0:10

Welcome to GPPD podcast . I'm your host

0:12

, nate . I'm a lateral transfer officer

0:14

and I'm currently assigned to the investigations bureau

0:16

.

0:17

And I'm your co-host KD . I'm also

0:19

a lateral officer and I'm assigned to the crime prevention

0:21

unit . We're always looking for

0:24

great men and women for

0:26

the police department , but also we need dispatchers

0:28

, animal control , code enforcement officers

0:30

and detention officers . So if you

0:32

know anybody interested , please , please , send

0:35

them to grandpurepoliceorg

0:37

. Get that information filled out so that

0:39

you can apply .

0:40

Don't forget to find us on social media

0:42

. We have Facebook , instagram , tiktok

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and YouTube and , most importantly

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, find us on your favorite podcast

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platform . Subscribe , activate

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notifications . Leave us a five star review . Today

0:53

, you will hear from police officers , their lives

0:55

and their stories . The accounts may be mature

0:57

in nature and mature language may be used . Listener

1:00

, discretion is advised .

1:02

And welcome back to another episode of

1:04

GPPD podcast . So I'm

1:06

going to have to hold it down . My boy Nate's got

1:08

some stuff he's taken care of , so

1:11

today we have Officer

1:13

Connor . Appreciate you coming in , bro

1:15

Happy to be here . Yeah , easy

1:17

peasy . Before

1:20

we get started , wanted to mention a couple

1:22

things . So it's still grandpurepoliceorg

1:25

Hop online . We need good men

1:27

and women , as most of

1:29

the cities that we're talking about you know there's

1:31

a bunch of us , but we need we

1:33

need some good people to apply . I

1:36

don't know , we'll have another test coming soon

1:38

, so just kind of watch the internet and

1:40

we'll get that info out to you . We're

1:43

also needing detention , so

1:45

we say detention jail . Same thing

1:48

. We need men and women

1:50

there as well . Get online , because I

1:52

want to say we wanted the highest paid detention

1:54

staffs in the Metroplex . So check

1:57

it out . You won't be mad

2:00

or sad that you did , I promise Alright

2:03

, so I think

2:06

that's it . So , connor , I appreciate you sitting down

2:08

with me . We

2:11

want to talk , because I got a lot of questions , especially

2:14

once you said Colorado . I'm like , oh

2:16

, wait a minute , wait a minute . So I want to save them

2:18

for now . But , starting off

2:20

, let's just , you know , tell everybody

2:22

how you got to where

2:24

you are as far as like police work and how

2:27

you got here .

2:29

Well , one of my close family members

2:31

, my aunt , was actually LAPD . Lapd , yeah

2:35

, she recently retired after , I believe , 26

2:37

years of LAPD . So

2:39

growing up she would tell me stories

2:42

all the time . Love tearing those stories

2:44

and like , oh , this is the coolest job . And

2:47

then just general mentality that I've

2:49

had over the years . I think it just fit

2:52

in the personality-wise and everything like that .

2:54

And .

2:54

I didn't really see myself doing anything else

2:56

, especially

2:58

going to school and everything like that . I got a degree

3:01

in criminal justice for it , yeah , okay

3:03

, and

3:06

loved it . I did an internship for

3:08

a couple summers while I was in college

3:10

with my aunt and loved

3:13

every bit of it , and she was an auto theft

3:15

detective at that point .

3:17

Okay , I'm going to jump in because I don't want

3:19

to forget this thought . So you said you did an internship

3:21

with her .

3:21

Yeah .

3:23

Who was that ? So I take it , you were young .

3:25

Yeah , I was about 19

3:27

and 20 .

3:28

I did two separate summers , yeah so

3:31

she let you or I guess their

3:33

protocol you could go into the station , hang

3:35

out with the officers and see

3:37

and kind of do what they were doing .

3:39

Yeah , I think she kind of

3:41

, you know , mended or

3:43

bent the rules a little bit because she

3:46

got me right along with a lot of the

3:48

detectives and a lot of the UC

3:50

Units

3:53

that were in her station . I

3:55

was doing it right along with narcotics

3:58

and vice and

4:01

property crimes . That was the

4:03

coolest thing , especially being that young Like I

4:05

was watching it all happen and watching

4:07

you know what the real , real

4:10

, real cops do , yeah , which was

4:12

, you know , really cool and really fun to do .

4:14

Bro , that's awesome , yeah , Okay

4:17

, so for the listeners when we say like you see

4:19

undercover right yeah under car . Normally

4:24

, if you go , do like a ride along , like

4:26

you're going to fill out the paperwork and you're going to sit in

4:28

the front seat with the officer and we may

4:30

show you some hot spots in the city or what

4:32

have you , but for

4:34

you to be able to get in there and go , no , I'm

4:36

going out with these . You see , guys , you know , let's do

4:39

some narcotics stuff . That's crazy .

4:40

Yeah . Yeah , I mean it was , it

4:42

was interesting . And looking about it back

4:45

at it now and , like you said , it's not not

4:47

normal at all to do that , so I'm very

4:50

appreciative . You know my end . Let

4:53

me do that for months .

4:55

Yeah , this man , I'm jealous

4:57

, I promise . So , auntie , listen , I

4:59

need you to come in because I want to talk to her . Does

5:03

she live out that way , or she's ?

5:05

now she . She lives in Las Vegas now

5:07

, which most like LAPD

5:10

lives at this point oh

5:12

most of them live in Las

5:14

Vegas at this point , or Texas or Florida

5:16

, one of three .

5:17

Yeah , yeah , well , cool , look

5:19

, tell me , we appreciate her service . I know it was tough out

5:21

there too as well , but all

5:24

right , so what ? That's one person

5:26

. What about did you have military

5:28

like brothers , sister ?

5:31

No , all me . I have two older brothers

5:33

and you know we're all completely

5:35

different in every way , shape or form , like

5:38

you wouldn't think we're related until you

5:40

like put us together and we kind of look similar , but

5:42

outside of that , our personalities

5:44

or professions , everything like that , are completely different

5:47

, even for my father . Yeah , like

5:49

my only link to law enforcement

5:52

was my end . Yeah , oh , okay .

5:54

It's funny . You say that because I always tell people

5:56

like I have a set of younger

5:59

, my younger brothers , their

6:01

twins . Well hell , I'm only like

6:03

five , seven , but when they I stand

6:05

next to them . My one brother is five , six

6:07

, five , his twin is six

6:09

, three . And you talk about night and day

6:11

opposite bro , night and day opposite twins

6:14

. And is you know , one is a coach

6:16

, one's a doctor , one is very

6:18

professional , the other was laid back . You know it's

6:21

funny , but no it , that's

6:23

cool , that's cool . Okay

6:26

. So she kind

6:29

of pushed you along and said , Okay

6:31

, you knew early on you

6:33

wanted the law enforcement thing . Yeah , See

6:35

, I was one of those guys where I

6:37

kind of got into this because it was like

6:40

Katie , I think you'd be good at

6:42

it , you know . It's like Okay , cool , Do I get to

6:44

work outside ? Yes , I was , I was

6:46

, you know , sign me up . But

6:49

like , do you have the backing

6:51

now of your family ? Because I saw that you're married

6:54

, so like , and

6:56

we're gonna I'm gonna go out of order , so to speak

6:58

. But did your wife

7:00

say honey , yeah , this is something that are

7:02

? She's like oh , I'm a little bit more reserved . You

7:04

want to be a police officer . What are we talking about

7:06

? What are we doing ?

7:08

So we , we actually met while I was

7:10

already a police officer , me and my wife , and

7:12

you know she was intimidated

7:14

just sheer fact because she's never really

7:16

talked to a cop before . So like

7:19

it was kind of awkward during the first part

7:21

of us dating , so it . But eventually

7:23

she got used to it , especially like hanging out with a

7:26

couple friends that I had in my previous department

7:28

and she actually

7:30

, you know , got used to it . So it

7:32

was , it was fine in that sense . But you know

7:34

, my family , my media family

7:37

, mom , dad , brothers , they , they all

7:39

encouraged me to do it . I mean , they were

7:41

concerned , obviously , with the nature

7:44

of our profession , but you know they

7:46

wanted to support me . And my

7:48

aunt , she actually tried to convince me to be a firefighter

7:51

because she's , she's like this

7:53

is a great profession , you're going to love it . But

7:56

you know there's a lot of people that aren't going to like you . And

7:59

if you want to be liked and you know , not

8:01

be a stress , become a firefighter .

8:06

Okay , so I wanted to talk to you

8:09

.

8:09

No , I mean , course

8:12

, and we give our firefighters a hard time

8:14

but we love them , we work hand in hand , especially

8:16

here . I know they're stationed out of the same

8:18

or the like . The headquarters

8:21

is here , but no

8:24

, it's a dangerous job . But you

8:26

know , yeah , you kind of

8:28

the people that

8:30

love you or they want you to do something

8:32

less stressful . So it

8:34

is funny because I always ask people I still get it

8:36

. Now I've been on

8:39

over 15 years and

8:41

my dad , I can call him right now and start talking to me

8:43

. Are you okay ? You know

8:45

, do you like doing that police thing ? Yes , sir

8:47

Pops , newsflash

8:50

I'm getting ready to retire in five years , you know . So

8:53

it's like you know , you

8:55

want the backing , you know , and I'm

8:57

kind of cool that . I'm glad that

8:59

your wife is like no , I understand now , but

9:02

because some people I think it's just hard

9:04

, like the fear , you know , do you

9:06

ever talk about that ? Like she's scared If

9:09

you're working nights and it's like , you know , honey , yes

9:11

, I get scared sometimes .

9:13

Yeah , and I

9:15

think she's used to it now , especially since I have three

9:17

massive dogs , two of which are German shepherds

9:19

. So she's not scared in for

9:21

like , for well being much , but

9:24

I mean , she's just scared in general . When you know I'm on duty , she

9:27

tries to hide it . She doesn't really mention it because she knows

9:29

you know , I'm going to start thinking about that when

9:31

I'm on duty , which is , you know , makes it more difficult

9:33

. But , you know it , for

9:37

the beginning part of my career I didn't really

9:39

talk much to her about my job because

9:41

I thought I was trying to basically cover

9:44

or shield her from her being

9:46

stressed , because if I tell her

9:48

those stories , or which

9:50

would be our Tuesday , and it doesn't really

9:52

matter to us , but it would matter

9:54

to her . So I was trying to not talk to her about

9:57

it , but later

9:59

on I found that it's actually better for

10:01

me to actually tell her . I'll give her

10:03

and like , trickle it and

10:06

like little drops here and there , but

10:09

it's better to do that than bottle

10:11

all in and not tell anyone about

10:14

it .

10:14

No , bro , you're spot on . Like

10:16

have the conversation sometimes . What

10:19

we'll do is just try not to go into as much

10:21

detail . Yeah , and like baby , look , I can

10:23

tell you something , but this is funny , but it's cop

10:25

funny .

10:26

Yeah , like , generalize things , not

10:28

be very specific , then they start

10:31

getting concerned more .

10:32

Yeah , yeah . So all right . So I'm

10:34

an avid like animal

10:36

lover and when you say three German shepherds

10:38

, I'm like whoa time out , wait back up three

10:41

.

10:41

No two German shepherds in a black lab .

10:43

So yeah , okay , so those are just three big dogs

10:45

yeah , three big dogs . How

10:48

much is your food bill ?

10:50

I don't even I've had a guess like 500 . I'll

10:52

hear something like that a month , like it's kind of depressing

10:55

, honestly .

10:56

Well , okay , so I have a Kanye

10:59

Corsair correct pronunciation

11:01

but a Ken Corso , and

11:03

he eats half raw and

11:05

half kibble , so I mix it up . I

11:08

mean now I think it's costing me about

11:11

probably $100 a month , you

11:14

know and it's going up , because

11:16

I mean , he's full grown , he's three . But

11:18

man , they eat a lot , so do they shed as

11:20

much as everybody say they do ? Yeah

11:23

, See , that would drive me crazy .

11:25

It drives my wife crazy . I'm used to it at

11:27

this point . I've had German

11:29

shepherds pretty much all my life and I'm

11:31

used to it . But it doesn't matter

11:33

how much you vacuum or

11:35

clean or anything , next day it's going to be the same

11:38

exact thing . It's

11:41

a constant struggle in battle . We

11:44

have a Roomba that goes on twice a

11:46

day just to keep up with the

11:48

hair that's everywhere .

11:49

Yeah , okay

11:51

, so do you have that ? It's some kind

11:53

of new vacuum . I see it on TikTok

11:55

. But you can brush the dog

11:58

and then push a button and it

12:00

sucks the hair out .

12:01

Yeah , we got that . It doesn't

12:03

really do much . The only thing that really does much

12:05

is shampoo and

12:08

washing them . And bathing them is the only real

12:11

way to do it . Just brushing

12:13

them , just maintains it for

12:15

an hour .

12:16

So have you talked her into ? I think it's called

12:18

a dog washing station or something

12:20

. If you got three big dogs , you got that bag . Look

12:22

, I'm gonna build this outside on the side of the house and

12:24

we're gonna be done with it .

12:26

That will be the next project , for sure to

12:28

do that . Hell , I was thinking about one .

12:29

I'm like I got one dog , short hair

12:32

, but just sweeping

12:34

if I can see a little bit of hair , I

12:36

mean it freaks my wife out . We

12:38

need to sweep them out . I'm like , yes , yes , ma'am

12:40

, it's just one dog . Yeah , short

12:43

hair , so no crazy , all

12:45

right . So you went to school , got

12:48

it . You said criminal justice degree yeah

12:50

, all right . What school did you go to ?

12:52

CMU , Colorado Mason University . It's

12:54

like Southwest Colorado

12:56

, like Grand Junction

12:59

, if you know where that is .

13:00

Okay , man , I'm gonna

13:02

tell you I've been up to Colorado

13:04

Springs , the most beautiful city

13:06

I've ever seen . And so when

13:08

I went up there and that was years ago I

13:11

worked for a moving company in the summertime while

13:13

I was at college , and so we moved some

13:15

people up there . I'm

13:18

saying a mansion , it was a three story off

13:20

in the hills and I

13:23

mean it was so beautiful that my boss

13:25

was like , hey , guys were done with the move , but we're

13:27

gonna go down here to some resort and we camped out

13:29

for like two days and it was just

13:31

, it was so beautiful . Now , I

13:33

think as athletes we go know the air

13:35

is thin . I'm like what does that mean ?

13:38

Yeah .

13:39

So , bro , I ran down the hill . Mind you , I'm in shape because

13:41

I'm training every day for football . I

13:43

ran down the hill and it was me and another

13:45

defensive guy working for the same

13:47

company , and I mean , we just bent over

13:49

and we're like we can hardly breathe

13:51

. My chest is hurting and I'm like , bro , what is

13:54

wrong ? And I'm like I can't breathe . And he was like I

13:56

can't breathe either . And so we were just sitting

13:58

there and the other guy was laughing . But

14:01

did you have any ? Did you go through that at all

14:03

?

14:03

Been up there , absolutely absolutely , even

14:05

just like walking around , it's

14:07

much different , like trying to get used to it . When I first

14:10

initially went to college for the first month , I

14:12

would get migraines every single day because I

14:14

was from Southern

14:16

California .

14:17

So it was completely different .

14:18

So just being up there and even doing , just

14:20

walking around like to classes and everything

14:22

like that , would just give me a migraine . It was the weirdest

14:24

thing . I have no idea if that was mainly

14:27

because of the altitude or

14:29

because , I don't know , dehydration

14:31

, I don't know , but it was just constantly

14:33

happening for the first month .

14:38

That would drive me crazy . You know , you just pop

14:40

in Tylenol and trying to get rid of a headache and it's

14:42

like what's wrong with you ? I don't know . I'm

14:45

from Cali , Colorado , there .

14:47

And I was a cross country runner so I would run

14:49

pretty much every other day and

14:52

I couldn't . I couldn't do more like

14:55

a mile for the first month because

14:57

of the headaches and because of the altitude and I couldn't

14:59

breathe .

15:00

Look . So I'm about to ask you well , how long were

15:02

you a cross country runner , like

15:04

you know ? Kind of look , you're not cutting , you're

15:06

like coach , I can do it , I'm just trying to get used

15:09

to this altitude .

15:11

So I did it in high school . I did lacrosse

15:13

and cross country in high school and then when I got to

15:15

college I just kind of did it for fun . I was on

15:17

any team . I was on intramural lacrosse

15:19

for the first two years , but that's about it

15:22

. But yeah , I

15:24

kind of just stopped doing long distance running after

15:26

the first month . I'm not gonna do this anymore

15:28

.

15:29

Yeah , yeah , all right

15:31

. So , and you had mentioned Colorado

15:34

, so is that where you got your

15:36

first law enforcement job ?

15:38

Yeah , so part of my degree . For

15:40

the main reason why I chose that school

15:42

is because my last semester of college

15:44

is actually the police academy . So

15:47

in Colorado most

15:49

academies are actually generalized , like

15:51

it's region , it's not like four specific

15:53

police departments . Some police departments

15:55

had them , but most of them were just

15:57

you know . You go to an academy either you're

16:00

sponsored by a police department to go to it

16:02

or you

16:04

know you could put yourself through it basically

16:06

. So in my case

16:08

one of the regional academies

16:11

was right next to my college and

16:13

part of getting my criminal justice degree

16:15

was going to that . Like you had two

16:17

options either you went the law side of where

16:20

you know you just took a bunch of classes and

16:22

you know you plan on being a lawyer or whatever . And

16:24

then the other side is specifically to

16:27

become a police officer .

16:28

So so were you sponsored .

16:30

No , I was not sponsored . When I first went in , I

16:33

had paid for all of it myself to do

16:35

it . Wow Pay to go

16:37

get your T-Cole

16:39

essentially , yeah , essentially yeah , it was called Colorado

16:42

Post , yeah there . So .

16:44

Okay , so then you graduate and then you start trying

16:46

to find what city or during

16:49

it .

16:49

Yeah , oh , okay .

16:50

All right , and so then you got on with the

16:52

law enforcement . A city up there

16:54

.

16:55

No , yeah , close by

16:57

Durango Police Department in Southwest

16:59

Colorado .

17:00

Yeah , so how

17:02

long were you there ?

17:04

With Durango . I was there for almost five

17:06

and a half years before I came here . Okay

17:09

, cool .

17:11

Now big jump . So Colorado

17:14

, how does well

17:16

? First I wanna ask so

17:18

were you there when some of those laws

17:20

and things started changing , when they were like , oh yeah

17:23

, it's legal up here now ? Could

17:25

you see , like certain I don't , I

17:27

guess I wanna say neighborhoods but certain cities

17:29

, like they , were nice cities

17:31

and then it's not so much because somebody

17:34

put in the legislation . Let's go this route

17:36

.

17:36

I mean , even when I was in college , the

17:38

town that I was in was very

17:41

red , very conservative , so they I mean they

17:43

were still pretty strict

17:45

. I mean they had a population , but it wasn't

17:47

really anything I was concerned

17:49

about when I was in college . But

17:52

my wife finished

17:55

her degree in Denver while I

17:57

was still in Durango . So I would go visit her

17:59

all the time and it's

18:01

very sad to see , because Denver

18:04

in that entire area , the front range is very

18:07

beautiful and different from

18:09

anything else , but the actual

18:11

inner city is disgusting

18:14

. It's terrible . You

18:17

can go a block and you will see a line

18:20

of tents or a bunch

18:22

of People . And she was

18:24

staying in an apartment in the inner

18:26

city of Denver and

18:28

you know she was a basically a

18:30

basement apartment and I was

18:32

Always concerned with her because

18:35

she would add late classes or she was working

18:37

, she was walking home . I would always be on the phone

18:39

with her and it Terrified

18:41

her . She hated it . She hated it because she

18:43

was always being harassed all the

18:45

time the entire time , and

18:48

I mean Unfortunately . It's not

18:50

because of you know , denver police departments

18:52

, because the letters Laws

18:54

and the that exists there that prevents

18:57

them from actually being able to do something .

19:00

Because everybody else on the outside looking in

19:02

is like no , don't do that , because especially

19:05

police officers Like we can sit back and

19:07

tell no if you relax the law in

19:09

this specific area . Here's

19:11

what's gonna happen and you got people

19:13

way up here to make these rules and laws

19:16

and they're like , oh no , it's gonna be fine , it's

19:18

gonna bring in , you know , some

19:20

good revenue . Sure , okay

19:22

, tax money .

19:23

Yeah , but then you're gonna be paying for it in

19:25

other ways , in other ways in all

19:28

criminal elements go up , all of them

19:30

. So anyway it's . It's

19:32

sad because Colorado is by

19:34

far one of the most beautiful states that you

19:36

know that exists and the

19:40

joke , the inside jerk that we had at my old department

19:42

and a lot of people that I talked to is that

19:44

it was Slowly turning into

19:46

another California Sorry for the people that live in California

19:49

, but I mean it the you

19:51

were seeing the red flags that you were constantly

19:53

like hearing jokes about in regards to

19:55

laws , in regard , yeah , in California

19:57

, but it's , it was slowly

19:59

turning into that and by the

20:01

time I left I mean we can

20:04

go into that just in general when I was on

20:06

patrol there , but it was getting

20:08

ridiculous to the point of they

20:10

were trying to discourage you from Enforcing

20:13

the law . Yeah and in

20:15

every way , whether that's from the judge

20:18

to the DA , to the actual people writing

20:20

the laws to . You know my own administration

20:22

, my own police department , and

20:24

it's sad .

20:26

So and we were talking

20:28

about this earlier , but I

20:30

know , nate and I , so when

20:32

you say it for the listeners

20:34

, when you say hey , they're kind of discouraging

20:37

us from doing police work . Give

20:39

me an example .

20:42

When I first started , every

20:44

single controlled substance other than marijuana

20:46

because marijuana was already legal in Colorado by that

20:48

time Was a felony

20:50

. By my third year

20:52

of being a cop there they changed everything

20:55

into a ticket for Controlled

20:59

substance . If you were above

21:02

Five grams then

21:04

it would be the lowest Felony

21:06

, which in Colorado they didn't just

21:09

have , like you know , misomears and felonies , they had drug

21:11

felonies which are basically lower

21:13

than regular felonies . So

21:16

I mean , essentially it didn't mean

21:18

anything . You went to drug court for a couple

21:20

months and then you know , as

21:22

long as you somewhat passed a

21:25

drug test , you not not actually

21:27

pass . If you somewhat passed it , then you know you're

21:29

good to go . So , that's one

21:31

of the things .

21:32

So right into I Don't

21:35

know , and I laugh only because here

21:37

I mean we could . We're

21:39

gonna give you a ticket , but , man , you better have a small

21:41

amount of marijuana , you know to me

21:44

and the driver's license and insurance , up to date registry

21:46

, like all these other boxes you better be

21:48

good at . But I

21:50

I've heard other cities

21:52

and now I'm hearing it from you

21:54

like none of no up here we're writing

21:56

tickets for , like you know , cocaine

21:59

residue or cocaine period .

22:01

Yeah my , if the Drug

22:04

or drug dealers or even the people that are using

22:06

the drugs Figured this out very quickly

22:08

and they just made sure that they were

22:11

under that five grams , so

22:13

they would just get a ticket . Like some of them

22:15

were almost so precise that it was like 4.8

22:17

grams or something like that and we would

22:19

be forced to just write a ticket to them and

22:21

Beyond that , we were discouraged

22:24

to even take them on that

22:26

because it was it was technically a drug misdemeanor

22:28

, but that's essentially a ticket in Colorado . And

22:31

you know , in the beginning I began to try

22:33

to take them still to jail because I'm like that

22:36

, it's a controlled substance , they need to go to jail for

22:38

this , like they need to have a , you know , somewhat

22:41

of a punishment , not just like a slap on the wrist for

22:43

this . And I was discouraged

22:45

to do that and they were basically ordering

22:47

me to just do tickets to

22:49

take you . Yeah , which is frustrating

22:52

, because I mean that's that

22:54

was the main thing I did in my old apartment . Was

22:56

you know a Rest

22:58

people for drugs ? Yeah , and you know , in a

23:00

small town like that I knew those places

23:03

, and then they basically took away the thing I

23:05

love the most doing .

23:08

Okay , so I what you saying is I need to move up there

23:10

and just I could open up a small business

23:12

. You know in scales , because everybody's gonna

23:14

walk right , bro . You know you gotta be up under five

23:16

, here you go . That's crazy .

23:19

That's not even the craziest thing . People were getting

23:21

away with , you know , attempted murder there

23:23

and getting two years unsupervised probation

23:25

Like one of the cases I handled

23:27

was specifically for that . It

23:29

was a drug deal that got bad Guy

23:32

pulled out a shotgun , shot the dude

23:35

dude jumped out a window

23:37

to get away from him . The guy chased

23:39

him , got in his car , ran him over with

23:41

his car and we saved him . He

23:43

survived , like we saved him , and

23:46

then that guy got two years unsupervised

23:49

probation for that . And

23:51

there was like three other females that were involved also

23:53

and I think one of them got one year's

23:55

unsupervised probation . The rest of them didn't

23:58

even get anything for it . That

24:00

that's that's like . I mean , that's

24:03

an extreme , but that's the common alley that keeps happening

24:05

in Colorado . It's really

24:08

unfortunate , yeah well

24:10

, so , and

24:14

what ?

24:14

and I tell officers , and how

24:16

many years on total do you have ?

24:18

coming up on eight years now .

24:19

Okay . So you know and I

24:22

tell especially the younger officers

24:24

it's like I Try

24:26

not to and I had my career . I've been doing

24:28

this along . I've been thinking this way

24:30

for for quite some time . I don't

24:32

even , I try not to . It'll

24:34

sound bad , but I don't care what

24:36

happens to you after you get

24:38

arrested and then you go down that judicial

24:41

process , Mm-hmm , because you can get frustrated

24:43

. Yeah , you know , it's like hey , I'm a follow-up on this

24:45

case . What happened ? Probation you

24:47

know I did all of this work XYZ

24:49

and we , you know , like you said , you had to chase

24:51

this guy down and he's running over people , shooting

24:54

people . Probation yeah , it's

24:56

almost disheartening and you know we're not

24:58

saying you know it pulled back

25:00

as a police officer . I'm glad you're

25:02

here , because now you , you know , I

25:05

actually do things there you go , you can do things

25:07

. It's like man , that's , that's spot

25:09

on , that's good . No , he's going to prison . Okay

25:11

, well , he deserved it . That's what he

25:13

. He's acting like .

25:17

I just learned after a few years being

25:19

that it's just do your job as

25:21

best as humanly possible . You

25:23

know , if they decide to do that stuff , that's gonna

25:25

be on them . They're gonna have to justify that . I'm

25:27

not gonna have to justify that . I mean that's

25:29

, it's a crappy mentality

25:31

thinking about it that way but

25:33

I mean , we're only a branch

25:36

of a tree . That's , you know , a huge system

25:38

. And you know , as

25:40

long as we do our job the way we're supposed

25:42

to , then you know we just

25:44

need to hold for the best .

25:45

Unfortunately , yeah , well

25:48

, okay , so how many years total

25:50

? You said , did you do it there ? Five , yeah , five

25:52

, all right . So what departments did

25:55

you work at when you were there , or what

25:57

?

25:57

just just patrol . I

25:59

was a firearms instructor . I was on SWAT

26:01

. You

26:03

know I dabbled in CIT stuff

26:06

. Yeah , I assisted with that

26:08

and that was a passion for me to do

26:10

that in narcotics . Yeah

26:13

, those and I was on patrol . All

26:15

that stuff was part-time . It was never . It

26:17

was never full-time for any of that kind of stuff .

26:19

Okay , so kind of like our SWAT team here

26:21

is not full-time . Okay , so

26:23

it's for your position

26:25

now , and forgive me because I'm not a SWAT

26:27

guy so I don't know , but we're like sniper

26:29

team lead any of that stuff

26:32

.

26:33

So it was kind of disorganizing that . I mean , we

26:35

had team leaders , we had team sergeants

26:37

and everything like that . Okay , we didn't have like specific

26:39

positions either you were a super

26:41

in a supervisor position , or you

26:44

are basically a breaching team

26:46

, or you were the sniper team . Like that's

26:49

all we had . Like there wasn't like any

26:51

coordination in that , like we didn't have like breaches

26:53

point men you know anything

26:55

like that . It was just either you were supervisors

26:58

sniper team or you're like that in-between

27:01

guy that will do anything .

27:03

All right , and so I have to ask let's

27:06

go into this bar sting . I

27:08

want to hear funny everything . What

27:10

happened so Okay .

27:12

So this is the first . This is basically

27:14

right . When I got off of FTO , we

27:18

have a lot of bars in

27:20

downtown Durango , where and we have

27:22

a college , so we have a huge college scene

27:24

and you know there's always thousands

27:27

of people that are downtown , you

27:29

know , going to these bars Because

27:32

either you're doing outdoor things or

27:34

you're getting drunk . Those are like the two things that

27:36

you know college kids

27:38

or people in their 20s or 30s were doing

27:41

in Durango , because it was basically a vacation

27:43

town . It wasn't , you know , anything

27:45

else other than that . So

27:47

we have these bar stings

27:50

where we make sure they're not doing basically

27:52

underage drinking or selling you

27:54

know of the this or like over

27:56

serving people . That was , that was the main thing , and

27:59

you know me , being a brand new cop

28:01

, not knowing what I'm doing , was

28:03

just assigned to make sure that the

28:05

like underage

28:07

girl that we had trying to buy beer

28:09

for us was not going

28:11

to get hurt . That was solely my job . So

28:13

it was me , one other guy doing this . And

28:16

while we're in one of one of the bars , for

28:19

some reason I

28:22

had to go to the bathroom or something like that . And

28:25

I went to the bathroom

28:27

and there's just like a group of four

28:29

guys that are basically like huddled all together

28:31

, like shoulder to shoulder , like looking downward

28:33

.

28:34

And like that's strange . And then you

28:36

know in the bathroom like that's

28:38

like I don't , I don't judge .

28:41

I'm like whatever whatever's going on is

28:43

. It's what's going on . And while I'm

28:45

waiting for one of the stalls , one of the guys

28:47

like kind of looks over his shoulder and sees

28:49

me and turn around and like does like

28:51

the stereotypical thing that you like seeing

28:54

, like when you're teaching , you know , elementary

28:56

school . Hey , you

28:58

, you want to buy some coke . And

29:01

in my head I had to register

29:04

for a second . So I kind of stared on him awkwardly

29:06

for like 10 seconds and

29:10

me , being the new cop I am , I

29:12

basically like sounded like a robot . I'm

29:14

like , yeah , sure , I would love to buy

29:17

cocaine , how much do you have ? And

29:19

this guy being , you know , like

29:21

completely oblivious , he's

29:23

like , oh yeah let me show you

29:25

. He takes out of his pocket and he had like

29:27

a like one of those Ziploc

29:29

bags , like sandwich bags , just full

29:31

of cocaine . And

29:34

he's like , yeah , I got this much . Man , I'm like man

29:36

, I want to buy some of that . Let me

29:38

go get some money . And I like walked

29:40

out and we had . So

29:42

we had two guys in UC and I

29:44

was one of them . Then we had two guys in uniform in

29:47

a , like a unmarked

29:49

Chevy outside . So

29:52

I walk up to them like , hey , there's a guy

29:54

selling cocaine in the bathroom and

29:57

you know we wait

29:59

for him to come outside , or I . I

30:01

encourage him to come outside because I'm like , hey

30:04

, I have the money . And essentially I'm like , hey , I have like

30:06

$200 . How much is it going to give me

30:08

? He gave me the amount . I'm

30:10

like , okay , you mind coming out to my car . And when he came outside

30:13

they arrested him

30:15

and again the

30:17

perspective of my department was

30:19

they want us to do very specific

30:21

things . And this was basically my first like

30:24

. First like slap on the wrist

30:28

for doing this , or

30:30

in like thinking this way , thinking outside the box

30:32

of like you know trying to enforce you

30:35

know , controlled substance . They

30:37

actually got upset with us for doing that Because

30:40

in their minds they

30:42

don't want us . Our job was to do the alcohol

30:45

stuff , not the , not the drug

30:47

stuff , and so

30:49

we actually got reprimanded for that . And

30:51

they also got upset with us because we had

30:54

the underage girl with

30:56

us , even though she was still , she

30:59

was with the other officers , so she wasn't like unprotected

31:01

or anything like that . But they

31:03

got upset with us , basically saying that we put

31:05

, we put her at risk by trying to

31:07

do an undercover sting with

31:10

this guy with the , you know , I think , with

31:13

I think it was like 20 grams of cocaine

31:15

or something like that . That he had on him in

31:17

total , including , I think he had like mushrooms

31:20

or something like that also . But they

31:23

got upset with us .

31:25

Okay , so . So my office is listening

31:28

. In Colorado is Grand

31:30

Prairie Policeorg . Okay , get online

31:32

. We love laterals Y'all

31:34

. Fill the information out and get your butts down

31:36

here , bro . That's crazy . Like

31:39

you know what I mean . I don't have to be up there

31:41

from what you just told me . That's crazy

31:43

. One of

31:45

the things that that makes

31:47

me love my bike units so much . We

31:50

could see an issue and I could go hey , sarge

31:52

, let me do X , y , z , because

31:54

we were going to do something similar to that . Yeah

31:57

, I won't let too much out , but it

31:59

was like okay , katie , get on a bike and

32:01

put some raggedy pants on or

32:03

, you know , a shirt , look like that and

32:05

go out there . You know what I mean . It's like have fun

32:08

. Let's be proactive and think outside

32:10

the box . The fact that somebody

32:12

threw something up , it landed in your lap

32:14

. You walked into the bathroom to use the bathroom

32:16

and then , it's yeah

32:18

, you shouldn't be paying attention to the . Oh really

32:21

, Okay , let the Coke go and we'll

32:23

watch your damn alcohol drink

32:25

.

32:25

And in Durango's a lot

32:28

, unfortunately a lot about image because

32:30

, like I said , it was a vacation town so actually

32:32

a lot of people from Texas would go there

32:35

, you know , had their second homes there and

32:37

like , would go there during the winter time or even

32:39

the summertime to do outdoor activities , and

32:41

I you know they would never admit it , but it was

32:43

all about an image thing of . they wanted

32:45

, you know the rain to look

32:47

like that small , quaint little town that you

32:50

know , nothing ever happens here kind of thing

32:52

when it reality wasn't like that at

32:54

all .

32:54

Well , let me tell you something . Epic Waters is

32:56

a family place . Come

32:58

over there with some cocaine . I guarantee I'm

33:00

taking you Period point blank

33:03

, I don't care . Yeah , we'll put that image

33:05

out there , you and some handcuffs . That's

33:07

crazy . But again , every

33:10

city , every department is gonna operate

33:12

totally different . Just

33:14

a quick plug guys do the

33:16

ride-alongs . Did you do a ride-along with them before

33:19

you join ?

33:19

Yeah , I did two ride-alongs before I joined . I was

33:21

in the academy when they were trying to get me

33:24

a hired on and I . Did . Uh , yeah

33:26

, I did two ride-alongs before I actually got

33:28

through the entire process and it was different

33:30

, I mean even when I first started . It was different

33:32

from when I when I left okay

33:34

which , like it , it

33:37

was more I Don't know how

33:39

to put it they . They encouraged more proactivity

33:41

in regards to more

33:43

than just DWIs and , you know , domestic

33:46

violence and stuff like that . They encouraged the

33:48

you know the fighting drugs

33:50

, finding warrants , finding all these other things when

33:53

they first came out , which encouraged me to actually Want

33:56

to join them like , oh yeah , it's a small

33:58

town . It was kind of hesitant to do that because I came from

34:00

, you know , orange County and shadow millions of

34:02

people . You know I was kind of , you

34:05

know , hesitant , but then after did the right on

34:07

, oh yeah , this is cool , like , yeah , I can , I can do

34:09

all these things even in a small town , absolutely

34:11

, you know .

34:15

Yeah , we can talk about that for another hour , because

34:20

and

34:22

I always say , do the right loss . Number one , every

34:24

city is different . But number two , you get to see

34:26

what the culture is because

34:29

yeah , where I came

34:31

from is like a police chase . No , we're not

34:33

chasing anybody , you know , not . When it comes to vehicles

34:36

, yeah , but you know , here in Grand

34:38

Prairie I I'm not

34:40

even making this up it seems like we chase somebody every

34:42

shift , pretty much , a

34:45

whole lot more about that than me and it's like , bro

34:48

, almost every shift . Yeah , but

34:50

you know you have to do it responsibly , and

34:53

I think we do because the rules

34:55

haven't changed . But yeah , the minute we start doing

34:57

stuff crazy and shooting from the hip , so

34:59

to speak , and chief will step in and go . Yeah

35:02

, we go , go ahead and change a few things .

35:03

I mean there's a , there's a lot of accountability , even before

35:06

he even gets to the chief , for here I mean even

35:08

with the officers , like if you see something

35:10

I mean Happen plenty

35:13

of times or you know , coming from a

35:15

police department , that I never chased anything to

35:17

doing you know , chasing here . Like

35:19

you know , I was eating new at it , so it was . It was nice

35:21

having those officers that were experiencing it and would

35:24

like either help me with a report or

35:26

say , hey , this is , this is what I would

35:28

do next time . Or even the supervisors are like you

35:30

know , I would just do this next time , just to

35:32

make sure you get this out . You know , keep

35:34

you safer . You know , keep you more paying

35:37

attention to everything like that , which is nice . Yeah

35:39

, let's go and for the right along thing

35:42

. I , yeah , I encourage everyone

35:44

to do a ride along for any type of police department

35:46

they do , and it's all about the person

35:48

you ride with to . You don't want to have that person

35:50

. That's robotic , that's like this place is

35:52

the most perfect place

35:54

on the planet . Then you know there's happy go

35:56

lucky rainbows like you want the guy that's actually

35:59

gonna give you the right

36:01

answers , or just just the answers in general

36:03

that you might not want to hear ? And you

36:06

know , even at my last department , that

36:08

I was that guy that you know I'm

36:10

gonna tell you the answer and if you don't like it , you

36:12

know it is what it is .

36:15

Yeah , if you ask , I will tell

36:17

you . No , it's funny because , like

36:19

now , you know , being in community services , I

36:22

kind of tell people the same thing . It's like look , and

36:24

I can be in a room full of people you know the

36:26

citizens , or whatever HOA meetings . Don't

36:29

ask me something unless you want to , true , because I'm . If

36:31

you you want a political answer , there's some other people

36:34

y'all could call and go . Hey , we want to talk to someone

36:36

, so you get me in there and you

36:38

ask me . So I'm gonna tell you and just be honest

36:40

, because I think a lot of people want honesty . Yeah

36:42

, you know .

36:43

So my wife

36:45

loves and hates that about me , yeah . I'm that I'm

36:47

that honest . She loves it sometimes , but also

36:49

hates it other times . She's like . I wish you would

36:51

lie to me .

36:52

Yeah , about this .

36:53

Yeah instead of being truthful , like I'm

36:55

sorry .

36:55

Yeah , no

36:57

, that's cool . So let me ask you

36:59

how did so ? When you're up there , how

37:02

did you hear about grand prairie police

37:04

department ?

37:05

Actually my wife . My wife is the one that

37:07

that found me this police department .

37:09

How did she do ?

37:10

that she saw that was like

37:12

very unhappy With my , my

37:15

current police department where we were living , everything like

37:17

that . And you know , I was honestly

37:19

starting to get really depressed and it was

37:21

starting to get really hard to even be motivated

37:23

to doing anything . And she took

37:25

the the step of like you know I'm getting

37:27

done with school because she was in school at the time

37:30

. You know , we

37:32

can go anywhere we want . Like both of our jobs

37:34

Are essentially

37:36

anywhere in the states . We could go anywhere . So

37:39

she , we decided basically

37:41

that we wanted to , you know , jump

37:44

ship out of to Colorado and go somewhere . Then , you know

37:46

, will be a better life

37:48

for us . And we decided on Texas

37:50

and and she basically just

37:52

typed in because she , she doesn't know how to search for

37:54

police department . She just typed in best police departments

37:57

or top like 10 best police

37:59

departments in Texas and she

38:02

basically gave me a list of I think it was like five

38:04

, and then I did the actual research on it and

38:07

you know I found here and you

38:09

know I saw the , the front page and

38:11

, like you know , I'm gonna apply . See

38:13

what it is . You know , take a chance and

38:16

you know what actually sealed the deal

38:18

was . Coming here for the testing , the

38:21

initial testing and hearing chief

38:24

says need talk in the beginning . I know he does

38:26

it every single time . He you know

38:28

you have these testings . But His

38:30

speech of like I'll let you arrest

38:33

people , I'll let you chase people . I trust you

38:35

if I'm gonna give you a badging gun To

38:37

do something , you know if I am . If I

38:39

trust you to have a badging gun into enforce the law , I'm

38:42

gonna entrust you to do your job correctly . And

38:44

you know when he said that and when I

38:46

went through the entire testing , I mean I called my wife . I'm

38:48

like this . This is definitely the place . I want to

38:51

be and you know , here I am

38:53

.

38:53

Yeah , well , kudos , miss Connor , we appreciate

38:55

it . Yeah

38:58

, so , and I like to ask that because

39:00

, like you're saying , you

39:02

can almost think back to the day

39:04

, the time when you heard that from chief . Yeah

39:06

and so for me it was you know chief

39:08

died at the time , but he was like he goes

39:10

. Katie , your family is just as important

39:12

as some , this other officer who's been here

39:14

for 20 years . Yeah and I'm

39:16

like no , because where I come from

39:18

, you'd have to be on bro , you'd have

39:21

to be on 18 , 19 years to get

39:23

a weekend off , you know . And I was

39:25

coming over at six years . I'm like , okay , what am

39:27

I ? All day's , wednesday , thursday , give it to you

39:29

. No , no , no , no , you're gonna get every other weekend off

39:31

cuz you need family time . And I was

39:33

like , okay , he's play , he's

39:35

messing with me , right ?

39:36

No .

39:37

Oh , patrol , you listen to me

39:39

, you get every other Saturday off and

39:41

I was like holy crap . So a

39:44

lot of the guys where I come from that was just

39:46

ah , we like man excited .

39:48

So I had similar schedule when I was at my old department

39:51

. But the one thing that just put the biggest

39:53

smile on my face is first day of FTO

39:55

. Here they're like , hey , so go ahead

39:57

and sign up for a lunch . I mean I'm like what do you mean

39:59

lunch ? Like 15 minutes or something ? No , you get like an hour

40:01

. I'm like what , you

40:04

Get

40:06

a paid hour of lunch . He's like , yeah , sometimes

40:08

you don't get it , but most the time you do . If you get a certain time

40:11

. I'm like I love it here . And

40:14

he's like , oh , yeah , you get an extra 15 minutes if you

40:16

, you know , you work out during during

40:19

your lunch time too . I'm like I , yeah

40:22

, I like it here . That's

40:24

what made me happy , like the schedule thing , you

40:26

know , I was used to it already , so it wasn't that big of a

40:28

deal , but the , the getting a lunch that

40:30

was . That was great .

40:32

Yeah .

40:33

So I say it's the small things

40:35

, but as officers sometimes you can work

40:38

and not get a lunch . So when

40:40

I first started the guys would say

40:42

put your I forget what you call those

40:44

little plastic lunch pail , but put it

40:46

next to you and

40:48

you eat in between your calls and I'm like

40:51

, no , we're gonna go to lunch , bro , we're gonna go

40:53

eat . And they're like you won't have

40:55

time , holy hell . I

40:57

mean sometimes there's 20 calls holding

40:59

and it's just you go and you go , and

41:01

so Sometimes we were not able to get

41:04

a lunch and you're right , you just you're snacking

41:06

and looking at the notes , going to the next call , and

41:09

so now it's like getting a lunch . And

41:11

I haven't been in patrol in some years , but I'm

41:14

thinking most of you guys and girls are getting

41:16

lunch on a pretty regular basis

41:18

.

41:18

Yeah , I mean we have enough people and you

41:20

know we all see when people

41:23

have lunch so we try to . If people

41:25

are about to get lunch , we try to cover them so they can

41:27

actually get it . Because I mean , even

41:30

at 12 hours , you know , in the middle

41:32

of the night , it's good to have that disconnect

41:34

for an hour . I mean we're still listening the radio and something

41:36

big pops up and you know we're putting

41:38

back on our uniforms if we're working out and we go back

41:40

out there and help . But

41:42

it's still a good disconnect to have that

41:44

break , to not , you know , not

41:46

have to be dispatched to something All

41:49

12 hours . And that helps a lot

41:51

. And you know it beyond like oh , it's

41:53

cool to , you know , eat and have

41:55

a break an hour . It like the actual

41:58

mental side of it just helps

42:00

. It helps tremendously for

42:02

that .

42:03

So , and so

42:05

you mentioned the the hour and 15

42:08

minutes for working out , and that's

42:10

something that was new to me coming over here . Of

42:12

course , I've never worked out on a lunch

42:14

before , because you you're actually just trying

42:16

to throw some food down and you know it's only

42:19

a matter of time , because if they gave you an hour , maybe

42:21

35 minutes , and somebody's on that radio going

42:24

, hey , can you take this , call you like sure , but

42:27

so here you're allowed to go

42:29

work out and they give you an extra 15 because

42:31

that way you do have time to shower . If you

42:33

want to go eat you go back , change

42:36

your uniform and get back in the service

42:38

. So that that was new to me . You said y'all

42:40

had , so y'all work 12s at your

42:42

last department .

42:43

It was weird , it was actually 11 and a half

42:45

. Yeah , see , just

42:48

a man , I'm already what

42:50

? when do I come back such a clock , clock

42:53

, I don't know , yeah , we're

42:56

initially tenants , but

42:58

then when COVID happened , we can

43:00

uncover and we didn't have the staffing to cover

43:03

a third shift for because we had a , you

43:05

know , a day shift , swing shift and

43:07

a night shift . And you know , when

43:10

it got to COVID , we

43:12

wanted to spread it out . So we didn't even do briefings

43:15

. We had like staggered schedules , so everyone

43:17

came in an hour every

43:19

hour , which is weird , and

43:21

we didn't do Briefings at all

43:23

. It was mainly just like on the like

43:25

, the like this basically online

43:28

form that we would look at . Yeah

43:31

, so we did that towards the

43:33

end of COVID and that's what we stuck with the

43:36

entire time . So we only technically had two shifts

43:38

. We had night shift and day shift , like we do here .

43:40

Yeah , okay . So , yeah , all

43:43

right , and so I want to kind of talk about

43:45

the lateral movement or the process

43:47

, so that some of our other laterals

43:50

that are listening or gas thinking about it coming

43:52

. So

43:54

when you came over , did you do the abbreviated

43:56

Academy ?

43:58

yeah , yeah , I think it was like three

44:00

and a half months or something like that in total . Okay

44:02

, yeah .

44:03

All right . So GP

44:06

, we offer the lateral program . If you

44:08

have the years on , depending on

44:11

the size , I think , of the previous

44:13

department , what kind of calls that

44:15

you answer ? You can come over and

44:17

basically we just take your years

44:19

of service wherever you were and we

44:21

plug you right into GP

44:24

and you get paid on that pay

44:26

scale .

44:26

Yeah , I mean , I get paid on that , which was awesome

44:28

. Which was about almost a $50,000

44:31

pay raise from my previous department , so I

44:33

was very , very happy about that .

44:36

And so is Ms Connor , she's

44:39

like .

44:39

Thank you oh yeah , she is very happy about this

44:41

.

44:41

Yeah , but

44:43

it's funny , you said that , bro . When I

44:46

came over I looked at my check and my

44:48

check doubled and I went

44:50

I'm doing the same , this

44:52

is police work . And then my

44:55

checks doubled and of course I showed it to my wife

44:57

and she's yeah

44:59

, bling , that's nice , but

45:01

I don't know . We've been up

45:03

near the top as far as pay here

45:05

for a few years now .

45:07

Yeah , I think us and one other department , the

45:09

Metroplex , are basically even

45:11

right now that we're the highest .

45:15

Yeah , so you wanna get paid , but

45:18

I always tell people , if you're thinking about GP , come

45:20

do the ride alone Because

45:22

, like I said , every department is different and

45:24

so you may not be a good fit and you wanna

45:26

see the culture and talk to

45:28

these , the men and women that put the

45:31

uniform on . So please come do the

45:33

ride alone so that you can see .

45:34

And ask those tough questions . Oh yeah

45:36

, a lot of these officers are laterals . I

45:39

mean Knightsby , I'm

45:41

pretty sure , is like 95%

45:43

laterals at this point , and no

45:45

joke on that . I

45:48

encourage people to do the ride along . It's been not only

45:50

that . But ask the questions . Don't be

45:52

robotic and just ask , like , what is the

45:54

dynamic of this police department ? And like what

45:56

kind of calls are you handling Like ? Ask those tough questions

45:59

, I promise you the officers , especially

46:01

on Knights , will answer it .

46:03

You know what the young folks say they

46:05

gonna keep it 100 . They gonna tell you exactly

46:07

how they feel and what's going on . No , I'm telling

46:09

you , I love that . I

46:12

know I was asking not just

46:14

the schedule , but then like to

46:16

move , because where I come from , you have

46:18

to promote before you can move . Yeah

46:21

, at least that's how it was when I was there and I was like I

46:23

said , what about here ? And they were like no , no , no , two years

46:25

on , then you can go anywhere , you

46:28

just apply like everybody else . So

46:30

that is one of the things that you know I loved

46:32

about GP

46:34

when I first came . Okay

46:37

, so now that you're

46:39

here , you work Knights A

46:41

or B , b , b , all

46:43

right . So you said 95% of

46:45

y'all are lateral . That's cool Pretty much .

46:47

Yeah , I had to put a number to it

46:49

.

46:50

Did you have to get used to ? What

46:52

was the hardest thing during the transition Cause , like

46:54

for me ? Most of us will say geography

46:57

, unless you grew up around here , but was

46:59

it ? No , I had to get used to like some charges

47:01

or writing tickets this way , or what was

47:03

one of the things that was just totally just hard

47:06

to grasp for you .

47:08

Just a switching of laws to be honest

47:10

. Yeah , even geography

47:12

was actually really easy to me

47:14

, just because I'm a huge nerd . So seeing

47:16

that I have a computer with a GPS on it was

47:19

like the best thing ever created

47:21

and I didn't have that in my old department . I had to like memorize

47:24

like streets and everything . So when I

47:26

geography was pretty simple for the most

47:28

part , but like just

47:30

even going through the academy

47:32

, it was hard to you know . After five

47:34

years of learning Colorado

47:36

law , now you're like going basically you know

47:39

180 to a completely different

47:41

type of laws and how they define

47:43

them . So that part was a little hard . You

47:46

know I needed I needed assistance with

47:48

my FTO in regards to that just being like oh

47:50

, that's an actual crime here , that's great

47:53

. And I'm gonna charge them with that , you

47:55

know . But yeah , that

47:57

was the main part of it . Everything else

47:59

just came with time and just you know , getting used to

48:01

it . Like the radio

48:04

, using the radio , like , just

48:07

like the radio call signs and dynamic

48:09

of that was different for my old department too . So that

48:11

was a little , you know , it was a little hard

48:13

, but I got used to it .

48:15

Yeah , one of the things that I

48:18

had to get used to . So when I first started

48:21

over 15 years ago , they

48:23

give you a call and then my trainer would

48:25

pull over and give you a map and a book

48:27

and he was like , all

48:29

right , katie , we gotta go here . And

48:32

now , mind you , the call is already on

48:34

my computer , but he's not letting you use

48:36

the map because that system would go down so frequently

48:38

. You had to know how to use something other

48:40

than a computer . So I'm sitting there and I'm like

48:42

, okay , so I need to go north on this road . And

48:45

you're getting updates on your computer , like , okay

48:47

, the suspect is outside now and

48:50

he's putting the pressure . I'm like , okay , katie , come on

48:52

, come on , which way we need to go . And

48:54

I'm like , uh , wait

48:56

, I don't does this pay ?

48:58

And , bro , you could literally turn one page and

49:00

it puts you in a different place in the city and I'm like

49:02

this doesn't make sense to me .

49:04

So I had the hardest time with

49:07

the map scores . We used to call

49:09

it but . And then they I mean of

49:11

course these guys now they creating stuff on

49:13

our computers but I could hit a button

49:15

and just get directions and it would

49:17

tell you turn by turn . So

49:20

to those listening , we need that at GP

49:22

. You hit a button and it gives you turn

49:24

by turn , even if you're going cold . Three , which

49:27

is , you know , license art but

49:29

, yeah , that's , that's funny . You say that cause man

49:31

, I just , I had some

49:33

, some visions going on . I was , I was struggling

49:35

. When I got here I

49:38

got a cold three call to actually help an

49:40

officer who was fighting somebody and

49:42

, bro , I remember I had to pull over and I was starting

49:44

to put it in my phone and then

49:46

, luckily , I saw somebody with license iron go

49:48

by and I'm kind of like yeah , I

49:50

think it's a situation right there .

49:52

I'm a follow deal .

49:55

So that's crazy . Yeah

49:57

, good times . So

49:59

when you want to digress

50:02

here , you know , with the , the

50:04

fam , what are you guys doing ? What is a

50:06

day in the life of Connor when he's not at work

50:08

? What are y'all doing ?

50:10

With my wife . I mean , you know , just

50:13

exploring Metroplex .

50:15

Like we were .

50:16

we're like going out to restaurants and you know , in

50:18

Durango we had like 10 restaurants in total . So

50:21

like we're just cycling through that , we're here

50:23

, like you can go anywhere you want within

50:26

like a 20 minute drive . So that was

50:28

nice . And especially going to the stockyards . We

50:30

like that just environment in general , like you're just

50:32

going there and you know it's like a , it's

50:35

not just like a bar scene , it's like you know , bring

50:37

your family , you can like we bring our dogs pretty

50:39

much everywhere we go and you

50:41

know going , you know on trails and stuff

50:43

, walking around outside

50:46

of just hanging out with my wife , I love going

50:48

, shooting , I love going to the range . I

50:50

love doing that constantly , you know , like with

50:53

friends and by myself . Honestly .

50:55

What ? Okay , so you said you worked at

50:57

the range . Yeah , I was .

50:59

I was instructor so and there

51:01

we got into the range for

51:03

free . So I was going like once a week

51:05

and we would get a stipend .

51:07

I was about to say .

51:09

Yeah , we get a stipend for a amount of rounds

51:11

because they I mean , that was one of the

51:13

good things about my old department is that they encouraged

51:15

us to , outside of work , go

51:18

shooting and , you know , be proficient in

51:20

your craft . So you know I would take

51:23

full advantage of that and go as

51:25

much as I can .

51:26

So , connor , is the reason that we can't get certain

51:28

ammo ? It's on back order

51:30

.

51:30

It's on back order .

51:33

No , what a rifle

51:35

or pistol , or you got a little bit of everything .

51:37

Both , yeah , I like doing both . I

51:40

really shotgun . I mean , I like shooting shotgun just for funsies

51:43

and do like ski shooting , but that you

51:45

know , mainly rifle and handgun .

51:47

All right . So is it true that there's and I'm

51:49

not my butcher the name , but it's an over

51:51

under shotgun that's made

51:54

for competitive

51:56

shooting , but they say it's like $10,000 .

51:58

Yeah , it's like . I believe it's called the Olympia

52:00

and it's you know , it's

52:02

a hunting shotgun Like it's mainly for like foxes

52:05

, but they use it for skate shooting also . It's

52:07

a beautiful , beautiful shotgun . My brother's

52:11

, a father-in-law , actually had a

52:13

couple and we shot those like a couple

52:15

of years ago or something like that . Beautiful

52:18

, beautiful shotgun , beautiful .

52:20

See , I'm so against the shotguns cause it just

52:22

hurts . You know it's okay

52:25

to work out your shit . It hurts

52:27

, I don't yeah .

52:28

Especially when you shoot slug yeah .

52:30

Yeah .

52:31

Yeah , it hurts a lot .

52:32

Yeah . So now do you

52:35

get your wife involved ? Does she

52:37

go to the gun range with you ? Does she shoot ?

52:39

Yeah , that was one of the things

52:41

we did when we first started dating , and

52:44

she knew nothing about firearms .

52:46

And .

52:46

I got her into and you know , especially

52:48

now , I'm very happy that I did that

52:50

because I can trust her to be able

52:53

to defend herself . You know , defend

52:55

the house if she needs to by herself . Phone

52:57

encouragement she even I mean

52:59

she has a concealed carry permit . You

53:01

know , even when she goes to work right now she still

53:04

has a gunner and her job encourages it

53:06

. So

53:08

, yeah , it's , it's nice doing that

53:10

, especially for spouses . You know , gives

53:13

that extra security and you know , feel

53:15

good . Yeah , and they do .

53:17

Well , okay , so and I know we'll

53:19

talk off air I'm gonna give y'all some names of

53:21

some good steak places

53:24

to go to that you have to take your wife to

53:26

Now , as far as

53:28

kiddos do , y'all have little ones .

53:29

No , not kiddos . Okay , that's just dogs , just

53:32

the , just the pups All

53:35

right .

53:35

So before we go , I always

53:37

ask everybody that we sit down with what

53:40

is some like , I guess , advice that

53:42

you would give to another lateral or

53:44

somebody else is just thinking about . Hey , I think

53:46

I want to be a police officer . What advice would you

53:48

give them ?

53:52

I was always told when I was at my

53:54

last department that the grass isn't going

53:56

to be greener on the other side . Like every department's basically

53:59

the same , like they have their own BS and everything . But

54:01

that is a fabrication

54:03

of my life . There

54:06

it is it is greener on the other side

54:08

. Like

54:10

it was scary moving from one state to

54:12

the other , and especially a area

54:14

that I've never been in my entire life up

54:16

until I actually moved here . I

54:19

encourage you to take that leap of faith and do that

54:21

. You know , trust that it's

54:23

going to be the right decision and you know

54:25

, in my case it was

54:27

like I don't regret my decision at all coming

54:29

here . It was by far one of the best decisions

54:31

I've made in my life .

54:32

Oh yeah . So , and then

54:34

one last thing before we go . So when

54:36

you came down to do the testing , for

54:39

. Gp ? Did we make any

54:41

special provisions like hey , we know

54:43

you're coming from out of town so you can do one

54:46

to a . You know a couple of the processes

54:48

that day ?

54:49

Yeah , so I went down for the initial

54:51

testing and did like the physical and

54:53

the actual RIN tests , and then I only had to come

54:55

down one more time and they grouped everything together . They

54:58

did the polygraph , the OR board , the

55:00

psych evaluation all that stuff was in

55:03

that day in like a two days or something like that

55:05

, so I didn't have to spend basically any money

55:07

to come here other than the airfare , which

55:10

wasn't anything .

55:11

Yeah okay , cool , cool . Well

55:14

, man bro , I appreciate you sitting down with me . It's

55:17

just , it's cool to see these new faces . You know

55:19

a lot of us old head officers we don't

55:21

see you guys because schedules and

55:23

I'm in a whole different part of the building now , but

55:25

it was cool to sit down with you , so I appreciate

55:27

you coming in .

55:28

Thank , you sir .

55:29

Appreciate it Until next time we'll see y'all

55:31

.