#166 After Dark - The Unicorn Chief, Bryan Williams, Goes Full Send: Why Law Enforcement Leadership Continues to Fail

Summary

Podcast Title: The TTPOA Podcast
Episode: #166 After Dark - The Unicorn Chief, Bryan Williams, Goes Full Send: Why Law Enforcement Leadership Continues to Fail
Release Date: May 16, 2025
Hosts: TTPOA Host (Brandon), Scott Howell (Ironside Podcast)
Special Guest: Brian Williams, "The Unicorn Chief"

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Introduction

In episode #166 of The TTPOA Podcast, hosts Brandon and Scott Howell delve deep into the systemic failures within law enforcement leadership. Joined by special guest Brian Williams—dubbed "The Unicorn Chief"—the conversation spans decades of experience, shedding light on critical issues affecting first responders today.

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Guests' Background and Context

Brandon: Opens the episode by welcoming Scott Howell from the Ironside Podcast, highlighting their collaboration and Scott's recent participation in training alongside TTPOA members.

Brian Williams: Introduced as a seasoned law enforcement professional with nearly 40 years in the field. He served as the Chief of Police in McKinney, Texas, moved up to Assistant City Manager for 11 years, retired last year, and recently rejoined law enforcement to support the newly elected sheriff in Williamson County.

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Leadership Failures in Law Enforcement

A central theme of the discussion revolves around why law enforcement leadership continues to falter.

Brian Williams: Shares his frustration with the current state of leadership, emphasizing that many administrators prioritize personal security over mission effectiveness. At [06:06], he states:

"People are worried more about their own self-interest than they are the mission and the troops."

Scott Howell: Echoes these sentiments, criticizing the "canned responses" chiefs often provide that lack genuine insight. He challenges the superficial metrics used to evaluate police performance, questioning:

"What are the most important skills that we should be valuing for our officers when it comes to the training side of things?"

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Training and Skills Gap

The hosts and guests discuss the declining emphasis on essential hard skills like shooting, fighting, and driving within police training programs.

Brandon: Highlights a disconnect between administrative policies and the practical skills officers need on the ground:

"Why do we change policies based on public narrative rather than data?"

Scott Howell: Critiques the current training standards as "too easy" and not reflective of real-world scenarios:

"The qualification course that we had was too easy. We're gonna up the standards on that. We're gonna make it more realistic, more difficult."

Brian Williams: Advocates for continuous, rigorous training to ensure officers are prepared for high-stakes situations:

"We don't see that in this profession nearly enough now, let's be honest about it."

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Promotion and Internal Advancement Issues

A significant portion of the conversation addresses the flawed promotion practices within law enforcement agencies, often leading to poor leadership.

Matt Pronk: (Referenced by hosts) Discusses the prevalence of managers who lack true leadership qualities, choosing managerial roles for the sake of job security rather than genuine commitment to the mission.

Brandon: Criticizes the promotion system for favoring individuals who seek advancement over those who demonstrate real leadership:

"Why can't there be programs to go? A track of leadership. That's why I always go back to."

Brian Williams: Shares personal anecdotes about advancing through ranks despite systemic pressures:

"I went up. I'll tell you, man, like the best leaders, the best leaders I see in this profession don't have rank."

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Community Relations and Perception

The hosts explore the strained relationship between law enforcement and the communities they serve, exacerbated by poor communication and misguided policies.

Scott Howell: Points out the misleading nature of public metrics and social media narratives:

"The community, to me, I don't know, I'm a kid. I live in the community. I want professional, fair policing."

Brandon: Expresses frustration with superficial community outreach that doesn't address underlying issues:

"Instagram is the smoke and mirrors. It's about Instagram likes. It's about, look at us, we're professional."

Brian Williams: Criticizes the focus on optics over actionable results, leading to public distrust:

"It's about optics, smoke and mirrors. It's not about end results, you know, it's about Instagram likes."

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Accountability and Structural Issues

A recurring topic is the lack of accountability within law enforcement leadership, often protected by political ties and rigid hierarchies.

Scott Howell: Emphasizes the need for accountability from all levels of administration:

"There's absolutely zero metrics for whether or not that training does you any good or not."

Brandon: Advocates for holding leaders accountable to protect and support the troops:

"I want to get fucking backed by, quote, lack of a better word, the adult in the room, the father figure, the leader."

Brian Williams: Highlights the challenges chiefs face in being held accountable due to fear of backlash:

"We're scared of holding the chief accountable because the public likes him, the council likes him or her, whatever."

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Proposed Solutions and Hope for Change

Despite the grim outlook, the conversation explores potential avenues for reform and improvement within law enforcement.

Scott Howell: Suggests individual accountability and personal responsibility as starting points:

"There has to be some citizen activity and responsibility in holding your police accountable to the things that they need to."

Brian Williams: Reiterates the importance of focusing on controllable aspects such as fitness, training, and mental health:

"Focus on the things you can control. Focus on your fitness, your training, your mental health."

Brandon: Encourages building genuine relationships within the force and with the community to foster trust and effectiveness:

"Rules without relationship lead to rebellion."

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Conclusion

The episode wraps up with a reaffirmation of commitment to improving law enforcement leadership and supporting the troops. Hosts and Brian Williams emphasize the necessity of honest conversations, accountability, and a return to foundational policing skills to bridge the gap between administration policies and on-the-ground realities.

Brian Williams: Closes with a call to action for leaders to prioritize their teams over bureaucratic constraints:

"So, I'm here, Brandon, to bring truth."

Scott Howell: Thanks Brian Williams for his candid insights and leadership:

"Thanks for being up front. I appreciate you."

Brandon concludes by encouraging listeners to "train hard" and remain steadfast in their commitment to effective and honest law enforcement leadership.

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Notable Quotes:

• Brian Williams [06:06]:

  "People are worried more about their own self-interest than they are the mission and the troops."

• Scott Howell [14:54]:

  "What are the most important skills that we should be valuing for our officers when it comes to the training side of things?"

• Brian Williams [22:07]:

  "For me, it is not a passion to fix it, so much as a passion."

• Brandon [14:57]:

  "We know we... we didn't hear from the chief. Only when there's something bad going on."

• Matt Pronk [27:06]:

  "The managers are trying to keep the job or get the job because they want to be a leader. But, you have to make decisions based on context."

• Scott Howell [63:01]:

  "There's a huge disconnect. There's no goals and values alignment."

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This episode of The TTPOA Podcast provides a raw and unfiltered examination of the challenges facing law enforcement leadership today. Through the experiences of Brian Williams and insights from hosts Brandon and Scott Howell, listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of the systemic issues undermining effective policing and the urgent need for authentic leadership reform.

Transcript

[Brandon]

Foreign. For SWAT officers, military and all first responders. We'll be talking training tactics and leadership with the best subject matter experts around. Well, welcome back, folks, to another TTP Way podcast. When we have a special guest co host today, we're collaborating, so I'm pretty excited about this. We have Scott Howell from Ironside Podcast. Man, welcome.

[Scott Howell]

I'm. Man, I'm honored to be here. I'm excited, too. Super, super excited.

[Brandon]

So this is not only just our podcast, it's your podcast. So we're. We're doing it together.

[Scott Howell]

So I'm honored.

[Brandon]

Yeah, well, it's a good thing. So, man, Scott's been a real good friend to ttpoa. Went through the basic SWAT a few weeks ago. We did a podcast on that that you released on your. On your channel and stuff. So once again, you're hanging around a bunch of knuckle draggers and stuff at the conference and you're back for Man.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah, I can't get enough of it, I guess.

[Brandon]

What's your thoughts so far?

[Scott Howell]

Well, obviously last year was my first time here and I was just kind of feeling it out, you know, just. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't have a lot of expectations. I didn't set up any interviews or anything like that. Just kind of wanted to get a sense for the vibe. And what I got out of it was the vibe here is different in a lot of ways, and I could probably go on and on about that, but I think, like, the big takeaways for me were like, the brotherhood that exists here and the connection to something that's bigger than the people. Yeah, I find them, the folks here, to be super focused at times where they need to be focused, but at the same time, being able to be the real humans that they are and they're connecting with their friends and their buddies and all the vendors down there that are supporting the show. And my experience at the SWAT school was then seeing that come back together sort of in real life, when people were coming together and running back into people, but also seeing them running back into people and that it just, it. Texas is a big state.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

You guys got a lot of things going on.

[Brandon]

Small community.

[Scott Howell]

It's special. I think that's what it is. So, yeah, it's a good time.

[Brandon]

Did you run into some students that you went through class with?

[Scott Howell]

I did. I saw a couple down there. I saw Byron down there who made me do more burpees in five days than I've done in five years. Yeah, no, it was good to connect. Some people recognized me, kind of chuckled when they saw me, because I suffered a little bit at times.

[Brandon]

I know I saw Rebecca this morning. You and Rebecca saw each other again, and so that's really cool. And, you know you're going back to, like, supporting everyone. Like, I. Look at your hat. Good Dude Concepts with Chris. He's out here with a booth with his new tool and stuff like that. So that's a. That's a good deal.

[Scott Howell]

Good friend.

[Brandon]

He's a big motherfucker.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah, exactly. So everybody says the same thing. It's so funny to watch everybody else have the same reaction to that dude that I had. So I went. He invited me, shout out to Chris, Chris Curris and Good Dude Concepts and that whole team. Amazing group of guys. But he had very early. When I started the podcast, he had his wife, actually, who's also law enforcement, had caught an episode, and he then kind of started listening. She suggested he listened to it, and he invited me out to train. And when I showed up to the training, which was in Miami, Florida, at the time, I had to ride the elevator up, and the elevator doors parted, and then the Sasquatch was standing in front of me. I said the same thing. I saw, like, four other people do. Like, I didn't realize this dude is that big. He's a big boy.

[Brandon]

I was like, damn, man, he is a big one up. Because I've been on a text thread for like a year and a half with him and a bunch of other guys, and I finally met him. Like, fuck, man. Like a little. Yes, sir.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah, he's. He's. He has to fly first class, and, you know, he's got to do that. He's one of those two type of just got to drive a minivan or a big, big old truck, squeeze him into a car.

[Brandon]

That's funny. So got a good topic, man. This has been a. A topic that I know I get asked a lot. I know I live in the. In the community as far as law enforcement, Matt, we talk about this a lot. Just leadership and police work. We go to. We have training. So we're always in this environment of people asking. And then I think your perspective is really good too, because you. I've seen in the last few weeks, people are hitting you up, hey, when are you going to interview a chief and stuff?

[Scott Howell]

Well, I have a story about that, actually, because so it was a couple of weeks ago, I got a dm, said, hey, you really need to have a chief on the podcast. And so I immediately responded back and was like, it hasn't been for lack of effort or trying. I just can't get past that layer or that barrier or whatever it is. And so I think there was a little back and forth. And then I took that message and I posted it on my story with basically say, hey, does anybody know anybody out there that can make an intro for me? And I got a couple messages back, and I'm always grateful for that, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. There were people, say, in administration, but a couple of them were retired, they're not current. And some of them didn't actually fulfill the role that I was looking for. What I really wanted was a chief of police for a municipal agency, somebody that's dealing with cops that are dealing with me. Right. On a daily basis. Not really me, but my neighbors, the people in my city, the people that I talk to, train with, that kind of thing. I needed somebody that was current and I wanted somebody that could be honest and open and having a forthcoming conversation. So we set it up today. We got Brian Williams here today. And so it was funny as I was walking through the show earlier today, I got the, you know, you get the long eye contact with somebody, and he goes, hey, man, it's good to meet you. And then I had to look at the name tag and I put it all together, and he's like, I'm the one that sent you that message. And I went, wait, wait, I'm supposed to see you in a couple hours upstairs. So it's weird how it came full circle. And so I want to thank Brian for being here for this, because I have, and I know a lot of people do have questions, and I'm hoping we can kind of get some honest answers. From everything that I've been told and everything that I've learned probably in the last 10 minutes, just kind of wrapping offline, I think we're going to get some solid, solid insight. Some things from a. From a leader.

[Brandon]

Yeah. No. So our special guest is our second time on the podcast, so welcome, Brian. First time we did Unicorn, the Unicorn Chief, and I guess that kind of stuck. I saw some. Saw some guys, because what we. What that kind of podcast was about, if you haven't listened to it, was kind of the practical shooting, what that looks like. You were a GM early in the 90s, and that was just unheard of. And even today, OGM and even law enforcement, that's still a hard thing to accomplish and things like that. But there's more now than there was when you. When you were coming up and just your emphasis on training and all that kind of stuff. And we didn't really dive into the whole leadership and a chief and all that kind of stuff. But, man, you have been like, we've been communicating for. Since then about, hey, we need to do this and all that kind of stuff. The time was right and all that kind of thing. So glad you're here. We're in your. We're in your home county, so. And stuff.

[Brian Williams]

So I'm back.

[Matt Pronk]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Yeah. So I'm going to move this a little.

[Brian Williams]

Okay. Yeah.

[Brandon]

Going to work that mic on.

[Brian Williams]

You got it?

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

There we go.

[Brandon]

So, Brian, just, man, tell us who you are, what you're about. Why. Why are you here, man? Like, what. Why. Why do you have this passion? Because I think you have the same passion as the. The guy who works Midnights that just has a silver badge and he's been here for three years, right?

[Brian Williams]

Yeah. So I'm pushing almost 40 years in the business now.

[Scott Howell]

Wow.

[Brian Williams]

And you know, you know my background. I started North Texas, City of McKinney, McKinney Police Department and came here in 2004 as a police chief and served in that row for right around eight years, then. Then got moved up to assistant city manager. Served in that role for about 11 years until I retired last year, so.

[Brandon]

Retirement, yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Quick, quick, quick.

[Brandon]

I know you retired. You're like, hey, we're going to do this. And they're like, hey, well, I got another job. Like, damn, dude.

[Brian Williams]

Did you? I did. So, yeah. You know, in that podcast we talked about, you know, do you have any interest to getting back into the business? And I told you I think I'd be fired in four months. I've lasted four months, so. And it's always possible, you know, any day now.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

But, yeah, I went to work for the. For the newly elected sheriff here in Williamson County.

[Brandon]

Okay. And I met him today.

[Brian Williams]

I'm here to. To help him to the best of my ability. And got a great group of SWAT guys at the county. They're here at the conference. They're helping out with the conference. And I love those guys, so good deal.

[Scott Howell]

I'm curious to know why you jumped back into it. I mean, there's going to be a history there. You guys know more about Ryan than I do. But, you know, the coming out, going to the city manager role, which is interesting from law enforcement, what you discovered there, what drove this, what drove the reentry back in or. Because I think there's two things you're either a glutton for punishment or you're super passionate and you saw some things that needed to be fixed and you wanted to take, to, you know, take a leadership role.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, well, yeah, it's not so much the, you know, I want to get back in to fix it, so. So much as, you know, for me, it is a passion. It's always been a. I was never really ready to leave law enforcement when. When I went to City Hall, I was asked to do that. I did it. I learned a lot. It was great. I got to see a lot behind the scenes that most chiefs never get to see. They think they know it, but they don't know it. So, I mean, for me, it's. There was. There was a level. After five or six months being retired, I just got bored and you start, you know, you start to lose your purpose and want to figure out, you know, what's. What's next. And for me, this opportunity came up. In fact, you know, I was offered an interim city manager job almost within a day or two of being asked by the sheriff to come to work for him. So to me, it's either I'm going to get back in to serve. I have a great deal of respect for the guys in SWAT in training still in the business today doing work. And I can tell you from. From being back in it for just a few months now, man, the world's changed a lot. I knew it changed, but just seeing it, it's just. It's almost unbelievable. So we're here for however long until the sheriff doesn't need me anymore.

[Brandon]

So I saw you at range day yesterday.

[Brian Williams]

Yes.

[Brandon]

And you said you've been out on the range because you're over special operations training, because that's what you like. Hey, if I'm going to do this, this is what I want.

[Brian Williams]

That's what I wanted. That's right.

[Brandon]

Which I like that. But how many times have you been on the range since you've taken this job with. With the troops?

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, so we talked about that at the last podcast, you know, so, man, there's a chief that actually gets out and shoots. So. Yeah, I do. When. When we got into office, we had our in service for the agency starting up in January, and it was every week. You know, Monday and Tuesday was a group, Wednesday and Thursday was a group for like, up until March. And I made a point to go out every Tuesday and Thursday to as many of those as I could in those three months to qualify on the rifle, qualify pistol, and just to Be out there to see, see those guys, see him shoot, let them see me out there. And you know, to me it's, you know, we talked about this. It's important, I think for folks to see that people at that level are, you know, they're going to show up and, and do the work. Yeah, we don't see that in this profession nearly enough now, let's be honest about it. We, we don't see that enough. There's always an excuse.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

And so, but you know, I'll say that all of us that came in on this administration, all of us went through the actual two day in service for all that. So, you know, I'm proud of our guys for going through that.

[Brandon]

So what's that experience been like as far as getting to know the troops that are actually doing the damn job? Like, to me, that's a great bonding opportunity and everybody's equal out there at the range. It's like, hey, there's really, there's no rank. Like, I mean the range master can tell you, hey, man, cease fire. I'm the chief. No.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

To me, I think that's a great thing to, to be present and to be just part of the, of the troops.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, it was, it was a good opportunity to meet them. And it's not just, you know, the le side of the fence. It's correction officer too, that, you know, that we have that, that are licensed to carry and just, man, just to get a sense of where we were.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

As an agency and you know, frankly, I mean the, the qualification course that we had was too easy. So we're changing that. We're gonna.

[Brandon]

Nice, I love it.

[Brian Williams]

We're gonna up the standards on that. We're gonna make it more realistic, more, more difficult. But I love that.

[Brandon]

But some people don't.

[Brian Williams]

But you know, I mean, man, there's so, there's so many good people that, that are working at this agency. Again, man, we talked about this two years ago. People are starving for leadership. They're starving for people to stand up and make the job more about the job and the mission than about themselves. And you know, again, we talked about it two years ago. It's still prevalent. Yeah. You know, you see it in your agency too. I'm sure it's not just one agency or a couple. It's in every single agency for sure. So.

[Scott Howell]

You know, I'm just listening to you talk through that. And there's the. I'm always waiting when I'm listening to a chief or a public official. Give me Kind of the canned response.

[Brandon]

Yes.

[Scott Howell]

And the, the.

[Brian Williams]

I'm not the normal.

[Scott Howell]

So I get that. I have. I have questions. I mean, that. That's one of the things you said there. And I hear that a lot, just kind of in the people that I talk to, particularly the law enforcement officers that, you know that aren't on the show. Just like I don't. We never hear from the chief. Only when. We hear. Only when there's something bad going on or there's a public appearance or something. So, you know, having your finger on the pulse of who your people are. But also you just mentioned making it about the people and the officers that are out there and the things that they need and what they. I, I think you can break it down to sort of like skills. And so my, My question in all this is, what are the most important skills that we should be valuing for our officers when it comes to the training side of things? Or. And maybe we even keep it a little bit broader than that. Maybe it's more like we know we.

[Brian Williams]

Can get right where you're at.

[Scott Howell]

Okay. So I just. Like, what are those?

[Brian Williams]

You've had Matt Pronk on.

[Scott Howell]

Yep. A couple. A couple times.

[Brian Williams]

So he's talked about the hard skills. Right? Those are the skills.

[Scott Howell]

So we're talking about shooting.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

Talk about fighting.

[Brian Williams]

Yes.

[Scott Howell]

We're talking about. In. In your case, we're talking about driving. Yes. Right. We're talking.

[Brian Williams]

Okay.

[Scott Howell]

And. And there's.

[Brian Williams]

You're on it.

[Scott Howell]

There's things that are rooted in that. And I would imagine at some level in there, there's communication skills. At some level it is. Because that all. That all goes there. But that's. That's what I want to hear, and that's not what I hear. When I talk to other leadership, I get the canned response, which is, you know, oh, well, they need to be in touch with the public and, you know, they need to understand the people that are in their communities and, you know, they need to know how to communicate and be a team player. Those are. Those are very generalized things. And while all those things I believe are important at some level, where are we ranking them in the level of importance with regard to the job that needs to be done on a daily basis. Right. For the community? Because I think those are all good things.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

At the same time, like, if I got to call the cops, none of that's really important.

[Brandon]

You don't give a fuck what all that is. Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

This is.

[Brian Williams]

This is interesting. So Texas has through limit.

[Scott Howell]

Sorry, one more time. I'M just gonna. Sorry. Okay.

[Brian Williams]

Through limit.

[Scott Howell]

There we go.

[Brian Williams]

Texas has a police chief leadership series that all the police chiefs and Texas go to shirts.

[Brandon]

Riveting.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, it's.

[Brandon]

It's wonderful.

[Brian Williams]

And in all fairness, I mean, there. There's some good stuff that comes. I remember quite a few years ago, I went to one. It was our. After I was already at City hall, and I think it was in either Waco or Lubbock that I went to this class. And I remember One of the PhDs that they had, former police chief, now PhD, teaching at a university, was there talking about policing. And he was up there talking about how the days of riding, roping, and shooting are done. Yeah, riding, roping, and shooting are done. And that.

[Brandon]

That sounds like fun, though.

[Brian Williams]

And, you know, I don't want to. I don't want to chop up what his message was, but it was really about, hey, we need, we need to more focus, more on the marketing side of the fence and community policing. And, and, and again, we talked about this two years ago. There's nothing wrong with the term community policing. I believe in that. But it's about problem solving. It's not about, you know, being on Instagram, you know, throwing a bunch of stupid crap on Instagram where you get the same 40 likes every post. Yeah, that's not, that's not what it's about. And I just, I sat there and I'm like, man, I'm a level higher now than everybody in this room. And I don't agree with that. Yeah, I don't get that. I don't agree with that. Because it is the riding, the roping and the shooting stuff that gets our guys and gals killed.

[Brandon]

Yes.

[Brian Williams]

Every day. Brandon, you know, have talked about this. And so, man, when we, you know, when we talk about, like, the chain, the change in this profession.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

I mean, let, let's you go. You go back to Ferguson. Yeah, that's when it started.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

And everything after that started to be softer, more de escalation oriented. Right.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

And so. And we know de escalation is not a bad thing, but it causes hesitation, and hesitation gives. Causes a big issue. Yeah, we see it. God, man. How many videos have you seen that?

[Scott Howell]

Too many. That.

[Brian Williams]

Where that hesitation has caused the situation to even escalate even further.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

Too many is the answer to that question.

[Brian Williams]

That's exactly right.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah. Too many.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I won't even go down because we'll get off track. But you're exactly right. And I think. And one of the questions that was asked because we put out a poll on our Instagram feed. So we had a bunch of questions that said, hey, we're going to have a chief on what questions do you have? But one of them was basically kind of to your same point was, is why does administration take some incident such as Ferguson, Breonna Taylor, some other things that have happened and then they take that one false narrative that the media or some action group who is anti police, no matter what you do for this group, and they take that false narrative, twisting the truth and they run with it. And then administrations take that and they change policies based on that. Like why is that happening? I don't, I don't understand. I don't understand. I mean, obviously someone else wrote that in. They don't understand it either. Like it doesn't make sense to me.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, a couple of words to me come to mind. Fear, weakness. Yeah, I mean we, I mean, I think, I think you brought it up two years ago. I mean, you know, I mean we have case law.

[Brandon]

Yes.

[Brian Williams]

We have policy.

[Brandon]

Right.

[Brian Williams]

We need to stand behind it. Right.

[Brandon]

That the, the Supreme Court has ruled on our use of force. Like it's there. Why don't we just follow that? What's so hard about that?

[Brian Williams]

Right.

[Scott Howell]

The thing that I struggle with is a, again, average Joe citizen, when I see the policies change. I mean you mentioned some, obviously some landmark cases that shifted the dial. A lot of, a lot of ticks when I look at that and I look at like how businesses are run, right. And how institutions are run. The good ones never change based on that stuff. They take it, they examine it, they break it down and then there's a, like, what really happened? Like, where was the breakdown in this particular thing? And then we talk about it, we communicated about it. It doesn't mean we change policy. We have to address some things. But when I see the knee jerk reaction like that and how it trickles down like there's no other business in the world that really operates. Like so one of my. No successful business. Right. I mean obviously if you have a problem, you have to fix it, but what was the problem? And that's what's never identified. And to your point, like there's a narrative that gets run away with. And so here's the question in this, that frustrates the hell out of me. And that is that happens and it continues to happen and we're seeing it happen and you see the damage get done to the point where cities are being burned down and people are losing their jobs or whatever else. People are going to jail, you know, as a result, officers are going to jail, officials are going to jail. And at the end of the day, like, you use the words like, what's the problem? Like, why are we reacting? That it's fear and weakness. What are you afraid of?

[Brandon]

Yes.

[Scott Howell]

Like, for a guy that's in your spot, what, what is there to be fearful of? I have to know this. I can make some assumptions, but I got you here, so I'm not going to try and do that.

[Brian Williams]

Well, I'm not afraid of anything anymore, so I'm out of that fear zone. But yeah, you know, the fear obviously, is getting fired. Right.

[Scott Howell]

Okay.

[Brian Williams]

So people are worried more about their own self interest.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Than they are the mission and the troops. Yeah, that's, that's my take on it. I could be wrong, but that's the.

[Scott Howell]

Assumption you left me to sit with. Right. Like, if you don't answer the question. So you answered. Okay, so that's almost.

[Brian Williams]

Did I, Did I answer?

[Scott Howell]

You answered the question. And so I, I understand, like, intrinsically, people have fear of losing their job. There's their livelihood and whatever else. I just wonder, is that how you operated? Not you, but the person that's feeling that and behaving that way, is that the fear you operated in to get to your position?

[Brian Williams]

No, for me personally, it was not. Was that fear present in the time that I was a police chief? Absolutely, it was. Okay. But you still have to get up the next day and look at yourself in the mirror, right?

[Brandon]

Yes.

[Brian Williams]

And so the decisions that you make, you have to live with those. But yeah, there's always. And it's, I mean, it's not just a fear of getting fired. I mean, it's a fear of, you know, the troop backlash, the community backlash, city hall, dealing with the council. Like, there's a lot of things. And look, you know, I don't, I don't want to, I don't, I don't want to go overboard on throwing shade on, on people that are in that position.

[Scott Howell]

Appreciate that. Because it's tough. I, I recognize that and I think too job. I recognize that.

[Brian Williams]

And let me, let me add this. Let, let's take a, a look at how the world has changed since 2020.

[Scott Howell]

Right.

[Brian Williams]

It's not just law enforcement, it's the environment, entire ecosystem, and it's a tearing down of institutions. So it's not just police chiefs. Yeah, right. It's every. Everyone that's in political office. You name it. So, like, what is a police chief supposed to do in that environment.

[Brandon]

And I think too, like, for me, when it goes back to the whole fear deal, because it's so funny, Scott, when he first said fear, when you ask him the question, that was my thing. Well, what are they afraid of? That was the natural question. And I go back to. This is one of those unique careers that when you're the chief of police, you had been the deep night dude, the rookie, the guy who had the shitty days off, who had answered the shitty calls, who got in the shitty equipment, all this kind of stuff. You were once that guy. So it's not like some dude from Harvard came in and now he's the chief and he's never done any of this job. You've done this job. And I go back to the whole fear deal. Is it more fearful that you walk up in the 3am and you go to a traffic stop and now an OIS happens or now you have all this time to deliberate and look at the general orders and all this kind of stuff and go, well, and then, oh, now I got a call from city manager. Now I got a call from, from the person who got elected because 45 people voted for this city council person. And now this person calls you because they don't like that. And you're fearful that this person might cause you an issue that could cost you your job. What's actually, what's more fearful in life? Having to take someone's life because you're justified in it. Or it could be like, man, it's so gray area, or making a damn decision. Like, to me, it's like you've had to make those decisions. You've had to do things not based on fear. But where does that, where do you, where does that get lost at? I guess.

[Scott Howell]

Great question.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah. You know, that's.

[Brandon]

And you can't answer everything, but I.

[Brian Williams]

Can'T, I can't answer for other people. Yeah, man, but I. This sounds a lot like the podcast two years ago.

[Scott Howell]

That's okay, man. People need to hear it.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, I see. I can, I can sense myself saying exactly the same thing. I can't answer for other people. But, you know, I mean, I mean, look around. I mean, what we see today is. It is like you have to question and criticize it.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

People in leadership positions are more concerned about their own well being than they are the mission, the troops, the community, the purpose that they're there. And it's not always just about moving up, but it's just about sustainability.

[Brandon]

Yeah, you say that all the time, Matt.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Matt Pronk]

And I Say, you know, I think in my experience, you cannot make decisions on promotability or sustainability.

[Brian Williams]

There you go.

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Matt Pronk]

And that's what they do. And it's a multi level, you know, faceted problem here. So either they're making decisions because they want the job or they want to keep the job. Right. And not just my department, you know, every, like you mentioned earlier, every department has good leaders and poor leaders, you know, managers. And that's. I think we managers as opposed to leaders, a lot of the time we don't.

[Brian Williams]

In some places we don't have either.

[Matt Pronk]

You know, and I think that's fair. But it's. So you have people either trying to keep the job or trying to get the job. And a lot of them have. They don't have a reference to what the job that it is you, that you're doing. You're undercover narcotics, your swat, your homicide. Again, not to say that some of them couldn't do it unless you had to do all that to it. But instead of saying, I don't understand that and asking for help or asking for opinion, they feel like, well, I'm in position of leadership, I'm the boss, I have to know everything. So I make this decision without reference or without having understanding of context what's going on. Instead of acknowledging that they do this and they dig in. And then when that trickles down to the next problem and then it goes down to here and next thing you know, it's been 18 months, two years, it's been bad decision or bad, you know, reflection on one after another. And then that's how you lose the troops. And once you lose that man, it's hard really to come back from. And then, then that's a whole nother problem. And so it's systemic in a lot of places, I think. And I'm sure that you probably can add inside to that. Like, I think it's really hard to make that decision for a lot of people. I need to be a leader or I need to be a manager. Like you need to be a leader, but the manager is kind of like the easy way out. Does that make sense, what I'm saying?

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, it does. I can tell you right now without a doubt, I would rather lose City hall.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Than the troops.

[Scott Howell]

Oh, that's good.

[Brandon]

I've always thought that. I've always thought like, yes.

[Brian Williams]

And, and Brandon, even when I came here, like when I came from, from McKinney to here, I had 18 and a half years.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

And so I was, I was free game. I Could have lost everything.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

But again, I'm gonna wake up tomorrow morning and look at myself in the mirror and go, you know what? So what? Like I, I did the best I could.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

And I already told you two years ago, like, I made a lot. I'm, I'm not, I'm not here talking because I think I'm, you know, at a level above other people.

[Brandon]

It's not the whole shooting. You learn more from mistakes than you do from success.

[Brian Williams]

Like, I made so many mistakes as a chief. I was young, I didn't have a lot of years in. I'm learning like other people do. But yeah, I look back on it now and like there's a lot of things that I should have done different.

[Brandon]

So, so with that in mind, because, because I look at the brokenness of the system that's broke that we're in as far as how we promote, how we do things. Like, I look at it and I go, you should have a well rounded person who had worked patrol, who'd worked narcotics, who'd worked in the schools like cid like before you start moving in. And now I'm a supervisor. Like there should be like things in place where there's a track of leadership. That's why I always go back to. If you look at, and we got, got dumbass leaders that were, that went through the SWAT ranks as well. But for the majority of the time, if you take someone who had been on SWAT and then they promoted, they just have a better sense overall of what it's like to lead people. Because you get on swat, you're over equipment, you're over whatever the shittiest thing is that no one else wants to do. But what we give you that responsibility is one of the most important things. Because equipment van, you know, making sure the little things are done. But those things are so important now you've proven yourself and then you work yourself up to, you know, ATL or team leader or whatever. And you're always working like I look at a team leader or an atl, you know, you've planned more operations, you've done more this kind of stuff than any supervisor in your department.

[Brian Williams]

Absolutely.

[Brandon]

And I look back at that and like, why can't we build? Why can't there be programs to go? Because I look at you and you said, I guarantee you now you're looking back as a 18 year old, 18 year guy. You're like, I probably should have waited a few more years just because I.

[Brian Williams]

Was told that, yes, I was told to wait. Yeah, you're too young.

[Brandon]

Because I do think there has to be a time in your career where you're like, I just don't give a anymore. I want to do what's right by the guys.

[Brian Williams]

That was at 18 years, man, I didn't care.

[Brandon]

So for you, and I think for you, that, that's, that's the difference. But, but, but not everybody's like that.

[Brian Williams]

But I kept going up.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

You know, it didn't hurt me.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

I'll tell you, man, like the, the best leaders, the best leaders I see in this profession don't have rank.

[Brandon]

Really. They're informal.

[Brian Williams]

Informal. They're, they're. You can, you don't need rank to be a leader. You know, I have a, I have a team leader on SWAT here. Exceptional, exceptional leader. And I can't praise him enough.

[Brandon]

Good. I mean, that, that, that means something because.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, but he understands leadership.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Right. He understands what it is to get folks to follow him.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

So a couple things came up for me and you're in sort of as you were going down, the systemic issues and how they, they get exacerbated and they trickle back down and then it becomes the norm or that is now the institution. And it. Actually, I was just kind of thinking about it going back to like having to communicate and going back to the fear piece and having to communicate with city council, the mayor, you know, whoever it might be that you're fearful of, and you talking about, like, having to have done the job and have a finger on the pulse of all these different things and also being humble enough to sit back and go, you know, I don't know the answer for that, but I got guys that do, and I'm going to go to them to help them, make them part of the decision making process and help them. The word I would use is like, educate me, right? Tell me what it's like. Tell me what the things that I don't know. And so going back to changing policy based on something that happened, based on somebody's preconceived notion of what is right or what is wrong, what is the right way, what is policy, what is not, which is often very misconstrued across the board. People don't understand what the policies are. And that's where this is. I think what's frustrating me now in this very moment is it would be your job as the chief to educate the city council, the mayor on what the job is, on what the things are that need to be done. What do these people even think we're doing out here? What do they think this is? Okay, they're upset about something, acknowledge that whatever it is, it's likely because they saw something, and they understand it to be something, whatever that is, but they don't know what the reality of that is. And my position would be, that's your job, to make sure. Because you are that layer. You are that mouthpiece between the officers on the street and the community leaders that make these decisions and pull these strings, including the purse strings. What is your involvement with that? If you had experience with that, where you have to sit down and go, I understand where you're coming from, but you got this wrong. And let me tell you why. Because I don't. That's. That's the.

[Brian Williams]

If.

[Scott Howell]

Because if you don't have the proverbial balls to put on the table in order to have that conversation, then everybody in the institution is. Yeah, and. And that trickles down to me in the community.

[Matt Pronk]

Well, we're counting on them to stand up.

[Scott Howell]

That's what I mean.

[Matt Pronk]

And to represent us. And when they don't, there's. There's no shielding, you know, for your troops, and that's what you hope that your command does for you.

[Scott Howell]

I think that's what people are saying is like, we lack leadership. We lack people that are standing up for us, but also educating those that clearly don't understand. And that's okay that you don't understand, but we need somebody there to educate you. So if you make it all the way through the process, and you haven't done a good job at that anyway, now you're in that position, I shouldn't expect you to be doing this for the community. I shouldn't. I shouldn't be expecting you to do this for me. Which leaves people out on an island all by themselves wondering what's going to happen next. And then you start to see this retraction of, I don't want to be a leader because I don't want to be involved in that.

[Brandon]

I think for me, when you're talking about all this, what chaps my ass is that. And I know Matt feels the same way. I am fucking willing to die in this job to save whoever that is. But you can't fucking fight for me and the other guys that are willing to die in this job. But you can't go and have some conflict with a city, whatever that right there. That's the moral injury that just fucking just drives me crazy. Because I'm willing. I have proven it. You have proven this, that we are willing to go do the shit that a lot of people won't do. And it's not a pat on our back at all. So don't get me wrong when I say that. But like, I want to get fucking backed by, quote, lack of a better word, the adult in the room, the father figure, the leader. Fucking back me. Don't just pat me on the back and fucking fight for me, because I'm fighting for these citizens and we are. But then that gets lost and it causes more issues long term, mentally than anything else we do.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah, I want to change gears here a little bit, if that's okay with you guys, because it's on the same thread. But this is a question that I asked, I posted somewhere and then I was told it got passed around, like in private chats, like you guys are, like you were describing earlier and whatnot, through law enforcement. Came up in a post somewhere on something. And the question was, was the question that I had, which is, what does an officer value in being an officer? Right. So that's kind of the middle person, like, what do they value in being the officer? And I believe they come in with a certain level of that, and that's developed, you know, over time, and things may change a little bit. They thought it was one thing and it kind of changes or increases to another thing or whatever. And there's different weights to different things as you go through. But more specifically, what does that.

[Brandon]

That.

[Scott Howell]

What does the agency leadership value in their officers? Like, what is important for them, for the people that work for them. Right. Because those people are an extension of the chief. Right. Sort of by proxy. Right, right.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

And then the next question to that, and this is a large question like, what does this, what are the citizens, what does the community value in our police officers, in our police department? So I put that out there and somebody said, man, that's a really good question. And then it came back from a couple people, like, I actually asked my chief that and they got the answers that I said they would probably get because. And they're the same ones that I get when I ask that question.

[Brian Williams]

What are the answers?

[Scott Howell]

Well, crime is down, right. We've had less ois. That was the answer. And I'm like, I think you missed the question. Maybe you didn't understand. Let me rephrase it. And I did that. Basically, I got the same answer repackaged.

[Brian Williams]

Look, man. Man, chiefs today love to talk about how crime is down, right?

[Brandon]

Yeah. And what does that mean?

[Brian Williams]

What world do we live in? Do you live in a World where, you know, crime is down.

[Scott Howell]

No, it isn't.

[Brian Williams]

It's a show.

[Scott Howell]

It isn't. Down as compared to what?

[Brian Williams]

Exactly. Right.

[Scott Howell]

So I never got an answer to my question, and neither did some of these guys that went directly and they got some heat for asking it. And again, reframing the question, because that's not what I mean.

[Brian Williams]

So the community, to me, I don't know, I'm a kid. I. I live in the community.

[Scott Howell]

Right.

[Brian Williams]

I want. So, you know, you want professional, fair policing. Right. What, what do the chiefs today want in their officers? They want, you know, I can't, man. Again, I can't. I can't answer.

[Scott Howell]

No, I want your answer. I want your answer. Yeah, that's what I'm asking.

[Brian Williams]

My answer. You know, my, my answer is not going to be the right answer, but my feel of it today is that the chiefs today, they want their officers.

[Scott Howell]

To keep a low profile.

[Brian Williams]

Low profile. Yeah. And because today it's all about smoke and mirrors.

[Scott Howell]

It's about optics.

[Brian Williams]

It's about optics, smoke and mirrors. It's not about end results, you know, it's about. It's about Instagram likes. It's about, look at us, we're professional. It's. It's the mirror image on the outside of the building. But you, you go into that building and I guarantee you that it's chaos inside the building. People are unhappy, they're unfocused, they don't know what the mission is and they're just hunkered down waiting for this person to leave and for somebody better to come along. The problem's going to be in the future. Is that what's loaded into the pipeline for the next level? Yes, is the same exact thing. So I'm here, Brandon, to bring truth.

[Matt Pronk]

You here.

[Brandon]

I'm glad I got it. This goes almost 27 years in. I'm like my highlight of, you know, I'm on the like downhill slope. But I feel for these women and.

[Brian Williams]

Women and Brandon, that's why I'm here. Yeah, no, I'm here for that.

[Brandon]

It is.

[Brian Williams]

And. And nothing else.

[Scott Howell]

This goes back to what you were. A little bit about what you were saying before.

[Matt Pronk]

Yeah, Well, I think it's real easy.

[Brandon]

If you look at the few up.

[Matt Pronk]

Things that they want to do. They talk about response time, overall crime.

[Brandon]

Right.

[Matt Pronk]

Complaints, you know, arrest, you know, those are something tangible, something they can put a metric. It's a metric. They can put it. They can pull up a spreadsheet and say, hey, you know, Lieutenant, such and.

[Brandon]

Such pull this up.

[Matt Pronk]

It's easy data. That's easy.

[Scott Howell]

That's not what I asked. It's not the question I asked.

[Matt Pronk]

And because, again, I have seen many commands come and go in my time, and we've had great, great ones. We had some ones that I thought were down, could have done a better job, way too nice ones that have original ideas. And I'll tell you right now, Chief Garcia, who just left us, I was about to say Chief Garcia came in, came from California. Nobody had any idea. He's an outsider.

[Scott Howell]

He was our police chief in my city.

[Matt Pronk]

Let me tell you, I've said this to many people. I've said it to him without any question. He's the best chief I've ever had in, you know, in Dallas. Thought he did a great job. The best thing he did, he came in, he goes, I'm going to evaluate and assess what y' all are doing. There's always tweaks we can do little things we can change, but I'm not going to come in here and make wholesale changes until I think that's the best thing to do. So he was not scared to say, I don't know, I'm new. I'm going to find out what's going on. I have my own ideas, but that'll be. And he met with certain specialized groups. My group was one of them. And he came in and listened, had questions, and he moved on and talked and then made his assessments. That's leadership. I told him this before he left. I said, man, thank you for doing that, because hopefully the people in the pipeline with us saw that and go, here's a guy that came in that had no insider information, didn't have loyalty to anybody, but realized, hey, I need to be honest and upfront and do it the right way. He did. And he. I thought he did a great job for us.

[Brandon]

And an apartment is one of the largest in the nation. It's not like you're.

[Matt Pronk]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

You know, apartment of 25 guys. Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

So we miss him dearly. We miss him dearly.

[Matt Pronk]

He's a great dude, and I'm very thankful to have had him. And you hope that people pick up on that and go, there's a guy that did it the right way. There's nothing wrong because they all copy each other. Look, every crime plan they come up with, they just got come with a new name for it.

[Scott Howell]

It's a playbook.

[Brandon]

So.

[Matt Pronk]

And they just. They just. They just change a comma here, there, everywhere, you know, So I, again, but.

[Brandon]

I think that that's what's interesting is that I didn't realize that. That when he said Garcia. And you're like, oh, that was our. And you're like, oh, that man. What I hear from that we lost.

[Scott Howell]

Him at the most critical time. We could have lost him, by the way. And I think 20, 21.

[Brandon]

What's fascinating is that you have experience as a citizen, you have experience as working as a officer for them.

[Scott Howell]

And we're saying the same thing.

[Brandon]

Yeah, they're saying the same thing. There's another chief that I know, same thing. Every department he goes to, I talk to those guys. They're like, we love our chief.

[Brian Williams]

I'm like, allen, Texas.

[Brandon]

Yeah. And the very first time I heard that, when he went to Grand Prairie and he said. And I was talking to those guys and I was out at the horse track and they go. I said, hey, how's Yalls new guy? We love our chief.

[Brian Williams]

I go, that's right.

[Brandon]

What are you talking about? Love? Every single time. And I'm not blowing smoke up of anybody's ass. Anybody knows me. I'm just gonna tell you what the fuck I get told. And I'm like, I don't understand that level that everyone is saying that. And what they always go back to is if you fucking don't work, you don't like him.

[Scott Howell]

Right.

[Brandon]

Well, fuck, yeah. That's the good thing. And it's amazing. It's always a culture changing for the positive because you're out there actually doing it for the troops that gets lost.

[Brian Williams]

Steve Dye is a great guy.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Yeah. And it's not. And the thing is, it's not shooting. I get. There's all kinds of things.

[Brian Williams]

Yes.

[Brandon]

There's a lot of things I understand. Like, I get when I first got on the team, my attitude and my responsibility is way different now than being a senior team. I get all that. So I'm not. I don't lose in that. That perspective. But I also understand where the I came from and I understand that. And I will never forget that. Because all roads lead back to patrol.

[Scott Howell]

Right.

[Brandon]

I know that without. I feel for those guys. I know what that I did 14 years in patrol. I get the. Why don't you. Why don't you. Why do you forget this? Not you.

[Brian Williams]

But just in general, they forget, man. They. They either didn't do it.

[Brandon]

It. Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Or they've forgotten it. And it's about them now.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

Right.

[Brandon]

And it drives me crazy because I don't do this like this. This. This fills my cup of doing this podcast, I love it. I have a passion for it. But, man, I want other people to hear this and catch some passion for whatever topic we're on. Like, I want to get the community.

[Brian Williams]

Better, and you're good at it.

[Brandon]

So to me, it's like. Like, how do we. Why do we lose that, man? Like, why do we ever lose that? Like, Scott has no dog in this fight as far as changing the culture of police work, but he's invested enough in it to see, hey, there is a fucking change. Because I always go back to. If you take the business model, look at politics right now. You take a business model, now you're putting it in government. That's probably a good thing. Scott has a business model, and he looks at it and goes, man, I need to do more stuff. Like, the business side of that. Y' all would be more productive because there's no. There's very few police departments in the world that they ran it like a business. They would fucking lose their asses every single day. I mean, you're sitting there laughing. You know it.

[Scott Howell]

I mean, so my man, you're hitting on so many points. He sort of went through those. That line of metrics. I keep coming back to you because you're, like, hitting points that are connecting dots for me.

[Brandon]

Matt doesn't talk a lot, but when he does, he gets. Bring his points up.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah, he's a pret. Smart dude.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Say something mad. I'm like, then he does.

[Scott Howell]

No, but when he. When he does, like, it hits home. So keep doing your thing over there, man. That's why I brought him the go. The question was values, and what you gave me was goals. And what I heard you say in terms of values was kind of the. The high level. These are the things that are going to help us accomplish our goals. This is like the. The home base we can always come back to to make sure that we're doing those things the right way. And the. The what I. What. What I'm. What I've gotten and what you've confirmed and kind of what you articulated there, which is now, like, deeply penetrating my ninja. My. My brain, is that there really is. There's a huge disconnect. There's the. Well, more specifically, there is no goals and values alignment. It's not aligned. And partly because there's no alignment around the values piece, which is, again, that cornerstone of where those metrics end up coming from. So you said, like, I want professionalism. Right. I want fairness. Yes, Right. Those are values. Those are things you can anchor to. And go, okay, so when we are performing our job, how do we maintain that? And if we're doing that and that can be. It's consistent and we can keep going back to that almost always. And so I, like, I go back to you mentioning business. Like, if I can keep coming back to that. The metrics almost always work themselves out the right way. They almost always do. So when I ask the question and I get the metrics and the disconnect from the values going back to the systemic problems, then what are we doing? When I. The first question I asked you was, what are the skills needed to ultimately. That are connected to the values that ultimately hit the metrics? And I hear crime is down. And I go, no, it isn't. It's up. And all the things that you're telling me are don't make any sense to me. You know, as I'm. As I'm staring at it and feeling it and experiencing it on a regular basis, it. It's supremely frustrating.

[Brian Williams]

So here's a dynamic I see. I see on Instagram a post. It's awesome. We get 40 likes. You guys are awesome. Blue Bonnet field, coffee with the cop, whatever. Then I look on Nextdoor, the app, and I see neighbors going, why are there 45 cops in the neighborhood? Right, Right. Why are there so many car burglaries? Where's the disconnect with that?

[Scott Howell]

That's my point.

[Brian Williams]

And so my. You know, my comment to city council members, politicians, people that are, like, funding police departments. These are your citizens, and that's the real scoop for what's going on for them. Yeah, yeah, right.

[Brandon]

That's a. That's a reality.

[Brian Williams]

They want to know what's going on. Why are there so many cops in this neighborhood? What's going on? People and this stuff travels at the speed of sound.

[Scott Howell]

Tell you.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Brandon]

Because I think what. What's so.

[Brian Williams]

But. And going back to the. The smoke and mirrors thing.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Instagram is the smoke and mirrors. Yeah, Right.

[Brandon]

Well, we. We have the Tick Tock and we have the dancing cops. We have all that. To me, there's so stupid. Yeah. There's no greater community policing unit than swat. There's. There's not. There's not. I think. Yeah. I think Dallas did a great job when under Garcia, Every. Pretty much every warrant I think y' all did, there was a tweet, don't fucking sell drugs in this city, because this is what happens. Your shit gets fucked up. That's a good message because guess what? The people that are actually in that neighborhood. They're the ones affected by that motherfucker that's selling drugs.

[Brian Williams]

Right.

[Brandon]

The people that are, whatever. In other parts of that city, they don't even know about that shit.

[Scott Howell]

They have no idea.

[Brandon]

These people do. And the people that you're wanting to placate to, they don't even know what's going on. Or when you do hit this apartment complex or this house, and the people come out and go, hey, man, thanks for doing that. Like, that dude, he's like, that's community policing. Or when you do this stuff. And then the kids come out and they're wanting to sit on the Bearcat because now this scene's secured. That is the biggest community policing job you'll ever do. But why did you do it? Because you're being proactive in your police work.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

So real quick, I have to put a shout out to Dallas. Dallas pd. Like, I. I have a history with Dallas pd. I worked. I was the assistant chief to a chief in McKinney, Doug Kowalski. It was Dallas. Dallas SWAT. Like, a history with Dallas SWAT. Like, probably one of the OGs of Dallas. Yeah. Trained a lot of the Dallas SWAT guys, you know, back in the day. And, you know. You know, Dallas is pretty, to me, near and dear to my heart.

[Brandon]

Yeah. So, well, it. It is interesting in the fact of, like, for big city stuff, Dallas is leading in the SWAT community right now, and that's a good thing because they're fucking in Texas and stuff. But there's so many of San Antonio, too. Yeah. Of the large cities.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

That are cowering down because from what I. What I understand, there's even a. Like, there's the Police Chiefs association and then there's a large Police Chiefs Association. Correct.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

That's in there. Like, oh, we're in the elite.

[Brian Williams]

It's like dumb and dumber.

[Brandon]

But there's another aspect to that, like.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah, what's the. What's the vibe there, man?

[Brian Williams]

Which one?

[Scott Howell]

Well, okay, so let's talk about, like. Well, so when you say that, Brandon. I guess I. When I hear that, I. I think like, you've got the Police Chiefs association of Texas. Right. And then you have, like, the National Police Chiefs. Is that what you mean?

[Brandon]

No. So there's. It. It's a certain amount of people in your city, right? That. Yeah, it is that.

[Scott Howell]

Okay.

[Brandon]

It. It.

[Scott Howell]

Sure.

[Brandon]

It. It. It's like you have like.

[Brian Williams]

It's like, like 150,000 or something.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Then you have, like the. The elite. Cause we have so many people and then you're a peon because you have 50, 000 people.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, whatever. I think our chief here in Round Rock now is in the major city chief.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it's like a major. Yeah, that's what. A major city chief. That's what it is.

[Scott Howell]

I get it. Okay, so then the question is. Is like, when you walk into that room, is there agreement?

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, they're. They're all the same, man.

[Scott Howell]

Okay. And so then that's the next question. Like, they're all.

[Brian Williams]

They're all sucked into the.

[Scott Howell]

To the thing.

[Brian Williams]

Into the thing.

[Scott Howell]

Okay, so obviously Scott was just disgusting as a citizen.

[Brandon]

I can see that. But that's a sad thing because as a cop, I feel like I let you down, even though I don't live in California. Look, but it fucking pisses me off that as a citizen, your job, if you want.

[Brian Williams]

If you want to get the vibe of what this is and go to an accreditation conference, that's what.

[Scott Howell]

You'll find it there.

[Brian Williams]

You'll find it there. Yes. It's the. You'll find a lot of warriors.

[Brandon]

So what is so special about accreditation?

[Brian Williams]

Nothing.

[Brandon]

I like that.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

I mean, like.

[Scott Howell]

Like it gets your foot in the door to something. It goes at the top of the letterhead or whatever it is.

[Brandon]

Is it. Because I can put my stamp on this, and I. I'm.

[Brian Williams]

Well, yeah, I think. I think the best part of accreditation is actually going through the process and not being accredited, but going through the process and, like, making sure you have policies on things.

[Brandon]

Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with it, but.

[Brian Williams]

But then after you get accredited, it's just. Just, you know, keeping records and following.

[Brandon]

Up on things that just are common sense. If you're in the business world of is there accreditation for Amazon as opposed to the sex company? It's like, hey, these are just commons sense.

[Scott Howell]

So I guess you kind of go back to the. The Instagram thing, the communication thing. What you're mentioning there about Dallas and, you know, doing a narcotics raid or something like that and then putting it out. I think there's how the sausage is made, and people don't necessarily want to see how the sausage is made, but they need to hear about and see the sausage. Right. They need to see what happened at the end. And that's kind of what I think of when I think of that. Maybe a bad analogy, but what I'm saying is, like, we did the job today, and this is what we did. We basically liberated this quadplex, you know, of this infestation of crime or Whatever else. And so the rest of the community doesn't have to worry about that anymore. They don't want to see how it got done. They don't want to see that there was a Bearcat, there were two Bearcats there, that there were 45 cops cars parked outside, especially if it's not in their neighborhood. I don't want that here. That looks so. That looks so bad. That looks like a military raid on a compound or something like that. When effectively that's what it is. But at the same time, they need to see what the result is. But they don't want to see. And they want that projected to them in a metric, right? Like crime is down or crime is up and if it's not going down, but they're being told it's going down, so they're being gaslit and they're seeing that on Instagram, then they just get mad at the police, right? They don't get mad at anything else. So I don't know the right way to do that. Like in terms of showing people how it's made, but at some level they need to be shown how it's made because somebody's gonna. A run story or a narrative on how it got made. Whether you do it or not.

[Brian Williams]

I think you're violating the smoke and mirrors principle.

[Brandon]

Yeah, but. But I think, though, because I understand what you're saying, but the reality is the citizens like you that are the majority, that 90% of the citizens have your view on things as far as you want to see how the sausage is made.

[Scott Howell]

I do. I believe there's a huge population that's quiet.

[Brandon]

Cops. The show cops is good for how many fucking years? How many cop shows do they. How many SWAT shows that they make? There's a. The good citizens want to know that bad people are getting put in jail because they're doing bad things. The minority of the instigators who just hate the police no matter what you fucking do, they don't want to see how the sauce is made because they're the motherfuckers that are getting put to them because they're doing dumb shit. So the reality is we want to know what our police are doing because we want to go right on the Bearcat. We want to do ride outs. Like when I was an sro, that was a big light bulb that came onto me because I worked the streets all these years, went inside of school, and now I'm the Sheriff with this 2600 man school and the relationships that I built because I was Just who I was. And they would see my SWAT stuff I would talk about. I would like, hey, come on. Like, there's no secrets here. I'm invested in you. That was a huge thing for me, and I never saw that when I worked patrol. But now I'm in a community of. I'm going there every day. So for me, those kids who you thought were the bad kids or there was gang bangers, like, man, I like you, Officer Hernandez. I don't like those other guys. I'm like, okay, well, you don't know them, but if you got to have a conversation with them, you would. And guess what? I would tell them sometimes. Yeah. You know what? Nah. I don't really like that guy either. I get you, but you gotta obey what he says because don't be a dumbass. Because you're fighting the law. That's not a good thing. So I understand what you're saying, but the reality is, you do want to see it.

[Scott Howell]

I do.

[Brandon]

Most of them do. But all my friends that I. Because I always hate when I hear someone say in administration, well, society doesn't want this anymore. Well, what society are you talking to? Because the people that I hang out with, they like me. The people that I run into, wherever, they're like, oh, I was on a conversation today with the phone on the lady. She's like, oh, you're in law enforcement. Enforcement, yeah. Well, thank you for your service. Thank you for all you. I mean, you get told that all the time. It's the people that.

[Brian Williams]

You answer that.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

What society wants to. It's. It's the society that wants to cancel you.

[Brandon]

Yes.

[Brian Williams]

Right.

[Brandon]

Thank you. Amen.

[Scott Howell]

What percentage of the actual society is that? Right. It's the loud ones. They seem to have a pretty loud.

[Brandon]

Less than 1%.

[Brian Williams]

Not a data nerd.

[Brandon]

I think it's less than 1%.

[Brian Williams]

Right. Again. Since 2020. Right. Yeah. We've seen the world shift.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Right. So we're bending a knee to it.

[Brandon]

Well, I. I go back to. Like you were talking about earlier. The. The shooting, fighting, driving.

[Scott Howell]

That's where I was about to go back to.

[Brandon]

And then they go back to. Let's throw in culture diversity. Guess what? There's no better class than cultural diversity than working the streets.

[Brian Williams]

So.

[Scott Howell]

So that's the most ironic thing ever, man.

[Brian Williams]

To all the listeners out there that know me.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

And served under me as a chief.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

This shooting, fighting, and driving.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Training philosophy that I had.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

At Round Rock. It wasn't a dumb thing.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Because that's how troops die. Yeah, right.

[Brandon]

Exactly.

[Brian Williams]

And that was my philosophy. We talked about it. That was a known thing. I've had it used against me.

[Brandon]

Oh, really?

[Brian Williams]

Oh, I have, yes.

[Brandon]

In what way? Well, yeah.

[Scott Howell]

Question.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Scott Howell]

Okay. All right. That's. That's the only one he's backed up on, so I'm gonna imagine we should probably leave. Leave that one alone.

[Brian Williams]

That's. That's my thing. That's what I believe in.

[Brandon]

Well, that's the core. That's. That's the fundamentals of police work. Like, when it comes to the physical cal of it now, you have to have the law.

[Brian Williams]

Unless you want to go to funerals.

[Scott Howell]

All the time, which is.

[Brian Williams]

Man.

[Scott Howell]

Man seems to be happening more and more.

[Brian Williams]

Right.

[Scott Howell]

So when I. So when I look at that, on that same. On that. That same kind of line going back to the cultural diversity training, I'm gonna go back to you, man. Like, the irony and all that is, is there's absolutely zero metrics for whether or not that training does you any good or not.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Well, I would say there.

[Matt Pronk]

Nobody loves a warrior till the enemy's at the gate. That's a great saying. I love that saying, and it applies very much here. And I have seen it where they want to hold you back. They don't want you being out there for whatever reason, maybe. And then there's times they walked and go, I want you to go do what you do. You know, when we saw that in 2020, and it was like, okay, you know, when you cut the leash off and you go out there and do their thing, great work is done. And then it's like, okay. And then they're happy that it has happened. And then when everything calms down and the winds die down, the seas are not so choppy, then they want to put you back in the barn, you know, and that's. That's. That kills the. You know, the esprit de corps and the drive and all that, and that, you know? Whereas you want to come in every day feeling like you're. What you're doing matters and that, like you said earlier, you're suiting up. You're putting on body armor and a weapon for a reason, because there's dangers out there. You need everybody to remember that every day, not just when you. When they need you to be good, because it's gone bad now, now. And it's like, it's not how this job happens, you know, so.

[Scott Howell]

So I'm very much aware that it's never going to be perfect. Like I never expect, this is a human element here. This is not robots. We're not talking about a machine. However, it's often looked at that, looked at it that way and that expectation of perfection, I don't ever expect that. But what I, what I do expect as a citizen is that the things that are glaringly obvious get better. So we go back to like body worn cam foot camera footage and the things that are getting police officers killed. We have a problem right now. We have, we have a big disconnect between how training delivered and what the results are, the qualification or standard. I use big air quotes for that and how that translates to real life and what's actually happening out there. And I don't think anybody at the table will probably argue with me. Again, this is not me bashing, this is just me being honest. It doesn't look good a lot of the time now. I know there's a lot of things that we don't see that are very good. Again, the sausage is being made and you're not seeing that.

[Brandon]

Right.

[Scott Howell]

But at the same time, don't gaslight me and tell me that it's all good when it isn't. So going back to training on fitness, fighting, driving, you know, those things, I guess the question is like, is there hope for this? Right. That this can change or turn a corner, but more specifically, what needs to happen in order for those things to be valued? Right. And then resources and metrics being measured and things that are real, things that actually matter in that thing. Can this be done? And if so, how does it get done? Brian?

[Brian Williams]

So it fits into one of the questions that you have.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah.

[Scott Howell]

Which is what you have is, yeah.

[Brandon]

Is this job dead or are we just in another cycle and will we come out for the better?

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. So let's, let's hope it's a cycle. I don't, I don't have an answer for that. But you know, I want to go back to a lot of what Matt Pranka talks about. About like he's never been in law enforcement, but yeah, like he gets it at a very high level. Like it is those skills, the hard.

[Scott Howell]

Skills, the hard skills.

[Brian Williams]

And I'm, I'm talking to my team about that now.

[Scott Howell]

And so it just starts with the message, just starts with that being the mantra of sorts, that this has to be a priority.

[Brian Williams]

Yep. Will we turn the. I don't know, turn the corner? I don't know. I don't have an answer for that.

[Scott Howell]

But I mean, if that's the answer. That's the answer. I mean, I think it's a burning one and I think it's not just mine. I know there's a lot of officers asking that same question, going back to the questions that got posed publicly is they want to have hope and they're just not sure maybe where to reach for it right now. And they're being told, you need to take this, this needs to be your personal responsibility. I believe that 100%. Also, the government is never gonna give you all the training that you could possibly need and they're never gonna be able to fund it in the way that you might need it. That's just an absolute. So there has to be.

[Brian Williams]

That's a fact.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Yes.

[Scott Howell]

There's no changing that. So don't expect that to happen. I get that. But they're being told, you need to go out and do this. At the same time. They're being bashed often for not doing it at the level that maybe somebody else expects them to do. And again, like, that comes back to like, well, what is the standard? What is good, what is bad? And what we're measuring that against is all the body worn camera footage that we're seeing. And so there's large confusion around like, how do we actually make that better? Like where do we put the training dollars? What should the training actually be? Who's delivering the training? All of those things have to be answered.

[Brian Williams]

Have you ever seen shot a police qualification?

[Scott Howell]

Several times.

[Brian Williams]

Okay, and your thoughts?

[Scott Howell]

Well, the, the two, the two words that come to mind. First is it's, it's too easy. Too easy. Right. The second word would be. It's unrealistic to anything that I've ever seen happen, like on a, on a, on any kind of body, any kind of OIS or anything else.

[Brian Williams]

What's my next question? What do you see on OIS camera?

[Scott Howell]

Doesn't look anything like a qualification.

[Brian Williams]

Right. Because why?

[Scott Howell]

Because it's not what it is.

[Brian Williams]

Because you see the shooting happening faster.

[Scott Howell]

Oh, so yeah. So what's really happening? It's much faster. There's always movement involved and there's multiple factors that led up to that that never happened on the qualification range. Again, like what precipitated all of this? You mentioned the word like de escalation. What does that even mean? But more specifically, like, like what happens when words don't work right or when there aren't any words. Right. So you can't, you know, how do you train that? That's the answer to that question. I know it's a long one, but.

[Matt Pronk]

Sorry if I could jump in on that. So national average of police in America first round hits is less than 20%.

[Scott Howell]

I know that stuff.

[Matt Pronk]

So I would challenge you to go to any business or you know, and you go into law enforcement as far as training and they say okay. And you don't. You just have the percentages up there, there and you say okay. Overwhelmingly law enforcement is at less than 20% on this data point. But you don't list what it is. I would suggest to you that most people say we need to work on that. And then when you put it in as firearms training. Nope, it costs too much money. I've heard command staff say we're not in the warrior business here and not necessarily with Dallas, but I've heard people say this and it is necessary insult on that mindset and that that way of thinking that is, is detrimental to this business.

[Scott Howell]

Okay.

[Matt Pronk]

And when, when, if. But you go, go to any business model and saying something that you are what in law enforcement is more criticized than officer involved shooting. Like without question. That is the, that is the number one thing. Bad things happen, even if they're totally justified. Like we don't go out there trying to take. Only do it because you either have to take care of yourself or somebody else. It's a bad thing, even if you have to do it. Sometimes it's needed so. But yet it's something that's so critical. But unless you're in SWAT or narcotics or some other place. I get officers come to our training out of town, they go. We get no outside training or training other than a qual. A qual is not training. It's an examination of what you've already learned. And to your point, whether the, the quality is challenging or not, that's up to each department. They have to fit inside. Like for Texas T cold guidelines. And so we see this all the time. But yet, you know, less than 20% is, you know, the first hit ratio. That's unacceptable.

[Scott Howell]

Well, listen, you take it back to.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, qualifications in general are stupid. It's a box that has to be checked.

[Scott Howell]

That's all it is. Yeah, yeah, it's. You have to do this so that you can move on to the next step. But what's the next step? Right. Like you, okay, you did this because you had to get through the academy. So we needed to make sure we taught you all the things to pass the test. Test, right. You pass the test. Again, very low metric in terms of the too easy comment. But you said something there a second ago, man. That was the 20% in business. Look, if I run a business and it's a performance based business, Businesses are in business to make a profit. Right. At the end of the day, that's what they do. If my sales goal, if my quota, whatever that is at number X, and I only hit 20% of that, that's unacceptable.

[Matt Pronk]

You're private business, you're out of business.

[Scott Howell]

You'Re out of business. It's unacceptable. And here we're talking about human life.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

Right. What is the disconnect? Right. Like, I mean, you don't have to answer that question, but I will. Okay.

[Brian Williams]

So the disconnect there is that really. It's really all about the guy that's in charge that doesn't want to lose his job.

[Brandon]

Job. Yeah, yeah.

[Brian Williams]

It's at least for the next three or four years.

[Brandon]

That's so wrong.

[Scott Howell]

It is.

[Brandon]

So I go back to.

[Brian Williams]

Does that resonate with you?

[Brandon]

Oh, yeah, it does.

[Brian Williams]

Yes, it does.

[Brandon]

So I go back to.

[Brian Williams]

You want honest, right? Yeah.

[Brandon]

So city manager.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

And chief.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

So how, how much pressure is the city managers putting on these police chiefs?

[Brian Williams]

I can't answer that. In some places it's a. Yeah. But in my experience, not much. I mean, like, in my experience, the city management has really just been very Believing.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Accepting of what the dude in that position has brought up.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Like, I'm not.

[Brandon]

Like, if I'm the city manager, I.

[Brian Williams]

Was in that position. So, like, I'm. I've got questions.

[Brandon]

I mean, there, there's. If I'm the city manager and I hire Matt as my chief. Hey, Matt, go fucking do your job. What do you need me to do for you to help do this job?

[Brian Williams]

That's not how it goes.

[Brandon]

That's the way it should be. Like, hey, Matt, I'm hiring you for this. What do you need? Hey, Brandon, I need this, this and this. Okay. And I give you all this and you still don't do the job that you told me you're gonna do, then we can have some conversation.

[Scott Howell]

But keep going.

[Brandon]

If you're doing your stuff, then, then let's have you keep doing your stuff, Matt. Like, I just don't understand that. Like, and what if it's not broke? Don't fix. Yeah. Like, I hired you for this job, and if you're not doing this job.

[Brian Williams]

Way too much common sense. That's not how it goes.

[Brandon]

And I'm a dumb. I'm. I'm not very smart. I'm really not.

[Brian Williams]

Common Sense.

[Matt Pronk]

Common sense is not very common.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

I'm like, I'm still doing this damn job. I'm not very smart.

[Brian Williams]

You're not thinking in political terms.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I. I just don't like why. Like, that's. That's what I. We talked about this earlier. Like, I think that's why TR Trump resonates with so many people.

[Brian Williams]

There you go.

[Brandon]

Because there's just no given, like. And look what's happening.

[Brian Williams]

No flex given. That's exactly right.

[Brandon]

It's amazing when, like, hey, we're not doing DEI anymore. We're not doing this. And then all of a sudden, all these companies are like, yeah, we're not doing this anymore either, because someone is bold enough.

[Brian Williams]

So I want to go back to Scott's point about no business, you know?

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

We have seen every business fold to that. Yeah, right. Yeah, sorry. Every business is folded to that. Most of them have. The world's changed.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah, you're right. I understand that. It frustrates me. It doesn't sit well. And I think that's the frustration that persists is it's not sitting well. It seems to be in this. The word stagnation has been used a lot, like, in the last couple of years, just kind of with economy or whatever. But to me, it's different than that. It's languishing. Like, stagnation is something that you can kind of measure and you can kind of see. Languishing is like more of a. We don't know what to do. We're just kind of hanging out and floating through, and you're gonna see what happens. And that's not a good place for anybody to be at any level. Right. Not in life, not in relationships, not in business, not in policing, not in shooting. Like, I'm just gonna kind of go out to the range today, and I'm gonna see what happens. And I'll decide maybe at the end whether it was good or bad. I feel like that's kind of where we're at. But the people inside are not the ones driving it. It's the people outside that are driving that with the. Again, the fear that ends up coming from the community or the city council or the media or whatever else. To me, I just look at it and go, how much worse? And again, I'm not bashing policing. I'm not bashing officers. Anybody listens to me on any show. I'm very pro law enforcement. I try to be as realistic as I can about it, but how much worse does it have to get before the Corner gets. Some of the corner at least gets rounded off.

[Brian Williams]

Look, man, in my experience, most of the city council members that I've ever worked with, they want their police to be successful.

[Scott Howell]

They don't hate cops. Right?

[Brian Williams]

Cops, they just want the truth. They don't want the smoke and mirrors.

[Brandon]

So how often.

[Brian Williams]

But, but they don't know that they're getting it right. So. Yeah, Scott, let me ask you this. Let me. You're, you're a civilian, right? If based on what you've seen and what, you know, what advice would you give to cops today?

[Scott Howell]

That's a, that's a really great, really great question.

[Brian Williams]

Let me put that on you, bro.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah, so, so I tried. So when I'm doing these things, like, like nobody's ever asked me that. Usually I'm on the other side of the table, so to speak.

[Brian Williams]

Well, I'm going to turn it on you now. Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

So I.

[Brandon]

Don't ask me any questions, Brian.

[Scott Howell]

I always go back to, I always go back to why does anybody do anything, right? And why do they choose to, you know, life of whatever, like in this case, a life in law enforcement. And at some point it starts with a why. There has to be a deep, deep root rooted, you know, internal understanding and drive to do this thing. And there's going to be some reasons attached to that. So you have to revisit that. That has to be really strongly established. And I think I would ask an officer to revisit that. Right. And so then when the bad things.

[Brian Williams]

Happen, revisit the why am I doing this?

[Scott Howell]

The why. Right. And if it's not well developed, and if you can't clearly answer that for yourself or to somebody else, like you're asking me this question now you have some work to do, right? The next, the next thing that comes in is like, if you don't like what's happening, even if you're, you're feeling this drive, what can you do to control it? Right? And you eliminate all the things that are outside of your control and you focus on what you can control.

[Brian Williams]

Brandon, do you remember two years ago, what was my advice?

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Focus on the things you can control. Yeah, that's right.

[Scott Howell]

And so you nailed it, Scott. Yeah. So obviously there are things that you can and there are things that you can't, and there are many, many, many things you can, you can't control. So I would not pretend for two seconds that I know what it's like to be a police officer, to have to deal with things. But your everyday interactions is where that needs to start. Because if you've, if you've got stinking thinking, if you got a shitty attitude, that's that behavior is going to show up, right? Right. There's work you have to do, right? And then from there going back to some of the other things like the skills, right? That is something you're going to have to take personal responsibility for and look for the places where you can get the skills or improve the skills. But first you have to honestly evaluate where are you in this thing? Where do I need to put my time and then how much time do I have? What's realistic? I always, I'm an idiot when it comes to stuff and I always try to simplify it down. And I come from the fitness space so it's really easy for me to do it that way. So, you know, I look at it, I go, okay, so you want to lose £100 pounds, right? Like, where does that start? Well, first off, you have to get your mind around, like, what is that going to take to do? Then there needs to be a well developed plan. Is my plan, is my goal realistic? Is my plan realistic? If it's not, it can be adjusted. There is no one size fits all to any of this. And if you're waiting for that, for somebody to present that to you, then you're going to be in trouble. Because there isn't. There's this concept of the individual and there's the concept of the individual situation, which is the controllables and uncontrollables that exist. There's. So you have to really, you have to kind of, you have to step back and reassess that stuff. And I think, you know, going into this, going into work every day, dealing with citizens, dealing with fuck tarts, brought that to the table today in a tack talk down downstairs or whatever, like that's hard to do. Like, I know what that feels like, right? I do know what that feels like. I don't have to deal with it on the side of, you know, civil unrest and things like that. But my point being is like, if you're treating everybody as if that's what they are, then that's what everybody is, right? And so the constant focusing on things that are so far out of your control, that tends to consume you. There are many, many things an officer I think can do to improve their situation and at the same time be real about, there's many, many things I can't do. And if you can't do both those things again, reach deep inside and go, why am I doing this job and how can I do it better? And then do I. How have some type of a plan or organized structure to be able to do it? Not just. Not just show up. Right. That's a great place to start. I can't answer it any deeper than that because I got about 75 other questions for the individual. Right. That is trying to make those improvements.

[Brian Williams]

So I think. I think two years ago, like, my comment was, you can focus on things you can control. Focus on your fitness, your training, your mental health.

[Brandon]

Health.

[Brian Williams]

It was simple.

[Scott Howell]

Which were all tied in together.

[Brian Williams]

Exactly.

[Scott Howell]

It all affects all of the behaviors and all the other things that happen out there.

[Brian Williams]

Dude, I think you. To me, you're qualified to be a chief.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah. I was getting recruited for a Florida agency the other day. I was like, dude, I think I'm too old for this.

[Brian Williams]

I think you can do it.

[Brandon]

Well, I think too, like, for me, where I find myself in my career is that I cannot turn off the switch to not give a. Amen. I wish I could.

[Matt Pronk]

It's.

[Brandon]

It's the biggest curse I'm. I like, why can I not give a. Because it pisses me off that I give a. And then I'll be pissed off for a few days and I'm like, I'm gonna still. I'm gonna do this. I wanna.

[Brian Williams]

Have you. Have you sat through the Jorge debrief?

[Brandon]

Yeah. Well, I watched it and then we had. I had Kim, his wife, on yesterday. We did a podcast with her.

[Brian Williams]

John Connor.

[Brandon]

Yeah. And man. So it's one of those deals where to me, where I find my passion in this is to pass on whatever knowledge I have, whatever little that may be, pass on what other people have instilled in me and to continue to push. What are you going to do? Because also, at the end of the day, I can't control what administration does.

[Brian Williams]

Me either. Yeah.

[Brandon]

But it also is. But I think having this conversation there really does need. Because I'm just one of those guys, if you've got an issue, let's talk about it. What do I need to be responsible for? Where did I let you down? And I don't. I don't know. Like, you have your perspective, let me know. And I think there actually needs to be conversations with administration, with their people. Like, true.

[Brian Williams]

Speak up.

[Brandon]

Yeah, like, hey, we're not fucking ranked here. I'm just. Brandon, talk to me.

[Brian Williams]

You have to speak up.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Because you don't know what you don't know. I get it.

[Matt Pronk]

You get.

[Brandon]

You have. You're Getting pulled in so many directions. I get that. But there's also. It's just like a family. There's different seasons in your life. And I was listening to Dr. T in American Warriors Deal today, and they were talking about, hey, there's just times where you got to put your phone down for 30, 30, 30 minutes and do this. There's just times where I got to say no to things. Kind of going back to what you said. There's things that you probably could have done instead of going to the range. You could have gone, met with somebody else, had another meeting that got you nowhere. But you know what? I'm going to pause that meeting or whatever, and I'm going to be with the troops because that is actually building.

[Scott Howell]

How much value is in that?

[Brandon]

More value than any dumbass meeting that you go to.

[Scott Howell]

Cover that at the beginning, the text.

[Brian Williams]

That I sent you to.

[Brandon]

Yes. Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Right. Yeah.

[Brandon]

No, and that's.

[Brian Williams]

These dudes don't even know me yet.

[Brandon]

Right? No. And that's. That's. That's a good thing because at the end of the day, they want to know that you.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Understand what they're doing. Because. Because when you do that, when you do got to tell them no, because you will have to tell them no. You want to say, no, we're not doing that. At least there's a relationship. Because rules without relationship lead to rebellion. Rebellion. When you have a relationship and you do have to say no, there's not necessarily rebellion.

[Scott Howell]

And I like it.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I respect you. I know. I know what you're about. So therefore, I can take the no or I can be told no. But let's have a. Okay, hey, let's have a conversation with this. And now we have an understanding. And you might change that no into, well, you know what? Maybe not now or maybe yeah, because I had no idea. Because now we have a relationship that we can actually. Actually build something on. Not just, well, you're. You're this rank, and I'm not this rank.

[Brian Williams]

So I'm. I'm. I'm really surprised that the question from you guys having hasn't come up about, like, what chiefs are we hiring today?

[Scott Howell]

So this leads me.

[Brandon]

I still have a few more questions.

[Scott Howell]

This leads into that. Just going back to the question you asked me, I think, because it's very easy to do this. I think it's in our human nature to do. Do so. But when you. When you asked me that question, thing that popped into my head was the game of comparison person.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

Because she's an evil bitch. And if you're constantly comparing everything to everything else instead of, again, looking internally, that can really mess you up. And so you strike me as a human that doesn't do that. I'm not comparing myself to another chief. I'm not comparing myself to another officer, to another shooter, to another fighter, to another driver. I'm focused on the shit that I need to do and how I need to do it. And going back to what Matt was saying, what ends up happening is everybody's, well, how's that guy doing? Let me just copy that. Because that seems to be formula. And. And that systemically becomes a massive issue.

[Brian Williams]

So why is that.

[Scott Howell]

So that's. That goes to your question that we need to. We need to circle back to. Which is like, who are these people that we're hiring now? And why are we hiring them? The cheat, these chiefs? Like, why are we hiring these people in. And maybe I just answered the question. I don't know. But what's your answer to that?

[Brian Williams]

Because it's politically is expedient to do that.

[Scott Howell]

It's easy.

[Brian Williams]

It's easy. Like, we're looking for certain things, right?

[Matt Pronk]

No waves made.

[Scott Howell]

Let's not rough. Let's start. Let's not rock the boat here, right? Because that creates work and that creates conflict, and that creates me having to actually have to ask a hard question or deal with a tough conversation or whatever. To me, going back to the fear, the other word you used was weakness. That is so cowardly to me. I. Again, I. I've had bosses. That's why I don't have one anymore. Because I was. I was the guy sitting at the round table in the boardroom, and that didn't go over too well. And, you know, have you guys watched.

[Brian Williams]

Any of the videos of the New Orleans police chief in the last three months?

[Scott Howell]

Unfortunately, yeah.

[Brian Williams]

And your thoughts on that?

[Scott Howell]

How did this happen?

[Brian Williams]

Brilliant person.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah. How. How did this happen? Happen? Like, who thought this was a good idea, right? Who thought this was a good idea? And who thought. And the second was, like, who thought it was a good idea to put them in front of national television?

[Brian Williams]

That's the best. Later.

[Scott Howell]

This is the best we could come up with.

[Brandon]

I'm sure it was a national survey that. And that person was picked out of three people of that whole nation.

[Scott Howell]

Just the defeat that I would feel as an officer, having that as my leader would be. I. I could. I. I don't know if I could be more demoralized. Like, this is what's representing me on A daily basis. And ultimately this is what's representing the community of my community as officers to the rest of the community and now to the world. How embarrassing.

[Brian Williams]

So the major cities out there have got this problem, every one of them.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah. And they're, they're hiring. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. Did she not come from Oakland? She not in Oakland before?

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, I'm not sure which.

[Scott Howell]

Think about that for a second. Like we're hiring and like you guys got a great, we're talking about Eddie Garcia. You guys got a great one. Don't have a fantastic city. He was up against a lot of, lot of stuff and I was happy for him. I was also super bummed out that he left. My point being is like a lot of times that happens. So there's a question for you. Why are we not promoting from within? Why are we not taking people from the departments and from the agencies that they grew up in that understand that agency and understand that community and putting them in a place of responsibility that would make them responsibility back to the thing that grew them and put them in that position in the first place. Why are we taking a multi failed city over and over again that's gone through five chiefs in six years or whatever the case is and just transplanting that into another one to me. And then they're there for three years. It's like the term is pigeon management. They fly in, they shit all over everything and then they fly out. Right.

[Brandon]

Right. Kitchen man. I've never heard of that. I like that.

[Scott Howell]

It's. It doesn't make any sense to me. Why is, why is that happening? Man?

[Brian Williams]

I can't answer that. For, for every. I, you know, I don't know why that happens. But, but you have to think about after a certain number of evolutions of that. What's in the pipeline?

[Scott Howell]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Because those people that have been like shit on the city have now promoted people into positions.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

To those positions. So really, what's in the pipeline? Pipeline? Look, dudes, the pipeline is messed up. Like.

[Matt Pronk]

I don't, I would just say this, is that having, you know, our new chief just warned in your states. He's my seventh chief.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Matt Pronk]

In 25 years.

[Scott Howell]

Okay, so is that good?

[Brandon]

No.

[Scott Howell]

I mean, I don't know.

[Matt Pronk]

I mean I've had good ones. I've had good ones and ones that I didn't care for too much. But you know, and I've had, We had good ones from internal and then obviously Garcia came from. He was external and we didn't know who. You don't know who you're getting until you get them. But in my observations, I think especially when you have a turnover of city management leaders, like the city manager for us hires the police chief. And I think a lot of them are like, I want my person, I want the.

[Scott Howell]

Fulfills my personal interest.

[Matt Pronk]

And whether they truly believe that person is the best or they're beholden, because if you're a new city leader and you don't, and you give somebody that's been there, a career person at that department, his allegiances or her allegiances are to other persons, not to me. Where I bring an outsider in doesn't have those allegiances already built in, baked into the pie, so to speak. So therefore I am their safety blanket, if that makes sense.

[Scott Howell]

That makes perfect sense.

[Matt Pronk]

And I think that's a lot of it. And again, you know, the city manager that hired Garcia, you know, whether he really knew him or not, is now the city manager at Austin and brought Garcia down there to be his assistant. So, you know, so he, whatever. I don't think he knew him before that, but he saw a, in my, again, in my opinion, a good, A good dude.

[Scott Howell]

Success, that.

[Matt Pronk]

Success that does things the right way and, and brought him along down there too. So he, you know, so it was good the way that happened there. But, you know, I think, you know, in talking to officers around the country, they're like, that person was brought in because he's beholden to her or to them, whatever. And like that, that allegiance is then between them, not for us.

[Scott Howell]

So we always hear about, like the secret society of policing. Right? Like, there's the thin blue line and there's all the things that come along with that. I wonder, wonder, like on the, on the chiefs, on the chief side of things. Okay, Is there a secret society there? I mean. Okay, so my question is, like, are there guys like, does Brian have friends? Right. They're in a chat group. Right, Right. Are you. Okay, so you're on an island.

[Brian Williams]

Hey, Scott, you know who my friends are? The people here at this conference? They're not chiefs. I'm not friends with any chiefs.

[Brandon]

So you got a bunch of low loves. There's your friends.

[Scott Howell]

Knuckle dragons. Yeah, I can appreciate that. That. I, that's, that's, that's my thing is like, is there a contingency of people that are going, this needs to change. We recognize we are outliers here and we're going to go ruffle feathers because we don't care. I don't care. What anybody, you know, anybody thinks. And we're going to. I mean, you see some of these people publicly, some of these sheriffs down in Florida are savages. And I love it daily.

[Brandon]

I love that, man.

[Brian Williams]

I brought them up.

[Scott Howell]

Not only did we shoot them.

[Brian Williams]

I'm just gonna say, Brandon, that's why I work for a sheriff. Yeah.

[Brandon]

No, I love it like. Like, I wish everybody was, like, beef with T. Justice, you know, you some. That would be the best.

[Brian Williams]

But I will say, you asked me if there was ever a department that I'd be interested in. Fort Worth might be one.

[Brandon]

No. Good old cowboy habits and all that. Oh, yeah. Chance is a good dude.

[Scott Howell]

I got chance of coming in tomorrow. Yeah.

[Brandon]

No, yeah, no, that's good.

[Matt Pronk]

I want to.

[Brandon]

I want to kind of. I want to shift the focus off of chiefs to the other administration, assistant commanders.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

So.

[Brian Williams]

So the. So killing.

[Brandon]

Exactly. So as a chief. The chief.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

What do you do with these that are just destroying the morale of the department? How do you deal with that?

[Brian Williams]

What do you have? Civil service.

[Brandon]

Yes.

[Brian Williams]

You suck it up.

[Brandon]

Okay.

[Brian Williams]

Right. Because that's what civil service gives you.

[Brandon]

Yeah, It's. It's.

[Brian Williams]

They give you a shit sandwich.

[Brandon]

Yeah. So how do you. What do you do for that command staff person that earned the job because he took a test or she took a test. Took a test, and then they have just. You. You know, they're incompetent. What do you do with that person? Like, do you. Do you have a conversation with them and go, hey, hey.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, I'm working on that now, too, myself. Yeah.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

What's that like? What's that process like? I mean, is it just constant?

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, it's constant.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

It's meetings. It's just being in the right places at the right times.

[Brian Williams]

It's documenting.

[Scott Howell]

It's okay.

[Brian Williams]

It's just nonsense.

[Brandon]

So when it's not civil service.

[Brian Williams]

Private sector.

[Scott Howell]

Yes. Okay.

[Brian Williams]

Be able to just send them to the door.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah. So tell me all the reasons why I shouldn't fire you or whatever or demote you. It's all right here, man.

[Brian Williams]

Not even that. Right?

[Scott Howell]

I mean, there's not even a conversation is what I'm saying. Yeah. By the time it gets to that, you. You should have seen this coming a long time ago.

[Brian Williams]

And look, man, this is the level that kills departments.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

And it's. In many cases, it's not even the chief. It's this level.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

So he's fighting. Fighting that battle.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah. Because they're all, like, competing against each other.

[Brandon]

And that's the thing.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

They want to be the. Yes.

[Matt Pronk]

Making decisions based on promotability.

[Brandon]

What can I do or not do? So I'm in the chief's favor.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

To me as a chief. I would fucking lose my mind if you're making that decision.

[Scott Howell]

That's why it's a tough job. It's a tough job.

[Brandon]

I'm like, hey man.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Like no, like. Like do your fucking job. That you know is right. There's, there's.

[Brian Williams]

They don't, they don't even know what's right.

[Brandon]

I think too because.

[Brian Williams]

Lost it.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

They've lost it.

[Brandon]

Yeah. And it is. So they're not civil service. A little bit easier, I guess. Or not. Bye. Bye.

[Brian Williams]

Bye.

[Brandon]

See you.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah, well, I guess. I mean. Okay, so let me be play devil's advocate here. And easier said than done. When the pipeline is as broken as it's been.

[Brian Williams]

It's broken.

[Scott Howell]

Right. So you can, you can buy by. But what are you putting in place? Are you throwing out the baby with the bathroom?

[Brian Williams]

I would go to patrol.

[Scott Howell]

I love that, that answer.

[Brian Williams]

Yes.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah. I love that.

[Brian Williams]

I would find leaders at the lowest level.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah. I don't care about seniority or test or any of that.

[Brandon]

So let, let me ask you this.

[Brian Williams]

Find leaders.

[Brandon]

So the, the mid level administrators, right. What is so quote special about their job that you got to take all these tests? I mean the reality. What, what is the. Because I've never done it. So therefore I can't say what the job is like from my perspective. It's a lot of. I'm going to get an email and I'm going to send it up to my chain that's above me and then that person is going to tell me and then I'm going to send another email back to the person who asked me or the issue that where it started. And then I'm just kind of like this in between just bouncing this ball back and forth, forth and I don't get anything done. Besides, I'm just the guy who is just the deliverer of messages to and from up and down, all that kind of stuff. Like what, what, what else do they have to do besides meetings? I mean it, it. And I'm not trying to be. I'm not trying to be a dick. I'm just like. That's most of the perception that just the Silver Badge sees.

[Brian Williams]

Do you. I don't know, man. Do you think you could survive in your department without that mid level?

[Brandon]

Most definitely.

[Brian Williams]

Absolutely.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I mean too many chiefs.

[Brian Williams]

I always Go back to many chiefs, not enough.

[Brandon]

I always go back to swat. You, I have earned, someone has earned the right to be a leader on that team.

[Brian Williams]

Yep.

[Brandon]

You gave them that, that title.

[Scott Howell]

That was selected by the team.

[Brandon]

That was selected by the team and all that kind of stuff. So now, now I'm going down range away from the quote command and I'm going to have to make a decision based on real time that I got to do right now without asking for quote, permission and all that kind of stuff. But yet now I'm not qualified to make another decision that is very easy.

[Scott Howell]

Administrative decision.

[Brandon]

I'm like, what? I don't understand that. To, to me. And I'm not saying it's me, but like, so the whole pipeline is. It's an easy thing. It's an easy thing. Like, there's nothing hard about this.

[Brian Williams]

So at one point in my career I was a captain.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Division commander.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Worst job of my career.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Absolutely. And I think like, why am I even here?

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

I either have to go go up or I'm going down because I can't do this.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

And so I went, I went up.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Did the up thing. Like, I, I guess I'll go up.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

No, but just, you know, to the listeners out here, I mean we can absolutely survive without captains and commanders. We don't need you. We don't need you. We, we, we can do it.

[Brandon]

Yeah. I mean it's very frustrating that middle management because they are stuck because some of them, some of them have fucked up so much that they know they're not moving.

[Brian Williams]

Dude, it's so killing.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Inside the walls of any police department, sheriff's office, that mid level.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Is so killing.

[Brandon]

Yeah. And I think, and I think for me personally, prove me wrong. Yeah. No, you're right. Like when I would, I would have, if I had one of those soul silly killing mid level person, I think I would just have that conversation. Listen.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

You can go guard the fucking parking lot. I don't give a fuck. You can stay at home. To me, morale would be better. This place would be better if you just stayed up. I don't give a shit because I ain't paying you. Like, go.

[Brian Williams]

I'm going to send this podcast to people.

[Brandon]

But, but it comes to a point where it.

[Brian Williams]

Stand up.

[Brandon]

Yes.

[Brian Williams]

A leader.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Take care of your people, focus on the mission. Go get another job.

[Brandon]

No, you're, you're right, you're right. Because I always go back to, you're not helping us. Yeah. There's always there's always changes in any department. Like, hey, a new blah, blah, blah comes into whatever unit. This. There's always, you know, every couple years, there's always movement. And every time someone new comes in, they got to make their mark. So when they try to do something, it's a, it's a, it's a one up. Yeah. It's a resume thing. And I'm like, that promotability. Yeah. I'm like, you never asked anybody in this unit what makes this place better. How do I make your job more efficient? How do I, how do we get.

[Brian Williams]

All these people to work together?

[Brandon]

Yes.

[Brian Williams]

For the overall.

[Brandon]

To me.

[Brian Williams]

Not for their own CI that will make you promotable.

[Brandon]

Because now you have the power of the people that, that you're leading. That's promotability right there.

[Brian Williams]

And yeah, they're all fearful. They're all scared they're going to get on. Yeah, it's. And I get it, it's weakness.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

It's just being weak.

[Brandon]

So one of the questions, how do we fix poor. How do we fix poor leadership? I mean, I don't, I know how you do it on swat, because we can, we can manage our own for the most part. Like there's, there's some of that culture that we still have now. Do I see it fading from when I first got here? I do. Oh yeah, I do. I will say that. So I'm not going to sit here and say we have it all fixed. And. But how do we fix that? I mean, I always go back, everybody said, well, you need to promote like more SWAT guys than you, bro. I get that. That. But I'm like, I don't know. I don't, I don't know how you fix it.

[Scott Howell]

Sometimes I think there's one word and it's accountability. And that's what's lacking. Yeah, it, that's, that's my, my take from the outside looking in is so.

[Brian Williams]

We, so we want our leaders to stand up, be accountable, show up. Right.

[Scott Howell]

Wild. Right? Wild. Crazy. Right. And, and, and again, going back to, to you were talking about Garcia and kind of what he did and that was making yourself responsible first and putting it out there. And I think that might sound corny, like express your goals and your plan to the team and then you gotta live up to that. And then in his case, successful. Right. Again, by all the accounts here, at least at this table. Right. And the people that you guys have talked to. Successful. And if that's even like part of it, then why aren't we adopting that, like, as him as an example, why aren't we adopting that? And you've already answered the question as to why they're not adopting it. There's fear and weakness and things like that, but I think it's accountability. And the problem is who's actually holding that person accountable to anything. And if they're married to the city manager and they're married to all that stuff, that person isn't holding him accountable to anything.

[Brian Williams]

We're scared of that, too. We're fearful of holding the chief accountable because the public likes him, the council likes him or her, whatever.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

So we're scared about holding people accountable.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Like, this is my funky butt.

[Scott Howell]

I mean. And I don't know what the answer to that is.

[Brian Williams]

Like, the whole system is screwed.

[Scott Howell]

Where. Yeah, where does that process even start? Like, you know, where's it? Because you gotta speak up. That's it. That's what it comes down to. And it has to. It has to come from every angle. It has to come from. From the city manager. It has to come from the city council. It has to come from the mayor. It has to come from the public. They have to be vocal about this. And to your point, going back, there's portions of your city that recognize what the police work is and what it looks like and how the sausage is made and the effectiveness of that. And they might not like it all the time, but they recognize the importance of it versus the majority, which generally has the louder voice or are the ones that are funding things that are giving money to city council campaigns and things like that, have zero clue what any of that is until those people start recognizing what the reality of all of this is, and they're impacted by it. And that goes back to my question about how much worse does it have to get. Well, I tell you what, when there's multiple car burglaries in the gated community, right then there's some noise being made, and almost immediately, a response is. A response comes to that almost immediately. Under Garcia, during 2020, when things were wildly out of control, like in our city at a lot of different levels, our neighborhood that I lived and owned a business in was looked like a demilitarized zone. I've never seen anything implode as fast as that. And I'm sure there's many other parts in the nation which are way worse than anything I had to experience. But for me. Me. But for me, it was. It was devastating on a lot of different levels. I. I didn't feel safe, you know, and for Me to say that, you know, like, that's. It's pretty rough, right? Like, my, My, My daughters didn't feel safe. You know, my, My community didn't feel safe. And they're saying that to their friends, but they're not saying that to anybody else. Right. And I will tell you, dude, you're.

[Brian Williams]

Right on the money.

[Scott Howell]

I. I made a phone call. I made a phone call to somebody who I knew had a voice, you know, basically the red phone to the city level. And I go, I go, listen, the shit's out of control down here. We need to talk about it. Here's what happened. And some bad stuff had to happen for that, for that, for finally for me to take that step. And it should have never got there in the first place, but it did. And I tell you what he. I tell you what he did. It went to the chief's office. You know, he sent. He sent me over. The captain of the division.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

And he sat in front of me for an hour to listen to me, and I told him what the problems were. That's all I needed to do. Do. The next day, there were six units up and down my street all day long doing police work, not driving through. They were pulling over cars that needed to be pulled over. They were shaking down people that needed to be shaken down. And the impact that that had in our neighborhood immediately was. It was a night, night and day difference. Now, there's always going to be the ebbs and the flows of the things that come in, but it absolutely makes a difference.

[Brian Williams]

And that lasted for exactly four hours.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah, exactly.

[Brian Williams]

So was gone.

[Scott Howell]

And it was gone. So it needs to be a constant conversation. You have to be telling them, telling what's going on. So for, again, the most this audience is probably cops or people that know cops or, you know, whatever else. But the, the bottom line is, is like, there has to be some citizen activity and responsibility in holding your police accountable to the things that they need to. And that means holding the chief accountable to what they need to be doing.

[Brian Williams]

We need to fire more police chiefs in this country at a high level.

[Scott Howell]

Right. I have video. Let me show you what it looks like down here. I've got the documentation, the same documentation you have. And I don't want to hear about your crime stats because my window just got broken into last night. Somebody burned my car down literally in the parking lot behind me. Right. We've got an issue down here. Why does it have to get to that? Like, now I'm seeing police officers, but yes, it was Short lived, man. It was short lived. But that's the way it has to. Again, the accountability I think comes. The citizens have to take, take the responsibility here instead of bitching and moaning about it or put their head in the sand because it's not happening in my backyard. I don't need to worry about that. That's part of the answer. It's not the whole answer, but I think that's part of the answer.

[Brian Williams]

People have to start speaking up.

[Scott Howell]

They're weak. They're weak and they're afraid of what they're going to look like to their neighbors and what they're going to look like in their circle of friends by calling out the fact that we have a very specific population that are now conglomerating here and they may look a little different than us and they little bit of a different culture than us, but there seems to be a problem there. But I don't want to say that because that could make me look bad. Right. That could, that could get me labeled with something that would make me have to answer questions as to why I would make a complaint or say something like that. That's weak. It's cowardly.

[Brian Williams]

You know, God bless our police officers today.

[Scott Howell]

Who's going to want that job? That's the question. Right. Going back to the pipeline.

[Brian Williams]

I love them.

[Scott Howell]

That's. That's why I'm here. No, that's why I'm here, man.

[Brandon]

And I appreciate that. Like it's. So when you say, when I hear you say, Scott, man, I'm not doing this or I'm not bashing this or like if anyone listens to you, they know your heart. So don't ever apologize because everybody knows that. Because to me, I mean, I've told you this, I'm the most anti cop cop there is, man. Because I see the of goes on or I see the.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

I mean it really is like this is a craftsmanship.

[Brian Williams]

Yes.

[Brandon]

Do the stuff to be a craftsman of your craft. Don't just show up and go, I'm cool. I got this badass badge on and I can get the chicks. Or I can be some hot chick on Instagram and I get all these followers because I post that.

[Scott Howell]

Whatever. It's like, it's embarrassing.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Like what do your. But at the of the day, end.

[Brian Williams]

Of the day, like Instagram has killed our profession.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Like this job is about doing right and fighting people that want. Yeah. Even are you hoping or hurting. That's all I've ever wanted to do.

[Scott Howell]

That.

[Brandon]

That, that's All I want, that's all I ever want to do. I, I promise when I am no longer can breathe on this earth, until that point I will still want to do what's right.

[Brian Williams]

And the next door app will tell us if we're success.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Yeah. So this another question that, that, that, that was posed. So when it comes to like particularly SWAT tactics, that's been a big topic over the few years there, there, there, there's been a big shift in tactics and SWAT from. Okay, well dynamics are bad. Yeah. The NTOA came out with their big ass statement. If you had the Breonna Taylor, which chiefs jump on that and go well this is the reason why. Which that is a false narrative. Like everything when, when a, when a chief says that I have to go back and go, do you really know what you're talking about when you say that? Because that's not the truth. Like the reality is there was a dude who shot, that was in the parking lot that shot into a window like that. That had nothing to do with dynamic. It had nothing to do with no knock. That dude just shot into the window for whatever reason.

[Matt Pronk]

Right.

[Brian Williams]

Wrong.

[Brandon]

Or whatever. We're not even going to get into that. That had nothing to do with that. There was a search warrant. They didn't serve it dynamically. They announced and announced and announced and announced. So when you say that I lose a lot of credibility with that. So going back to the question, so are SWAT tactics being changed by administrators because of fear or is it being changed because of the level of the operators going oh, we think this is better. What think? Do you you see.

[Scott Howell]

Be ready Matt, because I'm going to come back to you on that question.

[Brian Williams]

I don't know man. That's a good question. I think it's probably a little bit of both, honestly.

[Brandon]

Yeah. Because I, I. So do you see administrators cowering down because of fear? Like let's, let's not be aggressive.

[Brian Williams]

Yes, I do.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Yes I do.

[Scott Howell]

So this, this is, leads into this. So, so Matt, how long you been on SWAT?

[Matt Pronk]

20 years.

[Scott Howell]

Okay. Where did you learn about SWAT before you got onto SWAT?

[Matt Pronk]

I didn't.

[Scott Howell]

And then how did you learn about SWAT when you were there?

[Matt Pronk]

From the senior guys.

[Scott Howell]

Right, from the senior guys.

[Brandon]

And where did they learn from their senior guys?

[Scott Howell]

From their senior guys. So they understood the history.

[Matt Pronk]

Sure.

[Scott Howell]

Right. They understood the kind of the club within the club. They'd seen all the bad stuff, they'd seen all the good stuff. They'd learned. They'd see people made mistakes, they made Them, they made their own mistakes and, and along the way, and I take this back to like what people think of policing. You learn from people on the inside, right? And we've talked about this, Brandon, how bad a job law enforcement does at telling the story of law enforcement. Right. And so unless you're on the inside with, with senior guys like that, you don't get that. I was shocked when I went to SWAT school at the lack of knowledge that those. There were 76, six of us in that room. I was shocked at the lack of knowledge of their own history of SWAT on something they were trying to get into. I was also shocked at the kind of the, the blank stares and the lack of knowledge on the things that have impacted how SWAT is handled. Now going back to what you were saying in terms of tactics being changed and whatnot, and all the information we were giving the case law, the, the incidents, the landmark cases and even stuff that had happened very, very locally right here in this state and how that impacts them and their lack of knowledge on it. And I think that's a big problem going back to the pipeline as you're getting people in here. So to your question, like who's changing it? I don't have the answer to that question, but my gut's telling me that it's the lack of the institutional knowledge and how it's been pre programmed and where they're getting that information from. Like why did you sign up for this, man? Like why did you sign up for this? Do you even understand what this really is? Yeah, I, I don't know what you're. I don't know what the answer to the question might be. If there's really even a question in that. Except for the ones that I asked you, but how do you feel about that?

[Brian Williams]

I want to hop on this. Matt, when did you get on SWAT?

[Brandon]

2005.

[Brian Williams]

2005. So I, I got on SWAT in 1987. Yeah.

[Brandon]

Taped on your flashlight.

[Scott Howell]

So.

[Brian Williams]

Where did we get the tactics for that in 87? I think they were self developed. Where did we learn new tactics? For me, I learned them from BORTAC in El Paso. It was the special forces stuff.

[Brandon]

Stuff. Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

And it was dynamic. Yeah, it was no knock dynamic stuff.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

But today it's, you know, surrounding call out. Yeah, right.

[Brandon]

It's insane.

[Brian Williams]

I don't know, man. There's a lot of people that believe in that.

[Matt Pronk]

Yeah, they're wrong but.

[Brandon]

And I guess I go back to.

[Brian Williams]

I mean just from a loss of life perspective, like unless, unless there's Some. Unless there's somebody to be rescued or a life to be saved. Saved. And if it's just evidence, then why are you doing it? Yeah, well, I don't know.

[Brandon]

And I, I don't think like we're, we're going to have that discussion in another future podcast if everything goes right.

[Brian Williams]

Okay.

[Brandon]

With some other organizations. But. Because I, because I think you have a point to all that. But I also go back to there. There is a just, there's just things that everyone needs to know in the, in the history, but you also have to be able to still do those tasks and you have to be able to do proficiently. And you, you just can't stop it because once you stop, you can never get that skill back. And I feel like, and Matt feels like the same way.

[Brian Williams]

Okay.

[Brandon]

There's going to be a, there's good there. I, My biggest fear is that we have, have cultivated a generation of SWAT guys and girls that will never have, never have the ability, they don't have the knowledge base to ever do anything. Clearing space in a fast moving environment.

[Brian Williams]

Right.

[Brandon]

And they have to be able to do that.

[Brian Williams]

You're describing law enforcement general.

[Brandon]

And they're, they're, they're not going to do that.

[Brian Williams]

SWAT everything.

[Brandon]

They're never going to be able to do that because someone said we can't do that.

[Scott Howell]

Put the handcuffs on.

[Brandon]

Yeah. And then that someone now is over the team. So everyone who comes on that team just knows what they know. So there's no old guys to say, hey, I'm sure the Matt's the same way. There was things that you learned in 2005 that are still the foundation of stuff. But there's also things, if you added to it because of technology, you added to it because, because of. Of skill set, you've added to it because of lessons learned. But you're adding on to this foundation. And it's not exactly the same, but it's, it has the same footprint on it and stuff.

[Brian Williams]

For the record, man, like before you even got on swat, I did a hundred at least dynamic, no knock entries. So at least 100.

[Brandon]

Yeah. So it's, it's like, like I get technology. Like, okay, now we have MVGs. Okay. We didn't have MVGs in 2003 when I got on the team, we just didn't have that. Now we do. Okay. So that's another added tool that we have in our tool belt.

[Scott Howell]

But that shouldn't change the basic foundational principle fundamentals.

[Brandon]

Exactly. Explosive breaching. When I first got on the team was something that we were doing and then it's evolved. Like when you first got on the team. Yalls explosive breaching program is not the same as it is now. Sure. Are you still using the. The same explosives? Yes, you're using explosives, but the experience level has changed that. So we're now more efficient. And I guarantee in 10 years from now there'll be other ways to do it. But you're still using that. Equipment has changed. I mean, now there's way more equipment. So with all that, I understand there's. There is some change into that, but at the end of the day, the fucking principles of it are the principles of it. Like with shooting. We have better guns now than we did years ago.

[Scott Howell]

Ammo, 20% is what you're talking about.

[Brandon]

Yeah, ammo's better and stuff, but the foundation of funk, the foundation of shooting, those hard skills, they haven't changed. So why do we want to change this for everybody else? I go back to the most dangerous thing that we do in police work is a traffic stop. We do those daily. Has any big city chief, has any chief came down and said, you know what? Traffic stops are dangerous. We're going to stop those. We have not changed the tactics of police traffic stops. For the most part. You either approach on this side or you approach on this side. We haven't said, hey man, you know what? We feel that these are dangerous because of a data, proven data. So now we're not making traffic stops without two. Two main elements. So you better have a. They don't do that unless it's dire situations. But I go back to, well, we want to do it for the safety of this and chiefs, we'll spin that. But yet when they spin it over here, we wonder if it's safe. That has nothing to do with it. Because why we change. We haven't changed this because it's a moneymaker, Brandon.

[Brian Williams]

Can I argue that point?

[Brandon]

Yes.

[Brian Williams]

The most dangerous thing you can do is walk into your headquarters, check your email, talk to your commander.

[Scott Howell]

Holy cow.

[Brian Williams]

That is the most dangerous. That's what's killing people.

[Brandon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brian Williams]

It's not the job really. At the end of the day, it's the organization.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Brian Williams]

Now that toxic full of right.

[Brandon]

Now you're.

[Brian Williams]

That's it.

[Brandon]

No, it.

[Scott Howell]

It is.

[Brian Williams]

You wanted honesty, right?

[Brandon]

No, it, it.

[Brian Williams]

It.

[Brandon]

It is.

[Brian Williams]

That's it. I'm. I'm laying it out for you, Scott.

[Brandon]

You want to be a cop?

[Scott Howell]

No. At one point I thought I did when I was a young, young guy.

[Brian Williams]

And I, Scott, do I like feel your bill for this? Right?

[Scott Howell]

What's that?

[Brian Williams]

Do I fit your bill for this?

[Scott Howell]

For, for what? For being a chief? Yeah, this is the kind of chief that I would want.

[Brian Williams]

Okay, 400,000.

[Scott Howell]

That's what it costs.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, that's the bill or more. Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

Look, if, if it gets me competency, if it's, if it gets me fairness, if it gets me professionalism, and if we start getting those metrics to me, and I'm not just talking about car thefts down, burglaries down, People want to be safe. They want to be safe. No, I'm talking about, I'm talking about the other metrics, like hit factors. Right. Hit ratios, you know, on things like those are things that I would value if, if I'm in a hostage situation. Like, I don't think people put themselves in that. Oh, that's never going to happen to me or whatever. Yeah, it's going to happen to whoever on the other side of town on that. But the point being is like, yeah, that's fine with me. The dollars don't matter. The dollars matter to me. When I don't see performance, you know, happen when I don't see, and I mean performance at a lot of different levels. When I see again, you're mailing it in, you're giving me this pre canned or pre programmed response that you think I, I may, I, that I, I want, for whatever the reasons you think I want that. Because your city councils, that's important to them, that doesn't matter to me. Like I don't care. I'm fine paying, whatever the. Just tell me what the bill is. Get the fucking job done. Yeah, right, that's it. At the end of the day, well.

[Brandon]

For you, like, you, you're a citizen of your city and then you're a business owner of the city that you're in. So you, you have two vested digits.

[Scott Howell]

And don't ask me how many dollars I paid to the city. Yeah, for that. I'll never stand on that. On that, on that, that, that pulpit of like, I pay, you know, I pay your salary. They never fucking do. That's, that's the lamest thing I've ever heard, ever. But at the same time, I do pay a lot of money, right? Like it comes and it's hard. Like it's hard. And every time I gotta write those checks, right, or you know, the fire marshal comes in and gives me another bill for, you know, a permit or whatever else, I'm like, what am I paying for here. Like, look, however, they did save my building last year, so.

[Brandon]

But you also pay for. I mean, you have a business where. I mean, you could have a hostage situation in your business. I mean, it could happen. So the police that are responding to that, whether it's that, whether it's a. A domestic disturbance or whatever could happen in your business, I'm sure there's probably.

[Scott Howell]

Been police called to your business plenty of times. You can check. You could check the record. And there's been armed people that have walked into my business. Business.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

So don't think that I'm not aware and prepared for that. And other people aren't either. Like, that's. That's a very real situation.

[Brandon]

So it's like you have twofold. Not just, I'm protecting my house, but, man, I have a business that's my livelihood. To me as a cop, man, I have the security of the city always paying me. You don't. Because when your business goes out, there's no other body to.

[Scott Howell]

Nobody cares either. Nobody cares.

[Brandon]

So for me, I'm like, man, I owe it to you. Like, I don't want the homeless guy or the. The. The. The dickhead who's causing you problem. Like, let's. I'll fix this for you because you're contributing to society.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah, that's an interesting statement though, too. Like, I think people need to fix their own problems. Like citizens need to fix their own problems and stop calling cops to fix their stupid shit. Like, most of these things are avoidable, and most of those things can be handled well before the cops. You're. You're calling the police to do things that you should be handling as a human. Like, these are not difficult things to deal with. I get you're having a bad day right now, but why are. Why, why. Why did that phone call get made? Yeah, because you don't have the ability to. That's a whole other topic, whole other conversation.

[Brian Williams]

But.

[Scott Howell]

But I. You know, people need to. As much as a police officer needs to take responsibility for the shit that they can control. Our. Our citizens, you know, need to take. Take control over those things too.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

100% percent. Like, they're as much to blame as. As the police officers for the dumb that happens.

[Brian Williams]

So dumb. I want to end this if I can, because I'm gonna have to use the restroom soon.

[Brandon]

Yep, you got the oldest bladder here.

[Scott Howell]

So, yeah, you're gonna have to get in line, man. And I'm.

[Brian Williams]

I'm kidding about that, but I want to end this on the troops. Put the pressure on your chief, on your city council, your city, maybe manager to take care of the troops. Those are the men and women out there doing the work, responding to the calls, answering the. The crazy that's happening out there. So, I mean, we need to support them, right, Scott?

[Scott Howell]

100.

[Brian Williams]

Not. Not the people in my position.

[Brandon]

No, for sure. I mean, it's the.

[Brian Williams]

I think most of those people need to be fired. All of them.

[Brandon]

Yeah. And the thing is, is their skill set.

[Brian Williams]

You can send your hate mail to me.

[Scott Howell]

Yeah. Somehow, I don't think you give a.

[Brian Williams]

Yeah, I don't give it. I don't care.

[Brandon]

All right. We have anything else, fellas? I'm sure this will be a interesting podcast when it releases.

[Scott Howell]

Oh, I think it will. The only thing I want to say is I just want to thank you guys for having me at the table today.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Scott Howell]

You guys have always been very gracious with your time and sitting down and talking with me. Just a dude, right? Who. And Brian, obviously, for doing the thing that I asked or that I requested that I didn't realize you had posed that. I do which or be a part of which was sitting down and having an honest conversation about the feelings on the inside at that level. I recognize you don't represent all of the. All of the police chiefs in the nation.

[Brian Williams]

I don't represent any of them.

[Scott Howell]

That's my point.

[Brandon]

You're not.

[Scott Howell]

And you're not trying to, like. And I get that, and that's what I appreciate. Like, stop trying to compare and, you know, and hold up some false, you know, public statement that you think all police chiefs should be saying. That was really why I wanted to be here today. So I just want to thank everybody for. For allowing that to happen and for being that guy I. I needed and wanted to talk to. Because I've tried, man. I have tried. I put it out there. I've tried to con. It's not for lack of effort.

[Brandon]

No.

[Scott Howell]

It's sitting down in front of people. And I always had the. The feeling that the reason they didn't want to do that, first off, maybe I'm not that likable guy. Likable a guy. Maybe people, they think I'm dumb. That's fine. I'll accept that. Right. But if it's. If it's not that and the reasons that they won't do that, because I think I'm fair. Right. I try to be objective. Right. I just try to ask honest questions, and I try to do that from an informed position. But I guess the The, The. The. The point in that is I think it comes down to fear and weakness.

[Brian Williams]

That's right.

[Scott Howell]

And they don't want to be asked the questions because they're going to have to answer them. Right, right. And when you don't, when you can just be silent and not say anything, that's a lot easier to do. So thanks for not doing that, dude. Thanks for. Thanks for. Thanks for being up front. I appreciate you.

[Brian Williams]

That's why I'm the unicorn.

[Scott Howell]

I'll remember that.

[Brandon]

And the black sheep now the most. Unlike chief there is.

[Brian Williams]

I love it, man. I love it.

[Scott Howell]

So.

[Brandon]

All right, boys and girls, man. Man, this is. This was a. This was a pleasure, man. It was good. Always, Always, like, seeing your perspective on things. And it's just like if you were a cop, because I think you. You've delved in enough where you. You immerse yourself in this community. Community that you know the history, you know what guys are doing in the job and, And. And that shows. So, like, that's why you always have a seat at the table with this organization, because of what the man you are and how you go about doing your business and stuff like that.

[Scott Howell]

It's only possible because you guys have allowed me into the circle.

[Brandon]

Well, and that it goes back to. I think we. We do. We have done a shitty job over the years, and police enlisted, letting people like you come in and go, hey, man, there's nothing for us to hide. Like, let's go. Like, what do you want to know?

[Scott Howell]

Appreciate it.

[Brandon]

Yeah. So for me, I think that's the way we should do business is. I mean, if you look around from when we first. When I first started coming to these conferences, to what we are now, there's so many non le people here that are contributing to us, and we're taking them and going, hey, come under this fold, and we're going to build this. This thing, whatever this is, together. And that's a. That's a positive, because the more people I can get that are not like cops, the bigger army I'm going to have to. To see it the way it should be and. And. And be in a positive.

[Scott Howell]

So it's just four dudes sitting at the table chatting, man. We just. We do different things for a paycheck. Yeah, it's just four dudes. Yeah.

[Brandon]

Well, all right, boys and girls, man. It was a good podcast. So y' all train hard and we'll see you next time.

[Brian Williams]

Amen.