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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
#086- "Navigating Critical Incidents" with Tony Rike, John Wilkerson and Leighton Guarnere
In this episode of the Blue Grit Podcast, we’re joined by TMPA Field Representatives Tony Rike and Leighton Guarnere, along with Legislative Liaison Jon Wilkerson, for an in-depth conversation about handling critical incidents. From defining what constitutes a critical incident across Texas to how evolving local policies are shaped by regional culture and politics, our guests break it all down.
Tony Rike shares the latest updates on TMPA’s initiatives, shedding light on how the organization is adapting to diverse law enforcement challenges in communities throughout Texas. We also dive into the strategy behind building political capital—exploring how strong relationships with local leaders can boost influence all the way to Austin.
email us at- bluegrit@tmpa.org
On a critical incident. If you call me at three o'clock in the morning, my very first question out of my mouth is are you okay? Yeah, you just probably had the worst day of your life and I want to make sure you're okay. Are you injured? Second thing I ask is are you still recording? Third thing I ask them with TMPA is you have your choice of attorney? And I ask you do you have a certain attorney you want me to send out there?
Speaker 2:And well, the thing else is, every single one of our attorneys are not just good, but I would say the best. Welcome back. Blue grit watchers, listeners, viewers, I'm your host. Tyler owen, we got some guest hosts in today. Uh, the boys are back in town john wilkerson, our legislative liaison, and tony reich, north texas field representative for tmpa. What's going on, guys?
Speaker 3:not a whole lot here, man, just winding down or actually getting geared up and trying to figure out if I want to wind down for the holidays while I'm getting geared up for the session. It's kind of a rollercoaster ride right now.
Speaker 2:You're about to be busy. We always try to take advantage of visiting, hanging out, having moments with John Wilkerson during the off-season of session, because during session you rarely hear from him unless there's some kind of catastrophic event, and when he calls with his hair on fire it's not like you can punt that to the back of the burner. It's like we've got to fix it right then. So I'm sure you're fixing to be really, really, really busy. Quickly moving environment down there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know I will say this before we even start. You know I will say this before we even start. You know everybody talks about I hear some officers saying my job's not political. You know that type of stuff. You hear that quite a bit. I'm almost out of politics. But what these guys do with the legislature is it really is unbelievable. I've seen, you know, jw gets there at 6 am at the Capitol and a lot of times doesn't leave until 1.30, 2 o'clock in the morning, if he leaves at all.
Speaker 2:I mean, these guys really work their tail ends off, and for those that don't know anybody with well, I shouldn't say that I was fixing to go to a different topic but anybody that lives in the Austin area that wants a little bit more quality of life, as far as not the urban environment, they live on the outskirts of Austinin, right. So j-dub lives on the outskirts of austin and if you want to call it that well, yeah, but you, I'm an hour north of austin, but you're an hour right, but during session?
Speaker 2:no, during session, yeah, I got to stay at my cousin's house, yeah and so it goes back to the commitment and the dedication of, of our, our mission here at tmpa. So he literally is, is in town for a whole week, away from his friends and family. Uh, to do the job right, to do the job for our members.
Speaker 3:So we, we joke about it in the division. We, we tell everybody that our spouses are 140 day widows. Yeah, uh, because for about 140 days they don't hardly see us. We'll come in on the weekends and, you know, mow the grass whenever we can, but we're typically busy. Dissecting bills are going to be heard the next week, so, yeah, pretty busy time.
Speaker 2:Speaking of the session last session. Was it the last session of the workers' comp bill or was it the last session before?
Speaker 3:No, it was the last session, so we've worked a session before we got some language filed. If you recall, that was a session when the COVID presumption bill was filed and the quarantine leave was filed. Filed and the quarantine leave was filed, so we were working heavily on those and then also working on some of the workers comp on the background.
Speaker 3:Yeah, in the patterson's office, yes, yep, uh, he's done a man, patterson's done a stellar job for us down there. Uh, you know, like with everybody down there, there's going to be issues that that he takes up because that's important to him and his district. Uh, and we don't have a dang thing to do with any of uh or not say any, but a lot of what he works on, right, like take great example, uh, the, uh the book bill he had about what books are allowed in schools and so forth. Right, that's not anything tmpa is going to get involved in.
Speaker 2:Uh, for one, it's political suicide to do that I mean it could, if it was, if it was like an anti-law enforcement right, yeah, we would certainly jump in there but, not for education.
Speaker 3:Right. And then you know, like the school voucher stuff and all that kind of stuff, right, we, you know we have to be real strategic on where we spend our political capital and so, but getting back to Patterson, you know I mean there's things that Patterson does that you know I sit back and I just look and I scratch my head, but I can say that about all of them down there. You know, but he's been nothing but one when it comes to taking care of injured first responders. Uh, I I'd say he's the tip of the spear down there on a lot of our bills well, and he was going to come in today.
Speaker 2:Tony was going to be coming in town and so we were like you know what the hell with it? Tony's already here. Uh, he's made the travel down south, so let's just go ahead and talk about kind of the update of what's going on. For those that don't know, tony reich uh, he's got a. I want you to intro, re-intro yourself about your law enforcement.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I was on episode 20 and uh you know he's got memorized.
Speaker 2:One of the best, the best ones, yeah yeah, it was a good one.
Speaker 1:Um, for those that don't know me, my name is tony reich and uh, I'm the dallas or north texas fielder up for TMPA. I have all the Metroplex and go out to West Texas quite a bit From a small town. Farmersville. Texas Spent my career at Collin County, which is a booming county. Currently, allen PD in Frisco is where I retired from. So the whole area has changed a lot and you know people ask me where things are up there now and it changes weekly. You really don't know.
Speaker 2:and people ask me where things are up there now and it changes weekly. You really don't know. I mean honestly, is Frisco still or is it far? One of those towns in Collin County was voted the number one growing town in Texas.
Speaker 1:Actually I think it's Salina.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Salina, that's in Collin County right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is so. Shout out to Jeremiah Phillips and the guys at.
Speaker 2:Salina.
Speaker 1:Salina PD. They do a great job with their police association Very involved. We had an officer who got killed in Richardson, David Sherrard, several years ago and small town Salina the next day cut a pretty significant check to his widow.
Speaker 2:And that goes back to they have a huge fundraiser every year. They've got several, but one of the biggest ones they have is their poker tournament Yep, yep which has been very successful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they do a great job. You know we're just kind of bouncing around a little bit, but talking about local associations and stuff in our area, I'm blessed to have some good ones with Plano, McKinney, salina, frisco, just some very strong Collin County associations and we have some good state reps up there as well as support law enforcement yeah, we'll talk about.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know some people kind of have different lenses. We had late in an area on a couple weeks ago to talk about the the uh problems that were going on texas city.
Speaker 1:Uh, you know what do you enjoy most about being in the north texas field representative for tmpa and talk about some of the you know dynamics that you've experienced up there well, I think anytime you're dealing're dealing with North Texas, what you have is exponential growth, and so you have a lot of departments that are experiencing the growth and they're shorthanded, they can't hire people and then a lot of times what you see is you see nothing against these officers that are listening, but sometimes you get officers that don't have very much experience that get promoted and then sometimes that leads to supervisory issues. So you know, those are some of the issues that we deal with sometimes in departments and you know, really you know the way you combat. That is through. You know you have to have training. I mean, that's the way you. You know combat. That is hopefully you have good leaders, and I tell people all the time.
Speaker 1:You know, I've never. You know, when I started working at the sheriff's office, I was making $997 a month. So who would have ever thought that we would be in an era where a police officer is making what they're making these days with the money, and it's just a lot of growth. And the thing I enjoy most is just really going out and just helping each individual member, whether it be an association or just some officer that needs help with something. That's really, I think, why we all do the job is because we want to go help the good guys.
Speaker 2:So, even though that Tony's in North Texas and prior to Jada being a legislative liaison, we were all field reps. I was a part-time field rep in East Texas. You were here in the Central Texas area, so we've all got these zones right, and Texas area, so we've all got these zones right. And when problems crank off you were like Colleen was one of your big ones, they're in Bell County area also, but we all take care of our zones. But one day a week, one day every two weeks, the field reps are on legal and then every so often it kind of changes for weekend they're on call. So if you're involved in a critical incident, you call the 1-800 number. The field rep filters the phone call just to ensure that you know can an attorney be assigned. They check your membership status, you know, to make sure that we can assign the attorney and then at that point the field reps, historically, if it merits you know the reasoning that an attorney should be assigned then we'll go ahead and assign it for an attorney in that region. And so, uh, back to state.
Speaker 2:Representative paterson was going to come on today. Uh, you know that his schedule he's a busy man. It kind of fell through. And so when I was talking to back to the old raging cajun late in canary, he was, uh wasn't complaining, uh, about a critical incident, but it just kind of brought up maybe, um, some educational value that we as tmpPA can kind of talk to our members and the listeners out there, just about you know what do you do when you're involved in a critical incident, kind of what those protocols look like.
Speaker 2:Because I'll give you a great example. Let's just say Tony was involved in a critical incident and his body cam is still going right, and so he's making the phone call to get legal advice from his attorney and the body cam still is still rolling. Well, that could be, all you know, submitted in the court, and so I think it'd be a good opportunity for us to kind of talk about. Hey, these are the things that you need to be aware of. Uh, we're going to try to tap in late in here in a minute to talk about his experiences too. Uh, so for those that don't talk cajun, we will try to submit some kind of caun dictionary in the description.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we'll translate. Maybe put some subtitles, if it's possible.
Speaker 2:Great idea, j-dub. So yeah. So, man, I think it would be a good time for you to go first talk about critical instances that you know. You've been on the phone with people who have just been involved in a shooting. What are the steps you, as a field rep, are kind of processing in your mind at 3 o'clock in the morning of, like abc? What's the checklist for tony reich?
Speaker 1:well. So, and I think I think most of us probably do this very similar. But if you, if you call and you're in a critical incident, first of all, we do get this quite a bit too, where people don't call, yeah right, if you're, if you're listening to this and you're a member of tmpa and you have any question or you have anything, it doesn't matter, call us. I think all of us would rather have that call on the front end of it than the call that I literally had two weeks ago where they just left because the ranger got through interviewing them, right, oh, I didn't think to call y'all, always call us on the front side. But if it's a critical incident, you know we take calls. You know, not just critical incidents. It could be anything you know, from a policy violation to a question on FMLA. You know it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:But on a critical incident, if you call me at three o'clock in the morning, my very first question out of my mouth is are you okay? Yeah, you know, cause that's I mean. Ultimately, you know you're going through a horrible experience, right, you probably had the worst day of your life and I want to make sure you're okay. Are you injured? Injured? Do we have any officers injured? Because that's that's, that's my main concern, right, the good guys. So once, once you get through that, are you okay? Second thing I kind of ask them is you know, do we know? Um, you know where you are? You know what's going on? Are you a member? Um, are you okay? Second thing I ask is are you still, uh, are you still recording? Do you have any kind of recording device on? You know, there was some confusion. Were you in the session when the body cam?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Bill came up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had to fight hard on that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah so, and I'm sure JW chimed in on that a little bit but you know, once that scene is secured you can turn your body cam off, and so I was asking him through recording. Third thing I ask them with TMPA is you have your choice of attorney. And I said, do you have a certain attorney you want me to send out there? And you know, 99% of the time people are like I don't care, just get me somebody good. Well, the thing that sets us apart from everybody else is every single one of our attorneys are not just good, but I would say the best.
Speaker 3:Yep, well, they have to be, they're private practice attorneys yeah, true, so you know that's.
Speaker 1:That's kind of steps we take. Are you injured? Are you okay? Uh, where are you and do you have a certain attorney you want?
Speaker 2:and then I tell them they're on the way let's talk about, let's, let's, let's give the definition of what a critical incident is right, because a great example is I was in east texas for a long time and the realization is this is that I probably, comfortably, I would pull my weapon at least, if not once a night, once every two, especially working nights. Right, you're, there's things out there that you just don't see, the gut feeling aspect. It's a full moon. You know how people act crazy, and I'm not. I'm not suggesting that I get out of my car and I just I pull my gun out every single time for a traffic stop, but there's certain indicators that we as law enforcement see. That's like man, something's not right here. So I may unholster my weapon In East Texas. A use of force technically shouldn't be a use of force form or documentation of that. It's not necessary. It wasn't required by my department. I didn't do it to cover my own ass. But different regions are different because of the political environment, right?
Speaker 3:Well, and I wouldn't say just the political environment. One thing I would add to that is we're starting to see a lot of departments moving towards that, and that is because a lot of departments are going to best practices, and that is part of the best practices is having those review policies in place. So I think the more agencies that we see that go to best practices, whether it's through its CALEA or TPCA or if the Sheriff's Association, if they build their own, I think we're going to see that to become an industry standard across the state.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll say this too. I mean, one of the biggest I don't want to say shocks, but one of the biggest things I noticed when I went to work for TMPA is I want to say shocks. One of the biggest things I noticed when I went to work for TMPA is you know, texas is a big state. The way the Metroplex does things is completely different than the way they do things in East Texas, which is completely different than West Texas, which is completely different than South Texas or Houston metro area. I mean, it's such a geographically different state on how law enforcement and police work is actually accomplished.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not just because you live in different regions. They do it the right way versus they do it the wrong way. It's the culture, right.
Speaker 2:It's the culture of the area that defines. For a prime example, I think, every time that an Austin police officer pulls out a taser, they're required to, whether they paint somebody or not. And for those non-law enforcement listeners out there, painting means that you're painting them with the laser. You're taking the taser device and painting them with the laser device that's on the taser itself, and so that's considered a use of force. And so I believe not only is it Austin Police Department's policy, but it's also the requirement of the DA's office, because it's technically a use of force. It's a use of force from the standpoint. Is that it's visual force? It's a use of force from the standpoint? Is that it's visual force? It's showing you that if you don't comply with A, we're going to result to you ride the lightning right.
Speaker 1:Well, it just goes back to you know where the force continuum. That was such a big thing, you know. Just by your presence I mean that's force yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, but yeah, the other day Layton was talking about you know he had a situation and he can probably dive into it about officers not really being clear about when to call in, when not to call. In Last session of the session before that, we've now got the figure to intervene law, which puts some complexities into our legal calls. I think we've actually got Leighton on. Leighton, are you there? I'm here. Hey man, what's going on? The raging Cajun has joined us via telephone and so, yeah, I've got Tony Rock and JW uh here with us, and so you had a situation the other day that we were going to kind of highlight on the podcast about uh, legal calls and what's, what's the definition of a critical incident and kind of what your experience was. So tell us about that that's a lot to gather.
Speaker 4:Yeah Well, let's go ahead Go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess you know Tony was just talking about. You know, different regions have different definitions of what technically, a critical incident is. I mean, obviously we all can agree that an officer-involved shooting 100% I think we can all agree to that that is a critical incident, right. But then you have situations where it's a witness to an officer involved shooting 100 I think we can all agree to that, that is a critical incident, right. But then you have situations where it's a witness, uh to an officer involved shooting a witness to now where we are, uh have been assigning attorneys to crashes on duty right and so forth. But talk about the importance of knowing when to call in, uh, just as just as you talked about the other day sure, yeah, I mean uh for sure.
Speaker 4:I mean, if you discharge your firearm uh at somebody, whether you hit them or not, that's, that's a critical incident. They need to call in uh another day. Well, recently, several times uh, we would have an officer involved shooting and all of a sudden the board lights up with seven, eight calls and you know, it's just. It's just, you know it doesn't happen everywhere.
Speaker 2:You are showing your age with the board lights up for those 25 year olds back in the gap. You know telephone calls, but our emails, with my sorry lighting, had to throw it out there too.
Speaker 4:You know telephone calls or emails with lineups. Sorry, leighton, I had to throw that out there too. So hopefully we can get the message and information out to guys that if they have a critical incident, slow everything down. It seems like guys are getting in such a hurry. Slow it down. Let's get somebody on scene that can take command of the people that were involved, uh, in in the incident. Yeah, I mean and and try to get everybody's name, contact number, stuff like that. So we have one phone call coming into us, because sometimes we get inundated from phone calls from the same incident and we're we're discussing, uh, the incident with the original caller but we're also having to answer, you know, the next five, six calls that are coming in within you know a minute or two of each other. So trying to get all that together to where everybody's on the same page, and then those names and phone numbers will go to the responding attorney as well as, you know, any other staff that's responding out to the same Well, that's something else I was going to say too.
Speaker 1:Leighton, is you know, when you go out there, it's such a I mean, it's chaos.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, if you have a career, it truly is chaos. And you know, all of us in this room we've been to numerous, you know, officer-involved shootings. I was going to say that earlier an officer is injured or not. Um, an officer injured in princeton a couple weeks ago and myself and cody webb, uh board member from mckinney pd, you know, we, we, we actually beat him to the hospital.
Speaker 3:So, um, you know we're gonna go check on you, um, but it is chaos yeah, yeah, reiterate a little bit on what layton was saying, um, and I really want to kind of go a little bit further into what Leighton was saying. So, basically, when a member is involved in a critical incident and they call you know the answering service after hours, they're going to ask is this an emergency? And if the member says yes, it's an emergency, then what they do is they call the on-call field rep. Then what they do is they call the on-call field rep. And so now, if you've got five people that are calling in and Leighton's on the phone with the first caller, now his phone is beeping and you see it's the call service and you can pretty much deduce, okay, there's going to be somebody else involved and they're calling in. Well, if Leighton doesn't answer, then the protocol is to make sure our members are taken care of. The protocol is is they're going to call the next person, which I believe is probably still John Sariga, and if John doesn't answer, then they're going to go down the list until they find one of us field reps that they get on the phone with.
Speaker 3:So, to prevent that from happening a lot of times and Leighton, I'm sure you can back me up and Tony, a lot of times we may have to tell the person that we're on the phone with hey, can you hold on a second? I think one of your partners is calling in. Switch over real quick, so you know. Just to reiterate what Leighton was saying, if you know somebody that wasn't involved can kind of just say hey, how many of y'all are TMPA and you know? Make that, call for them and give all the names at one point and notify them. Hey, I'm calling your legal for you. That would be pretty beneficial.
Speaker 1:That's something I've actually started asking at three. You know if it's an incident, hey, is anybody else involved? You know from that original caller. And then when I hang up I'm like I know y'all can't talk, but just let them know that you've already contacted us.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So it just it just helps that process a little bit when we're trying to get attorneys out there and pass information on to the attorney.
Speaker 3:And information on to the attorney. And one more thing on that it's important and tony can back me up on this I was at tony's farm, uh, last weekend and while I was there, uh had a had a member. We'll take direct calls. Yeah, had a member call me. Yeah, man, I was involved in a shooting a couple days ago and tony heard me jump him out about it. Like the same thing too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a couple days ago. Well, I know, I know that you've got an appointment with the Olympic tryouts that you're going to go through for the shot put next couple years. You said your tryouts was at 1045, so I know you're kind of limited on time. Is there anything else you kind of want to cover on that? We're going to kind of probably expand on that conversation here.
Speaker 4:No, I think JW and Tony's hitting all the key things about critical incidents and I think we're in good hands with him talking about it.
Speaker 2:Hey, real quick, is there any update on Texas City? I've gotten some texts and some phone calls about Texas City and really how appreciative people were. The number one, Rachel, came on here and was completely open about it and transparent about what was going on there. But is there any update on Texas City?
Speaker 4:Not too much that I can talk about. About there's some things worked right now, but uh, yeah, she's doing a really good job down there and she's getting positive feedback.
Speaker 3:Good, good good, I would challenge you, the listeners of this channel, watch that episode. Uh, I know I texted you two over the weekend. I was watching it while I was trimming trees. Don't listen to that episode. While running a chainsaw I was laughing so hard I almost caught my foot off, so yeah, beth Berries.
Speaker 2:Yeah, beth Berries. Anyway, all right, layton. Well, hey, take care, stay safe.
Speaker 4:I appreciate you bringing me on and letting me be a guest speaker over the phone. This is awesome.
Speaker 1:Okay, bye. Yeah, you never know what Layton's going to say. She went pretty good with him. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3:It's going to be a team effort putting those subtitles in there, though.
Speaker 1:I mean, he even sounded halfway American. Yeah, he did, he did.
Speaker 2:I'm texting, yeah that was good.
Speaker 2:But I do want to kind of pick up on what Layton said. It's not that we're. You need to ensure that others have called too. Just don't assume that somebody's called because because then the member is going to be in a situation. It's like the guy called you and said, hey, but four or five days ago I was in a shooting and talked to a ranger and kind of probably need to get involved in the process. No, make sure that somebody, ensure that somebody's called and then get one point of contact and then have them call.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and there's a lot of different factors to think about on that. Uh, and in this particular member, his thought process was well, man, I've been involved in so many critical incidents I knew not to talk to the ranger, right? Well, that's, that's fine. You may have gone through several critical incidents, but there could be some factors outside that that you don't know about, right? A great example uh, when I was a field rep and I was covering one of the shootings that happened in clean, they they called in a different ranger than they normally called in on that because one of the shooters was the normal ranger's nephews, one of the officers. So now you may be used to okay, I know how they do things here but they may call in somebody that's totally new, that's now going to come in, and maybe they handle things differently. So it's really important to call that 800 number.
Speaker 3:And I want to give one more caveat, and I'm going to call this guy out. A guy I know, eddie Rodriguez, years back got involved in a critical incident. He told me I can talk about it. So I'm driving to Ty, texas If you don't know where that is, it's right outside of Abilene and I pull up. I'm a little bit early for my meeting. I'm scrolling through Facebook and the guy sent me a Facebook message that he had been involved in a shoot.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:And so, yeah, that's why we maintain that 800 number. Don't shoot us Facebook messages, Don't send us a tweet, you know, or whatever they're called. X is now whatever.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that's important, just like you took the direct call, we're talking about the other. You know early on and I tell people when we handed our business cards it has our cell phone number on there, so people have our numbers and you can. You can get on the TNPA website. I'm sure our phone numbers are probably on there too, but don't call us direct at 2 AM because I may not answer Right. So make sure if you're in a critical incident, call the 800 number because it is always answered and somebody is going to respond to that. But I also think something else when you talk about too, besides critical incidents, is you know you're going through this horrible incident, right, but what about the aftermath of that? I mean, because I think that's part of really where you know, maybe it's a good one, you know, maybe you don't have any issues with it.
Speaker 1:I've been to I wouldn't even fathom to guess 100 probably critical incident shootings and every officer is going to be different on how they respond to that. I've had guys that have been in multiple critical incidents, like the guy that called us at the farm a couple weeks ago, or a 30-year sergeant at a department who was so upset that he literally stopped a terrorist literally stopped a terrorist who had just murdered somebody that he was beside himself. So the mental aspect of that's very different with each officer. Also, and for those that aren't familiar with it, there's a great class at Lehman called PCIS Post-Critical Incident Seminar. There's one coming up in October. If you've just cumulative effect of our career or if you're in a critical incident, anybody that's been in one of those look at that class. It's really good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's also some resources. Joey Sepulveda and David Curlbix just taught a class down in I believe it was Brownsville, about their shooting and the unique aspect of this is that all the field reps, every single one of us and I'm not a field rep anymore, but I mean I'm still kind of associated with you?
Speaker 1:No, I think you're still a field rep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, so every one of us have been cops. And back to the aftermath of a shooting is the mental aspect of it right.
Speaker 2:The mental well-being of our members, we can offer resources, and so they did a presentation about. They were shot uh in the line of duty and thankfully they survived. Now they serve tech. They continue to serve uh. You know our members here in texas and they talked about the emotional and mental aspect of it of after not involved. They were involved in the shooting but also shot and then talked about the mental uh health recovery side of it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I mean it's. I think it's something that there's this perception in the public. You know we're going out and we're I was watching an episode of SWAT on Netflix a couple of weeks ago, you know and there's they shoot somebody in their back at work. You know it's like no big deal.
Speaker 3:Having a beer at the bar that afternoon? Yeah, that's just not in uniform.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's just. It's just not how it is. I mean, no officer goes to work that day wanting to be involved in a critical incident. No officer goes to work that day wanting to have to use deadly force on somebody. No, I mean, you don't want that, but you're prepared to do that if need be. And that's where we become involved with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, speaking of not returning to work for a while, some agencies or the reality is, with the lower recruitment and retention crisis that we have going on right now across America, is that that may not have been the policy before, but unfortunately we are seeing some agencies that, because of crisis and coverage, they had to return to work, and one of those that I can think of right now is Loving County right, one of the richest counties in America, with a population of 75 in the county that reside there. Now I'm not sure what the you know average day population is, because there's so many old service companies in there uh, but anyway, like they couldn't, you couldn't take off work the next day.
Speaker 2:I think they work. They work three weeks on, one week off.
Speaker 3:Wow well, and sometimes it's it's a, it's an administrator that doesn't quite grasp the complexity of the situation. Uh, christmas day, uh, and probably seven or eight years ago, another personal call. You know he had my cell phone number. He calls me. He says hey, man, I just got involved in a shooting and I followed up with him afterwards. Uh, and sadly, that department handled that shooting so badly that that he's no longer in law enforcement. He's on scene and he's starting to it's now hitting him right. Oh my God, I just had to shoot somebody. And the sheriff pulls up and he's like hey, what's wrong? He's like, oh man, I'm not feeling real well. And he's like well, suck it up, man.
Speaker 1:I think that was the attitude, you know, back when we started, you know, 30 years ago. Was, you know, suck it up, you're fine. Well, look at this increase in police suicides. Right, I've had. You know, I tell this every time I teach a class or in front of somebody. You know, I've had four really good friends and I just don't mean like you know, I know you from a class, but like, come out to my house and eat, you know cook steaks that top friends kill themselves since, since 2000,. Since 2005,.
Speaker 2:That's too many, yeah, it's too many yeah.
Speaker 2:And it takes. It takes organizations like the NPA cop line, which cop lines, a great organization that we are very, very, very supportive of. One of our, one of our directors here, john Sariga, is on the board of directors, and so, again, let's. It's a great point. So if you are having these thoughts, it's okay to be okay, and reach out to a field rep, reach out to one number. A lot of the field reps we have on staff are also crisis certified as counselors through cop line. So, man, there's just so many different resources that we can offer outside of legal right well, and that's what jw was JW was saying.
Speaker 1:You know, I think administrators are getting better about understanding the mental aspect of it because there has been a huge push in, you know, law enforcement, mental health in the last several years, but that's still a relatively new concept and a lot of agencies aren't where we should be with that. And you know, hopefully it's getting better, but there's still some old school people out there who suck it up and go on. But you do need to take care of your mental health.
Speaker 2:Well, if anybody listening or watching or viewing this episode wants some information about what we can do to educate you, your department, your agency, reach out to us at 1-800-848-2088. And we can get in contact with our training coordinator, jay McClellan, and see what we can do for post-critical instance, if you can't make it to the Lehman class, maybe TNPA can coordinate with your agency and we can put those on. So, but you know, the main thing is let's limit it down to one point of contact. If that doesn't happen, we understand that it happens. It's chaotic.
Speaker 3:Chaotic scene. We get it. Yeah, it's chaos.
Speaker 2:But for the most part, just keep in mind the body cams I cannot stress that enough the other cameras that are going on. Look, we're cops, right. So the first thing that we're going to do when we run up on scene is, hey, what happened? Yep.
Speaker 1:And it's not because we're being malicious about it, it's just 11th, a couple of years ago, just north of my house, literally about 10 minutes from my house. So one officer called in. When I get there, the second officer was actually on the phone calling TMPA and I walked up and I'm like we're here, brother. You know you can, he can relax, we're here. Fastest response. It was pretty quick and uh, but he still had his body cam on so he was so upset. Obviously he just, you know, was involved in a shooting and I'm like are you still recording? And he's like you know, yeah. And I'm like, well, we, you know, let's this incident's over. You know you're already, you know you're by your car, it's not a hot incident anymore. You know, let's find cam policy. They do.
Speaker 1:And I and I I heard, if it's still true, colleen isn't that the one where, if you're in critical incident, colleen, the sergeant walks up and just takes your body cam?
Speaker 3:off. Yeah, so a lot, a lot of departments are taking those policies. Uh, your good departments. What they're doing is they're developing a policy to where the first uh supervisor that gets on scene after critical incident, uh, the supervisor identifies who was involved in a situation and they seclude that officer, give them their, their buddy officer.
Speaker 3:Uh, but the buddy officers are trained, you know they, they they give good training of hey, you know, if you're assigned as a buddy officer, you don't ask him questions about the event, you just make sure that they're okay. You know, physically and emotionally, right, that's, that's what you're there for, uh, and and what happens is that supervisor will come up and he'll he'll take possession of that body cam because it's evidence and he'll take that body cam and he'll collect that body cam as evidence. Seclude you off with, with your, with your partner officer, and that's a really good policy to have and you probably, if your department doesn't have a similar policy, probably need to look at getting one implemented well, and it goes back to you know, let's just say hypothetically that we were involved in a shooting right now.
Speaker 2:Right, let's just say Tony was the shooter and you and I were the first ones on scene and I was a supervisor and I walked up to him and all you're going to see, because most of these guys wear them on their chest Right, I segue real quick. I did wear one on my belt and so every time that I cause I was a motor cop and so he would catch people right there, but when they would stand up, that my sergeant nickname with the crotch cam right.
Speaker 2:So, typically everybody wears them on their chest. Only in East Texas, only in East Texas. So but back to you, back to my point. Is that if you just walk up and you see, oh my God, that that right.
Speaker 3:Right Is that they're trying to hide something?
Speaker 2:So the supervisors out there that are listening, it's real simple Clear it with your administration If you don't have a good policy in place. Just say the time is X the dates, name the date and just say there's no evidentiary value to record anything at this point forward. I'm now going to secure Officer Reich and placement my car and then turn it off. That way there's no question to any. Maybe a grand jury, maybe the DA's office that don't have a good relationship with the police department, and so there's no question.
Speaker 3:Or you know a better statement that I would probably recommend that they make is that, as a supervisor, I'm collecting this body camera because it contains evidence of what occurred Right, right, and then collecting this body camera because it contains evidence of what occurred Right, right, and now you're preserving that evidence, so that way the truth will come out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, it's a good thing to kind of segue Speaking of. We've had some legislative changes pertaining to body cams. We just discussed that earlier. Is there any legislative things on the horizon pertaining to body cams or pertaining to anything that we discussed today?
Speaker 3:You know, I haven't heard anything on body cams or pertaining to anything that we discussed today. You know I haven't heard anything on body cams. I can tell you that every legislative session there, you know there's groups out there that you know believe that you know there's not enough accountability for law enforcement. So they're always filing bills, and a lot of those. When you look at the bills, you understand where they're coming from, but they're viewing it from one lens and one lens only and they don't understand, you know the the implications that come out of the legislation. So, but to answer your question, we haven't been made aware of anything, but we're always prepared for it. We know it's, we know it's going to hit.
Speaker 2:I got asked the other day why our legislative team doesn't. You know, it was a member that texted me and she said, hey, can I get kind of a game plan of what we're going to fight against at the Capitol this year? And I was like, well, no, and I think it's a good time to go ahead and let's just air this out now. The reason why we can't is because, number one it's so fluid, it changes so drastically. Number one it's so fluid, it changes so drastically. And I think that the average 21, 22-year-old member at TMPA can't really wrap their head around. Not that they're not smart enough, but the complexities of the capital are so complex that it's not even worth putting it on paper because the next day it could change. And I don't mean, like we have our set agenda of like certain bills that we're trying to back, but by us disseminating that to our membership we don't want that to get into the wrong hands.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there's a couple more cars, a couple different aspects on that, right, so, uh, you know, I got to saying, uh, while other people are playing checkers, you have to play chess, and and so, if, if you've already identified some some bad language, right, and I'll give you a great example. Uh, one of our past presidents came to me not too long ago about some bad legislation that he's anticipating coming, and so we're already working on a game plan. So now, if we let those people know that their bill is on our radar, then they're going to take steps to try to circumvent and overcome what we're trying to do, right, they're going to take steps to try to circumvent and overcome what we're trying to do, right. And then, on another aspect of it, you know there were so many bills filed last session. I mean, thousands and thousands of bills were filed, right, and you know, when you look at the joint resolutions and everything else, and we're talking like 12,000 bills that were filed, and so what we do is, you know, we go through and we look at all, we read the caption on all of them and if it looks like it's anything that could affect the laws that we enforce or the rights that we have or anything that affects law enforcement. We mark that bill Because if that bill gets a hearing now, what we're going to do is we're going to go in and we're going to completely thoroughly vet that bill.
Speaker 3:Read that bill. How's it going to impact, you know, department policy? How's're going to completely thoroughly vet that bill. Read that bill. How's it going to impact department policy.
Speaker 2:How's it going to impact the individual officer working on the street, and that's where our members and field reps come in. Tony's been down to the Capitol, I've been down to the Capitol, we've reached out to different members. So if you guys want to be involved in a process, I'll tell you what. I don't even know if you have a list like a call list, but, man, I think it would be cool is that if you have an interest, a vested interest, and you want to become involved with what's going on at the Capitol and you want to be almost like a witness list for our ledge team, I think that would be great to go ahead and start compiling that now. So if you have an interest in doing that, reach out to us, reach out to bluegrid at tmpaorg and we'll forward that over to our ledge team to say hey, I work in Montgomery County and if you guys need something that I can testify on for whatever bill man, don't hesitate to call. It'll give you guys unlimited resources from you know guys in Montgomery County.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we did that, not last year but the year before during our annual conference, you know, on the workers' comp bill and on various others. So I collected a list then and we do need to update it because of turnover in law enforcement stuff like that. But yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 3:But then also for the association leadership out there, for our local leadership, one of the programs that we're looking at bringing back into the legislation was we used to have what we called ledge days bringing back into the legislation was we used to have what we called ledge days and we'd we'd have, you know, 18 or 20, you know of our members that come in and you know we'll put them in and we'll we'll bus them around and, you know, get them down to the Capitol, that kind of stuff. What we found out is is is it's so hectic and so busy down there during session. We have to be more strategic on how we do that. Uh, so the approach that we're looking at right now is is let's get our local association leadership and and let's strategize. Uh, you know, have have the commitments in place, uh of you know, the only thing they have to do is get here and if it's going to be an overnight, they'll have to cover their overnight trip. But we're going to make sure they're well fed. Uh, maybe that afternoon take them out and reward them for their uh dedication.
Speaker 3:Yes, uh, but what we're looking at potentially is is, if we have a listen and this is a great, a great example let's say, we have a bill that we're trying to push through and it's not, it's not being called up for a hearing in that committee. Well, we may have a strong local association. That's in that committee chairs area and it'd be nice to say. Now it's time to rally the troops, get your folks down here, because when I walk into his office, we have a great relationship with so many folks down there, but they still view us as law enforcement's lobby and we all are outside.
Speaker 3:You don't live inside his district, right, but yet, if I can walk in there with their local association president and four or five of their members, and all of them are saying, hey, this is serious, you need to take aim at this. That moves mountains. So we're looking at a more strategic approach.
Speaker 1:Well, I also think it's important because these, you know, let's face it, you know state reps, anybody in Austin, they're not police officers.
Speaker 2:No, except for a couple. They're not police officers, no so, except for a couple, except for a couple, except for a couple.
Speaker 1:But it's important that they have that local association or those local law enforcement groups. Come tell me yeah, this is an issue for us. Yeah, so it just.
Speaker 3:You know, and I think every state rep wants to hear from their local constituents 100%, and I'll prove the point that they do, if you, if you look at what happened this last election cycle, a lot of our friends lost their seat because they voted how their people wanted them to vote. The people in their district said we don't want you to support this or we want you to support that, and they carried out the will of their people and that made them political targets of some other folks and and so a lot of them lost their seat because they were voting for their constituents' wishes.
Speaker 1:And I also think it's important bringing up kind of bouncing around a little bit. But when you have those local associations, it's important that each local and if you don't have a local association, get with us and we'll help you start one. But all this political capital starts with that local association at that local level and then that local political capital that you build up can actually bleed over into political capital in Austin and I'll segue or kind of, I guess, jump on the heels or backs of kind of what you're talking about is that we're all cops right.
Speaker 2:So we all get the third cousin that calls us and says, hey, tyler, my boyfriend's been arrested for some class E charges. Or hey, tyler, I've got the situation with my neighbor. And they all call for I'm going to call it legal advice, but they want our law enforcement perspective and everybody listened to this podcast. It's ever worn a badge. You cringe every time those phone calls happen because you don't hear from sons of bitches on your birthday, you don't hear them from them on Christmas, but by God, if little Jimmy gets picked up for a class C warrant, you're the first one they pick up the phone to.
Speaker 3:Hey let me run something past you, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So keep that in mind. When you, the local association, need something from your city council, is that the only time you need something you attend the city council. It doesn't start right, then you need to be there every single time to let them know that you support them and you support what they stand for, because when you do need to rally the troops, you've already got that vested interest, and the same goes back to the Capitol here. Keep those relationships open and keep them alive.
Speaker 1:I 1000% agree and that's why I tell all my locals is, like you know and here's the other part to that too I can tell them what to do and I can give them advice, but ultimately it's not going to be me sitting at that city council meeting. It needs to be somebody from that association out there. You know there and just you know, just listening, Because you do learn a lot just by listening, and this is also a good point.
Speaker 2:I want to bring up Other statewide associations. I guess you have to get permission to endorse. Speak to state reps to make sure that it aligns with their views. We don't. No, you guys, I'll put it to you like this I'm not going to call Progressive and allow Progressive to tell me what I can wash my windows with. Progressive Insurance isn't going to call and say, hey, you're only allowed to drive a Chevrolet or a Ford and park it by your house, right, because you guys are the customers. That's case in point, right? We're not going to call local and say you can't do this for this following reasons.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I want to really drive in the importance with an example. I'm going to drive my crown Vic to drive this in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so yeah, I really want to drive in what Tony was just talking about and give a great example. You know we encourage our locals be at every city council meeting, every council meeting, the mayor and the council members. They should be able to look out in that crowd and they should see a local association member sitting there in their local association shirt. And here's a great reason why.
Speaker 3:Before I came to government affairs, uh, being a field rep, one of the things that we do is we help negotiate police contracts and one of my locals they were in the middle of negotiations and they don't go to any of their council meetings. And, uh, what I found out was was that the city was saying you know what? We really don't have the money to give pay raises. Two council meetings before that. The city says, hey, guys, we have so much money that we're actually going to lower the property tax rate. And they didn't have anybody inside that meeting to come back and report to me the guy that's your lead negotiator hey, this is what was said or their local officers to be able to have those conversations with their council members.
Speaker 2:Again, it makes sense for everybody to be there. Anyway, well, is there anything else we didn't cover that you guys wanted to cover?
Speaker 1:I got nothing.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't think last time we were on that we covered your favorite drink of choice, cop movie or cop car. Oh yeah, we did, we did, yeah, but I've already forgotten what it was. Okay, so I know J-Dub's gone several times, so we're gonna leave, we're gonna, we're gonna exit out with, uh, the following so what's your favorite cop movie or line from a cop movie, your favorite cop car and your favorite drink of choice when tony's relaxing?
Speaker 1:well, so I did. When I started in law enforcement they were driving those dodge aries k cars.
Speaker 2:If you remember those, that's probably I don't remember, I don't either of them in black and white, but I mean, you cannot beat a Ford Crown Victoria. It's a workhorse.
Speaker 3:You can't, you just can't beat them.
Speaker 1:So, crown Vic, obviously, and I would say the official drink of the TMPA Fielder Up would be the Old Fashioned Yep. And if you're ever in mineral wells, texas, there's a little corner called coffee and cocktails that goes to give them a shout out. They have a baker, old-fashioned. It is worth the drive to mineral wells just just to get that old fashion. And, uh, my favorite line from a cop movie. I mean, I mean you got to go dirty, harry, right? No, I mean that's probably the most iconic one out there.
Speaker 2:There's no argument there. Yeah, there's no. I like the Peacock one from the other guys. That's a good one too. That's not shocking.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's not shocking at all Well.
Speaker 2:Hey, I can't thank you all enough for you making the trip down. This is just around the corner from me and J-Dub. I always have a good time with you off the clock and on the clock, and man, I can't tell you how much I appreciate what you do for the members.
Speaker 1:Well, and I do want to give you a shout-out also, because this podcast is, you know, you started it a while back and it continues to grow.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:I mean, I have people tell me all the time, man, I listen to your podcast. Those guys do a great job and I give all the credit to you guys because you all do a fantastic job with us. We appreciate it, man.
Speaker 3:I never listened to podcasts until you started this one.
Speaker 2:Well, we started it. It's our podcast and, man, I think it's a great platform for us to get on here and do exactly what we did today, right?
Speaker 3:Have a conversation.
Speaker 2:It's educational, yeah 100%, and if you guys are interested in being a guest on Blue Grit Podcast, reach out to us at bluegrittmpaorg. We'd love to have you on Again. This is I told somebody this yesterday this is y'all's association, right, we work for you guys, and, man, it's a great organization to be a part of, but it's also a damn place, a damn good place to work, and so it's an honor to be here. It's an honor to do what we get to do every single day. You kind of got a glimpse of the different facets and different hats that we all wear Tony being a field rep, jw being a legislative affairs and then my communications aspect of the job. So, anyway, it's a good day, but we still do it all, though. We do it all. Yeah, we all kind of. Again, we all have different hats in our trucks, and whatever day calls for that hat to be put on, then we put them on. Yep, I had to be put on and and, uh, we put them on so anyway, you guys take care, stay safe.
Speaker 2:God bless you and, as always, may God bless Texas. Thank you, the. The name Isalman means the land of the people Religion.
Speaker 4:Thank you, I'm out.
