Latest / 775 Alive / Ep027: Policing the Rurals (Guest: Retired Elko Police Chief Ty Trouten)

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Ep027: Policing the Rurals (Guest: Retired Elko Police Chief Ty Trouten) · 775 Alive

• 0:03
  Welcome to the 775 Alive podcast, your rural Nevada headquarters for decoding politics, economics, and general global shenanigans. I'm Crystal Newton, your business strategist, breaking down why Nevada's hustle is stronger than a sagebrush root in a windstorm. Here with my trusty co-host, Scott Gavorsky, PhD historian, here to explain the smart lessons of history, even if we are likely to ignore them. Grab your boots for a wild ride through today's most important news.
• 0:33
  Scott: So, welcome back to 775 Alive. Once again, Crystal and I are on opposite sides of the state. She's down in Vegas. I'm back up here in Elko. But we had a special guest today. We wanted to go ahead and get here on the episode and sitting next to me is Ty Trouten who just recently retired last July as Elko police chief up here. So, welcome to 775.
• 0:57
  Scott: and we wanted to follow up on this, in part because we're still dealing with a lot of crime and violence issues here in the country. Are you seeing anything down there, Crystal, in Vegas with the protest against ICE or anything? Crystal: Not really. I mean, I it's pretty peaceful here and, you know, they're dealing with their normal shenanigans from tourists. I don't really see anything out of the ordinary. I've been coming and going from Vegas for 8 years, and it looks about the same.
• 1:22
  Scott: Scott: Right? Which is good, but uh I figured we'd get started. Ty, you want to go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself and background here?
• 1:32
  Scott: Ty: Uh sure. So, I'm not a native Nevada. I was actually born in Montana. Um went through high school there, uh college, uh Utah, spent a couple years in Boston. Um actually came here after I returned to college, came here and was a summer hire for the mines. Um the the big thing there was they were paying $12 an hour where the best uh rate you could get over in Utah be about 7, 7.75. So that was important back then trying to put myself through school. Um original intent going through school was to get into the FBI. Um at that time didn't have any foreign languages, was not an accountant. Was not really high highly desirable for him. So I would have to do three years with law enforcement and then could apply to enter into the FBI. Uh had written with several uh Utah department stuff. did not really find anything that uh and it just it was boring to be quite honest with you. Uh not a lot of crimes going on. Some of the departments I rode with, their cities didn't even have a hotel in them. Uh and that was a a large city, but uh just very quiet areas. On just kind of a a whim, I did a ride along here with one of the Elko officers and it was phenomenal. Um if you've been here a long time, many people remember the Domino's murders. Uh riding with him that night. He actually put handcuffs on one of the suspects. The warrants come out. I think we had eight arrests in an 8 hour shift. Wow. And I thought, man, this is phenomenal. This is what I want to do. Um, had to wait a couple years. I was reserved for a couple years. Uh, they actually had an opening, uh, tested, was hired, and by the time three years rolled around, I had no desire to go into the FBI. I enjoyed thoroughly what I was doing. Elko was a phenomenal community, good, uh, community, good place to raise a family, things like that. But, uh, because of some of the mining industry, a lot of the contractors come through and stuff, we also have a lot of things going on for law enforcement. So, it was kind of the the best of both worlds in that regard. So, um been here for oh about 30 years now.
• 3:14
  Scott: Scott: Okay. And how long were you a police chief here?
• 3:20
  Scott: Ty: Uh just over six years.
• 3:25
  Scott: you were in Boston, right?
• 3:25
  Scott: Ty: No.
• 3:30
  Scott: we want to talk about, what we're doing with this 775 Alive podcast, as our regular viewers know, is trying to bridge that rural urban divide. And it's sort of fascinating, right? Uh Crystal, you're not seeing a lot of stuff in Vegas now, but we've got Portland and and Chicago, Los Angeles where we're seeing large amounts of crime and violence. A very big debate. Um so I think one of the things we wanted to do is get your perspective. Um you know, as a former police chief and as an officer, what do you think the differences are that you see between rural and urban sort of criminality?
• 4:03
  Ty: Well, so I don't know that the criminality is necessarily the difference. Um the same crimes occur wherever you're at. There's homicides everywhere. There's uh sexual assaults, child molestations, you name it. Um there is probably some disparity I think within the uh perhaps the per capita rates. Um and that also has a lot to do with the laws of the states, the the type of departments they have there. Um but significantly what it really comes down to a lot of times is the economy of scale. If you're, you know, part of Las Vegas Metro, they have a full-time dedicated SWAT team. you know, one element is on duty. Um, right now the next element's going to be off for their days off. One element's training. So, they always have a team just ready to go. When you come into the rural areas, we do not have enough staffing to field a full-time team. Nor would we have the call though to justify that. But yet, you're still expected to maintain the same standards and training, and you're still called upon to deal with the same situations. You know, we we don't get to dictate uh, you know, what calls come out to us, per se. Um and so it's that way across the board on a lot of things that um we have to fulfill the same I guess requirements but as a collateral duty rather than a primary duty. Um along with that goes you know different things. Um if you're familiar with like UASI funding city Las Vegas only city in the state that's large enough qualifies gets direct federal funding for a lot of their programs. The rest of us uh you take about an equal portion of that um comes out to the entirety of the rest of the state and Vegas can put in for that amount as well. So they can almost double dip on some of these grants. So um it does make it difficult um to you know not just in personnel, not just in hours for training and uh preparation for but also in acquiring the material and items that you need for that. Um you know one of the things a lot of agencies have a team of grant writers these larger agencies. The entire city of Elko does not have a grant writer in its ranks. So you have to take on that duty. That can be a benefit. We've often used it as a selling point for an agency of our size that you will learn a lot of different skills and trades. You're going to be that jack of all trades. You may not be the master of any of them, but you'll have a lot of varied experiences, a lot of unique challenges, a lot of educational opportunities through your police career.
• 6:10
  Ty: it's it's sort of interesting that parallel. Um I I have some questions about funding when we get to it, but Crystal, you're looking curious there. You have a question?
• 6:15
  Ty: Crystal: No, I was kind of reading your bio, Ty, and I I know that um community building is very important to you, and I love that anytime a police department takes time to build communities, and I do recognize that more of the federal grants are targeted towards large larger cities where there's arguably bigger problems. But it it's frustrating, too, because one thing I love about rural communities is you're able to actually strengthen bonds and build a real community. And it's so important for police officers to know who they're dealing with a little bit more than just what's on their driver's license. So, I love the way that the rural police departments really get to know people and the sheriffs alike. Um, do I I would think the difference between rural and urban has a lot to do with that dynamic where an urban police officer, you know, nine times out of 10 does not know the person they're they're pulling over or interacting with where it's probably the opposite in rural community.
• 7:16
  Ty: the very rural rural communities, say for instance maybe Carlin, you probably know just about every one of your citizens that reside there. Um but even in cities our side, we know a lot of our um repeat offenders because we deal with them routinely, recognize them, know them. Um but even uh we had a couple officers come on to our agency from San Bernardino and even in the large urban areas where you have you know millions of people the individual officers they will be assigned a beat and that will be their beat for a significant portion of the time and they actually get to know those people as well. So it can still go on in you know larger communities. Um I think there's probably less of that sometimes in communities that u do not appreciate law enforcement or are acting contrary to law enforcement. it makes that obviously much more difficult. Um, you know, an interesting thing, um, I was in Boston 91 through 93 and lived in, uh, Mattapan, uh, Mission Hill area, Dorchester, Southside, if you're familiar with those areas. Pretty rough areas.
• 8:17
  Ty: Yeah.
• 8:17
  Ty: Ty: You developed an ear, you could, uh, on the street you're on or, you know, a couple streets over and you're fine. um chalk outlines that uh much like people will make memorials where someone is killed in a car wreck out west here back there. They would take the chalk outlines, permitize them and make memorials and those things were everywhere. So a pretty violent area. Um lots of homicide shootings, gang problems. And I got to meet a Boston police officer back there. The city itself had actually bought a tract of houses in this block, both sides. And it were it was nothing but police officers. And the idea was to put officers back in the community, get them in the areas where they actually work. This last October, um, exactly a year ago, I was back in Boston. Their current police chief and their mayor, they're talking about the success they've had that for that year, 2024 to October, they had had 17 homicides within the city of Boston. Now, I was shocked. I'm looking up on my phone. I'm like, okay, what are the jurisdiction? Maybe it doesn't include Doorchester. Maybe it doesn't include Mission Hill, maybe it's not Mattapan. Um, but in fact, it does. Mhm. So, I seen a Boston sergeant. She was uh sitting out there on one of the little uh uh kind of lobby areas, and I said, "I've got to ask, what did you do?" Because that would be, you know, a couple weeks, maybe a month back in the '90s. And what she shared is that they expanded that program. And she goes, "We are in the housing developments. We reside all over in the communities." And she goes, "We have become the de facto mothers." and the deacto fathers to many of these children. We're the ones helping them with homework. We're the ones teaching them to play basketball or baseball or whatever it is. And she goes, "It's done a couple things." She goes, "These kids tend to idolize us now." Which means less likelihood they're going to commit crimes as they get older. Um but she goes, "We don't suffer for recruiting because we've got a lot of these kids that want to be just like that cop they've got to know or gotten to know." So I I found that interesting. So, it's, you know, it's possible in urban and rural. Um, but, you know, there's obviously there's lots of similarities, there's lots of negatives. Uh, one of the things I was grateful for as chief, um, when things went south for us, um, there are some really good, um, leaders across the state in law enforcement, Sheriff Balaam out of Washoe, if I needed a helicopter, an element of his team, if I needed his shooting team, whatever it may be, all I need to do was pick up the phone.
• 10:46
  Ty: And that's huge because you know while they have a combined team Reno Washoe Sparks for like officer involve shootings and homicides we don't have that out here. You know our property crimes detective is also our homicide crime detective and the same for the sheriff's office. So you quickly you know run out of bodies on some of these calls that come up.
• 11:06
  Ty: Boston experience because this is this is probably one of the the um um more controversial issues since 2020 in the George Floyd situation. The idea of what's the role of the police and of course like you described starting in the '90s when we had that high surge in crime wave uh during the 80s there was more of a push to put police officers in the communities either what Boston is describing right where they're living within the communities or the Giuliani approach just putting them on the street the constant uh stopping and stuff. But one of the things is George Floyd's actually uh been pushing back against that arguing that less police will will equal better policing. Yeah, I I got a feeling you don't dis . . . you disagree with that approach.
• 11:54
  Ty: you one of the things I learned in Boston, again, I grew up in a very rural community, 500 people in Montana. Um we did not have a lot of diversity there. Um obviously a lot of Native Americans and, you know, ranchers, miners, you know, loggers, that kind of thing. But, um going to Boston was eye opening. Just there's people from all over the world there and you know one of the things you learn is that uh despite wherever you come from despite you know any range of factors I guess you would want to use to to categorize people or divide them the biggest thing we all have in common is people all pretty much want the same thing. They want the opportunity to better their lives. Um a lot of them would express it to be able to do better than they had watched their parents be able to do. They want their children to have greater opportunities than they have. And so I vehemently disagree with, you know, less police equals more policing because I think what you have is there's a lot of folks and they're like we see in this country quite a bit. They're the silent majority because they don't have the time to go out and protest and and do these things. They are scrapping just to make ends meet. They're, you know, working sometimes two or more jobs just to be able to provide and and do the things. They don't have the luxury to go out and be heard or protest or or voice their opinion a lot of times. Um, but they want the same things. Um, the book uh I'm trying to think are police racist and why that's bad for the black community? Something like that. It's been a while since read it, but they talk about the actual, you know, good people, the good citizens. They're just trying to live their lives, uh, pay their bills, work their jobs, raise their families. They want more law enforcement because that means their streets are safe. You know, they aren't being victimized. I think in a lot of cases, uh, that claim is what it's aimed at is, well, if there's no cops around to stop the crime, then there's no arrest and hey, that's great for us. Well, it's great for the criminals. That's not great for the average citizen, right?
• 13:49
  Scott: Crystal, you looking curious there.
• 13:49
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah, I'm you could speak to Elko. I know it's a city of is it 20,000 people?
• 14:04
  Scott: Plus you got Spring Creek across the ridge which is 16,000 outside the city's jurisdiction but a lot of back and forth.
• 14:10
  Scott: Crystal: Right. So what is the types have they changed over your career? That was you know 30 years you've been in Elko. Has the crime types changed? Has it become higher? Has it become lower? How's it looked over the past 30 years in Elko?
• 14:28
  Scott: Ty: Well, first understanding that there's been marijuana was a felony. If you had user amounts of marijuana, marijuana, that was a felony. Um, that changed. When I started, if you stole $250 worth of anything, that was a felony. Now it's 1,200. Mhm. So, it's hard to say, you know, compared to 20 years ago, this is a a true comparison. Um, you'd have to read through every report and see what's taken. Um, I will tell you that the the biggest problem, and I've said this often, if we could solve the drug issue, we would probably have a diminishment of around 80% of our crimes. And that is across the board. The majority of our property crimes are driven specifically for the purpose of acquiring items or money or something to trade for drugs. When I was a sex crimes investigator, child sex crimes investigator, I had just come off of working narcotics and it amazed me that I was dealing with the same people. Um there is a very strong link to it. The homicides we've had, uh the one there at the Holiday Hotel, you know, it it all blends together. The crimes that are traditionally fall outside of that would be things like DUI, DUI um homicides, you know, you hit someone, kill them, things like that. Uh domestic battery, both related, but not directly related, if that makes sense. Meaning you have them both ways and such. Um but the majority of our crimes are tied into the drug issue. even down to the um uh quality of life crimes such as disturbing the peace and trespassing things like this. Mh. We are seeing especially with fentanyl but uh some of the new drugs they use just to make methamphetamine stuff. It's frying people. It's causing uh damage to the brain. It's resulting in mental illness and now we're combating those crimes as well. Um used to know most of our transient population as we called them. Um couple of them stayed here year round. Most went south when it turned cold. Mhm. You knew him. One was a retired officer out of Miami Dade, uh, on disability, and all they wanted to do is drink and watch the world go by. I mean, we knew him. Uh, the ones I see down at our, um, quote unquote humanitarian camp now, they're all the dopers that I was arresting, you know, 20 years ago. It's it's not somebody who lost their job and they're down and out looking to get back on their feet, right? And I think that's probably one of the biggest issues that's going to face every law enforcement is how to deal with these people. And that's the the drug issue. Of course, there's a you you know this is this has been an issue where more and more evidence seems to point that's something that really is new in rural communities uh particularly over the last 20 25 years um and of course one of the problems we have up here in Elco as we said right on the I80 corridor right so we're on a a major conduit right so there is that effect you know um I I would say drugs probably started fairly large about the same time as the mining boom okay um which you can expect you're bringing in outside influence inuences outside uh habits for people, different things like that. What's interesting uh when I first went to narcotics roughly I think July of 2003 um we were buying a gram at a time. If it was really a big deal, it might be an eightball, three and a half grams. Um that was major. Over three years we went from that to buying quarter pounds at a time. M and it went from being, you know, whatever drug addict had access to money in a vehicle and could make a trip to Reno or Las Vegas or Salt Lake or sometimes even Phoenix, they'd pick up an ounce or two of drugs and bring them back. Um, by the end it was all orchestrated. We were starting to see the influence of cartels and other gang members, uh, motorcycle gangs, different things like that. And they were coordinating and bringing, you know, two pounds in at a time here. And well, that escalated to four or five bricks of, you know, four or five kilos. And it just escalated like that. So that's also one of the changes that's um happened over the years. And um obviously the drugs have changed a bit. Meth used to be the big thing. Um coke had been big during the 80s here. Uh coke's back. Heroin uh came back although they called it opiate opioids or opium. Yeah. Much nicer name, right? Doesn't have that, you know, dead guy with a needle in his arm connotation to it. Um but that rapidly evolved it into fentanyl. Mhm. And of course at the same time we're dealing with the uh over prescribing of opioids uh getting people addicted. A young man here, great great kid in high school, great athlete, good student, injured back injury, addiction, now he's ex-felon. You know, there's all kinds of things contributing to that. Right. Um, like I said, the the worst part is I I've yet to see a large-scale um program that addresses both the mental issues, uh, the ill effects of drug use and whatever they bring on as well as the addiction that works. Uh, it's it's pretty much a fight for one individual at a time.
• 19:25
  Scott: and it's interesting that it was tied to the the the rise of the mining industry because, you know, there's a lot of dynamics about the increased drug use in rural, predominantly white America, right? You see some of this in JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy and his background. Um, and and my mother's side, the family's from that and certainly see that a lot even today. But we're not in an area that's economically depressed either, right? What you have is no middle class. Either everybody's pulling down six figures in a mine or they're below poverty level.
• 20:00
  Scott: if it's necessarily related to the money aspects much as it is the time aspect. H um when I before I was an officer here I came here as a summer hire spent about three years underground in the mines. The theory was work hard play hard. Um so when you got off on your long change you didn't go home and kiss the wife and send the kids off to school. you went down, cashed your check at the casino and drank and gambled and maybe all day and that was pretty common. Um, I seen an interesting stat, it's probably been five, six years ago that Elko County has the highest per capita income, but also one of the lowest per capita education rates, which creates an interesting dynamic. You have people making six figures, um, but they're they're high school graduates. Mhm. Um, if you look around our community, you will notice an inordinate amount of lifted quadcab pickups and, you know, boats, motorcycles, snowmobiles, toys galore that you don't normally see in things. Um, I think that kind of plays into the the drug side as well. Um, one of my good friends is still a shifter at an underground mine and um, constantly dealing with the fact that the miners um, a lot of them still use drugs. Mhm. which, you know, creates all the safety issues and stuff. But, uh, for some folks, it's recreational, I think. Um, way to have a good time. Um, for a lot of the folks, especially a lot of the ones I've seen over the years, it becomes their life. Mhm. I've known one person that she was able to hold a job, pay off her house, raise her daughters by herself, owned her car, everything, and was a meth user. Everybody else, uh, pretty much short order, they become addicted, and it it rules their life.
• 21:45
  Scott: something.
• 21:45
  Scott: Crystal: Yeah. Um, it it's a difficult problem look at. We I mean, we've obviously had DARE and we've had the war on drugs and and we've tried to implement ways to support people so that they don't fall into addiction, but it seems to be more ubiquitous now more than ever. And it seems like um Trump is his his attempt to address this is to take military action and and hit the facilities where these drugs are being manufactured. And that's it's an incredibly controversial and we're it's yet to be seen if the the sup is the Supreme Court going to rule on whether that's justified or not. Do we have anything like that coming down the pipeline, Scott?
• 22:31
  Scott: Scott: I haven't heard anything And there's you're talking about the drug boats out of Columbia?
• 22:42
  Scott: Ty, I mean, there's a lot of ways to approach this question, but is this do you think this tactic is warranted at this point? Seeming seeing as though we've tried so many community support programs and it only seems to get worse. Um, how do you have any kind of thoughts on that those bombings?
• 23:01
  Scott: I'm I'm all in favor of them. Um, my thought is they're killing Americans every single day. They know they're killing Americans and it's all about money. Yeah. So, uh, whatever is needed. Um, if you they're essentially destroying our country from the inside out by the product they sell. Um, I guess, uh, referencing a little bit of, you know, Hollywood writers Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger. I think that that theory is valid. Now, I would also say this. Here's the problem. This country, each individual has to come to terms within them this themselves, and be honest. You have a lot of folks of power and influence who also use those same drugs. They're able to keep it under wraps, cover it up. I mean, how many times have you heard of uh you know, Hollywood stars that were so high they couldn't complete filming? And you know, we have to face the fact we have a problem. And I put put a lot of it back to the fact that um honestly, life in this country is way too easy anymore. Um our ancestors, my grandparents, they worried about where the next meal would come from and if they'd have enough heat for winter and clothing and stuff. It was a daily struggle. Now, oh, we we've got too much time on our hands and too much money and life's too easy. So, well, we got to do something to entertain ourselves. And I think a lot of times people answer that with drugs.
• 24:11
  Scott: Crystal: Just a quick follow-up question. I'm . . . And just in terms of um the issues that will come from detouring these drug producers, obviously the price of drugs is going to go up. Do you have any kind of predictions on when that might hit the local communities where that there'll be a drop in supply and we might have a lot more property crime issues and addicts that are going without that type of issue? Is do you have any kind of prediction on when that might start to occur?
• 24:40
  Scott: Ty: I think it will vary from community to community. Um and also on you know how much I what I've yet to see is uh somebody attempt a figure of how much they're disrupting the inflow of drugs.
• 24:52
  Scott: Scott: Mhm.
• 24:58
  Scott: within a week. If we're shutting off 5%, you may never notice it. Mhm. Um what you would probably see would be an uptick in residential burglaries and prescription drugs being stolen, you know, things like that. Um even here where we've had significant busts against uh some of the organized elements. We had two significant ones here. It slowed things down for a couple weeks. And what you see people generally just kind of keep their heads down because everybody's lying now. they're scared, you know, who's talking, who's doing what. Yeah. Um, we didn't see a correlating uptick in property crime. Um, people just kind of stretched out, I guess, their their period of going without a little bit or went elsewhere just trying to avoid things. And within short order, uh, somebody else pops in and takes over the trade and way it goes.
• 25:45
  Scott: brings up an interesting question, moving moving past the supply demand stuff that that you know, you business people like um so much. Uh but it also ties into something we talked about earlier because there's a real question in how you judge the efficiency of policing approaches, right? So Boston's a good example because Boston seems to be doing a lot of these innovative type programs and it seems to be working. You have Chicago that's embracing the same type of programs and and just nothing is going right. Right. How do you how do you explain that difference? Is it really that much difference within the communities or . . . ?
• 26:23
  Scott: don't know when Chicago started their programs if it was as far back as the '90s but a lot of it I think hinges upon the individuals involved with these programs um and their level of commitment to it. Um there's no one-size-fits-all answer to crime in America. You have to get to know your communities. You know that was the whole premise behind community oriented policing. It wasn't what the police chief or the city council or whoever thought was going to solve the problem. It's what the community comes to you with and says, "This is our problem." And you sit down together of what will best address this. What can we do? Um, you know, if it was that simple as, you know, hey, here's the recipe. Now go make your own batch. We'd have crime solved. That's not the case. The other problem you run into though is, and I've talked about this with uh our Attorney General Ford, I get tired of the political bickering about solutions. You have two kind of I guess opposite polar opposite views. Neither one is the solution in of itself. The answer, like in most cases, lies somewhere down the middle, but we can't get the cooperation to do that down the middle, right? And that's frustrating to us when you see um you know, we've got folks who just essentially want to take away the punishment for crimes but also delist crimes.
• 27:37
  Ty: That doesn't solve anything. Oh, it may look good on your sheet. You can say that you had, you know, x number of reduction in crimes. You didn't solve anything. The same acts are still occurring. You're just looking at them differently. Um at the same time, and I've argued this, um one of my points always been we have these people, they're called judges. We would expect them to be able to judge people in situations, but the legislators uh want to give them parameters. You can only do this or this. You know, why must you have um you know, five to seven chances if you're on probation or parole to screw up before you get sent to prison? Let's face the fact, folks, before they ever got convicted of that crime, they probably done it a hundred times before and were never prosecuted or there was misdemeanor level diversions, things try to keep them out of that. that has to be a significant um part of this discussion. My thought, look, I'm I'm for helping people if they're willing to help themselves and we can get the community to stick to it because it's not going to be a one and done. The average for a detox is seven seven attempts. How long would the community stand by when didn't we just send this person to detox? Why are they back in it? So, there has to be that education of the public. There has to be that commitment by the public. Um, for those that have no interest in changing, uh, one of our guys, we refer to him as frequent flyers, um, dealing with him for the entirety of my career. I asked him if he ever got tired of getting arrested and cops taking his cars and, you know, sending him to prison. I said, "You could have worked at Walmart out of high school, had a home, family, car, and never seen us." He admits it, no desire to change, too far down the road now. Just going to persist. That person to prison long time. Mhm. We don't need him in the community.
• 29:12
  Ty: and and that brings up something because uh Crystal was joined in on the tail end of this while we were setting up the the the recent debates out of DC, right? Where of course you had President Trump send in the National Guard, which again since 1871, Washington DC has been under federal authority, right? So it's not an independent city, but u the arguments that oh well crime is actually better than than you know what what Trump is saying and and therefore it doesn't need it. Um, back in September, Jim Jordan at a congressional hearing gets onto this DC counselor uh about DC cooking the books. And of course, one of them was reclassifying theft as taking property without right. So, their theft rates go down, but this taking property without right in the hearing, it's like a five 500% increase, right, as they're doing it. Um, and you and I have talked up here a bit about uh was it 2022, 2023 when the FBI changed the statistics?
• 30:09
  Ty: know now doing something like if you if you leave your purse or cell phone in the, in the shopping cart at Walmart and don't recover it, it has to be reported as a potential crime, right? Even if it's just, you know, personal negligence. How do you think that's impacting some of these debates?
• 30:22
  Ty: Ty: So again, I think it always comes down to Um, for instance, uh, in the state of Nevada, it used to be, this crime has also changed, that if you went into somebody's car, locked or unlocked, and took something of value, considered a burglary under Nevada state law. Mhm. Never considered burglary under federal law or the UCR, Uniform Crime Report. So, if you're going to talk about, you know, crimes changing and stuff, it becomes difficult when they reclassify crime such as when they introduced the instabbed reporting system, NIBRS, versus UCR. But also even on the state level, you have to look, okay, what is going on? Now, if everything stayed otherwise constant in a year, you can see a real good trend. Crimes up or crimes down, but asking these things. So, if if at the state level or in DC, you're going to reclassify crimes as, you know, something like this. And that's what you release to the media of look, crime's down, but they're not giving you that stat, right? They're just saying, hey, here's petty larceny, grand larceny, whatever. Look, everything's down. It's hunky dory. That's the failure. And most people don't know to ask that question. Um, when we switched over to NIBRS, um, it's always been, like I said, a little bit difficult for us because of, you know, the different definitions that we use at state level versus federal level. But they introduced several new categories under the lesser crimes offenses. I think it's useful. Um, one of the biggest things that come out of that too, and this is what again the public was ignorant of, under UCR, the most serious crime was reported. So if you had somebody kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and then murdered, it only counted the murder. That's all that went to the federal crime, right? The guy might be serving time in prison for all of those, but only the most serious crime was reported. Under the incident-based, every single one of those crimes is counted. So you should expect as NIBRS comes online, and I don't believe that everybody's still participating fully in it. You're going to see more crimes because you have all these lesser crimes that get added into it. You know, um, you know, much like a DUI, there's usually three, four traffic offenses.
• 32:23
  Ty: that that tendency to only report, for lack of a better term, the the the top ranking crime, do you think that hid some because you were talking earlier about the dynamics that sex trafficking, narcotics are working together and tying into B. Do you think that helped hid that dynamic from people analyzing the data?
• 32:37
  Ty: Ty: I think it I'm sure it had some contributing effect on that. Um, I don't think it was intended that way. Just seeing the the difficulties in trying to make sure everybody is reporting the same way across, you know, even a state to the feds, much less state to state to state. I think they're just trying to keep it simple to get some form of national crime reporting done. um with the advent of obviously you know the digital age and so forth I think it's become a little easier but um I've read through some of the definitions and it's left me scratching my head because it does not conform nicely into some of the things we have at the state level right so yeah.
• 33:14
  Ty: Scott: And that's that's have something.
• 33:22
  Ty: Crystal: yeah um I am curious um on that not really an apple to apple comparison, but you have Boston that implements this uh cops in the community program and their their crime rates go down and then you have Washington DC that decides to tackle the crime problem by reclassifying crimes. And it's it it is a good illustration side by side to sort of understand where the dysfunction is coming from nationwide. And it is it is city by city just depending on how much they buy in. And I think you made a very good point, Ty, that and this is something I tell people about the legal system all the time. It's it's just words on a piece of paper. It's no good if there is no buy in. And that's one of the most devastating things I think that can happen to our country is where we're based in law. And you know, once that foundation shaken and it's not applied equally, it kind of falls apart. And and that's a really scary thing. I don't know how this looks to you. I know I asked you to reflect on the last 30 years in Elko, but do you have any thoughts about the nation in general in the last 30 years in in terms of law enforcement and respecting the law?
• 34:39
  Ty: So, actually, I think we're in the midst of, you know, one more recurring cycle. Um, if you look back, uh, you remember some of the scandals that rocked NYPD, LAPD, different things, uh, clear back 80s, 90s, and so forth. And if you looked at one of the issues that I believe contributed significantly to that is something bad would happen. They would be hardressed to fill their ranks and they lowered standards. Um I think we're in the same situation right now. Um you know cops in the 70s hated I mean there it was violent, very violent. Um we're in that again. I what concerns me is I believe in many aspects what we're losing is the the theory that there is supposed to be respect for a position regardless of who the person is in that position. Um without just that modicum of respect what happens is there there's easily none because you don't have the chance to earn that respect uh one to another. I think that contributes to a lot of the anti- police sentiment. Now, um you know, when I was raised, if a cop told you to do something, it was yes, sir. And immediately, there was no, you know, equivocating on it. Um but this diversity across this country, the the labeling of, you know, people as enemies essentially of of one group or another and all these things contribute to this. And I I think that whole process has at least been condoned, if not furthered, by a lot of our elected officials. I found it interesting. This is uh Elko was a I didn't know it at the time, but turned out to be a great place to be a cop because we were a swing county and a swing state for a number of election cycles.
• 36:21
  Ty: the privilege of guarding uh um ex-presidents uh Carter, um Bush 43, uh Clinton, um several candidates, you know, and all these different things. And what's interesting is talking with the Secret Service agents and to watch the dynamic of how these people either running for president or for office or the ones that are holding that office treat those people. I think you know it's like anything else. If a parent in a home does something and tells their kid not to do it, it carries no weight. Well, how can you have elected officials who, you know, say the right words of, hey, you know, you need to, you know, respect authority what they don't either. you know, um it's so bad. One, uh political candidate, she was here and uh evidently she could not be burdened with driving by seven, four of which were children, protesters, wanted to know about Benghazi. Mhm. And she got out of the car and the way she addressed the trooper with, you know, where the do I go now and I'm like probably to the guy holding the door for you would be logical, but I'm like you're treating people like that that are supposed to protect you, lay their life on the line for you. common sense would dictate you might be a little kinder to them, maybe engender some, you know, relationship there. Yeah. Um, so I think there's been a a decrease led from on high in many aspects of that. Um, I also think the toleration of things that, you know, 40-50 years ago would have been the ouster of a candidate or a sitting official, it just gives everyone else licensed to go out and do more.
• 37:48
  Ty: Crystal: But um I I heard an in my life and it wasn't until just now that it kind of made sense, but it said he who wears the crown should fear the guillotine. And it just you reminded me of that when you have these leaders that treat their their security detail like crap and it's like well you better hope that your power remains intact. It's like . . .
• 38:11
  Ty: Scott: And not only also got I think another issue emerging when we talk about respect for the law is what seems to be this burgeoning issue that the pursuit of rights takes precedence over the law. Of course, we did the episode months ago in the LA rioting, but it it seems to keep coming back where people are like, "Well, if I morally disagree with ICE agents or morally disagree with X, Y, or Z, um you know, the law sort of doesn't apply to me, right?" law enforcement, sovereign citizens, I'm a real person that that those whole issues, but it's much the same theory, but it doesn't work that way. I used to try to explain it to people that um you know I'm 50 some years old. Nobody really wants to see this naked. So if I go running naked down the street, I'm getting handcuffs on me. I'm going to jail. But if I'm out in the middle of say I'm area six and hunting and there's no one else around, I run naked. Yeah, there's no crime.
• 39:14
  Ty: of the laws we have are predicated upon the fact that we all have to live in close proximity to one another. And the more the greater the population, more dense, the more rigid it generally gets. Uh same is true for companies and everything else. We each have to give of our freedoms hopefully to self-curtail those freedoms when they begin to infringe upon someone else's. And that is a foreign concept because we have a whole I would say multi-generations multiple generations now have been raised with you're special, you're all that matters and you know just your happiness. That's all that's important and they live just for themselves without any comprehension or concern for anyone else. Um I don't know how to fix that problem. It's not going to be a quick solution. Um, but there's this is I also have to go on the other side where you have people, uh, well, if they do that, we're starting the revolution. And I'm looking at them thinking, you ain't going to make it off your couch and out the front steps because you're out of shape and you probably can't hit straight, right? Um, it it's the same thing of you're not going to start a revolution until we have exhausted the constitutional remedies that are allowed us and designed for this very purpose. You have a voice. Use it. Um, That's great. You're happy to go out there and and protest. Great. Did you vote? I there was a a young lady in our community, God bless her. She wanted to get involved, but asked her, you know, have you voted? She hadn't been voting in elections. And then when she did, she wasn't educating herself. We we live in an age where you can know all kinds of stuff about people. You can research it from the comfort of your home. They don't avail themselves to that. So, and it's unfortunately um I think it was Churchill's comment, greatest argument against democracy is a 15-minute conversation with the average voter,.
• 40:57
  Ty: Churchill also famously said democracy was the worst form of government. The only thing worse was everything else ever tried. Right. But, you mentioned this concept of the right to protest, which is where I wanted to go because again. . . in the Constitution there's There there's no there's no right to protest in the Constitution, right? There's a freedom of speech. There's a freedom to assemble and a freedom to uh petition the government for the redress grievances. Now, what we call protesting combines those rights, right? But so does, you know, organizing a town hall letter writing campaign, just in a different way. But what seems to be emerging was this idea. It's like, well, if I'm protesting, right, my First Amendment rights allow me to block officials in the pursuit of their jobs, allows me to do graffiti, allows me to destroy property, allows me to block public thoroughfares. And and that seems to be an increasing argument for something that's not actually in the Constitution at all. Ty: So, obviously, the Constitution did not envision, you know, all kinds of things. I'm coming through with those. Yet, we know that there were protests. Boston Massacre.
• 42:00
  Ty: Scott: Yeah, that was a protest.
• 42:06
  Ty: actually be the pattern they're using. I don't know. Um, that's an interesting point. But, uh, you you know, we had the George Floyd, uh, you know, protest thing here. We've had the No Kings and stuff, whatever your group is. My question always to the organizer was, "What are your plans? Are you going to shut down a street?" If you want to shut down a street, that's fine. Uh, you have the same right as anybody else. uh you got to go get a parade permit or street closure permit, whatever is applicable. Pay your fee, you can do that. And now that street is yours during that period of time. If you're merely sticking to the sidewalks and you're holding signs, hey, that's great. Somebody's walking by and not part of your thing, you need to allow them to come by. You cannot infringe upon their right of travel either. We have that uh covered as well. And generally, especially in rural communities, grateful to this, most people get that. But again, when you have an nearly, I guess, constitutional illiterate uh generation and they're told something and they're blind followers, if they hear it from somebody they respect or see as a an authority figure or they're being paid for it, they're happy to do whatever. Mhm. Um most of them don't have a strong internal moral code that would inhibit them or anything. Um just the the short-sightedness, you know, this always if I don't know if you were in Carson City when they had the folks uh protesting right there in front of the Capitol grounds and they would just continuous chain across the crosswalk so nobody could go.
• 43:27
  Ty: you filmed, Crystal. You remember that? Driving through it.
• 43:32
  Ty: to the state meeting, ironically, the Republican meeting.
• 43:38
  Ty: may have been. You lost me. Mhm. I'm now against you. because you don't respect me. I don't want to be anything. I'm not going to support you in any way, shape, or form. So, I question, I guess, whether these protests are actually meant for the the stated purpose, um, you know, exercise of speech and, you know, uh, petitioning government, any of that, or just meant to stir the pot. And to create havoc, create problems for law enforcement, different things. Um I which going back to original question, you know, there's a another key thing I would hit on between uh urban and rural law enforcement. Rural areas tend to have a little more common sense um conservative type views. Mhm. I knew the police chief from uh Seattle. Uh great person. She did everything she could within her powers and she was hamstrung. You know, here's the problem. You have to solve the problem, but you can't use any of these tools that would solve the problem. All right. So that's, you know, one of the other differences is I think it's uh it's a little easier um especially for a police chief or a sheriff in a rural community as opposed to some of these big urban ones. But um yeah, and we've been fortunate um you know, amazed me to have people who were uh one person, former elected official upset because while they're trying to exercise their First Amendment rights, somebody is uh walking around open carry and exercising their Second Amendment rights. Until they do something, it's not my issue.
• 44:56
  Ty: Scott: Right.
• 45:07
  Ty: I think it's one of the the talking about the the cyclical cycles and again one of my perspectives being a historian, you know, for instance, we talk about community policing and and how much it late 60s, early 70s the idea of community policing was about hiring minorities into into position. of that voice was captured within the institution. Uh but that's also another incredibly violent period, right? We have not only the the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, but you have, you know, the Watts riots, race riots, and all that. Um and one of the things that grows out of that is that particularly the stuff like race riots we're seeing is like, well, um these are just people blowing off steam, right? They're just frustrated. You have to let them go and then the stuff will calm down. And that was an approach that a lot of people took in the George Floyd riots. They still argue it today, right, that they're just blowing off steam. But but we seem to have the argument now seems to be that this is almost sort of a constant state of protest. And that was what some people seem to be aiming for. Not all, certainly. I mean, people legitimately have grievances. No doubt about that. But there there seems to be a change in that dynamic that's not about blowing off steam anymore.
• 46:13
  Ty: Ty: So . . .
• 46:21
  Ty: statement nonpartisan, but I don't think I can. What's frustrating to me is that it feels like the Democratic leadership is constantly generating steam. To to to build off what you said, Scott. It's like, yeah, they're just blowing off steam, but you're constantly stoking that fire. And there's a really troubling narrative going where it says words are violence and they're justifying violent action at these some of these protests, not all of them, and they are mostly peaceful. But this this idea that they're just blowing off steam. It's like it was an artificial steam to to begin with, but you're also reinforcing this narrative that the things they say are violent, so you can respond however you want. That's really troubling.
• 47:04
  Ty: get a little bit into the psychological aspects of it as well. Uh if you remember the George Floyd riots in Salt Lake, uh they had uh some footage uh police car outside of this little store, gets turned over, and an average citizen comes out. She's got a couple gallons of milk in hand. Now milk's what, 3.50, four bucks a gallon. That's, you know, that's pretty spendy. Sees what's going on and immediately jumps in and dumps her milk over the undercarriage of the car doing absolutely nothing. I mean, the car's on its top. The damage is done. Mhm. But the mob mentality, I think when you look at these groups and I having watched a couple of the No Kings protests here and some of the people coming, you have some people that that's truly what they're doing. They are frustrated. They are not happy with the course of events and they want to be heard and they want to get their message out. Some of them probably can't articulate that real real well, but they're not happy.
• 47:48
  Ty: Scott: Mhm.
• 47:54
  Ty: overall group that are intentional on causing harm. It's not about the protest. It's about, you know, what they're being paid for, what uh what can they get out of it, mayhem, just they're literally anarchists. And so, you know, how do you address the one without the other? Uh we had a couple individuals show up at the second No Kings protest and they are um dressed all in black, black hoodie, black knee pads, uh black face masks. The guy had a backpack that was heavy. He couldn't even carry it across the lawn to the sidewalk. They're ready for something to pop off, right? And then they look around and you know you got people with walkers and wheelchairs and you know it's people with kids. It's just a calm crowd. It's not it's not what you'd see in the big cities. Um I think there needs to be and there is some but significant effort of taking out this paid protesting. I know you guys have discussed this before. There's one thing for compensating people for their time. Um okay there better be a contract. What's expected for that pay? Mhm. Um when you're paying them and you know implementing them with, you know, weapons, bricks, you know, pipes, whatever it is, Molotov cocktails. Um how is that not right? That's still on Nevada books. You're conspiring to create riots. Take those people down, solve that problem.
• 49:10
  Ty: I think I think that's unfortunately one of the dimensions we're at is is untangling all these various stuff. I mean, my take on this is that, you know, the the problem where protesting drifts over into criminality is that speech verse action, right? Once you take an action, even if it's just spray painting graffiti on something, that's something that's not covered by speech, right? Unless it's your own property, of course, but you know, um and and I think that's we're going to have to have a renegotiation. For a lot of people, I think that renegotiation is not going to be fun or pleasant.
• 49:40
  Ty: Ty: No, I I would agree. I would riots. The first night they went with the just let them vent theory. And I don't know how many tens of thousands of dollars of damage they suffered. The second night was zero tolerance. You commit a crime, you go to jail. And what happened immediately? Oh, that's no longer a fun protest. And they dispersed. There is something to be said with just enforce the damn laws. Um, one of the things I've always uh marveled at is the Burning Man festival. I get it that it's a long trip to take someone to Washoe Jail who gets arrested there, but we're just going to suspend the laws of the state and hey, go do whatever drugs you want for the weekend. It's fine. I don't agree with that. The laws are the laws. They apply in all situations. Um, who was it? You know, the test of whether laws just as if it could be universally applied.
• 50:36
  Scott: Well, and that was an interesting that was an interesting dimension because they had the protesters, the climate protesters out there a couple years ago, and it was actually the the Pyramid Lake um Paiute tribe police who who ran them down in the cars, but they were identified nationally as the Nevada Rangers. And this sort of gets interpreted like, well, you know, it's those cowboys out in Nevada running them down. And it wasn't, it wasn't the state officials at all, right?
• 51:01
  Ty: I so I a shame on me but I I found a lot of humor in that because uh it's kind of like when you're playing chess each piece has its its worth right and I'm like I want to see you know what trumps what here because you know you've got the the you know Native American right you know that's part of the environmental group and all these kinds of things and it's there folks that just uh ran you off the the road.
• 51:21
  Ty: Scott: Right.
• 51:26
  Ty: the tribe.
• 51:26
  Ty: Scott: Right. Well and it was happening on the doesn't have jurisdiction anyway. So, it's just a fascinating little dynamic how all that played out, but how it gets reported nationally is part of a cop versus, you know, protester dynamic. And that wasn't the situation at all. It's just it's incredibly complex.
• 51:47
  Ty: you can't block a road. Nope. That's just a public safety issue.
• 51:53
  Ty: hey, just run people over.
• 51:53
  Ty: Crystal: No, but trailers are some of these others where they've done the street closures and stuff. It's one thing if they've got the street shut down, nobody's caught in them, but if you get caught in that, they've seen, you know, they've had one guy had his horses injured and stuff. I mean, we've had people injured. Uh you talk about Reginald Denny.
• 52:11
  Ty: Scott: Oh, yeah. Good example. for law enforcement when you take defensive action to protect yourself is can you articulate the threat that you're facing? The Kyle Rittenhouse thing. You're going to swing a a skateboard at me. You're going to catch a bullet. I mean, you are you are causing me to defend myself. That has to be taken into account on these things. So, what happens if you know, you got a carload full of your kids. Uh what was the lady begging them? Let me get my kids out of the car. And they wouldn't. Maybe you do hit the gas. And let it come out in court because you don't know what they're going to do, but you absolutely know what they're capable of doing and have done.
• 52:50
  Ty: at least a reasonable presumption of what they might do. Yeah. I think I think that's a I think that's going to be an interesting dynamic and it's funny when you brought up the Rittenhouse uh case because you know part of the whole question was does swinging a skateboard at your head justify the use of deadly force and you know the argument as you phrased it, that you forced me to defend myself the argument on the other side that sometimes gets popped up which I don't think is legitimate is you've you've made this society you've made my life so miserable that I could swing the skateboard to begin with. And, and you know this is this gets us into this sort of weird dynamic of, like I said, renegotiating what these limits and justifications of violence and action are.
• 53:27
  Ty: Ty: Well, I I'm I have full faith We could develop something that would swing a skateboard, and I think everybody who advocates that that's not a deadly threat, they get to put their noggin up there and get hit. And we'll see what their thoughts are after the fact.
• 53:40
  Ty: Crystal: It's another use for your AI there, Crystal. But, well, and I I actually think that's interesting. You have any last thoughts, Crystal?
• 53:51
  Ty: I think we just uh we just got a guilty verdict and was it the Massey case? And that's that's um it's a case that stuck with me. It was um a lady had called in the police I don't know if there was somebody at her door or something, but the police officer arrived, came in, and at one point he she picked up a boiling pot of water and started walking towards the officer and he shot her. But we just he just got um um a guilty verdict for murder, I think, or manslaughter or something. The sentencing yet, but I keep going back to it. It was an interesting case cuz I was like, I don't know how I'd respond. Somebody was coming at me with boiling hot water like that that could kill you conceivably, but you know, and there's just no way to know in the moment what someone's capable of. Um are you are either of you familiar with that case?
• 54:46
  Ty: there's one critical aspect that I think needs to be discussed here might help understand this case uh for a time and this kind of started at the the circuit court levels. They would consider a use of force by an officer in the the the few moments leading up to the use of force. Um that made its way to the Supreme Court and was struck down and said everything that plays into the situation, the totality of the circumstances must be considered. Now, that can work for officers. Somebody shoots at you and then runs and they throw away the gun, but you don't see them throw away the gun. It's still a deadly force situation, right? It can work against you. In this case, she had a mental illness issue. Um, I think they it was shown that they knew that that it wasn't the first time they've been called there. You're being called upon to help somebody. And so, we've talked about it. There's another one that came out of Oklahoma, I think, and he actually went to prison, but then uh um was pardoned, something that happened. If you put yourself in a situation that you don't need to be in, and then you end up using deadly force, you created that situation. Uh the one in Oklahoma, first officer, she goes in facing a guy, he's got a shotgun or a handgun, I can't remember which. I think he had a handgun, pointing at himself, suicidal. She does not have her gun out. Her sergeant shows up. He goes in because she's in immediately draws uh I think he had a shotgun he took with him. Tells him to drop the gun. Drop the gun. The guy doesn't. Boom. Kills him. The question that is coming before the the jurors, the judges, the public is why did you ever go in that house? And I've had to uh while I was still chief have several conversations and it was not well-received with people that just because you're suicidal doesn't mean we're going to show up. If you've not committed a crime, we can call you. We'll try to connect you with resources and stuff, but why would we interject somebody in a uniform which doesn't help situations generally, right, with all these tools on their belt and make the situation worse and then the cop's going to be the one that, you know, ends up going to prison over it.
• 56:47
  Ty: the concept of suicide by cop, right? Plays into that. It It's really a rough time to be in law enforcement right now.
• 56:53
  Ty: Ty: I think I I'm grateful um you knew that if you just followed these parameters, you know, you stayed up on case law stuff, you always had a clear path to accomplish your job. That's not true for law enforcement. Now, in some things, yes, but in many cases, there's no way you can win on the situation. You have to rely that, you know, it works out well or the jury's merciful or something, I guess. And that's a shame.
• 57:20
  Ty: Scott: Last thoughts, Crystal?
• 57:28
  Ty: the drug war. Um, I guess it's we can continue to call it the drug war. I it sounds like that's our our biggest problem is people addicted to drugs. So, I I hope we start to see a turnaround on that and I hope those law enforcement officers get more support cuz that, you know, nobody's going to join the force if if those kind of circumstances continue where they're not helped. And so I'm I'm hoping things turn around.
• 57:51
  Ty: Scott: Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us today. Uh yes, I think it's been a eye opening conversation. Uh if you have any comments out there, uh want to get a hold of us, uh go ahead and shoot us an email at uh info@775alive.com. Uh until then, I'm Scott Gavorsky. I'm Crystal Newton. And we'll see you around the 775.
• 58:17
  Ty: Music.
• 58:27
  Ty: Music.