Latest / The Kevin Stone Podcast / Episode #23 "The Police Dropped Off A Drunk Guy Where?"

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Episode #23 "The Police Dropped Off A Drunk Guy Where?" · The Kevin Stone Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Alright, hello and welcome to the Kevin Stone Podcast. I
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: am Kevin Stone. Now, I told you that when we
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: started this, there were going to be some stories that
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: were serious, some not serious. Well, we've got a pretty
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: serious one today, and I could have went in so
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: many different directions with this story based off of my
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: own personal experiences. However, after Charlie did some digging into
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: this and research, we've come up with some facts that Well,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: it probably wouldn't be fair for me to just go
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: off on my own personal viewpoint of this because I
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: want everything to be factual on this show. So, here
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: we go. Now, I have dealt with some police officers
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: before who seem to have a particular understanding of the law.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Not all police officers. Let me get that out of
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  Speaker 1: the way right now. I've dealt with some professional officers,
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  Speaker 1: but I've also dealt with a few who seem to
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: operate under a slightly different legal philosophy, such as I
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: am the law. Whatever I say goes. Whatever I decide
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: is correct. Don't question me. And I've really never cared
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: much for that attitude. Because a badge gives somebody authority.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: It doesn't give them, you know, infallibility. And a recent
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  Speaker 1: story out of Dardanelle, Arkansas, got me thinking about this again.
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  Speaker 1: According to local reporting, a Dardanelle police officer picked up
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  Speaker 1: a man, put him in the back of his police vehicle,
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  Speaker 1: drove him outside of town, and left him on a
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  Speaker 1: dead-end dirt road near somebody's house. When I first heard
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  Speaker 1: about this, I thought, surely we're missing part of the story. Well,
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  Speaker 1: Charlie started digging into it, and apparently we were missing
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: part of the story. Unfortunately, the part we're missing actually
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: made it worse. Now, according to reporting by Misty Hale
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  Speaker 1: of the River Valley Radio, this happened on August 27.
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  Speaker 1: and it began on Green Street in Dardanelle. Acting Police
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  Speaker 1: Chief Brian Blevins says the man told the officer he
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: was trying to get away from two women and said
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  Speaker 1: he had a friend who lived outside of town. According
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: to Blevins, the officer didn't initially believe the man's behavior
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: gave him the grounds to arrest him for public intoxication. Okay, well,
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  Speaker 1: that's important. Because I don't want to sit here and
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: pretend the officer ignored some obvious requirement to arrest somebody.
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  Speaker 1: Police officers have discretion, and I'm glad they do. So
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  Speaker 1: the officer apparently decided to give this man a ride.
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  Speaker 1: So far, I don't really have a problem. Honestly, that
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  Speaker 1: could be good police work. Guy's having trouble? He's trying
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  Speaker 1: to get away from a situation? Officer gives him a
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  Speaker 1: ride somewhere safe? Fine. Except that's not exactly how it ended.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Somebody Else's Problem. The officer drove the man
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  Speaker 1: out to a rural area on Highway 28 in Yale County.
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  Speaker 1: A man named Alex Reed lives there with his fiancée
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  Speaker 1: and three children. Reed told River Valley Radio that around
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  Speaker 1: 6 o'clock that evening, he noticed a Darnell police vehicle
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  Speaker 1: coming down the dead-end road with its emergency lights on.
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  Speaker 1: So naturally, he went to see what was happening. And
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  Speaker 1: according to Reed, he watched the officer remove a handcuffed
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  Speaker 1: man from the back of the police vehicle. Reed started recording.
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  Speaker 1: And this is where the story starts getting really strange.
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  Speaker 1: Reed said the officer told him the man had been
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  Speaker 1: found lying in or near a roadway back in Dardanelle.
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  Speaker 1: Reed says he told the officer that he knows nearly
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: everybody living along this particular road and that he didn't
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: know this guy. Then according to River Valley Radio, on
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  Speaker 1: Reed's video, the man could be heard yelling an address
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  Speaker 1: on Outback Loop, which is another dirt road roughly a
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  Speaker 1: mile away. So apparently this wasn't even the road he
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  Speaker 1: was given an address for. And yet the handcuffs came
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  Speaker 1: off and the officer left. Now Alex Reed and his
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  Speaker 1: neighbors had themselves a new problem. I want you to
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  Speaker 1: imagine this happening at your house. You're sitting outside minding
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  Speaker 1: your own business. Police car comes down the road. Officer
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  Speaker 1: gets out, opens the back door, takes a handcuffed stranger out,
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  Speaker 1: takes off the handcuffs, gets back into the police car,
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  Speaker 1: and leaves. And now you're standing there thinking, who is that?
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  Speaker 1: I'd have some questions. Actually, I'd probably have a lot
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  Speaker 1: of questions. Starting with, why is he here? Because I
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  Speaker 1: didn't order him. There's no Amazon packing slip sitting on
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  Speaker 1: the porch saying, want to talk to a stranger, delivered
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  Speaker 1: by the Dardanelle Police Department. And this isn't merely funny,
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  Speaker 1: this could have become dangerous. So what happened next? Reed
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  Speaker 1: called 911. The man initially started walking back toward the highway.
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  Speaker 1: About 15 minutes passed, no deputy had arrived, so Reed
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: called again. By then, the man had apparently turned around
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  Speaker 1: and started walking back toward Reed's property. Eventually, according to Reed,
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  Speaker 1: the man laid down near the corner of his yard
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  Speaker 1: and didn't move for like 10 minutes. Think about that.
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  Speaker 1: It's August. In Arkansas, Acting Chief Belevin said temperatures that
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  Speaker 1: day were in the triple digits. You got a man
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  Speaker 1: who appears impaired enough that a homeowner is concerned about him,
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  Speaker 1: and he's lying on the ground. not moving, and nobody
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  Speaker 1: knows exactly what his condition is. Eventually, Yale County Sheriff's
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  Speaker 1: Deputies arrived, roughly 35 minutes after Reed said he initially
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  Speaker 1: called 911, and took the man into custody. Thankfully, this
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: didn't end with somebody getting hurt, but it certainly could have.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Here's where the story changed for me. When Charlie and
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I first started researching this, I thought we were looking
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: at one police officer making a really boneheaded decision. And
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  Speaker 1: if that's all this had been, that's what this episode
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: would have been about. Then we found the follow-up reporting.
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  Speaker 1: And Acting Chief Brian Blevins said something very important. According
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  Speaker 1: to Blevins, this officer had been trained by a former
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  Speaker 1: Dardanelle police employee. And Blevins says that former training officer
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  Speaker 1: had instructed officers that when they encountered certain troublesome situations,
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  Speaker 1: one option was transporting the person somewhere outside the city.
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  Speaker 1: Excuse me? Because that changes everything. We're not just talking
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  Speaker 1: about one officer thinking, eh, I'll leave him right here.
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  Speaker 1: According to the acting police chief himself, an officer had
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  Speaker 1: apparently been taught that transporting troublesome situations outside the city
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  Speaker 1: was an option. Now we're talking about training. And once
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  Speaker 1: we're talking about training, I got a whole different set
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  Speaker 1: of questions. And apparently there was another one. Blevins also
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  Speaker 1: told River Valley Radio that he had recently learned about
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  Speaker 1: another instance where an officer was instructed to transport somebody
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  Speaker 1: all the way to Conway. Dardanelle to Conway isn't exactly
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  Speaker 1: I'll drop you off around the corner. At that point,
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  Speaker 1: you're practically running a shuttle service. And here's the problem.
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  Speaker 1: Levin says he doesn't know how long this practice may
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  Speaker 1: have existed. And he doesn't know who originally authorized it either.
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  Speaker 1: And that's important. Because I'm not going to accuse somebody
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  Speaker 1: if we don't have the evidence. A former training officer
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  Speaker 1: worked under retiring police chief Joseph Patrick. I have no
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  Speaker 1: idea if I'm saying that right. Please forgive me if
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  Speaker 1: I'm not. That doesn't mean Chief Patrick ordered this. Levin
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  Speaker 1: specifically said he could not say where the instruction originated.
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  Speaker 1: So neither can I. But somebody apparently taught it, and
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  Speaker 1: apparently it wasn't the first time. That deserves some answers.
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  Speaker 1: Then Blevins made a statement that really got my attention.
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  Speaker 1: Talking about this type of behavior, he told River Valley Radio, unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: those games have been played for years, and said they
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't be played under his watch. Now, that's not Kevin
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  Speaker 1: Stone accusing the police department of something. That's the acting
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  Speaker 1: police chief talking about what he's discovered. And if I'm
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  Speaker 1: a citizen of Dardanelle, that's when my hand goes up.
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  Speaker 1: Excuse me, chief, what games? How many times? How many officers?
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  Speaker 1: How many people got transported? Where were they taken? Did
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  Speaker 1: supervisors know? Was this written down anywhere? Or was this
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  Speaker 1: one of those, here's how we really do things around
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  Speaker 1: here situations? Because that matters. Again, this is where the
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  Speaker 1: story hits something I've personally experienced. Again, not all police officers.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not playing that game. There are good officers. There
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: are bad officers. Just like there are good doctors and
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  Speaker 1: bad doctors. Good teachers and bad teachers. Good mechanics and
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: bad mechanics. And I'm reasonably certain there are even some
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  Speaker 1: bad podcast hosts. Charlie says he can name one. Thank you, Charlie.
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  Speaker 1: But I have personally encountered officers who seem to have
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  Speaker 1: that I am the law attitude. And I don't like it.
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  Speaker 1: Because law enforcement officers possess something most of us don't.
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  Speaker 1: The government has given them legal authority to detain you,
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  Speaker 1: arrest you, put you in handcuffs, use force under legally
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  Speaker 1: justified circumstances. That's tremendous authority. And tremendous authority requires tremendous accountability.
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  Speaker 1: The badge doesn't mean whatever I decide becomes law. It
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  Speaker 1: means I've been entrusted to enforce the law. Those are
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  Speaker 1: two completely different things. And when that distinction disappears, you've
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  Speaker 1: got problems. Was this a sorry we got caught situation?
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  Speaker 1: When I first heard Chief Blevins say this wouldn't happen again,
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  Speaker 1: I'll admit something. My first reaction was, is this we're sorry,
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  Speaker 1: or we're sorry somebody caught us? Because we've all seen
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  Speaker 1: that kind of apology. Government does something stupid, somebody records it,
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  Speaker 1: it gets on Facebook, the news picks it up, and
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  Speaker 1: suddenly everybody discovers an enormous commitment to transparency. Funny how
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  Speaker 1: that works. But after reading Blevins' full comments, I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to give him more credit than I initially did because
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  Speaker 1: he didn't simply issue some carefully worded statement saying the
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  Speaker 1: Dardanelle Police Department takes these allegations very seriously. You know
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  Speaker 1: the statement. Then everybody goes home and nothing changes. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: Blevins publicly called the practice unethical and immoral. He acknowledged
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  Speaker 1: that the officer had received this instruction through training. He
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  Speaker 1: acknowledged another incident had surfaced. He acknowledged that he doesn't
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  Speaker 1: know how long this had been happening. And he said,
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  Speaker 1: we own our mistakes and move forward. I respect that.
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  Speaker 1: I'm still asking questions, but I respect it. Don't blame
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  Speaker 1: the young officer for everything. Here's another thing I've changed
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  Speaker 1: my mind about. I'm less interested in beating up on
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  Speaker 1: the officer who made this particular transport. Chief Blevins says
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  Speaker 1: the officer has only been with the department a little
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  Speaker 1: over a year. And Blevins actually defended him personally, saying
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  Speaker 1: he believed the officer was trying to do what he'd
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  Speaker 1: been trained to do. Now, the officer still made the decision.
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  Speaker 1: He's still responsible for his actions. But if you're a
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  Speaker 1: relatively new officer and a field training officer tells you,
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  Speaker 1: this is how we handle this, you're probably going to
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  Speaker 1: believe him. That's why field training matters. The bigger question becomes,
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  Speaker 1: who taught the trainer? And who was supervising all of this?
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  Speaker 1: That's the part that I want answered. The man they
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  Speaker 1: dropped off matters too. There's another person in this story
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  Speaker 1: who could easily be forgotten about. The man himself. It's
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  Speaker 1: easy to turn him into the drunk guy. I've already
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  Speaker 1: done it. It's easy shorthand. But he's still a human being.
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  Speaker 1: Reed actually raised this point himself. He told River Valley
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  Speaker 1: Radio he thinks the department owes an apology not only
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  Speaker 1: to him and his neighbors, but to the man who
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  Speaker 1: was transported. And I think Reed has a point. If
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  Speaker 1: somebody is impaired enough that you've got him handcuffed in
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  Speaker 1: the back of a police car, maybe dropping him alongside
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  Speaker 1: a rural dirt road during triple digit Arkansas heat isn't
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  Speaker 1: the greatest plan we've ever developed. If he needs medical attention,
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  Speaker 1: get him medical attention. If there's lawful cause to arrest him,
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  Speaker 1: then arrest him. If he genuinely has a friend who's
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  Speaker 1: willing to take responsibility for him, verify the address and
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  Speaker 1: take him there. But don't just relocate the problem. Because
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  Speaker 1: he's still a person. That's really what bothers me. Government
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  Speaker 1: shouldn't solve problems by making them somebody else's problem. And
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  Speaker 1: that's essentially what happened here. Dardanelle had a troublesome situation.
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  Speaker 1: Then suddenly, Dardanelle didn't. Yale County did. Alex Reed did.
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  Speaker 1: His fiancée did. His children and his neighbors did. Eventually,
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  Speaker 1: the Yale County Sheriff's Office did. That's not solving anything.
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  Speaker 1: That's moving it. And if Blevins' description of the training
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  Speaker 1: is accurate, somebody apparently thought moving problems outside the city
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  Speaker 1: was a legitimate option. That deserves criticism. Strong criticism. But
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  Speaker 1: here's what good accountability looks like. I'm going to give
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  Speaker 1: Blevins the benefit of the doubt right now. Because what
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  Speaker 1: happens next is going to tell us much more. He
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  Speaker 1: says these games won't be played under his watch. Okay, good.
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  Speaker 1: Then let's see it. Review the training. Find out who
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  Speaker 1: was taught this. Find out how many times it happened.
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  Speaker 1: Figure out whether supervisors knew. Put a clear policy in
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: place and make sure every officer understands it. And if
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: mistakes were made, then own them. Don't hide them. That's
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  Speaker 1: how you rebuild trust. Not by pretending nothing happened, and
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: not by demanding that citizens automatically trust you because you
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  Speaker 1: wear a badge. Trust isn't demanded, it's earned. And now
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: that goes both ways. Citizens have responsibilities too. Don't make
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: police work unnecessarily difficult. Don't resist lawful orders. Don't treat
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: every traffic stop like you're auditioning for a constitutional law
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  Speaker 1: channel on YouTube. Police officers are human beings trying to
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: do a difficult job. But police departments also have a
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: responsibility to remember something. The people questioning you aren't necessarily
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: your enemies. Sometimes they're taxpayers asking perfectly reasonable questions about
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: what their government is doing. Alex Reed saw something that
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: didn't make sense. He recorded it. He questioned it. He
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: called 911. And now we're learning that the incident may
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: have exposed a questionable training practice inside a police department.
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  Speaker 1: That's why accountability matters. The question I still want answered,
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  Speaker 1: how many times did this happen? We know about this incident,
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  Speaker 1: and according to Blevins, there's another incident involving instructions to
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  Speaker 1: transport somebody as far away as Conway. But was this it? Two? Five? Twenty?
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. And I'm not going to pretend like
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: I do. But somebody does. There should be dispatch records.
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  Speaker 1: There may be body camera footage. There may be reports.
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  Speaker 1: There may be transport records. There should be departmental policies
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  Speaker 1: and training materials. And if we're serious about community trust,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: maybe somebody ought to look. Okay, look, I support law enforcement.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: I also support questioning law enforcement. And those aren't contradictory positions. Actually,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I think they belong together. Good police officers should want
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: bad practices eliminated. A good officer shouldn't have to defend
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: somebody else's stupidity just because everybody wears the same uniform.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: And good leadership should be willing to say, we screwed up.
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  Speaker 1: From what we know today, Acting Chief Brian Blevins appears
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: willing to say exactly that. So I'm going to give
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: him credit. But I'm also going to hold him to
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  Speaker 1: what he said. If these games aren't going to happen
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  Speaker 1: under his watch... Good. Let's make sure they don't. Let's
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: find out how they started. Let's find out how widespread
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: they are. And let's make sure the next young officer
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  Speaker 1: who joins the Dardanelle Police Department is taught something a
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: little more useful than, when you got a problem, take
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  Speaker 1: it somewhere outside of town. Because, folks, that's not community policing.
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  Speaker 1: That's just making your problem somebody else's problem. And the
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: people living at the end of that dirt road didn't
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  Speaker 1: sign up for it. I'm Kevin Stone, and this is
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  Speaker 1: the Kevin Stone Podcast.