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Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement
2024: Ranked #1 Law Podcast
Host: Tyler Owen and Clint McNear discussing topics, issues, and stories within the law enforcement community. TMPA is the voice of Texas Law Enforcement, focused on protecting those who serve. Since 1950, we have been defending the rights and interests of Texas Peace Officers by providing the best legal assistance in the country, effective lobbying at state and local levels, affordable training, and exemplary member support. As the largest law enforcement association in Texas, TMPA is proud to represent 33,000 local, county and state law enforcement officers.
Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement
#064- "Breaking Bond" with Sean Teare Part 1
Do you want to understand how law enforcement and politics impact community safety? Join Brian Linthicum and Sean Teare as they delve into the complexities of Harris County's justice system. They analyze revised protocols, the significance of clear communication between agencies, challenges faced by law enforcement post-election, and the impact of George Soros-funded district attorneys. With personal stories, they shed light on current challenges within the law enforcement intake process and propose actionable strategies to reform and improve the intake system. By emphasizing the importance of trust in effective law enforcement, they explore specialized units within the DA's office and the significance of leadership that supports and defends justice above all else. Join us and our guests as we navigate these pivotal topics, affirming our commitment to a just and transparent legal system for all.
Cozen O’Connor Public Strategies - The Beltway BriefingListen for of-the-moment insider insights, framed by the rapidly changing social and...
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
email us at- bluegrit@tmpa.org
One of the main problems that we see across America are these, quote-unquote George Soros funded disc attorneys.
Speaker 2:How are you going to be different from everyone else here in Harris County?
Speaker 3:Hey, it's Blue Grit Podcast. We are back this week. Your co-host, clint McNair, and Tyler Owen TO how are you Good?
Speaker 1:good, I don't have any socks misplaced this week, so everything is good. Did my own laundry, so what about you?
Speaker 3:All good, all good, proud to be in the office hanging out. We've got cool guests today. We do, we do this office hanging out.
Speaker 1:We've got cool guests today. We do. We do. This will be fun. We have some unique guests, yeah.
Speaker 3:This will be fun. I'm excited about this. I am too. I am too. Let's show who we've got.
Speaker 1:Well, for those that can't spell Lithicum, I don't blame you, because Pasadena, one of our board of directors, is on today to discuss some Harris County issues, and so welcome to the Bluegrass Stage man. I appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. We also got the Harris County Democratic nominee.
Speaker 4:I know that's hard for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is. It is Sean Teer on to discuss some future plans. I know that's hard for you. Yeah, it is, it is Sean Teer on to discuss some future plans. I guess the next election is in November. You just beat out Kim Og, that's right. Somebody who TFPA has opposed just a tad bit on some different policies, and so those that know Brian Lithcom. Not only does he work in the area, but he's kind of a quiet guy and so we wanted to bring him on and discuss Very shy, you know he had the ongoing issues. The man of few words yeah, the man of few words. You probably know him in your capacity when you worked at the DA's office. So both of you welcome to the Blue Gear stage. Very, very, very excited to have you on. Appreciate it, yeah.
Speaker 4:I'm pumped and talk laundry and stuff. I mean, this is my kind of podcast.
Speaker 1:Well, I had a situation where I had a sock left in some underwear when I was driving to work and Clint knows about it. If you guys could catch the last episode you'll understand. I'm always afraid when he starts telling stories.
Speaker 3:I'm like, oh God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's Strange, shit happens to me.
Speaker 3:I don't know why, but so far we haven't had to put the X rating on our podcast. I don't know when that may change.
Speaker 1:Well, I've been sexually assaulted by a deer. I had a sock in my underwear last week. You know, I didn't know the difference between the male and the female water hose it was in the back and the front. I'm learning, just to be clear. Life is lessons. So, anyway, we like to generally start off the podcast by who the hell our guests are. Where'd the podcast? By who the hell our guests are, where'd you grow up? And so, brian, you being on the board and you not appearing on the podcast, tell us a little about yourself.
Speaker 2:I'm the Region 8 Director for TMPA. I'm also the PPOU President for approximately going on eight years. I was born and raised in Passing, Texas, Stinky D now thanks for the nickname, that is correct.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for our listeners that don't know acronyms, tell them where PP is PPO.
Speaker 2:You, it's a passing police officers union.
Speaker 3:Pasadena, Texas.
Speaker 2:Pasadena, texas. That's right. Um yeah, stinkadina is a land of um opportunity and green for a lot of families as well as it did mine.
Speaker 3:It does Home of the original Gillies.
Speaker 4:Yes, original Gillies, that's actually right. You stole my one thing.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, We'll hit on Bud and Sissy. Bud and Sissy, that's right, it sure is. Other than that, I've been with Passing going on 22 years. It's been an experience. I can say Harris County is a different beast and that's why we're here today to discuss it and see what we can do to make it better.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Well, we appreciate you coming on and talk about you know, I did my law enforcement stint in East Texas, clint, you did yours in the Metroplex. The relationships and district attorneys in different regions of Texas are vastly different. Just so I mean light years away from each other. I'm just so. I mean light years away from each other. Talk about the current relationship with law enforcement agencies and the current Harris County District Attorney's Office and talk about that relationship has been dwindling for many years now, and just talk about the current culture.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the current culture right now in Harris County is something of chaos. I'll be just flat out honest. There's no communication between the da's office and law enforcement. Changes and policies are, you know, handed down without any consideration or input with the police departments across the harris county and, quite frankly, um, the crime is outrageous and it's it's going to continue to go up if we don't sit there and do something and address it and figure out a way we can protect our citizens. Because the most important thing is what we all seem to forget into anything is there's no Republican or Democrats when it comes to crime. Crime affects everybody, whether you're Republican or Democrat. And the fact of the matter is, if we don't address the problem of crime, it's only going to get worse and then our standard of life and quality of life for everyone is going to get worse.
Speaker 1:And you talk about the different policies and procedures that the DA's office has implemented.
Speaker 1:But what I find interesting is that not only has TNPA reached out to the current DA, ppou has Pastina I know Baytown has, and multiple other agencies has reached out. I think that it's healthy for anybody to have communication, to sit down and have discussions, whether we agree or not. It's healthy to have communication, to sit down and have discussions, whether we agree or not. It's healthy to have discussions with anybody and and we may not walk out of the room just as we did with, uh, you know, some activists here in austin. We didn't walk out of the room, being best friends, but I think we found more, that we had more in common, some common ground. We have found some common ground. We had more in common than what we really, you know, thought of and it makes you think, uh, about some of the decision making. And so that's been offered and extended to that office. Many, many, many times I have to sit down, discussions with her and with that office and it's been declined and that's an issue.
Speaker 3:Well, and the fact of the matter is for years, and I'm assuming by design, district attorney's office and local law enforcement should be partners. They should be collaborative, not saying we always agree and not saying most cops ever want everybody under the prison and that's not reality. So I'm not saying that we're on the exact same team all day, every day. We should be collaborative. We should be on the same team. The same goal is justice, and that's changed in Texas. Yeah, and I was in the military.
Speaker 3:I relate a lot of things to the military. When the DA's office and law enforcement can't get along, it'd be like the Joint Chiefs of Staff not liking the military and the military hating and not respecting the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Well, you kind of need to work together, brother. I mean y'all, we're all in this pot together trying to move it forward. And seeing the relationship, especially in Dallas County, it's an adversarial relationship whereas it used to be a very collaborative relationship. And it's sad and I can't pinpoint the time or the exact reason why, but it's tough to watch. I mean I was telling Sean before we came on we have 34,600 members and a vast majority of our calls come in of people furious with the Harris County District Attorney's Office.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what I don't understand and we've said this multiple, you have been very vocal about it, I've been very vocal about it I don't understand why cities across the state and maybe even the nation, accept the fact that there's no party affiliation with city elections and why we in Texas continue to allow political parties to interfere, manipulate, weaponize the Texas Penal Code, why that is continued to allow to be controlled by a political party.
Speaker 1:I personally think that anything to do with criminal justice, whether it be a district attorney, a judge, a sheriff, constable, anything remotely close to a criminal justice elected position, should have no party affiliation none. But I will also go on to say that I think that I uh, maybe it's a little bit the maturing aspect since I've I've aged just a, just a tad bit is that cops automatically and I'm going to call it what it is automatically think, because you have a d next to your name, that they have no chance in hell to be pro-law enforcement or no chance in hell to have a positive input or positive attitude. Look at Whitmire, my God. He's only been mayor for what? Two, three months. And look at the changes he's already trying to implement there in Houston.
Speaker 3:He's a lifelong friend of law enforcement. Yes, he's always been a great friend of law enforcement.
Speaker 1:And so you know, you may have the party affiliation, sean, but but doesn't mean you can't. We can have an open line of communication. We may not always agree on everything, you know, but anyway, that's why we're here. That's why we're here today to talk about the different decisions that Kim Oggs made in the past. Obviously, she's going to be making her exit, hopefully in December, or will she? She's going to be making her exit, hopefully in December. Well, she will be in December and hopefully you get elected and we'll kind of move on from there. But, yeah, tell us who Sean is oh yeah.
Speaker 4:God. Nine minutes and 58 seconds in the intro.
Speaker 1:Besides being like the Men's Health Magazine, I mean look at this asshole. I mean you've got your hair. Your hair is perfect.
Speaker 2:I was supposed to ask what's this with?
Speaker 4:the hair gel. They want to know what it is. It's not gel, it's hairspray. This is the fastest way I've found. I can do this in two minutes, and I figured out that this is the way I go making scenes at 3 am.
Speaker 2:Hairspray, that's good but.
Speaker 4:Kim, wouldn't let me wear my U of H hats and stuff to scenes. There you go and so. I started having to do this and it works Spray it Go. So now everybody can know that that's what this is.
Speaker 1:It's just hairspray. It's just hairspray. Con Air, that was a movie. Con Air, we can have a. No, it's actually a hairspray, I believe. I think, bob. Yeah, con Air, we'd like to have a sponsor. So, thanks to Sean.
Speaker 3:Teer if you want. We were going to be the prettiest man we've ever had on here, but I think he just knocked you down.
Speaker 4:Also talking about steroids. I feel like I'm more jacked than you.
Speaker 2:He is more jacked than you.
Speaker 1:We probably have to take a break here in a minute, so you guys have your bicep curls in because you've got to have 20 per hour.
Speaker 3:You brought chicken in a can for every 15 minutes because you've got to eat your protein in it we're going to take a break and we'll resume this.
Speaker 1:We're going to leave our shirts on. We'll come back on with those shirts. Our ratings just went through the roof, anyway, all right Intro.
Speaker 4:So yeah, lifelong Houstonian, Born and raised in Houston, Harris County. We have that in common. I never got to go to Gillies because I'm too young.
Speaker 1:But you know, we all watched Urban Cowboy.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I did with.
Speaker 1:St Thomas High.
Speaker 4:School and we beat the hell out of Pasadena in baseball and football.
Speaker 2:Let me clarify. Didn't it go to the schools? I went to Deer Park, where you actually competed, and so forth.
Speaker 4:I also beat Deer Park, but you know what?
Speaker 1:Well, this is about to get dirty.
Speaker 3:I love how this is starting.
Speaker 4:Went to U of H undergrad and law school, interned at the DA's office for my last two years in law school and just dove right in. You know, I was in law school thinking I was going to get rich being a civil lawyer or something. Within about a day and a half at the DA's office I knew it's the closest thing that I've ever felt, outside of playing sports, to being on a team, to actually caring about the people next to you, all pulling in the same direction, and so I knew it was going to be kind of my lifelong calling. And then when I started getting, I was the youngest person to get on the Vehicle Crimes Callout Team, because it was our only team where you could go out and, you know, actually help investigate.
Speaker 4:How old were you when you started at the DA's office? I was 24 when I started at the DA's office, 27 or 8 when I started on the callout team, seven or eight when I started on the call out team, and so I think in my career I've probably made over 400 fatal crash scenes. The last six and a half years that I was there, it was as the head of the vehicular crimes team. So I was the only person in Harris County that could accept intoxicant manslaughter charges, manslaughter on the road charges, felony murder charges, and that that's just ingrained in me.
Speaker 4:It's something and I don't think, unless you're there working on the scene with officers and seeing victims and sitting down with victims the next day and their families really understanding what the whole component, every component of the picture looks like, which is why, very early on in my tenure, we're going to have more DAs going out to scenes understanding what the officers go through. You know on the scene Because I used to read offense reports before I got there and go. Why wasn't that done and go? Why wasn't that done? Why wouldn't? Until you really understand the fog of war and the chaos, you can't give the grace to the officers and to the victims and to the defendants that you need to, sitting behind a desk in an air-conditioned deal, figuring it all out. Yep, can't agree more.
Speaker 2:I love how.
Speaker 4:I dovetailed my intro into half my pitch, but there you go.
Speaker 3:Does the DA's office? Or do you plan? Or have you ever ridden out? Done a ride out?
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, no, I've done a number of ride alongs just on a regular tour, but going to scenes is something that I think I've done Officer-involved shootings. I've made a number of those, both where the officer shot and where the officer was shot. I've been on a number of homicide scenes and again 400 fatal crash scenes. So you know, doing that really gives you a different flavor for what our rank and file sworn officers go through.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. I think it's important for everybody to see some things through others' lenses. Yep.
Speaker 1:What is the? What's your number one goal pertaining to law enforcement if elected in November? What is the one thing that you personally are just like? This has to be done. No offender butts. This is going to happen the first day that I take over at SDA.
Speaker 4:It's really easy. I fix our intake system Day one. We're going back to a model that, quite frankly, worked from 1972 to 2017.
Speaker 1:And explain the process now, so the listener and viewer can kind of understand the process now.
Speaker 4:So you've got to have a little bit of a history lesson to understand what intake is. Prior to 1972, harris County was just like every other county in the country, right when officers arrest someone and then 30 days later, 90 days later, the DA's office decides to accept the charge or reject it. So you have, if you're not on the same page with the officers and the office, you've got a bunch of cases getting kicked. You got a bunch of cases that could have been stronger if they'd been able to walk through the elements and evidence. That didn't happen because there wasn't any real collaboration. So Carol Vance back then decided no officer is going to arrest anybody without first calling the DA's office and walking it through. Now what that did was benefit everybody because it wasn't just charges, right, it was like the Google for officers. Yeah, so you would just call and say I can't tell you how many phone calls I would take over the years. It's like I don't know what I have. Let's walk through this. And you know, you pull out the penal code, we go through elements, be like look, maybe this isn't that, maybe it's this, and then also go get that surveillance, go do that, go talk to this person, see what you have and then I'll take this charge. And so you collaboratively get to cases where we know we got probable cause, we know it's as strong as it can possibly be that day and you're ready to go.
Speaker 4:The reason that it was so good is it was our extra job, right. So we worked five to midnight or midnight to eight and got time and a half overtime, but you still had to be in court the next day and you could only accept charges or advise on charges that you could subsequently try. So if you took a bad charge, if you pissed an officer off because you were tired at 3 am, right then that case was going to fall on your desk and you were praying it would fall on your desk and not your buddy's desk down the hall, because that's what kept everybody in line was just personal accountability. But you also knew what the cases were worth. You knew what the juries were going to do with that case. You knew what you needed, because you wound up losing one of those cases before. So all of that was perfect. I mean it wasn't perfect Nothing's ever perfect but it was good. I mean hell, you worked there long enough.
Speaker 4:Intake was good for a long time. What happened in 2017 is she removed the lying prosecutors from the process. She went out and hired people that effectively work in a call center that have no accountability to the police officers. They have no accountability to the prosecutors that have to try the cases. They have no accountability to the victims or even to the defendants. Right, they are there for an eight hour shift and they go home.
Speaker 3:That explains a lot that I hope our listeners get, because the calls we get are the Harris County intake is the 1-800-I'm-refusing-your-charge, and they're like dude, all we do is call so they can say nope, nothing, you need to go to the list.
Speaker 4:And it ain't even. Just I'm refusing the charges, right, it's. I'm refusing the wrong charges and I'm accepting the wrong charges and I'm arguing with the officers, having never tried this case, saying you don't have that file. That it's. It is a recipe for disaster. And just as a quick aside, I went to law school study for the bar. Pass the bar, that is, you're both going to debt and it's a hell of a long time and a lot of effort to get there. Imagine the person that does all that and can't find any other job but signing up for a midnight to 8 call center shift. That's the caliber of person you have on the other side of the line right now and it's not acceptable.
Speaker 2:No, I 100% agree with everything you're saying there. The DA's office in the last years have been absolutely deplorable in every aspect of the way. When the law is written, it's black and white. There's no room for interpretation. It's black and white.
Speaker 2:And the fact of the matter is when you go and you have officers with minimal years of experience and so forth are telling a DA intake, this is what the law states and they're reading it verbatim from the book or the website they have on their cars to the district attorney's office intake division and they're telling them that's not what it says. I mean, and this happens on a daily basis and people don't realize it. And the fact of the matter, what people really need to realize and what the citizens don't realize. They have no idea. Our first thing we have to do on anything that's above is class C misdemeanors. Contact the district attorney's office, let them know what we have and have them ultimately make the decision why we're on scene, if we're going to accept charges or not, and what people don't seem to realize.
Speaker 2:What's the biggest thing and the biggest impact of officers when they have to tell these victims that believe in the wholeheartedly they're a victim that we're not going to accept charges. We're not going to take the bad guy away from him right there, because the fact of the matter, district attorney's office is not going to take charges. Who do you think, right there, at that point and from this point forward, is getting the blame? Yeah, the police, the police, yeah. So ultimately, how are we ever going to change the perception on law enforcement if we can't have anybody in the district attorney's office to realize that as well? And that's the whole biggest, that's the hugest issue I think in Harris County is the fact of the matter is the blame is never passed on to anyone other than the frontline officer and the stress and the burden they take every day going out there and risking their lives for the citizens and what they did in signing up the job, and they have no support from the DA's office. It's just absolutely deplorable.
Speaker 1:I think it goes back to your point. You said it best is that when this program was implemented, it sounds like there was a team effort as far as the circle of the criminal justice system, effort as far as the circle of the criminal justice system, law enforcement, regardless of what any district attorney listening to this podcast or watching you are a part of the circle of law enforcement and you are a part of the criminal justice circle. I think where we lost it at during the George Floyd's let's call it what it is the anti, the, the, the hot topic law enforcement situations that DAs and district attorneys had to distance themselves for political reasons. That's where the disconnect started beginning. That's where we saw really the uptick within association work with district attorneys across America, texas, and I think it really, if you think back at Harris County's politics and Harris County's relationship with the district attorney's office in Harris County, is that about the time that things really began started getting rocky.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so. I mean it definitely had a big impact on it, but I think it's been honest to be degrading for quite some time. Yeah, I'll be honest with you Even before that, just because the fact of the matter is we just lost the communication, and that's the biggest thing. We just continually forget that, without communicating between each other, how do we know which other stance is?
Speaker 4:And how do we know how to fix the problems that are at hand, because they're affecting both of us, and you know that's exactly it, and you said it right as well in that look, we are not going to agree all the time. We can't. If we are all on the same page 24-7, agreeing something's wrong. We should not agree all the time, but I promise you there's never going to be a policy that's dictated to you all by an open letter we're going to sit down On.
Speaker 2:Friday at 4. Every.
Speaker 4:Friday at 4.
Speaker 3:That's when all bad news comes.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:That's how we got them.
Speaker 4:And I'll have three minutes at Friday for yeah, but it's got to be an open communication. And the other thing, one of the many other things that I think has helped degrade the relationship. Hpd and HPOU and the sheriff's Department and the deputies union are our biggest customers. There's no question. They're the biggest people we work with. But there are thousands of other sworn law enforcement agencies and officers in Harris County that have been quite frankly and flatly ignored.
Speaker 2:So I didn't know half years. Yeah, you did read my notes In the last seven and a half years, yeah.
Speaker 3:I did, you cheated he cheated.
Speaker 4:But that can't be the way it happens. Things are going to be required differently right for agencies with resources like HPD and SO than medium-sized agencies like Baytown, pasadena and really smaller agencies. You know, pasadena and really smaller agencies.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You know the West U's and things like that Bel Air, Bel Air exactly.
Speaker 4:So it can't be a one-size-fits-all. You can't just go listen to what and I think the world of HPD and HPOU and the sheriff's deputies in their union, but what they need isn't always what Pasadena, baytown, bel Air, westview needs. But we can give most of what all of them need, right, and so you just have to tailor things differently and you've got to have an open line of communication, and that's really all I'm going to promise. We're going to talk, we're going to be wide open and you're going to know where I'm coming from and, more importantly, why I'm coming from that position every time, and, regardless of whether we agree or not, we're still going to be able to go have a beer afterwards and talk about it, because it can't be personal.
Speaker 4:We cannot have this be personal, personal. We cannot have this be personal. We are all sworn to do the same damn thing, which is to get justice for victims and to get justice for the defendants right To protect the whole community, and that includes everyone involved in every single case. So if we are so against each other that we can't talk, if we can only talk through open letters in the media, that is not good for any single person in the community I grew up in and still I raised my four kids in. I mean, I love Houston and Harris County and I want to be a part of what makes it better.
Speaker 3:We dove in the weeds really quick for our non-law enforcement listeners when they're talking about intake In Harris County. If it's 3 am and I think I have a DWI on the side of the road, I call a DA, I call a number and I tell them what I have and someone tells me if I can continue on Anywhere else in the state of Texas where he and I worked. I arrest somebody for DWI based on probable cause I have at the time. I book them into the jail. They're arraigned the next morning.
Speaker 3:Usually at that time, if I screwed up, the judge is going to have my watch commander call me and tell me you're not quite there on PC. You need to tweak this or cut him loose right now. You need to tweak this or cut him loose right now. And that is done across the state yeah, except in Harris County, and it's incumbent upon well-trained law enforcement watch commanders reviewing a report and then ultimately, during the arraignment process, to catch it and then ultimately, if it gets through those processes which I'm not aware of any of it then you may get a bad call from the DA going. I don't know how the hell this trickled through so many eyes, but this guy just got no charged. But that's where we dove really quick into that. That's the really unique part of Harris County, unlike any other part of the state. When they first told me about it I thought it was a joke that they had to call and ask somebody if they could arrest somebody.
Speaker 4:But they have now. It's been adopted by Montgomery County. It's been adopted by some other jurisdictions and the reason it was adopted was the way it worked prior to 2016. It's a success. It worked prior to 2016. The success If it's done right, it can alleviate a lot of the calls from watch commanders the next morning. It goes back to the communication and collaboration.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Let me clarify I'm not against it by any means. It's worked in my career, so I can't say anything that I'm against or for it, but I just want it to get better, like it used to be. I think the biggest thing is when you know, like you said, when we call the district attorney's office and we go through with the intake and then it goes, and then you know you've signed, you've sent in your charges, and you know, and then someone else reads it at that point in time goes oh, there's something missing here.
Speaker 2:You used to receive a phone call from the DA's office. Now I can't remember the last phone call you ever received. I don't know if anyone even gets them because there's no communication whatsoever but they used to see it and before you were allowed to make the change if necessary. If you could make the right change and had the PC that needed to be there, the DA would let you know you make the charge and the guy would never get out of custody at that point in time. That's the key. And so, therefore, you did not blow the case and then have to go correct it, even though it was a minor, just grammatical. Whatever it was error, the guy's still in custody. You don't lose him and then lose him to run off and never be found again.
Speaker 1:But is it fair to say that by contacting the DA's office and the DA's office having the opportunity to reject it, it would be fair to say that the statistics wouldn't show. Let me give you an example. You arrest a suspect for murder, for killing a four-year-old kid. It's going to make headlines in Houston. Are the DA's office rejecting the case on said phone call at two o'clock in the morning, preparing a warrant? Well, that's not going to be really a document, a documented trail. Yeah, on the statistics from the da side no, we, we keep.
Speaker 4:We keep records of every you know because you get the or number from the agency and so that you get you keep records of rejections and records of acceptance and so there's always going to be an incident report generated right and that will always reflect da decline charges on x or y and we keep an internal log for every. I say that we used to keep an internal log of rejections versus acceptance. And I mean we used to have written declines, like if you declined a case, what?
Speaker 2:is that again? Because I haven't seen one of them in a long time.
Speaker 4:It's been a while, like if you're going to decline a case, you document internally and send to the agency why you're declining that case.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Pepper trillo and I think the trust is broke down. It is that it was a good system. Yeah, but the trust is so far gone. Now, talking to all of our members, it's like their ex-wife offering them a drink. Yeah, I promise, it's not antifreeze. Yeah, okay, I mean there's no trust in a system that sounds like at one time it was beneficial and successful.
Speaker 4:It was and it can be again the thing that we also have now, which is different than we've had even when intake was working well. There's so much more evidence to collect in all these cases. We've got so many other things, which is why we're going to take a lot of the more serious charges away from just a call center right. We're going to more vertical prosecution units. We've already got a homicide division that just got stood up. We've got our vehicular crimes. We're going to do sex crimes and kiddie porn in a much more vertical where we accept the charge from the prosecutors that are handling it.
Speaker 3:That has to be a special unit. That's so involved.
Speaker 4:Oh, 100%. But I think as you take more off of the plate of the people that are just getting a phone call, you're going to see more better charges go down the line on those kind. And we already do it for DWIs because we have no refusal 24-7. So we get warrants and things and that prosecutor is in the silo of vehicular crimes. So they're advising and working through that a lot better than somebody who's just a general kind of prosecutor answering phones.
Speaker 2:And he's absolutely right on that. We did have separate divisions back in the day with the DA's office. You'd call if you had to say anything to do with a juvenile, you'd contact a juvenile DA and then you'd do that. Instead, right now, we're contacting just a general intake DA for everything. And it's like I said. I will say this, he hit it on the nail. Back in the day the intake was a resource. There's been numerous calls starting out and even hell. I could say. Now you go and you go. What the hell's going on? What do I have here? And you had a resource of information. When you call the district attorneys and we sit there on the phone, sometimes you know 45 minutes or an hour with that district attorney's intake division the old one. Let me clarify that, because now you wait on hold for 20, 35, 40 minutes, but your call is very important to us.
Speaker 2:Exactly right, and so you would wait. You know you literally, that is.
Speaker 4:That's. That's the whole. No, he's not lying.
Speaker 2:I mean literally, we. We can sit there on scene for 45 minutes on hold and get a freaking message waiting to hear from a district attorney's office. And what do you think? We're sitting there with a criminal, sometimes a victim, and they're going what the hell's going on? Well, I'm on hold. Forgive me a second. So I have to push one for this push. No, I'm just being. I mean seriously, it's absolutely a you. You you're calling a to speak to an individual at their timeframe. You don't press zero. I mean seriously. I mean you can't. You can't make this up. That's crazy. But the way it used to be. When you called intake, you had a vast. He said you had seasoned, you know DA's there that knew what they were doing. They were a knowledge of resource. It worked at one point.
Speaker 2:It did and they're not specialized. If you don't hit one, you hit two. It goes to the Maytag Repair.
Speaker 1:Call Center. I mean, you have no idea what you're going to get charged with, that's right.
Speaker 4:And if you can't take a?
Speaker 3:homicide. Can you fix a dishwasher?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're not specialized Child crimes, which is what you specialize in now. Investigating that's something you do. I never had the opportunity to do that and so not saying I couldn't work a child's crimes case I'm sure I could call and get resources headed that way, be a walk into the process. But there's going to be certain things that you know going into a case that you've got to get to make the case more solid. When you call this a generic, you know ADA that has no experience in that specific field Clint worked homicides, officer-involved shootings there's going to be things that he knows and sees that I may not on my end because I may not have worked in officer-involved shooting. We always hand it to the Rangers. So, yeah, I think specializing it is what you're basically saying. Yes, I think that's the smart way to do it.
Speaker 4:You have to, absolutely basically saying yes, uh, I think that's the smart way to do it. You have to, but absolutely. Then I really think we can build, start to build that trust back in smaller chunks. Right, vehicular crimes I promise you still trust the da's office. Right, homicide division is in all of the agencies that investigate. It still has a pretty good relationship with major offenders. Who actually accepts those charges? Because they're talking to real prosecutors. Yeah, so it's something that we can do in a larger way in smaller bites, because we'll have experienced prosecutors working with directly those units.
Speaker 4:The real challenge is going to be just your patrol units that are still going to be calling intake but they're going to be talking to seasons prosecutors, but they're not going to get that same kind of collaboration that all of our investigative units will have. And that's where I need to, as the elected, I think, really focus on rebuilding that trust, because they're still going to be on the phone on the side of a road, somebody kicking in the cage in the back, screaming and spitting. They don't want to hear that. Their call is very important, you know, for 45 minutes. They need access. They need to be able to do that in a much more significant quick way be able to do that in a much more significant, quick way.
Speaker 1:And you know, the sad part about that is is that I was talking to a friend of mine that's a DA in East Texas and he has a mutual friend that we know together. That was an ADA at Harris County, and I think that one of the main things that I think the constituents of Harris County is recognizing is the just bleeding of district attorneys, that they're losing Seasoned ADAs from Harris County, and that goes back to the lack of leadership from Kim Aug. Because I'll say this, that the people that are leaving Harris County DA's office are people that want to see criminal justice done, they want to give the victims a voice, they want to represent the victims and do what they signed up to do as a prosecutor and they're being restricted for political reasons. And so you know, if you want to touch on that, there's some other stuff that we're going to.
Speaker 4:We're going to talk about here in a minute. So you know the political reasons that they're leaving, and I mean the vast majority of them are good friends of mine. Majority of them are good friends of mine, people that I grew up with at the office, people that I've revered and looked up to, and they didn't leave to go get rich being criminal defense lawyers or civil lawyers. They went to other counties they went to Fort Bend, they went to Montgomery, they went to Galveston. Now they're up here in the Hill Country. It's not so much political as just poor leadership.
Speaker 2:Yeah, majority of people, when they do leave a job, it's not because the job itself, it's because the leader or their boss, absolutely that's it, and they don't feel empowered.
Speaker 4:Yes, good things happen when DAs feel empowered, when they feel like the person at the top cares about them and understands what they're doing.
Speaker 4:Because, just like when you're on the street, we ain't making every decision right.
Speaker 4:I mean, if we're making 100 to 200 decisions a day that affect hundreds and thousands of people's lives, if we get 70% of them right, you go home and think you've had a good day. You never know which one is going to come back and bite you Right. And so for the last seven and a half years and, quite frankly, for almost 20 years at the DA's office, if you did it wrong, you're susceptible to being on the front page of the Chronicle, and every single one thought they were going to get thrown under the bus by the leaders. So what you have to do is go back to the old way, and what I truly believe and what I will model and tell my people is if you made a decision and you came at it because you thought that was the right thing to do and you were prepared chips fall where they may you go back to your office and keep doing your job. My job is to stand out in front of the courthouse and say we screwed up there, we'll get better, but you ain't talking to the person.
Speaker 4:And once people believe that, they will do what they think is right, and that is all. I will ever ask anybody I work with or works for me Good advice.
Speaker 2:I hope that definitely correlates to the actual officer itself too as well.
Speaker 4:That works with.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Let me clarify that, because that's a big, huge thing, because generally the officer is the one that's thrown on the bus first and standing there by themselves, you know, figuring out what they're going to do in their whole life, in the DA's hands, et cetera, and so forth. That's right.
Speaker 4:And look, I think I have so many good friends that are sworn officers To a person. They want the really bad cops off the job, Absolutely. They want the guys that are crooks, the guys that put that badge on to go hurt someone. They want them off the force because all it does is make all of our jobs harder.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:But when you try to gain political points or want to get yourself some political cover by charging an officer, by attacking an officer for doing their job, weaponizing green jury because, you want to make a point.
Speaker 4:That ain't justice. That's not what I swore to do, which is to see that justice is done in every case. And so cops aren't getting carte blanche under me, period, full stop. They will be investigated. If they commit a crime, they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Because I think, just like a DA, when you agree to be a police officer, you take on, I think, one of the greatest responsibilities that this community in this country has ever set. And you got to do it top to bottom, the right way. But if you just make a mistake because you're doing what you think is the right thing, and it turns out wrong, just like my prosecutors, I will stand up there and protect you till the day I die.
Speaker 1:And there's a huge difference. We had this conversation the other day. There's a huge difference in being prosecuted for a policy violation within your department and being prosecuted for violating penal code Absolutely Huge difference and I think district attorneys across Texas get it wrong and miscued.
Speaker 3:Well, the weaponization in Travis County of the grand jury system and indictment process is beyond criminal. It's beyond criminal that I'll get you indicted knowing I can never get it to court, I would never get a conviction. It's never going to anything other than I'm going to ruin your career with getting you indicted. The weaponizing of the grand jury system is is beyond criminal. Well.
Speaker 4:I haven't, I haven't experienced, I and and don't know really anything about the travis county situations. I have seen my current district attorney weaponized the grand jury system, um, against our County judge, against another County commissioner and apparently, according to friends of mine who are defense attorneys, against other people, some of them sworn officers. Um, you know, I think that that goes against everything that I became a prosecutor to be, to be about.
Speaker 2:Sean while we're talking about a grand jury. I know right that we we scares to be about Sean while we're talking about grand juries.
Speaker 4:I know we scare me to you.
Speaker 1:Oh, I was trying to ask you a question. Yeah, so the grand jury. Actually, I love you.
Speaker 2:We spoke back in August and one thing I know was brought up because one of our officers was in the room and it was regarding grand juries and it was involved in officer-involved shootings. Right, and he was going on 14 months in an officer-involved shooting, all cut and dry on video. I mean no questions, good shoot. I mean you can't get any better. Two of them, by the way, I mean completely on body. You could not have better footage if you had 4,000 cell phone cameras out there, which there were, by the way.
Speaker 2:However, the point goes to that officer waited them two officers, excuse me, waited 14 months waiting to be cleared by the grand jury.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's completely unacceptable. Why does that officer have to sit there knowing that he's waiting to determine if he's innocent or guilty, when it's clear by body cam and everything else that we wear to prove innocence or guilt and that uses evidence, and yet the grand jury or the DA's office can't go to the grand jury and present this in a reasonable time frame to clear that officer's name so he can move on with his life without the stress that's added to him, knowing not only the stress that he took of taking someone's life, but knowing the stress that he's waiting to be cleared as an innocent man, and you know that it's not just officers and I know we're on this and it absolutely results it revolves around officers when we're talking about this, because they're the only ones we're asking to run towards gunfire and towards danger, right, and so you've got to be able to get them back on the street, especially with the shortages we're all dealing with, not to mention the mental stress and everything that goes with that.
Speaker 4:But in Harris County at least, it's not just officers that are waiting, it is. We are so inefficient at presenting cases both for indictment and subsequently to trial. It's inexcusable, and I can't tell you how many times I've had to sit down with victims' families and say I know, this is the fourth year of your late person, this is the anniversary. We've reset it six times. I know this reopens the wound. Every single time we get a setting, you get a new subpoena. All of this, it's everything in there. The inefficiencies are, and it's because the inefficiencies are so bad and it is because we can't keep anyone working at that office for more than two or three years. And every time they leave, everybody's got to start over. That's right and so, trust me, I mean, we talked about it in August. Those are the kind of things and we don't, thank God, have that many officer-involved shootings. Yes, especially for a PI.
Speaker 4:Yeah, right, that's true, and so the fact that we're holding 14 months on those is inexcusable. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's just inexcusable. It's two or three years in Dallas County, two or three years.
Speaker 4:Are you kidding me? Trust me, we're going to speed that up, holy shit, just like we're going to speed up a lot.
Speaker 1:Tune in next week for part two.
Speaker 4:If I Tune in next week for part two, heart of hearts, that if you commit a crime right and we're gonna remove murders, sex assault of a child, ag rob's because those I think you have inherently said you're likely to be a future danger to the community, but everything else if you're not likely to be a future danger to the community while you're on bond or a flight risk, or you can minimize those threats by some type of pretrial condition, I don't care what's in your bank account. That person is dropped off here, not all the way down JPC, and that officer's back on the street. I think in some way we can do that pretty quickly to figure out if it works. But, unlike my predecessor, we're not going to do these things without getting input from the agencies that get involved. Thank you,
