Latest / Follow the Leighder / Crime and Child Safety in Cascade County | Sheriff Jesse Slaughter
Transcript
- Leigh/@followtheleighder: and point. Alrighty. Well, howdy folks and welcome back to another episode of Follow the Leighder. I'm your host, Leigh Larson, and I know that I have gone all over the country looking for great guests, but guys, this time I just got to hang out in my own county. Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter is here. Welcome. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Thank you. Thank you, to be here. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, well, I mean, tell me it has been a busy year. feels like everything is in the headlines all the time. Folks, ⁓ we are in North Central Montana, Cascade County for those who may not be familiar, ⁓ specifically Great Falls, but he has to share for all of Cascade County, which is a not small county. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Nope, nope, very large county. Especially for Montana. Leigh/@followtheleighder: No kidding. Well, ⁓ tell me, tell me just a bit about how you got into this line of work and particularly police or just any sort of investigative background you have. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Yeah, so I grew up in a law enforcement family. My mom, we grew up in Bozeman when I was a kid and my mom owned small businesses and my dad was a deputy sheriff when I was a young kid. And then probably eighth grade, seventh, eighth grade, I can't remember, it's all blurred now. He ran for sheriff. And so I helped him with his campaign and you know, did things for him, gave out buttons, knocked on doors, did that whole campaign thing. he was a major, major underdog. He wasn't really endorsed by anybody. I mean, he had supporters, but it was really my grandmother. lived in, my grandfather had died and she moved back to Montana. And she was really involved with like the senior centers and stuff. And he went to those meetings and kind of got kind of like a kind of a really cool, I hate this term because it's so cliche, but kind of a grassroots campaign. know, social media didn't exist back then. You know, you spent your money on your ⁓ newspaper ads, probably. And they were really expensive. And, you know, bumper stickers and car signs. And I think he I think he did knock every single door in Gallatin County, which For those watching right now, and you think about Gallatin County and you go, that'd be impossible because there's well over a hundred thousand plus people there. But back then, I think the town of Bozeman had, with college students in session, had like 20 some thousand people. So it was a lot smaller, a lot more easy to do, a lot more rural for lack of a better term. But I just worked on that, helped him. He got elected and then he was sheriff. my whole high school and college existence. And I had no desire to be in law enforcement. I saw all the hours he worked. saw, ⁓ you know, I mean, I vividly remember him coming home from work with blood on his hands from trying to save a kid in a car crash, you know, stuff like that. And I just was like, nah, I'm not going to do that. And he was all on board. He was like, yeah, don't do that. And then one of the weird things that happened ⁓ was a lot of my friend group, they got into law enforcement, partially because my dad recruited some of them. You know, they come over the house, he talk them into it. And then partially just because, you know, you start to come of age and, and law enforcement is kind of a, it's kind of a blue collar job, you know, and when you start looking at you know, all the money that you have to spend in college and then what the salaries are when you get out of college versus how much money you had to invest in college. You know, unless of course you're going to be like you know, a chemical engineer or a doctor or a lawyer, you know, the kind of blue collar trades route starts to look really lucrative. Now law enforcement has never been lucrative, but it's, you know, the benefits, right? You get, you could get healthcare, stuff like that. Not that we thought about that stuff in our 20s, we didn't. But where I kind of got interested in is where my friends were into it. And then it wasn't a desk job. And I didn't want to sit behind a desk. you know, mean, computers were, this is the mid 90s, computers were a thing, but they're not nearly as fun as they are today. Leigh/@followtheleighder: They were super nerdy in the 90s. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Yeah, green screens with green letters on them, you know. That's everything. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, I appreciate. my mom still does, works women's health down in Texas. And so when my friends would come over to the house, they would leave learning about a new STD or something terrible. And they'd be like, no, don't think I want to go into women's health. fact, don't, kind of changing the way I think about sex and all these different, was like, yeah, it's real guys. Be careful, you'll come see me. And that was very effective. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: ⁓ my gosh, yeah, that's a whole other level. Leigh/@followtheleighder: So it's funny the stories like our parents passed down. And like you said, you got to see Bozeman when was like jury. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Yeah, it was when I was a kid, it was a cowboy town. That's it. mean, you were there because you went to MSU and MSU still had engineering like it does now, but it wasn't at the level. know, you were, was rodeos. was, the football team was terrible. You know, it's not like today. And it was just, it was a, It was like growing up in Mayberry though. It was extremely, extremely safe. It was definitely come home when the streetlights are on. And you had full run of the entire community all day long, sneaking into the swimming pools and stuff and having, doing those really cool Gen X 90s era growing up. It was a great place to grow up. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And what was that like as sheriff's son? Did you feel like you were like, ⁓ no, we have to be more careful or like what did that, as a teenage boy? Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: No. I don't know. you're you're you're proud of your parents when you're young. I mean, you know, my parents were my parents were pretty cool. They owned two restaurants in town and my dad was the sheriff and they were they were it was fun. It was I didn't really think about it that much. Probably about the time I got in high school, ⁓ you know, and you'd go to like you'd go to like Kegers and stuff. for your audience that might not know what a keger is. This is what we used to do in the 90s. We used to go up in the mountains to keg a beer that somehow we managed to get from somebody. people constantly tease you, like, your dad gonna come arrest us? Those type of jokes. But for the most part, it was pretty innocuous. And then by the time I got to college and I went to college in Bozeman, it really wasn't even a thing. I didn't really, you know, and by the time I'm in college though, a lot of it, a lot of his deputies are, friends of mine. They're mentors of mine. They're friends of mine. You know, so I, I just, I don't know. It just, it was very, I grew up in it. So I didn't think of it. I was voted the least likely to get arrested. I think everyone assumed that meant that not because I wasn't a bit of a hell raiser, cause I was, um, but because like I'd get some special treatment or something or you know, so it's kind of funny. It was it was was great. was a great childhood. Leigh/@followtheleighder: It sounds awesome and I'm glad that you found your path into this and it wasn't like some footloose preacher's daughter situation. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: No, the totally the opposite. Totally opposite. was I think my peers probably had more influence over me going into law enforcement to get started. Now, once I got into it, then of course my my, you your father becomes a mentor to you to bounce stuff off of and things like that. But just getting into it, it just I kind of came to that decision on my own. You know, I was I was ⁓ kind of bouncing through college from major to major to major, trying to find the thing I wanted to do. And nothing was like, I couldn't get passionate about anything. You know, I wasn't like, cause I, I, I just told one of my, people at my office the other day, since I've been in law enforcement, I've really never worked a day in my life. I've always enjoyed what I do. ⁓ when you are passionate about something and you love what you do, it's not work. You know? They just pay you to do your passion. You know? And so that's, I think that's, that's kind of the key thing why I was attracted to it. Leigh/@followtheleighder: You're just hanging out. tell us how that connects with hearing great falls. You might have already said it, but I didn't write it down. So how did you land in great falls? Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: ⁓ that's a funny story. So ⁓ I was a Stillwater County Sheriff's Deputy when I first started. So Columbus, Absorkey, I was assigned to Absorkey. I was there for a couple of years. I was in my early, early twenties. ⁓ I absolutely loved it there. It's beautiful. If you've never been, it's probably one of the most Montana breathtaking places. It's why people would probably move to Montana. You know, you have the Stillwater River, the Yellowstone River. big, big mountains, the tallest peak in Montana is there. It's hiking, hunting, fishing, ⁓ whitewater rafting, like you name it, it's there. And outdoor recreational dream. ⁓ And I loved all that. But there were seven deputies in the office total, including the sheriff. And there just wasn't that much to do. And I was very, very ambitious and eager. And I was like, I need to go someplace busier that has more chances for special assignments, advancement, those types of things, or I'm probably going to get bored and get in trouble or something. you know, just, I just sensed, sensed it. So, ⁓ I applied at two places. I applied at the great falls police department and Las Vegas Metro. Okay. So, wow. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Las Vegas Metro or Great Falls. And you okay? Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: And Great Falls called me first. So ⁓ that's how I ended up here. Leigh/@followtheleighder: That's a whole different life. Completely different. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Oh yeah. But I wanted that. I was, I don't know if I'd want it now, but at the time in my life, I wanted, I wanted the action. I wanted to, I wanted to experience. There's really no part of law enforcement that I wasn't eager to experience. was like, I want to go experience. I'm extroverted. I'm a people person. So law enforcement kind of fulfills a lot of those. You know, you, I mean, all these different people you get to meet and all the access to people that other people don't have. And I'm talking whether you want to go from celebrities, politicians, clear down to some of the most troubled mentally ill people you'll ever see. And some of the most darkest evil people you'll ever see. And I wanted to experience that. I wanted to know what what makes these people tick? Why, you know, like my favorite class in psychology was abnormal psychology. I'm like, I want to know why, why are you that way? ⁓ What happened? Right. You know, or, or genetically why you people end up certain ways and how you, I'm fascinated with different cultures. I'm fascinated with how cultures interact with each other. I remember, I still remember taking psychology in college and you know, we always, they're like, well, we're a melting pot, right? They always say that. And that's really not true. We're not melting together. ⁓ So we kind of have to find our way together and figure things out. But there's radical cultural differences and ideologies amongst different people. And I wanted to live in that and interact through it. To me, that was. to me that was super fascinating. And I realize I say this, we're still talking about Montana, which culturally isn't that diverse, but when you really get into it, there is a lot of it. Especially because of the fact that you see so many things about people that normal people don't get to see. Unfortunately, you're not allowed to talk about a lot of it, but anecdotally, I can say this. I've seen things in people's lives and you're just, you just sit there and you're like, how did you get here? Right. You know, and it's, I don't know. To me that is, is it, it's sad sometimes or sometimes it's happy because we do go to good things, but it's, ⁓ it's, it's sad sometimes about how people end up where they are. And then the other thing it gives you being a law enforcement that I really appreciate is when you go through hard times, you know, there's other people out there suffering. and have been through it. don't feel so alone as you get older because you go, I've seen that before. ⁓ That thing I was so afraid to deal with, I'm about to deal with it. So it gives you good life experience. ⁓ Leigh/@followtheleighder: And you're seeing the world, it's a 24 hour job too. mean, you're also seeing what happens in the middle of the night. ⁓ Because there's a whole other world that operates at night. And that's a great segue is actually why did you raise your hand to run? Was there a certain thing that happened? Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Yeah. ⁓ so run for sheriff? ⁓ that's a crazy story. So, you know, I had... My wife and I were talking one day and when I was at the Great Falls Police Department, I really enjoyed being at the police department. did. ⁓ At the time that I ran, I was doing internet crimes against children. That was my final assignment and I did it for seven years. I loved every minute of it. It was, you want to talk about a job that when you wake up in the morning, you have complete and total purpose. And I was so fortunate. Leigh/@followtheleighder: hard. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: I ran multiple sting operations. We, we, I literally got to kick doors, go in houses and rescue children. And I'm not saying that like, is is a analogy or a metaphor. saying, no, we got to do that. I got to travel all over the country, go to different trainings. got to go chase bad guys down around Southern California and catch them because they'd victimize someone here. Amazing, amazing job. ⁓ But I looked at the rest of the opportunities that were available to me at the police department and none of them made me as excited as what I was doing. And I knew there had to become an end to that at some point. I didn't want to. I would have done it probably forever, but there's a certain amount of ⁓ toll that will take on you. ⁓ I had young kids at the time, you know, and And I got to thinking, I'm like, you know, at certain point I'm gonna burn out and I wanna get out of it before I burn out. The predecessor sheriff had gotten into some trouble and he was, you know, there was an opportunity. And I was like, you know, I think I can bring a different culture. to the organization. And I was really passionate about that. So some things I had seen in law enforcement, and there's a ton of podcasts out there right now as we sit here today on retired and current law enforcement officers talking about politics and law enforcement and how difficult it is to be any type of law enforcement officer in America right now. I looked at, there was a lot of micromanaging happening in law enforcement. There was a lot of... ⁓ A lot of enforcement organizations I saw and I still see, they don't put the community as their top priority. Their top priority is the organization and protecting the organization. They look at it through that lens. They say, you know, we're going to go out there, we're going to protect and serve. And in most organizations, that's a cliche. It's not really what they're doing. And I just, thought, you know, There's an opportunity to lead here and there's an opportunity to truly put the public as our top priority. then, but not do it through words, do it through action. And I was like, I was like, I want to, I want to take on that challenge. I want to, I want to be part of that. I want to see it. And I also want to create an environment where the public trusts the organization and your people that work for you trust, trust you too. I said that that way on purpose, right? Because the sheriff gets a lot of credit in a law enforcement organization, but the sheriff isn't one person. The sheriff is multiple people. You know, I tell this all the time, you if you look at a, if you look at one of our patrol cars, we have the black and white patrol cars and on the door, it says sheriff. Well, if you think about it, I don't drive in those cars. So shouldn't it say deputy sheriff, right? And it doesn't do that on purpose. The sheriff is the last elected law enforcement official in the United States of America. So we are truly chosen by the people. So the way we get hired and fired is through elections. So the people choose what law enforcement cultures they want or what law enforcement cultures are tolerating, right? Because there's an old saying that like the populace won't be policed anymore than they'll allow. Absolutely. And so knowing your community and knowing that, well, to go back to the sheriff on the car thing, the deputies are the sheriff when I'm not present. Right. So you'll hear people say all the time, I called the sheriff and had him come to my house. It's not me. Right. Deputies show up. But to them, they're calling the person they elected to come to their house and take care of them. It's a representation. Yeah. And we have a constitutional republic. So that's how that kind of blends together. And it's to do that though, and pull it off correctly. You know, the number one, the number one key to success in leadership is selecting leaders. People oftentimes forget that. ⁓ Can you teach someone how to be a better leader? Absolutely. Every leader is going to learn more and more. But if you don't select somebody that doesn't have good leadership attributes, they're not gonna get it. And so, we kind of have a culture of bottom-up leadership where I expect the culture to be the leadership focus, not people authoritarianism. You know what I mean? And it takes a long time to get there. And then once you start to get there, you have to be very... very careful and very ⁓ strategic to keep it and then build on it. And so those things excited me and I was like, I wanna do this because it's a new challenge. After seven years of working in Internet Crimes Against Children, ⁓ I had spent weeks and months testifying in state and federal court and being grilled by defense attorneys and judges and all of that. When I ran for sheriff, I remember being so intimidated. Like the thought of doing it was pretty scary. And then I remember when I got into it, it felt like there was a lot of softball questions thrown at you. Because once you've been on the stand and they're questioning your evidence, your interviews, your techniques, your methods, and you're grilled on everything, little minute detail, like, know, grammar, punctuation in your report. Everything was fair game. And it sounds weird, but the microscope felt smaller running for office than that pressure. And then that also makes your confidence kind of go, okay, I can do this. It's almost like I was kind of like trained for it through that experience. That's cool. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, ⁓ talk to me about some of the crimes that you see here in Cascade County. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: well, you know, for the most part, it's a it's just a reflection of everything that we see nationally. There's nothing like crazy unique to Cascade County. So, you know, when when we had a massive influx of fentanyl, yeah, well, guess what? We had a influx of fentanyl when we started seeing people die of drug overdoses. We were seeing people die. You know, it's a microcosm of what you see in the country. ⁓ But that also includes things people don't think about. Child sex trafficking, human trafficking of all adults, whether it's labor, sex, or whatever. All that stuff exists in our county. ⁓ When you, you know, with the drug crime comes... your robberies and your burglaries and your crimes where they're trying to obtain things to sell to buy drugs. That all kind of goes hand in hand. I'm trying to think of something that's unique to Cascade County as far as crime goes that you don't see anywhere else. And there really isn't anything. Leigh/@followtheleighder: There's some people hoarding animals seems to be a thing. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Yeah, but I think that's any rural ⁓ law enforcement organization, you'll see that. ⁓ You know, I think you see it in urban environments. It's just they catch them quicker because the animals are in close proximity to other people. So they make noise and smell and it creates more awareness. ⁓ But as far as it goes, I would say we're very like when I talk to other sheriffs around the country and I meet with them, conferences, we all have the same issues. I would say that my fellow sheriffs closer to the border probably are dealing with like immigration issues and illegals and maybe bigger loads and bigger weights of drugs. But we still see that here. I mean, it'll get up here. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Even what about from Canada? Like what's what does it look like coming in and out of Canada? Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: You know, knock on wood, not nearly what they're dealing with at the southern border. One of my theories, lack of better term, is the tighter we start to control the southern border, probably we're going to see an uptick on that. Canada has pretty loose immigration laws, pretty easy to come and go from. So I can see cartels. making trade routes and stuff go through the northern border because the northern border is very insecure. ⁓ Leigh/@followtheleighder: super easy for me to get come and go into Canada. Yeah. Well, when you when you think about the we talk a lot about drugs. ⁓ Have you seen any drugs or firearms in schools? Is that what has that Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Yeah, mean, drugs are everywhere in schools. ⁓ know, if you're, if you've, and it doesn't really matter. There's no, there's no certain type of drug. It all just depends upon the person using it. You know, there's definitely that. Firearms, every now and then again, that'll pop up. Most of the time, it's an accident. Most of the time it's, you know, they went hunting, they left a handgun in their coat or their bag, they brought it to school. ⁓ And that was more a while ago. Nowadays, ⁓ it's so much more strict. When I was in grade school, you'd bring your hunting rifle for show and tell. Very common. Leigh/@followtheleighder: I my dad talked about bringing a hunting knife or something like that. mean, it was very, yeah, he's from East Texas. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: ⁓ yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, Leigh/@followtheleighder: just ⁓ and by the way folks for those who are in urban areas it is very common for people to have hunting knives guns in our cars even purses like the other day i was somewhere and pulled out a swiss army knife looking for something else and ⁓ so if some of you are watching this in horror don't it's just Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Starlight is very culturally acceptable. ⁓ You know, in fact, if you're outside the city limits and you're somewhere, let's just say outside the city and in a field and in the wilderness on a river. If you don't have a firearm with you, people think you're crazy. We have another. You went up to the Rocky Mountain front where there's massive grizzly bears and you take a gun. What do you think? You know, very culturally acceptable. And I would say in. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. ⁓ Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: And the city limits are great falls. would say it's extremely culturally acceptable for people to carry guns, knives. Leigh/@followtheleighder: I'm also just thinking there's crazy people in our mountains. Like it's not, I'm not only just worried about, but I don't even think if I were to have a gun with a bear, it, I don't know. But I mean, I know for a person, like it just scares me that there are some crazy people out there. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: No, you're right. And the fact that you're so rarely disconnected, you probably don't have cell phone service. You completely have to take care of yourself in those situations. So no, it's very much. But to answer your question, I think the schools and then like with our school safety program that we've implemented, ⁓ we do a really good job. of creating awareness that those things aren't acceptable in a school. Especially in Montana, because in Montana, if you have a concealed weapon permit in Montana, the only prohibited place that still exists is a school. That's it. Now, hospitals can tell you by policy, but not by law. So any private business can tell you by policy, but they can't tell you by the enforcement of the law. Leigh/@followtheleighder: hospitals. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: there aren't prohibited places. Your federal courthouses, those are still prohibited, but they scan you in. ⁓ But when it comes to prohibited places with a permit in the state of Montana, you don't even need a permit in the state of Montana, but you have more prohibited places if you don't have a permit. But if you have a permit, it's basically schools. But everyone does a really good educational job for that. Usually if someone brings a gun into a school, they're likely there to do something that's not well intended. Right. Because there's a lot of education out there about it. Absolutely. Leigh/@followtheleighder: ⁓ When you made that move from internet sex crimes with children to sheriff, ⁓ how did that impact your leadership for Cascade County sex crimes? Did it impact? Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Massively. So we didn't have an Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force at the Sheriff's Office. that was like one of very first thing I did was I instituted that and we assigned a detective. She does an amazing job. She's still doing it. ⁓ we've actually assigned our entire detective division to it now. And the reason we did that was, believe it or not, if I were to say the number one crime that our detectives work, it's crimes against children. And that's really sad to say. But that's probably the number one crime that we work and we focus on every day. It's the biggest portion of our caseload. And then, especially sex crimes against children, as they've evolved, they've almost all become digital. So in some way, some way, or form, people have evidence of their sex crime with a child on their phone. And so we've assigned all of our detectives to the Internet Crimes Against Children so we can share the load a little bit. And then you don't have somebody that has all this expertise and they're on vacation and this person doesn't have that expertise. So we're trying to make it so. Wow. Yeah. Leigh/@followtheleighder: There was a, I interviewed a woman out of ribbings, and I want to say Lieutenant Colonel of the Air Force. She worked in child sex crimes, which I didn't know the military did, but absolutely, especially when things are international. and she, I she was based out in Hawaii because that has a central kind of hub, but she talked about how her dog was trained as one of. 200 dogs to be able to smell the certain plastic and metal scents of memory cards. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Electronics detection dog. What? We had one for a while. Yep. We had Cade for a while. He just retired. But yes, we had that resource in our office for a long time. Fantastic. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Bye. And are the kids that you're seeing, they from, are they Cascade County kids? Are they being trafficked in? Like what is? Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Mostly, mostly there. I mean, if you take the whole percentage of our cases, yes. know, ⁓ a lot of it's, ⁓ you know, familial sexual abuse. You know, it's it's typically sex offenders, statistically by a massive margin of men. ⁓ There are there are women ⁓ I've arrested several. ⁓ It's not as prevalent. ⁓ But it's there. It's definitely there. ⁓ Probably most of it's like, you know, incest cases in the family, things like that. That's your big percentage of it. But then you have, you know, and I don't want to scare people on this podcast. I'm never letting my kid have a sleepover at their friend's house, but you know, that should be something that should be done with extreme caution. That should be something where you really know the parents, you know the siblings. You know, if there's an uncle or a grandfather that lives there, I mean, those are all things you need to know before you allow your child to have a sleepover at someone's house. ⁓ Because you just don't know. may know the parents really well. You may think the parents are great people. ⁓ The other thing that, again, not to terrorize everyone on the watching this podcast, but s*x offenders are master manipulators. And they're, they're, they're cowardly people. Okay, they're, there's, I've, I've run into maybe two sociopathic sex, like predators. ⁓ You know, I had I put away ⁓ one serial rapist. ⁓ He was a total, you know, psychopath mentality type of person. But those are Those are pretty rare. They're highly ⁓ emotionally ⁓ engaging, convincing, very manipulative because for them to perpetrate on whether let's say it's a young boy, girl, or let's say it's a woman, adult woman, doesn't matter, they have to get them in a place that they let their guard down. They have to get them in a place where, ⁓ it's why we teach our kids, like everyone teaches their kids like child safety, right? And they say, hey, don't get in a car with a stranger. If someone comes to the school and says, hey, something happened to your parents and I need to take you home. It's like, do you have a code word for your kids? So your kid knows, do you know that word? Because if you don't know that word, I'm not getting in that car. And these are really hard things to teach your kids at young age and get them to remember it. But they're trying to, these people are so convincing. ⁓ especially if they get you in a place that's their environment, ⁓ where they can control the environment, they can control who comes in and out the door. They can prey on kids really, really easy in those. And almost everybody I've ever, almost all the parents whose child has been victimized ⁓ by another person, you usually hear them in the interview say, I really trusted them. I thought they were a good person. I can't believe this happened. And to the point they'll yell at you and argue with you until you're wrong and that's not what happened. Almost telling you their child lied, that's how disbelief they are. And I think part of that's number one denial. No one wants to believe that would happen. Then number two, they're so disappointed in themselves that they put their child in that situation. They're like, please tell me this isn't true. Which I think is a, I think that's a very normal reaction. ⁓ But it's, you know, they're cunning. I don't want to call them smart because if they were smart, they wouldn't do that. They're very cunning. And so I think, you know, You really have to know who your kids are with and understand. And don't ignore red flags. If you see red flags, don't ignore them. Don't be like, ⁓ you know, they watch pornography all day long, but it's adult pornography. That's fine. I'll let my kid go over there. Don't ignore that. know, cause pornography has a, ⁓ what's the word I'm looking for? there's stages of pornographic abuse. Yes. Okay. So, and it has to do with, you you, you get into adult porn, that's what you watch. They obviously gratify themselves to said porn and then that doesn't stimulate them anymore. And they move to a different type and it escalates. the next thing you know, it escalates into children. And most of your, ⁓ your child pornography offenders, it's like 80 some percent of the time they've had hands on victims. And so those are the things you need to be like really aware of. Like don't dismiss any of the signs. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Do you know on your side are a lot of the people, maybe not you've personally arrested, but are a lot of predators where they once child victims themselves? Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Yeah, there is that. That is a thing. And it's also a common reason why they get liked sentences. ⁓ they're their defense attorney and their psychosexual examiner and they'll get an expert and a psychologist and they'll get up there and say, well, this offender suffered this abuse and that's why they're abusing. ⁓ I'm I don't care. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, I didn't know that was like being used for lighter sentences. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Yeah, and and and it's there's you know, there's there's all sorts of these theories out there about it. I don't care. I'm sorry, but children are sacred and We don't we don't as a society there should be zero tolerance to that horror I mean the thing about people that understand is you know Going to watch someone going to a call where someone murders Okay, well, that person's pain and suffering is over. Hopefully they're better place. When you torture and sexually abuse a child, that child will carry that with them for their entire life. It will change the way their brain works. It will change their fight or flight flight mechanism. it will change their trust, they will never ever fully recover. Now, with therapy and support and everything, can they go on and live, I would say what appears to be a normal life. ⁓ But several of the victims that I've dealt with early in my career, they're now adults now and I see them. And I know that their lives are shattered, their lives aren't, you know, never be the same. You know, it's horrible. Leigh/@followtheleighder: and yeah and and and there's so much there's like at home and then you hear horror stories in the system or foster there it just like I just it's so emotional because it's the last people you the most vulnerable Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Well, exactly. as a society and as a country, you know, we have to have zero tolerance for people who victimize people who can't defend themselves. You know, elderly would be included. It's like elder abuse, for example, you know, and it doesn't seem that way. I mean, I personally believe the sentences for abusing a child, particularly sexually, I think they should be more strict than the homicide sentence. Because you've created most of the time multiple victims for life, not just one, but multiple. And then if we're going to buy into this theory that the reason that you did this was because you were molested as a child, okay, so you not only victimize these, and I don't buy into that theory, but let's just pretend I do for a minute, okay? Then did you just create more abusers to be future generations of children? Well, you should probably be in prison for... so you can't do that to other people. You can't create this cycle of horrific, you know, and the other thing too is they don't do it for sexual gratification. You know, I think a lot of people, most people would watch this podcast have never engaged in any form of rape. Most people that probably watch this as a majority, right? They're watching going, why would you do that? Well, it's about power. It's about control. And what turns them on is watching people suffer. It's about power and control. It doesn't have anything to do with sexual gratification. And for normal people that have normal sexual relationships with people, you think to yourself, how does it even happen? It's like, you're not mean enough and you're not twisted enough to get there. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right, yeah, you can't even get there to understand. Well, ⁓ tell me, so you've talked about how you've got this set up. ⁓ What is it like to work with tribal affairs? How does Cascade County and Little Shell, what does it look like with one another's jurisdiction? Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Exactly. So that's a profound question, by the way, because that is unfolding before us in our community as we speak. ⁓ So my initial meetings with the tribal council, ⁓ we are their law enforcement. They are the largest urban reservation in America. This one is? Yes. Wow. Meaning they don't have a land trust yet. And they don't. So far in our conversations, they don't perceive them having the funding to have their own tribal law enforcement anytime in the near future. So basically, it's Great Falls and Cascade County is their tribal land, so to speak, but not in the sense of like a land trust when we think of a typical geographical Indian reservation. ⁓ Just west of here, they're working on, ⁓ they bought land and they're gonna work on infrastructure. ⁓ And how is that gonna go together? Well, my meetings with the Tribal Council initially have been really, really great. They have been very, they appear to be very cooperative, very understanding. They've helped educate me a lot on how all of this is gonna work, how it's gonna blend so that we don't have you know, I don't want to have friction, right? You know, I'm trying to limit the amount of friction points that we have. But it's hard because, know, under what jurisdiction do we operate? You know, because if you think about it, once they establish a land trust, it's a sovereign nation. Right. Meaning it's the same as going across the Canadian border or across the Mexican border. And But if they don't have an infrastructure of a government, they're dependent upon us, ⁓ what we're probably gonna end up, what we have to end up doing, I just don't know when this is gonna occur yet, because it hasn't been established, we're gonna have to devise some type of MOU that's gonna determine how we interact with tribal members on tribal land. And how does that work? And then which court is gonna handle which offense? Now they may not have a tribal court established if they don't have tribal law enforcement. So then it may fall back all to the local, you know, city and county, probably county courts, because it won't be in the city. ⁓ So it's going to be interesting. It's one of those things that we're trying to be proactive about. We're trying to have all the conversations before it ever starts. ⁓ One of the things I am researching and looking into is I'd like to have ⁓ a Native American liaison position, someone who is a tribal member. It doesn't necessarily have to be a little shell, but someone who has interacted with tribal law, state law, federal law, county, sheriff's offices and how it works because, you know, there can be a lot of problems. can be a lot of power struggles. ⁓ there can be massive jurisdictional issues. We saw that with ⁓ the Mexican drug cartels. They would come to Montana and they would distribute drugs and they would hide on the reservations. And they would literally hide in plain sight. And then we'd be tracking them, but they'd be on the reservation so we couldn't continue to track them or capture them. And then you try to get your federal partners involved. Well, there's a delay and they slip out and head back before you notice it. ⁓ And so we've seen it and we want to, we want to get ahead of it and make sure that it's done. But it's also done in a way that's, that's, that's healthy for the Native American culture and also in a way that's respectful to their culture. So it's going to be a challenge though. And it's going to be. two different governments showing each other mutual respect and we're gonna have to communicate all the time. It's one of those things where we're gonna have to talk constantly to make sure that we're showing each other the proper respect. Because that's what's really gonna come down to. It's gonna come down to relationships and respect. That emotional intelligence thing that I think government always forgets about. We get caught up in these these 45-8-401 codes. And I hate to say this, this is, know, to the people out there that have a law degree, don't take offense, but like, hopefully keep the lawyers out of it as much as possible and build it on relationships. know? ⁓ Cause you may write something in NMOU that works today, but it might not work in a few years. Are you willing to amend and flex so that it works for what's currently happening or is this this big giant process and people in rooms fighting and arguing, you know? Leigh/@followtheleighder: that I the reason I asked about the tribal was yes because of the casino that's coming in but you talked a lot about children I didn't know if you had done any work with tribal affairs on missing and murdered indigenous women Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Yeah, a lot. ⁓ So we have assisted them on multiple missing and murdered Indigenous people. We've even sent like crews of our detectives, ⁓ particularly on the Blackfeet. And we sent them up there and we've done large search and rescue operations. We've worked with their case files and everything to try to help them. They want the help. They really do. It's just... You know, it's a challenge. It's a challenge to do because you're again, you're in another nation. You're literally in a, technically for better speaking terms, another country and you're assisting them ⁓ and you have to show them the proper respect. You have to show them that you're really, you're there for the right reason. And we're going there because all of God's children are important. It doesn't matter. And I think that's one of the end, I think, I feel, this is just me talking, I feel that there's been an overall government messaging, and this isn't any one government I'm naming, this is just all governments, that some children matter and some children don't. And that's disgusting. And we should go to the end of the earth to solve any crime that happens against a child, or stop it from happening, hopefully, right? That's the most ideal thing. Yeah. But we don't like politics needs to go out the window. Jurisdiction needs to go out the window and we need to do the right thing to bring justice to these families and these people because, you know, if we as a society set a precedent that number one, some children matter, some children don't, or children and Native American children don't matter. Well, what's that gonna do to the psychology of children that grow up in our, you know. I translate that, pivot that back to school safety. You know, we have one of the, we have probably the biggest, most robust school safety program I know in all of Montana. And we're working on federal legislation to make it nationwide right now. And I believe in that deeply because I believe that we value our money in this country more than we value our children. And some people might be watching this and saying, no, I don't. I'm saying as a culture. know, our money gets transferred from place to place in an armored vehicle with two armed guards with plate carriers and rifles and pistols. And we don't protect our children that way. And I think that's one of the most disturbing things I think about when I think about like my children is when is my country and my community going to value children as much as they value money. Because if it's kind of it's kind of ironic when you think about it, because if a country wants money, it needs people that are valued to create it. Right. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, and I think, and I know we talk, I have to be careful because of censorship and whatnot, but even like the Epstein files and how we've gone down that rabbit hole with it, including so many powerful people and just being exactly, that was the takeaway I got. was like, not only this whole, with so, across the world, political parties, business, all this, and. But, and walking away thinking like, wow, like children really are the most oppressed class in the United States. I can't speak for anyone else, but like when so many people are fighting about different social issues, I was like, hold on. It's the children. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: ⁓ Well, who's the number one ⁓ buyer of child sex trafficking in the world? It's the United States of America. And the Epstein files are really fascinating in a lot of ways. The Epstein files are fascinating for many reasons. ⁓ Number one is the obvious, right? Everyone's known about it forever. I mean, it's not like this is new news, okay? ⁓ And you know, the Trump administration has taken a ton of shots over this, and they have. And unfortunately, I wish everybody would give you know, the Bush administration, the Clinton administration, the Obama administration, the Biden administration, to give them as much shots because it was going on when they were in power. it doesn't matter who, there's no, nobody's right in this. Everybody failed these children. And it sounds like it was some type of blackmail intel thing. So we also then failed not only our country, but probably other countries, because I'm sure there's other people that have suffered because of all of it. So ⁓ many people failed and suffered in this in general. But to break it down a little bit, now the current DOJ has said we released the files. All I've started going through those files. I've even listened to the victim recordings and some of that stuff. And I can tell you this. Number one, it's obvious that not all the files are there because there's broken chains and different things that don't connect. And they also, the way they put them out was kind of like figure it out. Right. I mean, I've run and managed case files before you build a case file in a sequential, somewhat chronological order so that the person who the prosecutor who opens it can read through it and understand the story. Right. There's no, there's no story that There's theories, right? But there's no story to it. I often wonder if right now in our history, there isn't a reverse blackmail operation happening. And what I mean by that is, is so many people were complicit in the Epstein files that had power. ⁓ one of my things I'm watching right now, and watching things happen in our world and in our country with, ⁓ you know, military action and things like that. ⁓ I think there's also a reverse black male where there's the people who were complicit in the Epstein files who now certain people are using it to stop their voice and get things done. They want to get done. I often wonder about that. I will. Because sex. ⁓ Sex has always been the number one way to blackmail people and compromise people. It is a very, very, very powerful tool. you know, in these people that have power and control over governments and politics and things like that, if these images are released of them having sex with children, you know, it not only crumbles them, it could topple whole entire nations. ⁓ Now, I'm all for it. I'm all about justice of the children. I'm all for it. So I'm not saying we shouldn't do it. ⁓ Should we do it in a way where it's responsibly done so it doesn't create rioting in the streets and stuff? ⁓ Yeah, we probably should. ⁓ I would like to see more transparency about that message. You know, I've heard like the attorney general say things like, you know, we can't release everything all at once. If we do, it'll topple nations and create chaos and all this stuff. Okay, okay. Slow down and just, just tell me what that means. You don't have to say names, like give it. Leigh/@followtheleighder: That's a very alarmist thing to say. And I don't know if you all can hear that my dog is snoring. And something I've asked is like, like you said, this has been going on for so long. We have so much evidence. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: They have to release it all. OK. ⁓ And in my point, they're at the point now they to release it all and they have to release it very transparently because they've hidden it for so many decades ⁓ that if they were to turn it over to the rooms and the lawyers and the investigators, what's the check and balance on that? They prosecuted the right people. Yeah. What if ⁓ what if all these wealthy people get a good deal the people that didn't have so much money or or the people they just didn't like as much all went to prison. We might all of a have less trust in our government. I'm not sure if that's possible at this point. But what I'm getting at though is like, I don't think they have a choice. think you can choose to look at it if you want to. You know what I mean? It's on the DOJ's website. You can choose to go look at it, read about it, try to understand it. If you don't want to, then you don't have to. there has to be a check and a balance. to these horrible things that have happened to these children for so many decades. And it has to be transparently released to the public so that the public can look at it go, ⁓ what you said was true. I saw it, I read it, you said it was true. Thank you for doing the right thing for me. That's how we're gonna restore trust. Leigh/@followtheleighder: It's been funny to see different ways that it has, well, just like this past 10 years have just shaken up so many people. know a lot of people identify as being like, they may identify with a side, but they don't identify with like a party anymore. Like it feels like political homelessness maybe, or just it's what I've heard. like, oh, like I've heard like, oh, I'm left leaning politically, I'm right leaning, you know, whatever. But it's... It just has like really shaken up. I know some folks who are like all in on, you know, international organizations or just studies and then suddenly be like, well, what's the point of the UN then? and not that the UN is a criminal charges court, but it's on their website is sex trafficking, human rights, global communicate. And a lot of people being like, well, if this could go on for 20 some odd years, then What is the UN doing? Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Yeah, well, exactly. What were they doing? I have that exact question. What were you doing? You know, I love ⁓ your statement about like, you know, political homelessness. It doesn't, you know, I'm very much a conservative individual. ⁓ I would say I'm a little different though in the fact that as a sheriff, I serve all people. Leigh/@followtheleighder: it. Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: And I have to serve you regardless of your political views. we don't, when you call 911, we don't ask you if you're Republican or Democrat. We don't do that, right? It doesn't matter what your issue is, we're there to help you. And we're not, and we're not the judgment police either. So when we come to your house and you know, it's a non-traditional family and I'll leave that to everyone on here's imagination. I'm not going to go down what that could mean. Everyone knows what I'm talking about. It could be anything, right? It's not our job to judge the way you live your life. This is America. You are free to live your life the way you choose, right? It's not our job to apply the constitution and the law to why we were called there. Then it's our job to leave and let you go back living your life freely. However, it, what are the things I don't care for in politics right now is I really, really don't care for political tribalism is what I call it, where, you know, you will believe in all of these things. Right. You know, and if I, I get them politically, I have to answer political questionnaires. And I mean, I pretty much value conservative values, like to the letter. Like that's for me. But that doesn't mean I should influence you or any viewers about how they live their life. That's not my job. My job isn't to take my views and push them upon you. That's my personal choice of the values I have in my life. And that's just, that's my personal life. I don't think I should be pushing them on other people, you know, and, everybody has an argument for everything and why they think they should. Right. And I think that could be a dangerous thing to do because you're like, okay, that's between whoever they're, short of breaking the law or violating the constitutional rights of another person. You can't go murder your neighbor because you think murder's great. That's the reason there's laws for stuff like that. We're not that free. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And I think that's a good point. It's also interesting to hear because we talk with so many people, ⁓ religious, non-religious, southern, northern, and that's very much what you're talking about. I've seen that quite a bit. You're like a conservative libertarian in that you're you, but in terms, there's no evangelical, there's no, yeah, you might want people to meet your faith, but in terms of imposing. Because I see that in more populated places on both sides of people like, no, you need to go my world or my and it winds up and and then nobody's happy. And then we go into this political tribalism and Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Well, you know, mean, I'm a Christian and I'm in my faith, I'm supposed to spread the word of Jesus and bring disciples to Jesus. That's what I'm supposed to do. And I do that, but I'm not going to force you to do it. I'm going to engage you in a conversations about like minded things. And if the subject comes up and I sense through my emotional intelligence and feeling the room and reading it that you're interested in the thing that I'm interested in, which is my love of my faith and my love of Jesus Christ. If you want to talk about it, we can talk about it. But I am not gonna walk into a room and scream at you and tell you, you need to follow. That's not how you're gonna win friends and influence people. You have to read rooms, read people, meet them where they are, build a relationship with people. I think that's the biggest thing we've forgotten, right? The social media, the dumb phone. We forgot that we don't talk to people on this. This is not how we build relationships. We build relationships through face-to-face conversations with individuals, learning about their views. And then when you're asked your opinion, and I think that's the key, you say, ⁓ you asked my opinion, this is, are you willing, do you want to hear it? ⁓ yeah, I totally want to know about you and know about what you believe. Okay, cool, I'll tell you. That only comes through building a relationship with people. And I think when we talk about a lot of these issues, politics, religion, when we talk about them, it's like, no, I have to go convince everybody that the way I live my life and my beliefs is the way everyone should live their life. And first of all, that would be boring. Not everybody can be the same. It's okay to have different cultures and beliefs and things, but also on top of that, The other thing that I think is really important is build a relationship with someone before you get into something so personal to have a conversation with them. Some of the best people that bring people closer to God, whatever God it is, and I'm just happy people have faith. have friends of all different types of faith. And I'm just happy they believe in their faith and they're strong with it. they hold, what I'm more worried, what I would judge somebody on is do you actually live by the morals that you tell other people? You know, do you do that? That's kind of that integrity thing. ⁓ That impresses me. I'm always really impressed with the people that can do that. I'm like, that's good for you. You know, that's true discipline and dedication. ⁓ But where I was going with that is, ⁓ Whatever your, your God, faith, whatever it is you believe that your higher power than you are, you know, build relationships with people, people will be drawn to your, ⁓ it's a law of attraction. If you're a positive person and you're talking to people, you'll bring them in to your way of thinking because I'll be like, what does that person have in their life that I don't? Right. Because I'm attracted to that. I hear that. You know? And I think we forget that. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, we are coming to the top of the hour. Didn't that go by quickly, folks? ⁓ Can you tell a little bit about what is coming up or just some things that maybe constituents or citizens need to know about public safety in the next year or so? Are there any elections or any new developments from the public safety world? Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Yeah. So I'm actually up for election in June. ⁓ so super excited, about this. only have a primary, so I'm also excited about that. ⁓ but you know, just, I think we've done so much and I say we, cause it's, it's a team effort and I don't say we saying me, me and the sheriff's office. Cause it's, I had to get the community behind me on most of my stuff. I'm a big, I'm a big thinker. I, I'm a I dream really big and then I go for it. And to do that, you have to collaborate with people and you have to get your community excited about what you're going to do. And we have done so many amazing things. I'm one of the most proudest things that I'm proud of myself about is that there isn't really a campaign. I can't think of one. In fact, I'm almost certain there isn't. There's not a campaign promise I haven't said out loud that I haven't delivered. Cool. And Some of them scared me to death to say out loud. They really did, but we made it happen. ⁓ And looking forward, I couldn't be more excited. know, our school safety program, we're really putting children first. We're putting the teachers first. We're putting the parents who go to work every day and trust, trust us with their, protection of their kids. I'm working on, it was Senator Sheehy, I'm working on a bill right now. It's called the SROs Act. And it's designed to, if you're retired military or law enforcement, you don't have to pay federal income tax on your retirement. If you work in the school security ⁓ fashion, doing something. ⁓ You know, we've built an armed educator program in our county. We have that in place. I'm really excited about those things that we've done. Collaboration is another huge, thing. ⁓ We've collaborated with the police department. ⁓ We joined our SWAT teams together. Our drug task forces have been merged, but we've worked on that even harder. We're building a violent crimes task force back up again. ⁓ We really want to go after these violent offenders and make sure that we get them off the street to keep our community safer, but do it quicker. I'm tired of waiting until the carnage occurs and then making the arrests. We need to be more proactive. ⁓ I'm just a big believer in, we need to anticipate what the community wants, communicate with them, make sure that's the track they're on. And then we need to develop things before it's needed. I just don't ever want to be the law enforcement official standing on a press conference over some horrible thing that happened in our community and we weren't prepared for it. ⁓ In the next several years, we have some more programs that we haven't even released yet. We're still working on them behind the scenes, trying to get them tweaked. We have a really robust mental health program we're building right now. And we're working on a brick and mortar ⁓ crisis center. We have some grant funding from the state. But we have to partner with the community to make it happen. That's actually been the hardest part, fighting that right. niche partner. Right now, the Indian Family Health Clinic has kind of stepped up as kind of one of the main players in that. And they've worked really hard. we want to people who suffering from mental illness probably shouldn't go to jail. They should probably go to a crisis center. And they should probably get really good mental health treatment versus getting more depressed and having more mental health problems because they go to jail. But we got to get there. And it's going to take a lot of work. But we're gonna, we'll get it done. So, you know, there's just, I could go on and on. There's probably three dozen different programs in the pipeline right now. And the hardest part about it is we have to be transparent about them. And we have to get community players involved in them and not involved in them like, you know, ⁓ by name and title only. Like get them involved in it so that they have say. You know, one of the things that we have at the Sheriff's Office that I'm super proud of is we have ⁓ the only citizen use of force review board in the state of Montana. Where every single use of force that occurs with our deputies and detention officers is reviewed by a group of citizens. And they run on terms. So it's every two years, we cycle them out and put new citizens on the board. And we do that because we want to show our, and they get to see everything. They have to sign confidentiality agreements and all that, but they get to see everything. And they get to know exactly how we operate. They get to make policies. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Thank Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: You know, and if I were to say, what is the hardest thing? What is the hardest promise? About being sheriff. Was probably when I promised that I'd be transparent. And that sounds so simple. Just tell everybody what you do, right? Well, not when you have lawyers involved, you have lawsuits involved, not when you have personnel issues, which are which are confidential and protected. And so you navigate around them as best you can and you do it. But the other thing is, is there's so many things that happen in a law enforcement agency our size that the amount of information that you transparently have to put out, it's staggering. it's hard because most of the time, fortunately for our organization, it's good news. Most of the time we're delivering good news or we're giving information. And then you gotta saddle up when you gotta get bad news. But you gotta do it. Leigh/@followtheleighder: I am really thankful for your service. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being the Cascade County Sheriff. I hope you'll come back for another update in the future. This was fantastic, folks. Before I wrap this up, is there anything you wanna say to the fans? before we? Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, Cascade Co.: Absolutely. No, just thanks for tuning in and you did a great job. So thank you. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Alrighty folks, well let me know what you thought. Drop it in the comments. Was this something new and different for you or is it the same as usual? Maybe you're tuning in from Manhattan or New Orleans. Maybe you're tuning in from Alaska and you're like, oh yeah, this is par for the course, but I wanna know. Other than that, make sure you like, follow, subscribe. You know the drill. And this was another episode of Follow the Leighder. I'm your host, Leigh Larson, and until next time, see ya.