Join us for a transformative discussion with survivor Lt. Mark Wynn (retired) and film producers Kirsten Kelly and Andrew Schwertfeger as we talk about the new film, "This is Where I Learned Not to Sleep." Released in 2023, this documentary film explores Mark's journey after experiencing domestic violence as a child, as well as his commitment to transforming the law enforcement response to domestic violence.
In our behind-the-scenes look at the documentary, we learn about the compelling reasons behind its creation and the process of returning to Mark's hometown in Texas. Mark's story, depicted in the film, serves as an inspiration to survivors of abuse, encouraging men to take a stand against domestic and sexual violence and addressing the necessity for victim-centered law enforcement leadership. With references to impacts from movements like Black Lives Matter and Me Too, the conversation delves into issues of white male privilege and police reform as we emphasize the collective responsibility to end domestic violence, an issue that resonates in households across the world.
Watch the film's trailer at https://www.thisiswherefilm.com/
Join us for a transformative discussion with survivor Lt. Mark Wynn (retired) and film producers Kirsten Kelly and Andrew Schwertfeger as we talk about the new film, "This is Where I Learned Not to Sleep." Released in 2023, this documentary film explores Mark's journey after experiencing domestic violence as a child, as well as his commitment to transforming the law enforcement response to domestic violence.
In our behind-the-scenes look at the documentary, we learn about the compelling reasons behind its creation and the process of returning to Mark's hometown in Texas. Mark's story, depicted in the film, serves as an inspiration to survivors of abuse, encouraging men to take a stand against domestic and sexual violence and addressing the necessity for victim-centered law enforcement leadership. With references to impacts from movements like Black Lives Matter and Me Too, the conversation delves into issues of white male privilege and police reform as we emphasize the collective responsibility to end domestic violence, an issue that resonates in households across the world.
Watch the film's trailer at https://www.thisiswherefilm.com/
The subject matter of this podcast will address difficult topics multiple forms of violence and identity based discrimination and harassment. We acknowledge that this content may be difficult and have listed specific content warnings in each episode description to help create a positive, safe experience for all listeners.
Speaker 2:In this country, 31 million crimes 31 million crimes are reported every year. That is one every second. Out of that, every 24 minutes there is a murder. Every five minutes there is a rape. Every two to five minutes there is a sexual assault. Every nine seconds in this country, a woman is assaulted by someone who told her that he loved her, by someone who told her it was her fault, by someone who tries to tell the rest of us it's none of our business and I am proud to stand here today with each of you to call that perpetrator a liar.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the podcast on crimes against women. I'm Maria McMullen. For those who experience domestic or intimate partner violence, the words to protect and serve the motto of most police departments in the United States, are not mere slogans. For survivors, those words may take on a much deeper meaning as they seek out safety and support. Therefore, the presence, reaction and support of law enforcement can have a profound impact on victims and survivors, and how law enforcement responds to a domestic violence call can make or break the cycle of violence forever. Statistics reveal that a large majority of individuals who are victimized by violence are women. Conversely, the composition of law enforcement agencies, from senior leadership down to patrol officers, is predominantly male. Moreover, evidence also illustrates that there are a significant number of women and female law enforcement officers who are often abused by their male counterparts. These contrasts form a delicate balance for those who are abused by men, but then also rely on men to serve and protect them. Domestic violence education programs for law enforcement have developed over time to address these contrasts and change the response by law enforcement in order to improve the outcomes for survivors and the entire nation. At the fore of this initiative to educate law enforcement and others is Mark Wynn, retired lieutenant turned educator and survivor of childhood domestic violence. He joins the conversation today along with Kirsten Kelly and Andrew Shortfeger, to discuss the accountability of law enforcement in domestic violence cases, the need to involve men in the solutions that can end domestic violence, and his calling to tell his own story of domestic violence experienced in childhood in the documentary film this Is when I Learned Not to Sleep.
Speaker 1:Mark Wynn, a former lieutenant within the Nashville Police Department, has witnessed firsthand the damage that domestic violence creates, as well as the biases, prejudices and missed opportunities within law enforcement who respond and work with domestic violence cases. Having experienced domestic violence within his own home as a child, lieutenant Wynn is well versed in the horrors that women and children grapple with and the barriers they encounter when seeking safety and healing. Furthermore, lieutenant Wynn can attest to the ways in which men in general, as well as within law enforcement, can be significantly instrumental in breaking the cycle of violence and the misconceptions about those who endure it. Since leaving his abusive childhood home, lieutenant Mark Wynn has become a national trainer to law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, legislators, healthcare professionals and victim advocates in all 50 states. For over 40 years, he serves as an international lecturer at police academies all over the world and has devoted his life to ending domestic violence and training law enforcement to learn to do the same.
Speaker 1:Kirsten Kelly is an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, senior producer and impact producer. Miss Kelly is a former theater director and theater educator and a graduate of the Juilliard School's Master Directing Program. Andrew Schwartfeger is an impact-focused filmmaker and investor, pursuing projects that will drive systemic change and have a positive and lasting effect on the world. He has been working in independent film for over 15 years, during which time he has produced, invested in or supported multiple films, including executive producing the Emmy Award-winning film the Homestretch. Both Kirsten and Andrew worked on the 2023 documentary film this Is when I Learned Not to Sleep with Mark Wynn. Mark, kirsten and Andrew welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having us.
Speaker 1:So, mark, we've met previously on the podcast and you are continually active in the Conference on Crimes Against Women, offering a unique voice to the discussion surrounding violence against women, and your personal story is compelling and painful and, unfortunately, an experience that many children can relate to that being living with an abusive father and witnessing the abuse of one's mother and yet you decided to share your story publicly and very openly in the documentary. This Is when I Learned Not to Sleep. Why was it important to you to make this film?
Speaker 4:Well, maria, first of all, thank you, and thank you Crimes Against Women Conference for having us today. You know it's a domestic violence awareness month and I hope everybody is having a conversation in their communities about preventing domestic and sexual violence. So, to answer your question is this I have been training US police officers and foreign police officers for over 40 years, and one of the questions that often comes up with male police officers is where are the male victims? What about the men? Because when you talk about violence against women, it's primarily about women. Well, my answer to them is they're us, they're you, they're the friend you work with in the patrol car, the judge behind the road, the prosecutor standing in the courtroom. They've always been here. We are the male victims of domestic violence, but we haven't talked about it, and this is the problem. So when I had an opportunity to do this documentary, I thought this is a vehicle where we can show masses of men who are survivors. It's time to speak up and talk about domestic and sexual violence in the family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I couldn't agree more, and I've seen the film. It's really beautiful. Congratulations to all of you on making a very compelling statement about what happens to children who experience domestic violence. And, fortunately, you know, in Mark's case, and along with his siblings, they didn't follow in the footsteps of the abusive parent that they lived with. Unfortunately for us, mark turned out to be just a champion for women's rights and the anti violence movement. I'd like to talk a little bit about how the film was made and you know why you wanted to make this film. So, andrew, let's start with you, because you are the film's producer. Why was the making of this film important and important to you?
Speaker 3:So it was very important on a personal level because when we started making this film many years ago, my first son had just been born and I was thinking a lot about, you know, raising a young man and ideas around you know what it means to be a man and what masculinity is, and how to really be a good man in the world and how to example that for my son and now two sons.
Speaker 3:And this opportunity felt like a really important way to explore all of those themes and really just learn on a personal level. And then I think more broadly, it was really important to tell Mark's story to a wider audience, because as soon as I met him and I saw him in front of and really any group of people, you can see immediately how he's able to connect with so many different groups of people on such a personal level and really inspire them to take action in their, in their own lives, in their own communities. And he's he's such a great convener and so great at bringing different people together and I was just really inspired to try to, you know, do what I could to help bring that, that power and that force that he has, to a wider audience and try to bring even more people together and give him a larger platform.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you've done it. You know, the team of people who worked on this film did an incredible job of capturing the depth of that experience for Mark and his family. I'm interested about the title of the film, kirsten. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about the title and what inspired that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean we had the opportunity when we first started filming with Mark, to go to the Crimes Against Women Conference which was, you know, just an experience that that blew us away, that there was so many people gathered together working on this issue, making things better for women and children.
Speaker 5:And it was just happened to be we found out near where Mark grew up, in that, you know, in that town of Lancaster, texas, and you know we asked if he would ever think about going back there, and I think that was a really, you know, thoughtful and powerful idea for him to to grapple with.
Speaker 5:And he ultimately, you know we said we only wanted to do it if this could be a healing step on your journey. And he really thought about it and he agreed and we really tried to do that in a in a supportive, trauma informed way for him and we just visited this, this town and these two houses with him and the experience was so profound that we thought that, you know, really looking from that childhood perspective where he says, you know, I've been on both sides of that door, and looking at those moments in those houses where he says, you know, in the film now we were living with a criminal and afraid of the police, and those two ideas really became an emotional foundation of the story in the film, and so we knew the title just had to be around that space, and we kept playing with a bunch of different ones and really landed on this one which seemed to connect with people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would agree. Having seen the film that you know seeing, knowing Mark and knowing his story, and having witnessed some of his work in presentations at the conference on Crimes Against Women, seeing you, mark, stand on the front porch of a home where you experienced such atrocities was very powerful for me to witness and it took a lot of courage from you to really want to participate in this project. Thank you, and I have to ask you, based on what Kirsten said about it being healing and trauma informed, was it healing for you to make this film?
Speaker 4:Oh, there's no question about that, and I, you know I would never, marie, I would never ask anybody to walk back into their trauma. This is it's asking a lot to do that, and this is one of the reasons why men often don't want to talk about it or haven't been able to have the opportunities to talk about it. But I can tell you this walking back into that home in Lancaster was the least I could do, considering millions of women in this country and around the world don't have a choice, whether they can walk back into their trauma. They're living it right now, and this is the reason we should, all you know, focus on the victim.
Speaker 4:I've had conversations since the film came out with men who said you know, that's my house, that's where I live, and my first plea to them is let's talk about it. You've got to talk about it with your sons and be the mentor, like Andrew is to his son. This is what we need to do, so it's a least we can do. As painful as it was for me, it's not nearly as painful of what people are living in right now, who around this country. So that's and I think too it was one of those moments in the film. I didn't expect it. I never thought and I said I think that color on came. I never thought it'd be back at this place again because you know it's easy to put this behind you. But if we really want to stop it, we've got to revisit it and that's the least I could do for my mother and my brother and three sisters and everybody else is impacted by domestic violence.
Speaker 1:Well, it was incredibly powerful and courageous and I know we thank you for for taking that step forward, Kirsten. What has the response been to the film?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean we just premiered the film at the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival in Cleveland this past weekend and we've done a slew of test audiences. We've been at several conferences we really wanted to see, have that feedback, see what audiences responses were and be able to sort of in a in a supportive, healthy way, take that information out with the film to really get a deeper engagement. And you know, we we have a model that I think is really innovative with screening this film. I mean we're coming to communities. We're working with local advocates, service providers, law enforcement agencies to be there with us at the film festival. This weekend we had therapists there on site because obviously we know from the statistics that those coming to this see the film there's going to be, you know, a higher statistic of victims and survivors in the space.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 5:And we've seen with screenings that this story brings an emotional vulnerability but also an emotional acceptance where people feel empowered to stand up. We're not asking them to, but people you know men, police officers, firefighters, women have stood up and said your story, mark, is my story, and how do we hold that in the space and give them support? And you know that's happened almost at every screening and we have information there, we have discussion guides, we're building this kind of very robust supportive network around the film. But people are connecting to Mark in his story because he is so strong and vulnerable and trusted, and I think that's what we're seeing everywhere we're screening it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's incredible I mean not really surprising and I really value that you incorporate support on site during the screenings. There's actually a trigger warning at the very beginning of the film indicating, like what type of content is in the film and then also you know how you could take precautions if you might find that triggering, which was also a trauma informed way of filmmaking right.
Speaker 5:I think it's become more and more important and more and more talked about within at least the social issue documentary space, because I do think we have a duty of care in making these films when they are centered around people who have experienced trauma, and I think that's a really important. From the beginning, that's been a priority for this team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fantastic to hear. And then, ultimately, what would you hope for out of this project?
Speaker 5:I would say the first time I saw Mark train, I experienced such a profound level of relief that there was someone in this world who was talking so openly about these things, who was taking action on it. In so many of the feelings that I have felt as a woman in this world and I think it was really, you know, that's what kept me going and making this film over five years and I hope that this film and Mark's message can get to a wider general audience that can inspire more men to be aware of this issue, talk about this issue and get involved in their communities on this issue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would think that that would be fantastic outcomes for a project like this. And you know it's it's concise, right, it's about 38 minutes long. It's not a really long film, it's incredibly powerful. There's a lot of powerful information packed into a very short period of time. So it's very doable, I think, for educators and others community groups to actually show this, and at the end of the episode we're going to tell you where to find it.
Speaker 1:So, mark, beyond your personal story, we learn a lot of significant details about domestic violence in the film, details that might not only influence a law enforcement response, but also inform the public's understanding of both the warning signs and the vast scope of this issue.
Speaker 1:Among them, that, according to the United States Department of Justice, 40% of officer deaths are related to domestic violence calls as well that women who indicate experiences of strangulation by abusive partners have an escalated risk of lethality, as do the law enforcement officers on that call.
Speaker 1:In fact, mark, you mentioned that in the film that strangulation can be a sign that you have a potential cop killer on your hands. We also learned in the film that domestic violence is two to four times more common among police families than American families in general, a fact that you describe as one of the biggest ethical challenges faced in law enforcement. Today and as well, we learned how the work of police reform can impact generations for years to come. So all of these details, I bring them up because, first of all, they were really critical to giving the full context of domestic violence within within the United States and as part of this story, and they helped shape the narrative today, declaring that men, and, in particular, law enforcement, can significantly move the needle to end violence against women, because it is men who commit the majority of gender based crimes. So I'd love, mark, for you to talk to us more about the need for men to stand up on this issue and how they can do that.
Speaker 4:Well, that's a lot, let me. Let me just say this last weekend in Knoxville, tennessee, with the Knox County Sheriff's Department, tucker Blakely, 29 year old deputy married with a five year old son, was gunned down by domestic violence offender on a call for help from a family. Domestic violence offenders have been killing US police officers since we've had US police officers. This is not just about victim abuse, this is about. This is not just about victim safety, it's about officer safety as well. I've had someone in my family in a uniform serving on duty for the last 75 years, continually, continually. I've got nephew in Texas and King Texas and as a sergeant and his daughter just graduated from the Fort Worth Police Academy. I've got Lieutenant nephew here in Tennessee. So I come from a police family and so this is personal to us. I've lost friends killed in the line of duty. The message that I want to send to police officers everywhere that homes filled with violence is the wellspring for tomorrow's crime. Now the next generation of abusers is not inevitable. We can do something about it if we hold offenders accountable and we hold ourselves accountable as well.
Speaker 4:Now, when I was a Lieutenant detective in Nashville at the domestic violence division, I've supervised and worked officer involved cases and we have got to deal with this because it's just hypocritical for us to minimize domestic violence and then lose officers like Tucker Blakely on a domestic violence call how much crime do you want your officers to commit is the way we should look at this. We shouldn't tolerate it. Not one second, not one minute. We should do everything we can to keep offenders out of policing and this should be a top priority. And the other thing too is that this is the most responded to call in the country and it's the most dangerous call for police as well. So we've got to refocus here.
Speaker 4:I know for the last I started policing in 1977 with Sedger County Sheriff's Department in Wichita, kansas. It's been a few years there before I came back to Nashville and all the years that I've worked in policing my father was a career officer and a judge. He and I had conversations about this, about crime. We're all talking about crime, about murdering, drugs. Where do you think these crimes start? It starts when you slap or put a child in fear in a home filled with domestic violence. That's where it starts, that's the wellspring. If we can stop that, then I think the next generation of cops won't deal with the dangers that we're facing today.
Speaker 1:What are some of the ways men maybe not law enforcement, but other men can get involved in creating these solutions?
Speaker 4:Well, you know, if women could stop domestic violence, we wouldn't be doing this podcast today, there'd be no need for crimes against women conference. There'd be no need for billions of dollars from the federal government to support shelters and transition housing and rape crisis centers. We wouldn't have the influx of thousands of women in the emergency rooms every, every, every day around the country. Three or four women murdered every day in this country and, by the way, worldwide. I've trained police in Brazil and China and Russia. I was in Brazil and doing a training at their Academy in Sao Paulo. I'm a full-bite specialist for the State Department and the Academy director said Mark, we only had 50,000 women murdered in the last 10 years in Brazil. Is that a lot? I had to stop and I just took my breath away for a second, but I recovered and I had to tell him honestly, we lose as many people killed in domestic violence in this country every 18 months that we lost in 9-11. So this has got to be a focus. Men who are bankers and lawyers and school administrators you know, farmers, people who have never thought about getting involved in stopping violence against women have got to step up. For years I've walked into classrooms and basements of VFW, halls and church. You know church. You know churches all over the country and anywhere where somebody will sit up a podium they want me to talk. I'll talk about this. But what's always relevant to me is that most of the people in that room are women. So it's to me, you know, it's pretty simple. It's like we made the mess and now we're handing the women the mop to clean it up. That's not right. We have to be accountable, we have to be responsible and we have to get on boards of shelters. We have to demand our politicians talk about this. Our judges consider this as a major issue. We restructure our police departments to deal with it. When you've got, let me then I'll give you one quick example.
Speaker 4:I don't mean to carry on, but when we started our domestic violence division at the national metropolitan police I'm very proud of my agency in 1994. My chief asked me how many domestic violence calls we responded to and I said 23,000 calls per year for national Tennessee. And he said how many detectives do we have following up on 23,000 cases? And I said one. And we had 30, 40,000 larceny calls. We had 30 detectives working in burglary. What does that tell you about the priority of law enforcement in 1995?
Speaker 4:There are still places in this country who will assign three or four people to deal with the most violent offenders, the most frequent crime committed, and then burn them out and then set them back to another position in policing and say, well, we've done our part. That's just not good enough. We're not. We're not where we should be. And until we do that, by the way, we're not going to draw the candidates in policing that we want, because you can imagine what a woman might think who wants to be a law enforcement officer working in a male dominant profession that doesn't take crimes against women serious. Why would you want to do that as a young woman? So we've got a lot of soul searching to do and we've have to realize that it's us, it's men.
Speaker 4:Women have carried this ball for years and years and years. The battered women's movement started the movement and I remember very well I was framed with Ellen Pence and Joan Zorza and Sarah Beal. The women who really started the domestic violence program, the programs around the country, who wrote the Violence Against Women Act and I'll watch them carefully crime their best to get men involved in violence against women, and they did. And when they couldn't, they went to the legislators and said if we can't get this man to do a better job, we want to change the law. So the laws changed. In 85. The United States federal government said yes, arrest is deferred response to domestic violence. And when you think about it today you think what in the world It'd be like the attorney general saying, yes, arrest is the best application for crime. But we had to have that said. So we come a long way. I'm not going to say we haven't. The Crime and Women Conference, by the way, had shaped that narrative for the last 20 years. Thank God we got a long way to go.
Speaker 1:We do have a long way to go and I kind of live in the camp that education of the youngest people in this country is a great place to start. So, andrew, as the father of two young boys, what are you taking away from this experience of working with Mark and working on the film that will inform, maybe, your parenting or opportunities in the future to educate young men about abusive relationships, healthy relationships and so on?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, one of the most sort of impactful experiences of making this project and working on it was the opportunity to get to introduce Mark to my two sons a few months ago when he was in Chicago, and that was just very special for me personally to get to you know, I've talked about him quite a bit at home and to get to sort of show them this incredible example of just a wonderful man who, you know, in their young eyes, is a police officer who just protects and helps people and keeps people safe.
Speaker 3:And I think there definitely needs to be sort of going back to your previous question about what, you know, men who aren't involved in law enforcement can do.
Speaker 3:I think there needs to be a cultural shift in how we either ignore or, you know, sweep under the rug talking about this issue and talking about, like you said, you know, what is a healthy relationship and demonstrating to young boys and men how important it is to not be violent, not just on an extreme level in terms of like true, you know violence against women and other men, but on a micro level as well, and showing boys that when they're young it's not okay to hit each other and that's not an acceptable way to express your emotions, and the sort of flip side of that is it's very important to be able to talk about your emotions and that's something that I think has been, you know, culturally largely ignored with young men, as we're not really, you know, taught as boys to be vulnerable and talk about the way we feel, and I think that leads to a lot of, you know, the violence that men carry out on women and other men because they don't, they're never taught how to express themselves in a positive way, in a vulnerable way, and you know, mark does just an incredible job of that whenever he's presenting to a group of people.
Speaker 3:He is just so wonderful at presenting himself as both a you know, he's a veteran police officer who is, you know, an incredibly masculine, strong presence, but at the same time, can be so vulnerable and gentle and kind and caring, and that's just such an impressive thing to be able to do. And so, I think, being able to show that, that type of example to more young men and boys and really just talk more about how to express yourself in a healthy way.
Speaker 4:Thank you, Andrew. It's very nice to see you say that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean absolutely, and you said the right thing, andrew, and that term is culture shift, which is what we're looking for here, which is, you know, part of the reason why we push so hard with the conference on crimes against women, with this podcast, with, you know, these films that that really make the case for a new era of masculinity to be a very well rounded experience. That includes being an upstander and being able to express, you know, a softer side of yourself without being confronted with negativity by your peers. In that vein, we also live in a climate of social accountability, with movements such as the Black Lives Matter movement and the Me Too movement and a call for police reform and the challenging of white male privilege, so making this film even more poignant to today's audience, I think. Did these movements influence the work at all when you made this film?
Speaker 5:I would say absolutely. I mean we, you know we started our very first film shoot in 2016. And you know so much has happened in the last you know, five, six, seven years. You know, as a, as a responder and a documentarian and a journalist and a storyteller, I mean you have to constantly be growing and shifting and, you know, really keeping your your eyes and ears on what is happening around you and with all of those movements connecting so personally to everybody on so many different layers. You know, depending on whatever your experience is, you know we had to take that into account and shift and grow editorially as we were making the film.
Speaker 5:But also it didn't change the film, the impetus for the film, because, exactly to your point, I mean Mark's story is in the center.
Speaker 5:I mean he's been doing police reform, law enforcement, accountability and work around supporting women and children for his whole life and that intersects with all of the incredible movements happening right now. So we knew we had something very special in the story in working with Mark, in that he already has this language around white male privilege. He's been doing it for decades and so it's it's amazing to watch there's so many people coming to him for advice on how to talk, community oversight boards, police reform, accountability, working in domestic violence and supporting support around sexual assault. I mean these are all things that Mark has been doing so to help him and have this film get out there on a more national level already in the space where it's able to be hopeful and helpful and supportive. I mean that felt. You know, that felt like our major mission is, like we got to get this done as fast as we can to get it out there and help. You know the film can help but Mark can help lead healing conversations in all of the movements and spaces you're talking about.
Speaker 4:You know, you don't really appreciate male privilege until a breacher knows. And male privilege and violence are the heartbeats of domestic violence. This is what men have got to stop ignoring. Every time I teach a class, when I talk about women's use of force and negotiating and submitting and appeasing and all the things that women have to do who are victims of domestic violence, I get these men who say, well, you know, male privilege is just not a thing anymore. I've really heard that enough. You know it's, it's.
Speaker 4:I was doing a training for the Navajo nation years ago and one of the advocates said there was an old saying that it's hard to wake somebody up. That's pretending to be a bully, pretending to be asleep. We have to stop pretending to be asleep about male privilege and all the things that it does, not just violence. There's a lot of other things too that we could talk about. I don't want to get out of my lane here, but we've got to address this. This is it, this is the, this is the energy.
Speaker 4:If you don't believe me, read David Adams book. Why Are they Kill when David's a Good Friend of Mine who runs Emerge in Boston? He went into the prison systems in Massachusetts and interviewed 32 domestic killers and not a single one of these men showed any sign of remorse. And the man who killed their children before they killed their spouses and girlfriends called it righteous slaughter. I've never heard a term like that. I worked in homicide for years and I asked David. I said what in God's name does that mean, mark? And I, david. He said Mark, what it means is this is my property. If I can't have it, nobody can.
Speaker 4:That's male privilege at its broadest form. That's why we have to talk about this amongst men and stop acting like it doesn't happen. So that's, that's another conversation that you don't have to be a cop, you have to have a gun or badge to talk about this with the people at your factory you worked at, or your, you know, your HR director at your, at your company, or your accountant or anybody else, or your parishioners, if you're a minister or priest or rabbi. This is stuff that has to be addressed today, because if we don't, we're just going to keep acting like it never exists, that there never was male privilege, and we're going to keep burying women and burying police officers, because that's what's happened over the last millennia. It just goes on and on and on. It's up to us to stop it. So we have to stop pretending about male privilege and start addressing it with today.
Speaker 1:I'm with you. I mean, I agree with everything that she said. Go ahead, Kristen.
Speaker 5:I just wanted to add. This is a you know, experience that happened this weekend and I think it it both shows kind of exactly what Mark is saying, but it also shows the opportunity that that something like a film like this can do. I mean, when we were at our premiere this weekend at the film festival, the night before there was a big kind of gala party for all of the films and the full festival. All the donors and all the people who were attending were there Lots of men, lots of wonderful you know supporters and spouses. The next day we have a full house for the film. It's a Sunday at 1230 pm and it's 98% women.
Speaker 5:I saw four men in the audience, wow, and it was shocking to me and I was like, oh, my goodness, I mean, this is, you know, and everyone was so excited and it was such a hope you know it's a hopeful film and it really became what can we do? And the call to action in the moment became you take this film home. There's a virtual screening opportunity that all next week you can see it online. You watch it with your husbands, your partners, your sons, because they weren't there, but all the women were, and it was sort of like wow, okay, we can do some reframing about our invitation work with film festivals. More deeply about this, make it a call to action. To get men in the room for this. It was completely jarring, but very clear what our next steps were.
Speaker 1:I'm really glad that you're using that information to inform ways to get more men in the conversation, in the viewing rooms and so on, and I think that's really important feedback and takeaways for you. And I think we see to Mark's point and to your point, kirsten we see this a lot that it's women in the audience. It's women who want to know, who want to learn, who want to change things. And also I want to say to Mark, I really hope you're training the next generation of trainers who will take your place in future years to do this work.
Speaker 4:Mark, I think that's a nice feeling to see allied professionals standing shoulder to shoulder with women, and it happens in Dallas every year. So if you're listening to this and you want to join, come to Dallas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, there's a large showing of law enforcement at that conference, and thereby the number of men is much higher at that attend.
Speaker 4:And let me say this about millennials I train baby boomers, gen X, gen Z, every other generation you can imagine in a classroom. When I started policing I was actually teaching classes at my academy and we had a couple of war two veterans, korean war veterans, vietnam veterans I mean all these generations. I've watched improvement and today, when I do my trainings around the country, these millennial officers and advocates and judges and prosecutors, these people, these young people, I'm more encouraged today than I've ever been in my life because they're not carrying the luggage that we carry. All right, I don't hear about misogyny and homophobia and racism from them.
Speaker 4:That I did in my own generation, where men were would ignore gay and lesbian couples on domestic violence calls or didn't understand community trauma when you talked about African American experiences, where you know, when you asked them, why don't you call the police and they tell you, why would I call you when you arrested my father, my uncle, my grandfather and you own my great grandfather, by the way. So community trauma is another thing that I think this next generation clearly understands. So I think we're in for some real improvements. This really to me and you said the word reform earlier I've never seen police reform, like I've seen in this movement. Now we're not where we need to be yet, but police reform and making the law keep its promise is a pretty good goal, I think.
Speaker 1:It is. I just think we also need to found the Mark Wynn Institute, mark Wynn Training Institute, so that we have people in the future who can go out and do this same type of work with the same amount of passion and intensity that you possess. You touched on police reform and I want to take that one step further to the distrust of law enforcement, because in many communities, especially in communities of color, that distrust of law enforcement exists and it makes an understanding of intersectionality crucial to the conduct of law enforcement, in particular, when policing family violence. How do you educate audiences about intersectionality?
Speaker 4:Well, this is a critical, this is a you know. It's almost like for me and all the years I've done this work, all of this is in the same room together. Me too. The Black Lives Matter, the domestic violence it's all the same room together because it's all interconnected to me. I mean, I've always felt that way. We're talking about people's basic civil rights.
Speaker 4:We in law enforcement have to stop and listen and understand the negative and the positive impacts we have on communities. I mean there are people I've got friends and advocates right now that are talking about moving away from the criminal justice response and moving to restorative justice. I'm not against restorative justice Anything that will stop an offender from abusing someone. I don't care what it is. If it's a jail, if it's a batter's intervention, if it's probation, no matter what it is, I'm all for it. But we have to think about the populations that we serve in policing and the impacts we have on them. I mean, we've already seen signs of it.
Speaker 4:Dr Logan from the University of Kentucky did the studies at the crisis hotline about why don't you call the police. I did focus groups in Virginia for the Department of Criminal Justice Services with African American women and older women and undocumented immigrant women, and I talked to all these populations and I said why don't you call the police? And what they say to us is they're still afraid of us. And it's almost like I've been transported back to my home. That Andrew and Kirsten captured in the film when I said I was afraid of the offender and afraid of the police. We're still there. We have to have honest discussion about that. Why are the people that we serve and who we will die for? And this is what police do every day they serve people, they risk their lives for people they don't know. We have to understand how they feel about us and the price they pay if they do cooperate. I was telling the. I was in Wainsville, north Carolina last week doing a training.
Speaker 4:I told the group about a woman and I was a SWAT officer for 15 years in my police department and 75 to 90% of hostages taken every year taken during domestic violence incident and we had a woman who was held hostage one night and we rescued. She could have escaped at one point but she didn't. And we asked her why and she said that she'd survived hostages the situations before she'd learned to negotiate her own release and then she said you know, the way I would survive is I wouldn't call you. I didn't get an order protection. I didn't, you know, I didn't go to shelter. But then she said that. She said you know, he, he, he holds a gun on me and one of the ways I get into put the gun away is I submit and he rapes me.
Speaker 4:So this sex assault is, is, is it's just unbelievable amount of sex assault in domestic violence. We don't even talk about that. But the last thing she said to us she said you know, my husband's not my problem. And we thought my God, who's your problem? And she said you are. She said I knew how to survive without you. I did not know how to survive with you. Now, what else do you need from a crime victim who is needs us more than ever but is still too afraid to call us?
Speaker 1:How do you respond to that?
Speaker 4:We have to have leaders in law enforcement understand that. We have to have leaders in law enforcement that are victim centered, which means if I'm a chief or a sheriff in my community, when I come to the table to stop violence against women, it's not just to bring handcuffs, it's to bring partnerships and understanding and having options for victims other than the criminal justice system.
Speaker 1:Kirsten and Andrew. When you hear this type of information from Mark, who was you know he starred in the film that you produced he's talking about all of the bigger issues related to law enforcement. So you're getting a composite of his experience in the film, but the issue is huge and it's nationwide, possibly worldwide problems with law enforcement, response to domestic violence. Are there options with the film to use it strategically to respond to these types of issues? Perhaps such as companion conversations after watching the film or a workbook, or a way to bring it into high school classrooms so that students and educators can work together on some of these very real issues that are going to impact everyone's future? But as we develop young leaders, men and women, to go out into the world and live away from their parents among all of this type of confrontation and, at times, in civility and really dangerous environments that exist, yeah, I think there are many opportunities to use the film to just as Mark's work does bring different groups of people together and have these conversations After viewing the film.
Speaker 3:We did an event like that in Chicago in April where we brought together someone from the Chicago Police Department and from multiple advocacy organizations to have a public conversation after screening the film in front of a general public audience, and everyone who took part in that agreed that it sort of gave them an opportunity to talk about these issues together in a way that they might not have previously and honestly, I think there are countless opportunities to do events like that across the country with different organizations and bringing folks together. I think the educational piece is very interesting as well. I think first, you can probably talk a little more about that. We've already started exploring getting the film into colleges and universities all over.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's one of the reasons there's been this great shift in growth, especially with social issue documentaries, where you're really planning the film, but then you're also planning an extensive impact advocacy engagement campaign. Lots of people like to use different words around that, but it's kind of all of those things.
Speaker 5:I think what's amazing and different than any other film that I've worked on is that with this issue we know the answers. There's so many incredible partners who already have the curriculum. They already have the programs in the high schools. We don't have to invent that wheel. But what we can do is establish these partnerships. Where we're working with those organizations, we're saying how can the film help you in the conversation you want to have with your community?
Speaker 5:We did a listening tour before we launched this film, along with Mark I think it was almost 60 expert advocates in law enforcement. We had them watch the film, we had them give feedback. We had them say where do you see this film helping in the conversations and dialogues that you're working on right now? We synthesize that information. We have strategies and goals around this engagement campaign for the next couple of years. We're raising support. We're working with foundations to really help fund that. For the next couple of years we're going to be able to reach deeply into communities, into trainings.
Speaker 5:We've talked with Aileen Robinson at the Chicago Police Department. She says I want to get every single officer 13,000 officers to see this film. We can set that up through virtual screenings. They sign on whenever they can. Then we'll partner with them to develop a short curriculum that will be in tandem with the film. We have tons of opportunities coming about that because Mark's story is so accessible and really walks these lines and goes through the tension between the different organizations and the police departments. I hope the film and I hope the campaign can be healing, just as Mark is in his work.
Speaker 1:What is the website where people can watch the trailer and determine if they want to bring this film into their organization, their school, their law enforcement department?
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's hopefully easy. It's just wwwthisiswherefilmcom.
Speaker 1:This is wherefilmcom.
Speaker 5:This is wherefilmcom. That has the trailer. It has the connections to set up screenings. You can do it in person, you can do it virtually, you can do it as a fundraiser. Set it up as a fundraiser, for you're not for profit. We have the way to deal with the ticketing system and the payment system. All in that, it's really we've tried to make it as accessible as possible. We're going to be having a limited release the last two weeks of October for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. People can go and just watch on their own. It's a ticket price that goes to support the Mary Parish Center, which is the shelter in Nashville named after Mark's mother. We can set that up for your shelter too. Throughout the next year. We have high ambitions but it's really off of Mark's inspirational story and Mark's work.
Speaker 1:I think it's critical to bring that to the widest community possible, because I think that there are different ways to look at this. This is one slice of acts of hatred that we can learn from To your point, kirsten. It is accessible, it's a painful story, it's a difficult story, but it's also one that I think a lot of people can relate to in a variety of different ways. You touched on this a little bit in the film and we didn't quite get into it in this conversation yet, but before we go, let's talk about law enforcement officers who themselves, like you, mark, have had experiences of domestic violence, abuse in their own lives, or who are abusive themselves to their own families. How do you address that, mark, in the work that you do?
Speaker 4:Well, there are two different things obviously. One is, if you are a survivor, consider sharing that with your fellow officers. I know it's hard to do. It wasn't easy for me and I'd shared it with my command staff back in the early 80s. Those men who I shared my experience with, several of them, came up to me after the presentation and said they were survivors also. They're here. We're in the ranks of policing.
Speaker 4:The other thing is when you've got someone, an officer, who's committing domestic and sexual violence, there can be absolutely positively no tolerance for this and policing, because if you're an abuser and you're in uniform, you're basically violating your own oath of office. You're committing a crime. How much crime, as I said earlier, do you want your police to commit? This cannot be tolerated because I can tell you, advocates in this country are pretty damn smart. If they know their police department is adverse to the victims they serve, they're not going to recommend they come to us for help. If that's true, then the victim is trapped longer in violence. It gets more dangerous. When a police officer does respond, then we are at a higher risk of getting hurt or killed because of delayed reporting, because people don't trust us.
Speaker 4:You can see it's all connected. We can't ignore it and we have to deal with it. My agency, by the way our recruit application from my agency of Nashville, tennessee, and I'm very proud of my department has 16 questions on it about domestic and sexual violence. How do you select officers? How do you train officers? How do you deal with officers who need help? I mean, we're now doing officer wellness programs around the country. I think that's the next phase in taking care of the mental state of our police as well. The other two is showing the public that you can trust us, that when you call us you're not going to get an abuser, you're going to get somebody who understands, who's empathetic and is there to help you, and it's going to make the law keep its promise to you.
Speaker 1:That's great information. Again, the website where you can learn more about the film and possibly bring it to your community is this is wherefilmcom. Perfect, Mark Kirsten Andrew, thank you so much for talking with me today.
Speaker 5:Thank you so much. Thank you for doing this. It's an honor to be here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you so much for having us.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe. Registration for the 2024 Conference on Crimes Against Women is now available. The 2024 conference will be held in Dallas, texas, at the Sheraton Dallas, may 20th through the 23rd. Visit our website at conferencecaworg to learn more and register today, and follow us on social media at nationalccaw for updates about the conference, featured events, presenters and more.