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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
#112- "Molotovs and Misinformation"
In this explosive episode, we sit down with Matthew Silverman, President of FLEOA, to discuss the mounting dangers facing federal law enforcement, especially those serving with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Silverman illuminates the political demonization his members face while simply enforcing the laws they swore to uphold. We discuss how rhetoric and misinformation have turned ICE officers into targets, both in the media and on the streets.
From Molotov cocktails thrown at federal buildings to riots masquerading as protests, Silverman unpacks the real-world consequences of allowing political narratives to overshadow public safety and the rule of law.
This is a no-spin, no-fluff conversation about what it means to serve on the federal frontlines in an era of chaos, confusion, and cowardice from elected leaders.
email us at- bluegrit@tmpa.org
Their narratives are not the same. So you know it's the same thing that we're hearing, that you know, ice agents were locked down in a Home Depot and that's why the National Guard was going in there. I'll say this with the most honesty that I possibly can our ICE agents, every federal agency, has been brought into this immigration and customs realm.
Speaker 2:Welcome back. Viewers, watchers, listeners. I'm your host, tyler Owen Got our executive director, kevin lawrence, in the house today. What's going on?
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, man, you got me off balance yeah, we kind of jumped in here quick yeah yeah, uh.
Speaker 2:So for those that, those that don't know, we had some mishaps early on the podcast and, uh, in order to sync this and make it look all polished and nice and professional, I've got to do a very professional, solid clap and I look like I'm cheering, uh, on this side of the table.
Speaker 3:I thought you were doing like I dream of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, uh it's so it catches everybody off guard all the time. But, man, we have got some situations going on, uh, across the nation with law enforcement, with these, uh, I'm not going to say pro. Well, some are protests, I'll give them that, but majority of them end up in riots.
Speaker 3:They're not intended to be protest.
Speaker 2:That's right intended to be right, that's right and they've been planned out for quite some time yep but, anyway, it's, uh, it's a, it's an immigration, anti-ice, uh, protest riots, that riots that are kind of going on, and so we thought we would have the president of FLIOA join us. Matt, are you with us?
Speaker 1:I am with you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure man.
Speaker 3:Let's make sure everybody knows what FLIOA is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Matt, you want to explain that.
Speaker 1:Of course so. Flioa is the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. We are the largest nonprofit, nonpartisan professional organization, representing 35,000 federal agents from across 65 different federal agencies, both inside and outside of the country.
Speaker 3:So almost the same size as TMPA. We're now just over 34,000 active members, not counting the retirees, so about the same size as TMPA, but you're spread across the entire country.
Speaker 1:That's correct and you know. Same thing with TMPA. I don't want to say we compete with other associations or organizations, but many of our individual agencies also have internal associations. So, for instance, the FBI has the FBI Agents Association. So some people will be a member of both, some people will be a member of one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, y'all are kind of the I don't want to say big brother, but just like TNPA, you know, tnpa has what we consider we call locals, for example, our Plano Police Association, irving Police Association, you know, and so forth, and so it's very, very, very similar to kind of what you do.
Speaker 3:Correct. So one of the things that's bothering me personally, matt, is the disinformation that is out there about the genesis of these riots. About the genesis of these riots so you know, the story is that a lot of Americans are actually swallowing is that there was a high school graduation in LA. Ice showed up, raided the graduation and arrested I don't know a number of parents and that caused havoc, and that all these riots now are in response to that action. Right there, is there another version of that story that we should be listening to?
Speaker 1:So this stems way back many, many, many years now. When you have different narratives that are being pushed by different media sources whether it be a social media source, or whether it be a CNN or Fox News or whoever it is that you want to listen to, people take everything, 100 percent of what they're saying, but you can't have both being truthful. When one is completely to the left, one is completely to the right. Their narratives are not the same. So it's the same thing that we're hearing that ICE agents were locked down in a Home Depot and that's why the National Guard was going in there, because they couldn't escape. It's just not true, and I'll say this with the most honesty that I possibly can. Our ICE agents, our federal agencies because it's not just ICE right now, it's every federal agency has been brought into this immigration and customs realm, whether it be you have Homeland Security Investigations, which is not ERO, but they are still doing the same thing. You have the marshals, you have ATF, you have all sorts of different agencies that are in there. You have ATF, you have all sorts of different agencies that are in there, and we are doing what this administration is mandating to be done, but part of that mandate is what President Trump won his reelection off of.
Speaker 1:So, just like Tyler knows, last year in April I responded out to the border because we were getting the mixed narrative from two different news media stations. One was saying that federal entities were not allowed to work with state and locals and we weren't allowed to deploy our federal boats in Shelby Park into the Rio Grande. And all of this and I said you know, enough is enough, let me get out there and actually see what is going on. And the narrative that they were putting out on multiple media sources were just complete lies and not true. And that is just a complete lie and not true.
Speaker 1:And I'm not saying that they're not arresting mothers and fathers, by no means am I saying that. But it's the targeting efforts that they are blowing up out there out of proportion that are just not true. They're trying to stir people up. They're trying to make a big scene. They're trying to stir people up. They're trying to make a big scene. They're trying to get people to riot. And they're doing the same thing right now. That was thrown on the other side after President Trump lost his reelection and they said January 6th was all based off of Trump. He's the one who incited this. The other side is doing the same thing when it comes to immigration enforcement.
Speaker 3:By the way, for any of our viewers who want to go back and look at some of our podcasts from last year, we went down to the border with Matt, with law enforcement today, and we've got filming of what we found when we were down there. And he's right the narrative doesn't match the reality once you get down here and find it. Law enforcement has been working together, doing everything they can to do their jobs. It's the politicians and the media that keep screwing this thing up, but yeah, I agree, they.
Speaker 2:It's like they. They have a little bit of the of the context of what happened and then they sprinkle some you know, bullshit on it and then we get what we get. And because, back to what you asked about the high school I had reached out to, is it o'hare, the ice president, matt, that's correct? Uh, well, I reached out to him today and to his knowledge that's not factual. There was an illegal immigrant that was a target because of a prior arrest or some type of other offenses outside of the United.
Speaker 3:States. He came here illegally.
Speaker 2:Correct, right. And so he was arrested the night before his daughter's graduation and he wasn't able to make it Bad decisions, Right, he was arrested the night before his daughter's graduation and he wasn't able to make it Bad decisions. You know, it's that's right.
Speaker 3:It was a night before, correct. It was not at the graduation itself, right and and so, but. But that doesn't play nearly as well, correct, and it doesn't raise money nearly as well. That's right as the picture, the image of a bunch of, you know, armed police officers raiding a high school graduation and chasing parents out into the parking lot. And you know, it's just disturbing the way these things get twisted.
Speaker 1:Well, Matt what.
Speaker 2:I'll say Go ahead.
Speaker 1:I was going to say it's the same thing, it's a marketing. It's a marketing initiative that people are putting out there. All right, it's a marketing initiative that people are putting out there. Right, if you go into a store and they have some hot item and they're like, oh, there's only one left, you're going to have 100 people that want that one item. But every time somebody takes that one item, they put another one out there.
Speaker 1:Right, this is the same thing. It's clickbait. It's people that want the clicks. It's people that want that social media. It's the unarmed, whatever type of person that was shot by a law enforcement officer for no reason whatsoever. Let's take out the fact that that person had a knife and was charging that police officer. Let's take out the fact that that person was wanted for murdering others and had a gun in his pocket and was reaching for it when he was shot. No, that's not getting the views. What's getting the views is that unarmed man that was shot and killed by law enforcement, and that's what's going on right now with this immigration and customs enforcement stuff.
Speaker 3:The bottom line is this and they've been waiting. They've been waiting for this opportunity. It's just it's been brewing. It dates back to Campaign Zero and all that organization that they've got put together. There's no way somebody organized over 1,000 different riots in this short period of time. They've been ready and waiting, just waiting for the focusing event. And then they created the focusing event and now they're off and running and law enforcement is stuck in the middle.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, very well funded. This Saturday when this podcast is released. It'll be this past Saturday, but this Saturday coming up it's going to be no Kings is what the website? You can go, look at it yourself and it's basically a day of defiance. The irony is that it's Trump's birthday and there's also going to be a military parade, but the funding, just like you said, is millions of dollars and I saw yesterday where there's posts of different bricks and different other you know objects being strategically placed.
Speaker 2:Pallets of bricks, pallets of bricks being placed at different locations of where these you know events are happening. But you know, my thing is this is that the reality of what these ICE investigations and why the whole you know protest purpose is going on, is that it's misinformation. Protest purposes going on is that it's misinformation. And I'm going to say this After talking with Jeremy, after talking with you and other multiple law enforcement sources. Back to what you and I talked about last week with the LPRs license plate readers here in Austin ICE is not just going door-to-door, knocking and checking people's papers. Okay, for the non-law enforcement listener or watcher of this podcast, let me say that again, ice is not going door-to-door and checking every single Hispanic surname to see if they're a US citizen.
Speaker 3:But you know what If you listen to the misinformation?
Speaker 2:out there. It doesn't matter if you've got papers.
Speaker 3:They're claiming that United States citizens, natural-born citizens, are being deported, even if they've got papers, which is just a flat lie, a flat lie, yep.
Speaker 2:What is going on is that ICE has been given and the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies have been given a target list of people that they know for a fact that are dangerous criminals that entered our country illegally and have no business should be here for the safety of the public.
Speaker 3:Who've already been adjudicated and had deportation orders issued by a court of law.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if they're not good enough to live in Mexico and be in prison in Mexico. They should not be able to walk free in America. I'm not sure how else I can say that.
Speaker 3:Mexico or Guatemala or Puerto Rico, or sorry, Puerto Rico is US.
Speaker 2:But, matt, is that pretty much what you're also hearing on your end? I know you're across the country, but that's what the news media outlets are pushing out.
Speaker 1:It is, and I'll throw this in there as well. So I'm not going to say that there aren't people that are here in this country illegally, that haven't committed any violent crimes, that are getting deported right now. All right, because there are.
Speaker 1:But why are they? Because they were with somebody who was wanted by a federal entity on violent charges and they were with that person and they were picked up with that person. They were picked up because of the violent felon and they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can't even imagine right now and I've done a lot of speaking engagements around this country and here I am, a white male standing in front of a crowd of African-Americans talking about a shooting that just took place when a African-American male was shot by law enforcement, me trying to give the actual perspective of what really happened. And that can be very that can be a tough conversation to have. Yes, and I do it as professionally and as accurately as I possibly can, and nine out of 10 times it starts off in a little bit of a hostile area and then at the end they're like wow, didn't realize that, didn't know that. Thank you for letting us know.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to say this and the reason I'm going into that there's definitely some. I've never been a black man. I can't tell you what it's like to be a black man walking through the streets or anything like that, and I can't tell you what it's like being a Hispanic male or Hispanic female or anything like that, walking through the streets. So do I feel that they meaning whether they're legally here or illegally here that they feel some kind of threat towards them? Yes, 100%, I would think that they do towards them? Yes, 100%, I would think that they do. But the reason they feel that is because of the lies and rhetoric that is put out on social media and the news media that we're just driving up, throwing people into a van and the next thing you know they're in another foreign country. That's just not happening, yeah.
Speaker 3:My wife is a natural born United States citizen, but she is of Mexican descent, she is Latina and I got to tell you, I watch her getting bullied and threatened on her social media by friends and acquaintances of hers who are calling her all kinds of names because she actually supports deporting illegal aliens and enforcing our borders, you know, and there's a lot of bullying and intimidation that goes on here, which leads me to this question, matt, I hear that in LA, when the federal agents started getting ambushed, attacked, whatever, that Los Angeles PD, los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, were ordered to stand down and not assist. Is there any truth to that rumor?
Speaker 1:No, so that's the story that I'm getting as well, whether it's the truth or whether it's not, because I've seen media posts of both. I've seen it. We are going to stand down. I've seen posts from LAPD chiefs saying we're there for them, we're going to fight with them, we're going to help them. I don't know, because I'm just getting so many mixed reports.
Speaker 1:I think that if that is the case, that comes down to the simple fact that the mayor or the county executive or whoever runs that police department, is giving an order and that police chief is scared to lose their job. So, instead of doing what's right, they're going to follow their mayor so they can keep their job. And that's one of the problems with being a police chief in this country right now is that if you can be terminated for not listening, even if it's not a lawful order, you're going to get terminated from that position. And then who's going to be brought in behind you? It's going to be a yes man that's going to do whatever the mayor wants and not have the back and support of our law enforcement officers, which is going to continue down the path of poor recruitment or retention of our officers.
Speaker 3:And a lot of these rioters. They couldn't tell you the difference between an ICE agent and a Border Patrol agent and a sheriff's deputy or a police officer. So a lot of them, when they start targeting law enforcement, they're going to target the uniform, but they don't care which uniform it is.
Speaker 2:And that's my concern.
Speaker 3:We're all in this together, yes, and I ask that question because we've had commissioners, courts, city councils, mayors in Texas who have ordered their law enforcement agencies not to cooperate with federal agencies in whatever the matters were. So we're seeing that political influence also here in Texas which you wouldn't think that would happen in Texas, but we've got a few pockets, but you wouldn't think that would happen in Texas, but we've got a few pockets.
Speaker 1:What I will say about that right now, coming out of Attorney General Pam Bondi's mouth if you do not work with our federal entities, you will lose your federal funding. I was at a White House roundtable with her when she said it to other people that were either major county sheriffs or major county chiefs that wanted funding for their people, and I don't disagree with that. If you are not going to support and work with, then how are we going to continue to give you money to do what? To fight against us? We need to all work together.
Speaker 1:We have, right now, declining crime rates across the country. Crime rates across the country and I take that based off of the fact of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement that we are doing, the tougher on crime states, attorneys that we have in place right now to get that done, and from President Trump all the way down Attorney General Bondi, tom Holman, noam Lyons, everybody else that is out there right now doing that job that we're mandated to do. And what that mandate came from was from over five million I think it was five million votes. A win on President Trump's side, and he has a mandate he's going to follow through.
Speaker 3:What's also, not only did he win the election by a substantial margin a landslide in the electoral college but also all of the let's say credible polls that are out there show that the overwhelming majority of Americans actually do believe we should enforce our borders, that we should secure our borders. And I got to tell you, if a group of Americans were to go to a foreign country whether it's Mexico, canada, guatemala, san Salvador and start doing what these people are doing over there, waving the American flag and screaming how dare you mistreat us, how dare you try to kick us out of here? I just I can't imagine what would happen. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, let's can we touch base on one other thing that I think is important as well, because I wrote an article not too long ago actually a couple days ago, I think it posted and it was about the minority leader Jeffers, I believe, is his name who posted something about the doxing and law enforcement officers wearing masks. And we will find you, you will be identified, and all of this and the issue that we're having right now is wearing these masks is part of a profession of a lot of our agents are undercover or a lot of our agents will be undercover down the line. So by blasting their pictures on social media is going to overall hurt Americans, because then we're not going to have the people that do the jobs that are major criminal cases. On top of that, the doxing that's going on right now is putting not just our agents' lives in jeopardy but their family members' lives in jeopardy. So these politicians who are saying we will track you down, we will find you, we will post you, like right there is.
Speaker 1:I mean, I cannot believe the rhetoric that is coming from our politicians right now and listen, if this was being done and we have seen it, you saw videos of Hillary Clinton talking about. We will remove any illegal immigrants from this country, all this stuff. And you know what? Nobody had a problem. They cheered, they clapped, but once you get onto the other side of the aisle, so stop with this Republican and Democrat. Do what is best for this country and best for this nation, because that is what we elected you for. That is what your job is for. Continue to do your job. Make us as safe as possible, make us as profitable as possible. Make us as profitable as possible and let us live our lives.
Speaker 3:I've made this argument repeatedly. Every president that I know of, back to Jimmy Carter, has run on a platform of we have to secure our borders, we have to enforce our immigration laws, we have to deport illegal aliens. Of both parties Reagan Carter, bush, obama, clinton they've all said we need to do it, but they've all given lip service until Donald Trump. Donald Trump is the first one to go yeah, not only should we do it, we are going to do it, and I think that's part of what's caused this major backlash is, people are used to being given a bunch of lip service. They're not used to actually having people enforce the rules. Yeah, Backlash.
Speaker 1:This is a Donald Trump issue. That's what this is.
Speaker 3:No doubt about it. Yeah, which, by the way, I also find it interesting. Isn't that logo that the whole no King group has going Latin King? Doesn't it remind you of the Latin King?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does, the old criminal street, matt. Have you seen that website yet?
Speaker 1:I have not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll send it to you whenever we get offline. What's interesting about that is back to politicians and lip service and covering your face is that a lot of these masks are being dropped off. That would, I guess, help with the rubber bullets that are being shot out some of the tear gases being used. There's masks speaking of masks being dropped off at some of these protest locations and it's funded along with the bricks yeah, yeah and some of it is being funded by some politicians who are in dc right now.
Speaker 2:Barney sanders is one of them, and so it's just very interesting. But anyway, matt, there's also a, a new state law well, it's not state law yet, it's pending the governor's signature but it also forces county sheriffs in Texas to cooperate with ICE detainers. That's been a longstanding issue across Texas. I think some of the sheriffs that have a problem with it. It's either political in nature, but it's also a funding. What's your standpoint on sheriffs that should cooperate with those?
Speaker 1:So you know, I've had this issue in my professional work career as well, which, when I'm dealing with FLEO, obviously I never discuss my personal work. But I will say this we need, on the federal side of things, you have a lot of state and locals that don't want to house inmates. Right, they don't want to house inmates. Why? Because the immigration aspect of it. But the average person, the average federal agency, right? So if FBI, dea, anybody makes an arrest, that arrest eventually is going to come over to the US Marshal Service. The Marshal Service is the one who housed all of our prisoners and they require and they need to have the state and locals to utilize their facilities to do this, and they don't want to do it based off a perception of ICE. And you try to explain over and over again that ICE has their own facilities, ice has their detention facilities that they're utilizing. These are not ICE detainees. Now, maybe they have an ICE detainer on them, but they are charged with another federal crime. Whether it is robbery, rape, murder, I don't know. Whatever it is. Mostly gun charges and drug charges on the federal side is going to be the two big things that you're seeing out of this realm, right? So I mean, and then you have your frauds and everything.
Speaker 1:On the other side, the problem that we're going to start running into and I've talked with politicians about this is you want to see crime rates down? Right, because that's what's going to be. The number one thing. To get reelected is going to be having crime rates down. Your crime rates are out of the world. If they're up 50% from when you took office, I highly doubt you're going to get reelected.
Speaker 1:And by not housing our inmates, the federal inmates, in those facilities, what it's going to create is a lack of us being able to continue the operations that we do.
Speaker 1:We do these operations across the entire country and it's all the different agencies that are going out there getting the most violent felons and fugitives off of the streets. And if we don't have places to put them, well, guess what? We can't arrest them. And if we can't arrest them, they're going to be out there on the streets committing those crimes and those crime rates are going to continue to go up. People are going to get killed and murdered and that's going to be on the backs of those sheriffs who are saying I'm not housing these people when we can't arrest somebody and they go out and murder somebody, that's your problem. Now it's the same thing. When these liberal judges release somebody for the fourth or fifth or sixth time on a DUI or for assaulting their girlfriends or their boyfriends and they go out and they murder them, or they go out and they get drunk again and they kill a family of six, that's on the backs of those judges and they should be held liable for that.
Speaker 3:So you're saying if you catch somebody I don't know, catch them doing human trafficking, human smuggling, you can't just write them a ticket and count on them to show up for court?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they'll tell you they won't do it again, right? Oh, this is my first time, I promise.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they were just on their way to Bible study.
Speaker 1:This is my first time. I won't reenter your country on the fifth time that you did it. No, this is the first time that I contacted a 12-year-old boy and this is the first time I've ever done it. I'll never do it again. Oh, okay, yeah, I'm sure you'll never do it again.
Speaker 3:But that's another part of the problem we have is that the vast majority of Americans don't even want to believe that those types of things are actually happening or that they're happening anywhere near them. They'd rather just bury their heads in the sand. So when we start trying to explain to them, look, this has to do with not just drugs. It has to do with all types of violent crime, human exploitation. They just don't want to live. We lose their attention at that point, and the American public needs to wake up.
Speaker 1:They do, they do. It's kind of like the whole thing. That won't. That will ever happen to me. This will never happen until it happens to you, right, until you get pulled into a car and and raped or murdered. It will never happen to me and it's happening every single day. The amount of missing kids that we have right now, the amount of human and sex trafficking that is going on Now, imagine being a mother or a father where your 13-year-old daughter was just taken and maybe she wasn't kidnapped, maybe she got online and she was talking to some guy and this guy was giving her a little bit more of attention than her parents gave her or her teachers or her friends, and she oh, let me go over there. Next thing, you know, a 13-year-old girl is out turning bricks all day long, hundreds and hundreds of men a month. This is what's happening out there and I sit through conferences, human trafficking conferences, where girls who were trafficked tell us about the horrific events that happened to them. But it will never happen to me.
Speaker 2:That, on top of the fentanyl crisis. I mean we could go on and on and on about the dangers of the open border, and, uh, the reality is is that it's happening in our backyards, it's happening in our rural cities, it's happening in our big cities and something's got to be done about it, and trump's trying to do that yeah, finally somebody who's willing to try to enforce the rules.
Speaker 3:but we, but we I'm sorry, we've got a significant portion of our public and I'm not saying their majority, but we've got a significant portion of our public and I'm not saying they're a majority, but we've got a significant portion of our public that not only believes that the rules shouldn't apply to them, they just don't think we ought to have rules. Yeah, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 2:Well, matt.
Speaker 1:I can't thank you enough. Go ahead. No, I was going to say that goes along the lines of everything. Listen, every administration that's come in has appointed people to positions to do a job. And now, when Trump appoints people or he puts, let's just say, elon Musk if you want to bring up a controversy there, puts Elon Musk into a position. Oh, we didn't elect Elon Musk. Well, that you don't have to elect Elon Musk. The president gets to appoint people. And guess what? Biden did it and Obama did it, and every other president has done similar things. I'm not saying to the same extent, but they put people into positions to do jobs. But no matter what President Trump does, he is going to have a large part of this country I am getting really tired of every day. Since he has won office, I got a lot of friends that are Democrats. Right, that's fine.
Speaker 1:I don't care less, I don't play the political life, but every day it's five or six posts about negative things. Negative it's like is this going to go on for the next four years? Like either get over it, leave the country, or just I mean I don't even know what else to tell people to do. Like this is, I don't even know what else to tell people to do. This is what we have now. This is either what you wanted or you didn't want what we have or what you're stuck with. It is what it is. Move on and in a couple years you can elect somebody else in the office and see what happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the power of election. It's up to you. Well, we can't thank you enough for giving us a call. Is there anything else you want to leave the listener, viewer, watcher?
Speaker 1:A side note no, listen, I appreciate you all. I appreciate all of our law enforcement and military officers that are out there right now. We're doing the jobs that we swore an oath to do. Some of our officers, some of our agents, or many of them, might not agree with everything that they do no-transcript. There's repercussions that come down. So you know everybody that's out there blaming our ICE agents and our ICE officers, it's not them. All right, it's not them. If you want to blame people, there's other people that you can blame. There's other people you can take it to.
Speaker 1:But to assault one of the FBI, cash Patel, for making his statement, you assault a police officer, you will go to jail. And AG Bondi I will tell you right now from my many meetings with her, she is not somebody to mess around with. She is going to do what she says she's going to do. And I think that right now our law enforcement officers feel empowered, that we have the support of our law enforcement supporters All right, not the haters, but the supporters, which are the majority of our communities and they have the support of many of our elected officials, and that hasn't been felt in very many years. So thank you all very much. God bless you all, stay safe and always around if you need me.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Matt. Always appreciate you. Anything that we can do to help you out, please let us know.
Speaker 2:Will do All right guys.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, bye-bye. Thank you, sir, bye.
Speaker 2:Again. That was Matt with the Federal Law Enforcement Officer Association, otherwise known as FLEOA, and you know it's just. I was driving here this morning. I was just telling you this that you know the streets closed down here in Austin. My fear is that we're going to go through another 2020 riots here in Austin. We've got that big event going on Saturday.
Speaker 2:I don't want to speak for Kevin, but I will say this For the TMP members out there that are having to deal with this challenging situation and being caught in the middle of let's just call it what it is national politics. They're caught right in the middle of inside their communities. We here, right, uh, give us a call. I mean, I don't know how else to say it. You've got your orders and you've got to protect your communities, but, uh, what's really irritating is seeing the agitators that don't live in the communities that you serve, that don't live in the communities that you wake up to every single day, are the ones coming in here by. We saw yesterday. We saw five busload charter buses coming into austin, uh, to be agitators at the protest that turned into a riot last night, and so you just got to keep your head on the swivel and I I was amazed.
Speaker 3:You sent me the website for this no king thing and I looked at the, the map that they've got out there with all the events they've already got planned. Yeah, and anybody who hasn't gone and looked at it, please do. It's incredible, the thousands of dots on that map that they've already got these, what they're calling protests, what I'm calling riots, because that's what they're going to turn into vast majority of the time. It's amazing just how well organized, how well funded that they are. This is. None of this is happening by chance.
Speaker 2:Well, and the irony. I was listening to a radio broadcast this morning. They were talking about, you know, january 6th and Trump not bringing in the National Guard. Everybody was screaming about the National Guard and coming in and then he enforces the National Guard or deploys the National Guard to Los Angeles because they were overwhelmed. And I think Trump recognized and I'll speak to Matt's point by the way Trump offered to support National Guard, Nancy Pelosi turned it down.
Speaker 2:Right. So what's interesting is that CNN and for those that have been watching this podcast, for the number of podcasts, the episodes that we've had CNN got a gotcha moment with Joe Gamaldi and they almost got one yesterday with the Los Angeles County Sheriff by cornering him into a position of saying that he had basically told his he had he had not. He had basically told his deputies not to go out there and do what they needed to do. And he politely just said my deputies are here to support any law enforcement agency federal, state or local and they're going to continue to do so at a professional and high standard. And so to me that that said that it was more the police chief I think being is it Mayor Bass, I believe with Los Angeles, it's a huge challenge that they're dealing with in California right now and I hope we in Texas don't end up like that.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, but we're going to and, like I say, there were some of it in Austin last night. There's a lot more of it planned for this coming weekend. Our local officers are going to wind up having to deal with this, and what I would say to them is do exactly what you always do go out and do your job to the best of your ability and and let the chips fall where they may, and god loves you. God bless you for being willing to continue putting on that badge and that uniform and going out and do this job, because we need you now more than we ever have. Yeah, for sure, for sure?
Speaker 2:well, boss, we got some upcoming, upcoming events later on next month and then two weeks after our conference. Let's talk about that. Tmpa 75th Annual Conference and then followed by the FOP National Conference, tmpa.
Speaker 3:Conference and the FOP National Biennial is like four days after our conference is, so it'll be a quick turnaround there. Unfortunately, they plan it for places like South Beach and Miami. I don't know what we're going to do for fun over there.
Speaker 2:I have no idea how can somebody register for the National FOP Conference if they want to?
Speaker 3:join that. Well, the National, you register once you get there. Okay, so it's all based upon the lodges and so on and so forth. What you do have to find out is where your state is going to be residing, because it's at a big convention center and there's a lot of hotels down there in South Beach and each state is assigned to a separate hotel. So the TMPA is going to be at the Cadillac Bar and Resort Hotel or something like that.
Speaker 2:That doesn't sound fun, that doesn't sound like fun at all?
Speaker 3:No, but there's a link that you have to use through the FOP website to actually go and get your hotel rooms. If you try to call your hotel and register, they will tell you sorry, we're booked. You're booked, okay.
Speaker 2:We're going to try to get that pushed out at some point, maybe this week.
Speaker 3:TMPA conference. On the other hand, correct Houston Hyatt Regency, 1200 Louisiana Street 26 to the 28th. 26 to the 28th. 26 to the 28th. If you have not registered already, please go to the TMPA website and get registered and then go book your hotel room.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's going to be a good time and I can't wait.
Speaker 3:75th anniversary 75th anniversary 75th and it actually coincides with our 75th annual conference as well, because we missed a year because of COVID. Yeah, it's going to be a good time. Our 75th annual conference as well, because we missed a year because of COVID. Yeah, yeah, it's going to be a good time.
Speaker 2:Anything else you want to say?
Speaker 3:I said it God love all of you. Yeah, Be safe. You need something. You know where to find us.
Speaker 2:Well, just like Kevin said, you guys take care, be safe, god bless you and, as always, may God bless Texas. We're out. Thank you, thank you, Thank you.
