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
Law Enforcement in Crisis: A Conversation with Randy Sutton
Randy Sutton, 34-year law enforcement veteran and founder of The Wounded Blue, examines America's criminal justice crisis and its devastating impact on police officers nationwide. He traces how political decisions and false narratives have undermined public safety while offering solutions to restore respect for law enforcement.
• The diminishment of law enforcement began under the Obama administration with the "police acted stupidly" comment
• Ferguson's "hands up, don't shoot" narrative was a fabricated story that continues to harm police credibility
• Political leaders have prioritized activist agendas over public safety, resulting in understaffed departments
• Claims about "disproportional policing" are easily debunked by comparing police activity to criminal behavior rather than general population
• Police chiefs serve at the pleasure of political leaders while sheriffs answer directly to voters
• The Wounded Blue organization has helped over 16,000 injured officers navigate physical injuries and psychological trauma
• Many officers fear their administration more than criminals on the street
• The National Law Enforcement Survival Summit (September 22-25) offers free registration for injured officers
Visit thewoundedblue.org or twbsummit.com to learn more about supporting injured officers and attending the upcoming Survival Summit in Las Vegas.
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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 decided to spend a few minutes with us here today and I've got a special guest that you're going to be familiar with. He's been on the show before. We want to get an update. He's got a lot of awesome things going on. I want to introduce you to Randy Sutton, a 34-year law enforcement veteran and current founder and board member with the Wounded Blue. Incredible stuff, Randy. How are you doing?
Randy Sutton:I am fantastic, travis, thanks for having me.
Travis Yates:Man, I know you're super busy, so I'm so honored that you took a few minutes to spend time with us today. And before we get into all the activities with the Wounded Blue, I mean, randy, you've had your hand in so many jars, right? I mean, people are familiar with your story.
Travis Yates:Obviously, you spent early years in New Jersey and you spent the bulk of your years there in Las Vegas Metro and you know, you were on the show Cops and you're probably I think I've always said this, I don't know if you believe it, but I think you're one of the most recognized law enforcement officers in the country. You're obviously one of the most knowledgeable ones, and that's really what matters to me is we have many people out there that may be recognized, but your experience and knowledge is far blows away. Most of I'll just call them the fake ones out there that you see on social media all the time. You're the real deal, so that's why we love having you on man. But there's been a lot that's happened in the profession since we last talked to you I think well over a year ago With politics, with leadership, with recruiting. You've talked to a lot of people around the country. What's the state of law enforcement as we see it today.
Randy Sutton:You know, this has been a time of change in law enforcement, most of it not for the good Travis. The reality is that we're still in a crisis of criminal justice in America. It's been a long process. We have seen the diminishment of the law enforcement function over the years. We've seen the diminishment of retention of officers. We've seen the diminishment of recruitment of officers. We've seen a diminishment of the role that law enforcement has played in society. All because of this, what is a manufactured crisis? You know, when I my my latest book just came out, rescuing 911, the Fight for America's Safety and I talk about this crisis where it began and began. You know, you and I've had very, very deep philosophical discussions about law enforcement, which, of course, I've enjoyed, you know, for years.
Randy Sutton:The reality is that the diminishment of law enforcement began under the Obama administration. I say that the beginning point was in the statement that President Obama came out with. The police acted stupidly, came out publicly to the American people. Millions and millions and millions of people saw our president criticizing the police department because his friend got arrested, deservedly so. His friend was acting the fool didn't cooperate with the police. The police acted entirely properly in making an arrest when his buddy refused to cooperate when people had called the police on him about breaking into a home. Well, it turned out it was his own house, but he had locked himself out. So he broke in. People saw it, called the police, as we would ask them to do, and he decided that he wasn't going to cooperate and wasn't going to. All he had to do was show hey, yeah, I live here, that's all. But instead of the president of the United States supporting law enforcement, he came out publicly and that began the diminishment of respect, and when people don't respect law enforcement, that begins a decline of the entire system. And that was, I believe, that that moment was pivotal.
Randy Sutton:Now, over the years, we saw the great lie of Ferguson. Hands up, don't you? One of the biggest perpetuated lies about law enforcement in law enforcement history. That is still being embraced today by certain people on the left. Certain actors and social justice warriors and politicians are still repeating that to this very day, even though it never occurred. Hands up, don't shoot was a myth, didn't happen. The police were legally justified in shooting Michael Brown, and the ramifications of that are still being felt today. In fact, I'll get into a story about that a little later on in this interview that impacts the wounded blue personally. So you had that Once again riots in the streets. What did the politicians do? They took power away from the police. They told the cops don't put your uniform, your tactical equipment on. Go out there and just de-escalate One of my least favorite words and we saw the number of police officers being injured in social unrest.
Travis Yates:Record number as we speak, it's a record number last year Record numbers we speak, it's a record number last year Record numbers.
Randy Sutton:Then you had the insanity of George Floyd, which, of course, was probably a watershed moment in law enforcement, which literally has led to the criminal justice crisis that we are in to this day, where we have fewer cops on the streets.
Randy Sutton:You have crisis in the retention of officers.
Randy Sutton:In the biggest cities you have the lowest number of cops to police the major cities they can't hire enough.
Randy Sutton:I know that you are deeply involved in the recruitment of law enforcement very, very effectively in uh, in the recruitment of law enforcement very, very effectively, um and and. But we are still seeing that um that that there is a diminishment of the ability of the police to police because of the lack of of uh, experienced officers, but also because the political left has put every stumbling block they possibly could to effective policing by creating laws that favor the criminal, by putting policies in place in places like Washington DC that literally don't allow the police to police. Well, until recently, so we've seen all of this taking place and even though now we have a president in office and a Department of Justice that is really completely 180-degree turn from the Biden administration, which wanted to prosecute the police instead of the criminal, you can't right the ship that quickly it is. We are still in a we're in a generational criminal justice crisis. That will not be. That will not be fixed for many, many years and I doubt it will ever go back to what it was.
Travis Yates:Randy you bring up. I mean we can unpack this for hours and I want to sort of.
Travis Yates:I want to and, by the way, I love having you on because it's such a learning moment for me, because you and I love to talk so much and I've wanted about 50 times to just interrupt you. Number two I'm going to come back to you in a minute because I want you to pick up where you left off, because the error we are making in this profession is we keep talking about all the pendulum shifting, all the pendulum shifting. Folks. That pendulum has been broken and you just outlined why that pendulum is broken, so it's going to take more than just waiting for a shift. We're going to come right back to that. But I want to back this all the way up to when you began, because you talked about the genesis of this like no one ever has. Well, I actually opened up about it in my book as well.
Travis Yates:The greatest police leader, but I I expanded on it pretty deeply and I want to just remind our audience. You're right. For the first time of anyone's remembrance, the, the most powerful man in the world, stood at a podium and, yes, he called the cambridge police stupid for a legal, appropriate, common sense approach. He got a 911 call and responded to a 911 call after the guy was seen breaking down his own door, which no one knew at the time. But I want to remind everybody that before he made that statement, he gave the playbook for everything you just talked about. President Obama said this and I'm going to paraphrase I have the exact quotes in my book. But he said this I don't know all the facts but I but we need to all consider what role race played, and there's been a long history in this country of disproportional policing with african-americans and latinos. Then he continued on to say they were stupid. If you think about it, randy, that is the playbook of everything you just described and everything in the future. They don't know a lot about what they're talking about. Let's throw race on the wall, so let's make it emotional. Let's talk about disproportionality and racism and this and that, and that has been the precipice of every so-called police reform that's gone on to then destroy law enforcement. And in the middle of that and it's so easy to debunk you just debunked all those stories in just a few seconds.
Travis Yates:But this whole metric of disproportional policing and racism is so easy to debunk because when they say that they're comparing that to the general population, why would you compare police activity to the general population. That's not who our clientele are. That's like comparing NBA to the general population or Cracker Barrel to the general population. Last time I checked, cracker Barrel serves old people. They must be. You know ageism as well, right? So no, you have to compare police activity.
Travis Yates:This is a big shocker, and it's crazy that no leaders are talking about this. Randy, I know you are. You have to. You have to compare police activity to people that commit crimes. That's our customer base. And when you break down part one crimes by race and then you compare it to police activity in every city I've done it, for it's within a half a percent. There's no disproportionality.
Travis Yates:And so the way, the reason you're able to hear these stats, like everybody's listening has heard this oh, black males are we use force or arrested at two and a half times rate than other whites, or what? Yeah, they're comparing it to the population. If they're committing crimes at three or four X the rate. Yeah, we're going to be police activity at three or four X rate, or whatever it is. But what is amazing isn't how simple that is to explain, randy. What's amazing is no one's explaining it To this day.
Travis Yates:We're seeing police leaders kowtowing and bending over at police reforms and one stupid idea after another, all based on this myth and lie that police are somehow systematically racist, which is stupid in itself, because that means, randy, that means we're all in on it, from the records clerk to the canine officer, to the homicide detective, to the patrolman, which is one thing I pointed out in my book. Why is it? The patrolmen are always the one racist, but all of a sudden you go into homicide or canine or detective and you're not racist anymore. How is that the case? Because those cases are already to them, those crimes have already been committed and they're just simply investigating those cases. So the whole thing was so easy to debunk, randy, from the very beginning.
Travis Yates:Why did that stick so much in the last decade and got us to where we are here today? Because let's not just let's not mix words. Here we are here today Retention crisis, recruiting crisis, chaos, crime rising record assaults on police 80,000 last year the record I started when I started teaching, the record was 60,000, for year after year after year, that was the record. All of a sudden, boom, it bumps to 80,000. We're all here because leaders, enforcement leaders refuse to tell the truth about something as simple. So simple that a couple of dummies like me and you just explained it. Why is that randy?
Randy Sutton:because the, the, the power structure is, has destroyed the uh, the, the testicular functions of our police leaders. Okay, you know there's two kinds of in the policing world. We have sheriffs and we have police chiefs. Those are the functional leaders of you know, the 18,000, some you know law enforcement organizations in the country. Fundamentally they're different because the sheriffs are elected positions, so they answer to the voters and they serve a term for at least four years. A police chief is an appointed position, app appointed by whom? By the political leadership of these various cities. Now, if you get appointed to one of those positions as a police chief or police commissioner depends on the jurisdiction you serve, at the whim of the city council and or the mayor. That means if you don't go along with the program adios, they'll find somebody else that does, and so they have a very high mortality rate if you will. When it comes down to uh, you know their, their longevity in in uh, in those positions. So you, you have you. That's. That in and of itself is a is an issue, because if the political leadership has total control over the functions of the police leadership, which then is setting the direction for the agency, that is a breeding ground for disaster.
Randy Sutton:You and I both know that we're both believers in Lady Justice. Right, she stands proud, but she's blindfolded, and the scales of justice are held out, indicating the very symbolism that we so deeply feel about our profession. And that is Lady Justice is blind, no color, no creed, no religion, no socioeconomic status. That is the way the law enforcement system is supposed to be designed. When you put your thumb on the scale because of politics, then you destroy the very tenets of what you and I so deeply believe in and most street-level cops believe in. And that's just. Let me do my job. Let me enforce the law as it is written and don't let the politics get involved in it. But that entire reality has been upended because of left-leaning leadership in major cities and states and governor's offices.
Travis Yates:Yeah, when you think about it, we've gotten away from the mission. Our mission is so simple. It's in our name randy law enforcement. So once we got away from that mission, and when you and I the bulk of our career, we were in that mission. That's why crime was reduced in the 90s to record lows because we just focused on the mission.
Travis Yates:All the noises people need to understand this all the noise that you hear from the media or the politicians or the activists, that was always there. That was always there. The difference is how we reacted to that in recent years and how we've let them sort of ruin that mission. And I'll prove to everybody listening that we're away from the mission. I dare you to find one police chief in a midsize or large agency that's ever been fired for high crime. You're not going to find it. Been fired for high crime. You're not going to find it. They get fired for other things, but they don't get fired for high crime, which is the sole mission of any police leader. So that's how far off we have.
Travis Yates:I have a quick solution. That, by the way, the elections is a solution. Ironically, you talked about sheriffs, randy, and sheriffs are political by their nature, but they're also beholden to the citizens who vote for them. So they tend to stick on mission because they know that crime and law and order is not political. Everybody wants to be safe, no matter if you're right, left, black, white, whatever. Everybody wants to be safe. So they just stick to the mission. They give their communities a safe communities and they just get reelected every single time. Meanwhile, on the police chief side, they're beholden to the politician. This has nothing to do with crime and we see chaos reign.
Travis Yates:But there is a solution. You either elect your police chief because I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon or let's treat them like athletic coaches, right? You know I'm a big NCAA football fan and you know what. If a team hires a new coach, you name the team. They generally get about three years to turn the team around. They generally give them about three years. Once again, just like police cheese.
Travis Yates:Coaches are big turnover in college sports. If they don't turn the team around meaning their sole mission is wins if they don't start winning more after about three years, they're gone. You guarantee right now Arkansas Razorbacks my favorite team they're on like year four or five with their coach and they did not renew his contract and it's like if you don't win this year, you're gone. Everybody knows it. The mission is wins, and so if you put that on the Chiefs and they knew they had to reduce crime, they would just get back to reducing crime. But right now their job is more solidified by staying away from crime, because they're working for political animals that don't want anything to do with that?
Randy Sutton:Exactly, exactly, and and uh, it's maddening to see it, you know uh, watching, watching the, the streets run red with, with the blood of innocence, while, um, while the leadership of the, I mean, we're watching it play out right now in real time in Chicago.
Travis Yates:Yeah, they have. Trump deranged him so bad. They're advocating for the killing of more people, predominantly African-Americans, because that's what's happening every weekend.
Randy Sutton:It's shocking to see that these same people keep on getting reelected. I mean, look at what is happening in New York City right now. You have one of the most frightening politicians I've ever seen, who looks very positively, like he's going to be elected the mayor of America's largest city, of America's largest city. It flies in the face of any normalcy that a guy who is supported defunding the police literally a socialist that is saying we need to reduce the prison population by just letting them out, everything that he believes in goes against the common sense of public safety, everything, and yet he is being embraced by the political left. I mean de Blasio, of course. One of the worst law enforcement mayors in history is embracing him to support him for the mayor. If this happens and it looks like it's going to you're going to see a decline of public safety that we've never seen before, and we have seen a huge decline in public safety. It's going to be. It's going to be unbelievable what happens in New York.
Travis Yates:One thing that's so depressing is is the one thing that President Trump has done, and you can agree or disagree with his efforts, but he's shown a light. He's put a spotlight on these high crime cities because we've become so accustomed to it, randy, it's not even a headline. You know 30, 40 murders a week in some of these cities. And these cities are clipping three, four, five, 600 homicides a year and it's become so common no one's paying attention to them. You're right, real lives are being affected For every murder. There's dozens of dozens of loved ones that their lives are affected forever based on that murder.
Travis Yates:But the one thing that President Trump has done is is he was playing along. People thought it was about Washington DC. It wasn't about Washington DC. That was just the one city he can control. Because he knew that when he did that, because once again we know how to reduce crime More cops, law enforcement, enforcement, throw people in jail. It just tends to reduce crime.
Travis Yates:I know it seems like a crazy concept. So he knew that that would have the result in dc, which it did 12 days without a murder in the summer in washington dc stop right there. Carjackings reduced 85, stop right there. And I could go on and on, but then what that did is now he's pointing a finger to all these other cities going why aren't you doing this and so, uh so, and then to watch them just sit there and lie to the camera about how it's not unsafe here, people are fine here, and when everybody's the brain knows it, I mean they're having to do mental judo, triple jumps, you know, to try to get out of this instead of just saying, hey, we do need to be better. Here's what we're going to do, here's our plan. No, no, they're just denying the problem, and they have willing police chiefs to go right along with.
Randy Sutton:Not only are they denying the problem, travis, they are covering up the problem. Yeah, look at what happened in Washington DC. This is a perfect example. Now you and I both know coppers that are on the streets there who have basically been told don't police, and every possible mechanism has been thrown in the way of actively policing in the city of Washington DC. And, of course, crime is absolutely out of control Violent crime, murders, carjackings because there's no consequences. If there are no consequences to crime, then the predators are going to have a field day, which is exactly what took place. How did Muriel Bowser and the city council react? They made it even more difficult for the police to police by putting, by putting policies in place didn't make it impossible, and then, for their own political benefit, they started cooking the books of of the criminal stats, of what is taking place.
Travis Yates:If you don't make arrests and you don't take police reports, your crime magically goes down. Now, just to let people know how bad crime is in these cities, the National Victimization Survey that's done every year reports that almost half of all violent crime is not even reported to law enforcement. So when these politicians are bragging about their lower violent crime, you can just stick another another. You know, if they say 50, you just go ahead and say it's 75, 80 or 100 on top of it. Right, so we know that. We know it's there. It just seems silly. We're even having the debate. But, more importantly, what I want leaders to understand if they're listening or watching this is you can't sit back and think, oh well, president trump's here now and things are turning. No, no, the people that destroyed this profession, randy, are still. They may have taken a backseat with the political winds, but you think they've gone anywhere. Have you wondered why the protests have kind of stopped against police, but they picked up against Tesla or Israel or whoever else? No, those are the same people that were there in the streets in 2020. They just redirected them to different topics. Do you not think that when it's politically savvy to attack law enforcement again. They'll be right here doing it again and I see nobody talking about it, taking measures to correct it. We're just like going along to get along and we just seem to be happy in the still times of peace.
Travis Yates:You're right, I think your opening monologue was excellent because they have us back on our heels, but we're not doing a whole lot to get back up on our feet, because the fact that some people may listen to us randy and say, oh, those guys are controversial, tells you there's a problem, because what we're saying is the absolute truth that nobody in law enforcement is even talking about. Now I want to caveat that we have some great leaders in law enforcement. You know Scott Hughes and a bunch of great chiefs out there. They're doing the good stuff but, man, it is not the masses, it is not tipped over, it is not brought the profession back. So we need more people bold enough to talk about it DM, I say courageous to talk about it. What do they need to do? What needs to happen, because you and I talking about it and ranting about it isn't going to help. What actions within law enforcement today, every chief needs to do to basically bulletproof their agency for the chaos that's still behind the closet is just hiding for the moment.
Randy Sutton:Well, first thing you got to do is read your book about courageous leadership. Thank you, thank you.
Travis Yates:You're very good at your book, but thank you very much.
Randy Sutton:Well, because even that term courageous leadership is a very, very deep term. And what does it mean? It doesn't mean that when we think of courage, very often we think of physical courage. Right, we think of braving, you know, going to the sound of the gunfire, of the momentary heroics that police are famous for. That's when we think of courage. But courage is far, far more complicated and deeper than a momentary heroic action.
Randy Sutton:Courage means to do the right thing for the right reasons at the right times, despite the political incriminations and the possibilities of negative effects. And that's where we have seen a lack of courage. That's where we have seen you know what the right thing is to do. You know what the right actions are to safeguard people's lives, property and to accomplish the mission that you swore to do when you rose up and you raised your right hand and swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States and to be a police officer. You know what the right thing is to do, but you don't do it because of your own benefits, your own political benefits, or because you are fearful of what the consequences might be for standing up for the right reasons. And that is, uh, that's what correct, that's what courageous leadership really is.
Travis Yates:Yeah, we, we, we find a we. We rarely see a problem of cowardice in the streets. Right, the family behind the desk. We're seeing it routinely and it's it's just commission creep right. One cowardly act leads to three, to five, to seven, and we could go on and on about the things we've seen. That has because we have.
Travis Yates:I don't, I don't tend to blame the politicians and the activists in the media. That's who they are. I'm blaming the leaders inside law enforcement that has let it happen, which is why I'm not on the road 200 days a year talking about courageous leadership, because they don't want to hear it. Right, but the people, the people that do want to hear it, the people that do embrace it, may not be in the chief seat yet, but they're out there on the streets and they'll be there one day. So I think there's hope because I think a lot of people recognize this. Randy, let's talk about your book, because I've got your book. It's phenomenal. In fact, I think I even have a testimonial in there, which is awesome. You let me do, but tell us about the book. I know your opening monologue kind of brought about some of the things you talked about in the book, but tell us about it, where can they find it and what is some of the feedback you've heard on it.
Randy Sutton:So this is my fifth book and became a national bestseller within days of its release. It's called rescuing nine one one the fight for America's safety, and it's a very, very I wrote this book, so it's so incredibly easy to read, a fast read, and it's really a call to action. It explains how we got into this criminal justice crisis to begin with. It explains in very graphic detail many of the horrendous things that happen to our police officers across this nation, both from being physically harmed to being emotionally harmed, to literally having their own leadership turn their backs on them, put them in prison for legitimate police actions legitimate police actions. And so it goes into what we need to do about it, and that is what we need to do is unite. I fully believe this that the vast amount of Americans truly support their law enforcement. They believe in the men and women who are going out there every day and putting that badge on. They believe, they trust them, they believe in them, they trust them, they respect them.
Randy Sutton:The problem is, the silent majority is still doing what the silent majority does, and that's being silent. We can't do that anymore, travis. We have to become activists, even if our own activism is getting our butts to the poll and understanding who the people are that we're voting for. There's so much. There's so many people getting elected who the voters don't know who they are, don't know what they stand for, because we have become complacent as a nation. Look at the number of people who are putting these morons into office. Sometimes there's 12, 13% of the voters that are actually voting. So who's getting out there?
Randy Sutton:It's these activists who want to topple the status quo, while the good people, the people that are being affected by this criminal instability, are staying home. Either they don't believe that their vote will count or they're so busy actually making a living and working their butts off to feed their families that it's difficult to take time to go to the voting booth and to understand who you're voting for. Become an activist. It is up to us, it is up to the American people to stand up for ourselves and say enough is enough. And we've seen it. We've seen it actually take place. We saw it with the recall of some of the worst district attorneys in the nation, where the people just said enough is enough. And this is what America. That's what this book is a call to action. It's time to get up and stand up for what you believe in.
Travis Yates:Well, it's phenomenal. I guess all major bookstores, amazon, give us a name again Randy, before we move on.
Randy Sutton:Rescuing 911, the fight for America's safety.
Travis Yates:Now, randy, you talk about a lot of officers that have been affected by all of this crazy stuff we've talked about, right, and one of those is obviously psychological trauma. And then, of course, you have physical trauma and injuries, and we're all familiar with that. But you founded an organization several years ago that is the organization to address this. You had no idea what was coming down the pipe in the profession when you founded it, but, boy, I tell you what it's setting in a spot where it needs to be right now. It's called the Wounded Blue. Tell us about why you founded that, where that's been and where you're going with that organization and how our officers can reach out and get help.
Randy Sutton:Well, the wounded blue is an organization that should not exist. Right, it should not need to exist, and the fact that it does is a testament to how we have failed the men and women of the profession of law enforcement. I did 34 years as a cop. I did 10 in a small town of Princeton, new Jersey, 24 in Las Vegas. Metropolitan Police Department and, travis, I love being a cop, I'm proud of my profession, I'm proud of the years that I spent serving, but my career abruptly ended on a dirty Las Vegas street when I suffered a stroke in my police car and lost the ability to speak, move and crumple to the pavement, laying there, helpless, at 2 o'clock in the morning on Las Vegas Boulevard, and it was literally the most frightening moment of my life. I was unable to move and I'm laying. People are, tourists are walking by taking my picture. It was the most humiliating, frightening moment. And I wasn't afraid of dying, travis, I was afraid of living like that, and once again, though, the angel has been on my shoulder. My entire career was with me.
Randy Sutton:Again, the clot went through my brain, did its damage, ended my police career and then, in the weird way that the world works, what I thought was the worst thing could possibly happen to me changed the trajectory of my life, and that was that my own department turned its back on me. They said we're not paying your medical bills and we're not giving you your benefits. And I was wait a minute, you can't do that. I gave you 24 years of my life. I almost gave my life on more than one occasion. What do you mean? You're not paying my medical bills, you have to. And they said, yeah, we'll make us. And I had to get a lawyer, I had to go to court, I had to fight him for over a year and it was devastating to me emotionally, that feeling of abandonment. You know, when we joined our police agencies we're told man, the thin blue line, right, we got your back, we got your six.
Travis Yates:And Randy, just not to interrupt you, but they tell you this so much that you end up giving everything to that department. You miss birthdays and anniversaries and you work for free. You'll do whatever it takes. So you give it all, and then most people find out and if you haven't found out yet, you're lucky Most people find out that that's not done in return in some form or fashion. You just told your story, I have my own story and everybody else has their own story, so that's the dirty little secret that nobody wants to tell you. And so you need to go into that job knowing that Maybe you don't want to ignore the people that mean the most, which is your family, over this job that has no loyalty back to you.
Randy Sutton:You know, you and I both know one of the heroes of law enforcement is Dr Kevin Gilmartin, who wrote probably the Bible of law enforcement. Is Dr Kevin Gilmartin who wrote the, who wrote the probably the Bible of law enforcement. Um, you know, uh, he, he said it really specifically. You, as a cop, often say I love my department. Well, that department will never love you back. Right, it is incapable of loving you back.
Travis Yates:It's a. It's a. It's a dysfunctional relationship. It's you've got an infatuation with the stripper who will never love you, right? That's a good, that's a good acronym for you in vegas, randy. But yeah, you, you think you're in love with the stripper, but she's not really in love with you.
Randy Sutton:She's just trying to get your money and so you, you realize that at the darkest part of your life. So I went through that horror and it affected me deeply. It put me in a very, very dark space Watching my own department just literally spend tens of thousands of taxpayers' dollars to fight me just to pay my medical bills. And I'm trying to figure out why. I went to go see the sheriff who I served with for 24 years, who I was friendly with, and I said how do you treat me like this? And he said, randy, this isn't personal, it's just business. And he was telling me the truth, travis, you see, because I was no longer an asset to the department, I'm now a financial liability.
Travis Yates:Yeah, it's personal to you, but to them it's not personal, it's just the way we do business.
Randy Sutton:You're right. So eventually I won. And then, because of writing books and being in the movies and being a police trainer for years and being so visible in the law enforcement community, cops started reaching out to me. Randy, I know you don't know me, but I was shot in the line of duty. My chief never even visited me in the hospital. They've thrown me away, randy, I was paralyzed when my police car was hit by a drunk driver and they've abandoned me and I'm going. Wait a minute, I'm not the Lone Ranger here. This is happening to cops across America. Talk about a failure of leadership, travis. Yeah, it's appalling.
Randy Sutton:And I realized that they all wanted just to be able to share their frustrations with the system, the workers' comp system being broken and corrupt, the callousness of the administration, the deviousness of a system that literally will just suck you up and throw you away. And so, realizing that this is a national issue, I looked for national resources. You know, if you get killed in the line of duty, there's a great organization called COPS Concerns of Police Survivors. I reached out to them and I said, hey, is there anything for guys who've been injured? And the executive director said Randy, we can't even handle the death and you remember there's about 140, 150 police officers a year die in the line of duty. There's tens of thousands of officers who are significantly injured, either physically or emotionally and psychologically.
Randy Sutton:So I created the Wounded Blue to be a peer support organization for these men and women who had no place to turn to, and we've helped more than 16,000 police officers Travis in the last five and a half years, which is an astounding number because of the peer advocate support team that the Wounded Blue has. All the team is made up of cops and some of their spouses, because we do spousal support as well and everybody's been shot or stabbed or beaten or run over. Everybody's faced post-traumatic stress, come out on the other side and yet they continue to want to give. They are the heroes of the wounded blue. They are the men and women who are serving every single day, some because they're from their wheelchairs, some, you know, even though they've been blinded, but they continue to serve their brothers and sisters. They are the true heroes of the Wounded Blue and we're saving lives, we're saving careers, we're saving marriages, because everybody feels they're alone. That's why our motto never forgotten, never alone is so critically important. That is what we live by.
Travis Yates:I want to tell our audience just how important the window blue is, because everyone's civilian or law enforcement or first responder has knows these stats right. Law enforcement's got an exponentially higher alcoholism right. They have exponentially higher divorce rate. The average death is 56 or 57 or whatever it is today. We know it's, we know it's about a decade less than average citizens, and so we know all these metrics, we know all this data and everybody who's in law enforcement knows people involved with this data. Why do you think that's happening?
Travis Yates:Here's a hint it's the trauma that's put on them, oftentimes by their own police departments. Cops aren't afraid of getting shot, stabbed, even getting killed, but what the death fear is is the psychological and emotional trauma that's put on them by toxic leadership. By the minute you retire, you can't even get back inside the police department because the cue cards turned off, your emails turned off. I know that personally, like it is horrendous the way we're treating these men and women that dedicate their lives to their community, randy, so I want to make sure people understand when we talk about trauma.
Travis Yates:The vast majority of trauma is not physical. It is emotional and mental right, exactly, and we tend to have you know, we tend to. If you get hurt on the job, you know you're shot or you're stabbed, we tend to make them kind of a local hero. Right, we tend to do that, although there's still some issues with that. But, man, the emotional trauma that you don't see, that's going on in people's heads late at night, or the, or the nightmares that wake them up, uh, where they can't transition into other walks of life, that's been well documented in the military. But you're the only organization that's talking about this in law enforcement. So this organization, just as much for physical trauma, it's for the people that are. They have the voices in their head from that emotional trauma that's been put on them year after year, decade after decade.
Randy Sutton:I can't tell you how many times I've heard this, a derivative of this statement I'm not scared of going out on the street. I'm not scared of facing the bad guys, I'm scared to death of my administration. Yep, that is a very dangerous place to be for our police, and yet it's been going on literally since I pinned the badge on, just as you have.
Travis Yates:And these psychos, randy, that are wearing these chief badges. They'll brag about these little check the box, and we're doing this on mental health and mental wellness because it's the flavor of the day and the cops know that it doesn't do anything. It's just for the chief to pat themselves on the back until they get carpal tunnel syndrome. And so you're doing something real right. Have you had any kickback from some of these departments that are just cowardly and whack job chiefs that are out there? I mean, have you got any stories to tell about how you've tried to offer services and they don't want it because it can actually help the men and women behind the badge?
Randy Sutton:Oh, a hundred percent. So we are literally a resource for every police officer in America. We provide confidential peer support for injured officers across the country and also retired cops, because we realize that just because you hung up your badge and gun, after 25 years you're probably still damaged right, and now you're not even part of the family anymore. Well, yes, you are. When you're part of the Wounded Blue, we are consistently your family. So, and now, of course, spousal support as well, because who's hurting when you're hurting your significant other? And there's never been anything for them on a national level. So we have that.
Randy Sutton:But we are also a resource for every police agency in America Travis Police leaders and, believe it or not, I'm actually seeing more and more police leaders reaching out to us for help, and that does my heart good. We were just, we just spent. I sent a team down to a midsize agency in New Mexico because their chief realized that they were having issues and they had a murder of one of their officers which devastated their agency. Then, right on the heels of that, the suicide of another officer. Then the prosecution of another officer for a perfectly justifiable use of force.
Travis Yates:Yep, I'm very familiar with it.
Randy Sutton:And they were hurting. And this chief said you know what I love the work you guys do. Can you come spend a little time with us?
Travis Yates:And that chief has stood up. He stood up for that prosecuted officer. He stood up the entire time.
Randy Sutton:So, when you think of all the bad leaders out there, or the non-courageous leaders, there are tons of guys doing it the right way, and this police chief, you know, reached out and we're and we're seeing more and more of that. Because here's the thing, peer support is incredibly important, right, whether it is a peer support program or if it's just knowing that you can talk to your partner, because we all feel alone in our feelings. And having someone that you can have a conversation with, that you trust, that is not going to be judgmental, is critical. Now, even departments that really try to do it right and have peer support programs that are, you know, stood up for the right reasons, there is a huge distrust, very often for a lot of positive, for a lot of real reasons, from the line officers that don't trust their administrations. They don't want them knowing their problems. If they don't want them knowing that they're, that they may have a substance abuse problem, um, because it'll, because it'll negatively affect them. So we are that resource. We've gotten hundreds of people into treatment where their department didn't even know about it. So that that is that's what. That's what makes us so effective, um, that we're doing it for the right reasons.
Randy Sutton:You know we're a charity, right, we're a nationwide charity. We function only on donations and it's difficult. It is very difficult because we can only touch as many lives as we have resources to do so and it's a tough road, and so it's very important that people know that I take no salary. I live on my pension and the money that we get in it goes to the work that we do. So I just because, let's face it, cops are distrustful of anybody anyway. We've seen every charity scam that exists, right, we've seen the charities that you know that actually spent 10 cents on the dollar on the programs and everything else goes to administrative costs. That's not. That's not the case with us. We're we're lean and mean and we take care of business. Now I want to talk about the Survival Summit that's coming up.
Travis Yates:Yeah, it's probably the best law enforcement conference that few people have heard of. That they have to get to. They have to get to this and Thor explain You've done this multiple years in a row. Randy, it's right there in Las Vegas, but it's incredible. Let's talk about the summit.
Randy Sutton:So this will be the fifth annual National Law Enforcement Survival Summit and it's every aspect of surviving a law enforcement career, not just physically, but emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. I mean. Here's one thing you and I both have had this conversation that is so we have not adequately addressed this, and that is the moral injury, the spiritual injury that happens to us through a police career, and so we've actually added a chaplaincy program to the Wounded Blue and the speakers that come to this. You've been a speaker at this conference, you'll be a speaker again next year, because the message from speakers like yourself, like John Mattingly, john Kelly, betsy Smith, these are the best police presenters in the nation and literally we've had people stand up at this conference and say for more for this conference. I plan on taking my own life. It doesn't get any more dramatic than that. And this year we're announcing I spoke to you and you put it in lobstercom, but the TV show Cops, of course.
Randy Sutton:I've had a great relationship with Morgan Langley, uh, and the Langley production team since 1989. When my first year was that I was on that show, they really stepped up to the plate. They and a very patriotic donor came to me and said, randy, any officers who's ever been injured in the line of duty. We want to open this up to them so they will pay their registration fees. It's incredible. Think of that. Yeah, it's incredible, think of that.
Randy Sutton:So since we announced this, we've been getting a lot of interest in that. People have been signing up for free to attend. The rooms at Powell Station are inexpensive. It's going to be at the Powell Station Hotel, just off the Strip. September 22nd through the 25th we still have openings. If you are a police officer and you are facing either post-traumatic stress issues, you've been injured in the line of duty, go to TWBSummitcom. Twbsummitcom and it'll tell you about the conference, and then there's an area for registration and it says scholarship. Hit that button. That means you get in for free and, by the way, we're not doing background checks on you to determine if you really had an injury.
Travis Yates:If you say you did, you did.
Travis Yates:Yeah, and we know the history of law enforcement. The vast majority of us have trauma, right, I mean? So that's why it's such an incredible donation when they provided that, randy, because the vast majority of people attending probably could go for free. They may be paying for it or the department's paying for it, but I know I'll speak for myself. You can't look at me and see it, but, man, it's there, just like it is with you, right? So the vast majority of law enforcement have it and this is the place to be.
Travis Yates:I just invited a guy to a training session I did out in Alabama a few weeks ago and I said, man, you got to go. I gave him your information. I hope to see a bunch of these folks I'm running across because they're coming up to me, like they do you oftentimes, and they have no idea I'm involved with the Wounded Blue. But they come up to me and they'll confide in me and I'll immediately go. Man, you got to get to this conference. It's your first step to changing your life and I can't recommend it enough.
Randy Sutton:This is going to be a magical conference. I can tell you from the people that have been registering for it. There's going to be a lot of pain in that room, but there's going to be a lot of comfort in that room too. And it's three and a half days. It's very intense. It is inspirational is the word that and there's going to be some surprises at this one.
Randy Sutton:This is going to be, this is going to be an incredible conference. I couldn't be more proud of it and be more proud of of the men and women who are all playing a role in this. I mean, there will be speakers you and I know most of them, not all of them, but every one of them has a, has a message that will resonate with, with the people that attend this, and we're going to be honoring some people at this too. So thewoundedblueorg is our website To register. Go to twbsummitcom and if you need the freebie, go to scholarship. Remember, if you don't need the freebie, pay for it because that's going to help somebody else down the road. Yep, you know, that's the long and short of it.
Travis Yates:It's good stuff. Randy Sutton, I can't thank you enough for being here. Thanks so much, man. Any other last words to the books Rescue 911, give them the book, give them the website, and, man, we just can't thank you enough Well one other thing For our brothers and sisters who love country music.
Randy Sutton:we're about to announce this. I'm going to announce it on your show. Let's do it. November 5th in Nashville, tennessee, at the Nashville Palace, the first country music event to support the Wounded Blue will be held. And I mean tell you, we got some big country music names.
Travis Yates:Let's go ahead and tell them. It's John Rich and Kid Rock right here. Randy, who do you got going on?
Randy Sutton:I wish I could. I don't think we got them yet, but doesn't mean they're not coming, that's awesome man.
Travis Yates:That's awesome. Well, thanks so much, Randy. It's a work that will last generations. I'm honored just to play a small little pebble role in it. Thanks for being on the show. If you've been watching, you've been listening. Thank you for your time. Please spread the word. Let's get the message out. God bless each and every one of you. Let's get the message out. God bless each and every one of you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates. We invite you to join other courageous leaders at travisyatesorg.
