Latest / APD Pod Squad / Season 2, Episode 13; Detective Zoe Vertefeuille, Sgt Ian Cooper, and MPO Debbie LeCroy

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Season 2, Episode 13; Detective Zoe Vertefeuille, Sgt Ian Cooper, and MPO Debbie LeCroy · APD Pod Squad

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: This is the APD pod squad.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_04: I'm Rick Rice, and in this episode, we'll celebrate March at Irish American Heritage Month with Detective Zoe Vertifway, no stranger to the Emerald Isle, and Sergeant Ian Cooper, whose Irish roots run deep.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_04: From community engagement, Master Police Officer Debbie LaCroix, who is retiring after a law enforcement career that spanned more than 20 years.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_04: Find out what's next for her.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_04: That's all coming up on Season 2, Episode 13 of the APD Pod Squad.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_04: Getting to know Detective Zoe Verdefe, which I'm probably mispronouncing, or did I actually get that?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, you got it, right?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_04: Holy cow.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_04: When I first arrived here, it was in uh March of two years ago, so we're coming up on two years for me.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_04: One of the first things that I did was MC the awards banquet, and you won something.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_04: And so I've done a whole lot of public address announcing in my life, and so I'm pretty good with names.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_04: But before, I mean, there we got like 200 employees, right?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_04: And everyone's winning stuff.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_04: And so I'm going down all the names, and I'm like, okay, and I got to yours.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna need a little help on this one.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_04: So it's one of those names, and I could tell some French, right?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_04: There's gotta be some some French in there.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's French.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um there's actually a town in France that has our last name.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: So that's pretty cool.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_04: That's awesome.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_04: Have you visited?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: We were really close to visiting.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: We were over in Germany and Okay, you have to visit.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: I I would really like to go.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_04: Just plant your flag right there and introduce yourself and the like go to the town square and say hello.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Apparently they're very friendly to people with my last name.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I would love to go over there and visit.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_04: I would wonder if you'd have any distant relatives there.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: My uh my grandfather, he traced back our family tree.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: We have actually pretty close relatives that live over there currently.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_04: Aaron Powell Oh, well then you've got to go.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I would love to.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_04: Totally roll up the red carpet for you, I would think, right?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: I would hope so.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_04: Because here's the one of the reasons you're sitting in the chair you're in today.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_04: And it didn't apply what I was thinking of, but it worked out great anyway.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_04: Uh that this month, March, is Irish American Heritage Month.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_04: Well, St.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_04: Patri every St.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_04: Patrick's Day, the whole thing, right?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_04: And so I'm talking with people about okay, who do we have that might be Irish?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_04: And just by looking on the composite board, it doesn't really scream anyone that's it's Irish.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_04: I did find uh Cooper is uh Irish from Boston and all that, and I'm like, it's one.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_04: And then so somebody, and I don't want to give them up, said, you know, I it I think Zoe is Irish.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_04: He goes, I know this.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_04: She goes to Ireland all the time.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_04: And I go, okay, well, maybe somewhere in the family then.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_04: So we started talking, and you're not, but you do go there all the time.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we've been about six times, I'd say since twenty nineteen.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: We really, really enjoy it over there.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm currently saving as much money as I can to go on a retirement trip there.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I'm well, we want to go for a month.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_04: Both my wife and I have some Irish in our blood.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_04: My family is part English-Irish, like half, and then the other half is like German-Polish.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like a total mutt.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_04: But I do have a lot of family in Ireland.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_04: I've I got the crest and I've got the whole thing.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_04: And so I'm looking forward to going over there and drinking at the pubs and staying in the castles in Scotland as well, and doing all of the small town stuff, more so than just London or whatever, you know, just like the big tourist things.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Ireland's where it's at, if you want to do that.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_04: So you've done all that.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: We've been to the Republic of Ireland and we've been to Northern Ireland, we've been all over.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's about the size of South Carolina in total, which it doesn't look like that looking on the map, but it's incomparable.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: But you can travel the whole thing from Dublin all the way over to the West Coast in about four hours max.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm a huge John Wayne fan.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_04: My one of my favorite John Wayne movies is The Quiet Man, which was filmed in Ireland, of course.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_04: And Guinness is one of my all-time favorite beers.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_04: One of my bucket list items is to have a beer at the top of the world pub at St.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_04: James Gate.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_04: So I where they make you know the original Guinness and all of it.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm just like, I'm all in on this.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm super jealous that you've been there, not once, but multiple times.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's an amazing experience.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's absolutely beautiful over there.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: I guess whenever you get over there, things are kind of cheaper too.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um we budget a lot, but we uh we normally find a hotel that has um like a stove and a place that we can cook um like apart hotels.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: Then we'll go out and we'll buy our own food and we'll bring it back and we'll cook it and it makes things a lot easier, but it's all about the culture over there.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, it's just awesome.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_04: What time of the year do you go for like the best weather?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh for the best weather.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think the best time that we've been is uh like the end of June to July.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um it is just it's so warm, but it's not it's not so warm that you're miserable.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's not like you're sweating like constantly.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can go on like a good five mile hike and y you'll be comfortable throughout the whole thing.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: Because the wind's blowing, sometimes you'll get a little bit of rain.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just perfect weather.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell, Jr.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_04: But I mean it does get a lot of rain.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_04: I mean why it's so green is one of those reasons.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_04: And and they don't really get the cold, cold winters either, but apparently a lot of the year is just kind of on the chilly side.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's that's good to know.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_04: So they have a summer, but it's just probably brief, I would imagine, right?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_04: Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: I guess the only time that we've really been there in the summertime, because we've been mostly in December or February, because it's the off season, but in the summertime is June, July, and it's very, very warm.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: But I guess we went to Lisconnor and it's a place on the west coast, and they have this little swimming hole.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: And we went in the water, we went swimming, and it was freezing.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness, it was so cold.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: And everybody, all all the Irish people are just getting in and they're just having a blast and acting like it doesn't even bother them, and we're just over here like, oh my goodness, it's so chilly and freezing.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: We couldn't stay in it for like more than five, ten minutes.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: We had to get out.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_04: I kind of get it because where I grew up was along the Niagara River outside of Buffalo.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's where we swam.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_04: And it never got above sixty.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_04: That that's like in August.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_04: It didn't get above sixty.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_04: So that's like to most people, that's freezing cold.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_04: If you go down to like Myrtle Beach, and in the summer especially, that it's like bathwater.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_04: It's 90 degrees.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_04: You know, you get in, there's no shock to the system.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_04: Well, you jump in the Niagara River, I'm here to tell you it doesn't matter what time of the year that's going to be, you're going to take a second to kind of get used to that.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_04: So I get it.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: I I just the the way that that water was, whenever there was a little ladder and tiny ladder, but it was a like very, very tall ladder, and it led right into the water.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: You had to like creep all the way down into the water and stuff.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: So then you're like, it's not like something that you can really like jump into and um completely shock your system, I guess.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's like something you have to like gradually get into and it really freezes you.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: But it was an adventure.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_04: So now you did say though that you do have some uh some scot in your in your boat lines in your heritage, right?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm guessing since you've been to Ireland many, many times, you've also visited Scotland.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: We have, yeah.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_04: What's the big difference?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, obviously different countries.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_04: Is there a big different look to the two, or are they similar?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_04: Castles and green and things along those lines?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Ross Powell, they are very similar.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: There is something about Ireland that is, I don't know, a little bit more warm, I guess, than Scotland.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing against Scotland.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_04: Scotland's a higher elevation, too, isn't it?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_04: Isn't a little bit like the Highlands?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: I believe so, yeah.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_04: Because the the Scots-Irish are is who founded Western North Carolina.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_04: I'm sure you knew this.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_04: So my last name, Rice.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_04: There's a lot of rices in Western North Carolina, and I come across people all the time who say, Oh, are are you kin to this group?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_04: This guy.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_04: I got no, I'm not from here.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_04: Because a lot of them settled in this area from way back in the day, the English, the Scots, the Irish.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_04: And so the heritage of Western North Carolina is very much the Scots-Irish.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_04: A lot of the things you see around here, the Highland Games and all of that, Highland Brewing Company and all the very the Scots are very influential in Western North Carolina.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_04: That must be pretty cool for you then, too, I would think, right?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was a really cool adventure too.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um we went hiking out there a lot as well.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: I will say the hikes, I feel like in Scotland were a lot harder than than the hikes in Ireland.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: But the weather, I think, in Scotland was a little bit chillier in Ireland.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it was just the time of the year that we went, but it was very windy and very, very like rainy and wet all the time.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: And Ireland has that reputation too.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: But I felt like there was more downtime in Ireland whenever it comes to rain and stuff.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, all I know about Scotland is by watching Braveheart.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_04: Kind of my I know a little bit more about Ireland just from I've there's even a show on public television called Ireland with Michael.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_04: It's just a it's a 30-minute show where he just bop bebops all around Ireland and visits all these little towns.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_04: Oh.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_04: And it just keeps making me want to go there more and more.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_04: Because the music and the people and just the scenery and all of that, I just I can't wait to go.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: Man, it's gonna be awesome at some point.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_04: About 10 years.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_04: It's gonna be that long until I retire to get a chance to go over there.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_04: Detective Zoe Vertife is with me now, and we're getting to know a little bit.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_04: We started off with a little bit your heritage and why you're in here because of Irish American Heritage Month, which has really nothing to do with you except that you've been there a whole bunch, but look at us.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_04: We already started with about a 10-minute conversation, see?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_04: You said you were introverted, and you're not introverted at all.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_04: See?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: I feel very introverted.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_04: That would be difficult, though, with the job that you do, wouldn't it be?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, because it so you work with the Family Justice Center.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: I do.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_04: And and so working with people that are going through some pretty traumatic stuff.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_04: So I would imagine a big part of your job is to get people to open up a little bit and talk to you.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_04: So it then takes somebody that can really kind of understand, you know, and be compassionate to do that.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_04: And that's not really an introvert.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_04: I think you I think you soft-sell yourself a little bit.
• 10:03
  unknown: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: I I think whenever I get down on a survivor's level and I'm talking to them one-on-one and making a connection with them, I feel like it's almost very easy to speak with them because I want to help them and I want to make them feel better and I want to get whatever their form of justice looks like and help them seek that out.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: I guess working at the Family Justice Center is something that I really, really enjoy doing uh because I feel like I really make an impact and I really do help these people.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_04: You know, almost every officer that I have talked to, it was a calling to be a law enforcement officer in general.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_04: But for the folks like yourself that work at the Family Justice Center, it seems even more so of a calling.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_04: It's like you were almost just made to do this.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_04: You've got to have a certain type of compassion to be able to pull that off and to be able to really handle it too, because you're hearing a lot of things, you know.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_04: It it's things the things that you hear and see on a daily basis, they'd wear people out in a lot of cases.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, a lot of our a lot of our cases are really, really hard, and you just gotta remember to not take that home with you and just take it case by case and try your best to see the good in things whenever it comes to working cases like that.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: And it can be really hard, but we really have a really great team working over there and we really support each other very, very well.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: We I feel like make each other's jobs very easy because of how much we support each other.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like everybody is assigned their own cases.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody works together, I feel like, to help these survivors get justice for whatever or whatever they need.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_04: It's a true team effort and you've all got the same goal.
• 11:48
  unknown: Yes.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_04: You know, you're all in the same team.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_04: Uh when did you know you wanted to be a police officer?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_04: How early in life was it?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh goodness.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: I I feel like I was kind of a last minute person.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: I I went through the police academy in 2016.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: Prior to that, I was in nursing school and I was working at uh Chick-fil-A.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: And two of the people that I worked with, they went through B L E T.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: And they were also working at Chick-fil-A while they were going through B L E T.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: And they were telling me how much fun it was and how much they enjoyed it.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: And myself, thinking that I'm an introvert, I felt like I couldn't ever do anything like that.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: But I guess seeing their excitement and passion for it made me interested.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: So I started looking into it and I really, really, I guess, wanted to try it out.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I went through B L E T.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: I put myself through BLET.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: Then I worked at Buncombe County after I graduated for about three years, and then I came over to APD.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_04: So you didn't know what department or even what you wanted to do.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_04: It was just more like, you know, this law enforcement thing sounds like it might be good for me.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_04: So so then you came to APD in what year?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: I came to APD in 20, I guess, towards the end of 2018, almost 2019.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, and and patrol to begin, of course.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yes right?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_04: And then so how long have you been with the Family Justice Center?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: I came to the Family Justice Center, I think, in 2022, I believe.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_04: Let's go back even further, like when you were born, all the way to the beginning.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_04: So where did that happen?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_04: Where were you born?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: I was born here in Asheville.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_04: Right here?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_04: Local?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then I grew up in Black Mountain up on a 18-acre farm up on Highway 9.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_04: So you went to by Owen then, I guess?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: I did.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: I went to Owen.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_04: I don't want to sound like this, but you don't sound local.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_04: You don't really have any accent at all.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_04: My wife is from here.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_04: She was born here, and she doesn't have the like a any kind of thick draw or anything, but you can tell she's definitely doesn't sound like me, so you don't have any accent at all.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, my mom is from here and she has a very thick country accent.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: And my father, he's from Connecticut.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know if it was just the mix of both of them and I didn't get any accent, or I don't know.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: I don't feel like I have an accent either.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: But I hear some of my people that I went to high school with, and I'm like, wow, they really grew up here.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_04: So you you've been fiddling with a piece of paper.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_04: I know you were nervous coming in here.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_04: So what's on that?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_04: What's on the paper?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's just some notes.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, some notes.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_04: Things you want to talk about?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um it was just like kind of my favorite hike and stuff in Ireland.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_04: All right, what's your favorite hike in Ireland?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: Our last time that we went to Ireland, we went to a hike in County Cork.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so that is where my family is from.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, really?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's beautiful there.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: Goodness.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: And we went to this hike and it was uh called Three Castlehead to Meisenhead.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it has this like really, really dramatic cliffside, and we went right at sunset.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess like we were walking in and it and it hadn't quite hit sunset yet.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: And you gotta think in the winter sunset hits at like four o'clock.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: So um we just got back in December from Ireland.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: So we were over there in December and we were hiking it out, and while we're walking back, this gorgeous bright orange sunset is just over the ocean and it's just beautiful.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: I got some awesome pictures.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_04: Did someone like clue you into that particular hike, or is it just something you kind of poked around about and like, oh, this looks interesting?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: Man, whenever we're over there, we just like look around the area.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like we really we have a very rough itinerary always going over there.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like it is like, oh, we want to go to these few spots, and then we might stay in other spots too.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: But on this day specifically, we were going to another hike, and I can't remember what hike that was, but we got there and the trailhead was actually closed.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: So then we leave and we're like, ah, what else is in the area?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: And we're looking around and then we find this hike.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: And it was absolutely gorgeous.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_04: I guess the benefit of having gone multiple times is you can kind of afford that agenda.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_04: It's like you don't, okay, we gotta kiss the Blarney stone.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: We gotta We did all that the first time.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_04: Right, exactly.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_04: So you knocked off the tourist stuff, and now you get the the true local stuff.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_04: That seems to be the jam.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_04: That's why we want to go for like a month over there.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_04: So we can do the big things.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I want to see Edinburgh Castle and those things.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_04: But then I want to do all the things that you're talking about.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's beautiful.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: And while while you're out there like hiking around on a lot of these trails, not just this one, but there's like sheep just right there.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: They're not even really bothered by you.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: You just walk right past them and they're just like looking at you, eating their grass, and super happy.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_04: They are sheep.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, they're not like you know, mountain lions or nothing.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_04: No, no.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: But it's it's just it's not something that you see on hikes here, really.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: So it's pretty cool.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_04: Aaron Powell Did you come home with any like Irish wool apparently is uh you mentioned sheep.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_04: Irish wool is like a big deal.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_04: Like had so do you have like an authentic real Irish wool sweater or something that you've Yeah, yeah.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think I got a real wool sweater the very first time.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then I've gotten my kids' sweaters whenever we go over there and uh we bring my kids whenever we go.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: Whenever we went over there this last time, on this hike, my son was picking up the sheep's wool that was like stuck in all the grass and stuff whenever we were walking around on these hikes, and he was putting it in his pockets, and he got to take some of that home with him.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: Contraband.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_04: So they stopped him at the airport.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_04: And what is this?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_04: It's wool from a hike.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_04: So have you thought about the question before we started this?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_04: I I kind of clued you in and I apologize for not breaking this one to you, because it is something that takes some while to think about.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_04: A question that we ask everyone that sits there is something that most people don't know about you.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_04: Is there one thing?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Ross Powell So whenever I was a young girl, I was probably middle school aged.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh my dad worked at Warren Wilson College, and he worked there for, I guess like since the late 90s until just recently, whenever he retired.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: But I would go down ride into work with him, and then I would go down to their farm and I would volunteer in the farm in the garden with all of the students.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess a lot of people don't know that about me.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but I would do it almost religiously, Monday through Friday, and I would get there at like five in the morning and then volunteer until about lunchtime, and it was so much fun, and I loved it.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that it shaped me into who I am today, I guess.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_04: Was he a professor or administration or no?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: My dad actually um he worked in Gladfelter, which is their cafeteria, and he was like the administrator of one of the administrators of that.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_04: So have you read the book One Second After?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: I have not.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_04: Do you know about the book One Second After?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: I do not.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, so it was written by a professor at either Warren Wilson or Montreat.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_04: For some reason, I get those two confused once in a while.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_04: I know Warren Wilson, Swananoa, Montreat's and more like Black Mountain, but his name is Dr.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_04: William Forston.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_04: And so One Second After was a huge runaway bestseller.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_04: There was a end up being another book called One Year After.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_04: And I think they're turning One Second After into a movie.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_04: So part of it was based on that campus.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_04: So what happens is there is an EMP, if you know what that is, an electromagnetic pulse for people that aren't familiar.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_04: So it's a real thing that can, you know, hurt electronics and whatnot.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_04: But in this particular book, which will become a movie, it affects apparently the entire East Coast, or how far beyond that no one really knows because what it does is it eliminates anything electronic from working, which if you think about that, kind of like we were during Helene, you're completely blind.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_04: So it was like how quickly society devolved after that happened.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_04: It's a fascinating book.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_04: I picked it up and it's not a thick book.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_04: I think I read it in a weekend.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_04: I couldn't put it down.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_04: And so part of it is based right there.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_04: All Western North Carolina, Asheville is in it, of course.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_04: And some of the the references have to not use like real names like the Ingram's warehouse as opposed to, you know, so things like that.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_04: But Warren Wilson was part of it.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's because it's where some of the people that were the key characters were kind of holed up in that's where they were staying and things of that nature.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_04: So if you're looking for a good read, I don't know how much to read, but that book made me not like put it down.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_04: It's like holy cow.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_04: And with your connection to there, I'd probably really like it.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_04: I it it was either Warren Wilson or Montreat.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_04: If people are listening right now that it's Montreat, they're yelling at me.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_04: Because they're like, dude, that's Montreat, not Warren Wilson.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, okay.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_04: And I'll be honest, I forget, but they're both out there.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_04: Either way, it's our area, and and certainly Black Mountain and Asheville, and a great read, and they're gonna turn that into a movie.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that'll be cool.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_04: It's gonna be pretty fascinating when they uh do it because it's one of those you can't put down.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_04: It's just like, holy cow, what's gonna happen next?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_04: You think about what happens when society no longer has anything and you're not getting it back.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_04: So people with prescriptions are not getting prescriptions, so they're gonna die.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_04: You don't have this work anymore, you don't have that, and you quickly realize how ill prepared we are for something like that.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_04: Now you might be more prepared because you were, you know, working in the gardens and things like that, and I'd probably be worthless.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I don't know how to do that kind of stuff.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, I think it's something that you would learn over time.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: You'd have to.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_04: You hope there's a couple people around that know how to like make their own yarn or like you know, collect wool from sheep.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_04: And then you know, can and they can make a sweater or do whatever else because you're not going back to where it was.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_04: All right, let's pivot back to your career with the APD.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_04: Is there a what's next, or have you really found your calling with the Family Justice Center?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Ross Powell I really love working at the Family Justice Center.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, I don't know what's next.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe one day I'll put him for supervisor.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe maybe I won might want to promote.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_04: Well, Lieutenant Loveland will be retiring at some point in the near future.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: I know, I know.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_04: So uh as she's your supervisor now, I would imagine.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_04: So I guess there'll be an opening.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, there will be.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not putting the pressure on or nothing.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_04: But I know that uh her and uh her husband, also an officer, are starting to plan for that next stage in their life.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_04: She's getting there.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: You've had uh what, seven years with this now, then I guess you said yes, with APD seven or eight, and then I have I've been in law enforcement for ten total.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_04: Well, we're happy to have you.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm happy that you sat down to talk with me about a few things.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_04: I know you were a little bit apprehensive.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_04: Any final words?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think so.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: Well, thank you for doing this.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, not a problem.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_04: Getting to know Sergeant Ian Cooper, happy Irish American Heritage Month, which is March.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you for having me today.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: I was told you've got some Irish roots.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I do.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: I'm from the Boston area.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-oh, hold it.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna stop you.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_04: We might not be able to be friends.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, geez.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_04: Now, if you're not a sports fan, then we can be friends.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_04: I am a sports fan.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_04: Oh god.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_04: I am a Boston sports fan.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, geez.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_04: Here we go.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_04: So Patriots, Bruins.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_04: Patriots, Bruins.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_04: Uh Red Sox are probably my fave.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_04: I'm I I don't care about the Red Sox.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_04: I care.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_04: I'm a Dodgers guy, so I it's that's a good team, too.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_04: In the opposite sides of the country, I don't follow the NBA, so you can roof at the Celtics all day long.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't really follow the NBA either.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_03: I'm from Buffalo.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, geez.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_03: So Yeah, I I I understand.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_03: Do you need me to leave now right?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my God.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, Brady made us his whipping boy for two decades.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_04: And and then you guys go down for like what a half a year, and all of a sudden you're at the Super Bowl again, and we still haven't been.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_04: And it's just so you can imagine my rancor is a little bit up.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_04: And then of course there's the Bruins and Sabres.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_04: That's a good rivalry.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's a good rival.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_04: It's a great rivalry as well.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_04: And you know what?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_04: It's gonna be interesting this year because the Sabres are finally good again.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_04: We could break our 14-year playoff drought.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_04: Dude, 14.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_04: 14.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_04: That's a long time.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_04: So in those 14 years, I think the Bruins have won two or three Stanley Cups.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_03: They have, I believe.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_03: I believe you are correct.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um not as long as the 86 years that the Red Sox were in the Well, that was like a whole nother thing.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_04: That was Cubs, Red Sox, 100-year drought type.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_04: I was actually rooting for the Red Sox to snap that because the rest of my family is Yankees fans.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_04: And so of course I'm gonna root against them, right?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_04: Oh yeah.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_04: Well, let's talk about that.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_04: Growing up in Boston, that must have been pretty cool.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I grew up about 30 miles north of Boston, small town called Boxford Mass, real old colonial town, basically houses in woods.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's interesting.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's one of the few towns in eastern uh Massachusetts that doesn't have a stoplight in it.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: Not one.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_03: Or stuff yeah, stoplight.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_03: And uh not one.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_03: It has very limited businesses.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: So it was founded in 1685, so it's a real old town.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: Really nice town to grow up in.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_04: See, I love that the history.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_04: I bet there's some revolutionary war stuff going on there.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_03: There's revolutionary, there's colonial.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_03: Actually, I'm a little interesting thing about me is uh I'm an Eagle Scout, and part of my project was uh you have to do an Eagle Scout project.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: And what I did was there's houses from the 1680s, 1690s, 1700s.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_03: There was a powder storage uh powder battery that during the Revolutionary War, and what I did was I went around and marked the historical sites, uh routed them in.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: My father and mother helped uh tremendously along with the other scouts.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_03: But that's super cool.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: So it was a really wonderful place to grow up.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_03: I ended up going to the University of South Carolina, so that's how I ended up down here.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_03: Speaking of sports fans, go gamecocks.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_03: And uh so I that's that's one of my primary uh favorite sports, Gamecock football down in South Carolina.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_04: I have been told by a lot of my friends as far as places I want to visit, the Boston area is one of those that I'm supposed to visit just because of the things that interest me.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_04: I love history.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_04: I love a Guinness beer, I love like I love the old small kind of taverns and pubs and things that they of that nature.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_04: I've heard just the scenery there is just, you know, right there in the ocean.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, it's just amazing as far as that goes.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: And and the north part of Boston where I grew up, you got the ocean, you got the rocky beaches, you got some the water's still incredibly cold, even in July.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I know about that.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I grew up growing up in the Long Island River in the Lake Erie, Lake Ontario.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_04: I know about those.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, but yeah, I mean that you got the old colonial houses, you got the oak trees, you got mixing in to the more urban areas.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it it really was it was a wonderful place to grow up, and I'll always say I'm always from the New England, Massachusetts area.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: What brought you down to Columbia, South Carolina?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_03: It was kind of a it was the best school I got into.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um Did they have a certain program?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_03: They criminal justice.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_03: So I knew I wanted to be in uh law enforcement even back then, so I chose the University of South Carolina because they had a pretty good criminal justice program.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: It was between that and the University of Maine, and I thought, well, it might be at least the weather's gonna be a little bit better in South Carolina.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_04: So that must have been a shock to the system for a guy from Boston.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_03: So I I've said so going from Boston, Massachusetts to Columbia, South Carolina, I might as well have been on the moon because it was a total culture shock, total weather shock.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: I I don't think I stopped sweating for about three months because of how hot it is in Columbia.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_04: It is, yeah.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_04: Columbia's brutal, dude.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: Going from I I never had weather like that, but I mean that was one of the best experiences I've I've had, and it, you know, kind of made me where I was today because I came back to the Carolinas after graduating.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: I did go back to New England for a couple years um right after college.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_03: It was a great experience, and part of the reason I'm in North Carolina is because of my time in South Carolina, believe it or not.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_04: We had similar uh kind of weather experiences going from the north to the south.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_04: I grew up in Buffalo.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_04: And then I started moving around.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_04: I lived in Pennsylvania, I lived in Missouri, and then I lived in Evansville, Indiana, and then Fayetteville, North Carolina.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_04: Oh wow.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_04: Which is very similar in weather to Columbia.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_04: It's right there on what they call the sand hills.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_04: So apparently, way back in the day, like I don't know, billions of years ago, whoever knows, they say that the ocean essentially went into like that area that Fayetteville, Columbia, there's like a line that goes down Florence and all of that.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's where the the elevation starts to go up.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_04: And so the heat gets trapped right there in the and so that's why in the summer it is just swelteringly uncomfortable.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_04: It's like very little breeze, super hot, super humid.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas if you're closer to the beach, and I live down there as well, you get a little bit of a breeze, you get a little bit of that, but places like Fayetteville and Columbia and Florence and all of that are just oppressive.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: They they're ungodly hot.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: It took me a long time to adjust that heat.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: After I did go back to uh New England after graduating from college, and I actually I started my law enforcement career in the state of New Hampshire as a correctional officer in in the state prison.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_03: Uh that was my first job after college, my first job in law enforcement sort of led me to North Carolina, and I always say, you know, that was I was young, I was younger, 23.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_03: It was a great experience.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_03: I wouldn't do it again, but it was a great it was a great experience.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_03: The new you know, working for the Department of Corrections, working in that environment for a college kid from Massachusetts.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_03: It was a great experience.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: It helped me learn, it helped me with communication skills, it helped me kind of learn going forward.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_03: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_03: You get kind of the work basics down.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: And correctional officers, that really helps when and if you go to the policing field.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, it's a very focused task, what you're doing there.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_04: So you can kind of really narrow your focus, do something very specific, but also get down the bare bones of what it takes to be in that world.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_04: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_04: And then you can expand it a little bit by joining a police department.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_04: So at what point did you take that next step and decide to go full-blown law enforcement?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_03: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_03: The way it worked, uh they they hire a little bit different in Massachusetts.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_03: Massachusetts is a civil service state, and at that time, back in the late 2000s, you would have, for example, the Mass State Police, which was ultimately what I wanted to do, had 10,000 candidates showing up for 200 slots.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, jeez.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_03: You have to take a uh a test and uh they they rank you based on your difficulty at that time.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: Now now not so much, but because just due to the the numbers.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_03: The the numbers.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: Now now they actually have a recruiter and all sorts of other stuff.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_03: Sure, yeah.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_03: So I ended up um wanting to come back to the Carolinas, and my friend from Burlington, North Carolina, one of my friends from college, told me, hey, you can come down to uh North Carolina and get sponsored, and you can go through the police academy and then you'll be trained and ready to go.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_03: So I started looking around and started emailing some North Carolina academies.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: I emailed them all through the state from uh Murphy to Manio, as they say.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_03: So I ended up settling on Carteret Community College for basic law enforcement training, which was in which is in Moorhead City, North Carolina.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_03: August of 2009, I moved down to Beaufort, North Carolina.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: And not to be confused with Beaufort, South Carolina.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_03: I learned I learned that out very quickly.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so I was sweet spelling, different pronunciation.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, yep.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_03: I look back at it now.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_03: I ended up having a two-bedroom apartment for about, I think it was about 550, 600 bucks uh about five minutes from five, ten minutes from the beach.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, those were the days.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, those were the days with a pool and everything else.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um I ended up going through basic law enforcement training at Carterette Community College, got certified in March of 2010, and at which point in time I applied for several agencies, and I was eventually hired by the Beaufort, North Carolina Police Department, which where I lived.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: So I started there in July 2010.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: How long were you there?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: I was there for three years.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_03: Did you enjoy it?
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh yes, very much so.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_03: I enjoyed it very much with uh with them.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: It was a small town.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_03: I would guess pretty slow paced.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it it was a small town.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we still had all sorts of I mean, not to the degree that we have in Asheville, but we still had we had stabbings, we had fights, we had domestics, we had welfare checks, we had all sorts of stuff.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_03: It was two officers, a shift, sometimes three.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: I I tell people around here it was a it was equivalent to working for maybe Black Mountain or Weaverville or something like that.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_04: So the total force was probably 40, 50.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_03: Uh or it wasn't even that big.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: It was like 25.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: So it was, but it was once again a fantastic um experience, and uh worked there for three years, and then I ended up going to Florida with my ex-wife, who was in the military.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: I ended up working as a sheriff's deputy for the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, which is Key West.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: The the entirety of the Keys.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_03: So you've spent some beach time.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I did quite quite.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um from Beaufort to Key West.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_03: So my my ex-wife, who we get along actually pretty well, um, if she's listening to this, um, she uh she was in the Coast Guard at the time.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: So um she ended up getting um stationed down in Key West right after we got together.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_03: So I ended up transferring my certification, my North Carolina certification to Florida.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: I went I went and did a what they call a compliance course.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_03: I went down to Brevard County, Florida, did a two-week course down there to learn Florida laws and some stuff.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um and then I was eventually hired by the Monroe County Sheriff's Office where I worked from um I worked at Southern Southern Keys, which believe it or not, um the Keys outside of Key West are actually it's it's kind of rural, believe it or not, because you have Key West, which has its own police department, then you have uh Stock Island, which is w what we covered, and we covered all the way up to Marathon, which is I I believe if I remember correctly, it was about almost 47 miles.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_03: That's a big area.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and there was I think four of us, if I remember that's a lot of ground area.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so there would be two in Big Pine Key, there would be two in Stock Island and a sergeant.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe maybe it was five.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_03: It was interesting.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um it was very rural.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_03: There was also an adjustment from because the way North Carolina does law enforcement is from Florida is a little bit, a little bit of a learning curve, you know, between the laws, procedures, policy, case law, things like that.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_03: So it was interesting.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_03: And then my ex-wife was getting out in the the military um after a couple years, so we ended up relocating up to Asheville um area because we both liked it up here.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_03: We'd been up here before.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_04: So you visited and things like that.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly, exactly.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: And then we ended up up here, and I was I got hired by uh now retired Lieutenant Sorrels hired me, Joey Sorrels.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_03: So what year was that then?
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh 14, 2014.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_04: So you've been here about uh 10, 12 years.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yep, going on 12 years this winter.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_04: So how many years in law enforcement did you?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_04: Uh it all factors into your retirement.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's gonna be about I got sixteen s going on sixteen this year, and then I bought my time from New Hampshire and rolled that over.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_03: So if you if you count the correctional time, I started in 2007.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_03: I've been going going since I was 23, 24.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_04: So you've seen a little bit of everything between the New England coast and the beaches of North Carolina and Florida, now the mountains of North Carolina.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_04: So of all those places, where have you felt like you belong the most?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_04: Like weather and topography and all this stuff.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_03: In all honesty, I feel most at home here in Asheville and Western North Carolina.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's this I've been with this department the longest.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: The weather between the weather where it's a little bit m better than New England.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_03: Except for the hurricane.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: Except for that, except for Helene.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_03: Except for that.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_04: Well we we do have the best.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, when you think about it, the least extremes of all the weather.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_04: Mostly.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_04: Mostly.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_04: It's not, you know, you get your s cold snaps, but we're not going to get New England cold for months on end.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_04: We're not going to get Florida heat for months on end.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_04: It is a nice compromise in that world of weather, except for, you know, when you have like changing events like Helene and things like that.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_04: I I I know.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, because I remember I I was in living in Beaufort during uh 2011, and Hurricane Irene came within the eye, it was in about eight miles of my apartment, and I was uh I I walked outside and it was it was nothing compared to uh Helene.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_03: Helene was far worse.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_04: It was bizarre, wasn't it?
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I so I was in uh lived in Charleston, I went through several.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_04: Uh one of them that came on right next to Charleston.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_04: So a category two that kind of ran right through town, I didn't think that was as bad as Helene.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it just it was really windy, it was really rainy, some trees got knocked down, but like within a couple of days, things were getting picked up and everyone was just moving on because it just it whatever it is, they're the buildings, the trees, the everything's more used to the drainage.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, exactly.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_03: And that was and that was what I noticed when I went through Hurricane Irene in 2011.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_03: It was that eastern North Carolina coastal is just it it can handle it.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_03: It can handle the drainage.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_03: It can handle, you know, I mean, yeah, it was knocked some trees down, knocked powers out for a few days, but not like not like what happened here during during Helene, where it was literally a hundred year hundred year event.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_04: Well, the the water, I guess, is the big thing.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_04: So here it's raging waters.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_04: It was that just wipe areas out and how there, sure the water rises, but it doesn't behave the same unless you're right on the coast where you get that storm surge with the crashing waves, and unless you get that inland just a little bit, you're mostly safe except for the wind.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, it's so it's way different there.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_04: But Sergeant Ian Cooper joins me right now, and because we don't have an O'Malley or an O'Toole, I had to choose you to celebrate Irish American Heritage Month.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_04: And for a guy that grew up with a little bit of you mentioned your your mother's side, I guess was the mother's side.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_03: Uh my mother, my my mother's m was McCullough.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_03: So it's so I have that.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh a little bit, I think some on my father's side too.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_03: I've done the um ancestry.com thing.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_03: So it was uh interesting fact about that.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: My grandmother was uh on my father's side was French Canadian.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_03: She grew up speaking French in Rhode Island.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_03: My I guess my great grandfather was born in Canada and they emigrated down to Rhode Island, but she grew up speaking French and was one of sixteen children.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_04: Ooh, jeez.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_03: And she she she yes, my grandmother uh she lived uh a good long, lived 99 years and was the was the last one of of her uh siblings.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_03: Good God, sixteen.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_03: Sixteen.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_03: I and I have a picture, I I do have my my father has a picture of of them from um when my grandmother got married, nineteen thirty-six, I believe.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_03: And all of them are together with my all sixteen of them.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_04: It's like having kids would be a full-time job, just literally constantly just one after the other after the hate to say, are they Catholic?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_04: They they act.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_04: And it's uh that's not like uh some people don't understand that, but the contraception thing is you're not allowed to use it.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: No, I I guess I guess not.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_04: I wasn't really strict Catholics don't believe in contraception anymore.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_03: Especially back in 1900.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_04: Well, and you know, having kids too, at least you know, in some places, you got kids working on the farm, you got kids doing this and that, and so children were almost your labor for a while.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, depending on what you did.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_03: They did have a farm, they did have a farm a lot of times that's what you did.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_03: In uh the Rhode Island, and it was like western part of Rhode Island, buttoned up to Connecticut, and that's where my grandmother grew up, 1940.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_03: She was born 1914, so 1920, 1930, went through the depression through all that.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_03: So that that was an interesting fact about my uh my lineage there, that she was one of sixteen.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_04: I think they say for the uh like for people of Irish heritage, that New England area, that Boston area has the the biggest percentage.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, uh we do we do have a pretty uh we do have a pretty big percentage of people of ex uh Irish extraction.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_03: Boss uh Buffalo did as well uh because of the Erie Canal.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_04: Oh a lot of uh Irish people helped dig the Erie Canal, which goes right through there.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_04: And so there is a ton of Irish heritage in Buffalo as well.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_04: There's uh the old first ward and whatnot, where all these areas, true Irish pubs that date back 200 years and things of that nature.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_04: So when St.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_04: Patrick's Day rolls around, for me growing up, it was always a big deal.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_03: Parade and the whole thing and and all of that.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_03: So being from Massachusetts, I had a bunch of kids in my graduating class from high school.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: I had five Walshes, five different kids with their last name was Walsh.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you know, I had you know O'Kane and O'Flarity and all I I had a I had a ton of ton of them.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_03: My name's actually of it on my father's side, it's actually more of an English an English name.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_03: As as is mine.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_03: Rice is an English name as well, but I've got Irish as well.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so but on my uh my mother's side it was McCullough.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_03: It was uh my grandmother uh was a Joyce, and her father was actually emigrated directly from Ireland.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_03: So my great-grandfather, I believe his name is George Joyce, actually came directly from Ireland.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know which county?
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_03: Because that's how they kind of identify.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's like I I not off the top of my head.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_03: I've been working on my ancestry.com thing.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah and and had and I had a little little tree map going of it, but I know he I don't know which town, not off the top of my head.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_03: I do know on my father's side, they grew up in Lincoln or Lincolnshire.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_03: Mine was County Cork.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_03: County Cork.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_03: That was that was on, I believe it's in the West Coast.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_03: I did get to visit Ireland last May, actually.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_04: So much like uh our previous guest we had in here, we had Zoe Vertifway, and and she's visited many, many times.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, she loves it.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_03: She actually gave me some recommendations.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, she is the person to go to if you're going to Ireland.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: So Ireland was a fantastic trip.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_03: I got to see all it was it was probably um one of the favorite my because I was able to do three countries.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_03: I I went to France, went to London, but I spent the most time in Ireland, and it was just it was amazing.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_03: It was it was a fantastic trip.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um got to see the cliffs and more, got to got to go to Kilkenny, got to see castles, got to see and it was just it's such a beautiful country, such wonderful people, and I've I felt really privileged that I got a chance to go go and experience that that wonderful country.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_03: I I I will be going back at some point in time.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_03: Me too.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_04: Well, not back.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_04: I'm going at some point.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_04: I've never been, so I will be going at some point.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_03: For any of the listeners, recommend it.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_03: It it's such a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful country.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_03: So beautiful.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_04: 10 out of 10 recommend, as they say.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_04: Sergeant Ian Cooper joins me, and the question we always ask if you thought about this one, uh, one thing that most people don't know about you, it's a question we ask everyone that sits in your chair.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: My sister, uh my younger sister is actually um adopted from Russia.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_03: My parents adopted her from Russia in 1994, just after the fall of the Soviet Union.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_03: There's seven years between us.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_03: How old was she when she was adopted?
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_03: Four.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_04: So does she remember it at all?
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_03: Uh not ru not not a lot.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_04: So she's she speaks English.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_04: She wouldn't have a channel.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_03: She probably doesn't speak a lick of brush.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_03: No, she doesn't speak any Russian anymore.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_03: But uh yeah, she she remembers a little bit here and there, but she didn't remember a lot.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_03: Like growing up, we would have to uh my w speak some Russian words, but she she adapted very, very, very quickly when my parents adopted her.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_03: So um but yeah, so she's uh I mean she's an adult now, does does Oh sure.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_03: You wouldn't even know, probably.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_04: Do you know what inspired your parents to do that?
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_03: I can't I can't remember.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_03: I I seems like you would have asked that question.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_03: I I think so, but I can't re I I believe so because I uh but I would have been I I because I was an only child for a for a a while.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_03: So um because I was 10, I believe.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_03: Well there's 10, 11 when there's a question for the next family gathering.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I know.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_03: I I that my parents were a little bit older at the time, and I believe they want they wanted a girl that wanted me to have a sibling.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_03: So um and they were a little bit older at the time.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_03: So I bel I believe that's that was the reasoning behind it.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_03: But ultimately they wanted to do, you know, something uh, you know, have another child and well it's a great great way to do it, and you know, you get somebody that was probably in difficult circumstances.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, she had a she had a very difficult uh I mean she was actually they they didn't even have a foster.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_03: She she grew up in an orphanage.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_03: And she didn't with with a hundred other kids and you know, one woman to watch them and so she just needed to some medical concerns that they had to do.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_03: And but yeah, she's uh she's Doing well now.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: Well, see, it's a happy ending, of sorts.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_04: Definitely something that I don't think most people would know by.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_04: So about that.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_04: Learned a lot today.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_04: Sergeant Ian Cooper, thank you for joining me.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_04: Master Police Officer Debbie LaCroix joins me one more time because you retiring.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, sir.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_04: That's pretty exciting, isn't it?
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it is, I have to say.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh a little bittersweet, but I'm excited for this next chapter in my life.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_04: I think everyone says that around here.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_04: And with a lot of people that if their job means so much to them, it's like you've worked so hard to get to a certain point and you're looking forward to retiring and all the things that come with it, but you're gonna miss a lot of the things that you had.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: Serving this community has been an honor of my lifetime.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've served almost oh well a little over two decades.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: So some of the most meaningful times of my career have been serving this community, bringing Cora on board, bringing a therapy dog into this community, and um not just this community, but she's been a big part of this area, one of the first therapy dogs in this county and surroundings.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, exciting.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_04: You've been on the APD Pod Squad a couple of times because you are a part of the community engagement division, of which we always feature one of the officers and let people know what is going on.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_04: But we wanted to get you in here one more time because by the time this episode airs, you will officially have been retired for almost a week.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_04: So this is your official, you know, Sayanara and you know, goodbye, good night, all that kind of stuff.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_04: So let's tell the Debbie LaCroix story.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_04: Let's let's do that.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_04: Because we we've talked a whole lot, you know, outside of this room, but I'm not even sure I know that story.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_04: Like, where were you born?
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_04: W where did you get started in law enforcement?
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_04: How did it become an inspiration?
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_04: All those things.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_04: So I I think you may have told me before you're you're a local girl, right?
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: Charles C.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: Bell.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: He is my great-grandfather, and uh, the school, Bell Elementary School, was named after Charles C.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: Bell.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a little a fun note of history there.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_04: Did you play that card when you went there?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_04: Name drop with the teachers to get out of trouble?
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh no, but his his picture, which still remains in the hallways at Bell School, is still there, and it's the same picture that was hanging up when I was a student at Bell.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: So uh always felt like he was watching me.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_04: He wasn't there at the time, though, right?
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: He was he was not there at the time.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: He donated the land and he was a superintendent and all that.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of they named the school after him.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_04: Which high school did you go to?
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: I went to Asheville High School.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_04: All right, Asheville High.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_04: Did you always want to be in law enforcement or how did that come to be?
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: Always had a strong interest in it, and uh it was either being an attorney or a police officer.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I took the civil service test way back when and was hired and did very well on the civil service uh test and started my career uh a very long time ago, but absolutely loved every minute of it.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you have the good, the bad, and the ugly through the years.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's very different now than back then, but I still love the profession and love my job.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_01: When my feet hit the floor, I get up with excitement, uh, you know, putting this uniform on, coming to serve the community that I love.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_04: So you started with APD, did a little bit of everything then, patrol, and you were a detective and all of that.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_04: And then you went away and worked for the sheriff's office and did some other things and then returned?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: I started with APD.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was started on patrol.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was a training officer, I was a detective.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: My first two children were born when I was with APD the first time.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: So they they weren't used to having um pregnant moms.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: So that was a growing period during Asheville Police Department.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_04: Aaron Ross Powell, we've had many female officers that have had children even since I've been here, and it's a very family-friendly environment.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_04: So you were a bit of a trailblazer, I suppose.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, they didn't have a a leave policy at all.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was pregnant and the Asheville Police Department's no place for a pregnant woman, so I did go home at that point until I had my first child, and then the second child was very different.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: I came back with a lot of good things in place, but I did design the first maternity uniform for a police officer.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was in the Asheville Citizen Times over that.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_04: Is that right?
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: You so you designed it like the like a different type of a shirt was I took my uniform to a seamstress.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: They cut out the front portion of the pants and sewed an expandable piece of material into that.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then they just added some extra material in the front.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: I wore a shoulder holster, which was probably not the safest thing.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I stayed out on the road my second pregnancy.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: I stayed out on the road probably uh six months.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: I took a tumble down an embankment chasing someone, and my doctor said it was time to come inside.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, very different, you know.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: But luckily, you know, baby was okay and and all that.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: And now, you know, that there was a maternity policy put into effect at during that time.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_04: So at some point you went to the uh sheriff's office, Bunkham County Sheriff's Office for what, seven years, I think it was.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_04: And then you returned to the Asheville Police Department, what, three years ago, I believe it was.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yes.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_04: And brought Cora with you.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yes.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_04: So she is never far from your side.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_04: I I two, you know, I hate to say partners in crime, considering is what you do for a living.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_04: However, you and Cora are just kind of two P's in a pod.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_04: It's almost like when people think of her, they think of you and vice versa.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_04: And it's just kind of you guys are now just intertwined.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this past month, I think I got over 20, it was probably about 25 requests from the city school for her.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we've been very busy in the city schools this past month and the months leading up.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we're hoping to come back and work a couple of days a week.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: Cora's not ready to retire.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and she's made that known.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: And we would like to keep her doing her same job in the community.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_04: Well, and we want to keep seeing you guys coming around here.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_04: I know that uh a certain chief step would uh would certainly miss you and Cora being around all the time.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_04: And so would I.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_04: My my wife's totally jealous when I send her pictures of whenever Cora comes to see me, and she's like, Oh, you gotta bring Cora to meet me.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, I kind of rub it in a little bit.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_01: And she loves it.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: When I leave for the afternoon, do you have to give her a couple of little tugs to get her out the door because she absolutely loves her job as I do, and she doesn't want to leave.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_04: Well, we hope that you'll continue here, but let's talk about outside of the building what's next.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_04: What what do you see in your future?
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I know you got a family, you got kids and grandkids and all those things.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_04: You got like mini donkeys and all these different things going on, like you have mini horses, full-size horses.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I know you'll stay busy, but is there anything in particular you're looking forward to now that you're going to have more time?
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this job does uh require you to be away from your family more so than some careers.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm very excited about spending more time with my children, my grandkids.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to do that.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: I have to tell you, there's a new addition.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_01: I have a new grand mini.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-oh.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a a little baby pig.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: Polly the pig is so adorable.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: And she's litter box train and just the sweetest thing.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not kidding you.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I told I told my daughter, she asked me uh two weeks ago to go with her to get the pig.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, she lives just right outside of Charlotte.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, oh, I don't know if this is a good idea, but once I met the pig and she is so adorable, lives inside.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_04: And so how how big is the pig now?
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the pig right now is probably about nine pounds.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_04: I agree.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: The mom of the pig was 50 pounds, the dad is 70.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: But you can't depend on that.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we're hoping she will stay on the smaller side of things, but she's perfect.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: She is absolutely perfect.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_04: Polly, you say.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: Polly.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_04: Polly the pig is is Polly the pig.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_04: Are these particular pigs, these mini pigs or whatever, are they they good just to be by themselves or do they need more pigs?
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_04: Are we gonna have a whole pig festival down there?
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_04: Uh is it you've got everything down there already.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_04: It's a full farm.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: The pigs, the pig loves the dogs.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: Loves the dogs.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_04: She's so we've got dogs, pigs, mini donkeys, horses, uh mini miniature horses.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_04: Miniature horses and full-size horses, right?
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_04: And goats.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: Goats, a lot of chickens.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we have a lot of eggs.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_04: How much land?
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_04: This is your daughter's place, right?
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: Mama's 10 acres.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_04: So they got they got some land then.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: Ashley got a phone call and a lady wants her to take her two miniature horses because they are they're moving and they can't take them with them.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how Ashley has acquired some of the animals through a rescue kind of situation.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's pretty cool.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: She's got uh she's got a TikTok, uh, Roberts Ranch is her TikTok name, and she's got some really funny videos of farm life at Roberts Ranch.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_04: I I'm envisioning a a future uh on a farm for you.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_04: Like it so this is gonna be some sort of animal refuge or some sort of I I just kind of see this growing.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: She actually has started doing um like a mobile petting, you know, farm.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: So uh she has done a few petting zoo uh experiences and birthday parties and stuff like that.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_04: So I just keep hearing uh the theme from Green Acres in my life.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_04: Some people remember that old show.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_04: I just can't.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_04: This is what I'm getting in my head as you're telling all the stories.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_04: Everyone knows the song if you're from our era at least.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, instead of Jethro sitting there with a big uh big bowl of cereal, that's that's gonna be me because I love Green Acres is that's it.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_04: Man, this is this is all I can envision right now.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_04: And I so I've you've got to invite me down there sometime because this is fascinating.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you gotta bring your wife.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: The pig is, I'm gonna have to put Cora's hat on the pig and see how she we get a little competition for outfits, I think maybe with uh you know, because you like to dress up Cora.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_04: You gotta is the pig like willing to get in some costumes?
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: She's she is very relaxed.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: This pig is so relaxed.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I've never seen her, I've never seen her like a high strung pig for what it's worth.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_04: I wouldn't even know.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean I think pigs most of them will squeal when you pick them up, and Polly will squeal a little, but she's getting so much better.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and she's learning uh uh we've taught her how to sit on command.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not kidding.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not kidding.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_04: Well, it's gonna get to the point as she grows that you're not gonna be able to pick her up much anymore.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_04: If she's getting to be 50, 70 pounds, that's a lot of pig.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_01: She has a stroller.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_04: Oh my god.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: You do not.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: She does have a pig.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_04: Oh my gosh.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_04: This has really come full circle, I guess.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_04: So Master Police Officer Debbie LaCroix, it sounds like you've got your hands full in retirement, and then hopefully we'll continue to see you and Cora around the building even more in some capacity.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think there's actually a little bit of room left in Cora's paw troll card that I might be able to bring Polly up and put her in the cart with Cora sometime.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_04: I'm holding you to that.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_04: You know, this being Asheville, you pushing a dog and a pig in costume in a stroller through the streets of downtown Asheville would probably not even cause a ripple.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_04: I gotta see this.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_04: So look me up next time you're you're bringing the pig to town and with Cora and heading to Pritchard Park, and we'll make a day of it, we'll make some sandwiches and have a good time.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_04: All right.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_01: That'll that'll be great, Rick.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_04: Master Police Officer Debbie LaCroix, congratulations on your retirement.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: Attentional units APD1 is 10-3 for the final radio call of Master Police Officer Debbie LaCroix.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: After 20 years of dedicated law enforcement service, Master Police Officer Debbie LaCroix is signing off.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: Among her many contributions, her most notable legacy is bringing the first Therapy Canine program, not only to APD but to the region.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: She also helped establish the first Western North Carolina Critical Incident Stress Management Program at APD.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_00: Through her career, MPO LaCroix served in between criminal investigations and concluded her service in the community engagement division, leaving a lasting impact in every assignment.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: We would be remiss in the last month if we do not pay for a special farewell from her mostly and beloved partner.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: MPO Debbie LaCroix, as you sign off for the last time, know that your APD family is grateful for your sacrifice and unwavering commitment, not only to the law enforcement profession, but to the community you serve with heart and purpose.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: We wish you a well-earned and fulfilling retirement.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is your last call, Master Police Officer Debbie LaCroix.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_00: You are now 1042.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy your next chapter.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_04: That's it for another episode of the APD Pod Squad.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you to my guests, Detective Zoe Vertifway, Sergeant Ian Cooper, and now retired Master Police Officer Debbie LaCroix.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_04: And thank you for listening.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_04: If you got a question or a suggestion, call 828-250-8800 and leave a voicemail.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_04: That's 828-250-8800.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_04: Or you can just email APD Podcast Feedback at AshevilleNC.gov.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_04: Listen and subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts and don't miss a single episode.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_04: I'm Rick Rice, and this is the APD Pod Squad.