Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates
Courageous Leadership with Dr. Travis Yates Podcast examines what it means to be a Courageous Police Leader. Join us weekly as the concepts of Courageous Leadership are detailed along with interviews with influencers that are committed to leading with courage. You can find out more about Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates at: www.TravisYates.org
Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates
A Dichotomy In Leadership: Phoenix vs. Minneapolis
Have you ever wondered how the truth can become lost in the chaos of misinformation and political agendas? Join us on this episode of Courageous Leadership as we dissect the stark differences between strong and weak leadership in law enforcement, focusing on the cities of Phoenix and Minneapolis.
Prepare to be challenged as we explore the complexities and consequences of DOJ consent decrees on police departments, particularly Phoenix's bold stance against such agreements without thorough review. Through detailed analysis, we'll highlight the concerns raised by Phoenix's city council after observing the negative impacts in other cities, like Albuquerque, where consent decrees led to increased violent crime and strained police resources. We delve into the DOJ's claims about Phoenix's treatment of the homeless, scrutinizing the data and legal challenges involved, and questioning the rationale behind the DOJ's conclusions.
Finally, we tackle the broader issue of leadership failures within police departments, spotlighting the tragic murder of Minneapolis police officer Jamal Mitchell. This segment emphasizes the misguided policies and leadership decisions, such as the banning of critical "warrior training," that have eroded public trust and officer safety. We also examine the negative effects of political pandering, misleading crime statistics, and the silence from major police organizations on these critical issues.
Tune in for a powerful call to action for greater transparency, accountability, and the urgent need for courageous leadership in law enforcement today.
Resources Discussed In Episode:
Article: Facts In Minneapolis Are Bring Censored
Book: They're Lying: The Media, The Left & The Death of George Floyd
Documentary: The Fall of Minneapolis
Website: Minneapolis Documents Hidden From The Public
Website: Save Phoenix
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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 honored you're with us today and spending a few minutes with us. We've gotten some incredible feedback on the show and some of our guests and it is an honor to get to reach out to each and every one of you each week. Today we aren't going to have a guest. I need to cover a couple of important items. I think one item is an example of courageous leadership, standing up in the face of chaos, and the other example is the example of what cowardice leadership will do to a city, police department and community. And of course, I'm talking about the city of Phoenix, A arizona, and the city of Minneapolis, M minnesota. Let me briefly tell you what's coming with Minneapolis. I've got to get to Phoenix, so I did an interview last week with Liz Collin from Alpha News. It's a Minneapolis publication news website Very, very good.
Travis Yates:Liz Collin if she sounds familiar, she's been on the show. She is the author of the book they're Lying, which really outlined the case of the George Floyd incident that nobody knew about. By the way, she brought receipts. It's a horrifying story of what occurs when people lie, deceive and even worse, and people may have questioned what that book said. But you really can't question it because you need to understand the way this works. But you really can't question it because you need to understand the way this works. You can't write a book and say what Liz Collin said without receipts, without evidence, without it being truthful. The reason is no one's ever going to publish that book because of defamation lawsuits and Liz Collin has not been sued, nor will she be sued. So everything in that book is horrifyingly true and of course she followed that up with a documentary called the Fall of Minneapolis.
Travis Yates:I was actually concerned when the book came out that Amazon would censor the book. Amazon generally doesn't do that, but this book blows everything out of the water that we were told. That really changed the world and we could have a debate whether it was changed for the worst or the best, but when anything's based on a lie, I don't think anything is good. That comes after that and the book remained up and it was highly successful, mainly localized. No one covered the book nationally because all of the media that lied about that didn't want to expose themselves and that book stayed up until the day the trailer of Fall of Minneapolis dropped. And the day that trailer dropped the book was taken off of Amazon Should have told you everything you need to know, and I think whoever made that decision probably understood that. Hey, a book's one thing Books don't travel quickly online, they don't go viral. But video is something much different. And of course, the book's one thing Books don't travel quickly online, they don't go viral, but video is something much different. And of course, the book had to be put back up. Some lawyers got involved and they could not give an explanation on why they took it down and the book went right back up.
Travis Yates:But Liz interviewed me in the wake of an officer death in Minneapolis, pretty widely known national story, because I don't make it a habit of talking specifically about departments or specifically about police chiefs or police leaders. That's just not a good thing to do. But Minneapolis is special. And Minneapolis is special because it is a picture, perfect example of what happens, of years and years of cowardice and years and years of weak leaders, what will occur not just in Minneapolis but any city that acts that way. So that's what that interview was about.
Travis Yates:And I woke up the next morning when the interview dropped and had messages saying that YouTube was censoring the interview, which I thought to myself well, I must have been over the target and you know YouTube didn't exactly take it down. But what they do when they don't like something is they make it adult oriented, right where you got to log in to see it. I thought it was pretty ironic considering what's on YouTube, because there was nothing there was completely factual and there was nothing that should have risen to the occasion of making it an adult video. That's what they did. And then I was told later in the day that Facebook was prohibiting the sharing of that interview, which is really crazy. It was an interview, right, and so that's why at the end of this show, I'm going to play the audio of that interview. You can see that if you go to my LinkedIn page, we put the interview up. If you subscribe to our sub stack, you get that at courageouspoliceleadercom. We sent that out last week. I'd encourage you to subscribe to those weekly articles. But so in case you didn't hear that, at the end of this interview, I'm just going to let you roll and you can hear. That's about a 15 minute interview. I think you will enjoy it, but before we get to that, we have to talk about Phoenix.
Travis Yates:Now let me give you a quick background of what's going on in the Phoenix Police Department. If you've been paying attention to me at all, I have spoken about Phoenix before. We had Daryl Crippling on with the association there. We talked to the association lead in albuquerque that is suffering through a consent decree, and so the background is this the longest dlj investigation in history for consent decree just wrapped up in phoenix and they rolled out a 126 page report of nothing but innuendo and opinion. They didn't provide any documentation to support the claims. They didn't reveal their methodology, it didn't reveal their subject matter experts, it didn't reveal who investigated it and the city of Phoenix spent millions of dollars I know it's upwards of seven or eight million dollars just to help the DLJ investigate themselves, and we'll get to that a little bit later. And of course, this report was scathing. It pretty much said Phoenix police officers deserve to be in prison for violating civil rights and unconstitutional policing. It's not even recognizable of the Phoenix Police Department that actually exists. This was not a surprise. Let me tell you why the report was so scathing, other than the fact that they're all scathing. That's what they do is. This is the first major city that did not agree to just sign off on a consent decree. So let me tell you how that occurred.
Travis Yates:Here's what the DOJ does. This is not an opinion, this is what they do Consent decrees. In the 1994 crime bill it gave the Department of Justice the authority to investigate law enforcement agencies, local law enforcement agencies, for what they deemed a pattern and practice of unconstitutional policing, 1984-type violations, civil rights violations. Now that crime bill does not define what a pattern of practice is Extremely faulty. Let me back up even further.
Travis Yates:The federal government is prohibited from the 10th Amendment to run local police departments. Okay, just to give you a reminder what the 10th Amendment says the power is not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by to the states. Are reserved to the states, respectively to the people. That means that federal government cannot just run a local jurisdiction or local organization or local police department unless it's in the United States constitution, and it clearly isn't. But the reason this has been going on for 30 years is because the DOJ doesn't force themselves on local communities. This is what they do. They come into a local community and they say we want to investigate you. The community has a choice. The police department has a choice. They can say then go get a court order and then we'll give you whatever you want, or they can just participate in their own demise. And every city pretty much every city that has a consent decree today did that. Phoenix did that. They put a whole unit together. They spent millions of dollars for three years, given the DLJ everything they asked for and they voluntarily did this. The DLJ will do their investigation and nobody really knows the behind the scenes and I'll get to that in a minute and then they'll show up to the decision makers.
Travis Yates:In a city, it's either usually a mayor, when it's mayor form of government, or city council, when it's council-led. And Phoenix is council-led. So it took the majority of the council to agree to a consent decree and the DLJ came back and said we did our investigation. It's really bad. We want you to sign an agreement to start entering into negotiations for a consent decree. And the council rightfully so said no. They said we need to see the investigation first. Now that makes sense. The city of Phoenix paid for this investigation, for goodness sakes, and plus the council had done their homework. They called other cities, they looked around and they saw where these consent decrees went. It was costing cities on average $250, $300 million every 10 years.
Travis Yates:Maricopa County the county there in Phoenix has been under one. It's been destroyed. The sheriff's leaving. He can't even run the department. Every city the DOJ goes, crime spikes, officers leave. They leave it worse off than when they found it. That's not an opinion, that is just the absolute fact. In fact, when it looked like the council would not just agree to giving the DOJ their police department without reading the investigation, there were some local stories ran out of Albuquerque, who's been under a consent decree for over 10 years, and it was hilarious because they got the chief on there, looked like he was a hostage and he's saying this has been great for us and we're so proud of this and the consent decrees really helped us.
Travis Yates:Now I'm sitting there watching this thinking wait, a, a minute. I've been to albuquerque in the last 10 years. It has not gotten better. And so I did a quick google search and here's what it saw. Here's what, and this is really an example of what, what happens in every city. Here's what it said the dlj came to albuquerque over 10 years ago because they had 18 involved shootings in a year, I believe, believe.
Travis Yates:Now that's not a reason to take over a police department. What are the details of the shootings? In fact, I know numerous officers in Albuquerque and they tell me flat out, none of the shootings were out of line, none of them were out of policy. They used the number of shootings to come into their town. So DLJ came. It's completely destroyed that agency. Violent crime is up over 70 percent. Their staffing is down 25, 30 percent. They've spent hundreds of millions of dollars. I had the union president right here on this show from Albuquerque and, man, you got to listen to that. Go back and listen to it because he lines it out what occurred and you go. Well, why are they screaming success? It out what occurred and you go. Well, why are they screaming success? Because today, just last year, the Albuquerque police department broke the record for shootings and then, of course, the increased crime. So it's really, really wild, uh, that this is continuing to happen.
Travis Yates:And you know, I can't think of a weaker decision for leaders to make. If somebody comes into, if the DLJ comes to your police department and says your department needs to be reformed, we're going to do it, and you know the track record of the DLJ being unable to do that. Why don't you reform your department or you make your department better, why would you let the DLJ do this? Won't you reform your department or you make your department better? Why would you let the DLJ do this? But we see this time and time again and very few leaders stand up to this. Well, phoenix, rightfully so, because I think they understand what this is. Now, how could you not? They just said we'd like to see the report. It doesn't seem like it's really a crazy suggestion. Dlj refused. So that's why the DLJ dropped this report and basically defaming the Phoenix Police Department and I'm telling you right now it was horrific no basis for truth whatsoever.
Travis Yates:I'm going to give you just one quick example of what they did. So in the report it talks about um 30 37 percent of all the arrests were from people experiencing homelessness. Now the dlj they did a big national press conference. They made a big deal. He said it was an historic document, a historic investigation, because they honed in on how the Phoenix Police Department's been treating the homeless people and they cited 37% of the rest were those experiencing homelessness. I'm going to give everybody out there a homework assignment. If you hear that stat as a leader, what should be your next question? That's right. Well, if 37% of the arrests were homeless, how much crime are the homeless committing and how many 911 calls are coming in about the homeless? Because, as we continue to talk about that's what dictates police activity.
Travis Yates:Well, guess what wasn't in the investigation. You guessed it, that information right there. That's what I'm talking about, with innuendos and opinions, but here's also what they cite in the report. They cite a lawsuit by the ACLU that told the DOJ that they had to stop enforcing laws against the homeless. Think about that for a minute. They are saying that the Phoenix Police Department was treating the homeless so bad that the ACLU had to sue them to make them stop arresting homeless people for committing crimes. It doesn't make any sense. But here's what they left out in the report. This is just one of many examples. Do you know what they didn't put in the report? Let me back it up from the ACLU lawsuit.
Travis Yates:So before the ACLU sued Phoenix, the Phoenix Police Department was sued. It's called the zone lawsuit. They were sued by business owners, property owners and residents who alleged that the Phoenix Police Department had quote created, maintained and failed to abate a public nuisance in the area known as a zone. The lawsuit said you aren't enforcing laws against homeless people and they are ruining our businesses. They're leaving trash everywhere, they're leaving belongings everywhere and we are going. Businesses were going out of business because of this and they had to sue the police department to enforce laws against homeless people and, of course, after the lawsuit, the phoenix police department to enforce laws against homeless people. And, of course, after the lawsuit, the Phoenix Police Department started to do their job, which is enforcing laws. And when they started doing that, the ACLU then filed a lawsuit saying you must stop doing that. Now isn't it strange that the DLJ wouldn't mention that, because it certainly seems like the arrest didn't start occurring with the homeless until they were sued by business owners and residents. And, of course, homeless calls are in the top five calls from the Phoenix Police Department. So when crimes are being committed, off those calls it's going to be a high percentage.
Travis Yates:That's one example of so many crazy things that was in this report. Let me tell you just another one. This is the quote throughout the report. In a lot of these things it would say in one incident. So they would say there was this pattern and practice of this and that and races this, all this. And then they would go and here's one incident, and they wouldn't describe the complete details of the incident. Pretty insane stuff and uh, it's just so much it's it's hard to even fathom.
Travis Yates:So, uh, they this dlj cited 125 incidents in the report. Now think about this pattern and practice that they talk about. 125 incidents were cited In that time frame. It's estimated conservatively in a five-year time frame officers went to almost six million calls for service. So they cited 125 incidents over with just shy of six million calls of service, meaning millions and millions and millions of citizen contacts. It doesn't even count the proactivity.
Travis Yates:Here's some of the examples they talked about. Uh, they said that, um, police target minorities more than white residents. Didn't really tell why, uh, but they cited four minor traffic violations and one of them was tinted windows, which begs you to ask the question how do you know what race someone is behind tinted windows? But apparently minorities were cited more for tinted windows than whites. So pretty wild stuff. There is so much in there to really go through. And here's what I hope happens. And when I tell you this is crazy, it's crazy and I hope you are aware enough to be able to read something like this and know what's going on.
Travis Yates:The Phoenix City of Phoenix has a choice. They can now agree to a consent decree. That's what I think this report was designed to do, to sort of bully them into doing this. But that would be a horrific mistake for that community. The Phoenix Police Department's already down about 25% on staffing. We know in every consent decree city they lose between 10 and 20% of their staffing almost immediately because it turns the department upside down into nothing but bureaucracy and takes their mission away. And of course it will balloon the budget. Crime will spike, violence will spike. That's not an opinion. It spikes in every city that gets a consent decree. In fact, out of the top 20 most violent cities in America, over half are ran by the DLJ. In America, over half are ran by the DLJ. Sounds like resounding success, does it not? And so obviously it will be. So the DLJ has a choice.
Travis Yates:They will either strong-arm the, the, the little city leaders, to sign off on this, and I certainly hope they won't. I hope they understand what they would be doing. They just need to call oakland and seattle and portland. They just need to ask those cities how things are going is all they need to do. The dlj's choice would then be to file a federal lawsuit to try to force them into a consent decree. That's exactly what the city of Phoenix should be hoping for, and here's why, first off, litigation would be much cheaper than a consent decree that will last for decades. That's how long these things last. And we've gone into how much these consent decree monitors get paid. They get paid millions of dollars to write a quarterly report. Lots of money flying around. It's kind of a consent decree industrial complex right. So it's going to be much cheaper to go to federal court.
Travis Yates:But here's the second thing. Mark my words on this the department of justice will never go past discovery in a federal hearing, and here's why they would have to give up their investigation. See what they dropped on phoenix was not the investigation, it was a summary report of the investigation. But if you had the full investigation, you'd see behind the curtain of how they came up with this nonsense and you can just read it and see how insane it is. And so it will never go past discovery. Because if it goes past discovery and to my knowledge this has never happened these, these discovery. Because if it goes past discovery and to my knowledge this has never happened these court things, if it goes to court it always stops before discovery. Maybe it's happened in the past, I'm not aware of it.
Travis Yates:The reason the DOJ cannot do that is because then the gig is up. Everybody will know what they're doing. They're going to know their methodology is flawed. They're going to know that the experts they were using know nothing about law enforcement. They're going to know they came up with these ideas. They're going to know that when they say a pattern in practice that they literally have one example or two examples and that example isn't even accurate in the report. Folks, this happened in louisville just last year. Same thing, louisville major city.
Travis Yates:Dlj comes in they say we found something that's really bad. Sign off here. And the mayor just signed it without even looking at it. Then they got the report and they went hold on here. This isn't even true. The police chief in Louisville and the County attorney are on the record saying there's nothing factual in this summary report. But they already signed it and so this is how it's done and so they need to just welcome federal court.
Travis Yates:I'm not sure the DLJ will go very far in federal court because they don't want to kind of give that up. But let's say it does. Let's say it gets all the way to trial and all the evidence is laid on the table. It bears open what's happening here and there's two, obviously, options here. It goes to federal court and the phoenix police department loses. Or the dlj wins or the dlj loses. And you know what I mean. I don't think it's even possible the city phoenix to lose because the evidence is the evidence. But let's say they did in federal court. They're still better off than signing off on it. They're I don't know. Let's say they're 10 million in the hole from fighting it. I mean they've already spent six or seven. They'd lose 10 million in the first six months signing a consent decree. Let's say they're 10 million from fighting it. But guess what happens if you have to go to federal court and win? You get to appeal it all the way to the appellate court and to the Supreme Court. And guess what the Supreme Court will say.
Travis Yates:I read the 10th Amendment earlier. I read it earlier. There's no clause in the 10th Amendment that says this can happen. The consent decrees all over this country would be tossed and that bill would be scrapped to be unconstitutional. That's why the dlj cannot go all the way through federal court. They know this, folks, they know this. You know we could have debates about the, the, uh, the 10th amendment or 9th amendment or constitution, but when you read that, how do you read in there that this can occur?
Travis Yates:The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the states or the people. The federal government cannot run your local government. That's why they're not doing it now and they can't run local police departments. That's up to the local government to run. And so it's a win-win to go to federal court.
Travis Yates:I got to commend Phoenix. You know you think of a major city. Nobody's ever bucked to the DOJ. I'm sure it's extremely uncomfortable for them to do this, but they have to know it's the right thing. All you have to do is look around the country and see what these things have done and on the backside the Phoenix Police Department is doing a heck of a job. They've got a road to reform document. That's one of the best I've ever seen. I just talked about in an article that they're the only department I know of that did what I suggested in my book, which is to develop your policy and let the community review policy before it comes out. So that way, when the controversy occurs, they've already reviewed it and policy doesn't get attacked. They're doing so many things well, so the cards are lined up here for them to not do this, and the only thing more outrageous than this is the fact that I'm like one of the only dudes talking about it. I mean folks. If there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that the DOJ has no business in police reform, because all you got to do is look at the data. Roland Fryer, a Harvard professor. He did a peer-reviewed research that showed that more people are dying because of consent decrees, specifically more African-Americans. Almost a thousand more African-Americans he pinpointed were being murdered because consent decrees exist.
Travis Yates:There's nothing good about this and there's no evidence to support anything of it being good. That's why no one's debated me, by the way, and they're doing some things on the back end to make me uncomfortable. They don't like me talking about this, but it's really. It says something to me about leadership as a whole that no one is talking. I mean, large police organizations aren't saying anything. The leadership gurus on your social media pages aren't saying anything.
Travis Yates:Now, I get it. I get it. It's not good for business. If you're a speaker, you know it's not good for business to be talking about this stuff. But if you say you're into leadership and you're talking about leadership or you're a so-called expert, how are you not talking about this? I mean, there is no redeeming value and it's literally destroying cities and police departments.
Travis Yates:The only downside to me talking about it is is it's so crazy. People probably don't believe it. I mean it's just crazy. When you look at what these have done to our country and our police departments and our communities and I know sometimes people go there's no way that can be true, because you know they read the headlines oh, the DLJs, they're reformed and they're going to make things better. Yeah, until you look a year later and five and 10 years later and see what's happened to the city. See Oakland and New Orleans is begging to get out of it. It's destroying them. They won't get out of it because they signed off on it, and so I'm proud of what's going on in Phoenix. I'm also nervous because it's a great city.
Travis Yates:I know what's going to happen if that consent decree passes. So certainly pay attention to that. I've written a tons of stuff on it. I'll try to link that up here in this episode, but I've been paying attention to it. I don't quite know why a lot of other people aren't. I would recommend you following Bob Scales on LinkedIn. He's not a police officer, he's not some leadership guru, but he's a lawyer that was involved in the consent decree in Seattle and man, he has torn the Band bandaid off and showed people what this is about and maybe people are concerned to talk about.
Travis Yates:They think you don't want to be anti-police reform Folks. That's what I. That's why I do what I do. I want law enforcement to be the best it can possibly be. The reason I'm talking about this is because this is the exact opposite of that. This destroys everything good. This destroys reform. The communities aren't even happy about this. Go to Oakland and Seattle and Portland and Chicago and all these departments that's been putting up with this, and talk to the community. They'll tell you what they think about it, and so it's horrific to me.
Travis Yates:We don't have politicians. I mean, congress should be getting rid of this. This law, should this part of the law, should be banned. Congress should be getting rid of this. This law, should this part of the law should be banned. If you don't, if you don't remember, this is the same law that had the disparity federal prison guidelines and prison sentences. You know, if you got caught for crack cocaine and powder cocaine, the crack cocaine got more prison time than the powder cocaine. Obviously that is disparity. It's similar crimes and they were. They were throwing African-Americans in prison for a lot longer terms because they were predominantly using the crack cocaine and the whites were using the powder. You know all that story. It was funny.
Travis Yates:Joe Biden used to talk about that when he was running for president. Well, he's the one that passed the bill. Bill Clinton was president. He was the second one to kind of the big, the big mouth towards that bill, and so there were things in that bill that weren't right. They scratched that part of the bill, but this part is still there, and I think it's because people just don't talk much about it. It's a kind of a dirty little secret. So I would love for phoenix to stand strong and to just say take us to court. I'm not sure the federal government will, because they know they don't have anything and they know going to court is risky because that exposes them, and so pay attention to that.
Travis Yates:It's an election year, arizona is a swing state and it's going to be real interesting to see what occurs there in the city of Phoenix. And speaking of election year, tis the season to lie, lie, lie. I wrote an article a few weeks ago about the crime numbers. Article a few weeks ago about the crime numbers, I saw a tweet by president Biden and he said that violent crime was the lowest in 50 years under his administration. Now, that's a I can't believe anybody would write that. You know, I can't believe. I mean personally, I'm insulted that he would think, or whoever wrote that would think, that we're that stupid. Okay, you know that's not true. Now let me tell you why he's saying it.
Travis Yates:Over 40% of the police departments are not reporting their crime numbers to the FBI. Isn't that something that nobody seems to care about? That? I bet you haven't gotten a newsletter from your major police organizations talking about that. Now, that's our metric folks. The crime rate is how we're judged. It's how we're measured for effectiveness, isn't it? Is our leadership in that bad a shape to where we don't even know how much crime's going on in America and no one's talking about it. And, of course, the cities that didn't report, you know, new York City, los Angeles, major cities. Do you think that has something to do with we're somehow the lowest crime rate in 50 years. Of course it's not true.
Travis Yates:I wrote a whole article on that. I pulled all the numbers up and I showed you that. But, politicians, I just can't believe anybody would say that. I think probably the best thing to say would be nothing at all, because I think you'd have to be a complete idiot to even believe that. But there's people applauding that right. So pretty wild stuff, wild times. Watch your six. It's going to be a wild ride the rest of the year it's. I tell people all the time it's it's the greatest time to be alive and then the absolute worst time to be alive. At the same time. It's just that the nonsense is insane.
Travis Yates:I want to remind you of what our principles say Courageous, courageous police leadership principles. Principles say courageous police leadership principles. I think it's really important this time of year, with what's going on, to remember what are the principles of courageous police leadership. Number one demonstrate and demand integrity. Number two stay focused on liberty, civility and public safety. Stay focused on the mission right.
Travis Yates:And here is one that I've always said that if I could have four seconds in front of a chief's conference, that's about all they'd give me, I would say this and run out Never let feelings redefine facts. Man, can you imagine the damage that's been done because we're making decisions based on feelings? All right, here's the next one. Encourage vigilance, professionalism and cooperation. No one can argue that. Here's a big one right here.
Travis Yates:Communicate to eliminate misunderstanding. Communication, communication, communication. I just sort of gave a tirade about all the misunderstanding out there going on. We need to communicate continually, challenge assumptions and the status quo, always be thinking about what we need to do to keep leading and to keep the enemy away, so to speak. That's why I love the policy I talked about in Phoenix to where, when you develop a new policy, you give the community time to engage with it, to give opinions on it, because you know there's not chaos going on, nobody's going to care.
Travis Yates:But what always happens after a controversial situation? That's right. They attack policy, they attack training. But if you'd already given them the opportunity to look at policy, it's kind of hard to do that, and so that's sort of part of that. You know, continually challenge assumptions and look ahead and then finally inspire others to lead courageously. No one can really argue with that stuff, but nobody says anything about it and we don't see a whole lot of it. I know you believe it. We want to work hard to give you more tools and more resources to do that. I appreciate you being here. I promised you when we started we're going to play the minneapolis interview and of course, I've been going for 30 minutes now, so it's 15 more minutes, but I think it's going to be worth your time. Thanks for listening. Thank you for what you do. You're my hero. God bless, and just remember, lead on and stay courageous.
Speaker 1:Major Travis Yates. You recently retired but remain active in law enforcement training, recruiting and leadership. Thank you for joining me.
Travis Yates:Thanks for having me, Liz.
Speaker 1:For years you've been a passionate advocate for police training and leadership. You've also been a vocal critic of politicians and police leaders who failed to do what's right for the law enforcement profession. That sadly hits close to home yet again here. The tragic murder of Minneapolis police officer Jamal Mitchell is in the headlines now, but years ago you predicted how leadership failures would likely cause such a tragedy. Back then you called out Mayor Fry's lack of leadership and offered free training to MPD officers to help prevent something like this from happening. Take us back. What were the warning signs back then, travis?
Travis Yates:Well, liz, first it's important to note. My prayers go out to the entire community and members of MPD, and I just didn't see the tragic killing of Officer Mitchell and decided to start speaking out. As you pointed out, I've been speaking on these issues for many, many years and specifically, I've spoken on this issue at the Minneapolis Police Department for years and this hasn't made me popular with a few in your city. But popularity doesn't change things. Popularity doesn't make communities safer, so I'm not really interested in that things. Popularity doesn't make communities safer, so I'm not really interested in that.
Travis Yates:My desire is to see our community safer and police officers given the tools and resources necessary to do their job more efficiently and safer, and to see that decline in Minneapolis through the years.
Travis Yates:What I saw was a deception being played out. I saw leaders lying to the community, taking things out of context, and over time I knew that that's going to erode public trust and eventually erode public safety and, of course, erode officer safety. It's no coincidence that just last year we saw more police officers assaulted in this country than any time in history. So language matters, truth matters, and that really culminated really in that time period years ago when Mayor Fry banned what he deemed warrior training and, by the way, that doesn't exist, I want to be sure to point that out. He had no idea what he was talking about, he hadn't been to the class and so, yes, at the time I had an online training program. We offered it free, to that agency, to those officers, and I would climb mountains even today to give those five men and women the best training possible that they desperately need.
Speaker 1:Help us understand what Fry misunderstood about this warrior training and how it could have helped prevent these deaths we are seeing far too often. In Minnesota alone, four officers and a fire medic killed here in just a little over a year.
Travis Yates:Yeah, liz, it's important to understand that the environment in Minneapolis did not just happen overnight. It's been very obvious through the years to anyone outside of Minneapolis. I know people the leaders there and politicians there are kind of playing games with crime data and trying to make people feel like that they're safe. But people look outside the window, people watch the news, people know exactly what's going on. So many, many years ago I saw these leaders starting to perpetuate various lies there in Minneapolis and sometimes police leaders just go on with that and one of the most ridiculous tactics is to play word games. That's what we have here. The thin blue line was a symbol of ultimate sacrifice for law enforcement for over 100 years until we were then told it was white supremacy, right, and then the leaders just go with that and it causes outrage, right, and then the leaders just go with that and it causes outrage. So, mayor Fry, he wasn't the only one doing this, but obviously I recognize this when he started this this warrior training and warrior versus guardian, and we don't want warriors and we only want guardians. And so I've been involved in law enforcement training for three decades. I have a suspicion that some of the people that are playing these war games haven't been involved in that training that long. People that are playing these word games haven't been involved in that training that long. And that training does not exist. Because what Fry at the time was saying is this warrior training is training designed to make officers fearful of everybody. That literally doesn't exist. It's literally a myth, and I've been saying that for years and I wanted to say it again. So you know, let's play a little word game here, this warrior versus guardian mentality, because I'll play with anybody who wants to play it. Liz, what is a guardian? You can look it up in the dictionary right now. A guardian is someone who defends, protects and keeps. What does it take to defend, protect and keep? That doesn't just happen. That's not just something that just occurs. Right, you have to prepare men and women, whether it's law enforcement or the military, or survival skills for individuals. You have to prepare people to do that. And so what this does when Fry did it at the time, and why it upset me was is it takes training away from officers, training that they need that course he talked about. Fry had never been to that course. I had been to that course so I knew it was a downright lie and it's just unfortunate, and even to this day list this is being repeated. This is not just back then, it's not just now.
Travis Yates:Just in April, in Harper's magazine, the Minneapolis police chief said this about training. He said law enforcement training trains and they treat people like every encounter is dangerous. He said training was too focused on tactics and safety. Man, I bet he wants those words back now. I mean that's insanity. To me, training is too focused on tactics and safety. And he followed it up or he previously followed up with actually taking away LVNR and the hobble restraint there at MPD and we'll get into that a little bit later but there is no evidence whatsoever that any of that is dangerous if done properly, and so these are tools taken away from officers that can keep them safe. And that's just two of the many that's occurred.
Speaker 1:It seems police training is just one part of the problem. Policy changes, and a lot of them, have also played a big role in all of this. We're hearing what is your perspective, though. Are the policy changes made by Mayor Fry and others putting officers at risk?
Travis Yates:Yeah. So you take all the things that leaders have said and we described that, and then you also recognize that Minneapolis cops are in prison at this moment for following policy and training that the agency put out. Some people may try to argue that I would just send them to your great documentary, liz. Once again, people outside of Minneapolis know this. They can read, they can see PowerPoint presentations, they can see things other than a viral video. They can see the actual body camera video. They know this. They know that Minneapolis officers are in prison for following policy and training. And so when you tell me and when I know that there are still over 500 officers working in Minneapolis, when they're funded for much more, I'll tell you they're my heroes. That's amazing to me that they're working in an environment where they know they could follow policy and follow training and literally go to prison and lose it all. And so that's in the background, right, that's in the background. So let's look at what's going on.
Travis Yates:Today, officers have to complete a use of force report for handcuffing somebody. Now you may think that's not a big deal. First off, that's not use of force. They're not going to. No one's going to be able to show me that that's not force Right off, that's not use of force. They're not going to. No one's going to be able to show me that that's not force right or completing a report of that. But what that does is is when you mandate reports for that or for pulling your weapon or for looking at somebody, like they do in New York when you talk to somebody, you got to fill a report out that discourages officers from actually doing that, and so oftentimes the hands are the only thing that can hurt somebody. If you can put handcuffs on them, if it's objectively reasonable to do that at the time to try to make things safer, they're going to hesitate to do that because they know a report's being filed and people are looking for that.
Travis Yates:Choke codes are banned. Choke codes are a deadly force, but bad guys can use them, but the cops can't use it. I can show you videos today across the country where chiefs or mayors made these decisions and officers have died because of it. That may not have been the case in Minneapolis at the moment, but when you ban tools that can be used in certain situations, you're taking those tools away. So choke codes are deadly force, but cops can't use them, even if it's a deadly force situation.
Travis Yates:Lateral vascular neck restraint I believe you call them neck restraints there, by the way. Are they dangerous? Well, I don't know. Walk into any jiu-jitsu gym anybody with a big brother. It's crazy to me. They've been training that for 50 years up in Kansas City. There's not one documented serious injury or death. But because everybody lied to everybody and said the fentanyl had nothing to do with that death and it was a knee on a neck or a knee on a shoulder, which is what the chief testified to, it was the actual shoulder.
Travis Yates:We ban and take these tools away from officers that can keep them safe, and so this is that deception I'm talking about. And you have a bunch of other things. Officers are now in solo cars, they don't have partners, officers are having to do mandatory overtime, and so this is clearly an environment, liz, that does not promote safety. It does not promote wellness. But you asked me what role that's playing. But I think it's obvious. You have politicians and leaders lying, you have former officers in jail for following policy and training, you have practices that create hesitation for officers and you have policy that goes against everything we know in this profession about safety. So the deck is obviously stacked against those officers. They know it and my heart breaks for them.
Speaker 1:So, as if all of this isn't enough, calls to defund and dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department, along with a consent decree, are almost making recruitment impossible, it seems. Travis, what.
Travis Yates:Minneapolis deserves, liz, is actual leadership, and not leaders that simply pass the buck and blame the DOJ in future years, which, by the way, is exactly what's happening in Oakland and New Orleans as I speak. Look it up, it's all in the news right now. The cities have gone haywire and the politicians that brought the DOJ there are going. It's not us, it's the DOJ, so it's weakness at its highest level. The politicians that agreed to that consent decree in Minneapolis should be held accountable. Don't let them point the blame. And this is what will happen in the next 10 years. Yes, minneapolis will make the top 20. Yes, minneapolis will spend $200 million plus and you will have far fewer cops a day than ever before. That's not me saying it. Do the simple research of what has occurred in every city since the beginning of these god-awful consent decrees that are destroying our communities.
Speaker 1:Throughout your career, you've been involved in police and community outreach. You've also spoken out about how political pandering and problems in police leadership can cause a very serious ripple effect, and that's already happened here, hasn't it? It's not just the cops in peril right now.
Travis Yates:Well, let me give you a quick example, liz. I mean, I saw this Phoenix is under investigation right now. And the Phoenix politicians I have to give them credit they looked around at the other cities and they called the other cities and they all said do not do this, it will destroy your city for generations. And so the politicians told the DLJ hey, listen, we want to, because, dlj, they did this in Minneapolis and, of course, you signed it. They come in and they say we found some things we don't like sign here. Well, you don't sign anything in life without reading, right? You're not going to buy a house or a car without reading the documents. And so all the Phoenix politicians did was well, we'd like to see the investigation first. The DLJ refused because they can't stand on the investigation. And so the DLJ starts putting external pressure on those politicians. And one of the things they did is they went over to Albuquerque and they did a media blitz with Albuquerque to say how successful the consent decree has been in Albuquerque. It's been there 10 years. They had the police chiefs talking about how great it was Look, he was a hostage, by the way, when I'm watching the interview and he's talking about how great it was. Well, I did a simple Google search. I guess something journalists maybe forgot about. You don't have to go to the library anymore. You can just go to the internet and look this stuff up.
Travis Yates:The DLJ came to Albuquerque over 10 years ago because they had had, I believe, 18 officer-involved shootings. So that immediately means we've got to go run this police department. It doesn't mean what each incident occurred, happens or the details of that. That's what it means. So, as the DLJ is saying, they're almost complied, they're almost there. We're going to put them on a maintenance phase. Their shootings have doubled, their violent crime has gone up 70 percent and their budgets exploded and their personnel are down 30 percent. It's destroyed the city. The people there know it and they try to sell this pitch, so these other cities buy off on it. By the way, I'm not listen, your mayor and your leaders there. These are smart people, liz. I'm not talking about people that don't know things. They know. They know just like me. They know what's going on. The question is, why are they doing it?
Speaker 1:So what do you think? Is it even possible for Minneapolis to return to a sense of normalcy when it comes to safety for the community and police officers? Or how long before that's even a realistic conversation to be having Travis?
Travis Yates:Well, I'm not sure it's realistic at the moment, but I'm an optimist. You know everything bad in our society and I want your public to just think about this. Right, it's not just a talking point. Think about this, look out there and think of everything that you don't like. Everything bad in society is caused by leadership. But the good thing is, everything good is caused by leadership. So leaders guide us here, liz. Leaders can get us out, but that's going to take real authentic, courageous leadership and not everyone's going to like it. You obviously have some folks in Minneapolis, a small group of folks that don't really seem to like anything that's good for the community. So it's going to take a valiant effort. So it is possible.
Travis Yates:Number one they need to tell the truth. They need to begin with confessing the lies from their past, the sins from their past. As vocals as leaders have been with the lies in the past, liz, they better be just as vocal with repentance of those lies. That's what courageous leadership is. Number two they need to show support for the men and women behind the badge. You know they've done studies in the business world for 30, 40 years now. They ask them why do you stay at your job? Why are you happy at your job? The number one thing is not what Minneapolis is doing. It's not a fancy marketing campaign. It's not giving them a boost in pay. It's not benefits.
Travis Yates:The number one thing is support. You need to show real, authentic support to those men and women. Show real, authentic support to those men and women and then you empower law enforcement to do exactly what they do best. Liz, go after the criminal element. You give them the resources and you empower them. And when controversy arrives, from that, because that's the business we're in. That's why lawyers circle the drain with law enforcement. They know there's always going to be something controversial, but that's sort of the business we're in. When controversy arrives and it will it's the nature of what we do. Leaders need to simply tell the truth. If it makes the police look good, makes the police look bad, whatever it is. Tell the truth and be transparent. Minneapolis desperately needs truth tellers, liz, at this time, and if you can get there, you have a chance.
Speaker 1:If only politicians and police leaders would pay attention to your advice. Thanks again for joining me, travis. Thank you.
Travis Yates:Liz for the opportunity.
Speaker 1:That'll do it for this episode of Liz Collin Reports. We'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates. We invite you to join other courageous leaders at travisyatesorg.
