Sheriff Tom Allman; lawman or peacekeeper? Police training, budgets & responsibilities of an officer

About this episode

Retired Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman, a longtime mentor figure to Vance, discusses the philosophy and mechanics of policing at a moment of national reckoning over police funding and tactics. The conversation opens with "How to Win Friends and Influence People" as a listening manual, then moves into Allman's origin story as a firefighter turned peacekeeper, the militarization of police budgets since the 1960s, and the loss of officer discretion to well-intentioned advocacy laws. Allman makes a detailed case that mental health calls, not violent crime, consume disproportionate police resources and describes Mendocino's crisis-response-team alternative. He recounts his year as a UN civilian peacekeeper in post-war Kosovo to argue that voluntary compliance with minor laws underpins all of societal order, and closes with a mob-violence story from Vance's time in Kenya as a cautionary extreme, plus practical advice (ride-alongs, private conversations with police chiefs) for critics who want reform rather than abolition.

“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... you do not want the emotion of the crowd to be the way that we met out justice.”

“A lot of discretion has been taken away because of, well meaning lobbyists, lobbyist groups and legislatures... 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.”

“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... And in today's crazy world of everything that's happened on a social front... if somebody doesn't listen to the other side, they just need to stay at their house and not say a word.”

Key moments

• Allman explains why he gave 20-year-old Vance a copy of "How to Win Friends and Influence People," reframing it as a book about listening, not manipulation (trust).
• Allman traces his path from firefighter to police officer after a police sergeant recruited him, and describes his years as a small-town "resident deputy" who was called by his first name.
• Allman argues police budgets and militarization escalated because of a "snowball effect" where single incidents justify $400,000 vehicle purchases every budget cycle (institutions, money).
• Allman cites his own 34%-of-mental-health-calls-involve-no-weapon survey data to argue law enforcement is misallocated to psychiatric crises better handled by trained clinicians (institutions).
• Allman reveals Mendocino's plainclothes crisis-response team produced a 95% drop in "frequent flyer" mental health incidents.
• Allman details the rigorous, four-to-six-month, $40,000-per-applicant background investigation and 75-80% academy washout rate, countering the narrative that officers are undertrained (craft).
• Allman describes tearing a $100 bribe attempt in half and handing it back with a ticket rather than accepting it or arresting the driver (trust).
• Allman recounts his year as a UN civilian peacekeeper in Kosovo, where the absence of any law enforcement led to chaotic double-parking and traffic gridlock, and argues from there that "voluntary compliance" with minor laws is the foundation of societal order (institutions).
• Vance recounts witnessing a mob beat a man to death after being labeled a thief in Kenya, using it as the extreme endpoint of defunding formal justice systems (mob).

Notable quotes

“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.”

“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.”

“One time in my 35 year career, I had a guy put a hundred dollars bill behind his driver's license... I gave him his ticket and two halfs of a hundred dollars bill that I'd torn in half.”

“Where does society begin? Where, where does societal responsibility start? Does it start at littering or does it start at homicide?”

Predictions made in this episode

• If police defunding/reform continues down a radical path (citing Seattle's CHOP), within about 10 years the political pendulum will swing back hard and police forces will end up better-financed than ever, with social services losing funding in the backlash.
• NYPD's 400% surge in retirements signals that if police departments are defunded or made less attractive, cities will face real staffing shortages, meaning 911 callers could be told no officer is available until morning.