Latest / APD Pod Squad / Season 3, Episode 5; SPO II Williams Woods, SPO II Avishua Millsaps, and Detective Corina Rimiller

Transcript

Season 3, Episode 5; SPO II Williams Woods, SPO II Avishua Millsaps, and Detective Corina Rimiller · APD Pod Squad

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is the APD Pod squad.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rick Wright.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, we feature two of our field training officers, Senior Police Officer 2 William Woods, and Senior Police Officer 2 Afitua Millsteck.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Who inspired them, what motivated them to take on this key role, and the key lessons they hope to pass along to new officers in the field.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, we're launching our new scam series with Detective Corey Rymiller.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Going to break down the many tactics that scammers use, from jury duty to bill pay fraud to fake accounts and beyond.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's all coming up on season three, episode five of the APD Pod Squad.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Senior Police Officer to William Woods, I would say welcome back to the podcast studio.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: But this is the new studio.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, it is.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the first thing you noticed.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Last time we were on the fourth floor in this little broom closet, and that was immediately following Helene, but uh now in the Posh podcast studios of the APD Pod Squad.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: So uh welcome to this new room, but welcome back to the podcast.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_05: Happy beer.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, we wanted to highlight field training officers, FTOs, and the incredibly valuable service they provide in the training of our young officers, straight from B L E T graduation, now in the field, learning what it's like to really be a cop practically.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you not only for being here, but also for being an FTO.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Was there anything that kind of pushed you in that direction that let you know this is what I need to do?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um I think it started when you start working the road, you start having officers, new officers come in, they're your backup officers, you start seeing some certain habits that you don't really like, and you start doing the whole complaining thing.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_05: It's like, man, I I don't I wish they did this better.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_05: I wish they did this.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_05: So I think it it just gets to a certain point of, well, I'm complaining about it.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_05: Now I can actually do something about it.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_05: That's what started for me.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I just saw some bad habits, officer safety issues that weren't getting addressed.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_05: And when someone's been on the road for a year, they formed these bad habits and they're hard to break at that point.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_05: So I kind of wanted to be a part of uh the solution uh to maybe tweak things a little bit and have better support officers and just, you know, at the same time, young officers that aren't going to hurt get hurt uh from just you know bad practices.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Yeah, I mean the classwork is valuable for B L E T cadets.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, they can learn a lot, but being out there on the road where it's actually happening, where you're applying what you have learned, sometimes it's not always what the book says, right?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, listen, I know the book tells you to do this, but here's a better way to do it and here's a way to think about it.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Does that sound accurate?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_05: Aaron Powell Very accurate.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_05: Uh it's once you actually get out there and it's hands-on training at this point, it they you know, they they give you the basics in uh you know the academy, but right there in the name.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, basic law enforcement, but nothing is basic about once you get out with someone.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_05: You know, as simple as you know, people like to say um a routine traffic stop.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_05: Well, there's nothing routine about a traffic stop.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you'll get, you know, this is how you approach a vehicle.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_05: Well, that's assuming they do what you want them to do.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_05: They pull over where you want them to pull over.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_05: So it's yeah, the hands-on training of what do I do if this situation happens.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_05: And then even with the FTO program, it's we're we're trying to expose them to multiple different calls, but hopefully in the future they'll remember that one incident that you were on a call with them and they're gonna you know bring that back to their memory and like, okay, well, I did it this way this time, I'll try to go that route, but everything changes, you know, daily.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, that's that's one thing I like about this job.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_05: Nothing's the same.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_05: Every day is different.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a nugget that comes to mind, like one tip, one that you can share that's not kind of inside baseball right now?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: One that, hey buddy, here's something to remember.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think a lot of it is, you know, working for the city, being city police, we have backup very close.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_05: But if you're the one going to cause by yourself, showing up before anyone else, you know, not letting anyone know that you're there, you're not really using the resources that are available to you that the this the safety aspect of it.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_05: You have beat partners, you have people that work in different beats close to you, let everyone know where you're at.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_05: It's as simple as using the radio instead of using a computer where no one knows where you're at, you're doing your own thing.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_05: It's like relying on you know the officers around you.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_05: That's that's the biggest thing for me.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, resources available, use them.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you've got these fellow officers, and and the way that we have it with certain beats, which are sections of town for people that are not in law enforcement, and they're relatively geographically small.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: So some of them are designed a little wonky.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: You've got some you know, some ones that are longer that cover more areas, but uh it doesn't take long for a backup officer to arrive on scene because they're not that far away.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, as long as they know you're there, then you you're relying on your team to, okay, we know he's over here or she's over here.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_05: I'm just gonna listen up to the radio, or something doesn't sound right, let me start heading that way.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_05: You're letting everyone know.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_05: But doing being this lone officer that, you know, nothing bad's gonna happen to me, that's what gets real dangerous.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_05: So I try to to press that, you know, in the minds of anyone I try to train.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Senior Police Officer too, William Woods, joins me now.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about FTOs, the FTO program.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: So who stands out for you, your FTOs uh when you joined the force?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: What year was that?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not even really sure.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_05: I think it's been about five years.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_05: It's been a few years.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_05: Um I've been here about 10 years now.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So memorable FTOs that you had?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_05: I'd say my primary uh FTO was John Derrick.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, he started with me like phase one, and then usually at the end of the phase at the when you're almost done with the field training program, you're back with them again.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um I know he he was like the traffic guy, you know, there are certain ways to do rec reports, which are pretty intense reports for us.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_05: Uh there's a lot of information in there.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_05: And I think I go back and just remember and teach everyone that train from that.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_05: It's like, well, someone's telling you to do it this way.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_05: Well, this is the right way to do it.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so lots of invaluable information uh from John Derrick.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: His name has come up before from some other people, like crediting him with valuable information.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I'm gonna have to get him in here to see what he thinks about that.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you should.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, he's he's this guy who just has this attitude, he's just very chill.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_05: You know, you screwed up pretty bad, but he's not here yelling and making you feel like the worst person in the world, and I want to quit, you know.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_05: Just super even kill guy.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, you don't learn from success, you learn from your mistakes.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And as long as somebody points those out and tells you how to not make that again, that's incredibly valuable to make minor mistakes.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you've got somebody like that that has the patience and the way to explain things that can be understood easily, then that's valuable.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So the questions that I always ask, and I I don't know if I did the first time you were here before, uh, where were you born?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_05: So I was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and raised just south of Charlotte.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_05: I just tell everyone I'm from Charlotte, but it's like Union County, uh in uh little town Weddington.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I've still have family there now, but about two and a half, three hours from here.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: When did you move out of Charlotte to go to school or to come here?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_05: Or when I was actually I came here uh in 2016, wanted to come up to the mountains.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_05: This job opportunity came up, and here I am.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Charlotte is it's one of those areas that you can't tell people like the small town they're gonna like where, and then you gotta end up saying Charlotte.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like when I tell people I'm from Buffalo, I'm not from the city of Buffalo, but no one has heard of North Tanawanda.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: It just cuts right to the chase.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm from Charlotte.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: The other question I always ask, and I I know it probably took you a minute to come up with this because you're like, I struggled a little bit.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that most people don't know about you, you've been here long enough that people probably know a lot.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is there something out there?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_05: Well, most of the people that work with me know I'm a huge fan of the Beach Boys.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_05: Uh the funny thing is I'm the older guy anyway, but for some reason they're like, oh, of course you listen to the Beach Boys.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, I wasn't born in the 60s, you know.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_05: Um, so I guess in my 30s it was like a little bit more, oh, you listen to the Beach Boys.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_05: Now I'm in my 40s, and everyone's just like, oh yeah, of course, you're the old guy.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my favorite band is the Beatles, but I wasn't alive when you know they were in their heyday either, born in 68.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So you talk about yourself as the old guy.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: I got you beat by probably 15 years or so.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: But the Beach Boys love those guys because of the creativity that they brought.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're kind of looked at as these, oh, they just harmonized.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: They talked about cars and the beach, and they're actually a lot deeper than that.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: The the Pet Sounds, the album, is one of the greatest albums of all time.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you think of the technology that went into that, the innovation, you probably know, as a fan and as a Beatles fan, that the Beatles and the Beach Boys, different bands, entirely different sounds, they were kind of in a soft competition back then for innovation with the things that they were doing with Brian from the Beach Boys and of course Paul and John with the Beatles, kind of the different things they were doing with stereo technology and all the different things.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So Sgt.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Pepper's and Pet Sounds were kind of the two that were like, who's got the more innovative?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, they came out with uh, well, if Brian Wilson hadn't written this, then we wouldn't have written this, you know, and Paul McCartney, and it's like back and forth.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_05: It's like, well, they inspired each other.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Pushing each other.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: What's your favorite Beach Boy song?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_05: Um It's tough.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_05: Well, there's one, um, and I think it's from the Pet Sounds.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_05: I think it was called Kiss Me.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_05: But then there's another one.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_05: Um I'm trying to think.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_05: There's so many I like.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_05: I just like the harmonizing, you know, yeah.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_05: Their harmony is ridiculous.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um mine is also from Pet Sounds.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: God only knows.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And Sloop John B is even an amazing song.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Love that one as well.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Kiss Me's that's deeper, though.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's just it's a different song you don't hear a whole lot of.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_05: So it's like uh I like it.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people think Beach Boys, they think surf and safari, things that are just kind of light.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, but really they were a lot deeper than that.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you're not sure.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, once they got a little further in their career, it's like there there was a lot of depth to their music.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, Brian ended up being nuts.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's uh which maybe was why he was a music genius.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean there's that fine line, right, between genius and insanity.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so he was kind of towing that line for the longest time that unfortunately the drugs kicked in like everything in the 60s, 70s, and happened to so many of those artists.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: But who got you who got you into the Beach Boys?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: That couldn't happen naturally.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way that you just stumbled across that.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_05: I'm guessing it was part of like uh my parents, you know, listened to oldies and stuff, but I mean the bands like Three Dog Night and uh like a lot of these groups that I I I like.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, you had the oldies, the oldies rock, and they raised me right with that part of it.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_05: But even like old black and white movies and stuff like that, to this day, I I really enjoy.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, me as well.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm not so much into the newer stuff, although there's some things that have been produced that are decent, right?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm I'm way kind of we're on the same wavelength back then.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: The music, the the movies.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think the big difference, especially with movies, is they had to rely on dialogue and storyline because they didn't have the special effects, right?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: So as soon as the special effects came around, maybe Star Wars is to blame for all that, you know.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Then it became everything about the explosions and the lasers and all those things, and then they stopped thinking about, you know, what is this movie about and what are the what are the characters saying?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like Cary Grant movies.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I can watch Cary Grant movies all day long.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: And just any of the 12 Angry Men or you know, any of those those great that's that's a whole movie in one room.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's one actor carrying an entire film.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's and people that haven't seen some of these older movies and dismiss them because they're black and white, you guys are missing out.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_05: See, my favorite actor is Gregory Peck.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_05: Uh so I've always that's he's always been my favorite actor.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's fantastic.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously to kill a mockingbird would be the the one that people think about first, but he's been in many, many, many films.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I love me some Gregory Peck, uh big fan of uh Jimmy Stewart.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was a huge Jimmy Stewart fan.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: John Wayne is probably my all-time guy.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_05: That's my dad, so he's got all these cutouts in his office.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_05: Does he really?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so always would scare you walking into his office.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_05: It's like, oh gosh.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_05: There's John Wayne, or there's another John Wayne, but uh yeah, Gary Cooper.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_05: Um a lot of those old westerns.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a John Wayne autographed uh eight by ten.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, cool.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I got it from a friend of mine that had it because his brother had a hotel out in like Vegas or something, and there was a John Wayne stopped by one time.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, You should have this instead of me.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got that hanging in my house.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And everyone's like, is that real?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, as far as I know, it is.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Since we're talking about FTOs, field training officers, which is safe to say a teaching opportunity, right?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Little pop quiz I've got for you here.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is a is somebody but now now that I know you're kind of a little bit into pop culture and some of the older stuff, these should be no problem for you at all.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the the subject, of course, is teachers.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: So name the 70s sitcom but start a young John Travolta as a student in a Brooklyn high school with Gabe Kaplan as the teacher.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_05: And this was a sitcom.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sidcom in the 70s.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: I will give you the first two words.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: The third word is the name of the teacher which would give it away.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, uh something Cotter.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, needed a little help, but you did pull it out there.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back, Cotter.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people look at that as John Travolta's kind of breakthrough.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: He was like a teenager at that time.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: All right, how about this one?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: What actor, best known as Dr.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Johnny Fever, starred as a teacher in Saved by the Bell.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: He was Dr.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Johnny Fever in WKRP in Cincinnati.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: He was the teacher in Saved by the Bell.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Not the principal, Mr.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Belding, but he'd be the teacher in the Chaos.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's who I'm always thinking of.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: The actor that played the teacher.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna get this one, are you?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not gonna be.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Howard Hessman?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is that ring a bell?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Did you watch WKRP in Cincinnati?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because that was kind of Howard Hessman's big role as Dr.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Johnny T.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get this one.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: What 1989 film starred Robin Williams as a teacher in a boarding school in Vermont?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Captain My Captain, standing on a desk.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, I'm trying to think of the actual title because I can even see the uh the front of the cover.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic movie.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_05: Is that the Mr.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_05: Ripley?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or that's not uh No, that you're thinking the talented Mr.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Ripley, but no.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_05: Dead Oh, uh Poets Dead Poet Society.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Another fantastic movie that relied a lot on script.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna give you one more chance to redeem yourself here.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I thought you'd do better at these.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what comedian played a teacher, Mr.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Turgeson, in Rodney Dangerfield's movie Back to School, best known for screaming at this particular comedian, known for screaming.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: He is no longer with us, died in a car wreck.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_05: I don't think I'm gonna redeem myself.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sam Kinnison.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Have you not seen the movie Back to School?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: So if you haven't seen the if you haven't seen the movie, then obviously that'd be awful difficult to pull out there.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: But uh that's a very rather lighter fair.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's not exactly a Gary Cooper film.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't exactly rank as a Gary Cooper film.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I got something to go and try to watch now.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: So uh as you kind of move on in your career as an Asheville Police Department officer, obviously field training officer right now, that goes on your resume, so to speak.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Any other aspirations?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um I mean I'd want to continue to move up.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_05: Sergeant, Lieutenant, yeah, uh eventually.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_05: Obviously, it got a little bit later uh in this uh this career, but um yeah, that's something I'm I'm shooting for.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: So good luck in that in your career, and thanks for joining us and talking about the FDO program and your role in it.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, thank you.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Joining me now, senior police officer too, of Vishwa Millsaps.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining me.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh glad to be here.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're up to a I see you're nervous, I can tell immediately, right?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: You got pressured into this for starters.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I know you didn't want to do this.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants to do this.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: They think they're being sent to the principal's office.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not like that at all.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: So just relax.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna talk a little bit about you, the Asheville Police Department, being an FTO, all those things.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Before we get into the heavy lifting, we'll start with something super easy.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you from?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm from Catawba County, in and around the Hickory area.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so semi-local then, right?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, semi-local.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Did you move here for the job or were you already here when you decided to join APD?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: I moved up here about two and a half years before coming to APD.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: Roughly.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_04: So what made you want to be a police officer?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I was always into protective services.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_04: I considered the military before when I was younger.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_04: Took a while to try to find an entry point, and Astral gave me that opportunity to train and get into it.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any kind of history in the family?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone else that served?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh no.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you're the first?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Just the first.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Military?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Even nobody in the family that was served in the military either?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: My uncle served in the military.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_04: My mom's side.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: So what was it then early on that kind of told you policing might be where you go?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anybody influential in your life or anything that kind of led you this direction?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_04: I'll say that I had a professor in college that thought I should have pursued law school.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe that planted a seed.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_04: Um I took a lot of constitutional classes and political studies, things like that, and I guess law enforcement was a good match for my personality.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Where'd you go to school?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh small private college in West Virginia.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now don't think I haven't heard of it, because I went to a small private college in Erie, Pennsylvania.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I and I from Buffalo and I've traveled through West Virginia frequently on that route, going right through there.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: So what is it?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have you heard of Alderson Broughtis College?
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_04: So when you it has since closed down.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_04: Oh I can't even prove that I went to school.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_04: You got a piece of paper somewhere.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_04: I have a piece of paper somewhere.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: When you say small, how small was it?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think total maybe 800 students.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: That is tiny then.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: What made you choose that, though?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like from the Charlotte area, you'd go to West Virginia to go to Charlotte.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted something totally different than what I grew up with.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that that checks that box.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it certainly did.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, part of West Virginia.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: West Virginia, first of all, is a beautiful state.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of I don't know.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people have this image of West Virginia.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: They it's like it's backwoods.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I guess deliverance kind of ruined it forever.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: The movie Deliverance, which wasn't even filmed there.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it it made people think that West Virginia was just this place that you don't want to go anywhere near, because you know, bad things might happen.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, so I drive through it all the time, right?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's there's pretty much no way to get from here to visiting family up in Western New York without going through West Virginia.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I always enjoy that stretch.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually beautiful.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: The New River Gorge area.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've run a Spartan race uh right near there that was just bit near Beckley at the Boy Scout camp.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, it wasn't near there.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was near the New River Gorge.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: The I guess it's the National Boy Scout Camp is near there, probably about 30, 40 miles south of Beckley.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I I couldn't tell you, I'm not even sure it's on a map as far as like the town, but it's beautiful.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I've played golf.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've had like golf vacations.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: My brother will drive down with his kid, and I'll drive up, and we'll meet in West Virginia at one of their kind of combination golf resort ski lodges.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like they have those, and that's part of their public park system.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I've always loved West Virginia.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful state.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Not so much for job opportunities.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh at least I mean it's really hilly.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's really difficult to like put a whole lot of industry or a lot of things there because it's really the entire state is hills.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: We think we're hilly here, yeah, sure, but at least the rest of the state's pretty flat.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you got anywhere Raleigh Durham and Charlotte and all of that, rolling hills at best, but you know, a lot of places to put industry and things of that nature.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you graduate from there and and say the school again?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've forgotten it already.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Alderson brought us to college at the time.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Gotcha, college, and now defunct, of course.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: But so what brought you to Asheville?
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Did you come directly from there to here?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_04: I met my wife up there.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_04: We moved back to North Carolina.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_04: I guess I hit a crossroads where I was either going to gravitate towards moving towards the Charlotte area, then I took a trip to Asheville, and just like a lot of people, kind of fell in love with the mountain area.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you liked West Virginia, it certainly in a way kind of resembles that.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: You could throw somebody in the woods here and then in the woods there, and it would be difficult to tell the difference, to be honest.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it there's very a lot of similarities there.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when did you join the Asheville Police Department?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I started January 2017.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Coming up on 10 years pretty soon, right?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Does it seem that long or is it like it flew by or it flew by?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's uh it's kind of crazy to think 10 years, but 10 years goes by in a blink, though.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was uh just talking with a friend yesterday just about like they're they're about to move, right?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're down there on the coast and they're moving in, and we just got to got to talking about moving.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And in the past like 10 years, my wife and I have moved like full on moves like three or four times, like here to Charleston to back.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then we start and like, well, that started in 2017.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, wow, that was 10 years, almost 10 years ago, and it seems like yesterday, you know?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_04: Don't know if you know, but I have an extensive family life at home.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's part of the reason why it's it feels like it's blown by.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: By extensive family life.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of kids.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I've heard that.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: What is the number these days?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I have eight children at the house right now.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's a lot.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_04: That is with with Without this job, it's it goes.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_04: Time goes.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: How do you manage that?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously a wonderful wife, I would imagine.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know if I am managing it.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's eight.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's eight of them.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: What's the age range?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: What's the uh the the low end high end?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: The baby's eighteen months almost.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, still baby.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: The old is 16.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's uh that's a that's a lot to manage, dude.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm for somebody that is childless and my wife and I decided just not to have kids because of our busy lifestyles and our jobs and careers, and it just wasn't for us to see somebody with that many eight, I I honestly don't know how you do it.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell I get a lot of help.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: I I guess.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: I get a lot of help.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Has there has there ever been a time where you're packing up the car and putting everybody in there and just one of them is still up still in the house?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're just like, do we get them all?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: I may or may not have forgotten a kid.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: But they're all currently present and accounted for.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's the important thing.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you're doing your best at that.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of teaching moments there, right?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you're having to teach your kids all the things.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is maybe that would led you to possibly wanting to be a field training officer and FTO, just wanting to pass along your wisdom.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_04: I guess without realizing it, you know, some of those fundamental traits that you need as an FTO, patience being one.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I've kind of been building that along the years.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_04: I would think you'd be uh be stellar at patience with that many kids in your house.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_04: Aaron Powell I understand what's necessary and what's not, uh what to be uptight about and when to be lenient.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: How much is enough, essentially.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Tough love, in a way.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, you know, a little more the tough than the love.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I would guess you've kind of acquired that along the way.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: So let's let's say day one, you get a fresh face kid, right?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And some of these recruits, these graduates in B L E T, they're not as young as you know you'd imagine, maybe in their 20s.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them are upper 20s, 30s, or even more so.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: You get the kid in the seat, right?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you know they've got the book learned, so to speak, right?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: They've they've gone through all the classes, they've graduated, here they are with you.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: What's the first thing that you share with them?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's basically I I I try to just uh like you like you've done to me, just ask, hey, what's what's your background?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_04: You know, what did you do before this job?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_04: Just kind of small talk, break the ice because I know there's there's a lot of uh anxiety, there's a lot of nervousness, you're finally getting on the road.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_04: So just try to break the ice that way.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, do you start with something as simple as listen, we're gonna take our lunch break at two o'clock, make sure you pack your lunch.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: If not, we're gonna stop and drive through here.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is it you start with the basics like that or you get right into it?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_04: Uh start with the basics and just spending a little time with them and just taking a look at the computers, maybe even talking to the teammates.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_04: But shortly after that, we'll ride around and kind of go from there.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_04: Because it I I do pick things up quickly.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_04: I try to.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I've only been FTO and starting this year regularly.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_04: So even though I have a lot of experience compared to a lot of people on patrol here, I'm still learning how to teach others the job.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of being on the job and then passing that along.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: It is because of what you've learned.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you see things as an officer, as an FTO, that maybe they don't see yet.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's like listen, here you see this going on over here.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what this means.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Something they don't teach in your books.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, there's the body language, the gestures that people will make.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_04: There's things that we do physically if we're guilty of something.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_04: There's some things that we just can't hide.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_04: There's also a way to solve problems when you know that things are building up with the other person.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, sometimes it's best to fall back temporarily.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_04: It's uh strategy, you know, all the way around.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Senior police officer too, official Millsaps, is joining us now.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: How about your FTOs when you were coming up through the ranks?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do any of them stand out?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Things you learned, individual officers that helped you along the way?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_04: Uh there's one in particular that stands out.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can go ahead and name drop.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: If it's a good thing, then you you want to give them a shout out.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: So Harrelson was my primary FTO.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: What what do you remember most about his wisdom for lack of a better term?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_04: Uh you talk about a laid-back guy that he knew the most efficient way for me to learn something.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_04: And he gave me, looking back on it, he gave me all the room I needed to go through the process, whether it was getting a phone number, you know, getting a name, getting that confirming the address.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_04: Uh he allowed me to stumble across the process, stumble on writing these reports.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_04: And I really looking back, appreciate that.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, you learn from mistakes, right?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or from even just little foibles, little little more so than you learn from doing it correctly.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you do something correctly, it might not stick in your head.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do something wrong and it's pointed out to you, you know, in the right way, that's how you learn.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_04: His patience makes him a legend, my book.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_04: And we still it's good that when we cross paths, I'm still able to you know laugh and joke with him.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I know he's kind of out of the FTO game, I guess, right now, but doesn't mean he can't sneak back in at some point.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I guess he could.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Is that kind of your style?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Has you have you adopted how he behaved and treated you to the way that you work with your new recruits?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think yeah, absolutely.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Same way.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: You're saying they this this because this this worked, this was effective.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do this too, and hopefully pass along that knowledge as well.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_04: I think his style really resonated with me, um, but I realized that there is a lot of styles.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_04: There's a lot of styles of teaching, a lot of styles of learning.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_04: And I really just gotta appreciate, I guess, the full spectrum of it.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_04: And I even I have to try to aspire to teach a certain way, if it whatever works for the trainee, um, just to try to adopt the method that'll reach them.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: One of the questions I usually ask with people that are sitting in your chair is what do you do in your spare time?
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Then I realize you got eight kids.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do you even have any spare time?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have to Oh, absolutely no?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Do you are you even allowed a hobby at this point?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_04: The spare time's in between calls for service.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: But did you ever imagine like what it's gonna be like in let's say 18 years when you know you're not having to deal with it nonstop 24-7 with all the kids running around?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: I can't imagine right now.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll be honest.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let's jump right into this then.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've always kind of looked at FTOs as teachers.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're teaching, you pass along your expertise.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you don't get a chance to watch a lot of TV and movies now, but dating back a ways, I'm sure you did when you were growing up, right?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you may know some of these.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna play Name That Teacher, just like we did with SPO Woods, right?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping you do a little bit better.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've got faith in you.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: All right, are you ready?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Name that teacher.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do you watch movies at all?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like TV and movies, are you familiar at least a little bit with occasionally.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: You might know some of these.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Name that teacher.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: What 1995 movie starred Richard Dreyfus as a high school music teacher?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: The movie was named after the teacher in a matter of speaking.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: You've got that.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of know this, but I don't know this look on your face.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Mr.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Holland's Opus.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Have you seen that one?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a good, wholesome movie.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: You might want to watch that with your family one day.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: It is clean.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: I will pass that along.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you can if you're looking for movie night, that might be a good one.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Mr.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Holland's Opus.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Comedy, Jack Black, starred as Dewey Finn as a down on his luck rock guitarist who poses as a substitute teacher and turns a strict private school class into a rock band in this 2003 movie starring Jack Black.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting a no.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: School School of Rock.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there you go.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Have you seen that one?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good one, too.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's a long time ago.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it was 2003, so we're talking over 20 years ago.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, now come on.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: I got faith in you in this one.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: The martial arts teacher who guided Danielson in the movie Karate Kid.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: The character.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Mr.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Miyagi.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Mr.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Miyagi.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Got one.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: You doubted yourself on that one.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: You knew the answer.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Mr.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Miyagi, final question.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Do you like musicals?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: You might know this one.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Julie Andrews played the governess in this 1965 adaptation of a Rogers and Hammerstein classical musical.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: You got me there.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: If I start singing it, would that help?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to do that, though.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: That just hurt everyone's ears.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Said the hills are alive with the sound of music.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit familiar with that.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give you mostly a pass, though, because you do not have time to brush up on any of these things.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: You probably haven't seen the inside of a movie theater in 20 years.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Has it been that long?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, I was seeing Frozen Two.
• 31:06
  unknown: Okay.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Was that a family outing?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Something like that.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't see Frozen 2.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: I saw Frozen One.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: I never saw Frozen Two.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Senior Police Officer 2 of Vishua Mill Snaps.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for sitting down with me and talking about your career and time as an FTO.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: Joining me now, Detective Corey Rymiller.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining me.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_06: Hi, thank you for having me.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: I invited you to join me with Mark Starling this week.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that was such a great conversation and I thought so valuable.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's take this a little bit further and let's talk about this on the pod squad, because there's a lot we didn't talk about on the Mark Starling show, because there's a lot of fraud going on out there, isn't there?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_06: Correct, yes.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Let's first talk a little bit about you.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: When did you join the APD?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_06: I my higher date is November of 2019.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_06: I started on the road in the following year, and my second day solo was actually the first day of protests.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh jeez, welcome to the force, right?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you're coming up on your higher date anniversary, so yeah, seven years.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: So when did you become a detective?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_06: Just last year.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_06: It's actually going to be a full year this month, on the 27th, I want to say.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, congratulations on that.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Did you immediately go to your focus right now, which is cybercrimes, or did you go in general first?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_06: Uh when I started doing casework for APD's criminal investigation division, I was actually a detective intern.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_06: So for a couple of years, I would come in on my days off, working primarily night shift and work cases.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_06: So I was asked while working these cases, what cases kind of speak to you?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_06: Which ones do you like working?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_06: And I said, fraud is actually really interesting to me.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_06: That was set in stone then and there.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we're gonna have more and more of it now because t technology is just dominating.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's no matter where you turn, technology is right in your face.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so if the criminals have technology, they're going to use it, right?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's not just for good people and you know, people that are obeying the law, they're gonna use everything at their disposal.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's 500 years ago, about all you could do is kill and steal, I suppose, or some other things.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And now it's you know, you just you do it through phones, you do it through you know emails.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we've got about seven weeks of different scams, and we're launching it with this particular episode as October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: And in just a moment, you're gonna tell us about one and how people can try and avoid being a victim of that.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I need to ask you so we have a little background on you, because I'd like to know as well where are you from?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Are you from this area or did you move here?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_06: I actually moved here from Florida.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_06: Originally I'm from California, but I was a baby when I moved.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_06: So you don't remember California.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_06: No.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_06: I really just remember Florida and I don't appreciate how hot it was there.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_06: So I moved here.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're in Florida.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_06: Tampa.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the uh west coast of Florida, right?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: The Yes.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is over there.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: My mom uh she spends winters in Florida, which is not a bad idea.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: Wintering in Florida, fantastic idea.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Summering in Florida, a whole different thing.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, terrible.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I lived in uh Charleston for three years, as I've mentioned before in this podcast, and it's it's lovely when it's not May, June, July, August, and even September.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: But here the season's you know much more mild like year-round, right?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: The summers aren't that hot.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: The winters to me at least aren't that cold.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: Probably a little bit of a shock to you at first, though, right?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: The winters?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, yes.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_06: It was a very interesting first winter here with my first encounter with black ice.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Oh gosh, yeah, if you're not used to that, that that'll throw you for a loop.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: When was the first time you saw snow?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, were you fascinated a little bit by that?
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because most people are like, this is wild.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_06: Um I was convinced for a very long time that when it first snowed that it would melt immediately.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_06: So I was not expecting hard snow that I learned too late in life.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Have you never seen pictures of the piles and piles of snow of all those cities in the north before?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_06: And so it's See, my Florida brain thought that it that's just how much it snowed.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_06: And that's why there was so much snow packed up.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yes.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it also, yeah, it if it doesn't get below you know a certain temperature, obviously no sun can melt it too.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: It can be it can be cold and sunny and the snow can melt.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: But if it doesn't, you know, do much of it, it just keeps going.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, growing up, there was just they'd run out of places to put the snow.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: They w they would pick it up with like backhoes or whatever, and they'd put it in parking lots, and that's where the kids would sled.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because you'd have these huge mountains of snow that were nothing more than stuff that came from roads and whatever like that, and they would keep piling it up and piling it up, so we'd have these huge piles of snow that would sometime be there until I mean sometimes it'd be like May.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: Before it would melt.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it hadn't snowed in a month, but there's this huge pile of hard-packed snow, and it's still there, even though it's like 70 or 80 degrees outside.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, that's we'll we'll take you north sometime.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: That'll the you think the snow here is shocking.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: The snow there, definitely.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: So uh as we mentioned, October, Cybersecurity Awareness Month, right?
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then followed by November, fraud and scam prevention month.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is perfect timing.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got a bunch of scams that people need to be aware of, and they're all just a little bit different.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: They do share some commonality in some of the things you're you're hoping to, if you're the criminal, right?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's this sense of urgency.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're trying to scare them into doing something, right?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the goal of all of them is to get your money.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: And they do it different ways.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell Correct.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start with scam number one, with it being Cybersecurity Awareness Month, one that relates to cybersecurity.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_06: Aaron Powell So this one uh typically call it uh bill pay scam.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_06: Typically the scammers are calling, emailing, texting individuals saying that they have an unpaid bill with entities such as Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, et cetera.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_06: The email or text might have a phone number listed for you to call.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_06: So when you search online for that phone number, the top results scammers have actually manipulated to show as the correct phone number.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_06: So you gotta be careful with what you select when you're looking.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_06: Umce on the phone, the scammers will ask for your personal details to make the payment, which typically you'll provide it to them, believing that you have a bill that you need paid, and you might actually have a bill that you need paid.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_06: The scammers then can make fraudulent transactions with the information you provided.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_06: Um some instances the scammers will say they actually owe you money, and they will get your information, your details, your bank details, and send you money, or at least tell you that they send you money.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_06: So then they'll then tell you that they've sent you too much, and now they they're panicked, they're gonna lose their job.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_06: They need you to do them a favor here and send the money back.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_06: So then you will then send them money, and they will either have that amount, which in one instance it was around$24,000.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_06: They said they had overpaid one customer.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: Holy cow.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_06: So he sent them$24,000 thinking that he had been overpaid$24,000.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_06: He he was in a tough spot and he was wanting to be helpful to this person.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_06: He's like, I know finances are hard, jobs are hard, I'm gonna help you out here.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_06: Um then they had that$24,000, which in some instances they could they have your bank details, so then they can use your bank details online without you even knowing it.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell Wow.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: I could see how people would assume that they have a bill because with all the online shopping and the subscription plans to streaming services and all these different things, a lot of people don't even know their finances right now, right?
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're just doing it without thinking.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: I know one that I've gotten that was absolutely untrue immediately because they said your Netflix account, and I don't have a Netflix account.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that's an easy one, right?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I don't have one of those at all.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I know I don't owe them money.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not always that easy.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: I do have an Amazon account.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: I would know they would never call, but that's just me, but not everyone would know that.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: So they're and they're then they're appealing to human nature.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're being a good person, maybe, and saying, Oh man, oh my God, I'm gonna lose my job.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you can you just help me out?
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I I get that.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Was that case here locally, or was that a nationwide one?
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_06: Aaron Ross Powell That was a local case.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Was it really?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody here lost that much money.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's horrible.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: And there's I guess is there any way to recover that if your bank is sometimes banks can help out in these situations.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_06: It really depends on their policy.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_06: A lot of times they'll say, if you you gave the money willingly, then we can't help you.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_06: Other occasions they will say, okay, we'll take the loss for ourselves.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_06: We'll be the victims in this case.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_06: But I can't I can't say when that will happen.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_06: Uh good thing is that we do have other agencies that investigate these types of crimes, the Secret Service, the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_06: So it's always best to make reports with them in addition to making reports with your local agencies.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_06: Just because you make one report with one agency doesn't mean they're the only ones that can work on a case.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Did that person file a report with the Asheville Police Department or did they go to another agency?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_06: Aaron Ross Powell They started with the Asheville Police Department.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_06: And then he went on to make additional reports with the Secret Service, the FBI, and the Federal Trade Commission.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell I would imagine too, somebody might be hesitant because they're embarrassed.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you just want to you don't want people to know you got taken.
• 40:32
  unknown: Yes.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's it's kind of embarrassing, but it ain't worth the embarrassment of losing that much money without reporting it, of course.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we highly encourage people to file that as soon as you know you're a victim, to file that police report and get it started there.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, because this happens unfortunately to a lot of people.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_06: And I can't imagine how many people don't report because they're concerned about getting judged or feeling embarrassed about the situation.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_06: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: Especially if it's it's a smaller amount, if it's a a few hundred dollars or a thousand dollars or something you can kind of absorb.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, this isn't gonna be worth the hassle.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, the only way that we can sometimes catch these people is to get a whole bunch of these cases together.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe there's a commonality there, and there's like, oh, wait a second, this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy, it's gotta it's all pointing me to one person.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: I would imagine that would help you in your cases.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: So what would your advice be to people, okay, what with what they're doing to how to avoid becoming a victim?
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_06: So I do have a few tips here.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_06: So if you get a text, a call, an email from someone saying they're with that company, try to confirm that independently.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_06: If you have an account, say with Amazon, try to log into your account while talking to them or tell them you'll call them back later and confirm that there is a bill that needs to be paid.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_06: If there's a specific way you pay it, stay with that specific way.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_06: If they're saying that you need to go to the specific website and pay or just go online and pay and you Google the information on like bill pay, don't trust the AI overview because AI overview can be manipulated by the scammers or it just might have the wrong information.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_06: And I don't want you to have the wrong information.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_06: If you're then concerned that the information you found is not correct, a trick that I would do is, for example, if you're looking to pay for Microsoft, um Google, Microsoft Bill Pay, if the results come up with a URL such as support.microsoft.com, try then to look it up another way with Microsoft, such as Microsoft login.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_06: The URL will then start with support.microsoft.com.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_06: So you're looking for consistency there.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_06: That's that's a way to identify when information is falsely being put out.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_06: You want to find consistent links for different searches for the same company.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell This won't work for everybody, but one thing that I do is I think most of us here, I don't know if you I got two phones, right?
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got almost everybody here has a personal phone and a work phone that's assigned by the city.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so in my they must have great security in our work phones because I never get a scam call on this one on my work phone.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: But on my personal phone, I think yesterday alone, I think there was seven or eight calls, right?
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't uh it immediately goes to voicemail if it's a number and not a name.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone's not in my contact list, the phone doesn't even ring.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: It immediately goes, and then I see all the at the end of the day, I will see all these calls.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're very similar.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: The numbers are all very similar to each other, coming from a bank of whatever, right?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so then just my little way, I will go in there and block that contact.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'll spend a few minutes and just say block, block, block, block.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure how much that does because they're just going to call from a different number, but it makes me feel a little bit better about doing something.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the bottom line is I'm not answering that phone and giving them a chance to get their hooks in and to try the scam on me.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're never gonna get through to me.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's something people might want to consider as a Setting in your phone where you don't it doesn't even ring.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: You're not getting that scam call if it's not somebody you recognize.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_06: For my particular phone, I can actually go in and create a favorites list in contacts and then say do not do not disturb, so I only receive calls from my favorites list.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_06: So I don't get any of those calls.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, I get the voicemails.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_06: I can check the voicemails and see if it's something important.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_06: But sometimes scammers will leave voicemails.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_06: I imagine often they don't because they want to catch you in the moment.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_06: And if they're using a mask or block number, because sometimes they can mask their number and make it look like they're calling from someone you know, such as your bank or a law enforcement agency.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_06: And if you call that number back, it's not gonna connect you back to them.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_06: So they might just try calling you again instead of leaving you a voicemail.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: So that's our first in our series of I guess we got seven, right?
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's just and I'm guessing by the time we get to number seven, there might be an eighth that that joins the party.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: So so Corey, we thank you for joining us for this.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything else in closing uh that you needed to share about this particular one?
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_06: I just want to make reports as with as many agencies as you can.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_06: Uh we're trying to post some resources regarding these types of scams with phone numbers that you believe are scam numbers, you can actually report them with the Federal Trade Commission.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_06: So then in future, if other people receive calls from those numbers, then it will be popping up as scam or spam.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, check the APD Facebook page.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: We did have something posted uh just last week uh that that had a couple of links where you can get some helpful information.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a great way to learn about hey, was I a victim?
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: What can I do to prevent being a victim in the future?
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so we'll I guess see you in the next episode of the APD Pod Squad.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: Detective Corey Rymiller, thank you for joining me.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's it for another episode.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you to my guests, Senior Police Officer 2, William Woods, Senior Police Officer 2 of Vishwa Millsaps, and Detective Corey Rymiller.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out to Patricia Clark from Tennessee, who sent a message through our distributor, Buzz Sprout, saying that she likes the podcast.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, Patricia.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: And to all of you as well.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be pretty boring without you.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: Got a comment, question, or topic suggestion, just call 828-250-8800 and leave a voicemail.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's 828-250-8800.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or of course, you can just email APD podcastfeedback at ashevillenc.gov.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: Listen and subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts and don't miss a single episode.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rick Rice, and this is the APD Pod Squad.