um this is a lesson that I learned recently you know I've I've I'm a good shot I will admit that and that's not a point of pride I'm just saying I'm a good shot I practice all the time absolutely um that's not I have no shame in saying that you you're the instructor I I went I went through a class sure um last year and this is where it taught me that you need to approach shooting with humility.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:35

Correct because I have never failed a class I've never failed qualification. I went through this class uh Fletsi put on a a class that really humbled me as a shooter because I thought I was a good shot and I failed my first qualification attempt and it was something that made me realize wow I'm not as good as I thought I was sure and so my thing is this I don't care if you're top shot I don't care if you're the best shooter in the world shooting is a perishable skill accuracy is perishable it will go away if you don't practice I've seen it countless times with officers who don't go the entire year shooting their weapon come to qualification and have a hard time it is a perishable skill you need to work on it and you need to approach every training opportunity with humility knowing that every time you're on the range every class you go through every every training session you can learn something from it you can learn something about yourself you can learn something about the weapon and you can learn something about what you're doing in your job because if you have this mindset that I'm the best shot in the world kind of like I did when I went to that class it knocked me down quite a few pegs and it made me realize that there are always the rule that I've always lived by and I don't know why I didn't do this with action with with the shooting was there's always someone better than you. There's always someone better than you. There's that competitive nature also exactly but you know my thing is this like approach every time with humility don't think don't close yourself off by thinking I'm the best shot. I don't care if you're top shot in your academy doesn't matter because the longer you go the more times you're in until you're in the actual situation you'll realize how good of a shot you are when you're under stress. Correct. So practice all the time approach training with the idea that you're gonna learn something no matter what you're going into it doesn't matter. And you could be going through qualification the same thing you do every year. There's always something you can learn to become a better shot. I love it when you say practice humility is practice practice practice because I'm gonna tell you right now if you don't practice your your your craft when it comes time to pull that gun if you actually have to do it and you can't make that shot you're you're defeating your own purpose. And you know here's the thing training builds confidence and humility working with that training and consensusly doing it builds confidence it increases your calm during the situation and it helps you because it helps you because you can actually make the shot if you need to and it helps the community because you're not going to make a bad shot that causes irreparable harm to that community later. So make sure that you do what you got to do practice and and build that skill but always approach it with humility.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:58

Outstanding that's great of great advice I can decide better from a from a person that uh has 17 years of law enforcement you know we see a lot of uh shootings uh gang related shootings in in the in the local news uh unfortunately students right uh retaliation um uh that that matter of course having go to go back and and uh face the law face the court system uh unfortunately uh the juvenile courts and juvenile uh you know detention centers get uh a little more crowded sometimes uh from your perspective what what does uh 10 years uh uh public safety look like what what's this utopia for for public safety is if if there's such a thing that uh when they're building a new school whether it be the the architecture the design of the school has has safety you know it's a safety aspect in mind as far as entrances windows less access doors more security whether it be badge or fingerprint or bells cameras whatnot I've you I like the fact that you said don't make it more like a prison but uh do you see in maybe 10 years from now technology because of technology things would get a little bit more advanced um facial recognition uh voice I'm not even talking about AI yeah you know we we're we are it's unavoidable brother yeah you know we are we are entering the AI um it's uh unavoidable uh who knows maybe we'll have robots you know you know uh what what does 10 years in in from your experience look like for public safety a lot more things being put in place um ballistic film on windows uh you know I can see them uh trying to harden schools a little bit more again we can't make it a prison because we don't want kids going to prison sure but there are ways i'm I'm currently trying to get my uh crime prevention through environmental design professional designation because one of the things that I'm very big about is you can utilize the existing environment to increase safety without it making it look like it's a prison or that it's a robust and and hardened target.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:00

Um but I can see the shift because now the state's requiring law enforcement and EMA to be involved in building design I can see a shift in in in more safety infrastructure but I'm also seeing a bigger shift more towards the mental health side of it. So I think it's like a a dichotomy of two things. Like they're gonna harden schools a little bit more maybe I don't I don't see it becoming to the point that kids are going to be locked down all the time. Now doors should be shut and locked all day long. Absolutely but I there there is a change that I might see in in the design of schools. I went to um Washington State and I toured a school up there it was very interesting they actually built their halls in non-straight lines it was always curvy and wavy so that way there could never be a straight shot for 50 yards. And they did that that's a great design yes and it's great and and it looks appealing it didn't it didn't have the feel of this was designed to stop someone from shooting long down the hall but that's what it was designed like and so I think we're gonna start seeing more of that kind of design built into school infrastructure just to help minimize the chances of something happening. But um again, it all it all comes back to the person because if we're not training the people to interact with these devices and we're building those that that culture of safety in schools, the devices mean nothing. Sure, sure you could have the hardened the most hardened school in the district, but if your people don't keep your doors shut and locked, what's the point of those locks? Sure. So yes I might we might see an in a increase of safety infrastructure, but I'm starting to see a bigger shift towards school safety coordinators and trainers like myself who are going into the schools, reinforcing those safety mechanisms, reinforcing um trying to eliminate that human error kind of thing. Sure yes and trying to try to increase the school safety culture because that is one of the most important aspects not just the safety mechanisms but it is the the safety culture that's built in that school.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:52

Outstanding I'll I would like to uh to end this podcast with uh with a question I always like to ask if if someone wants to be a sergeant leap wants to follow your your footsteps uh and says you know what uh I I I love the career that that you have embarked on the good the bad the ugly nothing's perfect like like you said but there's a there's a young teenager that's going to be looking at this podcast is inspired by your journey and says uh you know I I want to to be you know be part of the the public service and and uh school safety what is a good advice that you would uh give them right now and and also address it to both young guys and young girls you know what what what's it applies to both of you absolutely you know one of the things that I wish I I knew back when I was younger is I had no clue where my path was going in law enforcement.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:48

I kind of let things happen the way that they did but when you feel that passion seize on you for whatever you're doing like for me the passion was instruction that was something that I was very passionate about when I taught my first active shooter class in 2016 I was gripped with the passion. When you feel that passion pursue it but don't don't do it by half measures if you're gonna do something like what I do with instruction I embraced one I recognized that I had a skill to talk that I had the skill to do public address but I also realized that I have a passion for training people to be better. And not because I'm better but because I want law enforcement as a whole to be better. So when I started recognizing that passion in myself I seized it I did everything I could to get to that point. I practiced my cat knows so much about active shooter stuff it's insane. I'm not joking don't don't do anything by half measures. You know you have you have officers and I get it there's a lot of different avenues you can go to investigations you can go to traffic you can go to homicide you can go to a whole bunch of different avenues but find that passion and when you find that passion don't let it go because that's another thing that gets a lot of cops out of law enforcement is they lose the passion for protecting people and doing the things that they do. You know being a beat cop there's some people that love it and embrace it. Be the best beat cop that you can be the best traffic car you can be I'm I'm I research everything I can about the topics that I want to teach. I read so many articles and do these things but that's where I found my passion was doing this kind of thing. So I wish I had told myself younger me, hey go into instruction way early in your career because that would have been changed where I'm at but for me it's more of love your job identify whether you're not going to be a good cop. Correct not in the field. Not in the field not in the field or met in training yeah but also if you want to pursue something like instruction you have to recognize that you have the passion for it and pursue it. Because you can't be an instructor if you don't want to instruct people if you don't want to teach people that's not a good instructor but recognize that you need to to pursue it with all you've got don't don't half measure it. That's the one thing that I wish I had done. Because when I first started instruction I was a little bit half measury and did a couple classes and I kind of winged stuff but then I started realizing that to be the level that I'm at right now is I had to pursue it with feet first.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:12

Jump in as deep as I could discipline consistency responsibility yes well I'm telling you my cat knows a lot about every topic I teach about well I'm I'm glad you're you I'm glad you're on my side sergeant leap district training officer from the Columbia County uh school district what a great podcast we have had there's so much information I'm gonna go back and and and view this podcast two or three times over about the plethora of information about tactics firearms shooting uh about discipline consistency passion staying calm in the midst of crisis dealing with stress mental turmoil there's so much there that we can dissect and stay here for for hours but I want to say thank you for for joining us on the Forge Bindesign podcast don't forget to like share subscribe also you have to view this uh this podcast two or three times times over for all the amazing things that we have said and shared again this has been Daniel thank you so much and I will see you on that next episode