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One Leg Up On Policing With The National Police Association · OneLegUpAlex Media

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Here's your host, Alex Garrett. Well, I have a very special guest
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on my line right now on the Alex Garrett podcast Network. She wants to
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have one leg up on policing and law enforcement and helping law enforcement through a
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time when not all you know, politicians are supportive. And I'm so honored
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that's argent Betsy Branner Smith has joined me. She's a spokesperson from the National
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Police Association. Before we get to the topic today, Sergeant Smith, who
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is a National Police Association. So we are a national organization that works so
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hard to bring attention to the anti police efforts that we're seeing around the United
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States that really challenge the effectiveness of law enforcement. And we do it through
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mailings, through national We have a national television show called The NPA Report.
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We obviously do television and radio hits and public service announcement and legal filings on
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behalf of not just police officers or agencies, but we get involved in various
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cases such as the National Covenant School shooting. We're the ones who are suing
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to get that manifesto released. You know, We've got a podcast, we
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published books, we published articles, we have a great website, National police
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dot Org and we're just trying to help citizens do things, real concrete things
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that they can do to help support their law enforcement officers. Earlier this month,
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we had National Night Out. How successful was that around the country that
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you could tell? Well, I tell you, I did a lot of
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media interviews about National Night Out, and it's one of my loves. I
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ran my agency's crime prevention program for many years and National Night Out, which
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has been in existence for over two decades, is such a wonderful program for
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not just people to get to know their police officers, but for neighbors to
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get to know their neighbors, and that is so very important. In this
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year. It really next night I really had a resurgence and we were so
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happy to see that. Well, you were pitched to me, to be
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honest about a totally different topic, which is the gun control situation, and
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with your expertise in law enforcement, I mean, we saw two shootings now
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over the weekend and then yesterday, well one each. And when you see
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that, it tells me that law enforcements not being asked to step in as
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much. Right now, when you see a dollar store being shot up and
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of course everything being locked up in every grocery store. And you know,
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Dwayne Reid, doesn't that mean they don't want the cops around? How bad
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is that? Well, the problem that we see is that nine out of
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every ten police departments are short staffed in this country. So it's a lot
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of retail establishments. It's not that they don't want the police there. It's
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just as a police don't have enough officers to respond. You also have in
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certain areas like San Francisco and other cities in California, in New York,
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in Chicago, and other areas around the country, you have prosecutors who have
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made it very clear that they will not prosecute, for example, retail theft
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cases there a certain dollar amount, and in fact, in California they made
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it legislation. They made it a law that I believe it's under nine hundred
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dollars, they're not even going to consider it a crime. So it's not
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that people don't want the police around, it's that there are not enough police
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to go around and they can't really do anything about certain crimes like retail set
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Now, we do have companies like for example, Lulu Lemon, they have
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a No. Nine one one rule in their company that if an employee see
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theft going on, they are discouraged. In fact, they are told if
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you call nine one one, you will be fired. And frankly, we
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have seen that happen to Lulu Lemon employees around the country. So you're right,
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there are some organizations, some stores who don't want the police to respond.
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You know, it's it's unbelievable. Now. Well, I'm in New
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York City, and obviously we love our police department, but there are other
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cities where departments are being folded up, and I think that's pretty dangerous.
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You would never see that in the mainstream cities, all right, that could
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never possibly happen. Wow, It very much depends on again, on the
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city. You know, I just spent the weekend in Chicago, and while
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I felt confident to be able to move around freely, you know, there
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were a lot of things that I saw in the city of Chicago that I
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wasn't particularly enamored with, just a as a citizen walking around now that I'm
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retired and seeing that, I mean, do you ever feel called to jump
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into action even though you are tired? Sergeant, Well, there's something called
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the Law Enforcement Officer Safety Act, and so what that allows is for any
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honorably retired or separated police officer in this country can go through annual qualifications with
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their firearm and then they can receive basically permission from both their state and the
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federal government to carry a firearm in almost any place that a on duty police
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officer would be able to carry. So my husband and I, he's also
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retired cop, we both take advantage of that. So yeah, absolutely this
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weekend, while I don't live in Chicago anymore, but while I was in
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the city, I was with my daughter and several friends, So absolutely I
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was armed. I was aware, and yeah, if I have to jump
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in, I absolutely will, not just to protect you know, my life,
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in the life of my family, but of strangers. That's what comes
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to you know. We put our life on the line to protect people we
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don't know. And will I do that as a retiree, of course,
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and I most cops I know we'll do the same thing. Well, I
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want to ask you about that because there are off duty cops also being injured
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as well as those in uniform. I mean, it's alarming how much injury
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the police are suffering off or on duty, isn't it. Well, absolutely,
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We've had well over two hundred police officers shot in the line of duty
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already this year. I believe thirty five as of today, fatally shot officer.
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Ambushes are continue to go up. We're on this ten year upward trajectory
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police officer ambushes, and we are just seeing more and more attacks occurring on
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law enforcement officers. You know, when I started in the nineteen eighties,
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certainly very dangerous profession, but only the most hardened of criminals would dare to
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come after a cop, to attack a cop. Now it's just it's sometimes
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it seems like it's a free for all where we just see the attacks on
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law enforcement officers occur over and over and over again, and in the most
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innocuous situations. You know, we've had police officers murdered responding to traffic crashes
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and fires and very simple nine one one calls, where almost everything that we
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go to these days as the potential of a law enforcement officer being gravely injured.
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Well, I wanted to ask you, I mean, this is this
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is this is eye opening. And you know, I know about you on
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to talk about the Jacksonville shooting. I don't know, you're obviously fired about
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everything. So could the Jacksonville shooting have been prevented with police presents? And
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you also talk about one ting about the whole situation where he was legally able
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to carry this gun. I mean, how would these if they go through
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background checks and still able to carry. Meanwhile, even cops, maybe you
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have a difficult time carrying post you know their duty and retirement right. Well,
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sure, the shooter in the Jacksonville case, Ryan Palmeater is his name.
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He's twenty one years old. He had a history of mental health issues.
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He had he had threatened suicide and his father called the police. He
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was currently getting psychiatric health he was on medication. He had been in Florida
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they call it Baker Acted, where he had been involuntarily committed in the short
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term to a mental health organization institution. So this was a guy with a
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mental health history. And I have read multiple press reports that he was able
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to not legally carry, but to legally obtain these weapons. And yet we
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haven't heard exactly where he got the weapons. On that federal firearms form fill
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out when you purchase a firearm from you know, a store or a gun
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store or whatever. On that form, it asks you know do you take
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illegal drugs? And are you being or have you ever been treated for a
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mental health issue? In fact, I believe it also separately asked if you
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if you have ever been suicidal? So obviously he lied. And that's when
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we talk about gun control, and the gun control activists love to talk about
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we need universal background check. Here's the problem with that is people lie.
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People lie on the form, and when you're talking about a background check,
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it's basically just a little computer check. It's not like a federal agent gets
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that form in their hand and then starts calling your family members and your neighbors
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to see what person you are. It's it's very self selective. So that's
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why when we talk about this, you know, oh, we need universal
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background checks. It's only going to work if people are honest, and people
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help bent on committing crime generally speaking, aren't particularly honest. Now would have
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would a uniform police officer have prevented this attack at the Dollar General in Jacksonville,
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Florida on Saturday? I believe that to be true. This shooter originally
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went to Edward Waters University, which is a historically black university in the same
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neighborhood as the Dollar General. He went there and students observed him put his
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starting to put on a tactical of ass and a hat and a mask,
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and they alerted security, and campus security approached him and he took off,
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and they alerted the Jacksonville law enforcement authorities and they pursued him until he left
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campus. So you know, presumably a uniform security guard was able to deter
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this shooter. He then went to a family Dollar before he went to the
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Dollar General where he ultimately killed three people. He went to a family Dollar
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and who was there an armed security guard? So yes, would law enforcement
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have been able to deter or prevent this shooting in the moment? Absolutely?
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If you were you are a national sports person of the Police National Association.
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You are Sergeant Betsey Smith. If these cities wanted to actually get things right,
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can they lean on the Police Association to maybe get advice to get strategy
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going. I feel like they don't want to even lean into the associations like
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yours to get help to fix these crime problems. Well, everybody needs to
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understand who controls your police devironment, who controls your police vernment, your local
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political leaders, the American justice system, and a lot of people don't really
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understand this. The American law enforcement system is very decentralized. Unlike virtually every
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other country in the not have solely a federal police or force police force,
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if you will, We don't have sole role of law enforcement and policies and
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training and things like that. Our system, and it's it's a wonderful system.
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I believe it's very constitutional. Our law enforcement system is such that,
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you know, if you live in a small town where you have four cops,
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it's your mayor and city council that you elect. They are the people
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who control law enforcement, who control local ordinances. And thus, if you
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live in New York City, who controls that police department? Ultimately the mayor
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does, and the city council because they're the ones who choose the chiefs and
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the you know, the commissioner and things like that. So it's a very
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decentralized system. But people need to understand that it's your vote that controls and
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we I hear from I have heard from people, you know, all of
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my adult life in law enforcement. You know, why do you guys have
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these stupid laws. Police officers do not make law. We are simply tasked
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with enforcing the laws that legislators pass and command us to enforce. So if
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you want more police in your neighborhood, if you want to see more enforcement
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of laws in your neighborhood, in your county, in your state, it's
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not particularly on the police, it's on your legislators. On that note,
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I'm talking aloud. You mentioned it because we as a city I don't know
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if I personally, I don't remember personally doing this, but we as a
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city elected Mayor Adams, right, and Mayor Eric Adams had come in with
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this hope of reducing crime because he was in the police department for many years.
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He had that background. From where you sit, Sergeant Smith, I
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don't know if you followed, I'm sure you have. Has he lived up
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to protecting the police and helping the police in New York City fight crime or
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has it kind of been the same old as it was under the blasia.
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What are you seeing from an outsider perspective, because from an insider perspective,
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it feels like crime still rampant, and here we have this former NYPD.
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You know, he was a very he was a member there, he was
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a leader there, but he's not doing enough on crime. What are you
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seeing those sergeants, well, people from the NYPD that knew Eric Adams,
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that worked with Eric Adams. They were very open during the election process in
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saying that this guy was not exactly super cop. You know, video surface
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of him saying very racially charged things about white police officers and bragging that you
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know, he was going he was going to do certain things to white police
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officers. It's not He was not the best example of NYPD leadership. And
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so when he got elected, you know, we already knew. It was
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very clear that he was going to be a politician first and a police leader
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second. But you know, I think everybody did have some hope to curb
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crime in New York City, but he refused to go back to the policies
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of Rudy Giuliani, the broken windows policing and comstat and all of that.
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In fact, he kept some of the policies of Build de Blasio in place.
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When it came to stop and frisk, he encouraged policies of no cash
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bail, and then and you New Yorkers are paying, he decided to spout
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off about how great it would be to be a sanctuary city, and that
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has spirals so far out of control for New Yorkers as well as for the
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mayor. Right now, I'm sitting eighty miles from the southern border in Arizona,
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and you know, I fly almost every week. I see people getting
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on planes with they have no idea, but they've got a plane ticket to
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places like New York and Chicago and New Jersey and Philadelphia. And this migrant
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crisis is in New York especially, is just adding to an already disastrous crime
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situation, you know. And then you can throw in Kathy hokel And and
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some of the things she did to take away the rights of citizens state be
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able to protect themselves. And unfortunately, you guys are left with what you're
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obviously living right now. And he really, he willingly tells us, oh,
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you're going to be paying twelve billion dollars. It's just it's a mess,
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sergeant, It's a mess. And have you helped though police officers in
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New York, because you are a nonprofit that actually supports law enforcements of any
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stories out of New York that you can think of, like, oh,
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yeah, we helped that officer when he or she got injured on the job,
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support them through that, well, yeah, of course we can't talk
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about individual officers, but you know, one of the things that we do
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is we get involved in cases where we see that an individual officer has maybe
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been treated badly by their police department, you know, whether it was an
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injury or usually it was some sort of legal case where they didn't get the
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proper protections that they should get. We also give we actually give grants two
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police departments who don't have the funds to for example, get body armor for
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their canine dogs, or start and explorer program or a cadet program, things
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like that, you know, and we we tend to focus on with things
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like that at grants, you know, smaller departments, but we also with
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the national presence that we have. I'm in the media almost every day and
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one of the biggest police departments I talk about, of course, is the
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NYPD, not only because I have friends there, but because this is the
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this is the largest police department in the country that has just been demonized and
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vilified for the last ten to twelve years. And it's so incredibly frustrating.
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And yet what are they seeing in the NYPD record retirements, record resignations,
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and now for the first time in a time that I can remember, and
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I'm in my sixties. The NYPD is below nine thousand officers. That is
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absolutely unheard of, and that should send chills up the spines of any New
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Yorkers listening. It does, and you know, on the ground, it's
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it's tough to see it, tough to read about it almost every day in
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the papers. And that's why I feel like the departments and the city shullin
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on you guys for some advice and chag you on how to help even retain,
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you know, police officers, because maybe they're they're just struggling with that,
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you know, Sergeant Smith, it's been so glad seeing you know.
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I just actually subscribe to the newsletter on National Police dot org. So I'm
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gonna try and say involved as much as I can to support you guys as
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you support officers. But you got your start at age seventeen. I want
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to know about your background, because that's fairly young to be involved with the
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police or is it a familiar thing, a generational thing? Where is your
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father or mom the copy? How'd you get involved at age seventeen? You
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know, I'd love to say that I have this wonderfully altruistic and cool story.
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But I'll be honest. Growing up in the seventies on a farm,
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there was only three television channels, and I watched a lot of cop shows.
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And so when I got into junior high, I said, I told
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my parents I wanted to be a cop. Again. This is in the
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seventies when women really weren't cops in a mainstream way around the nation. So
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my dad talked to our local sheriff and said, hey, my daughter wants
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to see a cop. Do you have any positions she could work in so
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she could see what it's like. And they needed a police dispatcher to work
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four pm to midnight, five days a week. So I as a theater
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in high school. That's what I did, and I'll be honest, it
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kept me out of trouble. I went to college, I did the same
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thing, and then two weeks out of college, at age twenty one,
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I found myself in the police academy in a Chicago suburbs and I've never looked
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back. It is never the same day twice any job in law enforcement,
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and that's what makes me. It makes me sad that kids are not coming
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to this job. But there are some who are And I would encourage anybody
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out there who wants a life of true service and real adventure is look at
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your local police department. Well, I was going to say, you know,
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when we were younger, I remember that being a law enforcement officer,
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being a cop was on top of every kid's dream, to be honest,
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because they saw how much were you guys put in and how great it was
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to serve and protect. But aren't the schools leading to the dismantling of police,
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meaning they're actually teaching kids, hey, don't like the cops? Am
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I right on that? Now? You're right in certain areas, especially in
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more quote unquote woke school districts. And that's one of the things the National
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Police Association is addressing. We are now providing homeschool materials to parents who want
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to eat school their kids or they want to provide additional curriculum outside of their
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public school curriculum where they can teach kids about law enforcement officers, the positive
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nature of a police officer, and where policing come from comes from. You
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know, we sometimes we hear these teachers and politicians who say, oh,
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this arose out of you know, American law enforcement rose out of slave patrols.
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That's a nonsense, that's just a lie. And so we set the
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record straight on that. So I would encourage anybody to go to Nashville Police
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dot org and look at our homeschooling materials, whether you homeschool or your kid
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or not. There's just some great information out there, because children need to
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understand is that police are there to help them, not hurt them. And
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you're absolutely right, Alex. In some schools they are told police are the
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bad guys. Well, it's a far cry from honestly, if I could
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say this twenty two years ago, when we all honored what the first responders
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did on nine to eleven, and I know you you were probably went through
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that as well, and seeing all that, and how did we become a
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partisan issue? I thought law enforcement and first responders were not a partisan issue,
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not so long at all, Like everybody supported them. You're correct.
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When I got hired. You know, one of the things we were told
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is is cops are a political and we and I did not know for twenty
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nine years, I really did vote with the politics of most of my colleagues.
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We did not talk about it, We did not tell the public.
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You know what kind of you know, who we voted for and things like
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that, because policing is supposed to be for everyone. You know, I'm
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not supposed to look at your political party, your skin color, or sexual
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orientation or any of that when I'm a police officer trying to help you.
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But you know, quite frankly, policing got politicized back in the sixties.
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And then we we absolutely made a good comeback, and people saw what we
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did in the nineties, not just in New York but beyond to stem that
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nineteen nineties crime problem that we had very similar to what we're seeing now.
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And then you're absolutely right. I was a police sergeant on nine to eleven
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oh one, and we just never experienced the support that we did that day
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and beyond where everybody loved and supported our for responders. But then you go
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to twenty fourteen to Ferguson, Missouri, the shooting of Michael Brown, the
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absolutely justified shooting of a strong arm robber and gang banger named Michael Brown,
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and yet the Obama administration and the media decided to use that case to begin
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the vilification the demonization of the American law enforcement officer, which quite frankly,
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led to the war on cops that you're currently seeing. Now, pardon my
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ingers. Which department where you in during that time. You know, I
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don't talk about my agency because of the nature of what I do. Once
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in a while, my poor chief will get a phone call, yell and
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adam events tonight. But it was one of the largest Chicago suburbs, and
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I was very proud to serve. Well, then let's go to Chicago,
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because that's going to be heartbreaking for you in general to see these stores being
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ransacked, to see the the magnificent mild not so magnificent, I like to
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say. And I thought, maybe Laurie Lightfoot dropping out and not getting reelected,
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I should say it was going to bring a bright spot. But nothing's
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changed there. It's got to be heartbreaking as a Chicago in to see that
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this great city is still overrun. I just spent the weekend with my daughter
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and some of her friends in my beloved Chicago. You know, I have
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lived in the city, two of my kids lived in the city. We
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all love Chicago, but it was very difficult to spend the weekend there.
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And you see the way that the city has changed. Now Chicagoans are resilient.
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So what did I see in a lot of the retail neighborhoods and the
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entertainment districts is the business owners have hired their own private security, and they've
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hired a lot of it. And I think that may save the city.
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Because our new mayor, Brandon Johnson. Nobody thought anybody could be worse than
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Lorrie Lightfoot, but he appears to be. He really is unrealistic about how
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he views crime. He doesn't seem to want to take on the street gang
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and of course one of the things that he campaigned on is eliminating the gang
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database that provides Chicago police officers with so much intelligence. He's also talking about
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getting rid of the shot spot ter technology that brings police officers to shooting scenes
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even before anybody can call nine one one. I don't know what Brandon Johnson's
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endgame is, but I don't think it's going to work out well for the
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citizens of Chicago. But I have a lot of faith in the people of
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Chicago, and I think they may help save this city. All Right,
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one last thing, we are seeing patriots. If you will rides up,
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you saw courtesily we get arrested again. The other day because he's tired of
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what's going on with this crisis. But I got to ask you, it
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still feels like a small majority that step up and support police. How can
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we expand that into a bigger voice, if you will. Well, one
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of the things that the National Police Association is doing is we're telling people the
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truth about crime, the truth about law enforcement. We are also we have
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positioned ourselves as the most pro Second Amendment police organization in this country. So
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we're actually encouraging citizens to protect themselves and not just depend on law enforcement.
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And I believe that that becomes a sort of kinship or a sort of community
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where I know, when I was a police officer, you know, I
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kind of knew the people in my patrol area who who were those patriotic Americans
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who own firearms and trained with them, and I knew that I could depend
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on them. So I think americans mutual appreciation of the Second Amendment is a
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great way for law enforcement and the citizens that we protect to sort of bond,
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if you will. And I have a lot of hope that because I'll
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tell you we do polling. The National Police Association does polling, and every
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one of our polls that we engage in. People tell us they want more
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police in their neighborhood. They care about their police, They worry about our
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safety, they worry about our mental health, and they do not want their
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departments defunded. They want more funding, more training for their police apartments.
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So the American public, so the American public to be honest that we're concerned
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about out It's the woke prosecutors, it's the anti cop politicians, it's the
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anti police activists who are who continue to try to convince the American public that
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law enforcement is the problem and the number one thing that we do is tell
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the truth. Well, on that note, so glad to have you.
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We got to get you back on for another conversation, Sergeant Betsy Smith.
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But thank you so much. And where can we find you? Is there
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an Instagram? Twitter? Where where can we find Where can we find the
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National Police Association and can we will contact you as well? Or is that
30:37
is that confidential? Yeah? No, absolutely, I am on Twitter at
30:41
Sergeant Betsy Smith. That's S. Smith. You can go to our website
30:48
at National Police dot org. We have a fantastic ex presence formerly known as
30:55
Twitter. Our handle is at nat nat Police lease a Socists Assoc. We
31:02
have a wonderful Facebook page. We have a great YouTube page where you can
31:07
see so many trific video podcasts and all the interviews that we do in the
31:11
media, and sign up like you did for our newsletter at National Police dot
31:17
org. The articles that we have our authors are just absolutely top notch and
31:22
you'll learn things that you'll be able to go to your neighbors and say,
31:26
no, that's not true. Here's the truth about American law enforcement. All
31:32
right, Sergeant Smith, thank you so much. I could go on and
31:33
on, but I wanted to save it and maybe tee up for another segment.
31:37
I'd love to bring you back on Alex. Let's do it sim all
31:41
right. That was Sergeant Betsy Brandon Smith on what when done in Jackson Millan.
31:47
Just a state of law enforcement right now, and I'm glad that we're
31:49
working together here to have one leg up for the police here on the Alex
31:55
Garrett Podcast Network.