Latest / Recovering Out Loud / The Untold Truth About Policing, Mental Health, and Accountability

Transcript

The Untold Truth About Policing, Mental Health, and Accountability · Recovering Out Loud

0:01
Hi there, welcome back or welcome to Recovering Out Loud
0:04
Podcast, the show where we get real about mental health and
0:08
addiction. I'm so glad you're here.
0:10
If you or someone you love is struggling with drugs or
0:13
alcohol, please reach out for help.
0:16
Send me a message on all social media platforms at Recovering
0:20
Out Loud Pod or by e-mail at recoveringoutloudpod@gmail.com.
0:26
You are no longer alone. Thanks so much, Jeff for coming
0:45
on. I really appreciate it.
0:46
I'm really interested in, I think, you know, talk shows,
0:51
podcast radio, it's all about perspective in my experience.
0:55
And when I started this podcast, I was the aim was to get a lot
0:59
of different as I went on to get a lot of different perspectives
1:02
on mental health and addiction. And I think you have a very
1:04
interesting one from the law side of things.
1:08
And you know, I think that we've come a long way.
1:14
I think you would agree with that.
1:15
Like, you know, we've come a long way in terms of how we
1:19
approach addiction and mental health from from an officer's
1:25
standpoint. I guess I've even seen it just
1:27
in Toronto. You know, it's funny, the other
1:29
day I saw a situation going on in front of my condo building
1:35
and there was police involved and they were dealing with a
1:38
mental health somebody that was struggling with mental health.
1:42
And I noticed, I hadn't noticed this before, but there was a
1:45
social worker there and she had like a, a separate vest on.
1:49
And it said that her title on it something about, you know, the,
1:52
the unit that she was involved in.
1:53
And she was there just to kind of mitigate and, and communicate
1:57
with the individual. And, you know, you wouldn't have
2:00
seen that, you know, 20 years ago or maybe even 10 years ago.
2:02
I could be wrong about that, but I just think that's cool that
2:06
we're taking some feedback and implementing it right.
2:10
So you have a book coming out on Thin ice.
2:15
I want to talk about that. And specifically, I guess I'll,
2:19
I'll dive right into you. You know, you experienced trauma
2:23
and adversity and that kind of shaped your empathy as an
2:27
officer would. Would you agree with that and
2:30
how you approached it? Yeah, I mean, I, I definitely
2:32
would. I, I, I do believe that it was
2:35
my experiences growing up and how I was brought up that
2:39
impacted my ability to maintain objective, my objectivity, and
2:44
not go down that dark hole of the them versus S mentality that
2:48
often times see law enforcement officers go down.
2:50
You know, my father, he was a university professor, sociology
2:55
professor, and he actually did his PhD dissertation on the
3:00
professionalism of law enforcement.
3:02
So when I, when I actually was intending on starting my PhD
3:06
program, because I wanted to be professor of criminal justice,
3:10
follow my father into academia, he strongly encouraged me to go
3:14
get five years of practical law enforcement experience in a
3:16
large law enforcement agency. He said your, your studies will
3:19
be much more rewarding and I'll make you a much more credible
3:22
professor. And that's, that's what my
3:24
intention was when I went out to Los Angeles, was to do 5 law
3:27
enforcement and then go back into my studies and have a
3:30
career in academia and be a professor just as my father was.
3:33
But as life has it, you know, there's a different plans for
3:36
me. And I did 33 years in law
3:38
enforcement, but it's being raised by my father, who was an
3:42
unbelievably wise man. He didn't speak often, but when
3:46
he did, it was worth listening to.
3:48
And he and he never asserted his opinions on you.
3:53
He would, he would listen to what you had to say and then he
3:57
would, he would challenge, not in a critical way.
4:00
He would often times say, you know, seems to me some that you
4:04
might want to consider this, you might want to consider that.
4:07
So he, he really developed my, my critical thinking skills
4:11
without me actually really knowing it.
4:14
So when I had an opinion about an issue we were talking about,
4:18
we would often times talk about sociological issues and I would
4:22
share my opinion. He'd asked me to articulate the
4:24
rationale for, for my opinion and, and support my, my, my
4:28
conclusions. And that really was something
4:31
that I took into my law enforcement career.
4:34
So I had a a different upbringing and kind of a
4:38
different approach to handling the challenges that are so very
4:41
unique to law enforcement. Yeah, I I love that.
4:45
It's so important too, to like, I think one, one thing that
4:49
really bothers me is when, and it bothers a lot of people, but
4:52
when people like the, the answer that they give to why we do
4:56
things is we've always done it this way, right?
4:58
It's just, we've always done it this way.
5:00
And I've been guilty of it too. Like I, I do that with things
5:02
that I, well, I just, you know, that's the way I was raised.
5:04
And this is the way. Well, it's like, why?
5:07
You know what, like let's, let's really think about what's the
5:09
rationale behind this and what if we were to do it this way or
5:14
differently or, you know, maybe I don't have all the answers to
5:17
everything. You know what I mean?
5:18
Maybe my way is not always the right way.
5:20
Maybe that way is not always the right way.
5:22
I think, I think it's important. Right.
5:24
You know, I've always, I've always said that it's not about
5:27
being right, it's about getting it right.
5:30
That requires that you bring as many diversified voices to the
5:33
table, people that have different backgrounds and
5:36
different opinions and completely different
5:38
perspectives than than you may have.
5:40
I found as a leader in law enforcement that I, I gained the
5:43
greatest insight from those who thought very differently than I,
5:47
and that's who I learned the most from.
5:50
And because I, I was open minded to the point where I, I wasn't
5:54
closed to the potential that I may change my mind about
5:58
something. If if you know, given the
6:01
rationale and the information too, and it that often times
6:05
occurred and it and it quite frankly, that's, that's a real
6:07
liberating type of thing. Rather than remaining in this
6:10
box that is, that is so, so customary of law enforcement.
6:15
It's such an insular type of institution.
6:19
It, it was, it was kind of kind of liberating to have have
6:24
people that would challenge my thought process and actually
6:26
change my mind. Yeah, it takes the pressure off
6:29
for sure, because I don't have to have all the answers all the
6:30
time, right, Right. So can you walk me, walk us
6:35
through a little bit what it was like being on the front lines in
6:40
Los Angeles? I know you served, you know,
6:43
you, you did, you worked over the 90s, right?
6:46
And there was a lot of like pivotal moments that you talk
6:49
about. Can you describe what that was
6:51
like? Sure.
6:53
You know, I initially, you know, I'd grown up in Kent, Ohio, and
6:58
that's a population about 24,000 people.
7:00
And I left home when I was 16 and I played junior hockey in
7:03
Canada and the United played Hockey League in Dubuque, IA,
7:06
which is about 62,000 people. So the the largest population
7:11
that I had lived in prior to going to Los Angeles was about
7:13
62,000 people. And then there I was at the
7:16
time, it was about 3 1/2 to 4 million people in the city of
7:19
Los Angeles. And that in and of itself was an
7:22
adjustment. It was unusual in Ohio to go to
7:28
a grocery store and hear somebody speak a language other
7:31
than English, where you'd be hard pressed to go to a grocery
7:34
store in Los Angeles and not hear three different languages.
7:37
So, you know, there there was the diversity that I had to get
7:40
used to and the scope and, and, and size of of the city and the
7:45
diverse communities that I was going to be policing.
7:48
So that was the initially the greatest challenge.
7:51
And, you know, I grew up rather naive, I suppose, just like
7:55
everybody does. And, and, and, and often times
7:58
people will ask me, you know, do you have any regrets?
8:01
Would you do things differently? Would you go into law
8:03
enforcement again if you could do it all over?
8:07
And, and the answer is yes. But I would say that I do
8:13
acknowledge the fact that I wish I had some of my innocence that
8:18
I lost in law enforcement because of all the things you
8:21
see. And it's, and over time, I, I
8:25
kind of equate it to having a, a, a cup of coffee and it just
8:31
gets full and it, you can't fit anymore in the cup.
8:35
And it's, and that's when you start having problems and you,
8:38
you get overwhelmed with some sense of like sadness.
8:41
So it's not always the trauma. Yes, I had incidents where,
8:44
where my life was threatened and I was involved in all certain
8:47
ball shootings and things like that.
8:48
But those weren't the incidents that really caused me to stay up
8:52
at night, caused me to have mood swings and, you know, through
8:58
some orders with my stomach and things like that.
9:00
It was the things that were, it was just the sadness of not
9:03
being able to, to really impact something early on in my career.
9:09
The biggest incident that I can think of that was so impactful
9:14
in what I saw was the Rodney Kingleman's at the time I was in
9:18
LA County deputy sheriff. And the the day of the the
9:23
announcement of the verdicts, I was out to dinner at a Tony
9:28
Roma's in Glendale, which is a suburb of Los Angeles, just
9:32
north of Los Angeles like by Burbank.
9:34
And we saw that the riots were breaking out you at the corner
9:38
of Florence and Normandy. You had a Reginald Denny that
9:42
was being hit over the head with a brick.
9:44
And I was watching all this happen in real time on
9:47
television. And back then we didn't have
9:48
pagers and cell phones. So it was through the news that
9:51
they said all law enforcement officers report to your, your
9:55
area of assignment. So I went into work and when I
9:59
got there, we were being loaded into LA County sheriff's buses
10:03
and we're heading down to South Los Angeles to the Firestone
10:06
station, which is just to the east.
10:09
It actually borders 77th Division, which was the
10:12
flashpoint of the riots. And I was down there for the six
10:15
days of those riots and things that I saw.
10:19
It really was eye opening because in my assessment, it
10:24
wasn't the the verdict of not guilty for these officers was
10:31
not what this riot was all about.
10:34
It was really about decades of mistreatment of marginalized
10:38
communities. And this was just the catalyst
10:41
that boiled over. And, you know, often times
10:45
people got it wrong where they were saying that, you know,
10:47
these riots are just nothing but criminals, you know, taking
10:51
advantage of the circumstances of the situation.
10:53
But, you know, really, it was it was your everyday person that
10:57
was living in these communities that felt marginalized.
11:01
And because because really all anybody wants is is to feel, you
11:05
know, heard, valued and respected.
11:08
And the breakdown between the communities in Los Angeles,
11:13
especially down in the South Los Angeles and the Police
11:15
Department had deteriorated so badly that the police were the
11:20
enemy. And often times, from my
11:23
experience, what I saw, many of the officers saw the community
11:27
as as an enemy. And that was a very difficult
11:31
type of environment to work in because because of how I look,
11:37
people would make assumptions. You know, I would hear often
11:41
times, oh, here's the, you know, KKK hood wearing, you know,
11:45
racist cop. And that's furthest thing from
11:48
the truth. I mean, to give you some
11:50
background, I was, I was adopted, I was born to a teenage
11:54
mother who put me up for adoption.
11:56
And I was adopted by my parents. And they had a daughter of their
11:59
own who's my oldest sister. They adopted me.
12:02
And then they adopted my brother, who's Japanese.
12:04
And then I had a foster sister who was black.
12:06
And I grew up in the 60s and 70s in, in Kent, Ohio, in the
12:09
Midwest. So I, I was very, very keen and
12:13
insightful when it came to, you know, racism, just kind of quiet
12:22
discrimination things, things of that nature.
12:26
I saw things that occurred, how people would respond to my
12:29
mother when we'd be at the grocery store and things like
12:31
that. So I was kind of sensitive to
12:33
all that, but I had a completely different upbringing and
12:36
experience that I brought to the job that my peers really didn't
12:39
have. So, you know, at the time when I
12:44
was policing down in South Los Angeles, I had a girlfriend who
12:48
was a deputy sheriff and she, she grew up in South LA and she
12:51
happened to be black. And you know, I'll share with
12:55
you, I was working with this officer.
12:58
We worked together just one day. My, my partner as well as his
13:02
partner were both on days off. So we were partnered up for that
13:05
one day and we were driving down Figueroa, which runs North and
13:09
South right through the division, And he sees a couple,
13:14
It's a white guy with a black woman, and they're holding
13:16
hands. And he says, my parents taught
13:20
me better than that. And I'm like, well, what do you
13:22
mean exactly? And he said, my parents taught
13:26
me not to have sex with animals. This was about a year after the
13:30
riots. I'm sitting there going, have we
13:34
not learned anything? Because the reality is, is that
13:38
people's attitudes and beliefs impact their judgments and their
13:42
decisions, which therefore is your actions and your behaviors.
13:47
So you know, this was, this is, this is what the problem was.
13:51
So I was in early on in my career, I saw that we not only
13:55
had the challenge of working in a very violent society and
13:59
communities in Los Angeles, but you had this, this rot within
14:03
the organization that actually brought true a lot of what the
14:07
the community members were saying.
14:10
And you often heard it in, in the lyrics of, you know, rapper
14:14
songs. And, you know, initially I
14:16
would, I would defend law enforcement against those, those
14:21
lyrics that were that were hateful towards law enforcement.
14:25
But as I was on the job longer and longer, I saw that there was
14:30
some credibility but to what they were saying.
14:32
And that's not to say that law enforcement officers are racist.
14:35
That's not to say that the vast majority of law enforcement
14:37
officers aren't wonderful people with the most appropriate
14:40
motivations. That's what I truly believe the
14:42
problem is, is that in law enforcement we allow this
14:47
subculture to exist and it's it's it's, it's unfortunately
14:53
part of the policing environment.
14:57
Yeah. And I, I don't think it's
14:59
specific to the United States either.
15:01
I, I think it happens here as well.
15:04
I mean, I've even, you know, I've worked in construction a
15:06
long part of my life when I was younger and the culture was, was
15:10
very similar in the segregation and you know, racism and just
15:15
inappropriate language and feeling.
15:17
And, you know, it's, it comes off as, you know, we're joking,
15:20
but I was, I was always taught that there's truth in every
15:22
joke, right? And you know, you, you, there's
15:24
some sort of hate that, that if you're fueling deep down when it
15:28
comes to that. So I mean, there there has to be
15:32
a shift to some degree, but you know, people like you that are
15:37
are working toward that. I can definitely appreciate it
15:41
and I love what you're doing. So can you walk me through, you
15:44
know, retiring from from law enforcement?
15:47
What made you want to go into the line of work that you do
15:50
now? And you talk about, you know,
15:53
not just reforming, but you talk about like reimagining, right,
15:58
reimagining policing. What does that mean to you And
16:00
and why did you get into it? Well, I served for 33 years
16:04
initially. I did three years with the LA
16:06
County Sheriff's Department before I lateraled over to LAPD
16:09
and I did just over 30 years with the LAPD.
16:11
And during that time I had a very unique career.
16:17
You know, I worked down in South LA as a young police officer.
16:20
I was a training officer in just W downtown Los Angeles and I
16:26
worked the elite Metropolitan Division, which is like the
16:29
Special Forces department, the canine and the spot and all
16:32
that. So, you know, I got expertise in
16:35
the crowd management and control and dignitary protection.
16:38
Any time the president, vice president, first lady or any
16:41
head of state came to the city of Los Angeles, we'd work with
16:44
the Secret Service of the State Department and work those types
16:46
of details. Then from there I, I made
16:49
Sergeant, I went to Rampart Division and this was right
16:52
after the Rampart scandal. Rafael Perez, he was assigned to
16:57
Rampart and worked crash which was the gang unit.
17:01
And there these officers were committing bank robberies off
17:06
duty. They were stealing pounds of
17:08
cocaine out of evidence lock up and selling it on the streets
17:11
for personal financial gain. They were involved in officer
17:15
involved shootings while on duty and planning guns to justify the
17:20
shootings. And we're we're talking about
17:22
the most corrupt activities law enforcement could ever be
17:25
involved in. And I was selected when I made
17:28
Sergeant to go to Rampart and they were putting into brand new
17:32
leadership teams. And I was a member of that.
17:36
And while I was there, they then selected me to be the new
17:39
officer in charge of the gang enforcement detail Crash had
17:43
been disbanded because of the problems citywide.
17:46
And they created this new structure and model for for gang
17:50
enforcement through the gang enforcement detail, where he had
17:53
a Direct Line of chain of command to the captain of the
17:56
areas. And I was the officer in charge
17:59
of that unit. So for three years I worked in
18:02
that unit completely re restructuring and redesigning
18:07
the entire culture and the mindset of the personnel.
18:11
And we had different level, different measures of
18:13
effectiveness that were very unique.
18:16
We weren't worried about how many felony arrests we were
18:19
making and those sorts of things.
18:21
It was about arrests that were strong arrests.
18:26
So I looked at filing rates, conviction rates, amount of time
18:31
of convictions, that type of thing, because that was what was
18:34
going to actually impact lower and violent gang crime.
18:39
There's a dime a dozen of felony arrests you can make that are
18:43
related to gangsters, but they're not necessarily going to
18:48
make an impact in the reduction of the crime because for every
18:52
guy you arrest, there's two or three guys to.
18:55
So I changed that entire model on how we did things and that
18:58
became the model to be exemplified.
19:02
And we were recognized as the meritorious unit citation.
19:07
We're recognized for that. So at this time I, Chief William
19:10
Bratton, who had been the police commissioner for NYPD prior to
19:14
coming to LAPD, he was the Chief of Police and I went to go work
19:19
for him after I did my three years running the gang unit.
19:22
And there what I did was I briefed him and wrote all of his
19:27
rationale for the adjudication of officer involved shootings
19:31
and lethal force cases that were ultimately submitted to the
19:34
honorable Board of Police Commissioners who are the
19:37
ultimate adjudicators of those cases.
19:39
And then after that I did that for about 3 years and then I
19:43
went and became the officer in charge of the detective entity
19:46
that investigates all officer involved shootings and lethal
19:48
worst cases. So I had my hands in over 700
19:51
cases and I got a great deal of, of background and expertise in
19:58
in all of these areas. You'd be hard pressed to find
20:00
somebody that had such a diversified type of career and
20:04
experiences that I had. So with that experience, I
20:08
thought. What a waste, you know, you, you
20:09
don't just work your career and it's over.
20:14
It is actually just beginning because with that experience
20:17
that I can can parlay that into effective change.
20:22
And that's, that's what motivated me first to start my
20:25
company. I'm the founder and CEO of Law
20:27
Enforcement Consultants, where we, you know, we, we, we work
20:33
with law enforcement agencies to try to implement best practices
20:37
to hopefully have these critical incidents have the stronger
20:42
likelihood of an optimal outcome.
20:44
It helps reduce liability and it helps with the efficiency of the
20:49
operations in law enforcement organizations.
20:51
So that's the type of consulting that I do, as well as with my
20:54
background and, and use of force, I have myself and a whole
20:58
team of experts that handle police use of force cases
21:02
throughout the country. So that's what I do with that,
21:05
with that company. But, but my book on thin ice,
21:09
it's, it's all about my personal background, which I spoke a bit
21:14
about, which is quite unique. And then my, my professional
21:18
experiences and my practical insights into what I believe are
21:22
the types of things that we need to have implemented for law
21:25
enforcement to be successful moving forward.
21:28
Now there on thin ice, there's there's kind of two reasons I
21:31
chose them. One is because I I was a lead
21:34
hockey player and the experience of being a hockey player
21:40
impacted how I viewed my law enforcement career.
21:44
But also in my estimation, law enforcement is on thin eyes and
21:49
it's I love law enforcement. I believe blue and I want law
21:53
enforcement to take the reins and control the narrative and to
22:00
move forward through their own changes rather than having
22:05
things imposed on. And, and that's what this is
22:08
really all about. So it's, it's about, I don't, I
22:11
don't for a minute think that I have all the answers.
22:15
It's about creating the dialogue, the important dialogue
22:19
where we're honest about where we've been, where we are and
22:22
where we need to get. And it's, it's about, like I
22:25
said earlier, bringing in those diverse opinions and inviting
22:31
all kinds of, of, of different perspectives to the table when
22:36
you're dealing with making decisions on how to address many
22:40
of these issues that modern policing is, is being faced
22:42
with. Yeah, yeah.
22:45
And so I want to talk about your Speaking of perspectives and
22:52
getting other, you know, sort of views and models of how people
22:56
are doing things. You, I want to jump into you,
22:59
you going overseas to, to look at different sort of law
23:04
enforcement agencies and how they handled policing and, and
23:08
mental health interdiction. But before that, I want to know
23:13
like, just thought just for me personally, like, what does, you
23:16
know, you come in as a rookie cop in, you know, in LA just
23:20
because you know more about that, I would imagine.
23:23
What does the mental health and addiction training look like?
23:26
Like how do they teach or how did they teach officers to
23:30
handle those situations when mental health is involved, when
23:33
addiction is involved? Well, when I first got on the
23:36
job, that wasn't even spoken. Yeah.
23:41
It just wasn't. And you know now, yes, they have
23:44
made some progress. However, I will tell you this,
23:51
that culture eats training for lunch.
23:55
What I mean by that, it doesn't matter what they train you, it
23:59
doesn't matter what policies or procedures, if the culture of
24:04
the organization is not aligned with that, people are going to
24:07
be driven by altruist. And unfortunately there is no
24:12
alignment. Like for the city of Los
24:14
Angeles, they do have a behavioral science services
24:18
where you can go and and see somebody and deal with some
24:23
issues you may have. Now the reality is this, I have
24:27
friends that are now retired that, you know, they've been
24:30
diagnosed during their career with PTSD and you know, they
24:34
were told by the, the mental health practitioners do not
24:38
disclose this to your, your command staff because the
24:43
problem is, is there's such a stigma in a one year career.
24:48
And, and that's, that's the truth of overall.
24:51
And, and the reality is in my career, I had four people that I
24:57
worked closely with that made that choice to kill themselves.
25:04
And that's not unusual. I mean, the cops kill themselves
25:09
at a rate two to three times more than the general
25:12
population. And if and if you look at it,
25:16
there's about 200 police officers a year will kill
25:19
themselves on the average. And you're looking at about
25:23
sixty officers that killed that are killed by a suspect.
25:28
So what you mean? So we'll spend all this time
25:32
training and to address violence out on the street to protect
25:36
ourselves from from violent criminals, which is something we
25:41
need to do. But at the rate that we're
25:43
losing officers to suicide, let me tell you, we're certainly not
25:47
doing enough. And it's because the, the
25:50
reality is, is they're, they're exposed to the the trauma every
25:53
day. And it's the chronic stress
25:56
always being up in that orange or red zone.
25:58
Yeah, and it's the stigma that I just spoke about that's
26:02
associated with the access to guns, where they have a, you
26:07
know, immediate access to those, to guns, where in a moment they
26:12
may make that decision. And, you know, the reality is,
26:16
is there's limited resources. The 70% of American law
26:20
enforcement agencies, police communities of 10,000 or less,
26:25
they really don't have the resources for those officers.
26:28
You know, I, I had a great benefit of being in Los Angeles
26:31
where we did have behavioral science services.
26:33
So you could go see and talk to somebody if you wanted to.
26:36
But at the end of the day, the vast majority of the law
26:40
enforcement agencies where there's 18,000 plus here in the
26:42
United States don't have those resources for their officers, at
26:46
least to the point where in regards to the stigma, they feel
26:50
comfortable going in hell. And then it's, you know, and
26:54
then, so then what do we do in law enforcement?
26:57
I got to tell you, I can't tell you how many people I know are
26:59
lost, but they're Alcoholics because that's their answer.
27:03
Because we see things on a regular basis that human beings,
27:10
no matter how tough you are or how resilient you may be, we're
27:14
not designed to process all of them.
27:18
So the cultural thing in law enforcement is to to drink it
27:25
and let's go to the bar, let's you know, whatever.
27:28
And so then what, what happens when I was in the police camp,
27:31
They tell us the three things that'll get you in trouble.
27:34
It's booze, Broads and bills. Those are the three things that
27:39
are getting you in trouble. And they're really all circular
27:43
at the end of the day, because if you start drinking, then
27:46
you're going to have problems with your relationships.
27:48
And if you have problems with your relationships, you're going
27:50
to have issues with your finances, especially if you end
27:53
up going through a divorce. You have children, you're paying
27:55
child support, you start having to work off duty to make ends
27:58
meet and you have just just unmanageable life.
28:03
And it's, and unfortunately, this happens to all too many
28:06
officers. I got to tell you, I can't even
28:08
tell you. There's always, there's always
28:11
a, a, a trailer parked up at the police Academy where an officer
28:17
was living because they couldn't afford an apartment there.
28:22
And you'd see officers living in, in the bunk rooms in the
28:26
stations where they'd, they'd, they'd work their watch and
28:29
they'd go and they'd sleep in the bunk room and they'd live
28:32
there. That's where they lived because
28:33
of their circumstances at home, going through divorce or what
28:36
have you, or they couldn't afford a rent.
28:38
So you know that that's, that's tough.
28:41
And you know, I saw one guy that worked their Rampart gang unit
28:45
with me. He, I actually saw him in the
28:48
locker room at police headquarters.
28:49
And then a few weeks later he killed himself.
28:51
He was going through the walls and it, it dealt with the kids
28:54
and, and all that. And it's, it's just a sense law
28:58
enforcement, we, we see ourselves as fixers.
29:02
We're supposed to help people and your problem solvers, but
29:06
then our lives fall apart and we don't know how to help
29:09
ourselves. And then we're too macho to, to
29:15
acknowledge it or to reach out and ask for help.
29:18
And you know, I, I had another, I had another officer that
29:22
worked for me at Rampart. I worked morning watch and he
29:27
and his partner worked for me. And we worked from 11:00 at
29:32
night to, to 8:00 in the morning.
29:36
And he, his partner was taking the sergeant's exam the next
29:39
day. So I allowed his partner to go
29:42
home early so he can get some sleep before he had to take the
29:45
test. And I gave gave the partner an
29:49
option. You can go home as well.
29:50
If you'd like her, you can you can work the front desk because
29:52
at Rampart we didn't we didn't put officers out at night.
29:56
Individual one officer cars without violent divisions.
29:59
We have 140 some homicides a year in the seven square mile
30:03
block division or not block, but seven mile square division.
30:08
So he elected to go home and when he got home is two young
30:13
daughters were in bed. His wife was nowhere to be
30:15
found. And she turned out she was
30:17
having an affair. So he was struggling with that.
30:20
And I saw him on a Wednesday at a training and we spoke and he
30:24
he said he was doing really well.
30:26
He was, you know, working well with his church.
30:30
He had a lot of support there and a lot of support with his
30:33
father. He looked great.
30:35
He had obviously been working out and he was eating well.
30:37
And he's given me all the right answers.
30:39
And that weekend, Saturday, he blew his brains out and it's,
30:45
you know, and it's just like, wow, I just didn't see it
30:47
coming. And it's, and so you have to,
30:50
you have to understand that you're like, wow, I wish I could
30:51
have done something. I wish I could have done
30:53
something. But I had to, I had to be
30:55
careful not to go down that dark rabbit hole, blaming myself for
30:59
not picking up on this, that something was wrong and making
31:04
sure that he got that help. You can't blame yourself in
31:08
those circumstances where people make that type of a critical
31:10
decision. How did you manage that like
31:15
yourself with your own mental health?
31:16
Was there somebody that, you know, was there advice that you
31:19
got that somebody, you know, a mentor maybe in the in the
31:23
department or like how did you navigate your own mental health
31:26
through all that? Well, I was very fortunate.
31:30
Like I said, I had a father that was very aware of what the
31:35
pitfalls of law enforcement were, and he gave me a lot of
31:41
insight. I, I was able to to speak to him
31:44
about anything without any judgement.
31:47
So that was really critical for me.
31:51
But from, from a personal standpoint, I really made an
31:54
effort to spend my time away from work with people that were
31:59
not in law enforcement. I thought it was really
32:01
important to be around people that had a completely different
32:04
perspective than the people I was around every day.
32:08
I also was very, you know, active in, in physical fitness
32:14
and, and, and, and off duty stuff.
32:17
You know, my parents were very civically minded.
32:20
My mother, she was a president of legal and voters back in the
32:23
70s. She was a city Councilwoman.
32:27
My, both my parents, they were the Co founders of the Kent
32:30
Environmental Council. They, they raised me to
32:33
recognize that life was larger than myself in that it's about
32:41
not what you can do for yourself, but what are you doing
32:43
to impact your community in a possible way.
32:48
So I, I focused on that. I was a Big Brother and the Big
32:52
Brothers of Los Angeles program. I was a captain of the LAPD
32:56
hockey team and we made an effort to play a lot of us
33:00
celebrity charity hockey games there.
33:03
There was actually a Hollywood celebrity hockey team and you
33:09
know, a lot of the celebrities Cuba Gooding junior played.
33:16
There's there's a lot of guys, but we would do raise money for
33:20
like make a wish foundation and we would these children that
33:23
were terminally ill, they would come in and, you know, we'd give
33:26
them a a jersey and sign sticks and things.
33:29
And, you know, granted, they had, they didn't have much time
33:33
left on this earth, but see the smiles and, and the opportunity
33:37
for them to, to interact with us in the way that they were
33:41
allowed to in that environment really, really felt rewarding.
33:46
So it, it was I, I made sure that I was doing things that was
33:53
positive for other people's lives, which in turn made me
33:56
feel good about myself. And it, and it was very
34:00
different than the hours that I spent in the patrol car
34:05
handling, you know, see the man, see the woman, radio calls.
34:09
Because the reality is this, people call the police because
34:13
they want to see you. You know, you're going, you're
34:16
going into a toxic scenario and you're expected to figure it
34:21
out. And I've always said, I used to
34:23
say this all the time, but the greatest actors aren't in
34:28
Hollywood. They're in, they're in, they're
34:30
in a badge and uniform have to go into every scenario and read
34:35
it very quickly and determine who you have to be to resolve it
34:40
in the most most appropriate manner.
34:43
So that in and of itself can be quite stressful because, you
34:49
know, it's everybody, you know, wants to use the benefit of, you
34:53
know, hindsight being 2020. But at the end of the day, you
34:56
often times have split seconds to to make decisions in rapidly
35:01
unfolding tactical scenarios, which can forever impact you.
35:06
You know, the reality is, is that like I spoke to my
35:10
background and with force, you know, 36% of officer involved
35:15
shootings involve somebody that's suffering a mental health
35:18
process. Yeah. 36%.
35:21
Wow. Yeah, 36%, that's, that's quite
35:23
a lot. So you're talking about on the
35:27
average per year law enforcement officers in the United States
35:32
kill by firearms about 1050 people on the average.
35:39
So if you take 1/3 of that, it's about 380 people a year that
35:45
their lives are being taking taken primarily because they're
35:48
suffering a mental health causes.
35:50
And now that's, that's talking about the officer involved
35:55
shootings that actually someone was was struck and killed.
35:58
There's an estimated additional 2500 to 3000 officer involved
36:03
shootings where the injury is not fatal or the shooting does
36:08
not result in any hits. So if you look at that data,
36:13
about 1/3 of all officer involved shootings are lethal.
36:19
And you know, I have, I've had friends that were responded to
36:26
scenarios. One, one guy was responded to a
36:30
radio call and as an older gentleman, he had a shotgun and
36:34
he began to level the shotgun towards the officer and the
36:36
officer responded to the force and shot and killed him.
36:39
It turned out he was a retired fire captain.
36:42
And it was a suicide by cop. Shotgun wasn't even loaded.
36:47
But the officer didn't know that.
36:49
And but now the officer has to carry that luggage for long.
36:53
And like I said, your coffee mug can only hold so much coffee.
36:59
And you know, it can, it can do a number on you.
37:02
It really can. And what's interesting is, is
37:05
you have this armor during the time that you're on the job and
37:10
then you leave the job and you're not around that
37:13
environment every day. And you begin to realize how
37:20
susceptible and vulnerable you are to the experiences that you
37:23
had during your 2530 year career.
37:27
And it's amazing how many people in retirement, that's where they
37:34
begin having their problems that they're able to hold it together
37:38
while they're on the job. But then afterwards it's, it's,
37:43
it's tough. I mean, I, you know, I
37:44
personally, you know, I'm, I'm much more reactive to things
37:49
from emotional standpoint where I see a commercial of, of a kid
37:56
dying of cancer or something, you know, when they're trying to
37:58
raise money or it's you just cry.
38:02
And would have that been me back when I was on the job?
38:05
No, I wouldn't have it. It's just you find that you're
38:10
hypersensitive to emotional stuff, stuff that impacts
38:14
people's lives. And it's really important to try
38:19
to understand why you feel that way and not just write it off
38:25
because you know, you'll have those days where you just don't
38:27
want to get out of bed or you get up and you're just not
38:31
motivated to do the things that you traditionally did to keep
38:36
your mind clear. I used to, I used to get up
38:39
every Sunday morning and run like 15 months.
38:42
And you know, I, I can't do that now.
38:46
I have two artificial needs. But you know, it's a long walks
38:50
now that that I get my best thinking.
38:54
And it's it's about taking the time for yourself.
38:57
So it's you gotta learn that early on.
39:00
So you start doing that before things build up.
39:04
So you're you're dealing with it as you progress through your
39:07
career rather than being hit by a tidal wave when it's all all
39:11
at once. Yeah, yeah.
39:14
I mean, that's, that's a good metaphor.
39:16
It's like this armor, right? And I, I feel like, I feel like
39:20
you don't even have time to deal with it when you're in it and
39:23
you're just so distracted by the next event, right?
39:27
The next call, the next, you know, case, whatever it may be
39:31
that you don't have time to even think about what happened the
39:33
day before. And it's like you're just
39:35
constantly being, you know, berated by, by these high stress
39:40
situations, like you said, and you like, and it just becomes a
39:44
distraction after a while. And then, yeah, you, you
39:46
mentioned it perfectly. It's like it's a tidal wave at
39:48
the end of your career and then you're just crying for things
39:52
you don't even know why you're crying for and, and doing the
39:54
internal work being really important too you.
39:58
You talk about, I want to talk about going overseas and
40:02
modeling other, you know, you mentioned you went to England, I
40:06
believe in France. What did you see there that that
40:12
you think could help North America, United States and and
40:16
our system, how we approach things?
40:19
Well, the one thing that we do here in the United States, I
40:21
don't know if people really realize it, but when it comes to
40:24
hiring police officers, we we don't have a selection process.
40:29
We have a deselection. So as long as you don't have a
40:34
criminal record and your finances are in order, you got a
40:39
decent chance of getting hired. Where it's, it's much different
40:43
over the entire mindset is different.
40:46
And it's, it's not always about people always say, well, it's,
40:50
it's about who we hire. Yeah, I would suggest that part
40:54
of it has to do with who you hire.
40:56
But that can be resolved by how you hire.
41:00
And like I said here in the States, it's a deselection
41:02
process over there. They, they often times, if you
41:06
look like the Nordic countries, they go through a two and
41:09
three-year university level undergraduate program during
41:15
their training before they even hit the streets as a police
41:18
officer. And during that time they're
41:20
being continually evaluated. They haven't been selected for
41:24
the position yet. You're selected when you're
41:26
finally done with with your training.
41:28
So what they're evaluating is, is, is how open are you to the
41:32
training that you're receiving? Do you have the characteristics
41:37
that just about anybody would agree are characteristics that
41:42
you'd want to see in the law enforcement?
41:43
Do you have critical thinking skills?
41:46
Do you have moral reason? Do you have self-awareness?
41:49
Are you a problem solver? All of those sorts of things are
41:52
being evaluated the entire time. So when it's all said and done,
41:57
you're taking the people that have demonstrated that they
42:02
possess the characteristics that we know law enforcement officers
42:06
need to be successful. I mean, you equate it, equate it
42:10
to to professional athletics. You were, if you were to, to
42:15
have to blindly draft people or you took them based on a, a
42:21
deselection process rather than a selection process, you
42:24
probably wouldn't have a very good team.
42:27
And, and that's really what what we do here in the United States
42:31
is. And it, and it's unfortunate
42:33
because they talk about all these, you know, vacancies that
42:37
need to be filled and that people are, are leaving law
42:40
enforcement at unprecedented rates and they're just lowering
42:45
standards. And you know, you even see a
42:49
Dallas PD, they, they lifted their, their academic
42:52
requirement. They used to require 45 college
42:55
hours credit to be hired on the department.
42:59
And they're removing that. And it's, it's interesting
43:02
because that's completely in conflict to what all the
43:04
research demonstrates. The research demonstrates that
43:08
officers that have a four year degree or better have 40% less
43:15
incidence of use of force. I mean, that's significant.
43:19
Yeah. And so to not take that into
43:24
consideration and factor that into your hiring process, to me
43:30
it's kind of negligent. The research is there.
43:33
That's not my opinion. You know, not only do you have
43:37
less force incidents, but you have fewer complaints against
43:42
you and you tend to be a better problem solver and act more
43:47
appropriately under critical circumstances.
43:50
That's the research. It's not really, it's not my
43:52
opinion. So it's at the end of the day,
43:56
we in America need to to follow what the research actually tells
44:01
us, what is the empirical evidence times and then we have
44:04
to model our systems behind that.
44:07
And then and really if you look at these these organizations,
44:10
Sir, it's, it's not like a them versus US where it's a swarm
44:14
personnel. And then you have the civilian,
44:16
civilian is is incorporated into the to the organization.
44:21
There should be civilian command staff officers that have the
44:24
same level of authority as you know, other deputy chiefs and
44:28
things of that nature. Because to think that we are
44:32
going to find within our ranks people that have the same level
44:36
of expertise in particular areas is, is naive.
44:41
At least most agencies of the LAPD, you can get hired with the
44:46
GED and you know, that's not, that's not a great foundation to
44:54
start with and in a career. And if you're going to
44:58
recruiting from people that have that level at the very
45:02
beginning, to what extent does your organization value
45:05
education to begin with? And are they then going to
45:09
encourage you to continue with your education?
45:12
And unfortunately, the opportunities that you do have,
45:16
you go to these schools. And I, I actually took part in
45:19
it where you go, but you're just there with cops, other police
45:24
officers. You don't have any diversity of
45:27
thoughts. You start having group think
45:28
when you have these discussions about issues and things.
45:31
So you're not getting the level of insight that you need to be,
45:36
you know, truly maximizing your, your academic experience.
45:41
So, and unfortunately, law enforcement's little too insular
45:45
here. The mindset's a bit different
45:48
over there. They view law enforcement
45:50
differently. They pay them well and they
45:53
train them well. And if you just look at the the
45:57
studies that they do as far as their favorability, cops are up
46:00
there at the top of civil servants in regards to their
46:04
favorability with the citizens that they serve.
46:06
It's not the case you're in the United States, but I would
46:09
suggest it could be. We just need to make some
46:11
changes. Yeah, yeah, 100%.
46:16
And it takes time. You know, it's, it's not going
46:18
to happen overnight, but I I think we're definitely making
46:21
progress. One of the themes in your book
46:23
is accountability and learning from failure.
46:27
What can you share a moment maybe in your career where you
46:32
look back and you were like, you know, I I could have done this
46:35
differently. And here's now I'm I'm I where
46:38
you learn from the experience and maybe change the way you
46:41
approach certain situations. Well, you know, really, I talk
46:46
about one, it was a critical tactical scenario where my
46:48
partner and I, we made a severe tactical blunder.
46:53
And in our initial response to the incident, that was where we
46:57
had a radio call, shots fired there now.
47:01
And we responded code 3 lights and sirens.
47:04
And the direction we were travelling would place my
47:07
partner who was driving on the side of the road where the
47:10
location was. And what had happened was it was
47:13
a domestic incident and the female involved fled and the guy
47:17
took an AK47 and shot her in the leg and she had a pound
47:21
fracture. And he drug her back up to the
47:23
porch. And then he was sitting on the
47:25
steps that led up to the upstairs unit of the duplex.
47:31
They lived in the upstairs unit and we pulled right in front of
47:35
the location, which you just don't do.
47:38
And it was like, for him, it was like shooting, shooting a fish
47:42
in a barrel. And he opened up on us and
47:46
things could end, ended tragically.
47:48
But luckily for us, the air unit showed up.
47:54
It's the police helicopter which has sworn personality.
47:57
And the pilot actually was a Vietnam veteran Platinum, and
48:01
they saw the predicament we were in because he was approaching us
48:05
and he came down to about tree level.
48:09
And the observer who is the one not piloting, but the one that
48:14
communicates with the officers on the ground as well as
48:17
controls the PA system, gets on the PA and gets the suspect's
48:21
attention, who then started firing at them.
48:24
And as they flew northbound away, he followed them up the
48:28
driveway, which gave us an opportunity to redeploy and get
48:31
out of there. He ultimately was shot and
48:34
killed. But you know what?
48:37
What that incident showed me was that you have to put tactics at
48:48
at the highest level of of your priorities.
48:51
And it's not just your tactics, but your knowledge of the job,
48:54
knowledge of the law, your physical fitness level.
48:58
Everything has to be continually addressed to where you're not
49:04
just competent. You have to be exceedingly
49:08
proficient in everything that you do or it could end up in a
49:13
very tragic scenario. So it was just a split second
49:17
mistake that could have, you know, I could have lost my life
49:20
in, in my mid 20s, but fortunately that that didn't
49:25
happen. But as a, as a training officer,
49:27
that was, that was an experience that I shared where hopefully my
49:33
probationary officers that I was training could learn through my
49:36
mistakes rather than having to make them themselves.
49:41
But you know, it, this, it really came from, it just really
49:44
underscored how I viewed things to begin with.
49:49
As a hockey player, you, you didn't achieve the, the level
49:53
of, of hockey that I, that I achieved by just giving 50% or
49:59
70%. You had to give 100% all the
50:02
time and you had to be committed and dedicated.
50:05
And I can't think of a career that that's more meaningful than
50:09
law enforcement, that you have that same mindset because you
50:12
you have to be able to perform. I've always said that we're not
50:16
paid for what we do on a daily basis.
50:18
Just about anybody can do that. You're paid for what God forbid
50:21
you might have to do. And that's when these types of
50:23
scenarios where it's a rapidly unfolding tactical scenario and
50:27
you're making split second decisions under immense stress.
50:31
And if you're not prepared for that, then you're not earning
50:35
your paycheck. Yeah.
50:39
Yeah, it's stressful situation, I mean, yeah, thanks for sharing
50:42
that. You I mean, it really paints a
50:44
picture. Yeah.
50:46
And if anything could have happened differently in that
50:48
situation, right, It's it's scary.
50:52
What Jeff, what's your, what's a vision or maybe your vision for
50:57
how we can I, I, I don't want to say the word break the stigma,
51:01
but maybe lessen the stigma around, you know, whether it's
51:05
how we approach mental health situations or calls and also
51:11
like how a cop, how a law enforcement officer deals with
51:17
his own mental health battle. What?
51:19
What does that look like for you?
51:21
Well, I think it's it's kind of interesting that they kind of go
51:23
hand in hand because I don't care how tough you are or how
51:27
tough you think you are, these incidents will weigh on you.
51:32
And these are the incidents that I'm talking about where somebody
51:35
is shot and killed because they are behaving a certain way when
51:40
they're suffering a mental health crisis or what have you,
51:43
that then is going to down the road potentially become your
51:47
mental health crisis experience. So it's really important that
51:53
your, your policies and procedures and your training
51:58
align with not only what is most likely going to result in an
52:02
optimal outcome for the officers and the, and the person you're
52:05
addressing, but that long term, it's going to be optimal for the
52:10
officers because you're not going to be carrying that
52:11
heavyweight because things ended tragically when they perhaps
52:16
could have ended better. Now you, you mentioned, you know
52:19
earlier where you know, there's the, the practice of aligning
52:23
law enforcement with mental health practitioners to better
52:27
address mental health scenarios. And that's great.
52:35
The problem is it doesn't really work if the culture of the
52:40
organization is not in line with the de escalation training that
52:46
you're receiving, in line with the the recommendations and the
52:50
suggestions that you're getting from the mental health
52:52
practitioners. Because the reality is that the
52:55
initial officers that are going to arrive on scene, generally
53:00
speaking, are not going to be these officers that have the
53:02
specialized training and are working these mental evaluation
53:06
units and, and those sorts of things that have this, this
53:10
mental health practitioner assigned to them.
53:13
And, and unfortunately, the tragedies already occur before
53:18
these highly specialized trained people can arrive on scene.
53:24
So we really need to work with that.
53:25
If you look at the LAPD, it's been almost a couple decades
53:29
since we had a mental evaluation unit and that we worked with
53:32
mental health practitioners. But if you look at the data,
53:37
about 36% of our officer involved shootings are still of
53:41
people who are suffering mental health crisis.
53:43
So although we're implementing these practices to help address
53:49
and hopefully reduce these incidents and hopefully have a
53:55
more optimal outcome, that's not actually what's occurring.
53:59
And I would suggest it's because of the culture.
54:03
You know, I've, I've seen this day and age people wear body
54:05
worn video nearly all on post and officers wearing.
54:09
And in what I do is I, I evaluate a lot of lot of these
54:13
scenarios where force is used. And I part of that is watching
54:18
the video and it's, it's astounding to me how officers
54:24
that you can, you can learn what their mindset is based on what
54:27
you're hearing them say on video.
54:31
And you'll have family members that have called you to their
54:36
apartment because they have a family member that is suffering
54:40
a mental health crisis and they want you to assist in getting
54:44
them to a medical facility so they can be helped.
54:48
And law enforcement all too often ends up killing the
54:52
person. And it's So what is our rush?
54:56
When you have a mother and a father with a son who's having a
55:00
mental health crisis, the mother and father are outside with the
55:04
officers and the son is inside all by himself.
55:10
What's the rush? It's all about creating a
55:14
dialogue. It's trying to align yourself
55:17
and try to find a way to connect with this individual.
55:21
Officers need to be asking questions like what is the
55:25
mental health issue that does this individual take medication?
55:30
Has this type of thing happened before?
55:33
If so, what has worked to calm the individual down?
55:38
All of those types of conversations, you have a wealth
55:41
of knowledge from people that are there at scene and you don't
55:45
have anything that's exigent in regards to having to go protect
55:51
somebody from this individual. We see this all too often and
55:56
then what do we do? We force ourselves into the
55:59
location and the individual may be armed with a knife,
56:03
approaches the officers and then a shooting occurs and it ends
56:07
tragically. There's a better way.
56:10
And there we also need to be more aware, self aware of how
56:15
our actions are influencing the people that we're interacting
56:20
with. When you have somebody that's
56:22
having a mental health crisis, you have got to understand how
56:27
you're being perceived. Where you have 5 or six officers
56:30
in uniform, certain number have their firearms drawn.
56:35
The other one will have a Taser with the red dot bouncing around
56:38
their chest. Another one, I have a bean bag
56:41
shotgun. And often times multiple people
56:44
are yelling commands at that. Yeah.
56:47
Is that really going to end optimally?
56:51
I would suggest no. I watch these things and when it
56:54
goes sideways, it's like, really, who would have thought
56:58
it was going to end up any any differently than it did because
57:01
these officers are so unaware of of how they're being perceived
57:07
by the person who is suffering the mental health crisis.
57:11
I mean, let's be real. If you or I were that
57:14
individual, that in and of itself would stress out us out
57:18
to a point where we may do something that may cause the
57:22
officers to respond in a way that could be fatal, let alone
57:27
somebody that's having a mental health crisis.
57:30
So officers really need to change their entire mindset, and
57:35
it begins with the culture. What is your role in that
57:39
scenario? You first need to have the the
57:42
knowledge to identify what you have and identify that, yes, OK,
57:48
this person is exhibiting, demonstrating examples of mental
57:54
health, of a mental health crisis.
57:56
And therefore I need to then shift and address it more in
58:01
this banner versus our traditional tactics that
58:06
unfortunately often times result in unfavorable outcomes.
58:10
Yeah. Well said.
58:15
You know, there's so many parallels that could be drawn
58:17
across life in any job where it's like if I ask the right
58:21
questions and then just listen, I can get a lot of information
58:25
of how to approach the situation, right?
58:27
I think that's so important. It's so simple, but it's not
58:29
easy, right? And like a lot of things in
58:31
life, and I also like how you mentioned culture too.
58:34
You know, my dad taught me 'cause I, I was a manager for a
58:37
long time in my career and I had a team of people and he always
58:40
taught me like culture is the worst behavior you allow, right?
58:45
The simple, it's the worst behavior you allow.
58:47
So if you're allowing this, this certain type of behavior to
58:50
continue, that becomes your baseline, becomes your culture.
58:53
And it's, it's about changing that and not accepting certain
58:56
things right. I want.
58:59
What's really important when in in regards to what you just said
59:02
is that you shouldn't have to have a negative outcome before
59:07
you hold people accountable. Yeah.
59:09
So if if you see behaviors or actions in law enforcement
59:14
officers that are not consistent with your expectation under a
59:17
particular circumstance, you, you should be addressing that
59:20
regardless of what the outcome is.
59:22
Even if the outcome was favorable, but the behavior and
59:25
the actions were inappropriate, you have to address it.
59:29
And because if you don't, you're sending the wrong message 'cause
59:31
you often times, I tell you, I saw this often times in my
59:34
career where officers like we've done this ten other times.
59:38
And we, we were, you know, commended for it because the
59:42
outcome was was a positive outcome.
59:45
But now we're being criticized for it.
59:48
We're you're sending a mis message as management.
59:51
And that's where we were wrong as well.
59:55
And that's where you create this culture where they're not doing
59:58
what they're trained to do. But since it didn't go sideways,
1:00:02
we're going to commend them because it went well.
1:00:06
So you're just reinforcing the bad behavior when it's contrary
1:00:08
to what you're actually training.
1:00:10
And that's where you get this, this, this conflict and and
1:00:14
understanding of what what is expected.
1:00:19
Yeah, amazing. I learned a lot today.
1:00:21
Jeff, I want to end with this. If you could go back to your
1:00:26
yourself as a rookie, what would you say to that, to that guy,
1:00:30
what would you say to that, Jeff?
1:00:34
I would say that early on in my career a lot of the stress that
1:00:38
I had was self-imposed because I had not learned the relevance
1:00:46
and importance of patients. I held myself to a particular
1:00:51
standard and I found that it was not going to serve me well to
1:00:59
actually hold other people to that same standard I held myself
1:01:02
to because often times the standard I held myself to
1:01:06
exceeded what anybody else was willing to hold themselves to.
1:01:10
And it began even in the Academy, you know, I, I, I was
1:01:14
taught from my parents to do the best in everything you attempt
1:01:20
to achieve. And I carried that into my, my
1:01:24
hockey career and then subsequently into my law
1:01:27
enforcement career. So when I was in the Academy,
1:01:30
when I studied for an examination, I wanted to get
1:01:33
100%. And I would get ridicule too.
1:01:36
But what are you studying so much for?
1:01:37
All you need is a 70% to pass. And that's, that's not how I
1:01:42
view things. And I ended up graduating.
1:01:44
We had 157 in the Academy class and graduated 107.
1:01:50
So about 1/3 washed out, but I graduated with the highest
1:01:54
academic score with a 98.7%. And then I was #1 scores in
1:01:59
physical fitness and #2 and marksmanship.
1:02:03
So I was actually was called the honor recruit.
1:02:06
My my peers and the training staff voted for me to represent
1:02:12
the Academy class as the honor recruit, the number one recruit
1:02:16
of the class. But in that it was I saw how my
1:02:23
commitment to excellence was not something that was shared by my
1:02:29
peers and that became a a source of stress for me.
1:02:35
And I then, you know, I carried that same level of commitment
1:02:41
and continued to see that that wasn't shared by my peers.
1:02:46
And I had to let that go. And I didn't really learn that
1:02:48
until I became a Sergeant. And I left the the elite
1:02:51
Metropolitan Division where that's the best of the best of
1:02:53
the LAPD. And now I'm back out in patrol
1:02:57
supervising people that had less standards for themselves and
1:03:02
what I was accustomed to. And it was really stressful for
1:03:06
me. And I had to learn about
1:03:09
patients. And that's not only the case in
1:03:11
my law enforcement career, but now as a father with a 14 year
1:03:14
old son, it's all about patience, what you do if you
1:03:18
don't have patience. Love it.
1:03:22
Thanks so much Jeff. I appreciate you man Thank you.
1:03:25
Thanks for listening. Please help us grow the channel
1:03:28
and like, share and subscribe for more content.
1:03:31
The discussions and stories shared on this podcast are for
1:03:33
informational and motivational purposes only.
1:03:36
This content is not a substitute for professional medical advice,
1:03:40
addiction treatment, or therapy. If you or someone you know is
1:03:43
struggling with addiction, please consult A licensed
1:03:46
physician, addiction specialist, or mental health professional.
1:03:49
You are no longer alone.