Latest / Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement / #083- "Texas City Police: Leadership Through Fear"

Transcript

#083- "Texas City Police: Leadership Through Fear" · Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement

0:01
Speaker 1: What do you have to tell your people?
0:03
Speaker 1: Texas City Association members.
0:06
Speaker 2: I try to keep the positivity up.
0:08
Speaker 2: Like I said, whenever I got in here, the association was dying.
0:12
Speaker 2: Now I have officers that are like oh my God, how do I apply to be on here?
0:19
Speaker 1: And how do I?
0:20
Speaker 2: start participating.
0:24
Speaker 1: Welcome back.
0:25
Speaker 1: Viewers, watchers, listeners, I'm your host, Tyler Owen.
0:28
Speaker 1: We've got a guest host in today, a regular co-host, Clint McNair, the Texas FOP president, just got back from South Carolina and he could not make it in today because he had some administrative roles.
0:41
Speaker 1: Thanks to me and Leighton, we keep that man very busy.
0:44
Speaker 1: When I first started, he had brown hair, I believe had some administrative roles.
0:48
Speaker 1: Thanks to me and Layton, we keep that man very busy.
0:49
Speaker 1: When I first started, he had brown hair, I believe.
0:51
Speaker 3: Now it's a little more salt and pepper or grayish.
0:52
Speaker 3: Does he color his hair?
0:53
Speaker 1: I don't know.
0:54
Speaker 1: We have several.
0:56
Speaker 1: We have some field reps that sometimes, on occasion, do color their hair, but I don't think Clint colors it, but he probably should.
1:01
Speaker 1: He probably should what have?
1:03
Speaker 3: you been up to man.
1:04
Speaker 3: Oh man, just hanging out and dealing with a couple of issues in my zone.
1:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're raging.
1:09
Speaker 1: For those that don't know Leighton Ganeri, I promise you you are missing out on one of the largest personalities that this organization has, but one of the things that I've always loved about Leighton he's very passionate about his work and truly does love what he does on a daily basis and he's committed to the mission.
1:28
Speaker 1: But when you talk to him, make no mistake, I don't give a damn what kind of day you're having, if you're in a bad mood, sad mood.
1:33
Speaker 1: When you talk to Layton, you hang up full of energy, full of life, and so it's kind of refreshing for me to reach out to you.
1:39
Speaker 1: Sometimes, when I'm feeling down, I always allow Leighton to give me a call.
1:42
Speaker 3: I'll pay you later for saying that.
1:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, all in one, all in one.
1:46
Speaker 3: And I wore my Crawfish shirt just for you.
1:48
Speaker 1: So that's what I was going to say.
1:49
Speaker 1: For those that don't know, leighton's a huge LSU fan.
1:52
Speaker 1: It's something I forgive him for Immediately after we became friends.
1:55
Speaker 1: He is not technically born in Louisiana.
1:59
Speaker 1: No, I was born in Louisiana.
2:00
Speaker 1: Oh, you were born in Louisiana, which explains a whole hell of a lot, but he is a huge Tiger fan.
2:05
Speaker 1: So, anyway, who we got on today?
2:08
Speaker 3: man.
2:08
Speaker 3: Well, we have the POA president from Texas City, Rachel Spahr.
2:12
Speaker 1: Rachel, thanks for coming on.
2:14
Speaker 1: There seems to be some significant issues going on at Texas City.
2:19
Speaker 1: Oh, yes, sir, and have been for a long time, and so I think today would be great, uh late and reached out and said, hey, I think this would be great to have rachel on and and uh talk about the not the successes or or things that we've learned from from dealing with this kind of stuff, but just talking about really people don't understand more specifically in y'all's region about really what's going on there at the department on the department level, the morale, and so we're gonna we're gonna talk about those today.
2:41
Speaker 1: Awesome, yeah, should be an interest.
2:42
Speaker 3: It should be interesting.
2:43
Speaker 3: So we're going to talk about those today.
2:44
Speaker 3: Awesome, yeah, should be interesting it should be interesting.
2:46
Speaker 1: So we typically like to start off every podcast with talking about where you grew up, how you got involved with law enforcement, and then we'll kind of it sounds like we're going to we got some deep issues to kind of carve out on what's going on at your agency.
2:57
Speaker 1: So where'd you grow up?
2:59
Speaker 2: I am actually an Oklahoma girl.
3:01
Speaker 1: Oh Lord, yeah, Lake Shelton, lake Shelton, right there, what part.
3:06
Speaker 2: Sapop Oklahoma.
3:09
Speaker 1: Little town girl we're at geographically in Oklahoma, so it's right next to Tulsa.
3:13
Speaker 1: This was to Tulsa.
3:16
Speaker 2: Really small town, just kind of grew up with horses and cowgirl at heart.
3:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oklahoma is a really it's a unique state, but it's also it's probably one of the friendliest states.
3:28
Speaker 1: It doesn't make a shit where you go North, south, east.
3:30
Speaker 2: Everybody's friends with you.
3:31
Speaker 2: You go to anywhere, even the grocery store, and you stop and talk to everybody, Even in the larger towns I've lived in Oklahoma City and Tulsa and everybody knows everybody.
3:42
Speaker 3: That's awesome.
3:43
Speaker 3: I will say this, though when my son was playing college baseball, we went up and watched him play up in Kansas, and the drive through Oklahoma for whatever reason seems like it almost takes as long as you drive through Texas.
3:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.
3:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, but at least you didn't feel it when you cross that state line like you do in Louisiana.
4:03
Speaker 1: I think the roads are better paved.
4:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are.
4:06
Speaker 1: That's true For sure.
4:08
Speaker 1: So did you have any family in law enforcement?
4:10
Speaker 2: You know I didn't.
4:11
Speaker 2: I kind of happened chance got into law enforcement.
4:14
Speaker 2: My dad was in the Army and he was a big shooter, did like the competition shooting.
4:19
Speaker 1: I'm glad you clarified that on a law enforcement.
4:22
Speaker 2: But he would kind of take me out and learn how to shoot and I was a young age and kind of got me into that part, and then my mom was a hairdresser and she thought I was going to be a hairdresser and you know.
4:36
Speaker 1: Small town America.
4:37
Speaker 1: Small town America looks like the top ten of female type jobs.
4:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
4:41
Speaker 2: That's what the dude.
4:42
Speaker 2: She worked hard, she still works hard.
4:44
Speaker 2: That's what the dude she worked hard, she still works hard.
4:46
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
4:47
Speaker 1: So you graduated there in the small town in Oklahoma and then did you go to college.
4:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I went to college.
4:52
Speaker 2: I actually ended up moving down here and getting my degree at University of Houston, okay.
4:58
Speaker 1: Go Cougars.
4:58
Speaker 2: Yep.
4:59
Speaker 2: So I've been here 16 years, 15 years, somewhere in there.
5:03
Speaker 1: So your passport's probably.
5:04
Speaker 1: You are a full legal citizen.
5:05
Speaker 1: I'm officially a Texan.
5:06
Speaker 1: You are legally a citizen now, yes, well, congratulations on that.
5:10
Speaker 2: But so I grew up not in law enforcement at all but then once I kind of I had children actually and then still wasn't interested in law enforcement but I was interested in kind of politics of things and so I actually ended up volunteering for my local community and then kind of moved up on the parks and rec boards and they made me the vice or the president of the HOA and League City and but I loved helping people and I really loved standing up and making sure that they had their rights and kind of led me into law enforcement.
5:47
Speaker 2: It was something that you know is odd and you know I just love to serve people.
5:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, were you one of the ones that sends the letters to your grasses too high.
5:59
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, Rachel, we like.
6:01
Speaker 2: Now, I hate them.
6:02
Speaker 2: Trust me, I can see your garbage can from the road Now, whenever the HOA person calls the police and I'm like, oh God, no, this is ridiculous.
6:12
Speaker 1: Yes, so that's not something that's common is that people get into law enforcement later on.
6:17
Speaker 1: Usually you start off at the jail, then you start off in dispatch and you transition over to patrol.
6:22
Speaker 1: So that's cool, I mean, it just proves to me that you've always had a servant's heart.
6:25
Speaker 2: Yes, you know you have that.
6:26
Speaker 1: It's not something that you can teach people right, you're born with that, and so that just confirms that you're a public servant and you always have been, and it just took a little while to get there.
6:36
Speaker 2: Yes absolutely.
6:37
Speaker 3: From Karen to cop.
6:40
Speaker 2: To Karen to cop, you're in the cup.
6:41
Speaker 1: That's true, Erin Slater.
6:42
Speaker 1: That could be a t-shirt.
6:45
Speaker 1: I'll be on the front, that's awesome, so did Texas City immediately draw you?
6:51
Speaker 1: Is that the only agency you applied with, or was there other agencies that you worked with?
6:52
Speaker 2: No, actually I had applied.
6:54
Speaker 2: I originally was going to go for one of the bigger agencies in my area, it was League City.
6:59
Speaker 2: I tried a couple of times and didn't make it and I was, you know, so set on getting there.
7:06
Speaker 2: And I entered the academy thinking, oh well, I'll still get it.
7:09
Speaker 2: And you know, I end up getting rejected.
7:11
Speaker 2: And I was in academy and I was heartbroken, you know.
7:15
Speaker 2: But Texas City had sent somebody over to kind of recruit us and I kind of connected with him and they were automatically just jumped on.
7:24
Speaker 2: Hey, no, you know, we absolutely believe in you.
7:27
Speaker 2: And um, since then I love Texas city.
7:31
Speaker 2: Whenever I came in, I was so proud and it was so nice to kind of be given a voice.
7:36
Speaker 2: And you know, they pushed me on education and you know, I think I was able to accomplish quite a bit.
7:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean and we're going to talk about that here in a minute so you were hired on Texas city.
7:46
Speaker 1: Uh, obviously, put on the FTO program.
7:49
Speaker 1: It went through your training and then how long have you been at Texas city?
7:53
Speaker 2: Since I got hired on in 2018.
7:55
Speaker 2: Okay, and then um been there ever since.
7:59
Speaker 1: You've accomplished a lot in a small timeframe for your career.
8:10
Speaker 2: Talk about your patrol and then kind of you transition to a specialized unit and then that led into something else.
8:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I've always been on patrol, but I um, I was actually one of the first female officers that made the SWAT team.
8:16
Speaker 2: Just, I guess, a year into um being on patrol, I just tried out and I said, oh, I'll try it.
8:24
Speaker 2: You know.
8:24
Speaker 2: See, well, I could out shoot most of the guys, so that worked out.
8:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, cause my dad, so that was an awesome opportunity.
8:36
Speaker 2: I went to the conference, ttpoa was amazing to me and got some amazing training out of it.
8:38
Speaker 1: You know, what I've always found interesting is that I know training and the price of training is substantially more than just a regular training session.
8:47
Speaker 1: But when you're, you enter the tactical field, right, and you receive that additional training that tactical officers need to have, uh man, it makes you such a better patrol cop.
8:57
Speaker 1: And so my I've always said that like I wish every single patrol cop could at least go through basic SWAT, but then I think that should be a requirement.
9:08
Speaker 2: Getting out there and actually experiencing that stuff and being put in those environments too, forcing yourself to actually have to do some of the dirty work, and then it makes patrol so much easier.
9:20
Speaker 2: It gives you the confidence I would say.
9:22
Speaker 1: Well, I think any cop out there, or any police officer, active retired, the ones that listen to the show, that watch the show I know that we all do it is that when you're dispatched to a call whether it be a tactical situation, the patrol, whatever it is in your mind you're thinking okay, scenario A I'm doing this, yes.
9:42
Speaker 1: Scenario B I'm doing this, yes.
9:43
Speaker 1: Scenario b I'm doing that.
9:45
Speaker 1: And it and it adds so many more dimensions when you have the tactical experience, having the training and then exposing it like, well, no, you do have these options.
9:53
Speaker 1: And here's, here's, the reasons why yeah and then you're, you're processing those which you can relate, your supervisors and everything else.
9:59
Speaker 2: So it's just this makes you more dynamic oh, it does, and it also just gives you this the sense of brotherhood that you just you know and you trust these guys to have your back on anything.
10:09
Speaker 2: I still have those relationships but, man, it was a lot different.
10:14
Speaker 2: Whenever you know, we all were working together and on the team.
10:19
Speaker 1: Talk about, because it's important.
10:21
Speaker 1: Talk about the culture of Texas City when you began, Because it's important.
10:25
Speaker 1: Talk about the culture of Texas City when you began.
10:27
Speaker 1: Talk about the morale.
10:27
Speaker 1: Talk about how the department was ran and how the morale was there at the agency.
10:35
Speaker 2: So I came in right whenever I guess Joe Stanton had taken over.
10:37
Speaker 2: He always had his door open, ready to talk to us, ready, you know, open door policy all the way.
10:43
Speaker 2: Not going to say it was perfect.
10:45
Speaker 2: There were leadership.
10:46
Speaker 2: You know problems, which every department has them, and you know you bitch and complain about some of the things, but now we're just experiencing so much more.
10:56
Speaker 2: But then it was just very open to, I guess.
11:04
Speaker 1: Positive feedback or feedback.
11:05
Speaker 2: Yes, feedback, and positive feedback.
11:07
Speaker 2: I mean, even Joe Stanton and Landis Cravens were the ones that pushed me to go and get my master's and I hadn't even, you know, thought about going back to school.
11:16
Speaker 2: I mean, school is school, but um, they kind of pushed me into hey, no, we'd like you to really succeed here and um, with the open door policy.
11:25
Speaker 2: I would go in and say, hey, I applied here and here.
11:28
Speaker 2: And what do you think?
11:29
Speaker 1: And I think it's important to talk about also the open door policy.
11:32
Speaker 1: But there there's a huge difference in respecting an open door policy but having the understanding that there's also chain of command.
11:44
Speaker 1: You can respect one and respect the other at the same time to accomplish one goal.
11:49
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, and I think leadership right now at some departments across Texas, yours being one of them, doesn't understand, or at least have lost sight, because what you just said a while ago, chief Landis, who's now the current chief, the current chief.
12:01
Speaker 1: Yes, he obviously was open-minded enough to have that policy before.
12:06
Speaker 1: Something's happened since then and we probably will never know.
12:10
Speaker 1: We all have our suspicions based off a recent result of what we're going to talk about here in a minute.
12:15
Speaker 1: But to respect both, you can accomplish so much by having an open-door policy and also respect the chain of command, and some people just can, some people just can't.
12:24
Speaker 1: They can't figure that out.
12:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I absolutely agree.
12:27
Speaker 2: It was definitely not a situation that they would allow you to abuse it in any way.
12:33
Speaker 2: But if you saw them outside or you saw them, you know you felt welcomed and you felt like you could actually speak.
12:40
Speaker 1: What position was Landis there when he started?
12:42
Speaker 2: He was a patrol cap no a CID captain?
12:46
Speaker 2: Cid captain yes.
12:47
Speaker 1: Was he the leaders associationally?
12:49
Speaker 1: For those that don't know, chief Landis, the current police chief at Texas city, was also, which which I think the irony behind it's just amazing Uh, was also the POA president Used to be the POA president.
13:00
Speaker 3: That was back when they were aligned with Cleet, more so.
13:04
Speaker 3: But yeah, at one time he was the POA president.
13:07
Speaker 1: Okay, and then now, do you remember what year that he?
13:11
Speaker 2: I think it was 2015 was his last year.
13:14
Speaker 1: Okay.
13:15
Speaker 2: So it would have been a while before I went.
13:17
Speaker 1: So he was the patrol captain or, excuse me, CID captain in 2018.
13:21
Speaker 1: When did he become the chief of Texas City?
13:25
Speaker 2: I believe he became the assistant chief last June or July somewhere in there, and then he became the chief.
13:32
Speaker 2: He was named the chief in September.
13:36
Speaker 1: And at that point in time there was a mayor change, was there not?
13:39
Speaker 2: There was a mayor change.
13:41
Speaker 3: yes, Two years ago.
13:43
Speaker 1: Two years ago the mayor.
13:45
Speaker 1: Okay, and that ago the mayor Okay.
13:46
Speaker 1: And that's about the time that land has started and the uniqueness thing about for the listener or watcher out there that's a current cop or in association leadership the difficulties of having Texas City as a mayor-ran city yes, do you want to talk about that?
14:00
Speaker 1: About what the differences is versus a city manager-ran city?
14:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean there's a couple of cities that are like this, which is a mayor-strong type of government where you don't have a city manager per se, it's basically ran by the mayor.
14:23
Speaker 3: He calls the shots per se.
14:25
Speaker 3: It's basically ran by the mayor, he calls the shots.
14:28
Speaker 3: You do have a city commission, what they call it their city commission, which is a city council, which looks over budgets and stuff like that and helps out, but they don't have any power as far as getting rid of the mayor or anything like that, whereas most cities that we're accustomed to is a city manager strong, where he makes all the hiring and firing in the city and the decision-making, but yet he answers to city council In this case.
14:56
Speaker 3: That's not how it's set up their form of government.
15:01
Speaker 1: Which can make it difficult from our perspective, from our angle, on dealing with hot topics and difficult situations, because ultimately, what the mayor says goes to an extent, but it's just a different way of doing things.
15:16
Speaker 1: And so I say this for this reason is that all these things have to take into account when you have toxic leadership, and we at tmpa are trying to address these issues, trying to be open and have communication with the members and the local poa president and then doing it together.
15:32
Speaker 1: But it's difficult because it adds into our game plan of kind of how we approach the situation right, and we're going to get into that here in a minute.
15:41
Speaker 3: On a little bit about that, tyler, is, is like in Texas City's case, the mayor doesn't work full time for the city.
15:50
Speaker 3: It's not like Houston or something like that, where the mayor's there all the time.
15:54
Speaker 3: This guy actually has another job.
15:57
Speaker 3: He works at one of the local refineries, so he's not even around 100% of the time like you would if it was a city manager and that city manager was running the city.
16:05
Speaker 3: You would if it was a city manager and that city manager was running the city.
16:07
Speaker 1: And so the difficulty about that is is that you know how long is the city council meetings were held once a week or once every two weeks, once every two weeks, once every two weeks, right, and they're most likely two to three hours long.
16:18
Speaker 2: No, maybe not.
16:19
Speaker 2: They're not even an hour Okay.
16:26
Speaker 1: And so decisions are made in that one hour block every two weeks that ultimately are big decisions that make the city operate, meaning that the mayor, mayor makes a decision and there's nothing that can be done until the next council meeting, because that's just the rule of government, correct?
16:38
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, you know what I'm saying versus a city manager ran city.
16:41
Speaker 1: He's there every day, he works full-time, just like the people underneath him no-transcript.
16:50
Speaker 1: They understand the kind of difficulty of this situation and the magnitude of it.
16:54
Speaker 1: So, 2018, you were hired.
16:56
Speaker 1: Landis was CID captain.
16:57
Speaker 1: He's now he promoted to assistant chief and so mayor comes in a year later.
17:02
Speaker 1: Now he appoints Chief Landis.
17:04
Speaker 2: I didn't have much history with him.
17:05
Speaker 2: Like I said, he would kind of go in and close himself off in that office.
17:10
Speaker 2: That was kind of his MO was you know kind of to be back there and I guess he was doing school and leading the CID, but I had heard stories there were an entire detective unit that was one of the best ones in the state at the time.
17:28
Speaker 2: I think that was around the 2017 to you know, 2018.
17:32
Speaker 2: Highly respected?
17:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, highly respected, they were known.
17:34
Speaker 1: They Highly respected.
17:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, highly respected, they were known.
17:36
Speaker 2: They were very highly respected.
17:38
Speaker 2: And then I noticed that a few of them were like, okay, well, no, I'll go down to Galveston County or I'll go here and I'll go here, like they were all leaving.
17:48
Speaker 2: And so I kept hearing horror stories of, you know, they just didn't care for Landis and how it was being ran, and so we lost a lot of those guys.
17:57
Speaker 2: At that point, I think, only one kind of ended up staying into the CID unit, and he's still there.
18:02
Speaker 2: But that was my first experience with him.
18:06
Speaker 2: And then it wasn't until I didn't understand.
18:10
Speaker 2: Everybody kind of kept saying, oh, this is going to be, you know, a crazy show whenever he takes over, and I was just like, oh, you know, I've always kind of kept saying, oh, this is going to be, you know, a crazy show whenever he takes over, and I was just like, oh, you know, I've always kind of Not that you're naive, but you were naive in this situation.
18:21
Speaker 1: What could be so bad?
18:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
18:23
Speaker 1: In-house.
18:23
Speaker 1: It's a good pick.
18:24
Speaker 1: Former POA president.
18:26
Speaker 1: What's?
18:26
Speaker 2: not to love about this guy.
18:28
Speaker 3: And right now, today, Texas City Police Department is a young police department.
18:32
Speaker 3: Which is what you want, right, that's a great.
18:42
Speaker 3: I mean right now probably the average, probably only like five years, five years or less.
18:44
Speaker 1: Wow, for the majority very young.
18:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, of the of the department.
18:45
Speaker 1: To give another perspective what is the uh slotted sworn number for texas city, for the adc?
18:49
Speaker 2: so we we're slotted for 101 right now.
18:53
Speaker 2: Okay, I believe we're down to 83.
18:56
Speaker 2: Okay, and then we're possibly going to hit under 80, probably within the next month or so.
19:03
Speaker 1: So we're down 20%.
19:04
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely.
19:06
Speaker 1: And my understanding is that that loss, that 20% was lost.
19:10
Speaker 1: A higher percentage was from the time he was appointed.
19:14
Speaker 2: Yes, a higher percentage was from the time he was appointed.
19:16
Speaker 2: Yes, a higher percentage I'm not going to say the whole 20% because we had just in 2020, we had approved a grant, a COPS grant, and that was to get our numbers from the 85 to 101, I believe.
19:28
Speaker 1: I think it was for 11 positions.
19:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, 11 positions.
19:33
Speaker 1: I believe You're on top of your shit today.
19:40
Speaker 3: That's an A-plus on Michael L Clinton.
19:41
Speaker 1: I've dealt with texas city so much I could probably be the mayor right now.
19:42
Speaker 1: He probably could.
19:43
Speaker 1: Sorry, squirrel, squirrel moment.
19:45
Speaker 2: We talked earlier um, so we actually added quite a few positions during that grant and we actually received.
19:53
Speaker 2: In 2022, we received even another grant from the cops and that's for even I believe I think the first one was six and then the second one is 11, so we're technically, by next year, we're supposed to be up to 107, 107 somewhere in there, but right now we're just so low that we're still we're struggling to keep that 80.
20:19
Speaker 1: So I have have, in passing, seen dealt with Texas city just in my, you know, working for TNPA for six years, going on seven now, just as a part-time field rep.
20:29
Speaker 1: But you and I and Layton recently last four months, five months, there's been some.
20:36
Speaker 1: Some last four months, five months, there's been some major issues.
20:39
Speaker 1: When were you appointed to the POA board or were you elected?
20:42
Speaker 2: So I was, I was appointed, I was trying to kind of keep low, in a sense.
20:47
Speaker 1: You saw the storm brewing.
20:48
Speaker 2: I did.
20:48
Speaker 2: I saw the storm brewing and I was dealing with a lot of, I guess, internal problems through the SWAT team, and so I was kind of dealing with a lot of kind of grief on that.
21:02
Speaker 1: Let's talk about it.
21:03
Speaker 1: You were on the SWAT team from 2019 to 2023.
21:07
Speaker 1: So, we're talking about four years.
21:09
Speaker 3: And that kind of kicked off.
21:10
Speaker 3: Really that was the domino.
21:12
Speaker 3: The deal with the SWAT team is kind of what jump started where we're at today.
21:18
Speaker 1: So for those that don't know and I'm sure all of y'all listening watching do uh, for SWAT teams, texas City's obviously not gonna be a full-time SWAT team, so they're not.
21:26
Speaker 1: You know, listen, I love our SWAT guys, uh, but you know, you got to have, as Clint would say, you got to have good hair gel, uh, and a lot of Planet Fitness time to fulfill that spot.
21:37
Speaker 1: You're either SWAT or you're not.
21:38
Speaker 1: You're either SWAT or you're not.
21:39
Speaker 1: So Texas City is not a full-time team, so they're a part-time team.
21:43
Speaker 1: And y'all were a regional team, which is awesome because you're utilizing so many resources and budget.
21:49
Speaker 1: For a lot of reasons, regional teams are the way to go.
21:52
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
21:52
Speaker 1: Reasons.
21:53
Speaker 1: The regional teams are the way to go.
21:53
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
21:54
Speaker 1: Problems it?
21:54
Speaker 1: The problem with regional teams is that, for whatever reason, in our profession, egos uh seem to get a little bit, a little bit too big, and so the our regional team.
22:03
Speaker 1: With what departments?
22:05
Speaker 2: uh, we had lamarck dickinson, santa fe, and we're trying to grow it.
22:09
Speaker 1: We had hitchcock kind of on standby, you know they were starting to train with us and so for the people that are are not accustomed to a part-time team, that's awesome for two reasons.
22:20
Speaker 1: One, Texas City, a significantly larger department than the rest of them.
22:27
Speaker 1: Yes, which means that they really relied on y'all to come.
22:30
Speaker 1: Y'all most likely had the Bearcats.
22:32
Speaker 1: Y'all most likely had the armored vehicles.
22:34
Speaker 2: We had the armored vehicles.
22:35
Speaker 2: We had the armored vehicles, we had the range, we had all the training facilities that we could offer.
22:40
Speaker 2: I mean sometimes we would go out and train in like abandoned buildings in the other departments, yeah departments or cities, I should say but then we were definitely kind of the front line on that.
22:50
Speaker 3: But what helped them was that SWAT team had the MOU with these other cities Santa Fe, dickinson.
23:01
Speaker 2: Well, our MOU was through Lamarck, so we had I believe the last mayor had signed an MOU with Lamarck, and then the other ones were just starting to train with us within that probably two-year time frame.
23:14
Speaker 1: So everything is going great.
23:15
Speaker 2: Yes.
23:16
Speaker 1: Swap team is rocking and rolling.
23:17
Speaker 1: You guys are kicking doors working out part-time team.
23:20
Speaker 1: I mean hair gel it.
23:21
Speaker 1: I mean you're not hair gelling it, but I mean you're all rocking it right.
23:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, we were doing pretty well.
23:27
Speaker 1: And then Landis gets in.
23:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, landis got in.
23:30
Speaker 2: It was still going quite well.
23:32
Speaker 2: We had a commander that was a captain and he still is a captain, but he had been on the team for like 20-plus years and he was talk about open-door policy.
23:44
Speaker 2: You could just go in and hey, there's this training here.
23:47
Speaker 2: I think it would really benefit.
23:49
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, just write something up and send it over to me.
23:51
Speaker 2: I'm going to make sure you get a spot there.
23:53
Speaker 2: He would push so much positivity into the team.
23:57
Speaker 2: Same with any type of equipment that we thought we needed.
24:01
Speaker 2: We would go to these conferences and you see all the bells and whistles there, oh yeah big time, and he would also work on grants and everything as well.
24:10
Speaker 2: And I guess what happened.
24:12
Speaker 2: It ended up being Manuel Johnson that came in, so this is the assistant chief now.
24:17
Speaker 2: He was a captain at the time.
24:19
Speaker 1: He was an internal candidate, right or no?
24:21
Speaker 1: Yes, he was an internal candidate, okay.
24:25
Speaker 2: So he was the captain and him and Landis for some reason, decided to I don't know form this bonding friendship of you know, they just seem to work, I guess, over everybody else in the department.
24:39
Speaker 2: So since he was captain and Landis was the chief, he kind of stepped into that assistant chief role almost automatically, even though he wasn't technically the assistant chief, and I guess he was called out because our commander was on vacation.
24:59
Speaker 2: So this was back in November, November of 2023.
25:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, so our commander was out on vacation and couldn't come to a call out and another captain, which would be manual, ended up answering that call out and we were helping a neighboring well, we were helping Lamarck, which was about 100 feet from our district, so we have a shared road, and then we were helping them on a barricaded subject that had taken a probably an ar and shot into an apartment complex.
25:37
Speaker 2: But he showed up.
25:40
Speaker 2: We had already had our plans to go in there and and evacuate the complex, and so we had our armored vehicle which is common sense yes, yeah absolutely hello
25:52
Speaker 3: so especially with those rounds going through a wall.
25:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, but definitely tactically sound, where we split our teams up and one goes one way, one goes the other and we're trying to figure out the best plans and our team leaders had taken over at that point.
26:08
Speaker 2: And then he shows up and he puts everything at a halt and by this time we have DPS, we have Dickinson, we have Santa Fe, we have Lamarck Everybody's on scene at this point, you know these giant scenes that everybody's helping everybody.
26:26
Speaker 2: Well, we're taking the lead on it and he comes and puts everything at a halt and says I need to call the DAs on this.
26:33
Speaker 2: So that was fine.
26:36
Speaker 2: We understand that, you know, but we have an MOU with them.
26:39
Speaker 2: We have to help them, no matter what.
26:43
Speaker 2: So it paused everything and then it was kind of known to all the like.
26:47
Speaker 2: Everybody else started asking questions like hey, why aren't we pushing forward or why aren't we helping these people?
26:52
Speaker 2: And then it ended up working out pretty well because I think we he got off the phone with the DA and they were like of course you can, you can help.
27:03
Speaker 2: So we started to go evacuate with the armored vehicle I was actually front on this one and we went to go evacuate the neighboring apartment and then automatically the guy just comes out and surrenders, gets on the ground.
27:20
Speaker 2: So it all worked out, um, but the next day, I guess, he went to the chief and went to a supervisor meeting and just stated that the SWAT team was out there and they had no idea what they were doing and that he was having to hold us back from going and entering that room and, you know, taking the gunmen down, and we're like no, like we never had any.
27:45
Speaker 1: You know, so he was the captain at that time.
27:47
Speaker 2: Yes.
27:49
Speaker 1: And your commander of the SWAT team is what rank.
27:53
Speaker 2: He was captain as well.
27:54
Speaker 2: Ah okay, team is what rank?
27:59
Speaker 2: He was a captain as well, ah, okay, um, so he kind of put the other captain on on in the spotlight and was like hey, he's not doing a good job, and he ended up actually taking his position away landis ended up taking it, I'm assuming um, but their decision to take that position away from that captain and the original captain, yeah, and gave it to a sergeant that he had been on the team for a few years but he had quit three times.
28:25
Speaker 2: He was always known for kind of coming in late and never having good attitude.
28:30
Speaker 2: No dedication, no dedication at all.
28:32
Speaker 3: No hair gel either.
28:33
Speaker 3: You got to have that.
28:35
Speaker 2: You got to have that, you've got to have that he wears plenty of hair gel.
28:39
Speaker 3: No.
28:39
Speaker 3: Oakley glasses no no.
28:43
Speaker 2: But he would come in you know bad attitude every time and he would make us kind of feel you know not great.
28:49
Speaker 2: So that's kind of how the team knew him Like okay, well, every time things would would get tough.
28:55
Speaker 2: You just quit, you know, and blame it on somebody else.
28:58
Speaker 1: Not a good quality of leadership.
28:59
Speaker 2: No.
29:00
Speaker 2: So we we tried to reach out and say no, we don't want that person taking over the team.
29:04
Speaker 2: You know that's not.
29:13
Speaker 2: We have, you know, eight officers with 90 years of experience that are sitting here telling you know this is not a good idea and just completely went over us and made him the commander and eight of us eight out of I believe it was about a 14-person team at that time ended up resigning.
29:27
Speaker 1: From the team.
29:28
Speaker 2: Yes.
29:29
Speaker 1: As you should?
29:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I guess this is what ended up leading to all of this mess, because they started retaliating against us.
29:40
Speaker 1: Well, it's a very good trade of land.
29:42
Speaker 1: It's a recently is.
29:43
Speaker 1: It's not not really been known of him until until recently.
29:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was just constant, to where you never got to go to trainings like any type of training that you would put in that he would keep using the word oh well, you need to fix your reciprocal relationship with Texas City and we're like, okay, well, there was nothing in policy that stated how long you needed to stay on the team.
30:05
Speaker 2: So we have officers that had been on the team for like 15, 16 years that quit, and yet they were still.
30:13
Speaker 1: Well, let's go back to what you just said Landis was upset that all of y'all quit right.
30:19
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
30:20
Speaker 1: But the commander that he put in charge of the team was the same guy that quit three times.
30:24
Speaker 2: Three times yes.
30:25
Speaker 1: So we're upset because y'all quit once and we're going to promote and hand over this highly trained, you know sound-tight team to an individual that's quit three times before that?
30:38
Speaker 1: Is that my understanding?
30:39
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
30:40
Speaker 2: And even on our evaluations, I've never had a bad evaluation and neither had most of the people that were on the team at that point that had quit and Manuel went in and changed all of our evaluations that our immediate supervisors had filled out and he ended up going back in there and just putting well, since you quit the team, you don't meet expectations for pretty much all of your evaluation, like you would just put odd things that were in there that kind of judged us.
31:19
Speaker 1: So that probably created a little hesitation.
31:22
Speaker 1: On the captain's spot, manuel Johnson yes, so at some point during all this me and him were talking about there might be a flare-up.
31:34
Speaker 1: At Texas City and in our profession, in TMPA, we kind of see that members we always say this a lot.
31:41
Speaker 1: This isn't just an association, we're a family right, and so sometimes members will just reach out that may not be POA leadership or might be the POA leadership and say, hey, I just wanted to be aware, this is what's going on in the department.
31:52
Speaker 1: There's some rumblings.
31:53
Speaker 1: And then they made his call for advice, which is very much what happened at Texas City.
31:58
Speaker 1: So me and Leighton were at an event talking about this and he said it.
32:01
Speaker 1: Then he said I got a feeling this is probably going to lead to much, much worse, with the administration being retaliatory During that time, the exodus of a lot of people and the retaliation trait that the leadership began to have.
32:17
Speaker 1: You get appointed to the POA leadership or the POA board, and what you meant earlier by you saying you're just trying to stay low is because there was the retaliatory stuff that they were doing against these eight SWAT members and so you get appointed to the board.
32:30
Speaker 1: What month was that?
32:31
Speaker 2: So I had gotten appointed back in January.
32:35
Speaker 3: She was already on the board, she just wasn't the president.
32:37
Speaker 2: I wasn't the president yes, so I actually didn't even run to be on the board that year.
32:43
Speaker 2: Well, I ran, I believe, just to be on the actual like the board or the committee, like the board committee.
32:51
Speaker 3: Like the advisors.
32:52
Speaker 2: Yes, but I kept my name off the main committee advisors, yeah, yes, and then um, but I kept my name off the the main executive sheet and then um, but the president that was put in in January, he automatically came to me.
33:04
Speaker 2: He's like no, I cause our, our association, was honestly just kind of dying at some point.
33:09
Speaker 2: I mean, we had maybe four people that actually ran for the association and, you know, put their names on the ballot to be out there, because at that point everybody knew that you were going to be retaliated against if you got on that board.
33:22
Speaker 2: And so he approached me and he's like I really think you would probably be the best person for this job.
33:29
Speaker 2: I would really, you know, appreciate it.
33:32
Speaker 1: He didn't know.
33:33
Speaker 1: You had a carrying experience Exactly.
33:35
Speaker 2: He probably did.
33:36
Speaker 2: It's a well-known fact, yeah caring the cop baby and um.
33:41
Speaker 2: So he approached me.
33:44
Speaker 2: I ended up taking it and of course I would go to everything.
33:48
Speaker 2: I remember some of our first meetings that we were together and we were just talking about the survey and everything and how we can kind of make things better and um but yeah, cause we went through three presidents.
34:00
Speaker 2: I'm the third.
34:01
Speaker 3: yes, Third since May, but this past May.
34:06
Speaker 2: So the person that actually ran, he um, he had had a clean record, never in trouble, you know, great cop.
34:14
Speaker 2: He ended up getting retaliated against almost automatically.
34:19
Speaker 2: He went in there and I believe he got taken out of his traffic unit and so he was kind of bitter.
34:27
Speaker 2: He was, you know, they did this to me, you know kind of something that he liked and appreciated.
34:35
Speaker 2: Well, I think he ended up, you know, being bitter and didn't take a report one day on something he should have.
34:42
Speaker 2: They automatically threw him.
34:44
Speaker 2: So what they did in a retaliatory manner was anytime you get an IA and you weren't kind of one of their little cliques, then they reassign you to the jail.
34:55
Speaker 2: And it was working odd hours.
34:59
Speaker 2: It was completely off your shift, usually night shift and you would go in there and you'd have to spend months in the jail while your IA was being investigated.
35:09
Speaker 3: And for people out there that doesn't understand in the Houston area, if you're going to be a member of SETC if I remember right, setc, which is city warrants, right, so all the Houston metropolitan area departments around Houston if you're going to be a member of SETC, you've got to have a city jail, some type of city jail, meaning that if somebody comes back with a warrant, let's say out of Sugar Land, then Sugar Land is going to come get that person and bring them back to their city jail.
35:40
Speaker 1: So SETC is essentially an MOU within all these departments, saying, hey, we're going to, we'll take your warrants and arrest them if you take ours.
35:48
Speaker 3: Right, and then you have to go get them and bring them back to your agency whoever they're being arrested for.
35:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is just more of a holding facility than an actual jail.
35:57
Speaker 3: They call it a jail, because class Cs can stay there.
36:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not a county jail or anything.
36:04
Speaker 2: So we were experiencing all these reassignments.
36:08
Speaker 2: Well, they reassigned that current president, and he was back there for a couple of months before he just kind of went to them and said hey, unfortunately he has a child that has a medical condition that they don't pay I guess our insurance doesn't pay completely for the medication that they need and so he's there all the time working his rear off.
36:32
Speaker 2: He's just constantly working, and so he wasn't allowed to work extra jobs during that time too.
36:40
Speaker 2: So he actually went to the chief and said hey, I have to work these extra jobs, what can I do?
36:45
Speaker 2: And the chief just told him oh, if you don't want to admit to all this, then you know, show back up in three weeks.
36:51
Speaker 2: And he's like I can't, I've got to just sign it and go.
36:54
Speaker 2: And he actually, so he left the presidency because he's like I can't, I can't do this for my kid.
37:01
Speaker 1: And then how soon after was immediately taken out of the transition.
37:05
Speaker 2: He resigned.
37:11
Speaker 1: He took a day off.
37:12
Speaker 2: He took a for his IA that he was under.
37:15
Speaker 2: I think he took a day off for that.
37:17
Speaker 3: Wow, and just so everybody understands a lot of the stuff that the chief and the administration is doing.
37:24
Speaker 3: They're allowed to do right.
37:25
Speaker 3: Yes, they are is doing.
37:25
Speaker 3: They're allowed to do right, yes, they are.
37:27
Speaker 3: But everybody knows that it's to jack with somebody that is rising up and questioning some of the things that are going on around the department.
37:38
Speaker 3: They're sending the message.
37:39
Speaker 1: They're sending the message and they're playing the game, but they're flirting with the very definition of union, busting For sure For sure.
37:48
Speaker 3: I mean I've been tmpa almost 15 years.
37:51
Speaker 3: This is the worst situation I've ever had yeah, yeah.
37:56
Speaker 1: Well, so fast forward a little bit.
37:59
Speaker 1: We go through a period where you're like you get appointed, the current president leaves, goes to another agency who's doing quite well.
38:06
Speaker 1: A management management survey, from our perspective, in a TNPA lens, is like the last resort.
38:14
Speaker 1: It's not something we typically do just out of the gate.
38:16
Speaker 1: We're not going to get a call from one member and say, hey, my chief's being mad or being mean because he told me to.
38:24
Speaker 1: I can't have my tattoos uncovered.
38:26
Speaker 1: We're not going to do a management survey.
38:27
Speaker 1: It's just not professional.
38:28
Speaker 1: It's just not how we.
38:28
Speaker 1: We're not going to do a management survey.
38:29
Speaker 1: It's just not professional.
38:29
Speaker 1: It's just not how we conduct business.
38:31
Speaker 1: For us to do a management survey there's significant problems and so it led up to that, with Leighton having a relationship with the two past presidents, now you.
38:38
Speaker 1: So a management survey was talked about and it was executed.
38:43
Speaker 1: It was done.
38:43
Speaker 1: Leighton, talk about the percentages of who participated in that management survey and then talk about the.
38:50
Speaker 1: Leighton.
38:50
Speaker 1: Talk about the percentages of who participated in that management survey and then talk about what the management survey showed.
38:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, so with the management survey we always want to do it with the officers' personal emails.
39:00
Speaker 3: You know, nothing's being done on duty, anything like that, anything to do with your you know city's email or anything like that we ended up sending out to.
39:11
Speaker 3: I want to say it was 87.
39:13
Speaker 3: At the time y'all had 91, I think total that's from the chief on down.
39:18
Speaker 3: When we send the management survey out, we send it to the chief, also from the chief all the way down.
39:23
Speaker 1: It consists of about 60 questions on the survey and those questions look like something like let's say that I was a patrol sergeant and let's say that maybe even I was the target of a management survey.
39:35
Speaker 1: Layton would be a quote-unquote line-level patrol officer and the surveys are questioned in a manner of like would you agree that Sergeant Owen is a good leader?
39:47
Speaker 1: And it's typically ranked from one to five.
39:50
Speaker 1: That would be a very common question that we would have on there.
39:53
Speaker 1: Or do you believe that the morale at this department is good or bad, yes or no?
40:00
Speaker 1: And so it's phrased in a way by the end of it, when anybody looks at it, that's got common sense.
40:06
Speaker 1: You look at it like man.
40:08
Speaker 1: There's some significant problems with this sergeant, there's significant problems with this captain, so it's not left you to question what's going on.
40:17
Speaker 1: It's obvious what the issues are.
40:20
Speaker 3: So out of the 91, there was four emails that we couldn't get at all because of Rachel had asked for an email.
40:33
Speaker 3: Just somebody's personal email didn't say what it was for and they started an IA on her, so we cut that out.
40:40
Speaker 3: So there was four that we couldn't get Time out just for a second.
40:44
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Is that this is off camera?
40:47
Speaker 3: I mean Shelly don't stop it, but is that?
40:49
Speaker 2: IA concluded.
40:50
Speaker 2: Yes, it is, it's concluded.
40:52
Speaker 2: It was found exonerated, okay that's fine.
40:54
Speaker 1: So just say we're going to pick back up.
40:56
Speaker 1: Just say Rachel asked for her personal email or some personal emails, and start with that.
41:03
Speaker 3: Welcome.
41:03
Speaker 3: Rachel asked for a personal email from a coworker, which people do all the time, and they started up an IA on her.
41:13
Speaker 3: So I didn't want anybody out there putting their job online over a personal email.
41:22
Speaker 3: So there was four that we couldn't get a hold of, and what was going?
41:26
Speaker 1: on.
41:26
Speaker 1: She was doing it under not your direction, but essentially you were compiling a list of the emails, correct, yes, off the clock.
41:32
Speaker 1: 14 PA.
41:34
Speaker 2: Well, no, that one was because we had been told I guess all the years past you could work in the association business during on the clock.
41:43
Speaker 1: Right.
41:44
Speaker 2: If you needed to make phone calls or have a meeting.
41:46
Speaker 1: But the conversation you had essentially was like hey, well, you should be a text later on of your personal email Personal email.
41:50
Speaker 1: Anticipating it after you get off the clock and something got back to the chief or the administration.
41:56
Speaker 3: Well, now, going back to that, you know the chief and the administration after all these years, I mean, texas City has had a POA forever.
42:07
Speaker 3: You know, I mean.
42:09
Speaker 2: Since the 60s?
42:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean since, like the 60s and this is the first time they put something out and said there will be no association business conducted while on duty, that's why they started the IA on it.
42:24
Speaker 3: They put a memo out on it whenever they knew that this was starting to come.
42:28
Speaker 3: They knew that a management survey was about to start.
42:31
Speaker 3: So, anyways, out of the 91, I think, we sent to 87.
42:36
Speaker 3: Out of the 87, 67 of the 87 took the management survey, Gotcha and so the results and get through it.
42:45
Speaker 3: The results were pretty astounding Because in there it's basically very satisfied, satisfied, no comment.
42:58
Speaker 3: Then disagree, strongly disagree, and you could see where the problems were within the agency through that.
43:08
Speaker 1: And one of those problems was Landis had some leadership issues.
43:13
Speaker 1: Not shying away from that, but the main problem that I saw when I saw the email was Johnson.
43:20
Speaker 3: Yes, Johnson is the one that I was like oh my God, yeah, manuel Johnson, and you know you talk to people and I do my homework on people, you know backgrounds on basically who we're dealing with and a lot of the area people that I talk to said they were super surprised about Landis Cravens.
43:36
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, but nobody was surprised by Emanuel Johnson like people at other agencies.
43:43
Speaker 3: See what I'm saying.
43:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and these are high brass people at other agencies.
43:46
Speaker 1: Correct, yeah, guys that probably go to the same chiefs conferences correct, yeah, correct just throwing that out there.
43:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the survey comes in and then it's it's obviously he's upset, not, he's kind of doing the cold shoulder thing to everybody, uh, but it's not being addressed by at the city level.
44:02
Speaker 1: I mean, how those steps go is that we typically get the results back, we attempt to have a contact with the chief.
44:08
Speaker 1: That was that was refused.
44:11
Speaker 1: Then we go to the next step and try to at least present to a city manager this is a mayor, strong city.
44:17
Speaker 3: That happened I, yeah, I, I have to say this because this is, this is pretty wild.
44:22
Speaker 3: Uh.
44:23
Speaker 3: So, like you said, usually when we get the results back, we go and meet with the chief, sit down and say, hey, here's the results, let's talk about it, see if we can work together the officers and the chief to try to fix some of this and go on down the road.
44:45
Speaker 3: Sometimes that doesn't work, you know, and going down the road, sometimes that doesn't work.
44:48
Speaker 3: And in this occasion I sent an email and the chief sent back like within a day, I think Absolutely.
44:57
Speaker 3: I said, okay, well, give me a date and time and location, and you know I'm going to bring it to you.
45:03
Speaker 3: So he sets up the date.
45:07
Speaker 3: The first date was when Beryl hit, so we couldn't meet that day.
45:13
Speaker 3: So I said, give me another day.
45:14
Speaker 3: So the day of the meeting it was like 9 o'clock in the morning, I believe.
45:21
Speaker 3: And so I get to Texas City Police Department from Chambers County and sitting in the parking lot and waiting, you know, to go in and speak with them and all of a sudden I get an email from Emanuel Johnson that says the chief no longer wants to meet.
45:43
Speaker 3: Basically, I'm paraphrasing it but the chief no longer wants to meet.
45:47
Speaker 3: So I'm sitting there scratching my head like what in the world.
45:50
Speaker 3: So I leave from there and I drive to City Hall to go talk to the mayor, because I'm like we're trying to get this out to y'all and the mayor's not in the office.
46:01
Speaker 3: I leave my card and then turn around and I send him an email while I'm sitting in the parking lot of City Hall explaining this situation and he never responds.
46:14
Speaker 3: Like to this day he still hasn't responded.
46:15
Speaker 3: I sent an email back to Manuel Johnson and said well, do y'all plan on rescheduling?
46:23
Speaker 3: And it was sent to the chief, not to Manuel Johnson, because I'm wanting to deal with the chief, and he says no, sir, we will not.
46:32
Speaker 3: And so I sent a reply back and said this email is intended for the chief, not the captain, because he was captain at the time.
46:40
Speaker 3: And then no response after that.
46:42
Speaker 3: Wow.
46:44
Speaker 1: Which led into you guys addressing, having addressed the city council Correct, and then it became this big public deb uh, and that we're still fighting through right now and they still refuse to accept um the the management survey, which I thought was fascinating.
47:03
Speaker 1: I was, I was at the house every day and I was talking to my wife, jan Janet, and, uh, the mayor got on social media and had this video, this big production video.
47:11
Speaker 1: Right that he wanted to address the citizens of Texas City, of saying something along the lines of I wanted to get on the social media and talk about these outlandish lies being spread and and blah, blah, blah.
47:25
Speaker 1: But it is.
47:25
Speaker 1: It was a front, it was a smoke and mirror show, but what he was doing was the same thing as what he was telling everybody else not to do not addressing the problem.
47:32
Speaker 1: To this date, he's not done anything to address or try to attempt to meet with anybody regarding this.
47:39
Speaker 3: The insane part of it is everything that they're saying that we're not telling the truth on.
47:44
Speaker 3: We've shown.
47:44
Speaker 3: I showed the emails to the media because the media was asking us.
47:50
Speaker 3: I showed the emails, all of our correspondents.
47:53
Speaker 3: We have no reason to lie, no.
47:56
Speaker 1: All we're going to do is show facts, and what's sad about that situation is that the longer this continues and the more days and hours and minutes that go by that this is not addressed.
48:07
Speaker 1: I'll tell you who it affects.
48:09
Speaker 1: It affects you, it does, it affects the people that you serve under the association.
48:13
Speaker 1: It affects the community, the citizens, the safety of Texas City, Because if we're not going to address it, then people are still going to continue to leave and that's not good for the department.
48:23
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
48:23
Speaker 2: I kind of find it ironic that actually the mayor, he put out a survey whenever he took the office it's a Community Matters 2030, I believe and he interviewed and gave out a survey to, I believe, almost 300 residents and they stated that public safety was their number one concern with Texas City.
48:49
Speaker 3: And yet he has shown no interest.
48:52
Speaker 3: This is crazy.
48:53
Speaker 3: I didn't know this until recently.
48:55
Speaker 3: The mayor of Texas City.
48:56
Speaker 3: You're talking about a city of about 40,000, 45,000?
48:59
Speaker 3: .
49:00
Speaker 2: I think we're up to 65,000.
49:01
Speaker 3: Oh, 65,000.
49:02
Speaker 3: Okay, 65,000.
49:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, this guy has an eight-man team that protects him.
49:06
Speaker 3: Protection detail.
49:08
Speaker 2: Dignitary protection protection are you serious?
49:10
Speaker 1: I swear.
49:11
Speaker 1: What department covers that?
49:14
Speaker 2: uh, well, we do, but then I don't know where that money comes from texas city pd yes not 24 7 not 24 7, but at every city council meeting.
49:24
Speaker 2: At this last city council meeting he had five, I believe that were four of them were getting paid overtime and on the streets of Texas city there were seven officers seven officers on the streets of a town of 65,004 protecting the mayor yes, that makes sense.
49:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, for that kind of mindset Well, yeah, so the results are out there.
49:47
Speaker 1: They're published online.
49:47
Speaker 1: Mindset Well, yeah, so the results are out there.
49:49
Speaker 1: They're published online.
49:51
Speaker 1: Tmpa pushed those out with assisting Texas City POA Rachel.
49:56
Speaker 1: Where do we go from here?
50:03
Speaker 3: What's the next step and what do you say as the POA leadership and president to the people that you serve?
50:07
Speaker 3: Before she answers it, there's a deeper problem there as well.
50:09
Speaker 3: That was brought up during a recent news interview as well as city council meeting and it had to do with Manuel Johnson and there's an issue there with this guy and I brought it up in city council and the Galston Daily News also ran an article on it and got a hold of the guy and that was some people could look at it as racial undertones with Manuel Johnson.
50:40
Speaker 1: Well, talk about what happened.
50:41
Speaker 1: Talk about what happened.
50:43
Speaker 3: So during all this stuff that was going on, I was told and given a letter by the African-American Police Association that is at Texas City Police Department, and in this letter it talked about Manuel Johnson, which is who now is the assistant chief, and they were discussing some issues within the department at the time, during, I think, under Stanton, when Stanton was the chief there were some issues going on with some of the African-American officers within the department, but they talked about Manuel Johnson and Manuel Johnson having a huge Confederate flag tattoo on his chest and they made him cover it up.
51:30
Speaker 3: But then they so I'm assuming that he had to, like get inked up over it, uh, or get it removed, uh, but they, they cited a situation that happened where, uh, you know, just like now they're going through hiring people and stuff like that this young black male shows up and during the interview portion of the hiring process, manuel Johnson, along with a couple other people in the room, walk up to him and tell him to take his shirt off because I guess he had put down that he had some tattoos on his body.
52:06
Speaker 2: It was during the oral board.
52:07
Speaker 3: It was only Manuel Johnson that made him take his clothes off.
52:10
Speaker 3: It was during the oral board my understanding Right.
52:12
Speaker 2: It was not the oral board.
52:13
Speaker 2: He was turning in his personal history packet, and whenever you turn your personal history packet in, they usually have a couple of maybe sergeants or somebody that's on shift along with.
52:23
Speaker 1: Complete like a question panel question.
52:25
Speaker 2: Yes, just kind of make sure to go through your personal history and just make sure that you filled everything out correctly and just kind of give you a short little oral board, almost just the beginning.
52:35
Speaker 2: And so he had actually walked into the room, was kind of interviewing.
52:39
Speaker 2: You said it's still a formal style and he wore a suit, I believe, and this was actually right at the time that I had gotten hired as well, and this was actually right at the time that I had gotten hired as well.
52:49
Speaker 2: And I believe he made him unbutton his shirt and take his shirt off to where he could see his tattoos and it was a pretty big deal when it happened, but I don't think there was ever an IA opened on it or anything.
53:01
Speaker 3: And we have yet to talk to anybody else that had to do that.
53:05
Speaker 1: Which is going to happen, though I'm sure if it happened to one, it happened to 20.
53:11
Speaker 2: Well, so the reporter had stated that because he got all of his information from I don't know if he ever contacted you, I think he did, but he had gotten the entire story from everybody.
53:20
Speaker 2: And then he gave Manuel a chance to respond and Manuel's exact response was well, we do that to every single applicant.
53:31
Speaker 2: That applies here, and white, black, hispanic, male or female, we strip search everybody.
53:38
Speaker 2: And that is not a true statement 100%.
53:41
Speaker 2: And the guy lies.
53:43
Speaker 3: I mean Manuel Johnson lies period.
53:46
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think you weren't strip searched when you were applying in the application process.
53:51
Speaker 1: I've never been strip searched.
53:54
Speaker 1: Layton, I don't want to answer that, because it may be he may enjoy it a little too much if he was a strip, yeah, but what an asinine statement to make, what an asinine situation to put an applicant through that, to make him remove his shirt and not even be an employee at that time, and then for the hypocrisy of he himself having what could be perceived as a racial, symbolic-type tattoo on your chest and then make that judgment call based off tattoos, right?
54:24
Speaker 3: That's the irony.
54:25
Speaker 3: It's like the old Arsenio Hall makes you want to go.
54:27
Speaker 3: Hmm, yeah, exactly.
54:31
Speaker 1: Yeah.
54:31
Speaker 1: So where do we go from here?
54:32
Speaker 1: What do you have to tell your people?
54:34
Speaker 1: Texas City Association members Keep your head up, keep pushing through.
54:39
Speaker 1: I mean, there's going to be there's a storm kind of that's hovering above you guys, and one day there's going to be sunshine and rainbows, I guess.
54:46
Speaker 2: I try to keep the positivity up.
54:48
Speaker 2: Like I said, whenever I got in here, the association was dying.
54:53
Speaker 2: Now I have officers that are like oh my God, how do I apply to be on here?
54:59
Speaker 2: And how do I start participating?
55:03
Speaker 3: It's getting stronger.
55:04
Speaker 3: The POA is getting stronger.
55:06
Speaker 3: They think that it's only a couple of malcontents.
55:07
Speaker 3: That's what they've always said, and that's getting stronger.
55:08
Speaker 3: The POA is getting stronger.
55:08
Speaker 3: They think that it's only a couple of malcontents.
55:09
Speaker 3: That's what they've always said and that's not true.
55:12
Speaker 1: It's not true.
55:12
Speaker 1: I think, something else that we learned.
55:14
Speaker 1: For those that don't know and those who are listening that are Texas City POA members, I do want to say this about Rachel.
55:22
Speaker 1: There were plenty of times that she and I were on the phone together, and Layton at 4.30 in the morning, you know, 5 o'clock in the morning, all the way to late at night, when she'd get off shift to 10 o'clock at night, working through and just us being a resource.
55:40
Speaker 1: There wasn't a day.
55:41
Speaker 1: I mean, it was still to this day.
55:44
Speaker 3: We're communicating and still communicating.
55:46
Speaker 3: Yes, well, and you know, talking about Texas said it could go all day long, but there's one thing that we do need to discuss real quick if we have time, yeah, and that is the internal affairs aren't being investigated internally.
56:01
Speaker 1: I completely forgot about that.
56:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what I found interesting about the whole situation was there is retaliatory situations going on which we've heard about, but the decision-making at the top affects the financial budget of Texas City Police Department, and what I mean by that what Leighton's referring to is that there's so many internal affairs investigations going on, they're outsourcing those, and a secondary retaliatory situation they're going through is they've reverted back to the old uniforms, and the average cost of uniforms are $200 to $250.
56:35
Speaker 1: And just to show that they're in charge, they're reverting back to what was.
56:41
Speaker 1: Was it a POA request to go to these other uniforms?
56:45
Speaker 1: Is that my understanding?
56:46
Speaker 3: I think it was just officers in general wanting to go to these other uniforms?
56:48
Speaker 3: Is that I'm?
56:49
Speaker 3: Is that my understanding?
56:49
Speaker 3: I think it was just officers in general, officers wanting to go to beards, tattoos, the darker uniforms, kind of what, as a recruiting tool, because everybody around that's a huge thing for the younger generation yeah, I'm not taking a shot at the younger generation.
57:02
Speaker 1: I thank you so much for wanting to be in a profession we all love.
57:05
Speaker 1: Um, you have to stay, uh, relevant and you have to be in a profession we all love.
57:08
Speaker 1: You have to stay relevant and you have to be attractive within the department for recruiting purposes so that if uniforms are changed and just to be retaliatory, the uniforms are now going back to the old school light blue, right.
57:20
Speaker 3: Powder blue.
57:20
Speaker 1: Polyester Polyester hot-ass uniforms, just to say, hey, we're still in charge here.
57:25
Speaker 1: So yeah, talk about the IAs real quick, just to say, hey, we're still in charge here.
57:30
Speaker 3: So yeah, talk about the IAs real quick.
57:31
Speaker 3: So currently Texas City Police Department has one and a half internal affairs investigators, so they have one guy that's full-time, one guy that does it part-time, correct?
57:39
Speaker 2: I think we're just down to one.
57:41
Speaker 2: Oh, just down to one.
57:42
Speaker 1: Y'all lost him too.
57:43
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, Add a little percentage to the vacancy list.
57:46
Speaker 3: That just happened.
57:50
Speaker 2: I think he gave it up.
57:51
Speaker 3: I think he said that.
57:52
Speaker 3: No, I'm not going to be a part of this anymore.
57:54
Speaker 3: So what the department is doing is they're outsourcing their internal affairs investigations, which I've never heard of, and I've been around law enforcement for 30 years.
58:02
Speaker 2: Let me correct you a little bit on this, don't?
58:04
Speaker 3: correct me on camera Not correct you.
58:09
Speaker 2: So, these IA investigations, these are not from citizens, these are not putting the public in danger.
58:16
Speaker 2: These are things that are late to work by a couple minutes or retaliatory.
58:22
Speaker 2: Well, they're vaping in your unit.
58:24
Speaker 2: You're getting days off for vaping in your unit and that's because they saw them on body camera.
58:30
Speaker 2: Later they're putting different IAs on us that are holding us back from working any extra jobs or anything for minor policy violations like this.
58:41
Speaker 3: And I bring this up because a lot of that stuff is first-line supervisor issue, right.
58:46
Speaker 3: First-line supervisor issue, he-line supervisor issue he handles it and it's over with, right?
58:50
Speaker 3: This is not going to first-line supervisors, this is going outsourced, paying money to two different organizations that that do this type of stuff, one of which is owned by the chief's hunting buddy, which is a chief in a neighboring department and he owns this business on the side.
59:16
Speaker 3: I just have an issue with that personally.
59:20
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not a citizen of Texas City, but I can't believe that there's not more of an uproar over this stuff and it's been made public.
59:27
Speaker 1: It's mishandling the city budget is what you're doing.
59:29
Speaker 2: It is, and actually the one that is his buddy.
59:32
Speaker 2: He actually stepped out and said no, I can't do this any longer.
59:36
Speaker 2: We've found integrity issues and we are not going to push forward with Texas City any longer Good for him.
59:42
Speaker 2: So I do commend him on that.
59:45
Speaker 2: But now there's a new organization, so I do commend him on that.
59:45
Speaker 3: But now there's a new organization.
59:46
Speaker 3: The other one is ran by a retired Texas Ranger and everybody that works there, except for maybe one guy, is all retired Texas Rangers.
59:59
Speaker 3: Usually they don't interview you unless there's some type of criminal issue filed against somebody.
1:00:12
Speaker 1: In order for them to show interest in that, they've got to be paying a pretty good amount.
1:00:15
Speaker 1: I would think so.
1:00:18
Speaker 3: We're in the process of gaining that information, but I just don't understand why you'd be paying any money at all over somebody's hairs minor hairs, out of regulation or whatever.
1:00:31
Speaker 2: And let me get things straight we also, as an association, as TMPA, we we do understand that officers need to be held accountable.
1:00:39
Speaker 2: That's that's not something that we're going against.
1:00:42
Speaker 2: It's um cause I think that's one of their arguments as well Officers are just going AWOL and they need to be held accountable Officers want accountability way more than what the average citizen does.
1:00:52
Speaker 2: Yes, and we should be held to a higher standard.
1:00:55
Speaker 2: We absolutely should, but whenever you're using this in a retaliatory or almost a weaponized system, then this is not okay, yeah correct.
1:01:04
Speaker 1: It's killing the morale too.
1:01:05
Speaker 1: It's not okay yeah.
1:01:06
Speaker 2: Correct.
1:01:06
Speaker 1: It's killing the morale too.
1:01:07
Speaker 1: I mean the dwindled morale and the continuation of the weaponized policies and procedures against them.
1:01:13
Speaker 1: It's just unfortunate, it really is it really is.
1:01:17
Speaker 1: Well, we are praying for you.
1:01:18
Speaker 1: We're here if we need you.
1:01:19
Speaker 1: I mean, we are here if you need us, and time will tell, time will tell.
1:01:25
Speaker 1: Hopefully one day the mayor will wake up and realize that he needs to act and be the leader he was elected to be, and I think Landis, maybe, is on the verge of possibly looking at the fact that his assistant chief probably wasn't the best decision and it's costing the department and costing the citizens of Texas City.
1:01:42
Speaker 1: You know, let's call it what it is safety.
1:01:45
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely so.
1:01:50
Speaker 1: I am glad that Chief Johnson was able to attain his degree on potentially the city clock so he can move on down the road.
1:01:56
Speaker 1: Hopefully that'll be soon Anyway.
1:01:58
Speaker 2: Hopefully.
1:02:00
Speaker 1: Well, you got anything else.
1:02:02
Speaker 3: No, I think that's about it.
1:02:04
Speaker 3: Like I said, the fight will continue and hopefully, before it's over with, all sides can sit down, you know, and discuss some things, and they're in the middle of bargaining.
1:02:18
Speaker 1: Y'all got a pretty good response, though, of the citizens showing up the other day your last council meeting we did.
1:02:22
Speaker 2: We actually made it public and in the years past it's always just it might be posted publicly on the PD bulletin board, but it's not public knowledge.
1:02:35
Speaker 3: Well, they're all open for the public meetings.
1:02:37
Speaker 3: They just don't talk about it too much.
1:02:39
Speaker 2: So I've actually made them completely public.
1:02:42
Speaker 1: I do think it's important to point this out and this is not a shot at any past POA leadership there at Texas City.
1:02:48
Speaker 1: But I think, moving forward, I think there's something that you learned that Texas City POA.
1:02:56
Speaker 1: You said it was a dying association.
1:02:58
Speaker 1: It was just lack of interest because people were scared of the retaliatory actions by Landis.
1:03:03
Speaker 1: But another thing that we noticed immediately was the lack of presence on social media and how important that was and how you know, collectively, y'all League City, galveston Municipal Police Association have come to your aid with Anthony Rogers.
1:03:19
Speaker 1: What I see from my perspective, from the 30,000 viewpoint, was y'all are unifying point, was y'all are unifying, uh, and you and and that's my point about social media you've got to maintain that presence, whether it be you've got officers you know doing stuff with the, with the community, or posting, because when you need it you've got to have it, uh, and so it's a learning curve and we're all again tmpa can assist you guys, but what I think is cool is that the local poas are all banding together to help you guys out and see the significant problem.
1:03:48
Speaker 3: That has been huge and we've made introductions.
1:03:52
Speaker 3: So she now has a large networking area with other POA leaders that can come in and help not only TMPA coming in and helping, but also area-wide POA leaders area-wide POA leaders because, you know, not everybody has the same experience in that.
1:04:13
Speaker 3: So she's learning a lot.
1:04:15
Speaker 3: She's doing a great job and you don't see that very often.
1:04:23
Speaker 3: Female POA presidents I mean.
1:04:24
Speaker 3: She's probably one of very few that I even know of that I deal with.
1:04:27
Speaker 1: So it's awesome Kudos to you.
1:04:29
Speaker 1: I know that we had a Zoom meeting before recording this today, and what a pleasure to meet you and honestly fight the fight, the good fight, beside you.
1:04:37
Speaker 2: So we're here for you.
1:04:38
Speaker 2: Well, you guys have been amazing through all of this, yeah.
1:04:40
Speaker 1: Don't tell Leighton that too much.
1:04:42
Speaker 2: I don't want to get a big head.
1:04:43
Speaker 2: That head's big enough.
1:04:44
Speaker 3: Hopefully we didn't mess up this podcast too bad, no no Employee evaluations are going on.
1:04:49
Speaker 2: That is true?
1:04:51
Speaker 2: Hey, mine's already trash already.
1:04:52
Speaker 2: Can we go from?
1:04:54
Speaker 3: the dues again.
1:04:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, I need a pay raise.
1:04:57
Speaker 1: It's boring.
1:04:58
Speaker 1: Well, hey, we like to end every podcast with a couple of rapid fire questions.
1:05:02
Speaker 1: I hope you studied for them, but if you're ready for those'm gonna go ahead and shoot those at you okay all right.
1:05:07
Speaker 1: What is your favorite line from a cop movie or your favorite cop movie, what's your favorite cop car and what's your favorite drink of choice when rachel is hanging out off duty?
1:05:17
Speaker 2: so favorite cop show, I would have to say.
1:05:21
Speaker 2: I just lost my dad not too long ago and me too.
1:05:23
Speaker 2: I'm sorry for your loss yes, sorry for yours as well, and we always watch the Texas Ranger together.
1:05:29
Speaker 1: Walker.
1:05:30
Speaker 1: Yes, the show, there you go.
1:05:31
Speaker 1: And the eyes of a Ranger.
1:05:32
Speaker 1: What's your favorite cop car?
1:05:35
Speaker 2: I would have to just go with the Explorer.
1:05:36
Speaker 2: I drove the Crown Vic for a while and mine was so old that I don't think I got the glory days out of it.
1:05:44
Speaker 2: But now that I have my police, you know, police interceptor man nothing.
1:05:49
Speaker 1: It hauls?
1:05:49
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure.
1:05:50
Speaker 1: What do you like to drink whenever you're relaxing off duty?
1:05:52
Speaker 2: You know I'm a wine girl.
1:05:53
Speaker 2: I like my red wine.
1:05:55
Speaker 2: Red wine, there you go.
1:05:56
Speaker 1: It's Pinot Noir, hey well, I like to drink.
1:05:58
Speaker 1: What is it?
1:05:59
Speaker 1: It's called okay.
1:06:00
Speaker 1: So the wine I love.
1:06:01
Speaker 1: You can pick it up at any gas station in Texas.
1:06:03
Speaker 1: So it's not a high Flutie wine, but it's called Joshua.
1:06:06
Speaker 1: When I'm feeling classy Josh.
1:06:10
Speaker 1: When I'm feeling classy, I like to say it's Yosh.
1:06:15
Speaker 3: I thought you were going to say Strawberry Hill or something I know I did too I would.
1:06:20
Speaker 1: I am trying to find what's the song Shit.
1:06:26
Speaker 1: I can't think there was a country wine in East Texas that they had.
1:06:30
Speaker 1: It's a berry.
1:06:33
Speaker 2: Strawberry wine.
1:06:33
Speaker 1: It's not strawberries.
1:06:34
Speaker 1: What's the other berry?
1:06:35
Speaker 2: Meth berry, oh gosh.
1:06:38
Speaker 1: You can leave the lighting with it.
1:06:39
Speaker 1: You said East.
1:06:41
Speaker 3: Texas yeah, well, that is true, you did you did you got anything else?
1:06:45
Speaker 1: No, I'm good.
1:06:45
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough for coming on again.
1:06:47
Speaker 1: We're praying for you.
1:06:48
Speaker 1: We're here if you need us.
1:06:49
Speaker 1: We're here to fight the good fight.
1:06:51
Speaker 1: You guys, take care, stay safe.
1:06:54
Speaker 1: God bless you as always.
1:06:55
Speaker 1: May God bless Texas no-transcript.