Latest / Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement / #098 - "Native Austinite" with Tiger Hanner

Transcript

#098 - "Native Austinite" with Tiger Hanner · Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: There is about an 11-year-old boy that's trying to hack into his parents' bedroom with a butcher knife.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: The door is locked.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: You can hear screaming behind the door.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: My two officers get on the scene.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: They break the door open.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: The husband shoots his wife nine times at point-blank range with fragmenting bullets.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Then the suspect turns and starts shooting at my officers.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: My officers shoot the suspect.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Welcome back.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Blue Grid viewers, watchers, listeners I'm your host, tyler.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Owen Clint McNair.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: He is away, he's in.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: DC today for FOP Day on the Hill.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Such an important role that he's got with FOP, but man, he's representing us.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Him and John Siriga, brian Flatt and some other folks with TMPA are up there fighting for Texas law enforcement.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: So he's unable to make it today, but we've got a guest in today.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: No, this is not Tiger King, but it's our Tiger King here at TMPA, tiger Hank, one of our regional TMPA attorneys and man, I'm really proud to call you a friend.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: We've gotten to know each other since I was a part-time field ref in East Texas and I think today is probably the second time that I've met you in person.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: But, man, we wanted to have you on and talk about your experience with TMPA the trials and tribulations that you've experienced and just who the hell Tiger Hanner is.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: So I appreciate you coming on man, thank you, I appreciate you having me.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was thinking last night about how long I've been working with TMPA.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: It's probably over 20 years now.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: We can say you're an OG.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: You are an OG, now an original gangster In my head, an OG.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I want to say everything I do.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Well, man, we usually like to start the podcast off by talking about where you grew up, how the hell you got involved in what you're doing, and then we'll kind of slide and transition into how you started with TPA, what that looked like and how you got intro to this lot of work.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Absolutely so.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: I am one of the few natives of Austin, texas, of my generation.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I was born on West Campus, literally grew up on the University of Texas campus.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I was the ball boy for the 1969 National Championship football team.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: So when you see everyone's all-American about Freddie Steinmarkdie steinmark, I was actually the ball boy.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: That team that's awesome used to play catch with him at practice every day and so I've uh, I grew up in a home burnt orange and white my whole life.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Um went to round rock high school, grew up and we moved to round rock in about 1973 when it was not even a spot on the map, and grew up there and lived the small town life.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Went from that to Yale University, undergraduate and then to North State, texas and law school at Texas.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Never thought I'd still be here in Austin, but here I am.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: There's something about this town, though it's changed dramatically over the years, but it's still got that unique aspect of it's just Austin.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: It's funny.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: So yeah, when I was growing up, was it kind of a small town with a hippie vibe?
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was, but now that it is so much dramatically bigger, it's still the same town.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: You know, people complain oh it's so busy.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's busy.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Don't plan on being across town at five o'clock, but the energy of the city is even greater, you know.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: And every weekend there's something to do.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I really it's kind of magical to me Best restaurants, best music venues.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: If you want to do something, austin, texas provides it, and that's a pretty good thing.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: Back when you were going to Round Rock High School, was it just one high school in the town?
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Westwood opened up my sophomore year, high school.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: In fact, a funny back story to that is my father was on the school board around when Westwood was opening and there was an argument about whether or not Westwood would open as a four-year school or start as like a freshman center and grow, and my father's attitude is he really didn't care, but he brokered a deal that if they would be burnt orange and white, he would vote for it to be a four-year school.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: So Westwood High School is burnt orange and white because of my dad and he'd had all of that maroon that he could handle from Round Rock High School.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: And so there you go.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Well, it's funny.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: You say that when we first moved down here to Central Texas we were looking at Round Rock, Georgetown and the north side of Austin.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: We didn't want to be in Austin necessarily because of our kids, but there was an old man at a New Braunfels gas station and what he said was absolutely magnificent.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: He said if you move your kids down to central Texas, pick one town that has one high school.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: And I was like, okay, I mean I agree.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: I said why.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: He said a town can never serve two kings.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: And he said the moment that a town has two or more high or one or more high school or two or more high schools, the sense of pride and the sense of small town Texas is gone.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: I think that's absolutely true.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: You know, brown is a little bit different than that, because there's such a huge division in the school district.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: You know the district itself took care of the 183 corridor, and so that's actually Austin addresses over there in the school district, right?
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: You know the district itself took care of the 183 corridor, and so that's actually lost in addresses over there, and so Round Rock proper kept that pride and I think in a lot of ways it still kind of has it.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously Round Rock's an enormous town now.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: And there's many schools, but I have stayed close with a lot of my friends from Round Rock and it's the only time I wear maroon for God's sake.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: That's cool.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: So you go off to Yale.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: You're an undergraduate.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Did you already have your eyes set on being an attorney?
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: I did so yeah, because, as I tell people, I can't sing, I can't dance and so I don't really have any talent, but I was pretty good at baffling people with BS, so, um that, and I'd grown up around lawyers.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Uh, my father was in charge of death and injury, auto litigation for state farm, and so many of his best friends were trial lawyers here in the Austin area, and so that's just who I grew up around and um, uh, I like to compete.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Who I grew up around, and um, I like to compete.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Uh, I like uh, being my own boss in a lot of ways and wanting being in being a lawyer kind of gave me that you know, every case you have there's a winner and there's a loser in a lot of ways, and so the opportunity to compete throughout my life seemed really attractive to me yeah, we're going to stop.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: real quick, seemed really attractive to me.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to stop real quick.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Was that good or was it just?
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: It was just a notification.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, You're good, so uh, all right, we're back.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: So did you go to Yale for for for law?
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I did not.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Um, I went to Yale.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Um, uh, I wanted to go to the number one school in America, simple as that.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: So I'd never visited the Yale campus, but it was rated as the number one undergraduate school in America and, by God, that's where I was going to go, so I was very blessed.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I got into a number of pretty good schools, and Yale was the one and off I went.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: And then after that you didn't finish your law school there.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I went on a graduate there, actually, if you're ever in the middle of Connecticut.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Sorry to people in the middle of the year but after growing up in Austin, texas, new Haven was a tough place to be.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: The weather just it's February in New Haven.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: It's a tough road to hoe.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: And so I actually transferred to the plan to program at University of Texas, which is a very elite academic program, the University of Texas and they my sophomore.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: The end of my sophomore year.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: They agreed to still take me and so I actually finished there and was planning to go to law school back up in the Northeast.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I'd gotten into Harvard, I'd gotten into Michigan and a few other really good law schools, but I was working with a law firm here in town that offered me a job as a lawyer, contingent on going to Texas.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: So I keep working for them.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: So here I am.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: That was never the plan, but it turned out pretty well.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: It's amazing to me, just being associated with TMPA and being employed for many years now, is that there's so many different facets of attorney.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: It's very similar to law enforcement.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: You may start your career, as you know, an attorney or a cop, and then you go into vice or you go into detective work, and there's so many different facets of being an attorney, of what you want to specialize in, what turned you on or or or got you introduced into labor representation and was that something that you just kind of developed over time being a part of that law firm?
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: How'd that work out?
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: okay, so um, I started out doing insurance defense, like the kind of work my father did right just like follow-up, so got into that and I'll be honest with you, it really wasn't.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: I didn't enjoy it because everyone you dealt with was unhappy.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: You know, the plaintiff that was suing wanted their money.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: The plaintiff lawyer was angrying.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Wanted their money.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: The plaintiff lawyer was angry because you're making them work to get the money.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: The insurance company is mad that you're spending their money.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Your client is mad that you can't make this lawsuit go away and I just kind of like I don't want to do this the rest of my life.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: So I'd done that a couple of years and I got contacted by a firm that represented school teachers Brim Arnett at that time Brim Arnett and Judge was the name of the firm at the time, but they specialized in representing educators and asked me to come meet with them, took me to a school board meeting and I was hooked Because instantly I got to work with people.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: I got to make a difference in people's lives and in the law field.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: That's a rare thing.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: You know what I truly love about what I do, and I still work a lot with educators and I work a lot with law enforcement.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: But people come to me and I can just basically tell them give me your problems, you go hug your family, you go take care of that.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: I got this and that's pretty special and I've been able to do that now for over 30 years and I still enjoy it.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: You know the downside of it is every case you have is the most important thing in that person's life and that can wear on you, because you know I've got a file drawer of a hundred clients or whatever, and trying to keep in mind that this is the most important thing in their life, that their career, their livelihood is often tied to this.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: You always have to keep that perspective, yeah.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: And I guess working for that firm introduced you to working for T&P.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: So their primary client at that firm was an organization called ATPE.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Atpe is the largest teacher organization in Texas and they have members that are teachers, school administrators, bus drivers and at the time they had law enforcement officers.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: And so I was doing a lot of work with Austin ISD PD on various matters and I think that the folks here at TMPA whether they were trying to recruit AICPD or had some members or whatever my name kind of came across the wire and they reached out to me and asked if I'd be interested in working with their members.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: And so from that humble little start I'm going in now.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Like I said, you know a 20 year relationship.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: What's been the most challenging portion of representing Texas law enforcement and what's some advice that you would tell our members just with your years of experience?
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: You know the most challenging part is personality conflicts.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: You know that people just don't get along right and as a lawyer it's really hard to fix that.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: I can't make someone like you and so fixing those, fixing those relationship things is often very difficult, if not impossible.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: But the things I see most is I see a lot more recently.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: What I've seen is people you know officers will have group text messages and they'll give each other grief, get a little profane, a little body on some of those things and there's kind of a culture in law enforcement.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, when you're every day you walk out there and you can get shot or you can get beat up, there's kind of a gallows humor that can set in and it's just kind of often accepted.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: However, if those text message chains come to light, it doesn't look very good, right?
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: You know what's funny in a text message or a to light it doesn't look very good, right?
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: You know what's funny in a text message or a funny comment to a co-worker is not quite as funny when it's on a printed piece of paper and you're in front of the city council or you're in front of your police chief trying to explain why you said or did that.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: And so my advice is always if you don't want it on the newspaper, if you don't want to say it in front of the city council, don't say it, don't print it, don't write it.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: And it's a good guiding force and it's hard not to you know, because, quote unquote, everybody's doing it.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: But just because everybody's doing it doesn't mean you're going to save your job.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, yeah.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Many times.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: For those that don't know, or that are members of TNPA that are watching or listening to this, how our legal system works or how the process typically works for our attorneys, is that when you have an issue, you call the 1-800 number or you reach out to a field rep.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Sometimes in situations we have phenomenal attorneys that's one thing, our bread and butter that we have so you might reach out to that attorney.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: But how it works is that we essentially verify your membership through the field reps or membership team no-transcript, and so that's the relationship we have with TMPA and why our attorneys are the best.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: We try to retain the best and try to recruit the best.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: And, man, it's been an honor getting to know you over the last couple years, one of the cases that I know specifically, without naming the agency and without naming the officer specifically.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: But there was a situation here in Austin and it makes sense now, knowing that you're an Austinite, knowing that you grew up in this community and seeing the devastation that this DA in Travis County has done.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: But there was a situation where a law enforcement officer, for all intents and purposes as a trained cop, was justified in every single force that he used and this DA weaponized Texas Penal Code in order to fulfill his political viewpoints.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: And when you and I spoke about it, you were outraged, justifiably so.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Talk about the experience you've had in other jurisdictions of representing Texas law enforcement and then how it changes when you represent members of law enforcement here in Travis County.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, you know, in the rural areas I think there's more of an appreciation of law enforcement officers.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: In Austin, somehow it became a politically popular thing to be upset with police and so our DA ran on a platform of basically being anti-police.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: And so the case you're talking about, without talking to the agency or the person, was involved and also involved shooting.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: In this particular incident, police were pursuing the suspect on a motorcycle.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: He wrecked out, fled the motorcycle on foot, ran carjacked a pizza delivery driver at gunpoint and had the pizza delivery driver at gunpoint trying to get him to drive away.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: My officer with one other officer from another department pursued on foot.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: The suspect pointed the guns at them.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: They ended up.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: They shot the suspect through the windshield, had shot one, one hit, and actually that's not true, two shots, one hit.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Um were able to take the gentleman into custody.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: He survived the, the encounter, um.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: But uh, with all of that going on, uh, the da here not only never had one conversation with our officers, uh pled the case out to a minimal criminal charge on the suspect without ever consulting the officers.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: And when the officer-involved shooting was presented to the grand jury, which all officer-involved shootings are, and I want them to be.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I want them to be transparent.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I want the public to know that my client, this use of force was justified, but when the case was presented to the grand jury, I like to go with my client to be not in the grand jury room but between the conference room next door.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I want the jurors to know we're there.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: If you have questions, we're willing to look in the eye and tell you why we did and what we did.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: And in this particular case, the DA told me that well, I could sit out in the hallway with my client, with the public, if that's what I wanted to do.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: And I found it to be incredibly disrespectful.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: My client that put his life on the line, that was treated to be treated that way, to be totally disregarded for what he went through.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: I was disappointed.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: You know, this is my hometown.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: I expect better.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I expect there to be a working relationship with the DA and the police and, at least at some level, some respect for what my clients do and the dangers they put themselves in.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Did he.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: What was the outcome of that grand jury?
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: They cleared my client.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a clearly justified shooting.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: But I can assure you in my discussions with the DA's office I was made to feel like my client was the worst criminal suspect out of this whole exchange and never should have felt that way.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: My client never should have felt uncomfortable in that because it was such a clear case of a justified shooting.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Um, but that's the way they made us feel and this was an extension of that, da it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily jose garza himself, it was a it is unfortunately, I believe, the culture that he's fostered yeah, yeah, he's been around or ran on the platform to be like yeah, I mean his people are doing what.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: he comes out in public and says yeah.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: And so when he comes out and talks about these things, about that, they're going to hold police accountable and this and that.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Ok, that's fine.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: There are officers who do bad things, no doubt about it.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I've worked with some of those, but those are such a small minority.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: And the problem is, what it's done here in Austin is why would you want to be a police officer in austin if the people that you have to work with to get justice, to get people convicted, treat you like you're the enemy?
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Why do you want to be a part of that?
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: yeah, I agree, I agree, uh, let's talk about not just criminal.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: You know stuff that you represent, but you also represent in administrative uh situations.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: What advice would you tell the member for those that?
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Because sometimes this happens where we get involved in the in the ball game and the ninth inning, you know, and we always tell people, hey, if you're, if you're, if you suspect that you're under an administrative type of investigation, we want to be known up front because that way we can control, kind of how that ball game is played.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: And oftentimes it doesn't happen because people think that they're wasting our time by calling us and the reality is we work for them.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Both of us do me and you both.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: What would you tell the member or listener out there that is a member of TNPA or any other organization how, how important it is for you to be involved at the beginning of the ball game?
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: It's vitally important because I can you know once the you know the horse is out of the barn.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: I can't put it back so many times.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: People will get sent to me that they've already resigned.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: And it's like, well, it was unfair, they pressured me.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: I said, yeah, I got it.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: I'm sure they did, but once you've handed that resignation, there's nothing I can do.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the legal standard for coercion in Texas is incredibly high, unreasonably high, so it's really I can't fix that, you know.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Or if you've already given a written statement or you've already done an interview, I can't change that now.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Right, and so I think you know I don't tell people to be paranoid, but yeah, maybe be paranoid If you feel like, if things don't feel right or you hear rumor and go ahead and call.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: We have incredible field reps here that have worked through so many situations and even though they're not lawyers, they have a pretty good sense of yeah, you probably need to get with one of our lawyers.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, one of the challenges also is being a field rep and it's certainly I wouldn't say irritating, but it's a challenge that we have to work through is that I always get the sense on occasion that when the member calls in of this extravagant story that they're not always being truthful and I can only imagine sitting across the table from several of these people and it's not that even the truth is going to be so significantly bad that it could change the outcome but not being honest up front.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: How important is it for the members, when they do contact you and you are having that consultation or speaking with them about an investigation, whether it be administrative or criminal, how important and imperative is it for them to be 100% transparent, 100% honest and tell you every single thing that they can remember of the facts, of events to help you build up that defense case?
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: It's vitally important.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: I think what happens is the the member of the client.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: They want the lawyer to like them, so they don't want to tell you things that they feel like.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: You may not like me if I cause I did this.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Well, me liking you are not as irrelevant, you know that's.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: That's not the point.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: That's not why we're we're talking to each other Now, um I not the point.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: That's not why we're talking to each other Now, um I.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: I like most of my clients, vast majority of them, and I'm very blessed that I have long-term friendships with a lot of my former clients.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: But in that moment, whether I like you or not, whether I think what you did was wrong or not, I've got to know, because if I don't know, I can't fix it.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: You know, too often I get called.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm arguing something to a police chief or sheriff and they go let me show you something.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: And for the first time I'm getting this information and I look at my client and they're very sheepish and they look at the floor and it's like cowboy.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: If you told me this, we'd have gone a different route.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, now I'm so deep in, deep in that I can't turn back.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: You know, I have kind of a different attitude about the way I go about my business maybe than others.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: You know it's funny.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I hear lawyers a lot of times talking about we want to go to war, we want to kick their butts or whatever, and I've never really looked at my job that way.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Sure that does happen.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: You know I've incited riots.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Job that way Sure that does happen.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: I've incited riots.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I've been escorted to the city limits by the police for causing mayhem.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I've been threatened to be put in jail.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: I've had all those things happen.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: But that's not the norm To me.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: I look at my job as I'm either here to keep you employed or keep you employable.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: If I can't keep you at this department and a lot of times I can't, and a lot of times keeping you at this department is the worst thing I could do for you yeah, because the climate's not going to change.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: You're not all of a sudden become buddies with your lieutenant or whoever, so, but keeping it to where you can go get a job somewhere else, that's the thing.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: That is the thing to me.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of jobs out there.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Making it to where you can move on with your life or you can take care of your family, that is job one to me.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: I think you said something one time and it always stuck with me and I've repeated this slogan many, many times it's not illegal to work for a shitty agency, right?
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: And if you process that and what you just said it, your job is to essentially make make them marketable and survive.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: You know that administrative hearing or that, that situation that they're involved in what is the most in your experience with TMPA?
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: What's been the most rewarding situation and outcome that you can think of to date?
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: That you sit back and you're like man, that was so awesome to be a part of that.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Do you recall something?
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: So I mean, as a general rule, the thing I enjoy doing the most is going to officer-involved shootings.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Obviously, those things almost never happen at noon in a good neighborhood.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Usually I'm out somewhere in the middle of nowhere, one or two in the morning, um.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: But I had a case and I'll name the agency because it was a pretty high profit in georgetown pd.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Um, that, uh, they received a call of a domestic disturbance on halloween night and, uh, I had two officers that were more desk officers they were detectives, but they were really not out on the field.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: But they were out doing checks making sure that registered sex offenders weren't handing out candy, things like that, and so they just happened to be in the neighborhood where this case was.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: So when they get to the scene, um, there is a house full of small children.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Uh, there's an infant and a carrier, there is about an 11-year-old boy that's trying to hack into his parents' bedroom with a butcher knife.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: The door is locked.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: You can hear screaming behind the door.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: My two officers get on scene.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: They break the door open.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: The husband shoots his wife nine times at point blank range with fragmenting bullets, my office and then the.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Then the suspect turns and starts shooting at my officers.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: My officers shoot the suspect and kill him.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: And you know, here I have two officers with over 20 years experience but had not been on the field a long time, had never had to use deadly force in their entire careers I think collectively they had like 60 years experience and, uh, emotionally just devastated, you know, and I think that's true of a lot of us.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: But to be there with those officers, because I got on scene within 20 minutes of shots fired, uh, I walked in.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: In fact, I joke with the former police chief that I got there before he did.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I walk into the room where this occurred and still full of smoke.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: This small bedroom had shag carpet and there was so much blood in the carpet that it actually came over the soles of my shoes and into my.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: My socks are full of blood when I got home that night.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: But to be there with those officers to assure them we're going into my my socks are full of blood when I got home that night, um, but to be there with those officers to assure them we're going to be okay, you're going to be okay, and to bring um some normalcy to that experience, uh, I've handled so many officer involved shootings that you know, to be able to talk to those officers and say, okay, here's what we're going to, here's what's going to happen.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: You know, uh, texas Rangers is going to come here, they're going to photograph you, they're going to inventory your weapon.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: We're going to do all these things step by step by step, and then, when exactly what I've told them unfolds, um, and I talked to them about the emotion of it going through a death in your family or going through a divorce, there's this range of emotions you go through.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: You're in shock, you're, you're devastated, and then you're angry that this suspect made you do this.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Um, and to go through all that, I can sit down with them and go through the emotions that you're about to go through.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: That I can go through.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Here's the here's the process, and to bring calm to them.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: And when their spouse is calling me, and I can bring calm to the spouse and to bring calm to them, and when their spouse is calming, and I can bring calm to the spouse and to their parents.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: That here's what.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: I'm good, they're all okay, we're good.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Um, that is the most rewarding thing I do, um, cause I know I'm making a difference in their life, that in the most stressful moment of their life, I'm bringing calm, and what other career gives you that opportunity?
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that that's truly what I love.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Well, we greatly appreciate it, man.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: We're actually going to speaking of wellness.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Tmpa has been working with organizations such as Copline, Texas Law Enforcement, Peer Network and other organizations to highlight the true aspect of mental well-being within law enforcement.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: You see it, I see it, it's a problem.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: We lose more cops to suicide than any other thing within our enforcement.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: You see it, I see it, it's a problem.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: We lose more cops to suicide than any other thing within our profession.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: And so we are going to start a campaign, a social media campaign of Wednesday Wellness or Wellness Wednesdays, to highlight the importance of taking care of yourself and what you did that night.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: You were essentially their buddy.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Right, I remain friends with those two guys to this day.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah and uh, you know, I also think the emotional strain that our members take um is even enhanced because so many of them are former uh, military and today's world.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: So many of our military saw combat, were deployed across, you know, across the globe, and so what they witnessed, what they went through and that is now being in law enforcement, brings it back in a lot of ways, and so you start looking, you know, piling on those emotional stresses, yeah, and at some point you snap, we all do.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: There's only so much anybody can take.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I mean here, you know, with what I do as a lawyer, I've gone to the scene of so many shootings and seen dead bodies on the ground and all these things they weigh on me.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: I see them in my sleep and I'm not even the one doing it every day.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: The average person, I think, suffers or experiences two major critical incidences over their lifespan.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: That's not tied to some kind of public safety.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: The average law enforcement American police officer experiences around 250 major critical incidents.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: So to put those in perspective, man, that is, that's huge and I it's not.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: This is not a shot at any military personnel, but that in itself even has different facets of you know, a lot of times I talked to a military guy.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Well, I was just a, I was a mechanic for, you know, a tank or I was you know this, this for the military population to have such a grasp on their, to do a great job with the mental, mental illness aspect, uh, we need to do a better job with law enforcement absolutely.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I think especially um what what we see law enforcement as in this country has evolved in more recent years, that they are now the welfare police for our country.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: That you know, our government doesn't want to provide welfare services or mental health services, and so we ask our police officers to do it and we don't, unfortunately, give them the training, give them the uh tools in a lot of cases to deal with things.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, let's be honest, the officers out there, they know the number one thing.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: They don't.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: They're doing welfare checks, they're doing domestic disputes.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Those are the two biggest things that I think almost all officers are now dealing with.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: And so you, on a daily basis, you're walking into homes dealing with, uh, husband, wife want to kill each other.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: You're dealing with people that have severe mental illness.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Um, you're seeing neglected children.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, you're seeing things that you never fathom existed and you're seeing them every day and you're supposed to be the one to fix it.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: And, um, I think the stress of just dealing with those things, that day-to-day thing, yeah, it's tough, and the other part of it is, um, in this country we've developed a lack of respect for law enforcement.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Um, you know how many of the officers that are watching that.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: You pull up on a on a traffic, just routine traffic stop.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: They get out of the car and they start f-ing you and treating you like you're a horrible human being and calling you names and all these things.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: It starts to weigh on you, right?
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: And that's just a routine traffic stop.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: And those kinds of encounters have become much more often, much more often, yeah.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, often, much more often.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Well, what advice do you want to leave the viewer watcher listening today from Tiger Hander's point of view of how they can better serve themselves and how we can move forward better as a profession?
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: I think two things.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I would hope that our departments, that our cities, would look at what you're asking your police officers that they do.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Train them, give them the tools to deal with those the welfare checks, the conflicts, you know, the domestic disputes.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Give them the tools to do that.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Work with officers that's what they do.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: So you have people that can to do that.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Work with officers that's what they do.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: So you have people that can really do that.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: The other part of it is always understand.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: Because you're a law enforcement officer, people are watching you, people care what you do, so act accordingly.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Do you have the right to go drink in a bar?
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Sure you do.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: You have that right.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Don't do it, because everybody in there is watching you.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: You're not the same as everyone else, and I get it.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: It's not like they're paying you huge money to go do this job, but that's the job you chose.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: You chose to live under a microscope, so don't go to a topless bar.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Do you have the right to?
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, don't exercise that right.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: You know, understand that people really care about what you do and act accordingly.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Good advice, Good advice.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: We typically end each show with three rapid-fire questions and I hope you did a study for yours.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: What is your favorite line from a cop movie?
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Or your favorite cop movie, my favorite cop?
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Movie I've got to go a little back, that's a good one.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: I would say probably the number five on the list, probably what's your favorite cop car.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Favorite cop car.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Wow, I have been arrested once and I rode the back of a cop car, so what's the good with that?
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, what's your favorite drink of choice?
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: See.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: I know Okay.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to go two different ways.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: I am and all my friends would call me on it I have a frozen fruity drink.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: So I go with a frozen strawberry margarita or another good dinner.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: So I'm headed to Dublin in two weeks, oh wow.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to go to the source and they're going to give me something like all over, oh wow.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to go to the source and sit there and get a smile all over it.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Man, that'd be awesome.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: You need some Michael with you.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: I think my wife might be able to love me.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Well, man, I can't thank you enough for coming on.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: I can't thank you enough for your friendship, your dedication to Texas law enforcement.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: Every time I've ever called you, 99% of the, you answer the phone right away, whether it be 2 o'clock in the morning, 2 pm in the afternoon or 8 o'clock in the morning.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: So I greatly appreciate that.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Our members appreciate it.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Man, thank you for your service to TNPA and our members Well, and I want to thank all of our members.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you for what you do.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: You know I have a lot of appreciate what they do.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: I should do that's awesome.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Well, tiger, I appreciate it.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: You guys take care.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Our thoughts and prayers go out to Waco PD family.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: They've lost an officer this past week, so our thoughts and prayers are with Waco Police Department during these troubling times.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: You guys take care, stay safe.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: God bless you and as always may God bless.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Texas, we're out.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Bless you as always.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: May god bless texas, the, the.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: The name Isalman means the land of the people Religion.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: Thank you.