Embark on a transformative journey with Travis Yates, as he takes you behind the scenes of a profound week in Eureka, Nevada, at a leadership conference hosted by Sheriff Jesse Watts and Undersheriff Tyler Thomas. Te day one summary of this phenomenal gathering of law enforcement leaders is detailed by guest Roland Clee.
Join us for an unguarded look at the trials and transformations that define true leadership in law enforcement.
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Embark on a transformative journey with Travis Yates, as he takes you behind the scenes of a profound week in Eureka, Nevada, at a leadership conference hosted by Sheriff Jesse Watts and Undersheriff Tyler Thomas. Te day one summary of this phenomenal gathering of law enforcement leaders is detailed by guest Roland Clee.
Join us for an unguarded look at the trials and transformations that define true leadership in law enforcement.
Join Our Tribe of Courageous Leaders:
Get The Book
Get Weekly Articles by Travis Yates
Join Us At Our Website
Get Our 'Courageous Leadership' Training
Join The Courageous Police Leadership Alliance
Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice and encouragement they need to lead courageously.
Travis Yates:Welcome back to the show. I'm so excited about what this week's going to bring because we have taken the show on the road to Eureka Nevada to Jesse Watts and Undersheriff Tyler Thomas's Leadership Conference. It is probably the best week of leadership you'll ever get in this profession. It's in literally the middle of nowhere Pretty amazing stuff, and many of you cannot be here. So we're going to do our best each day of the week to sort of give you a little slice of greatness of what we see each day, and I have, for a day, one recap with me on the show, the one and only Roland Klee. Now, if you don't know who Roland is, roll that podcast back to April 15th and you will listen to an entire episode with Roland Klee. Amazing stuff of what he's doing. But he has made the journey from Florida to Eureka, nevada and he just set through day one of the Eureka County Sheriff's Department Leadership Conference. Roland Klee, how are you doing?
Roland Clee:I'm doing great. It's been an adventure.
Travis Yates:Yeah, I just kind of tell our audience, the, just the traveling over here, because nothing seems to be easy in this area how you got here, just what you saw as you were traveling the roads of the great highways and byways of the state of Nevada.
Roland Clee:Well, I enjoyed a lot more than my friend John Kelly. I really thought I was at the beginning of a movie the whole time I was driving like a western movie oh, like no country for old men.
Travis Yates:Yeah, it was fantastic john's kind, you know he's kind of a baby, you know he. He was bitching and moaning all day about it, you know. But you look at john, he's wearing his converse sneakers. I mean, if his car broke down he'd be dead in an hour.
Intro/Outro:He doesn't have a lot of survival skills.
Travis Yates:No, he's kind of a pretty boy, and so he's, so he's out of his element. But you and me, we are not pretty boys. We were born for Eureka, so you enjoyed your time coming over here.
Roland Clee:This is amazing country and you know you can see for five miles in either direction and the roads are clear and it's just a place of great memories. I actually can't wait to come back with more time, take a bunch of pictures, take pictures of this town. You got the, you got some modern things here. Then you got the stores that are falling down, so it's half ghost town, half half village in the wilderness right here yeah, the best way to describe it is is just think about civil war, gold rush town, but with nobody there exactly that's what you describe it right.
Travis Yates:So day one was, uh, the wounded blues signature seminar titled walking with the wounded leadership organization and peer response and life-changing line of duty injury that was presented by randy sutton and bob bemis. You didn't probably have a clue what you were walking into on day one. Just kind of give us your thoughts after listening to these gentlemen.
Roland Clee:Well, I truly enjoyed it. I've been following Randy Sutton for some time, actually back into the late 80s.
Travis Yates:Because Randy is that old. He is that old, yeah, he's like 110, but he looks 42. He does.
Roland Clee:Yeah, it really looks good. But yeah, I've been following him on cops, I've been following him on Law Enforcement Roundtable, and so I did a little research on him and so I really I actually thought I knew everything that I was getting into here today, but I was quite surprised. I learned so much. It's a great start to the conference because you have these people and they're sharing knowledge with you. They're making you think in ways that you hadn't thought before, and leadership's embedded in everything that. They were talking a lot of light duty officers.
Roland Clee:I had the talent of being able to keep people busy with tasks and stuff like that, so some of them were getting better and some of them were trying to retire, but for somebody who probably had a right to not think that they were going to really learn anything, I was just going to be a good sport here. I didn't need to be a good sport. This exhibition was fantastic and Bob Bemis you know he was injured in 2016. He shared his story, which is recorded in a book that he's written. I bought a copy. He signed it. It's a fascinating story of resilience and recovery and actually what the law enforcement community does for its people when they're at their best.
Travis Yates:Yeah, I actually didn't know Bob's story. I hung out with him a little bit yesterday, you know. The story's pretty incredible and what he's done with that story is pretty incredible because it's an impactful presentation, excellent presenter, just kind of riveting-type presentation.
Roland Clee:Just pretty crazy right oh, it was amazing. And just the story of everything that happened to him. Of course, he has very limited memory of the traffic incident where he was helping a motorist in a disabled vehicle with their car on fire. He has no memory of the accident that caused him to be airlifted to the hospital, but he wound up getting the bits and pieces of the story relayed to him by the witnesses that were there. Unfortunately, there were two Amtrak cops who literally came to his rescue because he's lying there on the ground and they're keeping him from being set on fire. What a fantastic hero. And to see him respond from all that they talked about how the doctor said that his fitness level really contributed greatly to his survival and to his recovery. That's something we all need to keep in mind.
Travis Yates:Well, I thought it was an interesting dichotomy because Bob was in the first half of the day and he really had great things to say about the leadership of the Pennsylvania State Police and how they took care of him, and you know that no doubt has assisted him to go on to this other career where he's doing great, great things around the country and helping out many, many people. But it kind of made a turn when we got to the afternoon where Randy was talking about the Wounded Blue, Because the Wounded Blue only exists because of poor leadership, Like if we had leaders in our profession that would take care of our officers the Wounded Blue is a nonprofit that wouldn't exist, Because they're there to exist, the officers that have essentially been abandoned by law enforcement organizations, ie the leaders there and those stories are just horrific, are they not?
Roland Clee:You couldn't be more right about that. The fact is is that it doesn't really come to mind often, but tens of thousands of first responders and this we're including law enforcement, corrections, ems, fire are injured on the job, doing what they were dedicated to do. And you know, everyone knows what to do when we have an on-duty fatality, but no one seems to were dedicated to do. And you know, everyone knows what to do when we have an on-duty fatality, but no one seems to know what to do when we have somebody who's getting their career taken away by an injury, and whether the injury is an illness that they acquired from doing their job or whether they were involved in where he was being good Samaritan and just stopping by a crash, just doing what anybody would do, and then also by assault. We have so many officers that are hurt by suspects.
Travis Yates:Yeah, and the data? Unfortunately we don't know the data because it's the assault data alone, and we hear the word 60,000 officers injured and assaulted each year. Only 50% of the agencies are reporting that to the FBI and of course, the FBI has taken a few COVID years and we don't even get that data. Now we don't even know the impact that won't. That is occurring in our profession, which is really really tragic and really sad. But you're right, we know what to do with line of duty deaths. Those are projected across the media, those are widely publicized, but the those that fall short of death, it seems odd to me that we literally and Randy Randy said a word earlier said portrayal. These officers are betrayed by these organizations They've dedicated their lives to. I can't think of a better word for that. And why do you think this is happening? Why? Why do we seem to do I mean so honorably when someone dies in line of duty, but then, when it's not a death but it's a horrific injury, we seem to literally, you know, blind our eyes to it.
Roland Clee:Well, it is the failure of leadership.
Roland Clee:We're just seeing all these police chiefs and sheriffs and of course the sheriffs were all in these health plans that are funded either by the counties or the cities or by the state.
Roland Clee:So, randy Sutton he actually mentioned that he was contacted by the commandant of the Oklahoma State Police and he was trying to get aid for one of his troopers who had been injured in the line of duty in the state police telling him well, we don't work for you, we work for the governor. So we just have this layer, that and, of course, with weak leaders there, they have no interest. All they want to do, they want to please City Hall and they want to please the county administration building, they want to please the governor's office, they want to please the state house, and no one's looking out for the officers here to say this. And I'll tell you what it really does. Present is the present for people who are not command officers to exercise great leadership right now by gathering into groups and a room and say what are we going to do for these folks? What level of support is going to be required and what level of support is what's going to be needed for these people to continue to put groceries on the table for their families.
Travis Yates:Yeah, and if you're questioning whether what Roland's saying is accurate, let me just give you one little set of facts that I bet you don't know. This is how horrific leadership has been when it comes to taking care of our wounded officers. Everybody is familiar with the Public Safety Officers Benefits Program run by the Department of Justice. If you are killed in the line of duty, somewhere around the figure of $440,000 is given to the family. It's a great program. Unfortunately it has to be used a lot each year. Those line of duty death benefits. That check is paid out.
Travis Yates:Not much arguing there. In fact, cops Concerns of Police Survivors is sort of known for facilitating that program and helping out people, fill out the paperwork and getting that through the process. But did you know that the same amount of money is also available through that program if you are critically wounded in the line of duty? And let me tell you something folks, I've been in this profession for 30 plus years and when I found that out I went down the list of the officers' names in my head that I was around and I supervised and I knew lost their career to injury and I had no idea. Now do you know who knows?
Travis Yates:The Department of Justice is telling us we've been trying to get the word out. The Wounded Blue's been trying to get the word out. They're trying, they go to chief's conferences to get the word out. They go to sheriff's conferences to get the word out and they're not doing it. I literally cannot believe it. And by the way, here's the catch of those of you listening the submission has to be done within three years of the injury. So I immediately went to an officer that four years ago his life was ultimately changed forever with traumatic head injury. And he doesn't get the money. And let me tell you something, folks If you want to know how weak leaders are, you want to know how bad it is when they will not give that to the wounded officers when they know it's available. I can't think of a more criminal action that needs to be taken and I'm going to do my best going forward to make sure I out each and every single leader that knew it that didn't tell it.
Roland Clee:And it was a real surprise to find out that after a catastrophic, catastrophic injury. And it was a real surprise to find out that after a catastrophic injury, that people would be eligible for this and it has zero budget impact on the local jurisdiction. I mean, they're taking this money that can change a family's life and instead of facilitating them getting it, they're ignorant of it and then they let the clock run out on that. Can you imagine losing $440,000?
Travis Yates:Yeah, and the tragedy here is is, listen, if you retire with a full pension or you get disabled, but you had your pension in, you know those folks are taken care of financially. But if you get critically injured, with five years on, 10 years on, 15 years on, it's hard to get employment to match what you made. Your life has changed forever. Maybe you have additional medical bills. You're right, this is life-changing, probably life-saving, because there have been far too many stories I've heard of people ending their life because of the financial struggles they've been under. That, to me, is a tragedy and I'm ashamed that I didn't know. It's just unbelievable to me.
Travis Yates:But that's one of the things that Randy Sutton and the Wounded Blues trying to do is get that message out. And you know, and I immediately wanted to blame the government for it you know, roland, because you know I like to blame the government on things but the government is like we don't want to keep the money, we want to give the money away, because you know how government works, they want more money, exactly, and so it's not on the government's end. They have been trying to spread the message and here we have the cops program that, uh, has been such a wonderful job facilitating the line of due death benefit, and there was nobody trying to facilitate this and nobody seemed to care until the wind of blue came along. But why does it take an organization to do that?
Roland Clee:we need leaders to do that well we need future leaders to do. It really opens the door for our future leaders to make sure that all these things are in place. One of the topics we discussed and it's something that I've seen happen in my career is to have an officer pass away and have a divorced spouse as their beneficiary, and, you know, especially after they have remarried, so they're leaving their family out and their ex-spouse is getting whatever benefits that they've earned. So we really need to get these things in place, where they're on a schedule, that they're part of the personnel system, that come up every year or every six months, that you have to maintain your emergency contact info and also maintain your beneficiary status.
Travis Yates:The Wounded- Blue has assisted 1,000 police officers to get that $400,000 plus money. They literally are singly responsible for billions of dollars in the hands of our wounded officers, and so I want to encourage everybody listening to go to thewoundedblueorg. Thewoundedblueorg. Help where you can. Maybe you can give a little get on a monthly donation and listen. I want to say something that's kind of crazy. I don't know if Roland even knows this. I'm going to look at his expression right now.
Travis Yates:Randy Sutton, for the last five years years, has tirelessly worked thousands of hours to get this organization to where they're about to break loose and do some really phenomenal things. He's never taken a penny, so the money you give them goes directly to help these wounded officers. And they have lots of other things. They've got a conference coming up in September in Las Vegas. They've got a bunch of fundraisers, a bunch of events. They're selling autographed guitars for country singers for a thousand dollars, which is a great deal, but all that money goes to wounded blue. It's amazing. This is probably the best organization you've never heard of. But that's about to change and I know roll and I are going to do our best to make sure people are aware of it because they're doing wonderful, wonderful things, any parting words rolling on your expressions for first day.
Roland Clee:Well, I just want everyone to know the impact that they've had. 15,000 officers have been helped in the last five years. That's huge, and these are people that would have been just left out in the cold. And with a thousand of them getting that $400,000 benefit that they wouldn't have received either way, I think Wounded Blue really deserves a good close look at when you think about making a charitable donation or when you're looking at something that you wanted to support in your police department. We want to do a fundraiser for this. If you want to do a fundraiser for something and people can't agree on what it is, this is going to be a great, great one. So put this one on the table there and say, yeah, next time we're having a chili cook-off and we want to give it to a good cause. Make them one of the competitors there with the other charitable organizations in your area that are servicing the people, because these guys really do it.
Travis Yates:They really get out there and they do the service. That's filling a gap, yeah, and their main focus is on their peer teams, which is people you can call to help you and that's usually where the information is given to the officers on the PSOB money and that's where they've helped so many thousands of cops and that number is right on their website, but it's 833-TWB-TALK. For those of you that are phonetically challenged, like myself, that's 833-892-8255. Completely free If you need help, 24-hour crisis line. If your agency doesn't have a peer team, they can be your peer team. If your agency does have a peer team, they can assist you with further training to assist your peer team. It's wonderful stuff. It was a great day one. I'm really pumped. Who do we have tomorrow, roland? We have John Kelly and Tom Rizzo, right.
Roland Clee:Tom Rizzo and John Kelly. That's right.
Travis Yates:Looking forward to it. It's only getting better, right.
Roland Clee:It is yes.
Travis Yates:So thanks for listening. Put this on your calendar for 2025. Eureka Nevada.
Intro/Outro:You don't want to miss courageous. Thank you for listening to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates. We invite you to join other courageous leaders at www. travisyates. org.