Latest / APD Pod Squad / Season 2, Episode 4; Chief Mike Lamb, Sgt Scott Fry, Sgt Jesse Ramirez, SPO Dennis Pace, and The History Minute with Hannah Silberman

Transcript

Season 2, Episode 4; Chief Mike Lamb, Sgt Scott Fry, Sgt Jesse Ramirez, SPO Dennis Pace, and The History Minute with Hannah Silberman · APD Pod Squad

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_05: This is the APD bot squad.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_05: Coming up in this episode, October 29th, 2013, is the day many of you remember.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_05: It's the day we lost senior police officer Rob Fingaman.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_05: I'll be joined by Chief Mike Lamb and Sergeant Scott Fry.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_05: Look back at that tragic day and reflect in this deeply personal conversation.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_05: Also, getting to know Detective Jesse Ramirez, who will soon be Sergeant Ramirez of the Community Engagement Division.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_05: We'll talk about his promotion and with November being Native American Heritage Month's connection to the Cherokee Nation.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_05: Spoiler alert, it's his wife and kids.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_05: We'll talk more about that.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_05: One of the officers Ramirez will be leading soon is Senior Police Officer Dennis Pace from the Community Engagement Division.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_05: Dennis joins us to let us know what is coming up from that group.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_05: And in the history minute with Hannah Silberman, we go back to 1902 to the controversial hiring of a dog catcher and the 12-year-old boy they put on trial for helping him.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_05: It's all coming up on season two, episode four of the APD Pod Squad.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_05: Right now I'm joined by Chief of Police Mike Lamb and Sergeant Scott Fry as we look back at the last line of duty death for the Asheville Police Department, which occurred in the year 2013.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_05: Chief Lamb, Sergeant Fry, thank you both for joining me.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_05: So that was uh twelve years ago.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_05: Six-year veteran with the Asheville Police Department, 37-year-old senior police officer Robert Robb Bingaman, killed in the line of duty October 29th, 2013 while conducting traffic enforcement along I-240.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_05: Should we start with the events of that tragic day or with highlighting the work and life of Officer Rob Bingaman?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think it's it's important maybe first that we talk about Rob and what a great teammate he was and the important work that that he was doing.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I think Scott is the best person to be able to speak about that, especially since he would was on the same team and worked so so closely with Rob.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: So Scott, you want to start?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, sir.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Rob and I actually started together.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: We went through the academy together.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_03: We joined the traffic team together.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: That was in uh November of 2011, I believe, that we started the traffic team.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: From going to the academy together and and just always working together, we were just really good friends, did a lot of things on our uh off time, went to training a lot together.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: We were actually in training uh the weekend before in Florida.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_03: Just an awesome guy, awesome friend to have, uh, awesome co-worker.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: We loved going out there doing traffic enforcement, just kind of a little competition between the two of us all the time, you know, see who could do more.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_03: That was definitely a day that changed my uh changed my life, changed my career.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_05: So I know Rob was uh Marine Corps veteran as well, wasn't he?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_05: He was.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_03: Grew up in Pennsylvania and uh joined the Marines, somehow ended up in North Carolina, just like me.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: I grew up in Florida and ended up here.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_05: And uh I know traffic enforcement is something a lot of people have talked about, Chief, and recently we've uh looked into hopefully getting that group back, and and we're hoping to have that happen soon as our staffing increases.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the day that that Rob died, he was doing a d a very important service for the city of Asheville in that he was trying to tamp down driving behavior, especially erratic and dangerous driving behavior.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we've seen with our staffing shortages over the last couple of years when officers don't have the time or opportunity to go out and conduct speed enforcement.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: What that equals is dangerous roadways, and as we've seen for the last couple of years, especially the last three years, record numbers of traffic fatalities.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: The radar enforcement that Rob was doing that day was definitely at that time saving people's lives because the team itself was working hard to keep that dangerous driving behavior in check.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: So he was out doing a good thing and keeping people safe that day.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_05: Scott, now we all know how dangerous and tricky that particular stretch of roadway is today, this 2025.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_05: Was it just that bad back then as well?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, the design is so poor.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_05: How could it not have been?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_03: Twelve years ago, so I mean that was actually one of our identified crash reduction areas, and we're right, that's actually what we were doing out there.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: So what what Rob and I would do is actually get out on the side of the interstate, use our LIDAR, and uh, you know, point toward traffic, you know, coming towards us.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you kind of do your best to get in the car safely, get back out into traffic safely, and and try to stop that vehicle that that you just performed a clock on.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: So it was just as dangerous back then as as it is now.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_05: I have to take that stretch of road coming here every day, and I see an almost collision there just about every day.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_05: I've seen actual accidents on multiple occasions, right?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_05: Because it's a if you think about what people have to do.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_05: They're on I-240, and now they're having to all pinch point it and then cross a bridge and in some cases cross three lanes of traffic in about a couple of hundred yards to continue on in interstate while mingling with local traffic.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_05: It's a pretty insane design when you think about it.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_05: It is.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_05: So tell us tragically what happened that day.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: Rob and I were um out doing traffic enforcement.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_03: I went after a vehicle, stopped it um on I-26 West Pound, probably near the uh UNCA exit.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_03: And while I was on my stop, I heard traffic start coming in about a crash.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: And then uh I think I heard them trying to to raise uh Rob's unit number as well.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: And then after that, I think Chief Lamb arrived shortly after that, and I made my way over there as soon as I could.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: For those that were listening to the radio that day, I was in the detectives division at the time as a sergeant, and communications was starting to get calls of a police car that went over the the edge of the bridge.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we're trying to raise Rob on the on the radio in Hutton, and he wasn't answering.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: So uh me and many others uh jumped in our cars, lights and sirens went to the bridge.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: The the problem with the area that his car was was that he it was only only accessible on foot.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like me and many others, we stopped on uh Roberts Road and ran to uh the area of the bridge where he was, and it looked as if his car had skidded up on the edge of the bridge, the concrete edge of the bridge, and then went over the edge of the bridge, uh nose first, and then hit the ground, and then the the rear bumper of the car had rested against one of the bridge supports, and so it was unstable.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I remember Jason Briscoe, uh who's who now is is in Charlotte and works down there, he was on one side of the car just trying to trying to hold it steady.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: And when I got there, I saw a bunch of of debris in the dashboard and um saw Rob's body in the in the passenger seat.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh first thing we needed to do was to see if he was okay and if he could be extracted from the vehicle.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh me and a a paramedic climbed this side of the car, as other officers were trying to trying to hold it steady, using the uh front passenger wheel as as a ladder.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the two of us climbed up on the passenger side of the car, uh leaned in.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Rob was his chest was in the dashboard with his head forward on the dash.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it it appeared that he he had a broken neck at the time.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I tried to get a pulse.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: The paramedic uh climbed, reached in, tried to get a pulse, um, and we we couldn't get a pulse on him.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: So but that that being said, we still felt it was important to try to get him extracted from the vehicle.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh fire arrived on the scene and did their best to sturdy and to shore up the vehicle against the support so that the windshield could be removed and then uh Rob removed from uh the passenger area and then transported to the hospital.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_05: What time of the day was that?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: Was it morning, afternoon?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: I think it was uh it was early afternoon because uh uh Rob went home for lunch and I I was sending him uh text that I was gonna get out there and do more work uh before he got out there.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um and he he kind of cut his lunch break short and came out there to to engage in some friendly competition.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_05: How hard is it even now, still twelve years later, to to think about and talk about?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_05: And I appreciate you guys even being willing to do this.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's uh it it's hard.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um you know, like I said, uh that was that was one of my best friends coming to work every day, just you know, wanting to to have fun and make a difference and you know, just have that have that camaraderie with one another, and you just never think that it's gonna be the guy that you're you're working with in that moment that that's you know that that's gonna happen too.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_03: It could have been any of us, it could have been me, but you know, it's it's just a reality of the job.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: And it you know, we we all know that, but then when the reality kind of hits you in the face, it it makes things more difficult.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_05: Well in the 150-year history of the Asheville Police Department, there's been only seven line of duty deaths.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I understand that uh they're applying for possibly two more to be added, so it may be nine, but it's still a rare occasion, and it's the most recent one for us, and it's still over a decade to show you how long ago it was, but yet still so fresh as you were telling the story.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_05: Is there a message for the public, Chief, as far as just driving and how dangerous it can be for anybody, including people with law enforcement who have a lot of training in in driving in these dangerous conditions, and people just it seems like they don't concentrate on the job itself, if that's a now as I see people on the road.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_05: They're just they think it's just easy to do and it's never gonna happen to them.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and I think you made a good point about you know, there's there's first thing to contend with is Asheville's roadways.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's an older design.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the way the on-ramps are, the off-ramps are, the fact that we have an interstate, I think probably the only place in the world that has an interstate that goes down to one lane right there on 26, and just the congestion is is incredible.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like I said earlier, Rob was definitely out there saving lives.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he was out there changing driver behavior.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Scott was out there, you know, doing the same thing and and doing that speed enforcement that is so badly needed right now.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: But I'll I'll also say that I think Rob has saved many lives since then.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: The the message of and the importance of wearing your seatbelt.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um I th I think that day had had Rob had a seatbelt on, we'd there would have been a different outcome that day.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: And we take those lessons from others and we respect their memory by honoring those lessons and making sure that officers are wearing their seatbelts, that the public's wearing their seatbelts.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I d I used to be an officer that especially when I felt like I was going into a situation that would lead to a a foot chase or for some other reason that I needed to exit the vehicle quickly, I would preemptively take my seatbelt off.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: I quit doing it after that day.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: I kept my seatbelt on up until the car came to a stop and then trained myself to that's when I take take my seatbelt off.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: You know, uh an example I see is is we had an officer that was in a pretty bad crash early last year and just destroyed the front of the cruiser.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: But he had a seatbelt on.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: Otherwise he he would have been either killed or severely injured.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_05: As we remember Officer Bingham and is there one memory, one thing, Scott, that you would like people to remember about?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_05: What's your favorite memory about Rob?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_05: Do you have something in particular, something he was fond of, something he liked to do, something he said?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_03: Nothing in particular.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, just Rob was just a a great friend to have.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, he would he would drop anything that he was doing to come and help any of his friends.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: Chief, I remember Rob's love for the job.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: He loved working traffic enforcement and loved being a cop, and was you know very proactive.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: Very you know, I he would get frustrated at other people's lack of proactivity sometimes.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: And he just uh you I mean, you couldn't ask for somebody better out there with his work ethic and just his his love for the profession.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Chief Lamb, Sergeant Fry, thank you both for joining me today and talking about Rob.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's our pleasure.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_05: Detective Jesse Ramirez joins me right now, a little getting to know segment.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_05: Detective, thanks for joining me.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_05: Hey, good morning.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_05: Pretty soon we'll be addressing you differently, though.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_05: So let me just go ahead and get this out of the way.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_05: Congratulations on your promotion.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_05: I appreciate it.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_05: So, pretty soon I've got the paperwork right here in front of me.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_05: It says here, Sergeant Jesse Ramirez will be reassigned to the community engagement division as the community unit sergeant, which is awesome.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_05: Are you excited?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_05: Very excited.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, new uh new venture and uh new group of folks, and I'm pretty excited to go over there.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_05: So, right now you've been in the Family Justice Center for about a year.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, sir.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_05: Okay and we actually had to adjust our conversation here like three or four times because you're busy over there.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_05: Very and it's an important job, too.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_05: We just spoke with Lieutenant Diana Loveland in the last episode all about the work that the Family Justice Center does and what you do with them.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_05: It's gotta be rewarding, but probably also kind of wears you out, I would guess, too, right?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_06: It does.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_06: Uh very rewarding.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_06: It's it's very humbling going over there.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_06: It's a different set of skills you have to hone and and teamwork, and just the cases are very uh personable to people.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_06: And it's it's very humbling going over there and uh very rewarding in the same in the same aspect.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_06: So I've enjoyed my time over there, especially with the team that we work with.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_05: And you can't get much more different with your new job responsibilities than the community engagement division.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_05: So it'll be a much more uh uplifting experience, a chance to deal with the public and do good things and get out there and interact with the community.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_06: Absolutely.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_06: I'm I'm looking forward to that.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, there's a couple people that I've already worked with over there, Carrie Lee, and I'll also be working with Joe Jones and uh from the SROs.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_06: I've worked with Joe on patrol.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_06: So I'm excited to work with that group as well.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_05: All right.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_05: So as this is a getting to know segment, let's go ahead and do that.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not sure if you've listened to the podcast at all before, but we got a couple questions we throw out there to get us started.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_05: First and foremost, where were you born?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_06: I was born in Orange County, California, Santa Ana.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_05: But a military kid, right?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_05: So you were all over.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_05: Never really called a place home other than Western Carolina.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_05: Really North Carolina.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_05: So when did you arrive here then?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_06: Aaron Ross Powell, I arrived here in 2000, in the summer of 2000, and I graduated in 05.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_06: So summer of 2005.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_06: I graduated from uh a school in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where my dad was stationed at Bragg.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_06: Um and I had a track scholarship at Western and where I ran track at Western.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_06: And um I've never left.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_06: I actually had this conversation with my mom maybe three days ago.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_06: Uh she came up to visit and she was like, You've been up here.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_06: I dropped you off at Western over almost 15 years ago, right?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_06: And she's like, You never came off the mountain.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_06: She's moved.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_06: Like my dad stayed in the army, even while I was in uh in college.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_06: They were at Bragg, they went to Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_06: They've been to Fort Bliss, Texas, uh Fort Knox, Kentucky, back to Fort Jackson.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_06: Uh he's been to Iraq and Afghanistan in between those times, but I always stayed here.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_06: And uh she just that's funny, we were talking about that, and she mentioned that like two or three days ago.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_06: She's like, You never came home after I dropped you off at your dorm.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_05: Just something about the mountains that or something about that location in particular, or just you just felt like home somehow here.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_06: Uh maybe the independence.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_06: I finally, you know, I would say, you know, I had like my parents were like, You can't do this, you can't do that.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_06: But I was free.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_06: I was like, oh man, this is pretty cool.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_05: Well, you know, growing into the military, there's probably a little more structure than some other kids' experiences.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it was.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_06: Um my dad was gone a lot.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, it was at the height of Iraq and Afghanistan.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_06: So he was gone quite a bit in my high school when I was in high school.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_06: There was only uh a year, my junior year, that he was actually home for a whole year.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_06: Other than that, it was, you know, he was on deployment.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_06: There was that, and then you know, I was running track, so I was engulfed in in that.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_06: It was like a full-time job when I was running track in cross-country at Western.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_06: And then I met my wife, and then that's all she wrote.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_05: That's all she wrote.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_05: That's all she wrote.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_05: What was your specialties in track?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_05: Were you a sprinter?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_05: Were you long distance?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_06: No, I was mid-distance, long distance.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_06: So I ran uh anywhere between the 800 meters to uh the 10K, which is awful on the track.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, going round and round and round for it's like NASCAR.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_06: Oh my god.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_06: You lose track pretty quick.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_05: And then that's why when they like show those in the Olympic sports or whatever, they go.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_06: And we'll come back to the U.S.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_06: vault, they'll cut to the javelin.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_06: They're like, hey, we're on lap twenty-five.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_06: Here we are, halfway through.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_05: We'll come back in a little bit as they finish.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_05: But uh that's got to be difficult though, mentally, right?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_06: It is.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, uh you it's tough.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_06: Like you just are like, man, all right, left turn, left turn, left turn.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_06: You know, you're trying to keep pace and you know, you're racing, and even the people there that the track meet are like they lose interest pretty quick.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_06: I mean You know, they're they're going to grab snacks.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, it's one of the last events, and people are just like, ah man, I'm I'm done with this.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_06: We'll cut in at the last 200 meters when it when it's fun to watch.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I've run a few 10Ks, but none of them just round and round and round like that.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_05: At least there's something to look at generally when you're running somewhere.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_05: But that would be difficult.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_05: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_05: It can be.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_05: So I lived when I first uh moved back here from Charleston in uh 2020.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_05: Uh I lived not too far from Irwin High School.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_05: And so they have a nice track there.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_05: And so the neighborhood itself was really hilly.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_05: I mean super hilly.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_05: You couldn't do much with it as far as running.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_05: You're either going straight up or straight down.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_05: So I would run down the street, Lee's Creek Road, and go to the high school.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_05: And so the most that I could do was like, I don't know, maybe five or six laps until I just got a mile and a half.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_05: But just bored.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_05: And then I would go back into the neighborhoods.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_05: It's just kind of like, damn.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_06: It was the worst.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, yeah, definitely.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, that's I enjoyed cross country before that.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_06: Because like you got to go run somewhere other than a track.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_06: You know, the track workouts, we did track workouts, but like the track workouts are all right, we're doing 100-meter repeats, we're doing 200 meters, 400-meter repeats, 600 meter repeats.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_06: The cross-country workouts are tough.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_06: But like you'd go, all right, we're running hills today.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_06: We're going over here, we're running uh a tempo run, we're running over here.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_06: And you got to see a lot more than just the track.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_05: Do you know offhand how many laps it is to do 10,000 meters?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_06: Uh it would be not off the top of my head.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, is somebody shouting it out to you, or are you cut you're keeping track when you're running?
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_05: Is somebody like that's sixteen?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it's it's four.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, uh on a 800 meter, or I'm sorry, on a 400-meter track for two miles, it's uh eight laps.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_06: So then I mean supply that.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I'm not good at math.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_06: No, I think I take like maybe two math classes in college.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_06: Let's just say too many.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_05: Let's just think as you were mentioning uh Fort Bragg, you were like the third or fourth person that has had a connection there.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_05: Because I lived there for three years myself.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_05: I lived there at the end of the 90s.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_05: I I worked in radio right there.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_05: And I was on I was on base quite a bit.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_05: Because it was pre-9-11, and you could kind of come and go.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_05: And I would be able to use their facilities.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_05: I would use I would play basketball in their gym.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_05: No one ever said anything.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_05: You just kind of drove right onto the base.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_06: It turned into like I remember I remember after 9-11.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, we were in Virginia when 9-11 happened, and uh we were in Fort Eustace, Virginia.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_06: Fort Eustace, Virginia, Newport News, everything happened, and it turned into an hour-long process to get on base, to go to the commissary, or whatever we had to do on the base, mirrors under the cars, it turned into a process.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_06: Like it got wild.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_06: Um and I remember Fort Bragg was similar, unless you had business on base, you couldn't go on base.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_06: Um you had had the proper IDs and stuff like that.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_05: I've been to Fort Knox as well just once.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_05: I did a Spartan race.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, okay.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_05: Fort Knox.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_05: It was in July and it was like a thousand degrees.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_06: It's hot down there.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_05: It is up there, I guess.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_05: It was, yeah, up and it was dry, and it was like a this red clay thing they got going on there.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_05: It's not it's similar to the kind of the sand hills in a way.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_05: So it was like this red clay dust.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_05: And that's what I remembered the most.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_05: It was.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_05: Did you get to go see the, I guess, the where they had the gold?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_06: No, because they it was security was tight.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_06: So anyone.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_06: You'll be amazed by what it looks like.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_06: I was like expecting to see this like extravagant castle looking thing.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_06: It's like more like a mall.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_06: It's just like a building out there.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_06: Like I was just like, hey, that's where the gold's at.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_05: My dad pointed it out.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_05: My guess is they're like getting onto that base is probably the most difficult part.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, it's not even necessarily like on actually I guess it's on Fort Knox, but it's like on this little satellite area, and we're just driving by and he's like, that's where that's where they keep the gold.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_06: And I'm like, that little building right there?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_05: Like, yeah, they bust us in, so it was like high security.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_05: So anyone that was racing in the race had to like meet a couple miles down the road, hop on these like city buses, yeah.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_05: That's how security was maintained.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_05: It was like so it was just buses that were coming and going, not people's personal vehicles.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_05: Gotcha.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_05: So okay, so we answered question number one, grew up in Orange County, California, and then moved all over.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_05: Question number two one thing that most people don't know about you.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_06: I guess I was gonna kind of go into like the military stuff.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_06: Never lived anywhere more than two years, three years growing up.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_06: Um till here.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_06: Well, dad joined the army when I was two.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_06: My mom was pregnant, I think, with my sister.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_06: And I've lived in I've lost count of how many states, and I lived in Germany for about four years.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_06: Wow.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_06: To the point where my mom kind of bragged at one point in time, she said I was fluent in German, but I don't think so.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_06: I think I just was able to get by.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_06: Um But yeah, uh living in Germany was really cool.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_06: I was about kindergarten to fourth grade, and that was really, really cool.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_05: I took one semester of German in college because I needed one semester of language.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_05: And I don't remember much of anything except like Black Forest chocolate cherry cake.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_05: For some reason that's stuck in my head.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_05: It's like Schwarzwald or Kirkttorke or something.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_05: It's like for some r but I remember they would always show, you know, obviously images and videos and whatnot.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_05: It's just the Rhineland area, just the whole thing.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_05: Germany seems like it's just beautiful.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_06: I remember going to castles, the Volksmarches.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_06: I remember living, and a guy would come by every in the summertime it would be ice cream, and then like in the fall and you know, when it was colder, it would be uh uh candy.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_06: And a guy would just pretty much go into our neighborhood and just ring a bell, and all the kids would run out.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_06: By that at that time we were they were using marks still, they were using And Euros, and we would go out there and we'd buy a bunch of candy, ice cream.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_06: I remember that's what I remember about Germany is the sweets.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_06: I was too young to drink, obviously.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_06: I was in grade school.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_06: But I do remember going to school and like they would have beer drop-offs.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_06: So I'd I'd like to school?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_06: No, no, no, no, not at school.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_06: No, I would be leaving for school, and there would be a guy delivering beer to our we lived in like a little government house in the almost like milk, and there'd be a guy dropping off beer.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_06: And my dad would be like ordering beer or whatever.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_06: I do remember that.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_06: I was like, what is that?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_05: They take their beer very seriously in Germany.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, the whole the the purity laws and everything they've got over there.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_05: They're very particular about their beer as well.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_06: Didn't get to enjoy the beer, obviously.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_06: But I remember the candy.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_06: And uh I remember going to uh a concentration camp as well.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_06: Uh that was pretty much even as a little kid, you can just tell you're just there and you're like, whoa.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_05: It's kind of the one country, besides I want to go to England, Ireland at some point.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_05: But as far as the mainland of Europe, Germany is where I want to visit at some point for all those castles and things like that if I want to get over there.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_05: And my family history is German and Polish.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_05: So I kind of I would like to kind of see all of that.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I think a concentration camp would be a you know, it's like, hey, yay, I want to go.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_05: It's not like that at all.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_05: But it's something I think we should do.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_05: You feel it, man.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_05: I think it's something you should do.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_06: Even as a little kid, I felt it.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_06: Like I didn't really you don't appreciate the gravity of it.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_06: But like just being there, you're just like, man, something bad happened here.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_06: You know, really bad happened.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_06: And you can just feel it in the air.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_06: It's just gotta be a good thing.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_06: I remember being in like third grade, yeah, and I was just like, it's kind of gross.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_06: Like something bad happened here, and I didn't really understand it.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_06: And you'd watch like the videos as you sat and watched and they taught you stuff, then you really understood, and you're like, whoa.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and we gotta learn from history.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_05: So I think everybody should have to experience that at some point.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_05: There's there's people, believe it or not, that don't even fully believe that it occurred, that the Holocaust occurred.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_05: So those people need to visit those locations.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_06: It's powerful.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_05: So let's uh let's treat this as an extension of the something people don't know about you, because one of the reasons I invited you on here is because of November is Native American Heritage Month.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_05: And so as I was poking around doing some research and asking folks, hey, do we have anybody in the department with any kind of a Native American ancestry or whatever?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_05: And nobody could think of one in particular that had the ancestry.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_05: But Deputy Chief Artemis said you should talk with Jesse Ramirez because of his wife and his kids.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_06: So tell us all about that.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_06: My wife is uh Cherokee Indian, she's uh Eastern Band enrolled, and all my kids, I have four children, but they are all uh enrolled, Native American with the Eastern Band and Cherokee Indian.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_05: Give a shout out to, and not to single out one of your kids as opposed to the other three.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_05: I'm sure they're all wonderful.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_05: They are in their own way.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_06: But one was just named Little Miss Cherokee.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_06: She was.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_06: Uh my oldest daughter, uh Alessandra, was uh she went through the uh and competed in the uh Little Miss Cherokee pageant this past week on Wednesday uh through the fall festival.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_06: Big festival and fair in in Cherokee at this time of year.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_06: And they crown uh their princesses and she uh won Little Miss Cherokee.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_06: That is a big deal out there.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_06: It's huge.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_06: Uh and I'm very proud of her.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_06: It's gonna entail a lot of traveling uh between me and my wife, probably family, just going to other events around the country, uh, probably down to other uh places, other tribes, Seminole, Choctaw, uh down in Oklahoma.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_06: Very excited for her.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_06: She she worked really hard, and it's it was really cool to see her.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_06: I I had some uh she didn't see me.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_06: She cried.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_06: My daughter cried, uh nine years old, happy tears, kind of crazy, but uh tear me up a little bit.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_06: You know, good dad moment.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_05: I know this isn't your typical little kid beauty passion.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_05: It's very involved and takes a lot of work on her part.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_05: Do you do you know what exactly?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_06: I'll be honest with you.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_06: Uh I know a lot uh my wife did a lot.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_06: And uh Rosie McCoy helped out so much, along with a a lot of friends and family who helped her out, get her regalia ready, her traditional wear.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_06: So there was a traditional wear portion where she wore traditional clothing and it was described.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_06: And then there was an introduction portion where she told herself, she told about herself and what she wanted to be and um focused on uh like an outfit that she chose, and it was uh for uh uh Tahina Pow Pow who plays for the Atlanta Dream right now.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_06: Um and she went and got what got to watch her when she played for the Game Cox because my sister lives down there and uh she's uh in law enforcement down there, so she was able to help out and kind of get her on the court and meet Tahina.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_06: And so she wants to be a basketball player when she grows up.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_06: But with that, uh during the introduction portion, she was uh she did it all most of it in Cherokee first.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_06: So she speaks.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_06: All my kids are also enrolled in the new new goodoo academy, which is a read revitalization effort uh school, an immersion school for the language.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_06: So all of my kids attend that school ever since they could walk.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_06: So it is a complete language immersion school where they're trying to develop fluent speakers in in Cherokee language.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_05: I've heard this, it may not be correct, but historically it was uh a language that was not written down, but just passed down verbally.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_05: That has probably changed.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_05: Uh they have a written language.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_05: Um I I was okay, I'm I'm incorrect then.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_05: I I thought way back in the day it was like it was just uh one of those languages that was spoken and not written, but I apologize for it.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_06: No, no, no.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_06: It's uh it was uh it began to be written and they have their own language, uh Cherokee Celibari.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_06: And you can actually my wife was able to help me out.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_06: She actually put it on my uh my iPhone and my droid, one of those, I guess, the language apps that you can put it in there.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_06: So it it's actually you can put it on your iPhone now.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_06: Um I do not know how to read it.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_06: It's a very difficult language, at le at least for me.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_06: My children and my wife are pretty good.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_06: My wife would say she's not great at it, but um she's pretty good at it, and my children amaze me by just ha being able to look at it and read it almost.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I I should have known better because I have seen it written down recently, because I've played golf out at Sequoia National Golf Course.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_05: And uh you see the symbols and all the different holes are like described that way, and I'm like, gee, that that looks really difficult.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, also Klingman's Dome was recently renamed.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so back to the what it was supposed to be back in the day.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_05: It was for the Native Americans, that's what they called it.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_05: And then of course Klingman came along.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_06: My wife says it means mulberry.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_06: Mulberry.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_06: Mulberry place is what I believe what my wife told me.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_05: Is there a lot of I guess there's a lot of mulberries up there?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_05: I would say that's what I'm saying.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_05: I would imagine.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_06: Um there's a legend that I'm I'm likely misunderstood or don't know that goes with that.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_06: Um and there's always history and and legends and stories that go with everything, and I think uh it's amazing.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_06: So how much I learn.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_06: How did you meet your wife and when?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_06: We met at a bar at Western.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_06: I don't think it's there anymore.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_06: It was called the Rusty Lizard.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_06: You could think about how that place looked.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_06: Uh we So in the traditional Cherokee manner, yeah.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_05: You met at the Rusty Lizard Bar.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_06: So we went at the Rusty Lizard Bar at uh in Silver, North Carolina.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_06: And um that's all she wrote.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_06: I think I had like two pitchers of beer and we started hanging out, and uh that was it, man.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_06: Four kids later, and we've been married for since 2012.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_05: But I know how immersed you are in the Native American culture and you've how much you have embraced it.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_05: Have you enjoyed doing that?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_06: Love it.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_06: It helps me as well want to know about more about myself.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_06: So um I'm not Cherokee.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_06: However, I you know, I I do I do understand the importance uh that my children need to know that portion.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_06: I'm I'm Mexican American, and I guess the best way to put it is I can leave here right now and I can go down anywhere and I could probably find a Mexican restaurant where I can speak Spanish.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_06: And I'm not fluent Spanish, by the way.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_06: But there is only one place where they can learn and be a Cherokee, right?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_06: So I think that's very important.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_06: And I it took you know, help me realize that.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_06: You know, they they they need that, you know, they need that's that's their identity to be able to speak their language and be engulfed in their culture and just help that grow.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_06: I've enjoyed it, yeah.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_05: Speaking of embracing, I know you embraced a little bit of it this weekend.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_05: Stick ball.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_05: Indian ball, yep.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_05: So what's the official is it called Indian ball?
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_05: Is it called stickball?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_05: What do they call it?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_06: You you hear uh different things Indian ball, stickball, anito, I need I think that's how you pronounce Anito uh is uh Cherokee name for it.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_05: So there's a scene in Last of the Mohicans where they play that game.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_05: It just it's brief.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_05: It was actually filmed on Biltmore State.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, and you see it for maybe 15, 20 seconds.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm guessing it is very similar to that.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_05: And here's what I know about it.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_05: It's vicious.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it is just so I'm surprised you look so good this morning.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_06: Oh well, I don't feel so good, I'll tell you that.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_06: Um Pride and Soreness, I'll tell you that.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_06: Um it's it's a very it's very unique.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_06: It's only played in Cherokee, you know.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_06: Different tribes have different stick games.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_06: Choctaw, there's the Iroquois, they all have a certain stick game.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_06: And I believe uh up in Red Lake, I had a a friend of mine uh in Cherokee, he's from Red Lake, and they had like a stick or I'm sorry, a stick game like symposium up there in Red Lake on the on the reservation.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_06: So everybody comes together and kind of plays their style of game.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_06: But in in Cherokee, um it's pretty violent.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it's it's very uh I guess that's the best way to put it, it's pretty violent.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_05: For people that are wondering how it's played, it it's basically the precursor to what modern day lacrosse would be, a version of that.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_06: Rugby, wrestling, it's a combination of football, everything.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_06: Uh no pads, uh no shoes, you're wearing a pair of shorts, no shirt, and you have your your stick and you're out there picking up a ball and uh you're trying to score.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, and that's the easiest way to put it, and there's there's absolutely no rules except for to pick up the ball and score.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_05: So there's that's the important part there, the no rules.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah because if you watch lacrosse now, they're wearing helmets and face guards, and they've got gloves on and shin guards and all these things to protect themselves, and they still get beat up.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_05: I played a little bit growing up.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_05: It's still like very aggressive.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_05: But with this, oh my goodness.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_06: There's fights, there's uh there's quite a bit of fights, I'll tell you that.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_06: Um, and it's just it's part of it.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_06: You know, it's but I would guess afterwards though, everyone's hugging and like it's it's all.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_06: That's the importance of it.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_06: Uh, and that's what I took away from it.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_06: It's very cleansing, and that's part of it.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_06: Afterwards, you go to water and you wash it off, and it's gone with the water.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_06: All those bad feelings, they're gone.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_06: You know, and at the end of the day, we all live in one community.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_06: So you get it out of your system, get it out, and then afterwards, we're all part of the same community trying to make it better.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_06: Now, that doesn't go to say like when you're on the field, it's you know when it's on the field, it's no holes barred.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_06: And then afterwards, it's like, all right, we're done.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_05: Here's what I know about uh the Cherokee people.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_05: They can fight.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_05: I ha I have this uh personal experience.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_05: Have you ever run into a gentleman by the name of I think it's David Tishow?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_06: David Oh yeah, I know Dave.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, do you?
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, because Dave and I fought in the Toughman club.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_05: Oh man, he's a big dude, man.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_05: I took him to a split decision draw.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, really?
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_05: I don't want to fight you then.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_05: So at the in the heavyweight final of the 2001 original Tough Man.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_05: So this is I was a younger man then.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_05: Keep that in mind, right?
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_05: So I was I mean, I'm 57 now.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_05: So you could imagine.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_05: So I was way younger at the time.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_05: But uh he and I fought and it was a split decision final.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_05: Dude.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_05: He'd won it like five or six times.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_05: He's a tough dude.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_05: He's won it like every time.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_05: And and so I let it tell him I said, hey, you might not remember, but uh next time you run into the Facebook.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_05: He outweighed me by about a hundred pounds.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, his one of his daughters' uh husbands plays with me.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_06: So we see each other quite often.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_05: And and you know what it's funny, the year after we fought, because you know, we fought and it was over, he won.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't see him again.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_05: I saw him the following year.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_05: And he just came up and just like, oh man, that was a great fight.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_05: We had a whatever.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_05: Good dude.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_06: You know, I mean, that's how it is.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_06: Like I feel like that's just I mean, it's it's business, and then after it's business, it's like, hey, we're all people.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_05: And I and I I still have that.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_05: I had a friend of mine that was kind of uh not allowed to, but they were VHS taping the fight.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_05: So I still have that fight.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_05: At least I think I only had the first round.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_05: I think they stopped like, hey, turn that off.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_05: So I actually have part of it, uh, but I have nothing to watch it on anymore.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_06: But I actually think they make me starting to do that.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_05: I can define a place to somehow get that transferred over.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_05: But uh at the time I had taken some boxing lessons from a local boxing instructor in the area, George's boxing gym.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_05: He was out in uh I think he was out in Swannanoa and then he moved up to Candler.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_05: And so he at least kept me alive, obviously, during that.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_05: That's that's something to say, because uh he can that he can throw hands.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he did too.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_05: Well, the I I was actually hitting him.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_05: I just wasn't doing any damage.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_05: He's it was He's big.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_05: He's huge.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_05: So I was 6'4, 220 or so at the time.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_05: He's about six five.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_05: He's bigger than me, and he was about three something.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I could see that.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, and well, and twenty and imagine him twenty years ago when he was a much younger man.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_05: So yeah, he was knocking me around pretty cool.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_05: Oh gosh.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_05: But uh never knocked me down.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_05: So that's something to say.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_05: But thank you so much for joining me.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_05: And hey, good luck with the community engagement division.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_05: I appreciate it.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_05: You say you've worked with some of those before.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_05: It's gonna be a new experience with the Asheville Police Department.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_05: Super excited.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_05: And Jesse Ramirez, thank you so much for joining us today.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_05: Senior Police Officer Dennis Pace with the Community Engagement Division is with me to talk about all the fine happenings coming up at the end of October, rolling into November.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you again for joining us.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_05: You're an old hat with this now.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: I am.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: This is not my first time here.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me back.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_05: We know right away, of course, that Halloween is coming up, so everyone gets excited about Halloween there.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_05: And so we've got some cool things.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_05: Kerry Lee and I spoke about the Boobash.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the Boobash is gonna be Sunday, October 26th at the Tanger Outlet Mall from 1 to 5.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: We'll have us from Community Engagement's gonna be there.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: We'll probably have a couple specialty vehicles there and work and partner with them to hand out um Halloween candy and talk about Halloween safety.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_05: Aaron Powell Yeah, give a chance to uh grab the kids, get them dressed up a little before the actual Halloween date, which is uh a Friday this year, I think.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_05: It is a Friday this year.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, people love it when it's not a Friday.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_05: So the weekend before, you know, you got the costumes for the kids, let them wear them twice, right?
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_05: So bring them down to the Tanger Outlets and get yourself some candy, check us out, have some fun with the APD.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_05: Do you got a costume picked out?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: Do I know?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: But my wife is making my son one that she promised him.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not quite sure how it's going right now.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Do you know what it is?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: I do, but I don't know exactly how to describe it.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_05: Well, okay.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_05: So that's some incentive for people to come by to the Tanger Outlets on that Sunday before Halloween and uh to see what Dennis's kid looks like.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_05: Aaron Powell Absolutely.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_05: So what else we got coming up, Dennis?
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Halloween is usually the good start of our fall programming.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have a lot at the beginning of November, but that rolls into the holiday parade.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: We got uh we partner with Evelyn with Turkey Giveaway, and it rolls into Christmas and and stuff like that.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: So this is the start of our busy season.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: We probably have a week or two break before we really hit the ground running.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_05: Now let's not forget about uh CPA, which is coming up on about the halfway mark.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_05: We're getting close to that.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_05: It is.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, that'll include my appearance at CPA, at the Citizens Police Academy, as our division, our communications uh division, will have a talk.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_05: We've actually got a couple of members of the media that are part of CPA this year.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_05: We do.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, John Boyle with the Asheville Watchdog.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_05: He is taking part, and I know he's enjoying it.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_05: Uh and also Mark Starling with uh News Radio 570 WWNC.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: It seems like every week we talk to him, they always enjoy what event or what topic we discuss in the CPA.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the day after uh Halloween on November 1st, we're actually doing a uh CPA instead of that Thursday, we're moving it to that Saturday.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna do an uh event with the uh participants up at our A B Tech campus in Woodfin.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, that's a good one and run them through some different scenarios.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_05: And if I know those guys are also enjoying the free meal that is provided.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um every week.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing how people like will leave the building early, except on Thursdays, then we get a lot of people that might have to work late.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_05: So last year Helene robbed us of a lot.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_05: We lost the Christmas parade.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_05: I'm sorry, the holiday parade, as they said.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_05: It's always gonna be the Christmas parade to me, but that's just me.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_05: But it's back this year, and I know a lot of people are excited about that.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: They are.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know a lot of details, but it's always the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm not sure where it is and how big it's gonna be this year.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: The holiday jamboree that they had last year, I thought was pretty successful.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: They had everything at one spot, but people like parades and want to get the parade back, and then it's coming back this year.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_05: I'd imagine it was gonna take the same route as it has in the past, which is typically it goes up Biltmore and then it kind of pauses in front of like the judging station, uh, right there where it turns to Patton Avenue and goes west on Patton.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_05: I would imagine that's probably where it's gonna go again this year, but you keep looking for the uh city of Asheville, go to their Facebook page and all that.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: And as it gets closer, there'll be more information about the parade coming out.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully we'll get some good weather this year.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_05: I know a lot of people it should be a great parade.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I I'm not a parade guy, but I know a lot of the parents in the community, especially that has the kids that perform, uh, they missed out on that opportunity last year.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_05: Let's say you go to a dance academy or you're one of the high steppers or a local marching band, and that's what you look forward to all year, and then you don't get to do it.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_05: So I get the disappointment.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: The manpower it takes to put on something throughout the city with with public works and us and and fire and everybody working together.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot that goes into it.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: So being that what happened last year hampered the parade, but I thought they did a really good job pivoting and doing the holiday jamboree.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't take as much manpower to put on, but the people loved the parades and so excited to get it back.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_05: All hands on deck for the parade.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_05: It's really the manpower issue that's mostly what prevented it last year, uh the resources and the manpower.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_05: So uh with Halloween coming up, we kind of briefly touched on that.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_05: Let's let's get some Halloween safety tips if we've got some, because you know there's some issues that kids today deal with that like I didn't deal with when I was growing up as a kid, right?
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: I did not see the city of Asheville having the official Halloween or trick-or-treat times.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're wanting to go out, then you might need to look at the neighborhood specific to see what those neighborhoods are doing.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: It ranges from as early as four o'clock to running as late as nine o'clock.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: But again, it's neighborhood specific.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't want to go actually walking around the neighborhoods, there's several locations and community centers that's doing trunk or treats.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you can just drive there, walk around, get candy from from the back of a car.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Several places are doing that.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: But for Halloween safety, a few things that that I want to touch on is if you make your costume or buy a costume, try to make sure that it has some reflective tape on there.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're out and it gets dark, cars can see you.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have tape, use glow sticks or a flashlight so you are visible at night.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure that your costumes are uh fire resistant so nothing will will happen.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want anything spontaneously combusting and catch fire.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you get people like me that have uh they'll have a jack-o'-lantern on their front porch.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_05: It's an actual jack-o'-lentern with like an actual candle inside.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_05: You know, you got this long flowing cotton something that's highly flammable, you drift past it, yeah, anything can happen.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: Anything can happen.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: So if if your costume has long flowing tails or something like that, make sure that it's fire-resisted.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_06: Yep.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's always recommended to use face paints as opposed to masks, because face masks can limit your visibility and you can't see as well.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so it's recommended to use face paint.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: Also, please remember to walk.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: Don't run.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: Don't dart out in front of cars, stay on the sidewalk.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: If if one house is out of candy, I'm certain the next house will have it.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't need to rush from one to the other.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll be out there for two to different three hours.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: You'll be tired if you keep running everywhere.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you you see that all the time, like in some of these West Asheville neighborhoods, the kids get so excited they they hop from one house to the next, and then all of a sudden just burst out into the street.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_05: Like take Vermont Avenue, for example.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_05: Uh you're gonna have some vehicles on the road as well, and they need to pay attention as well.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_05: But kids, watch out for yourself.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that leads me to my last point, would be if you are driving around, remember, especially in between the four to nine o'clock hour, remember people are gonna be out there trick-or-trading.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: Kids are unpredictable, so you wanna be extra cautious.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Slow down, drive carefully, make sure you're not distracted.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: Don't don't have the phone going, don't don't try that tax and drive, don't try to do anything other than making sure you're paying attention to the roadway.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I love the idea about the reflective tape because you can do that to any costume.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_05: You don't got to change the costume one bit.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_05: Just put some reflective tape maybe on your back, you're not even gonna notice it, put it on your arms, on your legs.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_05: Just a quick little strip just so it reflects.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: Or you can even put it on on the bag if if they're fighting, don't want to ruin their costume, and they have the Halloween bag, just put some tape on the bag because they're not gonna let go of that bag of candy.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_05: So I think general rule of thumb for the trick-or-treaters is when it starts to get dark, which is we see our trick-or-treaters at my house around 5 to 5.30, and then it peaks around 6 to 7, and then it starts to slow down after that.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_05: Those are gonna be your peak hours, probably the five o'clock to six o'clock hour, but it's gonna go on later than that too.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, uh, if you got a house and you got candy, put your porch light on, or if you've got a whole bunch of lights that are part of your decor, that's fine too.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_05: That kind of indicates it.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_05: But if you don't have any candy, you're not participating, just turn your porch light off.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: Turn your lights off.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: If you do, if you do have pets, um, you can do a couple different things.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: You can either just be in the driveway so the pets don't have to keep running to the door or might get scared, or put them in the back room so when the doorbell keeps ringing, they're not running or barking at everything.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: I know last few years we'd go around different neighborhoods and there'd be some people inside, but there were some people that had like block parties just in their driveway.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was just easy just to have my kid run up there and get some stuff and even have to go all the way to the front door.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, my wife and I usually just sit in the front porch.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, it typically around here, the weather is warm enough where you can just sit outside.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_05: You know, growing up, it would snow in Halloween when I throw it up in the floor.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not lying, dude.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_05: But down here, it's usually nice enough where you can just sit outside, and we usually do.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_05: I enjoy it.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_05: I like seeing the kids coming up in the costume.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: My kid is getting older, and though he's gonna eventually get away.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: From from wanting a trick-or-treat, or at least trigger treat with me.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I enjoy going out and and walking with him and then uh watching all the other people coming around.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: One thing that I just remembered I didn't have written down was I was walking around with a friend last year, and their kids were a little older and they were wanting to run off a little bit and get further away.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: So my friend took an air tag off of uh his phone or his keys or something like that and put in his kid's candy bag.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so as the kid would run, he all he had to do is pull up his phone and be able to track the kid that way.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_05: That's a fantastic idea.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, a lot of people have those air tags.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_05: And if you don't, you've got time to get one between now and Halloween.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and they don't cost that much, and they're they're not big or or cumbersome.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: You just drop it in a candy bag and you'll be able to track the kid that way.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great idea, and that's the first time I've heard that.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_05: It was something that my friend just thought of last year, and and it worked.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_05: Good suggestion for folks that are listening right now.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_05: All right.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_05: Senior police officer Dennis Pace, thanks again for joining us.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_05: Looking forward to a good Halloween and a great month of November.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_05: Time again for the History Minute with a Hannah Silberman.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_05: I always look forward to these.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_05: What do you got for us this time?
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: The dog catcher.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_05: Ooh, the dog catcher.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_05: You know, Asheville's a very dog-friendly town.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not sure how this one's gonna go over.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_05: Tell us more.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go all the way back to 1902 when uh our city decided that we had too many stray dogs.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_05: So these are just uh dogs running wild don't belong to anybody.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: So and also they wanted to implement a dog tax, which was also supremely unpopular.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: You paid a yearly tax and then you had a little tag on your dog.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_05: You know, some places still have that.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, in New York State growing up, we did.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_05: You did gotta license your dog.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_05: You had a little collar and a license, and you gotta pay for it.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we might have that in Nashville.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: We just a very controversial issue because nobody wanted to pay their dog tax, and what are they gonna do with these dogs?
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and they decreed that the dog catcher would be under the police department.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a police function.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_05: You know, dogs as pets weren't even really like a thing thing until like the mid-20th century, from what I've read.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_05: People had them, but they were more like almost they had a purpose for them, like you had a junkyard dog, or you had like a hound dog to go hunting with, or i the the whole dogs like on your lap sitting around thing, that was like not a thing until relatively recently.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm kind of surprised the passion for the dogs back then.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_05: Although if the dogs were working animals, like you had them for a purpose, like to guard your store, you do a I could see what you know, it affects your income, it affects your livelihood.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the decree was that if a dog was found on the street and it didn't have a tag, it would be taken to the pound.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: And they hired a dog catcher, and he was given a bounty for each captured dog.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: So he got 25 cents for every dog that he catched up until he got paid.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: So his first day was October 14th, 1902.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_05: All right.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: But he came up with a plan, he enlisted several local children to start collecting dogs for him.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, sure.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then he gave them 10 cents of his 25 cent bounty.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, that's using your noggin right there.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_05: That's work smarter, not harder, right?
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: So they got twenty-seven dogs before noon, but that included some puppies.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: But as these youths were gathering these dogs, they caught a small yellow dog in Pack Square, and I think they said they were roughly dragging it back to the pound, and uh this man saw them and accused them of animal abuse.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_05: Oh boy.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, drama.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of cruelty to animals.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: So they escorted this child to the police station to go to the court for a hearing.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: And apparently, um, and I take this quote, several people seemed to find amusement in the fact that the dog catcher had come to grief, and the court found it necessary to admonish the crowd to keep quiet.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I imagine people brought popcorn and they were like ready to see what happened.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, the the child was who was 12, I think, uh, was was convicted and paid a$1 fine.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um They tried and convicted a 12-year-old.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: He had to pay a dollar, so he must have captured a lot to capture at least 10 more dogs.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I was gonna say to make it back.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_05: Well, yeah, and that's a lot of money back then, too.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_05: So that's no small amount.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_05: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the funny thing was people were were pretty upset with this pound.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's uh a local community member who was a member of the SPCA, and he was, quote, heard to liken the city pound to the black hole of Calcutta.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then apparently he was caught once climbing the fence into the pound.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and at least two times somebody, who I think was probably this guy, jailbroke all of the dogs out of the pound, um, which really upset the dog catcher.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_05: Aaron Powell, you see, everything I knew about dog catchers, I learned watching Saturday morning cartoons.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_05: It was always this big guy with a net going around and scooping up the dogs, which kind of sounds like it was happening, you know, without the net.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_05: Aaron Powell.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean they had they did have severe issues with rabies and certain diseases.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'm sure they had their reasons, right?
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_05: But could you imagine that happening like now, like today?
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Absolut.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_05: Of course, there's not a whole lot of stray dogs running around anymore.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_05: I wouldn't think so, right?
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_05: Some feral cats.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_05: But I I mean stray dogs, there's just not that that that big of a deal.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_05: Well, apparently maybe because that guy did his job.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: So Well, funny story, in the 1930s with the Great Depression, they fired the dog catcher to save money and decreed that the police officers would do it.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the police officers didn't do it at all, and we had a terrible outbreak of rabies, so a year later they hired the dog catcher again.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, that's why we hired him in the first place.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_05: So the dog catcher came back.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_05: But at some point we lost our dog catcher.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in 2020, we have animal control.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it used to it was under the police department until they transferred it to the Ross.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_05: You'll still see people on social media using that phrase, though.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_05: It's like you call the dog catcher type thing.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_05: So people still maybe assume we still have one.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_05: We don't really, but we kind of do.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean animal control would would help if there's a stray dog or yeah.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_05: I think they're more worried now about dangerous animals than they are about a spread of rabies or anything along those lines.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_05: The raccoons are the ones you've got to worry about with, but uh not so much the dogs.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_05: So what year was that again?
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: 1902.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_05: And the year was 1902.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_05: The History Minute with Hannah Silberman.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you again, Hannah.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_05: Thanks for listening to the APD Pod Squad.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_05: And thank you to my guests, Chief Mike Lamb, Sergeant Scott Fry, Detective and soon-to-be Sergeant Jesse Ramirez, Senior Police Officer Dennis Pace, and Hannah Silberman with the History Minute.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_05: And thank you for listening.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_05: If there's something you'd like to hear discussed, just call us at 828-250-8800.
• 50:41
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• 50:42
  SPEAKER_05: If you got a question for Chief Lamb, you are running out of time.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_05: Chief Lamb retires at the end of November.
• 50:48
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• 50:53
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• 50:55
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• 51:02
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• 51:09
  SPEAKER_05: I'm Rick Rice, and this is the APD Pod Squad.