WEBVTT - Celebrating National Police Week 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:04.680 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:07.440 Hello, and welcome back to It Could Happen Here. I 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:10.440 am once again your occasional host Molly Conger joining me 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:13.240 today for a very special episode. Are my friends and 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:17.920 yours Scharen and Mia So Sharin Mia. We're here today 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.880 to honor and reflect upon a very somber and important holiday. 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.360 It is May fifteenth, as we are recording this today, 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:27.560 and today is actually recognized the world over as Knackba Day, 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:29.640 a day to remember the first Nakba, the founding of 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:31.520 the state of Israel, and the forest displacement of the 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:34.919 Palestinian people. And this year, as a new Knakua continues, 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:37.520 as the genocide is being committed against the Palestinian people, 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.320 it's more important than ever to remember that these atrocities 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:45.479 did not start last year. But that isn't the memorial 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.240 day I invited you here to talk about. Here in 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:50.680 the United States, the holiday officially on the books today 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:54.440 is not knack Ba Day. It is National Peace Officers 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:58.400 Memorial Day. In nineteen sixty two, President Kennedy signed a 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:02.760 proclamation establishing May this National Peace Officers Memorial Day and 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.720 the week it falls within as National Police Week. It's 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:08.720 an entire week to honor and commemorate the brave boys 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:11.040 in blue who've lost their lives in the line of duty. 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:12.960 And I can't think of a better way to spend 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:15.320 this afternoon with both of you than to talk about 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:17.959 how this holiday is celebrated and to share some of 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:22.959 these incredible stories of courage and sacrifice. So one of 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:26.039 the most frequently cited sources during Police Week and year 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:28.360 round when you're talking about the mortality rate of police 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.959 officers is a website called the Officer Down Memorial Page. 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.080 Highly encourage you to visit it, make an account, browse 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.760 the pages. The website is run by a nonprofit organization 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:41.080 by the same name and has had tax exempt status 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.720 since two thousand. According to their IRS Form nine nineties, 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.600 the tax form that tax exempt nonprofits have to file annually, 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.559 they're pulling in around seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:54.920 a year, a third of which goes directly toward executive compensation. 0:01:57.080 --> 0:01:59.680 And why why shouldn't someone make a quarter of a 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:03.559 million dollars annually to do such important work? Public records 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:06.920 show the website's founder, Chris Cosgriff, is a police officer 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:11.080 himself in Fairfax County, Virginia. Available salary data from twenty 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:13.880 eighteen shows him making a policeman salary of about sixty 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.400 nine thousand dollars. According to his LinkedIn page, Cosgriff still 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.160 works for the Fairfax County Police Department as a recruiting 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:24.320 supervisor the officer down memorial page. Tax documents show he 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.200 paid himself a paltry twenty four thousand, five hundred dollars 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:30.200 in twenty twenty three as the executive director of the nonprofit, 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:33.760 though they list key employee compensation at an expense of 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:36.400 two hundred and fifty thousand dollars that year, with no 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:38.720 indication of who's being paid that remaining two hundred and 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.280 twenty five thousand dollars or what that person's position is. 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:44.959 When the organization received a thirty thousand dollars PPP loan 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:47.640 in twenty twenty, they indicated on their loan documents that 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:51.640 there were five employees at the organization. I'm not an accountant, 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.400 so I won't hazard any kind of guesses here, but 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:56.600 I am having trouble making sense of that twenty twenty 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:59.880 four nine ninety, which lists five company officers by name 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:02.799 and only Cosgriff is drawing his salary. He paid himself 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:05.640 fifty thousand dollars that year. So that same document from 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:08.480 twenty twenty shows that the organization had expenses of two 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:12.800 hundred thousand dollars for compensation of officers, but it doesn't 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.480 say where that remaining one hundred and fifty thousand dollars went. 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:18.959 Hmmm, I worry. 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:23.440 Maybe they have a secret employee that they're not counting. 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.120 His son, his wife, his other wife. 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:31.680 The website indicates that donations to the nonprofit go towards 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:35.240 maintaining the website, making posts on their Facebook, maintaining the 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:39.280 site's companion mobile app, and historic research, claiming that their staff, again, 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:43.119 those five people have uncovered records of over two thousand 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:45.960 fallen officers that otherwise would have been forgotten to time. 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.160 The site has memorial pages for officers who died as 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.720 far back as seventeen seventy six, so it's as old 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:52.320 as America. 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:54.760 That's that's not. 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:59.240 Real, it's not We didn't actually really have what is 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:01.920 considered modern policing back then. So they're really kind of 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.680 stretching definitions, are they including. 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.160 Like people that went after slaves, like you know what 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:07.440 I mean? 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.720 Yeah, it's yeah. Tax collectors. 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.880 Yes, olive stretching, Yes, a lot. 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:17.760 You want to go that far back, but I mean, 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:18.479 do you. 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:23.680 Donations also help fund their No Parole for cop Killers program, 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:26.520 which tracks the cases of the people they call convicted 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:30.000 cop killers and flood local parole boards with letters advocating 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.880 against release. The donation page claims to have sent out 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:36.840 over ten thousand such letters in the last six months alone. 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.159 They also have a merch page where you can buy 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:42.440 a lovely trio of thin blue line Christmas ornaments in 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:46.480 a gift box for the low reasonable price of sixty dollars. 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:50.080 Jesus, out of all the things I thought you were 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:51.479 going to say, I did not think you were going 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:52.680 to say, Christmas ornaments. 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.840 Oh yeah, beautiful, beautiful memorial ornaments. You can get them customized. 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:57.719 Wow. 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:03.280 The site list information about American law enforcement officers, prison employees, 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:05.880 and police dogs who have lost their lives in the 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:09.919 line of duty. Kind of see. While the website is 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:12.600 the source cited in every local news puff piece when 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.279 May fifteenth rolls around every year, putting their version of 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.640 the numbers in the headlines, the organization's stats don't match 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:21.280 those in the FBI's annual report on the subject an 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.719 official annual report called the Law Enforcement Officers Killed and 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.680 Assaulted or LEOCA Report. The data used by the FBI 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:31.400 is collected as part of the uniform Crime Reporting system, 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:33.359 and if you take just a minute to look at 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:36.159 the Officer down Memorial page's annual data, the reason for 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:40.000 this mismatch is immediately clear. They're padding their numbers by 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.880 including deaths by natural causes on duty, deaths due to 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:46.000 accidents or incidents unrelated to the officer's duties, and they're 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:49.520 including law enforcement adjacent personnel that the FBI does not 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:53.400 consider to be law enforcement deaths in their reporting. The 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:57.320 FBI's LEOCA report has really clear criteria for inclusion. To 0:05:57.320 --> 0:05:59.640 be considered a law enforcement line of duty death, the 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:02.840 must have been a duly sworn law enforcement officer acting 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:04.920 in their official capacity at the time of their death, 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:07.160 So they have to be a real cop, somebody who 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:09.599 carries a badge and a gun and has full arrest powers. 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:13.960 And the FBI specifically excludes death binatural causes like heart 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:17.080 attacks or COVID deesth the occurred on duty, but quote 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:21.000 attributed to their own personal situation, such as domestic violence, 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:25.680 neighbor conflict, et cetera, which like that they have to 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:29.080 list that by name. If you died doing a domestic 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:32.679 violence in uniform, that doesn't count. How often is that happening? 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:36.040 Yeah, I hope people who killed them are getting parole, like. 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.880 Good God, right, Like if your wife kills you while 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:42.920 you're beating her, but you're on the clock, the FBI says, no, dice. 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:47.680 They also specifically note that they do not include corrections officers, 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:51.520 Bureau of Prisons officers, bailiffs, judges, probation and parole officers, 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:55.400 or US attorneys and assistant US attorneys. So just cops, 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:57.520 not the people who sort of work in the industry 0:06:57.600 --> 0:06:58.680 around them but are not. 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:02.800 Cops, not people that basically are cops, like actual cops, 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:03.839 you know, and actual cops. 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.480 Yeah, And the FA is really aware clearly that the 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.400 numbers on the ODMP get cited more often than their own, 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:14.480 because the FBI's Crime Data Explorer page offers this weasly 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:18.240 little caveat quote. The FBI's LEOCA program is one of 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:20.640 a number of entities that report information concerning line of 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:22.800 duty debts and or assaults of law enforcement officers in 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:26.240 the United States. Each organization has its own purpose and 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.680 may use different methods to collect and report information, or 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:32.679 focus on somewhat different aspects of these important topics. Therefore, 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:34.880 care should be taken not to compare LEOCA data to 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.320 data provided by other entities, such as the Officer down 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:42.920 Memorial page. So they're specifically saying, we know these numbers 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:44.720 don't match. We know these numbers don't match because a 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:46.800 few years ago we gave them a few hundred thousand 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:49.200 dollars in grant money to make numbers that are fake. 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:52.600 Wow. Incredible Wow. 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:55.840 So the ODMP is patting out their numbers with off 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.520 duty accidents, prison guards, parking lot, heart attacks, and COVID deaths. 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:04.520 The database includes nearly nine hundred COVID deaths, causing massive 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.000 statistical anomalies in their twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, and 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:09.800 twenty twenty two data, they include officers who died of 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:14.040 natural causes years after sustaining minor on the job injuries, which, 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:16.960 you know, if you're involved in a civil lawsuit after 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:18.880 the death of a loved one, you could maybe argue 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:21.400 that this was sort of a you know, a downhill 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:23.040 kind of thing if you're trying to getting a settlement 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:24.880 from the state. Maybe you could say that, you know, 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:28.080 the injury sustained contributed to the death, but that's you 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:30.320 can't tell me that slipping in the parking lot and 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:34.240 then dying six years later is an experience unique to 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:38.920 the dangers of law enforcement. A district attorney who flipped 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.040 his car after hitting a log that fell off a 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:43.600 truck on the highway on a Friday night is not 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:45.880 a law enforcement line of duty death because that not 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.040 only was that not a cop it was a single 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:51.480 car accident. And when DeSoto County Search and Rescue Director 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:54.520 Deputy William Nichols went on a beach vacation and took 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:57.680 his family into the ocean despite red flag riptide hazard 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:01.120 condition warnings, he lost his life trying to rescue his son. 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:05.640 And that's very sad, But drowning on vacation is not 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:09.360 a line of duty death. When Indiana Department of Natural 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.280 Resources Sergeant Ed Bowman and his friend drowned in the 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:15.320 middle of a frozen lake while ice fishing, that wasn't 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.240 a line of duty death. It's just a sad accident 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:19.440 while dudes were hanging out. 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.640 These people they really, they really should have a bad 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:28.880 time around water float. 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:34.400 There is a shocking number of drowning deaths where the 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:36.439 cop just like the second his feet caught when he 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:42.199 just disappeared. Don't get them wet. It's not a gremlin situation. 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:46.920 Include swimming in the cop test, right, I don't know. 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.320 I mean, these people barely know how to point their guns, like, 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.800 expecting them to be able to swim is the standards 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:55.840 or that that's a bit too high of a standard 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:56.200 for them. 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:58.800 Wan to be fair, most of these deaths are single 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:02.840 car accidents. One guy died after t boning a school bus. 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:04.640 The children were fine. 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:07.040 The children, Oh, thank god, Okay, thank god. 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:12.000 Oh and so, rather than a detailed statistical analysis relying 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:16.200 on uniformly reported official data, the ODMP relies on user 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:21.560 submitted content. So people are submitting things and then Wikipedia. Yeah, 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:26.839 Wikipedia for bootleggers, no, no thanks. But when National Police 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:30.280 Week rolls around, it's their inflated numbers in every infographic, 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.920 not the FBI's methodologically consistent data. And if I'm being generous, 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:36.800 you know you could write that off on the ease 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:40.080 of access to the data on ODMP. It's very user friendly. 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:41.880 It shows you a little picture and a bio of 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:44.559 each officer. It's very easy to use. You can search 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:48.200 by year, agency, cause of death, state, or an officer's name. 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.360 It's not a wall of small text with little data 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:54.160 tables and links to zip files of more data tables. 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.440 The FBI's report is ugly, and it's uncompelling, and it's 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:59.800 sort of overwhelming to navigate if that's not something you 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:02.000 are interested in doing, so I don't want to be 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:03.880 too hard on the twenty two year old news anchors 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:06.240 scrambling to put something on the screen at six o'clock. 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:08.440 The officer down memorial page makes it a matter of 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:10.880 a few easy clicks for your local news anchor to 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.200 find a handful of local interest stories to run on 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:16.480 May fifteenth. But the people who run the website know 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:20.400 exactly what they're doing, and it's an intentional ideological project 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:24.080 to perpetuate the myth of the courageous, noble policeman doing 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:26.600 America's most dangerous and thankless job, a job that is 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:31.679 uniquely and outlandishly perilous, standing apart from any other profession, 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:36.160 and that that's not true. That's not true. And for 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.520 this I take you to another government agency's annual reports, 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:41.680 the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.400 Oh, I love this report. This is the best one. 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:49.079 The Bureau of Labor Statistics has consistently reported, I'm talking, 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:51.800 you know, for the last thirty years, consistently since the nineties, 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:55.240 a fatal workplace injury rate for police officers of around 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:59.800 fourteen per one hundred thousand full time equivalent employees. You know, 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:02.320 it varies year to year, but it's consistently a little 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:06.200 under fourteen per hundred thousand. And of course, yes, that 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:09.240 is higher than the national average for all labor categories. 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:12.600 So for all workers in the US, the workplace fatality 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:15.280 rate is about three point seven per hundred thousand. So 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:17.240 the cops are dying at a rate of four times 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.719 higher than the average worker. And of course it's more 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.560 dangerous if your job requires driving all day most of 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:27.000 these cops die in car accidents, or if your job 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.400 involves mishandling a firearm every day. Of course it's more 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.040 dangerous to do that than it is to do data 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:35.400 entry or be a cashier. I mean, obviously we do 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:38.640 not have a high mortality rate for the average desk job. 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.439 But while it is more dangerous than being a receptionist, 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:46.920 policing doesn't even crack the top ten for most dangerous professions. 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.920 Loggers are seven times more likely to die on the job. 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:54.040 Roofers are more than four times more likely than a 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:56.520 cop to die due to a workplace incident. Being a 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:58.520 fisherman is more than three and a half times more 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:02.040 dangerous than being a cop. General construction work is more 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:06.240 than three times more dangerous than police work. Delivery drivers 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:08.200 are more than twice as likely to die at work 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:10.199 than a cop. It is more dangerous to be a 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:12.920 day laborer on a farm picking fruit or to drive 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.840 a garbage truck. Being a cop has a similar level 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:19.320 of risk of death by workplace incident as being a groundskeeper, 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:22.160 So it is about as safe as being the guy 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:23.600 that cuts the grass at the park. 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.839 Yeah, and I think there's a real issue with a 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.360 labor reporting for like the category of farm worker, because 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.080 whenever you see data that says like farm worker, that 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:37.840 can either mean someone who's actually a farm worker, or 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:39.760 it can mean like a guy who sits in an 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:43.480 air conditioned office every day. And even the buer of 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:46.520 labor sistics is not very good at actually sifting those 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:49.880 out because there's been a sustained effort by like farm 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.720 owners to make sure this data is like as non 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.960 transparent as possible. So I am I will say, I 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.679 am fairly confident. I cannot say this is nasty effect. 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:02.720 I am confident that farming is actually significantly more dangerous 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:05.920 than the real Labor Statistics says, so like it is 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.640 so much more dangerous to like pick your food that 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:10.880 it is to be a cop. 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:13.199 And because I think for a lot of industries there 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:16.760 is a lot of incentive to under report workplace accidents, 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:18.719 I think policing is one of the only industries where 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:22.560 they are incentivized to over report accidents. Right, So the 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.000 data is I mean, even for as skewed as the 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:27.920 data may be at the point of entry, it's still 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:29.440 a lot safer to be a cop than it is 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:30.280 to drive a truck. 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:33.640 And this is with the numbers of them like falling 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:34.320 into a puddle. 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:35.720 Right. 0:14:36.480 --> 0:14:38.600 Well, so I think the buera of labor statistics is 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.960 probably using something closer to the FBI numbers, okay, which 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:44.600 is still I mean, you know, on the. 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:48.520 Other hand, cops are the biggest babies about this in 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:50.640 the entire world because. 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:52.960 They get paid leave. If every time you had a 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:55.240 booboo at work. You could just go home for a week, 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:55.960 you'd do it too. 0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:58.720 Yeah. But also, I mean, just like in the media, 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.720 it's like these people never shut up about how dangerous 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:05.320 their job is, and it's like your job is more 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:10.120 safe than like most of the actual hard jobs people work, 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:12.560 like please shut up? Oh my god. 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:16.400 And the one thing that all those jobs have in common, 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.600 aside from requiring you to be braver, smarter, and stronger 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:24.160 than a cop, they don't typically come with platinum level healthcare, 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:28.680 paid leave for minor booboos, state subsidized life insurance, a pension, 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.480 a discount at the coffee shop, and a license to kill. 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:33.840 You know what else has a license to kill? 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:36.800 Okay, I was gonna say, but before we get into 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.640 really honoring our boys on this special day, I think 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.600 we should take a quick ad break that is hopefully 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:58.120 not an ad for the Washington State Patrol. Okay, And 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:00.480 with all that background out of the way, would you 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.560 care to join me in commemorating some of the officers 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.480 our nation is honoring this National Police Week. 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:07.880 This is what I came here for. 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:09.200 Yeah, so excited. 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:12.160 Now, before we get into the handful I picked out 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:13.800 for us today, I want to be really clear for 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:16.080 the boys over at the officer down memorial page, because 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:20.400 their website specifically prohibits the use of their content for 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:23.840 commercial purposes. So I will say I found these names 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:27.400 on their website, but I don't trust their methodology enough 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:29.440 to take their content at face value, so I wouldn't 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:32.120 use it as a source anyway, even if I were 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:34.720 allowed to do that. So for each of these vignettes, 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:37.600 I pulled original contemporaneous local reporting on the incidents, and 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:41.680 in some cases, actual court records, so you can't get me. 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:48.200 In twenty ten, Saint Joseph, Missouri police officer Dan Dacry 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.720 was participating in a training exercise. During a break, he 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.320 and another officer put down the training weapons they've been using, 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:58.320 which were loaded with something called simmunition, so simulated ammunition. 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:02.040 It's not real bullets, it's a plastic, non lethal object 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:05.000 that goes in the gun. Before leaving the training facility, 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.359 which was a recently closed elementary school, to walk to 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:11.119 a nearby convenience store to get a soda, the officers 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.320 put down their training weapons and holstered their duty weapons, 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:16.040 so to walk down the street to get to the 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:17.960 seven eleven they needed their real guns. So they put 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.200 their real guns back on in case they encountered any 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:24.480 emergency situations. Yeah, in case, you know, in case they 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:28.760 saw it. We'll get to a dog. So they holstered 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:32.160 their duty weapons. Upon returning after their break, drinks in hand, 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.840 Officer to Cry asked his colleague, officer Jason Strong, to 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:39.439 shoot him with a simmunition round because he wanted to 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:40.879 know what it would feel like. 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:46.439 Oh my gosh, that's just a beautiful desire, you know, 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:50.200 just curious. He's just curious, you know, a good day 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:54.959 would be curious. And so Officer Strong drew his weapon 0:17:55.200 --> 0:18:00.320 and shot Officer to Cry in the back. I guess 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.680 they both forgot that they put their real guns back 0:18:03.760 --> 0:18:06.359 on and not their training weapons. So I don't know 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.360 if you ever probably know this, but the if it's 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:11.840 not a real gun, if it has fake bullets in it, 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.800 if it is a training object, it has an orange tip. 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:16.960 I was going to ask that. I was going to ask, 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:19.320 you can't look identical to a real gun. 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:24.280 They're easily visually distinguishable for an important reason. And I 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:27.040 guess he didn't look so he pulled it out and 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.800 shot him in the back, and the officer Decry died 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:30.520 later that day. 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:31.960 Wow incredible. 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.360 Later reporting on the incident indicates the department did say 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:39.760 they were going to revise some of their policies regarding 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.720 standard procedure for checking weapons in and out at training exercises. 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:45.600 So you have to check your weapon in when you 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:47.840 get your toy gun, and then you check it back out. 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.680 They did not do that previously, but they revised those 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:55.400 procedures and declined to comment further. The officer who killed 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.000 Dan Decry was not charged and remained with the department. 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:01.119 Officer Deacraie's family received a settlement of three hundred and 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.520 seventy six thousand dollars from the City of Saint Joseph. Again, 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:07.560 settlement money does not come from police departments. It comes 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:10.560 from the municipality. It comes from just the taxpayers. It 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:12.520 does not affect the police's budget to do this. 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:13.639 That enrages me. 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:18.080 You know, to give to give credit to that guy 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:21.800 though actually hitting your cop hitting their target on the 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.919 first shot is pretty remarkable. That that is a shooting 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:26.520 the guy in the back on the first tries a 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:30.199 pretty remarkable feet of cop marksmanship, so he might have 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.200 been maying for his knee though that's true. We don't 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:34.240 know he was hitting for the back. 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:37.520 It's just remarkable. I just want to know what it 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:38.280 would feel like. 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:40.760 I wonder how close he was too. He must have 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:42.240 been close. 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:44.800 Yeah, I imagine there was sort of a conversational distance. 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:50.240 That's insane. That is just I cannot well, wow, well. 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:53.119 Well, our next story of a cop who should not 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:55.600 have gotten wet, it is not actually even about a cop. 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:00.439 In two thousand and seven, David Polling d in the 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:04.200 Ohio River Polling, who's thirty two at the time, had 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:06.920 previously been employed as a police officer with the Gallipolas 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:10.240 Police Department and at a different time as a sheriff's 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:13.440 deputy with the Galia County Sheriff's Office. So by thirty two, 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:15.639 he's been both a police officer and a sheriff's deputy, 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.120 but he is neither of those things anymore. In two 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:20.960 thousand and seven, he was working as a parole officer. 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:25.680 In the reporting from the time, it's not actually clear 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:29.879 why he was present, but he was nearby when a 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:32.800 police officer stopped a pedestrian on the sidewalk and firsked 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:35.240 him because he suspected this man may have just come 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:37.560 out of the house where he believed drug deals were 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:39.800 being conducted. So he's doing a stop and frisk on 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:42.879 a guy mined in his business. The man was not 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:45.160 charged with a drug offense when this was all over, 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:47.959 so I guess they didn't find drugs. But during the encounter, 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.920