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What would Dostoevsky say?
Welcome to another episode of the DJ Doran Show! Regular listeners will be familiar with our guest on this week’s episode. We are delighted to welcome back our dear friend and lovely rumbling voice, Kyle back to the show. This is our third show with Kyle and we expect that you’ll be hearing much more from him in the future. Kyle joined us for two previous shows regarding the great COVID debacle but this week’s episode is more in his wheelhouse as we discuss all things law enforcement assessment.
The show is broken into three main parts: the process of becoming a police officer, on-the-job assessment, and fitness for duty evaluations following an incident. This show is not meant to criticize any one position or another regarding law enforcement. Rather, we hope to offer an alternative perspective on some information that is in the Zeitgeist of Americans amid recent events.
As always we challenge our audience to read beyond the headlines, ask questions, and seek the Truth in all things.
Previous Episodes Featuring Kyle:
Police Assessment & Evaluation Transcription This is DJ and welcome to another episode of the DJ Doran show. And we have a show today that’s gonna be really interesting. And one of my favorite guests is coming back, Kyle who has a PhD in not a PhD, working towards my sidey and clinical psychology very smart. He’s very smart. Anyway, although when he came in our dog peed all over the floor, so I won’t hold that against him. But today we’re gonna be talking about some really important things about police department assessments and how they assess new recruits and what they do when a policeman is faced with a crisis situation. PTSD is also going to be something we’ll talk about and what to do when a bad policeman crops up within a police department. How do they handle that? So don’t go away. We’ll be right back. But you’re listening to DJ Doran show. hidden content
You’re listening to the DJ Doran show on k wi o Radio production warning that DJ Doran joke contains adult language but your content cerebral debate and thought provoking conversation. listener discretion is advised. And now Chicago’s perspicacious host of your same podcast obsession, DJ Doran.
All right, welcome back. And now we’re here with Kyle. So Kyle, tell everyone a little bit about yourself and then we’ll get right into it.
Well, I, my fourth, probably going on fifth year graduate student working towards my doctorate in clinical psychology. I’ve been living here in Chicago for I think about six years now. worked with a number of different law enforcement agencies, both in this state and in other parts of the country. And just, you know, working on wrapping things up and getting ready to launch my career.
Great. Well Today we’re going to talk about a few things. So you wanted to talk about some specific things. So why don’t you lay out what it is that we’re going to talk about, and then we can layer on to that, as we go.
You know, I think it’s important for us to not only touch upon, as you mentioned earlier, the assessment of law enforcement officers and what type of screening procedures that they go through before entering into the academy before technically becoming a police officer. So it’s really not the assessment of police officer so much at that stage, the assessment of candidates, but also the screening processes throughout their career. You know, what happens when an officer is perceived to be struggling mentally, or psychologically, what type of issues do they face on the job that can some how twist contort or change their style of thinking to the point where perhaps the young gun that they were coming And then out of the Academy is not who they are 10 years later, and then also kind of will tie that into, I think it would be beneficial to tie that into what we’re seeing now, you know, in how that plays out in the now of what we’re seeing happening with law enforcement.
You know, Kyle,
you can’t help but see in the news, everything that is going on between a lot of these urban areas and the police departments, defund the police department, movement and all of that. And there’s got to be a psychological strain on on police officers, good police officers that are trying to do their job, and now they don’t feel supported by mayors or, or their communities. So I want to talk about you mentioned, you know, what’s the process to become a police officer? So before we get into, you know, how we can fix what’s happening. Let’s talk about what does it take to become a police officer. So we’re gonna start at the beginning. Hopefully by the end of this show, people will understand what it takes to become a police officer. And and all of the rigors that it, it, they must go through in order to maintain themselves as a police officer. And, and then have a better understanding of when where there might be some opportunities to improve training during the whole process beginning, middle and end. So So in the beginning, let’s just say Johnny wants to become a police officer, right? Suzy wants to become a police woman. So they decided to, to, to pursue that as their career path. Right. Hmm. What what happens? What is what is the process? What is the assessment process as you as you know, for them to be prepared to go to the Academy, which I assume is the is the official beginning of training,
right. So there’s a you know, minimal requirements have to be met in terms of like education. Most police departments if not all in the country. At this point are going to require a high school diploma. And then obviously, it’s looked well upon if you have a four year degree, specifically if it’s in criminology or criminal justice not required, but it’s not required. No, it is not required. You know, it might be the equivalent to in rolling in the middle of enlisting in the military and having your Eagle Scout from Boy Scout, you know, you’re gonna, you know, enter in as a higher rank. So the same rule applies sometimes with police departments, if you get a four year degree, he might enter it at a higher rank within the police department. Once you know training is complete. You know, in once they apply, if their application is accepted, along with their own, you know, background check and things like that. They’ll begin a screening process that usually begins with a medical and physical examination get
into that when you do a background check. What are they looking for? What what a police department’s looking for in a background check
that background checks are gonna consist of Have your typical background screening for any type of job that requires any high level or minimal level
three No, no, they’ll be
they’ll be looking for criminal history, they’ll be looking for felonies.
I mean, they begin to look to make sure that you don’t have correct
that and depending on dependent depending on department policy, those things can be weighed, waived overlooked, you know, they might investigate further, okay, it was a felony what wasn’t it was felony theft, felony stuff of what kind Ah, they were in a fraternity and they stole it, you know, a couple of street signs from the neighborhood and which cumulated to five grand which you know, if anything over five grand is a felony. So, you know, perhaps something like that might be waived. They’re really looking for violent crimes and they’re also looking for DUI and anything substance related, given the fact that most law enforcement will be driving the vehicle at some point in time. So they’re looking for anything, you know, in criminal history, and psychological history and medical history, that is going to somehow negatively impact the roles that they’re going to be expected to perform as an officer.
So, go staying on background for a second. So if if you just have a non violent issues in your background, that that doesn’t necessarily preclude you from being accepted. My understanding is No. Okay. All right. So now they do the background check, right? They do a background check, then what happens
if the application is accepted, there’ll be notified that there’s going to be certain dates and certain times that they’re going to be expected to show up to not only medical offices, but also show up to a testing site. That’s usually determined by the department. Sometimes it can be at the department. Sometimes it can be a testing facility that’s, you know, distally located that they designate but they’re going to be required to undergo a medical examination medical examination by a doctor. They’re also going to have a physical fitness test. I’m a little fuzzy on what that consists of. But I think it’s, it’s very similar to your presidential fitness test that you had in grade school growing up, and then they’re going to undergo a psychological examination, which
is what kind of knowing I want to stop here because this is this is the starting to get into the important parts, psychological, psychological examination, and I forget what it was, but we had to go through that in the military where they they put us through a battery of tests, correct and situations and asked all these different questions alone. It’s supposed to determine you know, what your personality is, you know, where your strengths are, you know, and all that. Yeah. I don’t know how I passed it, but I did I pass it enough for them to let me join.
Well, it’s, I guess it can be viewed as pass or fail. Because like that can play a role
the name of the test. I know isn’t there a name? Like, it’s like a weird, like a four letters or something.
Um, there’s a number of different tests that are used. I know one of the most commonly used tests is called the mmpi, which is the Minnesota multiphasic inventory personality. I think that’s on its second version now. And that that is published by Pearson, I believe. So, you know, that’s probably one of the more common, there’s a range of personality tests that are used across the country. I know in California, there’s the California psychological inventory. And so what they’re really looking for with the psychological assessments, is your personality functioning right? Are you strong? Are you somewhat antisocial? Are you not as accustomed to adapt? To stressful situations. You know, your what’s your social relationships? Like? How do you engage with people? And what they’re really looking for? is whether or not you fit a certain criteria that is most productive for you being a law enforcement officer, right? Can you follow orders? Right? Can you also give orders? Are you
comfortable on the test? This is, this is part of your assessment when you were, I mean, tell our tell my audience how you know what these tests comprise of, so we can first establish your authority to describe what the test is.
So the construction of batteries and psychological assessments and what they’re comprised of is a necessary part of education in pursuing your society in clinical psychology. Okay, so I’ve had upwards of probably four or five classes on different sets of psychological assessments, whether it be intelligence tests, such as the waist or the whisk, whether it’s personality inventories, such as the mmpi. Whether it’s forensic assessments that focus specifically on identifying malicious characteristics or malingering is the you know, a malingering test to see if someone’s lying or telling the truth. But also, in the course of our training, we are required to undergo at least one year of providing these assessments and providing no less then I believe we’re up to 11 or 12, full length batteries in which not only we provide, but we also interpret under the supervision of a licensed psychologist. So the training that we receive to understand these tests is very extensive. And I won’t go into any of these Have you know who I’ve worked with or who I’ve been a part of, but I have worked alongside law enforcement agencies in the past providing these assessments to candidates.
So are you familiar with the National criminal justice officer selection inventory test? The NCJ OSI. Okay. That’s the one that I was referring to that I was aware of. And this is it says here that it’s a this is a test used for firefighters, sheriff’s police officers, correction officers, emergency medical services and emergency medical technicians offer require organizational psychology employment testing. The National criminal justice officer selection inventory is a national entry level examination that was developed as an alternative to conventional criminal justice written entrance examinations and developed by iOS Inc, or industrial organizational solutions in 2009. And it’s a standard practice done by many, many criminal justice agencies throughout the United States, and it was designed specifically to predict the success for criminal justice positions such as police officers, sheriff’s and so on, so forth and so on. Hmm. What do you know about that test? And does that test the it sounds to me that that is like the preeminent test.
That is a predominantly used test as well. It really varies on departmental structure and how big the police department is because psychological examination is extremely costly process.
So are you saying that larger urban areas that have larger police budgets might use this test, but smaller jurisdictions like small towns may not have access to the same? Absolutely. So, so it’s not standardized as I as I would would have thought by reading this?
Well, that’s not okay. So it when you talk about standardization, if you’re talking about like there’s a certain set of tests that all police departments across the country, use That’d be lovely. But now that that’s just not the case. When you talk about the standardization of these actual tests, most of them have really good confidence intervals and really good descriptive statistics regarding them being normalized on law enforcement population, so most of them are pretty on solid ground like a statistical standpoint, the difficulty is, you’re taking this psychological exam for a job, right? So you’re already starting off on kind of a foot where you might be incentivized to lie. If you read a statement, if you read a question on the psychological examination, right? On occasion, I’m quick to anger. Well, that doesn’t sound like a good trait. That doesn’t sound like something I want to endorse. However, I’ve been told that I haven’t temporary What about someone, but I’m gonna mark
No. Right. But what about someone that says, a question like that? That’s a great example. On occasion, I’m quick to anger. What human being on this earth isn’t occasionally quick to anger? Sure. So the only logical answer is, yes.
And see the perception is, is that if I answer yes, that’s somehow going to eliminate me as a possible candidate, right?
Yes, but don’t they have a battery of questions that go through a cyclical pathway? That sort of that sort of says, We’re not going to just focus on the answer of one question, we’re going to look at the conglomeration of several answers yes, through several questions, that being one of them. So, you know, the Air Force was very good when you would take these these tests that says, so and so this you know, nothing is wrong, but which one is more? Right? Right? Correct. Yeah. And then, and then it would be several questions. So my, my argument would be if, if these tests like this, if you already know that it’s gonna put you in a position where you’re like, I don’t want to say to anyone that I’m quick to anger, but we all are. So do I say, No, because I think that’s what they want me to say. because that’ll make me look better. Or do I say yes, because I’m human. And every human is quick to anger on occasion. Now, if they said, I am quick to anger it at the drop of a hat. That’s a different story, because then I could see it would make better sense to me. Because if I said yes, I’m quick to anger at the drop of a hat. That would, that would reflect negatively. What I’m saying. Yeah, but the other one is just the word occasionally is where I think the problem arises because nobody I don’t I think you’re lying If you say no, right? So that’s bad. Mm hmm. And if You say yes, then you like, Oh, they think I get angry, you know, I’m quick to anger. But that but by having occasionally in there, you’re you’re screwed either way. So, in my mind the easiest pathway since you’re screwed either way is to sell, tell the truth and hope that they are going to,
hopefully then that’s always what’s promoted, like whenever these tests are, are provided, especially, you know, for pre employment assessments for whatever job. There’s, you know, most psychologists, most individuals that are proctoring these exams are going to say, listen, there is no right or wrong answer. And, again, giving them in this context, you’ve got a roomful of people that really want to believe be police officers. But the reason why we provide assessments is because law enforcement’s not really a job. It’s a calling, right? You’re either a good fit for it, or a bad fit for it. We we understand that not everybody should be doctors. Because not everybody can be a doctor. It’s a life saving and sometimes unfortunately a life losing, you know, occupation. You know, law enforcement in the same way, not everyone needs to be happy to have a gun and a badge just because they want one, you know, so this idea of trying to screen out individuals that are not fit or not a good fit for law enforcement really becomes a challenge because you immediately put candidates in the position of I want a job, I need to put my best foot forward. So the tests kind of have to be proctored and have to be designed in a way where, okay, we want the truth, but we also want to be accurately able to tell who is lying right, which is extremely difficult, extremely
difficult, but this the NCJ o si exam was designed to provide both a cognitive problem solving And the job related attitude behavioral orientation criminal justice officer orientation component is the test was psychometrically developed to maximize validity, while minimizing adverse impact in the net. And the national criminal justice officer selection inventory was designed specifically to screen out rather large percentages of the applicant pool. So going back to your point that just because you want a gun and a badge doesn’t mean you automatically get one. This test is designed to screen out and the majority of them get screened out of people that fail. And they and it doesn’t have an it doesn’t have it appears that doesn’t have an impact against protected classes and Jewish individuals. It also says that these exams are reduced failure rates on interviews, background checks, polygraph examinations, psychological evaluations, and other costly employment hurdles. So it’s it what it what I’m reading here, and what I see is that this test, really, let’s say Johnny wants to become a police officer in the US thinks he’s a great fit, he takes this test, the battery of tests is psychometrically developed to maximize the validity of those answers and to determine whether or not they are competent or have good personalities and are, are able to work with a diverse and demanding community, let’s say right, so go. That’s the goal. So the argument and the reason why I’m saying that and the reason why I’m pointing this out is that a lot of times in the news now you hear that police officers are not screened adequately, and that they think that some, you know, redneck racist, a confederate flag waving, you know, crazy, wants to be a police officer, Officer, and then he can be a police officer, right. I tie that into my comment earlier that these, these kind of tests are available in large urban areas, so they can weed out those people, but in, let’s say, Hattie’s, Ville, Mississippi They don’t do this. So guess what? The white racist you know, confederate flag waving a redneck, who wants a gun in a badge and is already has a proclivity for being all these other things is now exacerbated even further. Yeah, right. Yep. So I, I just wanted to point out that that just because that happens in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, by and large, a lot of these incidents that we now see in the news not happened in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, they happen in Chicago, they happen in New York, where they have this, that’s where I want to, I want to take our conversation if, if, if we have these things in place, and we and we’re now going to segue into the training part of it, and we have all of these things in place. Why is that happening here? Right, right, because we should be saying, hey, this happens in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and we know why, because they’re not using this test.
On the screen properly,
that’s right. But what but if we have all those tools and we’re using them here, why are we having the problems here? Okay, now let’s move forward. The next thing is somebody wants to become a police officer, they go through the application process, they go through the physical, basic physical process. And now they go through a standard background check. Right? Mm hmm. So I think we have to have a two prong conversation here. I think we need to talk about what happens in the city where they have the resources for this. And then what happens in the smaller towns where they don’t have the resources for this. So let’s start with the city. Will you Chicago? We’re based in Chicago, right? Mm hmm. Let’s use that. So Chicago has access to the NCJ OSI battery of tests, right. So now you want to become a police officer. You passed all the background checks, you pass the the standard of physical examination, all the basic things, what happens
once you’ve passed all those
Yeah, now you’re going to the police department, they say okay, we like your application. So do is at once it goes through all this process is now the step, the next step the academy
know, um, most of the time psychological tests will also be accompanied by a psychological interview provided by a licensed clinical psychologist. Okay, usually, I mean, obviously, the hope and the desire is to have a licensed clinical psychologist that has a specialization in working with law enforcement or is board certified and police psychology. However, that’s not necessarily common. It takes a lot of work to get those credentials. But someone who is specifically trained to interview candidates based off of their psychological profile, as interpreted or as provided by psychological assessment, assessments can facilitate that basic need for law enforcement application processes. So after the psychological examination or sorry, after The psychological testing, a psychological interview or a psychological examination will be performed by a psychologist.
Okay? They pass all that,
right, they pass all that, more than likely, they’re barring any unforeseen issues that come up with background checks. Just because sometimes more than one is performed on any individual,
we’re going to assume that nothing negative comes up. So just so that we keep the process moving. Let’s say we are on the Academy, they go to the Academy, right? So then they go to the Academy, let’s say in Chicago, the Academy is how many weeks long?
The Academy I believe is up to six months.
Oh, six months? Yes. Oh, it’s long. I was gonna say was like eight weeks. Oh, so six months of training. Mm hmm. That really flies in the face of what a lot of you see in the news that police are not trained to just given a gun. Right, right. So they go through six months of training.
I’m gonna say three to three to six months. I can
google it while I’m while you’re chatting. So during the academy Give me a kind of a broader overview of what what a new candidate is going to be tested on, what are they going to experience.
In the Academy, you’re going to not only have coursework as you would in like, typical education setting, but you’re also going to be going through physical training, situational training based off of, you know, how you’re communicating or how you engage with the public, how you engage with superior officers, how you engage with, I mean, there’s courses, there’s classes, there’s routines, there’s there’s tests for just about every aspect of what it’s going to take for you to perform the basic duties of a law enforcement officer.
Okay. So according to what I just read, is the Academy is 25 weeks,
25 weeks or
five weeks, which is about six months or 1000 hours.
Yes, right. Okay,
so training sheets. Police Training Academy training typically takes one to two years to complete and involves 1000 hours of training. Training includes scenario based training firearms instruction control tactics and physical physical endurance. Hmm. My thought is that, you know, if you listen to the news, they’re just given badges and guns do any Tom, Dick or Harry that that wants to be a police officer. And that couldn’t be any farther from the truth from the truth, but that’s what we’re being told. Right. So let me let me finish this thought and then I’m gonna let you run with it. All right, so now you have these people that have gone through a preliminary battery of a cycle, psychological background checks, psychological tests, background checks, physical tests, and then they go through 25 weeks at the police academy, which is pretty rigorous teaching about everything, whatever. And then they have a one to two year period where they’re still going through training before they are it’s considered like a probationary probationary period right. So by the time they hit the streets, they’re pretty trained. Would you agree?
They have received quite a bit of training? Yeah. Okay. So
okay, so this is the I mean, I could literally talk about this for an hour more. So now we’re getting into the part where I really want to understand. And that is you have, you have decided to become a police officer. God knows why, especially nowadays, but you decided to become a police officer because that’s your calling, and you want to shore people. And I’m assuming that anyone that wants to become a police officer, they’re not thinking like, I want a gun so I can bully people at first, that most people think that they want to serve the public. They want to they want to make an impact or do something good. Mm hmm. For every rule, there’s an exception, but we’re going to talk about the rule right now. Okay, so now, they become a police officer. And they’re faced with circumstances that they’ve never been trained for more, they are repeatedly faced with circumstances that are that are threatening or, or life threatening or situationally threatening. Let’s talk about the psychological profile of that, right? So you and I, sitting here in this beautiful studio overlooking Lake Michigan, having a drink and talking about this is one thing, right? So our job is what we’re doing. One part one of our jobs, a police officer, every single day, they wake up every single day they go, there’s a potential that they could be killed. There’s a potential that they could be hurt, because they’re not dealing with you. Or me, or producer Nick. You’re not dealing with people like us who are in, by and large, law abiding citizens write strong opinions and, and might in some cases, assholes, but you know, that according to people, I’ve heard people call me but, you know, but but they’re dealing with law abiding citizens, right? They’re not dealing with that they’re dealing with somebody who’s already doing something Wrong, right? Let’s say if they get called to a domestic domestic abuse case because I remember my father was a policeman was a detective in New York City in the Bronx. Most officers will tell you domestic violence is the worst, the worst, it’s the most unpredictable. And I remember my dad telling me one time that they went there and the guy was beating the living daylights out of his wife, and they went to arrest him. And while they were arresting him and putting him in cuffs, she jumped on his partner’s back. And that’s how weird it was. He used to say domestic disturbances are they’re the most unpredictable and potentially dangerous. Yeah. Okay. So, so, most times, would you agree that police go to where a crime is being committed?
If called
Yeah, if called right, if called, they’re responding to where crime is being committed. So, talk to me about what Due to a psychological profile of a person who is constantly under that level of duress every day, okay.
Wow. So there’s a lot of elements to that. And the first thing I want to do is I want to backtrack just a little bit because we skipped this, we missed a part of training that I think is important for us to address that really plays into this this psychological trauma that law enforcement are exposed to. So it is true that you can’t train for every situation, right. But I think last time I read the statistic, we’re up to about 60 62% of law enforcement training for larger departments focuses on firearm training. Now, the important thing to remember there is that if someone’s carrying a weapon, I badly want them to be trained to use that weapon appropriately. So I understand The need to make sure that an officer knows how to use the weapon. However, if you know, even if we’re at 50% of the time is spent here training to use a weapon, that means you only have the other 50% to deal with all the tactical, all the education, all the social, all the psychological issues. And it’s not so much having a weapon that is going to be so concerning to the public, particularly in the instances where we see poorly trained or not poorly trained, but not well maintained. Trained officers are those with biases are those with racist intentions. When we see these atrocities happens, it’s not so much the fact that the individual had a gun. It’s the fact that there was not enough training, there was not enough discussion at the forefront to talk about like, hey, you’re going to be exposed to some of the most horrific things imaginable. You’re not just getting into this job to help people and serve the public. You’re also here to protect the public from monsters, and you’re going to see monsters and you’re going to take monsters home with you. You will not be able to erase some of the images that you’re going to see on this job. Now isn’t the case for every officer? No.
Well, I’m gonna address that. So I don’t remember a lot about when my dad was, was doing what he was doing as a detective. And I asked him one time I said that you never talk about work he’d never did. He always came home. He was always like, Dad never talked about any of that. But he did talk about that when I got older and he was older. Mm hmm. And he said, the only way he survived that is he just never he had to he had to separate those two things like those two lights. So when he went to work and he put on, you know, his badge or whatever, he was not Our father he that was his life over here in a completely different life. It was almost like putting on a on a superpower superheroes outfit. Like he was a completely different person. And I and I often want to know he passed he died when he was younger young. So but I often wonder like what was in his brain like what demons did he deal with? Sure he was a type A personality and produce a Nic, you can see where I get it from. I very strong willed, very strong person. Yeah. But, but he didn’t share that emotion. He didn’t talk about it or anything. And I always remember something I read that said that when you’re dealing with super strong emotions, if you don’t discuss it, if you don’t process it, and you keep it inside, it’s going to come out in aberrant behavior, right, it has to come out somewhere. So you if you hold it in, it’s going to come out and aberrant behavior. And I just wonder, since we never saw that and he I know he held all that stuff. If it ever came out when he was
a policeman? That’s a good question.
And I never would I mean,
he would never know that and, you know, it would probably be more than likely. In
not that justifies any bad cop. No, no is is, from my own personal experience. If you have a family, you don’t bring the atrocities of what you see on a regular basis home,
correct? Yes, I know. You want to protect them from that as well. And, you know, and so that plays into a completely different topic that we could have hours and hours and hours about the support for police families and, you know, resources or the spouses or partners of law enforcement officers to help prepare them and help train them for what your police partner might come home with.
And that goes back to where we were leading in our conversation in the training part of it is, is there a mechanism Within the training process that can recognize that and address it before it becomes an issue, right? Before before it becomes an issue, like more more times than not more, not because unless you have a crazy episode, right, they’re gonna assume you got everything under control.
Right? Yeah, exactly. And again, it’s gonna vary by departments. And I don’t want to use Chicago Police Department as a necessarily an example. Not because it’s a good or bad example, as I just don’t want to specifically talk about any one department. But because I’ve worked with multiple departments, but as a general rule, there’s, you know, you’re going to have an EAP right, you’re going to have an employee assistance program. And that program is going to be there for officers that were involved in a fatal shooting officers that have seen some crazy and wild things that you know, they share with somebody. This is keeping me up. At night or the officer starts to drink more and shows up to work intoxicated. The problem though, is if an officer goes to an EAP and gets assigned a counselor, that counselor is not obligated to keep anything that that officer shares with them a secret.
Oh, really, there’s no because
the EAP is hired and contracted by most departments, or the state is to provide
patient client
privilege, there is going to be certain levels of confidentiality and when you’re working in a therapeutic setting, there’s a very limited number of things that allows you to break confidentiality if you have a clear and present intent. Plan means opportunity and motive to harm yourself or harm somebody else. Or, you knowingly admit or even recklessly or ignorantly admit to others. Using a protected individual, which those are protected individuals by intellectual status, those are protected individuals by age such as minors under the age of 18, or elders over the age of 65. Any type of abuse disclose that’s reported any type of potential risk of violence, that is very substantial and imminent risk is to be reported. Those are reasons you can break confidentiality. However, the number, the flexibility with confidentiality with EAP is going to be a little bit different. Because the goal here is to assess whether or not the officer can return to duty. And so an officer has to walk a very thin line about what they say to this person that perceivably is there to help them Yep. But also first and foremost, there. Their job is to see how an officer would ever be true be true, for Be honest. Exactly. And so then, though, I I again, this is a guest this is an educated guess But I bet you and I sitting here could count on both of our hands, the number of police departments across the country that have staff psychologist.
Okay. I want to go back to because we kind of skipped ahead to the stuff that I really want to talk about. But I want to still talk about the process of becoming a police officer the training Mm hmm. To the point where they now become a card carrying gun carrying baton weapon. Yeah, on the street police officer so now they go through the Academy. We now know that the academy it using Chicago as an example is 25 weeks. We know that the full training cycle is one to two years. Mm hmm. So that’s a powerful statement right there. And it’s interesting that you I’ve seen the narrative with the with recent protests where they say they’re just giving cops with no training, guns and badges when in fact, the truth is is the fact is that they go through extensive training before they get a gun in the badge. Mm hmm. Okay. Now, so now let’s talk about this. They they’ve now become a police officer. Mm hmm. And they’re now operating in the streets. Mm hmm. That sounded very law and order. But But no, they’re operating in the streets. Sure. So now, let’s talk about the process of being a police officer. Hmm. Because there is a high likelihood. If you can agree with this statement that there’s a high likelihood they’re going to be faced with a scenario or a circumstance that’s going to require them to discharge their weapon. At some point, you know, what’s going to happen it now I’ve heard stories where cop says I’ve been a cop for 30 years. I’ve never drawn my weapon but let’s just say there’s a high likelihood that you’re going to draw your service weapon is even higher likelihood now that you could draw your taser because that’s left that’s not lethal technically. Right. So you know that you’re going to use either one or both of those things in the in the, in the commission of your position. Sure. So, you You are a police officer? Is there ongoing training? Is there on going? Anything that once they’re on the street? Do they go through periodic checkups to see if they’re maintaining their quality qualifications? And I’m going to tell you the reason why I asked that is I’m a pilot, right? I’m a private pilot now. And so every two years I have to go through what’s called a bi annual flight review. Hmm. Mandatory in order to maintain my license. Right, right. I have to every two years I have to have a medical to make sure that I’m medically fit to fly right. Every I have to fly so many hours in order to maintain my ratings as either IFR, commercial multi, complex, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right. Yeah. So on ongoing training,
right? psychologists, doctors, lawyers, nurses,
all have ongoing training not police officer, not police officers. And that’s my question. Is that an accurate statement?
Yes, to some degree, it does not appear that there is a organized organize our standardized system by which police officers are routinely assessed to the same extent or anywhere near the same extent that they receive during their application process. It usually has to be centered around an incident or an officer to be reassessed psychologically, they might be referred to psychological services to receive what’s called a fitness for duty evaluation, which is another battery of tests, psychological exams to look at their readiness to return to work. But usually there has to be some sort of incident and in terms of updated training, updated training is usually going to deal with With specializations, so if someone begins working with SWAT, if someone starts working in hostage negotiation if someone starts to work in like disaster response teams. In those instances, there’s going to be specialized, ongoing training that enhances the train that they’ve already had. But in terms of someone who’s been a beat up, work in a district for five years into their job, and has just seen some of the craziest stuff go down. No, they’re not going to receive any type of updated training to the extent that would look at any changes in personality or behavior or work ethic.
So here’s something interesting. Hmm.
It takes 1300 hours of training to become a barber.
Yeah, and in many states
in many states, police departments require an aggregate average of 672 hours before joining the force. What I was trying to look for is
a post takes 4000 hours to become a plumber.
Yeah, so that’s just looking here it takes out to become a plumbers apprenticeship completed trade school and an apprenticeship that can take up to five years. Oh, up to five before obtaining a license according to the Houston Chronicle. Um, so my question is, is even though 1000 hours seems like a lot, is that enough?
thousand hours is roughly six, yeah, six months. You know, it’s going to meet a bare minimum.
But let me ask you this question. And this is something that I I sort of didn’t know but I I’ve learned in researching this topic and that is
after you become A police officer, there is very little Excuse me.
After you become a police officer, there’s very little ongoing mandatory training. There is additional training, yes, you want to progress in your career, you want to get promoted promotion specialization, you can return to certain education settings to, you know, perhaps right if you like, want a bachelor’s or get a masters or get a doctorate, I know you if you
want to be just a police officer, and you had no interest in any sort of promotion, you could take all those with a hard pass. Yeah, you could take all those with a hard pass and there is no mechanism like, hey, every two years, you’re gonna go through a basic, you know, psych evaluation, you know, an evaluation of how much you know about law, you know, firearms training. You know what,
I mean? I’ve got no room to really talk here, but just in terms of physicality. I mean, how many law enforcement officers have you seen where you’re like, holy cow, someone who’s running down the street who’s gonna is he gonna catch him?
Right. You know, I seen that I seen that where he said, See a police officer? You know that that looks like man, he couldn’t even walk fast, let alone run fast. And by the way, he probably has diabetes or heart disease and shouldn’t there be some sort of like in the military, you can’t you, you have to maintain your physicality. You know, um, and so I think there’s a lot of room to reform the police department in the training requirements to really attract the best of the best.
There’s tons of room and apparently tons of money,
and apparently done the money. So, you know, so now, let’s talk about I’m a, this person has become a police officer, they’re faced with all of these different things, right? Yeah. hit the headlines of the last few weeks. Obviously, nobody can avoid that. What happened with George Floyd was unconscionable. Right, right. unconscionable for any human being.
It also is reflective of training as well, right. Why
did that happen?
Now I want to before you answer, I am going to put this as a challenge. A many people have said it was racism. Right? Sure. And on the surface, yeah, the white cop, African American perpetrator. Right. And this happened, but what if it if you take the racism out of it, what if it he was just a bad cop? There was not wasn’t racially motivated, but he was just a bad cop. Now, he could have some racial bias and who knows, will net? I don’t know. I mean, there’s not enough out there to know for certain, because he has a history of, of excessive force across eight I think 18 incidents, right? Mm hmm. This is just 19 incident. Right. He’s a well trained officer. He’s a training officer for the other, some of the other ones that were in the group, right. So he’s a training officer. And by the way, he knew Dorje flow. for 17 years, they’ve worked together.
So like each other,
each other, right? They were bouncers and what have you. They didn’t like each other. Wait, how does how does that happen? If you’re a well trained officer, you have so many years in the in the department, you know the protocol and the process. You should be above reproach professionally and know the procedures for a situation like this.
And yet,
and a person died because of because of your excessive force. How does that happen?
Over time, things that I think are covert in us, right, the biases that we have the anger, the stereotypes that we operate off of that we’re unaware of due to whether it be privilege or status. If they’re not addressed, and if they go They remain under the surface, right? There’s a high possibility that they’re going to remain that way for the rest of your life. Right? And they might come out in subtle ways. Right? And that’s for your, your typical, average person that doesn’t have the authority and the power of a law enforcement officer. However, so you have these underlying stereotypes and beliefs about people and anger issues, and kind of a little bit of chip on your shoulder. And then instead of going in, you know, and becoming a teacher, or you know, a dietitian or whatever, you go into an occupation that has one of the highest positions of authority and use of power in our entire country.
Right? Mm hmm.
Right, you’re not Just operating on a surface level anymore as a police officer, you are operating with your full personality because it requires that of you. So with all this good heartedness and well versed intentions, you’re, it’s inevitable. It’s gonna pull the stereotypes and the biases and the anger and the frustrations out as well. Because you’re not just dealing with good people all the time that are coming to you for a service.
Let me let me challenge you on that. Explain to me what biases and anger that you’re talking about using this guy as an example,
I’m not using him particularly as an example I’m explaining how it happens, or how it could happen with law enforcement officers. I’ll get to Officer chondrus. I always screw up his name all the time. When we’re looking at instances like this. Yeah, of course on the surface level, it’s very easy to make it about race because race is the most apparent thing, you know, people that like to say I’m colorblind or I don’t see, I can’t stand that phrase. Because if you can, race is probably the most apparent thing. 100
yards out, let me correct you on that. See, race is has nothing to do with skin color. It sure ways by its definition is is like the human race. So when I people say oh, it’s racist or whatever, no, it’s not really racist. It’s more against an ethnicity or whatever, because we’re all part of the human race, right? I suppose we don’t say colorist because it’s not a word. It’s, you know,
we we use the vernacular that’s available to us. And I think, you know, words will retain their meaning as long as everyone has a common understanding of what they mean. So when I, when I talk about race, yes, I’m talking about skin color. Yeah, sure. I guess someone could make the argument that this wasn’t about race, but then I am Also don’t quite understand why you’ve got a suspect, handcuffed in the back of the vehicle. Right? They had him detained, and then pulled him back out of the VHS
or the video where he’s sitting down next to the brick
building. Right? Right. You pull them back out, and then you lean on him.
Right? This, there’s something way wrong here. I mean, that’s evident. But I guess what my what I guess I want to talk about and I think this is something that people don’t understand. How, first of all, how does a cop with that much 10 that much time and force end up doing this is because they think that they think that they’re untouchable? Yeah. Or they think that what they’re doing is not going to end up with the result that they have. Yes. And so they just push they constantly push the envelope and and now he pushed it one time, too many And someone died. Right? That’s the first thing. The second thing is why, in the 17 previous incidents, did not someone in the Police Organization interfere? Like, you know, I’ve watched too much law and order but, uh, you know, internal affairs. Now, I want you to explain, number one, what that does to a person’s psyche when they continue to do bad things, and keep without consequence, will probably lead to his situation with George Floyd. Because he didn’t he was acting with impunity,
right? Well, it’s really not all that complex. It’s the same thing is allowing a child to continue to do the same thing that they’re doing without any type of consequences. They’re not only going to continue it, but also escalate. Right? You know, it’s a it’s a pendulum that just gets a little bit of a push. Every now and again. gonna swing wide and wider and wider and wider until you have an incident like this
inevitable with this guy. It was inevitable that it was going to end with whether George Floyd or somebody else he was on a trajectory towards this destination. regard. Right. Right.
And that’s where it becomes about race, right? the inevitability of it. That’s training right the fact that it was always going to happen that’s training the fact that it happened to a black man that’s what makes it about race because by and large you don’t hear this happening to white people.
Well, okay, so I’m
okay you don’t hear I might be wrong phrase because then that’s, I guess entirely up to the media and people do their own homework basically.
The numbers are different but but I’m just saying is in this particular case, in my view, and this is my personal opinion, this guy got away with it for so many Yours in so many times. And by the time he was in this situation, this was a complete exertion of personal power over someone he didn’t like. Yeah, that’s what it was. And as a result of that that person died. And what I’m more concerned with is at incident number 10. Why wasn’t there a red flag that said, Whoa, there’s a trend here, because this is now incident number 10. There’s a trend here that needs to be interrupted. There’s a, you know, that’s what so so they just left it alone, let alone and then it ended up in it. What I think is, was its natural resolution. Right. Right. So my, my argument has always been is and this is something I want to ask you, is there an adequate mechanism in place to identify these trends and remove these officers now maybe he started out as a great officer and a great policeman. You know, I’m a big supporter of the Police it’s a tough job. I’m a big supporter of police. There are literally hundreds of thousands of police people across the United States. Right? Yeah. So but, but he’s a bad one, he may have started out good, but when he had incident number one, that was his first step down the bad path right now, I understand why you would take that step because of all the stress and the things that you see. And, you know, all of that is understandable. But, you know, if you’re a pilot, hmm, and you crash once things happen, you know, you crash 17 times. No one’s gonna want to fly with you. Right, right. And the FAA is gonna be like, Okay, listen. vj enough with the crashing, there’s something wrong here. You need to go to training, you know, or something. So, what that doesn’t seem to out of the realm of common sense of, okay at incident number 10. And that’s given them a big benefit of the doubt here at incident number 10. Somebody steps It says, Hey, this guy is having a lot of problems with, with anger or with excessive force. And no, we need to do that. Now, what I, what I learned and I’m going to give you the floor is that police officers have something similar to tenure, right? So
in some departments in some departments,
but in let’s say, big urban areas, so, so you can’t just fire someone, you have to go through this rigmarole and I mean, you really have to work hard and even then you can’t really fire them
right in the end, they might just end up getting reassigned
or just get resigned. And so, so explained to me, the psyche of police department and the you know, the thin blue line and, you know, we all stick together and we don’t call out bad cops, we support each other. We stand behind each other at all costs.
Right? Well, I think it stems from this us and them mentality. Part of policing also means protecting and also means engagement with the community. But by and large when. And when an organization functions more as a protective service, rather than an engaging service, you’re always looking for something to protect yourself from, you’re always looking for the next threat, you’re always looking for the next sense of danger. And that hyper vigilance, I think, not only is contagious, like a disease, but it’s also fundamentally rooted in training, which would explain why we spend a higher number of time on firearm training then, you know, cross cultural interactions or de escalation techniques or things of that nature. Because there’s always there’s always this idea, right? And the main idea, the main thing that’s pushed is this idea that every day you leave the house, you could die or because of your occupation, that threat and because that’s so overplayed, I believe it makes law enforcement just constantly on edge. Right. And if we can’t trust the public if we can’t trust the people outside because anybody could be a suspect that the next assailant could be right around the corner in those bushes. The one person that we should always be able to trust are the people who understand that same mentality, which is our brothers and sisters in blue. And so it creates that really strong fraternal bond to the point where it’s almost I hate even using the word cult mentality. But obviously, it’s not a cult, but it’s this idea that you do not go against the family, you do not go against the blue, right? If there are issues, we handle it inside we handle ourselves. Right And if someone wants to beat down Someone out on the street. Fine. Let him if that’s the way he needs to let go of that if that’s the way that she needs to let go. Let him because the public doesn’t understand what we go through.
So I’m going to tackle that. Okay.
So I agree with you. First of all, I’m going to say that, but I’m going to use a pilot analogy, right. Okay. So when I fly, I consider myself a professional. Mm hmm. Right? I hold my myself to a professional standard. Mm hmm. Right. If I saw another pilot, who was an pilots or a small fraternity as well, right? If I start another pilot operating in an unsafe manner, or flying dangerously or putting himself or herself or others at risk, I would report that pilot, right? I would because professionally, I hold myself to a standard and everyone should be holding themselves to the same high standard, right. And now I might talk to that pilot first. Say, Hey, you know, but I might do that first internally, if you will. But if that didn’t correct it, then I would report them. And this is where I think the problem with police are, in my view is, what they do is they think they can handle it internally. And they never let it get to the point where you say, Okay, this is now we’ve done what we can do to handle it internally. Now, we’re going to be transparent, because transparency is power. Right? If the public believes that the police force will, will not only police themselves, but if they can’t resolve the issue internally, then they’ll they’ll take steps to to put it outside of their outside of their, their wheelhouse. Mm hmm. Then Then it becomes a secret society and a secret society doesn’t tell you what goes on behind closed doors, because their front is hey, we’re all happy. Everything is great. We got it under control, but behind closed doors, it is chaos. It is anarchy. It is destruction. And what have you. And to me that breeds mistrust, right? Because you are entrusting a policeman or the police department with the ultimate power over you to enforce the laws of the city the state or the country while the city this wherever the state to enforce those laws blindly hmm they’re not you’re not there to judge you’re there to enforce the law. Period. That’s it. Not you’re not there. That’s what the court system is for and that’s what with George Floyd, that issue which struck home for me which was so egregious is this cop was the enforcer was the was the trial the prosecutor and was the judge and jury and the whole thing all at once, right. And that’s where I was saying earlier that that is that ego maniacal power that escalates that continues to grow when you keep getting away with the same behavior over and over again without consequences. So,
I, where where I
have the biggest concern with the police, police force is one is, is their training, right? Do you know that almost 75% of all fatal civilian aircraft crashes are involved a high time super experienced pilot
due to burnout, right?
Not to burnout due to arrogance. Hmm. So you know what, I don’t have to do my pre flight, I don’t have to worry about my fuel consumption. I can push the envelope. So like, if the envelope is here, and most people stop here, high time pilots go to the edge of the envelope. Right, because they think whatever they think they don’t have the time and to do that. I know what I know what’s gonna happen. I know what, whatever. Sure. So what I’m finding in my research for this show is that a lot of these incidents are not with rookies. No, they’re with long time. Police officers or detectives, hmm? Right? So there’s a pattern there and you can almost see it, you can almost see the pattern.
So you put enough time and you put enough work in you become beyond reproach,
you become beyond reproach. And then you become all powerful. Yep. And you believe it.
And now you’ve got a servant because now the external environment environment in which you operate in and work in now matches the internal environment that you already thought you had. Right there, the internal internal being that you already thought you were of having that chip on your shoulder, having that power and authority. Look at how these people look at me look at how my colleagues look.
And also, by the way, I can do no wrong. I am competent and capable of judging your behavior because I’ve done it for so many years. I’ve arrested you I have, you know, arrested you is probably the best way to say I’ve arrested you, which automatically puts you above someone, right? It’s a very powerful, a very powerful thing. Now, add to that. personal biases, personal racism, if you will, or whatever whether it’s against gay people, women, yeah, African Americans, Chinese, it doesn’t matter.
I think it needs to be made clear that that’s unavoidable. That’s right. That’s unavoidable. But just because it’s unavoidable does not mean it’s on addressable.
You know, that’s a good point, Kyle, and I want to I want to talk about this too.
Have you ever fantasized about killing anyone?
Ah, no Be honest.
Fantasy I don’t maybe not like murder, but like, played it out in my head. Like, like,
like, I’m not don’t don’t take this the wrong way. But like, there are times I would say I you know, watch a movie like I could be a I could be a hitman like I could be a sniper. You know, like Bruce Willis in the Day of the Jackal. If you saw that, I thought oh man, I could a million dollars now kill off Bruce Willis pretty much in any film. Yeah, I can just I just want to kill off bad guys, right? Like, I don’t want to kill off regular people like, Oh, I want this dictator who was brutal. Sure and and get rich out of it assuming you could talk to the guys from assuming right assuming all of that, but I was you know you think about that you say to yourself, okay, that sounds good and it sounds pretty macho, you know when you’re talking about it, but could I right? Could I actually do that? Right, right? And I think the truth of that is is the honest answer is no, I don’t believe that I can. Because I think I’m a good person and I just don’t, I just can’t that’s and my faith. I don’t I’m not the judge for someone like that, you know, to take their life because that’s a permanent, permanent thing. But I do think what happens with some police officers, I think that they, they get that they get into desensitized to the consequences of being that judgmental and so they have this complex like it know right from wrong, I not only have complete power over you, I like it, but I
come in I can issue judgment
and I can issue judgment as well. I can be your judge jury and you’re thinking George Floyd’s case, the more I read about that story, he had some deep seated animosity towards that human being, it may not have been racially motivated. They didn’t like each other to begin with.
And so I believe, you know, make America white again, hat for the night.
Oh, I don’t know, officer. I don’t know. But that could be. But I’m just saying if you take that out of the equation, I’m not saying one way or the other. I don’t have that information. So I shouldn’t I can’t say it. But what I can tell you is when I saw the look on his face, that wasn’t a look of judgment. That was a look of dominance. Mm hmm. Right, right. Not only arrested him, but he wanted to exert dominance over him. Now when they work together, they were probably on par as bouncers. But this is a clear demonstration of dominance. Yeah. How is how is that personality trait not caught? That’s the big question for me. And if police departments don’t have mechanisms in place or training in place to do periodic evaluations of someone’s psyche to see because that’s a that is a psychological trend that is absolutely measurable, and I think discernible. And I think that I think that Yes. Because I think that if you become a sociopath, or if you become, you know, you lack empathy or what have you, you when you take that test, you take that test, you cannot repress those, those those feelings, you cannot repress those personality traits.
I’m gonna challenge you on that, because I’m going to tell you that those feelings aren’t there. Right? The the function of a lot of sociopaths, a lot of psychopaths, and not to get, you know, too far off into that direction because that’s, you know, another, another show another 10 episodes. The feelings not really there of dominance, just the personality trait they’re operating from a function of, I don’t feel this way. I am this way. This is what I am so but my question they needed to repress it or if they needed to disguise it to pass a test, your sociopath and your psychopaths would absolutely be able to do
that. I know that.
I mean, you’re talking about master because a lot of them don’t feel those emotions. So in order to function appropriately inside in society, from a young age, excuse me, from a young age, they watch other people to learn how to mimic it and become very, very functional. The issue and I wholeheartedly agree that that you know that dominance that narcissism that arrogance, right, that that judgment to the judgmental mentality. I believe it is measurable. Okay. The problem is, is and this is a, an issue that I be in a huge sigh psychological assessment junkie that I keep running into this question is, you know, how do we how do we assess that without making it face valid? meaning how do we assess that without giving away that that’s what we’re assessing? Or because the second someone perceives, that you think that trait is negative, they’re going to hide that. That’s
right. If you if what you said is true, and I’ll take it at face value, that it is true that somebody that does not have those feelings has the ability to repress those, those personality traits. Then the minute they take the test, knowing that that test is specifically looking for those personality traits, and why wouldn’t they repress them and answer the way they think the test wants them to answer.
And that’s the challenge of psychological assessments.
I’m going to add something that’s great for a test. But you work with a lot of people. Right? Yeah, not you. But I mean, policemen work with partners. They work with other people in short shorts for you Can’t tell me that somebody Yeah, doesn’t see that and say, Whoa, that’s weird. Johnny is weird. That’s my character. So then the question is, is how do department leaders use that as a tool to begin looking? Well,
seven seems 17 times this guy had see that this becomes a difficult conversation because as much as I admire police for what they do and respect law enforcement for what they do, I think there’s an incentive ization, not to you. I think they are incentivized. And I’m not talking about policing, police, you know, externally from a public standpoint, but internally, I think there’s an incentive ization, not to investigate not to bring those things about Because the higher incidence reports within a department could very well Determine your budget at the end of the
year. Oh, really? You think it’s money related? And not not a fraternally order? Well,
it’s related. It depends on the level that you look at it. If you’re looking at like a bottom up level, right, looking at cadets, look at cadets, candidates, looking at Academy trainees looking to fresh fish right out of the academy for that one or two years, looking at officers within their first five years, maybe the first 10 years, right. When you’re looking at the street cops beat cops, the people out day to day. I think there is that fraternal model. There is that protecting each other. Covering things up maybe. But I don’t think that’s innate, of any type of training received. I think that is something that shared from the top down and promoted by little leadership in departments, because leadership in departments knows that I can’t watch all these individuals I can’t achieve campaign constantly watching everyone underneath them and your kid, you know,
so I want to challenge that. So in the military, you know, you can’t i can’t i couldn’t watch everyone on my crew, right? But everyone checked each other. Right? Brian’s the leader, you sort of learned to everyone would feed back into you. I didn’t watch everyone but if the copilot saw something would say, hey, the loadmaster is having trouble or the engineer is having trouble. Do you see what I’m saying? Sure. But the number of incidents reported to you somehow did not have some sort of fiduciary financial or
budgetary consequences at the end of the year, which for law enforcement, it does. You know, I’m not gonna if I’m if I’m on a state budget committee for law enforcement, I’m not throwing money at a department that has huge numbers of incidents reports as reported by either inter department, law enforcement or people out in the public, I’m not throwing money into that department if they’re not doing the proper training. But if I can make it appear as such as that we’re doing the proper training also, that I’m making statements, I’m making the state money in return by high tickets, higher arrests, high incarceration rates, then it’s a you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours mentality. And I’m not saying that it’s outwardly spoken that way. But when you’ve got that much money involved, you can be complete, you can become complacent with how that those cogs mash and how they turn.
So, okay. I can understand that and I understand what you said. But I am a little bit less cynical thinking that that the root of this is, is wholly money related, because that would be horrible. Because if you think about it, I’m going to violate my ethics. I’m going to violate you Integrity, I’m going to violate my conscience just to make sure that I get the appropriate amount of a budget of some sort, right or to maintain a budget or funding level. But I get it, because and that’s a whole other conversation about hospitals and COVID-19.
Well see, that’s the thing. And that’s what they’re related to.
Right. But that’s, that’s because,
because because what happens if a department does not get the resources it’s need, it doesn’t get its new recruits. It doesn’t get its new vest, it doesn’t get its new weapons, it’s new vehicles. It doesn’t get the stuff that it needs to operate based upon the perception that if my officers are engaging with the public and appropriately or I have a high number of incidents, reports that I get less money. I’m not saying that that’s a bad way to operate. I’m saying that a lot of the higher ups may be forced to operate that way.
Okay. So let that’s a perfect segue into this. This segment I want to talk about, we have two things I want to talk about which hopefully we can talk about more Is the the nature of a lot of police forces. You know what they are a lot of criticism has been has has been said publicly that police departments are more like military units. They’re armed like military units, right. And so they’re not policing they’re occupying. Right, in a way. Okay. The second thing is to defund the police movement and what does that actually mean? So the first thing I want to talk about police departments being armed, right, like with heavy duty weapons, assault vehicles and everything else, and and then people saying, Hey, this is not policing. This is a military occupation. This is these are these are military grade military level. enforcement’s right. That’s what you see when we, as you saw, as you’ve seen in previous wars we’ve been in for how do you address that How do you address that? Because in if you have a mindset that you’re going into a battle, and therefore you are are equipped, like you’re going into a battle, then you start to look at the population as enemy combatants, right? Right. So now you have a clear in my mind a differentiation between policing to enforce the law and, and enemy combatants which are to be
neutralized the threat right neutralized.
Well, you’ve already set the you’ve already set the stakes, you’ve already set the expectations right by carrying weapons that an argument might be made that okay if I’m going to commit a crime, if I plan to commit a crime, I know that I’m going to need a weapon because I know the people that are going to be coming for me are going to be having a weapon. So if you know this plan goes awry. I’m going to need to protect myself from the people that are coming to get me because I know they’re going to be armed. Right? There’s a mentality that the UK used by eliminating law enforcement that had weapons on the streets, that would automatically de escalate crime because offenders who wanted to commit crimes would begin to think I don’t need to carry a weapon because they’re not coming for me with weapons. Right. And for the UK, it seemed to have worked out for the most part. Right? If there is a emergency in which the UK needs to have weapons they bring in, I mean that they’ll show up pretty quickly with infowars. And so it’s kind of like an all or nothing response. But to to take weapons or site arms away from law enforcement. I feel like there would have to be some sort of guarantee, perform enforcement that when they go out in To serve the public that they’re not going to run into weapons.
So to go to your point about London, as of 2005 7% of officers in London are trained in the use of firearms and only issue to an officer under strict guidelines to allow armed officers to respond rapidly to an incident incident. Instead of arming individual officers, they have patrolling armored response, armed response vehicles AR vs. So what they have done is they taking the weapon away from the individual officer, but instead now have a network of armed robot mobile arm response data always going around. So let’s say you are you’re chasing after a perpetrator and they’re armed you can call one of these ARV to intersect with you and it can be your own backup. So it’s kind of in a way saying hey, we don’t arm our police officers look at that and look how successful we are. But we have this over the top armed response. vehicle, um, patrolling multiple vehicles patrolling all over the city. So, are they? Are they unarmed? Or aren’t they? And so in my mind, I’m thinking they’re armed, they just aren’t going a different way. Right? So they’re armed with a drastically, drastically different way. So
yes, me having to call someone is a hell of a lot different than me reach into my hip and
that’s right. Now, my now it doesn’t mean that that they don’t some of them don’t carry guns it said 7% of 2005. And then another one later in 2017 says one in 20 police officers so that’s probably more than 7%. Um, but but going to my point, my point is, is that you see, when police officers respond, they come in full riot gear they have I don’t know they look like automatic weapons and right all this stuff. And I asked myself why do you need all that? Well, you need all that because some of the criminals have those weapons so you fight fire with fire you don’t Go to a gunfight with a knife. Right. So I understand that mentality. But do they need that? For the general population is what my I always look back and say it’s like, all right. Isn’t that a little bit overkill? But I will tell you when I go to Mexico, and I see the armed Federer, Ali’s, you know, guarding things, I feel safer. Right, because I feel like they are unsure or whoever the bad guys might be.
That is, and that might have a lot more to do with your perception of Mexico than, you know. Oh, true being here.
But I’m just saying is I think that’s a that I think of all the arguments that I heard during these protests. That was one of them that I thought was reasonable. Like, that’s a good cop.
Yeah. I mean, you showing up in gear like that. That’s an automatic escalation. Right. And it’s inviting some of the people who want to start a fight to start a fight. Because it which
Davey and Goliath, I was thinking about a cartoon, you know, what a dog from Like it but a David and Goliath, right? It’s that whole thing is that you come to a fight with all of these advantages. Then there’s this thing that says, I want to knock you down from that. I want to equal the playing field somehow.
Yeah. And then you look at up in Michigan, what law enforcement, they showed up with their uniforms. They left their sidearms in the car. And they marched with protesters. Hmm. You know,
and that goes back to another point. Peaceful protesting I can get that, huh, but you go to like it. Some of the pictures I saw in downtown Chicago, the writing, I’m not going there without a weapon. These people already have a heightened adrenaline they’re already perpetrating criminal acts. I’m going there to protect myself. And here’s the question that so many people failing, I think are failing to ask these people, policeman, police women go to their jobs. Nate, most of them have families, right? When they go their job, they’re putting their life in harm’s way and they want to go home to their families. Mm hmm. You know, I just, I don’t think it’s wrong to try and mitigate the opportunity for you to be killed in the line of duty for a job when you have, let’s say, a wife or a husband with two small children waiting for you back home. So yeah, I want to be extra safe. I want to point that out that that is a big thing, too, is we need to understand that these people are going up. We’re not I’m not going out and putting my life on the line for my work. Right, right. So someone goes out there, you know, some, pull someone over for a traffic stop, and they or they have 20 warrants or they have other things or whatever. And next thing you know that you get shot in the face. that’s a that’s a tough one, you know, so I get it. But in the case, I’ll use George Floyd as an example. There was none of that there was no imminent threat and the thing that makes this case the most egregious to me They already had him subdued and in the vehicle
and decided to be the end of it right and decided to pull him back out that should have been in that. And that is kind of not kind of I think that’s really where people pull race from.
Right. So did he get pulled out of the car because of his race? Well,
would you think this would have happened to a white person? No.
No, because
because that answer is no,
wait, I’m gonna I’m gonna copy out that. I know, from what I know, so far, right? Hmm. But, but I don’t know enough data about this particular cop to know that if he would have done that to anyone,
I’m not even talking necessarily about this cop. I’m talking about just the the 10s and we’re closing in on hundreds of black individuals that have been killed by law enforcement. Just within the past two years, and the and these are the individuals that and we can readily name them, yes, because they end up on the media. But then that’s just the ones we can name.
True. Here’s the way I look at this. They were killed. And looking at each one of those individual circumstances was there, what was the total circumstance? Mm hmm. Like I said, it’s not as though they say, Hey, I’m just gonna go out, oh, there’s a black guy over here. I’m just gonna shoot him. Right. So there’s a bigger circumstance that needs to be incorporated into that into that discussion. The problem that I have is that when there is a situation that requires a police presence, yeah. Are the behaviors different if I’m white person or a black person, right, and I believe they are. And that is what’s wrong, right? That is completely wrong. Mm hmm. So how do you how do you correct that? Right. So the way I think I sort of common sense sickly. view this is through increased training. This one, yeah, you’re dealing with a diverse population and different cultures and viewpoints or whatever, but you as a police officer should have a very clear and very established parameter of how you do your job. Right. The bait the baseline of it,
the baseline of it, but interacting with individuals should not be standardized.
No, but I’m saying is baseline of if somebody committed a crime, you get called you’re there to investigate and arrest right if required. That’s the baseline, right? There’s all sorts of variables. The you’re not there to judge. It’s not your place to judge. Like when I get a ticket. He’s not saying hey, you’re guilty pay me $50 for the fine. He says, Here’s your ticket, you got to go to court and the court will determine what your fine is and then you pay
that even a suspected murderer is still a suspected murder until they end up and have their damn
right it’s part of our due process. Yes, we are all innocent until proven guilty by a court of law or judge or jury of our peers, or peers. So that’s where I have the the bigger issue. But the problem is, is that where I think the biggest problem is, is that when you’re in a situation, if you find yourself in a situation where you have the police involved, Hmm, I don’t feel threatened, like, Oh, I’m going to be killed. I just feel like, okay, they’re here. They’re going to determine whether or not I should be arrested. Mm hmm. And then, and then if I get arrested, then they’re going to take me to jail. I’m going to go before a judge, I’m going to pay a bail, and I’m going to go to court. And if the court finds that I’m innocent, I’m innocent. If they find them guilty, I’m going to serve those consequences. That’s the confidence that I have in the system. Right, right. The fact that that other people, African Americans or others do not have that confidence is the basic problem. And it’s the it’s the biggest problem, is it that it should have nothing to do with the color of my skin. It should have nothing to do whether I’m gay or straight. It should have nothing. Nothing to do, whether about my ethnicity or whether I’m a Protestant or a Catholic or Jewish or anything. No, it is it. There’s a reason why. The the
the lady is blindfolded with the scales. I’m
blank, madam justice. Yeah,
madam justice, for lack of a better term. There’s a reason for that it is to be completely blind by anything other than the other than the law. That’s the problem. So that’s where we should be. This is where we are. Right, get there. Now I want to talk about the last thing I know we can go on and on. And I have so much more to talk about on that particular subject or,
you know, I’ve seen a lot
in the news about defunding police departments, right. As someone who does these assessments, what is your response to that? What do you think that means and how can that work or not work?
I would I hear defund please, with the very limited amount of research that I’ve done into that movement. I think you have a number of extremes. Right? And then you you have this idea of what the funding really looks like. Right? You can have the funding look like what’s going on in Washington, where you have an entire group entire area where police presence is absent, not welcomed and in forcibly by the public, kept remote, right? Absolutely. And then you can have the other aspect of it where we’re looking at the amount of money that is thrown into law enforcement and not being utilized appropriately for any type of matter of training, but simply to stockpile weaponry invest in riot gear, or to pay some higher ups and extensive salary. You know, making a department’s budget transparent with the public. That could also be part of the funding.
We also do that with the federal government and the state government, you know, just Everyone
seems like common sense, and I hear
you pay taxes. You. It’s always been my understanding that if you pay taxes, you can require that information from your state and whether or not they give it to us a different information. The
problem is, Kyle, quite frankly, is I totally understand that it’s not defunding the police, like, Hey, we want to get rid of the police departments who want to want to reduce the funding for all of these other things, you know, because we’re really creating small military forces, right? And I get that I don’t know how that’s gonna work, but I get it. In closing, I want to talk about the one last thing and first of all, I want to thank you for being on the show and being so calm as, as we talked about these really difficult, short topics because I think listeners really want to hear some intelligent conversation with some real information to help them think and
come to their own. But I hope listeners, you know, understand that. Right, right, wrong or indifferent, there’s gonna be, there’s gonna be a lot of misinformation that’s gonna be purposely hidden. So like, if you want to have intelligent conversations and you want to be calm and having those conversations, obviously, pick your conversation partner carefully. But more so take time to educate yourself, right research
research about what the truth is not just what you see on CNN, or some of these other Fox or Fox That’s right, you know, fair and balanced. Right? But you know, it’s it, get your information and do some research, check it out. And you know, This is these times the last thing you want to be as ignorant about what you’re passionate about. Right? You know, make sure you’re passionate about the right thing. Yeah. And and this is something that I’ve always I, I always wanted to do doesn’t matter. On. What topic is on on my show is I want to educate myself about what we’re talking about. Because whether it’s Bigfoot, or whether it’s aliens or whether it’s social issues, or whether it’s a politics, I try not to ever take aside just because someone said take aside, I want to learn and so if somebody comes in, and as a guest on the show, and they say, Hey, I don’t agree with this and this, have you thought about this? I always challenge people to be open minded to listen to another perspective, but draw your own conclusion based on your education of that subject if you if you can’t respond, civilly. If you disagree with someone, then that means you haven’t done your homework and so The only response you can give is an emotional one. But if you if you, if you are educated, you should be able to articulate your difference of opinion based on your education of that topic. And then receptive, be receptive to ideas, even, you know,
education being such a privilege does not mean that it’s always the center of the dartboard. It’s not always the center of the target. And so not just being educated, but that flexibility. being okay with being flexible being okay. With screwing up and being wrong being wrong, you know, so often, that’s a good point. So often, you know,
I’ve had conversations like our earlier conversation about rap music, and it’s like, No, that’s not what it is. Okay, I get it. I totally am okay with being challenged on that. And then now I accept. I accepted other people’s judgement about what I said. But now I am going to research that to corroborate what they said to see if I am indeed correct or incorrect, not because not because I don’t believe them, but because I think it’s our obligation to challenge and verify the veracity of what we’re being told.
Right. And not only that, but when you go to research something, ask both questions, ask the question that’s going to confirm what you already thought you knew. And ask the question that is going to combat or mitigate or challenge what you thought, you know, you know, make sure it because I mean, we can research things, right. And if we would have find support for our argument and our argument alone, we can absolutely do that. Right. Does that mean that we’re finding the most valid and the most useful information? No. So there’s challenges upon challenges of making sure that we’re disseminating and looking at information appropriately and accurately It takes time and the reason why it takes time. And again, I don’t, you know, this is a different show, but that’s because we’ve endorsed a system of disseminating information, that we’re okay with not having any control over. We’re perfectly fine with being fed things instead of chasing after our appetites, to feed ourselves to understand what is really going on and look at things from varying perspectives, whether it be race or policing, you know, the whole idea here is you have to be kind
have to be kind. And I also think that knowledge is power. Yeah. And and if you arm yourself with knowledge and facts, you know, this is an apple computer. Mm hmm. I hate apple. I do. Matter fact, one of my passwords is I hate Apple 2020 or 2019 or something somewhere along the
line, right? All right, computer hackers get to work.
That’s right. So I hate Apple the company anymore. You know, and you may love apple. But it doesn’t change the fact that this is an apple MacBook Pro. I mean, hate it. That’s my children. You may love it, but it’s still Apple MacBook Pro. Right? So I sort of learned that, that opinion, you can have an opinion. And someone can have an opposite or a challenging opinion about a specific thing. But facts are immutable. Right, right. So if you start with I want to learn the facts first, and then you can discuss opinions about those facts. And that could go on and on and on. That is the nature of my show. And that is the nature of how I view life in general. I do get emotional when I see things on TV, I actually have to stop watching the news because it’s so slanted on either side, that I’m just like, this is just pandering to them. It’s just me angry. So so I stopped doing that. And now what I do is I think of topics that I want to talk about and then I researched them and and and have a conversation like we’re just having was enlightening because we didn’t agree on everything. But we challenged each other on specific things. And then some of those things now I’m thinking, well, that’s a good point. I didn’t think of it that way. And I didn’t. And that’s the point is when you become so arrogant that you think you know everything and you know the answer, you inadvertently close the door to any expansion of your knowledge or wisdom,
right? Or simply that you think there’s only one avenue to pursue in order to obtain the truth or the facts that you want, right? You want to
get so on that note, it has been an absolute enjoyable conversation. I don’t even know where an hour and a half went. And holy cow and quite frankly, I think I could have spoken another another hour and a half. Yeah, I usually not on many of these things. So Kyle, I hope you’ll come back. Absolutely talk about some other things is I mean, I, I would love to talk about rioting and what makes people lose, you know, and what makes people think it’s okay to do that. You know, and, and also mental exhaustion that come that has come from being under quarantine for 90 days. And what does that play? How does that affect relationships? How does that affect your, your, your business life, your work, like your boundaries and everything. So, it was a pleasure, Kyle. We’ll, we’ll see you next time. You guys have been listening to the DJ Doran show I’m DJ until next time. Remember, wear your mask and practice social distancing.