in front of like a very crowded beach. He just picks her up and body slams her, just batters her and everybody's screaming for the police. And then so he runs out into into the golf looking around. I'm like, "Hey, this guy just pulled up his jet ski there." I was like, "Can I borrow that?" He have at it. You're listening to 56, a Penelis County Sheriff's Office podcast. I'm Ricky Butler with Laura Sullivan and Ashley Culie. We are excited to have Lieutenant Matt Thornton with us uh in the 56 studio. He is the lieutenant over youth education administrative services. Uh he's been with the agency almost 20 years, which is pretty crazy uh because I'm I'm at that age where I start looking at people's hire dates. I'm like, "Wait a minute, I was wait a minute." So almost 20 years uh for Lieutenant Thornton. Uh and over That's such a youthful face. That's all I thought. It is. Yeah. You can't even tell. It's a baby face. Um but uh a lot of time in his crew though spent dealing with the youths as we like to call them. So, which is fitting for his current assignment. So, we look forward to getting into all that and then some on this episode. But first, Ashley has a question. Okay. You can remove one song from existence forever. What is it? This is instantaneous for me. Um, just have to think about that. Ashley, if it's instantaneous for you, what is it? We are the champions. Wow. That one. Hate that song with every fiber of my being. Wow. And I love Queen. Hate that song. Hate that song. Hate that song. I think it was just really overplayed when Mighty Ducks came out and it just became like personal. I have a second one, too. You know, I I really don't like I I love Pink Floyd, but I really hate um money really. If that comes on, I'll turn it off every single time. I wish they would play a bigger selection of Pink Floyd on the radio, but but that comes up pretty often. There's like I just can't think of a single sign I'm like off, but I I don't know. Um, I don't I have a good roster of things I like, but things I just I just don't like. Um, I got to think about this. Matt, you got anything? I'm I'm with you. I'm trying to think of something that I don't like that I don't listen to cuz I don't listen to it. I mean, there's probably there's tons of stuff. What about like certain Christmas songs or something? Because sometimes those are forced on you or stuff that they play in. Um, that's a good that's a good thought. Oh, yes. Okay. Oh, yes. Oh, I also want to say the happy birthday song. Just that in general. I did used to like cry when I was a kid and they would sing happy birthday. I hated it. Um but no, you know what? I'll say All I Want for Christmas is You. I hate that song. I hate that song. I hate it. It's not that good and I hate it. I'm still I kind of like that song. I kind of like that uh that Christmas song or like Yeah, I don't I don't hate that song. Removed from total existence. Yeah. Yeah. That feels cruel. Just gone. Something's had some kind of That's what these questions are. It's all or nothing. I know. I know. Actually, you know what? Cuz I was forced to listen to this for my wife. So, a lot of the uh Backstreet Boys Christmas. Oh, that that's specific. Yeah, I'm sure I had that album. Any of them. Any of them. Yeah. Any of them could go. Yeah. All right. That's I mean, that's like a that's like a a ver a cover of a song, but I think it counts. It counts. Counts are close enough that just wipe out the entire album. Yeah. Good enough. Done. All right. So, uh, Panelis County native. You grew up here. Yes. And, um, what, uh, what what did you want to be when you grew up? Initially, I wanted to be a veterinarian. All right. Yep. And, uh, yeah, I went through, uh, I went through seminal schools and, uh, went to, it's called, uh, Tech High now, but, back then it was like the VOED center. Um, and yeah, I went through all five levels of of veterinary technology. I I traveled to the college and like in high school. in high school. Yeah. So, I got to do So, I got you got to I went to Seminal High School, but I got uh bust over to just right down the street to the to the vocational school and that was supposed to be a start and there was a you know there was a they're building at the time the St. Pete College veterinary program and then I so I went to uh UF and checked out theirs and uh yeah, that's what I wanted to do. But then just what changed your mind? Yeah. Uh started looking at the length of time for schooling and all that stuff. I'm like, "Yeah, this seems great until you have to do it." Mhm. So, yeah, that's where uh things changed. And you just But you liked animals and stuff like that. I always liked animals, you know. Do you have animals growing up? Yeah. Anything crazy? Well, I had like I don't know. One time I think I had five or six snakes in my room. Yeah. I mean growing up. Yeah. A lot of most of them were all wild cotties used to go out in the early morning with friends and go in catch snakes. Try to try to pick up every log I could find. I love turning over logs of life. Snakes. Yeah. Go see what you can find. Okay. How about No. Yeah. Or or not. More logs for us. But you have Lauren's attention. Yeah. Yep. And then Yeah. So just And then normal you had a pig. What kind of pig? I had a pig. It was actually It was as a kid had a pot belly pig. It was supposed to be a tiny like a miniature, but it it wasn't. It was the typical you buy a piglet. And then so by the time it got to be aboutund and something pounds, it got actually took it to the same place that eggs farm and donated it to them. They kept it as a pet for a long time. Yeah. It got it it outgrew what it's uh what it's advertised supposed to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that happens a lot. It does happen a lot. You don't ne necessarily know if you or people market them as small pigs and they're Yeah. potbelly pigs can vary in range. Not all of them. Most of them don't stay small. Right. So you're a high school like junior senior when you decide. Yeah, I did it through. So I started it first thing in ninth grade and I did so it was two and a half years. So probably about the end of 10th or maybe the beginning of 11th going into the final the final level of that which was five levels. So it was each a half semester and I'm like not so much. I don't think I'm going to do this. Yeah. But kudos though for like picking something and working toward it because I think you know for for all of the youths that listen it is cool to have those opportunities in high school to explore different things or it's better I mean you could you could have gotten out of high school and run 100 miles an hour in the wrong direction and waste all that time but you figured it out on the front end. That's right. Yeah. Yep. Could have been. So did you go immediately from vet to law enforcement or what happened in between? Um, yeah. So, basically, crazy story, but I uh I saw the movie Super Troopers of all the cop movies, that one. Like, that's the one. That's the one. That's the one. I don't know that that's what they were going for with that. I don't think it was a recruiting video, but but for me, like the top gun of law enforcement. Yeah. I feel like it shows the the strong sense of camaraderie among law enforcement. You're you're sending the teamwork. It was like I was like, "Is this real?" And I'm like, "I'm going to find out. I'm going to find out." Yeah. If Dofy can make it, I mean, right? There's hope for everyone, right? Yeah. So, then I And was it as fun as you? Absolutely. So, then you got into the cadets and stuff, right? Yep. So, I got into the cadet program that that we that I currently supervise. uh got got to, you know, learn statutes, do the different um you know, the different aspects of the of what's entailed to start law enforcement and I just shifting from, you know, the the funny slapstick movie to the real the real world was like, this is really seemingly a good job and I can and I can start. It doesn't require necessarily a lot of schooling or um anything really besides having good moral character and the willingness to be able to do this and help people out. cliche but yeah that's so got into it and actually took it seriously and that's decided that's what I was going to do. So then um you so you got to be you know again junior seniorish high school you start cadets y and then from there on was like full speed ahead let's go full speed ahead let's go and then after high school what'd you get into yeah so I was in high school and I was I was a senior getting ready to graduate I knew I wanted to do this and I go what do I do what's the next step so I go I start looking at St. P college since I so I could stay locally and they said, "Oh, we offer a degree a degree program. It's an associates in science in law enforcement and you get you get to go through two years of school, but they also incorporate an academy." And so I was like, "That's good. I'll do that. It'll take two years." And then so I go travel for the summer, uh, get ready to go start about a week before they call us in to the to the college and they say, "Hey, none of you got We're canceling this program. We don't offer it." Oh. And I'm like, "Bummer." But they said, "But you don't necessarily meet the prerequisites for the academy itself, but we're going to grandfather everybody that was signed up for this program to take an academy." There you go. I was like, "Well, that's a lot sooner than I ever thought." So, I figured I had I could push it down the road a couple years. So, I end up taking the academy at 18 years old, which you have to be, right? You have to be 19 even state statute wise to and to work at the sheriff's office, which I always wanted to work at the sheriff's office. I grew up in the area where the the Penel County Sheriff's Office patrolled. I got to know some of the people and and I always like I just like the agency and the culture surrounding it. So I ended up uh say graduating the academy taking the test and I took the test right before my birthday but I had applied and they said you're not old enough to work here but um you can go to the jail if you'd like and uh we'll call you on basically call you on your birthday and I was like so okay and they did they called me on my 19th birthday to start the process. So but you'd gone through the law enforcement academy. I went through the law enforcement academy. So they said that they said, "Yeah, that's gonna" So I wasn't certified to work in the jail. So they have to uh put me through a fiveweek transition, which luckily at the time there was a it was the economy was getting, you know, it was it was on shaky ground at the time, but then that was before the major fallout Sure. of the, you know, 2008 crash. Mhm. Um, but yeah, so I was able to get in and they steered me to the jail and then put me through an in-house fiveweek transition with with several other people that actually were in my academy class that did the same route and they gave us the uh the current sheriff now who's the chief deputy. He basically gave us the the deal that hey, you hold up your end of the bargain, do a good job, we'll get you out in a in a couple years and get you on the road. Get you on the road. It was no I mean, nothing was guaranteed, but it was strictly, hey, you guys do this now. This is the intent. Yeah, this is the intent. And then during that time, right after that, I think the the class after me got ended up having they got laid off due to just extreme, you know, budget cut. It was Yeah. Unfortunately, but I made the the cut. So, I I stayed here in the jail and and the agency held up their end of the deal and got me out in about two and a half years. Was everyone telling you when you went into the jail? No. No. They're never going to let you go. You're not going to be able to get out of here. This is you're you're here. We're always underst staffed. We're always looking for people. So yeah, there was a lot of there's a lot of naysayers and I just kept going and I think I waited till like two years to the day and I put a memo and there's no posting or anything and they're like this is kind of uncustomary. I was like I still want to do it. I'm just going to put in and see what happens. Worst I can say is no. Yeah. Worst I can say is nowhere. Just and I didn't hear anything for a little while and I'm like there's no posting. Didn't I didn't I being new I didn't really understand how how things work or transfers. I just know hey it's I feel like I'm 21 now. Let's go. Yeah. So yeah. So it was a short time later. They say you still interested? I'm like absolutely. So, I went through the, you know, just went through the started going through the process and So, you would have gone directly into like law enforcement in-house at that point. Yeah, because you because you'd already done the Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't have to do anything. It was straight up going through and and luckily they had enough transitioning people, so they they put us into an in-house class. Yeah. And then you're So, are you still still technically dual certified? I'm dual certified. Nice. Yeah. So, let's go back to the jail though because uh you know I know everybody else we've talked to a handful of folks here on the podcast and a lot and people that started in the jail and they really said that that really set the tone and made them a better deputy on the you know a better law enforcement deputy on the streets. Was that your experience? 100%. I would I at the time I'm like this isn't really what I do. This is not what this is not my dream job at all. But the it was just invaluable experience and the way you talk to people having to actually kind of coexist with with the life that they have to live that they're required to based on their punishment um of of being confined there. It you you have to you can make your days really good or really bad and and most people you end up finding they just want to be treated fairly and you just be fair, firm and consistent with them same as anybody wants in in life. and they it was it made your day better, too. So, yeah, because if you're on the road, obviously your interaction with the soon to be inmate is a lot shorter, right, when you arrest somebody. So, it kind of puts you in a position where you have to coexist, like you said, I mean, work with them. Yeah. If you never if you've never done it, you can just you can take these people, they might be, you know, belligerent or whatever. You can just say whatever. You can ignore them for your, you know, your ride to the jail, your paperwork, and then say, "See you later." But if somebody's belligerent there, you're stuck with them. You have to figure out how to, you know, make the best of everybody's situation. You're yours included. Sure. Do you have any good examples or stories you think back to trying to deal with folks? Because it is interesting because this I mean besides the fact that you're obviously very young. Yeah. Um you know, it does teach you how to talk to people, but what kind of experiences do you have? Yeah, I think mine's different than a lot of people's because I I was probably younger than most the inmate. I mean, by far younger than most. And I even had some some of these inmates, they'd call me deputy jit, which was like a um you know, it was a term in jail they used typically for a young a young person. And they uh so yeah, it would be like getting they're like, "How old are you?" They're like, "How are you even here?" So it be very it's I know that we hire that young sometimes, but I I mean I looked young. I I was young. So it was and they're not these people are are worldly people and so they they know they know what they know what time is. So it was an extra tough, you know, learning like how to because they all try to manipulate you. The whole thing's about being about trying to manipulate get whatever is best for them and you just have to. So coming into that thing where I'm like I'm dealing with, you know, seinal schools and basically not very limited adversity and you go into a situation like that where there's criminals like real criminals in there and you're like, "Wow, this is a wakeup call." But I I mean it's I quickly learned how to navigate that and just just had a reputation around there as being being fair. It's like saying I'm not going to do anything that I'm not supposed to do and I'm going to do I'm going to hold up my end of the bargain but you've hold up yours. Your day is going to be easy, right? So I found it Yeah, I found that was rewarding and definitely you had to learn to deescalate situations because you're stuck with them. They're behind bars. You can't go and take them anywhere else. There's Yeah, I mean you're you're there with them. The most you can do is sometimes there's like prostrate chairs and stuff like that. But that's all that's anomalies. Most time you're dealing with the population. They're in a single cell. What What are they going to do besides make your day, right? Terrible. Yeah. Terrible. Yeah. You had a nickname, right? Yeah. They would call me the inmate whisperer. That's what my sergeant at the time. Oh, wow. The uh Yeah. They uh that's that's what they had told me. And uh they would call me out of different pods because I and I well I should preface this by I went to a spot where I was dealing with a lot of uh it was the healthcare building when it first opened. I went in there and was the original group to open up that building. Okay. In fact, you were there before it even had dry run with Yep. Got to do a dry run with no inmates and it was perfectly clean. It was weird. You could you could lay on the bunks or whatever you wanted to do and everything was perfect. Um I wouldn't do that anymore. Right. Um, but yeah, it was uh yeah, so I got to do a dry run, got to learn the in- and-outs, and you got to see like a state-of-the-art jail, which was which was cool watching it from being built, uh, going through the training and then saying, "Yeah, I'll volunteer. I'll I'll go to the new building, learn." Because a lot of people in this line of work don't like change. They don't want they like what they know. They like their routine and they like But I'm always I'm always the opposite. I like taking the opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and do something different. So, I'm like, "Sure, let's sign me up. I'll go over there and learning the like the control like control room is all button pushes now and everything's controlled from a central like brain. It's really cool. It's really at the time especially it was like wow that's cool. So working the psych pods was the second floor it was all psych. It was psych inmates uh psych inmates and then they had some negative pressure rooms for like isolation but mostly the negative pressure like if they positive pressure whatever they call the Yeah. It's keeps it circles. Yeah. Circles the air around. Okay. So, yeah. So, it makes it so if you're if you have TB or something like that, you can you can be isolated. So, that was so that was an interesting side of it too. But then there was uh there's some suicide risk pods and then there's general psych single cell and that was where the majority of people that were uh very very interesting. So, yeah, I'd go from different no matter where I worked. The uh the sergeant at the time, it was Sergeant Perez Ford. She would always call me up and she'd be like, "Hey, can you come down here and try? This guy's this guy's nuts." And I'm like I'm like, "What is this saying about me?" Right. So, yeah, I would uh I'd go down there and be able to and and I'd usually develop a good rapport with the people and figured out what made them what made them kind of get keep going with life, you know, because a lot of them are just have such such severe mental issues and if they get in there and a lot of them it's amazing how how well like the nursing staff does there and they can get them like somebody's came off the streets that's unmedicated. They get in there get to see a psychiatrist and actually get medicate. It's amazing how well they can turn around. But a lot but a lot of them are they're a lot of petty criminals and and they end up there because of just because of their stance and just in life they they end up getting minor crimes, thefts and you know disorderly stuff that they're not necessarily is in their total control but they get released out and in out and in. So when you see them again they're like it's like welcome back and then a couple days in you're like sometimes they get medicated you're like wow you actually can you know function function. So yeah, I would uh I was I was pretty good at because I I learned quickly that if you uh if you made it hard for them and made it harder than necessary for their life, they they could make your day a lot harder. Whether it's stuffing rags in their toilet and flushing their cell and trying to beat you with the cut to to the water cut offs and they can flood the whole they can flood the whole room if you're not if you're not quick enough. Oh yeah. They're just flushing it and flushing it. Yeah. Yeah. There was uh there was one guy he he thought he was real slick and he kept he kept flooding his cell and flooding his cell and he'd just start kicking he'd break stuff in his cell all the time. So actually have to check the record to see if it's true but I think when we first got tasers I was I was the first one to be able to tase somebody and through the food trap. Oh from the guy was banging Yeah. So the guy was just he was donkey kicking the door trying to it was and he's just real strong doc return like department of corrections. um all pretty much a de facto life sentence back and forth between his but nothing to lose. Nothing to lose. And he had a he had a he was he would play the like he would play like some that's another story. Some people play the they try to pretend they have psychiatric issues to end up away from other people whether they don't whether they're scared. I feel like I would do that if I was Yeah. You just I mean that's I would like to have my own private room. That sounds like a good plan. Some of them learned the hard way if you say too much psychiatric issues you end up in like a paper gown. So that's not Yeah, that was the right balance. How much do I have to be? You got to you got to get you got to get a status that you're not on suicide risk. Somewhere below somewhere not quite that much. What if you just like dance all the time? Like you just dance and maybe that's that's enough to be like something's up enough. Yeah, there's probably there's probably some trick in there. But yeah, it was uh but it was one like that. And the guy was Yeah, he was he he thought because he didn't know he's returned from DOC. He didn't know about tasers. Nobody really did. And the um so he he play he dunked his uh his t-shirt into the toilet and he filled it with it was either the toilet or sink but he fills it he makes it completely wet and he wraps around his face cuz he thinks you know what I destroy property I get pepper I get so I he makes himself a makeshift mask and he and the water supposedly separates you you know it catches some of the particles so he can live in his thing for a little bit till it gets put in the right in the into the chair whatever this time no he's doing he's all wrapped up he's banging and doing all stuff and then He he didn't know what hit him. He just went fell down and then right through the trap and he's like, "Whoa." And then he was at all that. It was uh it was quite interesting. Can you imagine those first few months when tasers were bred going around on the street what would happen? Yeah. Yeah. He learned he learned a new trick that day about about destroying everything. Yeah. So, yeah. He got to he got to learn. Wow. So, how did you make it? Like I know you said you would just make things fair, but like how how would you how were you the whisper? What were you? What were you It was more about It was more about just figuring out what is what's going on with them and figuring out what they're because a lot of times there's a there's a perceived grievance or a perceived issue and it it might be something in their mind but sometime and if you can just if you can iron that out there there's one guy he liked to act like a gerbal basically would like to just a little bit of paper to put in on the floor and he'd like to lay he'd like to lay in his little paper and there's one other guy he would he would uh Laura I got an idea for Oh, okay. Yeah. Hey, that might maybe a fret. Yeah, I could I could I could I like a little nest myself, so put some tubes in there for her to run through. Yeah, it's not He's not What's he doing that's harmful, right? It's like some of those sometimes that's a that's an There's one guy just like a flashlight made him calm down. It was like just a just a little bit of flashlight on the wall and he just I mean it was weird. It was weird stuff that you'd have to kind of and usually and and 99% of the time it's just talking to them, figuring out what's going on, saying, "Hey, will you do this for me?" Like, "Hey, you're making these people's day hard. Can you do me a favor?" And and you buy yourself eight or 10 and 12 hours. So, yeah, basically. Okay. All right. So, um, and of course, all that stuff translates well on the road eventually. So, yeah, let's go back to you get your memo in like, "All right, you still interested?" You go through it and, um, how was how was that? like what were the um what were some of the the major differences or did you kind of know what to expect having been in the explorers and cadetses and whatnot? Uh no I really I mean you think you know until you go out there and you're like this is uh you know you're really the beginning part is is fun. You get to go through all kind in-house training program where you learn you know you learn defensive tactics shooting you you get a good refresher and you get the sheriff's office way of doing things and and you get more of a culture of of hey this is what we expect in patrol. Um, so that part's real fun, but then you actually get out into the car and you're like, "Oh." You realize that you uh you don't know everything you thought you did and you're like, "Okay, this is uh let's go." Because you because somebody Nothing's like somebody grading you from the passenger seat all the time. Yeah. Watching your every move. I'm like, "Good thing they're not grading me right the second, you know?" I mean, really, if you think about it, you're you're being constantly evaluated. Oh, yeah. which is which there's a whole checklist of checklist like 30 40 bunch of different criteria, right? Yeah, there's there's a b yeah there's a bunch of criteria and they're you have a you have a seasoned deputy typically sitting riding with you and they are just critiquing your every job is is to find fault or and I mean put the positives and everything but you're like everything you do you have to you're looking over your shoulder like was that good? What do you think? What do you think? Yeah, that's like what 10 12 weeks. Yeah, something like that. Yep. Yeah. Was it not that it would because it's a totally different job, but like was it shortened at all for you? No, I didn't I mine was just I think it was 12 weeks at the time at least. And yeah, it was Yeah, it went on. I I did the whole thing and because it's it's really is a different job. I mean, it's a Yeah, you're still a deputy, but you're you you have a whole another set of rules, paperwork, everything else that's that's completely different. So, yeah. So, I went to I went the full-time and it was it was eye opening and by but by the time you get a few uh there's four phases. So, by the time you get one, you definitely you're like, I don't know what's going on. You're like you could talk to people if you if you came from the jail. You definitely you have a benefit from I had I had a benefit of knowledge of some of the people of uh from the inmate the ones that you've seen them for years. They come and go inates. So you're Wow. You're seeing them on the other side. Yeah. You're seeing them you're seeing them between stays a lot of times. And so yeah, you get to you I had one time where it was um where my FTO had a um fingerprint scanner as a Oh, no. Sorry, not that was not yet. It was the a facial wreck. So it was you took it was like the original digital cameras. You went out there and we had the internal program and so one of the other agencies asked for facial wreck for a guy and they said this is what he's saying he is. Um and I go so my field training officer at the time he's like yeah I have a I have the system and I have the camera to do it. So we go over there and I go no that's this guy. I just I identified him before. We didn't need it. They're like really like yeah and I was like I can remember faces I might not necessarily remember exactly but I'll I'll figure it out. So yeah, it was like you got to know the the inmate population, the ones that are that are in and out. Frequent flyers. Frequent flyers. You'll run into them again. Yeah. You'll you'll run into them again. So does it does it give you a different sense of of compassion or empathy having seen like the other half of of their lives instead of just, you know, the 20 minutes of, okay, he did a crime, he's being belligerent now. Now I'm done with him. Absolutely. You knew the other. I think you can see the progression. You can see And it's sad because a lot of these people don't belong in jail. That's 100%. I think it just they they need more help. The I mean as a whole, the the country, everybody, it needs there needs more opportunity to help these folks that are that are ended up criminalized for behavior that's not that shouldn't be criminal, but it just turns into criminal behavior because the lack of necessary resources to help them. Yeah. So out there, uh, the dynamic is a little bit different because I would think, you know, in the jail, you got people all over the place, but then kind of back to your point of like, okay, like let's figure this out, like you're you have to be what's, you know, kind of more uh independent out there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't have you don't have we have luck, we're we're fortunate we have backup. Our our areas are dense, so you you have backup here that's that's relatively quick. you're not at live like out in the middle of nowhere, but you don't have somebody that that can necessarily help you right right within a second. So, yeah, and you have to and you're you're expected to do your job, be able to handle your, you know, your existence with with help, too. But going out there and actually doing understanding all the all the laws, all the um different things that the nuances of coming out to patrol and and figuring out, hey, this it's on you now. You're taking these people to jail. This is you're signing your name on an affidavit. say and swearing to this probable cause. So, yeah, it's different. Definitely like the other side of the coin. And then So, you you end up becoming an FTO yourself. Yes. Yep. I did the um So, first I did it was a I just threw my name in the hat for uh doing alternate FTO and after Yeah. after years of of just learning the job yourself because really once you get out of FTO and you you're like I I'm I know what I'm doing and then you realize again that you don't know what you're doing. Mh. You're sitting there with an empty passenger seat seat and you're like, "Oh, I really that guy that I was watching me all the time." That was kind of a security blanket and you're like, "Oh, now and because I had one guy in my class, he uh he ended up just the first day he couldn't eat. He's like I went to lunch with him. He couldn't eat. He's like, "I don't I want to go back." Wow. Yeah. I don't want to do this anymore. But then that soon he was from detention with you. Yeah. Yeah. And just said, "Nope, this is not for me." Like once the uh Yeah. Whatever. I mean, just didn't give it any more opportunity, but he just said, "I'm I'm done." And I respect him for that. You know, not this is some sometimes you don't know what you're getting into until you're, you know, till you get there. So, it's not for everybody. Um, did you have any moments like that? Um, where like where you were like, "Oh, I kind of want to go back." No. No, I didn't. Nope. I don't. You'd have to drag me back. You're in your element. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you don't know what you don't know. But the uh but yeah, I would never I I always wanted to do the law enforcement side. So yeah, I think there's there's it's a good gig to work out there. It's definitely you could do a full career, but it wasn't for me. I didn't I I enjoy it. And now I convince everybody that will listen that they should start there. Especially younger people. We should do a new Super Trooper set in the jail. That would be something. Yeah. Get some more some more people. That would be that. Yeah. Yeah. He might be in then. Yeah. Then he he'll watch like I want to be a detention deputy. So yeah, so I started helping with the FTO program and uh taking because we were starting to get after so after I want to say 2009 uh was it 10 11 12 something whatever year that we started rehiring back. So you had to pick back up because you end up losing all these people due to due to forced budget cuts and just the economy in general. So you're like wait three years and you basically have nobody you have no new hires for the most part. So then, yeah, so catching up, it was a big catch-up game of trying to get more people in the door. So they needed extra help. So I said, "Sure, yeah, I'll do that." So I did that for I I did FTO for a little bit that time and then I then I transferred to narcotics. How long were you uh in patrol before you went to narcotics, would you say? Yes, it was. So I probably about three a little over three years. Okay. So how long were you were you an FTO? So I was an FTO that first round. first the first round it was six months or so for the first round and then and then I I did it after I came back to from narcotics again. So, but yeah, the first round was like six months and that was that was a good time. But it was it was just a lot of people going through. But you're I mean you're a relatively new deputy yourself, right? That's why I was alternate. So at that point I was an alternate so it was like yeah you're you're new but you at least understand what's going on. So, was there anything that you felt like I mean I'm sure you had things but like was there anything that you thought was really important that like the recruits heard from you or got from your perspective? I mean really my my biggest thing was them going out there besides learning paper flow and all this stuff. It was it was to make sure these people were going to be uh you know putting the sheriff's office in a good light. We don't and I don't want to my goal here always saying was don't dilute the brand. So it was like don't I need you in PR. This is what don't delete the brand because we have a good thing. We have a good thing going here at the sheriff's office and we don't want people that are going to to sully that or ruin ruin the reputation. So the it's tra uh treating people well do being firm with them but also same same thing I kind of say in the jail. You got to treat them you got to treat people fairly no matter what they've done what they're doing and and you get more out of talking to them. There's times that you don't you can't do that with people but for the most part that's how you do it. You treat people like you would want to be treated if you were in the other end of the the no matter what you did. Yeah. So, just making sure they're learning how to talk to people, learn how to talk, being appropriate, taking the proper action, making treating them like they they're I mean, you're doing customer service at the end of the day. So, so somebody called you for a reason. They want you to come out there. It might be it might be nothing. It might be nothing to you. This might be a routine normal thing, but if you can give them a positive experience on the best you can for the maybe their worst day or maybe they're just calling to say, "Hey, we we want to tell you about some somebody drug dealers and neighbor, great, I'll pass that along to the the community policing or I'll I'll uh yeah, you know what? I'll I'll take care of you." Like, great. They felt like their voice was heard. And so, I like to make sure they could do that and also make sure they could handle themselves in a situation where it's solo. So you always like and you always would find people on the FTO's when you're an FTO and you work a certain area, you'll find a you'll find people that are local drifters or transients, whatever that that are willing to help you out to kind of push the limits to of of some of your uh so you kind of so you set them up set them up with you're like, "Hey, just say, hey, I'm going to come over here. He's going to just he's going to ask you if you can search just, you know, it'll be around just be around." I said, "I need to get see how they do and and rate them." So you could always you could always find people that would that were willing to play along and give a little bit of push back, see what they do. But yeah, cuz I mean you want to you want to make sure they're going to follow the law. That's that's really the uh and I mean Yeah. So that's it. But you had relationships with you know all Yeah. You had relationship you you end up developing if you do your job right. You're out there talking to everybody. You uh they tell you everything that like there's there's so much benefit from getting out a lost art of just walking around and getting to know your people instead of drive. You can't you don't get any information by sitting in your car with the windows up, the air conditioning on, right? So, you got to get out there and get to know your uh your people that are like maybe committing very minor crimes or they have they have they're have addiction problems or something, but they're still willing to they know the game. They know that you're just there as long as well as them and if they slip up, they're going to get get caught, right? Do you think um how do you think the current generation of new recruits and so forth, how do they how do they stack up or what do you think some of the challenges may be for them or or what's your perception? Not that you get to deal with a lot of them, you know, in your current capacity, but just, you know, y'all talk. Yeah. I mean, I think that a lot of them are they come in and they they don't know exactly what to expect. And I feel like a lot of people now in general, just the the way of the internet, the the way that society is, people, there's not necessarily a ton of people looking for career jobs anymore. So, you end up finding people that they look great on paper. They have a squeaky clean past, but then they they look, they're like, I got I'm out on the road. I've never done anything else. I I worked at maybe retail or something. And you get out and you're like, uh, what what am I doing? And a lot of them figure it out. You It's not It's not that you can't figure it out. You can you can learn, but it's a big you see a steep learning curve on a lot of these people that just because they on paper they're very they have a very good or they have massive education or something but that doesn't translate necessarily to figuring out this part. They might be great writing reports, but if you that's that's the end all, not the the bread and butter. Not the bread and butter of the job. Right. So So I see I see a lot of people that that grew up on It seems like they might have grew up on their computer a lot. Instead of like seeing Super Troopers and be like, "Yeah, yeah. Go to the movie theater." Really like there's no way. There's no way. That's awesome. So, but no, there's a lot we hire. We h I think we do a good job hiring and we we weed out a lot of people in the in the the process. So, it's it's very competitive to get a job. But, you know, some people on paper look like they're shining stars, but you get there and you have to figure out for yourself if they're really are. Yeah. Then when when we took over, you were around, we took over St. Pete Beach. Yes. And then that was another volunteer opportunity, I understand. Yes. That was a lot trying new things. Yeah. Trying Yeah. Any anything new? Throw it at me. I'm I'm down. Um so, yeah, St. beach was a was a wild that was wild. It was like Yeah. Yeah. It turned into like a Tampa extension of partying really for bars and Yeah. That's what ton that's where they would go over because that was there was no there was no good beach over there. So they they'd all come in and hit the beach bars and there was a lot of uh like clubs scene and just and lots of transients. There was lots of when when we when we took them over there's a ton of transient population. They were nice weather, you know. It was in in TI, Treasure Island, at the at least at the time, you could drink on the you could drink like on the street. So people would be bouncing between there and there. What could go wrong? So yeah, it turned out to be wild. That was And there was a lot of um drug motel and and more of like apartments that um that we had to deal with initially and it was so it was it turned out to be pretty pretty wild. Was there like a, you know, uh, pardon the expression, but like there's a new sheriff in town, like with the kind of the regulars not being used to the level of kind of enforcement and the tolerance of a different agency, like was that a thing? Yeah, it was big time. It was like uh this is different. Like we're not putting up with this. We're not going to. Star man's here. Yeah, that's what And that's what it was like. It was like uh these we're not we're not playing around with these people that are that think they can get away with whatever they want. Mh. So it quickly Yeah. It quickly turned started turning around and they're learning like ah maybe we don't want to mess around here because I mean a lot of visitors too though. So they lots of Yeah. And we don't want and they don't want they the visitors don't want that. The people staying in the hotels they don't want to deal with some some local just wants to go and drink too heavily and caught and fight at the Nobody wants all that. So, there's a lot of fights, a lot of a lot of disorderly intox and a lot of transient issues that you don't want to deal with it that people don't want to deal with on vacation. Yeah. Do you have any any uh extra good stories from there from St. Pete Beach? Well, there's there was this one time where one of these one of these so-called uh Tampa Tampa people comes over and they um they brought they're with their girlfriend, got way too drunk, and they get into an altercation. the guy just in front of like a very crowded beach. He just picks her up and body slams her just bat and batts her and everybody's screaming for the police like, "He's right there. He's right there." So I'm like, "All right." And then so he runs out into into the golf and like uh looking around. I'm like, "Hey, this guy just pulled up his jet ski there." I was like, "Can I borrow that?" I was like, "Oh." He's like, "Have at it." So, I was like, "Uh, I'll take the repercussion later." I go, I took my gun belt off. I hand it to my backup and I just I just put my gun I just threw my gun into my pocket and I started circling them and and these people This was before everybody had perfect cell phones, so I figure I'm like, "Somebody's probably got a camera somewhere." Yeah. But luckily, I never saw I never saw it show up anywhere. And now it's been long enough. Yeah. now there'd be no way to get. So I just circle the guy and he's uh he finally gives up and the and he walks back in after after several uh you know donuts around him. He he gives up and uh the whole beach collapsed. It was just a just it was a standing ovation like they I'm like uh is that good? Yeah. I wrote it in the report. Is it standing ovation in the report? I'm not sure it was good but everybody else said it was good. They they they liked it. Everybody loves it. All worked out. That was that is a thing though, like you know, with the beach, you know, being out there if you're on cuz we have um for listeners, you know, obviously we have deputies that patrol the different beaches and then they have like we don't have deputies um assigned specifically to the sand under normal circumstances, but there's vehicles we go grab and go out there. But it is tough like to get people to the beach because probably around it had to be around that time 2013 2014 we had the infamous uh Sergeant Bingham brawl out there and it took a long time for I mean because you figure deputies are coming I mean yes they're on the beaches but you got to figure out where you are number one you don't always know if you're chasing somebody so it you know it's complicated. So you go to um you go to narcotics. Yep. Um anything notable there? What what drew you there? Um I always thought I kind of liked the idea of the the whole acting thing. Let me guess. Somebody guess you watched Miami Vice. Getting that cliche. At least as long as it wasn't training day. No, I really thought it was a I was like, I can I figured I could talk to people on the street. I I could figure this out. I mean, it' be uh you got to know who the who the local drug dealers were, but obviously that's it's a whole another side. Just because somebody's good at finding drugs doesn't mean you're good at buying drugs because that's you're turning into a very you're coming from like an alpha position to a very typically a very like beta position of a drug buyer because the alphas usually a lot of times depending on what you're doing like but street level you have these these these dealers who think they're like they're awesome right that's what they do they can so yeah so when you go into that you're kind of taking a role of like if you're buying a small amount of if you're buying a small amount of crack cocaine or or fentinol or methamphetamine. You're not you're not some kind of baller. You're you're you can't act apart like I'm so cool. I'm buying three pieces of crack. Feel you have to you have to Yeah. You have to be you have to put on that more of like may I please have some three walks, please? Just a more Yes. Yes. Just a little quack. Yeah. So that was uh that was fun. So, I never even thought of that aspect of narcotics with all these, you know, big hard guys going in and suddenly having to be to beg a little bit. You have to Yeah, you have to and you have to really you have to suck up your pride and be able to say, "I know I'm going to get you in the long run, but you got you got to act the part. Let them lure it over." If you're I mean, if you're doing bigger stuff and you're trying to deal with like you can, it depends. You have to play the role that you're doing, but I when I was there, it was mostly uh street level. So, you're trying to get the the actual dealers to sell you stuff. So that's what they and you know you kind of you're willing to wait because they're they stand you up a lot and let make you wait and it's they call it doper time. So they uh you're like I'm on doper time. He's I'll be there in five. I'm turning the corner. Turning the corner. You're like you know you're not even like you're you're miles away. Just trying to keep you to stay. Yeah. You're still in. Yeah. That's what I'm going to do next time. I'm late. Ricky in the morning time. Yeah. So that was but that was fun. I like to I I really at the time I I saw the necessity for confidential informants, but I didn't like them personally. I thought they were just the most of them were the drug dealers trying to get paid for their off time and try to figure out who's who. And I just I saw through most of them and I'm like I'm like I can find my own I can find my own people. And so I turned I did a lot of unwitting deals and and people are so unwitting somebody that somebody's helping you get drugs but they don't necessarily know like the local prostitutes. Mhm. So those ones you could figure out where they're going and try to get introductions from them. They think you're just a friend or somebody that's like that's kind of just a John or whatever and they would take you over and show you or by or by themselves and and facilitate. Do we we don't really do any vice any means to the narcotics. They're a means to narcotics. So if they're if they're will if they're just doing stuff between the consensual adults, although illegal, it's pretty pretty low on most the priority list for for at least us at the time. Yeah. And so yeah, it was but if they're selling drugs, if they're facilitating drugs up and then Yeah. And if they're if they're if they're predisposed to it, it's it's completely legal. You can ask them. Um so yeah, they would go find usually find them walking. And it would be you'd stroll around wherever there areas they're at and you'd pick them up and you could take them they would they would show you exactly where the drug dealer were. They say pull in here, pull in this part. You know, they would they would take them to their because you got to remember most of these people are strung out on on drugs. They're they're addicts and they don't stay far from wherever they can get something. Yeah. So they and they're they're subsistence workers, so they're just getting enough to get the next fix, most of them. Um, but if they're if they're if they've got out to the street, that's really what what it turned into. It's they're they're so far down the down the hole of addiction, unfortunately. But to with that being said, they're in that that lifestyle. I would go out there, go find them, and facilitate drug deals and go meet people that way. And a lot of a lot of those. And then uh strip clubs, those are, you know, adult entertainment places, they're just ravaged with with drugs. There's I mean, there's all there's all kinds of tricks. So, I mean, I I suggest if somebody's listening to it for um you know, for tips on how to get away with stuff, you won't because there's there's so many there's so many ways to do it. And if just don't sell drugs, that's that's the takeway. That's really the easiest. Somebody you're going to sell. I I I promise you, no matter what, unless you can't sell to all your friends and make any money, you got two options. You can sell to people you know, and never make any money, real money, or you can try to make real money, you're have to expand your client base, and you're going to get caught, right? It's just a it's just a numbers game. [Music] Uh, so the big question that everybody always wants to know about narcotics and whatever and it always comes up like do you guys have to do drugs? Um, or pretend to do drugs. You could Yeah. So basically, no. You I I didn't do drugs. I didn't do any I didn't do any drugs. There was there were sometimes you um would have to, you know, you have to simulate marijuana or whatever. But now the thing about marijuana now is that that there's there's so many legal CBD and all that stuff and it looks the same and smells the same. So, so now you could you could add credibility without any kind of without any problems. At the time there was there were some times that you get put in positions where they would try to get me to do drugs. I I had one guy that I was trying to buy um trying to buy crack cocaine from. He was a dealer that was going around for a while and he he was pretty good. He was cautious and he said so I pulled up it was a mobile home park off of 28th Street and I I go down he they lead me. So this was actually crazy. He um he put me I he told me to meet him at the days I think it was the days in and so he said get out and walk to the laundry area. I'm like this is sketchy. I was like whatever. I'll stick my gun in my waistband and and I'll I'll go and you're like wired. There's somebody Yeah, I have cover. I have I have somebody they won't see him. They won't know who it is, but some there's somebody close at least. So I'm like I really want this guy because he's been eluding different all the different agencies trying to that are trying to buy from him. Like I'll be the guy that gets him. I I can get him. And so I get out, I do I like I stand in the light. He's like, "Ah, okay. Good. On face value. Yeah, I'll take you." And then he's like, "Follow me." So he went by and looked at me in the light. That's basically what it was. He he he sized me up in the light as when he saw his car by his his car drive by and he goes, "All right, follow." He's like, "Nope, not a cop." Yeah. Yeah. That's basically what Yeah. He He didn't He's like, "I don't think he's a cop." Basically, so go to the next part. And so he pulls us down a oneway like down down into the very back end of a trailer park into the side of a trailer. And he he said, "All right. Uh, I'll give you some for free. You smoke crack. Go ahead. Just just smoke some." I was like I was He's like, "Go in the go into the trailer. Go inside. I'll you can smoke crack for free." Whatever. I go I said, "Now I really got to I got to pick up my kids. I can't be I said I can't be messed up like that at my at my in-laws house. I can't do it." I go, "I got to do it later." And they're like, "Well, find nothing then." And I go, "Come on." I start I kind of start going the whole like, "Man, this really really I've been looking for you for for weeks. I've been trying to meet up with you." Blah, blah. He goes, "Well, the police been looking for me for four years." I go, "Okay." And so I go, "Come on, just can you just" I said, "Here, here's the cash right here. Here it is. Here it is. Here it is." And he's like, "No." And then some some dude popped out of the trailer with like a butcher knife and he just started he held it up at me and he's just like he's like, "Leave. Leave now." I'm like, "Yep, that's my son." I said, "Guess I'm not going to get him this time." But I'll say that he ended up getting gotten a by bust basically, but he he was good. He was like he avoiding that stuff. Um but yeah, got him later anyway. So it didn't matter. We had they got him into had to bring him into another trailer and they end up just taking him down there. Nice. For with the drugs on him. So you didn't smoke crack and you didn't I didn't smoke cracked with the butcher knife. Yeah. And yeah, I I feel that that's a win no matter what. I can swallow my pride that day and say, "Yeah, never mind." Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, that he's wanting to size you up looking for wires and stuff. So, is it is it even possible to see? Yeah. What What are they looking for? Is it I I think they have like a mic pack on there. We got him. I'd say honestly at the time it just did. Yeah. Basically, basically, it looked like the old school at the time I was there, it looked like an old school wire. Like the same exact thing you'd see on a on a movie. Yeah. Where you tape it to yourself or whatever. So, if he like patted you down, he would have found it. No, I mean Yeah. Yeah. He could have. Yeah, for I didn't. My goal is to try to not get patted down by anything because But now now the technology's evolved so much you'll never know. You could be wearing a wire right now. I could be. We're already recording him. So yeah. Well, that's Yeah. It's kind of productive at this point. I was wondering if it was just like do you look too like put together? You have all your teeth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, really like the uh I mean I the f No, I don't want to say it now. I was going to say the first thing the first thing I would do is look for look for people with perfect shoes. I'm like, why why would you wear your perfect shoes? You're not a you're not a junkie. There's other ways to figure it out, but that's they're they're so it's so hard now. You could you never know. I mean, if if they have a full mouth of rotten teeth, I could probably say you're safe. I haven't met any of those guys yet. But maybe we need to hire one. I don't know. Yeah. Or get some like dental prosthetics with just just black out a couple. You're right. That's what I do. If I was selling drugs, I'd go and bring a dental mirror and I'd be like, "Let me peek in the back." That's a nice crown you have. That's a nice That look that looks like you have insurance, right? Oh man. Oh. So, what else? Anything else notable in in narcotics? Um, yeah, it was a lot of very uh very interesting times. It was it was a a lot of fun. The own the I'll say the worst day we had was I was going with um John Clearary. We were we ended up doing a deal with somebody and and that they the person was it was they had they had some weed on them. They were leaving the leaving a club and they they offered to smoke with us, right? So, we're like, uh, at that point I'm like, we can we can simulate this, but so we all pass around a a bowl that which is, you know, marijuana pipe. So, I pass it, we pass it, and then uh the next day I woke up, I'm like, uh, I'm dead to the world. I'm like, what's wrong with me? So, I'm like I go and I'm I have 104 fever. I'm like shivering and I'm like, what happened? So I I go to the ER like or the walk-in or whatever and I go they go, "Yeah, you have flu type A." So I call I call John Clearary and I'm like, "How do you feel?" He goes, "I feel like I'm dead." How how many people were sucking on that? It was It was just three of us. And I didn't talk to the other ones. Out of the out of the three of us, two of us ended up with flu A. So I don't know. There's a common denominator there. I feel like I'm dead. Yeah. He He's like, "Whatever happened that never going with you again." So, needless to say, that was a gross. I I did have another guy that was like we were we had a we had a uh we rented a a house, like a very dilapitated house from a landlord that was down that was close to the Gateway Motel. So, we were doing and we were using that as our as our place like we were like we were the owners and we uh so we would do drug deal. We'd hang out there and like, you know, just be act like we're hanging out there living there like a in a flop and get people to come and and they would just drop off drugs left and right. So, we just we'd use it for a short time and then it would be and then we set up an operation where everybody gets taken down and say they try to call everybody back and then just wait till they come in the room and they get they get cuffed and set in their own room. It was like one after another after another. There was Yeah, there are some that would come in. They thought the cops would never find the uh the drugs and they'd put it in their mouth. So I'd have I'd have them sometimes come out and spit it in my hand. Like they would have this because because crack cocaine is in its in its form is not water soluble. So you can store it in your mouth. Oh. So yeah, you can stick it in your lip. So that's a lot of them. Yeah. Yeah. So it's um Yeah. When when you do that, you can you can walk around if you're especially if you're you buy enough to use. A lot of them store it in their lip and so you don't catch them in a bath down or catch it in a container. So they I'd have some of the some of the girls they'd come back out and they'd just like here just open your hand like why am I got you something? Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. The only thing you ever caught was the flu. Yeah. Yeah. No kidding. Oh yeah. Yeah. That I'm like what? Why did we Yeah. Oh man. Gross. How long was that? Narcotics. I did that for about a year. That was about that I had enough. I had enough. I signed up to be a cop and I'm like I I really had enough. This is uh this was fun. It would be it would be, you know, but a long-term thing for me doing just street level stuff if you get into the the longer term investigations. But at the time they announced that you can get brand new Tahoe like a 2013 Tahoe. You could go work four 10 hour shifts on the road, be a be a full-time FTO and have like every Friday, Saturday, Sunday off. I'm like sounds perfect. That sounds good. Yeah. But you have to shave your beard. You have to shave your beard. That was fine. At that time I was like whatever. Yeah. So then you sergeants test at some point like Yeah. So So the first time I'm I just I wasn't at all ready to be promoted, but I uh I'm like I'm eligible. Why would I not go get a sneak preview? I'm like I why would I not take I'm not I don't want to get promoted right now. I got plenty of other stuff I want to do. Um but why not look at it? They they changed the test from an open book format to uh to more of like just a knowledge base. And I'm like, well, let's just see. Let's see what is happen. Yeah. see what happens. I'm like I'm like it may be the wrong mindset for some people, but for me I was like why am I not going to get a sneak preview of this test if I'm not if I'm not looking for it this year at all. So I took it and I'm like I missed it by like a single point. I'm like I didn't even look at the material. Yeah. I'm like that's that was pretty good just by knowledge of reading it historically. So So I took it again and uh like the next year I end up retaking. When you were ready I was I don't even know if I was even ready but I was like it's fresh in my mind. I go back through and my my way of studying I I feel like I have pretty good memory for especially for the the short term. So I can I took off like three or four days before the test just uh read through all the material once or twice whatever the ones that would like high liability twice and stuff and I uh yeah I got 90 something on the test. So I was like that's for me that was the way to study just just like just read through it block. Yeah. Some people can some people sit for months. I have a hard time sitting still. So, you know, it's like uh like three days is three days of just straight reading is is torturous to me. Mhm. It's probably why I couldn't be a vet, you know, that that all that that part. But yeah. Oh, so that was so yeah, I took it and end up taking the sergeant test and eventually well I went to before I got promoted. So I had taken the sergeant test but then I ended up going to the autotheft task force that we started that was a joint effort between all the agencies in Penllis and then Tampa um VCTF it it was the autotheft task force then it morphed to VCTF. Okay. So, yeah, the autotheft task force that it kind of scaled down a little bit and then went to a full-time unit with uh with us, St. Pete, Clearwater. Um I think that's I think that's it. Um and yeah, that was that was that was wild. That was going down to the south part the southern part of St. Pete and it was just stolen car central. That was it was nuts. Why do you think that was? Like what what did what did you guys have to do or what did y'all do that traditional law enforcement practices like couldn't make it happen? Like Yeah. So what our tactics were strictly working with a combination of undercover cars along with marked units and the marked units would basically stay around stay out of the way and then you'd go and spot because a lot of them would give themselves away because they it's this is weird because the car thieves the car thefts of like the 80s 90s were like chop shop like it was organized crime. It was it was stuff that was it this these people have no the people that were stealing cars and and currently still it's getting better now but at the time the people ste they steal it to joy ride it's just for fun it's kids it's kids as young as like 10 years old that's I remember I cuz this is like what 13 14 somewhere around there cuz I was teaching in South St. compete and I just remember it was just insane. That's probably when the catalyst started and it just continued on for like 16, 17, 18. It was it was all those it was just it was wild and I I um so they went from chip keys that had like a like a micro chip or like a um and then they went to the key fobs. So key fobs were a great thing for push button start. Everybody wants push button. They wanted to push button start at the time. And so what kids were doing is you could you could tuck on the door handle and you could tell right away if the key was in it. So it would they would know that they can just push the button and and drive off. So it was there was nobody learning to hotwire car there. I mean I don't say nobody but very few people. You some of those high-end people have those have those crazy contraptions that can hack key codes and stuff. But that's not the norm. The norm is an unlocked vehicle keys inside. And that's and that's the message that should get out to everybody to that's the only way your car is going to get stolen. not the the single best way to do it is don't leave your gun in your car and leave your car door locked and you're not going to make problems. They'll tug on your door handle, go to the easy one. They're not breaking windows typically. These kids aren't because they're not like criminal geniuses who have apprenticed to somebody learning how to hotwire a car. They don't they are strictly they're they're taught on YouTube opportunists. They're the only time they do hotwired is when they figured out that the uh the big Tik Tok trend of the the Kia boys. Yeah. so that you could you could take a uh screwdriver basically pop off the ignition cover and then a you could use a a USB to start the cars. So that was probably no, it wasn't the owner's fault, but that was a few years Kia that they figured somebody figured out in some metropolis that they figured they could steal a bunch of cars. But the by all by Penelis County standards, it was a time was key fobs. And the big thing was it wasn't necessarily people thinking they're doing the right thing. They had a key fob in the wife's or the husband's car. So it wasn't the car that necessarily that they're driving. They check them both, rummage them. You're like, "Oh, I have my wife's lockout key in my car. I have my husband's walk lockout key in my car and they just swap them, take them both. Uhhuh. Yeah. And then and then they we had some that they got them back three times. They never re keyed them and they the person still had to spare. Yeah. We had them they we had the people would resteal the same. They just have it coming. I wouldn't even respond to that. I I don't put a sign. I know. I'm like, "Hey, if you have the if you have this fob, they just come back and let me know. Can you return it by morning?" Yeah. Right. Yeah. That was Some people were like, "I don't know how many times you can tell them, so you have to Gosh." So yeah, but that was an epidemic of of just ridiculous ridiculous amounts of every every kid thought it was a good idea that every bad kid thought that that was the thing to do. And we even had one that kid was a tiny little guy. He was um probably 11 12 years old. He he uh he was talked to a man at the gas station and said, "Hey, your your back tire's flat." And the kid the guy went to go look. He jumped in his car and took off with it. And he uh Yeah. That was uh Could his feet even reach the pedals? I think he figured it out just driving with it over. Yeah. Yeah. Some of them you see them like little rascals. They're stacked in a They're stacked in a straight jacket or long jacket. Trench coat. Raccoons in a trench coat. That was one of the giveaways though with the um when you when you started when they drove by and you could see that well a lot of times they had gloves on. They were driving with gloves on. That was a dead giveaway. But when you couldn't see him over the back of the seat, you you look twice like oh yeah that's definitely that guy. We don't think we don't think gams out roller Yeah. Yeah. That's not that ain't you or the cars registered somewhere to a nice neighborhood. So what what they would actually do these kids would go they got slick. They not that they were criminal masterminds but they learned that if you went on Zillow and you would you would punch it you'd look 100 miles in either direction and they would find the the most expensive neighborhoods and they'd go take trips out there and go get as many cars as they can. They'd pick the safest and the like they'd go and the rich they'd just go to and they'd like to get foreign. That's what they called them. So anything they'd get foreign cars, they would they would drive three, four counties. They would they would go over and find the nice neighborhoods and circle through them and they they would they would go 100 miles in either any direction from here any day of the any night of the week and they'd come back with a bunch of cars. So we wouldn't even know that they were stolen. They wouldn't be on because we would have an uh ILP to a hot list. Yeah. And you wouldn't know that. But you're like, we're finding cars from from Orange County and I mean we're getting from far south and they're all from nice neighborhoods. So they got they got smart I like that they're doing research. I do too. Smart criminals. Yeah. Just just for this for the sake of interest, for the story, not for Absolutely. So, when you when you catch these kids, like how how are they? Are they like, "Oh, you got me. We'll do it again." Because that's a whole other podcast for another day. But, you know, like what Yeah. I mean, typically they they know that they try to they either drive until they crash or they um or they try to find a place to bail and they just run. They they hardly rarely ever give up. you have to chase them down or or they try to hide in place and you had we had used the K9 a lot and the helicopter, but we uh that was the time we upgraded our camera to that really awesome system. So, it was um it started they started be like, "Wow, you can actually see us. We're not getting away that way. You have to get home." So, that was that was the the trick was to get inside somewhere and we try to get them anyway, but it you know, it's a cat and mouse game and we we recover a lot of the cars. We we it was very successful in in the recovery of stolen cars, but at the end of the day, it was these people are leaving their keys in the in the car, right? I mean, it's is it sometimes it's like you got to ask, is it worth it, right? And I mean, a lot of it was like, hey, it's this is this is unfortunately it's going to raise everybody else's insurance, right? But it's mostly a it's mostly a crime that the victim's getting their car covered, right? And so so who's the real victim? Everybody else that's paying right paying premiums. Yeah. Well, it's we were talking about this the other day. Um, you know, we we try to put out, you know, information when we have a slew of of conveyance burglaries, you know, car burglaries. And, uh, we kind of put stats together cuz sometimes it'll just hit a neighborhood and it's like insane. Like they're getting cars out of it, they're getting guns, they're getting, you know, whatever. And, you know, Ashley deals with, you know, on on social media. I mean, the responses are, you know, most people are like, "This is dumb. You know, lock your car." are like the basic whether it's like well you guys are you know blaming victims and and whatever. Um but it's like there there's two there's two problems here. One of course you have people even you know their stuff in their cars and their cars unlocked. But then you have a juvenile justice system that is uh a revolving door of sorts, right? And it's like we're just trying to solve the problem. Yeah. You know it's and it it's just it's insane that you know people really need to understand like we're this is just the easiest way to solve this problem. uh because we can't control the other piece of it. Yeah, we can't control the other piece and that's that's the it's sad. I mean, I understand the juvenile should be given they they have a undeveloped or not fully developed prefrontal cortex. They have they have issues that they they make rash decisions and sometimes they have a lot of um home factors that that absolutely play into that because they they're they grew up in an environment. I I understand they have nothing. They have nothing to they have they have no toys. They're stealing for entertainment. they have they don't get enrolled in things because they they don't have care at the house. So, I I feel for that, but how many times can we physically arrest you before I mean something gets done, right? And because I'd rather them get I'd rather them get to the point where they're they're punished moderately instead of having to get hammered when they turn 18 or direct filed when they do something bad enough. Like, if if there was more severe consequences, it would be much better for them in the long run. Maybe they get they get more severe consequences that that matter and they know they're serious and then they don't do that. They don't progress. They're like, "Ah, this was enough." But when everything's like, "Ah, I can get out. No problem. See my friends. We go and do this again. We do it again. We do it again." Then you get hammered. You're like, "Wait a second." And these kids are literally crying at the end. Like when they're like, "Oh my gosh, the judge, they they've determined the state attorney and the judge and all this stuff. They're like, "This guy's going this guy's getting direct filed now. He that means he's getting charged as an adult." like, "Wait, I want to go to I want to go to JDC or I want to go to PJ. Sorry." And they're crying in the back of the car like, "I won't do it again." I'm like, "How many times, right? How many times were are they they decide to direct file you until they decide to direct file you, which is a lot, unless you do something really heinous, but So, you're you're this is a great segue for talk about home and and get to that. So, you are um you do VCTF, you go back to patrol as a corporal." Yes. And then you end up getting promoted. Yes. And your first assignment is home. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yep. I went to the road for a little bit. Then went then I um actually back to St. Pete Beach as a sergeant for a little bit. Okay. So back to back to there. So um but right after that I went to home which is which is habitual offender monitoring enforcement. Perfect. For all our listeners which is a task force that was as a result of the the very you know the Tampa Times did a story on the stolen car epidemic um and was really kind of a different approach you know to this with with multiple agencies. So if you if you could just briefly just kind of talk about home. Home home is still around today um doing great work but just the the cliff notes of what uh what home is. Yeah. So home home was developed because there was a a very there was a lack in I'd say supervision of juvenile offenders by just the juvenile justice system. So uh so and department of juvenile justice was typically the only game in town when it came to supervising youth that were on probation. And they there was a different philosophy and we wanted more of like a a more in-your-face type. We're coming and you're not going to know when we're coming. We're not meeting us any place. It is straight up you're going to be checked on whatever time of the night, day, holiday, doesn't matter. You're going to be checked to see if you're violating your curfew. And if you are, you're going you're going back to PJ and going to have to tell the judge why. Uh so that was that was the main thing. And it was it was very very strategic on how it was done because the if you you had to have it was five felonies for the intensive kids. It was five felonies in a calendar year. So if if that's the if you do that then we determined that you need to be monitored very heavily. And then there's the radar unit. Um but that the radar kids that was a lot of other kids that didn't quite meet that criteria. Okay. Um they were like ones to watch but not quite. Yeah. Right. And that was They were they were borderline. They were on probation or they were on some kind of sanctions but they didn't meet that five felony threshold but they were on their well on their way. It was several just a matter of time unless somebody stepped in. So yeah sometimes insane. But the talk about the threshold though just to how do you get on the home? Yeah. So you're you have to be on some you have to be on some kind of sanctions. So meaning there's you have to have some court-ordered sanction meaning you have to be either uh sentenced to probation um or I mean and usually that entails having a curfew uh being you know there's there's exceptions to curfew obviously that that JP so you're kind of working with a not you're not directly supervising them because they have a they have a a juvenile probation officer JO but you're in there doing supplemental so you're supplementing them and not only is it like monitoring them on social media not only writing search warrants and and subpoenas for anything that they're doing with um with weapons and and any other crimes. So, you're you're basically taking this core group of kids and working it in reverse. So, you're like, what are these guys doing? Are you are they where they're supposed to be? Are they committing new crimes? And what can we do that if we can't worry about the other side of the coin to see what's going to happen at the end, but how many times can we put them in front of, you know, in front of the judge if they're doing something wrong? And the goal the goal is for them to do nothing wrong, right? The whole thing is just to assume that we're coming at any time. We we might see you two, three times a night and yeah, you're you better be on your toes because it's, you know, it might and it gets annoying sometimes, but we tried to be as accommodating as possible. Like if one of the parents like, "Hey, I'm sleeping. I don't want to wake up every time, but here's his window." We'd go around, we we'd accommodate, go, they say, "This is the deal. Knock on the window." And they'd come to the door if they were there. But a lot of times they go and they'd always try they'd try to play games, but we got we outsmarted them a lot of times. They would have they would have mom or mom and grandma or mom and dad or whatever and they'd have two different houses. They're like, "Oh, no, I was at this house. Sorry, we have someone at that house, too." Knocking at the same time because because we got a con a convoluted story from your probation officer. So, yeah, it was a lot of that. And I feel like when I went there, I um I really tried to push the the doing the investigations like really like for for just probation violations that doesn't carry much weight. Right. Right. So, I would like to say if they had if they had guns or whatever, go let's go get the guns. Let's go find out what we can do to how can we get this guy to if he's committing a crime, we need to we need to find a way to solve this. And we got a we got a lot of guns. We got a lot of we got a lot of convictions based on gun photos that we could actually take them and we could we could validate them through investigations. So, they're posting on social media. They're they're on Instagram and they show themselves posing guns. So they they were a lot of a lot of our bread and butter for for writing uh subpoenas and and warrants stuff were for cellular devices or for social media accounts um which they would be a lot of times friends with us unbeknownst to them and they would post a Snapchat or or an Instagram or Facebook story and they would they would flash a gun and yeah you can't prove a lot of them but we would get like they got like they cover the serial numbers but we could do other stuff. We could go and find we could find all the different characteristics that proved it was a real gun. We and so through through our investigative techniques, we were able to validate the gun and make say this is real. So we had to prove uh basically date. We had to prove time location that occurred in Penllis in our jurisdiction. And so we would we some pretty clever ways. We had some very clever ways. We would try to we would try to I don't know if you ever seen that guy on on YouTube. We were like the the first people that you tell him where you are like he'll like on Instagram or whatever. You show a picture of like a quick little view of him and he finds you on a map anywhere in the world. Yeah. Yeah. So, we were like the original doing that. Yeah. We were doing the original. Like we would we would do use ruses and all kinds of stuff to get in their house. And I was like, there's a picture of a crucifix in here with a yellow wall. I said, I don't know where that's at, but so we don't know if we don't know where that's at, we can't do anything about it. So, we're like, okay, run your body cam. See if you can go to We think it's this house. Try to wait till he's at grandma's. That's what we're thinking. I said, that's one of the few places he's listed. You get I'm like, there it is. It's on the west wall. So, we got got it on camera. We were able to use that to secure our, you know, our our legal paperwork we would do. So, you're like, "Okay, that's location." Like certain parks, you'd see it. They'd be flashing at the pavilion. You're like, "Okay, I got to find that artifact in the somewhere." So, it was like we would we had a constant game. We we we got good at Google Earth trying to find trying to find everything and we're like, "Okay, this is we'd find this is not in Penllis. We'd have to either pass it off or because a lot of other places weren't willing to do it. It's a lot of effort." Oh, yeah. But for us, it was worth it. So yeah, we had all we had all kinds we and okay then that was that was the tough part. Then you'd have to go and so you prove that it happened in Penelis. That's that's one part of it. You had to prove when it happened because in order for it to really matter to get the felony you had to prove that they were adjudicated delinquent by the time because and so they could say, "Oh no, this was a picture before." So we'd use creative ways like new tattoos. We'd always document their new tattoos. Hey, cool new tattoo. What'd you get? So that was our we'd have time stamps. We we got as creative as like because all of them wore the latest shoes. We'd find the release drop dates of the shoes. So we'd be like, "Hey, that wasn't dropped on on Nike's on the sneakers app until that day. They were they were delinquent." So we'd find them by that. So we and we'd put together very creative packets to be able to to convict. Wow. And that actually got them some time. Wow. Yeah. We had we had one where we had to write a a separate policy for the Aphus texts there. So, they went able to um we we recovered drugs, but we didn't we had more of a constructive possession case, but we had the identical bag and the identical drugs that were uh that were in the guy's hand on a on a Snapchat post. I believe it was Snapchat. And and from getting the guy's iPhone and so all these uh social media platforms, they they um degrade your photos. Sure. So, you you can't get super details, but if you can find they posted and you can reasonably assume that it's the phone that they used. And if you get if you go and get an extraction, so you write a you write a warrant for the phone, you go in um our our DFU, digital forensics unit can can extract them once the once the pro legal process is done. So we had one where it's like, "Oh, that's such a good photo." And we could see his fingerprints. So we had to rewrite it. So they actually got fingerprints off a photo. So meaning like they reversed like almost had to draw the lines on the actual picture. Since since the since the new phones take such good photos, you could actually get a fingerprint in reverse. Instead of leaving a fingerprint, you cross reference it to a photo print. Has anyone ever done that before? I'm sure I don't know. We we tried and it worked. It worked out and it was uh it was good for good forc. Yeah. So, we we really I mean, and a lot of that's helped. There was um we had a penel spark a penel spark that detective that was on there, Per Hoglin. He's he's back in their SIU now, but he was he was very creative and he would do like I would let him kind of let him free to be like let's see what we can do work with us and he got really good reputation with the state attorney's office and so we got creative and stuff that was and it worked and I know our homicide has used it since then. They've they've called and they they've kind of uh they they uh collaborated with us on a few things while I was there. So it was it was really it was cool. It was very rewarding too. Even if honestly at even if the if they got let out got let out again it was good practice for next time you're like all right we know they're going to do it again proof of concept and I mean unfortunately since the kids since I've since I've left followed some of the a lot of the kids that were there a lot of them are are doing long stance in prison or they're deceased from criminal means. Geez. Yeah. Either shootings at each other or shooting getting shot and killed and that's the typical That's terrible. Yep. at because like you said like I say this all the time but you're the common denominator of like the five people you're closest to and a lot of these kids grow up in these and that's what everybody's doing and so that's what they end up doing and they're stuck in it and they don't have a chance right and so hopefully you know by doing this kind of thing with some account some accountability and hopefully hopefully it can get more but like more intense over time like I don't know I know everybody's frustrated about it when it comes to it that a lot of these cars getting broken into it's by juveniles. Yep. That's the That's the main I mean there's there's some there's some crime that comes up here from from South Florida that does like purse gra they they actually break windows and they go to look they go to health clubs and stuff like that and they they look for people leaving leaving obvious stuff in there. Break a window, pull up close with a big van. That's different. But the ones that the ones that just rummage Yeah. straight up kids. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it's not, you know, and yes, it's the the victim is the the owner of, you know, whatever. But then also, depending on some of them, they flee from us, they crash, they could injure people, there's the guns they steal could be used in crime. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, so it's just like, you know, yeah, we we can't solve all the problems, but if we can just get you to lock your door, uh there's a little there's a little bit of a better chance, make it a little bit harder uh on these on these guys with those um that threshold. You said five felonies. What can you give like some examples of what a juvenile would have as a felony? Uh, a lot of times like we were talking about the um a lot of the auto burglaries. Yeah. Yeah. That's I mean that was the bread and butter with grand thefts and autober is that like so that's based on like the amount of things they stole or like cuz there's a threshold for like misdemeanor and felony for that. Yeah. So for all anytime you enter into enter your conveyance it it becomes a felony once you enter. So Oh. So it's not by dollar amount anymore. It's by just by entering. Okay. I must be thinking of Yeah, with theft has different theft. Would they still go into home if it was like um criminal mischief more than $1,000 damage or or stealing from Ultra More than that? Is it or not? If you do five if you do five of those, yeah, you're and and you're sanctioned. So basically like you end up getting the sanctions. I guess there's a hypothetical point where you could not be on any kind of sanctions, but I don't think I've not seen it. Typically by that time they have to do something because there's a uh there's a a Dre risk assessment and so initially when a kid goes into when a kid goes to PJC they get they get scored based on based on on that risk assessment tool and they will they'll go and see if they scored either get outright release which so kids that don't do anything like kids that don't have any history or or just commit a theft they're going to get outright release typically on their first time they're going to get parents going to pick them up they're not going to have any sanctions but you go there and you're there five times you're going end up getting scored on on these five felonies and you're going to end up on supervised release. So, you mean you you can go there? I mean, or or you might get over 21 days to to the U JDC. So, is that is that the absolute worst that can happen to a juvenile unless they get adjudicated? Uh 20 21 days and then supervision. They do. Well, a lot of times the 21 days is an initial meaning that it it will be it's it's kind of weird because so with juveniles they have to make the determination on a risk because there's no bond schedule. Okay. So they have to make the decision right away what what's going to happen. So if they score out to go to JDC for 21 days that's going to be that's going to be they're going to be considered held. So then but they might get sanctions after that. Most of the stuff is honestly done sanctions or programs. They might get sent away to a different juvenile program. Sometimes they're waiting bed space, sometimes they're put on ankle monitor. Okay. Um so yeah, but no, the 21 days is technically not real not punitive. It's just a it's a risk assessment. So it's based on the risk assessment. So they're so they're either trying and we have to the state attorney's office has certain times and guidelines. They have to try to wrap these cases up pretty quick that that are just not going to be filed as an adult. So yes, to answer your question, basically the um it's not that's de facto a lot of times what they consider punishment. Okay. Is is being held. Yeah. This might be out of I know you haven't been in home for a little bit but like with the um surge of school threats which those qualify as a felony like is there any overlap with generally in home or no? some well sometimes I say a lot of those are not I mean there's so we take those very seriously the the school threats and if you if you write down a threat that you're going to do some mass shooting or anything like that you're you're going to go to jail I don't I don't care who you are that's that's what's going to happen because you don't you can't do that that's it creates a lot of issues for everybody and there's no joking about that but yeah a lot of those the the home kids I would say they're wise to a lot of that stuff these are the ones you catch doing doing that stuff are not necessarily the the hardened they're not hardened criminals because I mean a lot of people that end up doing you know mass attacks and stuff don't have any any record other than that they've been they've been brewing and I actually after home I don't know if we want to talk about this now but after home I went to I went to threat management as a sergeant while it was relatively new what we what was getting after I got stood up I forgot that yeah so I went yeah so I went there after after that and that was eye opening that you see all the stuff and and the amount of information flow that was there and and you're making decisions that were just, you know, you're you're making ch you're taking you're taking chances, but you're also weighing the options without you can't be you can't be worried about every single thing if you you could get lost so fast there. So, you have to decipher information and we have a whole team of ILP um you know, intelligenceled policing analyst analysts and they really do a good job. They do a deep dive in all these people. when you get a when you get a threat, they have to go through and give you their life story and everything they've ever done, everything we know about them. And you can see some of these people that the goal is to get them off the pathway to violence, right? Because that is a because most of them, like we were just talking about, they're not home kids. They're not like these those guys are not your typical ones that do these these unfortunate school shootings and stuff. Um it's people that are that are sleepers and they but they a lot of times they give people they leave signs. Yeah. Right. Well that's what you always hear about after the fact. It's you know it's almost it's predictable and it's like oh well you know how many times did law enforcement touch this person or you know what signs what warning signs and people I think you know raise eyebrows with the amount of resources that we have directed towards threat management because it is a it's there's a lot of resources involved. It's expensive and it's new. So relatively new, but you know, you don't want to be holding the ball on the other end when it's oh well, did we know about this? Is there something that we could have done? Is there resources we could have? because there are a lot of success stories uh with threat and you know the the all the work that they they do and and we have we'll get some good threat peeps you know here and there in the future I'm sure as it continues to grow and really get the low down on it because it is uh it is there's so many resources coming together because there's I mean the same thing I mean the issue is always anytime you have an issue whether it's juvenile car theft issues with the system what have you it is a system issue where all of the people are not sitting at the same table with the same goal but I can say the threat management. I mean, they have their their their threat assessment meetings. They sit down and they have all the right people around the table to make sure that nobody's going to fall through the cracks and make sure that serious threats are addressed. We get people off that pathway as you mentioned, but also, you know, some people that um need more attention. It's a it's a new form of law enforcement like in the in the scheme of law enforcement. It's very just scratching the surface and it's evolved a lot since I've left. Um, but it is I think it's probably one of the most necessary things that you can have. We we don't want to be caught with any kind of rock left unturned when it comes to that kind of situation. And and breaking down the silos of communication are like the main objective where you're like, what can we do for this person? Because a lot of them are going to a lot of them are just so early on their their their pathway. They don't even know they're on the pathway to do that yet. They just know that there's there's a perceived grievance. There's there's they feel like whether they whether some girls don't like them or whatever else they have no you know or their f they have no friends and stuff like that starts sometimes might start and they start manifesting a hatred towards everybody. They might not be criminals but they're only their whole goal is just they get stewing and stewing in their own mind. And if you can sometimes just being the the detective that goes out and talks to them can take them off right away because they're like, "Hey, somebody listens to me." Like they're going to come whether they just are are talking to them and like, "Hey, I'm going to come visit you every once in a while. You know, what do you want to talk about? You know, we can get you teamed up with these people, some program." So, I think that it's hard to quantify the success of of threat management as a whole, but I can tell you just just some stories of the um the people that that we talk to out there and in the cases we get and how we can use every tool at our our disposal to get them off that pathway. And it's a I mean that's a that's a rewarding and it's very very time consuming personnel intensive like you said and but well well worth it because because at the end of the day we don't want to be the ones that they park here and say well you guys knew about all this why didn't you do anything well we didn't we didn't talk to each other we never we never you know they had this information we had this. No not anymore. So those those not that not that something still can't happen obviously because but if it does happen and somebody was just came out of nowhere and does it you can't nobody can control but there's but there's typically things like they call it leakage and and different different manifesting of that or manifesto and there's there's all there's a lot of signs that that everybody like yeah we should have known that one would happen. Well, you know, if you see something, you better say something. If you, if you think there's I'd rather have too much information than too little, right? So, so there should be no excuse to be like, everybody like knew that was going to happen and not report it because you can be anonymous if you report that stuff. And is that how things typically come to the tension of threat that an anonymous tip or a tip from a family member or is there some other way that most people get on your radar? Uh, so mostly not. Mostly that happens that I mean that's a lot of it's somebody makes a report of some suspicious person or like they say, "Hey, my neighbor's really doing this. I think he's going off the deep end." There's that. But a lot of it just comes from from law enforcement on the streets interaction. Okay. Or a social media. Like a lot of it comes from posts and and people transmitting data that's inappropriate or they're starting to get there's the underground world of the internet is wild. It's a It's a wild place. There's the dark. Well, yeah. I know it's I mean that's really there's dark web but there's even like there's these Discord chats and all this stuff that they have find groups of like-minded individuals and they can they can create their own monster and it's it's relatively they're just like feeding each other with their obsessions and their right and so a lot of times the um I mean you might get the FBI or something gets these tips and they said so it comes they come from all it I mean it comes from every everywhere it's an open spigot that goes to them and they have to and some of it comes I mean a lot of it comes from the schools and and that kind of stuff. So they and anything incidents that happen at school that manifests like that and we try to try to steer these people away from going down the wrong path. So it's it's a very good program though. Do you have any good success stories you could share from uh from threat? I mean it's it's it's like you said it's hard to quantify but we found it's a thing that's not happening. You you talk to these people they say really bad things and I guess the only success story is they they said they were going to bomb the store and they didn't. But I mean that's a win. It's Yeah. I mean, we call it whatever we want, but I guess the thing is, we'll never know. We'll never know what the success stories are. We know that some Well, I know I can say success stories that we got a lot of people mental health help that got them off the um not necessarily off the pathway to, but they they got them out of their head, got them medicated, got them got them with the proper therapy, and they're doing well now. So, I say that's that that's a commonplace success. But that even goes full circle back to when you were talking about, you know, a lot of these people don't belong in jail. They don't belong in jail. Yeah, we I mean if the public doesn't even know how much we do. I mean I don't know of any other place that does anything like this. Any other agency I don't know of any other agency that has a has a homeless shelter that that's I mean just we we go it's well beyond law enforcement right what what what happens here which is which a lot of people don't even don't even realize how far how far we go to try to help out our local population to keep them from keep them out of jail. Keep them out of jail because those are systems we can't touch. So, we're trying to help how we can. Yep. Right. And I know our social workers in the jail do amazing things both with when they're in the jail and in their transition um out of helping them get resources. Yeah. We're trying to actively put ourselves out of business. No kidding. Yeah. That's fine. Hey, you know what though? It hasn't worked yet. It has. We'll keep at it though, right? So, you uh did you get promoted lieutenant out of Yeah. Right out to Yeah. to patrol again. Straight back to patrol. Okay. Back to patrol. Shift commander. That's a big job. That was a big job. Yep. That was uh very uh very rewarding. That's that's good. You get to steer you get to steer the sh the ship of your whole shift, right? We talked about that before. Like that's one of the toughest jobs there is in the agency because I would say so you're you're making all the calls y it's on you. It's on you. So that's that's a especially after being you you be away from patrol proper for many years and you come back and you're like I don't know anybody. Yeah. But they all have to obey and respect you. Yeah. Yeah. You have to get back out there and kind of start bang out a traffic stop for the first time. Try not to sound try not to sound bad when you're trying to get your try to get your feet back on. You had to watch Super Troopers again. Yeah, for sure. Get get back in the game. You have to be the you know have to be the the the voice of reason. Even though the people like you might be you might be the fun killer, right, on a lot of things cuz people come up with with wild ideas. I know I did, right? So, you know, you you got to be the one says absolutely not. Yeah. Different perspective. But I Yeah, you do like to encourage creativity. I like I love to encourage creativity, but when but some people's creativity is a little a little outside of Well, they color way outside of the maybe off the paper. So, yeah. So, no, I love creativity. I think that we had a lot of I I had a lot of success with um you know, you got to follow the book ends of the in the rules. So, I mean, I had some like instead of these people sometimes they're like, "Hey, we these cars flee and you know, we don't have anything that we could then our pursuit policy will allow." I said, "Okay." I'm like, "That's it is what it is." I said, "Why don't you go and put it we put it stationary? We we they they all have to stop and get gas. Go put a stationary person at the gas station and go and go find the cars that you know are going to run like i.e. rental cars that they put their own tent on. I mean, it's pretty obvious. And you go, why don't you go get a photo of the person that gets out, do a traffic stop, and then just let them go. And guess what? You have their photo. Go do some investigative work. It'll be good for you." So yeah, some fun stuff like that. We we could be we could get creative and all that stuff. And no, so that was good to be able to steer that. And obvious there's we're we're looking we're looking for more, you know, we need more deputies. We we need people to come come in the door. We need really qualified people. So there so some days you ran a little a little short and you know, it is it is what it is. So you couldn't have the the fun you want to and plan some extra events. But no, it's a really um it was it was very rewarding. So, we were just talking how um it seems like with maybe just traditionally it's like I always have to have this authoritarian presence. Um and so it's just nice to hear like it makes perfect sense, but for a time it seems like that was more of like I have to be authority and people don't necessarily respond super well. No, this this No, this this current I I'll speak for the current generation. They don't they don't want they they don't want to be talked nobody wants to be talked to like like that. They don't want to be yelled at. They don't want to most people do something wrong. They know they've done something wrong and you can just talk to them and and like and they're like they hang their head and they're like they don't want to disappoint you, right? So, but yelling I mean I just I don't think yelling at grown people is uh unless you have to. There's a time and place. Yeah. But because Yeah. Yeah. We were talking earlier, you know, just about the generational differences and and it's you're interesting because you've been around a minute. Yeah. And, you know, there are still there's still just a a very there's a a big difference between folks at the agency and how they approach that and how they, you know, and everybody has their own style, right? And and you know, there's some people I think I mean, I can think of a couple people in the agency like if they come up to me and I ask me, I'm like, "What the hell are you doing?" Like, "What's wrong with you?" you know, because you just have that and and I get that, you know, that piece of it. But, um, it is interesting to to hear just different perspectives on that because yeah, I mean, but but on the flip side, i.e. all these kids that you deal with in home and whatever, it's like, you know, you hear everybody has a story of seeing a kid misbehaving in the store or or slapping a parent or talking back to him, you're like, "Oh, I would I would not be alive if I did that when I was growing up, you know?" So, it's just it's another world. I mean I and I and I can kind of relate to both sides cuz I've been here like you said I've been here a minute but I but I also was like probably on the cusp of the generation that everybody gets a trophy too. Yeah. So it's kind I was kind of like in that transition period but I didn't like no cell phones nothing. Always outside playing and all that stuff but I also was it kind of became like like at least my parents and stuff were never like really strict like I was never like really yelled at and all stuff. So, I'm like, and I think that's more of a common place, but not to an extent that maybe is now where you see kids like if you did something wrong, you got in trouble. Yeah. Right. Get in trouble. But it's like it's not like like I don't I don't personally respond like you yell at me. I'm like it's I just I more I'm more of a person like if you're if you're a boss or whatever and you're yelling at me, I'm like I'm I'm more of a shut down. Like I I'll listen to you, but I'm not like I'm not really respecting. You're in you're in your feelings right now. So, I'm going let you get I'll let you get over and and when you want when you want to talk normally, we can uh we can continue this. But yeah, I mean luckily I think that's changed a lot from the time when I started because that was a lot of like you said I think the the perception of like I'm you're it's like do as I say blah blah. It was that that style is is getting is phasing out completely. I think it's still around but it's still but most most of the time it's about I mean it's it's continually turning into not that right. It's not and I think like that yeah we're still a paramilitary organization but it's not this isn't boot camp either. Right. So, it seems like there's more of a turn to like relating to people as because it's hard to relate to somebody who's, you know, demanding all these things. Yeah. You can demand I I I find that people will do much more they'll work way harder and they'll do much more for you and for the agency when you when they know that you actually care about their personal their person not necessarily every bit of their personal feelings, but when you care about them in general and you want you want the best for them, too. Sure. Sure. So yeah, I've taken that through all the different the different steps of leadership I've been so far. It's always been, "Hey, I'm if I'm tell if I'm yelling at you, it's because I'm telling you to duck, you know, like seriously, it's not if they're they're a member here. They're an adult. They they know they they have to make the conscious effort to change behavior. So there's ways to do it that that doesn't involve screaming at them like they're uh you know, a kid." A kid. Yeah. And not I had that happen to me when I was when I first started, right? I basically got screamed like I was 19 at the jail. Did something that they didn't agree with about moving people without without some kind of approval or whatever. And I remember getting I'm like I'm like what is this? Like why would you even Why is some lieutenant screaming at me for for what? For something so petty. I'm like and it didn't resonate with me. I'm just like this this I'm just going to not message not delivered. Yeah. Message not delivered. It was like I'm like I think you're yelling at the wrong guy. But I I said okay that's what you say. Sure, I'm new. Whatever. Right. But yeah, so I I mean I've taken that and and everybody's worked with supervisors that you're like, you know, you could you you'd walk away from every conversation like I'll do what you're saying because just because of your your rank, not because of the respect I have. I respect the rank, but not necessarily the holder. Yeah. Yeah. you uh your love of animals kind of came back out when you went to shift commander because you were sending me animal stuff. I was I know you love that, Ashley. Yeah, the dog. Yeah, you sent me the dog that uh that that you actually like it was your dash cam and I think your body camo getting the dog. Yeah. And then a snake. I remember a snake. Yep. There was a Yep. There was a a rat snake in somebody's in somebody's house. Yes. Yeah. So the I just saw the call. It was actually I was listening to live 911 and the I I think it was the 911 operator goes, "Yeah, we don't send deputies for that." And I'm like, "I'm passing by." You don't know we do. We don't, but I might. Yeah. So, I went and just I went and snagged it for him out from behind their their water heater. And uh but yeah, no, I've had I've had some interesting animal stories. The the chasing the chasing the dog that was running little baby little baby puppy bumper. Oh, yeah. That was his name. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I loved the rain. Yeah, that was pretty good. You did a good job with the um you know putting together with the edit. Oh, yeah. I love the song like the song I put with it. I was reminding them about it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I had I had quite a few. There was uh So, we we recently had a deputy who became uh I think like world famous for uh for rescuing some baby possums, but you did that before it was cool, right? I did it way before it was cool. When I worked midnights, um I would go and I'd check every every possum. I I check them if they look fresh. Like because obviously you're you're patrolling the same area, right? So the uh you patrol the same area and if you if you know it was because for people that don't know you know possums they they're marsupials and they so they end up have they store all their their babies are they they actually craw they're born and they crawl right into the pouch and they live there and then they connect to the their you know their mother's nipple and they are able to survive for until they come out. So people don't know if they get whacked by a car the babies will still survive. So for a time for a time yeah for hours like typically hours or maybe even longer. So I used to check and I actually would stop on midnights especially if it was you know slow or whatever if I saw one that got whacked but not too bad if they were annihilated was one thing but if you could see like you know they got run over and yeah I used to check them and and sometimes find something like that and and save them take them to the emergency vet they would usually take the that is fantastic. So yeah got some there's some other interesting animal stories I can think of. I had a lady said to you a lady called about a snake in her toilet. Uhhuh. This is this no setup. This isn't a setup. Okay. All right. Oh, sure. So, I go, "Uh, interesting." And I was like, "Do you use the toilet?" She I was like, "I looked, there's nothing there." I'm like, "Is this lady, she nuts or what?" And I go, I'm like, "Oh, she is not nuts." I saw it. It was a whole family of rats. It was the tail. Oh, yeah. So, they came out. They must have came out of the sewer and she never flushed that toilet. So, they were able to work their way through the plumbing and it had an entire thing. So I had to go I fished them out for and I took them. But the um Yeah. What else? You took them. What do you mean you took them? Took them and let them go. Let them like put them. You did you you held them like you grabbed them? I just put I had glove on and I put them into I took them out of her uh out of there. I would Yeah. rodents they freak me out a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. No, I say it was just a I don't I can't remember if I scooted them. It was a while ago. But I had this was this is a really good one that the um there was there was a lady at the uh a mobile home park south of here and she um she comes she comes out of house she's reporting something else and she ends up uh she's like oh look at this and she's wearing like a I don't if you call it a mumu or whatever but she she reaches into him and lifts up her breast and pulls out a couple of flying squirrels one from under each side. Oh, they they like to feel warm and secure. I was like, I guess it's a good place to live. She's the She's uh USA's second marsupial. Yeah. Yeah. I I would I wouldn't have checked that one for uh Yeah. No, that was interesting. Yeah, that's weird. Trying to think of another one. There was there was one where um there was a there was a lady who was she was blind and she was uh so she called and she was it was another another mobile home. She was blind living in there and she had a bathroom probably as you know as big as this table and she goes there's some noise in my bathroom. And I go well that's weird. Let's see what it is. So you would never believe it. She had a vanity probably like a 32 inch vanity sitting there and her toilet paper. So if you if you could to put it into perspective there was a um so her toilet is just say so if you're sitting on her toilet to her left side was the vanity and so the sink was face like you'd have to stand up and you'd turn take a 90 degree to the left and you'd be able to wash your hands. Um well so her toilet paper roll was on the door. It would be the right hand swinging door and it had a toilet paper roll mounted on the inside so you could just that's where she put her toilet paper and so she said she heard something. So I look and there was no joke a full-size possum living in there with a hole to the ground and it was within a within a foot of her hand. It had been there for a long time. That thing was nice. She was blind. So she never knew and and I looked and I would I couldn't catch it. I mean it was gone. It was it took its tra took its travel down on through the it made the perfect little cozy home. Oh my goodness. And I'm like she never checked it. She just must have opened that that thing. She probably was limited to I mean so just tell her she has a cat now. I'm like I'm like no I told her I'm like you have a giant possum in here and I she goes really I go yeah she was very elderly too and so I'm like yeah you got to call so maintenance actually cut her friend one of her friends from the maintenance of the park came and put like just screwed on a a a wire mesh on the bottom crawled under it was gone but I'm like I could I I could not believe that that's what I opened there and I see a little it has a full nest like it's it's like sitting there like that inmate I talked about earlier he's just sitting there in That is fantastic. Holy cow. There's some There's some interesting ones. There's a pig, too. Yeah, there's a pig. We had to chase around for a pig and a cow. Actually, five goats. There was I thought Wait, all at once? No, these are different. This is different times. I was just thinking of just thinking about that's why Old McDonald had a farm. You got out. You were chasing when you were studying veterinary medicine. Would you study large animal vet or Yeah, actually. Well, yeah. So, that was what they I I didn't know at the time. That's what we were doing though. It was all like there was it was c taking taking care of cows learning to use you know in you did injections like saline solution and rabbits so you could it was kind of like a for the five levels I and they still have it's a very good program it's um I think it's hard to get into it now because it's a full-time school uh but at the time you could come from all the local schools and go to it but yeah no it's like you do horses cows rabbits I mean I thought it was a I just thought it was really cool I fig you could work you could do that but yeah that's why I super troopers changed it all so Oh. So, so wait, wait, were the goat and the cow and the pig all the same? They're all different. There's pig. We Yeah. And I actually I I saw pictures. There's so many. Yeah. There's a lot of liv There's a lot of livestock like any any like any of the area and there's like the western part of like unincorporated semol penelis park unincorporated out there has tons. There's so you wouldn't even know how many people have have farms and and different things. There's Yeah, there's one of the guys had his full bull get out. It was like a I don't know if it was a bull or what cow with horns, but thing was gigantic and we had to like like shuffle it back into his backyard from the street. Oh. Um but yeah, there's so many I mean there's Penelis is you wouldn't for as developed as it is. I mean they always went somewhere. Lots of Got to be somewhere. Yeah. Coyotes everywhere. Oh yeah. Yeah. See lots of You get all the You get if you have any kind of neighborhood group, everybody points out the the funny looking German shepherds that that were uh Yeah. This is a dog. I think that's mine or something. It's called a coyote. Yeah. Oh. All right. So, let's get to your current assignment because you had a lot of Well, it's perfect because you do a lot of the same stuff that you were doing before. Just it's all it's all youth focused, but um so tell us a little bit about what um what youth education administrative services does. So, youth education, so it's broke down into it's youth education, administrative services. So, they um my side is is youth education. So I have the SRO all the SRO's in the middle and high schools and unincorporated in our contract cities. School resource officers. School resource officers. Yep. And then I have the um the diversion program which is Linda Cook. She's she's this basically the single hand of Penllis diversion. Anything that happens um in Penllis or or Clearwater, we take theirs as well. So we have her and we have all the youth programs. So our service area and Clear Water. Our service area and Clearwater. Correct. Yeah. And then we have um we have the all the youth programs and and the explore program. So the cadetses the cadet program. Yeah. So the cadetses are um yeah that's it's a very large group and they've they've really done a good job building that program up to make it so these are viable people. Like I mean I use myself as an example to them. Like I tell them I give them give them words of encouragement say and I really talk them into I got a lot of them talked into going to the going the corrections route. So instead of staying because you can technically stay in the cadet program until you're 21 you're 21. But I said what I mean I said you can come back and help out with the cadetses right at the in on the on nighttime or whatever but why would you not go get if that's what your go if your goal is if you want to go to if you want to go to college and whatever that's by all means but if you want to do that if you want to get hired here we pay for your you to go to college you can do it that route. I said, "You could be like like me. You could just start after after high school, start making start getting closer. You get a retirement early. Like I'll be I can leave in six years or you know, it's it's a really good u it's a good thing I think for these people and I a lot of them are taking taking that to heart and we got some people getting going through the process now. That's great. Are cadets um is it only for kids that are interested in being a deputy?" So no. So that's that's the thing. So these we we try to do we try to get them set up with different pathways. So if they want to come they can come and learn the a lot of it's law enforcement focused but it's more of a leadership it's more of a leadership program for youth and it gets it it develops life skills and so and you don't have to necessarily want to do that at all. You could you don't have to necessarily you can go in the military. We have a lot of success stories that went into the military went into private sector or want to do civilian jobs here. That's and we tell them this place has tons of civilian jobs to to get involved that a lot of people don't necessarily know about. So yeah, we want just our main thing is to get good people. We want to find we want to find the bright aspiring youth that want to do something good. And it's it's you get to go on ride alongs. You get to go to jail tours. You can do we will help you get where you want to be if you're a good person. They get to hang out in forensics too like some of those other areas. Everything they can come up. They might come and talk to you guys whenever they whenever they want to, too. So, bring them on up. That should be a thing. Yeah, we should talk to the cadets. Yeah. Yeah, you should. It would just it just it gives another perspective anybody that's willing to. And they're they put in a lot of work. They they they do a lot of training. They travel they're traveling to California soon. They they travel they they they raise a lot of money and they they we it costs a lot of money to take these guys to um they they compete a lot, right? They compete. Yeah. They compete in shooting. They compete in bic like um competitive bike riding. There's traffic stops. There's all kind there's all kinds of different categories that they compete with all the state and nationals and they take home a lot of uh awards. So I yeah I'm I'm very very proud of how the program is going and and where we're at right now. Yeah. I think it's good for anybody just to even if you don't just if you want something to do you can learn leadership and all that stuff. Besides all that it's a lot of fun. You get to do things that you couldn't ever do anywhere else. For sure. It's you how else would you get a chance to go ride with a cop before you're an adult? It doesn't Yeah. It doesn't it's not it's not possible. So it's uh yeah I definitely encourage people that are even considering it to come try. So enough about the good kids. Yes sir. So here so so the let's just I want to talk about diversion because I think we've heard one extreme obviously right over the course of you know those evolutions over the years but diversion and and if I remember right we're pretty highly ranked statewide as far as successful diversion. Yeah very successful in our diversion program. We have juvenile diversion specifically right adult program too. Yes, I know. Yeah, for this side of for for my area of responsibility, it's a uh yeah, we have we have a great we are we are very accommodating to try to get and to get these people to you to agree to it and explain and Linda Cook does awesome. She just really she's been here for a long time and she does excellent at um at buttoning up everything for for them to be successful. So like what you know just paint as a picture here that obviously we know the worst the worst for home and so you know they're dealing these are are kids that have committed misdemeanors there are some other requirements so like what are some of the requirements to be eligible for yeah so they can't do it more than three total times which we we tried I mean then we're scr we scrutinize there's very few that do it that come to diversion for a third time but they have to it has to there is some felonies that are okay and it's at it's at our discretion but and that's it's only if it's through PCSO and it's like a direct referral to us that they say I mean it can be an arrest but they have to at least we contact them see if they are but there's like like what you brought up earlier about shoplifting or criminal mischief or something that might just be over the threshold. So we're not going to take any violent felonies or anything like that. We'll take something that's maybe monetarily it makes it a felony or okay or if just say they trespass somewhere they shouldn't have trespassed where it would be a misdemeanor otherwise but just due to the location. Um, so we can we have some discretion on that, but yes, you're right. Mostly misdemeanors and you're these are not these are the kids that you want to not to avoid any kind of record. So they we don't want their fingerprints on file associated with a crime. So we want them to be able to go through normal, you know, get to college, get they make a mistake, don't let a mistake. That's what that's the whole point. So this is the other end of the spectrum of of kids that make mistakes or they get into a fight or they batter somebody that they they they're doing juvenile stuff. That's the juvenile stuff that I agree 100% needs to be handled with, you know, kit gloves. Yeah. Because that's what you don't want. You don't want somebody to ru ruin their life over mistakes. Um especially when you're when you're a child. Sure. So, yeah. So, that's the other end of this. I mean, and you know, 40 50 years ago, it was stuff that law enforce everybody grew up did did stupid things and whatever. Yeah. Exactly. And we uh and and truly even with the schools and stuff, we we have a lot of discretion in trying not to criminalize, right, child behavior. So the ones that you see are are the extremes and we we really try to deal with a lot of stuff in school sanctions and um yeah, you get back in like back in our day of school, you you didn't get arrested for for batteries and stuff like that. And so so if it's I mean if it's very egregious, I'm sure you would, right? But it's but yeah in typical lunchroom fights. Typical lunchroom fights. Yeah. They don't the school the school should should handle most of it. Yeah. If you get attacked unprovoked that's different. But two kids meeting to fight that should be referrals and and that's a good that's a good segue. So the SRO's that you have, right? Um you know it's something I think SRO's are something that people um kind of forget about. Yeah. Uh just because it's not new by any means. Everybody grew up, you know, within the last 30 years, 40 years, you know, had had some kind of a law enforcement presence at school. Yeah. Um, but, you know, we have a great SRO program. Yes. Uh, cover a lot of schools and of course school safety is uh paramount. Paramount. Uh, it's it's certainly up there on Sheriff Colar's list, but yeah. Um just talk a little bit about uh and we've had some folks that spend some time at SRO so I think everybody kind of generally understand you know and you've you've had an SRO a lot of folks so you know what they do but what is that what does that flow look like for you as a lieutenant like what kind of because you have the way it's it's separated you've got two sergeants that cover north and south you know but what kind of issues like are elevated to you because it's obviously an interesting dynamic hey the school should handle this where we got to get involved and whatever so how does that so any any significant activity I I need to know about and I And I want to make sure that my counterparts and a lot of it's threat related. So it's it's kind of back to my days of threat. It it's kind of Yeah, you're right. It's like everything kind of the last bit just merged together into the same the same but different. But with the dynamic of I've always dealt with the typically the bad kids. Now I'm dealing with most of them are good. Right. So it's like a whole another but when it gets to my level like there's the kids the kids giving high fives to the to the SRO don't preach me. So, right, it's the it's the ones that are like, "Hey, this is concerning behavior. This is what we're having." So, we're doing a lot of collaborate. I mean, we're we're in armed like a we're we're a mandatory um with the new with all the laws related and but we're also mandatory to be on campus for the for the time. So, there's no like back 30 years ago, the the SRO could leave and go to lunch. These guys can't anymore. They are they are there for the hours and there's a lot of rules regarding locking doors and they're they're doing a lot of um they're doing a lot of drills to to make sure that they're that they're their active sailing drills policies are up in place and that they're running. So so the sergeants and and I'll go out there for those and um but the yeah the day-to-day for an SRO is it's very different than probably it was back then, right? And you got to remember that there's no there's no nonsense. Like if it comes down to that, you bet if it's a threat related to school, it is no there's there's no excuse. No excuse. Yeah. Yeah. You are you you might have a pretty good job for most of the time, but you might have a really bad job at some point in time. So that's what you got to make sure you're prepared for, right, as an SRO. But yeah, if it rises to my level, typically it's involving threats or unique situations at the school and those ones. So the ones that I like sometimes and I encourage the people if it's a if it's a Met fight and they haven't had prior they don't need to go to diversion they need to go and they need to be handled with school saying get kicked out for a couple days learn your lesson done we don't need to criminalize everything and I try to I try to stren I said but you know what if they if the if somebody's sitting there doing nothing and gets punched and or beat I'm like that's fine take they can they and typically that'll be a diversionary case unless they cause major harm right and that's but that's majority of it majority of yeah most of them are typical everybody's everybody's vision of how school is is mostly still true. And I agree. Yeah. Yep. It's just it's just we take stuff that you would have been able to say and get away with back then, joke about, you just can't joke about it. Especially now the the main takeaway from it, it's you words are words are one thing, but once you start putting things on into an electronic format or or a written format, you are it's written down. It's evidentary. And you're you're likely you you say you're going to shoot up the school, you're going to jail. you're going you're going to go to PJC and you're likely going to be held for 21 days whether it's your first offense or your 20th. So So that's the the biggest thing that we deal with and we try to ed we we do a presentation every day every school year and remind everybody not to do that like saying hey nothing will be taken this is not taken lightly. Um you're yeah it's part it's part of the SRO's normal like intro to school and their segment like hey this is the this is what we don't joke about. So, but yeah, if it rises to my level, a lot of time I'm talking to threat all the time. I'm I feel like I'm I'm basically the one of the main feeder reports for the threat system. Yeah, I feel like you know some people in threat too. I feel I do. I do. I have a connection. So, um it's just it's really cool um to just listen to your pathway and just the the different things you've been involved in how it's all kind of come back around because it's a great like a balance of you know, we got to we got to take care of business. Yep. We also need to be empathetic. We need to be involved in the good things, right? You have cadets. You also have, you know, uh the target response against distracted driving. You have um the teen driver challenge, which is really popular. Like a lot of positive things, but it's a good balance of just positive things, proactive things, and then the, you know, we have to reactionary things. Reaction. Yeah, that's that's just good stuff. Yeah, it's I mean it's Yeah, definitely. I feel like it was it was an easier transition for me understanding because the juvenile justice system is is very complex. Mhm. So I feel like it for somebody just that would be new to this spot. It's it takes some it takes more learn if you never done any of the stuff I did in the past. It would have been everything would be new and you'd be like trying to learn thread it's like oh wow this is this is a lot. You just have a lot of context and then yeah had a lot of context come in. I'm like this is relatively uh straightforward right? So and it's you're calling thread like you I used to be the receiving end of the threat calls and I have to deal with doing all this stuff and now I'm like we've already done all this stuff and they probably look forward to hearing from you because at least you know what you're doing. you know what you're looking for like yes it's uh everything's buttoned up and uh if we need some help I'll tell you right so yeah no I feel like it's it's been rewarding yeah do you guys have anything else for him I do on that um so I think it would be how are penllis county schools safe because I think the number one thing on any parent's mind that has kids in elementary school middle or high school is that fear because that's what you see on the news all the time and so can you talk about a little bit about like what we have in place to help make sure that doesn't happen or if it does we are you know ready to respond. Yeah. So basically a lot of it is is statutoily is uh we were doing we were doing stuff before uh it was statutoily mandated. So and that's and the main thing is is keeping the most access to students limited and training every student in the in the district on where to go in so it's not a so it's not a trick. So it's like particularly you're talking about building access like limiting building access. Yeah. So so yeah. So exterior like closing gates, locking gates, having having students not being able to come and go from class when with you know with access with unlocked doors in every in every path. So you find that the biggest checkpoint for uh people being able to get harmed in these m these these terrible incidents is full access. So the more access you that these people can have quickly because these things are over very very quick. So the more the more access you have, the more people that can get injured or killed. So we like to make it so first you can't you don't have access. Second off, everybody's trained for if a if something happens, all the teachers and stuff have to practice quarterly that they have to go and practice where they're going to go. There's actually string lines up in every classroom. It's mandated. There's a colored string in every classroom and shows the deep corner which is where they have they know to hide or there's an interior room. they put another string over that door. So the I think the thing that differentiates us from a lot of places is that we are prepared. So ex if the stuff if the if the warning bells go off they have a push button and if that goes off at all everybody that's knows what to do and they've been practiced which it's a sad thing. I mean really if you think about it it's a sad thing that we have to I never would have thought of practicing that in school. It wasn't even a thing. I mean, it was not a it wasn't a a reality back then. Even though when I was a kid, we got under the the desk because there was going to be a nuclear bomb dropped. That's Yeah, that's that's going to help. Yeah. So, since your nuclear fallout's going to be covered by your uh you know, your veneer desk, right? But, uh, no, I I 100% though it's like it really is it's a sad thing. It's a sad thing that we have to do this, but it's a it's a necessity. It's a real necessity because if that does happen, we have to I mean my SRO that work for me, they they are going to they are going to respond very quickly. And some schools are very big though and there's a couple of them. But you got to remember that they have to do these drills and they're they're they serve a very good purpose because first off, it limits access and then they know everybody knows where to go. So there's no there's no surprise. Button gets pushed. I know exactly where I'm going. If I'm if I'm not in in a classroom, nobody should be letting them in. I mean, they should be running. They should be running away. So, and these drills are random. Correct. Yes. They don't know about them. Yep. Yep. They don't know. And sometimes the offender is known, like location's known, which that dictates if people were run or locked down or where they'd go. And the whole thing is basically a we do a full evaluation on their response. So, like if you say, "Hey, guy's in the asalent. There's an active asalent on campus. He's in the cafeteria." And I mean the people that go to the school should know the layout. The kids should know where the cafeteria is and they're running into the cafeteria. We know that that's like not the right thing to do, right? So, but they are typically good. But a lot of times it's unknown. So when when something's unknown, the practice is to lock down in place because you don't know where there's if you're run's last resort because you don't know where they are. But if you know that they're far enough away from you and you can get out to the perimeter gate and outside. So I mean I no matter what if something happens it'll be very chaotic. Mhm. But it's we train. Yeah. Between the training, the drills and what threat does is try to get ahead and try to get ahead of it. And so we can we can you know hope that we are doing everything we can like we found we found manifestos, kill lists, all stuff in that related to the school and we take them very seriously and you know hopefully not everybody needs to go to jail or get bakered or whatever but a lot of them need some resources to make sure that they're not their mind's not flowing down that um down that path. And I know this isn't over your section um but the guardian program that they are over the um the elementary schools and so but there is leadership from our guardian unit deputies that actually oversee and make sure they're following the exact same things. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. The um yeah there is the the guardian program and that's the middle that's sorry that's elementary school and that's under the the other lieutenant in this in the section. So, but yes, they they have that same ability to respond and and take care. They have our radios and and a lot of the the private schools now also are coming on board, right, with it. So, that's that's a positive thing. I think it's I think everybody should get on board with with hiring the uh somebody to have make sure somebody private schools put optional. They don't they don't have to do like they don't have to do much if they don't want to. they their stuff is either allocart or right and they uh they I mean they really should even if they don't implement even if they don't implement everything they should really look into implementing the best practices and and the sheriff will give you a lot of the equipment a lot of the equipment yeah I think and the and the training and the and the give you site assessments everything yeah get you maps and I mean I think there's a lot of stuff that you get that's way more beneficial to you than than you should so they should definitely inquire can't stand by and got to take it seriously and yeah M and the sheriff really does. Yep. And as far as our response, it's not just the SRO and the guardians who were trained. Every single deputy in our agency goes through active asalent training, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's Yeah. Yeah. Just because the guardian and the SR are going to be the first one on scene. Um everyone else is still everyone else is coming. They're coming. They're going to be coming as fast as they possibly can. Yes. You're going to see you'll see an overwhelming response if that ever hopefully never happens. And we have other things, too. We we have cameras in every school, right, that go directly to the comp center so they can they can see what's they can start Yeah. They can start relaying information. Yeah. If the alarm goes off, it directly goes to the camera system and they can access it and start um start triaging from from the radio side. So information. Yeah. No, we I I'd say we are very well equipped. I this is this is probably a bad place to to try something in this in our county. So don't do it. Yeah. Don't do it. So, uh, besides maybe involve, you know, trying to avoid dealing with youth in any way, what do you do for fun? Oh, I I'm always outside. I've got two young kids and, um, yeah, I got one that's four months old and one that's four years old. And I I think my life revolves around them. I mean, I I like to I say it's not fun, but I'm always I'm always doing renovating and remodeling stuff. I I enjoy I enjoy working on anything just um but and then playing with my kids. I mean, my my my kid right up, my older son, he's all big into looking for snakes now. So, didn't fall far from the trees. He wants he wants to turn every log now. So, it brings me back to a kid and walk outside through the through the woods with him and try to like find stuff. Yeah. Go find stuff. Did you bring them home yet? Yeah. Well, he ended up getting for his first fourth birthday, he got a a crested gecko. Oh, nice. So he ended up So I I did it. So of course I think it might have been a little bit for me too first birthday, but I set up that's how I convinced his mom. But the um I was going to say, how easy was that? Yeah, it took a little while. Probably took from second birthday to fourth. It's all right. He's old enough now. So he's got Yeah, he's got that. He's got a he's got a praying mantis. Little little pet praying mantis. Yeah. And so he goes in. How long do they live? They like live like a year. Okay. So he's about He's probably about halfway through his lifespan. and he's molted and he's uh yeah, adulthood comes pretty quick and they don't last long. But yeah, we catch a he's got a little uh a little fly catcher that he goes out and he goes and catches little bugs and throws them in there and the thing just annihilates them. That's awesome. Yeah. I'm like this is a little gra I said that I said if a praying mantis if you ever look at those that would be if they were the size of a human they'd be like the apex predator. They would be they're wild. They can snatch from far away. So have you seen them take out hummingbirds? Yes. On the videos those giant like a giant Asian mantis taking out a hummingbird is wild. They just sit there and wait. You got to catch a hummingbird now. Yeah. I don't know. Mine's a little small. It's But the um Yeah, it was. You did say mine, by the way, not your son's. Hold on. If you're listening is There it is. So, yeah, I did a full I did a I did a full bioactive setup. So, I got like um I got the different It's got selfwatering misting systems. It does little springtails springtails, isopods. I got some little like the dubio roaches or whatever for the bottom to the cleanup crew. who they eat. Like it's I've gone a little overboard. Uhhuh. Yeah. All for him though. All for him for him to look at him and uh try not to drop him. So, you know, but it's in his room at least. He likes to look at Yeah. That's cool. So, yeah. But I No, I do anything outdoors. I like I like working on I like working on houses, cars, and you know, my wife would tell me I should get rid of a lot of my stuff, but I got a lot of got a lot of projects. Keep it up. I know. Keeps out of trouble. It does. Theoretically. Theoretically, it's hard. It's harder with a baby now cuz that go everything goes on the back burner. But but yeah, back few more years of there with you. Yeah, you'll be in the We'll be in the garage. We'll all be out doing something. That's awesome. Working on the car with a snake around your shoulder. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that she she my wife drew the line on snake. No snakes. Not Not yet. That's maybe next year. So, two years to get that thing maybe. Yeah. No, there's a thing called legless lizards that aren't aren't technically snakes, but kind of fill the same same purpose. You get one of those. No snakes. No spiders at this point. No. Okay. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm with her on that. Okay. Um, so we like to uh we appreciate you coming on and uh we like to give everybody a shot at uh just what's if there's anything, you know, from your breadth of experience, different things like if you had one message, you know, for the public, you know, what is what is something you want the public to know? Okay. So I I would say I want the public to know that as an agency if you call us I want to say that you will get the best service that you that you possibly can from I will challenge that any other local agency that the um that you know and treat the cops right I mean that's call call when you need to don't call when you don't but expect to get a very good level of service and I say you know just call call for stuff that don't call for something that doesn't relate to police matters, right? Because that's that is one of the things that I would tell everybody. I'm like, you got to you should maybe Google what the police do sometimes, right? Because there's a laundry list of things they don't we do a lot. I mean, we do a lot of extra, right? But yeah, and for so that's for for the public. And then for the um for the agency members that are coming up behind me, there's there's a very lot of talent coming up. I'm glad I'm not in the competition pool for a lot of these newer people with, you know, doctorates and stuff coming into this. But I would say don't ever forget where you started and whether it's the jail or whether it's patrol. And I say just and treat people fairly. They that's all they want. They want to fa they want to know the rules of the game. They want to know what to expect. And that does I don't care if that's this this career or any other one. Nobody nobody likes to be, you know, shifted on to a different set of rules every day. So be be consistent. Hold people accountable for to get a product that that's quality to you and to to the standards of the agency, but don't micromanage. Let people have that creative, you know, thought process and and make decisions. It's a big part of growth. That's a big part of growth. And let people fall and bump their knee and figure it out. Same as like a like I say my kid, I'm like you fall, I'm like, "Get up." I'm like, "Make sure he's not real hurt first." I'm like, "Get up. Get up. Get up, kid." No, no, but you have to be able to make mistakes in order to grow. You have to figure things out yourself. You can't there's not a textbook in the world that'll teach you everything that's going to go wrong. And I think that just to know that don't don't write off people that are under you for for seeming mistakes and which I think this agency does a great job at forgetting and forgiving with things. But if you can just strictly let people learn and then let people grow and not hammer them for every minor mistake, you'll go you'll gain a lot of a you know a loyal following in in a sense that they they enjoy their job. Yeah, it's good stuff. That's listen to Matt Thornton, everybody. Uh Laura, if people wanted to give us feedback or engage with us about the podcast, how how might they go about doing that? Um well, they could email us for one. They could they could email us at uh let's 56pcset.com. That's ts56pcset.com. They can also uh follow us on social media. Yeah, we've got on Instagram just spelled out 56 podcast is our handle on Instagram. You can engage with us there. If you want to hear something specific, have questions for a future guest, anything like that, please drop us a line. And thanks for listening. [Music]