Sept. 8, 2025

Law Enforcement in Crisis: A Conversation with Randy Sutton

The player is loading ...

Send us a text Randy Sutton, 34-year law enforcement veteran and founder of The Wounded Blue, examines America's criminal justice crisis and its devastating impact on police officers nationwide. He traces how political decisions and false narratives have undermined public safety while offering solutions to restore respect for law enforcement. • The diminishment of law enforcement began under the Obama administration with the "police acted stupidly" comment • Ferguson's "hands up, don't shoot...

Send us a text

Randy Sutton, 34-year law enforcement veteran and founder of The Wounded Blue, examines America's criminal justice crisis and its devastating impact on police officers nationwide. He traces how political decisions and false narratives have undermined public safety while offering solutions to restore respect for law enforcement.

• The diminishment of law enforcement began under the Obama administration with the "police acted stupidly" comment
• Ferguson's "hands up, don't shoot" narrative was a fabricated story that continues to harm police credibility
• Political leaders have prioritized activist agendas over public safety, resulting in understaffed departments
• Claims about "disproportional policing" are easily debunked by comparing police activity to criminal behavior rather than general population
• Police chiefs serve at the pleasure of political leaders while sheriffs answer directly to voters
• The Wounded Blue organization has helped over 16,000 injured officers navigate physical injuries and psychological trauma
• Many officers fear their administration more than criminals on the street
• The National Law Enforcement Survival Summit (September 22-25) offers free registration for injured officers

Visit thewoundedblue.org or twbsummit.com to learn more about supporting injured officers and attending the upcoming Survival Summit in Las Vegas.

Join Our Tribe of Courageous Leaders:

Get The Book
Get Weekly Articles by Travis Yates
Join Us At Our Website
Get Our 'Courageous Leadership' Training
Join The Courageous Police Leadership Alliance

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction to Randy Sutton

11:57 - The Crisis in American Policing

27:22 - Political Leadership vs. Public Safety

36:10 - What Courageous Leadership Means

40:47 - Randy's Book: Rescuing 911

47:48 - The Wounded Blue Organization

51:12 - National Law Enforcement Survival Summit

Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:02.043 --> 00:00:10.455
Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice and encouragement they need to lead courageously.

00:00:12.340 --> 00:00:13.423
Welcome back to the show.

00:00:13.423 --> 00:00:21.463
I'm so honored you decided to spend a few minutes with us here today and I've got a special guest that you're going to be familiar with.

00:00:21.463 --> 00:00:23.045
He's been on the show before.

00:00:23.045 --> 00:00:24.768
We want to get an update.

00:00:24.768 --> 00:00:27.172
He's got a lot of awesome things going on.

00:00:27.172 --> 00:00:36.618
I want to introduce you to Randy Sutton, a 34-year law enforcement veteran and current founder and board member with the Wounded Blue.

00:00:36.618 --> 00:00:38.122
Incredible stuff, Randy.

00:00:38.122 --> 00:00:38.683
How are you doing?

00:00:39.286 --> 00:00:41.371
I am fantastic, travis, thanks for having me.

00:00:41.840 --> 00:00:46.491
Man, I know you're super busy, so I'm so honored that you took a few minutes to spend time with us today.

00:00:46.491 --> 00:00:51.953
And before we get into all the activities with the Wounded Blue, I mean, randy, you've had your hand in so many jars, right?

00:00:51.953 --> 00:00:55.290
I mean, people are familiar with your story.

00:00:55.439 --> 00:01:08.975
Obviously, you spent early years in New Jersey and you spent the bulk of your years there in Las Vegas Metro and you know, you were on the show Cops and you're probably I think I've always said this, I don't know if you believe it, but I think you're one of the most recognized law enforcement officers in the country.

00:01:08.975 --> 00:01:21.207
You're obviously one of the most knowledgeable ones, and that's really what matters to me is we have many people out there that may be recognized, but your experience and knowledge is far blows away.

00:01:21.207 --> 00:01:25.855
Most of I'll just call them the fake ones out there that you see on social media all the time.

00:01:25.855 --> 00:01:28.587
You're the real deal, so that's why we love having you on man.

00:01:28.587 --> 00:01:36.688
But there's been a lot that's happened in the profession since we last talked to you I think well over a year ago With politics, with leadership, with recruiting.

00:01:36.688 --> 00:01:38.887
You've talked to a lot of people around the country.

00:01:38.887 --> 00:01:41.703
What's the state of law enforcement as we see it today.

00:01:43.167 --> 00:01:52.469
You know, this has been a time of change in law enforcement, most of it not for the good Travis.

00:01:52.469 --> 00:01:58.793
The reality is that we're still in a crisis of criminal justice in America.

00:01:58.793 --> 00:02:02.439
It's been a long process.

00:02:02.439 --> 00:02:08.283
We have seen the diminishment of the law enforcement function over the years.

00:02:08.283 --> 00:02:12.233
We've seen the diminishment of retention of officers.

00:02:12.233 --> 00:02:15.727
We've seen the diminishment of recruitment of officers.

00:02:15.727 --> 00:02:21.484
We've seen a diminishment of the role that law enforcement has played in society.

00:02:21.484 --> 00:02:27.491
All because of this, what is a manufactured crisis?

00:02:27.491 --> 00:02:38.146
You know, when I my my latest book just came out, rescuing 911, the Fight for America's Safety and I talk about this crisis where it began and began.

00:02:38.146 --> 00:02:47.144
You know, you and I've had very, very deep philosophical discussions about law enforcement, which, of course, I've enjoyed, you know, for years.

00:02:48.165 --> 00:02:54.382
The reality is that the diminishment of law enforcement began under the Obama administration.

00:02:54.382 --> 00:03:04.064
I say that the beginning point was in the statement that President Obama came out with.

00:03:04.064 --> 00:03:09.694
The police acted stupidly, came out publicly to the American people.

00:03:09.694 --> 00:03:20.395
Millions and millions and millions of people saw our president criticizing the police department because his friend got arrested, deservedly so.

00:03:20.395 --> 00:03:24.144
His friend was acting the fool didn't cooperate with the police.

00:03:24.144 --> 00:03:38.329
The police acted entirely properly in making an arrest when his buddy refused to cooperate when people had called the police on him about breaking into a home.

00:03:38.329 --> 00:03:43.145
Well, it turned out it was his own house, but he had locked himself out.

00:03:43.145 --> 00:03:43.947
So he broke in.

00:03:43.947 --> 00:03:52.983
People saw it, called the police, as we would ask them to do, and he decided that he wasn't going to cooperate and wasn't going to.

00:03:52.983 --> 00:03:56.108
All he had to do was show hey, yeah, I live here, that's all.

00:03:56.108 --> 00:04:17.660
But instead of the president of the United States supporting law enforcement, he came out publicly and that began the diminishment of respect, and when people don't respect law enforcement, that begins a decline of the entire system.

00:04:17.660 --> 00:04:20.470
And that was, I believe, that that moment was pivotal.

00:04:21.060 --> 00:04:25.750
Now, over the years, we saw the great lie of Ferguson.

00:04:25.750 --> 00:04:26.673
Hands up, don't you?

00:04:26.673 --> 00:04:34.812
One of the biggest perpetuated lies about law enforcement in law enforcement history.

00:04:34.812 --> 00:04:39.723
That is still being embraced today by certain people on the left.

00:04:39.723 --> 00:04:51.757
Certain actors and social justice warriors and politicians are still repeating that to this very day, even though it never occurred.

00:04:51.757 --> 00:04:54.769
Hands up, don't shoot was a myth, didn't happen.

00:04:54.769 --> 00:05:02.209
The police were legally justified in shooting Michael Brown, and the ramifications of that are still being felt today.

00:05:02.209 --> 00:05:11.709
In fact, I'll get into a story about that a little later on in this interview that impacts the wounded blue personally.

00:05:11.709 --> 00:05:15.728
So you had that Once again riots in the streets.

00:05:15.728 --> 00:05:17.947
What did the politicians do?

00:05:17.947 --> 00:05:19.646
They took power away from the police.

00:05:19.646 --> 00:05:25.211
They told the cops don't put your uniform, your tactical equipment on.

00:05:25.211 --> 00:05:39.031
Go out there and just de-escalate One of my least favorite words and we saw the number of police officers being injured in social unrest.

00:05:42.240 --> 00:05:45.139
Record number as we speak, it's a record number last year Record numbers we speak, it's a record number last year Record numbers.

00:05:45.740 --> 00:06:03.836
Then you had the insanity of George Floyd, which, of course, was probably a watershed moment in law enforcement, which literally has led to the criminal justice crisis that we are in to this day, where we have fewer cops on the streets.

00:06:04.161 --> 00:06:07.935
You have crisis in the retention of officers.

00:06:08.357 --> 00:06:16.565
In the biggest cities you have the lowest number of cops to police the major cities they can't hire enough.

00:06:17.060 --> 00:06:26.612
I know that you are deeply involved in the recruitment of law enforcement very, very effectively in uh, in the recruitment of law enforcement very, very effectively, um and and.

00:06:26.612 --> 00:06:56.548
But we are still seeing that um that that there is a diminishment of the ability of the police to police because of the lack of of uh, experienced officers, but also because the political left has put every stumbling block they possibly could to effective policing by creating laws that favor the criminal, by putting policies in place in places like Washington DC that literally don't allow the police to police.

00:06:56.548 --> 00:07:25.052
Well, until recently, so we've seen all of this taking place and even though now we have a president in office and a Department of Justice that is really completely 180-degree turn from the Biden administration, which wanted to prosecute the police instead of the criminal, you can't right the ship that quickly it is.

00:07:25.052 --> 00:07:30.336
We are still in a we're in a generational criminal justice crisis.

00:07:30.336 --> 00:07:32.218
That will not be.

00:07:32.218 --> 00:07:39.810
That will not be fixed for many, many years and I doubt it will ever go back to what it was.

00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:41.761
Randy you bring up.

00:07:41.761 --> 00:07:44.502
I mean we can unpack this for hours and I want to sort of.

00:07:44.601 --> 00:07:54.127
I want to and, by the way, I love having you on because it's such a learning moment for me, because you and I love to talk so much and I've wanted about 50 times to just interrupt you.

00:07:54.127 --> 00:08:10.995
Number two I'm going to come back to you in a minute because I want you to pick up where you left off, because the error we are making in this profession is we keep talking about all the pendulum shifting, all the pendulum shifting.

00:08:10.995 --> 00:08:11.435
Folks.

00:08:11.435 --> 00:08:17.677
That pendulum has been broken and you just outlined why that pendulum is broken, so it's going to take more than just waiting for a shift.

00:08:17.677 --> 00:08:19.682
We're going to come right back to that.

00:08:19.682 --> 00:08:24.831
But I want to back this all the way up to when you began, because you talked about the genesis of this like no one ever has.

00:08:24.831 --> 00:08:27.245
Well, I actually opened up about it in my book as well.

00:08:27.264 --> 00:08:31.925
The greatest police leader, but I I expanded on it pretty deeply and I want to just remind our audience.

00:08:31.925 --> 00:08:32.466
You're right.

00:08:32.466 --> 00:08:47.453
For the first time of anyone's remembrance, the, the most powerful man in the world, stood at a podium and, yes, he called the cambridge police stupid for a legal, appropriate, common sense approach.

00:08:47.453 --> 00:08:54.453
He got a 911 call and responded to a 911 call after the guy was seen breaking down his own door, which no one knew at the time.

00:08:54.453 --> 00:09:01.094
But I want to remind everybody that before he made that statement, he gave the playbook for everything you just talked about.

00:09:01.094 --> 00:09:04.962
President Obama said this and I'm going to paraphrase I have the exact quotes in my book.

00:09:04.962 --> 00:09:18.725
But he said this I don't know all the facts but I but we need to all consider what role race played, and there's been a long history in this country of disproportional policing with african-americans and latinos.

00:09:18.725 --> 00:09:21.250
Then he continued on to say they were stupid.

00:09:21.250 --> 00:09:27.051
If you think about it, randy, that is the playbook of everything you just described and everything in the future.

00:09:27.051 --> 00:09:29.062
They don't know a lot about what they're talking about.

00:09:29.062 --> 00:09:32.691
Let's throw race on the wall, so let's make it emotional.

00:09:32.691 --> 00:09:45.000
Let's talk about disproportionality and racism and this and that, and that has been the precipice of every so-called police reform that's gone on to then destroy law enforcement.

00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:52.307
And in the middle of that and it's so easy to debunk you just debunked all those stories in just a few seconds.

00:09:52.980 --> 00:10:05.903
But this whole metric of disproportional policing and racism is so easy to debunk because when they say that they're comparing that to the general population, why would you compare police activity to the general population.

00:10:05.903 --> 00:10:07.568
That's not who our clientele are.

00:10:07.568 --> 00:10:12.645
That's like comparing NBA to the general population or Cracker Barrel to the general population.

00:10:12.645 --> 00:10:14.812
Last time I checked, cracker Barrel serves old people.

00:10:14.812 --> 00:10:15.520
They must be.

00:10:15.520 --> 00:10:17.365
You know ageism as well, right?

00:10:17.365 --> 00:10:20.072
So no, you have to compare police activity.

00:10:20.580 --> 00:10:23.965
This is a big shocker, and it's crazy that no leaders are talking about this.

00:10:23.965 --> 00:10:24.865
Randy, I know you are.

00:10:24.865 --> 00:10:25.647
You have to.

00:10:25.647 --> 00:10:30.433
You have to compare police activity to people that commit crimes.

00:10:30.433 --> 00:10:32.341
That's our customer base.

00:10:32.341 --> 00:10:41.191
And when you break down part one crimes by race and then you compare it to police activity in every city I've done it, for it's within a half a percent.

00:10:41.191 --> 00:10:42.581
There's no disproportionality.

00:10:43.062 --> 00:10:53.773
And so the way, the reason you're able to hear these stats, like everybody's listening has heard this oh, black males are we use force or arrested at two and a half times rate than other whites, or what?

00:10:53.773 --> 00:10:56.048
Yeah, they're comparing it to the population.

00:10:56.048 --> 00:10:59.510
If they're committing crimes at three or four X the rate.

00:10:59.510 --> 00:11:04.208
Yeah, we're going to be police activity at three or four X rate, or whatever it is.

00:11:04.208 --> 00:11:07.846
But what is amazing isn't how simple that is to explain, randy.

00:11:07.846 --> 00:11:11.546
What's amazing is no one's explaining it To this day.

00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:37.826
We're seeing police leaders kowtowing and bending over at police reforms and one stupid idea after another, all based on this myth and lie that police are somehow systematically racist, which is stupid in itself, because that means, randy, that means we're all in on it, from the records clerk to the canine officer, to the homicide detective, to the patrolman, which is one thing I pointed out in my book.

00:11:37.826 --> 00:11:38.461
Why is it?

00:11:38.461 --> 00:11:45.432
The patrolmen are always the one racist, but all of a sudden you go into homicide or canine or detective and you're not racist anymore.

00:11:45.432 --> 00:11:46.663
How is that the case?

00:11:46.663 --> 00:11:52.899
Because those cases are already to them, those crimes have already been committed and they're just simply investigating those cases.

00:11:52.899 --> 00:11:57.231
So the whole thing was so easy to debunk, randy, from the very beginning.

00:11:57.980 --> 00:12:02.631
Why did that stick so much in the last decade and got us to where we are here today?

00:12:02.631 --> 00:12:04.384
Because let's not just let's not mix words.

00:12:04.384 --> 00:12:18.432
Here we are here today Retention crisis, recruiting crisis, chaos, crime rising record assaults on police 80,000 last year the record I started when I started teaching, the record was 60,000, for year after year after year, that was the record.

00:12:18.432 --> 00:12:20.407
All of a sudden, boom, it bumps to 80,000.

00:12:20.407 --> 00:12:30.265
We're all here because leaders, enforcement leaders refuse to tell the truth about something as simple.

00:12:30.265 --> 00:12:32.751
So simple that a couple of dummies like me and you just explained it.

00:12:32.751 --> 00:12:33.801
Why is that randy?

00:12:34.981 --> 00:12:44.794
because the, the, the power structure is, has destroyed the uh, the, the testicular functions of our police leaders.

00:12:44.794 --> 00:12:52.474
Okay, you know there's two kinds of in the policing world.

00:12:52.474 --> 00:12:56.384
We have sheriffs and we have police chiefs.

00:12:56.384 --> 00:13:06.010
Those are the functional leaders of you know, the 18,000, some you know law enforcement organizations in the country.

00:13:06.010 --> 00:13:18.222
Fundamentally they're different because the sheriffs are elected positions, so they answer to the voters and they serve a term for at least four years.

00:13:18.222 --> 00:13:22.208
A police chief is an appointed position, app appointed by whom?

00:13:22.208 --> 00:13:27.395
By the political leadership of these various cities.

00:13:27.395 --> 00:13:42.494
Now, if you get appointed to one of those positions as a police chief or police commissioner depends on the jurisdiction you serve, at the whim of the city council and or the mayor.

00:13:42.494 --> 00:13:52.193
That means if you don't go along with the program adios, they'll find somebody else that does, and so they have a very high mortality rate if you will.

00:13:52.193 --> 00:13:58.692
When it comes down to uh, you know their, their longevity in in uh, in those positions.

00:13:58.692 --> 00:14:00.660
So you, you have you.

00:14:00.660 --> 00:14:01.701
That's.

00:14:01.701 --> 00:14:23.860
That in and of itself is a is an issue, because if the political leadership has total control over the functions of the police leadership, which then is setting the direction for the agency, that is a breeding ground for disaster.

00:14:24.844 --> 00:14:29.365
You and I both know that we're both believers in Lady Justice.

00:14:29.365 --> 00:14:46.332
Right, she stands proud, but she's blindfolded, and the scales of justice are held out, indicating the very symbolism that we so deeply feel about our profession.

00:14:46.332 --> 00:14:55.070
And that is Lady Justice is blind, no color, no creed, no religion, no socioeconomic status.

00:14:55.070 --> 00:15:02.664
That is the way the law enforcement system is supposed to be designed.

00:15:02.664 --> 00:15:18.984
When you put your thumb on the scale because of politics, then you destroy the very tenets of what you and I so deeply believe in and most street-level cops believe in.

00:15:18.984 --> 00:15:20.206
And that's just.

00:15:20.206 --> 00:15:21.388
Let me do my job.

00:15:21.388 --> 00:15:30.623
Let me enforce the law as it is written and don't let the politics get involved in it.

00:15:30.623 --> 00:15:41.135
But that entire reality has been upended because of left-leaning leadership in major cities and states and governor's offices.

00:15:41.779 --> 00:15:44.931
Yeah, when you think about it, we've gotten away from the mission.

00:15:44.931 --> 00:15:45.942
Our mission is so simple.

00:15:45.942 --> 00:15:48.412
It's in our name randy law enforcement.

00:15:48.412 --> 00:15:53.528
So once we got away from that mission, and when you and I the bulk of our career, we were in that mission.

00:15:53.528 --> 00:15:57.967
That's why crime was reduced in the 90s to record lows because we just focused on the mission.

00:15:58.008 --> 00:16:04.571
All the noises people need to understand this all the noise that you hear from the media or the politicians or the activists, that was always there.

00:16:04.571 --> 00:16:06.114
That was always there.

00:16:06.114 --> 00:16:12.894
The difference is how we reacted to that in recent years and how we've let them sort of ruin that mission.

00:16:12.894 --> 00:16:15.107
And I'll prove to everybody listening that we're away from the mission.

00:16:15.107 --> 00:16:22.014
I dare you to find one police chief in a midsize or large agency that's ever been fired for high crime.

00:16:22.014 --> 00:16:23.505
You're not going to find it.

00:16:23.505 --> 00:16:26.182
Been fired for high crime.

00:16:26.182 --> 00:16:26.802
You're not going to find it.

00:16:26.802 --> 00:16:31.897
They get fired for other things, but they don't get fired for high crime, which is the sole mission of any police leader.

00:16:31.897 --> 00:16:33.202
So that's how far off we have.

00:16:33.243 --> 00:16:34.186
I have a quick solution.

00:16:34.186 --> 00:16:37.140
That, by the way, the elections is a solution.

00:16:37.140 --> 00:16:44.884
Ironically, you talked about sheriffs, randy, and sheriffs are political by their nature, but they're also beholden to the citizens who vote for them.

00:16:44.884 --> 00:16:51.615
So they tend to stick on mission because they know that crime and law and order is not political.

00:16:51.615 --> 00:16:56.250
Everybody wants to be safe, no matter if you're right, left, black, white, whatever.

00:16:56.250 --> 00:16:57.173
Everybody wants to be safe.

00:16:57.173 --> 00:16:58.485
So they just stick to the mission.

00:16:58.485 --> 00:17:03.572
They give their communities a safe communities and they just get reelected every single time.

00:17:03.572 --> 00:17:06.830
Meanwhile, on the police chief side, they're beholden to the politician.

00:17:06.830 --> 00:17:09.928
This has nothing to do with crime and we see chaos reign.

00:17:09.948 --> 00:17:10.931
But there is a solution.

00:17:10.931 --> 00:17:16.769
You either elect your police chief because I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon or let's treat them like athletic coaches, right?

00:17:16.769 --> 00:17:21.006
You know I'm a big NCAA football fan and you know what.

00:17:21.006 --> 00:17:23.931
If a team hires a new coach, you name the team.

00:17:23.931 --> 00:17:26.615
They generally get about three years to turn the team around.

00:17:26.615 --> 00:17:29.143
They generally give them about three years.

00:17:29.143 --> 00:17:30.786
Once again, just like police cheese.

00:17:30.806 --> 00:17:33.512
Coaches are big turnover in college sports.

00:17:33.512 --> 00:17:42.231
If they don't turn the team around meaning their sole mission is wins if they don't start winning more after about three years, they're gone.

00:17:42.231 --> 00:17:53.306
You guarantee right now Arkansas Razorbacks my favorite team they're on like year four or five with their coach and they did not renew his contract and it's like if you don't win this year, you're gone.

00:17:53.306 --> 00:17:54.028
Everybody knows it.

00:17:54.028 --> 00:18:02.208
The mission is wins, and so if you put that on the Chiefs and they knew they had to reduce crime, they would just get back to reducing crime.

00:18:02.208 --> 00:18:11.460
But right now their job is more solidified by staying away from crime, because they're working for political animals that don't want anything to do with that?

00:18:11.720 --> 00:18:29.127
Exactly, exactly, and and uh, it's maddening to see it, you know uh, watching, watching the, the streets run red with, with the blood of innocence, while, um, while the leadership of the, I mean, we're watching it play out right now in real time in Chicago.

00:18:31.307 --> 00:18:31.890
Yeah, they have.

00:18:31.890 --> 00:18:33.339
Trump deranged him so bad.

00:18:33.339 --> 00:18:38.685
They're advocating for the killing of more people, predominantly African-Americans, because that's what's happening every weekend.

00:18:40.842 --> 00:18:45.730
It's shocking to see that these same people keep on getting reelected.

00:18:45.730 --> 00:18:49.329
I mean, look at what is happening in New York City right now.

00:18:49.329 --> 00:19:04.432
You have one of the most frightening politicians I've ever seen, who looks very positively, like he's going to be elected the mayor of America's largest city, of America's largest city.

00:19:04.432 --> 00:19:38.088
It flies in the face of any normalcy that a guy who is supported defunding the police literally a socialist that is saying we need to reduce the prison population by just letting them out, everything that he believes in goes against the common sense of public safety, everything, and yet he is being embraced by the political left.

00:19:38.088 --> 00:19:39.726
I mean de Blasio, of course.

00:19:39.726 --> 00:19:47.150
One of the worst law enforcement mayors in history is embracing him to support him for the mayor.

00:19:47.150 --> 00:20:05.529
If this happens and it looks like it's going to you're going to see a decline of public safety that we've never seen before, and we have seen a huge decline in public safety.

00:20:05.529 --> 00:20:07.323
It's going to be.

00:20:07.323 --> 00:20:11.573
It's going to be unbelievable what happens in New York.

00:20:12.601 --> 00:20:18.910
One thing that's so depressing is is the one thing that President Trump has done, and you can agree or disagree with his efforts, but he's shown a light.

00:20:18.910 --> 00:20:25.682
He's put a spotlight on these high crime cities because we've become so accustomed to it, randy, it's not even a headline.

00:20:25.682 --> 00:20:28.810
You know 30, 40 murders a week in some of these cities.

00:20:28.810 --> 00:20:37.124
And these cities are clipping three, four, five, 600 homicides a year and it's become so common no one's paying attention to them.

00:20:37.124 --> 00:20:40.251
You're right, real lives are being affected For every murder.

00:20:40.251 --> 00:20:44.652
There's dozens of dozens of loved ones that their lives are affected forever based on that murder.

00:20:45.039 --> 00:20:48.711
But the one thing that President Trump has done is is he was playing along.

00:20:48.711 --> 00:20:50.285
People thought it was about Washington DC.

00:20:50.285 --> 00:20:51.568
It wasn't about Washington DC.

00:20:51.568 --> 00:20:53.844
That was just the one city he can control.

00:20:53.844 --> 00:21:02.742
Because he knew that when he did that, because once again we know how to reduce crime More cops, law enforcement, enforcement, throw people in jail.

00:21:02.742 --> 00:21:03.565
It just tends to reduce crime.

00:21:03.605 --> 00:21:04.948
I know it seems like a crazy concept.

00:21:04.948 --> 00:21:13.280
So he knew that that would have the result in dc, which it did 12 days without a murder in the summer in washington dc stop right there.

00:21:13.280 --> 00:21:16.468
Carjackings reduced 85, stop right there.

00:21:16.468 --> 00:21:42.282
And I could go on and on, but then what that did is now he's pointing a finger to all these other cities going why aren't you doing this and so, uh so, and then to watch them just sit there and lie to the camera about how it's not unsafe here, people are fine here, and when everybody's the brain knows it, I mean they're having to do mental judo, triple jumps, you know, to try to get out of this instead of just saying, hey, we do need to be better.

00:21:42.282 --> 00:21:44.430
Here's what we're going to do, here's our plan.

00:21:44.430 --> 00:21:49.852
No, no, they're just denying the problem, and they have willing police chiefs to go right along with.

00:21:51.761 --> 00:21:56.952
Not only are they denying the problem, travis, they are covering up the problem.

00:21:56.952 --> 00:21:59.605
Yeah, look at what happened in Washington DC.

00:21:59.605 --> 00:22:00.829
This is a perfect example.

00:22:00.829 --> 00:22:17.944
Now you and I both know coppers that are on the streets there who have basically been told don't police, and every possible mechanism has been thrown in the way of actively policing in the city of Washington DC.

00:22:17.944 --> 00:22:27.567
And, of course, crime is absolutely out of control Violent crime, murders, carjackings because there's no consequences.

00:22:27.567 --> 00:22:35.865
If there are no consequences to crime, then the predators are going to have a field day, which is exactly what took place.

00:22:35.865 --> 00:22:41.494
How did Muriel Bowser and the city council react?

00:22:41.494 --> 00:22:58.765
They made it even more difficult for the police to police by putting, by putting policies in place didn't make it impossible, and then, for their own political benefit, they started cooking the books of of the criminal stats, of what is taking place.

00:22:58.924 --> 00:23:04.094
If you don't make arrests and you don't take police reports, your crime magically goes down.

00:23:04.094 --> 00:23:15.655
Now, just to let people know how bad crime is in these cities, the National Victimization Survey that's done every year reports that almost half of all violent crime is not even reported to law enforcement.

00:23:15.655 --> 00:23:22.565
So when these politicians are bragging about their lower violent crime, you can just stick another another.

00:23:22.565 --> 00:23:25.833
You know, if they say 50, you just go ahead and say it's 75, 80 or 100 on top of it.

00:23:25.833 --> 00:23:27.287
Right, so we know that.

00:23:27.287 --> 00:23:28.050
We know it's there.

00:23:28.050 --> 00:23:28.875
It just seems silly.

00:23:28.875 --> 00:23:29.920
We're even having the debate.

00:23:29.920 --> 00:23:39.070
But, more importantly, what I want leaders to understand if they're listening or watching this is you can't sit back and think, oh well, president trump's here now and things are turning.

00:23:39.070 --> 00:23:42.226
No, no, the people that destroyed this profession, randy, are still.

00:23:42.226 --> 00:23:47.527
They may have taken a backseat with the political winds, but you think they've gone anywhere.

00:23:47.527 --> 00:23:55.692
Have you wondered why the protests have kind of stopped against police, but they picked up against Tesla or Israel or whoever else?

00:23:55.692 --> 00:23:59.488
No, those are the same people that were there in the streets in 2020.

00:23:59.488 --> 00:24:01.813
They just redirected them to different topics.

00:24:01.813 --> 00:24:05.728
Do you not think that when it's politically savvy to attack law enforcement again.

00:24:05.728 --> 00:24:13.932
They'll be right here doing it again and I see nobody talking about it, taking measures to correct it.

00:24:13.932 --> 00:24:18.692
We're just like going along to get along and we just seem to be happy in the still times of peace.

00:24:21.240 --> 00:24:41.602
You're right, I think your opening monologue was excellent because they have us back on our heels, but we're not doing a whole lot to get back up on our feet, because the fact that some people may listen to us randy and say, oh, those guys are controversial, tells you there's a problem, because what we're saying is the absolute truth that nobody in law enforcement is even talking about.

00:24:41.602 --> 00:24:44.530
Now I want to caveat that we have some great leaders in law enforcement.

00:24:44.530 --> 00:24:47.548
You know Scott Hughes and a bunch of great chiefs out there.

00:24:47.548 --> 00:24:54.432
They're doing the good stuff but, man, it is not the masses, it is not tipped over, it is not brought the profession back.

00:24:54.432 --> 00:24:58.986
So we need more people bold enough to talk about it DM, I say courageous to talk about it.

00:24:58.986 --> 00:25:00.627
What do they need to do?

00:25:00.627 --> 00:25:06.134
What needs to happen, because you and I talking about it and ranting about it isn't going to help.

00:25:06.134 --> 00:25:17.928
What actions within law enforcement today, every chief needs to do to basically bulletproof their agency for the chaos that's still behind the closet is just hiding for the moment.

00:25:19.840 --> 00:25:22.805
Well, first thing you got to do is read your book about courageous leadership.

00:25:22.805 --> 00:25:24.751
Thank you, thank you.

00:25:25.032 --> 00:25:29.144
You're very good at your book, but thank you very much.

00:25:29.183 --> 00:25:36.094
Well, because even that term courageous leadership is a very, very deep term.

00:25:36.094 --> 00:25:37.521
And what does it mean?

00:25:37.521 --> 00:25:42.423
It doesn't mean that when we think of courage, very often we think of physical courage.

00:25:42.423 --> 00:25:52.508
Right, we think of braving, you know, going to the sound of the gunfire, of the momentary heroics that police are famous for.

00:25:52.508 --> 00:25:56.434
That's when we think of courage.

00:25:56.434 --> 00:26:04.221
But courage is far, far more complicated and deeper than a momentary heroic action.

00:26:04.782 --> 00:26:16.773
Courage means to do the right thing for the right reasons at the right times, despite the political incriminations and the possibilities of negative effects.

00:26:16.773 --> 00:26:21.228
And that's where we have seen a lack of courage.

00:26:21.228 --> 00:26:26.105
That's where we have seen you know what the right thing is to do.

00:26:26.105 --> 00:26:47.087
You know what the right actions are to safeguard people's lives, property and to accomplish the mission that you swore to do when you rose up and you raised your right hand and swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States and to be a police officer.

00:26:47.087 --> 00:27:02.823
You know what the right thing is to do, but you don't do it because of your own benefits, your own political benefits, or because you are fearful of what the consequences might be for standing up for the right reasons.

00:27:02.823 --> 00:27:07.641
And that is, uh, that's what correct, that's what courageous leadership really is.

00:27:08.281 --> 00:27:10.247
Yeah, we, we, we find a we.

00:27:10.247 --> 00:27:12.592
We rarely see a problem of cowardice in the streets.

00:27:12.592 --> 00:27:14.624
Right, the family behind the desk.

00:27:14.624 --> 00:27:17.800
We're seeing it routinely and it's it's just commission creep right.

00:27:17.800 --> 00:27:22.329
One cowardly act leads to three, to five, to seven, and we could go on and on about the things we've seen.

00:27:22.329 --> 00:27:23.553
That has because we have.

00:27:24.013 --> 00:27:27.189
I don't, I don't tend to blame the politicians and the activists in the media.

00:27:27.189 --> 00:27:28.211
That's who they are.

00:27:28.211 --> 00:27:36.924
I'm blaming the leaders inside law enforcement that has let it happen, which is why I'm not on the road 200 days a year talking about courageous leadership, because they don't want to hear it.

00:27:36.924 --> 00:27:44.623
Right, but the people, the people that do want to hear it, the people that do embrace it, may not be in the chief seat yet, but they're out there on the streets and they'll be there one day.

00:27:44.623 --> 00:27:47.029
So I think there's hope because I think a lot of people recognize this.

00:27:47.029 --> 00:27:49.326
Randy, let's talk about your book, because I've got your book.

00:27:49.326 --> 00:27:50.087
It's phenomenal.

00:27:50.087 --> 00:27:54.824
In fact, I think I even have a testimonial in there, which is awesome.

00:27:54.824 --> 00:27:57.407
You let me do, but tell us about the book.

00:27:57.407 --> 00:28:05.647
I know your opening monologue kind of brought about some of the things you talked about in the book, but tell us about it, where can they find it and what is some of the feedback you've heard on it.

00:28:06.700 --> 00:28:11.592
So this is my fifth book and became a national bestseller within days of its release.

00:28:11.592 --> 00:28:26.688
It's called rescuing nine one one the fight for America's safety, and it's a very, very I wrote this book, so it's so incredibly easy to read, a fast read, and it's really a call to action.

00:28:26.688 --> 00:28:31.340
It explains how we got into this criminal justice crisis to begin with.

00:28:31.340 --> 00:29:05.740
It explains in very graphic detail many of the horrendous things that happen to our police officers across this nation, both from being physically harmed to being emotionally harmed, to literally having their own leadership turn their backs on them, put them in prison for legitimate police actions legitimate police actions.

00:29:05.740 --> 00:29:08.366
And so it goes into what we need to do about it, and that is what we need to do is unite.

00:29:08.366 --> 00:29:12.762
I fully believe this that the vast amount of Americans truly support their law enforcement.

00:29:12.762 --> 00:29:17.523
They believe in the men and women who are going out there every day and putting that badge on.

00:29:17.523 --> 00:29:22.384
They believe, they trust them, they believe in them, they trust them, they respect them.

00:29:23.685 --> 00:29:30.208
The problem is, the silent majority is still doing what the silent majority does, and that's being silent.

00:29:30.208 --> 00:29:32.313
We can't do that anymore, travis.

00:29:32.313 --> 00:29:44.560
We have to become activists, even if our own activism is getting our butts to the poll and understanding who the people are that we're voting for.

00:29:44.560 --> 00:29:46.144
There's so much.

00:29:46.144 --> 00:29:57.692
There's so many people getting elected who the voters don't know who they are, don't know what they stand for, because we have become complacent as a nation.

00:29:57.692 --> 00:30:01.300
Look at the number of people who are putting these morons into office.

00:30:01.300 --> 00:30:06.371
Sometimes there's 12, 13% of the voters that are actually voting.

00:30:06.371 --> 00:30:08.259
So who's getting out there?

00:30:08.339 --> 00:30:26.876
It's these activists who want to topple the status quo, while the good people, the people that are being affected by this criminal instability, are staying home.

00:30:26.876 --> 00:30:41.862
Either they don't believe that their vote will count or they're so busy actually making a living and working their butts off to feed their families that it's difficult to take time to go to the voting booth and to understand who you're voting for.

00:30:41.862 --> 00:30:44.306
Become an activist.

00:30:44.306 --> 00:30:51.787
It is up to us, it is up to the American people to stand up for ourselves and say enough is enough.

00:30:51.787 --> 00:30:52.508
And we've seen it.

00:30:52.508 --> 00:30:54.752
We've seen it actually take place.

00:30:54.752 --> 00:31:02.054
We saw it with the recall of some of the worst district attorneys in the nation, where the people just said enough is enough.

00:31:02.054 --> 00:31:03.784
And this is what America.

00:31:03.784 --> 00:31:05.750
That's what this book is a call to action.

00:31:05.750 --> 00:31:10.289
It's time to get up and stand up for what you believe in.

00:31:10.750 --> 00:31:11.673
Well, it's phenomenal.

00:31:11.673 --> 00:31:15.971
I guess all major bookstores, amazon, give us a name again Randy, before we move on.

00:31:16.559 --> 00:31:19.263
Rescuing 911, the fight for America's safety.

00:31:20.045 --> 00:31:30.182
Now, randy, you talk about a lot of officers that have been affected by all of this crazy stuff we've talked about, right, and one of those is obviously psychological trauma.

00:31:30.182 --> 00:31:34.166
And then, of course, you have physical trauma and injuries, and we're all familiar with that.

00:31:34.166 --> 00:31:41.276
But you founded an organization several years ago that is the organization to address this.

00:31:41.276 --> 00:31:47.428
You had no idea what was coming down the pipe in the profession when you founded it, but, boy, I tell you what it's setting in a spot where it needs to be right now.

00:31:47.428 --> 00:31:48.483
It's called the Wounded Blue.

00:31:48.483 --> 00:31:57.848
Tell us about why you founded that, where that's been and where you're going with that organization and how our officers can reach out and get help.

00:31:59.579 --> 00:32:04.844
Well, the wounded blue is an organization that should not exist.

00:32:04.844 --> 00:32:16.412
Right, it should not need to exist, and the fact that it does is a testament to how we have failed the men and women of the profession of law enforcement.

00:32:16.412 --> 00:32:19.498
I did 34 years as a cop.

00:32:19.498 --> 00:32:23.634
I did 10 in a small town of Princeton, new Jersey, 24 in Las Vegas.

00:32:23.634 --> 00:32:53.713
Metropolitan Police Department and, travis, I love being a cop, I'm proud of my profession, I'm proud of the years that I spent serving, but my career abruptly ended on a dirty Las Vegas street when I suffered a stroke in my police car and lost the ability to speak, move and crumple to the pavement, laying there, helpless, at 2 o'clock in the morning on Las Vegas Boulevard, and it was literally the most frightening moment of my life.

00:32:53.713 --> 00:32:56.633
I was unable to move and I'm laying.

00:32:56.633 --> 00:32:59.173
People are, tourists are walking by taking my picture.

00:32:59.173 --> 00:33:04.376
It was the most humiliating, frightening moment.

00:33:04.376 --> 00:33:13.055
And I wasn't afraid of dying, travis, I was afraid of living like that, and once again, though, the angel has been on my shoulder.

00:33:13.055 --> 00:33:14.530
My entire career was with me.

00:33:14.590 --> 00:33:36.419
Again, the clot went through my brain, did its damage, ended my police career and then, in the weird way that the world works, what I thought was the worst thing could possibly happen to me changed the trajectory of my life, and that was that my own department turned its back on me.

00:33:36.419 --> 00:33:40.541
They said we're not paying your medical bills and we're not giving you your benefits.

00:33:40.541 --> 00:33:43.493
And I was wait a minute, you can't do that.

00:33:43.493 --> 00:33:46.513
I gave you 24 years of my life.

00:33:46.513 --> 00:33:50.435
I almost gave my life on more than one occasion.

00:33:50.435 --> 00:33:51.317
What do you mean?

00:33:51.317 --> 00:33:53.689
You're not paying my medical bills, you have to.

00:33:53.689 --> 00:33:56.232
And they said, yeah, we'll make us.

00:33:56.232 --> 00:34:07.832
And I had to get a lawyer, I had to go to court, I had to fight him for over a year and it was devastating to me emotionally, that feeling of abandonment.

00:34:07.832 --> 00:34:17.110
You know, when we joined our police agencies we're told man, the thin blue line, right, we got your back, we got your six.

00:34:18.106 --> 00:34:26.076
And Randy, just not to interrupt you, but they tell you this so much that you end up giving everything to that department.

00:34:26.076 --> 00:34:30.172
You miss birthdays and anniversaries and you work for free.

00:34:30.172 --> 00:34:32.112
You'll do whatever it takes.

00:34:32.112 --> 00:34:43.237
So you give it all, and then most people find out and if you haven't found out yet, you're lucky Most people find out that that's not done in return in some form or fashion.

00:34:43.237 --> 00:34:51.755
You just told your story, I have my own story and everybody else has their own story, so that's the dirty little secret that nobody wants to tell you.

00:34:51.755 --> 00:35:02.233
And so you need to go into that job knowing that Maybe you don't want to ignore the people that mean the most, which is your family, over this job that has no loyalty back to you.

00:35:03.465 --> 00:35:10.309
You know, you and I both know one of the heroes of law enforcement is Dr Kevin Gilmartin, who wrote probably the Bible of law enforcement.

00:35:10.309 --> 00:35:13.056
Is Dr Kevin Gilmartin who wrote the, who wrote the probably the Bible of law enforcement.

00:35:13.056 --> 00:35:17.894
Um, you know, uh, he, he said it really specifically.

00:35:17.894 --> 00:35:22.715
You, as a cop, often say I love my department.

00:35:22.715 --> 00:35:24.992
Well, that department will never love you back.

00:35:24.992 --> 00:35:27.954
Right, it is incapable of loving you back.

00:35:28.164 --> 00:35:28.385
It's a.

00:35:28.385 --> 00:35:28.706
It's a.

00:35:28.706 --> 00:35:30.211
It's a dysfunctional relationship.

00:35:30.211 --> 00:35:35.079
It's you've got an infatuation with the stripper who will never love you, right?

00:35:35.079 --> 00:35:37.907
That's a good, that's a good acronym for you in vegas, randy.

00:35:37.907 --> 00:35:42.326
But yeah, you, you think you're in love with the stripper, but she's not really in love with you.

00:35:42.385 --> 00:35:52.661
She's just trying to get your money and so you, you realize that at the darkest part of your life.

00:35:52.661 --> 00:35:59.398
So I went through that horror and it affected me deeply.

00:35:59.398 --> 00:36:09.213
It put me in a very, very dark space Watching my own department just literally spend tens of thousands of taxpayers' dollars to fight me just to pay my medical bills.

00:36:09.213 --> 00:36:11.469
And I'm trying to figure out why.

00:36:11.469 --> 00:36:17.251
I went to go see the sheriff who I served with for 24 years, who I was friendly with, and I said how do you treat me like this?

00:36:17.251 --> 00:36:22.190
And he said, randy, this isn't personal, it's just business.

00:36:22.190 --> 00:36:29.786
And he was telling me the truth, travis, you see, because I was no longer an asset to the department, I'm now a financial liability.

00:36:29.827 --> 00:36:34.878
Yeah, it's personal to you, but to them it's not personal, it's just the way we do business.

00:36:37.228 --> 00:36:38.693
You're right.

00:36:38.693 --> 00:36:39.635
So eventually I won.

00:36:39.635 --> 00:36:50.625
And then, because of writing books and being in the movies and being a police trainer for years and being so visible in the law enforcement community, cops started reaching out to me.

00:36:50.625 --> 00:36:54.456
Randy, I know you don't know me, but I was shot in the line of duty.

00:36:54.456 --> 00:36:56.952
My chief never even visited me in the hospital.

00:36:56.952 --> 00:37:05.427
They've thrown me away, randy, I was paralyzed when my police car was hit by a drunk driver and they've abandoned me and I'm going.

00:37:05.427 --> 00:37:08.592
Wait a minute, I'm not the Lone Ranger here.

00:37:08.592 --> 00:37:11.516
This is happening to cops across America.

00:37:11.516 --> 00:37:14.869
Talk about a failure of leadership, travis.

00:37:14.869 --> 00:37:17.014
Yeah, it's appalling.

00:37:18.336 --> 00:37:39.858
And I realized that they all wanted just to be able to share their frustrations with the system, the workers' comp system being broken and corrupt, the callousness of the administration, the deviousness of a system that literally will just suck you up and throw you away.

00:37:39.858 --> 00:37:46.838
And so, realizing that this is a national issue, I looked for national resources.

00:37:46.838 --> 00:37:53.990
You know, if you get killed in the line of duty, there's a great organization called COPS Concerns of Police Survivors.

00:37:53.990 --> 00:37:59.407
I reached out to them and I said, hey, is there anything for guys who've been injured?

00:37:59.407 --> 00:38:11.438
And the executive director said Randy, we can't even handle the death and you remember there's about 140, 150 police officers a year die in the line of duty.

00:38:11.438 --> 00:38:18.809
There's tens of thousands of officers who are significantly injured, either physically or emotionally and psychologically.

00:38:19.710 --> 00:38:40.333
So I created the Wounded Blue to be a peer support organization for these men and women who had no place to turn to, and we've helped more than 16,000 police officers Travis in the last five and a half years, which is an astounding number because of the peer advocate support team that the Wounded Blue has.

00:38:40.333 --> 00:38:49.525
All the team is made up of cops and some of their spouses, because we do spousal support as well and everybody's been shot or stabbed or beaten or run over.

00:38:49.525 --> 00:38:55.858
Everybody's faced post-traumatic stress, come out on the other side and yet they continue to want to give.

00:38:55.858 --> 00:38:58.373
They are the heroes of the wounded blue.

00:38:58.373 --> 00:39:10.295
They are the men and women who are serving every single day, some because they're from their wheelchairs, some, you know, even though they've been blinded, but they continue to serve their brothers and sisters.

00:39:10.295 --> 00:39:21.476
They are the true heroes of the Wounded Blue and we're saving lives, we're saving careers, we're saving marriages, because everybody feels they're alone.

00:39:21.476 --> 00:39:25.916
That's why our motto never forgotten, never alone is so critically important.

00:39:25.916 --> 00:39:28.248
That is what we live by.

00:39:28.449 --> 00:39:37.824
I want to tell our audience just how important the window blue is, because everyone's civilian or law enforcement or first responder has knows these stats right.

00:39:37.824 --> 00:39:40.916
Law enforcement's got an exponentially higher alcoholism right.

00:39:40.916 --> 00:39:42.646
They have exponentially higher divorce rate.

00:39:42.646 --> 00:39:46.775
The average death is 56 or 57 or whatever it is today.

00:39:46.775 --> 00:39:56.827
We know it's, we know it's about a decade less than average citizens, and so we know all these metrics, we know all this data and everybody who's in law enforcement knows people involved with this data.

00:39:56.827 --> 00:39:58.791
Why do you think that's happening?

00:39:59.813 --> 00:40:05.717
Here's a hint it's the trauma that's put on them, oftentimes by their own police departments.

00:40:05.717 --> 00:40:15.559
Cops aren't afraid of getting shot, stabbed, even getting killed, but what the death fear is is the psychological and emotional trauma that's put on them by toxic leadership.

00:40:15.559 --> 00:40:22.217
By the minute you retire, you can't even get back inside the police department because the cue cards turned off, your emails turned off.

00:40:22.217 --> 00:40:32.440
I know that personally, like it is horrendous the way we're treating these men and women that dedicate their lives to their community, randy, so I want to make sure people understand when we talk about trauma.

00:40:33.101 --> 00:40:35.382
The vast majority of trauma is not physical.

00:40:35.382 --> 00:40:42.811
It is emotional and mental right, exactly, and we tend to have you know, we tend to.

00:40:42.811 --> 00:40:48.655
If you get hurt on the job, you know you're shot or you're stabbed, we tend to make them kind of a local hero.

00:40:48.655 --> 00:40:52.367
Right, we tend to do that, although there's still some issues with that.

00:40:52.367 --> 00:41:07.496
But, man, the emotional trauma that you don't see, that's going on in people's heads late at night, or the, or the nightmares that wake them up, uh, where they can't transition into other walks of life, that's been well documented in the military.

00:41:07.496 --> 00:41:10.532