Latest / Your Leo Nation / LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell on Staffing, Trust & the 2028 Olympics
Transcript
- Mark Garrett: Hello, America. Welcome to Yorle Nation. I am the Chief Mark Garrett, and we here at Yorle Nation believe in the rule of law. Now, I see I'm the Chief. I'm actually the retired chief. We actually have the real Chief here today, and that is Chief Jim McDonnell, Los Angeles Police Department. Chief, welcome to your Leo Nation. Thank you, Mark. Thanks for having me on. And ⁓ you know, congratulations on the success you've had with the podcast. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate that and thank you for your time. I know ⁓ I really do know how busy you are because it spent thirty years in that county and you have a massive task at hand ⁓ in that job. By the way, welcome back to LAPD. We're not gonna get too much into your biography, but you were there for a long time and you moved around and did some great things with other agencies. And now you're back ⁓ as head of one of the I guess three largest agencies in the country. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's great to be back home. ⁓ I wouldn't trade the experience I had with Long Beach PD and the LA County Sheriff's ⁓ Department. ⁓ those were very, very important in my life. ⁓ but I'm back home where I grew up. I spent twenty nine years with LAPD, nineteen eighty one to two thousand ten. And very, very comfortable here and ⁓ honored to be back and be able to work with the men and women of the LAPD. Well, listen, I know they're happy to have you. I've I've got a lot of friends and I mean friends in LAPD and ⁓ they were just the anticipation for your return was high ⁓ to put it to put it mild. Thanks. So and I'm glad you're back, you know, for the city, for the people of Los Angeles, and for the rule of law. So with that said, I want to get right into this, Chief, and and the S word here, and that's staffing with LAPD. It's a big topic. You've talked to a lot of people, a lot of outlets, a lot of elected officials, a lot of ⁓ groups about staffing to LAPD to give you know people a little perspective. When you go back, let's just say to the I can go back 40 years because I for 60 years of my life in Los Angeles County for the most part. But let's just go back to let's say the early 2000s. LAPD had about 10,000 sworn personnel. And today in twenty twenty six we're looking at somewhere around well, the I guess the official number is around eighty five, eighty seven hundred. I hear from my sources that it may be closer to eight thousand of reality. I don't know about that. I'm just telling you what I've heard. How do we get from that that ten thousand mark to where we are now? What happened? Yeah, you know, it it comes down to ⁓ a number of different things. LA and And West Coast law enforcement has always police in a much leaner fashion than our partners across the rest of the country. So when I compare the LAPD with ⁓ New York and Chicago, our two other big cities, LA ⁓ or New York and Chicago have between four and four and a half officers per thousand population. LA P D has two point two. So if you use a baseball analogy, they're they're fielding nine players, we're fielding four. So no matter how good those players are, there becomes a number of factors that weigh in, exhaustion, ⁓ being able to cover the the expanse that we have out here, four hundred and sixty nine square miles ⁓ for the city of Los Angeles, and then all of the challenges that any major urban environment has. ⁓ so we're able to do a lot with few, but it does come at a cost, and and some of that cost is we'd love to be able to spend more time on each call, engaging in community policing type activity. ⁓ but we're as you you know well ⁓ pulled by the radio response time trying to be able to to take care of everybody who who calls nine one one and expects ⁓ a speedy response. So it's a constant ⁓ balancing act, triage and trying to be able to focus our limited resources in the most strategic way possible to be able to be as efficient as we can and and use those resources wisely. You know, you bring up an interesting point here about ⁓ the differences between You know, LAPD kind of running a a leaner force ⁓ as opposed to East Coast or Chicago. And listen, you have you have the ⁓ the exposure to to East Coast law enforcement. Why why do you think that is? In other words, why do you think that it's the law enforcement culture here in California and specifically LAPD to to run a smaller force, no matter how small it is right now. In general, it's You know, I I think as there's a number of different reasons. One, we've been able to do it, so certainly policing is the most expensive part of ⁓ local government. And so ⁓ you know, we can all imagine that ⁓ the mayor and the council are always trying to be able to be as efficient as they can with their overall city budget. At the end of the day, public safety is the job one of any government is to provide for the safety of the people, so certainly critically important. But it is a balancing act. Because if you fund ⁓ the police ⁓ to the degree that ⁓ we would like to be funded, you know, you do away with parks and libraries and some of the other things that are also very important for any community ⁓ to be able to thrive. I look back too as well on on West Coast, LA in particular, California, being more of a motorized society. So we have officers in in vehicles that are responding to calls for service, whereas I think You know, going back many years, Chicago, New York, ⁓ Philadelphia, Boston, ⁓ a lot more footbeats, a lot more officers out there responding ⁓ from ⁓ a a a stable platform, if you will, and being able to handle their area. So I think over a period of time it evolved in such a way where the expectations were ⁓ for back east departments that they would field a certain number of people ⁓ based on the way they had traditionally done it. And even though everyone now is highly, highly mobile and motorized, ⁓ that some of that has still stayed in place and and their deployment is based on what they see as their needs. ⁓ we don't have the luxury that some others do to be able to have as many people available for patrol, for specialized assignments, for detective follow-up and all of the things that are so critical to protecting the public in today's environment. But we we do the very best we can with what we have and looking at our results this year, our ⁓ our numbers are tremendous. ⁓ we're down in literally every crime category. We finished out last year with the lowest number of homicides since nineteen sixty six and we're trending down eight percent from last year. Across the board the the numbers have been ⁓ pretty amazing. We had a major burglary issue last year with some of the South American burglary crews, some of the South Los Angeles crime or ⁓ gang crime crews ⁓ burglary focus. And ⁓ we really dug into that and we've got now where we had the biggest problem in San Fernando Valley, we're down forty percent ⁓ there. And down thirty percent citywide. So, you know, I I I throw out a challenge to our our people and they they seem to thrive on that and picking it up and being able to run with it and showing tremendous results for their efforts. You know, ⁓ my understanding is is that ⁓ the budget, at least it's going back fifteen, twenty years ago. Yeah. It it allowed for staffing of about close to eleven thousand, ten thousand seven hundred, something like that. And obviously we're we're nowhere near that number now, ⁓ a couple of thousand below that. Do you see that changing in the near future with well, and we'll talk about this a little bit here in a minute, but under the current administration of the city of Los Angeles, do you see that changing? ⁓ are we going to be able to get back to closer to that staffing level? What the current political climate in Los Angeles? You know, the reality we're dealing with here and everywhere else is post 2020, ⁓ you know, the the the the tenor ⁓ post George Floyd across the country was in many cases to defund or in some disband the police department. And so when you have that kind of ⁓ a political tone being set, certainly it doesn't send a good message to people who are looking at ⁓ going into a a profession. ⁓ you know, do I go into this field? Is it gonna be supported? You know, our best recruiters are our own people. And for a number of years they've been telling their friends, relatives, sons and daughters not the time to come on this job. So it had a major detrimental impact on our ability to be able to recruit and retain the very best that we can. So we're gonna be playing catch up for a long time to come on that. You mentioned we were over ten thousand at one point and and that, you know, is still very lean when you compare it to other cities, but It gave us the buffer we needed to be able to do a lot of the things that we no longer can do the way we did. ⁓ we're down to eighty five thirteen, I think, this morning. We're down equally, ⁓ you know, desperately with ⁓ down seven hundred ⁓ civilian professional staff. And as you know, they are really the engine behind any police organization to be able to keep things going, the things that the public doesn't see, but that are so critical managing the budget, managing records and identification, the crime lab and and ⁓ the fleet on and on and on. Those are all critical needs ⁓ within the department and we're very, very lean across the board there as well. So are we gonna get back to where we need to? You know, you would think that if we were, that the ⁓ Olympics would have been the catalyst to be able to boost the number of officers and and staff that we have, and that hasn't come to fruition. When they made the bid I understand that they they believed that they would be at twelve thousand or above for sworn personnel. And we're gonna be at eighty two hundred when the ⁓ the Olympics come here. That said, we're still gonna get the job done. We have ⁓ a need for what is it? ⁓ let me see, I got a couple of numbers here. Sixty seven hundred officers per day during the Olympics. We can only supply a third of that. So we're gonna have to go outside and bring in officers from other agencies throughout the state and outside the state in order to be able to staff the venues, work with our state and federal partners. And be able to ensure that the games are safe for everybody who comes. And I believe that we can do that. We will just have to do it differently than we did in nineteen eighty four, or that we would otherwise be able to do with ⁓ with greater number of personnel. So major challenges ⁓ when we look at the Olympics, they the analogy they use is every day is like managing twenty Super Bowls. And that is a heavy lift. And to be able to do that and ensure that all of the locations, all of the venues are adequately staffed and everything is ⁓ safe as can be. The intelligence functions are working appropriately, the communication is what it should be and that we're preventing anything from happening before it does and responding to to anything that does happen in the safest way possible. So we are very committed to ensuring the safety of the games, ⁓ but we're doing it in a very, very lean fashion. Chief, you touched on the Olympics and we're gonna come back to that because I do want to take a relatively deep dive. I appreciate you bringing that up. It's really important. Of course, before we get to the Olympics, we still have to address the issue about in other words, you made you gave some pr projections there about where we'll be staffing wise, ⁓ where you'll be. ⁓ I'm not part of the organization. Yeah. But where you'll be staffing wise in twenty twenty eight for the Olympics. But I do want to go back to kind of this core issue about You know, how did we get to the low numbers with LAPD to begin with? You talked about, you know, listen, I I'm I this is my language, you know, the the Summer of Love 2020, ⁓ George Floyd. And before that we had Michael Brown and and all of these all of these high profile use of force, racially charged law enforcement ⁓ incidents, there's no doubt that some of these things look bad. Some of them turned out not to be nearly as bad or not bad at all after proper. Review happened, but at that point it was too late, I think, politically. So it certainly has affected morale with officers, but I wonder, in other words, how much of this low morale was kind of fomented by elected officials, by politicians, by advocacy groups. And I'm not asking you to name names. I understand that you actually work for people and you're not gonna do that. I can do that. I even I won't do it. But listen, we have at least one person. I keep saying we 'cause again, sixty years in California. Yeah. But on the city council, you have at least one council person who openly called for defunding the police back in twenty twenty or twenty twenty one. There's no doubt about it. And there's no there's no getting around this issue that there's some anti law enforcement sentiment floating around in places of power in the city of Los Angeles. And I know that you have to navigate that as an appointee, and you're I think you're doing a fantastic job, but it cannot be easy if you feel like you don't have the backing of everybody in positions of power. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah, you know, that's just the reality. That's the environment we work in today, not just LA but major cities across America and even Canada. I talked to my counterparts there and they're dealing with many of the same issues that we are. And so you have to work with the environment that you're in and do the be very best you can the job you can, make the case as well as you can to be able to get the resources that you need to do the job, knowing that you're not going to be successful, ⁓ some of the time at least. ⁓ within the city I'm fortunate that I have a mayor that I work with that is supportive of the police, supportive of hiring ⁓ more officers as as much as we can. But the ⁓ the funding comes from the council and ⁓ they look at other priorities as ⁓ as something that they're they're focused on maybe more than the police in some cases. But overall we have I I'd say a pretty good relationship with most of our council members, ⁓ all of them on some issues and and most of them on other issues. But we try and and find the positive and find a a place where we can work together to be able to get what we need. That says we don't get what we what we certainly what we want and and I would argue often what we really need to be able to do this job the way it deserves to be done for the people of Los Angeles. But a as I said earlier, you know, our our people go out there and do an incredible job with with the tools they have, with the deployment they have, to be able to focus on the problem areas To be able to hold people accountable and to be able to set the tone ⁓ you know, ⁓ of one of public safety is ⁓ of critical importance within the city. Yeah. You know, back to those people that are out there you doing the job. And this, by the way, and this does include your civilian people, but we're talking specifically right now to the uniforms and your undercover officers, your detectives, things like this, they're out there doing the job. There's no doubt, in order to keep the highest possible level of public service and providing public safety that with fewer officers, those officers have to work harder. They have to work longer hours. They have to work more mandatory overtime. There are people I know that, you know, are part of the the ⁓ metropolitan division that are doing or maybe this has kind of gone away. I don't want to get too deep in the weeds for people don't understand the terminology, but we're doing jobs they didn't sign up to do in in Metro. Crime suppression and things like this where they feel Listen, that's not what they're trained to do. And so this is another one of the morale issues ⁓ where look, when I was with the high patrol, it was like be your be your own department's recruiter. Go out and look for your next partner. Yeah. And it seems to ⁓ to me that a lot of that with LAPD has kind of diminished because officers are not sure that they can tell a prospective ⁓ recruit. or partner that they're gonna do the things they want to do when they come on the job because of the experiences they've had the last several years. Is there anything, you know, it in the pipeline right now that is is working? By the way, one of the things is, I'm getting in front of myself here, one of the things is you coming to LAPD, it has been a morale booster. This slow morale happened long before you return, but you were thrown into it. So is there anything coming here to try to get those recruitment classes up? They're very, very low. You're losing about five hundred officers a year through attrition, I think, somewhere around there. That's right. And and right now I I'm not sure you've been keeping up with attrition. Is there anything that you can see right now you're working on that's gonna kind of change that mentality and the outlook of the officers you have today in order to be great recruiters for the department? No, great question, Mark. Thank you. You know, when I look back at my forty five years in policing, the the only constant is change. ⁓ it's been a continuous evolution since we started and long before we started, and we have to adapt to the ⁓ circumstances and the environment that we operate in in order to be successful. ⁓ when we came on the job there were officers who told us, Hey, this job is not what it was, ⁓ you know, I'm not sure why you're coming on. And we came on and and had a great career and and loved doing the job every day. So I think the people coming on today come on in the context of their time and they get to know what they're doing and ⁓ and get very good at it under the circumstances they have to work with. Laws change, policies change, ⁓ public sentiment changes and that's up and down over the years. And I think where we're most successful is by being able to adapt to that. You mentioned Metropolitan Division, ⁓ their job has changed, it certainly has. But I would say that the the morale there is exceptionally good. Because they don't they don't do the type of crime suppression that they did historically. But I'll tell ya they are unbelievable as far as getting out there and picking up cases, burglary cases and and other cases, putting together the actual case, the investigative caseload, putting together surveillance and then operationalizing it and going out and taking the people into custody as sometimes as they commit ⁓ future crimes and then others as as a result of search warrants and investigative follow up. I think they have transitioned in a way where I couldn't be more proud of them. The work they're doing is exemplary on that front. So I think what we what we need to do is to be able to identify our department for the day. What is it that we do well and how do we accentuate that? How do we improve on the things that we aren't doing as well as we'd like to? And then to be, you know, openly honest about what our needs are to our communities, to be able to get out to community meetings. ⁓ homeowners associations and others that are pre existing and and Lions Clubs, Skowanas and all of the service organizations and talk to people who are influencers within the city to be able to make our case for what our needs are, to do it not in an accusatory way, but in a in a way where, hey, we're asking for your help. We're trying to do the best job we can with the resources we have, but it's extremely lean and we could do a better job with more of either resources or or personnel resources. Well, no doubt no no doubt about that. And ⁓ and Chief, I just really appreciate your your transparency. I'm not surprised, but I'm very, very appreciative because I know that you are in a very challenging position right now. And ⁓ the officers there are glad to have you. So you touched on the Olympics a few minutes ago, and I wanna wanna finish up ⁓ this episode with this discussion with the Olympics. So back in nineteen eighty four I was a spectator at the cycling velodrum in in the Cal State Dominguez Hills and got to see America win the gold medal. So nineteen eighty-four, ⁓ you know, LA Olympics, you know, across across all of the different venues. And by the way, there are about I believe there are about eight venues in the city of Los Angeles. Is that right? Nine, I believe. Yeah. Nine? Okay. So just for people to understand, we say Los Angeles, we're talking about the region. Obviously, LA City is the host city, but some of these things take take place ⁓ outside of the city limits of Los Angeles. But in nineteen eighty four, the numbers are somewhere around fifteen, eighteen thousand officers ⁓ took part in security, ⁓ traffic control, things like that, the eighty-four Olympics. You fast forward to the twenty twenty four Paris Olympics, and we're looking at between thirty and forty-five thousand officers a day for the Paris Olympics. I think forty five thousand peaked for the opening ceremonies. And one of the reasons we have this explosion is because one of the reasons is because of the massive increase in terrorist threats between 1984 and 2024. So you said earlier about the the number that LAPD is going to be able to put out on a daily basis. And it's only about one third of kind of what your own assessments feel you need. You talked a little bit out about doing doing more with less, but you know, is this a real stretch to be able to provide the security and the logistics with such a small number of officers? I'm talking right now just specifically the city of Los Angeles. We can talk about Allied agencies here in a minute. Well, I think ⁓ certainly it is a real stretch and I'd love to be able to have a lot more officers than we have and be able to do it all ourselves. But when you look at what our role will be during the Olympic period, and that's eighty seven days total. That's a that's a heavy lift and a long haul. But during that time, our our primary goal is to be able to provide for the safety of everybody in the city of Los Angeles, which means continuing to do the job of policing this city ⁓ the way it deserves to be policed, knowing that we're gonna have an influx of people from all over the world here who are gonna have public safety needs that we need to address. So we're gonna heavily deploy on our basic ⁓ duties, patrol detectives and you know, all of the other things that we do on a daily basis. And then on top of that, we're gonna deploy as heavily as we can ⁓ on the venues, ⁓ being able to provide the safety for the people attending the events, going to and from the hotels, transportation and so forth. we can't do that, as I mentioned, by ourselves. So we are gonna supplement our people with outside agencies, and that's federal, state and local, but a heavy lift on the ⁓ people from throughout California, ⁓ policing agencies who are willing and able to send their people down for this special event and be able to deploy them in a way that I think they will find very fulfilling and they'll have a lifelong memory as a result. So I think that we will we will make it work, ⁓ regardless. And we always do that. And sometimes we're a victim of our own success and that becomes the expectation then. But we are committed to to having a safe Olympics and we'll bring in whoever we need to bring in to be able to ensure that happens. Well I I know you will and I'm I'm wondering, and if you can talk about this, obviously some things are very confidential for obvious reasons, but in general, what technologies is LEPD as a par as a department bringing to bear for the Olympics that maybe they're not using now or want to enhance? Can you talk a little bit about that? Sure, in general terms, ⁓ you know, and the technology evolved so quickly today that there are things we will probably be using in two years that don't exist today. It's an excellent point. Excellent point. Yeah, those may be countermeasures. They may be counter counter drone ⁓ operational ⁓ tools. But when I look at we just got through FIFA the World Cup and that went I'd say almost flawlessly. We got some lessons learned out of it, but we also saw where we are today, ⁓ in twenty twenty six as to the threat stream, ⁓ the ⁓ the environment we're working in. We've got one eye on what's going on around the world, Ukraine in particular, as particularly as it ⁓ as it involves drones ⁓ and and the capacity and the ability to be able to ⁓ take a large number of drones and be able to focus them on on a location and ⁓ in a way that could be very harmful. And so we're working we worked very closely with our federal partners in particular in doing counter drone operations and very successfully on the events that we had here in the last couple of months. We learned a lot from that. ⁓ there are things that we will need to put into place to be more successful moving forward. But when people ask me what keeps you up at night relative to what we're talking about here, ⁓ certainly counter UAS, ⁓ the drone threat, ⁓ what can be mobilized very quickly and cheaply for somebody who's wanting to make ⁓ an impact in that fashion. ⁓ certainly cyber, ⁓ cyber intrusions and threats, ⁓ cyber terrorism, those are the kind of things where, you know, we we deploy a lot of people behind the scenes. The public never sees that. We're able to disrupt an awful lot of things that would otherwise be very harmful to a lot of people. ⁓ and it those go under the radar for the most part. But for those, you know, ⁓ as they say, you know, we have to be right every time. The the other guy only has to be right once in order to be able to make their their statement. And so a lot of work goes into ⁓ what we just came through and ⁓ and my hope is that everybody who participated got a lot out of it as far as looking at the horizon and seeing What do we need to prepare for next? And I think, you know, we always talk about being lifelong students of the profession. ⁓ we need to be up to speed as best we can on what's going on elsewhere and not just around the country, but around the world. ⁓ because these threats are very real and the world has gotten a much smaller place in recent years with social media, the internet and the ability to be able to move ⁓ tools and ⁓ and weapons ⁓ around the world very, very quickly. We all know the the challenges that we're facing today in the ⁓ in the environment relative to hostilities around the world, the geopolitical situation is very difficult right now, very nuanced. ⁓ Los Angeles is a city where we have more people living here from thirty two different countries than anywhere but the capital of their country. So whenever anything happens anywhere else in the world, you know, there's a nexus to Los Angeles. So You can accentuate that for a major event like FIFO or like ⁓ the Olympics, certainly. We will have estimated up to two hundred heads of state ⁓ visit for the Olympic period of time. So you can imagine the draw that will be on the Secret Service, the State Department and others who we work very closely with on their protection ⁓ responsibilities. So a lot going on d during this period of time. The Secret Service will be very, very ⁓ busy, tasked with so many different ⁓ responsibilities during that period of time. So it's critically important that we all work very closely together, share information and intelligence ⁓ very freely and be able to put things in place that will stop things from happening ⁓ and not having to respond to those things and those are our goals and we're we're planning, we're working, we're talking and we're training ⁓ to be able to be ready for what comes up. We had a big training day at the Coliseum in February for FIFA. We got a lot out of that. And we just did one last week at UCLA where we ⁓ simulated a a multi a multi attack on on a number of different things that ended up at ⁓ a dorm at UCLA and it was ⁓ very, very well done and and I think the takeaway for all of the participants was very good. ⁓ UCLA will be critically involved ⁓ as a Lokea venue in the Olympics. So working with the UCLA P D, ⁓ the ⁓ staff and and ⁓ management at UCLA itself was very helpful. We have a similar relationship with USC, which is another major venue. And so as we move forward, tightening up all of these networks that we have and relationships that we have so that ⁓ we have a seamless approach, everybody working together as as best we can, ⁓ to communicate, most importantly, and then tactically to deploy and and to be able to work together well. I wanna follow up on one thing you said, or so many important things you said, but this one really stuck out because I know it from per personal experience. I was always impressed observing how aggressive LAPD was. I think that's the right word, how proactive is the right word, how proactive LAPD was with its its international relationships and learning from international incidents around the world, the travel the relationships you built ⁓ with with other agencies, you know, other entities around the world. I'll tell you right now, California High Patrol, we're lucky to be able to travel out of the out of the ⁓ county without permission. And so we were always so envy LAPD's going to France, LAPD's going to Germany, they're going to South America all the time. And it was to, it was to, it was to learn the lessons that other people had ⁓ really had had experienced. learn from their successes, ⁓ learn from things they could have done better from all over the world. So I will say to everyone listening and watching this right now, I am confident that that your department is doing everything in its power to to learn from around the world. One last question for you and on the international level is what is the relationship right now with the IOC? Obviously they have to have eyes on and and I'm sure they have legitimate concerns. How's that relationship with the International Limit Committee? Yeah, you know, for for me, it's not a direct relationship with the IOC, but rather with LA twenty eight, which is the local organizing committee for the Los Angeles Games. ⁓ we speak, we have regular meetings. ⁓ I have ⁓ a commander and a captain who have been dedicated ⁓ to this role for a couple of years now. ⁓ they meet regularly with LA twenty eight with the Secret Service. ⁓ this is a national special security event. So ultimately the Secret Service is responsible for the security of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. And so so critical that we have great relationships there, which we do. And ⁓ open communication and the ability to be able to draw on each other's resources, ⁓ particularly ⁓ those in the ⁓ intelligence field, so that again we can prevent things from happening rather than respond. So yeah, a lot of challenges. it'll be a heavy lift for everybody involved, ⁓ but also what a tremendous opportunity it is to be to fine-tune our operation ⁓ to be able to ⁓ as you said enhance our international relations as well as with those at the federal, state and local level here nationally, ⁓ to be as good as we can. When when we come out of the games, ⁓ like we did with FIFA and we're like we will with the Olympics, we will have a heightened sense of ⁓ of our abilities relative to preventing terrorist activity from occurring. And you know, we we all know that every day is ⁓ could be that day. when something happens that ⁓ changes the course of of our city for years to come, like as we come up on the twenty fifth anniversary of nine eleven, ⁓ and you think back, ⁓ nobody saw that coming the way it did, and it did change everything for us in American society. So we work hard to prevent those type of things from happening, but when they do, and and certainly we can anticipate that these type of things will continue to happen, ⁓ hopefully rarely, but our ability to be able to prevent To respond, to be be able to recover is largely contingent on our relationships with other agencies and not just police agencies, but government agencies, community based organizations, and the public that we serve. Being able to get the public's help on identifying potential problems and being able to prevent incidents, ⁓ that's such a critical part of what we do. ⁓ we couldn't be successful without the help of the public that we serve. And we need to continue to nurture those relationships and engage people and let let the public know that public safety is a team sport. There are too few cops across America to do the job that needs to be done. We can't do it alone. But to doing it together, ⁓ with those that we serve, we can be s ⁓ very ⁓ effective. Well, Chief, listen, ⁓ knowing you personally, ⁓ knowing your pedigree and knowing your biography for ⁓ You know, leading really multiple agencies in Southern California. I'm very confident that ⁓ if anybody can pull this off and lead this huge task, it is you. You're a good man, Chief Jim McDonald. We sincerely appreciate your time. We know how busy you are, and we'd love to have you back here sometime in the not too distant future. If you want to see and hear from people like Chief McDonald, hit that subscribe button. We love the support. We love to get the word out. And we certainly love having people like you on Chiv. Thank you so much for your time. God bless you. And we'll be in touch, my friend. ⁓ thank you very much, Mark. Thank you, David, too.