Security Halt!
Welcome to Security Halt! Podcast, the show dedicated to Veterans, Active Duty Service Members, and First Responders. Hosted by retired Green Beret Deny Caballero, this podcast dives deep into the stories of resilience, triumph, and the unique challenges faced by those who serve.
Through powerful interviews and candid discussions, Security Halt! Podcast highlights vital resources, celebrates success stories, and offers actionable tools to navigate mental health, career transitions, and personal growth.
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Security Halt!
Jeff Wenninger: Policing, Reform & Lessons from the Rampart Scandal
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In this powerful episode of Security Halt!, former law enforcement officer Jeff Wenninger opens up about his 30-year journey in policing—from the gritty streets of Los Angeles to the front lines of community reform. Jeff shares raw, firsthand insights into the realities of policing violent neighborhoods, navigating the cultural complexities of diverse communities, and living through the infamous Rampart Scandal.
More than just a career retrospective, this conversation dives deep into the importance of empathy, mentorship, and leadership in modern law enforcement. Jeff discusses how training, accountability, and compassion must evolve to better serve both officers and the public they protect. Whether you're a veteran, first responder, or concerned citizen, this episode sheds light on the future of policing and how to lead with integrity and purpose.
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Chapters
00:00 The Call to Service
04:52 From Personal Experience to Law Enforcement Career
09:24 Understanding Humanity in Policing
14:04 The Role of Mentorship in Law Enforcement
18:51 Navigating Race and Community Relations in the 90s
23:36 Understanding Law Enforcement Culture
28:55 Transforming Police Practices
37:56 Lessons from the Past
43:33 Personal Reflections and Future Aspirations
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Produced by Security Halt Media
Security Odd Podcast. Let's go the only podcast that's purpose-built from the ground up to support you Not just you, but the wider audience, everybody. Authentic, impactful and insightful conversations that serve a purpose to help you. And the quality has gone up. It's decent and it's hosted by me, danny Caballero, jeff Winninger how are you doing, man?
Speaker 2:I'm doing. Great thanks. How are you?
Speaker 1:Doing well, man. Welcome to Security Out Podcast. I am excited to have a brother of our law enforcement background today. The Warrior Tribe is large and includes so many of us, not just military folks, and what I love exploring is that call to service. You and I both know that being a law enforcement officer is one of the toughest professions out there. When I deploy, I have the ability to finish my mission overseas and come back home and redeploy is re-engage and redeploy each and every day. What was your calling to service? Why did you find yourself going into this career? That has historically been one that doesn't have a lot of celebration. You don't get lifted up. Everybody loves you when they pick up the phone and have that emergency moment, but they are so quick to forget about all the great things you do for us when the political climate shifts.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I had an experience, personal experience that prior to I would have never thought I would want to pursue a career in law enforcement. Essentially, it was a Friday night, I was 20 years old and I was division one collegiate hockey player, and I went out with one of my teammates um, my teammates and we closed the bar as we, as we often would do. Everybody that was in the bar was flown out onto the sidewalk, which wasn't large enough to accommodate everybody. So a number of us were flowing out into the street and my, my buddy, who I was out with, thought it'd be kind of cute to to prop himself up on the hood of this car that was trying to get through. I think his motivation was for very attractive women in the car and they didn't really care for it and they sped up and slammed on the brakes and when he went rolling off the hood he grabbed the antenna and snapped it off. And that kind of ages me a little bit back when you had antennas on the hoods of cars. But, um, so as a result of that, or as a police officer right up the street that saw this all occur and came down, grabbed my buddies, slapped the handcuffs on them and threw them in the backseat of the police car. So you know, when we go out, we go out with a buddy system. You know we're not. We gotta gotta get get our, our partners out of trouble. So I need to.
Speaker 2:I thought I needed to inquire about where they were taking them, how long it was going to take to process them. Would he be being released? And if so, you know, what was it going to cost me to bail them out? And so I approached the police officer and he was really belligerent and made it very clear that if I didn't get back up on the sidewalk, I was going to jail as well. So I'm like I understand that. So I got back up on the sidewalk and he had called for backup and two more officers arrived and they confronted me and they walk up to me and said let me see your expletive identification. And so, as I was reaching for it, they began to beat me and before I knew it, I was in handcuffs, being taken down to the police station and I was booked for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and interfering in official business. And when I'm down there, I'm like where's my buddy? And they're like we let him go. I'm like the ridiculousness of this. I'm like you've got to be kidding me. So I ended up staying.
Speaker 2:It was a long weekend. It was a Labor Day weekend and I stayed in jail through the weekend. It was a Friday night and they didn't have court, because courts close on Monday. So they didn't have court until Tuesday and I went to court and then the judge let me out on my own recognizance and I'm like, ah, I didn't do anything wrong here. I said you know, I'm going to fight this thing. So I got an attorney. I spent my entire summer's earnings I worked as a laborer, um, that entire summer but I had to spend all my earnings on an attorney and I refused to take any of the plea deals and I went all the way to jury trial. And prior to the jury trial I'll be starting. They offered me something I couldn't refuse. Everybody said if you sign this ticket it's a $60 ticket we'll drop all the charges, and I thought that was reasonable. So that's what I did.
Speaker 2:The ridiculousness of this doesn't even uh, doesn't end there. About a year and a half later, um, I saw an advertisement for correction officers in the very jail that I sat in that weekend and, kind of out of a joke, I applied, they hired me. So I mean, that's how serious they took. You know the offense that they arrested me for. You couldn't have had a more clear exoneration of any wrongdoing than to have the agency that actually arrested you. And you know the jail that you sat in for an entire weekend to be the place that you worked in. So that was that. You sat in for an entire weekend to be the place that you worked in. So that was the beginning of my law enforcement career.
Speaker 1:I gotta tell you, Jeff, I've heard a lot of origin stories, but never one like this. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So so you know, really what happened was I was a finance major, you know, I I didn't really think I would go into law enforcement and so I started taking some criminal justice classes and things because of this experience and I really enjoyed it, it resonated with me. So my father well, he was a sociology professor and I thought about academia, following my footsteps, my father's footsteps in academia and perhaps being a criminal justice professor. So when I finished my schooling, I was looking at going to get my PhD and my father encouraged me to go get five years of practical experience working in a large law enforcement agency and I thought what better place than Los Angeles? And that's where I went, with the intention of staying five years and then going back and getting my PhD. I stayed 33 years. I can't tell time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the same problem that a lot of my military friends have. That's not a short period of time, man, that is a commitment, that is a life. That is you wake up, you live it, you breathe it, you sweat it. And in LA, yeah, chances are, chances are you might bleed out and go out in a blaze of glory trying to serve the people of that community, because it's not a safe place. There are a lot of bad people and it's hyper aware, like every police officer in that area is hyper aware, that every movement, everything they do, is being recorded, being watched, every single second. Ila was just like you had to figure out the hardest place to go to. You know, los.
Speaker 2:Angeles. If you would have asked me when I was in high school, I actually had a high school girlfriend that had an older brother and he had moved out there after he graduated. So she went out to visit him one summer and I thought who would ever want to live in Los Angeles? No-transcript, I would have had a fairly formidable professional career if I hadn't sustained some of the injuries, that I hadn't made the decision to move on rather than beat my body up any further. I hadn't made the decision to move on rather than beat my body up any further, but it just resonated with me.
Speaker 2:You know LAPD, you know they were the originators of SWAT, you know the tactical prowess of the organization, the opportunities available to you in an agency that large, how you can diversify and get all kinds of different specializations and things. It just appealed to me and, like I said, I went out there initially for five years. I thought, well, I'll get a little taste of the different things. But that's really why I went out there. I just thought, I thought it was cool. You know I was. I was full of wind, piss and excitement, as they say. You know, back when I was in my early twenties and I just really I feel bad for my dad. No-transcript. So you know it was. It was something that I not only wanted to be part of the LAPD, but I wanted to work the most difficult and challenging assignments in the LAPD.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I have to imagine you're going there. I mean there's still an aspect of humanity. I mean you're going there to protect and serve. We often say it's a war zone down there or it's like man, I don't want to live there, I wouldn't want to work there as a police officer or EMT. It's just too violent. But at the end of the day, people live there, people make their homes there. How do you balance that? How do you balance that?
Speaker 2:How do you go there knowing that you will be facing some of the toughest individuals, hardened criminals out there, but at the end of the day you're there to protect and the truth, the vast majority of people that live in these communities that we would identify as being the most violent, vast majority of them are are hard-working, well-intentioned, god-fearing people. You know, at the end of the day it really is a challenge because as a police officer, you're handling the worst within that environment and it's very easy to believe that this applies to everybody, that you paint everybody in that community with the same broad brush. And I was fortunate. You know, my father was a sociology professor at Kent State and he actually did his PhD dissertation on the professionalism of law enforcement, and so he was kind of aware of what time it was and what kind of experiences I was going through. And he was a very learned individual, very wise, and he didn't speak unless there was something worth saying. And I'll tell you, as a young man growing up, when he spoke I listened because there was a message and a lesson to be learned and something to contemplate. He never told me what to do or how to think, he would just suggest. You know it used to come out of his mouth all the time. Well, it seems to me you might want to consider, and then he'd lay out and you know, then he'd let me go.
Speaker 2:The kept my eyes open to the sociological issues that play into everyday criminality in our society and that you know there's a lot of factors that are involved and it's not necessarily. You know these people oftentimes are a product of their environment, not so much you know evil people and themselves. He used to always tell me. He said, son, you know you were, I was adopted by my folks.
Speaker 2:He says you were quite fortunate. We were able to financially provide you with opportunities where you had, you know, diverse experiences. You had the ability to get a higher education on your horizons through some travel and things like that. And, um, you know, you focused on your energies, on on athletics and sport, and a lot of people don't have that opportunity.
Speaker 2:And it goes, quite frankly, if you were born and raised in some of these communities that you work in, your natural personality tendencies may have driven you to be the leader of the game, to be honest. So when he put it in that kind of context, basically I had a sounding board and somebody to kind of. You know, it's kind of like bowling with the rails he kept me on the lane, you know, and then I really did make a concerted effort to, outside of work, have friends that had nothing to do with law enforcement. So I had experiences with them and I saw insights from them that were very different, because, you know, if you can say anything about law enforcement, at times it can be a little too insular and we begin to have this group think and we go down these rabbit holes and we begin to believe some of the nonsense that we speak.
Speaker 1:It becomes an echo chamber. We see it in any profession, military as well. You pointed out something I want to touch on and kind of dive into a little bit. It seems from the very beginning you had a broader understanding of humanity, that common humanity Like. If we just look at everything through that narrow scope, we're just going to see nothing but an episode of cops when we go to the streets.
Speaker 1:And I would argue that honestly it's made things worse for the way we police, because now the general public has seen good and bad, Just the stereotypes that we see on TV shows like cops. And then our police officers oftentimes are also consuming the same media. So if they're visualizing their world as being just black and white, bad people, they're going to be in this area. It's going to be hyper awareness of everything that I'm surrounded by. It's nothing but low. Life degenerates. It's like, wait a second. How do we change the narrative? More importantly, how do we change the idea of what it means to be a police officer, what it means to be a serviced?
Speaker 1:You had a great individual in your life to help you understand that. A lot of us don't get that. We develop that so late in life and I think that's something that we need to explore. And I think that's something that we need to explore. Is that something that you developed and understood and were able to give to your fellow police officers and sort of like mentor while you were still in, or was that?
Speaker 2:something that had to be developed on the outside. I've always said I think that one of the most influential positions you can ever have on the job is that as a field training officer. That as a field training officer, because you're getting a police officer straight out of the academy who is now learning how to police on the streets in real time with real threats and having to make decisions under rapidly unfolding tactical scenarios and the mindset and the way that they perceive and process what their experience on every day as a field training officer, I can impact that significantly. And then the next role is a field supervisor as a sergeant, and I took those jobs both very, very seriously and made an effort. Not only did I see my job to ensure that my partners or my subordinates were safe, but that they did have a broader understanding of what their purpose and what their function in society really was, and that there needs to be empathy. People always say you know the warrior mentality, we absolutely have to be warriors, but we can't be warriors while overlooking the responsibility of being guardians. So the reality is is you need to be a guardian with the ability to turn it on and be a warrior if you have to, and you know I saw that experience very early on. I had an incident that I was involved in the 77th division, the LAPD, where my partner and I were shot at with an AK-47, multiple rounds, and we were quite fortunate to survive it. And you know, we made some tactical errors and that put us in this bad position. And if not for the courageous acts of the officers up in the airship, which is the helicopter police helicopter you know, I may not be here today. No-transcript, a daily basis, it's across the board. And so I carried the same passion that I had for hockey into my law enforcement career and I really strive to excel, excel. Now, you know, and I think that that's a problem with law enforcement, when I went through the academy, I, um, I graduated. I was the honor recruit, I graduated number one. We had 157 at the beginning of the academy and we graduated 107, about a third of the people were washed out. And um, I graduated number one. And I used to get a lot of heat from people because my goal when I studied for a test was to get a hundred percent. Yeah, and um, I graduated like I'm nine, 98.7% or something like that, and they used to laugh at me because they're like, oh, you need a 70% to pass, like that's enough. You know it's it's not. And so, um, it was that experience that underscored that the importance of what I already was doing, but that you know you continually need to strive to improve, because every new experience there's an opportunity to to grow and develop and be even better, race and things like that.
Speaker 2:As you were speaking of, I have a really unique background. Like I said, I was adopted. Yeah, my parents were married for 12 years trying to have kids and their goal they wanted four kids each one year apart. And they had this 12 years and they said let's go look into adoption. So they went through the adoption process and right about the time they got approved, lo and behold, my mother gets pregnant with my sister and they have my sister, but they're like let's go ahead and follow through the adoption because maybe another 12 years before we ever get pregnant again. So I was adopted and then they adopted my brother he's half Japanese and then they fostered another sister. She's black and I grew up in the sixties and seventies in Kento, so I see race very differently.
Speaker 2:I had experiences growing up that you know, even with a smile, the veneer of a smile, and you know, supposed grace. People were saying you know there's microaggressions in regards to racist statements that were being said. A perfect example we'd go to the A&P grocery store in town where I grew up and we would all be hanging off my mom's grocery cart and I remember a woman walking up to her, smiling, saying oh, your children look all so much alike. And it was a dig at my mom. My mom had so much grace and I learned so much. I didn't quite understand it at the time what was going on.
Speaker 2:But reflecting back I'm like, wow, my mom, what a strong woman she was. She didn't bite, she didn't go take that bait, she just, you know, stood proud, stood tall and we continued on with our daily activities and didn't allow people's you know, opinions or actions to influence us. So you know, I came from that kind of a background and types of experiences. I came from that kind of a background and types of experiences and I talk about that in my forthcoming book on Thin Ice. I talk about my personal background and my professional experiences and I give practical insights in regards to what I think law enforcement needs to do to be successful moving forward in the 21st century. But you know a lot of who I am and how I policed and how I viewed my role in law enforcement is a result of the experiences I had growing up, with the type of family I grew up in, as well as the the impact that my my father and my mother had.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, lived experiences is valuable insight and, um, not enough people grow up and have the ability to appreciate that and have that wide scope. That's why we have to work hard, Even if you're not law enforcement. Get outside of your lived experience, be able to meet people where they're at and learn something. That's the one thing that they were so drawn into. This world of going inward and sitting with our phones, living on social media and we judge everything from that screen. It's like, man, there's a broader world out there that you can stand to learn something new, and nobody wants to have an engaging conversation.
Speaker 1:These days, it's too difficult to find common ground, especially when you hit these hot topics of policing. In America, the vast majority of people have no idea what it takes to be a police officer and the amount of work, the dangers that are involved, and we just want to react instead of trying to understand, trying to bridge the gap and growing up and working in that time period in the nineties like how much different was it? Trying to get buy-in from the community? Because I have to imagine, even though you're educated, even though you have this understanding of what it is to be able to grow up in a mixed home, have siblings that are minorities, having this lived experience of understanding, kindness, compassion. You're very much still a white man going into predominantly African-American communities, policing, and in the nineties I couldn't think of a harder job we have.
Speaker 1:We have the cultural hotbed of gangster rap coming into its prime and everything in the media is this is enemy number one. This guy has to go down. How did you survive? How did you take the approach? I mean, as a Green Beret, we have this approach of by, with and through Getting into the local. Getting the buy-in from the local populace is key to our approach to fighting the enemy, Becoming one with our partner force. How do you do that in America? How do you bridge that gap and say I know what's happening in all over the news, but I am not that guy?
Speaker 2:I know it's quite difficult because, like you said, in the nineties there was a lot of flashpoints. Yeah, primarily you had the Rodney King beating that was early in my career and then, uh, then in 92, we had the riots. Yeah, you know, working 77th Division shortly after the riots and stuff. It was tough because you know the, yeah, I don't think, I don't, I don't look at the riots so narrowly that it was just anger of the exoneration of the officers being acquitted of, of the charges and the Rodney King beating. I don't see it that narrowly.
Speaker 2:This was decades in the making. There was a huge divide between the LAPD and the citizens in which the police department serves. It developed into a great level of frustration and hatred towards the men and women in blue and we saw that play out in 92. And you know, unfortunately, you know I saw very little change as a result of that. You know I had I'll tell Sharon Sharon experience. I had a partner. I worked with him just one day and the reason was is our regular partners, both of us, our regular partners, were on day off, so we ended up getting partnered up and we're driving down the street and this is less than a year after the riots in San Jose Commission and we see a black woman and a white guy walking hand in hand down the street and he says my parents taught me better than that. And I'm like what?
Speaker 2:because my parents taught me better than that and I'm like what do you mean? And he goes my parents taught me not to have sex with animals, wow, wow, so so so this is. And the reason I bring this up is because he assumed, because I looked like him and I wore this uniform, that I also viewed society in the same way. Listen, I had a black foster sister. My girlfriend at the time was black. I mean, I'd been dating a girl for about two years at the time and he didn't know that, but he just assumed that I shared his mindset or his views on society. You know, at that time that wasn't something. You just dealt with it. You just knew that that was an officer I didn't necessarily want to have to work with again, because the reality is that your attitudes and your beliefs they're manifested in your actions and your behaviors. It's unfortunate. Majority of law enforcement officers are wonderful people. They have nothing but the best intentions and they want to serve the community. The problem is there's this small subculture within law enforcement that is allowed to continue to exist, and he was reflective of that, but it makes it very challenging. I always took the time to interact with the public outside of my official law enforcement activities and when I mean that I'd be on duty in uniform but I would go into the projects and I would throw the football with the kids and it was showing them that one that I wasn't a bad guy, that the guys in blue aren't the bad guy, and it also showed them that I didn't view them as the bad guy. And so it was those types of simple interactions and I was very fortunate when I was going through training, my field training officers were outstanding and I had a number of them that actually grew up in these communities that I was policing and they gave me an unbelievable amount of insight into understanding the culture and being even able to understand what's being said. I remember that we had this one radio call and we have contact in cover and I was a contact officer, so I'm the one that's going to make the initial contact with whoever we're going to be interacting with. We respond to this radio call. It's all with a deadly weapon. And we get there and we're walking up the driveway and this guy he's got blood flowing out of his forehead from a big gash that he has. I said okay, there's our victim. And I asked you know what's going on? And his answer was I came here to get some stank on the hang low and I got hit upside the head with a smoothie. I'm like what? Because at the time you know of the projects, he just starts laughing at me and he goes here let me translate and he goes. He came here to get some sex and he got hit upside the head with a clothing iron because it smooths out the clothes. That's why he calls it a smooth. So I mean just simple stuff like that.
Speaker 2:And I laughed at that incident, not at the individual I was interacting with, but at myself, for having no idea what he was saying, and if not for my partner, I would. I don't know what's going on here, you know. So you know, and that's just kind of a humor. You know an incident that had a little bit of humor behind it. I was fortunate enough to have these training officers that really gave me some insight into the culture and how the community members really view things and actually viewed law enforcement and how we can better bridge that and it's just really meeting them at the level that you know they're interacting with you at and it's, you know it was important, but you know it's unfortunate, like I said. Just like my partner, when he made that comment to me, he made an assumption about how I viewed things.
Speaker 2:Oftentimes there were people in the community that made assumptions because of the uniform I wore and how I looked. Now, even even after I was a Lieutenant working on a police headquarters, I was the officer in charge of the detective entity that investigated all officers involved, shootings and lethal force cases. And I walk out of police headquarters to get get a bite to eat on on a Tuesday and that's when they have the open session, police commission meetings on the first floor of police headquarters. And I walk out and there's some unhappy community members and they're like, oh, there's a KKK hood wearing, you know, blah, blah, blah and it's like you know.
Speaker 2:So you get it from both sides. You know, yeah, not only do people make make assumptions that also wear the uniform along the side of you, but the community makes assumptions about you and that's difficult. So you just have. You can't take it personally and you, you just continue to be the person that that you know you can be and conduct yourself from and conduct yourself with empathy and compassion and treat people with respect, because the reality is all people are looking for is to feel safe and valued and respected. That's the recipe. If you can do that, you're going to be successful, because it's not what you say, it's not what you do, it's how you make people feel. That's going to be the legacy, that's what actually matters. So if you focus on that in law enforcement, when you're that type of a service oriented type profession, those are the things that you really need to focus on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I have to imagine that after 30 years, consulting pretty much seemed like the most logical avenue of approach. I think instinctively did you feel like, okay, I can't do this job anymore, I'm not the guy that's going to be on the beat. How do I make better and more informed police officers? How do I give people the Jeff experience? Was that your initial approach for that time after service of just wanting to give back, wanting to be able to still be part of the tribe but be able to give the next generation of police officers sort of like that manual of how to be better, how to be more kind, empathetic and just understand, like the human approach?
Speaker 2:Well, to best answer that question, to give a little bit of context of my background experience on the job, I worked in the Metropolitan Division with the LAPD, which is like the K-9 and the SWAT it's the Special Forces, essentially organization and during that time was when we had the Rafael Perez Rampart crash scandal that was going on. This was in the late 90s and there were LAPD officers committing bank robberies off duty. Rafael Perez was stealing pounds of cocaine out of evidence lockup and selling it on the streets for personal financial gain. They were involved in officer involved shootings, planning guns to justify the shootings. Some of the most egregious corruption you'll ever find in law enforcement was going on in the LAPD at Rampart Station.
Speaker 2:So I get promoted to sergeant. When you get promoted you give a wishlist. I'll be honest with you. At the time there were 18 geographic divisions in the city of Los Angeles. Rampart would have been number 18 for me and that's where I ended up going Because essentially what had happened was they were creating an entire new leadership team at Rampart and I was selected to be a sergeant there to help change the culture and try to navigate this very critical time in the history of the LAPD.
Speaker 1:That's never easy, that is never easy.
Speaker 1:Whether it's military or any profession, when there's a leadership change out and they want you, as part of the new generation, the new force, to go in there and straighten things out, I can't even imagine when did you start? Where did you guys, you and the new breed what was the day one initiative? How did you go about changing it? Because that was a pivotal moment. I mean, I was a kid but I remember these things happening and it's almost out of like a comic movie or something out of a cartoon show or TV show. The good guys end up being the bad guys. How do you change the culture?
Speaker 2:Well, a lot of it was imposed on us because, like I said, where I was in the Metropolitan Division just before I was promoted, eoj was investigating us and we ended up going under a federal consent decree and that started in 2001, a consent decree. It took us 10 years to get out from under it. And while I was at Rampart, what happened? Because of the crash scandal, they ended up abolishing crash, but the department still needed to address the violent gang crime that was occurring across the city. So they created a new entity. It was called the Gang Enforcement Detail and they had a new structure and framework in regards to accountability and the chain of command. And I was selected while a sergeant at Rampart to be the officer in charge of the gang enforcement detail. I had to change the entire culture of that and the mindset of that unit and fortunately I worked directly for Charlie Beck at the time. He became chief of police down the road. He was the chief after William Bratton, but I worked directly for him and I reported directly to him and I was able to handpick my personnel.
Speaker 2:I was looking for characteristics that were very different than what were being used as the standard and the selection of personnel prior to. My measures of effectiveness for the officers in the unit were significantly different In the past. They were looking at arrest rates what's your felony arrest rates? Arrest rates what's your felony arrest rates? That's mildly interesting In an environment like Rampart, which is the most heavily densely populated area within the city and arguably, perhaps even anywhere in the United States. It has a population that's primarily Central and South American MS-13 Street. It's just a very, very violent division. Actually, rampart was always competing with 77th for the highest number of homicides every year, but and they would kind of alternate back and forth.
Speaker 2:But so I changed the whole paradigm in which we looked at our success and I went away from the felony arrests to. You know what are your conviction rates, filing rates, those sorts of things, and I wanted my officers to. I made their. The biggest tool I would argue the strongest tool that any law enforcement officer has is the gray matter between their ears. So whenever we did, whenever you made an arrest, in your arrest report I wanted you to articulate what you did but also cite the case law that gave you the authority to do that.
Speaker 2:So everything we did was grounded in law. My officers to this day, wardlow versus Illinois. They can recite and tell you everything. So it wasn't just the tactics, firearms proficiency, the tactical prowess that was important. The tactical prowess that was important, the team concept of how to be disciplined and coordinated in dealing with a rapidly unfolding tactical scenario. But I wanted you to be unbelievably knowledgeable of your job and the laws that regulate what you have the authority to do and your understanding of the gangs. Believe it or not, prior to me becoming the officer in charge, there was no requirement that the officers be experts, court-recognized experts in gangs. What Well? I gave my personnel one year. If you weren't certified with the court as a gang expert within a year of being assigned to the division or assigned to the unit, you were gone.
Speaker 1:That's a no brainer, that's just wow.
Speaker 2:But I was the. I was the first unit. First, we were the first unit that required that standard to me to be able to remain, and we were very successful. Now, listen, I gotta be honest with you. Any good leader, I'll tell you, their success has very little to do with the ideas they come up with. It's about building a team where you, collaboratively, can come up with ideas, and essentially what I was doing is I was building the succession plan, the new leaders of the organization, and that's ultimately what happened.
Speaker 2:Everybody in my unit, I had like 24 people assigned to that unit. You know they all went on to have very flourishing careers, but it was because, you know, I, I I believed in in a leadership style where I gave them the accountability and to be, you know, let them be innovative and creative and held them accountable to it, but I allowed them to drive our missions and come up with the ideas how to best address these, these crime trends that we were being held responsible for impacting and reducing. You know, it really was just a mindset. It had nothing it was all about. It's about choosing the people, supporting them, and they'll make you look good. And at the end of the day we became, we were awarded the meritorious unit citation and we became the model for all LAPD gang enforcement details to emulate, moving forward. But, like I said, that had nothing to do with me. It really didn't. I just surrounded myself by officers that were very, very insightful and just came up with some amazing ideas on how to address the crisis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Empowering your leaders, giving them all the tools and giving them space to make decisions. It's a, it's a no brainer. And what was it like today? Are you still in touch? How have the things that you and your team implemented? Are they still in or have they changed and gone by the wayside?
Speaker 2:I say that because you probably have experience. It's unfortunate, but we oftentimes don't learn from our successes, right? People come in and they don't understand any historical perspective on why things are a certain way, and really that's what's motivating me to do what I'm doing today. The consent decree that we were under, and a primary portion of that consent decree was the management and oversight of specialized units, ie the gang enforcement detail. These were mistakes that the LAPD had made decades ago and learned from, but nobody else had learned from them. And then, unfortunately, just like you said, even within the same organization, they're making the same mistakes again and it's very frustrating.
Speaker 2:So, law enforcement consultants, which I'm the founder and CEO of the consultation emphasis that we have is trying to get law enforcement agencies to recognize and acknowledge what the management best practices are and implementing those, because unfortunately, we don't have a national standard for policing. Each state regulates and has the authority to oversee that and it's very drastically different depending on what state you're in. And unfortunately we law enforcement is so siloed that we oftentimes don't even look outside of our own organization to find a better way of doing things and and you know, the LAPD was kind of like the LAPD didn't come up with it. We're not interested and it's just a horrible mindset to have. But, um, you know that's that's a large part of why I'm doing what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:You know, you look at Memphis. You know that Tyree Nichols beating and the death of Tyree Nichols you know everything I saw there. That's just a toxic culture, and things I was seeing play out were things that we were held to account to and to change, because deploying people in the Scorpion unit in Memphis in hooded sweatshirts that they can pull up over their head and become more anonymous is going to manifest itself in behaviors that people generally, under normal circumstances, perhaps wouldn't engage in, and you saw that play out on the video. There was an officer that pulled the hoodie up over his head before he went up and kicked Tyree Nichols right in the head as he laid defenseless on the ground. So I'm just sitting there going. How is it that law enforcement were allowing this to happen? We can do better and it's about getting the conversation going and having these difficult conversations, and that's what my fourth committee book's about.
Speaker 1:Tell us about the book real quick.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, during my 33-year career I saw a number of failures in law enforcement that just never were addressed in moving forward. And I didn't just look at the LAPD, but I look at law enforcement nationwide and I've even done some research. I went overseas where I went and observed the Metropolitan London Police, and I went over to Paris, france, and watched them and a number of different operations that they were performing and saw how they do things a little differently than we do, because there can be something learned from the success of law enforcement not only in this country but worldwide, and you know. So I talk about all of that stuff in the book. And the book talks, like I said, it gives you an understanding of my personal background because it's unique and it does impact how I viewed law enforcement. So the reader needs to have some context and understanding to that. And then my personal experiences that really molded me on the job and many of them are instances where I nearly lost my life, but there's a lesson to be learned from that. And then you know my practical insights Because you know, when I was with the LAPD later in my career I was William Bratton who became our chief while I was running the Rampart Gang Unit when I was done, because that assignment is a term limit assignment.
Speaker 2:So when I was done with my three years I actually went to go work for William Bratton and I briefed him on all officer-involved shootings and lethal force cases and I wrote his adjudication recommendations that submitted to the honorable order of police commissioners for all lethal force and officer-involved shooting cases, and then from there I went in to become the officer in charge of the detective entity that investigates all officer-in-law shooting and police force cases.
Speaker 2:So I saw a lot of good, the bad and the ugly and I saw the opportunity for improvement, not only within Los Angeles. But the lessons that can be learned from the mistakes of Los Angeles are lessons that can be learned throughout the country and make policing better across the board. I mean, the reality is only about 30% of people have direct contact with law enforcement from the age of 16 until the end of their life, and so what does that mean? That the vast majority of people are forming their opinions based on what they see on TV or what they hear other people say. So the reality is we can do a better job and change the optics of law enforcement and to better close that gap and bridge this relationship that needs to be nurtured between law enforcement and the communities.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, jeff. I got to ask you as we're wrapping up. You know 30 years, you know we started this conversation. 30 years is a long time to do anything and it takes a lot of heart and commitment and passion to do something, especially law enforcement. What are you doing now to give back to yourself? You know this. This profession took a lot from you. Even if you, you know, scrape by with no injuries, it still took a lot. There's there's a toll that goes into these professions of being of service to others, for your fellow man. How are you giving back to yourself these days? What are some things that you did to give yourself that ability to kind of reclaim your sanity after 30 years of being there?
Speaker 2:for others. Really, the reason I left when I did was because I'm a single father of a son and it's just the two of us and I literally got tired of hearing him say hey, dad, we need to spend more father-son time together. And I was in a position financially that I could retire Now. Had I accomplished my career goals, not even close? I had the desire to expand my scope and influence within the organization and to promote and whatnot you know. At the end of the day, my son was my priority. So I made the decision to go ahead and retire much younger than I anticipated I would, and move back to Ohio where I was born and raised, and I focused solely on my son and he's. He'll be 14 actually tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Happy birthday to him.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the reality is is that I've I put my family first and that's why I could leave the job, but you know it's it's the practices that I always engaged in. You know, throughout my career, I always made physical fitness a high priority, made sure that I had influences outside of law enforcement, that I interacted with people on a daily basis that didn't have a similar background, said, it's not about being right, it's about getting it right. And you have to be willing to listen to all the diverse opinions, even those that conflict significantly with what your thoughts may be, because there's always something to be learned and you know, there's at times where I thought I was, I was rock solid in my belief in something and and people have been able to influence my a change in my opinion. So, um, I just kind of continued that.
Speaker 2:And now that my son's gotten a little older and he doesn't need me a hundred percent of the time, cause he's a dad and he doesn't want me around a hundred percent of the time, um, it's given me the opportunity to to do what I'm doing today, to try to try to give back because I do. I'm doing what I'm doing because I love law enforcement. I bleed blue. I want law enforcement. I bleed blue. I want law enforcement to be successful, moving forward, and not only as an organization but individually as officers. And so how can we do that? And, like I said in my book, I give some actual solutions on how I think that can be achieved. Are they the answers? No, not necessarily. But it's about starting the difficult conversations and, through those conversations, and bringing in diverse opinions. That's, that's the roadmap to success.
Speaker 1:Heck, yeah and uh. Where can we get that?
Speaker 2:book. Well, it's uh, it hasn't been released yet, but if you can go to jeff100.com, it'll take you to a landing page. And if you can't spell my last name or don't want to have to worry about spelling it, you can just go to onthinicebookcom. When you get there, you you actually there's a landing page. You can put in your your email address and get put on the mailing list and you can also read the prologue for free.
Speaker 1:You can also have that downloaded for free well, if you do me a favor right now, guys just go, just go ahead and pause this YouTube episode. Or if you're listening on Spotify or Apple podcasts, go ahead and pause. Go to episode description. I'll wait. Click on those links. Get yourself signed up for that book release. And do me another favor.
Speaker 1:If you have an interaction police officer today, be kind. You don't know the stressors these individuals are under. It takes a lot to police a community and I am so damn sick and tired of seeing these one minute sound bites of how the police are so bad. Look, it's not an easy job and these individuals deserve grace too. So if you've learned anything from the conversation we've had today with Jeff, just know that inside that uniform, inside that cop car, is living, breathing human being that is doing their absolute best to do their job. So please, please, have some grace, be a human, be kind and do me one more favor.
Speaker 1:Head on over to YouTube or Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Give us a like, a share, a follow and share this episode with your friend or somebody that needs to learn more about how to be a better human being and a good cop. Jeff, I can't thank you enough for being here today, learn more about how to be a better human being and a good cop. Jeff, I can't thank you enough for being here today Absolute blast. I can't wait to have you back on, because there's so much more to dig into this story. We'd love to have you back on when they actually launched the book, that way we can talk more in depth about some of the things in there.
Speaker 1:And if you're a police officer in Okaloosa County or anywhere in Northwest Florida and you want to bring in a consultant to help you out, I got a guy for you. His name is Jeff and his link will be in the bio. Jeff, thank you for being here today and we'll see you all next time. Until then, take care. Thanks for tuning in and don't forget to like, follow, share, subscribe and review us on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to support us, head on over to buymeacoffeecom, forward slash setcoffpodcast and buy us a coffee. Connect with us on Instagram X or TikTok and share, and remember we get through this together. If you're still listening, the episode's over. Yeah, there's no more Tune in tomorrow or next week, thank you.
