Police Use of Force, The Controversy and Crime

Summary

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Law Enforcement Talk: True Crime and Trauma Stories

Episode: Police Use of Force, The Controversy and Crime
Host: John "Jay" Wiley
Guest: Jeffrey Halstead (Retired Commander, Phoenix PD; former Chief, Fort Worth PD; CEO, Evertel Technologies)
Date: September 7, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the complexities and controversies of police use of force, exploring both the administrative and frontline perspectives within law enforcement. Host John "Jay" Wiley, a retired police sergeant, interviews Jeffrey Halstead, who served 27 years in law enforcement, rising from patrol officer to police chief. Halstead shares candid insights on the internal dynamics of police departments, the realities of force encounters, public perceptions, trauma, and the critical role of transparency in modern policing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Climbing the Ranks & Staying Connected

Timestamps: 02:39–05:19

• Halstead’s Career Path: Started as a patrol officer, advanced to Commander in Phoenix, then to Chief of Fort Worth PD.
• The Disconnect in Administration: Many administrators lose touch with street realities. Halstead made it a point to ride along in patrol at least monthly to maintain perspective.
  • “I didn't want to lose touch...I wanted to be knowledgeable and sensitive and compassionate for their challenges instead of just what my challenges are in an office.” – Jeffrey Halstead (04:00)
• Juggling Multiple Demands: Police leaders must balance political, union, administrative, and community demands.
  • “It's like that circus act...spinning a political plate, a union or labor management plate...citizen, faith based leaders. At some point you’re going to lose a connection and now you have problems.” – Jeffrey Halstead (04:48)

2. Changing Realities of Police Work

Timestamps: 06:05–07:53

• Technological Changes: Modern officers juggle radios, GPS, body cameras, MDCs (mobile data computers), and more, making multitasking crucial but overwhelming.
• Nostalgia & Humor: Both Wiley and Halstead recall getting lost pre-GPS and the absurdity of handling maps and radios while on patrol.

3. The Push and Pull of Promotion

Timestamps: 08:20–09:42

• Motivation to Promote: Halstead promoted to escape poor supervisors, only to confront new challenges. This led to a deeper appreciation for strong leadership.
  • “The only reason I promoted ever in my career is because I worked for a jerk...The good supervisors told me, well, then you need to test and promote.” – Jeffrey Halstead (08:20)
• Not a “Golden Boy”: Halstead’s candidness made him unpopular with some in command, even getting reprimanded for his police academy graduation speech.

4. Police Use of Force: Realities and Public Misunderstanding

Timestamps: 12:27–14:32

• Force Never Looks Good on Video:
  • “There is nothing pretty about a use of force contact period...nothing looks good on video when you're deploying force.” – Jeffrey Halstead (12:27)
• Suspect’s Role in Use of Force:
  • “It's not the cop's choice about use of force, it's a suspect. They're the ones who determine whether or not force is going to be used.” – John J. Wiley (13:23)
• “Fear for My Life” Explained: The phrase is a legal threshold for justifying deadly force—rooted in actual case law, not personal weakness.
  • “Yes, I was in fear for my life, but...there’s still another challenge...for the deadly use of force application, you need to have a clean and clear backdrop...” – Jeffrey Halstead (14:32)

5. Aftermath, Trauma & Impact

Timestamps: 17:32–20:23

• Psychological Effects: Both speakers reveal the lasting trauma and recurring nightmares from violent encounters, triggered by news events or funerals.
  • “It took me a year to get rid of a lot of those demons and bad nightmares…” – Jeffrey Halstead (18:51)
  • “I still occasionally have nightmares…they still wake me up.” – John J. Wiley (19:28)
• Coping: Recognition that trauma lingers but becomes manageable over time.

6. Administrative Burden in High-Profile Use of Force

Timestamps: 23:04–28:26

• Entering as an Outsider: Halstead faced rumors and skepticism as a new chief in Fort Worth, especially during an early in-custody death involving a lengthy taser deployment.
  • “I was not notified in over almost 18 hours. So it is already news coverage across all of the DFW metroplex. I still haven't been briefed...” – Jeffrey Halstead (23:58)
• Chain of Command Challenges: Those below often downplay the seriousness of events to avoid panic, which hinders transparency and crisis response.
• Family and Community Relations: Halstead found meeting with bereaved families in their churches—with faith leaders mediating—was vital for trust and healing.
  • “They needed to know that I'm going to stand there and take it personally and they can actually vent right at me.” – Jeffrey Halstead (27:32)

7. Positive Stories in Policing

Timestamps: 28:28–31:15

• Highlighting Heroism: Halstead discusses the lifesaving actions of officers like Matt Pearce and the ingenuity of programs that improved outcomes (e.g., combat medics in patrol).
• Misrepresentation in Media:
  • “There are tens of millions of street contacts per day...it will take one horrible use of force deployment which is literally one in maybe over 100 million...that's going to be a broadbush paint across the entire profession, which is not right.” – Jeffrey Halstead (30:40)

8. Evolution and Future of Body Cameras

Timestamps: 33:02–40:31

• From Nightsticks to Body Cams: Old tools and tactics often kept people at a distance and reduced force. Both agree body cameras increase accountability.
• Body Cam Adoption: Halstead spearheaded body cam rollout in Fort Worth, pushing for rapid video transparency despite pushback from prosecutors.
  • “If I had video… it would be able to tell my story and that officer story much better to the public and the media… we started releasing them within 24 hours.” – Jeffrey Halstead (35:43)
• Impact: Quick, transparent video releases calmed unrest, but also prompted more community engagement and questions on police training (37:37).
• Predictions: The next phase will see AI transform video into automated police reports, with video testimonies becoming key in court.
  • “The future, literally, the video is the police report. And artificial intelligence will be able to generate and create these... reports...” – Jeffrey Halstead (37:58)
• Maintaining Discretion: Officers are now trained to narrate their decisions on camera and involve supervisors for transparency in minor matters, retaining some discretion (40:31).

9. Jeffrey Halstead’s Post-Police Work

Timestamps: 41:03–42:27

• Evertel Technologies: Halstead now leads a company providing secure, rapid communication and collaboration for law enforcement, allowing instant information sharing across agencies.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I think a lot of my peers are sometimes reluctant to talk. But...in today's growing age of transparency…I think we need to talk.” – Jeffrey Halstead (02:59)
• “There'd be a whole lot less use of force if people just complied.” – John J. Wiley (13:23)
• “Every time you deploy force, it's more paperwork...reports...internal affairs complaints and litigation...We don't want to use force.” – Jeffrey Halstead (13:34)
• “Your honesty, your reputation is so important. One of the things that we have now...body camera videos...I would never be a cop without one.” – John J. Wiley (35:11)
• “If I had video...it would be able to tell my story and that officer story much better...we started releasing them within 24 hours.” – Jeffrey Halstead (35:43)
• “Always do verbal justification...Bring your chain of command on that video...multiple levels of accountability...” – Jeffrey Halstead (39:38)
• “Connect with me. Let me show you the future of not just intelligent sharing but full regional collaboration to work any crisis incident.” – Jeffrey Halstead (42:03)

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Major Segment Timestamps

| Topic | Timestamp | |------------------------------------------------|---------------| | Introduction & Guest Background | 01:25–03:30 | | Administrative vs. Street Cop Perspectives | 03:30–05:19 | | Halstead’s Path to Promotion | 08:20–09:42 | | Discussing Use of Force & “Fear for My Life” | 12:27–14:32 | | Trauma, Adrenaline, and Aftermath | 17:32–20:23 | | High-Profile Cases: In-Custody Death | 23:58–28:26 | | Body Cameras: History and Future | 33:02–40:31 | | Community, Heroism, and Media | 28:28–31:15 | | Halstead’s Work with Evertel & Collaboration | 41:03–42:27 |

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Summary & Takeaways

This frank and personal conversation offers rare insight into the realities of police work from patrol to the executive level—emphasizing the human cost, administrative burden, and evolving public expectations around law enforcement use of force. Halstead’s candor on trauma, leadership, the hurdles of transparency, and advances like body cameras provides a nuanced view for listeners of all backgrounds. For those curious about what happens beyond the headlines—and how departments are adapting—the episode is both sobering and constructive, highlighting the ongoing challenges and efforts for a safer, more accountable future in policing.

Transcript

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[John J. Wiley]

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[John J. Wiley]

N rakuten.com his retired police officer 27 years in law enforcement. He retired as a rank of Commander from Phoenix Police Department, then did six years as Chief Police in Fort Worth, Texas. He's here to talk about use of force, police administration, and so much more. Welcome to the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show. In the Law Enforcement Talk Radio show, we are joined by special guests talking about their experiences, their realities, investigate, investigating crimes plus those who've experienced horrendous trauma. Police, first responders, military and victims of crime share their stories. Hi, I'm John J. Wiley. In addition to being a broadcaster, I'm also a retired police sergeant. Be sure to check out our website, letradio.com and also like us on Facebook search for the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show. Calling us from Las Vegas, Nevada, we have Jeffrey Halstead on the phone. Jeffrey is a retired Phoenix Police Department, retired as a rank as Commander and then did six years as Chief of Police for the Fort Worth, Texas Police Department. He is the founder And CEO of Evertel Technologies. Go online and get evertel. Com. Jeffrey, thanks so much for being a guest on the show. Very much appreciate it.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Hey, good afternoon, John Jay. Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

[John J. Wiley]

Yours is a perspective we don't get to hear much of. First of all, I want to thank you for your service. You worked your way up the ranks, starting as a police officer all the way to chief, correct?

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yes, sir, I sure did.

[John J. Wiley]

And one of the things is we never get to talk to cats like you.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

And you know, I think a lot of my peers are sometimes reluctant to talk. But you know, in today's growing age of transparency and really knowledge of operations of the organization for the citizens, I think we need to talk. So I'm happy to actually share everything I have experienced with your audience.

[John J. Wiley]

We're going to talk about in particular use of force, handling the dynamics of these things from an administrative point of view. Now I'm a retired sergeant, so before I forget, thank you for your service. It's very much appreciated.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Thank you. John Jay. Same as well for you.

[John J. Wiley]

You know, I had a different perspective as a sergeant, what sergeants did than when I was a police officer. And I think it's easy to say, well, the admin loses touch. They forget what it's like to be on the streets and I don't really know the job that they do. So sometimes my assessment of what the admin, the police administrators, the chiefs of police do, because I never held that position.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah. And well, I'm in agreement with you. There are administrative officials and high ranking senior executives. They have lost touch. And I made it a point as I kept promoting that I really wanted at least once a month to get back in a patrol car and see what their challenges are. I didn't want to lose touch. I wanted to be knowledgeable and sensitive and compassionate for their challenges instead of just what my challenges are in an office because they are night and day.

[John J. Wiley]

They're totally different as a sergeant, as a frontline supervisor. So your roles are different as a lieutenant? They're different. In my department we had captains then, you know, majors and deputy commissioners, all that stuff. And the police commissioner, quite often the police commissioners. And I'm not saying it's being negative. It's a political appointee. So you've got to kind of juggle city hall in your case and also the rank and file.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, you do. I equate it to, you know, sometimes there's like that circus act and this person can spin multiple plates all at the Same time. And it looks really amazing. Well, you know, administrators are spinning a political plate, a union or labor management plate, an administration plate, you know, the rank and file plate, the citizen, the faith based leaders. And at some point you're going to lose a connection and now you have problems. And that, that's probably the biggest challenge facing police administrations.

[John J. Wiley]

By the way, I'm the worst person to use that example because I can't juggle anything. I can't. I'm the worst multitasker in the world. My wife says, you know, you can't listen to me and watch TV the same time. And the truth is you can't.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

I agree with you. I mean, it's just like. Remember in patrol, we would get close to the call and then we'd turn down our radio thinking that no audible noise is going to help us find the address. So I'm with you.

[John J. Wiley]

I'm so bad at that. It was so bad. I gotta tell you, truth be told, the very first call for service I had was in an area called down in the Hole in the northwest district of Baltimore City. I never made it to my first call for service. We had a little copy of a map and a radio and I had no idea. And to this day I still don't think I can find that place.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

You know, and you know, today with the MDTS and MDCs and the instant messaging and the guidance and GPS, we had to go off those Mapsco books, you know, so we're pulling to the side of the road back in the 80s and 90s, and we're trying to get a grid map to get us to the right location. So I'm with you, I got lost many times.

[John J. Wiley]

And I'll be honest with you, Jeffrey, I don't know if I can handle all that stuff. The phone, the radio, the gps, all the things you talk about, computer in the car, all that stuff. We didn't have any of that.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, today's generation public safety professional. I mean, they are masters at multitasking. And I thought I was average, but I don't know if I could function in their environment because they have like five to seven different media sets feeding them information and trying to make these strategic decisions immediately. That's complex. It just give me a migraine just thinking about it.

[John J. Wiley]

Yeah, I'd be screaming. I don't. Here's a great analogy. My wife, and this is another thing, I call her the boss because we'll be driving, I normally do driving. And then she'll like, oh my God, she Gets all freaked out. I'm like, I see the car. Relax. Don't worry. And I tell her stories about being a cop, driving a patrol car in the rain, smoking this back near me. It's a smoke. Smoking a cigarette. Cup of coffee in one hand and a hot sheet of recently stolen cars in another. And then see a car go by. Yep, it was on a hot sheet. Make a U turn and not hit anything. So it's like, it can handle interstate 95.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, I. So we have the same conversations in my car as well. And, you know, when my wife thinks I'm getting lost, I always tell her, you know, I used to go to emergencies for a living. I think I can handle where, you know, the drop off for goodwill is. So it's same conversations in my car.

[John J. Wiley]

So in your career, you. You started around the same time as I did. You went through the same challenges. And look, just the logistics of finding your way around handling calls for service, showing up, all those things, it's radically different nowadays. And with that comes a different perspective. And I'm so glad you said you would agree to this interview, because quite honestly, I've never had a really good appreciation for command staff.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, well, you know, the only reason I promoted ever in my career is because I worked for a jerk. And I was like, well, I can't stand working for this guy. So then the good supervisors told me, well, then you need to test and promote. And every time I would test and promote and I would get another new, at some point, I would get someone who was impossible to work with. I'm like, well, I got to promote again. And that led me, because you and I had the same thing. I mean, trust me. I was the class speaker of my graduation class, and I got a written reprimand for my class speech. So I was not liked by command staff the day I graduated. So I kind of had a target on my back. But you think you. I think you and I had that same kind of a lack of appreciation until I started working for amazing leaders. And then they wanted me to do better, and I enjoyed that.

[John J. Wiley]

Is it safe to say you weren't a golden boy?

[Jeffrey Halstead]

No. There's multiple policies in Phoenix Police Department that have my name all over them. One of them is how you get your class speech approved for the academy graduation.

[John J. Wiley]

By the way, Phoenix Police department has a great reputation. Early on in the law enforcement show, we had Jason Schecterly on the show, who was a Phoenix cop, and he a very inspiring guy. When you hear what he went through. And how he keeps a pleasant, positive attitude, it's. It's mind blowing.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

I was the PIO the night Jason was hit and I was at the hospital and Jason and I are still friends. Jason had literally died two to three times because I mobilized the honor guard as a side job. I was the OIC for our Phoenix police honor guard in addition to the PIO job. So I was at the hospital. I'm with the family and I'm with command and executive staff. And as soon as I heard that he had passed because there was no way he was going to survive. And when I see him speak today, it is an absolute testament that he is doing what he was chose to do in this world. The guy is absolutely incredible. That Burning Shield presentation is phenomenal.

[John J. Wiley]

He is an amazing guy. By the way, look up Jason Scheckterley. He was burned alive in a horrible accident. He took me to task. It's very easy when you get hurt in police work, at least for me, to do the woe is me and then say, well, mine is not as bad as yours and get in a comparison game. And he fetched me up sharply about that. We're going to talk more about Jeffrey Halstead, his career in particular being a police chief and use of force on the law enforcement show. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. There are more than 700 free podcast.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

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[John J. Wiley]

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You're bound to find a podcast episode that suits [e-mail] letradio.com that's letradio.com thanks.

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[Jeffrey Halstead]

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[Jeffrey Halstead]

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[John J. Wiley]

During conversation with Jeffrey hall said Jeffrey is a retired police commander from Phoenix. Also did six years as chief of police of Fort Worth, Texas Police Department. He is the president co founder of Evertel Technologies. Go to their website get Evertel Comm. We talked about your career. 27 years in law enforcement and you. You did the last Six years as chief of police and that's a high pressure position. If you are of the old mindset, the buck stops here. The chief of police are responsible. Everything happens in that agency. The good, the bad and the ugly. And quite a lot of policing is ugly. Not necessarily bad. It's ugly.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah. I explained everybody that you know, you can show, you know, today body cameras are everywhere, but back then they would have some video surveillance and, or somebody with a smartphone videoing a use of force incident. There is nothing pretty about a use of force contact period. Whether it's open hand, open hand control technique, a hard handed carotid taser, impact batons, you name it. Nothing looks good on video when you're deploying force. But the instance where there is resistance or combative or threatening assault towards the officer, they have to use force. And that is the most misunderstood issue I see in policing, not just in the last couple of years, but ever since I wanted to become a police officer was if people would just listen to what the officer says so we never had to deploy force, the contacts would be so much more professional.

[John J. Wiley]

I say this all the time. There'd be a whole lot less use of force if people just complied. And secondly, it's not the cop's choice about use of force, it's a suspect. They're the ones who determine whether or not force is going to be used.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, you know, the last thing I know, and even when I was an advanced trainer at the academy and then in, you know, supervisor and command staff, every time you deploy force, it's more paperwork and reports that have to be filed. Then you're opening yourself up to, you know, internal affairs complaints and litigation and the lawsuit filed and the union representation. We don't want to use force, but when we do, we try to do it in the manner in which we were trained. But the optics of that never look good.

[John J. Wiley]

One of the things that a lot of people don't really understand, it had not been in police work. Is this terminology fear for my life or fear of personal injury or attack. And they say, well, if the cops are afraid, they shouldn't be on a job. And what I try to explain to them is that's a legal phrase. It's a legal term. I can't testify to what your frame of mind is. I can only testify to mine. Would you explain further what that whole fear for my life means?

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, that is, it's actually a national, it's a global threshold for a justification in the application of a Deadly force encounter. Meaning I was shot at three times in my career, early in my career, back when, you know, Crypt and Bloods and crack cocaine epidemic, we were hated, absolutely hated in specific neighborhoods. Many of them were my beaks. And then just because I was shot at, they're trying to kill me. Yes, I was in fear for my life, but I could not justify my deadly force because this person was surrounded by other persons. And I could not guarantee that my force would be so accurate exposing myself to multiple contacts of liability. So yeah, you are totally justified. But yet there's still another challenge in that your target. For the deadly use of force application, you need to have a clean and clear backdrop so you don't expose any others to the deadly force encounter. So in fear for your life is the threshold before you begin the use of force and deadly force criteria decision.

[John J. Wiley]

Like you, I was in four shootings in a little over 10 years. And the first two I never fired a shot back because I knew immediately the threat to me was over and it just wasn't safe.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, it was the same as my three. One was a drive by gang member, just you know, trying to intimidate cops. Another was an attempted robbery where I just showed up literally as it was going on and they shot as they fled. I couldn't my pursuit, I lost them. So even though I would have been justified per policy, that deadly force was stopped against me. So I wasn't justified in my mindset and how I was trained in continuing that deadly force decision.

[John J. Wiley]

It's so funny, and I don't mean this in haha funny but back in the day before body cameras, a sergeant or homicide or why did you do what you did? What happened? What'd you do? And quite often I didn't know. And yet we hear people say, well the cop didn't know until he reviewed the body camera as if they're hiding something.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, the majority of our citizens have never been in a deadly force encounter or have had deadly force presented towards them, meaning being shot at, having someone chase you with a knife, everyone's different. And you know your stress tunnel and the stress inoculation. So your eyesight goes into this almost like a straw. You cannot see anything outside of this small beam of threat perception. And then yeah, a lot of times there are multiple threats out there, but you're only seeing the one that is probably trying to kill you. And yeah, I don't know what was to my left, I don't know what was to my right, but I know specifically what threat was trying to kill me. And a lot of citizens don't understand that until you're in that position where someone is trying to kill you and probably going to kill you. Your span and scope of sight is totally different once it becomes to that level of stress.

[John J. Wiley]

To be totally honest with you, I'm so glad most people don't know what that's like. Have never gone through.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

I agree with you too. I don't ever want my family to go through what I went through.

[John J. Wiley]

I must have been part of me, must have. I hate this term. Liked it. I liked the adrenaline rush. It made me feel like I was doing my job, like I mattered. I missed the adrenaline rush when I retired. However, each of those shooting situations had a profound effect on me. And everybody lived. Thank goodness. Thank God, everybody lived. However, I was not the same person afterwards.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, I agree with you. And after I retired In January of 2015, my wife knows we've been together 35 years, blessed with an absolutely amazing, amazing marriage and friendship. But she knows it took me 12 months of living in a totally different city where I knew no one and was totally disconnected from law enforcement to get back into some type of a normal sleep rest pattern. Because I lived on that adrenaline for over 27 years. And as chief, I was working 20 hours a day. I mean, I always was solving problems, but it took me a year to get rid of a lot of those demons and bad nightmares and even deadly force encounters where I almost got killed. But you do get over that. But there is a long term separation from that stress.

[John J. Wiley]

In a little bit we'll talk about the administrative chores when we have really bad use of force situations. I want to go back to your personal experience, you know, every now. And I've been retired almost 30 years. Actually 30 years at this point. And my career has ended early. I got hurt in an act of violence and it was over. And it was a big transition for me learning to be what I wanted to be after police work. But I still occasionally have nightmares. Not often, not always. And they're not as intense as it used to be. But every now and they still wake me up. Do you find this still part of your life?

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yes, sir. And it usually is initiated by a national TV police situation use of force. Sadly, in Baltimore, three firefighters perished and I did honor guard for a few firefighters that perished in the same manner. So last night I could not sleep because I kept having reflections of going to those honor guard funeral and those line of duty death processions. And it still bothers me. So it will be something in the news that will trigger a very hard memory for my mind to let go of. And then I'm actually reliving it in the manner of a few nights sleep. So you cannot get rid of that. And that's one of the challenges. Many, not just police officers, firefighters for public safety professionals, but you know, our military veterans, good lord, they have these nightmares that exist for the rest of their lives.

[John J. Wiley]

We're gonna take a short break. We're talking with Jeffrey Halstead on the Law Enforcement Show. So much more to talk about. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. One of the questions I get all the time is how can I show my support for law enforcement? We're all busy. We've got busy lives. But there's something oh so simple you can do with our Facebook page. Search for law enforcement talk radio show Facebook page and when you see a post you agree with, that resonates with you, share it. Especially episodes of the podcast. To do all that, just search for us on Facebook, look for law enforcement talk radio show and be sure to click.

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[John J. Wiley]

On the law enforcement show Jeffrey's 27 years in law enforcement. Retired as a ranking commander from the Phoenix Police department, then did Fort Worth, Texas chief of police for six years. Retired in 2015. He is the co founder and president of Evertel Technologies. Their websites get evertel.com we'll talk about what they do a little bit later on. Earlier in the conversation, Jeffrey was talking about I really don't have a point of reference, an understanding of what the police chiefs, commissioners, whatever term people want to use, do or their responsibilities. I do know this. It's a highly political position. I'm not saying that as a negative. I'm just saying the truth. If it's a county, city, state, you're part of the executive branch of the government and you've got to balance that fine line between the mayors, the city hall, whatever you want to do, and the men and women on the streets and also the citizens, businesses, laypersons, ministry, you name it. That's a juggling act. I don't want a part of it.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Is a massive juggling act. And as you know, retired commander, then going straight, you know, into Fort Worth, Texas. Never been in the agency. I'm an outsider coming in all the rumors and suspicions that he's going to clean house and reorganize and do all of this. I had to learn all of those people and their impact in the community and the leadership of the city very, very quickly and then toss into that high profile, not just national but global use of force encounters. In my first six months, I honestly thought they were going to fire me right away.

[John J. Wiley]

First of all, the whole thing is a cleaning house, bringing his people, all that stuff. I'd be like, I wouldn't be a part of that. But having to step in, all of a sudden you've got these really bad use of force situations with, like you said, international coverage. Without going into deep specifics. Name or explain one you're talking about.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Well, the most popular would be an in custody death we had in April of 2009 involving, you know, a taser weapon and then it was deployed for 54 seconds and the mentally ill resident died in custody. And I was not notified in over almost 18 hours. So it is already news coverage across all of the DFW metroplex. I still haven't been briefed by chain of command and I am getting bombarded by elected officials, community leaders, pastors, activists. I still have not been briefed, so I don't have facts. So there's a delay which makes it look like we're covering something up and we are not. We're trying to get facts for a baseline start of both a criminal and administrative investigation.

[John J. Wiley]

Yeah, that's the situation I would not want to be in. Look, as a supervisor, as a sergeant, you hand those supervisor complaints and you have a rough idea what's happening. And a lot of it, you try to go into it knowing ahead of time what happened, having no idea, especially when you have a major case or major incident. I don't. I Don't know that I'd want to.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Do that, you know. And what was the most frustrating part for me, which is a culture issue in policing and a lot of people don't understand this outside of law enforcement, is when you brief up the chain of command so you're going up the ranks of supervisors, everybody tries to downplay the severity of the incident. My first brief on that in custody death was it was an extended taser deployment. We don't have a medical update when in fact this young man had been dead for hours. Everyone's trying to downplay so that their boss above them doesn't overreact and then kind of knee jerk these aggressive responses. But we have to have truth. In fact, instantly and without it, boy, it's really a bad public and a PR nightmare.

[John J. Wiley]

You got one situation where you had the family members, the community being upset and understandably so. They don't want to have this situation and they have the cries for justice. On the other hand, you want justice and equal fair treatment for the officer involved. And quite often you talked about earlier, quite often, even though it looks horrible, they didn't do anything wrong. But trying to determine between doing something wrong and doing something right and looking ugly takes time.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

It takes a lot of time. And you know, sadly for the family members and the loved ones that are in so much pain, they're wanting answers the same day the incident occurred. And those answers are simply not going to be released to them until the administrative and the criminal process is completed. Because we have to respect the criminal justice system, the grand jury presentation, so we don't taint a jury pool by media interviews. And many, many times when I learned from that one, I started going directly to the family members homes within 72 hours. Even though they're in pain, I wanted them to have me as the decision maker and the chief and the head of the organization that I am sensitive to what they're going through and they will hear from me immediately when I am legally allowed to provide. That helped a lot, but it didn't make up for some of the pain we had that first year.

[John J. Wiley]

How do you breach that conversation with a family member of someone who's lost their life? Allegedly the hands of police. I'm not saying allegedly as they the cops did something wrong or didn't do something wrong. Either way, it's going to be hostile.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, it is hostile. I literally, I leaned heavily on our faith leaders in all of the community in Fort Worth because that was kind of a sacred ground where we could come together In a church, in the ministry. And the pastor would lead the dialogue in this very contentious meeting. But we were there to make peace and move forward from a tragic use of force encounter. And they needed to know that I'm going to stand there and take it personally and they can actually vent right at me. It really saved a lot of the relationships we had that we could build on after the. Literally a disaster. And those are very, very painful. But without us meeting at churches with, you know, a leader in their community they trusted, I would never be able to have a conversation with them because they would not want to see me.

[John J. Wiley]

Before we get into the details of this case, I remember doing an interview with a member of the Fort Worth Police Department named Matt Pierce, who was shot and severely injured many.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

I know Matt very, very well. He's like a brother.

[John J. Wiley]

What a great story. I don't mean great. It's a horrific story. But the way he tells the story and the humbleness that he had about it is such a great. That's season two, episode 15. Check it out on the podcast version if you can't get on the radio. Great story and a great guy.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, fantastic guy. And we know when Brandy, his partner, she was a combat medic. And this was, you know, a brand new program that I approved early in 2010. That program saved Matt's life. There was no way he was going to survive. He literally talked to Brandy camper directly through how to treat his triage wounds. She was a combat medic in the army and saved his life and he talked his way through it. So just two amazing leaders from the.

[John J. Wiley]

Forward pd, you've had the opportunity to work with some really amazing people. His story, when he talks about being shot, a life and death encounter, and then helping his partner save his own life, it's amazing.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, I was blown away at the calm mindset and his ability to almost joke about it. I mean, he had a gun pointed at his head within inches, fired multiple times, and yet he's still talking through the response team. He's guiding them into where he is in this thick brush and then where they're going to land the helicopter to get him treated and get him to, you know, the emergency room. It absolutely incredible, his mindset he had that day.

[John J. Wiley]

Yeah. Be sure to check that out. You definitely want to hear it. And also I got to talk about interview I did with police detective Mitchell Ellis from Fort Worth, Texas, about the murder of police officer Garrett Hall. Some of these, these men and women, my brothers and sisters on this job, do such an outstanding job. No one gets to hear about the great things they do on a daily basis. All we hear is the negative or what can be twisted to look like negative.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, it's sad because there are tens of millions of street contacts per day within a 24 hour cycle in law enforcement. Many heroic acts every hour of every day. And it will take one horrible use of forced deployment which is literally one in maybe over 100 million street contacts. And that's going to be a Broadbush paint across the entire profession, which is not right. We will fix that one horrific incident. But all of these other amazing heroes that are out there day in and day out making life better for citizens, we don't get to hear those.

[John J. Wiley]

We're talking with Jeffrey Halstead on the Law Enforcement Show. Jeffrey is retired Phoenix PD commander. Also did six years as chief police of the Fort Worth Police Department in Texas. We've got so much more to talk about. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.

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[John J. Wiley]

After a conversation with Jeffrey Halstead on the Law Enforcement show. Jeffrey is retired police commander, 27 years in law enforcement. Retired from the Phoenix Police Department. The rank commander then was six years as chief of police in Fort Worth, Texas. Now the president and co founder of Evertel Technologies. Get more information website getvertell.com we talked earlier, Jeffrey, about these high profile cases that have international eyeballs on them. The use of force situation, a death in custody, taser deployed for 54 seconds. We didn't have tasers back in the day. We had, we called S pantoons, nightsticks, the way they were deployed and used. I'll be honest with you, I think if we got back to a lot of those, we'd have a lot less use of force, a lot less deadly use of force because people tend to keep their distance. But that's just an old street cop talking.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, I'm in agreement with you. I never will Forget the sound of the PR 24 coming out of the metal ring at 2 o' clock in the morning on walking beach. That literally sent a message that we're serious, we ain't playing. Well, what it did to Jeffrey is totally different today.

[John J. Wiley]

It creates a barrier. And for those who don't understand, there's a rule we use called 21ft. You don't want any within 21ft of you. When they say jokingly about COVID hey, six feet apart, keep your distance, don't talk to people, I'm like, that's right up my alley. But I want it to be 21ft. However, that big night stick, it was always in our non gun hand and it kept a natural barrier. People didn't get too close and if they did start to attack you, you had something automatically you could use that would quite often end it before any use was needed, any use of force, it was one shot and done.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, and the, some of the tactics we use with both that and those, remember the massive flashlights we used to carry? I mean that was your first baton right there. But every single deployment had to be documented and justified and peer reviewed. And we even had civilian reviews of all of our use of force. So all of that stuff got reviewed in a very transparent manner back in the day. So transparency is nothing new. It's been around for years. You're right, some agencies are much better at it.

[John J. Wiley]

We were taught early on, if you have to use force, be quick, be decisive and be done. When you're handcuffed, it's over. And never lie about it. Always tell the truth, what you did, what you did.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, I, I can't believe how many officers, sadly, I had to terminate their employment because of untruthfulness. But you cannot make arrest and testify in our judicial system if you have have documented untruthfulness, you cannot do that job any longer. And of course those terminations, you can appeal it and they can still get their job back. And now you got a force to put them, what we call a rubber gun squad. You got to put them in an administrative assignment somewhere. But can never ever lie. When you are in that job, your.

[John J. Wiley]

Integrity is the most important thing. Your honesty, your reputation is so important. One of the things that we have now, and it was supposed to be a game changer, was body camera videos. It was supposed to. And by the way, I was always the mindset I would never go on the street and wear that now. I would never be a cop without one. Just not Doing it. However, even with stuff on video, and as limited as video is, people still don't tend to believe what they see in front of them.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah, I was, I was the first major city chief to aggressively deploy body cams back in 2010. And the reason I did it was because of those two high profile use of force incidents that received national and global attention. Because I said if I had video of our decision and the application and the delivery of use of force, it would be able to tell my story and that officer story much better to the public and the media and they can see what they were dealing with. And then lo and behold, we started getting deadly force encounters on video. The story was done in one newscast because we had evidence. Here's the pushback I got. The DA's office didn't like me releasing criminal and evidentiary videos, video prior to grand jury, prior to trial. But I told them our communities are at a severe unrest, they're in catastrophic mode right now. They need to know facts and truth. So we started releasing it now. This is back in 2011 when no one had cameras and I was releasing them within 24 hours. So I received a lot of pushback from the judicial system, but the community needs to know and I started paving the way for more transparent release of these videos.

[John J. Wiley]

In your opinion, did that help?

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Oh, it helped immensely because I could literally have. Remember when I talked about going to the church and meeting with the family members, I could now go and have them come into my office in a positive manner so they can see what really happened within a day and they now can bring much more answers back to their community. It also brought up a lot of questions because they did not understand manners in which we deployed force. So we started engaging them more into the training element and training environment of our new recruits and our in service training. So it really helped us in many, many areas, in many respects.

[John J. Wiley]

I think people like myself and you would think I would know more, but I don't. The evolution of body camera video, the early days, what's available now, the legalities, all these things are quite honestly beyond my comprehension. Where do you see us going with body camera video in the future?

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Well, I already know where it's headed within the next five to 10 years. I said this back in 2011 in a public conference for major city chiefs conference. I said, you know, in the old days we got a gun and a badge when we graduated academy. Now gun, badge, camera, you have to have it. If you're going to be a uniform first responder, you have to have video evidence of every street contact. And in our policy, it was mandated that you record every public contact in your capacity of shift. If it's not needed, it can be deleted according to your state statute on when you can delete evidentiary videos. We wanted every conversation filmed. The future, literally, the video is the police report. And artificial intelligence will be able to generate and create these criminal use of force reports, domestic violence, burglary, robbery pursuits, you name it. There will be multiple angles of video that are going to be not just making the case for probable cause for arrest and prosecution, but that video will go without a doubt as the most powerful testimony going forward. So that's going to be the future of.

[John J. Wiley]

I fear that body cameras take away a lot of the discretion the officers have. And people don't want to hear this. But we didn't arrest everybody that could be arrested. Quite often we would almost fess up right now on the radio. We would throw away pot, throw it in the gutter and give the person a break. My concern is, when you're doing that, you're violating different anywhere you're in the United States, different laws and statutes, and you're kind of pushed into a situation where you have to take action.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Yeah. So you're right. I mean, you are 100% right. And here is what I used to train when I was a consultant on this technology is always do verbal justification, meaning that officer is then making that decision. Verbalize in your video why you're making this decision. And then the second part, bring your chain of command on that video. Have your sergeant agree with your decision. Have your lieutenant agree with what you want to do with impounding this evidence or releasing this person instead of transporting to the jail. Therefore, there are multiple levels of calm minds making good strategic decisions. So you don't try to arrest your way out of a very minor issue with that done. Now you have multiple levels of accountability, and you have a verbal justification that's going to be forever on video as to why you did something. And that does make it a lot easier for the public to understand those decisions.

[John J. Wiley]

I'm glad you explained that way, because quite honestly, I'm not advanced enough in my thinking to come up with a rational explanation.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Well, I lived. I actually did that consulting in 40 states and six countries on how do you take. I was even in Poland where they implemented body cameras. And it's against the law to file a complaint against a Polish police officer. So they don't really need it. They wanted it because they needed transparency in Their profession and helping other countries and other associations was a real joy. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[John J. Wiley]

So what do you do now? Ever tell technologies where can people get more information?

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Oh please. Our website's the best. E t e v e r-t e l.com that was actually had not just as a retired commander over homeland security but as chief. I wanted the power of communications so that we can collaborate across massive regions at no charge. Meaning if I'm an Evertel user but I have seven other agencies in my county and no one else is on it, it doesn't matter. I can instantly share wanted person, crime trends, missing kids, everything from any technology device. So I can literally run a crime scene, a mass shooting from my phone and engage an entire multi region response in seconds and people get more information incredibly fast.

[John J. Wiley]

Can people get more information about you and what you do@get evertel.com you bet.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

And if they want to connect with me personally, my email and I'm never afraid to share this because I enjoy helping our first responders and it's all a public safety, police, fire, emergency management, all of them. I'm jeffetevertel.com Connect with me. Let me show you the future of not just intelligent sharing but full regional collaboration to work any crisis incident.

[John J. Wiley]

Jeffrey, thanks so much for being guest of the show. We are out of time. I appreciate it all so much.

[Jeffrey Halstead]

Thank you so much. John Jay thanks for your audience.

[John J. Wiley]

This was the podcast version of the nationally syndicated law enforcement talk radio show and we are so glad that you decided to join us. Big thanks to our guests for telling her story on the show. Two simple things you can do. Be sure to check out our website letradio.com that's letradio.com and be sure to follow us or like us on Facebook. Do a search on Facebook for law enforcement Talk radio show and be sure when you see a post that we put up that you like, that you resonate with, that gets your attention. Be sure to share it with your friends. We'll be back in just a few days. Another great episode of the show. See you then.

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