The Cult of Policing, Part 2

We continue our discussion with a former law enforcement officer on the cult-like power structures within policing.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Ah where it's us, the podcast that we are. It
could happen here behind the podcast bad stuff. It could
happen here, it is, it could happen here. Okay, Well
Part two of Why Police Are Occult? Thanks Garrison, Thanks
for doing the job. That is one of our jobs, certainly,
but apparently not mine. Alexander Williams back again, Um, Alexander,

(00:31):
how are you? How are you feeling good? Was your
life in a radically different place now than it was
when we ended part one? Oh? Yeah? Like no, Well
that's for the best, because anything that would change in
about the thirty seconds between these episodes probably would not
have been a positive change. You're letting the magic out.

(00:51):
People are gonna know. Yeah, they should know already. Uh
So the next thing you've got here in terms of
characteristics that you saw inside the Police is the group
has a polarized US versus them mentality, which may cause
conflict with the wider society. Um. Yeah, and I I

(01:12):
think this is the one that like, yeah, we've all
we all kind of saw that one. Are you sure
about that one? I'm not convinced. Yeah, it was a
Eureka moment, right, Yeah, Um, I do think it's probably
worth a little bit of exploration about like what it
means emotionally to be told like I want to defund

(01:35):
or even abolish the police as a police officer, like
that's that's a um yeah, yeah. I remember the first
time that I heard that, the concept of it when
I was a cop. I think I was about five
years away from getting out, um and it blew my mind.
It was it was like, I'm like, you don't know,

(01:56):
we don't have enough funding, Like how hell in the world?
But we can't you our job because in you know,
in our in my head, we're we're the thing holding
society up. If we're not here, everything falls apart and crumbles. Um.
So the idea of being told like we need to
defund the police for cops, it's it's an attack on
your values and your role in the world. It's also

(02:18):
attack on like your personal life because because your life
is police as well, right and and and it's and
it's like you're you. You've been talking a lot about
how the job becomes such a central part of your
identity that it's not even just attacking like your paycheck,
but it's attacking like your essence now as a person.
It is It's like if you've ever had a debate

(02:40):
with with an extremely like evangelical religious person, it's the
same as trying to tell a cop like, hey, you
don't actually hold society up. You're not exactly as important
as you think you are. Um. And like I said, like,
we don't get we don't get paid very much. Health
insurance usually isn't that good um our. Our unions that
we told as being the best usually pretty corrupt um.

(03:02):
And they don't really go to bat for us and
get us the good health insurance and get us the
good pay. They get us just enough. And so when
a cop here's like, hey we defund the police, it's
like from our perspective, we think what we're hearing is
we don't appreciate you. We already think you get paid
too much. We we think of it less about like
the structure of law enforcement, and we think it personally

(03:23):
of like oh you don't think my kids should have dinner? Yeah,
And that's uh, I mean, yeah, of course that has
like of course it ends the way that we saw
it in you know, or at least it continues the
way we saw it continue last year, right, And and
it's I think it could help like people like us
are on one side of the line, and you know

(03:45):
the other people are on the other side of the
line still, and I think it could help people on
our side of the of the of the barricades to
understand just how willing these guys are to do things
and things that they wouldn't normally do, things that you
would never consider doing on your own, but for the
job and as an order, they'll do it because again,

(04:06):
it's part of their identity, and it's it's if you
know you're attacking me, you're also attacking my family. You're
you're It goes back to that grossman thing of being
We told a lot of um, no matter what you do,
you go home tonight. So no matter what I do
on my shift, I go home tonight. It's better to
be judged by twelveth and carried by six. Yeah that one, Yeah,

(04:34):
I'm thinking of like the police of the riot line,
and yeah, you can see them being like middle aged
conservative dudes, like look at all these like fucking like
gay queer teenagers. Throws to fat me. Right, it's like
the specific thing you're like, oh you you like I'm
getting attacked by like the lowest of the low society.
I'm being attacked by like did like degenerates and like
this weird kind of scum. I'm actually what society should be.

(04:58):
The people that are fighting against me are like this
weird anti social thing, right, That's that's how it is
from their perspective. Um when almost an actuality. I've been
I've been slowly kind of appropriating that type of language
for when I see a cop do something horrible, I'm like, wow,
look at that, like anti social, violent freak, because you
can look at that language because it flips the way

(05:20):
we usually view like aesthetics when you know, because like
when you see someone do something quotably horribly violent but
they addressed in a uniform, it is it has the
appearance of being proper, but like, no, that actually still
is anti social and extremely violent. So I think flip,
I've been playing around with like flip flipping that language.
But you can definitely see it on the cops faces

(05:41):
when a whole bunch of like young queer as fun
people are throwing water bottles at them. Oh yeah, you can't.
And and the thing that the thing to remember about
most cops is they're there their ego is paper thin
their skin. They cannot take a joke, they cannot take
an insult. The the number of cops that I would see,
and I would argue that I saw some of the

(06:02):
worst worst behavior than on the streets, because because inside
the jail, you're you know, you're in your own little world.
You're inside these walls. The public can't see you unless
you're on camera and pre body cameras. You know where
all the cameras are. And I the the amount of
guys that like an inmate would call them like the
f slur or any other slur, and the cop would

(06:23):
just snap, we just lose their mind. And me and
another couple other guys being the only kind of cops
that would get in the guy's way and be like no.
And it was never we couldn't say no, that's wrong,
don't do that. It was always no, it's not worth it,
or no, you're gonna get in trouble, or no, you
know if you do that, he wins man. Because if

(06:44):
we said don't do that, it's wrong, we may have
we may have stopped that bad thing from happening, but
we have now marked ourselves as being, you know, potential apostates.
Against the close. Um so yeah, that's yeah, calling them
names works. Six and stones do break coops bones, Like,

(07:04):
oh boy, it does work. Like in terms of if
if the goal is make them extremely angry, yes it
doesn't work. It's yeah, obviously. The next one you've got
is the leader. The leader is not accountable to any authorities, um,
which the police regulate and investigate themselves. That's one of

(07:25):
the most basic ones. But it does it kind of.
It does lead to this, Like it is interesting to
think about the way the Church of Scientology handles uh
misbehavior from its agents and the way that, like a
police department does. Because there's not a ton of daylight
betwixt the two. There's not listening to you the l
Ron episodes, anyone who hasn't listened to them, go back

(07:47):
and listen to them. They're fantastic, one of my favorites.
Um yeah, listening to that. And the way that they're
a little internalized security system was structured was very very
analog to exactly what happens law enforcement with their so
called policing themselves b s. Because god, they don't, they'll

(08:08):
do every little thing to manipulate the situation to have
the cop come out on top and not be in
trouble because who's gonna hold them responsible? That my own
guy at my own department's interviewing me. We've known each
other since we were kids, or I've known his dad,
or his dad's known me, or or he's you know,
related or whatever. It never works when the you know,

(08:31):
the watchmen are watching themselves. It doesn't work. I don't
know how. We don't, well, I do know how, but
I really wish there was if we do have to
still have law enforcement civilian oversight with actual power, actual
authority to do. Yeah. That's that's the thing is that
everywhere and a lot of the times that's been try

(08:54):
to put into legislator, it doesn't. It's always like neutered.
It's always like and like I've I've seen versions of
it pop up in Portland and it just never does anything. Yeah,
And that's I mean, obviously, the whole the question of
is to what extent can increasing civilian oversight UH solve problems?

(09:15):
To what extent is it like papering over them? Those
are all things worth discussing. Um. I think I want
to kind of keep us focused on the mindset that
that inflicates because that that's the thing that I don't
think people get in part because like most people who
are part of these abolitionous movements, most people who are
are on the sides that we are on this um

(09:37):
either probably don't know a police officer very well part
and certainly almost most of them have not been police officers.
And I'm kind of wondering, what are you actually scared
of doing as a police officer, Like what what what
are you actually scared of in terms of like the blowback,
the fault, Like what what is it you actually get

(09:58):
worried about if it's not pissing off everyone else in
the city who wasn't a cop, you know. So Yeah,
what it comes down to is, uh, you know that
the the church of law, the Church of criminal justice,
and what they're scared of is so if I get
a dirty cop who's not blatantly doing something bad, like

(10:20):
he just he hit a guy too art or something,
it's something that hasn't hit the news yet. Um, but
I have to morally, like ethically, on paper, I'm required
to have an I A division investigate these people. The
reason that in my head, when I was there and
being interviewed for these things, it's because you have to

(10:40):
hold up the infallibility of the law. It doesn't matter
what really happened. All that matters is what's in black
and white on paper in our files. If we ever
get audited by a federal body and we can say, look,
a bad thing happened, Yes, we investigated it. Here's what
Here were the results. And it's all about holding up

(11:02):
the infallibility of the law because if it really gets
out and cops really get in trouble for stuff like
some of the stuff that's been happening, where cops are
actually being convicted finally for doing terrible things, it erodes
the blind faith that the masses have in law enforcement.
Because I've heard people here in Utah, which is a

(11:23):
very conservative place, look at some of those shootings that
have happened where the cops have actually been found guilty,
and they've actually been like, oh wow, like I never
once thought a cop would do this, and it doesn't
sound like much, but in their head, that's that's a
seed that's setting in their consciousness. And that's that's the
whole point of the blue wall of silence and keeping

(11:44):
everything in the house is if everybody realizes that We're
just a little weird man behind a curtain. You know,
the Wizard of Oz doesn't work anymore. We have to
maintain this false image that we are infallible and we
know we know exactly what we're doing, and we are
taking care of you. You have to believe that, so

(12:04):
they'll do anything to maintain the lie. Wow. Yeah, that
makes sense. It's bleak, but it makes sense. Yeah, it
felt bleeping in there. This ties into kind of the

(12:31):
the role of like lying, right, and and and the
kind of the cult thing you're tying this into is
that like colts will often talk about how the things
the cult is doing are so important that you can
do terrible things to achieve them. Right. You see this
in the Church of Scientology and their dirty tricks programs.
Sent and On had its its version of this. Um
and you you've written here we are taught to lie

(12:51):
to get what we need. It's only true if it's
on tape or written down. As long as it looks good,
it is good. Um. And I uh mean, it made me, think,
among other things, of a guy I used to know
who became a local prosecutor um and eventually quit because
he kept being assured by police officers that like something

(13:16):
that they had put in like the charging document was true,
and then being unable to prove it in court. Um,
and it it pissed him off after a period of time. Um,
And I'm interested, like in the I'm sure like obviously
some fraction of people doing it are just like just
literally don't give a ship. But how does someone who
actually does have a moral compass and believe in the law.

(13:41):
How does someone who really believes justify lying to screw
somebody over? Um, So asked the guy who was there,
who had morals, which is why I'm not there anymore.
I couldn't. And I actually got in trouble on a
couple of instances of everybody was going one way on

(14:03):
a story and I was going in the opposite direction.
And without using blatant terms, they use all the like
the little you know, legal legal fuckory terms to not
say what they're trying to say, but implying and getting
it across to you of like you need to get
on the same page, you need to tow the line,
you need to you need to get in here. And

(14:24):
I could never do it. I just I don't know,
that's just my moral fiber won't let me do that
kind of thing. Um. I once was told by a
lieutenant that I had my moral fiber was too high,
Like he literally told me, because you can't expect everyone
else to live up to your moral standards. And I'm like, dude,

(14:45):
we're we're supposed to be like a little bit above
the typical moral standard. We're supposed to be the example
of how you know, our civilians, our citizens are supposed
to act. But it wasn't the truth. Yeah. I mean,
my first I think kind of radicalizing thing very early
on was just like the fake drug scandal in Dallas

(15:07):
was realizing that like on a significant scale, uh, local
police had been planting ship on people in order to
charge them. People have gone to prison, which happens other
places too, But like, yeah, um, and I'm sure the
bulk of the work making something like that happen isn't
the people who are planting the fake drugs. The people

(15:28):
who realize that the department will look bad if it
gets out and then dedicate themselves to stopping it from
getting out even beyond because you have you know, X
number of people are willing to plant plant fake drugs
on a guy. But a much larger number of people
are willing to try to cover that up, so it's
not a problem. That's that's the thing I really appreciate about, Alex.
You're framing of this in terms of like their main

(15:49):
or not one of the main motivations is not, you know,
actually doing the job itself. It's about it's about making
sure that their reality and by extension, what they everyone
else is a reality to be to stay the same
like they all of the effort into whether that be
lying for supposedly in their view, like moral reasons and
all this kind of work. It's it's it's it's to

(16:11):
maintain the specific version of reality. It's not it's not
actually for like like it's it's it's not for like
actually promoting what is like the law on the books
by any means. It's it's it's it's the it's the
thing like in hot Fuzz, it's for the greater good.
That's that's what that is. That is what they're trying
to That's what they're trying to do. So even if

(16:31):
they like it's, as long as their reality is maintained,
then you know, we have some semblance of like order
in the world, whether that be you know, this nostalgic,
semi like proto militaristic nationalist version of order. But that's
that's that's the thing that wants to be maintained. So
every every task, everything that they're doing isn't just a

(16:54):
simple task. It's all in the overall effort of maintaining
this like this perception. Um. And and that's a a
much more I think interesting way to think about police. Yeah,
it really is. Uh, these guys in like in pill talk,
these guys would take the blue pill in a heartbeat,
and then they don't rest Morpheus for trying to deal drugs.

(17:16):
Like that's how dedicated these guys are to staying inside
this version of their reality. Now, um, I kind of
let's move on next to um, the next kind of
cult aspect, the leadership induces feelings of shame and or
guilt in order to influence and control members. And you're
talking you've looten down here, toxic masculinity and the warrior mindset. Yeah. Um,

(17:38):
do you have any kind of like case examples of
how that that actually looks of like kind of using
shame or guilt to people who aren't kind of in
the this quote quote unquote warrior mindset. Ah yeah, I
mean it happened a lot. Um. There was a lot
of Monday night quarterbacking that would happen, especially with the
advent of like cameras and things becoming more popular. Uh

(18:00):
I loved my body camera. That was my little best friend.
But we would go you know, you go back and
you'd watch videos of incidents and things, and if somebody
wasn't like engaging fast enough, they would get roasted hard
like haze and you know, made fun of and mocked it.
And when you were in this, you know, we're a
family mindset, and you're you know, were we got each

(18:20):
other's backs and we only understand each other. And then
all of a sudden, you're on the outside because you
dared to have even a remotely moderate to liberal position
on anything, or you didn't jump in on the you know,
the the ass beating on something. You fast enough, they
turn on you fast. Like. The only thing I could
compare it to is like you know, every eighties and

(18:43):
like nineties military movie or or you know nerds movie
where people just haze the ship out of each other,
and it's that that dude brow. Everyone's got a our
wire sun tattoo on their bicep just rampant everywhere. I mean,
it permeated the whole place. It drove me that that
was one of the things that really drove me because
I've never been that kind of guy. I've always been

(19:05):
a a more of a a de escalation person and
a book reader. And then I think it helps explain
a lot why you see some of these videos where
it's just like, why did they go to zero to
tend from zero to tend so fast? Well, because somebody's
gonna make fun of them and call them names if
they don't go hard enough, fast enough on somebody when
they do certain things like and yeah, the zero to

(19:26):
a hundred thing also ties into that whole, that whole
hyper vigilance thing, that always being um a compressed spring.
And then it ties back into that warrior mindset of
like they tell you flat out like if anyone ever
attacks you, they're trying to kill you. It's it's there's
there's no ifans or, but you need to act like
they're trying to kill you, because it goes back to

(19:46):
the whole I'm going home at the end of the
shift kind of thing. And once once that's ingrained itself
into like your muscle memory, and that becomes the reflex
that becomes the thought that passes in front of your
mind when a critic incident happens. Then that's how you're
gonna act, and you're gonna do, and you're gonna go
from zero to a hundred because you're going to assume
that any little furtive movement movement which god, there's that language,

(20:10):
furtive movement, um, any little movement that someone makes, like
that's that's a green light. That's an excuse that I
can end whatever interaction I'm having with this person with
violence because they flinched enough where I think, Okay, I
got this. Yeah Jesus. Now one of the next ones
you have here is talking about recruitment, which obviously coult STU,

(20:33):
but also like it's a job and jobs do this
constantly recruiting. I'm kind of wondering because you've you've listed
here things like Explorer programs which are like r OTC
or the Boy Scouts kind of these different one of
which Kyle Rittenhouse did like ways in which kind of
people get onboarded. I'm wondering sort of what how you
see how you see police recruitment as a kind of

(20:53):
different in a fundamentally cult your way. Then you know,
every job has to bring in new people, right like, yeah, uh,
it's it's it didn't used to be this way. But
I think in the in the two thousands, especially when numbers,
staffing numbers really started to drop because it's I don't
know if they've just realized it wasn't worth it or
they found somewhere better to get paid. But employment has

(21:13):
gone down for law enforcement, and so recruitment goes up
in response. But now they have a more active role
in most places where it's almost on part with the military.
They'll go to job fairs, they go to high school
career days. Um, they didn't used to do that stuff.
And when they do, they'll they'll find someone to like
pull stuff out of the pulp culture zeitgeist. What we know?

(21:36):
What cool? Yeah? Yeah, yeah. What can we what can
we cash in on to try and draw these kids in,
because just like the military, cops are looking to pull
in disenfranchised kids who probably aren't going to go to college,
don't think it's an option, And here's this job. All

(21:56):
you need is a high school diploma, here's the health insurance.
Here's the tyrant package, which is trash. But you're seventeen,
you don't know that, you don't know how to read
all this, but it looks real goal yeah yeah, um yeah, yeah,
they explore stuff. I mean you're familiar with that. So
but yeah, they get little kids to go out and

(22:16):
you know, the little baby cops and it's I mean,
it's it's one of those things, like some of this
is so much deeper than even the the individual departments
or any choice made by the police, because like, as
a kid, some of the first toys I had were
cop toys, right, like everything every boy, I think, like, yes,
some of the first what you're gonna get badge a gun,
you're gonna play detective, You're gonna be watching cops shows,

(22:37):
You're gonna be watching movies where cops are the and
that's I mean that that's a bigger subject than today.
But like, yeah, no, that is like the one of
the most prevalent forms of media that's instilled in young
uh boys. I guess yeah. You know what else is
instilled in young boys the love of capitalism and products

(22:58):
and specifically and services find a child and whisper the
names of our sponsor into their ears, preferably a child
that's yours hopefully know any child, any child throw something
so their parents look away and then leaned down and
whisper better. Hell, you know, only counts if you get caught.

(23:27):
We're back. Um. And your next point was the group
is preoccupied with making money, which is a huge thing
for cults. Um, not all of them. There are some,
like you know, there there are some cults that were
shall we say pure, um, but they're nearly all about
getting like hey man Manson just it was all about

(23:48):
the music, and the Heaven's Gate was a pure cult. Yeah, yeah,
Heaven's Gate. It certainly wasn't just the money for Heaven's
But yes, cops, cops have civil ascid forfeiture which they
just took a hundred thousand dollars from someone in Dallas

(24:09):
and the person did not get charged with anything, um,
which is usually the case. Yeah. But um, but I
mean yeah, like you have written here that like the
main the main way is just increasing their budget as
much as possible, which you have. Most police departments right
now have the biggest budget they've ever had. Um. Specifically
in like main cities we have, they're they're the most

(24:31):
funded department. Um in in for the whole city. There's
there's this there's this great gag in the opening episode
of a show called Ugly Americans that's about trying to
rere financialize the city's budget. And they have like a
social spending and a cop budget, and they take like
all of social spending and move it over and leave
this one tiny sliver and they're like, oh, there, that's better.

(24:53):
That will solve all the problems. Um it's it is
a better sketch than what I explaining. It just like
this sounds not funny, but the scotch is actually pretty good.
Not far off, but yes, and and it is and
it is relatively accurate in terms of just moving all
the funding from social programs over into law enforcement. Yeah.
So there's uh, you know, there's everyone gets their financial

(25:15):
different ways. There's county, there's stayed, there's there's city. But
a common thing that would happen was, uh, law enforcement
agencies would try to take anything that they could under
the umbrella of law enforcement. So if it was like, hey,
we want to have more you know, security equipment at
the high school, and then the cops will be like,
no, no no, no, no, no, give us that money. We'll

(25:36):
give you another another officer on campus. Or they want
to hire something for the part, you know, and we
want to install lights the city park to increase security.
No no no, no, no, no no. You just give us
that money. We'll make sure our guys patrol it more.
Mm hmm. So they actively try to just like coach
money from everybody else. Yeah. I mean, and you you

(25:57):
can see this in a lot of towns where like
the number one use of public funds is the police.
I mean, it's it's all over the country at this point. Um, yeah,
that makes sense. Uh. So members are expected to devote
inordinate amounts of time to the group and group related activities.
Um yeah, because you have written here four years with

(26:17):
no days off, but scored a satisfactor, I was told
to put in more time outside of work. Yeah. So,
like I said, our emails were always sounds so much
like MLM shit. It is it is they they every
time you go in for an email, they neg you
like no matter what are Our scoring system was one
to ten. Um, nobody ever got higher than a six. Maybe.

(26:39):
I think I saw like one or two sevens in
my entire time there, And when I became a supervisor,
I asked the brass I'm like, hey, I want to
give this guy this this upper grade of like an
eight or nine. And he told me flatt because no,
we don't do that, Like, no one's allowed to get
higher this seven. And if you want a seven, you're
gonna have to like write a novel about how great
this person is to get them this rating. Um, it

(27:02):
was just yeah, it was. It was consistently just pinning
you down. The four years no dated off. So yeah,
I did, uh four years straight without calling it sick once,
like I took vacations. But um, when I went in
from I evail and he slides me a thing that
says it says attendance satisfactory, And I was like, what
are you talking about. I was like, I haven't taken
a day a sick day in four years. You know,

(27:22):
I have three kids. How do you think I managed that?
Like I've sacrificed to be here that much. And his
response was well like yeah, but I never see you
at barbecues, I never see you at the union meetings.
I never see you at the fundraisers for the sheriff's reelection.
Even though it's blatantly against policy and illegal to do.

(27:43):
And I told him that. In his response was were
you gonna do telling me who you're gonna tell Jesus? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
I mean who are you going to tell that? Yeah?
And it is. It's also just like this, It isolates
you from a or people. It stops you from knowing
folks that aren't cops. And it's yeah, it's a lot

(28:04):
like what your up line is gonna tell you if
you're selling mary kay and that that that that ties
into the that ties into the next point. UH members
are encouraged or required to live and or socialize only
with other group members. Um. And you say this is
like part of the hyper vigilance is isolation cycle. But
I also see this in terms of like something I
get into for fun is I join like a wife

(28:27):
of cops um Facebook groups just because it's fast just
to have all of just to have all of these
like cops spouses in a Facebook group, And it's super Yeah,
Like it's it's a really interesting like culture of like
just associating with other people on the job. You know,
there's like cop barbecues like you mentioned, and all this
kind of stuff where it's like we're the only ones

(28:48):
that can understand you. So we're gonna build like this,
like you know, force field around all of us and
we can be together as a family and keep out
everyone else because we're the ones that really know what's up.
Um yeah, it seems uh. I mean for some people
who are really into it, I guess that is, you know,

(29:10):
that's how humans socialize in some ways. So you know,
for people who think being cops that are good and
then quote unquote enjoy it, I'm sure they have a
decent time hanging out with their cop buddies, right, Um,
And I'm sure the cops spouse Facebook groups. I'm sure
they have a good time laughing about whatever viral video
there is of someone using too much force you know who,

(29:32):
who knows what? Like how how they actually think about
those types of very isolated environments, because you know, it's
it's about fend find you know, it's it's almost like
it's it's extending out into like fandom rules where you're
associating with other people the same way fandoms work, which
is very just very similar to how cults work. Um.
So yeah, yeah, it's an armed militant fandom and your

(29:56):
last point here, the most loyal members, the true believers field,
there could be no life outside the context of the group.
They believe there is no other way to be an
often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave
or even consider leaving the group. Yeah, so I put
in the note of just self expectatory. But yeah, it's me.

(30:19):
Quitting was weird. I knew I needed to do it,
but I I had a massive existential crisis of identity
and of of logistical things, but a lot of it
was it was tied to my identity, and it was
it was letting go of something that was like a
core pillar of my personality, and it really freaked me out.

(30:46):
And I think that if I was more inside the group,
and I was more like one of the guys, a
golden boy or something like, I probably would have never left.
If I was, if I was getting that constant reinforcement
of the good boy feelings, I don't think I would
have quit. Um. But after I did quit, that actually

(31:06):
kicked off a cascade of people around my same age
and within my same seniority level in looking at their
job and looking at what it was doing to them
psychologically and physically and with their families and thinking to themselves, Oh,
I can leave that. That is how cult How that
is how leaving cults work. Yeah. Yeah. And so once
I left, a bunch of other guys were like, Oh,

(31:27):
I don't have to do this until I'm fifty five.
I can I can go start another career somewhere else,
I can go start another retirement plan at a different place.
And I just it felt great to see other people
tear away and do that. But at the same time,
I know for some of that it hurt mhm really

(31:47):
bad to to leave that behind because once you're once
you are out. Um, you are kind of out. Even
if you leave amicably like hey, I just want to
go do something else with my life, you're no longer
in those people's minds anymore because you're not part of
the team, you're not in the club, you're not in
the family anymore. You're that guy that used to be here.

(32:09):
And I guess kind of at the conclusion of this
and this is you know, when you when the question
is like, how do you de radicalize, get people out
of colts? How do you like No one has a
good answer to that. So I don't think we should
expect you to suddenly have like here's how to here's
how to convince everybody to stop doing this because we
can't do that for fucking Q and on, like de

(32:30):
radicalization of the people who say they're involved in it
are fucking drifting like it's it's it's a big mess
of a of a fucking field in the first place.
But I am wondering, do you have some insights in
the like, yeah, how then do we de radicalize these people? Uh?
Like I don't think there is Like I don't think
there is a cookie cutter answer for like pulling people out. Um,

(32:52):
you know, we can't bag them in a white vand
and take them to a hotel. Uh. The only thing
I can think of it would actually change the culture
is a huge shift in our national culture around like
mental health and toxic masculinity and you know, wrapping your
identity into into your job because it's not just cops

(33:13):
that it's it's it's it's like that is that is
America now? That is that is like hustle culture. That
is what the idea of a career is. My name
is blank and I am a blank. Like that career.
Career comes from the word that means like careening, Like
you are going full force into this thing. That is

(33:35):
that is what you are doing now. That is your existence,
is your career. You're going at it um. That is,
that is what this whole country is built on. Uh
So getting out of that for a lot of people,
for just regular jobs, it is difficult. Now adding on
the idea that you are the thing that holds society together,

(33:56):
that is that that has a whole other level of
complexity like psych logically for the person inside it um
because I'm sure like telemarketers, if you can get really
into it and make money, sure that can be a career.
But you know, you're not holding society together, and like
that's not that's not that's not a delusion that you have.
And nobody outside there's there's there's there's no thin telemarketing

(34:24):
line of supporting you. So it is it is different
for like police specifically, even more so than like firefighters
or like E. M. T. S Um. This particular fandom
that's developed around police and and and like the the
incredible self importance that they is that is cultivated um
to Yeah, like the idea of I'm doing this to

(34:47):
maintain reality is like a very like big thing to
tell yourself and get getting out of that seems uh challenging. Yeah,
it really is. It's like it's almost it's almost worst
than most like churches in a sense because in this
version it's it's still materialized. It's it's yeah, it's it's

(35:07):
it's right in front of you. I can reach out
and touch it because I'm part of society. But if
I'm not here and we're not here, you know, anarchy
the bad guy the way people think the word means
you know, everything's gonna catch fire, and the only reason
people are good to each other is because the law
makes them be that way and all that kind of
toxic bs. So the only thing I can think of
to be like to help de radicalize people is it's

(35:30):
almost like treating someone in your family that listens to
too much Q and on is to you know, if
you know a cop or you have a friend that
used to be a cop, and he ever like reaches
out to you, maybe with like kid gloves, kind of
be like, hey, how you doing just small things because
that could maybe lead to him putting them putting something

(35:53):
on their shelf, just like when people get out of
religions and things, they'll often reach out to people and
be like, hey, this is this is such a fucking
it kind of means something if he's going outside of
the group, and so yeah, maybe recognize that, Like you
have an opportunity. Yeah, if if a cop reaches out
to you, it's just like someone in a religious institution.

(36:14):
They're reaching out to you because they feel safe talking
to you, because you're not going to turn them in.
You're it's not gonna have any uh immediate impact on
their life right now. Yeah that makes sense. Um, all right, well, Alexander,
anything else you wanted to get into. I mean I

(36:35):
could talk about this kind of stuff for days and
days and hours and hours, the whole hyper vigilance cycle,
And like I said, I've read a bunch of books
on it. I really tried to get training on just
the hyper vigilance cycle. Like, well, if you ask most
cops about hyper vigilance, they would just look at you
and be like, I don't even know what that means
what you're talking about, which is why I used to
I used to give this book, the Emotional Survival Bound

(36:57):
for law Enforcement. I would I gave it to new hires,
and some of those new hires didn't come back, and
I'm fine with that. Yeah that's good. Yeah. Some of
them look at it and we're like, no, I'm not
signing up for this because you you really don't know
what you're signing up for the real stuff that you're
signing up for until you're in it. Yeah yeah, I

(37:21):
mean also like a cult um Yeah yeah, well all right,
Uh Alexander, thank you so much for coming on and
for sharing this with us. I think it's a useful
look behind the curtain um that that folks need um.
And this has been it could happen here. You can

(37:41):
find Garrison on the internet. Go go go track down
Garrison's fake Facebook account. You know what goes do that
you can't? You can? I I have I have made
up possible specifically for this reason, a cop wife group
with Harrison should be and Vanessa so we could discuss

(38:02):
our husband's careers. Hey, for all you know, you may
cause the de radicalization of a cop. Yeah, or Garrison
just gets really weirdly into role playing as the wife
of Like EOD episode is over, we are done, this
is I am pulling the plug. What could Happen Here

(38:27):
is a production of cool zone Media. Well more podcasts
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You can find sources for It could happen here, updated
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