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Shift Change: Inside a Life Most People Never See · Murders to Music: Crime Scene to Music Scene (Streamline Events and Entertainment)

• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Murders to Music Podcast.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Aaron.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, and thank you guys so much for coming back for another week.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: So this week I'm recording the show from right here, the beautiful United States of America.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I am back home.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: As you know, last week I got to travel with my family to Mexico and got to great, spent some great time with them, got to unwind.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was great.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: We were down in the Riviera Maya area.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was beautiful.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was warm.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was sunny.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was swimming pools.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was, it was absolutely amazing.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and one of the nice things that I recognized is this is one of the first really big trips I've been on since coming out of law enforcement.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it didn't take me weeks to unwind.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't take me weeks to get comfortable to decompress before I could enjoy myself.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was pretty much able to enjoy myself on day one, which is pretty amazing.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're a law enforcement officer, you understand what I'm talking about, right?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Not only is it hard for us to go to sleep at night and unwind, but now we take that same idea, and I'll talk about what we go through in a second, but we take that same idea and we try to go on vacation.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we have to take a three-week vacation to get a week of rest and relaxation because it takes us so long to decompress.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And on tonight's show, when we get there here in a second, I'm going to talk a little bit about that law enforcement world, and I'm going to talk about what it looks like in a day in a life.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to talk about some of the good stuff that uh I learned coming out of law enforcement that has helped me just being a human being.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm going to talk about some of the stuff that people don't talk about, or, you know, uh some of the darker side, if you will.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that's what we're going to talk about tonight.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: So last week we learned all about my musician world.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: This week we're going to learn about what it's like to be a cop, you know, over the span of time.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Before we jump into the law enforcement thing, though, I want to talk just a little bit because I've been open, honest, and transparent about my life since this podcast started, which, frankly, if you're keeping track, has almost been two years.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is episode 150 that I'm recording right now.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And this uh here in about a month, it'll be the second year anniversary of this show, which I'm pretty excited about, right?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So in the in the in the sake of transparency, I want to talk a little bit about family dynamics.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in law enforcement, the the only reason that I'm still married, I should have been divorced 27 times, is because of my wife's faith and my faith, uh, although I didn't show it most of the time, and her strength and willingness to forgive and love me through the ups and downs.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Other than that, I should have been divorced.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the family that I got to spend the last week with uh this last week, you know, it should have, it not should have, but it could have looked very, very different.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the things about the family, as we continue to grow, you know, and I've got two boys, one 21, one 19, I got a 17-year-old girl.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And as we all continue to mature and grow, we all kind of have our own lives and our own personas and our own personalities and our way of seeing the world and conflict resolution and all of those things.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: So when you take all of those things and you combine them together and you you lock them all into the same house, as many of you know and understand, things can be going great, and then all of a sudden something upsets the Apple cart, and before you know it, the world is upside down, and what is left is right, and what is right is left, and you can't make heads or tails as to what is going on or what even started the conflict, right?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: It could be over something silly, and my family is not immune to that.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, the reason I'm even talking about it is because it affects me directly.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And here's how it affects me because I feel that when I was working, I sacrificed my family to save other people.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if my life, if my family's life would have been turned upside down during those moments, then so be it.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't around to control it anyway.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: But now that I'm around, and now that I am an active part of my family and I'm engaged and plugged in, when those moments happen, I take it personal, I feel like I have failed, like I failed as a husband or a father or a provider or a caregiver or the leader of my home because I can't keep my apples in the cart.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I can't keep people from, you know, um having conflict or or whatever, or just not being able to resolve conflict, right?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I look at it the it's so often in life we have conflict over stupid stuff, and then we drive to the store and we never make it home because we get hit and killed by a drunk driver.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: So when those moments happen, that's exactly where my mind goes.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that in itself is PTSD.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't go there every single time.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: I also shouldn't blame myself or believe that I'm a failure because people have personalities, right?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I know all that stuff cognitively, but it doesn't keep me from feeling that way.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe that I can't be the only one.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I can't be the only person out there.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody listening to this can recognize or relate to what I'm saying.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: When you're when your family's world is upside down, does anybody else out there take it personal like you're not good enough to keep your shit straight?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I feel.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's tough.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that it's not my fault, but it's it's a hard place for me to be, and it's something that I'm maybe working through in therapy pretty soon because I cannot feel this way every single time my family, you know, gets upside down.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't happen often, but when it does, it really like it it angers me, to be honest.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: It fills me with this anger and rage, and I just get mad.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: I get mad at the players involved.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: I get mad because they aren't being respectful to each other, I get mad because they're not guaranteed tomorrow, yet we're fighting over something stupid.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I don't know how to handle it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to I can't change them.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so I'll work through it in therapy, but man, I just wanted to share with you guys because to be honest and real, that's where I'm at.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: That is something that's happening in my world.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, that's not what the show's about.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: The show's about this.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: The show is about a day in the life and kind of the things you learn in law enforcement, and that's what I want to talk about.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think as a if you ask a child yet, you know, four or five, six years old, what do you want to be?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be a race car driver, you know, an astronaut, a police officer.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I got to experience and live a lot of childhood dreams, my own, including other people's.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of those kids don't get to grow up and be a police officer.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of those kids grow up and do other things, some good, some bad, some future felons.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it may be, they make different choices in life and it leads them different places.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I was grateful for is I got to live out those childhood dreams.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want to talk about.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: So often we see police officers, and we don't truly understand what is going on inside that police officer's world, that police officer's life, or what the day-to-day looks like.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so I want to shed just a little bit of light on that.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you listen to this podcast in its entirety, um, and I suggest you do, because there's a lot of great shows, you'll really hear some depth about the ups and downs and trials and tribulations and twists and turns of the career.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what tonight's show is about.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Tonight's show is about what does the day-to-day look like?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then what are some of the lessons that I have learned over my career, good and bad.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we want to talk about.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: First, a day in the life of a police officer.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, as we know, without getting into the boring minutiae details, right?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Police officers go to work every single day, and there's a ritual.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a ritualistic type of approach to this career.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: We go in, we meet, we check our mail, check our email, go to the locker room, get dressed out.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: During that dress out process, this is a ritualistic way of starting our day.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: We don't the same way.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: We put our shirts on, our pants, we tuck everything in, we get our boots on, we put our belt on, we put our vest on, we zip it up, we make sure everything is working, make sure everything is in its right place, make sure we have a bullet in the chamber of our gun, and then we go into the roll call.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Before we even hit the street, we are preparing to go to war if we need to.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: We are preparing to help people across the street, and we're preparing to take somebody's life.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever falls in between those two endpoints is what we have to go out there and deal with on the day-to-day.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: So we go into that roll call, we get assigned our districts, and we go out and we police the community with a team of 20 to 30 other people, and at least in my department, and 20 to 30 other people are out on the road, and we are out there policing, and we're dealing with everything from your shoplifter and your barking dog to murders and stabbings and armed robberies.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we never know what that next call is going to be, right?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: So there's proactive policing and there's reactive policing.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: A proactive policing approach is that of the police officer who's out checking doors, looking for burglars, making traffic stops, trying to find drunks, trying to find drugs, trying to find guns, out there trying to make a difference, proactively seeking out other people's problems and taking action.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: The proactive police officer, and those even look a couple of different ways.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: You have the proactive officers that are out there and they just want to put a rock in the box.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: So they go out, they make a traffic stop, they find somebody with a gun, and they arrest them.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: They go out and they find somebody with some stolen IDs and some stolen credit cards, and they arrest them and they send them to jail, and that's the that's the end of it, right?
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And they go out and they get another one and they get another one.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And those guys are great.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Those police officers are awesome, they're out there doing their job.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's the police officers that do the same thing, but they take it a step further.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: So now, where did that stolen gun come from?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Those credit cards, those IDs, who are the victims?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they call the victims and they find out that the victim of this credit card and this ID that match had their car broken into a week or two earlier in their neighborhood.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the police officer takes that information, like, okay, well, I just found Isidore Shagnasty in uh possession of your ID and credit card.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to press charges?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I do.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So then they go and they pull that report from a couple weeks earlier on this on the vehicle prowl, and they realize this entire neighborhood got hit.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's 27 victims that got hit that night.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we realize that some of these IDs and credit cards match some of these other victims.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them don't.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're putting the pieces of the puzzle together, there's a very good chance that this person in possession of all these items that match a lot of the 27 people probably had something to do with that original crime.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So now it's building a case and going back and doing an interview with the suspect.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're no longer talking about the traffic stop.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're talking about interviewing them on the car V on the vehicle prowls.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So now we go in and we interview them, and we have this person who is a complete stranger to us.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: We have just arrested.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're still in the cell.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: They haven't even made it down to the real jail yet.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're on our holding facility, and we have to go in there in a uniform as a position of authority and try to talk to them and befriend them.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to talk them off the ledge.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: We have to soft sell it.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: We have to, in reality, is an identity theft, that stolen credit card thing I'm talking about, is an identity theft really that big a deal?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's not.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's more of a nuisance crime.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a murder, it's nothing like that.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to go in there and talk to them.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, look, look, here's the deal.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: We found all these credit cards in your thing, right?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's pretty obvious we got them there.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was able to call a couple of them.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the weird thing is that when I call these people, they say, yeah, that's our stuff.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't know, is it or shag nasty?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: But what they all had in common was all their cards got broken into a couple of weeks ago.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, there's some ring doorbell cameras.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know those ring doorbells that like hang out on the people's doors and is supposed to like push them, it shows you at the door.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you know this or not, bro, but those things record 24-7.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when I looked at those videos, what did I see?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I saw you, man.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: So can you tell me what's going on?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, is this something where you guys are out there doing this all the time?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Are you guys prolific burglars where you're breaking into houses and you're hitting cars all the time?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or is this a one-time thing because you guys need a little bit of money for whatever food, drugs, whatever it may be.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I would love to believe this is a one-time event and not something you guys do all the time because I don't want to get Portland police involved and all the other agencies.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: If this is an isolated event, I don't want to waste everybody's time, including yours or mine.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, you know, this is a one-time thing.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we broke into the cars and we used some credit cards.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: I used them for buy gas here.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've got them, you know, groceries for my kids and formula for my baby, and that's what we used them for.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I thought, dude.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And looking at you and look at your criminal history, you don't have a lot going on.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I you know, you've barely got a criminal history at all.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I I thought this was a one-time thing, and I really appreciate you talking to me about it.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is not that big a deal.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm gonna do what I can to uh just write this up and uh send it off, and I'm gonna let somebody else make the decision, bro.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna charge you with it tonight, and we'll let the DA review it, see what they want to do.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they may not even take it.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: All right, well, thanks.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: They shake hands, you leave as friends, you write that up.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're damn right the DA's office is gonna take it.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not in Multnomah County, but in most counties they would.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because you just got an admission to a crime, you got some doorbell video to go with it, you got them in possession of all the evidence, right?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: So the reason I tell you this elaborate story is this is one example of that proactive police officer.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: You can either get the one that puts the box, uh the rocks in the box, or you get the one that puts the rocks in the box and then continues to chase that trail, right?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And those ones that continue to chase the trail, those are typically the ones that find themselves in that detective or investigation position.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: But now let's go back to the day-to-day.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: On the day-to-day, that same police officer may be proactive out there trying to find stuff to do, but they're also reactive.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So between the time that they're making proactive traffic stops, they're getting calls for service.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: It could be the barking dog, it could be a suspicious vehicle, it could be a shots-fired call, it could be an armed robbery, whatever it may be.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: But each case that they go to, each call that they go to requires a different level of preparedness and response.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because you have to understand, just because it's a barking dog call doesn't mean that's what they're gonna get find when they get there.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: So as they're responding to this, they can't go into it with a mindset.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a barking dog in the neighborhood, and that's all it is.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: They can't go into that mindset because when they show up, what they actually find on the barking dog call is yes, there's a dog barking, but there's a dog barking because it's tied up to the fence and the front door of their house has been kicked in.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: So now they have to go into that house and make sure that everybody is okay.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: When they go into that house, they clear the house and they find a burglar inside of the home.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: So now they're challenging that burglar and they're pointing guns and they're yelling and they're either getting compliance or not.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if they're not, they're getting into a fight, they're getting into a shooting, whatever it may be.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: But five minutes ago, this was just a barking dog call.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's all it was.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was nothing important.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was just a nothing call when they're responding here.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: So now they go from their adrenaline level from zero to a hundred, and their zero is different than the civilian zero, right?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're always kind of elevated, but they go to from, you know, their zero, their baseline to a hundred instantly when a barking dog call goes from that to an officer involved shooting.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Then they get done with that call and they get back in their car and they drive around the corner and they get another call.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And this one is an armed robbery in progress.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: So they roll up to the armed robbery in progress.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're expecting everything that they've ever seen on TV.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's six of them.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: They take up a perimeter on the outside, they got eyes on, they've all got their long rifles, they got their shields, they make their approach to this armed robbery, they call inside.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Person inside says, No, there's no armed robbery in here.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: What are you talking about?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: No, we I'm willing to come out and talk to you, but it's business as usual.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe somebody actually bumped the alarm.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: So their adrenaline went from 100 to zero instantly.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as that adrenaline uh continues to build and drop, and adrenaline dumps and adrenaline builds, as you can see over a over the period of your shift, you may have 10 or 15 of these ups and downs.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And as you do, that becomes exhausting.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what takes its toll on the brain.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now you multiply that out over a five-day work week and a you know, uh 20-year career, you can understand why it takes so long to decompress because you don't know if you're coming or going.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, it's like inside your brain, the fire alarm is always ringing, but there's never a fire.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're always on high alert and you can smell smoke, the fire alarm is ringing, but you search and search and search, you can never find the fire, and it's really just something blowing in through the vents from outside, but your brain is telling you there's an emergency all the time.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you try to live in that space, and that is very, very difficult.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: So when that police officer comes home at night and tries to lay down in bed and relax and decompress with the family, that it is a very difficult thing to do because your day has been up and down so many times that you don't know what is a threat and what is real and what is perceived and what is not.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: You we start to live in this state where we don't really recognize what reality is.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, we know that if we have our guard down, we can get killed.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: If we have our guard down on that parking dog call and we walk into this house flat footed, there's a good chance that burglar can get the upper hand and we don't get to go home to our family that night.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: So living on the, you know, um, living on the relaxed, the unaware end of life is a dangerous place for us to be.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's the opposite of that?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: The opposite of that is living on the hyper-vigilant side of life where we're always prepared, where we're always prepared for a fight.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And before you know it, we're looking for something everywhere we go.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're always looking for that fire.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're always looking for that alarm that's ringing, but really there's nothing there.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that is why police officers can become so hyper-vigilant.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And with that hyper-vigilance comes some neurotic behavior, comes that fight-flight freeze, comes that PTSD, because the world they live in is always going 100 miles an hour.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Those ups and downs I spoke about, you tend to live in the upstate.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you live in the upstate of that, then you're always prepared for the worst.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you can always have the upper hand, which makes it very hard to be a husband, a father, a family man, and have a clear sense of judgment, a clear sense of reality, and a clear sense of what is right and wrong, because we live in that hypervigilant state all the time.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: So when we come home at night and lay down on the pillow, instead of getting a good eight hours sleep, we can't turn our mind off because during that shift, we have watched somebody die, we have made a traffic stop, we responded to the barking dog call, we've got into an argument with one of our coworkers, we got into an argument with our sergeant over the argument with the co-workers, we whatever it may be, X, Y, and Z, and then we take off our uniform, we put on our civilian clothes, and we drive home like, you know, ever the day was perfect.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then we lay down in bed, and that I think those moments at night, when you lay down in bed and it's just you, your pillow in the darkness, that's when the voices really start to talk to you.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's during those moments that you contemplate life, you contemplate what you're doing, you role play all of the things that you've gone through in your day, you see the kid's eyes as he took his last breath, and you have that image burned into your brain, and it goes over and over and over again.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: But that's your Friday.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the next day you wake up and you put on your civilian clothes and you grab your kid and you're like, all right, let's go, Johnny.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go coach soccer with you.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you go out and you coach soccer, and now you're surrounded by the entire world.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: This entire world are people who work in office buildings.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: They we're penny loafers, they don't understand the world that you live in.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you go out there, you interact with them, and you try hard, and they know you're the cop, so they look at you with this persona like you know, either he's a he's a prick because he's a cop, or you know, my God, look at him, he's a cop, you know, that's that's a pretty sexy career, whatever it may be.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you have this image, you have this jacket that you're wearing, and you're not even necessarily trying to.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Then you go to church on Sunday and you go in there and you realize that.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: That nobody in this room can really connect with what you've seen or what you've experienced or your intensity, and you find that you may be the most intense person in that room.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's hard.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's a super hard place to be.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then Monday comes around, it's your third day off.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're getting ready to go back to work the next day.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you're adjusting your sleep schedule again.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: By this time, you've had a couple of days off.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: You haven't really got good rest.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're not refreshed from the week before.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Monday comes, you go back to uniform, you rinse and repeat, you do it again.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: That is the crank.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody out there is gonna say, Well, that's what you signed up for.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: You just go do it.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I got it.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: But hopefully you can have a little bit more understanding to the ups and the downs when you see that police officer on the street.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the police officer you see on the street are the couple you see in the Kmart parking lot, right?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And they're door-to-door with each other.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're fathers, their daughters, their mothers, their husbands.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: They are real people, just like everybody else in the world with real problems.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: They're wondering how they're going to pay the bills.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: They don't get paid enough money.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're getting a divorce.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're don't get along with their kids.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Their kid is a drug abuser, whatever it may be.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when they're sitting there door to door, they're sharing some of these things with each other, right?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because you find those few intimate people in your career that you can be friends with.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's this idea in theory that in law enforcement there is a brotherhood.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this brotherhood is this thin blue line, and we're going to be there, we're going to protect each other, we're family, we have always got each other's backs, we do barbecues together because that's what they show on TV.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: But that is not, in my experience, reality.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: I have had the benefit of working around several large police departments in my career, and I have never found that family environment.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you are one of the people, and this is my opinions and experiences, I do not speak for all law enforcement out there.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're law enforcement listening to this, you're going to relate to what I'm going to say next.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's law enforcement out there that are brothers, and they're in this like club or this tribe, you know, and they might as well have the bad boy stickers on their little uh, you know, rear rear glass of their car, and they all wear 5'11, 247, and they eat, breathe, drink, and sleep.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Law enforcement, and they're all like jacked up and muscular.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: I can't even speak, muscular.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: They're all part of the SWAT team.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hoorah.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: They go out and they drink some, you know, dozens of beers together on the weekends, and they're family.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's a really they have those people, right?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's great to have friends, but I think that is an unhealthy, in my opinion, that is an unhealthy relationship because you don't have any separation from work.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: And frankly, I think it's sad.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's sad if your entire world, while you're at work and while you're off duty, are surrounded by a law enforcement community.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: That is a dangerous place to be.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because you and your peers are all living that same up and down hyper-vigilant lifestyle that I just spoke of.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: With that comes darkness.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: With that darkness comes problems in your life and in your marriage and your family.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: With those problems, you feel like shit.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: When you feel terrible, you start doing things to uh make yourself feel better.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Could be drugs, could be affairs, could be alcohol, could be whatever it may be.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And during those times, if the, you know, if if the people that flock together are going to know what each other is doing, and before you know it, it's a club of this nonsense and all this negativity.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Negativity breeds negativity, and when all you do is get together and bitch about this environment that you're in, that in itself can be pretty, pretty toxic.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that toxic environment is very easy to come back into the law enforcement world, and before you know it, you've tainted your entire shift of 30 or 40 people because you're toxic and because you're burned out and you're upset because all you do is eat, breathe, and sleep, fellow law enforcement officers.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like that approach to law enforcement.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: The other side of law enforcement is trying to have a balance outside.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: In law enforcement, I didn't really become friends with a lot of my peers.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: In my entire 21 plus years career, I have probably two or three friends in law enforcement.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Other than that, I don't really talk to or communicate with any of the other ones.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it doesn't mean that when I see them, I don't give them a hug and we have mutual memories and respect for each other, but it's not people that I reach out to and would consider a friend or a colleague.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, why?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: In law enforcement, law enforcement in general is a toxic community.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: It is a bunch of people that are eat, breathing, and sleeping that negativity that I've been speaking about, and that makes it toxic.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: What do I mean by toxic?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: In law enforcement, the only time that you're not getting spoken about, I don't care who you are, is when you're in the room.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you leave the room, there's a good chance somebody's talking crap about you.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Law enforcement will eat their own.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: They will literally eat their own just to get on top and just to get a step up in the world.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: They will throw you under the bus.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: They will throw you down on the ground and step on top of you to get the promotion.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: When you turn around, they're just looking, if they give you a hug, they're just looking for a soft spot to stick the knife.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: That is the way that law enforcement community is.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody is nice to everybody's faces, but at the end of the day, it's a very toxic, toxic environment.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I can speak across the board because I've got five or six law enforcement agencies that I've been involved in, and it's been this way in them all at different times.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it has been a constant in that police department.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: In the police department, it's common to have a good old boy system, to have who are the favorites and who are the knots, who's wearing the jackets that are negative and who's wearing the jackets that are positives, who are the ones that can all only do right and you know they piss excellence, and who are the ones in the community that no matter what they do, it's never going to be good enough for anybody because they have this jock, they have this jacket that they're wearing, you know, and that leads to the promotions.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got the A plus workers, you've got the cops that are going out there and just busting ass and taking, you know, names and all that.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Those are guys are great.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've got the ones that are lazy slugs and do nothing.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, they all get the same opportunity to promote for the same job.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when promotions come around to detectives or maybe a specialty unit or a management position or a corporal or brass position of some kind, you know, they'll write the requirements for that position a lot of times specifically for who they want.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want somebody with two years in detectives.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: I want somebody that's been on SWAT for two years.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: I want somebody that's been crisis negotiation for one year and is in a medical first aid instructor.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's only one person out of the pool that matches that.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: So therefore, that's the person that gets the role.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that is again, that's just leading into that toxic environment.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: For me, um, I tried to keep a balance between my personal life and my law enforcement life.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to not surround myself with a bunch of law enforcement friends.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: When I was at work, I was aggressive.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: I made lots of arrests.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to be that officer that put the rocks in a box and then continued to chase my tail to close out those 27 car prowls.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: I would lead my squad and my department in arrests and DUIs and everything else.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was on the street, I was, you know, I believe that approach determines the response.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: If I approach you nicely, I believe you're going to be nice to me.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not, I'm going to ask you to do something.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to tell you to do something, then I'm going to make you do it.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when I make you do it, it's you're going to understand that I'm making you do it.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: That was my approach.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: That didn't necessarily make me a popular person on patrol.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: I got judged because as I'm trying to close out the 27 car prowls, somebody else is out there having to answer calls, and they're like, man, Aaron's milking this one because, you know, whatever.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: But that got me to where I'm at.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: That is just the kind of cop that I was.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: I just tried to get the job done and I took pride in the product of work that I would put out.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: In my career, there's a in law enforcement, there's a few things that I learned that in hindsight being 2020, it made me more effective as a human being.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: And some of those things that I think I see in my peers or I see in my fellow law enforcement officers, there's a consistency across what we pick up in law enforcement.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that is attention to detail.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, whether you're the slug or whether you are the A plus student in law enforcement, attention to detail is important.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we understand that and we learn that.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: We learn what honesty, integrity, and compassion really means.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I learned.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Compassion is something that I would take into my interview rooms or I would take into my cases.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't care what kind of person you are.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: You're a child molester, you're a murderer, you're whatever it may be.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: When it's time for me to sit down and talk to you, none of that nonsense comes out.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're a human being.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're a father, you're a husband, you're a daughter, you're a son, whatever it may be.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we talk like human beings.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that compassion element is what made me effective in what I was doing.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Crisis management.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Crisis management is something, again, that I believe law enforcement officers, myself included, are very effective at.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Our split second decision making during times of crisis and danger is what sets us apart.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: And literally, it's it's the backbone that keeps us alive.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that is something that in law enforcement is different than a lot of other careers.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're able to read rooms and situations and people very, very well.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: When things don't feel right, when things don't look right, just don't look right, JDLR.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: When things JDLR, we have to start take a step back and assess the situation.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that I'm sensing?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: What why are the hairs on the back of my neck standing up?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then we address and deal with whatever that is, and we have the confidence and courage to step up and stand up and address the scary thing in the room.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Things aren't always as they seem.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: A barking dog call is not always a barking dog call.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Effective communication, again, another skill that law enforcement possesses.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Being able to communicate effectively, either individually or to a crowd, to step in and take a chaotic scene and control it and gain compliance in that and get everybody in this chaos to do what it is that you're asking or needing them to do.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Conflict resolution, people management, command presence, again, part of taking control, stepping in, looking like you're looking like you know what you're doing, feeling like you know what you're doing, presenting like you know what you're doing, and you're the one in charge.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Teamwork, adaptability, how to work effectively alone.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: The opposite of teamwork.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: How do you go out on the road and be that proactive guy?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Be the person that is just getting the job done without having somebody riding you.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: That in itself, those are some things in law enforcement that I think are positive, right?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I started this off with uh law enforcement on the day-to-day.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: I spoke about some of those negatives.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end, those are the positive things that I took away out of my career.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted, you know, my wife would call that like a positive sandwich, right?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Positive on the front, positive in the back, negative in the middle.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: So that is the way that I feel that was my approach to law enforcement.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: And those are some of the things that I learned in doing the job.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you wouldn't know those things, you would understand those things unless you have actually done the job.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the next time you see a police officer out there, I want you to think about this podcast.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about the little bit of education and value that I've added into your world tonight, hopefully or today.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to look at that police officer and recognize that everything I have spoken about today, they have experienced.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: The ups and the downs, the depression, the negativity, the enlightenment when they get to do something awesome and it really helps somebody.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: But the sadness and sorrow when they hold somebody, when they take their last breath and they die, the all the from the barking dog call to the murder, that entire spectrum and every single day is something different.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: You never get the same thing twice, different players, different circumstances, and every single time you have to think on your feet because there's no rule book in what do you do in this scenario.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: You you get the general parameters.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: I got to keep people safe.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you go out and you just do it.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: You get it done.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's no like, oh, well, if this happens, this happens, and you gotta check this box and find this on the matrix.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's none of that shit.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: You just go out and do it.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you're thinking on the fly and you're making split-second decisions that could either take somebody's life, remove somebody's freedom, save somebody's life, whatever it may be.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what they're getting paid to do.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's give law enforcement a little bit of a break.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: They are judged hard.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, coming out of law enforcement, I have a little bit of negativity built up, I'll be honest, about law enforcement.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I think law enforcement is great.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: My department, uh, I'm a little bit bitter towards some of the folks there and some of the situations that happened.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, law enforcement are good, good people.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's a few bad apples.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Again, investigate, identify, prosecute.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, now you guys know a little bit more about what those police officers are going through every single day and what happens when they live when they lay their head on their pillow at night.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to this podcast.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for supporting the show.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: We are just about two weeks out from the two-year anniversary.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Can you believe it?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, you guys, thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: My numbers are going through the roof.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Continue to share this with your friends, you guys.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: I love you, I love you, I love you.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: That is a Murdered to Music podcast.