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I am blessed with friends.
I am blessed to have neighbors that rushed to my home to make sure that we were safe. I am blessed that I have people who will be there for me and my family in the darkest moments. I am blessed that I have friends who will reach out and provide moral and actual support when needed. I am blessed that I have met some amazing people over my career and they will take the time to chat with me on this podcast and I am blessed that people like you take the time to listen.
This is a heartfelt thank you to all of my friends out there, for everything they have done and will continue to do. I can never truly repay you with anything but my own friendship. I love all of you very much.
I hope you have enjoyed Season 5 of Blue Canary. As usual we are going to take a couple of months off and start planning for next year. If you have enjoyed Blue Canary please do me a favor and rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. We are also now on YouTube so make sure you like and subscribe not just on your podcast app, but also on YouTube so that we can continue to help you tell your stories. And finally, like and subscribe so you don’t miss an episode.
We will be back in the spring with Season 6 of Blue Canary. What are we going to focus on for next season, well you will just have to subscribe to find out.
And remember, take a few minutes to make friends. They are everything.
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Jared Altic is a police chaplain in Kansas City, focusing his work in the patrol divisions of the Kansas City Kansas Police Department (KCKPD). He attends roll calls, goes on ride alongs, teaches at the police academy, and responds to homicides, suicides, and accidents in the city. Jared's passion is encouraging officer wellness among cops, which he also does through his podcast, Hey Chaplain.
I had the pleasure to talk with Jared about informal leadership and his role as a chaplain.
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Welcome to our annual Halloween Episode. These stories have been told to me by officers around the country and they swear they are true stories. Thanks to Parker for this one.
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In the United States there are 3,116 local jails, 1,566 State Prisons, and 98 Federal Prisons. But let’s not forget the 1,323 Juvenile Corrections Facilities, 142 Immigration detention facilities, and 80 Tribal jails. These facilities house a little over 1.2 million prisoners.
These facilities are staffed with approximately 393,000 corrections officers.
At first glance that might seem like a lot.
A lot of facilities,
A lot of prisoners,
A lot of jailers,
But it isn’t.
Let’s take a look at crime for a minute. The causes of crime have been studied for decades, and while some of the results may fly in the face of what we have been told over the years, facts are facts. For example, poverty does not cause crime, and the number one way to lower crime is through incarceration. You want your neighborhood to be safe. Easy, lock up the criminals. Consequences matter and holding people accountable for their actions has proven time and time again to be an effective deterrent.
Studies also show that 1 percent of the population commit over 60 percent of crime in America. Today there are a little over 1.2 million prisoners accounting for .36 percent of the US population. I would also argue that statistically we are living in a period of very high crime rates.
In 2008 the US prison population peaked at almost 2.5 million prisoners and you wanna know what else happened. Our crime rates were at a historic low.
Don’t believe me look it up.
There are around 800,000 police officers in the US today and they seem to garner most of the attention. They get most of the praise, the complaints, the glory, and the training … what little there is of that.
But what about those 393,000 corrections officers. They seem to be left behind when it comes to the praise, glory, and specifically training.
We refuse to do that.
[Insert Intro]
Jeff Carter retired in December of 2018 as the Deputy Director of the Fayette County Detention Center in Lexington, Kentucky. Over his 20-year career, he has worked all levels of custody inside a 1,300-bed correctional facility located in the horse racing capitol of the world. Jeff was an instructor for 5 years inside the academy, where he trained over 700 recruits, molding them into successful leaders in the Corrections field. While promoting through the ranks, he commanded the Professional Standards Unit where he specialized in Internal Affairs investigations and Gang Intel for 7 years.
I asked Jeff to talk about leadership, specifically in the jail system, but most of his advice is relevant no matter where you work.
[Insert Interview]
And that’s the story we have to tell.
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Chief of Police is a title typically given to the head of a police department, but that simple definition gets very confusing very quickly. Sheriffs are the name we give to elected officials who preside over county law enforcement in the US, while Chief’s of Police typically preside over municipal police agencies.
Sometimes Chief’s are elected. Sometimes they are appointed by a mayor or city council. Sometimes they are selected through the civil service act. Sometimes they are not called Chief’s of Police at all.
Police Commissioners are another term, frequently found in the larger metropolitan areas
Chief,
When we talk about the police chief’s we are talking about the head of a municipal police department not affiliated with the local sheriff’s office.
What do chief’s do?
Sorry to make you laugh, it wasn’t a trick question.
Chiefs of police are typically responsible for operational oversight, budgeting, planning, discipline, direction, regulations, communications, and in smaller agencies general police work. All at the behest of a governing body, either mayor or city council.
It’s not an easy job.
I rose to the highest levels of administration in my police department. I was third in charge, so while I didn’t ever actually do the job, I did learn one thing.
You can’t pay me enough to do it.
[Insert Intro]
George Sippert spent 32 years serving the people of Flint Township Michigan. Flint township is located on the west side of the city of Flint Michigan. He took over as chief of police in 2004 an served until 2018. Throughout his career, Sippert also served in various roles including: Field Training Officer, Firearms instructor, School Resource Officer, Community Policing Division Commander and Motorcycle Unit Commander.
He is also a graduate of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Academy, a member of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police, Genesee County Chiefs Association, Central Michigan Chiefs Association, Genesee County 911 Advisory Board and the Flint Area Narcotics Group Advisory Board.
I have had the pleasure of knowing and speaking with George on a number occasions and I couldn’t think of anyone better to discuss the role of the police chief.
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Note: This was an extremely difficult episode for me to record. I want to apologize for the audio. It was the best I could do.
72 officers had to die.I refuse to let that sacrifice go unremembered.
This one is for you,
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Ethics in Leadership
It’s an interesting topic and at times can be very controversial. Peter Drucker was an Austrian American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of modern management theory. He famously said “The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers”
This statement has led to some interesting classroom discussions as well as arguments about leaders. In my courses I typically lead with a few definitions of leadership and then ask the class a question. I ask them to give me a list of “Good Leaders.” What follows is an interesting take on leadership. We will typically start with George Washington, Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, and then the class will typically throw in George Patton, Bear Bryant, and then a modern president. Which president however is based on where the class is being taught. This is where the arguments start.
Leaving the list of “Good Leaders” on the board I ask the class for a list of “Bad Leaders.” This list starts with Adolf Hitler, followed by Joseph Stalin, and Pol Pot. Jim Jones and David Koresh are added as the classes input starts to wind down. And then someone will throw out the name of the same modern president that was on the “Good List.”
Defining leadership as “someone who has followers” might be accurate from a technical point, but it fails to address what I believe is one of the major elements of leadership. Ethics. Those leaders in the “bad List” are leaders, they moved countries, cultures, and peoples to do some truly horrific things, but I could never look at them as leaders because to me ethical leadership is the most important element.
I believe that ethical leaders can lead anyone, but unethical leaders only lead unethical people, the rest they will drag along against their will.
Let’s take a look at ethics, morals and ethical leadership.
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Commander Bob Meader retired from the Columbus Ohio Police Department in February of 2022. During his tenure at Columbus PD, he served in patrol, street attack unit, property crimes, legal and training. He retired as the commander of the Columbus PD Police Academy. While working Commander Meader managed to get his law degree and today spends his retirement training Ohio police officers on issues regarding the law in Ohio.
I had the pleasure to talk with Bob about legal issues pertaining to training, administration, and de-escalation.
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Leading Up
General William T. Sherman once said "We have good corporals and good sergeants and some good lieutenants and captains, and those are far more important than good generals."
Sherman recognized the importance of leading up.
What is leading up? It’s providing leadership in an organization from a position of lower authority. It’s understanding the role played by various members of an organization and how to properly and effective work within that organization.
This is more commonly referred to as Followership.
Followership at its core is the individual’s willingness to go along with a leader. There willingness to follow. But it is much more than that.
We put tremendous emphasis on leadership. Hell, my entire season 5 is focusing on leadership, but we often forget the importance of the follower. Without followers there are no leaders.
It is said that all leaders are followers, but not all followers are leaders. And that is an interesting thought. The concept behind this is that to be a successful leader, you must know how to follow. Taking that a step further you must realize that every leader has a boss. For example, in the public safety realm, every sergeant must report to a lieutenant. Every lieutenant reports to a captain. Every Chief of Police Reports to a Mayor or City Council and every Sheriff reports to the electorate.
Everybody has a boss.
Being a good follower will provide you with the skills necessary to help you be a good leader.
Now let’s look at the second part of that saying…not all followers are leaders.
Another true statement. Some people are simply not cut out for leadership. They are not wired that way. They can be good followers, but refuse to accept some of the basic principles of leadership. Most people don’t start out as leaders, they start out as followers but as they learn to be good followers they start learning the skills necessary to be leaders and grow.
There are several essential qualities to an exemplary follower and we should always be looking to improve in these areas. Lets take a quick look at those essential qualities.
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Sheriff, a word, and position that derive from the old English term Shire-Reeve. This person was responsible for managing a shire or county in England. The practice began sometime before 700 A.D. and when America was colonized by European settlers we brought the concept with us.
Today in the US, 48 out of the 50 states have sheriffs. Alaska doesn’t have counties and therefore has no sheriff’s and Connecticut replaced its sheriff system with State Marshalls in 2000. In 46 out of the 48 states with the sheriff’s system the sheriffs are elected officials and mostly serve 4-year terms.
The duties of sheriff vary from state to state and even from county to county. In the south and western states sheriffs are seen as the constitutional law enforcement officer and the position is held in high esteem. Also, the more rural the county the more likely the sheriff is the primary law enforcement agency. Sheriff’s are also typically responsible for the jail and court systems in their county making the position difficult and challenge on a number of levels.
For Sheriff’s, leadership is an important skill. Not only must they lead their officers and civilian employees, but they must also lead in the jails, the courts, and because of the political nature of the position, in the community
As for notable people that have held the position of sheriff in American history it’s an interesting list. From historical figures like Bat Masterson, Daniel Boone, and Grover Cleveland to controversial ones like Buford Pusser, Grady Judd, and Joe Arpaio.
I realized if I wanted to discuss leadership in law enforcement, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk to at least one Sheriff.
I had a perfect candidate in mind.
[Insert Intro]
Sheriff Chris Lane was elected on November 8, 2022 as the 59th Sheriff of Bartholomew County IN
Sheriff Lane has dedicated over 30 years to law enforcement. During this time, he has served in a variety of positions, including patrol, supervision, administration, and investigations. He was appointed as Chief Deputy of the Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department from 2015 - 2022. Sheriff Lane is also a 2019 graduate of the FBI National Academy, joining an elite group that makes up less than 1% of America’s law enforcement community.
And the most important part of his background…we went to the police academy together.
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Fear is the Mind Killer,
That statement is as relevant today as it was in 1965 when Frank Hubert published his novel Dune.
Paul Atraides, the main character in Dune, quotes from the Litany of Fear in the first chapter of the book. The entire quote is;
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
The quote is designed to help you focus through your fear. It recognizes that fear will happen, that you will be scared, but you must not let that fear define you, or rule you. You must concentrate through the fear and let your reason win. It also acknowledges that fear will pass and you will have to live with the actions and consequences of your decisions once it is gone.
The number one enemy to effective leadership is fear.
Fear is why we fail
Fear is why our people fail
Fear is why or organizations fails
We let fear guide our decisions, we let fear dictate our responses and we let fear paralyze us from taking action.
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I had been a sergeant for about 6 years before my agency sent me to my very first leadership class. I didn’t know what to expect and honestly, I thought it was going to be a waste of time. I mean I had been an informal leader on night shift for years as the old guy and the FTO. When they promoted me to sergeant, they obviously didn’t think leadership was important because they didn’t bother to send me to any training. So, I wasn’t very interested.
This story could have had a very different ending, but the leadership training they did send me to was put on by Bill Westfall.
Bill Westfall is an amazing instructor and one that really lit the fire under me to be an effective leader.
Since then, I began reading every leadership book I could get my hands on, from historical works to books by business leaders. I also took as many leadership classes as I could find, a few of them I took on my own dime and my own time.
So, when I tell you my guest on this episode is one of the very best teachers in leadership,
I’m not kidding.
Jack Enter has been associated with the field of criminal justice since 1972 when he began his career as a law enforcement officer. Since that time, he has worked as a street police officer, detective, vice/narcotics investigator, manager, and as the administrator of a law enforcement agency in the suburbs of Atlanta. Jack obtained his Ph.D. in 1984 and has served as a professor and administrator in the university setting and served as one of the planners of the security component of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. He has lectured throughout the United States and abroad on Leadership as well as Profiling Interpersonal Violence and The Future of Crime and Policing. He has authored two books Challenging the Law Enforcement Organization (2006; Revised 2022) and Law Enforcement Leadership in the Midst of Change (2022).
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Leadership Journeys.
You are going to hear me talk a lot about leadership journeys this season.
What do I mean about leadership journeys? It’s how I describe the process of growing as a leader, of taking on formal and informal responsibilities and about not only learning the process of leadership, but embracing it as well.
I decided the best way to start this season off was to talk you through my leadership journey, and no it wasn’t very pretty.
Many of you out there have had the pleasure of having a mentor or role model for your leadership journey. I had none.
Ok, so that isn’t entirely true, I have found out while preparing for this season that we all have guides on our leadership journey, they just might not be formal ones and maybe we didn’t recognize them for what they were.
You see in my law enforcement career I had very few, and I mean very few positive formal role models. The supervisors and leaders that I had throughout my 30-year career in law enforcement were terrible. But I learned from them. I mostly learned what not to do.
What not to do.
That can be a powerful teacher.
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Leadership, The Oxford English Dictionary defines leadership as;
The action of leading a group of people or an organization. The state or position of being a leader.
Got it. That’s a simple one. Next important lesson please…
Not so fast.
Leadership has to be one of the most vexing skills to learn in our profession. First of all, it’s critically important. It’s important for the officer working the beat who must deal with the public every day. They must lead on scenes and at calls for service, they must show leadership for the community and the people they serve.
It’s important for the line supervisor. They must show leadership to not only that same public as the officer, but also to the officers themselves as well as peers and members of other government agencies.
It’s important to the administrators whose management positions can at times exacerbate the divide between the working officer and the organization, who’s goals should be aligned, but rarely are.
And of course it’s important to the police leaders, who by their very title should be experts in a field that quite frankly, you can’t be an expert in.
“But Steve,” you say, “I know a lot of expert leaders, masters of the craft.”
Bullshit.
They are faking it.
On this season of Blue Canary, we are going to focus on Leadership. We are going to talk about what it means to be a leader, how to learn leadership skills and why leadership is abnormal behavior. I am going to talk about my personal leadership journey as well as interview Chief’s and Sheriffs about their leadership journeys and struggles. We will also hear from leadership experts about the challenges modern police leaders face.
Finally, we will mix in a few of our listeners favorite topics just for fun.
Our first episode of the season will drop on June 5th so make sure you like and subscribe so you don’t miss anything, because this is the story we have to tell.
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That's a Wrap.
In 2020 at the height of the COVID pandemic I decided to start this podcast. I had just retired and started full time teaching and consulting when the world came to a grinding halt. The podcast was a way to fill that void. To scratch my teaching itch and to share what I had learned in 30 years of working as a cop.
I couldn’t be more happy with the results.
Over the last four years I have had the pleasure of reconnecting with old friends, making new ones, and sharing information about this amazing profession.
I want to thank all of you that came along with me for the ride. Thank you for listening, sharing, and subscribing.
This wraps up Season 4 of Blue Canary, a season where I focused on the War on Cops. But, this podcast experiment is far from over. I will be taking a few months off to get everything ready to go for next season, and I think it’s going to be a good one.
Season 5 of Blue Canary is going to focus on leadership. You see, we don’t have a cop problem in the US, we have a cop leadership problem, one that seems to get worse every day. And it’s not just the big bosses, no, it’s a problem that starts with the frontline sergeants. I am going to interview all levels of police leaders and talk about the issues and problems facing police leadership. I am going to talk to researchers and experts in leadership, and I am going to share my own experiences as a formal police leader for 17 years. I think you will find next season fascinating.
Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. Look for the new season in the spring of 2024.
Until then, everybody be careful out there. -
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In 2022 Rafael Mangual a senior fellow and head of research for policing and public safety at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research published his book Criminal (In)Justice. If your profession revolves around the criminal justice system then this is a must-read book. Using extensive studies and documentation Mangual takes the fight to the decarceration and depolicing narrative. He quickly and succinctly destroys the concept of defunding the police.
Criminal (In)Justice points out that the defund police movement fundamentally does not understand the causes of crime. They believe that by transferring funds away from the police and putting those funds into non law enforcement services such as social work the cycle of crime will be broken and crime will decline. However, the facts and studies prove the opposite. In 2020 the United States saw more than 21,000 murders which accounted for a 30 percent increase over 2019 and the biggest year-over-year increase on record. His book goes on to state:
The year 2020 was preceded by a decade-long trend of
Increasingly vitriolic expressions of anti-police rhetoric in the media and academia.
Decarceration (between 2009 and 2019, the country’s imprisonment rate declined 17 percent)
De-policing (during the same period, arrest declined by more than 25 percent, going from more than 13.6 million to just over 10 million, while the number of full-time police officers working American cities went from about 452,000 in 2009 down to 443,000 in 2019.
He hits you with these numbers in the first 22 pages of the book. It only gets better from there.
https://manhattan.institute/book/criminal-injusticehttps://manhattan.institute/article/hardening-the-system-three-commonsense-measures-to-help-keep-crime-at-bay
https://www.wthr.com/article/news/crime/impd-arrests-suspect-ramming-police-car-same-man-police-shot-february-george-leachman-indianapolis-indiana-trial-bond/531-3e8ab206-de34-45ae-9e4c-41cd43ccc305
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-23/washington-dc-mayor-wants-to-reverse-police-reforms-amid-violent-crime-spike
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Rick Snyder started in law enforcement over 27 years ago and continues to serve on a major metropolitan police department. Rick is the president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 86 and also serves as the National FOP Chaplain.
Rick has been vocal about the issues involving police reform for many years and I was pleased to have an opportunity to talk to Rick about the state of policing and the war on cops.
Rick had so much more to say, but do to technical difficulties and schedule conflicts we had to postpone the second part of the interview. Don’t worry though, Rick will be back on and we will dig deeper into the issues at a later date because that’s the story we have to tell. -
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This is our fourth annual Halloween Special and it's a doozy. Ever had one of those creepy encounters that just set the hair on the back of your neck straight up. Usually we just move on and forget about them, but sometimes they can really spook you.
In this episode we hear the real true story of a creepy conversation that took a dark turn quickly. Dim the lights and settle in for another true Halloween story. -
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Jeff Schemmer is a longtime friend and colleague of mine. He is also an expert on the 911 system. Jeff began working in the 911 community thirty-five years ago as a dispatcher with the Bloomington Indiana Police Department. After the 1998 consolidation of dispatch services with BPD and Monroe County Sheriff's Office, he continued to serve as a dispatcher, training coordinator and Communications Manager until 2019, when he accepted the position of Executive Director with Hamilton County Public Safety Communications. In 2022 Jeff was selected to be the Executive Director of the Indiana Statewide 911 Board.
I had the pleasure of talking with Jeff about 911 telecommunicators and the challenges dispatchers face everyday.
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There isn’t an easy answer to the origin of the black mourning band. The use of black clothing to show that the wearer is in mourning for the loss of a loved one, can be traced all the way back to ancient Rome, where the traditional white toga would be replaced with a black toga pulla. Over the centuries and in various cultures white and black have battled it out for dominance as the prevailing color for mourning however in the 14th century, Christian Churches had made the wearing of black at funerals a common custom. the 19th-century artist and professor F. Edward Hulme, explained the color black at funerals showed “the spiritual darkness of the soul unillumined by the Sun of righteousness.” By the 14th century, it was widely associated with death.
What arguably set the color black aside for funerals was its expense. To get the deep dark color of black required multiple rounds of dyeing. Black clothing simply cost more than other colors and funerals; specifically important funerals were theater in the day. It was an opportunity to show off, make a political statement, and impress your peers and commoners alike. As Katie Thornton of the Atlantic put it; Funerals were the red carpets of the early modern era.
The funeral of Queen Elizabeth the First in 1603 solidified black as the color of mourning. While black has become a more common color over the years and much less expensive it still has a historical connection with death and to this day is the most common color associated with mourning.
While the wealthy and political were trying to one-up each other in the black clothing department the military found itself with a conundrum. Early military uniforms were colorful. The bright clothing helped differentiate the fighters on the battlefield. It helped build cohesion and recognition on the smoke-filled landscape. Uniforms were at their most glorious during the Napoleonic era in Europe. Bright colors, gold buttons and ribbons, silver braids and polished leather. The uniforms were intended to display authority, power, status, and glamor.
They were everything but black.
To allow for proper mourning while still wearing the uniform of the day the black armband as adopted. By adding a black armband to the uniform, the wearer was able to convey the appropriate honor and respect for the deceased while still being gloriously appointed in the dress uniform of the day. The black armband was quickly adopted by anyone who had a specific uniform to wear during the funeral rights. We still see the black armband worn today by sports teams wishing to show their respect of a lost member or important person.
For law enforcement the practice of wearing a black armband quickly morphed into wearing a black band over the officer’s badge. Today it is common practice for law enforcement officers to wear a black band over the badge to pay respects to fellow officers who died in the line of duty.
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