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Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement
2024: Ranked #1 Law Podcast
Host: Tyler Owen and Clint McNear discussing topics, issues, and stories within the law enforcement community. TMPA is the voice of Texas Law Enforcement, focused on protecting those who serve. Since 1950, we have been defending the rights and interests of Texas Peace Officers by providing the best legal assistance in the country, effective lobbying at state and local levels, affordable training, and exemplary member support. As the largest law enforcement association in Texas, TMPA is proud to represent 33,000 local, county and state law enforcement officers.
Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement
#084- "Transforming Law Enforcement Standards in Texas" with Greg Stevens & Gretchen Grigsby
In this episode, we sit down with TCOLE Executive Director Greg Stevens and Director of Government Relations Gretchen Grigsby to discuss their career journeys and the upcoming changes at TCOLE. They break down key legislative changes, like Senate Bill 1445, and Gretchen’s focus on maintaining high recruitment and training standards. Learn about the new programs designed to support out-of-state officers and military personnel transitioning into Texas law enforcement roles.
Don’t miss this deep dive into the evolving landscape of law enforcement in Texas!
email us at- bluegrit@tmpa.org
Hey, you ought to look at that executive director position. And my first reaction was, ah, no, no, no, it's not for me. I'd rather sit down here on the beach and throw stone. And I had some key mentors that really encouraged me. I was pretty frank, pretty honest in the interviews and so I thought, hey, maybe they're not looking for my personality, I don't know. Turns out they were, and so that was that, and here we sit. I started in January. It was a long process.
Speaker 2:Hey, blue Grit, we are back this week. It is your co-host, clint, and I've got a guest co-host sitting in, mr John Siriga, director of Field Services and Legislative Affairs. How are?
Speaker 3:you. I'm well, sir. It's nice to be here once in a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tyler bailed on us and we got a superstar sitting in in his place now. Uh, I wouldn't say that, but thank you. We have a cool episode that may run a bit long. There's a lot to dive into. You want to introduce our?
Speaker 3:guests, absolutely so. To my left, gretchen Grigsby. Now, gretchen, I'm going to let you talk about yourself, your background and what you do at TECL.
Speaker 4:Okay, I am Gretchen Grigsby. As John said, I'm the Director of Government Relations for the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. I will have been there for 10 years this October and it's been a great honor and privilege so far and we've got a lot to do. I've seen a lot of change there. I came there from the Texas Senate, where I worked on the Senate Committee on Agricultural, rural Affairs and Homeland Security. It sounds like it doesn't go well together at all, but there is a nexus there, I promise, and most of that is the twelve hundred and fifty five mile border along the Texas-Mexico border. I came there from DPS, where I spent about three years in the government relations section there, and I was fortuitous enough to get there through the boss that I worked for, a gentleman named Steve McCraw, who hired me as a punk 23-year-old into the office of the governor what was then the governor's office of Homeland Security. So, all in all, it's been a really interesting career so far and look forward to all the good things that come in the future.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you for being here For us. You are an absolute pleasure to deal with at the legislature, and also with all the work. Thank you for all the work you do with the Texas Peace Officer Memorial.
Speaker 4:Thank you.
Speaker 3:It's a huge task that you take the lead on every year and you do a great job. Our other guest Chief, Greg Stevens. Greg, I've known you for probably 10 years now. I'm going to let you kind of talk about your background, your history with Lubbock PD and then becoming chief and TECL.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate the opportunity to come and sit and talk with you guys and you know, and have an opportunity to kind of reach law enforcement across the state of Texas and, I think, probably beyond. I think you guys are followed even beyond Texas. I did my career, most of the majority of it, in Lubbock. I've been in law enforcement more than 35 years now. It was when they asked me to put together or update my bio and the number, I thought man, I'm an old head now, you and me both. Yeah, my first.
Speaker 1:I got into this job, this career actually, as a military police officer. All I wanted to do growing up was be a police officer. My dad was an Amarillo police officer. I was born and raised in Amarillo, but they had nepotism rules all the way up to somewhere around 96 or so. So I kept hoping that that's where I would end up, because I was a kid who wanted to stay home and I didn't go to college right out of high school. I wasn't that kid, in fact, I barely got out of high school, literally. That's a whole other story. So I went into the military, went into the Air Force first and went in a month after high school as a military police officer. I was a canine handler, actually Through Lackland Through Lackland, that's exactly right. I had the Air Force Police Academy. Back then it was with the Marine Corps. They were co -joined there. First duty assignment was in Fairbanks, alaska. So I was a base patrolman and a canine handler and since that's considered an overseas tour, that's where I did all my time.
Speaker 1:And when I got off active duty in 92, amarillo still couldn't even apply I looked at DPS. They had a hiring freeze at the time where they were putting DLopers back in highway patrol. So they said it will, it may be in a year, but I needed a job. Then I couldn't, couldn't wait a year, and so I applied across the state, kind of took the shotgun approach, applied from texar, canada, san antonio, uh, all through the metroplex, tested in lubbock and did really well, and it's close to home, that same size, and so that was it. Uh, other than that I didn't know much about lubbock and did really well, and it's close to home, the same size, and so that was it. Other than that I didn't know much about Lubbock, didn't know anyone in Lubbock. But I started the academy, the Lubbock Police Academy, in October of 1992. I spent almost 27 years there. I had the great opportunity of working throughout the whole department it was I'm not sure there was 300 officers at that time whenever I started If there was, it wouldn't mean more than 300. And became the chief in Lubbock in 2015.
Speaker 1:And I just I can't say enough positive about the Lubbock Police Department or about the city of Lubbock. What a great place it is to live, work, raise a family. Everything Loved it. Texas Tech University is where live, work, raise a family. Everything Loved it. Texas Tech University is where I went to, got a graduate degree there and when I retired, you know, I had an opportunity to go live on the coast and went to Rockport, texas.
Speaker 3:That kind of caught, I think everybody off guard. It caught us off guard. I think it caught Lubbock PD because things were going really well at Lubbock. You know we did a management survey there before you took the chief spot and then we had several years where things went really really well at Lubbock PD and then it caught us off guard. We were surprised.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you, I wasn't exactly ready to leave lubbock, but what I knew, uh, having been in law enforcement at that time for you know a long time uh, and watching chiefs, had some good mentors and all of them told me they first they said, don't take a chief's job unless you could walk out the next day, um, so that you can make good decisions, so that you don't have to have that job. And they all said, listen, if you're doing good, the tenure for Chiefs is somewhere between two to six years and I kept thinking about that and I was coming up on year four and, if you remember again, we worked together on a lot of different things and when I took the Chiefs job, we were just going under a consent decree. The department had been sued by the DOJ for discriminatory hiring practices, one I didn't, I don't think was and I didn't put as much credence in it. But the other side of it, when I looked at everything involved in that, I think that, through no intention, no design or anything, but just by the way, our hiring practices were for physical agility, we were actually through disparate impact. We needed to improve that and so, and we did.
Speaker 1:But I say that to say that there was. We weren't going to be able to fight that and win. You couldn't fight one without fighting the other and we going to lose the one, so we were going to lose it all. So we had to go into a consent decree and, um, you know, manpower was was uh, tough. There was a lot of issues and problems in the department, hence the management survey at the time and coming into 2019, the consent decree was ending. It was over. Our strength was good, our manpower was good, crime was going down, so everything was good. And I looked at it and I thought, you know, I'm not sure that it's going to get any better. And again, if you know anything about Texas Tech, and again, if you know anything, about Texas Tech.
Speaker 3:when Tech wins, they celebrate in a spectacular way. My daughter went to Tech. I think Clint's got family that went to Tech too, so we know they can get out of hand.
Speaker 1:When they win. If Tech doesn't win, it's usually pretty calm.
Speaker 2:But I'd seen. We call it peaceful protest. It's not a riot. It call it peaceful protest. That's that's and it was.
Speaker 1:It's not a riot it's a peaceful protest, so as I'm standing on broadway with tear gas in my nose, so whatever that speaks to you. So in march of 2019, um tech was in the final four. They're having a great year. They had won in the final four and they were going to the National Championship and I had actually I don't know a couple days before, I was on the TPCA Texas Police Chiefs website and I was registering for the annual conference that year and I saw an advertisement for Rockport Texas for the chief's job in Rockport Texas and we used to vacation down there, we used to go to Port Aransas and all that area and loved it a little slice of heaven down there and I uh and I thought man what a great job.
Speaker 1:So small department 27 officers got four or five and civilian employees. I would man that'd be like a paradise. I could lower my golf handicap. I could fish. I hadn't fished in forever because it's a big city, no college celebrations no, well, and see so.
Speaker 1:So then I'm, but I wasn't. I'm like I don't know, because I loved Lubbock. You know it was my department, you know. And so then, after we won the Final Four, I'm down on Broadway. If you know Lubbock, you know where Broadway and University is.
Speaker 1:I got a line, I got some great pictures from it, some of Lubbock's finest out in Riot Garrison, standing up there holding the line. There's a car overturned and everybody's standing on top. There's a couch on fire and if you know the lime scooters, they burn well, and they'd call for another one, the crowd would, and they'd see a scooter go over the top, get the fire going again. And I got the tear gas in my nose and I thought, eh, I, I don't know, maybe it's time and and you get that where you go, yeah, feel it, that's it. And so I sent a resume and and uh, interviewed and, and that was it. You know, it really was kind of where it went and and, uh, and so there, there we go, went down to the coast and, uh, we were about to be empty nesters. Well, I find our, our, uh, our twins, our youngest two, were graduating high school. So, rather than sit around the house and hang out. We went on an adventure and so you know, continuing on, we were doing great and I was one of the chiefs around the state watching the T Cole sunset bill, the sunset process that went through two legislative sessions and I kind of got interested in it and I had some mentors.
Speaker 1:I had some other chiefs, some other people around the state that said, hey, you ought to look at that executive director position and my first reaction was, ah, no, no, no, it's not for me, I'd rather sit down here on the beach and throw stone, and so you know. But I got really interested in it and as I read through the legislative packet on the second, uh, when that you know, tico did they didn't get done in the first one and I think that the legislature identified issues and problems that in Texas law enforcement, where there could be improvements, and I really became interested in it and I had some key mentors that that really encouraged me. I talked to some other people and so that was that and here we sit. I started in January. It was a long process. I really had kind of thought, eh, maybe they're not interested.
Speaker 1:I was pretty. It was a long process. I was pretty frank, pretty honest in the interviews, and so I thought, eh, maybe they're not looking for my personality, I don't know. It turns out they were. And uh, the presiding officer called me, and uh. And then, a couple months later, a few months later, I started in january rest is history, and we want to talk about tico with both of you.
Speaker 3:Before, though, I'd like to hear your talk about the differences between being a chief of the 400 officer department and a 20 officerofficer department.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll tell you, it gives you perspective. It really does, because it's different. One thing for me personally you know, in a department this size of Lubbock, you're a bureaucrat. I mean, you're a bureaucrat, you do paperwork, you go to meetings. You're not as involved and part of also in looking at.
Speaker 1:So when I took the job in Lubbock in 2015, there was a plan on the table to build a new police department and it was a one big building, it's like a compound, but we hadn't chosen where to build the location and I kind of inherited that plan and I sort of facetiously said, well, where's the moat? A couple people, what? So? This, this isn't. This isn't going to work. This isn't community policing. I mean, you get that. You're going to have the officers. You know you gotta have to. You have to have security for your police facility, sure, but you know, but this is all that's missing is a moat and alligators and a and a drawbridge. This isn't going to work. And you had people that this, and I'm a believer that you know you really want your headquarters to be downtown, but lubbock's downtown is not centrally located because, no, no, no, we need to put it somewhere center in the city. Well then we wanted well, here's maybe the lubbock Business Park, which is further away from down. So there was all this consternation over that and I came into it and I said well, lubbock's not going to slow down. When a city gets to that 250,000 mark or so, it begins to feed on itself. It's only going to grow. And we've got to act like a big city and I laid the plan out and said we need to have a modest headquarters, downtown patrol substations, out in the city so that the officers are connected with the community. And that's what we ended up doing.
Speaker 1:But I'll tell you, as I kind of got into that, I thought man, this is a lot bigger than where I was at when I started here and I'd see a kid in uniform coming down the hallway and he might have been on the PD two, three years. I had no idea who he or she was. I don't know. Don't know who this is, and that's good. The department had to grow. In fact it probably still. I don't know the numbers and stuff. Now I think it probably needs to grow, still Probably don't have the number of officers they need, number of things they need.
Speaker 1:So it was a little bit refreshing when I got down to rockport and it's 27 officers and I knew. I knew each one of them, you know, by name, I knew a little of their personal history, knew who they were and, um, one of the big differences is when you don't. You got four people on the streets and you get one on vacation, somebody calls us sick, you got two and I may end up taking a call myself. You know detectives have to leave the building. You'll take a call, see when you get you're.
Speaker 1:You're more connected with the officers but you're a lot more connected with the community and in love. Of course I was on the news and I was out doing stuff in the community, but but at a much higher level. We're here, I'm going to people's house, sitting down with them and talking with them about a problem they have in their community, and so it's a big dichotomy in those two. You don't have as much money in the town that size, so finding equipment is difficult. Training training can't get him one, finding the training and paying for the training, but sending people the training dispenser all the way around with man yeah, can't spare the people who go to training, and so it's a.
Speaker 1:It's a vast difference, but but what I said in my first sentence, it gives me the perspective. It's helping me in this new role now because I understand what a big city chief is facing and what a small town chief is facing, same thing with sheriffs, constables, what they're both facing. It helps me understand what we need to do in this organization to serve each, whatever kind of agency it is and it's.
Speaker 2:It's funny, when you get in a law enforcement career you only know what you know. That's right. And from your perspective at the time you're like, well, I really know all of this. And uh was visiting with a officer in a very, very large agency, a couple thousand-man agency, and they were like, yeah, when we make an arrest, we pretty much drop them off at the jail. And I was like, well, when do you do probable cause affidavit, when do you do this and all the various aspects of police work? And then you go to West Texas or East Texas and you go to a 12-man agency. They take the report, they go to the call, they investigate the case, they file the case, they collect evidence, they're probably taking photos, they may know how to fingerprint.
Speaker 2:And it's just funny that you only know what you know. And people at big agencies think they do the best police work or they know all the police work. People at smaller agencies, they only know what they know and they're doing the best police work that they know. And it's just weird how different, how different it can be and really kind of the misnomers about small agencies. There's a lot of small agencies where you have a 12-man department man and woman department and you got a few people that can do every single thing, until least work. There is where most cops wouldn't know how to go live to latent fingerprint or what photos are needed. It's just interesting to see, because I only knew what I knew at Garland and now, after being here and seeing kind of like your perspective, you get to see a whole lot different. It's weird because you learn. Well, I only knew what I knew. There's a whole lot more out there.
Speaker 4:The more you learn, the more you realize you never knew anything at all. But I'm telling you, as the agency that's supposed to set these standards and rules for the entire law enforcement profession statewide, you do learn how difficult it is to apply those standards to the Houston Police Department and the small town one or two person police department and try to figure out the economies of scale that go on in just applying training standards and training requirements, much less all the other agency standards that come along with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so you inherited. You came in at an interesting time. You came in a sunset, right I did. So let's talk about that a little bit. What challenges did that present?
Speaker 1:Well, I'll tell you. First of all, I'll say that what I stepped into because I didn't know what I was getting into. You don't know what you don't know. I came into an agency full of folks that are dedicated one to law enforcement. They truly believe in what they're doing. It's a mission-focused organization, which was a little bit surprising, I don't know why, because I didn't know what I was getting into I'll. What I base that on is, sadly, unfortunately, most organizations whether they're public, private, whatever they're not typically mission-focused. It's a lack of, I think, leadership in society and culture, but most places are not real. You hang a mission statement on the wall and that's well, we're good, we've got our leadership. But the people at TECO, when I walked in and I credit this a lot to John Beecham, to the interim executive director did a really good job, especially when they're handed Senate Bill 1445. They're handed this mission, this direction, they're rallied behind it and they believe in what they're doing and I think that most of them I don't think I'm quite sure that all of them could probably make a lot more money doing something different in the civilian sector, especially in the Austin market, and so they're all very dedicated to what they're doing. So I found that as soon as I got in the stage where we're at for the Sunset Bill implementation, the legislature said that, hey, you form these committees who will come up with these new rules, with these model policies that every agency across the state will adopt, or something very substantively similar. That was well underway and uh, and john beecham did a great job, along with gretchen and the other directors and the whole staff they, they made these committees in the in against. So when these roll down there and some of them are already rolling we can talk about those in a minute.
Speaker 1:But these new model policies, these new rules, they are created by this diverse cross-section of Texas law enforcement. They've got chiefs and sheriffs, school district higher education chiefs, constables there are some from the El Paso area, from behind the Pine Curtain, from deep in the Rio Grande Valley, the Panhandle, all over Central Texas, the Metroplex, all brought together to create what is a sea change of Texas law enforcement. It's a sea change. It's all big stuff and that's what got me interested again as I read through what the legislature had imposed. It wasn't just a bureaucratic edict that came out. It was created by Texas law enforcement for Texas law enforcement. So all of that was just about done when I stepped in. The committees only had maybe two more meetings when I came in.
Speaker 1:That process was solid. Now it's not perfect by any means and there's going to be plenty of officers rank and file officers, chiefs, sheriffs and cospas that don't like some of it. What my message would be is that, hey, we're certainly going to tweak these as we go along, but these were created by your peers. They were not created in a bureaucratic vacuum in Austin Texas. They were created by your peers from across the state. And so, to your point, my job now has become because this is really sort of handed to me with all of these and then voted on and approved by the commission, by the nine people appointed by the governor. So my job now is to implement these new rules, ensure that agencies adopt the new policies. And then we have hard deadlines, one of which just passed, which was September 1st for the public license lookup. That's caused some concern, consternation out across the landscape.
Speaker 3:Have the phones been ringing?
Speaker 4:They have been ringing off the hook, but not in the way that you would think. It's more the technology side and making sure that the user logging can get in. And that actually is because at the same time we rolled out the IAM the access management part of it, where you had to re-enroll in your MyT-Col and your T-CLEDs account.
Speaker 3:But honestly so, not officers upset about the privacy issue.
Speaker 1:No, surprisingly I'll tell you we, we really went on. One of the things that I wanted to do is go out across the state on an education, uh, um, uh, tour, tour, yeah, just a big endeavor to make sure that we're in front of again. I don't want to, uh, just, you know, hand out stuff from Austin. I want to go out and get in front of the license community and explain what we're doing, explain these changes to make sure everyone understands, because we don't want to be a gotcha agency, we don't want to be adversarial, because here's what I know is that all of these big changes, no way TECL is going to get this done on our own. We don't have the resources, nor is it smart or wise to try to manage this from an adversarial, just pure regulatory mindset.
Speaker 1:The only way they will meet the legislature's intent, the legislature's expectations, is to work in concert with and in partnership with Texas law enforcement, and not just the chiefs, the sheriffs, constables, the agency heads. We've got to work with rank-and-file officers who are greatly impacted when you say hey, there's this new public license lookup where people can look you up. Oh wait a minute, whoa. And we want to basically explain hey, it all is currently public information. There's no change in that. It's just now people don't have to file an open records request with T-Call. It's your PSR is what it is. We go and we explain it. We've done our very best to get out across the state in person explaining this stuff and leaning on word of mouth more than just official emails, and I think now that people look at that and go all right, whatever, it's fine.
Speaker 4:The biggest points of anxiety were your photo was going to be out there or your address was going to be out there, and that is in no way the case.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that database is only currently licensed, correct?
Speaker 4:So it actually goes back further than that. If you are a T-Call licensee, then there is access to that information, whether you're currently appointed or not appointed, and it will show whether you are active or not. But it does go back further than just those who are currently active.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, and it's essentially you know you're a licensed professional in the state of Texas, same as an attorney, same as a doctor, same as a plumber, hairdresser, same as a hairdresser, right, and so you know. Again, I think it's part of y'all's mission segment to have professional law enforcement officers that were licensed professionals and so we're like everyone else. Now, again, it doesn't offer them a way to get in touch with you. One difference it does show where you were. Again, if someone's looking you up probably know that already anyway, but it makes available where you went to the police academy, what kind of training you are.
Speaker 1:You could see if you're a specialized officer, if you've got specialized classes, things like that. It'll show if you've ever had your license disciplined by TECO. That's in there. Same thing with an attorney if they've ever had action taken against them by the state bar, uh, doctors with the state, uh, you know, medical association. So again, um, I think that the public expects that kind of transparency. I don't we haven't run into any officers that think that's a terrible idea. It's just been concern over hey, does this bring danger to me? Does this put too much of my personal identifying information out there? And it doesn't when the unknown is scary.
Speaker 2:cops are 100, cops are when the unknown is scary cops are 100 percent. Cops are scared of the unknown.
Speaker 1:Hence the education endeavor that we've. We've gone on to try to take that unknown factor out so that we reduce the anxiety and then, honestly, we can get past this one and move on to what are much bigger changes under the sunset provisions.
Speaker 3:So thinking about some of the challenges with the bill in implementation. Texas is unique in the amount of small departments we have. We have what? Over 2,800 law enforcement agencies. Many of them are one, two, three officer departments. Are those departments going to have harder timing, your opinion, implementing the changes?
Speaker 1:That is possible.
Speaker 1:I think so Because of funding, or I think funding is one of the biggest issues. They typically it's like the dichotomy of lubbock versus rockport right, we didn't have as much money, you don't have as big of a tax base and more difficult to buy the. The minimum standards part of of centebel 1445 requires certain minimum equipment, right, some policy issues things like that and so, um, it is going to be, I think, a challenge for some jurisdictions to to buy, to furnish unexpired vests, but no one's going to argue that that's not a good idea and they shouldn't, we shouldn't, we shouldn't be doing that. Again. We want to work in partnership with those jurisdictions to get every agency, regardless of size, up to that minimum standard. We want to work in partnership to get everyone up to that level.
Speaker 1:Agencies that may struggle with those minimum standards, we're going to do what we can do to help those out. But again, I think that, again, if a jurisdiction can't provide minimum equipment, minimum policies, then we have to ask the hard question and it's an earnest question should that law enforcement agency be there? And as far as the officers that are working there, they're not in the best situation, not in the best position and from our perspective, we want our members to go home at night, and so equipment training is vitally important.
Speaker 2:I think it holds leadership accountable also of those agencies, because sometimes just because you can doesn't mean you should, and and we have some very well-ran five and eight officer agencies and we have some 20 and 30 officer agencies that we get calls from year-round, all year, because they're horribly ran, they're not managed well, they're not equipped well, they're not trained, they're nothing, and sometimes the answer we have to give them is sorry, it's not illegal to work in a horrible place, a very poor-ran, poor-managed place, and so I think, too, this will hold some leaders accountable. It will. If you're wanting to have your little circus, then you need to run it well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's been a lot of talk for years now about holding cops accountable. We also need to hold our sheriffs and police chiefs accountable.
Speaker 1:Well, and the county government and the city government as well.
Speaker 1:yes, it did hold across the board and it's and one of the things that part of the conversation is whenever we talk about um, it's this conversational statistics with the, the, and it always says the one and two person agencies, the three, you know, man agencies again. But there's types of agencies that you've got. There's categories of agencies. Remember that that can because I don't have the statistics in front of me. But when you say it and again I'm kind of making this up I don't have in front of 50 of all agencies have fewer than 10 officers, whatever that's, and those are true statistics. But remember that some of those are district attorney's office, where you've got two investigators. That's a different animal than a small town with two officers, different animal than a city's fire marshal's office, a municipal court with their two. So you have to kind of break these into categories when we start looking at them, and their funding is going to be different as well, and so, but from our perspective, we're going to work with whatever the agency is, whatever type it is. We're going to work with them, work with that leadership, work with the jurisdiction, make sure they know what these new rules are and understand that, like you just said, both of you said it's for the benefit of the individual officer and it's for the benefit of the community One that the officer goes home.
Speaker 1:They have it properly equipped and we always kind of glaze over the policies, the whole idea of having the right policies in place. The officers deserve to have good policies so they know what the bar ditches are, they know what the guardrails are, Whether your pursuit policy which is one that's required whether it's wide open, pursue what you want, or whether it's very restrictive no pursuits unless it's this, that or the other. The officers need to know that. That's how they stay out of trouble, and so you have to have these requirements in place. And that's a reasonable expectation that if you're going to run a law enforcement agency, that you have a use of force policy, you have here's one of the big ones an off-duty work policy, so that you know we see again my long law enforcement career I've seen a lot of young officers get jammed up when they're working at an off-duty job.
Speaker 3:We see it from the end agencies. We see it every day. We get the calls. We defend them End agencies too 100%.
Speaker 1:So that's a reasonable policy, that if you're going to operate a law enforcement agency, the troop deserves to have that policy in place. So they all make sense. Like I said, the reason I got interested in this job is this is all good stuff. I don't see any that are bad. Really, it's going to need to be tweaked. It's not perfect by any means and I kind of trust that with good advice, the legislature will do a good job at tweaking it where it needs to be. Advice from you all, advice from the Sheriff's Association, advice from the Chiefs Association, constables, once we get into this and we see something that needs to have a little tweak, do that and tweak it as we go along. But all in all, I think it's good legislation. It does good things for law enforcement.
Speaker 1:And back to the one point I was making it's good for the individual officers but it's good for the communities they serve. That's a huge point. At the end of the day, it's good for the people that are relying on law enforcement and I always try to make this point that that remember when, when someone dials, here's what we're all here for, or every one of us are here for. When someone dials 911, they're not asking for the chief I've learned this. They're not asking for the usually not a detective, but what they would. When American citizens call 911, they want a uniformed patrol officer, deputy trooper, whatever show up in a marked car in a reasonable amount of time and say man, what can I do for you? Call the police, I'm here, what can I do for you? That's the goal, that's the ultimate goal, and it takes a lot to do that, and professional.
Speaker 2:Exactly 100% your point about the community. I've got a northeast Texas agency paying $12 an hour and Texas agency paying $12 an hour and they suffer there. They have turnover there. They have a lot of issues there. Well, the county judge there wants to blame it on why don't I have any professionals that work here? Well, I disagree with that number one. But number two at $12 an hour, when they can go to Buc-ee's and make $18 an hour, don't blame, there's no one else to blame. And he asked during a commissioner's court one day what would you suggest? I said I'd suggest they all leave today and go to Buc-ee's and help their family improve their lifestyle and leave today.
Speaker 4:And he said well, it's just not even in the equation and it's a vicious circle, but $12 an hour it's hard to attract A truly professional and they have a lot of good people at that agency, but it's because they grew up there and their heart is with that community. But there's nobody from an hour away going to go. Well, I'd sure like to move down there, an hour away, and make $12 an hour and it's the community that pays for that.
Speaker 2:That not pays for it, it's the community that suffers for that.
Speaker 4:I'm curious, I want to talk to you guys about the accession with less than four months out.
Speaker 3:However, before we do just your thoughts on the MLTU please, the recruitment and retention crisis. What can we do to, in your opinion, to attract? You know the Navy SEAL coming out. You know into the workforce, or you know the squared away out. You know into the workforce, or you know the squared away.
Speaker 2:Or air force, or marines exactly, so I have to be in the baby come on.
Speaker 1:now, you know I'm retired navy, so so back to my the uh, my history or whatever. So I I did my four years active duty and then uh, you know, I was out, was out all together. I wanted to go back in the reserves and they'd closed Reese Air Force Base up in Lubbock and so I didn't have the money to travel every month and so I went in, re-enlisted in the Navy, had to drop. I was an E-4 when I got out of the Air Force, had to drop down to E-3. And they call it striking for a rate, a rating, and so I struck for Master at Arms, continued as military police in the Navy. So I struck for Master at Arms, continued as military police in the Navy, and did that for another 10 years, a little bit longer than that. I got recalled after the attacks in 2001. And when I got back in 2002, that's when I went to college and finished a degree and then got a commission as an intel officer in the Navy naval intelligence officer. That was in 2005,. And I retired in 2015, right before I got the chief's job. And so whether you're recruiting an airman, a sailor, a Marine or a soldier, it doesn't matter. Even a Coast Guard guy, we'll take Coast Guard whoever, it doesn't matter, we'll take anybody out of the military.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you this I think that TECOL absolutely has a part to play in recruiting and retention. We absolutely have a vested interest and need to participate at the highest level. It starts with working in partnership with the licensed community and with every association. It's you guys, it's all the chiefs association, everyone. It's a conversation we've had at IATList. Of course I'm more interested in recruiting in Texas, but nationwide approach, getting people interested in law enforcement.
Speaker 1:Again, a couple of the things that I think about it. One if you look at it from the standpoint of the sunset legislation which raises standards, I'm one of those chiefs that I think that that, uh, we should never lower standards whatsoever. And in in conversations I know when I first became a chief and I would go to the limit. You know every chief has to go to limit and I'm in a conversation it was, it was one of the very large cities chiefs gone, retired, not not with the city anymore. Uh, this, this chief was talking about the difficulty in getting people there and actually said I think I'm going to pull down this standard and pull down that standard. I was the first one to say that's a terrible idea. And that chief looked at me and took a little offense because I came from Lubbock, which was less than half the size, and I said, listen, I've got a long military career and I'm telling you, in fact I would had a long military career and I'm telling you that's the in fact, I would raise a couple of standards.
Speaker 1:If you're having and it's whether you're in business, whatever you're in, people want to be part of something difficult and um, and and that's one of our problems right now is is I think and I know this will come across wrong and people won't like it when I say this but I think we've made it too easy to get into the profession. We've made it too easy to stay in the profession. Sometimes we absolutely have to hold the line on standards and we have to. We talked briefly before about training and basic peace officer training. It's got to be difficult, it has to be. It was when I came through. It was difficult when, when y'all both came through and when Gretchen's husband went through. To be difficult, it has to be. It was when I came through. It was difficult when y'all both came through and when Gretchen's husband went through. It was difficult. It has to be difficult. People want to be a part of something that's difficult, and I'm not talking just with physical fitness. The academics have to be difficult. Every bit of it has to be difficult.
Speaker 3:But you're aware that departments nationwide are lowering standards. They're lowering hiring standards, they're lowering FTO program standards because they're desperate for bodies.
Speaker 1:And there's our opportunity. This is twofold opportunity. We can hold the line on ours. We could even ratchet a little bit and people. So that's one part. We can be the outlier and people are going to want to be a part. The good men and women who want to be in law enforcement, they know that and I think that's why they're having so much, because people see that and they're like, nah, I'm not going to do that, I'm going to. I want to do something different. I want to go into the military, get into a career field that's difficult and hard, that challenges me. And if they're looking, they go'll look at what texas is doing and think about how many people are moving to texas.
Speaker 1:Right now we have this untapped pool of people coming in here and part of what what we're looking at. So there's already a. It's the supplemental peace officer training program that we've got that allows out-of-state officers, federal officers, to come through. It's a. I'll call it a shortcut. I don't like the name because that sounds like abbreviated is better. I like abbreviated. So we're reviewing that and looking at it and saying, well, what can we do, maybe to tweak that, because right now it's a one-size-fits-all. It doesn't matter what state you're coming in from, it applies to you.
Speaker 2:Is it where they can challenge the test Correct?
Speaker 4:You have to go through some training before you're able to take the test, but it is much shortened from your traditional peace officer.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because I think the challenge I know. When I moved here, even I looked into it and it was in addition to working full time. It wasn't something I really wanted to do.
Speaker 1:It would have been a little bit easier, a little bit faster track and so what we want to do is look at those states where they already have high standards. They already have a good basic peace officer academy, and maybe tweaking it to where it is more appealing. But now the off the you know, you get newton's law here. It's going to be something opposite of that. Well, there are a lot of states out there that don't have that difficult of a process. Those may we may have to put a little more into it to make sure that we're getting only high quality people.
Speaker 3:And if you came from somewhere that don't have the standards that texans expect, then here's what here's what it would look like and that would present a challenge, because TECO would be doing background investigations just basically before allowing them. Yeah, or?
Speaker 2:maybe recognize certain states Tennessee, we know, has a high level, oklahoma, we know, has a high level. If you apply from these states, this is path A, is what you do, and if any other states, you're path B, I guess that's right and that program was created when TECL didn't have the resources really to look at every single state.
Speaker 1:Well, now we have more resources, and in this next budget year, because to try to keep up with all of this with the growing Texas law enforcement industry, we're asking for more resources, and that would be something we'd want to do is we try to recruit more people into Texas and into Texas law enforcement. There's also a pathway for military folks. If you're military police, if you were special forces or the Navy SEAL whoever you're talking about we can get them in that as well. But here's the thing a lot of people don't know about that. We Texas are not doing a ton of recruiting in that, and we should, and I think that's something that TCO can look at down the road. The agencies are doing it, but I think that we have a vested interest in being a part of that because, again, we would be recruiting people to get a Texas peace officer license and then try to get them to work somewhere.
Speaker 4:One of the really important things to keep in mind with all of this is that our goal is to set people up for success, whether it's the individual officer or the agency.
Speaker 4:And when you talk about an officer coming from out of state, most of that supplemental peace officer course that they have to go through is to get them up to speed on Texas laws and Texas regulations, so that they don't go out on the road and think with the mindset of having come from whatever state they came from, out on the road and think with the mindset of having come from whatever state they came from and understand that the Texas Penal Code and the Texas CCP apply here. And that's the standard that you've got to go by. And so I don't think there's ever a situation where you can just come in from any state, any federal agency or the military and just come right in. We had that challenge, the test concept from decades ago, and I think there's a solid reason why we came away from that and at least have that minimum standard in place where you've got to understand the laws that you're enforcing.
Speaker 2:On the next episode of Blue Grid Podcast.
Speaker 4:And so we have to have these partnerships in place. And maybe that's my bias also at being in the world of government relations, where it's all about relationships, but those relationships are important. That's what makes the world go around, that's what makes us even have a chance of being successful, and that's us in the greater sense.
Speaker 1:At two o'clock in the morning on Tuesday, and I think that is a grand opportunity that we in Texas can lean into to make Texas the best place to do law enforcement and that will help with recruiting and retention as well.
