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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
#084- "Transforming Law Enforcement Standards in Texas" with Greg Stevens & Gretchen Grigsby Part 2
In this second part of our podcast series, we dive deeper into the potential of maintaining higher standards in law enforcement as a solution to recruitment and retention challenges. We explore how raising the bar in training and leadership can not only attract better candidates but also improve retention across departments. Join us as we discuss the pivotal role sergeants play in shaping a strong law enforcement team, drawing parallels between law enforcement and military leadership structures.
We also highlight key legislative actions in Texas that are designed to offer unique incentives for aspiring officers, and discuss the future direction of the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) in improving training and standards. From leadership development to the complexities of budget constraints, this episode covers the critical steps needed to build a more resilient police force. Don't miss this insightful conversation on the ongoing efforts to elevate the law enforcement profession.
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email us at- bluegrit@tmpa.org
audits and oh, by the way, take the new agency standards beyond what has been essentially a checklist so far, and then also delve into the training realm, where we're doing that more effectively. Training is very much our mission, and we need to be doing that better, and so we need the resources to be able to do that.
Speaker 2:On the last episode of part one of the Blue.
Speaker 3:Grip podcast. I'm one of those chiefs that I think that we should never lower standards whatsoever and in conversations I know when I first became a chief and I would go to the limit. You know, every chief has to go to the limit. I'm in a conversation. It was one of the very large cities chiefs gone, retired, not with the city anymore. This chief was talking about the difficulty in getting people there and actually said I'm going to I think I'm going to pull down this standard and pull down that standard. I was the first one to say that's a terrible idea. And that chief looked at me and took a little offense because I came from Lubbock, which was less than half the size, and I said listen, I've a long military career and I'm telling you that's the fact, I would raise a couple of standards if you're having.
Speaker 3:And it's whether in business, whatever you're in, people want to be part of something difficult. And I kind of got interested in it and I had some, some mentors, I had some other chiefs, some other people on the state that said, hey, you ought to look at that executive director position and my first reaction was it's not for me. I'd rather sit down here on the beach and throw stone and so you know. But I got really interested in it and as I read through the legislative packet on the second, when that you know, tico did, they didn't get done in the first one and I think that the legislature identified issues and problems that in Texas, law enforcement, where there could be improvements, and I really became interested in it and I had some key mentors that really encouraged me and talked to some other people and so that was that and here we sit. I started in January. It was a long process.
Speaker 4:I think there are a couple incentives to coming to Texas to be a cop. Post-george Floyd we saw states like Colorado, California, pass legislation that is just, you know, the social justice experiment, if you will, which is failing. Look at crime in Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Our legislature stood by us pretty strongly when other states were abandoning their cops. If I were a 21-year-old starting in the profession now, I'd rather be a cop in Texas than probably just about anywhere, because I'd feel fairly comfortable that I'm at NYPD making $100,000 a year. I don't want to start here at the bottom making $40,000. But if a Frisco PD or a Plano will bring me in at something equivalent, there's an incentive there.
Speaker 3:Well, and the other opportunity that I see for us is to ramp up and really lean into leadership training in law enforcement. I'm one of those firm believers that if you've got a problem, an issue, whatever it is, it's a leadership problem or issue. We have an issue and a problem right now with recruiting and retention. We lean into that and view it as a leadership problem. And I'll tell you where this premise is. And some agencies do great. I think some agencies are really doing an awesome job, but on the whole, I think across the nation and I look at it from the Texas perspective we can do a lot more in that first-line leadership area.
Speaker 3:When I started, when I got out of the academy in lubbock, we had this line of sergeants and those sergeants ran the department. We certainly deferred to them, but the chief deferred to them as well. The, the, the chief would do policy, do stuff, but if, if the sergeant wasn't bought in, if, and these, these sergeants they had never taken a lieutenant's test, weren't ever going to take a lieutenant's test. These sergeants were in charge of the LPD and they kept me and my academy mates. They kept us between the guardrails and I'm where I'm at today because I was a rambunctious young patrolman and I'm here today because those sergeants kept me on the straight and narrow. They jerked me back a few times right, and they kept me doing this job well, they trained me well and, most of all, they didn't just supervise me, they led me Chiefs, sher guy or the gal no interest in being brass wants the three stripes because, quite frankly, it's one of the very best jobs in law enforcement. It really is. It's where the rubber meets the road, because as the chief, I'm in bed at Tuesday at 2 o'clock in the morning. I'm asleep, I really. I mean, what's going to make or break the department? What's going to make or break the troop is the decisions that that sergeant is making, the leadership that he or she is providing, and so we TCO need to lean into that. And right now all of Texas law enforcement knows it.
Speaker 3:There's one class that's required and it's a one-and-done new supervisor. School Hasn't been revisited in a long time, so we're going to work on redoing that class. It's a good class, but it needs to be revamped, needs to be modernized. Depending on where you took that class is whether you benefited greatly from it or not. When I made sergeant, mine wasn't great. The curriculum is the same. When I made sergeant, mine wasn't great. It wasn't a good. I mean, the curriculum is the same but it wasn't taught well. A couple of sergeants next to me, they loved theirs, they had a great class. So we want to redo that class and we, teco, want to make sure that it's taught only at the highest level. And I don't know, this is conceptualizing what I want to do, but maybe if you're going to teach new supervisor school, we should vet the instructors. They should only be T Cole stamped and approved. That we know will teach that class well.
Speaker 3:And then we can't stop there. We've got to. So chiefs are required to go to a. In fact it's legislatively mandated. This is where you will go Every two years. You will get this training. Sheriffs are leaning towards that. Constables have to go to that. So if you're a leader in a big constable agency, you get state-funded training through Lehman. We should be doing that with the people that are really doing the leadership at 2 o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday, at 2 o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday, and I think that is a grand opportunity that we in Texas can lean into to make Texas the best place to do law enforcement, and that will help with recruiting and retention as well, because people don't leave jobs, they leave bosses. They especially leave first-line supervisors.
Speaker 2:I think that's one of the biggest enjoyments I watched in the Marine Corps and I've got family. I was a corporal. I have an uncle who was a three-star. I think that's one of the biggest enjoyments I watched in the Marine Corps and I've got family. I was a corporal. I have an uncle who was a three-star general. One of the things the Marine Corps does well for leadership is from a general all the way down they acknowledge a sergeant, a platoon sergeant, they're actually. Who's running the Marine Corps?
Speaker 3:See, this is where the whole idea comes from. And you hit the nail on the head is, the admirals and the generals aren't really the ones winning the wars and running the military, it's the gunny sergeants, it's, it's the chief, uh, the mass chief, petty officers, sergeant majors these are the ones that are there and again, long military history. As soon as I was a petty officer, I was going to, uh, you know, lead petty officer school. I don't know how many leadership schools I went to long before I got a commission and then, truly, they sort of tapered off. I retired as an 03. I'll bet, from 01 to 03, I went to a couple of different leadership schools, but from E4 all the way to E6, it was nonstop leadership.
Speaker 2:They made sure that I could lead troops and in the military, who makes the best officers?
Speaker 3:Mustangs, mustangs, mustang, a hundred percent, yeah. And see, we have that grand opportunity. And there's this big narrative. People always say the militarization of the police, and I get it. I know what the mindset there is. We don't want the tanks on the road. I get it. It's not a tank, it's an armored vehicle to keep people from getting hit. But we didn't move past that right. And when you say the military and the police, we can learn a lot from the military. We can take the leadership training, the requirements that you know that people in the military have to go through, the constant, the expectation of constant learning. Apply that to police work. We'd all be better off for that. We really would.
Speaker 4:So what's on the horizon for the next session for Tico?
Speaker 1:It's going to be a really exciting time where I don't have to utter the word sunset every single day. So you know, I think.
Speaker 4:It might be a little bit easier session for you then.
Speaker 1:Well, easy in some ways and more broad in a lot of other ways, because we don't have that sunset focus all the time, all day, every day, but I don't. It's going to be a really interesting session. Every single one of them has their own flavor, their own dynamic, so we'll see, kind of, how the House and Senate dynamics play out and what that means for anything actually passing. I anticipate quite a few little bits here and there of whether it's sunset cleanup, house Bill 3 cleanup, because that's something that we've had a lot of conversations about, kind of in conjunction with this new agency standards that came out of our sunset bill. Well, what does that mean for ISDs and how does that play into this district feeling that they need this law enforcement agency stood up to be compliant with the House Bill 3? And oh, by the way, there's these new standards that you have to meet in order to do that, and so I think there's going to be a lot of that kind of cleanup mentality from the last session or two from the last session or two. Obviously, the budget is going to be a big, big topic for every state agency, as it always is. But you know we're facing a pretty significant surplus, and so everybody's going to be jockeying for their own little piece of the pie, as we are. We had our first budget hearing last Friday, and our requests are not small.
Speaker 1:But again back to the point, it all ties into the sunset process and all the new responsibilities that we were charged with.
Speaker 1:We want to be able to do our job effectively. We want to do that in partnerships. I think one of the things that we hadn't talked about yet, at least not in depth, was when we were talking about these advisory committees. We did that very intentionally. We had the chiefs, we had the sheriffs, we had the constables, we had the associations on every single one of those committees to make sure that those voices were represented. And oh, by the way, we had the public involved in every single one of the committees too, because you can't leave out that public perspective. And so you know, kind of bringing that back to what the session is going to look like, I do see us continuing on that path forward with those partnerships and making sure that we do take into account all of the voices that are really important to the profession and to the communities that they serve, because in my whole career as just a lowly patrolman and detective, most people think of T Cole as like the Wizard of Oz.
Speaker 2:I don't really know what it is, but it's behind the curtain and I hope I don't ever see him or I don't ever have to visit him.
Speaker 1:We're trying to change that too, by the way.
Speaker 2:And I mean it jokingly, but what does the org chart look like? So y'all have a. I suppose you guys have a board or a commission, we do, and then executive director, I'll have a here. Well, kind of, what is what does the org chart look like for folks other than the wizard of Oz screen, that is, the unknown.
Speaker 1:So we've got a commission of nine that are appointed by the governor. Uh, three are law enforcement administrators, so there's typically a chief, a sheriff and a constable. Three are law enforcement professionals, and two of those cannot even be a supervisory position, and then there's three members of the public, and so we've had a really fantastic cast of characters come through in the time that I've been on the commission, and so we actually have a vacancy right now. So we're running with eight eight, but I think the governor's done a really good job of looking at the applicants and and bringing important uh considerations into account geography, diversity, because that is important. We need to have people from the border, we need to have people from your major metros, we need to have rural perspectives, and so, uh, all nine are governor appointed.
Speaker 2:All nine are governor appointed.
Speaker 1:All nine are governor appointed, and then those commissioners appoint the executive director, and then we've got our command staff of six of us everywhere, from me to our general counsel that we were talking about, john, who had served as the interim executive director. We've got our IT, we've got enforcement, we've got credentialing, field services, education services and, of course, our CFO. So you've got to have all those things taken into account, and so most of us have been in place for a fair amount of time. We've got tremendous staff with a great knowledge base, and then from there, you know, of course, we've got a supervisory level in our line staff, and so, when I came on to T-Call in 2014, we had an authorized level of 43 FTEs and we are now at 93.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:So it's been a pretty significant bump and all of that, almost all of that growth has been in the last two sessions.
Speaker 2:Most of it's been in the IT realm. Oh wow. So yeah, I can imagine, with all the advances and changes, we have field rep station around the state you guys have.
Speaker 1:We have field service agents.
Speaker 2:Field service agents, and are they remote? They live in their zones. Is that accurate?
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's 10 of them. They're spread out across the state and each of them represent about between 280 to 300 law enforcement agencies each Wow. Plus the training providers that we've talked about.
Speaker 3:That's one of the areas where we really are struggling. I can imagine, because it's and I didn't realize, coming into this and sort of to your point, I think I would I'd been a police officer, for Well, I know that I was. I was already made sergeant, probably, I don't know, probably beyond that, for I just knew that it was too close back then that I had to said you got to get this many hours. I don't know what it was, whoever they are, told me I can do this job.
Speaker 3:You know whatever. And I had no idea. Whoever they are, told me I can have this job, yeah, whatever. And I had no idea. But you know, somewhere in the 2000s I guess, I sort of began to understand that the commission on law enforcement, the commission, it is nine people, that's the commission, and then they hire the executive director and kind of enforcement action or something like that. And it's just, it's hard to it's even. I don't know how they were getting stuff done before with the personnel that they had. And now that I'm in the picture with 10 field services you think about that they each manage as many as 300 agencies, wow.
Speaker 3:And then again we talked briefly about training academies. We have about 325 training outlets between 119 academies, and the rest of them are all contract training providers, and so when it comes to law enforcement training in Texas, there really is no oversight. We can barely even touch that. And so in our budget this year we are asking for a whole new leg of we need more field service agents to all the new minimum standards to make sure that agencies are meeting the minimum standards for the good of the troops, good of the community.
Speaker 3:But we want to make sure the troops are being trained correctly and that because I can give you we can all probably give at least anecdotal evidence, and when we've got empirical evidence too, that that there are instances of poor training, there's great training out there. Don't get me wrong, so I've been through some poor training To even begin to look at that. We're asking for a whole new leg of field service agents, and the ones we want to hire are people who have been instructors, who know law enforcement training, know TECL standards, things like that, so that we can go out in the field and we will hire those out across Texas. Again, we cannot sit back and do things from Austin. We've got to be out in the community, in the law enforcement community and working with the agencies, with the academies, to make sure that Texas is the national example for law enforcement training.
Speaker 1:And having the two combined where they've been doing the agency oversight and the training oversight, made it work as best as we can. But they're really two different skill sets, and so that's why we've got it separated out in our budget. We do again need additional field agents to do your traditional agency audits and oh, by the way, take the new agency standards beyond what has been essentially a checklist so far, and then also delve into the training realm, where we're doing that more effectively. Training is very much our mission and we need to be doing that better, and so we need the resources to be able to do that effectively.
Speaker 2:In a snapshot because, again, like you said, I knew somebody was letting me be a cop. I knew they gave me a badge and a gun and they're like it's T-Clio's, t-clio's. Like, yeah, I don't care, but I have a badge and gun, right, I don't care. Probably most don't know your field agent. What is or isn't their role? What is what is?
Speaker 1:So so their role, primarily, is to make sure that agencies are complying with hiring standards Make sure you're not appointing somebody who's not eligible and technical assistance. I have a question about this policy, this TCO rule, whatever regulations. What are my training requirements for my officers and kind of that technical assistance realm?
Speaker 3:And that'll remain the same assistance realm and that'll that'll remain the same. But now, of course, um, the legislature expects us to say, oh and and? Are you meeting the minimum standards? To? To um, you know, part of it is to establish an agency. But now, what is new, um, to continue operating as a law enforcement agency whether you are that two-person agency or the dallas police department, doesn't matter, whether you're a small agency or the largest sheriff's office in the state or whatever. To continue an operation, to hire law enforcement officers, all of those things from the smallest to the biggest. Here's the minimum standards, and the field service agent will be the person at the front line to do all of what they've been doing. But also to say, hey, lubbock Police Department, do you have these policies on the books? Do you have this equipment for the officers? Do you have a sustainable source of funding? That's a big one. You can't be funded by tickets. You can't be funded by grants. You can have those as well. You have to have a sustainable funding source. All of these new requirements.
Speaker 2:And that'll be through continued assessments or appointments. Hey, I need to come in and we're going to kind of like a TICO audit when they come in and look at your training. This would be one where they come in and assess those things. It will.
Speaker 3:Now there's an annual report that that again we so it's every agency has to file racial profiling report. They do do do reports every year and so we've kind of tacked it on with that. It's just a couple of questions which, the fact is, we're rural followers by nature. Again, everybody gets into this job and they're, by and large, rural followers. Most officers go through their whole career without ever having significant disciplinary issues. We're chiefs and sheriffs and conspires the same way, and so it's easy enough so that we can allocate our scarce resources. You know where they're most needed. We're going to ask a question every year hey, are you meeting the minimum standards, yes or no? And by and large, you know most are going to.
Speaker 3:I think we're going to have a lot of agencies, certainly here at the beginning, who struggle, who are confused they don. Certainly here at the beginning, who struggle, who are confused, they don't understand. And when they answer that, certainly these first couple of years, that will trigger us to send a field service agent and say how can we help? Because we want to work in. We don't have the goal of shutting anyone down. We have the goal of getting everyone, no matter the size of the agency, up to that minimum standard. So, however, we can best do that. You tell us where you're having trouble. Do you need the policies? Are you having trouble understanding the equipment requirements? Right, we'll go out there and help you.
Speaker 3:And we're also asking a question, you know I mean there's no way around this. It is some unfunded mandates that are there, right, and there's going to be some agencies, like we talked about earlier, that are small agencies, small jurisdictions. They're going to have some funding issues on an unexpired vest for every officer on duty. That's a struggle. We need to know that information and we can hopefully funnel that back to the legislature so they understand that picture and see that there may be some issues where the chief or the sheriff says you know, my governing body is not going to spend the money. They refuse. I've asked, they refuse.
Speaker 3:We want to figure out solutions and work with the agency for that. We're not going to shut anybody down because they're making an effort and they simply don't have the money. Help them find the money somehow. We'll work with them to do that. There's going to be a few again, most of us that want to succeed. They're real followers. I venture to say there'll be some that won't. We'll deal with that as we have, as TECOL has dealt with that throughout the years.
Speaker 4:So we're short on time and I don't want to put you on the spot, but I'm going to put you on the spot. So I came from, I did my police career in Southern California, los Angeles County and in LA County. There's probably somewhere around 100 municipalities that contract with the LA Sheriff's Department Some of those. If they had their own police department, they'd be a 500 officer department or a bigger Lancaster Palmdale areas like that. What are your thoughts about sheriff's departments absorbing some of the smaller departments in the interest of building a bigger department with better training and better resources?
Speaker 3:I think it's that when it comes to what is I mean undeniably the proliferation of small agencies across Texas, we're unique that way. Most states don't have the departments, the number of departments that we have. I think we have to ask the earnest question. We've got to ask hard questions. Certainly, when we look at standing up a new law enforcement agency, we've got to ask and this is part of the sunset package the first requirement is does it provide a public benefit to the community? Got to ask that question. Let's let you let that wide open.
Speaker 3:We've tried to develop a way to be objective and not purely subjective. Things like what are the number of calls? What is the crime rate? Who's answering the calls? How long has it taken them to get there?
Speaker 3:And the solution may very well be well, we need to beef up the sheriff's office. You've typically got at least two, usually four constables in a county. What other law enforcement already exists there? So before we stand up yet another law enforcement agency, let's ask the earnest questions of whether or not we should do that Now. For some places it may make sense to stand that agency up Now when we look at continuing operating an agency.
Speaker 3:If you've got a small agency that is not able to meet one with sustainable funding source Other than a speed trap, other than a speed trap Other than you know, mercenary seizures they exist, they do, they do. And so when we again, we have to all be willing to ask and answer those hard questions, those earnest questions. And it may make sense to make the sheriff's office bigger, and sometimes that's good for the officers, because when you the smaller the agency, less opportunity for promotion, less opportunity for specialization, you can't become a detective. Usually in a small agency like that, there is a balance, there's a dichotomy what you're talking about earlier Sometimes that smaller agency officers get more experience doing more things but there's less work, and so there's this balance. I know this, we are going to be intentional about that and we don't want to take a robotic, blanket approach. We're not going to look at this and go all small agencies are shut down, never going to stand up another.
Speaker 2:I think that's important for people listeners to hear, because there's a lot of misunderstanding of what Sunset is and T Cole's going to turn into this giant regulatory agency that's going to be in your house and your business every day and looking to shut people down. So I think it's important this episode is important for people to understand what is and is not the goal or the mission or the direction this is going.
Speaker 3:And that's exactly right. We want to take a methodical, intentional approach to it, ask the hard questions. I think one of the things that's out there, the reason that you do see some small towns set up their own agency and this is again another hard question that has to be addressed is the counties can't overcharge a small town for police services, for law enforcement services. That may be something that gets pushed to the legislature, I don't know, but I've seen examples where a county says county says well, yeah, we'll provide daily patrol services, it'll cost you 14.7 million dollars. Come on, that's not gonna work.
Speaker 3:You took a check, you take a check for that. You got oven mitts and so, um, you know again. There's an answer there, right, and it's going to be different for different places. If you're in a very congested area, that's a different answer than if you're in a very rural area where the sheriff's office simply can't. They're not going to be able to get to this far-reaching small town where it may make sense to stand up an agency or to continue operating an agency. But that agency, going back to this, for the good of the officers, good of the community, they're going to have to meet these minimum standards. That makes sense. Community deserves that and the officers that are working there deserve that.
Speaker 2:So 10 field services agents cover the entire state. How many training service field agents for training do you see coming online? 10 also.
Speaker 1:So the request is for 14, and that includes a couple of support staff to go along with it. But basically we've got a request to double the field service agents to lower their agency burden from about 300 to about 150 each. But then the request for excuse me for training staff is about 14 FTEs and that again that includes some support staff to go along with that but to make sure that they have the time and the ability to be more hands-on with those training providers, with those academies, and spend real legitimate time making sure that they are successful.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, when you applied you knew Sunset was going on because that sparked your interest. Did you realize how big of a change historically, philosophically, in Texas law enforcement you may be a part of? Did you know that? Was that intentional, or have you been surprised a bit that I'm a part of a big wave of change? That may be, I knew it Did you, yeah, and that's what you know.
Speaker 3:I'm excited about it, I really am. I think that it's a great opportunity and you know, I'm not going to be doing this forever. And if you look at, I think you always got to look at your life and think, what difference can I make? And again, I think we did some good stuff in Lubbock. I don't think we got everything right. I think that there were some missed opportunities. I think we could have done more and everything, but we really had some big successes. We got some good stuff done there. I feel like that the place was better when I left than when I took the job. And so when I got down to Rockport, the chief that was there great guy, he's actually the mayor now Tim J Rowe. He'd been the chief of police for 29 years. Wow, yeah, you don't hear that anymore. It'sowe. He'd been the chief of police for 29 years. Wow, yeah, you don't hear that anymore. That is, it's crazy. And he beat the two to four year mark.
Speaker 2:He did.
Speaker 3:He was outside the bracket for that right. You've got chiefs that sometimes last like a week and a half and then you've got some that go 29 years. So he was outside the two to six bracket and so you know. But but so there was a challenge in place. I think he'd done a really good job, obviously been there 29 years and he saw the department in the town through Hurricane Harvey.
Speaker 3:If you don't know this, the eye of Harvey went through Rockport Texas, went right through it. The big story, of course, is over by Houston, because if you're, I learned a lot about hurricanes. If you're on that side, that's where you get all the water, that's where all the flooding is going to happen. That side, that's where you get all the water, that's where all the flooding is going to happen. The other side is not. It's the best place to be. You get a lot of wind and stuff. There's a dirty side, that's right. The eye, I think, is pretty bad. It tore the town up and Tim J Rose saw the town, saw the police department through that. All 27 officers spent the hurricane in the police department. There's a hardened room inside a hardened building and they wrote this as like a 13-hour tornado as the eye passed, and so he did great stuff there. But you know, nonetheless there were some challenges in the department equipment-wise, some policy things, all kinds of stuff and so we did really good work there.
Speaker 3:I can't tell you how excited I am Whenever a person that you've been training, you've been helping and mentoring to, takes over when you leave, becomes a chief of police, and so Nathan Anderson is the chief of police in Rockport, texas now. It's a great thing. So I feel like that either one of the two captains that were there, the two Nathans, either one could have taken it done a good job, nathan, who followed me from Lubbock down there. Actually he was a Lubbock lieutenant, retired from Lubbock. I think Rockport is better when I left it than whenever I got there, and so I knew what I was getting into going into this and I was playing golf and fishing and having a great time in Rockport. I think I could have beat I don't know if I'd do 29 years, but I probably could have beat the two to four, two to six year mark because it's a great town, great community, love the police. But I looked at all of this and I think the opportunity is amazing to do some great stuff for.
Speaker 3:Texas law enforcement.
Speaker 2:I'm going to tell you.
Speaker 4:I've been a Texas peace officer for over three decades. That's all I know. That's what I know how to do.
Speaker 2:I love it and if I can, do some good stuff with this team it's a good team.
Speaker 3:You've got a good team.
Speaker 4:If we can make it work, yeah, absolutely and all of our directors, everyone's working, the people that answer the phone.
Speaker 3:I know sometimes people get frustrated with TECO. It's typically because they don't like the answer, but it's the answer. It is the answer. If we can get all of this done, I think we can make Texas law enforcement nationwide. I'm sure we'll make Texas law enforcement better for the officers, for the agencies and for Texans, and so that's why I jumped in. I believe we can do it.
Speaker 2:It was cool when I heard your name pop up, because the last conversation you and I had I'm sure you don't remember. You texted me one day and said hey, man, give me a call if you get a minute. And you said I'm near and done here. And we just sat and talked and you said I'm not sure, don't want to leave here, not sure I want to go back to Lubbock. And we sat and talked for a little bit and you're like I got kids at Lubbock, got family at Lubbock, still like it down here don't know where. And we talked and you you said several times I'm not done, I don't know where I'm gonna go, and it was long before this job came up. And you're like I don't know where I'm going, but I'm nearing, done here, but I'm not done, I'm not done. And then, I don't know, maybe a year later they're like hey, did you hear it's going to be T Calderas? Oh, that is cool.
Speaker 4:Well, I can tell you that when you were the chief, we really appreciated the relationship that you had both with the LPPA and with TMPA. You had an open-door policy. You know, we we were commissioned by the LPPA prior prior to you to do a management survey because of extremely low morale, and again after you, we were again commissioned to do another survey and the chief that took over um did not have the success you did and he's he's no, no longer in Texas, um, but so I, on behalf of TMPA, I'd like to thank you and Gretchen for the awesome relationship we've always had and the ability to just pick up the phone and call you and have a dialogue.
Speaker 2:Your leadership style and hearing your past leadership explains how you've always been, because what's difficult with us is we have to support and be there for our members and so it's not always a chief or a sheriff's not always going to be pleased with it, and leadership style nowadays it's always personal and what I've always loved is we can cut up an issue and not be on the same side of it and then you're like, hey, you can go grab lunch real quick and it's never personal, it's just business and a friendship surviving when you deal with this kind of change and cops don't like change.
Speaker 3:They hate it almost as much as the status quo.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it's one or the other um, but that's what, in here and now, your, your leadership, history in the military and all that explains a lot of it is. I've always valued that at the end of the day we're still friends. We can go break bread together and talk kids and talk talk non-work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I, I love cops. I do. I mean, I grew up in a cop's household. I used to sit and watch my dad put his uniform on and I vividly remember him putting keepers on the belt, on his belt, on his uniform belt. Yeah, I love everything about it. I love this is I love it and and again, I haven't.
Speaker 3:You know, I ceased being surprised about what cops would do because I've been one my whole life and and that's why I always enjoyed the work relationship.
Speaker 3:If you know, somebody gets a little, I ceased being surprised about what cops would do because I've been one my whole life and that's why I always enjoy the working relationship. If somebody gets a little sideways, and I'll tell you one of the DPS regional commanders up in Lubbock, he's one of my big mentors and he'll tell you, working troops break things. They do and they're going to every now and then rub up against the guardrails and so it takes strong discipline and stuff and I'm a firm believer in due process for officers. You don't want I never would have wanted to work in a place where the chief's word was absolutely the final rule right and what keeps, I think, chiefs a good chief, um, sharp, and what makes good leadership is knowing that my decisions are going to be reviewed and and there's and there's some times where you know, um, you'd get overruled arbitration or something like that to to take that personally or be upset what good, what good does that do.
Speaker 4:This is a job that, to be effective, you have to be free from political influence Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, to steal a quote of yours business is between people, and so we have to have these partnerships in place. And maybe that's my bias also at being in the world of government relations, where it's all about relationships, but those relationships are important. That's what makes the world go around, that's what makes us even have a chance of being successful, and that's us in the greater sense.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well and I'm thankful that the colonel gave a young lady a chance years ago and congratulations. The colonel's announced his retirement, yes.
Speaker 3:Big changes there.
Speaker 2:And thankful he gave you a shot and we've gotten to know you all these years and work with you.
Speaker 1:It's been my pleasure.
Speaker 3:Anything else in closing. No, I just again, I appreciate you guys, appreciate the relationship over all these years and whatever we can do. You know it's a lot of changes, a lot of stuff and I encourage, you know, tmp members or chief sheriffs, everyone if you've got questions, you know, reach out. These are big changes. If you get some anxiety, call us. You know, reach out if you, if you hear something from around the way doesn't sound good, doesn't sound right, um, it could be, but if you just call us and one thing's for sure, we we're going to be transparent throughout all of these big changes. They impact everyone, they impact the way agencies are going to be doing business and they impact the individual officer, especially when moving from one agency to another.
Speaker 3:And I'm one of those. Even though I was a chief, I moved from an agency to another one. You got anxiety, you got questions, you got concerns. Just call us and you can call me directly. We anxiety, you got questions, you got concerns. Just call us and, and you could call me directly, we'll answer whatever questions we can, for sure and awesome. You know, again, we're sort of building the airplane as we're flying, because it's all new, and as we see issues and problems. We'll try to tweak it and make it better some doesn't work for us and make it better I'm glad to hear y'all.
Speaker 2:Hiring my boss here is hard on me. He is hard on me every day. I'm glad to hear I may have to be beating on y'all's door soon.
Speaker 1:You know, there's something I learned from a training last year and the biggest takeaway I took is hire hard. Make it a difficult place to go to work, but hire the best. So you know, take that for what you owe, oh my. Anything we didn't hit that y'all that is important that we cover. I think it's been a pretty wide ranging discussion on all things, sunset and otherwise, so thanks y'all for having us.
Speaker 2:All right, I got two questions for y'all, then one for each of you. All right, I got two questions for y'all, then one for each of you, With you being 31 years old.
Speaker 1:what would 31-year-old Gretchen say to 15-year-old Gretchen?
Speaker 4:knowing what you know now in life, Learn everything you can read a lot and talk to people Great advice.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:Great advice lot and talk to people. Great advice, yep, great advice. You're 35 years in le, did you say 31? Yeah, if you count my four years, of military.
Speaker 2:That's right. What has been your best day and what has been your worst?
Speaker 3:you know the, I'll tell you, the best day I, I was still in fto training and we interrupted a sexual assault in progress. Because you know, literally we're not the police, aren't johnny, on the spot. I'll tell you who doesn't get the, the, uh, the accolades they should as telecommunicators and we license jailers, telecommunication, peace officers and most often, because the police get, we get more credit than we should for being the heroes, right, typically, crimes happening. Good citizen calls the police, victim calls the police and a telecommunicator listens to that traumatic event over the phone and then calls a police officer, who's you know, polishing off a burger or something, who, who then drives over there and gets all the credit right. So, um, but we were, we were, and again, telecommunicator involved woman screaming.
Speaker 3:Side of 7-Eleven and my field training officer and I saw the vehicle out by the gas pumps, didn't think anything about it. It's 4 o'clock in the morning or so and we weren't a quarter mile away, we were maybe three blocks and dispatcher said woman screaming report of a woman screaming. I'm like that car, it's that car, is that car? We interrupted it. Well, that's a big deal. And, uh, changed her life. It did, it did and and, and. Uh, she, she fought. She's not a rape victim because she she fought, fought back hard, right so, but we got there, made the arrest, uh, saved her from that, that situation, and that was in 1993. I'll never forget it, hands down. If I could pick one event, that was the best feeling in all of the world. It's hard for me to find, though, that kind of thing for a worse day, because law enforcement's different every day. It's law enforcement's different every day.
Speaker 3:You know I was, I was fortunate in is achieved not to have a situation where an officer was killed during my career in Lubbock, with two officers killed and they were back to back, and in 2001,. 2001 was a crucible year for me. When you talk about leadership, do leadership classes? I think everyone's got a crucible time for them. Rodney Kendricks was a motorcycle officer, killed in a crash, escorted to a funeral, and a few days later, on July 13th, kevin Cox was killed in a SWAT call-out and I was out there and it was a friendly fire deal. It was just a terrible, terrible situation, which just compounds how hard it is. The whole thing was terrible. I had proposed to my wife right before that and we got married on August 4th. All this stuff happened right here. And then the country gets attacked on September 11th. I get recalled to active duty leave on September 20th Wow, yeah.
Speaker 3:And so, of course, the day the worst day was July 13th. A new Rodney, real well, but a new Kevin. We were on the SWAT team together. So that's the. You know that's a tough situation, that was a tough situation, and the chief ends up leaving over that. Ken Walker he's still one of my biggest mentors. He's about to be sworn in as the president of IACP in Boston this year. You know all of that stuff. You relate back to that and you get to figure out so, so, from your best day and your worst day, so what, how'd that impact you and where do you go from those things and how do they change you and what difference does that make to you in your life? Right and, and uh, I don't know, they both have impacted my career you greatly.
Speaker 2:yeah, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, yes, sir, anything else, sir, again, appreciate you. Both guys have always, if you have questions or call our 800 number field reps, all of our membership staff be glad to help. Uh, we got two, the best in the business, two professionals. What I value about both of you is, in this day and time, it seems like a lot of folks choose to take the easy road. I just want to do something easy. I just want to coast, I want to in. Both of you are the type that, oh it's hard, oh well, sign me up, I'll jump in for something let's dive in, and I respect and value that. Glad to have you fight for cops and professionalism for that and thank you I know both of you have a lot going on and for taking the time to come here and spend an hour and a half with us on this show.
Speaker 1:Appreciate you having us I appreciate this opportunity.
Speaker 2:Yes sir, yes sir, and welcome back anytime. If something changes or breaking or something that we can push out, we'd be glad to. Absolutely, we have a lot of community that watches this outside of law enforcement as well. That all wraps up for today. As always, appreciate your membership, appreciate you continuing to serve your communities in the state of Texas. Out there, take care, take care of one another. God bless America and God bless Texas. We're out, thank you. We'll be right back, thank you.
