West York Borough Police Chief Matt Millsaps

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:08:16

Welcome back, everybody, to the Now We Defend podcast. As I told you in the last few weeks, we have a really exciting episode this week.

00:00:08:16 – 00:00:30:18

We have a surprise guest on our episode this week, somebody that has not been on camera with us yet. And it’s somebody that’s really relevant to a lot of the topics we’ve been discussing. I’ll introduce him in a moment, but during this episode this week, we’re going to be walking through a lot of different topics in relation to probably a lot of the topics we’ve talked about in the past, but getting a different perspective.

00:00:30:18 – 00:00:50:01

And that’s why we wanted to bring this episode to you and bring this individual on. And we do hope in the future that we have more opportunities to do this with other individuals that have been asking us about possibly coming on our show. So without further ado, I’m going to introduce Chief Matt Millsaps. I’ll go ahead and put you on camera here, chief.

00:00:50:04 – 00:01:10:27

There he is. Chief Millsaps is currently the chief of the West York Borough Police Department. Here in York County, Pennsylvania. And he’s been in that role for quite a long time. So I’d like to kind of open it up with you, chief. If you could tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came up in police work, and just give us a little bit of historical background.

00:01:10:28 – 00:01:28:25

Sure. No. First of all, you know, I appreciate you guys having me on. Yeah, I think it’s going to be a great time. Our pleasure man. Good dialog. So yeah. And kind of give everybody a little bit of a peek behind the curtain of the the criminal justice system. In general, from from both of our perspectives.

00:01:28:25 – 00:01:51:07

But, yeah, I haven’t said that you introduced me. My name is Matt Millsaps. I and the chief of police for West Shore Boroughs Police Department, and had been been in that role since 2016. I’ve lived in your in the, in the Greater York area, since the early 90s when I moved up here to go to college. I feel like I’ve known you for my entire career, but were you?

00:01:51:09 – 00:02:10:25

It’s possible. Were you? And I’ve been working as an attorney since 2009. Sure. I started in the district attorney’s office for a number of years. Were you in police work at that point? I was, I’ve actually been a police officer in York County since the late 90s. Okay. A lot of people don’t realize it, but my very first job was actually with the fishing boat and commissions Bureau of Law Enforcement.

00:02:10:27 – 00:02:33:25

Okay. I was they had a they had an and I believe it’s on on its way out at this point. They had just announced but they used to have a deputy Waterways Conservation officer program where essentially it was more what you could maybe consider regional or seasonal or reserve type program. For the the marine police or the, the, the, the fish wardens, if you would.

00:02:33:28 – 00:02:54:21

It was like a deputy program. The game commission also had something similar. And I think at this point they’re dropping those programs. But it was a great introduction to law enforcement. And the primary area that I worked in was in the area of York Haven and Goldsboro in northern York County along the Susquehanna River. And that led to my first actual police job, which was with Newberry Township in that in 2000.

00:02:54:22 – 00:03:13:21

So. Oh, well, then I definitely didn’t know you, because that’s all in York County. And I worked for the district Attorney’s office. In 2002, I went down to work with Drug Task Force and with the county detectives. So I worked with in the DA’s office until about 2006, when I took a job with the federal government and then came back locally in 2016.

00:03:13:22 – 00:03:30:28

But just curious, before you were in police work, did you do anything else? Yeah, I had been a paramedic before then. Paramedic. Okay. I was a criminal justice major in college. And then from that point I went to at the time there was a hospital in life called Saint Joseph’s Hospital. They had a paramedic program. It was about a year long accelerated program.

00:03:30:28 – 00:03:51:01

And then I worked for hospitals as a as an advanced life support provider for for a few years before, before getting hired as a police officer. I mean, so you’ve been serving the good people of the community for basically your entire career? Yeah. My my entire, you know, adult life has been in some aspect of emergency response. In the majority of the law enforcement.

00:03:51:01 – 00:04:23:11

So. Okay. And again, chief of police since 2016. Okay, great. Well, I mean, obviously in your vast experience here, I mean, you’ve seen a lot of different scenarios and what I want to kind of jump into here with you. First, I think a way to open this up would be to kind of I know there’s been a lot of, changes more in more recent years and the attitude towards police, the and how police have had to respond to that and still keep within the ethics that they have to keep.

00:04:23:13 – 00:04:43:18

And what that’s caused, I think for some risk for officers on the roadside. So I’d like to talk to you a little bit about your take on that, and how you, as a chief have been able to instruct your officers on how to handle situations like that when their approach with maybe types of attitudes that they didn’t used to be approached with?

00:04:43:21 – 00:05:20:16

Sure. I mean, in the dynamics of social change, I think we’re seeing a shift not only through generations, but perceptions of, I want to say social norms, but just the way the law is interpreted or the way the freedoms people feel that they they enjoy. And I know that that sounds that doesn’t sound great. Where I’m going with it is, is that historically, in the past, people that were resistive to law enforcement or did not want to cooperate with law enforcement were usually did so in a more aggressive fashion.

00:05:20:16 – 00:06:03:16

And a lot of the the times that we dealt with those who were resisting arrest, for example, it was physical altercation between someone in law enforcement. At this point, it seems that there’s more a questioning of authority that results in maybe more of a, a quiet or passive defiance. And a lot of that sometimes is based off of misinformation or information people have obtained from social media or artificial intelligence, and it’s interpretation of certain laws that oftentimes are either hallucinated or not in line with with what the what this state’s rules are relating to producing identification or investigative detentions and things like that.

00:06:03:17 – 00:06:39:16

So it’s challenged law enforcement in some ways that it had not before. And especially when we look at the de-escalation of situations and situations which historically resulted in law enforcement or police using force, which now call for tactics that don’t necessarily resemble what we did in the past. And I think, you know, for the average police officer, especially somebody who’s been around it, working in that capacity for some time, it’s been in some people’s eyes, like the rules have changed and nobody really prepared us for it.

00:06:39:19 – 00:06:56:16

It’s just responding to the dynamics of social change. I mean, we have to we have to be in touch with that and have to be in touch with the community. I don’t know if I did a great job answering your question, but, I mean, I kind of going in that direction. Yeah, I think you did, chief. And you’re also, your department here for those that don’t know, here in York County West.

00:06:56:18 – 00:07:20:18

It is a smaller jurisdiction as police department jurisdictions go. And I think you. Do a very, very good job. And I see this in, in practice, actually, in talking to people that are involved with your department in actually interacting and knowing the people in your area very closely. And to me, that’s always been a very impressive thing that I’ve seen from you.

00:07:20:22 – 00:07:43:10

It’s basically policing in the right way, and I think you really do genuinely care about your area and have gotten to know your folks as a result. Yeah, I think I appreciate you saying that. I mean, I take that, you know, it’s a great compliment, but, one thing I will say is it is a geographically small jurisdiction, but it’s also got the highest population density in your county.

00:07:43:11 – 00:08:07:29

I would I would understand that for sure. So you have a lot of people crammed, crammed into, you know, kind of a small geographical footprint. And I think, you know, I always say, let me take a step back. They used to teach. You know, you’d see trainers come around teaching programs about community policing. Community policing is a very hard thing to teach because every community is different and requires a different form of policing, or it has different expectations of their police force.

00:08:08:01 – 00:08:25:23

For us, knowing that, there are a lot of, you know, really good people. And I think we talked about this, you know, one time, one time before. You know, by and large, our residents are good people. You know, sometimes they make bad choices, okay. And, you know, the criminal justice system can be a very cold and unforgiving system.

00:08:25:23 – 00:08:53:07

And that’s where I view it as my role to help them through that. Until they get in the hands of someone like you or your colleagues that can, can help them get through. So, so with that having been said, it takes a lot of involvement when you have that high of a population density in that small geographic space to be able to to be able to kind of keep your finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the community.

00:08:53:07 – 00:09:19:24

Because having said that, if things get a little bit of out of out of hand, they can go sideways real quick. Because sometimes people share common frustrations, and especially when they feel like they don’t have enough room or to to move or breathe. You know, we we try to also keep a reasonable, reasonable approach and really embrace the realities of our residents as opposed to just trying to understand them.

00:09:19:25 – 00:09:40:25

Yeah. No, that’s that’s great, chief. And again, you do an excellent job at that. We have clients that come in here who have been either arrested or cited or interacted in some way with your police department. And time and time again, I hear very positive things about the interactions and the way you’ve trained your officers. In kind of in your light, in the way that you’ve done that for years there.

00:09:40:25 – 00:10:05:06

And I think that’s one of the reasons to that. The people in West York have a great respect for you and your department. That said, well, enough tooting your horn. Yeah. I do want to kind of go over to Tim and Justin here because we we do get people in our office frequently, guys. That and this isn’t just with West York, it’s with any police department or any interaction that they have with any law enforcement officer where, you know, they seem to have this, especially now I feel like more than ever.

00:10:05:07 – 00:10:23:07

Right. We talk, we hear all the time in the news. It’s so politically decisive or so you know, against each other or it feels like we’re all enemies, right. And we can also hide behind the internet now and, you know, computer screens and, you know, have freedom of speech in a way that isn’t there’s not a lot of accountability for.

00:10:23:09 – 00:10:46:11

Right. And I think when some people are in that role in their home with their hood up behind their computer screen, doing whatever they’re doing, saying whatever they think is right, and they’re reading many times gibberish that they are taking as gospel, and then they go out into society. And these police are met with situations that weren’t like what they were met with even two, three, 4 or 5 years ago.

00:10:46:13 – 00:11:05:27

And I have people coming into consoles and I know you guys do to where, you know, they’re saying things to us that were like, whoa, like, that isn’t how this works, this isn’t how society is. And sometimes I’m actually taken aback by that. I actually have to, like, be like, we need to cool down here a little bit and kind of talk about reality, right?

00:11:05:29 – 00:11:20:22

So I’d like to see what your guys take is on that with the different clients you had. And, kind of I think that would be helpful for the chief, too, because, I mean, he gets to see it on his side, but maybe not always behind closed doors on our side. And how that works. So what are you guys thoughts on that?

00:11:20:24 – 00:11:39:28

You start. What’s up to you? Well, I think for me, you know, when when certain people come in and we do the consults, especially initial consults, and sometimes we do those over the phone, sometimes we do them in person, sometimes we do both. Usually if I’m bringing someone in, I prefer to bring people in if we can, you know, get them in person.

00:11:39:28 – 00:12:00:27

But that’s not always geographically. The easiest thing to do. Especially if they’re out of county or out of state. But if we can’t bring them in, we do. I guess an example of this would be a couple of days ago. I was talking to a guy on the phone. Just initially, you know, I think you sent me over and you’re like, hey, get this guy a call.

00:12:01:00 – 00:12:21:00

And, it was a pretty straightforward case, obviously still active. So I’m not going to go into many details, but one of the, like the first things that that he started to bring up was like, I, you know, I think they’re out to get me, or, you know, they’re doing whatever they can to screw me over. And almost immediately I was like held on, you know, like like you said, like, pump the brakes a little bit.

00:12:21:00 – 00:12:38:27

Let’s, let’s let’s dig into this. Yeah. And, Justin, I don’t mean to cut you off. I’m gonna go right back to here. But I have had people kind of tell me actually, recently, I think this week I had a client call me and tell me, I think the police are, like, following me, and they’re stalking me, and they’re, you know, and this is like, this is a DUI case.

00:12:39:03 – 00:12:54:03

Like, I’m like, they are not sitting out in front of your house, like following you around, like trying to catch you doing something, and I, I mean, I want to be respectful to the individual, right? Because it’s a, it’s a, it’s a concern that is real to them. Yeah. Right. And I need to, as an attorney appreciate that because I am their attorney.

00:12:54:09 – 00:13:13:01

But I also want to give them a real dose of like reality hopefully to also like calm them down a little bit because that isn’t what is happening, you know. So, I mean, I’ve experienced that just like what you’re saying. I’ll kick it back though, to you. And just to kind of go off that last part there where, you know, people feel this way, that, you know, people are following them or police are following them.

00:13:13:04 – 00:13:30:17

A lot of times, in my experience, that I’ve actually seen that where people truly believe that there’s usually a mental health component to that, right. But then also, you know, again, the the guy I was talking to, he got out of jail and like, the next day, police were he he saw police, like around where he lives.

00:13:30:23 – 00:13:47:06

And he was like, I think they’re watching me. I was like, I can guarantee you they are not, you know, they’re they’re not looking for you. You bailed out of jail. Your case is in that serious? They’re not just following you around trying to catch you doing something else. They have much better things to do. They’ve moved on.

00:13:47:07 – 00:14:08:11

Yes. I mean, chief, what do you think about that? I mean, you guys, you’re not out there like following people and stalking people, like, years and days and months after the fact. No, no, no, I mean, they’re in very unusual cases. There’s long term criminal investigations and things like that. That may require an aspect of surveillance, but it’s a it.

00:14:08:13 – 00:14:39:18

Again, one of my concerns, I think we’ve talked about this before and maybe shared across the board, is the influence, the amount of influence that social media platforms and is alleged news networks, the misinformation they’re putting out. You know, I had this conversation with a member of Congress two days ago. You know, right now the big hysteria and I’m calling it hysteria because you’d be amazed at the number of people coming in and calling in asking about this is flock cameras.

00:14:39:21 – 00:14:57:29

You know, people are convinced we’re using these flock cameras. I get calls, you know, once an hour. Or do you guys have flock cameras? The interesting thing is we’ve been using automated license plate reader technology since I, as I was part of a pilot study with PSP back in like 2003 is when they first started doing that.

00:14:58:01 – 00:15:18:28

And she just for our viewers that might not know aren’t part of the hysteria. Right of the flock cameras. What is a flock camera like you’re being asked about? Well, automated license plate reader technology is essentially cameras that are posted to capture people’s tax. In Pennsylvania, they became very popular when PennDOT stopped issuing the registration stickers.

00:15:19:01 – 00:15:38:24

Basically, these cameras at extremely high rate of at a high speed rate can capture a tag as you drive past it and tell you if it’s, you know, got a valid registration, if it’s a stolen car, if it’s on a hot list, anything like that. The way the reason they became part of a mobile platform that’s on a lot of police cars is just for that.

00:15:38:24 – 00:16:01:04

There was no longer a way to to quickly identify whether or not a car was had valid registration or not. And so that’s what these cameras were used for. They’re also if I, if I understand it correctly, this is a camera that’s like always running on a police cruiser and it scans automatically different plates. And if the plate comes back is like related to a suspended driver, correct.

00:16:01:04 – 00:16:28:18

Or out of registration, it’ll flag it in the police cruiser. It would be more registration issues in stolen vehicles. Okay. Essentially files are uploaded by PennDOT and then through NCIC, which is the national database of, for example, stolen vehicles specifically to what we’re talking about. Now, those are uploaded daily into these systems. And yeah, so a police car could be driving by these cameras, scan the tag of a vehicle, it comes back as a stolen vehicle and they’re able to stop it.

00:16:28:20 – 00:16:50:15

People don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy to their license plate. I could stand on the side of the road and and watch with binoculars as cars drive by and write down their tags. You’re done that. That sounds very. No, no, I’m saying that is to emphasize the point, the issue I so we’ve talked about the basic premise of automated license plate reader technology.

00:16:50:22 – 00:17:10:01

And do keep in mind that’s what we use now to get on the Turnpike to travel anywhere. To park and parking garages. Oftentimes just in the course of our daily lives, we become reliant on this type of technology so that we don’t have to stop at a toll booth. We don’t have to have exact change. And it’s been around for a long time.

00:17:10:04 – 00:17:40:03

These flock cameras essentially automated, fixed, automated license plate reader systems. I think the problem is, and what’s driving the concern and to some degree, paranoia and some people’s minds is flock is tied to a bigger, bigger I.T. type of network or system. A company that does work, for example, for the intelligence community and the federal government and what flock has been sort of criticized for is they’re creating more pattern of daily life.

00:17:40:03 – 00:17:59:27

They’re trying to integrate these camera systems, their brand camera system, so that not only do they know, you traveled from point A to point B, but you also went into, you know, this particular shopping center or you parked in this particular parking lot and they’re sharing the data, or at least it’s alleged they’re sharing the data more with marketing companies.

00:17:59:27 – 00:18:21:22

So that way, if you’ve ever been driving past a Home Depot and suddenly your phone, you know, gave you a sales ad for for Home Depot. People would be to and there are some truths to this that some of these camera systems that flock manages know that you regularly shop at Home Depot and know you’re in proximity of one, and are sharing that data with other marketing platforms.

00:18:21:24 – 00:18:50:00

What we use, for example, is not that flock system. We use something that’s much more reactive as far as our stationary cameras go. So if there’s a major crime or a homicide, in fact, we solved a homicide case partially based off of this. We were able to see the the street, the the suspect vehicle went down and were able to go back, you know, hours later and confirm the license plates of the vehicles had driven down shortly after, shortly after the murder occurred.

00:18:50:03 – 00:19:18:25

So from public law enforcement’s perspective, we use it in more reactionary role related to identifying suspects in known, established crimes. Or as we talked about before, using it to, to to ensure compliance with registration and that somebody not in a stolen vehicle. And again, I guess my point was this technology has been around for a long time, but right now we are seeing a major push on cross.

00:19:18:28 – 00:19:45:06

You know, it’s a Partizan issue. Both both sides if you would. And across social media platforms I don’t think you can open up you know Instagram or Facebook game or without some article. Related to these flock cameras. So I, I can’t help but understand that people that are already maybe a little scared or sensitive to government oversight or intrusion, being very concerned when they get a constant barrage of messaging that the government is watching them.

00:19:45:06 – 00:20:05:18

So so where I’m sympathetic towards it, I think we, as you suggested, just sometimes we need to start bringing things back into the into line with reality. And I maybe that being all of our jobs to sometimes have those conversations. The problem is it seems like a lot of people are getting them into trouble nowadays based off of what they’ve been influenced to believe before.

00:20:05:21 – 00:20:25:01

We’ve all been able to collectively have the conversations with them. So yeah, they’re coming into these traffic stops with you guys with this pumped full disinformation and pumped full these really created beliefs about, you know, police or what they’re doing or how they’re stalking people they think they are, etc. and it really just is not the case. Right?

00:20:25:03 – 00:21:07:17

And that might create a situation where you have a traffic stop that might have just been a warning or something that would have been easy peasy, send you on your way now into an accelerated, posturing, possibly physically dangerous situation merely because of people’s perceptions of what’s going on and their reactions as a result. You know, we are seeing more and more mirroring counters and what historically would have been we try not to do verbal warnings, we like to document things, but if nothing else, written warnings that are escalating now and resulting in felonies, because of, you know, these reactions that sometimes people were are giving that are completely based off of, you know, urban

00:21:07:17 – 00:21:32:17

legend or cyber mythology or what ChatGPT told them about a case law decision that doesn’t really exist when you research it. So unfortunately, it’s something it’s it’s requiring on for police. I think we were going to maybe get into this later. One of the things that the best thing I could look for in a new officer is somebody who is patient.

00:21:32:17 – 00:21:57:07

And I would prefer have an educational background, because public education is becoming more and more of a piece of the police officer’s job every day and trying to dispel some of this and try to get people to make good decisions or decisions in line with law, despite what they may have been told or what they might believe based off of a social media post or some type of AI.

00:21:57:10 – 00:22:28:11

Yeah. Answer. Well, and I think it’s all it’s also worth noting that we all know. And if you don’t, you should that your TikTok, real, your Instagram real, your Facebook real. Those are all algorithms. And if you’re focused on certain things like governmental intrusion into your life and you watch all the videos about that or anything that’s along those types of lines, these programs are going to feed this to you in a much more accelerated way, and you’re going to miss out on the cat videos that you’re not watching, right?

00:22:28:12 – 00:22:48:01

So, I mean, keeping that in mind, if that’s all you’re hearing, if that’s all you’re seeing, you’re literally being trained to believe that this is true. So in reality, that itself is intrusion into your life. And that is actually kind of a form of mind control in a way. So that’s exactly what you’re trying to avoid. So be very cautious of that.

00:22:48:03 – 00:23:11:12

If all you’re seeing are things that are, you know, telling you that everyone is against you, the the don’t tread on me type stuff, that the things that the government’s out to get. Yet that is the type of thing that that’s going to just be reiterated confirmed. And really what we’re dealing with, there is no confirmation bias over and over and training, and you’re essentially becoming a robot to believe that this is true.

00:23:11:13 – 00:23:29:07

It’s essentially, again, a form of mind control. And then your chief, like you just kind of alluded to, you’re sometimes having to encounter these people out on the street that have these long trained beliefs that turn into what would have been a warning to now we’re dealing with felony charges because of the reaction that they had to that interaction with you.

00:23:29:11 – 00:24:03:06

Yeah. I mean, the answer, you know, one of your original questions is, are the police out there following people around? No, I mean, generally your police department wants to see everybody kind of happy and having a good time and in doing things safely and enjoying their lives, that’s what we want to see. The there’s not, you know, some influence or some something that any police department that I’m aware of it and especially in York County is doing to, to somehow or another remotely monitor people or, or follow people around.

00:24:03:06 – 00:24:45:21

And I do think we are in a time where, you know, mental health is a very understated issue. I know there’s been lots of talk about it, but I still see that the treatment options aren’t always there. And I think in some cases, people with maybe a little bit of problems that they need to work through, the things that we’ve just been talking about in the last few minutes really exacerbate, you know, what might be an underlying issue that, that, that they need some treatment for is really creating that constant barrage of, as you described it, almost mind control or algorithmic targeted influence is really preying on people and taking advantage of those that,

00:24:45:23 – 00:24:53:21

that, that are, that have treatable issues.

00:24:53:23 – 00:25:16:01

It’s like a, it’s like a predisposition to, to certain things. And then there’s like. Yes. Yeah. And Justin, thank you. I think too, though, that the system does bear some blame in this. And it’s not police that have done this, but I think part of where people’s paranoia comes from with this kind of stuff is that over the last 20 years, there has undeniably been a politicization of criminal prosecutions, and that’s really on both sides.

00:25:16:01 – 00:25:41:00

And that that happens at a much larger level than police involvement. But, when you have, you know, agencies that are being spun up against perceived political rivals or things, that undermines the credibility of the system, when the ATF shows up at your house and they want to go through a list of all the firearms that you’ve purchased and they want to they want you to take them to the inside of the house and see all these firearms.

00:25:41:03 – 00:26:06:10

That’s a problem. And I think that that leads to people being very on guard with law enforcement, unless they had a reason to do an investigation like that. But I think what we’ve seen over the last 20 years, especially, is that there are law enforcement assets that are being sent out to achieve a political effect, and I think that has also contributed to a lot of the the distrust that you’re seeing.

00:26:06:10 – 00:26:32:07

I don’t know what you what your thought of that is. That’s also that’s above the level of that’s what I’m saying. I mean, you’re literally getting you’re talking about and it’s it’s a well taken point, but you’re talking about what we see on Capitol Hill. I mean, we’re like, it’s not just not just that, but I mean, think about it like you turn on CNBC right now or one of these major news networks that covers these, these in-house like interviews that they do of witnesses and they’re they’re looking into certain issues.

00:26:32:07 – 00:26:48:09

A lot of it is about the targets politically of certain adversaries that don’t agree with whatever they agree with. Right. And that’s become a problem. Yeah. They’re asking questions on these things. It’s it’s literally it feels like a kangaroo court when you watch it. Well, and I think I mean, we don’t even have to go back that far.

00:26:48:12 – 00:27:15:07

Right. Like even in Pennsylvania here. I mean, our governor, they recently were proposing some rather sweeping police power grab in the name of public health. And so, like, if you don’t look at that and think that can be weaponized against people, if you’re giving Department of Health officials the authority to make warrantless entry into people’s homes for no reason, really, or to investigate some public health crisis, I think that also contributes to what we’re talking about.

00:27:15:07 – 00:27:37:00

And I think people look at that kind of stuff, and then they they become even more distrusting of the local police officer on the ground, which you’re right. And that’s I said that earlier. It has nothing to do with the local police officer on the ground, but because the system is to blame and some of that, the entire system, I think, gets blamed and and the entire system is distrusted.

00:27:37:00 – 00:27:59:05

And I think that’s part of what you’re dealing with too. I think that so there are a couple couple talking points there. They’re very much is a trust gap between, in my thought, the American people and even their local government. Right. I, I should say their governments. Pennsylvania is kind of worse because we’re Commonwealth than we have like all these local governments.

00:27:59:05 – 00:28:27:16

So it’s people there’s a trust gap that exists there. And the way I’ve seen it, at least for my role in my community, is the police sort of fill that void. And oftentimes we are the representative government that we’re sort of there in the front line of what people see. Now, Tim, to a couple of your points, no doubt there’s been a weaponization and politicization, politicization of of of law enforcement at the federal level.

00:28:27:16 – 00:28:47:06

And I know you touched on a few things regarding Covid and stuff like that. You mentioned something that the ATF, one of the things in this that can kind of, again, goes back to the the lightning speed sharing of, you know, social media and influences. You said something about like the ATF and I’m not being adversarial, but you said about like the ATF searching guys house for guns.

00:28:47:09 – 00:29:05:11

Like, do we really know that if you saw that happening on, you know, some type of Instagram, short or real, is there a part of the story that you don’t know of what brought them there? And when I were doing that, because from my experience, I have not seen the ATF going door to door, I look, I don’t want cops coming around my house.

00:29:05:11 – 00:29:38:29

I, I don’t want federal agents coming around my house. I sympathize and agree, but I have to also look and I, I do tend to see a lot of very quickly shared, you know, various types of social media posts, hinting towards, you know, government intrusion on the Second Amendment or they’re coming from a guns. I remember like a year ago or maybe two years ago, there was a guy in upstate New York who had like, you know, these entire groups of followers all worked up that it was this red flag.

00:29:38:29 – 00:29:53:21

The ATF and local cops were there with a Swat team. They were taking his extended mags. When you when you heard the real story, it was they were trying to serve a he. He had had a protective order and broke into his estranged wife’s house and he was barricaded in the attic. That’s why they were trying to get it out.

00:29:53:21 – 00:30:17:18

But the power of going on Facebook Live and saying, hey, you know, he was he was drinking during this video and he they’re here for my guns. They’re here for extended mags, you know, rally the troops and people like with, you know, what some may refer to as militia movements or, or Second Amendment advocacy groups showed up at the scene and actually kind of, you know, inhibited some operations there, all based off of a message that didn’t exist in reality.

00:30:17:18 – 00:30:48:28

And and that’s where the concerns are. So I’m not judging. No, I agree with that theory. I’m just saying no times. If we see this, there may be more. Yeah. And my my point was just that when people see that occurring, there is the natural fear that because they don’t know certain details. And there were, I think, various states in New England that were, I think, a little more proactive in sending ATF out just because they wanted to follow up on like 44, 73 forms and confirm that you were, in fact, the purchaser of this firearm, and do you still have it and all those kinds of things.

00:30:49:03 – 00:31:06:25

And that creates distrust. But you’re right. And I think your point is a good one. I would not dispute your point that you because I’ve seen it even like on the defense side where somebody will say, you know, this is what I thought was happening, and they’ll come in and they’ll say, like they were, you know, they were they had no right to be there or whatever.

00:31:06:25 – 00:31:28:28

And you’re like, but yeah, they did, though they had a reason to be there. And I would say if for those of you out there that see things online that inflame you, because of whatever issues happening, especially if it’s involving law enforcement and it’s being sold to you in a way that it’s one thing, please do your homework, like check before you jump to a conclusion.

00:31:28:28 – 00:31:48:18

And again, in today’s society, we all want instant gratification. We all want to be right right away. We all want to know what’s going on. We want all the information right away. And it allows the bias of when we receive information. We can kind of trick ourselves into thinking it’s all right, it’s all correct right away. And in reality, that is usually not the case.

00:31:48:18 – 00:32:11:12

Look behind the curtain. And one of the reasons we’re having this, this podcast today with you, chief, is we want to give people a look behind that curtain and see that, you know, law enforcement that we deal with regularly, and many times in adversarial ways in courtrooms are also people that are really important in society and are very helpful to a lot of us.

00:32:11:13 – 00:32:34:23

And we need not jump to those conclusions without looking behind the curtain and doing our own homework. I think it’s even simpler than that, though. I think that that and we talked about this, I think, I don’t know if it was you and you and I had talked about this, but like the, the there’s a weird thing that’s happened since the advent of social media, like what you’re describing, where somebody from Massachusetts can post a video of police at their house.

00:32:34:29 – 00:33:02:05

And I feel a sort of kinship to them. And I feel like that whatever they’re going through, there is something that I need to care about. But the reality is a lot of the stuff that’s happening in other places has nothing to do with our community, or the way that the police in our community are handling things. So, you know, one of the benefits to you having the community relationship that you were describing is that you have an intimate relationship.

00:33:02:07 – 00:33:19:29

Maybe that’s the wrong word. You have a relationship with people, not an intimate relationship, but you have a relationship with people in your jurisdiction. And so you have more in common with the people that you police. They have more in common with you than they have with some random person from Oklahoma or something. You know what I mean?

00:33:20:00 – 00:33:44:18

Yeah. I think a big thing to talking about all this and the social media thing, obviously since we started the podcast, started getting into the reels a little bit more. And TikTok, those are, you know, 32nd, one minute, two minute, maybe three minute videos of of, we’ll say, in an interaction or an episode or whatever you want to call it.

00:33:44:21 – 00:34:03:03

And like you said, like that’s not the full picture. There’s so much and we’ve talked about this on previous episodes, like, there’s so much that goes into each specific case that until we have all the police reports, all the video, witness statements, we have no idea what really happened other than what people come in and tell us.

00:34:03:03 – 00:34:22:05

And, you know, in our conversation where we’re consulting with them and every person has their own, you know, biases. So like, if I’m going to if I did something, say I got a DUI and then I went to meet with an attorney, I’m going to very likely explain what happened to them from my perspective and what makes me look the best, whether or not that’s actually true.

00:34:22:05 – 00:34:41:07

And I know we’ve dealt with this. Everyone’s dealt with this where people come in and they’re like, oh, you know, this happened and I have it on video and you watch the video back and it’s like, oh, maybe I got it wrong, you know? So I think that’s a huge part of what social media is that people really dig their heels in on those 32nd one minute clips, because it’s like that instant gratification, right?

00:34:41:07 – 00:34:59:13

And you’re just making so many assumptions. And most of the people that are getting riled up and, you know, excited about those types of things, never even been involved in, in law enforcement. That’s my point. You know, the criminal that was my point is that, like and more and more, I’m getting to a point where I see something that’s occurred in like Arizona or whatever.

00:34:59:13 – 00:35:15:06

And I’m kind of of the opinion may sound kind of like harsh to say, but like, I don’t really care, you know what I mean? Like, I don’t need to do more research to come to an opinion because honestly, my opinion doesn’t matter. I’m not involved in any way and what’s going on there. So I do care more about what’s going on locally.

00:35:15:10 – 00:35:44:29

And to to your point, we’re not seeing a lot of this stuff locally. I mean, the stuff people are complaining about is not happening with the flock cams. I mean, I’ve, I’ve always thought like you did, that the, the hysteria around that is really overblown. I mean, you don’t you even just beyond your license plate reader, you don’t necessarily even have a right to privacy and like, whether you shopped at a certain center or whatever, like if, if somebody like watching you go into a store or whatever, you’re out in public, you know?

00:35:45:00 – 00:36:04:13

So, I mean, I get it if people are following you, but I, I’ve always thought that the big fear with some of those cameras is the way they store the data. That’s one criticism I’ve been concerned about too, is are they securing the data they’re gathering, or is that prone to some kind of attack? And then the personal information that’s being gathered then can be accessed some way.

00:36:04:15 – 00:36:27:22

So so now they’re sharing it for for hours, for example. It has it’s almost like the older style CCTV cameras where it sort of overwrites. We only have in retrospectively when we are data does not reveal personally identifiable information it takes. That’s maybe another thing that’s different than the way I’ve heard. And again, I don’t have four cameras.

00:36:27:24 – 00:36:59:19

I don’t really fully understand them. But what I’ve been explained by other manufacturer reps is, for example, our system. Again, I could go down and tell you in the last hour, these are the tags that went down this particular street. You know, I could even kind of narrow it down to a vehicle type or vehicle color. I would still have to look at the tag then and entered in, you know, using access to the criminal justice systems that we have to find out who, who, who, the subscriber or who the registered owner is.

00:36:59:22 – 00:37:31:19

Having said that, some of those systems, it does it apparently are able to mine and not necessarily through law enforcement databases, but through other mechanisms that exist. They call it fog data within the cellular world. And I think we’re not we’re going into some which is kind of cool. We’re going into some some unique territories here, but the same people that are talking about privacy issues relating to their license, but getting getting a picture taken, you know, are willing to post every aspect of their life.

00:37:31:19 – 00:37:59:16

And these cell phones, every time you download an app or every time you update subscriber information, there’s a big, long list of stuff that’s written real small that none of us read and we all click on. I accept it’s actually in in in several apps that are very common. One of the areas in that small print that’s actually bolded that we still don’t pay attention is your information by by agreeing your information can be sold or shared with others, including law enforcement.

00:37:59:18 – 00:38:23:01

So people are essentially giving away a lot of their privacy and freedom through the cellular technology that we carry around in our pockets every day. And I know that there are different opinions, and people are like, well, I’m not doing anything wrong, I don’t care. I think all of us, you know, recognize that our privacy is like the only thing we still have our individual freedoms, our liberty, and we would like to believe we have have privacy.

00:38:23:06 – 00:38:44:13

One of the things that scared me a lot about the phone capabilities one time is I remember going into the Covid era, they were talking about all this health tracking and it was going to monitor your body temperature and stuff like that. Oh, go turn this off, turn these settings in your iPhone or your Android off. And I thought, okay, by turning it off then it doesn’t track it.

00:38:44:16 – 00:39:02:15

Well, somebody, you know, after I’d done this, you know, a year or two later, somebody like, hey, ask it what your heart rate was on January 4th of last year. I’m like, well, wouldn’t know because I turned off their like, no, it was still recording the data. It just wasn’t sharing it with you. And I did it and it was like your heart rate was, you know, 92 at 10:00.

00:39:02:16 – 00:39:26:25

Oh, yeah. So it’s continuing captioning. I know we’re going in a different direction, but am I? I agree with a lot of your points. I just especially because content has been reduced down so far into these shorts, I think there’s a lot of things that are polarizing people. I think we have a younger generation that is highly politicized, with absolutely no real understanding of how politics work, I agree.

00:39:26:27 – 00:39:53:18

That’s driving behavior. And, and, and and essentially are our societal norms at this point are driven whether you believe a or whether you believe be kind of which side of the fence. And I’d love to see everything become. Yeah, you know, more back in the center and tell you some of your points earlier, I guess, when I said embracing the realities of West York, what we do is try to keep people somewhere in the center from at least the police.

00:39:53:18 – 00:40:26:21

The police are going to be there. We’re always going to respond. We have people, believe it or not, the call said two in the morning to help them fill out job applications. Certainly we have people that it’s just the only the only like sure thing. They have some people especially in, in sometimes urban or an area where there’s a more depressed socio socioeconomic, you know, you might not be big fans of the police, but at least you know that they’re going to be there when they don’t know how to contact any other aspect of our elected leadership or our local government.

00:40:26:24 – 00:40:46:06

They know the cops are going to be around. So that’s why for us, it’s been able to work in a smaller community, by being more personable and embracing the reality that our residents live in every day. So. So first, are you telling me I’m inviting the government into my life by having a cell phone every day? Okay.

00:40:46:10 – 00:41:12:04

Everywhere. Wow. You’re surprising me. I mean, here, honestly, you guys, from a legal defense perspective, how many cases are you seeing where search warrants or information gathered from your client’s cellular phone or other electronic, you know, some type of electronic data? How frequently is that now be using being used in criminal cases? Almost all, especially depending on the crime.

00:41:12:05 – 00:41:33:27

Yeah, but it’s funny too. And not to backtrack too far, but like the idea of police following people around, you know, I have several clients where they’ve been stopped multiple times recently, but they’re driving a really distinctive car. And every time the police pull over that car, well, what are they finding in the car? They’re finding marijuana, they’re finding guns or whatever.

00:41:33:27 – 00:41:58:23

So, like, there are some like, police are not like following these people, but you you do start to know who’s in the community and you know, you recognize, okay, this person is still riding around with the same tin on their windows, or the plate is still flipped up on their motorcycle or whatever. We’ve had prior interactions, and all of that naturally informs the interaction of police officers, does it not?

00:41:58:27 – 00:42:18:12

Sure. I mean, that’s and that’s just the police. That’s just the person being kind of dumb. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I don’t want to suggest saying any of your clients that have ever come in would be what? What? I was dumb, but the reality of it is if you you know, I think, what is it Albert Einstein said, you know, crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

00:42:18:13 – 00:42:37:15

If every time you drive this particular car that really stands out or has an unregistered tag, or everybody knows your license is suspended until like 2060, and every time you get stopped, you have an illegal gun and weed in your car. I mean, don’t be surprised when a cop’s like, oh, he probably has an illegal gun and Weeden in his car.

00:42:37:16 – 00:42:56:07

You know what I mean? It’s just it’s. So I just had a conversation with somebody two days ago about that. I think it was they’re like seventh or eighth driving under suspension charge that they’re facing. And I’m like, was your car registered to you? Yeah. Okay. What kind of cars? It was like a red something red SUV. I’m like, okay.

00:42:56:10 – 00:43:14:21

Have you been stopped by like, the same police department every time? Yeah. It’s my like, where I live. I’m like, well, they know you. Yeah. And they know your license is spend it. So they’re going to pull you over because the car’s registered to you. They can see you’re driving it and like they’re not following you. One thing I did want to ask you, chief.

00:43:14:21 – 00:43:44:20

Just going back just a little bit. You had said, you know, you have the cameras, that you can tell if a car drove down a street or what cars drove down the street at any given time, but then you still have to go and enter that information. So I think just for some of our viewers that may not know, and I mean, we all know this, but when you actually start looking up people’s information in some of these databases, one, all of that is there’s a record of that and it’s like you have to have a login, you have to have a password and all.

00:43:44:22 – 00:44:03:07

There’s records of all that they do, audits of it to make sure that people aren’t, doing things or looking up people or information that they shouldn’t be. Is that right? Well, yeah, chief, that we actually had a police officer in this county not going to say names, not going to say departments who got in trouble for doing this very thing.

00:44:03:15 – 00:44:23:10

And all they had to do was go back and look at their login data and what they were researching. And it turned out it was they were doing and looking at things that were not pertinent to investigations. Right. For their own personal interest in certain things. Yes. And that person was terminated and charged with a crime. And and that person will never be a police officer again.

00:44:23:11 – 00:44:46:04

I mean, really? Well, they shouldn’t be, right? I mean, but these databases are collecting information, but they’re super protected as far as how you can use that information. Yeah. And just to clarify, when we’re talking about databases or when we’re talking about accessing certain information, by and large, what I’m talking about is like the state computer system or a national computer system that has your driver’s license information.

00:44:46:04 – 00:45:14:10

It has your vehicle registration information. In Pennsylvania, there is some access to, you know, firearms ownership information, things of that nature. But yes, every aspect of even just running somebody’s driver’s license. I think there are two acknowledgments that you’re using this for law enforcement purpose purposes. The mobile data stations that are in the police course, the software is just a little bit different, but in both cases.

00:45:14:12 – 00:45:29:03

When we run somebody, we have to enter a reason whether it’s a traffic stop, whether it’s, you know, criminal investigation, whether it’s, you know, an employment, like if we’re, we’re we’re looking at hiring an officer and we want, we need a copy of his driving records, criminal history, things of that nature. So we have to give reasons and.

00:45:29:03 – 00:45:52:28

Yeah, every aspect of that, there’s no way an officer can get around, you know, researching somebody’s criminal history information without that being documented. Yeah. Now is still identified. You know, we’ve seen locally where, you know, that that authority was abused and, and, and we get audited, you know, 1 to 2 times a year by the Pennsylvania State Police.

00:45:53:00 – 00:46:14:28

We also get audited by the attorney general’s information. You know, there are certain things that inherently if I run somebody with my same last name, it’s automatically going to flag it. If I run somebody, that is the name of another police officer. It also has prominent, you know, figures like local judges, politicians, even. I don’t know how they created.

00:46:14:28 – 00:46:38:18

I’m sure it’s like now at this point, like an AI system, but running people’s information that falls. That seems unique. And like, if I ran the governor’s information, or even just, you know, a well-known person, an entertainer or something like that, it will flag all these things and they’ll generally be a state trooper following up on on this, whether calling, whether stopping on the station.

00:46:38:18 – 00:47:01:28

Because at any point in time, our systems can be audited. Where we talked about some other databases though, or like I don’t want to say open source because usually it requires subscriber information. But, you know, any member of the general public can actually pay for this information. Like certain. Yes. Like like are there a handful of different, you know, background investigations.

00:47:01:29 – 00:47:39:13

Com things like that. Yeah. You know, and that’s where I’m saying a lot of your data is being gathered through other mechanisms and funneled into these private companies that, you know. Ordinary citizens for a price can, can pay for and have access to, because it’s amazing how, you know, people are putting each person has their unique habits and footprint in this world that any more and more we’re resulting more and more electronically and how we order things, what kind of products we order.

00:47:39:16 – 00:48:05:11

Where we go, things like that. And it can create essentially profiles. Marketing companies especially are selling that to other marketing companies and to these private sector companies. But going back to the point where we’re talking about as far as police accessing information, and that was another thing. I always kind of laugh about the Alper thing, and I’m not trying to say I’m mocking people’s genuine concern, but, you know, they’re like, I don’t want my license plate.

00:48:05:13 – 00:48:24:23

I don’t want people, I don’t want a lease. Been seeing my license plate. I don’t like this late on your call. It’s also there. It’s kind of I if I really wanted to. There’s a lot more sensitive information that we can access if we had a reason under criminal justice purposes. So I, I that’s why it’s just I don’t know how to even came up.

00:48:24:24 – 00:48:51:27

It seems like the camera thing is just right now feeding some of that paranoia that Justin talked about earlier in some people’s minds and really exploiting some that are vulnerable, sensitive. It does get to a point, though, that I think people who do get into this cycle, it’s important for them to hear this, that police are not just kind of board on the side of the road typing in random people they know or want to investigate, because there’s audits to that stuff.

00:48:51:28 – 00:49:10:01

There’s there’s there’s benchmarks you have to meet to even be able to do that. Yeah. Otherwise it’s it’s in violation of policy. And that can cause that person to be terminated, even getting legal trouble and things like that. So I think people need to know that, like, like you guys have rules too. Yeah. You know, the police haven’t always done a great job marketing ourselves in the public trust we’ve been talking about.

00:49:10:01 – 00:49:36:07

We’ve not always been the best that we’ve also not always been the best thing when we’ve made mistakes. Now, it would probably be, I’m sure, somewhere in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, some cop has run his ex-girlfriend or something. I am sure that has happened. You know, if we knew about it, would take action. But what I’m saying is exactly to TLS points, it is so highly scrutinized when we run.

00:49:36:09 – 00:49:54:17

And this isn’t something recent, this is always how it’s been. Ever since we since we had the electronic access to data through, like the PennDOT computer system or the, the, the, the FBI’s computer system for criminal histories and things like that. There was never a period of time where it was just like a free for all, and we could run anything.

00:49:54:18 – 00:50:16:00

It has always been benchmarked and tracked, and any unusual variation in activity, including now these computer systems talk to each other. So if I’m running somebody when I’m not on a traffic stop, but I’m putting it, my acts on camera system, that’s like the vehicle recorder is telling the other computer, why is he running somebody saying he’s on traffic?

00:50:16:00 – 00:50:49:06

Because right now we’re not recording a traffic stop. So it’s it’s I’d say even harder these days for a police officer or anybody in a position authority that has access to access to these types of databases to use them for anything other than law enforcement, not to mention the body worn cameras also that now exist. And, you know, a lot of police that we talk to regularly tell us that they actually like the body warm, count worn cameras that are newer in the last few years, I would say, and like the Dash cameras, because it’s not only records everything, but it saves them half time to from complaints.

00:50:49:06 – 00:51:10:11

And I know you have to review all the complaints that come in, chief. And, you know, a lot of times what do you do? You go look at body cam, you go look at dash cam. And then, you know, you figure out what actually happened. It makes it very easy to quick, quickly determine, even in just a first glance, of whether there’s validity to this person’s complaint or argument or not.

00:51:10:11 – 00:51:27:15

And and so having said that, I think Justin might have mentioned it. There are times, look, we always remember everything we do kind of in the best light for ourselves. You know, that’s just human nature. And I completely understand that. But just like Justin said, he said, I’ve had people come in and swear the officer did this and he was rude and he did it.

00:51:27:16 – 00:51:48:04

And when we look at it, it’s we’re like kind of the complete opposite. And, you know, sit there with the person. I, I’ve sat with many people and been like, okay, well, you know, I see right there where you spent in the officer’s direction and called him a really bad name. Is he was just sort of standing there asking you to calm down.

00:51:48:06 – 00:52:11:07

Where was the rudeness that he. I might have missed it in this particular scene here, you know, something like that. It. And I think I will say also, a lot of people, when you know their memory of a situation, it we all walk away from things differently. And sometimes when we’re able to give them the opportunity to say, okay, here’s what happened.

00:52:11:10 – 00:52:33:00

Tell me what where where I’m missing what you’re suggesting occurred. A lot of times after they’ve kind of calmed down, this has been after the event, they realize and they say that. But then again, there are times I’ve had to sit there and be like, yeah, the officer didn’t do things the way we expect, and we need to walk away from this and, and look at this as to how we’re going to correct this and make sure it never happens again.

00:52:33:00 – 00:52:55:04

So I also, as much as I kind of, I guess you could say clown on the people that come in and say, oh, this happened, this happened. It’s like none of that happened. There are times where people come in and say, hey, the officer did this. And I look, it’s like, yeah, the officer did. And and, you know, depending on the circumstances, that there are multiple ways from retraining to termination in which we would deal with certain circumstances.

00:52:55:06 – 00:53:19:16

But anyways. Yeah. No, I’m older guys. I was always very apprehensive about the body worn camera system. So I, you know, just because for my generation, you know, we didn’t like the idea of being recorded. We thought it would make people act very robotic and thought it would take some of the the personal touches out of police work and, and void interactions of any type of inflection.

00:53:19:19 – 00:53:39:25

It really has not done that. And like I say, the younger officers and even all the older officers now are very much, they don’t want the body worn cameras taken away because time and time again, now it’s coming to the rescue when allegations are made or forever value in court, you know, because the word in some you know.

00:53:39:28 – 00:54:04:11

You guys may share a difference of opinion, but we’re I don’t necessarily know that it’s in a disrespectful way, but just the word of a police officer on the stand doesn’t necessarily carry the weight it did 15, 20 years ago now. And it’s not necessarily that people, juries especially and even judges, it’s not like they might have some broad belief that all cops lie.

00:54:04:13 – 00:54:33:06

It’s more that we’ve kind of become because of all these other influences in all of our minds, not knowing what to believe anymore, we at least need to see it. You know, we we we we listen to this. You know, he’s probably right, but I want to see it. And the body cam oftentimes for evidentiary value gives the jury or gives the judges the opportunity to see what the police officer’s alleging, which more or less kind of not only cooperates but establishes more trust that the officers tell them.

00:54:33:07 – 00:54:48:07

Let me ask you this question, because I’ve heard a lot of stories from people growing up in the day of policing where there weren’t body cams, and people will tell me these stories about how they were out with their friends. They had a case of beer in the car and the officers interacted with them and they were super chill.

00:54:48:07 – 00:55:15:28

Everything was cool and they just were like, okay, take the case out, put it in my car or dump it out or whatever. And then, hey, we’re going to take you guys home. Do you think that the body cams have led to sort of a restriction on officer discretion anymore? Because now if everything’s on film and there’s a push to crack down on DUIs or other crimes, the officer who’s got it all recorded now is in the position where maybe you would have let this person go with a warning, but because it’s recorded now, you can’t.

00:55:15:29 – 00:55:50:06

I love that angle, Tim. I want to hear, chief, what you have to say about that. Yeah. My dad, coming from a guy who, for the first year as being a cop, did not have to buy a case of beer because of the number of kids who like to party along the Susquehanna River. Then it’s like, look, I think in regards to what you just said, I think the police still have the ability to to be able to work through situations, in a fair way that doesn’t always yield a, an arrest or a charge.

00:55:50:09 – 00:56:07:27

You know, certainly there are things these days, you know, liability is more of a concern about, hey, if we, you know, take the alcohol from these kids and not putting our trunk, but it’s just we take them and let them off with a warning. Is that going to serve the deterrent effect that it needs to in the long run?

00:56:07:27 – 00:56:29:29

What if next weekend they go out, drink and drive, hit somebody, hurt themselves, hurt somebody else, and then it comes out that the officer a week ago, it just kind of give him a slap on the wrist. You know, I don’t ever want to take away from officer’s discretion to do what he feels he or she feels they need to do to have the.

00:56:30:01 – 00:56:51:18

The effect that’s, that’s warranted for particular situation. So I don’t necessarily know that body cameras are making warnings go away or anything like that, or making officers not handle things fairly. Things that maybe, you know, were an older school approach, like, you know, no sense in dumping out the beer. I’ll put it in my refrigerator. I think maybe the cameras and probably rightfully so.

00:56:51:19 – 00:57:12:09

I think we’re in a different era of time. You know, quite frankly, I wouldn’t want somebody else’s beer that they had handled down their car these days, either. You. Yeah. But we’re what I’m trying to say is that I think maybe. Yeah, that kind of thing. Now it gets dumped out and either take an evidence or thrown in the garbage can.

00:57:12:11 – 00:57:35:07

I still believe, though, that the officers have the ability to enforce the law and help people learn life lessons without always leading to an arrest, and I don’t I don’t think, I don’t think that having body worn cameras increases the number of arrests or anything like that. Let me let me kind of take an angle from that and maybe ask that question in a different way.

00:57:35:09 – 00:58:10:11

So let’s use Tim’s example there, with, you know, kids with the beer in their trunk and being underage. Right. That’s a pretty benign minor example, but could be serious. You know, like you said in your example, something else happened later. But, you know, a lot of times when I see kids that come in with these types of minor charges or their younger folks and they have some traffic violations or what it might be, we try to here at this law firm, I think, and we all do this, I think the same way we try to take an angle with that individual of like, let me help you learn from this situation.

00:58:10:11 – 00:58:41:28

We’re going to do some programing, maybe some coursework or some classes to demonstrate that we’ve kind of unpacked it, that we’ve thought about it, that we’ve considered it, that we’ve learned from it. And then our client has. Right. And then we usually, you know, go to a hearing, present that to the police officer. And I would say, by and large, almost every single, if not almost all times were met with, you know, police officers who are not only impressed but happy with that, and have felt that, you know, the whole purpose of why they cited them to begin with has been learned from.

00:58:42:01 – 00:59:02:04

And then we work out a resolution of the case that usually doesn’t end up with a horrible conviction that ruins the kid’s life. Right? And that’s kind of getting to the same result in the old days. Well, yeah. Right. I mean, I think that that’s what what you were doing by being proactive there is there is there counsel or there attorneys to more or less create that, that mentorship if you would.

00:59:02:05 – 00:59:34:13

And encouragement to make better decisions in the future is far more than. And I think the reason it might be well received by the police officers, we all recognize that really, at the end of the day, for most of these offenses, if you just go through the process, you know, pro se or try to just go and and take the court systems, Morgan emphasize fines or money or, you know, a sentence that or an agreement that creates in could potentially prevent it from going to college or having a successful career later on in life.

00:59:34:16 – 01:00:02:01

I think we all recognize I said this earlier, is the system very cold and be very unforgiving. And that’s why I never recommend anybody go through the process without a good defense, without an attorney, or without counsel. What I’m trying to say to your to answer your they will have it is the police most likely feel because you express that they’ve been happy with that approach.

01:00:02:04 – 01:00:04:16

That they.

01:00:04:18 – 01:00:31:10

The sentence or the disposition of the case is handled far better or more successful with what you’re encouraging your clients to do than what the system alone would end up doing, which is just costing them money and not necessarily leaving them in a fair position to go forward in life. It doesn’t necessarily have the built in rehabilitative effect that you’re creating proactively by the putting kids through the driving courses or alcohol courses, things like that.

01:00:31:11 – 01:00:48:19

I’m sorry it took me to get there. Sure. And I think that also goes to the point that you were starting to make there, which is and again, this isn’t a plug. I actually looked recently at a another attorneys podcast, and I was watching it and he did a whole segment on some people think lawyers are scams, right?

01:00:48:21 – 01:01:22:11

Like, like somehow that it’s just a money making machine, right? And in a way, I mean, we all have to make a living, right? We have legal fees and things like that. But at the end of the day, I mean, I hope you would agree with this, but I’m curious if you do, that by and large, people usually get better outcomes in their cases when they are taking steps that their lawyer advises them to do, which are proactive, which are going to help them learn and demonstrate not only to the police who you’re directly negotiating with, a lot of times prosecutors, but also judges as it relates to what the outcome should be because

01:01:22:11 – 01:01:41:07

of what you did to fix, to learn to become a better person. And you’re actually also and we preach this all the time. Not only are you helping to fix the legal issue as the defense attorney there, but you’re also helping the person become a better human being, to go forward in life in a better way and to be more successful.

01:01:41:11 – 01:01:56:01

And I think that’s something that people don’t think of a lot when they think of, oh, somebody hire a lawyer, right? They think of, how’s that lawyer going to get them out of the problem? Or how’s that lawyer going to show they’re not guilty? And yeah. Do we have to do that? Sometimes we do. And we do it, and we do it with gusto and we do it hard.

01:01:56:07 – 01:02:15:22

But I would say that’s not the majority of cases. I would say that’s the minority, where usually we are actually trying to just fix the overall problem. And in this county, you’re, department included. Chief, we have a pretty good working relationship with that. And that not only pays our client dividends, but I think makes society better, which is all of our goals.

01:02:15:23 – 01:02:45:00

Right? And I’d like to hear your take on that. I mean, do you do you agree with that? Yeah. I mean, there are there are a couple couple pieces there. No, absolutely. I agree, first of all, I think a lot of people probably have the misconception, which is why I think it’s an interesting podcast we decided to do today is that that the police and the defense attorneys have some type of adversary or relationship or, you know, yes, we have sort of a natural relationship, just inherently part of our jobs that that put us at odds.

01:02:45:00 – 01:03:03:18

But I think at the end of the day, we all recognize that we want the best for people. And it’s sometimes there are technical aspects of the law, decisions that the police may have, right? Or the police may have wrong. And you guys need to do what you do to make sure we’re held accountable with what the law requires to convict somebody.

01:03:03:18 – 01:03:12:12

But in all those other cases that you talked about, tell,

01:03:12:15 – 01:03:22:04

The the reality, I think we talked about it earlier is that the system itself?

01:03:22:09 – 01:03:43:12

Oh, I’m sorry, I lost my train of thought there for a second. One thing that’s advantageous, and why I would always encourage somebody to have an avid offense attorney, or to seek council is because where you can read something on a ChatGPT screen or read something in a law book or on a computer screen, you guys have familiarity with how nuance the law is.

01:03:43:12 – 01:04:05:27

You understand case law decisions that contradict what may be the law says, or the interpretation of the law is the courts have held it, and especially locally. You you have that expertise in the subject matter expertise of how the law is interpreted, that somebody who feels that they could just do it on their own does not have.

01:04:06:00 – 01:04:24:10

And you recognize how nuanced things are and you can navigate them through that process. But again, from from the perspective that you shared a moment ago of truly trying to have people make encourage people to make better decisions and have better lives. And I think we can all knowledge and we talked about it before that most people just, you know, are good people inherently.

01:04:24:10 – 01:04:55:07

They just made bad decisions how we could prevent them from making those bad decisions. That’s going to be, again, far more, better for for society and humanity than seeing somebody sit in a jail cell or pay a big fine. Right? Yeah. And, I mean, we try to keep this, you know, very, closely guarded here in the sense that we really do value the relationships professionally that we have with our men and women in law enforcement in this county.

01:04:55:10 – 01:05:17:09

I would say, by and large, every single one of them is a very positive, professional, communicative relationship, communicative being a very important word there. Because, I mean, one of the things that falls by the wayside a lot is when people aren’t chatting, people aren’t communicating, you know, nobody knows what’s going on on the other side. Now, do we have to keep things close to the vest in the sense of, you know, privacy and attorney client privilege all the time?

01:05:17:10 – 01:05:40:24

But I’m more talking about engaging on trying to resolve cases and figuring out what’s important to police and to prosecutors. And we’re trying to reach results. And, well, I think a lot of people out there do think that the relationship inherently between a defense attorney and a law enforcement officer is inherently awful or bad or extremely adversarial, and that we can’t work together.

01:05:40:27 – 01:06:01:28

It’s quite the opposite. And for people who, as attorneys do take that position and take that role on, I feel that the level of success for their client is far less as a result because of the way they’re doing that. And that’s not to say we’re in bed with you guys. We’re absolutely not. You know, but we are in the same podcast room right now.

01:06:01:28 – 01:06:36:12

So, you know, chatting about this. But, you know, I think those relationships go a long way for both of us in that relationship. I’ve seen I’ve seen clients or or those who’ve been accused of a crime fare far worse because their defense attorney took those adversarial stances. Then then then if either a they had an attorney who was looking out for them and trying to help shepherd them through the process as opposed to prove a point or suggest all cops lie.

01:06:36:13 – 01:07:01:01

I literally seen, unfortunately, a guy go to state prison one time when he could have got off with a $50 fine because an attorney just wanted to prove a point. I don’t believe they were acting in the best interest of their client. I believe they were. I hadn’t, you know, personal prejudice against police and more or less suggested that, and they unfortunately, in the long run put their, their client in a very bad way.

01:07:01:03 – 01:07:19:25

So. Yeah. I mean, and, and we’ve said this on prior episodes, I mean, my, my favorite I don’t know about you, Tim and Justin, but my favorite type of client that comes into the office comes in here and they have a real legal issue. They have concerns surrounding that legal issue, but they’re not blind to the level of possible accountability that they might have in the situation.

01:07:19:29 – 01:07:41:05

And they’re open and they’re honest about that with us. And they’re humble, you know, and that’s the type of putty that you can mold and fix, right. When you have a rigid the guy, they did everything wrong. Everything’s their fault. I didn’t do anything wrong. That is something that’s almost hard to deal with in the system, even from a defense attorney standpoint, because how do I mold that into anything?

01:07:41:05 – 01:08:04:29

Well, and I think it goes even beyond that to what you were saying earlier. I mean, the district, like the inability to be honest about that kind of stuff, I think feeds into a disregard for law, just generally, don’t you? I mean, I think there’s an element of defiance there, but I I’ll say, you know, I know there are plenty of cops that can be very black and white too, and aren’t always is diplomatic is is probably should be.

01:08:04:29 – 01:08:39:10

And that can create an image to a lot of people that police want to see folks suffer or get hard consequences. So that’s why I guess maybe from from my perspective, one of the things is more like on a public side is a leader of a law enforcement agency, is, you know, try to remind and encourage, especially our younger generations of police officers, to recognize what the true end goal is and have more compassionate and diplomatic approach in working with their peer groups, of which the criminal defense attorneys are one of them, because I know it can be challenging.

01:08:39:12 – 01:09:01:22

Just as I more or less said, you know, I dealt with one time a defense attorney who just did their client no favors. There are a lot of police officers. I shouldn’t say a lot. I think it’s it’s more the exception than the rule. It can be equally as hard headed and not want to work or or set a good example of of how we can help somebody grow.

01:09:01:24 – 01:09:21:03

We just kind of want to, you know, beat them down or hold them accountable. Yeah. But, you know, and I hear you, you are right about that. And there are officers in here in York County that have that mentality to an extent. I will tell you today, I actually spoke with an individual who an officer who has a reputation for being that way.

01:09:21:05 – 01:09:52:24

But I will tell you that almost every time when I know and knowing these officers, you kind of know who’s who. You know, knowing that I’m dealing with an individual that might be like that nine times out of ten, when I actually, as the lawyer, call that police officer and we talk about the issue, what might have been a hard headed, tougher interaction on the side of the road or in a, in a, you know, a criminal act, a lot of times can be much calmer and discussed through candidly with me as the attorney.

01:09:53:00 – 01:10:12:05

And that’s another reason why having an attorney is so valuable, because what you’re doing is you’re putting that buffer between the relationship that you had with the police officer and the relationship that the attorney may have with that officer, to be able to talk more professionally after the fact about it. Right. And what ended up happening is we had a great conversation.

01:10:12:07 – 01:10:46:22

We’re we’re going to work out a great result for my client. The officer is happy, you know, and we worked out a resolution that everybody was walking away from this. Now what was very contentious now kind of pleased with the outcome. Right. And I think that’s real. You said something pretty poignant in one of your recent podcasts that I think we all can tend to take it or take for granted that something that is very commonplace for you and I to deal with, almost, you know, every day occurrences of certain types of court hearings or certain types of interactions for your client or for the person that we’re dealing with.

01:10:46:24 – 01:11:12:19

This is maybe the only time in their life that they’re dealing with a circumstance. You know, and I think that through those interactions and you serving as you just described in that particular case, you know, essentially a buffer, a the officer knows, you know, and this isn’t to try to your groups reputation precedes itself. I mean, we we know that you were on top of your game.

01:11:12:24 – 01:11:37:00

We know that you were going to hold us accountable for doing for, for for what we what we’ve done as far as the arrest goes. We’re going to be taken to task on every aspect of making sure we’ve met our burden. And I’m not saying we’re not prepared to do that. We are. But we recognize that you guys are going to be holding us to the standard we should be held to.

01:11:37:03 – 01:11:58:06

So we know that if you’re coming to us saying, hey, I recognize we’re in a position here where this happened. Maybe they didn’t use the best judgment. You know, from you guys perspective, I recognize why you handled it the way you did. I, I wish maybe we would have gone down this road or looked at the offense differently in this level.

01:11:58:09 – 01:12:19:27

But nonetheless, here’s what we’ve done to make sure that this isn’t going to happen again, or that this is going to be the best, learnable opportunity for, for this client going forward. We’re still have the accountability piece, but they’ll also have to have the rehabilitative piece as we work through this. I just I mean, I think that’s that’s a win win.

01:12:19:27 – 01:12:36:27

So for sure. I don’t know if I answered your question. No, you did. And you I think, gave me a compliment in there somewhere. And I appreciate that. That was very nice of you. But you are right. And it’s it’s not so much as a compliment as it’s just it’s reality. Like. Yeah, I mean, we have to hold each other accountable.

01:12:37:04 – 01:12:55:23

We are the line of defense for our clients, you know? And when we do that, you know, we need to do it. But most of the time we can work with you guys and we can work things out. And everybody benefits and everybody wins, and everybody walks away happy. And I will tell you, it’s kind of a rare circumstance in court when everybody walks out of court happy that that is probably the minority.

01:12:55:25 – 01:13:14:21

When you can accomplish that, it truly is a nice thing. I, you know, I sleep better at night when we can do that for our clients because I feel like everybody, you know, is pleased with the outcome, and society’s better. So, All right, well, in prepping this, I know Tim was very excited and came up with a number of things he wanted to ask you to talk about.

01:13:14:23 – 01:13:29:27

Well, I know we were talking about the stats that started with rapid fire. Would I be able to grab another drink of water? Yeah. We can get you another drink of water. Well, while. Tim, you guys are you guys. You’re not like, do you air this as an entire segment? Like, okay, so I wasn’t sure if you’re recording it now.

01:13:30:00 – 01:13:46:22

Oh it’s on its online right now. No, it’s not. Live. I didn’t know if you guys took breaks or anything like that or how how it works as you. Yeah. Yes. So yeah. So it’s not it’s not live but we do pretty much posted almost immediately after water. And that’s why couple answers have sort of been weird.

01:13:46:22 – 01:14:05:07

I was like, yeah, no. And luckily we have Levi in the house here, so he’s going to help us out. Believe I can grab two, two that way. Two waters because. Yeah, right. And for those of you that don’t know, Levi, we’ve talked about him a lot. He’s our producer. The little blurbs we put into episodes, he’s really great about adding those in for us.

01:14:05:12 – 01:14:21:10

We love him, he does a great job and he actually has his own podcast, does a lot of neat things on his own. Yeah. For those of you who don’t know him, you should look him up as well. So I’ll give him a little plug here. But once, once he comes back, I do want to pivot. And we can kind of start with this to.

01:14:21:12 – 01:14:43:18

And you’ve mentioned this a little bit in the past. I do kind of want to talk a little bit about how you select police officers and what you look at when you’re deciding who’s a good officer and who might, in today’s world, maybe not be a good officer because of these things that we were talking about during earlier in our our episodes today.

01:14:43:21 – 01:15:01:01

So how you look through that, and I want you to also know that we do have a lot of police officers that watch our podcast. We appreciate you guys, that do that. We, we get calls and comments a lot about that. And, I think they might be interested in hearing about that, too, how a chief looks at an officer who might be starting out.

01:15:01:04 – 01:15:24:03

I mean, as far as selection process is go. I mean, for me, one of the biggest things I think that we could look for in, in officers today and probably one of the most important things for me as far as like recruitment. Now, let me make sure you guys understand that I think this is something a lot of times the public doesn’t realize is that this isn’t.

01:15:24:05 – 01:15:53:05

So getting hired as a police officer is not like just handing in a resume or doing a job application and maybe going for an interview and then getting hired. I it’s a multi-step, very structured process. It involves written testing, physical agility testing, psychological evaluations, background investigations, polygraph examinations for a few occupational or career fields. They’re allowed to to offer polygraphs as a condition of employment under federal law.

01:15:53:07 – 01:16:12:01

Background investigations can be very extensive. And you go out and, you know, talk to your neighbors. I talk to your third grade school teachers, things like that, their their state requirements. And then there’s requirements that have been established under some of the accrediting bodies that are recommended best practices. You know, we always have to meet the state requirements.

01:16:12:01 – 01:16:36:04

There are other times that and actually we the way it was, George, I can only speak on behalf of our department. We exceed the state requirements for what’s mandated for background investigations and actually conducted more at the level of what the federal government would use for selection. FBI agents or federal agents involves a couple more steps, as far as you know, reaching into somebody’s background.

01:16:36:05 – 01:17:04:18

So there’s a lot of very structured aspects to this process, that are not very subjective, that are very objective and sort of black and white. And either you pass a stage or you don’t pass the stage. But the interview portion, there are a few different ways. Police departments in your county test. One thing that’s got to become very, popular is what they call the Metropolitan Police Testing Consortium.

01:17:04:18 – 01:17:39:25

It’s where, you know, a pool of candidates or applicants can go test for multiple reports all in one written and oral board. And then there’s also local tests, which we still do. We sometimes use the testing consortium. And then sometimes we do our own local testing at West Shore. But the answer question very directly, the thing that I look for most in somebody at this point, at this point in time for us is a creative background or creativity, because more and more, a lot of what we’re called to do operates in rather gray areas.

01:17:39:25 – 01:18:11:07

They call for deconfliction and, you know, complex problem solving without many resources. So having said that, you know, I actually like and lean towards folks that have, you know, backgrounds and the arts or, you know, some interest or hobby that, is based off of a creative approach or a problem solving approach. Because aside from the fact that.

01:18:11:10 – 01:18:54:25

Well, I think we can move into another, another aspect of that, I mean, the three qualities that I think are key or needed for current law enforcement officers is they need to be basically in, in willing to embrace and surround themselves and understand the communities that they’re serving in. Okay. I think they need to and we see this because of many of the situations that are very fluid and rapidly expanding, where we see active shooting situations or situations in which people want to bring violence to others, they need to be very kind of call it like the Jason Bourne, you know, lethality profile.

01:18:54:25 – 01:19:33:17

They need to be able to be athletic, be able to defend themselves, be able to, stop aggression. They need to also be able to do that in a way, if possible. That’s more deconfliction or de-escalating. But having said that, we are facing threats of violence on a regular basis, especially in places that are very specialist like churches and other public or private settings and in our schools, and as we know in your county, are, you know, a hospital even in which we need officers who are able to react.

01:19:33:17 – 01:19:55:05

So that sort of like that, that that ability to react and stop violence, the ability to truly understand and embed yourself and your community in the environment that you work in. And then finally, and this ties into maybe where I was going with the creativity stuff. They need to be corrected. If you’re connect, they need to be connected.

01:19:55:05 – 01:20:10:14

Like if you remember the old Verizon, I think it was rise in the commercials where the guy like, you know, had all the people with him. Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now and then before we need to be able to never. We have to be the final answer for people in a lot of circumstances have nothing to do with getting arrested.

01:20:10:16 – 01:20:36:21

Nothing to do with enforcing the law, you know, mental health circumstances. We need to know who to put people in touch with, whether it be crisis correspondence or other social services available, homeless or unhoused, as it would be stated. Now we need to know what shelters, what areas we can refer people to for assistance. People who don’t have access to medical care for their children.

01:20:36:21 – 01:21:04:24

We need to know what groups are able to provide that or what services they can get. Landlord tenant things. We need to be able to go out at this point in time and kind of answer the whole gamut of society’s problems and walk away from situations which, again, may have nothing to do with leading to a criminal arrest, but but put people in the direction they need to be able to get their questions answered and get their lives in a better, better position.

01:21:04:24 – 01:21:37:10

So let me just go back and summarize, you know, sort of that, that ability to for an officer, the ability to, to interject themselves and stop violent acts and de-escalate situations, the ability to really, truly care and ingrain themselves in the community, and then the ability to act as a community diplomat, if you would, and know how to plug people under the resources and the services they need that fall outside of law enforcement, those are like the three skill sets.

01:21:37:12 – 01:21:54:05

And like I said, the creativity piece is what I look for in Albuquerque. You brought up a great point, and that is that I think what you’re saying in there is that those are very important in the beginning, but in practice you need to see it too, right? So that that interview, if you will, doesn’t stop at the, you know, when you hand them the badge.

01:21:54:06 – 01:22:18:22

I mean, you guys obviously, I know you all put them on probation for a period of time. Keep an eye on them, you know, review their work, etc.. And, I think that that goes into making sure that they do know how to do what police do, which isn’t just a rest people. It’s it’s to get them involved with services in the community, mental health and homelessness and things like that, that can really help them.

01:22:18:22 – 01:22:51:07

And, if you see an officer who’s doing that, they’re actually, you know, kind of solidifying their position by doing it in a way that is good and positive and what you want. So I think it’s interesting that you are talking. I mean, it’s interesting that you’re you’re sort of defining a candidate that you would describe as like a thinker, you know, somebody who’s actually being creative and thinking outside the box to be able to give answers to people when there’s not necessarily like a direct police action.

01:22:51:10 – 01:23:15:07

And with fields like military and police, sometimes those kind of candidates are not what I think conventional wisdom has told leaders to look for. I know from my experience in the military, if you were perceived as the Y guy, that was not a good trait. But it sounds like you want people that do think critically and in a healthy way can ask, why do we do things?

01:23:15:07 – 01:23:25:10

Or why do I need to know this? And and how do I use that knowledge? Keep in mind, I, I know exactly what you’re saying, especially because, you know.

01:23:25:12 – 01:23:45:13

In in a military environment, especially your lower list is if you would you want to be able to say, go your rock and run up that hill, right? Don’t ask why, I just go stand up on that hill. And maybe if you’re talking about a larger the Philadelphia Police Department and things like that, which departments in York County are dramatically different than some of these large urban departments?

01:23:45:13 – 01:24:16:17

So I don’t even want to kind of make any comparisons for for my jurisdiction. And that’s really all I can speak on behalf of. But I’d say in a lot of smaller jurisdictions. What branch of the military were you in? I was in the Navy. Okay. So, I know that your audience probably want like this comparison, but maybe as far as things go, when you started to get into some of the naval kind of special operations, you’d see something that’s where those guys were more independent and could work without immediate supervision.

01:24:16:23 – 01:24:47:29

Went on to when you look at like our community, our guys, you know, we don’t have 15 officers on a shift with three supervisors and a watch commander. They’re able to answer every question for them. We have, you know, 2 or 3. And I also have to be in a position where I understand that those so that it’s at 3:00 in the morning, my just most junior police officer may have to make a split second decision that tomorrow’s on national news and changes the face of law enforcement forever.

01:24:48:01 – 01:25:24:00

So that requires quite a bit of trust. And I just personally feel the only way to be able to for me to be comfortable extending that trust is to know that I have people that aren’t just going to follow a protocol, no matter what it says or aren’t going to say it, you know, black and white, there are plenty of times, and I think we’ve all encountered it just experiencing life and especially looking at, you know, what brings us all together in the criminal justice system that most circumstances are rather gray.

01:25:24:04 – 01:25:55:10

Right. You know, and so for me, knowing that again one more time, 3 a.m., the decision of my most junior officer could completely change what policing looks like for the next 20 years, based off the decision that he makes. I have to give them that trust. But I also have to show them that I have the faith, that they are responsible enough to make the right decisions and use their mind as tools, as opposed to just resorting to a gun or resorting to a pair of handcuffs.

01:25:55:11 – 01:26:28:29

Right? Yeah. All right. I want to ask you this, chief. We we’ve seen, at least I think, in my almost 20 year career now, and I know and Justin and Tim’s careers. A bit of a change in gangs. Sure. Okay. Not only gang violence, but how gangs assimilate, how they organize geographically or otherwise. I’d like to get your take on that, because, again, I know you’ve been around for quite a while, and I think you’ve seen this transition, too.

01:26:29:01 – 01:26:50:10

I know when we were, you know, preparing to speak with you today, we talked a little bit about this topic and I’d like to hear your take on it was interesting. I’d like to hear from you on that. Yeah. So historically, I mean, you know, years ago and even not in not so long ago in the distance, gangs were very geographic.

01:26:50:11 – 01:27:24:05

And and while they still may have sort of geographic names, like based off of the south side of Yorker, certain areas in the northern side of York, I’m trying not to identify specific ones. Yeah. You know, but or on the west side or on the east side, it was very geographic and based off of the folks that grew up or resided in certain communities, that just, if nothing else, do somewhat a lack of transportation and shared life experience in those, you know, isolated pockets of town.

01:27:24:07 – 01:27:53:16

They ran together in sort of organized loosely or, you know, if from a from a Rico standpoint, not so loosely, they were organized, at having said that, based off of that geographical, you know, isolation, if you would and in where we used to see problematic interactions was usually once when somebody went into somebody else’s area. And oftentimes there was some, some drug involvement.

01:27:53:18 – 01:28:20:18

Or some other type of vice crime that was going on that brought them together and could lead to problematic situations. Today though, though they again, may still share like kind of like these geographic titles, we see a lot more affiliation driven through social media platforms. And we’ve talked about a lot today. So to say that the these platforms haven’t changed the way we all live life.

01:28:20:21 – 01:28:49:13

You know, it would be silly. You have people that are associated with, you know, northern groups associated with the northern end of York that are from Red lion. Okay. And it’s because they’re able to join and share that camaraderie via social media groups and things like that. And so where I’m going with it is create a much more fluid circumstance where we see the fallout or the after effects of gang violence.

01:28:49:16 – 01:29:12:10

Not isolated, contained just a certain geographical pockets of the city, but kind of throughout the county and things that don’t make sense, like such as a north or a north and a West side group of rivals in the southeast getting into a a gunfight or something like that. It’s just become more, much more kind of fluid in global.

01:29:12:11 – 01:29:40:29

Yeah. And I, I that was you make an interesting point and I obviously Tim and I more recently than two were in the, the DA’s office and dealt with, you know, guns, drugs, etc. and different groups, gangs. I think they, they prefer we call them groups now. But, one of the things that I was curious about, because I feel like I’ve seen this a lot, both in the DA’s office and now being back here, doing criminal defense is one.

01:29:41:01 – 01:30:09:19

And I’m curious to your perspective on this, maybe, you know, five, ten, 15 years ago, compared to now, the people that were involved in those gangs or groups and, you know, doing, I’ll say, doing crime or committing crimes or, you know, getting into that type of stuff with one older, seems their trending to a younger and younger nowadays, especially juveniles.

01:30:09:22 – 01:30:33:15

But then also, I and I like you just said, you know, because of social media, it’s not just confined to we’ll say, the city. But you’re getting people from like suburban areas that aren’t related to certain pockets of the city whatsoever. Yeah, but these kids and again, I see kids because we see a lot of juveniles, people under 21, getting involved in, again, committing different crimes.

01:30:33:15 – 01:30:55:27

But again, they’re coming from like the suburbs or even like rural areas. Is that have you noticed that over like that change over the last we’ll say ten, 15 years? Yeah. I mean, really even in the last five, 5 to 7 years when it seemed like to make a a big shift in my mind about the same time we saw, like, you know, you guys, me, I remember there used to be like, open it.

01:30:55:27 – 01:31:18:15

We called them open air drug markets, where guys were standing around on the street corners peddling dope and things like that. You know, it’s probably 7 to 10 years ago that things more disappeared towards a agreed upon, you know, online, whether it be through, you know, just various messaging platforms and things like that. Drug transactions became a lot more private.

01:31:18:15 – 01:31:59:04

There wasn’t a need for somebody to stand out on the street corner. It was too risky. And it just wasn’t necessary because the people were kind of linking up with their drug dealers over direct messaging and arranging private sales and things of that nature. The same thing applies to what you just referenced, Justin, is that, yeah, you could have a gang that historically was or a group that was historically based out of York that has members that live in, you know, Helen Township, you know, because the the Nexus are what brings them all together is more through like a, an online platform and usually some affiliation or family affiliation or something along those lines

01:31:59:07 – 01:32:33:23

that brings them that connection. But but it’s just, you know, kind of more overreaching and global. And you said younger and younger. Yeah, a lot of them. You know, our associates or introduced each other or known to each other through through school. And, you know, we’re starting to see that, you know, some of the elder statesmen of these groups are 16 or 17, because the time you’re 18, you already have an offense gravity score in the juvenile system, the generally, as soon as you get kind of arrested for even a minor drug charge at 18, you’re, you’re, you’re you’re in state prison.

01:32:33:23 – 01:33:00:05

So, the reality of it is, it’s become when we looked at it a few years ago. I think there was a period of time where the average age of a trigger puller, if you would, in York, was somewhere in there was 16 or 17 years old. And it was highly glamorized through content and through social media mechanisms to reach out to their peer group in ways that weren’t around before.

01:33:00:05 – 01:33:36:19

You used to have to be from here in order to to know the gangs exist. And so here’s a question that I had asked you previously, and I, I think your answer is really interesting. So, you know, I had read a paper during law school or even before law school that talked about this phenomenon and how sort of the like the deterrence models of criminal justice punishment, specifically that some of those models are failing with some of these individuals because, as we had talked about, you know, if you’ve got a 15 year old who comes from a broken home, doesn’t see a future for themself, doesn’t necessarily even think they’ll be alive because they’re out

01:33:36:19 – 01:33:55:01

in the game, so to speak. And they could be dead in, you know, by the age of 30. They don’t see a future. How do you deter that person? Because they’re not engaged in a sort of pro con analysis. And oftentimes they may think that criminal charges or even a time in detention or a jail will actually boost their credibility.

01:33:55:01 – 01:34:16:07

So what do you do to fix that if it’s no longer is successful in accomplishing effective punishment? What do you do from there? Right. I mean, at this point, I mean, incarceration generally creates status. You know, and not to mention, again, I know we just keep kind of going back in this weird thing about influences and stuff like that.

01:34:16:07 – 01:34:47:01

But when you look at the ease that technology has been to create popular music groups in music culture that historically would have never had a chance of getting to a record label or never have been able to get heard now, could put something on SoundCloud, get local popularity? Go into like a podcast or something and on a national level with certain, you know, alternative or underground, you know, podcasts that that boosts them.

01:34:47:04 – 01:35:25:06

The people who are especially in, like, rap communities and things like that, the or almost role models or the, the idols of of some of these young up and coming gang members. I mean, all of those folks have been incarcerated, you know. So to answer your question, and I, one of the things we did is we have juvenile detective who works specifically with with kids at an age, of the, you know, we try to target the 12, 11 to 15, I’d say, to be able to expose them and put them in a position where they have enough exposure to the world around them and through support groups.

01:35:25:06 – 01:35:46:03

And when I say that, I mean, just like hobbies and clubs and things like that, that will give them a glimpse that they don’t normally see of a world that exists beyond 20 years old. To create basically a thought process in their minds that when 2 or 3 years from now, they’re in a position where they see the gun or they could go to a gun.

01:35:46:05 – 01:36:20:09

They make the decision to stay away from it. I mean, almost like an immunization or vaccination program. You know, it’s hard anymore to target those that are already running around in the gang life. You almost have to get there before that influence. And unfortunately, I mean, fortunately and unfortunately, what we found is the best way and the most successful model is at least getting them out of that environment to be able to have a glimpse through other social programs and other activities, have a glimpse of what a more normal trajectory of life would look like.

01:36:20:10 – 01:36:41:25

How do you identify those kids? I basically they’re different. We have certain community partners like schools, guidance office, things like that. Not to mention our patrol officers are kind of like the first line. We, you know, we see everybody in their own environment. We deal with these kids and can make those referrals to, in our case, it’s a name Detective Mendez.

01:36:41:29 – 01:37:08:10

And Mendez has then those juvenile specific groups that he can reach out to and kind of plug someone into. But what we look for, we have sort of an assessment scale of what we would consider high risk, whether a high risk for victimization or high risk for criminal behavior. So sort of like the kids are the last stop before juvenile detention or the kids that have been victimized to the point that,

01:37:08:12 – 01:37:31:24

That it will result in, you know, I guess a negative trajectory. And like, those are the ones we try to get. And again, you know, I hate to say it, but some of the most successful cases we’ve had, or kids that we’ve actually removed from the area with parental consent to go into, like Keystone Charter Academy or some of the other programs that prepared them academically and then even gave them a trade.

01:37:31:27 – 01:37:53:03

Those are some of the most successful things, but it also has to be some mechanism to show them some aspect of a life that exists outside what they’re continuously exposed to. Yeah. All right. Well, we’ve been going for quite a long while. Before we do wrap up today, I wanted to touch on something that was near and dear to.

01:37:53:03 – 01:38:18:24

I think a lot of us here in Newark County last year we had a very unfortunately for, very, very valuable and well-versed, educated, highly effective police officers that were killed in the line of duty. And one of those police officers was from your department. But I do want to say all of them by name. From northern York County Regional Police Department.

01:38:18:24 – 01:38:45:16

We had a detective, Mark Baker. Sergeant Detective Cody Becker and Detective Isaiah Heizer, all of which were wonderful men that I worked closely with. I know we all did. And there were excellent officers. And then from your department, we had Officer Andrew. Andrew Duarte. Am I saying last name correctly? Yes. Okay. When he was tragically killed in the line of duty.

01:38:45:18 – 01:39:08:23

You at your department or the chief of police at the time? Of course. And I thought in watching from the outside that tragedy unfold. I thought you handled that with. With grace, with compassion, with professionalism. In a way that was really a national example. Frankly. And you you write your department, you gave multiple talks.

01:39:08:23 – 01:39:37:10

You were available to the public, available to his family. Available to those that were affected very closely by that, as well as even on a national scale. So, I wanted to get your take on that and, again, just how well you handled that, but I know in real time it happened quick. You know, and you you had to react quick and, because it was done so well, I thought I’d give you a chance to kind of Monday morning quarterback it and see, from you how you felt it went.

01:39:37:12 – 01:39:56:24

And then also just to give you a chance to talk about Officer Duarte because he was a very important member of your community. Oh, yeah. And I wanted to give that some airtime here. No, absolutely. I mean, you know, to this day, I always we miss Andrew’s presence and what he was able to bring to the police department.

01:39:56:27 – 01:40:19:28

You know, and with current things that we are doing internally as an agency and expanding some programs and things like that. You know, there’s a circumstance we’re in right now where I just keep thinking, you know, it would have been perfect for this role. And, and so, you know it, those reminders exist. But, you know, I’ve credited the police department, the men and women that work.

01:40:19:28 – 01:40:52:27

They’re the ones who, you know, picked up the ball and or the torch if you wouldn’t carry things forward. Is far as things go. I mean, our goal. I appreciate what you said, but really, a you’re right. There’s nothing really that prepares you for that type of call or that kind of event. And for me specifically, I mean, there was even though, you know, as a police chief, you run through different scenarios in your mind of how would I handle this if this ever happened?

01:40:52:27 – 01:41:13:19

How would I handle this ever happened? You know, the reality of thinking, what if I had an officer involved in a, a shooting? Or what if I had a line of duty death you could think about all day long. But the reality of it is, especially for a smaller department, there’s no protocol you could put in place of, you know, this happens this way, this way, this way.

01:41:13:24 – 01:41:34:27

And it’s an extremely personal thing. Oh, sure. Right. It’s not there’s no cookie cutter approach to that. No, but in this case, I mean, it was actually I don’t want to say I don’t want to say it was relatively easy. It was very trying. But when you talked about some of the things that we did at the time and with his funeral and things, it was very simple.

01:41:34:27 – 01:41:59:15

We wanted to make sure we honored his sacrifice and made sure that the world, especially his family and his mother, knew, what a hero her son was. Now, having said that, the thing that I also want to make sure, and some people have criticized me for this, and, and I can understand where they’re coming from, but.

01:41:59:17 – 01:42:18:06

The best part of that story is that the woman who had a gun to her head, the woman that had been taken hostage, went home safely to her family that day. Did every person that was a patient or a medical provider within that hospital that they went home that day. It’s the police’s job. I mean, it’s what we were there to do.

01:42:18:06 – 01:42:42:03

And. Yes, Andrew’s death was, was was extremely tragic, but I can tell you he was the kind of person that saw it the same way that I did. That is that if that’s what had to happen. Unfortunately, under the circumstance, to make sure that woman came home to her family or to make sure all those people that were in the hospital were able to come home uninjured.

01:42:42:05 – 01:43:09:12

That that’s sort of our role. I mean, you have, there’s always talk about, you know, the first responders and the heroes and things like that. A byproduct or part of that lifestyle or that occupation needs to be, recognized. That inherent part of the position is that that you might be in the situation where your life.

01:43:09:15 – 01:43:31:13

The value of your life, is making sure other people are put first as the priority. And so I know that maybe didn’t make sense what I just said, but I think it makes sense. You know what? I, I know this this will sound crowded, but everybody wants to be a gangster until it’s time to do gangster stuff.

01:43:31:16 – 01:44:03:16

This is the ultimate, you know, he responded. He, you know, without hesitation, ran into that hospital. He he went and began containment. And they were actually getting ready, to basically create a rescue or react team to make entry. And this happened. I mean, that that, that that’s as gangster as it gets. And unfortunately, again, part of part of making sure everybody else in that hospital was safe was that we suffered a casualty.

01:44:03:18 – 01:44:26:25

That that’s our role. Yeah, I think and I had had interactions with Officer Duarte on a few occasions before his untimely death and, always very much enjoyed his personality. He was he was an, funny guy. He had he had a good sense of humor. I thought he was very well engaged with individuals that he was involved with in law enforcement.

01:44:26:28 – 01:44:45:27

I can think of a few cases I had with him where I actually sometimes. And we get this still with other officers, where people will tell us that although this thing happened and I got arrested and it wasn’t great for me, the officer was great. And he treated me really well and with respect and, you know, and and I heard that very frequently with him throughout.

01:44:45:27 – 01:45:03:05

And that’s the kind of thing that we as defense attorneys see behind the scenes, because our clients talk to us about that when they don’t always tell you guys that. Right. And I think that’s something that’s worth noting for him specifically. But that’s true for actually all of these officers that we mentioned. But very, very hard year last year.

01:45:03:05 – 01:45:26:03

I mean, it was an awful year for your county law enforcement. And all those names were very talented, capable individuals and all all died in the midst of doing the right thing for somebody else. Exactly. Yeah. And the other way to say that is when everyone else is running out, they’re running in and without disregard for their own safety, you know, because they know they have to save other people.

01:45:26:07 – 01:45:51:01

And that’s their role at the very basal level as law enforcement. That’s what they sign up for. You know, I think that that like one thing that you had said earlier and we had talked about this too, I mean, obviously that’s the mission. So how do you keep everyone in the aftermath of something like this? I mean, you’re in a very rare class of leaders because the vast majority of police chiefs in the country will never have to deal with something like this.

01:45:51:04 – 01:46:07:05

So how do you keep everybody on mission? How do you keep I mean, how do you react to something like this? Because my natural reaction, having a family and concerns of my own would be, I don’t know if I really want to do this anymore. So how do you keep people on the mission and, and keep people driven towards that goal?

01:46:07:07 – 01:46:21:10

I mean, I think that kind of goes back to some of the selection process we talked about before. That’s something that, you know, stands out in candidates. I mean, I’m not going to say that I don’t know that there weren’t,

01:46:21:12 – 01:47:00:19

The events of last year, especially, didn’t bring the reality of mortality more into the forefront of some officers minds and whether or not they wanted to continue to do that type of thing. But those that, you know, I guess it sort of sounds cliche to say it felt a calling or something like that, but I guess there are a lot of police officers, fortunately, and especially in this area, I think the caliber of police officers in this area is much different than what you could experience in some other geographic areas of the country, you know, or even the state in some cases.

01:47:00:22 – 01:47:31:22

It’s still very selective profession around here. And so I think the people that are onboarded into the different police departments in York County, you know, we usually get it right. And those are the type of people that can recognize this happening. It’s just part of what they signed up for and what they’re passionate about. And I think that we saw I mean, Justin, I think knows in the aftermath of some of this, we saw some pretty horrid reactions from people to, I mean, like, like what we were talking about with the social media thing and the way people leap to judgment.

01:47:31:23 – 01:47:53:22

Yeah, sure. We saw a lot of people, I think, in society that they they had a bad experience or something with police way back when. And now they hate all officers and they almost relish that something like this happened. Like they almost think like police officers deserve it. What was the response from the community, I guess, and and how do you deal with the people who are secretly very happy about something like this?

01:47:53:24 – 01:48:16:23

Kind of don’t deal with those ones. You know, they, they, they might be vocal on other platforms or, you know, from an anonymous perspective, but they rarely come and say those things. And if they do, I mean, you know, one of the things is a is an officer, as we, you know, took an as to defend the Constitution, their First Amendment rights and freedom of speech is is paramount and al defended.

01:48:16:24 – 01:48:22:07

I mean, the the reality of it is I mean you’re not going to.

01:48:22:10 – 01:48:49:11

Part of what makes us a great democracy. You know, America is like the last great hope. And part of what makes us such a cool country is that we were founded based off people’s interest, individual liberties and freedoms, which was like extremely bold idea, you know what I mean? Probably one of the bravest ideas in human history was to create a country based off of people’s own free will and being able to do what they want, by and large, with some regulation.

01:48:49:13 – 01:49:25:15

So, you know, those who relish, I mean, sort of. Yeah. I’ll defend their right to say whatever stupid this comes out of their mouth. Yeah. But from your county specifically, I mean, I will say your in all, all of these incidents, you know, it was very surprising to me how supportive of supportive the York County community was, even to the point that I, I know that there are people that aren’t necessarily the biggest fans of cops that I saw going out and lining route 30 or or waving American flags or stopping as processions went by.

01:49:25:17 – 01:49:45:15

I think it was a reality check for a lot of people in the county, and it brought an emphasis on to how committed the local police are. And again, to your point about the other ones, I mean, they they can say wherever they want to. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s there, right? It’s, you know, we will support their constitutional right to be stupid.

01:49:45:16 – 01:50:12:28

But I think I just have one thing to, to kind of end with before whatever else is going on here. But I, I guess it’s kind of like a 2 or 3 part, I won’t say question, but just some things to that I picked up on what you just said. So obviously, I think being a defense attorney and I’m sure these guys agree, hearing you just say what you said, despite the fact that we may completely disagree and find a repulsive what some people may say or think or do, I think it’s refreshing.

01:50:12:28 – 01:50:30:05

And people need to hear this, that even though that stuff happens and there’s people like that out there, you as a police chief and we have police officers here in the county and, you know, all over the nation that despite that are still going to do their job. And that’s that’s what you signed up for. That’s why you’re here.

01:50:30:07 – 01:50:51:07

And then earlier when you were talking about Officer Duarte and I think you had said, you know, it almost came easier naturally. And I think Tim hit on this a little bit, and you also did. But, you know, in that moment when all that’s happening and the aftermath, like, did you just feel that because of your position, because of how long have you been doing this?

01:50:51:07 – 01:51:12:18

And because of, again, like the ties to the community, the racial relationship you have with your officers? Like, is that what made it feel easy? Almost. Because again, that’s that’s one of the hardest things I think anybody can go through personally, professionally, etc. but here, sitting here and listening to you say all of that, like in my mind, it makes sense.

01:51:12:21 – 01:51:15:22

I.

01:51:15:24 – 01:51:42:23

I don’t know that and I don’t want misconstrue. I don’t want anybody to think I’m saying, oh, easy. No. And that and again we’ll just. Yeah. Not saying that either, but just in the sense of like what made it easy is knowing that he died doing the right thing for the right reason. And it like I said before, all those people, including the nurse that was actively being held hostage, were able to go home to her family that that’s what made that’s what he is.

01:51:42:23 – 01:52:06:18

Knowing that it wasn’t he did not die in vain. Yeah, that’s probably the best way to say, okay, I love it. Well, I’m really glad we got to talk about that. That was definitely something I wanted to hit on in our episode this week with you. And that said, chief, we are so, so grateful and thankful to you for coming on our episode for promoting, you know, your position as a law enforcement officer in a lot of these different topics.

01:52:06:18 – 01:52:25:21

It’s extremely valuable to our viewers. That we had you here today for this. And I hope, actually we get to do this again, with you and others. So, great amount of thanks from us to you and to the West York Borough Police Department. Fine ladies and gentlemen that protect our community. So thanks again, chief.

01:52:25:24 – 01:52:45:15

Any last words? Anything else you want to say? Well, no, I, I just, again, appreciate the gesture of you guys, you know, reached out and making this happen. Yeah. I think it is telling where your hearts are at with some of the things that we talked about today. And truly, the interest you have in seeing your clients benefit from there.

01:52:45:15 – 01:53:05:13

Hopefully leave these brief and limited interactions in the criminal justice system, but seeing you guys work towards making sure that they come out of these situations a better person, while still holding us as officers accountable and making sure we’re following the rules we’re supposed to follow. I mean, it’s really it’s really impressive to see what you’re doing and all you guys, a tremendous amount of respect for each.

01:53:05:13 – 01:53:22:21

And so thank you. Thank you for for the time to talk feelings. Mutual man. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well great. Thank you very much for saying that. Well guys again we’re here on now. We defend our podcast here at Kearney Law. Thanks again for watching. I hope you found this episode very useful in your own life.

01:53:22:25 – 01:53:36:17

Please comment. I ask us questions. If I need to contact the chief again to get some answers for you, I will. He. You know, I’m sure he’ll make himself available. But we greatly appreciate all our viewers. And we hope you got something out of this today. Y’all take care.