Is Law Enforcement the Line Between Chaos and Anarchy?

Law enforcement officers have been under an intense spotlight lately.  May communities are seeing a spike in crime only adding to a deeper conversation of how we care for those marginalized communities. But we can lose sight of the fact that Law Enforcement officers are just  men and women who wear the badge.  They are still people. They are mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. My guest on this episode is Wayne Mulder. Wayne  is a law enforcement officer, speaker, writer and the host of the On The Blue Line podcast. Wayne is an advocate for law enforcement officer total health programs and a believer in empowering law enforcement officers in their personal lives. For more on his mission visit 

https://www.ontheblueline.com

Transcript

[wayne_mulder]: 1:09

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 1:12

well we're so glad to have wan on the show today so good to have you on wayne

[wayne_mulder]: 1:16

ke thank you so much this is truly a privilege i love the title

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 1:19

so

[wayne_mulder]: 1:20

of this podcast becoming bridge builders so i'm excited where this is going to go today

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 1:24

i am too the goal is always to give positive content talk about tough topics but here the other side of the story kind of as paul harvey used to say

[wayne_mulder]: 1:33

absolutely

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 1:34

that's right so give an audience a chance to kind of warm up to get to know you a little bit what's the best advice you've ever received

[wayne_mulder]: 1:42

that's a great question you know i spent some time kind of thinking about

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 1:45

i

[wayne_mulder]: 1:46

all the different types of advice i've gotten and a lot of it seems somewhat close so i think if i was going to boil it down to something that's impact what i'm doing these days both in law enforcement and with the podcast it would be be curious and i don't know i don't know if dad ever the more i think about i don't know if you ever said hey weighing b curious right i don't know if that ever happened but he lived it so i recall like we would go to fairs and stuff when i was a child and my mother is the direct opposite personality right so we would be at the very far end of whatever building we were at or you know these long barn buildings and we'd be sitting there and we'd all be like well where's dad well he was way back at the first boot still talking to that person but he was naturally curious he had tons of questions he wanted to know them he wanted to know what they had and that really led to a lot of what i do these days so i think be curious if some of the best advice i've ever gotten

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 2:41

and it probably fits well with your profession i mean you need to be curious

[wayne_mulder]: 2:44

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 2:45

in the job that

[wayne_mulder]: 2:46

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 2:46

you do because it's helpful for you to be curious

[wayne_mulder]: 2:49

it absolutely is and when you think about obviously i'm

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 2:52

it

[wayne_mulder]: 2:53

in law enforcement which will get more into but i've kind of led an investigative path there's a lot of things you can do in law enforcement from sat to others tons of different directions that's kind of a generality most people think of patrol when they think of law enforcement but there's a lot of things within the career that you can do like with so many other careers my path is really led down investigations be cause of this natural curiosity and wanting to ask questions and get to the bottom of things which is also what led me to podcasting which we'll also talk about

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 3:22

yeah it led me there too someone suggested to me that i do a podcast and i'm like why that would require me learning a new skill

[wayne_mulder]: 3:28

yeah exactly

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 3:31

and it's technical ago so it has been fun to kind of take this journey like you said to figure out podcasts because it's been fun and and the impact that you have is amazing i just found out couple my pie casts are trending in bangladash ball places so

[wayne_mulder]: 3:47

very

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 3:47

you

[wayne_mulder]: 3:47

cool

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 3:47

just never know you just never know who you got to impact with it

[wayne_mulder]: 3:50

that's very true and what i love and

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 3:52

i

[wayne_mulder]: 3:52

you

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 3:52

love

[wayne_mulder]: 3:52

get to meet people that you would never get to meet the people i've met from all over this country i never would have had the opportunity had it not been for the podcast for him

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 4:02

exactly that's so true so we're going to dig a little deeper now tell us something about yourself that most people don't know

[wayne_mulder]: 4:09

oh so just from a factoid standpoint i graduated from a class of five that's one of those things that most people are like really and this is in the late nineties you're not talking like the late eighteen nineties um so that would just be from a act standpoint but something specific especially those that know me personally would be that i was in b m x racing as a child bicycles and what makes that odd is it's not mine natural default so when you think of law enforcement law guys come in their early twenties because they want to drive fast they want to flip the lights on you know it's this adrinnlin rush is what brings them the law enforcement not that guy that wasn't me that wasn't me at all so my in fact if i didn't have a younger sister that goaded me into all sorts of things i probably would have even gone down slides as a child so my dad had this philosophy that his two sons he had me and my brother had to do something opposite of their personality so i was in b m x racing and my brother who can't start fire to save his life was a boy scout so it was the direct opposite to me who would love to be in the woods just me in a fire and nobody else as far as the eye can see raced bicycles for as long as they would keep me in it and then i went from there but that would be something that a lot of people would know

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 5:27

that's so interesting so i have a brother too i'm the older brother my younger brother is an accountant and i told my mom i joke with my mom is like well you got death and taxes covered

[wayne_mulder]: 5:36

ah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 5:36

so

[wayne_mulder]: 5:37

yes i love that

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 5:39

the two things you have to you have to

[wayne_mulder]: 5:41

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 5:41

face a life so you kind of you kind of tease us a

[wayne_mulder]: 5:46

m

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 5:46

little bit with your story but kind of give

[wayne_mulder]: 5:47

oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 5:47

us your story

[wayne_mulder]: 5:49

oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 5:49

how did you get from where you were into law enforcement

[wayne_mulder]: 5:53

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 5:53

i

[wayne_mulder]: 5:54

so that's a great question and looking back there's like these little vinet in time that makes law enforcement something that i probably would have done eventually but if you would have asked me as a teen ager i never would have said that in fact i wanted to be a business owner i'd read books like arted the de long before he was a president of course but i had read business books of all different types and different people and i was like man this is what i want to do so i'd start of the landscape company and grew it looking back there'd been little periods of my time one of my bicycle the b m bike i was alluding to had been stolen by a kid in the neighborhood and i had one of these early little spy tech deals know where you could do finger prints and everything yourself so here i was the sloth i had to find this bicycle i'm sure i violated all sorts of constitutional rights but i did find my bicycle but it was those type of things that were foundational for me but in my late teams and then through my twenties i thought i was going to run a landscape company and i was going to turn it into something that was going to move all over the country it was a design build firm we started in indiana i started another one in florida and my intention was it was going to grow from there life had different plans i ended up losing that company due to some bad decisions on my part as well as some bad circumstances and then the housing crisis happened at the end of it which didn't help things either so here i was looking for some type of career and what i could do my brother had just recently joined detention he had went to work in a jail in another state and i was like wow maybe maybe i consider law enforcement and coming from the landscaping profession i wanted to do like state uh game in wild life because i figure well then i can still work outside it's right in you know this is the natural environment this is where i want to be and going through the academy i was like man this is actually and it's a little different the state of florida some places you get hired and then you go through the academy once you have a job in the state of florida you go to the academy hoping one day you're going to get a job so you pay for the privilege of going and you may or may not have a job at the end of it so that was my experience but in that while i was there and something for your listeners that they may find interesting is i really felt like it was where i was being led to go like that there was a hand leading me and that god wanted me to go into law enforcement and two events happened that really solidified that there was obviously my brother going in and us having conversations that kind of led me to thinking about it but then i went to a prayer meeting with my uncle over in central florida and i had already been talking trying get into law enforcement but mind you i just lost the business so my credit wasn't looking good like there was some negatives you know i hadn't been in any legal trouble thank god but there were certainly some negatives when you looked at paper you would be like this guy clearly doesn't know his finances very well you just you know lost all this money so i went to this prayer meeting and didn't know this guy from adam he didn't didn't have any previous conversations with my uncle and i'm just sitting there and he walks up to me and says if you ever thought of being in law enforcement and i was sir i don't know you at all but it's a funny story so i talked about it the irony of that thing is not only that night that he brought it up and we had a long conversation about it is come to find out he was a pastor and his part time job was working at disney world in our land o i get finally hired by an agency and i start working there in one of my first zone partners comes to me one day and come an find out she still works part time at disney world all this is unbenote to me and she comes to me one day and says hey so and so just wanted to say he's glad that you're working here astor so and so the same pastor who met at this random bible meeting in orlando just wanted to say through conversation they got into hey what agencies she worked at and it led me being here and i kind of took that as confirmation that i was on the right path

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 9:51

that's such a neat story and it's a great segued because a lot of people

[wayne_mulder]: 9:55

m

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 9:57

have an impression of people who are in law enforcement i mean we we have we have got law enforcement under assault lately as you as you've known

[wayne_mulder]: 11:01

yes

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 11:01

and people have impressions of people go into it that they're these gun totin ready to shoot people kind of personalities but you

[wayne_mulder]: 11:08

ah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 11:08

want you describe is like any other journey any other vocation is that you felt led by god to do something different with your life because god was guiding you there so kind of tell us what's the most misunderstood thing about career that people go into from an outside in perspective about law enforcement

[wayne_mulder]: 11:26

so i think there's a variety of quote unquote right answers to this question i think if i was going to summarize it in a word its perspective kind of like what you just were alluding to for me there's definitely a human side of it and i know that that word gets misused a little bit so i'm always leary to use it because when you talk like there's some of these places out there like talk about human eyes the badge and that equates to cops doing dance videos on tik tok that's not what i'm talking about what i'm talking about is the human side of these are people that cry they hurt they're part of the community love the you know they have the same human experience and they bring that to the job and they see it through that lens one thing that i would equated to and i think this is true like in the christian world right two people see the same event and we would say that the way that they're interpreting that event is through their christian world view well that is the same way with law enforcement and that that becomes your perspective you see it through this law enforcement lines that a lot of people don't understand just because they've never gone through the training or worked in that environment people don't understand the sometimes some of these events you know you'll hear someone say why had this interaction with this cop and he was rude to me well i'm in no way he certainly should not have been rude in any circumstance but a little perspective do you know what he was doing right before that do you kno what he was doing after that do you know what else was going on besides all the personal things we all have because we're all human you know maybe he's struggling at home issues with his wife his kids whatever may be going on there there's also the fact that in law enforcement you can go from one moment working at death invest stegation or the death of a young child or a suicide or you know um any type of major event to the next moment something completely monday nine one one call and then while driving between call you see a traffic infraction you pull over that car and in that moment that person's like well ire is this guy being short with me well you don't know just transpired and it's really something that even i was very naive about before i came into this career i had no idea with my upbringbecause i never really had much interaction with law enforcement

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 13:37

it's interesting you said that interview another police officer and that was exactly the situation we talked about is you don't know what the what the cop was doing before that incident with you

[wayne_mulder]: 13:48

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 13:48

you don't know what they just saw you don't know what their life situation is much like our we have bad days at work

[wayne_mulder]: 13:55

yep

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 13:55

um but we don't have cameras on our chest

[wayne_mulder]: 13:58

yes

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 13:59

to

[wayne_mulder]: 13:59

thank

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 14:00

today

[wayne_mulder]: 14:00

god

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 14:01

to take every interaction of every bad experience we

[wayne_mulder]: 14:04

yes

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 14:04

have at work for every bad phone call so i do think we do sometimes lose sight of the humanization of the job and the situations that police were going through i just saw an interview i kind of want to just kind of get your opinion on this because

[wayne_mulder]: 14:21

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 14:22

i have heard and i'm sure you have heard too that cops are targeting people and i think we sometimes get into our minds and you look at the numbers of that those numbers just aren't accurate um but it's a it's a perception that people have and so when we have that perception we walk into a situation with an attitude expecting a bad result and maybe as a police officer kind of maybe address that aspect of it the people kind of interacting with when they when they come approaching you with a bantitude how do you as a cop begin to try to lower the temperature of the conversation possibly

[wayne_mulder]: 15:02

yeah that's a great question and that's actually kind of two different question so i'll dress the second part first because that's something i've been passionate about in my entire career i think it's very important that cops low the temperature and that is something that is within our control you know the only thing you can control in life is yourself it so that is what i can control i can't control how this subject is acting i can't control a lot of facts and circumstat it's about the event but what i can control is my reactions so that's very important and i do think that a calm approach you know the level of your voice the just making i contact those little human elements go a long ways in conversations now i say people would think that that ended of itself would solve issues but i have actually had complaints just a couple but i've had complaints that i was too nice to somebody they were mad at me because i was too nice so and they got interpreted as though i was being condescending or something because i was being nice to him so you never know how it's going to act and react to the situation like that however i do think that law enforcement has that responsibility something i thought we might get into a little later is you know especially what you're saying now would like behave a health intervention teams and what law enforcement is doing specifically with having officers that are trained for these types of critical incidents and dealing with people in a mental health crisis and that's another perception i don't think the public fully understands is that you are dealing with somebody on the worst day of their life oftentimes in the worst moment of their life so law enforcement has to understand that from a willingness to give and to serve and to try to be there for them in that moment i had a horrible event happened where a son had took his own life he was an older adult son had taken his life and i was a new supervisor at the time and i came on the scene and this dad had been the one who found his son and he was totally inconsolable he was just completely a wreck and it was getting to the point that something had to be done right he couldn't remain in the state that he was in and anyone looking from the outside and watching video and stuff these are the type instance that go really really bad because there's a reason why he's in the state he's in that we all understand but if you try to detain him or something for his own good it's going to go badly and who knows where that will lead from there and i ended up just instinctively hugging him and just holding him and that ended up being the right answer in that moment and he broke down and we were able to console him and we were able to get him some services and stuff to help him but it really speaks to kind of like what you were saying that there is a reaction and it's not always in the box right and that's one of the things some people don't understand too is you're trained with a certain response in the academy and i'm not saying you throw that out you can't right that's the basis but as you grow in your experience and so forth then you can start inserting because there is still an officer safety aspect right you still have to be careful because that's something else we can get to as well but that response is so important so at least to the second question i do think the officer is the one that can help control that tempture in the vast majority not all but the vast majority of cases

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 18:22

so let's dig a little bet because i've heard people suggest that may be the way to solve some of our issues with law enforcement is that mental health aspect of a call so if someone having

[wayne_mulder]: 18:33

what

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 18:33

the worst day of their life maybe the officer is not the first person you call and i don't know the answer to this so i'm asking you kind of someone

[wayne_mulder]: 18:40

oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 18:40

as to see how do we balance

[wayne_mulder]: 18:43

oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 18:44

safety with those mental health issues that people are facing a you had the worst on the worst day of their life

[wayne_mulder]: 18:52

i love that you know very much in line with the concept of your podcast it's not all or nothing right there's some truth on both sides of the equation so the answer to we don't an a punitive response to a mental health crisis doesn't necessarily mean we pull law enforcement completely out of it and now we put a civilian in there who's completely vulnerable to a situation that may be i have the tools to control and that's really what law enforcement is trying to do regardless of the outcome which sometimes are tragic outcomes but at the end of the day they're trying to control this somebody called them most like they may have observed it if they were at a restaurant or something but somebody called them for help that's something that gets lost a lot of times is somebody picked up a phone in died nine one one and said hey i can't do something with my son or whatever he has a knife afraid something is going to happen i need law enforcement to come here in to help and so law enforcement gets there well they're trained you know for their own safety and so forth there're certain things that they do with their tools to help quell a situation and if it rises to a certain level then maybe it becomes a deadly force incident so i think the

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 19:58

i

[wayne_mulder]: 19:58

answer and you're seeing it at some very forward thinking i'm going to use the word progressive though don't always like that term but progressive agencies and that is this corespondor style program so in other words you're pairing mental health professionals with law enforcement officers that are trained for dealing with these types of incidents and then when they get there you have both so you have the tools right and there are some things that law enforcement is doing so some people everybody thinks of the gun the one thing in there too about but there are other tools that law enforcement can also do in these type of situations when it comes to liketasers less than lethal so having these other tools and then having someone there for the mental health because they get there in the situation can be controlled through dialogue and through conversation then that's where that mental health professional can help and a lot of times what people don't realize is that also helps long term because you can get them into services faster because in the moment people are much more likely to say yes i need help yes i'll go with you yes i'll go to this facility or talk to a doctor you t you're not you may not see that same willingness okay

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 21:12

hold on a second my phones ringing

[wayne_mulder]: 21:14

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 21:14

some on a pison second

[wayne_mulder]: 21:15

okay

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 21:18

hello sue tell me on come and call back in about twenty minutes no problem was okay

[wayne_mulder]: 21:29

oh oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 21:30

oh

[wayne_mulder]: 21:33

oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 21:35

if he comes back tell him tell him i'll take a message i'll call him back okay sure yeah oh no problem

[wayne_mulder]: 21:51

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 21:52

m

[wayne_mulder]: 22:08

m oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 22:14

hello hey pa call back in another on a conference call right now can call you back give me your number just who i have it

[wayne_mulder]: 22:28

m

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 22:30

or zero two zero two to seven okay give you call back all right talk to you soon but the joy of the impromptu

[wayne_mulder]: 22:51

ah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 22:51

phone call

[wayne_mulder]: 22:52

yes

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 22:53

luckily i have a pause button on my recorder

[wayne_mulder]: 22:56

exactly that's a nice thing about editing it later as they're not live

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 22:59

that's right all right

[wayne_mulder]: 23:00

yes

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 23:01

here we go again i'm gonna i think we stop with me okay you you had just got done answer questo so we go i'm gonna ask you another question

[wayne_mulder]: 23:06

okay

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 23:08

so you know this

[wayne_mulder]: 23:09

oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 23:09

is an interesting discussion and i'm this is why i think one of things that's so much a hot button issue in our society to day we're trying to figure out how do we make the best use of lawn for us at i also realized that the need for the community i guess the over reaction as as an african american as lived in really bad neighborhoods before is i don't like the solution of well let's just pull all the cops out

[wayne_mulder]: 23:31

oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 23:31

and everybody fend for so i don't

[wayne_mulder]: 23:33

right

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 23:33

like dodge city

[wayne_mulder]: 23:36

exactly

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 23:37

and so i think us finding a way to like you just said to to utilize the best that we have to for in terms of policemen but also the mental health part of that is is a way to get to the heart of how do we solve the crime in our community i just left living in chicago for twelve years

[wayne_mulder]: 23:56

wow

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 23:56

and what i'm seeing happen there to me when you can't have a a birthday party at a grand moth his house i just heard about this this weekend and you can't go in your backyard and feel safe there's something wrong with our society

[wayne_mulder]: 24:09

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 24:09

so as a police officer kind of what is how do we how do we begin to work together because i think we're missing that opportunity of us working together to solve the problem

[wayne_mulder]: 24:23

that's a great question that i really think is it starts with communication which i now sounds so close that's why i don't even like saying that because it's like we can talk till we're blue in the face right and if nobody does anything nothing happens and there is something to the squeakiest wheels get the grease which is kind of what we're seeing right now is those that are loudest with some of the movements and stuff that we've seen aren't vending aren't ending well in fact just on my podcast this week i spoke about statistics on how certain movements have led to all sorts of issues with auto retention allowing them to have time i mean it's really sad what we're seeing statistics wise and i really have a fear in fact i just spoke to someone that i was interviewing for on the blue line podcast yesterday where he had left law enforcement after like seven years and these people that are leaving law enforcement to go start other businesses and to become business leaders and so forth at other places are the guys you want in law enforcement often times and so i'm sad of what the few you're may hold something that struck me ll be honest with you when i was prepping for this show i was looking through some of the people you had on your podcast and i came across your episode with phil is the justice system broken and complete disco complete disclosure i actually listened to it because i thought for sure i'm going to disagree with everything this guy says right so because

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 25:45

right

[wayne_mulder]: 25:45

all the all the tag lines are there right as an attorney sivyouknow i'm reading through everyting i'm like there is nothing me and this gentleman are going to agree on at all it was the direct opposite

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 25:55

do

[wayne_mulder]: 25:55

direct

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 25:56

right

[wayne_mulder]: 25:56

opposite in fact the one thing i probably would disagree with him on is when he talked about that often asters

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 26:00

that

[wayne_mulder]: 26:01

want a punitive rather than restore if approach and that would be the one thing

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 26:04

would

[wayne_mulder]: 26:04

i disagree

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 26:04

the one thing

[wayne_mulder]: 26:05

on that no actually i'm with you we need to have a restorative approach if at all possible so i think communication

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 26:11

thank you

[wayne_mulder]: 26:12

is big there are different circumstances depending on where officers have worked in this country so i'm always a little bit cautious to paint with a broad brush because my experience is in a one in an area like florida is completely different than the experiences of someone in inner city chicago it's just it's just different the politics are different which do affect it want ring that up because it does affect the agency and it does affect what they're doing as far as policing and the types of calls the long term community an engagement law enforcement cannot do its job effectively effectively without community buying much like government requires you know there's some sort of civil pact between us and government we agree to abide this is how a republic operate right we agree to abide by these laws in turn for peace and civility and you know an ability to pursue happiness the same is true with the law enforcement community relationship and when that's irrevocally broken you have a problem and what the long term solution is is really probably the same way marriage kind sling is right i mean you have a divorced couple and you're going to have to bring them back together somehow and it's not going to be an easy path and what scares me is what we're seeing with the next generations i spoke about i actually had one of my blogs right and i'm sorry his name ecapes me jason whitlock on his fearless podcast i love what r whitlock talks about and he was bringing up you know like the young children and dipers in their underwear kicking and screaming and cursing at cops uh that kind of thing twenty years from now i mean the are kidsthey're gonna in prison their whole lives unless something changes and that that's a tragedy and where i often talks about you know that's a family breakdown issue so there has to be a comprehensive approach we have to strengthen families we have to get back to our beliefs we have to you know we talk time about we've lost our unum you know our plerbisunum out of many one we're not together any more anyway we don't even agree on the most basic of the constitution the bill of rights the so i know i'm going a thousand ifferent directions but i think it comes down to that fundamental communication and agreeing on fundamental principles and then trying to get that civil compact that community compact strengthened because if you don't trust each other nothing good is going to come out of that

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 28:45

and i think it's funny you mentioned the podcast about justice because

[wayne_mulder]: 28:49

oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 28:49

a lot of people probably look at that go like i'm really angry with this but he makes and you make a good point i think we we listen to we see the tag lines of law enforcement we see the tax lines civil rights and we automatically assume worst

[wayne_mulder]: 29:06

right

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 29:06

i think you're right the communication is missing having that talk with with the civil rite producers you know maybe some of the laws that we haven't placed unintentionally are disproportionate ly impacting poor people

[wayne_mulder]: 29:19

he's absolutely right of all types my family

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 29:22

right

[wayne_mulder]: 29:22

was impacted as well when we were kids some things he was saying

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 29:25

like

[wayne_mulder]: 29:25

in fact it's funny you say that keith because a couple of things that

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 29:29

oh

[wayne_mulder]: 29:29

really have come to me lately in lawn forcement

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 29:31

my

[wayne_mulder]: 29:32

is things i saw as a child i mean my my mom was forced to walk with three young children under the age of five home because the tags on her vehicle had expired and they forced her just leave the car roadside and in grand this was the early nineties so maybe not as crazy as today but here's a young mother with my brother and sister are twins two years younger than me such three kids five walking home you know in northern indiana just forced to leave curensidero because we couldn't afford to have the tags on there one of our vehicles was actually um they came and took it the law enforcement did because parked on we lived in the city so it was taken from the street on my birthday so that we had no vehicle to go up for my birthday dinner i was so upset with those officers and then years later my wife's sister had lost a couple kids and i saw how law enforcement interviewed them and how they made them feel like they themselves were criminals even though the tragedy had happened they care so you are right and it doesn't i don't think these are there are certainly issues along racial lines and i understand that and i'm in no way disparaging that but what i am saying is is that it affects all of us and that there are certain issues when he was talking about some of the punitive parts of losing their driver's license now they lose their job now they he's absolutely correct it makes zero sense because people can't afford pay it just feeds this system that people can't get out of so and that's where i think community there's there's more we agree on than we disagree on and if we can get back to that we have a chance

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 31:07

and that's really kind of the goal of the podcast is like we need to identify these issues that the noise around the issue drowns out the actual issue themselves

[wayne_mulder]: 31:16

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 31:17

i think a lot of our problems in amara are not ratio but they're economic

[wayne_mulder]: 31:21

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 31:22

and i think we i think the poorer people in our society are the minority or minority people of color or just enfranchise people and they don't have a voice and so one of my goals is to give those people a those situate and a voice

[wayne_mulder]: 31:35

absolutely

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 31:35

and to say here is where the issue is stop focusing so much on the color of someone's skin it is really the income that they're dealing with and what that situation in neighborhood it puts them into and the situation at puts them into if you're a poor kid in a poor neighborhood you don't see much hope so you don't make good choices you don't go to school you go what's the point of this i've seen my friends who went to school and they're still living this in this neighborhood

[wayne_mulder]: 32:01

right

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 32:02

and they're honest under corner selling crack because they couldn't

[wayne_mulder]: 32:04

ah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 32:04

get a job so we have to look at the deeper socido issues and you're right it goes back to the breakdown of the family

[wayne_mulder]: 32:11

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 32:12

the breakdown the family is impacting law enforce ens impacting civil rights is impacting

[wayne_mulder]: 32:16

ah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 32:16

people of color is impacting our communities and if we don't get a handle on the family breakdown we're going to have those kids and dipers kicking cops those kids and dipersum spray painting school building those kids and dipers you know pushing their teachers out windows and we have all these things because we don't deal with the society problems that are around us

[wayne_mulder]: 32:38

absolutely i couldn't couldn't agree with you more yeah yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 32:43

so as a law enforcement officer i'm always curious as a pastor is hard to turn the day off and just kind of

[wayne_mulder]: 32:48

oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 32:48

you know have an have an off day because it's like you're always what is an off

[wayne_mulder]: 32:54

oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 32:54

duties cops life like how do you turn off your day job

[wayne_mulder]: 33:00

yes

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 33:00

yeah

[wayne_mulder]: 33:01

well that i wish there was a good answer for right you know very well but it's something you have to try to do and it's something you have to work on uh i really realized you come into this profession and sadly and it's gotten better but sadly when you first come through the academy you always have these old cantankerous sergeants and you know guys have been around forever and it's almost like this job has to lead to health issues that has to lead to divorce that has to lead to cynticism that has to lead to scepticism all these things have to come out of this job because that's just the way the career is and that's kind of the way it's sold to you both in training and through the academy fortunately that's changed locally and i'm seeing it change on a national level but there are parts of the job that come home with you i've talked often times one of the most shocking things that really resonated with me or really woke me up was when i would come home we had talked off that i've done a lot of investigations and that's been kind of my path so one thing people don't understand about law enforcement is the inordinate amount of death that you see probably next to a path or actually uh you just see a lot of the death that most people don't realize because if anyone dies in the county and they're not in a hospital or under hospital care then it's a death invest egation even if it's of natural causes or whatever so it isn't just the traumatic incidents that you see on the news though those are definitely part of it there you go to really any depth of any type from an elderly per canon or someone who's you know struggling with a disease so one thing that really kind of brought this to bear for me would be coming home and i would watch my young son sleeping and i would sit there and just stare at his chest and try to see is he breathing and and i would having these little like it was hard to separate the scene i had just seen an hour earlier and the moment that i was standing in then and i saw that as well with my wife and then other things would we would go out with friends and they would be like well you just always act like a cop i'm like well what's that always acting like cause i mean i always have a tapered hair cut what do we mean and so that thing is you know what you always look like you're on alert you know you always sit in a restaurant with your back to you can see cis and accents and and those things aren't all bad i mean it is good to be aware of we have unfortunate the society kind of the direct opposite where people have no awareness so it is good to be aware but the career definitely wears on you and i think that is why statistically and i believe it's around thirteen years well twelve years the average life span of a law enforcement officer is twelve years less than the general population and that number has probably adjusted a little bit since the general populations number has actually gone down over the last couple of years with covid but it was seventy four point two years for general population and six two point four years for law enforcement and i think that comes from this inability to turn the job off when you're not at work now that being said there is also that expectation which is something else on people don't realize like some agencies actually have in their general orders that you will carry a firearm off duty all the time doesn't matter if you're out with your family or so forth because there is an expectation that if you are present in a felony of any type takes place that you are going to get involved even though you re not on the clock you could be out with your wife and kids for dinner so that is part of it but yeah this job definitely can consume you if you allow it to which is part of the mission of what i've really tried to do with the on the blue line

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 36:40

so i want to you said way beautifully into that you must be a podcaster um

[wayne_mulder]: 36:44

oh i've done a couple keith

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 36:47

so i want to talk about that so tell us about your mission on the blue line and how do you help support law enforcement especially as i deal with the health part of the job

[wayne_mulder]: 36:57

oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 36:57

itself

[wayne_mulder]: 36:59

yes so on the blue line was an idea i actually just enjoyed listening to podcast this was back in two thousand eighteen two thousand nineteen and i was just enjoying listening to all different time so there was a guy order of man ryan mickler his was a manhood typepodcast and i was listening to that and it was really instrumental in where i was at the time and i was like well man this is something i really thing i would enjoy doing and having conversations so i decided to start and this was early in two thousand nineteen about a month later we lost a young lady on in our district to suicide one of our fellow officer and since then sadly we've actually lost another one and so that kind of became my why because i saw the impact as much as we just spoke about what this job has on people has on law enforcement officers long term and then i saw the need for us to strengthen life outside the job so right now on the blue line is essentially the podcast which i interview people from all walks of life all different types of people they're not all cops right so it's not a cop show and nothing that i'm doin is comprelated because i am wang molder who happens to work as a cop i work in law enforcement that's my vocation it's what i do when i'm at work but i'm a whole lot of other things more than that and if i find my identity there that's where you see a lot of these really tragic things where something maybe happens on the job and they lose their career or something happens that can't work any more if that's their identity whatever it is it doesn't have to be law enforcement but if that your identity and you lose that or something changes in your circumstance that can be the end and that can lead to some of these really dark places so that was step one was doing the podcast which is all about empowering enforcement officers and their lives away from the job but there is also another component which kind of leads it for everybody because the more i was talking i started realizing that there was a lot of misinformation when it came to people just not unde nanting why cops did what cops do so i also educate the public on the realities of law enforcement but the next step is something that's very important to me which is community so what i've been doing on a small and we're actually trying to do more is have the it's called o t b l life specifically for men who are either in law enforcement or prior law enforcement first but it is working together as a community there is a fee to be involved in it but it is a master mind of sorts where we work together on kind of the four pillars of the big battles we all need to fight whether it's vision which deals a lot with mental wellness strength which is your physical wellness alliance which is of course your relationships which are so important in community and then service which is has a lot to do with spiritual wellness and are giving back to others so that's kind of the fore come ponents of it and i've seen some really good things just on a small scale and i'm excited where it may lead in the future

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 39:53

that's so important and so needed

[wayne_mulder]: 39:54

eh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 39:55

the funniest

[wayne_mulder]: 39:56

a

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 39:56

thing you said really struck out to me is always on alert my first

[wayne_mulder]: 40:00

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 40:00

ministry was in detroit and so i learned when i go into a restaurant i always what i with my back away from the window so i can

[wayne_mulder]: 40:08

hm

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 40:08

always see what's in front of me and people always ask me why do you do this like

[wayne_mulder]: 40:11

oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 40:11

because you have to know your surroundings and so you're right you do learn to do that but but what you're doing for law enforcement is so critical we have the same kind of burn out in clergy um if

[wayne_mulder]: 40:25

oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 40:25

your

[wayne_mulder]: 40:25

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 40:25

identity becomes your your vocation you your job your profession and something happens to that we see again a high level of discontent retention is hard sometimes in the pastor off especially coming out of covid it was

[wayne_mulder]: 40:41

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 40:41

it was really hard for pastress who saw so many of them members die

[wayne_mulder]: 40:45

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 40:47

during copeland they couldn't see them in the hospital i mean when you're when your identity becomes visiting your members when they're in their worst possible day and you can't do that your identity is isrexsowhat you're doing is so vital an important thank you for what you do

[wayne_mulder]: 41:01

thank you yeah now that's it was tragic in fact my mom's church actually lost their pastor to covid so yeah it was tragic on all all fronts there

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 41:11

so i'd like to ask this question of my guests

[wayne_mulder]: 41:13

oh

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 41:13

um what do you want your legacy to be

[wayne_mulder]: 41:18

that's a powerful question

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 41:20

of

[wayne_mulder]: 41:20

right and i think that there's again a lot of close

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 41:23

a lot of

[wayne_mulder]: 41:23

things that can be said for that

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 41:25

yeah

[wayne_mulder]: 41:26

you know a lot of things but i think ultimately

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 41:29

of

[wayne_mulder]: 41:30

what i've been thinking a lot about lately is that i want to say that i

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 41:33

at

[wayne_mulder]: 41:33

fulfilled the mission that god

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 41:35

i

[wayne_mulder]: 41:35

created me for and that means a lot more because i still feel like even early forties that i don't know i always joke that i don't know what i'm going to do when i grow up even though i've been you know i ran a landscape company now i'm a law

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 41:48

ah

[wayne_mulder]: 41:48

enforcement officer i stil don't know wat i'm goin t d and i grow up and now i podcasterd who knows where that's going to lead i hope some day that's something i'm doing full time so i just hope and pray that looking back that i fulfilled the mission that god had in front of me and that i followed the leading much of like what brought me into this career and every time i go to an end service every time i go and in service is like a year later ranging sometimes twice a year training that law enforcement has and it can be anything from firearms to use a force and every time i go to one of those i always whisper a prayer

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 42:20

i

[wayne_mulder]: 42:20

that's well god you brought me to this career if you want me to stay career you're going to have to help me pass whatever this is because i really even at this moment even after eleven years of doing this i still feel like tomorrow maybe a different direction than that it leads me and that i hope

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 42:35

the

[wayne_mulder]: 42:36

that it makes a difference in the lives of others years ago when i had my landscape company and even now in my office at work i've always had a quote

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 42:43

a

[wayne_mulder]: 42:43

by zig zigler you can have everything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want which was the quote that he used for the focus of his business and it really that i think is the greatest legacy and kind of ties in with i hope that i'm fulfilling the mission that god has for me and that that mission is that i gave back and that i was able to help enough other people and that in turn i fulfilled the mission that god had for me

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 43:08

that's really i love that's great so what's the one big lesson you want people to learn from

[wayne_mulder]: 43:13

yea

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 43:13

our conversation today

[wayne_mulder]: 43:17

so that is i think if you were to boil it down that law enforcement

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 43:24

la

[wayne_mulder]: 43:24

is one of the most noble professions out there but it doesn't work unless the communities are on board and kind of going back to that social compact we have to work together and i think that

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 43:37

i

[wayne_mulder]: 43:37

to

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 43:37

think

[wayne_mulder]: 43:37

me

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 43:37

that

[wayne_mulder]: 43:38

is what the future is going to hold you know we have all these issues like we talked about law enforcement themselves struggling wanting to stay in the job so i think the big lesson is as we as communities and as law enforcement have to work together and we have to communicate

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 43:54

that's great anything i haven't asked you that

[wayne_mulder]: 43:56

ye

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 43:57

i should have asked you

[wayne_mulder]: 43:59

i don't think so

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 44:00

you

[wayne_mulder]: 44:00

you know the only thing that maybe i would touch on that we haven't really touched on is i don't want i think there's this misnomer out there where people say well you don't support the police be you don't have this blanket

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 44:11

have

[wayne_mulder]: 44:11

approval of everything they do you really saw this with some of the recent tragedies that have happened where law enforcement clearly made some mistakes and i don't think there's any question there and the

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 44:22

a

[wayne_mulder]: 44:22

reason for those mistakes

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 44:23

oh

[wayne_mulder]: 44:23

i mean there can be a lot of reasons that can be bad training bad leadership so forth and so on but i think that there's

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 44:28

i

[wayne_mulder]: 44:29

this misnomer that the whole supporting police is blanket approval of everything that they do and that's not true it's just being engaged in that partnership that we keep talking about so definitely that support is needed and in the same way i think that people can support law enforcement then law enforcement supports

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 44:44

it

[wayne_mulder]: 44:44

the community in that circle can go all the way around

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 44:48

that's a great way so where can people find your podcast and were can

[wayne_mulder]: 44:51

yeah

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 44:51

find you in social media

[wayne_mulder]: 44:53

i appreciate

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 44:53

i

[wayne_mulder]: 44:53

that

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 44:53

appreiate

[wayne_mulder]: 44:54

yeah the podcast is on all your major players

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 44:56

make

[wayne_mulder]: 44:56

so whatever you prefer to stream it on but if they just started on

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 45:00

oh

[wayne_mulder]: 45:00

the blue line on the blue line dot com you'll find that they are we re on all this social media plus i have my personal pages on all of them as well under wing moulder

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 45:08

oh

[wayne_mulder]: 45:08

and it's on the blue line podcast

[keith_haney__the_man__the_myth__the_legend]: 45:11

well wan think you this was a great conversation and blessings on what you do blessing on your support for the blue and keep fighting that good fight for all of us because we need to have good people on our front line protecting us

[wayne_mulder]: 45:23

thank you keith i truly appreciate it