L.O.G. 120 Contributing Factors

Hello and welcome to the video version of The Human Behavior Podcast. I'm Brian Marren, the host and creator of the show. As always, I will be joined by human behavior expert, Mr. Greg Williams, who the show is affectionately named after. On the show, we discuss different topics through the lenses of what we call human behavior pattern recognition analysis. If you'd like to find out more about what that is, please check the links in the episode details and go to our website to learn more. Please don't forget to follow us on social media; the links are also in the episode details. Hit the like and subscribe button to help support our work. Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you enjoyed the show.

What you did was wonderful. All good. All right, so we're recording now, Greg, so we'll go ahead and jump into it. Thanks everyone for tuning in. Don't forget, we do have the Patreon account, and you guys can learn a whole bunch more when we hop on these podcasts. We also, you can follow me on Facebook, and we try going live. We had some issues, but I think those are cleared up now once we figure that out.

Thanks everyone for tuning in today. We're getting into some topics that several of you have actually even reached out and written to us about, asking, "Hey, can you cover this case? Can you do that?" We get those from time to time, and generally, we typically wait until after the investigation is over, right, Greg? I mean, we want to gather all the evidence then, what we can see, what's submitted in court because that's where you can pull the evidence from. So watching something on the news or reading an article, obviously, you're not going to get the best information, even if that reporter or someone is really trying to give you the best information, it's just not all out there yet, right? So typically, we wait.

But we got a lot of these things are happening with different use-of-force cases with police officers, and there's all the experts in the world and all the pundits on there talking about it. We take these from a different perspective. But Greg, this podcast is a little different in that I have some actual kind of prepared remarks at the beginning because I want to be very clear on where I stand, so a bit of my opinions in there as well and also our approach. So if you don't mind, Greg, I'm going to kind of start off by reading that first.

Brian, I've learned to trust you. Please do so.

All right. So speaking specifically today about the case of the officer in Minnesota who shot the suspect with her pistol instead of shooting with a taser, which is what she meant to do, and then several other high-profile ones, this is kind of my general remarks on them.

When one of these tragedies occurs, whether that's a lawful or unlawful situation, whether someone died or was just treated unfairly, it collectively shocks us. And it shocks us because it's hard to make sense of these tragedies, so we often look for a simple answer to a complicated problem for several reasons.

One, we often have no experience in these situations, so it's both hard to imagine and hard to understand how and why they occur. In our efforts to make sense of these tragedies, we often say things like, "Well, I would have done this," or, "I never would have done that." Those types of assumptions are not only wrong, but they also prohibit us from learning the hard lessons that are needed. The simple fact is that these situations can happen to anyone, and therefore, it isn't everyone's collective responsibility to ensure that they stop happening.

Two, due to things like negativity bias, confirmation bias, and several other uncontrollable and often unconscious reasons, we believe that these tragedies fit a narrative of some overall greater problem. So we give it names like "systemic" and "widespread." These narratives, whether they are being used maliciously or ignorantly, are generally not supported by evidence; they are supported by emotion. Whether you think everyone is a racist or you think everything is a conspiracy, you're probably wrong. These societal issues are generally hard problems, and oversimplifying them to just one simple explanation is myopic, one-dimensional, unscientific, and intellectually lazy. If the answer to everything is racism, then it's the answer to nothing.

Now, let me be clear: racism absolutely does exist. It's a horrible and ugly part of the human condition, and I've seen it here in the U.S. and I've seen it in other countries as well. My biggest problem with using that context alone is that it will not help us understand or prevent these tragedies from occurring. They will continue to play out on the nightly news, and lives will continue to be ruined, and politicians will continue to capitalize on them.

Three, we aren't clearly defining the problem, so our solutions become subjectively political rather than objectively reasonable. Some of the reasons why we aren't defining the problem correctly is because we misunderstand things like approximate cause and contributing factors. We offer short-term solutions to long-term problems. We look for technological solutions for everything, or we will pick one element of these situations and we will convince ourselves that this is the problem: "If only they had more taser training," "If only they had more time on the range," "If only they had more cameras," "If only the ShotSpotter system was more accurate." This is called "at-bang thinking," and it needs to stop.

In many cases, it's our own policies, procedures, and even training that create these tragedies, but that's actually a good thing because it means we can change them. Although these problems are very difficult to solve, they are completely solvable. Although these tragedies are highly emotional and they ruin lives, we can learn to separate the emotion from the event and take a clinical approach.

Look, we use a scientific framework to deconstruct these incidents in order to show where decisions could have been made that would have prevented these tragedies. Our methods have been tested and evaluated under the most extreme conditions, and our theories work literally anywhere in the world. It is a method that is scientifically valid, it is legal, moral, and ethical, and it saves lives on both sides of the badge.

So on that, Greg, those are kind of my prepared remarks to start with. I'm going to be talking about a lot, but I really wanted to get that out there. So please, if there's anything to add before we start into that first case.

No, I think that you should be applauded for your remarks because if we don't clearly define the problem, we're never going to move the bubble to try to solve it. We're uniquely qualified, Brian. We've seen a lot of capers like this. We've been at ground zero during the initiation of them or the investigation of them. We've seen racism and genocide at point blank, so we can talk about those issues.

And here, you brought up an issue of a taser, and we're talking about a less-lethal force alternative that was utilized during a traffic stop. But I think that you should discuss the panacea of things that occurred at that traffic stop because most people are just considering that we have a young black male that's pulled over, and then it escalates to the choice of taser versus firearm and ends up in the kid's death. But there's a lot of contributing factors that went into that. And you mentioned contribution; what are some of those things that go into that?

So we can pick this apart, which we do, but there are probably hundreds, if maybe not thousands, of contributing factors to them. And what I mean by those is you can go as far back as you want. "Okay, this kid maybe was born, and he had maybe a developmental problem and didn't fit in well with others." Now, I'm not talking specifically about the subject in this case; I'm talking about generally how these cases work.

"Then they were not given a proper education. They didn't have good role models. They started getting in, had to work for a drug dealer down the street because that was the only way they could survive." These are all contributing factors. "Now they're a criminal. Now they've broken the law. Now they have some warrant out for their arrest. Now they're driving a car that I can't afford insurance, and I don't have a job, so I can't pay for that. So now I'm driving illegally."

And now we have policies saying, "Hey, there's a zero-tolerance policy on an unregistered, uninsured vehicle on the road because that's a danger to the rest of the public." So now the police say, "Oh, okay, so I'm supposed to pull that over? Yeah, you got to get them off the road because that's the most important thing to that community that's going to cause danger." "Okay, so now I have to arrest this person. So I have no leeway. I don't get to make an option. I have to do what you told me to do as an agency, as a department, as a city, as a town," that said, "This will happen."

"Okay, so now I run down that list. I'm not able to go, 'Hey, let me call the local pastor and see if he can get the community together and throw in a couple bucks for your insurance.' You don't get to do that. 'Hey, let me see, do you have a cousin, an aunt, an uncle, a brother, a mother, whatever, that we can call and come get you right now that way we don't have to tow your vehicle, which is going to cost you another 500 bucks just to get it out, and you don't even have money for the insurance.'"

So these are all contributing factors. Those are what contribute to these situations from occurring. That's why it occurs because we don't get to do that. You don't get to do that on the street. You don't get to watch because the community doesn't want that. You said, "No, this is zero tolerance. This is what we're going." So look at the second, third-order effects of your actions and what you voted for because that's what plays into this. The time of day, the ambient temperature, the length that that officer was on duty for, what their pay rate is, and how (expletive) their healthcare is. Guess what? That's a contributing factor.

Now, they're not all weighted equally. Not each one is as significant, but they are all significant. So if we're going to talk about it, then let's talk about it. Let's talk about everything that goes into one of these issues. I'm tired of the same old, you got the whiz-bang shooters overanalyzing everything after these incidents and say, "Well, if they would have done this and done this." And then it was like, "Dude, you're still thinking 'at bang.'"

Then we got everyone in the media saying, "Oh, look, this happened again," even though there's, I don't know, how many millions of traffic stops in the United States throughout the year or on a day, right? How many times that happens? And when these situations occur, yeah, it might be statistically insignificant, but man, does it change everything. So we're making, we want to make policy on something that rarely, rarely happens. Okay, we have to be careful doing that because when you make policy, just like we talked about on the Supreme Court episode with case law, you now set legal precedent from which everything will be compared against, from which everything will be decided against.

So when we enact those laws, this is what happens. We, every single person, if you're (expletive) listening to this podcast, you're part of the problem. That's it. We all are. This is something we have to fix, and it's frustrating for me, as you can tell, not just because my computer went down a minute ago and I almost threw it through the (expletive) window, but because it, this is, I know there are answers. If I didn't think there were any answers and I just said, "Well, that's how people are, man," then I wouldn't care about this. I wouldn't be swearing on this episode right now. I would just be, "Well, whatever, man, hey, that's how humans are." No, the problem is there are solutions, and we're not getting there yet, and we're still not there yet. And so that's kind of where we take this from. That was a bit of a rant, Greg, I know you just asked—

No, no, no, no, no, but the reason is, the core of this problem is those examples. So listen, when we have a problem, we as a nation come together and fix the problem. So I refuse to accept that the problem is only race-born. If it's just race, that would be like a Jenga thing where if we pulled out all the races, it would topple over. It can't be that simple.

No, and that's, that, that was the point I was trying to make with that opening. Simply this: if you take, let's say in this situation, you said it's all about race, and it's white cops and a black kid, okay? Now, if you immediately change that to now it's a white kid and black cops, or everyone's white, or everyone's black, whatever, your theory goes out the window. Doesn't work anymore. But guess what? The (expletive) incident still happened, and it was still wrong, and it's still a problem.

So, exactly.

So let's, let's, let's look at the factors that we can change and control, like things like training and response and policy and procedure, because that's what's going to change. Arguing over someone's beliefs, whether it's their political beliefs, their religious beliefs, social beliefs, that will get you nowhere. Might get you a spot on the news, might get you an article printed somewhere, but it ain't changing the dial. So remember, if you're a critic, remember your spot. If you're just going to sit on the sidelines and criticize, you're a critic. Great. Critics are necessary for all societies, but you ain't in the arena. You get what I'm saying? You're not out there trying to change it. You're not out there having to do with it, and you're not the one on the street doing it. So take that, take that into account when we're coming up with all these nutty, freaking opinions on ways to fix this. Now I'm still trying to get to the traffic stop. Sorry.

It's okay. So we're out of traffic—

What I want to do, what I want to do is to—

A couple fired up real quick. No, no, and one of the things that Brian will tell you is the episodes that get the worst play on The Human Behavior Podcast are anytime we talk about the law and specifically constitutional law, and this is part of the mistake. Part of the mistake is you're not educated, folks, and you don't understand how simple it is to solve these problems with the existing laws. But we're almost to the traffic stop, so let's stipulate to this. Let's stipulate that the 14th Amendment of the Constitution said that there's due process; life, liberty, or property cannot be taken away from you without due process.

Number one, Equal Protection Clause. Okay, that dates back to the Civil War to stop states from discriminating against blacks, and the broad wording of the clause made the Supreme Court come in and go, "Look, any racial discrimination — whites, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans — it's all constitutionally wrong." Then 1964, we get the Civil Rights Act that says you can't have discrimination based on race or color or religion, sex, national origin. Then we get Title 42, Section 1983, which gives a civil recourse redress, which means I can come back to you and I can sue your (expletive) when you're wrong. So those are already on the board, Brian. And if we can just acquiesce, criminally and civilly.

Criminally and civilly.

So now we're at the door of that car, and I would say this, Brian, we both had upbringings that were different than most of the platinum and silver spoon kids that might be listening to the podcast. God bless you. My mode of transportation didn't come until my senior year of high school, and it was a Kawasaki 125 that I had to pay 125 for and then rebuild the son of a (expletive) so it stayed running. And if it was a rainy day, I was using shoe leather. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't going to go anywhere. And then I had this wet canvas backpack on my back to carry my books.

But the idea is that when you don't have a good paying job, you probably are buying an older car and reap the whirlwind. So you're going to have a taillight out. I remember my 1970 Cadillacs at Dandeville that was so damaged, but it was a Cadillac, Brian, and the reverse lights were stuck on. So I was getting pulled over on my way to a construction job, one of three jobs that I had to have. Do you get what I'm trying to say? To pay the way for my new baby after I got out of the Army. And I'd get pulled over, and the cop would say, "White light to rear, that's a law. You can't." Well, that's called a pretext stop, Brian.

Yeah, the law puts in there's certain things and says administratively or for the safety of others or equipment violations, there are laws on there. Well, guess who's going to get picked an inordinate amount of time?

Yeah, because our laws are not by design but end up doing what?

Well, this is now directed all at the lowest combat, meaning the lowest class in our, on our, on our side. Class just meaning the poorest people. So, so we're making laws right there off the bat automatically, if you don't have money, well, that you're going to affect you more. You see, right? That's what I'm talking about. We're not even at the door of the car yet.

But listen, so now we have a judge that issues a contempt of court violation. You're in contempt of court because you failed to fail to show, you appear, or you failed to pay fines and costs, or some other thing, you didn't go to your prescribed treatment, or this or that. So the judge sends down an order, and it's an order of the court that you cannot stop. You must. It says right there verbatim to all police officers day or night, this and that any other, you shall bring this person. And it names the person and everything.

Now here you got a copper that's sitting on the side of the road. You see somebody late for work or they're driving around because they don't have a job, maybe they're looking for a job, Brian.

All right, Greg, we had a little technical difficulties, but we're making our way towards the actual vehicle and stop. Right now, I got a missing warrant or should I go all that.

So, so now we're at the side of that car. And what I'm trying to tell you, Brian, is the driver of that car now, having given the false name, coming up with the misdemeanor warrant, thinking, "Man, I'm not going to make that appointment. I don't have the money to pay for this. That's why I got the warrant in the first place." And then you got the copper standing on the side of the road. And the copper is thinking, "Hey, listen, cops across the United States are making 25 to 50,000 traffic stops every eight-hour shift for three shifts." And protract that out. And he's thinking, "Hey, you know, shouldn't be driving if you don't have the thing, and it's an order from the court, and the court says I shall arrest you." And all of a sudden, this pressure cooker that's happening on the side of the road is not because of the cop and the driver. It is. It's every bit of their responsibility.

But let's draw back and let's take a look at the Brian Marren way of looking at life and see those things that were hard for them to control. "Hey, man, I had to drive without insurance. It's not like I was drunk driving, you know what I'm trying to say? Hey, yeah, there's a gun in my car, and my car looks like (expletive) and has a cracked column, and it's not because I want to shoot it out with the coppers, it's because I'm afraid to go home sometime through the neighborhoods where I live. And the dollar seventy that I had this week to get me to work and back for my gas might be enough for somebody to, you know, lucrative sort, to try to rob me and hold me up. And now you're going to find that, and you know what, I don't know what to do right now because I don't have a lot of options and a lot of training, so I think I'm going to flee."

And to flee, I have to push off of you. That's a word for that: it's actively resisting, and it's a primal response. So right there, that kid is 100% in his limbic system, doing what we call the 1982 Clash hit, "Should I Stay or Should I Go?" And, man, he chose, "You know what? I'm gone." And he tried, Brian. Brian, in 10,000 foot pursuits that I personally was in, it didn't always look like this. Okay? When I asked the person, "Why are you running?" their answer is, "Why are you chasing me?" Do you get what I'm trying to say? It didn't.

Yeah, we weren't having this cerebral mind-meld.

It was, "Look, I don't want to stick around because I know I'm going to jail, and it's going to cost me more money." I will tell you this, though, Brian, because of those orders of the court, you touched on something earlier: church groups, family groups, all this other stuff. Listen, that's part of the solution. I'd like to go there in a minute.

Yeah, but let's address the fact about the taser and the gun. There's a lot of ambiguity at ground zero. There's a lot of strange stuff that's going on, and our brains are triggered for a survival instinct. And even with 20 years or 25 years on, and I'm hearing this, "Oh, this is gross negligence." Okay, maybe it is, but it's not gross negligence on the part of the officer, it's a gross negligent part of the gosh-damn administration and their training because if you're not trained enough, and under that stress, you reach on your belt for something that looks like a gun. And somebody's going to go, "Yeah, it's yellow." Yeah, you're not looking.

I can't see what I'm saying. It's called muscle memory. You're reaching down, and you're grabbing it. Here's where Grossman— Grossman, I know I slam you a lot, it's because I love you. Thanks for your service. This is where you should read, read the book On Killing and On Combat to understand those survival instincts and those responses. When that gun came up, that female immediately thought, just like 20 times in the last 20 years, you know, 15, 18, 20 times in the last 20 years, "This is my taser. I'm going to stop this."

Now, you said it best: you have 10 pundits in line to say, "Well, that was wrong. That was the wrong misappropriation of force." You weren't there, and the U.S. Constitution says you got to put your feet in the shoes of the people that were standing there at that place in time and at that place. So stop it, you know? So there's, there's that. So, so, you know, going to that again, everyone's going to be doing the "at bang" thinking. "What do we, what, you know, what, what could they have done? Maybe they should have just tackled them into the vehicle and tried to pull them out. Maybe we should have done that." It's like, again, like, "Why, why was, why were there handcuffs getting put on them?" Because the policies and procedures that the elected officials enacted, that the people of that community, town, city, state, country elected, said, "This is what we want to do in these situations." That's where the, that's where the (expletive) problem starts, okay?

Now, it starts before that with a (expletive) education system and not a lot of access to resources and what we keep bringing up. Dude, you know how much it is out here in California to register my truck? It's a few hundred dollars, $400 to register my truck every single year. That's, that's, that's a lot of money. That's a hell of a lot of money when you're pointing that can go in your mouth or money that can get you rent. You get what I'm saying? And then we go, "Oh, no, you, I mean." So it's, it's, you want to tax people? Well, maybe instead of raising taxes, that's where your tax, that's where your income comes into play. When you show up at the DMV, this is your rate because based on how much money you made, you, you made nothing, you're trying to get by. "Hey, man, so that guy over there is paying for it." Like, you get, you get a vehicle because you can't even afford a regular, like, I'm just throwing these things out there because these are solutions.

So we focus on the right there, "at bang." "Well, he pulled him over because of this, and maybe this stop should be done this, and maybe let's throw a psychologist in there." Yeah, sure, let's get a clown car and put a bunch of doctors in there. Let me know how that turns out for you because they tried that (expletive) in combat, and guess what happened? The first one's murdered. Well, the first one's murdered on the side of the road during a scene, and they mean well, I'm not bashing them, I'm just saying you can't just throw that at the problem. You have to operationalize that information. That psychologist is a wealth of knowledge, okay? But guess what? That doesn't mean they can talk a guy out of doing something really stupid, okay? It's a different skillset.

So, so we're coming up with these, and I'm bashing it because they're wrong. I appreciate that people are trying to solve these problems, right? Everyone's going, "Well, (expletive), maybe it's this, maybe it's that. Let's try this, let's try that." Okay, that is a good thing. So let me always like Shelly always says, "Celebrate the small wins going in the right direction." Yeah, we're taking the wrong approach, and if we continue to take the wrong approach, it'll continue to happen, and then it'll hit some melting point where everyone will go, "You know what, (expletive)." And we're close to that because what are people calling for? "Oh, the police shouldn't have any money." Okay, I'm not living in a city that doesn't have a police force. I'm not going to. You think this situation was bad? Wait until you see that situation.

So let's talk about that for just a second. One, publicly educate yourself. Please pass this broadcast on to somebody that it might help. Okay, maybe you're not the right person for this broadcast. Play it at your church, play it at your school, play it at your community group. Why? Because if we take a look at some of the problems that occur, I go to the ACLU website; it'll show me right on there what to do at a traffic stop. And it said, "Don't do this, do this. If you're the passenger, do this." All that, all common sense, Brian. And it says, "Listen, if I'm free to leave, ask a question, 'Am I free to leave?'" The officer says, "No," clearly as probable cause, then you have to stay there, but you don't have to answer his questions on this. You only have to give him that. Listen, if that's on there, they've recognized it as a problem. True or false?

I mean, yeah, but that's what I'm saying is like, you go to the American Civil Liberties Union. It's concerned about your civil liberties, and that's the only thing they're concerned about, and they're there, they will take cases that crosses every political aisle, racial aisle, whatever, because they go, "This is the law, this is civil liberties." Go to their flipping website, I'll put the link up, but it says, "Here's what you can do. Yeah, here's what you can't do. Here's what rights the police have. Here's what rights they don't have. Here's what rights you do have. Here's our suggestion for making this potentially high-stress situation difficult." Because what does training say? What does everyone else's department say? "All right, we got to get better at operating under stress." Why?

Yep. How about get better at not getting stressed the (expletive) out? How about—

Well, the next thing, Brian, the next thing is going to be changing the color of the taser because yellow's not good enough.

Yeah, it's going to make it a pleasure-handed weapon, and you have to wear a helmet with it on there, and it's— so let me see your mouth with your foot. You're right. And don't trust me, folks, it's going to be that stupid. So help me on this. Insurance in the United States alone is probably a trillion-dollar industry.

Yeah. Or multi, multi-billion, I'm sure it's right.

So let's say, let's say it's just a billion-dollar industry.

No, it's definitely now.

Yeah, but I'm just, I don't give a (expletive) what it is. What I'm trying to say is, please listen to my point for a second. If we take a look at insurance, and we take a look at a student, a student has to pay back their loans. We're fighting now, and we fought for years and years and years that the students shouldn't have to pay back their loans. Okay, but at least we're thinking about it.

So now this kid needs to get to work. So he goes to his local community, and there's a community bank, just like there's a food bank, there's a gosh-damn insurance bank, and he goes up and he goes, "I need my car five days a week to go to the Tasty Freeze where I work as a stocker." And they go, "Here you go, sir, and you're fine, you're good to go." He takes his car in and goes, "I need my turn signal fixed because I keep getting pulled over by the cops." And three of the registered gas stations in that community are sponsored by, you know, the local church or the local community, whatever, thing. And they say, "We'll fix your taillights for you, no cost." And guess what? When you make it big, you can pay it forward, you can pay it back, you can do it, Brian. Why aren't we doing that? That's not socialism.

Okay, that's taken care of. That's being our brother. That's, that's, that's called community focus.

But you know that, that's what it is. That's about how you get the community involved.

That's, that's what it is right there. But even let's say we don't want to go that far, Greg, because that's a lot. "Oh, we got to coordinate this, then we got to make sure, and then some company's going to come in and start ripping people off and stealing government or local funds." I get it, there's, there's, there's fraud in everything. You try to limit it. You can't get rid of all fraud.

Right, right.

So, so, so here, but here's the thing. Even if you didn't go that far, Greg, we, if all these tech moguls, you know, coming up with an app that hooks 14-year-old girls and gives them depression later in life, and they make a billion dollars off of, are they solving hard problems? No. So we have the technological capability right now to go everything about that person, their vehicle, all that. When, go, "Well, there's another thing. Hey, that's, that's another thing we got to add to their warrant. They're doing this. Hey, can we call someone from his community? His brother, his sister, his mother, his, someone that there's contact? Hey, they're on Facebook. Let's see who they know." And then they can start getting "haste" from the city of this police department, "You are wanted for these charges. Like, you need to come in and talk to us about this. We'll work out an arrangement for pay, this, you can work it off, whatever." We, that, that's what I'm saying. It's like, we have the technological capability to stop that event from ever happening. So now the police only have to deal with the really, really bad people because here's the thing, that's a really small percentage. So if we just focus, they can focus on that, and all this BS about a traffic stop for this reason raises to a level where someone gets killed, a homicide, right? No matter how you want to look at it. What, why, we, we have to be able to—

We don't always know. No, I hear what you're saying. We don't always know because listen, a bank robber speeds. A child abductor does it. So we have to allow the police to do the initial intervention here. Clearly, it was a warrant, and this kid wasn't, you know, wanted on felony charges. Was nobody kidnapped in the backseat? The minute that he began actively resisting, if the coppers would have taken a step back and let him drive, because now he's going to calm down and not flee, because if you push him, he's going to ram into a car full of nuns going to the hockey game, whatever.

Then what you do is you go back to the judge, and you write your report to the detective bureau, and the detective walks it up to the APA, the assistant prosecuting attorney. And you go before the judge and you go, "I want you to know I identified this guy. He was the one that was driving the car. He pushed me, and he drove away from the scene." And then the judge goes, "Okay, there's an additional warrant." Then it goes to perhaps a fugitive apprehension team, Brian. Yes, that tries to de-escalate the situation and goes in and arrests him when he's sleeping at his house. But then you have that, "Oh, now I'm in a house." Well, there's got to be a better way.

But what I'm saying is we don't, you and I don't need to solve that right now. We need to have those discussions and say, "Here's three or four ways that we can immediately influence this without escalating force or making a new thing or spending a billion dollars." Brian, could we do this and that app you just talked about? Okay, could we have it that old people in the community that have a car that are out of work that spend part of their time as a Walmart greeter? I'm not trying to besmirch anybody. I'm saying this is how life is. Could you have it that you need a ride to work, and you call, like in Gunnison Uber as Goober, you know, the Gunnison Uber. You hit a button and tell that person, "I need to get to work, and I have no way to get there." And this old retired person three days a week with their cat in a car drives you to work. You get what I'm trying to say, knowing full well that you can't pay for the gas. What I'm telling you is that there's got to be a less caloric intervention to get us down that right path, Brian.

And some of those, there are some local places that have done stuff like that before. Exactly what you're talking about, especially. You can do that now with the Uber app and all that. They can say, "Hey, we, you know, like now they're saying donate money for people to get rides to get vaccinated." How about donate money for someone to show up their court appearance? I do.

Yes, and show up with them. And if you show up with them and said, "I'm a member of the community, and I'm here with Brian," an entire nonprofit would start up just to help fund that.

Exactly. And what judge in the world, seeing that you had the support of fellow members of your community that are vouching for you and saying, "Yeah, he's made problems, your honor, but let's get a tabula rasa. Let's clear the slate and start over." The judge is going to vacate that warrant or the judge is going to push back that warrant or the judge is going to go, "Okay, we'll suspend fines and costs. You have a year to do whatever else." Now that anxiety goes away, and not every time the red and blues come on, are you worried about what's going on behind you? And frankly, coppers, don't make traffic stops. If you don't want to reap the whirlwind, then stop making them.

But we can't. That's not the answer to anything because then we—

Well, because here's the counter to that is, I mean, you started the counter without what I haven't said, like said, "Well, look, when I see this violation, it also can mean this, and now I can get some drugs off the street." Or would you walk by—

You except— and I get that. But I, I think, I think the war on the, the war on drugs is over, and I think drugs won. So, maybe we should change our policies on that. But that's a whole different, different topic. But, but again, that's another contributing factor of how this stuff escalates into these situations, right? And I get it that police have to be careful because everyone in the United States has a gun. Okay, well, if we want to have all those gun rights, and you want to be able to buy whatever you want to buy, well, guess what? Now the police have to say, "Well, look, I could walk up, and that guy could just pull something out and just start blasting away at me." And I get that, and that sounds scary, but that's not going to happen every time. There's, there's ways to address all of these issues.

Yes, and it doesn't even have to be some massive comprehensive approach. It's just using a logical framework. Where do you want to step in? If you were waiting until you got the guy out of the vehicle and he's already pulled over, you've missed everything leading up to that. So you're "at bang" again.

And the idea behind a pretext stop is to legally get inside that vehicle so you can do an investigatory contact of the driver, the occupants of the vehicle, take a look at it. And guess what? 40 years ago, 30 years ago, 20 years ago, nobody would have had an argument with that. And there's case law to support it going all the way back. Now we literally have these communities saying, "Is it worth fishing?" Okay, and it is sort of a fishing expedition because what we're doing is a pretext to get you to pull over so I can smell and look and feel and talk to you. Okay, now if you're saying that we're not going to do that, you're going to lessen things. First of all, the crime index is going to go down because you're going to have less contact.

Yeah, and there's got to be a statistic out there, Brian, is out of 50,000 traffic stops, less than 2% result in this. Well, now is the time to take a look at that.

And sociologically, we have to decide what it is that we want to make traffic stops for. We can't take away from the cop, "Look, bad people hide out there. People kill. Poly class people kidnap and kill other people and keep them in their apartment for years and stuff." And guess how those are solved, Brian? Guess how every serial killer ever caught? We saw a good copper and his instincts on the street said, "I'm going to contact this person at this time." So if you take away this, Brian, then you damage this. So we can't do that.

And what we need to do, you ever watch those building shows, Brian, where the people want to buy a house, and they want to buy it on a beach or in Hurricane Alley or in Tornado Alley, but they really love it there? And so what they do is they get with the builder and says, "Okay, you're going to have your ranch-style home, but we're going to put it on stilts," right? Or we're going to do this, and we're going to make this ground whatever. So, Brian, if they can do that, and science is not exact—science is an exact thing, but it's morphing and changing, yes. When we find new and incoming information, what that means is that instead of going back and saying race and throwing a yellow flag and saying because it's on race, we can't have any more discussions, what we need to do is we need to go to those causes and say, "Here's a cornucopia, here's a stellar system of stars." I mean, take a look at the night sky. All of those things are complicating factors. But how do we control these? And I'll tell you, 90% of the answer is training.

If you train a copper, "What are you getting into when you do this? When you run, when you walk, when you put your hand on your gun, when you have your lights on, when you call for a cover car, what's going on in the mind of the likely offender?" Brian, if it's at three strikes you're out, you'll know because he's going to come up shoot.

Yeah, he's going to, yeah, all that other stuff.

Okay, but let's talk about this thing in Chicago that our good friend told us about a week ago, and now they're dropping the vids on it. You're talking about a cop that had to make hard decisions on the street when he had an adult and a kid running from after 18 shots fired or whatever it was. I don't care about the fact, you look up the facts, it's not my job. But the idea is at the end of the termination point of this foot, there's fractions of a second to decide that this, first of all, you're not looking at going, "Wow, this kid looks 13." Do you get what I'm saying?

Yeah. Okay. It's nighttime. You're, you're having all the, now slowing time down says, "Okay, if I start pulling back, taking cover," because the argument is the cop didn't have the cover and the kid's doing this, and there's only nanoseconds, Brian. The closer you're out to "at bang," yeah, the less you have a decision in what's going to happen next. So either increase the time-distance gap, say that, "Okay, now we have them in this area, we're going to back off and do something," or you have to accept that sometimes people are going to get killed. But this is why we talk about it from a tactical, operational, strategic level because it's a constant. All of these are a constant cost-benefit analysis: "Is this worth the squeeze? Is the juice worth the squeeze?" And there's no two papers alike.

I know. The problem is that they're all, they're all, they, they have some, it's the ice cube tray analogy we always use, right? Everyone wants to put everything in the ice cube tray. That's fine. We use that too. But guess what? It ain't nice in there to use it when it's melted. What does that mean? Well, I twisted a little bit, and some of the water spills out from one of these areas, one of these buckets into the other one and fills that one up while that one's kind of lower, and if I slide it left and right, that water will flow in and out of all of them. Okay, that's how these work. So I've got all these pockets of contributing factors, and I've got this thing that I got to work it with. It's not frozen, set in stone, but it's just like you said, even about science and how the different sciences interact with each other. Okay, these are complicated issues, so, so we, we have to take that approach.

Because you just brought up, you know, this Chicago example is that perfect one. Well, now this kid was killed. Yeah, he had a gun on him, and yeah, when the officer saw the gun, it was in his hand, and it looked like it was coming up, but, and so at that time, given his training, he did exactly what he was trained to do, exactly what the policies and procedures told him to do, and look what happened. Right?

Now, let me add one thing: look what happened.

No, no, I agree, I agree. But let me add this to you, okay? Here you had a situation where the kid was there on his own volition. I'm not saying I'm making a judgment call. I'm not saying right or wrong. I'm saying he was a 13-year-old with a gun out at night with an adult that also had a gun. Yeah. Now we think they were shooting. Okay, I'll fall short of that, saying that it's likely they were the people, but again, it doesn't matter.

Now we had a ShotSpotter system. ShotSpotter system was put in place by the community because they're tired of the shootings. The cop wasn't there because he wanted to be there, Brian. The cop was there because he was called because the ShotSpotter, because it was a policy of the agency to go to these scenes. And now he encountered who is likely the shooter. Do you see how that happens? So if we just attend it from that, Brian, if we just draw our wedge and we say everything was pointing towards this, then we can think of these likely outcomes. But that's not enough, is it? Now we got to think of the outcomes of that kid on the scene. What was he trained? Did he have a civics class? Was he in school long enough that somebody said, "Dude, when the cops are coming up, you got to drop that gun. You got to put your hands up." And then somebody's going to go, "That's indentured servitude. We shouldn't have to fear the cops." Dude, if you're close to me with a gun, yeah, my hands are going up, something's going to be going wrong. But we have to make those things more attainable because the more choices that we have based on science and education and knowledge and training, the less shootings are going to happen.

Listen, when we're not as educated and trained, we use a higher degree of violence. Simply put, you're talking about training and education, we're not. Yeah, we're talking about the police and the community. The lower your level of education, the lower your level of training, the more likely you are to go primal. You're going to escalate violence, you're going to escalate a situation. And you know, what is, what is my wife always telling me, "Hey, anger is easy, buddy. Empathy is hard." We saw angry Brian a little earlier, just so you know.

No, and because it's, is it for me, it's just frustration because, you know, I've seen how these things can change, and it's not a high-calorie expenditure. It's taking what we already know works and what policies and procedures work, and our own life experiences to look at these and stop saying, "Look at how different all of these things are," and they're saying, "Look at how these things are all exactly the same freaking story over and over again." And I reiterate, with our process, if you change the race or religion or political background of any of these people we talk about, our method still applies, and it still works. Yourself, we, so here's, here's what, what also frustrates me about these situations is one, obviously, how it continues to get played out in the media. And you'll have people just going down the rabbit hole on both sides of just junk. I mean, just junk. I mean, you're just even people who are training experts apparently, and they're talking about this stuff. I'm like, "Dude, you have no concept of how human behavior works. That's absolutely ridiculous. You're still thinking 'at bang' too." It's like, "Well, in the millisecond I got to make that decision." Okay, guess what? You were a contributing factor to that situation. Your actions contributed to that.

And this is what I get into, and it's, it's just showing up sometimes, but, and so this is where society has to take that thing, "Well, what are we going to have them do?" Because, because what are you units? Because that cop is going to go, "Oh, you want me just to let that kid get away? You want me to run? He, but he broke the law. I clearly saw that." You got to tell him, "Yes."

Yeah, if that's your strategic goal, you have to be the leader and say, "Yes." And at that local level has to decide what are we doing, okay? Because some places are going to say, "No, I don't care. We have a zero tolerance that they got a gun, you're going to go after him." Okay? And maybe in that situation, what, what, what comes from this 14-year, 13-year-old kid getting killed. Yeah, he was committing, even if he was committing a felony, who, who got hurt in this situation? Who died? What was that? What was this?

Yeah, but you, you, I understand. You get what I'm saying. I'm saying that I know I'm playing that role, and I understand. But Brian, if it was your daughter—

Exactly. Raped or your cousin or the car, that's why you can't, you can't have a sliding scale on flexible enforcement and morality.

No, no, no, policies can't be sliding scale. But the laws aren't. They're not just, you know, you can't, you know what I'm saying? The policies and laws, those can't be a sliding scale. Yeah, they apply to one, they apply to all. Absolutely. There is no me, my kid, your kid, no matter where they are. Thankfully, thankfully, we got rid of the whole "separate but equal" concept a long time ago, and that's illegal to do it, as it should be, because it's a ridiculous standard. A standard is a standard. Everyone gets held to it. What I'm saying should be the sliding scale is that individual response because, but that takes what we, we don't do that anymore. It's the checklist. "Here's what your procedures are when this event occurs." Okay, no two events are alike. How can you sit there and give me that checklist? I'm not, I'm not. A pilot uses a checklist for his flight, for his plane, because that's the same plane. It's the same problems are going to happen. He's going to, no matter where he goes or she goes and flies that thing, there's, there's certain protocols and procedures that have to take place to ensure that it happens safely. Okay, that's not how this stuff works. These are complex problems because that's procedural, and this is human.

So, so, so you don't need, you don't need that flipping checklist. You need a framework. I need to go through my architecture. How do I, how do I, how do I understand this situation and create the best possible outcome that fits within our overall strategic objectives? What we're talking about is the military goes, "Commander's Intent." Okay, I'm going to, Greg, I'm going to train you, I'm going to rehearse with you, I'm going to give you a plan, I'm going to give you over and over again. I'm going to do the best I can, and here's my intent. Now you get to take that, and you get to go as long as you're following in with these policies and procedures, the longer within the left and right lateral limits, I got your six. If I'm demonstrating, if I'm carrying out what your intent was, and that, in these cases with law enforcement, that should be, that's community-driven too. That, that's police, that's, that's the community leaders, that's the elected officials in that city. Get together, "What's the intent here?" Because that intent can then drive what these, what, what our outcomes are going to be.

But we don't do that. We don't, we don't take away responsibility. It's like when I left the Marine Corps, right? Or when I remember walking in, I had some like pay issues one time or just a couple times. But, you know, I walked in, and remember, I remember first going in there, they had a line that said, like, "E-5 and above." So if you're a sergeant and above, you got to go to the special line. And when I left, guess what that line was? It, they just changed and wrote, "E-5 and below." So meaning now you had to be an E-6 to get that special treatment. And do you, you needed more response. Like, so what you did was, you took that's taking away responsibility to make that decision, Greg.

Okay, you have the commander's intent, but it's incumbent upon you as a small unit leader to say, "What about an 18-year-old? What about a 16-year-old? Yep. What about a 13-year-old? Where's the threshold?" And when that commander looks at you and says, "Anyone," and you say, "Anyone? You mean a woman or a man? What about a woman with a baby carriage?" And you're going, "Well, that's sniping." That's not sniping, it's not clarifying the intent. So operationally, I understand that what my supervisory layer is taking down to my sergeants and my patrolmen and everybody else. So when I get into that situation at the tactical level, I have a framework. I have a framework to understand.

Listen, we had a boss, and he was the (expletive) boss that I ever had in my entire life, and he said, "No (expletive) pursuits." And I don't care if there's a baby hanging out of the trunk, and it's the, you know, Lindbergh kidnapping, and it, you know, the pursuit's only 15 miles an hour, no pursuits. You know why he said that? Because the night before there was a big pursuit that got into the (expletive), and he had to write a bunch of reports and stay late and do all that other stuff. So, Brian, the pendulum swung because of this guy's personality and that (expletive) leadership. So leadership and training go hand in hand. And once I learned the commander's intent, it's my job to go up and go, "Let me make sure that I have this right, sir. You want me to do this and this with these tools. What if it costs overtime? What if it goes to hours of darkness? What if I break this or that?" Because now you have that clear guidance from your leadership, and that helps you make an informed decision because there's no way you can make an informed decision. "Saw a felon arrested sane," if this kid was 13, and it was a death sentence because of that kind of thinking.

So, so listen, we're rarely are we in complete agreement. We're in complete agreement on this, but I'm telling you, be careful because you're going to reap the whirlwind if you come in and say, "Well, let's just stop making traffic stops. Oh, no violation, let's just stop speeding, let's just stop."

I just want to make sure because, you know, there's a group out there that wants to do that. But, you know, I throw that to people in some of our audiences and say, "Why just let them go?" Yeah, and I go, "I get it." Like, but then when my, I'm playing devil's advocacy, that's what the community wants.

Exactly. So let's get what they want. You, what are we doing? You always say you reap the whirlwind.

But, but that, maybe that needs to happen, and I don't want it to. I think there's a better way to do it. But the, the, the idea is there. It's when you make these, they affect the criminal population too with these policies and procedures.

Of course they do. Easier for them to operate because they know, they know the Constitution. But yeah, absolutely they do. Are you stupid? You know, I mean, a person that's listening to us right now, and this is what I want to go back to what you said about training and about how we teach our courses. When we're in person, we teach the course. We don't have all the answers, but we're going to teach you to ask the right questions. And that's we, we don't teach you what to look for, we teach you how to look. Because if you knew that and you understand that the biggest building inside of the prison that you're sending your felons to isn't the gosh-damn gym, it's the library. And they understand criminal code better than you do and the rules of evidence, and they get more training than a cop does on these type of things. That should scare the hell out of your brain.

But I'm telling you, without community involvement, without knowledge, without education and training, we're going to stay in this horrible conundrum longer than we need to. We can climb out of this primordial ooze, and we can start taking back our streets. And listen, police reform is about saying clearly what we expect our police to do, and community policing has nothing to do with criminals. You're going to have the broken windows theory, don't even get me started. But what I'm trying to say is we are at a point that criminals have better guns, they're less sophisticated and more organized than they ever were. You know, we had a school teacher and a Spanish teacher, basketball coach that had a shootout with a cartel in a North Carolina trailer park going to rip the cartel. You get what I'm trying to say?

So, so these are situations, Brian, they're always going to be around. We have to have a special Judge Dredd mindset where there's people that are willing to go in there and get shot and die for our U.S. Constitution. And right now we accept it with the military or do we? We're pulling out of Afghanistan, and people are on both sides of that issue. So I get the issue, but we have to challenge our community and get the type of police work we expect. And this kid was 13, and I'm sorry he's dead. Okay. But let's call a mistake a mistake. And I will tell you that it was negligent, so somebody needs to pay, but there's already laws for that. So let's not let that pendulous swing go all in a different direction and get all out of kilter when we can solve it with the laws that are on the books and with calm heads thinking together. Solidarity. We have to be transparent in our thinking. I have never, ever worked with a copper that said, "There's a black guy, let's go get him." What the (expletive), right? You get what I'm trying to say. But if they are there, Brian, then let's continue to be aggressively weeding them out, but let's fix these cases.

And I, I don't, I don't think it's as much of that thinking. I think a lot of times when people talk up and to, I guess, clarify too, you know, I said at the beginning, people use terms like "systemic" and all this stuff, and yes, and a lot of times when they refer to the policies that were enacted, that, yeah, that happened. They didn't know it at the time, right? They didn't know, "Oh, wow, this is only targeting the poorest neighborhoods in our city."

Exactly, right.

But it's like, like the interstate system, and reading that, you go, "Wow, that's, that's pretty eye-opening."

But listen, there's a book out there now on LinkedIn, the only social media I get, and I still don't get it. And the book is, "How to Speak Like a Roman Empire." Kiss my (expletive). Listen, it didn't work for them back then, that's why there is no Roman Empire. So you're thinking that you're going to get a gem from it? That's great. Okay, but what, what you're talking about, Brian, is you're talking about people that are now only looking with the laser focus, "Well, all those inequalities." And they're going to hang their hat on those. As we say, "Welcome to the party." I'm sure this is all new to you, but that doesn't mean we've been fighting him for a long time.

Not new to everyone else who's involved in these, are having these discussions and have thought and researched this and planned out and looked at solutions and trained to those solutions and vetted and verified them and validated.

Exactly.

You, you know, I, I get that scientifically, and that's no one wants to hear it. I mean, how many people are going to sit through and listen to this whole rant about this stuff? They were done at the beginning.

Well, right, because you get maybe triggered by a word or you think that means something. No, it means what I (expletive) meant it to mean. That's what it means. You don't know what that is if you didn't get it from the context, and you'd like some clarity, but TheHumanBehaviorPodcast@gmail.com. I answer everyone who writes into us. So meaning intent is what is important here. So I don't care what your beliefs are. I'm talking about these situations, and we have a way of doing that that is unlike anything I've ever seen. And that's why, part of the reason why I dedicate myself doing it because it's a never-ending stop, and it's a never-ending progression. It's a never-ending process. Somebody needs to be doing it, buddy. Somebody needs to be doing it.

And the thing is, if we keep getting wrapped around these simple, simple solutions, I mean, Jesus, man, like, I, I mean, I just saw some video of some major metropolitan police department with some (expletive) robotic dog. Like, go (expletive) yourself. If that's what you're going to spend your money on, then, you know what? You don't, you deserve all the criticism you get. I'm sorry. Like, what, what is that? How is that, how is that, you know, fixing these, these low-frequency, highly impactful situations, right? Because I want to stress that about this is a low-frequency event, but man, does it really ripple through the community. It separates like a school shooting. It, it, it pits one against another. It, it's emotional. It's draining. It's, it's like we're all so sick of it. My concern is that, like, eventually we'll stop talking about it. You know what I'm saying?

Right. Look at the Indianapolis shooting that just happened this morning, Brian. It's time. We're talking about it. It's, I don't know. It's so rare, okay, but it's just going to change all the lives. And, and, you know what? In the United States, racial equality is a law, okay? Regardless of what race you are, you receive equal treatment, opportunities, education, employment, political. And they continue to even up those, those are being updated for, you know, gay community, transgender community. They're adding all that in there. We've got a new thing.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, so what are the two most dangerous things in a copper's life? The traffic stop because of its ambiguous nature. You never know what you're going to get into, okay? And they have to be made. And something like a domestic violence situation. Yeah, where you go into domestic violence and the emotions are so high, Brian, we need to stop investing in body bunkers and up-armored, you know, what's the old, not the Humvee, the other one, the MRAP thing. Yeah, the MRAPs. We need to stop that, and we need to start saying, we need to invest in the brain of the copper that's on the street. And it's a long-term investment because it'll pay us dividends if not over time that are leaving. And then they're going to go after them with criminal, and now we're doing it. But yeah, it's happening right now. Hey, listen, the civil code was there to fix these wrongs. These people aren't criminals. And you say, "Okay, well, neglect and negligence, rather, and gross negligence, specifically, is a crime." Yeah, okay, so go after those people. But the idea is you have a chance to say, "Only 15 times in 20 years," and I know that's a big number if that's your son or daughter that was tased and shot accidentally, but, Brian, it still shows it's manageable. It's not, it's not, it's out of the way, and that's solving it.

And that's why I brought that up at the beginning. The same thing, you're going to go at it with statistics, and I'm, I don't, we don't do that to go, "Look, it's not a big deal." We go, "Look, this is a huge deal, but it's manageable. We can fix it. It's only happened X amount of times during this, this many years." Like that, that's the issue we can, we can solve it. And so, exactly. But I, I think that the changing how we discuss it is important. We always obviously try to do that. But we fall back. Look, man, like this goes into everything that we talk about when you're processing your, your environment. You're saying, "Oh, that police officer thought this because of this reason, and it's because, you know, he's a bad person." Or the other person will say, "No, look, he's got to get faster at drawing and doing this." And we're like, "You're all flipping wrong." Like, this, you're always saying this is, that's, that's the point. It's not just that you're paying, it's just you're picking that one thing and saying that's the issue. (expletive) you, man, if the world is that simple to you, man, I wish I'm one more, I'm one more TBI, I'm one more brain injury away from looking at the world that way, of just, "Well, this is what it is. It's, it's, it's us versus them. It's black." Because that's easy. You said it earlier, it's, it's intellectually lazy.

So listen to me, if you have a situation like drunk driving, and drunk driving is a serious problem, they have things like Safe Ride. Yes or no? Okay. They have a situation where you have to blow into a tube to determine your toxicology or your blood alcohol content before you drive your car. They have cars that are fixed with things that say you can't go out at night, you can't do this. They have cars that you can get insurance for to be a driver to work at night that says, "Hey, look, I'm a convicted drunk driver, but right now, I'm sorry, I can work." Yeah, okay? So, so if we work that hard on drunk driving, why can't we work that hard on these kids with guns? Why can't we work that hard on this cop with the traffic stop? If you're going to give me a technological advantage, give me one that helps me, do you get what I'm trying to say? De-escalate the anxiety at the window on a traffic stop where the person can scan the stuff, and I can watch them scanning and know that, yeah, this is not the problem. I don't care what that is, but again, I don't care, but I know that if we put our, if we leverage our general knowledge and interest into something like that, we're going to be able to solve it.

We got to stop with the journalists saying, "Hey, we're going to pick this and put it to the forefront of the news." Well, we, and that, it tells, we have to stop this explosion. "Well, we just, we just pick apart this person, it's obvious this individual." Like, are you kidding me, dude? Imagine, okay, let's put ourselves in the, the, yes, the shoes that that officer who just shot that guy with her Glock instead of her. Life has changed forever, dude. Like, if that was me, I'm (expletive) going home and eating my gun.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I couldn't live with myself.

Both of us have the, the PTSD. That's a response.

But, but here's the thing, you're right. Like, we go, "Oh, well, that's the person." No, this is all of us. This is, that was her, she was a contribution. An incredible career, her agency was a contributing factor. The training was a, "Hey, how about the suspect was a major contributing factor?" Our laws, our policies and procedures were contributing factors. Our lack of community support for someone like this is a contributing factor. A lack of polite education is a contributing factor. This is so, so we're all part of not an easy problem. We're all equally—

Cultural, rather than yelling at each other, we should say, "Damn, this is tough. How do we fix this?" So the news media went to the father— well, they got to sell tickets, man. But the news media went to the father, and the father says, "This is a homicide. I can't believe it was negligent. This, this was a murder." Okay, the first question of the news should have been, "What was your 13-year-old kid doing out at night with a gun?" But then that's oversimplification. You see how I'm like one side of the issue on the other side? So we got to push that emotion out of the way. We got to say, "These are the facts that we're faced with. How can we fix this going forward to make sure that this situation, and situations similar to it, because it'll never be the same, won't occur again?"

Because, like we cover, they need tactical, operational, strategic change. And it doesn't, it, when we say change, it's not some comprehensive reform and this, like, no, you need to get better at these skill sets here tactically because that fits in operationally here. And then strategically, you have to come up with a better way forward, an idea, a concept of what, what it, what it is. You don't need a plan. You, like, I haven't seen a good strategy. But what, what is the commander's intent? What is the intent of the police department and the city that, that, and their elected officials? They should be getting together, "Well, what are we trying to do here with this community? What is the plan?"

So you covered that. It's strategic, operational, and tactical, and you covered it perfectly. The other thing that we do that nobody else does is we cover psychologically, sociologically, physiologically, and environmentally. So those are all issues in that same community that spoke to this traffic stop, that spoke to this kid running with the gun. Okay, sociologically, if the community is not involved, it's not going to change because then it's going to be an incident of dissonance where we solve this one problem, but it's not going to fix the next problem down there. Psychologically, we have to want to understand that in these high-stress situations, things happen with the brain and the eye and the humans, and we got to train to that standard. Physiologically, yeah, that it didn't matter if that gun was yellow, okay? They were, and I could show you a Nerf gun from a week ago that looked like a real gun that was a real Glock. Okay? And then finally, environmentally. Environmentally means geographic factors: the place at that time that is a high-crime area or is a low-income area. And we got to address those, Brian. If we don't address those contributing factors, then how are we going to mitigate the whole issue? And that's what you're saying, and that's what I'm saying, and I think it's a valid point, and nobody's covering that by the way.

Well, it's the taking sides and yelling back and forth. And I get that; that's happened throughout history. There's nothing new to that. But the idea is, you know, if you're coming from one angle and say, "Yeah, but what about this and what about this?" It's like, "Great, I understand that." Now, now take it from the other side. "Well, no, it's like, all right, well, then we're not going to get—" Exactly, right. But I, I, I—

It's what's the difference between cultural bias and confirmation bias. Yeah, exactly. When you went down, if we're spinning our wheels on an icy road, we have to improve the traction. And improving the traction means we have to slow down, we have to get something else to put between the tire and the ice. So, so let's do this. If not scientifically, how else? We have to do it mechanically. There's a way to slow time down in these incidents, and that's improving the training, not defunding the coppers. And we got to just get better at that, and we got to get better at telling the copper, like you said, strategically, "This is our intent. This is where we want to go with this." And now giving them the tools to get this, okay? But, but you sign me up. I have been preaching that for over 40 years now. You get what I'm trying to say.

In this world-rated episode of the month. Yeah, and there's, there's, there's plenty of other issues too about, I mean, now you're talking about again sociologically, we're all in our groups, man. And we got our groups, and we got our methods, and we got our ways of thinking, and, you know, my group, I'm going to be more for them, and you're going to be for your group. And I, I get that. And even people who who are, but the problem is we don't, you know, we also don't police our own very well. Those groups don't get rid of the people that they need to get rid of because they're part of that group. I don't care if that's a political organization. I don't care if those are doctors, if those are lawyers, if those are bankers, that those are police officers, right? Like you, we don't, we don't fix our own problems. We, we blame others, and I, I get that. So there's, there's areas in there that, that need to change and need to allow that for happening.

But when you talk about training in this stuff, and, you know, it's like the argument I made with someone years ago when the Chicago police was like announced they were going to be hiring, you know, a thousand more officers or something. Same argument. It's like, "Well, how much does that cost over their career?" A thousand officers over 20-year career? Billions. Okay, but, but, but you're, that's not going to solve the problem is you have to invest in your people, and you have to give them the best training, the best equipment, the longest, and professionally develop them. Does that cost money? Yeah, it does. But in the long run, one, it costs you a lot less. Two, guess what? When you give them the best training and the best equipment and the best way to do things, you get to raise the standard. You get to say, "No, well, now this is what I expect from you."

Exactly. Your expectation. It's a profession now.

Well, and it's still fighting to be one, Greg, but my argument is it's still fighting to be one. It's come a long way. You get what I'm saying? To really make it what it should be, you know, we have all these requirements to be, you have different requirements to be, you know, whatever at this place. Like the highest ones should be who are police forces, and then you've got to pay them accordingly, you're going to train them or—

Exactly. Precisely right. But the community has to make that choice. That's not about police work, that's about the community. And I think how are we going to get there? And I'll explain this to you. Okay, so, I don't watch the news, I can't because it's not real news. So I'll go out and I'll search for the differing opinions from the scholars. And so I read one from a scholar, and he's a Rhodes Scholar, and he's also a scholar on police work, and he said, "Police have a lot of things that they have to carry on their belt." And he went through the weapons and the ammunition and the expandable baton and the sap and the sap gloves. "When were you a cop? When were you relevant in 1946?" Sap gloves are illegal. A sap is illegal. No cop would carry that. That's a felony. And if you used it on somebody, you'd be in a federal prison. So, Brian, I'm telling you, on both sides, when somebody comes up and goes, "I'm a subject matter expert," and "What tenure's a (expletive)?" You get what I'm trying to say? So just because you've got a title and a bunch of letters after your degree—

Well, everyone wants to know, "Well, who, who are you?" It's like, yeah, hang on, separate me from this is what I did. Does what I say makes sense? Is it valid? Is it righteous? Yeah, it doesn't matter who the (expletive) I am. Like, does this idea work? Right? Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

But I, I, I don't know, I don't know about you, but if I go to somebody's house and it's April and they still got their Christmas lights up, I see a question in that resume. That's all I'm trying to say.

Right. Exactly. Well, I, we, we kind of had some, some technical difficulties at the beginning a few times to kind of, kind of threw me off the loop, but I think we kind of threw you off a roof.

It's about to throw the computer off a roof. I know that, I know that the Glock was coming out. Oh my god.

So, that was really bothering me. But, I, I think maybe we kind of, kind of wrap it up right now because we hit, I think, a lot of the points. We didn't get into a lot of the cases, and we only started with a general discussion. We got other calls this morning, too, so. But, but listen, we only scratched the surfaces, but I think we had a valiant attempt at defining at least part of the problem.

Yeah, and we'll get to more comprehensive and specific solutions. Obviously, I think we always say "training," but that has to be the right type of training and make sure it's done correctly. But all those caveats.

But yeah, so, I think, oh, I'd like to get some feedback from some of the listeners to see what you guys think of what, how we covered it, and what we said. And then we can elaborate further or clarify things, or, yeah, whatever you think. I'd definitely like some feedback from everything. So Greg, any any final, final words here before we wrap?

Yeah, I just want to say this, Brian. I want to say, "Thank you for pouring your heart out at the beginning of the episode." And folks, remember, we're both in this to win this, and that's a long haul, and that means we've invested our time and our money and our emotional capital, and we're doing this for free. We're trying our best to remember that.

Yeah, I think that's a good, it's a good caveat there. It's a good, good way to, to frame that too. So, yeah, if you want more, go to the website, follow us on social media. We do have the Patreon account. We're constantly updating that and dropping little extras from the episodes and different extra content, some of our webinars and stuff like that we put on there. So you can follow us along. It's only a couple bucks a month, and you can ask us questions on there. We'll do some stuff on the private side there. So to those Patreon subscribers already out there, thank you so much, we really do appreciate it. Hopefully, those who wanted got their coffee mugs. You can send photos or post or, or, or tag us in those if you're on social media. Same thing, you can follow along, you know, order a coffee mug from the website. Your official The Human Behavior Podcast. Gotta sell a little bit now that I fixed the payment issues, and we're not being charged every time someone works.

And remember, exit through the gift shop, Brian, yeah, because there's going to be more and more items. One of the requested, most requested items is the ice cube tray.

Oh, that's a great idea. Can you think about it? Oh, look at that, an official Arcadia or The Human Behavior Podcast ice cube tray. I love that idea, that's a great idea. So hopefully we'll have, we'll have more on there. Thank you everyone for, for listening and tuning in. And if you like it, please share the episode, send it to someone you know, and give this a review. So please don't forget that training changes behavior.