A Cop's Life with Travis Yates and Randy Sutton

Lt. Randy Sutton and Dr. Travis Yates challenge the myths driving modern policing, from failed recruiting tactics to political mandates that increase officer injuries, and lay out practical, data-led ways to keep officers and communities safer. Dr. Travis Yates shares research, real numbers, and steps leaders can take now.

• why marketing fails and targeted recruiting works
• cost-per-hire math and fixing vacancies with data
• retention linked to leadership support and culture
• rising assaults since 2020 and what precedes violence
• de-escalation mandates vs evidence and injury spikes
• pre-attack indicators and responding to noncompliance
• politics, optics, and training trade-offs
• chiefs vs sheriffs and accountability to the public
• practical steps officers can take for safety and training
• where to find Travis’ research and future courses

This podcast is sponsored by The Wounded Blue - thewoundedblue.org - A nationwide charity helping more than 16,000 American law enforcement officers injured either physically or emotionally and psychologically. If you’re a law enforcement officer, don’t walk this journey alone.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Opening And Guest Introduction
• 3:10 Travis Yates’ Path Into Policing
• 6:15 Ride-Alongs And Choosing The Job
• 9:30 Tulsa Career Scale And Context
• 11:20 The Recruiting Crisis And Pivot
• 16:20 Data-Driven Recruiting vs Branding
• 20:25 Retention, Leadership, And Support
• 24:30 Break And Return To Leadership Failures
• 27:05 Assaults On Officers And Rising Risks
• 30:00 De‑Escalation Mandates Under The Microscope
• 35:10 What The Research And Videos Reveal
• 39:20 Politics, Optics, And Training Time

Transcript

Randy Sutton: 0:01

They see it all. The broken lives and the pain of the victims. The cruelty of the criminals and heroism of those who serve behind the badge. Hear their stories and listen to their hearts. This is a cop's life. Hello and welcome to another episode of A Cop's Life. I'm your host, Randy Sutton, 34-year law enforcement veteran, retired police lieutenant from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, the author of a number of books, including the recently released Rescuing 911, The Fight for American Safety, at uh number one Amazon bestseller, and of course the uh book, A Cop's Life, which just happens to be the name of the show. Um, on this on this podcast, you'll hear perspectives from law enforcement professionals and people involved in policing that you won't hear anywhere else. And I am uh proud to also be the founder of the Wounded Blue. The Wounded Blue is the national assistance and support organization for injured and disabled law enforcement officers, a nationwide charity that's helped more than 16,000 American law enforcement officers injured either physically or psychologically in the line of duty. Today I have an incredible guest. He's been on our show before, uh, but his perspectives are uh are something that uh every American needs to hear. And his name is Travis Yates. Travis, welcome to this show.

Travis Yates: 1:32

Thanks for having me, Randy. It's certainly an honor.

Randy Sutton: 1:34

So I want to I want to just uh read briefly your bio, a little bit about your bio, because I because if I read everything in your bio, we wouldn't have any time to have any discussion. We don't need to do that. Right. But but I do want the audience to know a little bit about you. Dr. Travis Yates, by the way, he's also a doctor, is one of the most prolific writers in law enforcement and one of the most popular speakers in the industry. Over the last two decades, his seminars on risk management, officer safety, and leadership have been given to thousands of law enforcement professionals across the globe, including 45 states. His articles have been read by millions of people, and his leadership principles have been adopted by countless law enforcement leaders across the globe. He's been published hundreds of times in various publications, including the Daily Caller, Law Officer Magazine, Police One. Uh his expertise in various areas of law enforcement has been featured in media outlets such as Fox News, CNN, ABC, USA Today, Associated Press, and many others. And I could go on and on. Travis Yates, welcome to a cop's life.

Travis Yates: 2:42

Man, it's an honor, Randy. Um thanks for having me.

Randy Sutton: 2:45

So there you and I have had so many discussions, um, and and your perspectives are um are something that I really need to be shared with the American people. But first, let's talk a little bit about your police career. Um, let's talk about why you became a cop to begin with, and just a quick rundown of your police career.

Travis Yates: 3:08

Well, it was kind of improbable, but it shouldn't have been. My father was in law enforcement. He started with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and ended up somehow I ended up in Forcement, Arkansas as a young kid, and he went to work there in law enforcement, and he retired there after 26, 27 years. So I grew up around him. I grew up around his friends and his co-workers. I didn't need Superman, Superman or Batman. I mean, I I thought these guys were just heroes and studs, you know. But I didn't really have an interest in going into the profession. I had other interests, and he never pushed one way or the other. So I was in college, I was 19 years old, and I went on a police ride-along. And it was one of these ride-alongs that, you know, like in your show Cops, you know, it was like a condensed version of cops. Like everything just happened in this eight hours. I mean, everything. I remember looking over at the guy and I said, Do they pay you for this? And he goes, twice a month. I said, Man, I gotta do that. You know, and I changed my degree, I changed the direction of my life. It wasn't that ride-along, meaning you wouldn't be talking the day. Who knows what I'd be doing or where I would be? And so I didn't know other, I didn't know anything other than that I wanted to experience that. It was kind of the closest thing to a uh competitive, uh you know, athletic type of background. I hear, I hear your partner in the background. I hope you can post edit. Can you post edit? No. Okay, I'm sorry. Um it was as close to it was as close to anything from uh you know my athletic background as I could get, you know. It almost I wouldn't say a brotherhood, but it was just so different than any other job I'd ever had. And so I didn't know a lot, Randy, but I just started applying. Tulsa, Oklahoma was the first one that gave me a shot. I started there when I was 21 years old, worked my way through the ranks, just sort of did what I saw my dad do, try to work hard and do the right thing. I accomplished that sometimes. Sometimes I failed. And uh I did 30 years uh in all sorts of different assignments along the way. I started uh training other officers and consulting agencies outside of Tulsa, which is kind of a weird thing for me at the time, but it just I kept getting phone calls and I kept traveling and kept doing it, and I met people like you. And, you know, I sort of blink, and 30 years later I retired, and now I do the consulting and training full time.

Randy Sutton: 5:19

You know, I I wanted to just touch on one thing, um, how you began your police career, and I and this is something that I urge all of my listeners and viewers to consider. Um, almost every police agency allows ride-alongs for for civilians. And I urge every American to do a ride-along with their local police agency. They'll see things that um that will that will change their lives and will give them um uh a different view on law enforcement. So that's those that's one I wanted to throw that in. It just shows uh how effective that the ride-alongs can be when it comes down to um you know showing a uh a young man like yourself a career path.

Travis Yates: 6:04

So yeah, it was it was an amazing experience, and I often would do those ride-alongs for other people when I was on the job because I saw the importance it made in me. I and I would tell people if they were serious about going into this job, do two or three ride-alongs, because not every shift's the same. Uh, but uh they'll know pretty immediately whether it's for them or not.

Randy Sutton: 6:22

Yeah, I I agree. So let's talk about um, I mean, you your your your career with the Tulsa Police Department. Tulsa's a big agency. How many, how many officers were uh were there when you left?

Travis Yates: 6:35

Well, they swung between 700 and 900 during my career. They're on the they're on the lower end at this time, but that's kind of where they swung between 700 and 100. It's the second largest agency in the state next to Oklahoma City.

Randy Sutton: 6:46

And let's talk about that that fact that they're on the lower end. This is about recruitment. Now, you and I have had discussions about this before, and you're very focused on recruitment as um as an issue that's facing it's a crisis in American law enforcement. Um, and so you're you're you're taking a very proactive approach to that recruitment issue. If you would, let's talk about that for a moment.

Travis Yates: 7:12

You know, I'm in the leadership space, but I'm a little different than most of the people in the leadership space. You know, most people in the leadership space are out to, you know, make money, tell some war stories, and be on the road 200 days a year. I'm kind of in the in the space that I want to solve problems. I want to speak about leadership and leadership that solves problems in practicality. And because of that, uh, I co-founded an actual recruiting company for law enforcement when I retired called Safeguard Recruiting. And because I knew in the profession we were doing it wrong. You know, uh, first off, we hired what 100,000 cops in 94, 95 with the cops grant. And then what happens 30 years later? Oh, they all happened to start retiring. What happens at the same time? Oh, yeah, we have this thing called 2020 happen and all this nonsense, right? And so I knew that that was happening, but I didn't see law enforcement pivot. What I did see some law enforcement do is they started spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars on marketing and branding. Well, you're never going to brand your way out of what the news media does to law enforcement. You have to actually recruit. And so we understand that at the executive level, Randy. Like if you if a large city needs a chief or a deputy chief, they hire a recruiting company, a headhunter company, to go out and find qualified people for that job. But then when it comes to the most important aspect of law enforcement, the line officer, we think we can brand our way to full staffing. And so I knew we were doing it wrong. I couldn't get many people to listen to me when I was on the job. So once I was retired, I was free and uh to help develop this company, co-founded it. And uh it has been unbelievable. Uh we have got clients all over the country, Cleveland, Philadelphia, uh huge departments that everybody just said was dead and gone. They're all coming back. In fact, IECP just featured Cleveland this morning. Their applications are up just shy of 300%. They don't mention us, but they've hired us in the last year to actually do that. And so we go out and we target people that want to work for civic departments. And there is a leadership component. The leadership component is this you have to make the correct decisions when it comes to recruiting. Stop going to job fairs, stop doing what we did in the 90s, stop the throwing up billboards and bus ads. You're going to spend a lot of money for very little return. We've done it so much, Randy, is I can tell you exactly what it's going to cost if you tell me how many officers you need. I mean, you're still doing the academy and you're still doing the background checks, but I the sourcing of the actual officers, because we've got the data down. I can tell you, you know, I just recently had a department that called me, they were down 50 officers, and they were spending, I think, $3 million a year on hireback shifts. Well, that's $50,000 and you're fixed. It's about $1,000 a hire. You know, $50,000, you're fixed. And the chief is just like, well, we were hoping you do a website or I'm like, listen, this is a leadership issue. If you don't want to make the right decision, good luck with that. But uh I certainly am very hopeful because we've been able to fix some of the worst departments out there that thought, I mean, Philadelphia was down 1,200 people when they hired us. And this isn't a pitch for safe car. I mean, you can go to our website and we tell you how to do this in our podcast and our videos. This is not rocket science, or I couldn't be involved in it, but we just make it very easy for people to do.

Randy Sutton: 10:11

So well, you know, let's talk about how important this is because we have seen uh a dramatic um crisis in law enforcement beginning in the in in the early 2020s when of course the uh the you know the cities of of America burned and uh we we saw we saw law enforcement leadership fail in so many ways, uh not just law enforcement leadership, but political leadership as well. And so now um, you know, the major cities in in America are facing a crisis of numbers. They don't have enough. I mean, I mean, I just uh um read about Minneapolis, which of course is the is the center stage for ineptness and and competence and law enforcement leadership. They're down so many people that they can't even respond to their 911 calls in a timely fashion. So this is truly a crisis, and you're one of the few law enforcement leaders out there that is that is take taking a proactive approach and looking at this this issue and coming up with solutions for it. So that's why but but we're I mean let's look at the realities, Travis. People are dying because of this. This isn't this isn't just an some esoteric thought process. This isn't this is a crisis that's costing American lives and police lives at the same time.

Travis Yates: 11:37

Here's what these cities are seeing, and by the way, Minneapolis may be the first major city to go under, go bankrupt because they're not they're not reversing their ways. Uh and that's obviously a whole show in itself. But what we're seeing is, Randy, about 70 to 80 percent of recruiting just happens. That's people, it's in them, they want to be police officers, they're gonna apply. You don't have to do anything to get them, right? But you've got to change your ways for the other 20 or 25 percent. And it it's even exasperated with the most important aspect that if you're on the job, the why you stay on the job, retention. So if your retention is terrible, people aren't staying 20, 25, 30 years, it hurts the front end. Uh, the data that we have says that if you start, if if you start a law enforcement today, 62% of those officers will not make it to five years. And here's why. Here's why. Don't blame a generation because I hear people saying that those are excuses. The number one thing that any any employee wants across all industries, and Gallup will tell you this every year, it's not pay, it's not salary, it's not benefits. Am I supported by my leaders? So if I could give leaders one suggestion to help with your recruiting, support your officers, do the right thing. People will work for you for that. But if you don't do that, gone are the days where people just suck it up, buttercup, you're gonna stay. Randy, you know, my generation, we almost it was the game on how bad they would treat us, right? That toxic leadership. We were gonna stay no matter what. We were stubborn. Not these kids today. They're not gonna put up with it, so we have to change our ways. So support your officers, let them know you care for them, and then watch what happens. You won't lose so many on the back end, and it doesn't hurt you so much on the front end, and you don't have to recruit as much.

Randy Sutton: 13:17

Well, we're we're gonna get into uh some of the reasons behind that right after the break. We're gonna take a quick break and we will be right back. We're back with Travis Yates, Dr. Travis Yates, retired police major and uh law enforcement leader of uh exceptional value, I might say. Let's talk about the about the the leadership and the and the lack of support. Uh I too, you know, in my in my uh career as a law enforcement uh leader as well as the founder of the Wounded Blue, uh I I hear literally every single day uh that this topic comes up. And one of the things that I know you're very, very passionate about is about officer safety and and how uh our officers um, you know, we've seen a the number uh of officers killed in the line of duty diminish over the last few years, but that's not because the attacks are stopping or or slowing. Almost every single day, Travis, a police officer is being shot in the line of duty. And you and I both know this that last year, um, more than 85,000 American law enforcement officers were physically assaulted in the line of duty. They were shot, they were stabbed, they were beaten, they were hit with bricks, they were kicked, they were bunched. And and that's an astounding number and a dramatic increase since 2020. And one of the one of the the factors that um that we have seen has been this move of quote de-escalation. Let's talk about that. I know you've studied this, that you're very passionate about it, and the realities that uh uh about about the the training that law enforcement agencies are giving their officers that are maybe leading to these assaults and these deaths.

Travis Yates: 15:09

Well, I would challenge anybody listening or watching, find someone talking about this other than Randy and I. Uh Randy, we there has been an increase in officer assaults every year since 2020. We've never seen that before. And last year was an all-time high. By the way, that 85,000 number you mentioned, that's underreported. About 50% of the departments don't report the data. And as you know, officers get assaulted all the time and it's not reported in reports. Uh so uh no one's talking about this. And I just I just come from this solution based where I go, well, why is this happening and what can we do about it? I taught this class for about the last 15 years called Seconds for Survival because it's not about the attack that I'm worried about. I'm worried about what's happening before the attack because I want to prevent the attack against the officer. And so, and and everybody listening to this, even civilians know this that before violence occurs, typically there's what we call pre-attack indicators or pre-game indicators. It's just a psychological response from the body. People actually make a decision to do something before they do it, and the body gives you signs. They may be looking around, their hands may go in their pockets, they may blade away from you. So I've really enjoyed teaching this class throughout the years. I've been all over teaching it. But in recent years, what I have found, Randy, is officers used to say, Well, hey, this is a great refresher. It's a great reminder. Thank you. Well, in the last five years, I've had officers tell me, I've never heard of this before. And I'll go, what do you mean you haven't heard of this before? When I would dive deeper, I'm finding out that they're being trained, but they're not being trained in this. They're being trained in actually the exact opposite. We're trained to de-escalate and to talk to them and to try to, you know, time and distance and all this stuff. Now, that stuff may be fine and dandy on a on a non-violent type call. But what I have found, and I'm gonna tell you how I found it in a minute, is that stuff is deadly. Uh, many, many states uh in post-2020, about a dozen states passed mandatory de-escalation laws for law enforcement. And for those states, I found published data. I found officer injury rates and use of force rates. Do you know, Randy, that in every state that published the data, after they passed mandatory de-escalation laws inside their policy, this is every agency in that state, uh, their officer injury rate spiked, their use of force spiked. In fact, I mean, I can tell you about individual departments. Chicago police just there was this big article in the Tribune about we don't understand why our use of force keeps increasing. We passed all these reforms. That's why it's actually increasing. So I got in my mind to start doing some deep research on this. And what I found is a couple things. Number one, uh, I wouldn't recommend a doctor's degree for anybody, but the one thing it did do is it taught me how to do research. It taught me how to read research because not every research is actually fair and unbiased, right? And so I started diving into this. Here's the first thing I found, and I'll just read you the quote, Dr. Robin Ingle from peer-reviewed journals. The quote is de-escalation training has not been subjected to rigorous scientific testing. So this whole thing called de-escalation has never been proven. And and not only has it not been proven, I have gone back five years for every public domain used to force video, specifically officers shot or officer shot at. There's hundreds of them. And no one's done this before, which kind of blows my mind, Randy. And I've looked at all of them and I've analyzed all of them. De-escalation hasn't worked in any of them. And so what that tells me is de-escalation may be fine when there's non-violent type action or behavior going on, but you better not do it if you don't, because when I compare those videos to the videos where it may have been a violent encounter, but violence didn't occur, those officers are actually acting quicker. As soon as they see an indicator, they're putting handcuffs on them or getting distanced. They quit talking to them. And so we've it's it's it's it's hard for people to hear this. We've got this wrong. If our goal is to reduce use of force and our goal is to reduce officer injury, bringing de-escalation to a gun or knife fight only exasperates that. And I have the evidence to prove it. We're gonna roll a bunch of training out in 2026 to show it. And so my goal is to actually give that training to people uh that helped them survive. We're gonna do peer-reviewed, validated research on that. But, you know, and I know that's a tough thing for leaders to hear because every leader I know is subscribed to this. But look at your own look in your own eyes, look at your own videos, look at what's happening, right? When you give people with violent tendencies time, they're gonna be violent. And once again, five years of videos, I haven't seen it work once with a violent encounter, so it's very troubling.

Randy Sutton: 19:32

And and the the reason behind it is troubling as well, because it's not about the officer safety, it's about politics. And that's that's the that's what I I find so frustrating that we're playing with the lives of these officers who are on the street. And I remember as a young police officer um attending Caliber Press's street survival seminars, and I credit going to that training with saving my. own life during a gunfight. And I and and and now we're taking that valuable, valuable training time. And instead of teaching our officers how to survive, we're having politically tainted training. And this is this is dangerous for our cops.

Travis Yates: 20:19

Well Randy, I was so bothered by this data I found. And once again, it's not my opinion. I found this data and I found all this information. And I'm thinking this can't be it, right? I don't want to think that our own leaders are making these decisions that cause more officers to get hurt and killed. And so I've been scheduling calls with various high-level leaders across the country, people I respect to understand what's right and wrong. Well one of them was I'm talking a very high profile leader that many people would recognize. He was behind the scenes at these conferences and ICP and perfect I mean he was on these committees and this is what he told me. He says Travis they know what they're doing. They know this is hurting more cops. They know it's causing all this but they they care more for the outside forces the outside politics than actual the officers. I don't want to believe him when he says that but this data is so clear. I mean Randy the state of Virginia passed a mandatory de-escalation mandatory last resort policy. Their officer injuries are up 123% since they passed it. And that is every state that's done it. So they know it. I just don't understand why they can't correct course and have some balance here.

Randy Sutton: 21:25

Well it's clearly all because of politics and and this is what I find so disturbing. And and you're pointing something out that that America doesn't know anything about all America knows is what they see in the in the you know the the 45 second video of a use of force and you and I both know that there is not one use of force that looks good. It is by its very nature it's a violent encounter and when a police officer is involved in it's no way in the world that it's going to look good. And so those optics become the focus not the underlying cause not the not the suspect's behavior it's all based on the officer's perceived behavior.

Travis Yates: 22:14

Now Randy if leaders want to do the right thing and want to get a handle on this I'll give them away the data but here's what the data is showing for five years. In 91% of the cases where officers were shot or shot at or suspects were shot in 91% of the cases an amplifier was present. What does that mean? That means a that the officer had information before the contact that this was a higher tactical call domestic violence man with the gun robbery things like that. So 91% of the cases before an officer was shot or shot at that's the case but here's the metric that leaders can take advantage of in 100% of the cases keep in mind this is in 100% of the cases where officers were shot at or shot in the last five years the suspect did not comply with the first commands. Now so if a leader wants to actually reduce use of force and reduce injury don't don't run to your city council and give them all the de-escalation tricks you've learned. Encourage people to comply with law enforcement that that really those are the two huge now there were other indicators that we're going to talk about in our training in 2026 and beyond but those two right there are glaring and what here's what's also glaring if you're an officer watching this if you know information before you get there that this could be a higher more dangerous call and you get noncompliance stop your de-escalation stop it. That's how officers are getting shot and are getting shot at the the videos that I've watched where officers were able to avoid that they made immediate decisions when those two were present and it saved their lives. Isn't that unbelievable I mean I would not have been able to do this research a decade ago and now it's all there for me to do this has not been done. I have not seen anyone do this from a department level in fact a micro level in fact I'll tell your audience this if you're in a department you'd like me to do this for your videos I'll do it. To this day nobody's let me why if you've got a cadre of videos right and you want to analyze what's happened before your officers are getting attacked or hurt I'll analyze it for you for nothing. And then you can build that into your training well why am I doing it? You have why aren't why aren't these departments doing it? So we analyze all this data in these departments you know the ethnicity of this or the race of that or this and that or the budget. Why are we not analyzing this data that's so apparent that's happening before officers are either having to use force or be subject to force because instead of listening to the latest committee from IECP that has, you know, those folks haven't worked the streets in two decades, you have experts in your department that can implement this in training to actually save lives. Now there are departments that do this but by far and wide I have not seen a push for this and the fact that you and I are talking about this and people are going, I never knew that. That's a problem Randy because I love you brother but we're not the smartest people in the world. Why are you and I the ones having this conversation it's very frustrating to me because I would rather be talking about other things. This stuff should be basic but we've sort of taken three four five steps back and my my goal is to bring us back forward so use of force is mitigated and officer injury is mitigated. Why is that not popular? Well because you're not saying those fancy words of de-escalation and sanctity of life and all these silly stupid words we've been using that hasn't helped whatsoever that nobody wants to point out.

Randy Sutton: 26:07

Well this is this is like the uh uh the quintessential issue that's facing american law enforcement today and and you're right it is not being spoken about at the highest levels of police leadership I think perhaps one of the one of the issues here Travis is the fact that there's 18 approximately 1800 different police agencies in this nation all have different leadership all have different policies and and when you have um no unified voice no unified leadership um then this is what happens that everybody it's it's it's it's a free for all out there and and where where is it falling down and what what are the what are the the uh tragic consequences it's it's that these officers are facing physical attacks they're being shot they're being severely injured in the line of duty and no one is taking this seriously we've got to take a quick break but we will be right back with this important discussion we're back with Travis Yates and we're deep in this conversation about what is literally taking the lives of police officers let's talk about some of the the insanity that we've seen um with states actually passing laws that curtail the ability to police for instance laws that are in on the books about uh let's just say um minor traffic stops let's look at that and and and let's look at the how politicians have created an environment that doesn't allow the police to police how are we going to cope with this well we have an opportunity to cope with it now but you're not seeing it like if you were leading an agency how are you silent when this happens right I mean if you were in an accounting office and they passed a lot of the messed up how people account or whatever I mean they would be saying what's going on here so you don't really see a lot of pushback from people uh that are leading these departments because they're more worried about their pension and paycheck and doing the right thing.

Travis Yates: 28:18

So we need more pushback because we know it's silly and we don't really have an option to wait until it turns silly because politicians never admit when they're wrong. But we have to somehow get emotion out of this this is all emotionally based stuff. What are the facts? And the facts are uh we know that for instance you know shutting down minor traffic stops or I watched a video today uh in Ohio where a minor traffic stop saved the two little kids from kidnapping right and we all have those examples and and they're using fake data and fake research to push this but I don't see any of the real stuff coming from the other side. So it's almost like the leadership within these agencies in these states, they're just not saying anything. I mean and I have to believe that if you're in the state of Illinois and 75% of the police chiefs got together and did a press conference that the public would pay attention. The public has more respect for police officers they do politicians. I mean look at the Gallup post law enforcement has a trust level between 70 and 80% politicians are in the single digits. So they have power that the these police chiefs and these sheriffs have the power to tell the public what's going on but they're not telling them. Now they'll sure complain when it goes south and not take the blame for that but I think up front when they know this is terrible they need to do it. I mean any other profession would do that Randy any other profession would do that. If they pass some if people that didn't know anything about heart surgery pass some silly medicine that would kill patients the heart surgeons would be like what are you doing? But in law enforcement we just sort of set back and we swallow it and don't say anything about it and we know it's going to happen. So these are decisions that will kill people you've already seen it I mean you can you've got numerous examples of it right but we're not saying anything on the front end. And people go oh well Travis it's easy for you to say this you're retired. Oh as you know I was saying it when I was on the job and yeah you get hit up you get beat up and bruised a little bit but that's what leaders do.

Randy Sutton: 30:06

You need to speak up when you see wrong and so it needs to be more than you just you and I talking about it Randy you know I wonder if there is there is an intrinsic problem with with how we choose police leaders um I'm I'm talking the top leaders there there is such um uh a a um a chasm between the the the legitimate police leadership and and the line officers who are actually working the job but do you think that because police leaders are appointed say let's look at the difference between sheriffs and chiefs that police chiefs are chosen by either the mayor the city council county or whatever whatever hierarchy is in that city now those chiefs if they don't tow the political line what happens to them yeah the system is almost set up for this right uh if a mayor or city council hires a chief on a political appointment they can then treat them like a political appointment and fire them for any reason whatsoever.

Travis Yates: 31:15

That's why you will not find any police chief in America that's been fired for high crime. I challenge anybody listening or watching go do a Google search dive deep find me a police chief in America that's ever been fired for high crime. Well Randy that's the only metric that matters. If we were a business we would be looking at crime as our metric for success. So these chiefs understand that it's not about crime it's about making everyone else happy appease this person or appease that person. And so if you are hiring a political appointment you're going to hire a political person right and then that person will do and say whatever the politician wants them to say. And so the system is almost rigged for that very few people will stand up against that almost nobody will. And so it just keeps rolling right and the officers suffer and more importantly the community suffers. So I think the last bastion of law enforcement is the sheriff and here's why Democrat, Republican black white whatever everybody wants to be safe. Well a sheriff is elected by the people and that's why we see a lot of pro-police leaders that are sheriffs. Well they they know that if crime goes up they won't get elected they know if people aren't happy they won't get elected. So they're not appeasing the politicians they're trying to appease the people so they're still implementing police practices. And I think you mentioned Minneapolis earlier if our cities continue down this road and their recruiting continues to hurt and suffer, which it will if you're not supporting your men and women behind a badge, you're gonna see sheriff's departments flourishing in years to come. They'll be incorporating parts of this city. I've said this for years you're starting to see it happen. It's gonna happen more and more and that's because sheriffs by their nature they may be political elected officials but they're not beholden to the politicians. They're beholden to the people that elect them and they are going to keep people safe and the only way to do that and we know this Randy is to do law enforcement. Our mission is so simple it's in our name law enforcement they put it on our patch police so so sheriffs understand that that's why they've been fairly successful in speaking up against some of these issues in fighting crime in their areas.

Randy Sutton: 33:18

You know I I had a conversation with a um uh a police writer um who who is um it came up with a very unique idea and that was to elect chiefs of police that the cities should elect chiefs of police I never even thought about that idea but we when you consider it it actually makes sense it's a radical change but it really does make sense although he's not getting any traction at all for the for the reasons that we all know well I I think it's the only answer to be honest because I I I have I've been talking about courageous leadership for years and I've not seen a whole lot of it because people like their pensions and pocketbooks and reputation more than anything but the reason you're not going to see it is the politicians aren't going to give up the power.

Travis Yates: 34:06

I mean they're not gonna let the people decide I mean if you know anything about politics the people don't matter they say what they say to get elected and then they never have to follow up on that because most people don't pay attention and so you're never going to see anybody giving it up but I would love to see that happening to see the success in it. But I think at the end of the day these politicians are making these decisions and picking these chiefs from political appointments and the crime is going up and everything's crazy. You see them, they still get elected I mean the mayor of Portland under his leadership he's also the police commissioner there by the way homicides went up 65% during his first tenure. He ran an election that said if you would reelect me I'll reduce it by 10% well it raised 55% and he got re-elected and so I don't I don't see a lot of benefit for the politicians in doing that because they give up power but I think it's the only answer. If my kid wanted to be a police officer I would tell him to stay away from these large political cities. You just have to right you have to go and you have to look at the history of a city to see you know do they fight crime? Do they conform with the mission? Is there a long history of that and maybe that city is where you need to go but you cannot find yourself in a politically driven city. I used to say whatever that happens at the chiefs at that level is not a big deal blah blah blah that is not the case anymore it rolls downhill very quickly now and so these political uh decisions being made at the top will affect the line officer. Uh be uh we this timing go time is going so quickly for this show right now I mean you and I are talking about some of the most important topics in law enforcement I want to get your opinion on one thing the chief of police in Washington DC um resigned a couple of days ago after it was it was discovered that they were manipulating the crime stats in Washington DC did you happen to see her exit her interview yeah she probably could use an emotional intelligence class right and she was very irate in that interview I I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it um and yet taking taking no responsibility at all no why should she I mean before she was the chief of Washington DC Metro she was the diversity officer there right and then she was the same one that when they asked they asked her a question uh about a year ago about the chain of command she goes what's that and so why why would you expect any other response and so people need to understand this is they're seeing agency leaders lying about recruiting they're lying about crime stats that manipulation is not just in Washington DC once again if you make it a political appointment they're gonna do what politicians do they're gonna lie and that really is atrocious and really uh it's it's it's alarming it should be for everybody well in the in the few minutes that we have left what is it it's it's too simple a question but what can police officers do the line officer do in order to protect themselves well I would say this that if your department is not providing you the training that you need right I mean most departments aren't they're given what I call check the box training whatever mandate or whatever weird idea reform they come up with you have to take that I get it but seek out state approved training that lines up with keeping you safe even if it goes against your policy and here's why if you're in a state that maybe is let's just pick on Oregon and they're crazy and you're not getting this training in the department but I mean my class is approved in Oregon a lot of classes are approved in Oregon Post approves these classes take those classes that are approved by the state get get get an on-duty day most people can now all of a sudden whether you're the chief knows it or not he sponsored this training and then when you use this training and they try to do something you get to basically call on that that's one of the reasons that in 2026 we're going to be doing some peer-reviewed validated training for officers get it certified in all 50 states because even though it may go against the the political grain or the de-escalation mantra officers can take that and then be able to use that in court or use that in the reporting so that's one thing. The other thing is take care of yourself. No job is worth your health no job is worth your wellness no job is worth your family right um you and maybe just maybe you're you may want to do law enforcement but you're not at the right department to do it. There's lots of really good departments around this country if you can reach out to me and Randy we'll tell you about a bunch of them. So not all the profession is bad it's still the most noble profession on the planet it's the best job on the planet but you need to be in the right place. And so don't hurt yourself based on the actions of others. Take care of yourself first and foremost. How can um how can people who are uh interested in this conversation find you pretty easy my name travisyates.org go to org.com is not me trust me but go to .org and uh that branches you off into all this stuff Randy I do a weekly article I do a weekly podcast all my trainings are there but more importantly I'm rolling out a uh human behavior threat management course in 2026 that is a certified course it's expert level course if you want to train this at your department train this in your community it's gonna give you everything for that I'm really excited about that we're pushing to the finish line on that and all these things we talked about earlier in the show that's where that's going to reside it's truly I think some training that's going to be able to save lives immediately but you can we'll be able to find all that at travishyates.org.

Randy Sutton: 39:22

And also lawofficer com is your uh news and information website and law officer is is the place to go for up-to-date information on law enforcement Travis I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join me today here on a cop's life and sharing your insight Randy thanks for everything you do it's just an honor and it's hard to believe that I get to talk to you all the time.

Travis Yates: 39:47

So thanks so much for all your efforts. Thanks.

Randy Sutton: 39:50

Well I appreciate you guys tuning in to this episode of a cop's life I mean the the conversation that you just heard with Travis Yates and myself may be one of the most Important law enforcement conversations that you will hear. And I plan on having Travis Yates uh for uh many more conversations in the future. Um now I ask you to do this. Uh if you if you care about law enforcement, go to the woundedblue.org. That's thewoundedblue.org. We are a nationwide charity. We have helped more than 16,000 American law enforcement officers who've been injured either physically or emotionally and psychologically. They need your help. Um it is critical that that these men and women are supported. And um, and you'll if you go to the website, the woundedblue.org, if you're a law enforcement officer, you don't need to you don't need to walk the journey alone if you've been injured either physically or you're dealing with post-traumatic stress. The entire team of the wounded blue is made up of officers who have experienced these type of of situations. So reach out and don't walk this journey alone. We're uh almost at Christmas time. I want to wish you a very, very Merry Christmas, a happy holiday season. Stay safe, and remember, we are here for you at the Wounded Blue.