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
Failed Leadership in Pacific Palisades with Rusty Redican
The episode delves into the profound irony faced by the Pacific Palisades community, where those who once helped the homeless now experience similar struggles. Through analysis of leadership failures and community initiatives, we uncover critical lessons that call for accountability and empathy in leadership roles.
• Discussion on Rusty Redican's career and experiences
• Examination of leadership shifts within LAPD over the years
• Insight into the community's efforts in addressing homelessness
• Reflection on the consequences of leadership missteps
• Emphasis on the importance of engaged and empathetic leadership
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And it's tragically ironic in this particular case, that the Pacific Palisades people who put their money and not all of these people we touched on, some of the millionaires and billionaires and very wealthy individuals the overwhelming majority of people in the Pacific Palisades are not those people. They're not very, very wealthy. You know, they've lived there for 60 plus years, 50 years. They've lived there for 60-plus years, 50 years. But those people all chipped in, whether it was their time or their money or their clothes, to basically help homeless folks get off the streets. And the tragic irony is it's now them who are finding themselves homeless at this point, and that's where all of these leaders that you and I are talking about they need to jock up do the right thing.
Speaker 2: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 spending a few minutes with us here today and we've been trying to get this guest on the show for a couple of weeks now. With all the events in Southern California, we're excited to have him. We welcome Rusty Redican. He's a retired LAPD officer, 25 years of law enforcement experience, former Marine, really active in the Pacific Palisades area when he was on the job, just recently retired and he's been speaking on some issues about leadership, risk management, all the things that we're hearing. You may be surprised that you haven't heard this in the mainstream media, rusty. How are you doing, sir?
Rusty Redican:Hey, good, travis, thanks for having me, I appreciate it.
Travis Yates:Well, man, I'm so honored you're here. We've known each other for a few years. I know off and on on LinkedIn and we've communicated there and you did some good stuff. I was familiar with you and you were, I think you retired at the Range LAPD at the Elysian Park, there at the great facility. Just kind of walk us through your career and kind of how it progressed. And you sat here today and we'll talk a little bit about current events.
Rusty Redican:And you sat here today and we'll talk a little bit about current events. Sure, I'll try and give you the Reader's Digest version. So, son of a police officer, dad was a police officer for 33 years and I realized early on that I wanted to follow in his footsteps. So after I went in the Marine Corps did what many people you know in our line of work do is look for a couple of departments that I thought kind of fit on top of my hometown, which is Chumpsford. Massachusetts Sort of grew up in the Chumpsford Lowell area. Great people out there as well.
Rusty Redican:But while I was in the Marine Corps, obviously down at Camp Pendleton sort of had an account to be close to Los Angeles During the riots. I'm just going to kind of give a quick what sort of fed me into the LA area. I was down at Camp Porno on Pendleton when the riots kicked off after the Rodney King verdict and from there my buddies and I, when we had leave, would go up to LA often. So we kind of had an idea a little bit of what it was about. But we got called in to basically by our battalion commander and said hey, get your stuff and get it out on the parade deck and we're going to be going up to Los Angeles to assist them in swelching the violence that was going on. So of course, as a young, you know, 22-year-old yeah, that wasn't lost on me that infantry Marines are now being going to be going up to Los Angeles to sort of swelch the violence that was going on up there, the rioting. So I'll get back to the other stuff later, but you know that left a mark in terms of that city being someplace that I wanted to work. It looked like it was very busy. Yeah, um, um, I think, like probably most police officers, you want to go someplace that's that's fairly busy that you know you can make a positive impact on the largest amount of people.
Rusty Redican:So got out of the Marine Corps and went and tested with LAPD and was told this was in 93, was told, hey, thanks for coming, but you're the wrong race and then the wrong gender. So you know it was what it was. I had a pretty good sergeant that was in my oral interview. That was very, very honest, took a little prying, but I was able to get across to him. Hey, look, I'm not looking to complain, but you pulled me out into this hallway and told me that I did an amazing job and in the same sentence, you're telling me that I can test every six months.
Rusty Redican:I live in Massachusetts now I can't fly back and forth and eventually he came around and said look I hate having to tell you guys this, especially you military guys that come here and he was a black gentleman, so it wasn't like you know there was. He was trying to keep it close to his vest, but again he seemed like a really nice guy and eventually just said look, right now we just had the riots that you're trying to come in on the end of and unfortunately you'll get on. Please keep trying, but try another time. And you just happen to be a quota at this point. That is all stocked up. So went back, ended up becoming or getting on the job with the hometown that I grew up in, which is Chumpsford Massachusetts, with my, the hometown that I grew up in, which is Chumpsford Massachusetts, got on that PD and, you know, ended up making my way back out to Los Angeles and got out here in 2002, just after 9-11.
Travis Yates:So and that was sort of the beginning of my LAPD career. Yeah, you know, I test. I was tested in 93 as well and I heard similar stories where. There's lots of stories out there and I think they were generally right. You just have to keep trying. Completely different story today, of course, when it comes to recruiting, but they had a ton of people back then. Rusty, obviously you've got a ton of experience there. You constantly make comments about leadership and I think it's sound. What was the biggest shift you saw in leadership in general from when you came on LAPD to near the end of your career? What was the shifts you saw? I mean, I spent the same years in law enforcement, so I think I know what you're going to say. But law enforcement's dealing with a lot of hurdles today, recruiting being one, retention being another. But let's just talk about leadership and lean into that. What would you say would be the positive attributes in leadership when you came on and what kind of happened to that as your career progressed?
Rusty Redican:Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a great topic, obviously. I think it's probably the topic with respect to law enforcement. I think the leadership aspect is and when I say leadership you know in this case I think we're talking about management. I know you've talked about this before as well Leadership is a little bit different. The actual leadership could be the police officer, one which is a probationary officer all the way up to the chief of police. I mean, just because somebody has shiny lapels doesn't make them a leader, and this is kind of the.
Rusty Redican:I have some self-inflicted wounds at LAPD, but also most people that I've worked for know that when they have folks like me working for them, things get done. So I think the biggest thing I see one of the major problems with management I see one of the major problems with management is I don't believe there's ever been a larger disparity in actual applicable experience on the street in dealing with interhuman aggression and or true community policing. They like to throw that out a lot. I think a lot of departments do, and it's for good reason. We worked for them and that never was lost on me. So I think right now and I think it's been just slowly digressing in terms of the leadership component is there's such a huge disparity between the experience of the officer on the street and, unfortunately, folks that decided to, just, you know, keep on checking boxes until they got to the point where they had their name on the door.
Rusty Redican:Now I don't think that's all. Clearly, we have some amazing true leaders on lapd um. Sometimes they squeak through, but overall they would have to agree that and this is the part that might hurt some feelings, but it really should only hurt the feelings of those that this covers which is for LAPD, and I can say that I've seen it in other departments I think there's an institutional inbreeding of ineptitude that is accepted depending on who you know, what sort of box you check, and that has to change Because ultimately, if you have people that don't know what they're doing at the patrol level and or the operational detective level, then ultimately you have somebody in a position that has to make decisions that they just don't have the aptitude to make. And we could probably get into this too. But you take a look at what happened in Los Angeles the last couple of nights and that is a very good sort of snapshot of what it is that I'm talking about and that you brought me on here for today.
Travis Yates:Yeah, I think that's this little unwritten rule nobody likes to talk about as I think you nailed it, rusty where you can be very successful in the upper ranks in law enforcement but not have a lot of tactical skills or tactile skills to actually do the job. There's really a separation there and that creates obviously a lot of issues, mainly being mission creep and not being mission focused. We've seen a lot of law enforcement today. I mean, if you get away from your mission I mean just look at the federal government right now what they're trying to clean up at this very moment you get away from your mission, everything else goes haywire. So I think it's safe to say that if the chief's number one priority is everything but crime control, we got ourselves a problem, because that should be the priority.
Rusty Redican:Yeah, and I think one of the major causal factors of this problem right now is you get people in high management positions, whether it's the chief of police, assistant chief, deputy chief I know there's, you know there's colonel. There's different sort of titles that you know different departments and municipalities use. When you have a sheriff right just to use that as another sort of comparable example that's elected in by the people do you have an opportunity where you elect a sheriff who is also perhaps incompetent but maybe says the right things? Yes, you do. The benefit to having an elected position is you now have a mechanism in place that you can replace that person in four years if it's not an egregious or you know they committed a crime.
Rusty Redican:With respect to the chief of police and I'll use actually well, both LAPD and my previous department and again, I love the people of both departments and the people that are leading the department that I came from before LAPD. You know they're good guys too. Problem is, and even Chief McDonald, who I have a fairly personal relationship in terms of knowing him off the job he's a really nice guy and very, very competent. When you have people that are very competent but they're hamstrung because they're at a political appointed position. That's no bueno. Now you're definitely going to be dealing with situations where decisions are not going to be made for the number one reason or question that should be answered, which is does this make my public safer? That's the first order of business in terms of how a manager or a leader should take a look at what they have, what assets they're assigning to certain problems is. Does this help or does this hurt? And when you hire or promote people based on skin color, gender, pick your demographic imperative, you're definitely hurting. Not only are you hurting the community, but you're also hurting the people that maybe fall under that same category, that are very adept at doing the job. And we saw that. I saw that repeatedly at LAPD and it was frustrating because they kind of get looked at with a with an odd eye if you don't know them. And then you get to know them and then you're like, okay, this person actually is very competent. So I think that's the beginning.
Rusty Redican:The beginning is the pipeline of promotions needs to change, and I would say every single department should look at it. And I know you, you, I know a lot of this stuff. I know you already know and is going to make sense to you very clearly. But if you take somebody, like if I took you as whether you're retired or even when you were still on the job at your position, given the way your thought process works, and I said, hey, look, we'd like to pay your way. Have you come on out here to LA and I'd like to use you? And you could hire a swath of people, especially with how long people's arms nowadays with LinkedIn and other ways, and I want you to come and help us in the interview process of our officers that are looking to promote to the next level.
Rusty Redican:Then you get somebody that is they're not biased, they're coming in, going oh, what are these officers bona fides? What have they been doing? And then you get to see, oh okay, yeah, this person's been playing hide and seek for two grand a week for the past four years. And this person you know we have in LAPD. We have a thing called Teams 2, right person In LAPD. We have a thing called Teams 2, right Captain Espinoza, I believe you promoted to captain already, so talk to Anthony about it. He'll go down a rabbit hole with you on it.
Rusty Redican:But, in short, it's basically your resume on LAPD. It's also where your uses of force both critical incidents and or standard uses of force, complaints, those sorts of things, all of your training. A lot of times with LAPD we see it and most people from LAPD listening to this will probably go yeah, that's 100% spot on is, if a person needs a paperweight to hold their teams two down, they're definitely upper management material. If it's somebody, maybe like me, who's professionally assertive I try not to. There's been times where I've had to sort of check a few people that needed it, not just from man to man, but most of the time it's somebody that doesn't quite have the foundational skills that are required to be a law enforcement manager and that doesn't do anybody any favors. So I think that's got to change.
Rusty Redican:And using that example of having people come from the outside, where a lot of departments do that with LAPD, I've got friends that are in the command staff and that are supervisors. They've told me hey, I'm going to Nebraska for a couple of weeks helping them with their intake or their promotional process. So I think that's something that should happen across the board. It's tough when you get with, as you know, because you come from a big department too. When you have a massive department, things just sort of get lost. And I used to hear from and I still do guys will say well, that's the way it's always been, man, you can't buck the system, and I disagree with that. You can buck the system if you do it respectfully and you offer solutions, not just, you know, critique and ridicule.
Travis Yates:So, yeah, that's all good stuff and and give us I know that the news has been you know, I mean we have such a short attention span, but obviously we started talking a week or two ago, rusty, and what's going on in Pacific Palisades is, you know, it's cataclysmic, right? I mean I think you've got more of a personal viewpoint on it. Kind of give our audience what you're hearing from there. Then let's backtrack that too, because everybody wants to talk about the mistakes made now, but I want to talk about, when it comes to real leadership, which is real risk management. What were the mistakes made in years past? Right Like so, because the stuff yes, this stuff is is, it's tragedy, you know, manmade, and it happens, whether it's arson or whatever, but it doesn't just happen Leadership. I always say this everything good is because of leadership, everything bad is because of leadership. You can wrap it all in leadership. Let's talk about the leadership problems, but first give us a quick overview of kind of what you're hearing.
Rusty Redican:you know about, about the area? Sure, yeah, no, it's devastating. What's happened to those people? You know, I don't have any, obviously living in northwestern North Carolina or western North Carolina, now just outside of the floods and then having a personal connection with the Palestinians, having worked there for five and a half years plus, um, my heart breaks for them, for the people of lahaina, hawaii. I mean, you're talking about massive problems. That, to your point, which is where I'm going to kind of steer this into, they don't happen overnight. These, yeah, you have.
Rusty Redican:Sometimes you have fires that can happen, uh, by way of lightning, right, some natural resource occurs and or, hey, look, we're a technologically advanced society, so as much as we count on the electrical department and those folks to sort of take care of things, stuff happens right. But there's a lot of things, to your point, along the way. You don't just all of a sudden get to a devastating event. There are different things that lend and lead to that. Can you mitigate every single thing, every single threat? No, you can't, and I think I'm not arrogant enough to think that anything I did in the Palisades could have stopped it completely. But to your, your question, and then just my experience I got called in to speak with my captain. Just to give a quick sort of snapshot of how I got there.
Rusty Redican:Uh, tina nieto. She's now a sheriff up in northern california. She's the type of person that knows her people, so she knows. Okay, I have this issue going on over here. Who do I have in my, in my quiver of folks that can go in there and do what they need to do to affect positive change and to this current situation, what she was dealing with was massive fires back then. Now this was end of 2015, 2016. So she called me in the office. She said hey, I'd like to send you over here. I want you to do a quick recon of the area. Let me know what. What you think I need to sort of, you know, mitigate these issues, because the Palisades people are very upset, rightfully so. She wasn't, you know, complaining about it. She said look, I don't. We have a lack of resources to be able to funnel in there. I want to know what you think I can do to kind of get this thing going.
Rusty Redican:Anyway, went up there, kind of got the lay of the land. I ended up liaising with this homeless task force that the Pacific Palisades had put together, based on the fact that they were not getting any traction with the city also with their city council member at the time and the LAPD. They weren't getting the people to sort of mitigate the law enforcement issues. That hopefully didn't allow the situation to get to where the fire department had to go put out fires right Now. There's some other causal factors with respect to just that tinder, that vegetation that's been dry, that the state has failed miserably to hold up their end of the bargain on. Hence the reason why a lot of these insurance companies canceled a lot of people.
Rusty Redican:But with respect to my sort of position, I kind of explained to the captain then that you're going to need 10 officers with the autonomy to be able to come in at any time of day or night, change their schedules, have a supervisor obviously assigned to them to be able to sort of keep everything on track, and then they will go ahead and liaise with this homeless task force and I think you'll be able to quickly get all of the homeless encampments out of the hillsides. Because that was one of the things she asked me was. She said you know and again I don't expect her or any command staff member to know every single square mile of their division. That's what they have us for, right, the people out in the street. So she said what's with these encampments? Apparently, there's encampments in the hillsides. And I kind of chuckled a little bit. I said, ma'am, it's like Swiss family Robinson in those hillsides. These people that are in those hillsides, yes, they're mentally ill, they're whacked out on central nervous stimulants, they're homeless, but they're pretty smart and they've created these little sort of small cities in there.
Rusty Redican:Anyway, that was what we were needing to deal with, because they were the ones that were, for the most part, starting all these fires. Again, that's not to say that that's what this particular fire was started by, but this was a major problem. So she sent me in there. She basically told me I can't give you nine other people and a sergeant, but I'll give you a partner. And she said people and a sergeant, but I'll give you a partner. And she said can you do it? And I did. Well, obviously you know that I will have a pretty good chance of doing it, or you wouldn't be asking me if I would do it. So I told her look, that's great, Give me a partner. I ended up working with a couple of guys. But I ended up settling on my partner, jimmy Solomon, just a stand-up human being and a great police officer, and we went forth and prospered and just tried to really make the connection lay, the foundation of communication with the public. So we did that for five and a half years. I'm going to gloss over a lot of it, but we were very successful. And when I say we, I mean as a team we were successful. Successful. And when I say we, I mean as a team we were successful.
Rusty Redican:The Pacific Palisades at that time put their money where their mouth was. I just went over why they. You know the fact that they weren't getting any assistance from the city. They were constantly getting stiff armed. And so they decided how can we mitigate these problems legally that are infecting our area? That you know we're going to have a massive tragedy if we don't get in front of it. And so they raised about and again, I don't want to speak for that task force, but I'll tell you what, from what I know, uh, working arm and arm with them for five and a half years, they raised to about two hundred thousand000 per year to fund a bunch of clinicians, homeless outreach folks, a nurse, and also to actually furnish housing for a lot of the homeless that they were reaching out to try to help.
Rusty Redican:And about that time you've got the Boise case. That was sort of making things difficult for a lot of municipalities. My captain and others asked me what I thought of that. I also would speak to the people in these massive community meetings that were worried about it and I would tell them look, according to the Boise case, we're fine, we're offering resources. I very quickly and again I'm going to kind of go into a few other things, but very quickly my partner and I found out that, look, we can't arrest our way Two cops can't arrest our way out of this problem that society has sort of created by, you know, sort of acquiescing in not getting these people the help that they needed for the previous 50 years. So we decided, look, we're going to have to try to adjust our positioning. It should also be said and I'm sure you probably have somebody in your family too, but from my perspective and my partner, we both had people in our families, immediate families that were either addicts or alcoholics that we applied quite a bit of empathy into the people that we were dealing with out on the street, right.
Rusty Redican:So hooking up with that, that Palisades task force, and then also going to these meetings every, you know, every time they had a community meeting and every person that I would meet out on the street, I I gave my card away and was like hey, here's my cell number, you get any intel. Or to them. I would kind of put it in a way that hey, look, if you happen to see a homeless encampment or somebody going into the hillside, hey, give me a shout and I'll go in there and talk to them and try to get them out of the hillsides. Both in areas where it was illegal for them to camp, I would obviously make sure that I mitigated that and enforced that. But also, if it was somebody that was in an area that they weren't not allowed to be in maybe hiking trails, stuff like that I would just make sure that they were not looking to set up a camp where they would have fires. So that built a very, very ironclad relationship between my partner and I, and then during the summertime we'd get two additional officers assigned to help us in the summer with the community.
Rusty Redican:So, with that said, there's a few things that occurred between that point and the time that I left. But we get these new captains that come in. They're constantly rotating in a big department like Los Angeles, and so I think in a smaller department it's easier because you have and again, this is not a negative critique on a smaller department, it's actually a positive where you get to see exactly what the next person above you, what their position is, and so you can either ghost them for an extended period of time to really get the lay of the land, or you're there for so long and it's such an open concept that you kind of know what's expected of you when you get there and you know what resources you have to bring to bear. Well, with LAPD we have that hiring issue that we started this off talking about. But we also have folks that come in that are not. They don't know the area right. They might not know what the 26 square miles of austere environment in a hillside where you have very little egress and ingress in terms of getting in for emergency services they don't quite get it right. So some of them might have to explain it to them, bring them on small rides, show them what was going on, but having that sort of a turnaround makes it difficult to be able to keep the resources in place that you need Now.
Rusty Redican:With LAPD, I think right now there's 8,300 officers. At one point we were up at 10,000. We got a lot of people playing hide and seek on the inside that can be sent out to the streets. But I get it. We should be 12,000, 15,000 cops and I agree with that. But there are places and West LA is one of them because it's a fairly it's a very large division, but it is the smallest in terms of personnel in the entire city.
Rusty Redican:So having two people assigned to do one sort of 26 square mile area. So it's a bit of an ask of the command staff that are in charge, but once they hear what exactly you're doing, it shouldn't be a difficult thing for them to make that decision that you know what. I just simply have to have these guys there, because if I don't, this is what's going to happen, right? So, fast forward. Most of the captains from 2016 up until when I left in 2021, most of them got it and again able to go in there and explain it to them in a way that they understood. From a management perspective, let's talk about the audience.
Travis Yates:I mean Pacific Palisades. I'm sure you have everybody of every economic background, but you have the highest economics to probably all the way down to the homeless people in the hills, right and so correct that's got to be. It has to be an easy decision from a captain to go. Yeah, we need to take care of this issue because he's probably hearing it from the backside if he's not your lips, god's ears.
Rusty Redican:So, um, you know chief moore, who's the chief of the time. He had come out to some of the meetings that I I was at and was very happy with what we were doing. A couple of the other folks were fairly happy Again, and you're probably not shocked by this. I've said it a couple of times, but I'm fairly outspoken, and when I say outspoken I'm not the guy in the back of roll call, that's mother effing everybody all the time and everybody's horrible except me in life. That's not my angle. My angle is I have a serious problem and I'm sure you do too with ineptitude in public service, and if you're proving to me that you're not really in a position to be able to affect the change and or engage in the things that your particular rank expects, yeah, we're probably going to have somewhat of an issue.
Rusty Redican:Now I was just a police officer, so I also understand that. I may get my point across, but at the end of the day, I'm just a police officer. But back to your point about the people up there. You're, the end of the day, I'm just a police officer. But back to your point about the people out there you're talking about. And again. I did the same thing in South Central Los Angeles. I still have people in South Central that call me now and ask how I'm doing. So it's not like I changed my policing overall for the people of the Pacific Palisades. I treat everybody the same, whether you're the homeless guy that's treating me well, whether you're the janitor, whether you're my captain, my partner, joe Blow's citizen who just has a question. Look, I understand my place in this whole dynamic.
Rusty Redican:But those people up there, to your point, you're dealing with millionaires and billionaires that are self-made. You're not talking about people that, for the most part, were given a lump sum of money and they don't quite know what it's like to want, right? They also are the types of people that have lived there for a long time. They're very, very good in their own respective positions, in whatever they do for work, whether it's a producer, a bank manager, a bank CEO or whatever their positions are. Most of the people there are very good at what they do and, again, they're used to sort of a certain element of service, right? Not, you know, an overabundance of and looking for anybody to kiss their tail. That wasn't the experience that I had with them. They were actually down to earth and understood when somebody was very good at their job what it looked like, whether that was police work or whether that was the entertainment industry or, you know, the financial industry or whatever, whether that was the entertainment industry or the financial industry or whatever. So these people knew and would constantly say to my partner and I hey, we're so glad to have you guys here.
Rusty Redican:Well, towards the end there was some overlap from my job, as the team in the Eto'o called us the beach detail on paper, because from a logistical sort of deployment angle, she knew that if she just put you know Palisades detail that the people at Bureau, the deputy chief and the commanders would be like well, you already have an A car which is your typical patrol car with the LAPD model that's assigned to them, so you don't need this other unit. Well, there's also a lack of crime, typically in the Pacific Palisades. So just the way the and it's you know somewhat the deployment model of LAPD is somewhat antiquated at times, I think, probably like many places, but it's a pretty good rolling model for the most part. And so when there's crimes in other parts of the 65 square miles of West LA and or West Valley, on the Valley side or just past Santa Monica and Venice. Sometimes you get pulled to go handle those areas too, and Wolster Division, the Palisades car, is typically the first one to get pulled. So what then? Captain Nieto now Sheriff Nieto basically said was look, you're going to be my beach detail on paper, but you're going to take care of all of these other things.
Rusty Redican:You're going to deal with the homeless folks, you're going to deal with the quality of life issues. And so we had what we call a senior lead officer. That's typically assigned there. Oh look, he was a nice guy, I got along well with him, but he was literally one foot out, one foot in and he's at the end of his career. Now, for guys like you and I, we pretty much sprint for the finish line and then, once we get done, we're like like you've got something great going on right now. I don't yet know exactly what.
Travis Yates:I'm going to do. It's hard to stop. It's hard, you just got to keep going.
Rusty Redican:It is. But you to your, your sort of ethos, right, I was always the guy that wanted to keep working, working, working. I felt like it was, look, I'm going to gain sort of I don't want to say but the respect of my peers by them seeing that I'm the guy that's out there doing it. And so I didn't want to go into training full-time until this 2021 thing that I'm about to illuminate sort of occurred. But being an adjunct rifle and shotgun instructor because I had a lot of respect for those guys and gals that were up at the range and just wanted to sort of be a part of that bigger picture of them helping officers with their shooting that I did that right. So back to the Pacific Palisades Most of the folks that had kind of that live there knew and still, because my phone has not stopped, there's actually been two people that have tried to chime in while you and I are talking now, not because they know we're on a podcast, but because it's just been a constant flow of just trying to help them navigate these problems that unfortunately they have right now.
Rusty Redican:But at the point that I was doing the work that my partner and I were doing with the homeless. There was sort of an overlap right With quality of life issues that typically our senior lead officer would deal with. And while I would give people, hey, here's his number, call him, here's his email, email him. If you don't do the job that, I am sending people your way, that is, in your wheelhouse, and now I'm face to face with these folks out in the street. I now have to do your job for you Because if I don't, I'm the bad guy that's sending them to you, filling them with hey, look, this guy's very. You know he's good, he's going to take care of you, and then, when you don't do it, I have to do it, which, because they overlapped, it wasn't that big of an ask, right? So I had a conversation with that particular gentleman at the time He'd retired and I said look, I'm not coming for your job, I don't want to be a senior lead officer. I believe, probably much like you, believe, we are all senior lead officers In LAPD. That might be the title, and there's a lot of great senior lead officers on that department, but I believe every police officer is a senior lead officer. They're a community liaison with the police department to the community right. And so he was like no, no, are you kidding me? He was like I'm just happy to have you. Things get taken. I'm going to try not to use foul language on your podcast, which everybody that ends up watching this and sees me, they're going to go. That was probably a very difficult time, but you know I would take care of the issues and the people would call me and it was what it was.
Rusty Redican:Well, it ended up getting to a point to where it was very clear the new management at LAPD West, la at the time was not very, did not have as much aptitude. The time uh was not very, did not have as much aptitude, and it's disappointing. But you know when, when you have a guy that uh, or a person in a position that has, let's say, 25 years on the job but he's worked 19 different uh divisions and or um jobs, are you really good at any of those or are you just checking a box? And I got along with this person fairly well. I thought incorrectly at the time oh, this guy, he's a man of integrity, he's going to do what's right, he's going to just keep me doing what I'm doing.
Rusty Redican:Well, then I found that they were starting to remove people from positions like mine because we were becoming shorter and shorter handed out in the field and this was a big problem a couple of times. Actually, it's a big problem now. I don't want to make it sound like it's gone, it's still a problem. There's still not enough people. So I kind of made the decision that, okay, in order for me to continue to be effective at what we're doing in the Palisades, I'll probably have to put in for this position when it opens up. So I did and I'm skipping over a couple of things, and the things that I'm skipping over are just, you know, I had been asked by other managers or leaders I call them leaders in the department that I had worked for in the past Throughout that five and a half years. Hey, come work over here, come do this particular job.
Rusty Redican:A lot of them were jobs that are more suited to somebody typically with the work ethic and sort of style of policing of mine. Most of my friends are like you're the homeless czar in the Palestinians. I mean because, again, I tend to. Most of the time that I spent with my partners in South Central we were chasing the predatory individuals. I don't have time to go sweat the people that are typically just, which is the overwhelming majority in South Central, are great. People just want to live their life without getting, you know, victimized by some predatory gang member, and so you know, being up there doing the things that we were doing, it was I could see the fruit of our labor we took I'm kind of going down a rabbit hole, but we took probably three to six, I don't recall the exact number you know those 30 foot massive dumpsters full of trash out of the hillside. We put signs up all over the place. So we were doing very good work. We were getting people off the street into housing, including, as as a Marine, a lot of veterans that obviously was were a little bit more near and dear to my heart to be able to get them off the streets and into protective housing and if they needed recovery from any sort of addiction or anything along those lines, it was very good to be able to help them.
Rusty Redican:But once it was very clear that they were taking people out of certain assignments, I knew that mine was fairly close to being on the chopping block. So I put in for the position and a bunch of the different Palisades folks, would you know, reach out to me and when I say a bunch, I'm talking dozens and dozens of people. When they heard the other SLO was retiring and that it was going to be open, of course the next person that they would want there would be me. So I would explain to them look, I appreciate the vote of confidence and, yeah, I'm going to put in for the position because if I don't, I don't see my work here as being set in stone. I think I could possibly be taken out of here. But I told them look, it's not a guarantee that I'll be it. Well, we're going to make calls and I told them look, that's not how this works, but I appreciate it. Some of them I said look, the more of you that call, the less likely I will probably get the position.
Travis Yates:That's right. You're never a prophet in your own backyard, for sure.
Rusty Redican:That's right. You're never a prophet in your own backyard, for sure. That's it, man, and look, you touched on it. You don't tell a millionaire, no, don't do this. You know what I mean. I try to explain to them the inside baseball, but you know, you can only you know direct somebody. That is like I said, and this isn't a negative. These people are very, very good at what they do and so they're like well, no, you're our guy. So, anyway, long and short, and there's some nuance to it.
Rusty Redican:But I was also dealing with a lot of professional jealousy in the particular office that I was in, and I know that this is a lot of things. These are a lot of sort of things that a lot of cops don't talk about, you know, as as often out in the public eye. Um, I told you earlier that I've got a bit of a reputation, and I don't mean to, that's not so. I can like pound my chest, it's just. Look, I loathe being around low energy, incompetent people. Loathe it, it's. I get a. Being around people like that is for to me is like being around a bully. I get this chemical reaction that if they do something and it's woefully incompetent, or they're lazy or they're just they don't have the motivation to do the job that they're supposed to be doing. Um, it bothers me and and usually I say something right I try to use if it's somebody I don't dislike. For the most part I'll try to use a little jab. Hey, maybe you should stop playing hide and seek and excuse my French. Why don't you un-ass that chair, head on out here and try and do some police work? We need the help. You might've heard, right, this, this is. These are some of the things that I would try to use to sort of joust at them a bit.
Rusty Redican:Well, a lot of the people and I have an audio that I'll send you later that you can listen to, which will give you a very clear because I got a couple of officers on an open mic. You know and you've experienced that, where somebody, somebody keys their mic by accident and they're pontificating about how they would change the world and you're trying to call them like hey, man, you got an open mic. Two of these knuckleheads did that and they were getting frustrated because they were being held to the standard that I was setting in the Palisades and I'm like, look, man, I'm not. This is not rocket science. I'm simply doing my job. This is what the public expects of you.
Rusty Redican:So a lot of these guys not all of them, uh, but most of the ones in that particular office this is not patrol cops, these are, you know, specialized unit area um officers they they just want to do the bare minimum and go home. They don't want to deal with people, they don't want people calling them, they just want they got this. It's almost like the perfect government job, right, like I can't get fired and I can just do whatever the heck I want. I can disappear, and just nobody will say a word. Where guys like you and I have a conscience, and if I don't put a full day's work in as a policeman, I don't feel right.
Rusty Redican:So at that point, this particular captain came in and pulled me aside at one point and asked me what I thought of the office, because it was not a secret that that office was filled with lazy people. The new sergeant same thing. The old sergeant who promoted the lieutenant. He was amazing, he was great and a true leader. But once he promoted out, this other person promoted in and unfortunately, as I know, you know, once you get people that are not competent enough to be in the position they're in now. They're making decisions.
Rusty Redican:That's just not a not a good time, right, so that I was dealing with kind of that stuff there and then put in for this excuse me this position and based on my work with the homeless, I had also written a and I know I'm kind of sporadic here, but all of this is sort of connected um, I had torn my ac for my, uh, my labor, my shoulder, so I was out beginning of. I got surgery I, I. The injury occurred in the bluffs, which is now burnt to a crisp Went shoulder first into a tree coming down a mountain and, just like any knuckle dragger in my sort of position, just kind of sucked it up for a couple of weeks and babied it a little and felt like, well, I'm good, documented it with my supervisor, but if I'm not there, my partner and I aren't there, the work just doesn't get done, right? Anyway, fast forward. Just after the riots I was like, okay, I got to go get this thing sorted. There's no way I was going to go out injured during the riots. That wasn't going to happen. I would have duct taped my arm to my chest to be there to do my part.
Rusty Redican:But after everything was sort of done, I ended up going and getting surgery and while I was off, they have a really good city council member in CD11 in Los Angeles right now. Her name's Tracy Park, very pro-law enforcement and just a very pragmatic individual who wants to legitimately do the right thing because she's from that area, right? The guy before her was a guy named Mike Bonin. If you haven't heard of who he was at that time, he's just that guy that you don't want in a position of power, and so he wanted to all the work that we had done to get all the homeless out of those hillsides, he wanted to create this homeless sort of makeshift small condominium, um campus on the beach for all the homeless.
Rusty Redican:And I, like people are calling me, including some of my, my, I have some family in that area. They were calling me like what, what is this guy trying to do? You have to, you have to say something, and I just had surgery, so I'm off recovering. So I so I was like, okay, give me, give me about a week to figure out how to address it without getting in trouble. Right, give me about a week to figure out how to address it without getting in trouble. Right, because, as you know, when you're a police officer or a law enforcement officer, regardless of rank, you don't really have a First Amendment right, completely right. And so, even though I was still very outspoken and have some self-inflicted wounds, I still knew that, hey look, I do have to tread somewhat lightly, partly because the good supervisors I have I don't want them to get in trouble because of my mouth, and I got to figure out a way.
Rusty Redican:So I did and I penned this response that was hey, these are the pragmatic solutions to the homelessness crisis that is infecting major cities, and this is probably a whole other podcast that we could do, and I can send you the writing as well, but it was basically just pragmatic solutions with some historical context. This is how we got here and I pressed, send boom, sent it out, and I had people reading this from the far, you know, right side of the political spectrum and the far left side, people that I saw say things that were, you know, blm supporters, and they were like we can't, I can't believe a police officer wrote this, you know which? You know I have a self-deprecating sense of humor. So I told them yeah, me either, but they were very, very pleased that it showed empathy yet didn't just complain but gave hey. These are the solutions that you can call on your elected officials to enact. You could also have your police department and your other social services do these things, and you'll see a lot of these changes, right?
Rusty Redican:So everybody loved it, except one person, one person from the Pacific Palisades, and this doesn't bring me joy. He no longer has a house. His house I know who he is His house burnt to the ground. But he wrote a letter to. There's a judge, judge Carter, who I had had. I gave him a ride along in my area because he wanted to know, while he was presiding over these homeless issues for the county, because he was a federal judge, he wanted to know what we were doing for the county. Because he was a federal judge, he wanted to know what we were doing. So I drove him around and he was like oh, what you're doing is amazing. I can't believe that the police are doing this kind of stuff. This is great, right.
Rusty Redican:And so this guy wrote a letter, an email to him. He attached Assistant Chief Beatrice Grimala from. She's retired now from LAPD. Assistant chief Beatrice Grimala from, from. She's retired now from LAPD, um, my captain, captain John Tom, chief Moore, um the the, the deputy chief of West Muro, mike Bonin, and also, at the time, the uh board of supervisors, um, elected official and, basically, you know, clearly did not read what I wrote, because what he wrote is an email. In his email I thought this guy had did not even read what I wrote. If he did, he would see that what he's writing is factually incorrect.
Rusty Redican:Well, anyway, at that point you have all these people who are like, well, who's this guy right? I mean, the chief knew who I was because he saw what we had done. My captain knew who I was, judge Carter knew who I was, and so did Chief Kramala, right, although I was not her favorite person, but it is what it is. Some of these people don't like anybody. That's not completely kissing their tail 24-7. And I just had too much police work to do to worry about a shallow ego. So she, obviously, to be in a position she's in, from what I'm told, had her way with my captain in terms of, hey, you better suck this guy up.
Rusty Redican:So at that point I had Captain Tom and a guy named Captain Ryan Whiteman, along with Sergeant what's his name Scott Alpert, decided okay, this guy is making issues for us, having to answer for him in a way that guys like you and I would have been no problem at all. They would have called me and said, hey, this guy won't shut his mouth. And we would have said hey, chief, can I come over and sit down with you and kind of explain a little backstory, because that's what you want, right? If I were chief of police or an assistant chief or a captain and somebody was upset with one of my officers who didn't do anything wrong, who was actually doing a good job, I would want to go shed light on what this person was doing in the name of our police department, so that they understood that this one malcontent does not speak for the entirety of the Pacific Palisades, nor do they speak for the homeless that oh, by the way, this police officer, his partner and this task force have done God's work helping these people off the streets. But that didn't happen At the time.
Rusty Redican:That particular captain that I had was going through his own problem in the media with a perceived I don't want to put you in a position and it's just he was having some legal issues of his own that he ended up getting out from underneath, but at that time he was sort of in the crosshairs, so I understood a little bit of why he was hesitant, but he still should have had the intestinal fortitude to do his job. So at that point they decided that, with all these people calling and saying, hey look, we want this guy, we want this officer as a senior lead officer, they made the decision that that wasn't going to happen, and so they conspired to conveniently not select me with all these letters. Some of the letters are pretty funny, the ones after the fact. One lady wrote what on earth were you thinking? Not selecting this guy for this position? And so now these people are calling me and they're saying, hey, you didn't get the position, so what are you going to do?
Rusty Redican:So I told them, I said look, well, I'm going to leave. You can't. You have to stay here. If you leave, this is going to go to crap. And I told them look, respectfully, I deeply love you guys and love what we've done. I initially only gave you a three-year commitment, but I stayed here for five and a half. I've got it up and running. You now know what to expect, or what is possible, from your law enforcement partners. So now you have a barometer, you have a bar to hold the people that are going to replace me too, and I would just tell you that you need to do that Because, if you don't, you are going to have a massive catastrophe in the way of a massive fire, which you know to the conversation you and I have been having prior to and now was the warning. That was the beginning of the warning.
Travis Yates:Yeah, I just want to. I just want to remind our audience. So we obviously you identified years ago the homeless issues and the and then, you know, create some of that issues, and so you were addressing the root of that issue and the fact that people still call you today shows you the power of that community outreach and what you were doing. I think everybody would love to have a legacy like that, rusty, but you've got to keep your foot on the gas right. So at some point, lapd decided for whatever reason this emphasis, we're not going to do anymore that, combined with the things of the state, the water reservoirs, everything else I mean nobody wants to talk about the real reason these things happen, but it's leadership decisions like you just lined out, is why this happens.
Rusty Redican:Boom boom, boom, it's, it's, it's a progression yep yeah, and look when that happened.
Rusty Redican:Just you saw that photo that I put up and I'll address that. When that happened, I had gone in front of a board, right, and you have the same ability. I think one of the things that I do okay is run this audio distribution device under my nose. When I have to right, I try not to just talk to talk, but if I have to explain things or if I have to go in front of a board to either defend myself or to put in for a position, I don't have a problem explaining and or giving evidence to support my bona fides or just what my thoughts are. So we had this board and I had already and I can just gloss over this part I had already been physically being removed at different points and the command used some nonsense to try to oh, you know, everybody's having to do this, but they weren't, they were, it was specifically targeting me and whenever I would put in to go speak with them face to face, conveniently, they were busy, right, the one captain um, at one point he's in his car coming into work and I'm coming in from from my duties and I see him and I walk over and I go. Hey, you know you, I'm kind of pantomiming do you have time to talk? Do you have time to talk? And he's oh, you don't know, I'm on the phone. So just did not. Because he knew that that conversation unless he just wanted to bark at me was going to be uncomfortable, because the odds of disappointment I never hide right on purpose. If, if a person is trying to lie to me, unless it's a criminal that I'm trying to use the Jedi mind trick on, that's different. But when it comes to a manager or another officer who's doing something they shouldn't be doing and they're trying to sell me on a bag of goods, I want them to see my eyes are telling them you're completely full of it. I don't believe a word of it. And I want them to see the disappointment, right, right. So he knew that and so he steered away from it for as long as he could.
Rusty Redican:Now fast forward. That morning that I took that photo that has kind of made the rounds. I had gotten flagged down by three different people within 10 minutes. That told me hey, it was great, we're so happy to have you. You did great work up here. We met your replacement and I was perplexed. I said what do you mean? My replacement? Oh, we met your replacement. This guy, brian Espin, told us that he's replacing you. I said, yeah, they haven't made a decision yet. So, unless he knows something, I don't know, I haven't made a decision yet. So unless he knows something, I don't know. Um, I, you know, I, I haven't been told anything about a decision. That's, excuse me, that's been made. So I called my sergeant, I and I called this, this officer, and said and text them first. And then, today, what's? This is what I just had happen to me. What's going on? Right, um, and, and this is again, three different people within probably about 20 square yards and within about eight minutes of one another, right In the common area. That is where the Starbucks in the Pacific Palisades was. That building is incinerated and so, anyway, fast forward. I could see the writing on the wall.
Rusty Redican:I already knew, or felt like I knew, they were going to try to edge me out. So I decided you know what, I am going to leave this place absolutely spotless. There's not going to be an encampment anywhere. And so I decided to go make the rounds. Right, I was going to start. Then I didn't have a landing spot, I had not yet acquired the position at the academy, but I thought, either way, I'm going someplace else, right? So I went up to make the rounds.
Rusty Redican:I went up Palisades Drive to the Santa Ynezanez reservoir is. That was an area that we would make in our rounds, right and I would. I had the keys to get in there, so we would go. We would go in, drive around the perimeter as you saw in there it's a, you know, a paved perimeter and then I would go do my typical foot beats up in the hillsides and in the mountains. Excuse me, well, I took a little selfie, I think, that day.
Rusty Redican:Actually, if I recall correctly, I was by myself, my partner, um, so I don't know if he was at court or he had something going on, but uh. So I was by myself and I took a picture of myself with the empty reservoir behind me and then took another establishing shot, then went down and continued on to go do my thing. But on my way out I saw a couple of guys that were, you know, doing some maintenance on on one of the electrical um I don't know if it was an, it's not a complete tower, but one of the areas that are that were was powering something. And I said, hey, what's, what's with the water? Is it, what's up with this thing being empty? And at the time I didn't think anything of it. They just said, oh, we, oh, we had to empty it for, for, uh, for maintenance. And I thought, oh, didn't think anything of it, and then I left and went and did my thing and, um, eventually got a position and went elsewhere.
Rusty Redican:But when this fire hit and I was talking to firefighters to your point earlier, I still have all these connections and all these people that you know my heart breaks for but that you know I'm in communication with, and so when I found out that the firefighters were heard, they were hooking up their hoses and you know it wasn't every single um fire hydrant, but the majority of them at one point ended up being empty, right. So I'm like gosh, you know what I think. I have a picture of this empty, this, and that was 2021, july 5th, at 09 15 in the morning. Now, I don't know, I it's not my job to to be able to, you know, do my due diligence and figure out how long it's it's been empty, but I find it rather ironic that it's empty. You know, they were saying diligence and figure out how long it's it's been empty. But I find it rather ironic that it's empty.
Travis Yates:You know they were saying as of february of the year before, or I don't know if they said it was february or or november, but either way um yeah, they obviously knew it was empty, they knew the dangers, they knew the problems, um, and you know the whether, whether we don't, we don't do a great job of holding each other accountable. But you know, yeah, you know, you know everybody wants to blame the mayor this or the fire chief this, but there's a lot of people, all the way into the ranks of the police department, city council, you name it, that knew this was an issue and uh, yeah, I hope we take I hope we take some lessons from it rusty yeah, well, to the exact point of who I warned, right, I sent emails and physically, face-to-face warned.
Rusty Redican:I'll name them Captain John Tom Brian Esmond the slow that is charged with being up there, his sergeant, which was my sergeant at the time, scott Alpert. I told these people to their face at the time look, if you stop doing what we've been doing, if you take those people out of there because they had another couple of officers that they were going to put in there, officers Yee and Margin officers are great police officers. They're very good, they're very young but they're very good police officers, very competent. And if they were to have been left there to continue the work that my partner and I did, then I think it would have been a different situation. We were the ones that trained them and so I explained very much to them the same thing. Like, look, if they take you out of here and I'm going to give you a little evidence to support that then this is going to revert back to Swiss Family, robinson and the Hill Sides, because PPTFH was the Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness. They had a little bit of success before law enforcement came on to help them out, but nowhere near the success they had when my partner and I were with them, pretty much completely right, and I don't want to make it, I don't want it to sound as if that's all we did, and I know I touched on some of the other quality of life things.
Rusty Redican:But mitigating the man-made fire threats in the hillsides, it wasn't just homeless people that we were going in and talking to. We would get information, I would get people call me or text me. Hey look, these kids are going up partying, lighting up fireworks. If it was around New Year's and or around 4th of July, obviously those times that stuff kicks up. Can you come in and address this? Right? They're drinking in the hillsides, they're smoking marijuana. We don't want them to flick a cigarette butt and start it those types of very realistic concerns. So we would go deal with that stuff too. And then we also trained this other, these other two officers, to do the same.
Rusty Redican:Well, I told you about when I was off injured and I wrote that that little little piece. Well, I explained very explicitly to Sergeant Alpert and to Captain Tom respectfully hey guys, please, I implore you, please leave these two guys, just these two. Just let them do the things they're going to keep you in the loop, we don't just go do anything and nobody knows what we're doing. I would let my sergeant know every day hey, this is what we're doing. Give him sort of a brief after action like, hey, this is what we did, how we did it.
Rusty Redican:And so one day and this isn't funny, but these officers went in and they found somebody had started a new encampment, right, and they actually found this guy and they were. They had. He was in an area that he couldn't be. There are signs, no trespassing. And in the dealings they had with them they found out that he had a warrant for his arrest. So they took him to jail. Well, while they were walking him out of the bluffs, this guy says to them hey, just so you know, you guys haven't been here for a little while and there's five more encampments up here that are active. So these guys armed with that information I was in constant communication with them when I was off IRD because, again, I'm that guy and I would pass information to them that I would get from people. Right, they said, hey, just so you know, we just arrested this guy on our way back to the station. He says there's five more encampments, we're going to go and deal with those tomorrow when we come back in bright and early.
Rusty Redican:Well, the next day they call me and they go hey, just so you know. Yeah, sergeant Alpert won't let us go out there. He's got direct orders from the captain to send us to these other parts of the division, right, and not to go back to the Palisades. We told him that we have these other encampments and he said sorry, these, this is neither direct orders from the captain. He wants you to go work in this area. So I warned them, you to go work in this area. So I warned them, I told them now you have another couple of officers and a homeless person who's telling them hey, look, there's these other encampments. And, just so you know, these guys are smoking a lot of narcotics. There's going to be a fire if you don't get them out of here. They ignored that.
Rusty Redican:What do you think happened the following day? Massive fire. I'll send you the photos the helicopter Luckily they're on top of it, meaning Station 69, lafd and Station 23. Great bunch of guys that are very good at what they do. So they were able to use air assets and put it out. But what? The people at the top of the Palisades and the Bluffs were texting me and sending me photos of, and calling me hey, we're at the top watching this fireisades and the Bluffs were texting me and sending me photos of and calling me hey, we're at the top watching this fire. There's a homeless guy that just took off running. The police are, we have an officer here, but the fire department's not here yet and the guy's running to PCH. So what do I tell them? I go, look, get off the phone with me, go tell that police officer to call in additional resources to go take this guy into custody, even if, for the very least, he's being detained pending an investigation, right, so that didn't happen. And so you had that massive fire. And I ended up telling them look, I'm trying not to be the guy to say I told you. So I told you what was going to happen. These managers did not have the benefit of the Captain Nietos, right, that were there before and dealt with the fires and the influx, or the constant phone calls rightfully so from a community that was upset because you look at what happened and this was the possibility. Now, ultimately, that's where they are Now.
Rusty Redican:When I left, yeah, I was pretty upset, right, and I'm not a silent kind of guy, I don't. I don't, I don't suffer in silence If somebody has done something to be in with malice, which is what I believe happened. And so, yeah, I wasn't shy, I was, I was telling people when they called me look you, you got to make sure you hold these people to account. They would call the citizens, would call me and say, look, we're not getting the level this is after I went to the academy we're not getting the level of service that you and your partner gave us. What do we do?
Rusty Redican:And I told them look, first you go to the captain, right, or you go to the sergeant.
Rusty Redican:You go to the officer first I mean, he's not helping you out the slow Then you go to his sergeant. If that doesn't work, you go to his sergeant. That doesn't work. You go to his captain. That doesn't work. You go to the chief over or the commander of bureau. You know you just have to incrementally go up. Well, you're telling millionaires how to incrementally go and complain and they're like why would I do that? I'm just going to go to the mayor, right. I'm going to go to my congressman, my senator. The chief of police is going to get email. And that's what happened, right.
Rusty Redican:So these folks called and said hey, will you go on this Zoom meeting and listen to this meeting we're going to have with Captain Tom, sergeant Alpert and Brian Espin, which is the LAPD sort of contingent for that area, right, the captain, the sergeant in the slow office, and they're slow. And so I went on and I changed my name so that I could just use anonymity and listen and watch what they were saying. And you and I know and when I say you and I, I also mean every other police officer from the two-month academy recruit to the chief of police and or all of the retired police officers and detectives that are out there we know what a consensual encounter is and how to use those right number one use them to to build the rapport with the community, but you can also use them to sort of get additional information from either you know nefarious individuals or people that are that you know are up to no good, but you don't really have anything that you can stop them on legally. And again, you know this whole and I'm not going to get into the rabbit hole on this but the term constitutional policing is something that's been thrown out for quite a while. I don't know about you, but I don't know any other way to police other than to adhere strictly to the Constitution of the United States of America.
Rusty Redican:And a lot of times my bosses probably were not happy because I, you know, look, I stick to exactly what my oath of office was. Well, I'm listening to these guys get asked questions why are you, officer Espin, why aren't you doing what Rusty was doing, right? Why aren't you doing what Jimmy and Rusty were doing? You're not approaching these people. And then the answer was well, I can't approach them if they're not breaking the law. And I'm like gosh. And then if, to make matters worse, his sergeant and his captain doubled down on that and said look, I expect my officers to only engage. I'm like no, you don't. You expect your officers to build a foundation of communication and trust with your community and trust with your community. So warning those folks and explaining to them the very real potential was ignored.
Rusty Redican:And instead what they did was they went on sort of a campaign, if you will, to sort of sully my name and besmirch me, telling the people that watched exactly what I did. There's nothing I did that was secret. There's nothing that I did, that any good police officer could have done the exact same thing, right? I'm not necessarily special in that regard, but they saw what I did. There's nothing, that's that's secret, right? Instead, they went in and decided, well, we have to besmirch this guy as best we can without, you know, getting into legal trouble. Say, look, he didn't do the job that he said he did, he did this job. They know that that was a causal factor to get us to where we were on the 7th of last month.
Rusty Redican:And so I do believe and I don't, I don't, I think 90, I'm probably 98% that this was not started by a homeless person. Everything that I'm seeing is that it was a human that did it, but whether it was arson that was committed on purpose and or, obviously, as you know, now we have also a homicide investigation, because you have 28 people that have lost their lives. So, look, this happened at the hand of a human, in my opinion, hand of a human, in my opinion. I personally don't believe I could be proven wrong, but I've talked to my stepdad, who's a retired firefighter, line firefighter.
Rusty Redican:I've talked to a bunch of line firefighters that were actually out there, responded to the New Year's Eve or New Year's Eve morning, fire, right, and most of them are all saying the same thing. Actually, they're all saying the same thing with no look. There's different times where embers can come up and and provide, you know, provide this sort of devastation or at least this kind of fire, especially with 80 to 100 mile an hour winds, but they're like nah, if this was started by fireworks, it was fresh fireworks. And again, this is the opinion, opinion of folks that I'm not going to name because of the obvious. I'm okay to be pummeled, but they're still actively working.
Travis Yates:Yeah, and I think, more importantly than how it started was I think the story you lined out, Rusty, of where we got how we got here right. I think that's really the lesson that all leaders, managers, should be listening here is is we need to listen to the people on the ground, listen to people that know what they're doing, understand that risk management is everybody's job, because, as horrific as this is, shame on us if we don't take some lessons from it.
Rusty Redican:Yeah, yeah, and that's the thing right there is. I've always appreciated a debrief right. Most cops and military and sheriffs understand an after-action report right, even an after-action brief on LAPD. We refer to them as debriefs. After an incident, um, or, you know, I was a peer member on critical incident, um issues that you know, obviously, when you get involved in a shooting or you have some sort of a leery call out or, uh, a critical incident where deadly force was used. I was a a peer member, much, I think you. You would state that you've done that as well and so I'm familiar with how that works. So you debrief what occurred not to you know, to sort of, you know, grill the officers that have done the job, that may have made some mistakes, and or just look, they did everything in policy. But, to your point, we can learn from this, right, because I think that's the job of law enforcement that I think a lot of times we've done very good at, which is continue to sort of as a profession, start to become better and better. Unfortunately, we've had a similar digression because of some of the demographic imperative stuff that has unfortunately been mainstayed. But, yeah, they need to look at this and go okay, I made some mistakes here. I shouldn't have done this. I should have kept these guys there because, look, we had that place for the most part when we were working.
Rusty Redican:And when I say on lockdown, I don't mean that people couldn't go enjoy themselves. To the contrary. Even during COVID, when there was this edicts going all around the country of you can't go out, you can't go hiking yeah, I'm not doing that, I'm not stopping people from enjoying their constitutional rights, and that didn't happen. I purposefully. People wanted to go surf, go ahead, see, united States of America, Go, go. Do I think the other?
Travis Yates:importance that I want people to take from this is just the difference that a couple of cops can make, right, I mean, you obviously lined out that story, but everybody needs to understand the power of one. Like, if you're a police officer somewhere in america, you have the potential to literally uh, you know, stop, stop catastrophe at some point. Right, I mean so, mean, so it's pretty amazing. Rusty, I can't thank you enough for being here. Pretty incredible story.
Travis Yates:I think it's one that none of people are talking about. We all want to just put a blame on somebody, but at the end of the day, we need to really look at the cause of leadership and the decisions made on how we can improve in the future. So thank you so much for being here.
Rusty Redican:You got it, I and the decisions made on how we can improve in the future. So thank you so much for being here. You got it. I'd like to leave with this and I ended this on with the Fox News as well just because it's applicable.
Rusty Redican:It's tragically ironic in this particular case that the Pacific Palisades people who put their money, and not all of these people we touched on some of the millionaires and billionaires and very wealthy individuals the overwhelming majority of people in the Pacific Palisades are not those people. They're not very, very wealthy. You know they've lived there for 60 plus years, 50 years but those people all chipped in, whether it was their time or their money or their clothes, to basically help homeless folks get off the streets, and the tragic irony is it's now them who are finding themselves homeless at this point, and that's where all of these leaders that you and I are talking about they need to jock up. Do the right thing. Look, if you're going to have a little egg in your face, it's okay, as long as you wipe it off and learn from your mistakes where they're not egregious. Some of the others. They got some splinting to do.
Travis Yates:Russ, you're Etikin. Thank you so much. If you've been watching or you've been listening, thank you for doing that. Thank you for spending your time with us. Just remember, lead on and stay courageous.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates. We invite you to join other courageous leaders at www. travisyates. org.
