Retired Sheriff Explains Police Training, Mental Health Calls, and Why Voluntary Compliance Matters

Vance Crowe [00:00:00] Well, where does society begin? Where, where does societal responsibility start? Does it start at littering or does it start at homicide as the crow flies on the Vance Crow Podcast? Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today's interview is with Sheriff Tom Almond. I knew Sheriff Almond when I was living in Mendocino County. Mendocino County is this gigantic county in the state of California. It's in way northern California, and I'm often fond of saying that the people that thought Berkeley was too conservative, they moved up to Mendocino. Now, when I met Sheriff Almond, I was working in community public radio and he always kind of had an eye out for me. When he would stop by the radio to, to host a show or to to be an interviewed, he would always check in and say, how you doing? What's going on with you? And I developed a large amount of admiration and respect for him. So it was a huge honor 15 years later to have him on the podcast to talk about what's going on in the world. So we're gonna get to that interview in just a second. But you may have noticed that I don't run ads on this. I don't really wanna be selling shaving cream or razors or mushroom tea. I don't think there's anything wrong with doing that. I just think that that's not the exchange that I wanna make with my listeners. For me, what I want is for this content to be free. I want it to be good conversations that you're invited into and you get to just watch or listen and you like it, and in something that broadens your horizons. But for some people, they have found that they wanna know who are the other people that are listening to the podcast?

Vance Crowe [00:01:35] What are the things that I can do to become a better public speaker or learn how to communicate or listen better? And so I developed the Articulate Ventures Network and I've opened it up and I've started having people sign up in the beta group. And then we had some second Wave testers, and now it's open. And it is a really cool community. I think there's something like 40 or so people that are in there. And it's growing just a little bit every day. It doesn't need to grow at a big pace, it's just a place where people can go. They can get access to the book club that we run every month. They can see episodes without them being monetized on YouTube. And they can also communicate, chat with other people that are taking classes and putting up their own experimental videos, trying to get better at public speaking and asking for feedback. So this community is something that I love doing, and it's really exciting and interesting. And right now, if you are interested in signing up, just go to Articulate Ventures. I'll put a link in the, in the show description. But just know that I want you to be there if you wanna meet other people. You come in, you talk about who you are, what you're trying to get done, what you've struggled with as far as communications, and just go explore. People have found that they love it, and I have not had anybody that signed up say anything other than I'm so glad that I'm here. So I hope you'll join it. You can go to Articulate Ventures, and it's a great way to support the podcast because I don't wanna put on ads, and this is a way that I can build a community, continue to deliver great content, and allow you to find a way to support the podcast and not have to hear ads.

Vance Crowe [00:03:09] So, without further ado, we're gonna go to the interview with Sheriff Tom Almond. Thank you for being here. I'm so glad you're here. Sheriff Tom Allman, welcome to the podcast

Tom Allman [00:03:22] Fans. Good morning. And I say good morning 'cause we're doing this in the morning, and I know people may be listening afternoon, but it's really good to see you. It's, it's been a while since I've seen you and, and I hope things are going well.

Vance Crowe [00:03:34] This is a big honor for me because I met you at a time in my life where I think a lot of 20 year olds find themselves. They realize, Hey, I have skills. I have things I can contribute, I can go anywhere I want in the world, but I don't really know what I wanna do. And I met you as the sheriff of Mendocino County when I was working in public radio, radio, and every time I, I tried to find a way to contact you or talk with you, you always took the time to speak with me. And now, 10, 15 years later, to be talking with you again is, is a big honor.

Tom Allman [00:04:08] Well, it's my pleasure. You know, not you're, you're mistake if you think that all 20 year olds were thinking like that, because a lot of 20 year olds have no idea that continuing their life to find their occupation and to, to set up their first cornerstone in their, you know, productive life is there. It's it's time because they've only been outta the house for a couple years. So you kind of stood out. I mean, I'm not trying to boost your ego, but you kind of stood out because you, you seem to know what you wanted to do, and who wouldn't want to talk with a 20-year-old who knows what he or she wants to do, and they come to you for advice. I mean, only a, a village idiot would say, no, I don't wanna talk with you.

Vance Crowe [00:04:49] You know, we sat down in a diner and we were talking, and you were the sheriff of this giant county that's almost the size of a state for a lot of people. And you gave me a book that I, at first was kind of looking over my shoulder being like, I don't think you're supposed to like this book. And it was how to win Friends and Influence People. And you gave it to me and you said, this is an important thing you should read. So I did. And you were exactly right. This book that's been maligned by a lot of people made a huge impact on me, and I'm so grateful you gave me that book.

Tom Allman [00:05:21] Well, you're very welcome. I wish it had a different title because it certainly turns people off. But in my career, I've, I've given away, I'm just gonna guess a hundred twenty, a hundred twenty five. I was originally given the book when I was 14 years old by a very influential aunt of mine who's a self-made millionaire, and she was a college professor, and she was one that told me when I was like, 12, if I ever catch a smoking, I'm going to beat your butt. And so I've never tried a cigarette in my life because of Aunt Betty. I have this huge amount of respect for her. She's 87 years old now, and she's still very influential in my life. But I read the book when I was 14. I read it once a year. And it's not what the name implies, it's not a manipulator book. It's not a book that tells you to how to make people do something they don't want to do. It's not it at all. What it is, it's a book of communication. It's a book of how you can better communicate to others as well as here. And even more important, hear what the other person has to communicate to you and listen to them. And the dynamics of a good conversation. If somebody studies the dynamics of a good conversation, it involves two people who are active listeners and who may actually appreciate the other perspective and maybe even change their perspective.

Tom Allman [00:07:03] You know, I, I jokingly say I've been married 35 years and I'm used to being wrong, but there's a lot of truth to that because if you, if you actively listen to the other person and you have some respect for that other person, chances are they're gonna make an impact in the way that you think, you know, they're, they're gonna have some kind of influence in your thought process. And you, you don't have to say it right there and say, gosh, I'm gonna change my mind. But when you walk away from the conversation and you replay it in your head that we all do, we all replay conversations, you go, you know, that makes a lot of sense. And I, I appreciate where that person's coming from. And in today's crazy world of everything that's happened on a social front, you know, whether it's the defund, the police, whether it's Black Lives Matter, whether it's a pandemic, all the, whether it's the election, all these major social issues are coming up on our radar. And if somebody doesn't listen to the other side, they just need to stay at their house and not say a word. Because we have to start communicating. And communicating means listening. It doesn't mean talking in the, the chapter in a book Vance, which is my favorite chapter, is how to be a great Conversationalist. And by reading the chapter, by reading the title, you might say, well, gosh, this is gonna teach me how to talk to people.

Tom Allman [00:08:34] And that's not what the chapter is about. The chapter is how to be a very active listener, allow the other person to do most of the talking. And chances are, when you and that person part ways that other person's gonna say, boy, he was a great conversationalist, even though the truth is they did most of talking.

Vance Crowe [00:09:02] Yeah, I have a friend named Joseph Ring who really crystallized exactly what that chapter is about, is people don't remember what you told them. They remember what they told you, right? They have this feeling of like, I got to share this thing with this other person, and they listened and I felt heard. And we, we, we go through so much of our lives never feeling heard, that if somebody ever sits across from us and says, oh, I never thought about that, you have this connection with them that's just different. And I think you're right. In today's day and age, we have so much of a on, on the social media. When you're not having two people in front of each other, there's much more of an honor culture of, I'm gonna destroy you So that that way I can win. That you don't have, when you're in a general conversation, when you and I are talking, if I only shove great ideas towards you, it doesn't matter how great the ideas are. If you don't feel heard, you don't care what I have to say.

Tom Allman [00:10:01] Well, one of the things that we as humans have a fault of is we are so individually engaged in thinking of our next statement or our next question of what we're gonna say in a conversation that we literally do not hear what the other person's saying, because the other person will say something which triggers a thought, and you say, well, I'm gonna ask them about this as soon as it's my turn to ask the question. And then the rest of that question or conversation you don't even hear because you're, you're ready to pounce. And so when I talk to people, you may even hear me have a pause between when you end and when I begin, because I don't want to steal 10% of your sentence by jumping in at the end of it and telling you what I thought. So, I mean, we can have this conversation back and forth. You and I are both white people, but if there's one takeaway from this, from the book I would like people to have is how to be a great conversationalist. And that means how to listen. Let me, let me give you one quick example, Vince. How many times have you introduced yourself to a person and they've said their name, and about two seconds later you go, what in the hell is that person's name? Because I know that you just said it, but for the life of me, I can remember what this person's name is. Has that ever happened?

Vance Crowe [00:11:28] Oh, I mean, 99% of every time you introduce yourself.

Tom Allman [00:11:35] So the book tells us, and this, this podcast isn't a great, you know, it isn't close, try to be a segue to make the Carnegie's even more money because the Carnegie wrote the book. But the reason it happens is we in our mind are so impassioned to impress that other person on anything that we don't even hear their name. I mean, they could say their name's Donald Duck, and we're not even gonna hear that because we're so busy wondering, you know, are my shoes tied? Is my zipper up? Is my hair comb, is my shirt button? We're wondering about all these things in, in our own personal life, and we do not hear that other person. So when that other person says, Hey, my name's Bob. And I go, hi, my name's Tom and I, I will probably say, boy, I have a uncle named Bob and he's one of my favorite uncles. And that does two things. It tells that other person, he actually heard my name, and it also tells me that when I see him again, my mind is gonna think of my Uncle Bob, and I'm probably gonna remember his name.

Vance Crowe [00:12:44] That's great advice that that is actually really insightful because it's one of those things that I have to do because I travel so much, I give a lot of talks, I'm meeting a lot of new people. I find myself being like, what does this person want from me? Or how is this gonna go? Or how can I say something that keeps me in the, in the position of being the speaker that was here or having something creative, but you're a hundred percent right, just remembering their name is a hundred times better than whatever creative thing I'm gonna come up with.

Tom Allman [00:13:18] Right? And it doesn't always work. I mean, there'll still be some times that I'm walking down the grocery store with aisle with my wife, and here comes someone who says, Hey Sheriff, how are you? I'll whisper to my wife, honey, what's this prize name? And she'll say, well, that's Steve. And I'll say, Hey Steve, you know, it's good to see you. And I hope Steve never heard me ask my wife that question because it doesn't work all the time. I mean, I'm not perfect on names, but I work on it. I really truly work on it and and so forth. But anyway, you know, yeah, you and I have known each other for 10 or 15 years, and I'm glad to see. So this is a perfect time getting your way.

Vance Crowe [00:13:55] This is a great time for me to ask a a, a friend, somebody that was in law enforcement, some pretty tough questions about what's going on in the world today and ask me. So one of the questions I have, maybe just to start a baseline is what was the genesis for you to become a police officer? And I wanna caveat this because right now there is, in, in the culture that I run around in, everybody says, who would wanna be a police officer? Only the drs of society, only the people that are, are looking for power and, and, you know, have a little man's syndrome. So I think that, and I hear it and I feel that like, yeah, that is why people would join. But then I talk to somebody like you and I'm, I'm wondering, I don't see that with you. So why did you join the police force and what's changed over time?

Tom Allman [00:14:42] Well, I was actually a fireman in a, in a mid-size city in California. And it was a fun job. I'd want, I'd gone to college, I'd gone to the fire academy, I'd been a volunteer fireman my, since I was 16 and I'm now 20 years old. And I had really and truly captured my dream of becoming a paid fireman. And I, there was this one traffic accident where we were there and we were, you know, cleaning up the s spilled fuel. And we had taken care of the victims of the traffic accident. And the police officers showed up, they took the accident information down and they, when it was all over for them, they got in their cars, their chariot of justice, and they, they drove away. And we stayed there for about three hours, you know, throwing down kitty litter to soak up the fuel and to make sure the roadway's clear of all the weird parts and so forth that ac puncture tires. And I thought, wait a minute, if I became a firefighter because of the adrenaline, there's a lot of adrenaline pumping and firefighting. I said, you know, those guys, they go from call to call. And they really truly did. They were going from a traffic accident to maybe a stabbing to maybe some kind of assault. And I was 20 years old and one night there was a knock on my door. My roommate and I were both firefighters and a police sergeant was there and we were 20. So we kind of had to make sure that he didn't open our refrigerator and see all of our beer.

Tom Allman [00:16:14] And he came in and he said, Hey, listen, the police chief, the police chief would, would like for you both to consider becoming police officers and we'll pay your salary and we'll do your police academy and all this. So it was like, are you kidding me? I'm 20 years old and I'm being afforded this great opportunity. And I was raised in a very, very small town. I was raised in the town of Garberville in California, less than 3000 people. And so I think it was just very fortuitous. This guy came to us and said, would you like to do it? And, and I did it and I was a police officer for three years. And I had gotten married. I was 35 years, 36 years ago. And then my wife and I moved to Mendocino County. And I really, truly got to be a peacekeeper, though Laytonville has a battle also. And while I was a deputy sheriff, more important than that advance, I was a peacekeeper. And I would not go to work saying, gosh, I need to take three people to jail today. I would not go to work saying, I need to write two tickets today. I would start saying, I am going to represent the government today and do everything I can to keep the peace in this small town. And it was by far the best three or four years of my life of being a resident deputy. I was, you know, there, there were a couple other guys that sometimes lived there, sometimes didn't.

Tom Allman [00:17:47] But I was a resident deputy of a small town. People called me Tom, they didn't call me deputy. They would come by my house, or if I was off duty in a grocery store, they would tell me who they think might have done to burglary down the street. And if you go back and look at the history of law enforcement, and you go back to the Roman Empire, they had night watchmen that they, they weren't all police officers, they weren't called deputy sheriffs. They were peacekeepers. And they would watch the walls of their city and they would make sure that the peace was kept. And they weren't there to punish people or to take advantage of people. They were there because they loved their city and they were the peacekeepers. And, and during this evolution of law enforcement and, and basically in the sixties is when, if you go back and look, this was long before I was a law enforcement officer, but if you go back in the sixties, that's when things started to evolve in law enforcement to where there were many more SWAT team. And I'm not saying bad things about SWAT, because there's a reason that we have fortified vehicles because there are some people who will do bad, bad things, but the, the presence of a fortified vehicle or the presence of a heavily fortified law enforcement officer can be incredibly intimidating to people who, on the other hand may support law enforcement or support the protection of their community.

Tom Allman [00:19:25] So I, I think that law enforcement has some, has a lot of blame on this. They, we have to accept some of the blame by stating that we've allowed our budgets to increase exponentially. There's no question about it. And we've justified it by, you know, if we have a a, a single action of a barricaded subject, then next year at budget time, we're gonna say, well, you remember that incident that was on the front page of the paper last week of this guy, you know, was hold up. He'd rob the bank and need to do all this stuff. Well now I need to buy this $400,000 vehicle to make sure that our people are protected. And then the elected leaders, you know, the legislative branch from government, whether it's the city council or the but or supervisors say, well, yeah, we, we support our cops and I'm glad they do. So let's buy this piece of equipment. And so the snowball effect of much more militarization of law enforcement has caused almost an us against them situation. And vance, what I say, when people talk about us against them, I will say, I want you to tell me who them is. And as soon as they start telling me who them is, if it's us against them, about halfway through the conversation, they'll realize that there is no them. It's just us. And if you, if if somebody says, well, it's law enforcement is us and non-law enforcement is them, I'll say, great.

Tom Allman [00:20:58] So your parents are, you're against your parents. 'cause they're not law enforcement. So it's, it's you against your parents, us against them. And they'll say, no, you know, my parents support, you know, what I'm doing in law enforcement and so forth. And I will say, you know what, 95% of people out on the street want there to be peacekeepers, want there to be people who use their brain and not take everyone to jail, not write everybody a ticket, but use their brain and make sure that whatever action they're taking is taken for the purpose of protecting their community. And not just because the law says you can do it. You know, just because you can doesn't mean you should. We've all heard that many times. And as a resident deputy, I learned that a lot of people who I could have taken to jail, I didn't take to jail, I might have taken 'em home, you know, if they were walking down the street drunk or I might have followed them to their parents if they were being a bad driver, I might have said, you know, where do your parents work? And they say at the hardware store. And I would say, I'm gonna follow you there. Let's go talk to your dad and not give him a ticket, but tell the dad, Hey, listen, I stopped him because he was doing 60 and a 35. And he really and truly needs to have some kind of privileges taken away from him. And I'm gonna say 10 out of 10 times Vance, those situations worked. But in a big city, a police officer may very possibly never see the same person twice in 10 years.

Tom Allman [00:22:40] They only see different people every day. And it's a much different type of law enforcement. So if you go back and you look at the beat cops of LAPD, New York City, London, England, you know, they had beat cops that would walk a beat and they'd go in and say, Hey, Mr. Grocery store owner, how are you today? And grocery store owner would say, Hey, I'm good Mr. Policeman. And you know, that guy that you were looking for is back in town. You need to watch him. And, and the police officer would exchange information with a business owner that's real law enforcement. You know, you're a lot younger than me, but I hope that you've been able to watch maybe are RFD and Andy Griffith. And those shows, as entertaining as they are, should be taken to heart regarding law enforcement of you're always gonna have a town drunk and you're always gonna have a law enforcement officer who needs a little bit more training. It, all these things come into play. And I, I liked the Andy Griffith show. I really did. And that's

Vance Crowe [00:23:48] So not saying that I Andy Griffith's interesting that, that's really interesting. 'cause as you started that metaphor, I was like, oh, here we go. Tom's going to tell us about the nostalgic age where the police officer was. You know? Right. And the humble, but what you're really saying is they were representing, if you have a community in every community, you are going to have people that are down on their luck. You're gonna have people that go too far. You're gonna have police officers that, that are actually not the brightest bulb there. And it's to look at it as a metaphor for, you can't get away from this. There's no society that doesn't have these features within it. And then when you start cramming way more people together, the thing that you said about the us and them, I've lived in major cities. I've lived in Nairobi, New York, DC and that ex, that exact thing happens because eventually the people that are in front of you never are helping you. They're never asking you about how you are doing. They're never, they're only people that are impeding your way to get to doing something else. And they may be perfectly good people, but I can only see them as objects in between me and finishing my day. And if you do that over and over and over again, and your job is to interact at some of the worst moments in people's lives and therein other, in order for you to know who you are, you have to say that that's a person that's totally different from me. I I can, I can see how you would walk down a path of not treating people

Tom Allman [00:25:19] Like people. Well, it happens, it certainly happens. And the best example I can have is I was 23 years old, I stopped the guy who was, he may have had too much to drink. I mean, he was right on the border of it. And he lived about a mile from where I stopped him, and it was midnight, and I put him in my car and I, we locked his truck up and I took him home. Now in California, you can't do that anymore because mothers against drunk driving have a very strong lobbyist. And, and the law changed from you may take a drunk driver to jail, to you shall take a drunk driver to jail. But this was before that. And I took him home. Well, about two years after that, I was on the side of the highway at 10 o'clock at night, and I had stopped a car in Vance. This guy was just, he was fixing to kick my ass. And I, he was bigger than me, he was stronger than me. And my closest backup was probably a half hour away. And I wa I'm putting myself in a defensive mode and I, I do not feel good about this. And I watched a set of headlights, this car coming towards me, and I can hear them and see the headlights shine. They do a u-turn behind my police car. I'm assuming that my backups here are a lot quicker than I thought. And the guy that I had taken home two years ago walks up behind me and tells me, me, I have your back. And whoa, holy out. You know, you go, whoa, I'm, I'm pretty tickled right now that my guardian angel is watching over me and had him drive him down that road at that time.

Tom Allman [00:26:57] And the other guy calmed down and we handled the situation just with a simple citation. You know, he was mad about a lot of things in life. There was no physical confrontation. And I, I look back at my life of significant events that have led me to where I am. And that night was a significant event that led me to where I was able to get in law enforcement.

Vance Crowe [00:27:22] Yeah, I think that that's, that's such an interesting thing that we've taken away the judgment of the police officer and then started saying, well, why is it that they are reacting or, or enforcing these laws so harshly? But if what you're saying is true just about mothers against drunk drivers, where they are probably well intending people, they're probably people that lost somebody to a drunk driver. They probably had an experience where a police officer did make a judgment and that judgment maybe didn't work out to being right. But like you can see how these two perfectly reasonable positions would collide on, on some level. And as the police officer, you have to do what the law says.

Tom Allman [00:28:03] A lot of discretion has been taken away because of, well meaning lobbyists, lobbyist groups and legislatures. Listen, Vance, there is nobody in the world who is against domestic violence more than I am, because I've seen domestic violence that's ended in death of an, a death of families. But in California right now, when a law enforcement officer goes to a house, if there's any sign of physical abuse, at least one person's gonna go to jail. And when that one person gets arrested, he or she's probably gonna say, well, they did this to me, and you're gonna see another sign of physical abuse, whether it's a scratch or something. And then they both go to jail. And then what happens to their kids? Well, there's no adults there. So you call CPS, and CPS comes and takes the kids. Kids are gonna miss school the next day because mom and dad are in jail. Kids are at some foster home. And so the discretion of law enforcement has been taken away because of really, truly well intentioned advocates. But to every action, there's an equal reaction. And so if discretion is taken away, you're a autocratic law enforcement officer and you walk up and they say, this happened, and you get your book out and you go to page 23 and you say, well, if this happens, I have to do this. So we're gonna do that, you know, without understanding a lot of the other consequences. So yeah, I don't know.

Tom Allman [00:29:36] The, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I would imagine that there will be many, over the next 12 months, we'll have 50 states that will be enacting laws that will change law enforcement. And I hope that those legislators sign them, understand the significance and the consequences of these rushed through laws that they're doing just so they can get reelected, you know, the next time around because they did what people wanted them to do. So I'm not saying that they're gonna be bad laws, I'm saying they're gonna be rushed laws without understanding the significance of their actions.

Vance Crowe [00:30:20] Actions. You mentioned the budgets and the militarization of police. One of the people that I find very interesting in all this commentary about what's going on with the police in too much brutality and the conflict with society is he says, instead of defunding the police, you should actually be increasing the funding. Because right now, a lot of police officers are getting less training than somebody that's required to be a beautician. And his proposition, the, the idea that he put forward is 20% of a police officer's time should be spent in training. And to do that, you are going to have to really increase the amount of money you put there because not only do you have to pay for those officers to get training, but if you've just removed 20% of your officer's time from being a beat cop or being a detective, now you've gotta replace that. Is that a reasonable idea or is that one that sounds reasonable, but doesn't really work in, in the modern age?

Tom Allman [00:31:18] Well, it sounds reasonable, and I would like for us to get to a point where it could logistically work. You know, a law enforcement officer, for the most part is one of the most expensive government employees that there is. If you look at the worker's comp and the cost of driving around for eight or 12 hours, if you look at the salary, if you look at the benefits, you know, the retirement benefits one of the most expensive government employees out there. But then you look at some of the other government services that might have changed their paradigm in the last 20, 30 years, and I'll use mental health for example, in California in 1991, there was a huge realignment of mental health services and they were switched from the state responsibility to the county's responsibility. And so as this happened, the county said, most counties said, well, okay, we're gonna take this money and we're gonna make our own Department of Mental Health or Department of Behavioral Services, whatever, it's, and they said, well, you know, at two o'clock in the morning, are we gonna send people out to deal with someone who's, you know, acting bizarrely? And they're gonna say, no, we, well, we're not gonna send them from mental health because people call 9 1 1 and, and the sheriff's office or the police departments are out there 24 7. And so we'll have them do it. And it sounds really good on paper, and maybe in the presentation it sounds really good.

Tom Allman [00:32:50] But here you're, I wanna give you the worst case example. Let's talk about a 21-year-old police officer. He's carrying a gun and a badge. He's only been out of the house for maybe 18 months. He's lived with mom and dad, you know, his entire life. And now 18 months he's been outta the house. He's, he has the complete power of that mayor or the complete power of that board of supervisors, board of commissioners from the county. And he is the one that's going to be making a decision on a person's mental health status. And he has a signature authority to put this person in a mental health facility for 72 hours. Well, that's a great example of what we're talking about, of putting so much responsibility in law enforcement when other people are at home comfortably in their beds. And if something goes wrong, people are gonna say, why did the cops do this? Well, that's not the question that I would be asking. I would say, why are we sending the cops to do this? Why don't we let law enforcement investigate burglaries and take care of bad drivers on the road? And if there's a person who's having an emotional psychotic breakdown, probably the most significant psychiatrist, psychotic breakdown in their life, he or she doesn't wanna see a 21-year-old kid showing up saying, I'm gonna have to put handcuffs on you and I'm gonna have to take you to the emergency room. And then once we get to the emergency room, then you're gonna talk to a doctor and he's gonna talk to a psychiatrist there.

Tom Allman [00:34:26] Vance, two years ago, three years ago, I did a non-scientific nonofficial survey in Mendocino County, and we have three police departments and the sheriff's office. And I gave all the dispatchers this 32nd form to fill out for 30 days and said, listen, for the next 30 days on every mental health call, will you just mark down if the person had a weapon or if the person was threatening to hurt themselves or hurt others? And the results were very interesting. 34% of all mental health calls involved, no weapons involved, nobody saying that they were going to hurt themselves or hurt someone else. Yet we're sending law enforcement there. The, the problem solvers of society, we're sending law enforcement there to deal with grandpa who's sitting on his porch and he's acting out. And that's not the best solution. So if you want to keep, if somebody wants to keep law enforcement doing the extra things that they do, you know, going and checking, building permits, and yes, there's municipalities that have police officers going and making sure a building permit is, ah, going, I'm not, yes, or doing mental health or, you know, removing a skunk from underneath the porch. If you wanna have law enforcement do that, then I would say, you need to step up the training slash funding.

Tom Allman [00:36:02] But if you say, well listen, why don't we go back to having mental health professionals being able to respond 24 7, then maybe law enforcement doesn't have to have increased funding because you're decreasing their responsibility. Now, I have never met a law enforcement officer who doesn't want to go to a situation mental health situation where somebody has a weapon and somebody may be threatening someone else because law enforcement will go there because that's what we're paid to do. You know, we have the bulletproof vests and we have the training, and, and, and I'm not saying we, we have the gun, we have other things. We have, you know, we can tase them, we can do whatever we can verbal judo them until we can get them to calm down. But if they, if a person doesn't have a gun and badge and law enforcement officer gets there and the guy picks up a candlesticks and threatens law enforcement officer and law enforcement officer shoots him, once again, they're gonna say, why'd you shoot him? And I'm gonna say, why was he even there to start with? Why didn't we send the correct response unit? And so whether it's a, a crisis response team, which Mendocino County is putting together crisis response team of non-sworn employees of the sheriff's office working with behavioral health. And what they're doing, Vance, is there's frequent flyers in a mental health system, as you can imagine, there's frequent flyers and this team goes out once a week and physically checks on the person.

Tom Allman [00:37:34] And they, and they don't get on the radio. It's not public, you know, they're not broadcasting for people with scanners to know, oh, they're, they're checking on the nut guy down the road. Again, they're not doing that. They're showing up at unmarked vehicles. They're asking them, have you taken your meds? Have you talked to your parents? You have clean clothes, you have food, all this stuff. And what we're seeing now, and I'm not exaggerating when I say this is a 95% decrease in the frequent flyers because of this personalized attention. And we are no longer sending our most expensive government employees to take care of this person. And it's a huge win-win. So don't just say defund the police, I would say take away some of the law enforcement officers responsibility and allow them to do what they went to school to do. Think of this, Vance Police academies in California are six months long. And for six months they have, you know, probably 50 instructors that come in. Some people talking about domestic violence, some people talking about how to use a fire extinguisher, some people teaching how to use your baton, your gun, and all this kind of stuff. But all of those instructors are saying, listen, you know, that world's a crazy world. Be ready to protect yourself. Going home to family is the most important thing of the day. And it is. But when these kids get out of the police academy, they're scared to death. They, you know, some instructors taught me, don't ever shake hands with someone because they might put you in an arm lock, you know, and, and take away your gun.

Tom Allman [00:39:06] Or they, they say if some, if you go into someone's house and they offer you a cup of coffee, don't ever drink that coffee. 'cause they might poison it. Well, you know what, I have found all that to be bunk. I, I have gone to houses at as a, when I was a deputy sheriff, I was also a deputy coroner. And when grandpa dies at two in the morning and you go in and talk to grandma and she offers you a cup of coffee, I told my deputy sheriff when I was sheriff, you better damn well sit down and have that cup of coffee because she needs someone to talk with. And if you say no, you're just gonna be a cold, heartless bureaucrat. Who's gonna say, what was his name? What was the social security number? All right, I've called the mortuary and they're gonna be here in a minute to pick him up. And what, what a traumatic event for a family. So,

Vance Crowe [00:39:52] Well, I mean, you're talking about two things that are central to the human experience and it doesn't really matter. Most cultures you go to, whether it's shaking hands or some other form of, Hey, I am here and I am clearly here only as a, as a as a human being talking with you and accepting something to drink. Every other culture I've ever been in, whether it's in Latin America or Africa, to deny accepting a a hot drink to spend some time with while it's hot

Tom Allman [00:40:22] Is

Vance Crowe [00:40:22] Would, would completely break down the fabric of the way that you communicate with other people. But you can also see why there's an instructor that says, Hey, my job is to make sure these 22-year-old kids that have a wife and a new baby make it home. So I'm gonna give them every ounce of protection that I can. Sure. You can understand why it would happen.

Tom Allman [00:40:43] I agree wholeheartedly. I was a training officer for many years and, and I, I wanted to instill upon my young cadets that they could use their gut feeling and, you know, if, if, if they felt good about it, then do it. If they didn't feel good about it, don't do it. It's okay. We're humans, we're not robots. And we have that internal flow chart to, to figure things out.

Vance Crowe [00:41:07] So, so when you talk about the training and you're saying six months, I don't know if that sounds like a long time or if it doesn't sound like much, but at the end of the day, you were issuing firearms and bullets, two people that were gonna carry them around and were authorized by the state to use it. So how did you make the judgment that somebody was ready or wasn't ready to be handed that gun in that power?

Tom Allman [00:41:32] Well, you have have to look at the six months before the police academy and the six months after the police academy because, and I'll, I'm speaking just for California, a background investigation on a person is not something that's done in a day. Our background investigations would take a minimum of four months. And if you look at all of the things we did from the testing, from the psychological exam to the medical examination, make sure the guy doesn't have any, you know, a back injury that's gonna prevent him from doing his job. If you look at the neighborhood checks, if you look at everything, we were spending upwards of $40,000 per applicant. And that was before we even hired them. So it was actually worth it to me. And I said this many times to my background investigators, it's worth $40,000 for you to do a full background on someone and tell me, no, we shouldn't hire 'em because that's, that's much more, that's better money spent than spending $40,000 and hiring someone who's going to not be, be able to do, do the job. And the psychological exam is very important. And in California it's a absolute mandatory requirement. It's, we have to have a full site on every person. And that's, that's the four to six months before you hire him. And then you send him, him or her to the police academy. And then when they get outta the police academy, you don't just throw 'em the keys and say, you know, alright kid, here you go. We have field training officer programs that are extensive that we had about a 60% success rate and 40% of the people who we had invested all this money in, we would wash out and say, you're not going to be a deputy sheriff on the street.

Tom Allman [00:43:18] So while six months may seem short to some people, it's an incredibly intense training. It's, it's eight to five and with many Saturdays you're there with a washout rate, you know, a failure rate of the academy in the area of 75 to 80% of someone who Oh, really?

Vance Crowe [00:43:39] Oh, absolutely. I didn't know that. So, so Tom, the, the, the narrative that really surprises me, 'cause the narrative going on right now is you get less training than a person that can, you know, cut hair or do nails, and then once you are a police officer, that you have to spend a year or two being a prison guard before you get into the police system. Is that, is that a not true?

Tom Allman [00:44:05] Some departments say you have to work in the jail as a correctional deputy before a deputy sheriff. We didn't have that. We, we listen and here's the reason. The reason is, is because you're on probation for 12 months after we hire you, after you get outta the police academy, you're on probation for 12 months. Well, when you're on probation, it means you can be released. You can be fired without, cause you know, no reason given just, Hey, you didn't seem to fit in, we're outta here. Well, I don't, I didn't want a per a person in a career field that wasn't going to be permanent, where they might have done a good job and then after they were off probation say, okay, yeah, you're gonna be a deputy sheriff. And, and they didn't do a good job. I think that there's, you really need to stay on track. But some sheriff's office, not police departments, but some sheriff's offices put people working in the jail. And the reason for that Vance is because finding people to work in a correctional facility is tough. That is not a job that is easily filled. And you know, there, the turnover's great and the trainings and the liability is huge. And so the training is, is as extensive as being a deputy sheriff on the street. So, no, it's, it's not, it's not the way that you said it. However, let me just

Vance Crowe [00:45:29] Say this. I'm really glad to hear that because, because I'll tell you, one of the worst experiences I ever had in my life was I was going to the Peace Corps, and I can't remember if it's 'cause I was gonna substitute teach for a while or the Peace Corps required. I had to get fingerprinted. The only place you could get fingerprinted was the county jail where I grew up. So I go to the county jail and I run into a kid that I used to play with maybe three or four times a week when I was a kid from first grade all the way to fourth grade, he now is a correctional officer. He has become morbidly obese, so he's like 300 pounds. We walk in there and he says, in order to go do the fingerprinting, we have to walk through the jail. So we actually had to walk past where there were prisoners and there was a guy yelling something out and he took this rod and he slammed it against the door and was like, quiet down in there. And I realized this person who I knew who was a good genuine person is now some kind of a zombie. And in that zombie state that he's in, he is subjecting these prisoners to like, I don't know, like the, the authority of him or something. And it was so repellent to me that I had made this decision, like, I don't want to talk to police officers maybe ever again. I want nothing to do with county jails or anything like that. And so then when I had heard that California was forcing all of their corrections officers to be prison guards, I, I thought, what, what would that do to your psychology if you were forced to spend so much time with the people that you've imprisoned?

Vance Crowe [00:47:03] You'd start thinking everybody was maniacs. I, I don't know. So that's not on you. It's just my experience with people that are prison guards or jail guards was not a good one. And it really left a taste in my mouth that I'll never forget.

Tom Allman [00:47:17] Well, first of all, I hope your morbidly obese friend is not watching your listening to your podcast. But

Vance Crowe [00:47:23] I don't think he's

Tom Allman [00:47:25] Let, lemme tell you this, some of the best deputy sheriffs that we had are deputy sheriffs who had worked in the correctional field. And the reason I say that is because they understood people Vance. I'm gonna make a statement, which, and I know we're getting close to the end, but the statement, oh, oh,

Vance Crowe [00:47:44] We're good man. We're good. As long as you're good, I'm good.

Tom Allman [00:47:46] Okay. We're I'm gonna say something that if you have any law enforcement officers listening to this, they're gonna shake their head and they're gonna think that I'm a village idiot. But let me clearly say this, our jails are not full of bad people. Now there are bad people in our jails. Let there be no doubt there's murders. Murders, there's rapists, there's burglars. People who need to be in jail are in jail. But our jails are not full of bad people. Our jails are full of people who got caught doing something that most other people do, and they weren't caught. And a an employee inside of a jail needs to understand that, that this is someone who may be an inmate today, but he's gonna be standing behind you at the grocery store when you're in there with your family next week. And if you treat someone like an animal on the inside, they're very possibly going to treat you like an animal on the outside. And that is not the way, if you wanna call yourself a correctional facility, you don't go in there and treat people like animals. You treat people as you would expect your brother to be treated. And I, and I said that many times, I want you to assume that the inmates in there are related to you and whatever you do for your, your relatives that are in jail is what you would do for another inmate unless that other inmate is going to do something that would prevent you, you know, if he's gonna spit on you or if he's going to have a cup of urine and throw on you.

Tom Allman [00:49:26] Well, that changes all the rules, but most people are in jail because they got caught doing something wrong that most everybody else does also. They just didn't get caught. And society has said you're gonna be put on timeout. And if you get an employee who understands that, that understands that it's not us against them. You know, and, and I've I've arrested law enforcement officers I've worked with, you know, they've been in my jail of guys that I used to work with. And it's not a us against them. It's a person got caught doing something illegal and a judge sentenced them to go to jail. And a correctional facility is merely complying with the order of the judge to keep this person safely and, you know, in good medical condition during their time in custody. And once again, our, our conversation today has gone full circle of us against them, us against them. We're gonna have defund the police and the very strong walls that the Black Lives matter. You know, the, the people hating law enforcement officers just because they put on a uniform. I, I listened to an interview the other day of a African American law enforcement officer that said, Hey, listen, when I put on my uniform, people hate me. But when I take off my uniform and I go out, people love me. They love me like I've never been loved before. And I, I think that's something that we all need to think about and say, do we want the peacekeepers of our communities to be felt as if they're hated?

Tom Allman [00:51:00] Or do we want to hire the right peacekeepers to do the job, to protect us and to make sure that bad people are taken off the street so we can, you know, I always say so you don't have to lock your doors at night, even though I encourage people to lock their doors. Wouldn't it be nice to live in society where we didn't have to lock our doors every night?

Vance Crowe [00:51:22] You're you're exactly right about the, the people in jail or the people that got caught because I, I think any rational, normal human being, any, any man that's made it to the age of 35 definitely broke some rules along the way and rules that had you broken them and your and the luck just not fallen your way. You had one too many beers that you, that you ended up being over the limit, but you made it home without an accident versus you turned a corner too fast and you smashed into something and now you're in prison. That has always hung really heavy with me because it's really difficult for me to be like, all those people in jail are bad and evil because I've done some of that stuff that had I been in the wrong spot, I'd be in prison too. Sure.

Tom Allman [00:52:07] I I get it Vance and, and you ready for the confession? Me too. So, you know, and just because I'm a law enforcement officer doesn't mean that would get me out of getting in trouble. But I've done some things that, you know, I'm, I'm certainly not proud of, but I think that we're, as I said, we're humans, we're not robots. And as we go through this change of police realignment, just realize we can't put a thumb drive in the shoulder of every police officer of, you know, police officer 2.0 and say, all right, now you're updated with all the new ways that we're gonna do things. It's going to take time. It's, we are humans and it takes a while to train. It takes a while to adapt. It takes a while to change. And if you look at what New York City, New York PD is doing right now, they have a 400% increase in retirements of NYPD law enforcement officers. 400% increase in retirements. So you, you may not have to defund the police, there may be no police officers that you could hire. And so the budget is naturally gonna be much less than it was before. But the other side of the coin is, when you call for a law enforcement officer at two in the morning, you very possibly could be told, we're sorry. There is no one available until eight in the morning. So

Vance Crowe [00:53:28] It's, so that's, that's a, a wonderful area to go into, which is something that I don't really know what happens if you defund the police? Like, what, what goes on that people maybe wouldn't think of because the, the police have always been there. So it's like water, you know, if you're a fish, you've always been in this water, you don't know any other world. So right now we're playing with the world where we're saying, well, let's just get rid of the police and see what happens. From your perspective, what happens.

Tom Allman [00:53:58] So Vance, I know you're at your house now, right? You at your house?

Vance Crowe [00:54:01] Yes.

Tom Allman [00:54:02] Okay. The last time you drove, did you drive anywhere yesterday?

Vance Crowe [00:54:06] Yeah, I did. Just down the street. Okay. But yeah,

Tom Allman [00:54:09] Can I tell you why you followed the speed limit? I'm assuming you did. Can I tell you why you followed the speed limit when you were driving yesterday?

Vance Crowe [00:54:18] Go ahead. Yeah, yeah.

Tom Allman [00:54:19] You followed, you followed the speed limit because of two very important, important words, voluntary compliance. You followed the speed limit because you knew that if you were speeding and you didn't look in a rear view mirror, you might get caught, you might get a ticket and you're gonna pay $400 to the government for speeding. And so voluntary compliance is very important. It's a reason that, you know, kids don't jump on their bed when their dad's in the room because they're gonna get in trouble. But if dad's at work, they might jump on bed. And so if we defund the police, let's say hypothetically, we, we cut law enforcement outta the budget, you will not see voluntary compliance. You're gonna see people who do everything there is with the knowledge that they're not gonna get caught. You know, Vance, one of the things that we talked about 10 or 15 years ago was a year in my life from October 99 to October, 2000 that I took an unpaid leave of absence from my work, and I went to work for the United Nations in post-war Kosovo.

Vance Crowe [00:55:29] Oh, I remember that. That's right.

Tom Allman [00:55:33] And I, I was a civilian peacekeeper in Kosovo and in Kosovo it was after the bombing had ended, you know, the Serbia, NATO versus Serbia bombing and so forth. There was no government set up in former Yugoslavia, Kosovo, no government. They had no taxes, no property taxes, no sales tax, no income tax, no border tax. And United Nations had funded law enforcement to go in there. And I was actually a beat cop. I mean, I was the guy that was responding to a domestic violence or to a grenade attack. I mean, it was a, a very interesting time. And it was a, my wife refers to it as my unofficial midlife crisis because I got paid to do something entirely different. But let me, lemme tell you a story here, because there were no law enforcement officers there. When we got there, people were doing whatever they wanted. And I'll use parking for example, if somebody was driving down the road and they said, I need to go to the grocery store, they would stop their car in the road, put it in park, get out, lock the door, and go in the grocery store and the road would be blocked. There were no tow trucks in Kosovo, you would have horrendous, horrendous traffic problems because the traffic laws had not been enforced in such a long time. So when we got there as the United Nations force, we started dealing with this because we wanted free flowing traffic. You know, we wanted people to get to work on time, we wanted them to take their kids to the, the babysitter.

Tom Allman [00:57:05] We wanted people to be able to get to the hospital, all simple things. And so the United Nations brought in some tow trucks, and we were actually out in a business part of town. We were having to clear cars that had parked on the road. And this Swedish reporter, this reporter from Sweden, she and her cameraman came up and they were just laughing at me because I was riding a ticket to a car that was double parked before the tow company went away. And she, and a very thick Swedish accident was laughing. And she said, I can't believe in post-war Kosovo that an American policeman would be here riding cars that are double parking. And I had never gone through this thought process before, but I asked her, I said, well, well, where does society begin? Where, where does societal responsibility start? Does it start at littering or does it start at homicide? You know, all these things because if, if a law enforcement officer ignores minor laws such as speeding, such as double parking, such as, you know, vandalism, then what is society to expect when the crime is ratcheted up a couple notches to a minor assault? Is a minor assault something that we could ignore. And so I, I got into a very deep philosophical conversation with a Swedish reporter of asking her question, where does enforcement begin an anarchy in?

Tom Allman [00:58:41] And she walked away, I think, with a much different perspective than when she arrived because I said, we have to write these tickets because if I don't write these tickets, I can't legally tow this car. If I can't tow this car, then we're not gonna have the roadway open for an ambulance coming down the road. And so it's, it's, if someone says, we need to defund the police and just have unarmed community people out breaking up fights, I think the pendulum will the other way. And then there will be a time that a community peacekeeper, an unarmed peacekeeper gets injured or God forbid killed. And people are gonna say, what were we thinking? Why, why don't we have trained people who are able to defend the public against armed bad guys? Why aren't they out here able to turn on their license sirens to get here as quick as possible and protect my community? And the, the, you know, as we started this conversation talking about law enforcement has accepted this mega responsibility of super arming themselves and super tools that to protect us and so forth, there could be a happy medium. And it's, that's gonna be depend on the community standard. And what is a community standard?

Vance Crowe [01:00:07] You know, that you said something, it really reframed something I was pretty excited about and happy about. So during the 4th of July in my neighborhood, which last year it was just, you know, people light off sparklers and some some little light things. This year it was as though each little neighborhood had their own pyrotechnics in like crazy light show. So all around me were huge amounts of fireworks stuff that there is no possible way it's legal unless you have a license. But nobody was afraid that the police were gonna stop by and be like, Hey, it's past 10 o'clock, da da da. And I thought, hey, what a great representation that people still believe in America and it's freedom. And it may mean that, right? But there is a flip side to that that I had not considered as partially dangerous, which is that is people saying they're not gonna send the cops here for me because they didn't send the cops in for burning down that building. So if I take this infraction, nothing's gonna happen. And if I extend this metaphor all the way out, I know you and I have spoken about this before, but when I lived in Kenya, they did not have a police force. So if they did, you wanted to stay as far away from them as possible. So what would happen was if somebody ended up being, having something stolen from them, a thief would come out, then you could point at that thief and you could say muy, muy, muy, which means thief. As soon as somebody gets pointed out as a thief, people come outta the woodwork running outta stores running up from the street. They capture that person and they beat them to death.

Vance Crowe [01:01:40] And I saw that happen. And when you see something like that happen, you realize like, whoa, you do not want the emotion of the crowd to be the way that we met out justice. But that sounds like the direction you head in, if you extend out so far, the thing that you're talking about, if you don't handle littering, if you don't handle parked cars,

Tom Allman [01:02:03] Well, vigilantism certainly is something that our country is founded on vigilantes. Let's, let's understand that, that our forefathers were vigilantes against Britain. We we can accept that. And, and it's, it's a true statement. But on the other hand, there comes a time that if you're paying taxes, there's a want and desire for you to have someone to be the enforcer. And you know, if, if every day a black Camaro speeds by your house at a hundred miles an hour and you call law enforcement, you expect law enforcement to respond and watch for that black Camaro and to stop him and and give him a ticket and make sure that your road is safe again. I mean it's, it's simple. Public safety is all it's, but you bring up a really good question, a point on Kenya and I wanna talk about police officer salaries. One of the things Vance, that if, if you are in the western world and you're from a country which is progressive and you don't have to worry about law enforcement officers on the take or being bribed and so forth, I will tell you that that means that law enforcement officers are paid a fair salary. I'm not talking about, you know, that they're making a quarter million dollars a year. That's not my point. My point is they're made a salary, which is fair and it's equal to the threat that they're assuming as their role role.

Tom Allman [01:03:36] Because if you have a law enforcement officer who's working for minimum wage, you certainly have increased the likelihood of them accepting a bribe. And I'm not saying that all law enforcement officers on minimum wage are taking a bribe. That's not what I'm saying at all. But you put 'em in that

Vance Crowe [01:03:52] Position to make it happen, right? The key toki Gogo. Sure. Give me just a little something to make it easier for me to get by, to be able to take my wife out to be able to buy a suit, that kind of thing.

Tom Allman [01:04:01] You know, Vance, one time in my 35 year career, I had a guy put a hundred dollars bill behind his driver's license when I stopped him and he gave me his driver's license. And after I got back from the car and writing him a ticket, and believe me, that was all the encouragement I needed because I was gonna give him a warning. But that was all the encouragement I needed to give him a ticket. I gave him his ticket and two halfs of a hundred dollars bill that I'd torn in half.

Vance Crowe [01:04:29] That's a great answer.

Tom Allman [01:04:31] That's that's what I did. And, and basically no words were said about the hundred bill he handed to me. I wrote him a ticket, I ripped it in half and I gave it back to him. And, you know, could I have taken him to jail for bribing and so forth? Yeah, I guess I could have, I I didn't wanna do that, but I certainly wanted to tell him that I don't know how many times in your life this has worked, but this is one time that it's not gonna work. And, and I certainly don't appreciate you thinking that my integrity is worth a hundred dollars. So when, when you see law enforcement officers paid a very low salary, you're certainly increasing the ability and the thought process of them realizing, gosh, I have to pay rent next week, or gosh, my kid needs braces. And I've, I've had a very good friend of mine who's

Vance Crowe [01:05:18] Currently

Tom Allman [01:05:18] In state prison right now, and he was arrested for taking money from drunk Hispanics that he was working a night and, and he was rightfully caught. And while I still say he's a friend of mine, I'm not gonna justify anything he did. And, and I've told him many, many times what he did, certainly tarnished my badge as much as it did his.

Vance Crowe [01:05:43] So Tom, I know you've got a big day of working on your house and things like that, but I have one question that I'd like you to, to answer if you can, which is, I know several people that believe in the defund, the police, they're too violent, they're, they have too much money and they're trying to do that from a place of principle. But these are also people that are doers in society. They're the people that actually show up at things they try. And if you are gonna give somebody advice that says, I am really upset with where the police, the state of the, of the police forces in my community, what is the thing that they can do to live the best way that they can to add to this, to this, to add to the solution as opposed to just saying, well, I don't want anything to do it. Just cut all their funding and get rid of them. What should people be doing if they wanna make their police force better?

Tom Allman [01:06:35] You know, Vance's perspective is very, very important. And the perspective that you have that they have regarding that is it's, I respect their perspective because obviously they've seen things in their life that have told them that the police may not be trusted, the police are overpaid, all these things. I think there's some simple things that they could do and one of them is going to be very tough for them to do. But that would be to contact their local police department and say, Hey listen, can I do a ride along with a police officer? Can I, can I go see what that police officer does? And I don't think I've ever heard of a law enforcement agency that doesn't allow ride alongs. You know, once you sign this piece of paper that you know, you, you're not gonna sue 'em if something happens. But I would like for them to see what society has is expecting from law enforcement officers right now. And they may walk away with a different perspective, but just as important that police officer that they're gonna ride with very possibly could have a different perspective also. And that the way we change things is through relationships. You know that. And I know that relationships are everything. And in order to have a good relationship, you have to have understand the perspective and use maybe the word empathy for the other person. And empathy is Vance, I can go for two hours on this topic.

Tom Allman [01:08:07] Empathy is a feeling that today's Gen X and gen y young people do not have. It's the empathy is, is has been cut out of our DNA for some reason. And you have to understand where some person's coming from. You have to be able to put yourself in their shoes, look at the the world through their eyes for a little bit and say, okay, I can see why you think like this, but I'd like for you to hear my side of the story too. And if both sides are willing to sit down and have a genuine open conversation and Vance, it doesn't have to be a public hearing because when you have a public hearing, emotions flare, people might wanna step on a soapbox. People might want to point fingers because of the dramatic involved and get their picture in a paper. But you know what, go into the chief of police, shut the door, no recorder and say, Hey Chief, hey Sheriff, you know what? My concern is this, and I'd like to tell you why I feel like this. And I'd certainly like to hear your perspective on it. And that's how we're gonna change things other than radical. You know, what happened in Seattle with chop and so forth that if we continue down that road, then you and I can both predict that in 10 years the police forces are going to be better financed than ever before. 'cause the pendulum's gonna swing the other way. And people are saying, I'm tired of this.

Tom Allman [01:09:38] I'm gonna get my people in and I'm not gonna fund social services. I'm gonna fund law enforcement. Well, you and I know that's not gonna be the solution. What we need to do is we talk about is let's get the right people responding to the right calls. Let's get mental health involved. So law enforcement doesn't have to be that person in government to make that decision. Let's do everything we can to prove the training at our basic police academies to send people out as, as we let them spread their wings, let 'em have a really good foundation of peacekeeping, not just law enforcement, but peacekeeping. And most importantly, let's not lower the bar of the standard of getting these people in law enforcement. Let's not say, well, you know, we used to not hire people who've ever done steroids or this type of drugs before, but let's, let's allow that to happen because we're a new generation. There's some reasons that we have some of these basic guidelines in hiring and recruiting law enforcement and doing backgrounds. I certainly do not want the bar lowered, but it's going to be mean that it's gonna be a lot tougher to hire individuals who do wanna become peacekeepers.

Vance Crowe [01:10:51] I I I totally think that that is practical advice. I'll probably try and take you up on that. If I can get it in before my wife has a baby, I'll go try and do a ride along. I think that'd be a sure I we'll see if my wife thinks is a great idea. Okay, one thought that I had is I think empathy can be, people can raise it to the level of a virtue, but it's not, it's not one of the virtues. What it is, is empathy allows you to understand the virtues from another perspective. You can see what another person sees when they think of justice, when they think of truth, when they think of these things that are actual virtues. But without empathy, you can only see the virtues through your frame set. And I, I think that there is either a lack of, of empathy or there's an overemphasis that, that everything that we think and feel and understand about other people is what we should actualize on when really what we're looking for is like, how can I see clearly through as many sets of eyes as possible? Sure. And I think that's what a ride along would let you do.

Tom Allman [01:11:55] It would, it would. And and you, I'll say this Vance, if your wife allows you to do it, you'll never forget that ride along, you'll remember some very important things from that ride along. It's, it's a great experience that I wish people would take their local law enforce agencies up on.

Vance Crowe [01:12:12] I'm in, I'll do it. Well, sheriff Tom Alman, if it doesn't

Tom Allman [01:12:15] Cost anything, it's, it's free.

Vance Crowe [01:12:17] If, if people wanted to learn more about you or things that you think are important, is there anywhere you would direct them to? I don't think you're a big social media guy.

Tom Allman [01:12:27] I try to stay off social media.

Vance Crowe [01:12:29] You're your Facebook is amazing though. So, so I will say this for, for those that don't know, Tom is a figure in Mendocino that had to wander through a whole bunch of different political things. I'll have you on some other time, we'll talk about the, the complexity of a place like Mendocino, but you always have a good balanced opinion on that police stuff. And I come in fiery hot, and then I read Tom's Sheriff Altman's perspective and I'm always like, oh, never really thought of that. That's a good point.

Tom Allman [01:12:58] Well, thank you. But my Facebook, you know, if anybody had a question, no one will take me up on this. But my email's fairly easy. It's my name Tom allman@hotmail.com. And I, I would welcome. One of the things I've, I've, I'm very proud of in my career. I, I tell people I'd rather walk into a lions of bins than a lion of lamps. I'd rather walk into a room of people who hated me and hear why they hated me. And walk into a people, a room where people said I was the best thing to sliced bread. So if somebody wants to challenge me on any of this stuff, Tom alman@hotmail.com, I'd love to hear your perspective because as I said at the beginning of this advance, been married almost 36 years. I'm used to being wrong. I just need to be told why I'm wrong.

Vance Crowe [01:13:45] Well, sheriff Tom Allman, this reminded me so much why, why I respected and admired you so much. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I'm sure we'll have you on again.

Tom Allman [01:13:54] All right, Vance, you look good. I'm glad things are going well for you. Let's stay in touch.

Vance Crowe [01:13:58] Thanks to Sheriff Tom Allman for coming on. If you noticed about Sheriff Tom Allman's background, he was in a car in North Carolina with cars buzzing behind him, and it was a really interesting shot. I right now am running a class that you can get online that will allow you to think about how do I present myself online? What is my telepresence? How can I sound really good, how can I look really good, and how can I create the kind of environment that when I'm on a video call, it makes other people comfortable and it makes me feel confident that I'm having the kind of exchange that allows me to put my best foot forward. So if you're interested in that, check out this new online telepresence class. I have called Telepresence Professional Basics. For $39, you can get 70 minutes of teaching how to make lights work, where your cameras should be set up, how your sound works. And I have heard from people ranging from 75 years old all the way down to college, that they love it. It really helped them. And by paying for a class, they didn't have to go all over YouTube trying to scour for different ideas and trying to cobble together all these concepts. It's a really honed presentation. You get to learn what you need to know and how to make your entire telepresence look a lot better without spending a lot of money on equipment. So if you're interested in that, go to store Articulate Ventures and I'll leave a link at the bottom. The kind of support that you get by giving these, by taking these classes helps the podcast continue and that's what I love doing, so we can have conversations like we had today. Thanks so much for joining me and we'll see you again soon.