Be The Change! You Want To See In The World
Jan. 17, 2023

The Importance Communication In Law Enforcement- Kenny "Red Ninja"

The Importance Communication In Law Enforcement- Kenny

Professional Experience:
HOBART POLICE DEPARTMENT - Hobart, IN
Police Officer – Patrolman (2007 to 2017)    
Corporal (2017-2019)    
Sergeant (2019-Present)
Additional Responsibilities
Active member of the K-9 Unit (02/2015 to present)
Active member of a Domestic Highway Enforcement Team (05/2012 to present)
Originating Officer in Hobart Criminal Intelligence Unit (09/2016 to present)



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Transcript

Hi everyone and welcome to this week's episode of the Drain to Badge Podcasts. I'm host Jerry Dean Lund and I don't want you to miss an upcoming episode of So Please Hit that Subscribe button and why your phone's out. Please do me a favor and give us a review on iTunes or Apple Podcasts. It says, hey, this podcast has a great message and we should send it out to more people. So please take that 30 seconds to a minute to do that review and just maybe by doing that it will push this up into someone's podcast feed that really needs this message. Alright, before we jump into this next episode, I want to talk to you about you. I want to know if you feel like you're not getting the best out of yourself, that you're struggling in your close and personal relationships, you have that anxious and overwhelming feeling because your home light and your work-life balance is out of sorts. Do you feel like maybe you're working on your mental health and it's just not going in where? Not getting the results you really want. I got that myself before and I want to help you with that because I don't want you to be stuck in that feeling. I know how that builds too. So I have an offer for you. You can reach out to me for a free 15 minute discovery call. No obligations. We just jump on this phone, chat for about 15 minutes and we try to figure out how to get you back on track and get the life you deserve. You can do that by reaching out to me on my Instagram or on my Facebook page and for the Instagram handle, it's Jerry Fire and Fuel or in during the badge podcast or you just go straight to the website and during the badge podcast and there's a little coaching tab there and you can book a call there. My very special guest today is the red ninja. That's what he goes by on his social media platforms but his real name is Kenny. Kenny is a instructor for street cop and Kenny has been out on the road being a drug in tradition officer for several years. He's going to talk about what that takes to do that. Why he decided to get into drug introduction and the other main important thing that we talk about is communication and how to communicate. I don't care who you are, what job you have. You can always learn a lot from somebody like Kenny who's great at communication. Lets jump right into this episode for my very special guest. Are you doing man? Yeah, thanks for being on. It's how they add in a little bit about yourself. I'm an officer in Indiana. I started my law enforcement career in 2007. I've been with the same agency only my entire career. My first five years I worked at General Patrol Assignment shift work. I always had aspirations to work criminal under addiction on the highways. Finally, in 2012, after bothering the right people, I finally got a part time assignment up there. I had some, I guess, locker success. I've even been a word in 2016. My department afforded me pretty much a full-time position up there. Occasionally, I have to go back and help out just because we're a smaller agency and whether it's kind of bad so they don't want me on the interstate when it's all icy and snowy. So I would say about 10 months out of the year, I'm working nothing but an introduction. And then the two months I'm helping out with patrol duties or SRO do you either have something along those lines? Yeah, so kind of what's your background? I've seen you, you've got some pretty good accomplishments there. Are you doing just drug interdiction stuff now with a canine or is it just you? My first two years, I didn't have a dog in 2014, the PD offered me an opportunity to be a canine handler. So my first dog I had that from 2014 until 2020 or 2021 somewhere around there. And now I have a second dog. But yeah, I have the best of both words, like it's a work introduction and I get to be a canine handler. I've loved him life, man. I can't complain. Yeah, what's your dog's name? The new one is Gibson McCall and Gibby, the previous one my first dog was Mojo. Nice, nice. So you're out on the roads and trying to do drug interdiction like that's a huge task. I mean, how do you, how do you feel about that? Because it's like almost like a monumental task. I don't know, for some reason, I don't know, I don't look at it like that. I look at it like I love winning a mental game kind of. So I look at it that I'm dealing with a higher level of criminal and they've spent months years a long time to beat law enforcement. And then if I can beat them in seven to ten minutes during a traffic stop, that is a, that's a feat in itself, I feel. So it doesn't matter for me, it doesn't matter like the size of the load or anything like that, it's just winning at a mental game. I, I really enjoy that. Yeah, yeah. They do, right? That's the, they put so much time and effort. You've seen all these crazy, crazy videos and watching stuff like the borders and everything. You know, all these ideas to beat you at, you know, at your game, at your game to try to like just pass by you, I guess, right? Be and discovered. Yeah, I mean, that's ultimately their goal. They're just trying to blend in with the normal, motoring public. And what they don't realize is that no matter how much they can prepare, your mind and your body is going to do things because if you have, say, a 20 year sentence in your trunk and you go by something that is going to put you there, you're going to have reactions. It's no different than if you're afraid of snakes and spiders and someone throws one at you. You're not just going to stand there and like, let it hit you, you're going to do things that is going to, they, opt to your control. Same, same concept with, you know, people that are smugglers that are trying to go and detect it. Yeah. How do you prepare for like kind of your mental game? So when I first started, I didn't have a lot of training to be honest with you. I was kind of just given an opportunity and I went from a city to now all of a sudden, working the interstate and that was a, that was challenging in itself. It was almost like a culture shock. I'm used to, you know, cars going at max, maybe 55 miles an hour. And that's on a US route that alone. Now, the speed limit 70, but good luck if anyone does that. And yeah, I mean, just that in itself. So my first couple years, it was a lot of trial and error in a building foundation of what like normal behavior is what normal travel is, what normal conversation is when you stop someone. And then that good foundation will start to, you'll start to see abnormal things. And a lot of, I did a lot of self training like books like Spide a lie and then Sean Smart is an infamous Ohio State trooper. I went to his class and changed my perspective on law enforcement completely. Sean part A's here. Some really good foundational guys that just changed my perspective completely and catapulted my career to another level. Yeah, I'm sure it's really hard to train you up to, to be at the level you're at. Now, just coming out of the academy. That, right, they don't really prepare you for a lot of this. Yeah, in 16, I think the 16 or 18 weeks in the academy. We had a three hour block of introduction and I was like, hooked. I'm like, I want to do this. I'm going to do this by the part where I didn't have it. So the first five years, it was like, I loved, I mean, I love the job. And I ultimately, my goal is always to take bad guys a jail when I went to work. But taking bad guys a jail compared to like taking guys that are working for an organization to jail is a bigger feat in my mind. I don't know. Yeah, no, that's, that's awesome. That's awesome. So do you follow kind of your gut feeling at times, too? I mean, I guess, I guess we all have cops have like a six cents, but I'm trying to think. I would, I don't like the gut feeling where I think that like through your experiences and through your training, you're going to see all these like normal things and it's going to be like, oh, you'll stop a car or for whatever reason and you go through it and they're like, not being deceptive, they're being honest and you kind of get rid of it. But there's always those ones that stand out and I think that's easy. Once you have that training and then you've used that training to gain that experience, that gut feeling is easily explained in court because now you have all of these times that this normal stuff has happened. Now this doesn't like, you know, I've seen, I don't know, I've stopped a thousand cars. This is the only one that has done this, this and this and this and this so far. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. So you know, drugs has become your passion to go and do that. Like why was it, why was it drug introduction? So growing up, I had some family members that were that got involved in narcotics and I hated seeing that and I think part of my passion to come into law enforcement was to deal with that aspect of it and not necessarily to arrest all users. To give them an avenue to better themselves in whatever way. If it was to give them, you know, avenues for rehab or avenues for something along those lines, something to help these people get back, get their life back together and those types of things. So when I saw the introduction aspect of it, that was something that was more appealing because I wanted to not necessarily mess with the users. I felt like that if we can give them an avenue to get help, I don't know. I feel like they would have taken that instead of having nowhere to go and they resort to whatever issues they're having, they resort to, you know, abusing narcotics. But seeing like dealers and higher than that, even if I can have a small impact by taking some of those narcotics off the road that maybe, especially with the fentanyl thing right now, maybe, you know, maybe unknowingly I've saved someone's life by just taking, you know, a kilo of fentanyl off the streets or something along those lines. So it progressed from small to like large, but initially what attracted me to law enforcement was September 11th and then some family members I've had that have, you know, substance abuse issues. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good thing, good driving force, you know, to get into law enforcement is, you know, 9-11 and of course, they had the drug and addiction and every do seem, what's available on the street can save someone's life for sure. I totally believe in that. I think that's what the borders kind of be and so porous. I mean, if you've seen kind of less in the last couple years, like more of an influx of drugs. So what just crazy in like a during like the 2000 COVID, like 2020, I'm guessing, somewhere around there, it was crazy the minimal amount of narcotics bursting in the high price on those narcotics that were in within the US. And then after COVID and, you know, the borders started to have some issues, the narcotics are just, I mean, the flow is insane and I feel bad for the border patrol. Those guys do a great job. It's just they're so overwhelmed with the amount of people that are coming across, but they have the handle that and it's just hampering the ability to stop that stuff from coming in this country. But the ones that are out there, I mean, they're amazing. The border patrol is absolutely amazing. They do a great job for the manpower that they have and I mean, they smash the monster boat. So I don't want it to sound like they're not doing their job. They do a lot of minimal officers and for such an overwhelming problem with the legal migrants and then all of a sudden now you see, you know, the cartel is praying on that because they now they know that all these border patrol guys are tied up and they're just sending as much as possible into the US all at once. It's, you know, they're overwhelmed and I feel bad for them. Yeah. Yeah. I want to be a border patrol agent, but yeah, you see some crazy things there too, you know, that come in across the border and how they're like, we're talked about sneaking in across, but yeah, the praying on all the people that are coming in. I'm sure sending drugs with them because I think the chance of them getting caught is a lot less these days, unfortunately. Yeah. No doubt. And I mean, they find some crazy compartments in it. It's just, I would love, I would love to go work on there if I had to just, if I could just work the narcotics, yeah. I don't know. I mean, that would be so cool just to see like, because that's like, you know, the point that is entering this country, that would be absolutely amazing just to see the extent that all this, on a first hand basis. But the other stuff that they have to deal with right now, I don't know if I would want to, if I would want to see that or, I mean, honestly, I have to deal with this kind of overwhelming and, and I don't like seeing people in those vulnerable states, honestly, like it just, it upsets me it. So I can only imagine what they're going through. Yeah. Do you see like in where you're working that people are kind of getting forced into, like, running these drugs or something that most of them are just willing to do and risk it? So I meet personally firsthand. I've not seen where some people that if came over, you know, illegally and then now they're indebted to the organization that got them over here. I have seen people that are so-called friends or, you know, friends or friends that have prayed on people that are in vulnerable situations financially or anything along those lines where they, you know, never been arrested and all of a sudden they lose their job and they have three kids and all of a sudden they get thrown this opportunity to make this great money. And I, and I, and I sympathize with that because I'm like, all right, like, you could either not do this and you could go work. I don't know, at McDonald's and are you going to be able to support your family because not or, you know, you make this trip across the country and you're going to make what you would work at McDonald's in a month or two, you can make it in four days. So I like, I'm empathetic and I understand where they come from. It's just, you take that risk, I guess, when you get involved with it and a lot of the people that I've dealt with that are involved in smuggling usually or have some vulnerability and that someone has prayed on that vulnerability with them. Yeah, sure. That's, that's the, the war on drugs right there is the vulnerability part of the people just trying to pray on other people I think is, you know, and making money to do that. Yeah, fortunately. But yeah, I mean, I, I wouldn't want to go work at McDonald's and stuff like that, but I also went on to like, I'd be terrified to like run drugs across the country. I'm the same way I would have, I would have, I would like, literally probably have a hard attack. Like there's no way I can make it. Yeah. I'm not lying around. There's no way. Right. And then to run the opportunity of getting pulled over and yeah, it's, that doesn't, doesn't appeal to me, thank goodness. What if you kind of like learn through your career and I'm sure there's been some probably some trials and, you know, come through your career. I mean, it's a lot of time to be on the road already. I mean, some of the biggest things is that to understand my communication and that is a communication in itself, like people communicate different ways. And I, I've learned, in my prior life, I was a bartender. So I, like, I was able to like, I knew a little bit about everything just to care, you know, have like, my casual conversation with a guest at a bar to, to, it was more like, you know, it wasn't like a crazy, like dance club bars, like more like a sports type bar. So you had to communicate with your guests. And so I started to learn a little bit about everything. And I feel like communication, you start to read people and understand what kind of mindset they're in. And I feel like that translated a lot to working in addiction. And I don't put myself as in people's shoes and start to be like, well, I wouldn't do this, right? Wouldn't say this this way. And I kind of just have, you got to have more of like a worldly view of how different cultures communicate in certain cultures. You know, like, don't make a lot of eye contact. We're, you know, we're kind of hammered in America that you should talk to people and look at them in the eyes. But different cultures don't do that way. So I don't put a lot of weight in the way that people communicate. I just kind of, you know, based a lot more on at what point do they change their behaviors when I'm asking specific questions. So I think that was a huge learning curve for me because early on, I'm like, well, I wouldn't do this. So we'd, why would I, you know, and then I would, I wouldn't do this. So why would you do this? And that was a horrible mindset to have because so many people do different things that I would never do. And to just look at it through my eyes only was detrimental. And it was a huge learning curve for me. Yeah. Yeah. I could see that that's awesome experience. You know, being a bartender because it does give you the ability to, you know, talk with anybody. And I think that's right. You're pulling people over and, you know, just starting up a casual, probably a conversation a little bit and then, you know, diving into it, maybe more of their life where they're become more revealing to you about what's going on. And I tried to not to be the abrasive or the thwarted figure a lot of times. And I feel like being that bartender helped me just like be able to communicate very late back and, uh, unassuming, I guess. And, uh, people would open up to me at the bar. So I feel like I kind of translated to being a cop. People like, I'm very like, unassuming, like, I'm not asking, like, a thwartive type of questions is just kind of, I just kind of go with the normal conversation and people say some, some, tell me some stuff that I'm like, like, where did this even come from? Like, I have guys that are open up about like that they're like, going to cheat on their wife and stuff. And I have, I've known you for three minutes, man. Like, like, it's crazy. Sometimes, but I'm like, all right, cool. Like, I mean, you know, I just try to not pass judgment and just like make them feel as comfortable as possible. Yeah, building up that trust once again. And I think once you have that trust, right, it kind of breaks down some of those barriers for sure. Absolutely. To the people. Here are five tips if you're feeling stuck in your life still. One, take full responsibility of your life. Don't be that victim anymore. You have to get past that number two, praise and enjoy the process. Focus on the journey when things get tough. Focus on the end where you're headed and why you're headed there. If you truly know, those little things are not going to knock you off your track. Number three, become anti-fragile. Once again, don't let those little things knock you down. They're going to breathe in process though. You can get through them and knock it stuck in that moment. Number four, cut out the crappy friends that are sucking the life out of you because you can't excel if you're around a bunch of crappy friends that are not going to help you excel. And number five, you need to cultivate grit and press a variance. No in your journey and have an written down and have an adestination is going to keep you on track and help you with that grit and perseverance on getting you to where you want to be. Now let's jump back into this episode. Do you find a lot of officers want to do like drug introduction? I feel that introduction is a, I feel that a lot of guys are intrigued by it and they want to, and they want to have success and they want to have an impact. I just feel that it is a very, a lot of guys look up to it. I feel that I feel that like I don't know. I would say that maybe, I don't know, 10% of the cops out there. Like they might all appreciate it. I'm going to say all, but the majority of them might appreciate it, but you know, like the ones that want to actually get out there and do it, I would say maybe around 20, 10, 20% overall. Yeah, yeah. It seems about right. What do you, so you're a part of a training cadre and the street cop, right? Yes, I, what got you into that? So I met Dennis in 2017, I was, that was still early and I was still like finding like new trainings and I was always trying to bring training to my, to my department in a selfish manner because it was like, I want to go to it and I'm like the likelihood of my department sending me is probably slim to none, but if I could host it and I got a free seat, if I could fill it up like that was kind of my motivation behind it. So I met, I got introduced to street cop through TJ Cole and who runs a Trepfind training class and then that's how I met Dennis and then I hosted Dennis, came out for a two day class and I followed it up right after that with a, with TJ's class and then I met those guys and during that process, Dennis offered me an opportunity to start teaching. But I had personal goals that I wanted to meet within my own law enforcement career that I, I, I didn't want to dive into something else. I wanted to keep focused on what I was doing and then I waited a few years and once, once I met most of my goals in my career and I started, you know, I'm in your 16 now. So as my career starts to wind down, I'm trying to give back to the introduction world or police as much as possible. My goals, ultimately leave this department and law enforcement overall in a better state than I found it. And when I first started coming up through an introduction, there wasn't a lot of guys that were willing to take me under the wing. Maybe in my state, there's maybe three or four guys at most to everyone else made it seem like, it was like, yeah, I don't know, like the biggest secret in the world. So when I always told myself, I'm like, if I ever get lucky or I ever have success, I'm in a tell everyone that wants to hear about their addiction and how I did it because I feel that it's a great tool. I don't want it to go away. I'm very passionate. I love introduction. I think it's an amazing tool to law enforcement. And I don't want it to go away. I feel that some people try to keep this close to vests as possible where I'm an open book. I will tell you my failures and my successes. I've been a lot more failures than successes, but I will tell you anything you want to know. Just because I feel that if I can accelerate your career and it doesn't take you three to five years to learn that and I can accelerate it, maybe to a one or two where you have that learning curve, that's a win for law enforcement overall. And we're all in the same team. It's us first, the bad guys that are bringing these in our context in this country that are willing to give it to our communities and willing to let them die. So why would we not share the information that we have and that we've accumulated over time to help everyone else out? It's just sometimes it's crazy to me. Yeah. Some people use knowledge as power, right? And then that's the knowledge that they have, they're going to use that as power over you. So they're not going to share their knowledge. Yeah, I just don't understand that philosophy. I don't either. It's crazy to me. Right. You got to share your knowledge so the next guy behind you that's going to replace you has all that knowledge and there's not this big huge fall off and gap after you leave the department. My ultimate goal is to make whoever was to follow me in my position better than I was. And then continue to go that way. You don't think these organizations that are running our products is stuff are getting better. Absolutely. They are. So we're not getting better. We're falling behind. We have to minimum. They're already beyond ours with knowledge and the way that they do things. We're maybe getting 10% at most of the narcotics. They're way beyond us. If we continue to play that game where I'm not telling you what I know, you learn it. I'd learn it myself. You learn it yourself. We're just falling further for the behind these organizations and it makes no sense to me. Yeah. I agree with you. What do you teach in your classes? I teach my class name is is an introduction mastermind. I think I'm up with it then instead. But I talk a lot about just like a via co-selection, what I learned through my success as I'm failures, communication during a traffic stop, some tools that I use roadside. A lot of it is that you know, just I'm using the driving behavior and their human behavior as a catalyst to kind of single up vehicles and help accelerate that also with different ways the organizations try to hide where vehicles are from. And those types of things, I talk very briefly about like hitting compartments in there. I'm not. There's some great guys in this country that teach in compartments. I don't have the patients that some of those guys have to like understand how they operate and stuff. So like Brad Gilmore who teaches for three cops, absolutely amazing. And I just don't have the patients I have. But I talk a little bit about it. I'll talk a little bit about how to find them. Brad talks about how he finds out how to open them and I just don't have that patient to me. So I'll find some here and there and I'll show you how I open them and it's not pretty, but Brad will teach you the nice sexy way to do it. Yeah. I'm sure when I'm thinking about this it's kind of like a, it's kind of look at it as a game, right? In some ways. Absolutely. And I think about looking at it as a game keeps you motivated and interested and you know, keep you driving forward and keeps you learning from any of those failures in the past. Absolutely. Like, I've missed things in the past. I've watched my videos and they're like, please don't find it. I've had a very humbling moments where I had to call cops a couple of streets of Wain, be like, yeah, I miss something. I mean, it's humbling. But again, we're all in the same team. So I'm not going to be like, so like, humbled that I'm not going to call and tell you that I missed it and it might be in this area because that's where he was, you know, praying that I wouldn't find it when I was, you know, when I go back and watch my video, very humbling. But you know, now I know that I will never miss, you know, contraband hidden in that area again. So you know, I always look at the losses as more of a learning experience. You don't lose, you know, it's just, you got to build upon that that perceived loss and make that. So you don't find, so you don't miss it again. Kind of. So after the other officer found it, I had, you know, called them that a conversation, learn some things I didn't know and I don't think I would ever miss some of their colleagues in that, in that place again. Yeah, that's cool. But this is kind of a probably more riskier job than working in town. Isn't it? I don't know. So a lot of guys have asked me that, but I feel that if you're going to an unknown domestic, I feel that you're kind of at a disadvantage overall. You're going to unknown calls like screaming, and I don't like, you don't know what is taking place. I feel as time goes on and you get better at picking out cars. You can kind of pick and choose cars that you want to stop. I don't necessarily have to, you know, if I get like a bad vibe, you know, I can kind of just end that traffic stop right there. You know, I don't necessarily need to to continuously go forward with it or even stop the car. If I feel like, you know, if I'm, if I'm, if I'm, if the car's full of people, I'm by myself, and I'm out, I don't have to stop it. Where if you get a 911 hang up or I don't own domestic in year the first one there, and the next guy is not there for three or five minutes, you still got to go do something as a cop. That is a lot, a lot more unsafe than me picking and choosing what I can, what I can, what I can, can't stop on the highway, I guess. Yeah. How do you feel about the fentanyl that's being trafficked around in the danger that that that brings? It's, I mean, it's insane. Just, I mean, the simple fact that these organizations are willing to make such a unstable and, you know, a shatty product and possibly kill off their own clientele, it's it's assin' I mean, but I guess it goes to show like they're, they don't value life, you know what I'm saying? It's all about, they'll do anything they can to make more money, and if it's to kill off the people transporting it, the people to make it, the people using it, cops have find it, like any of anything in those realms, like they care less, it's all about, you know, money to them. It's crazy that Mount of Greed that these organizations have. Yeah, definitely driven by the dollar. I saw the video I think was this week of the officer, the female officer that got the fentanyl and had three doses of Narcan to revive her and like that's pretty crazy. That is crazy. Haven't seen the video yet. Yeah, she's laying right down in the street, just being exposed. Did they? Like someone else roll up honor or was it like another, saw him backing up or like another copper? Yeah, it was another officer that they gave her the Narcan, but it's so fast. You saw fast. You probably have, she wanted to like give her self, I mean, which would be probably difficult, you know, it's too fast, too fast. Yeah, I mean, and I think the most society knows like how dangerous it is, and it's just, it's crazy to me that they're still willing to put that in their body. I don't know. Yeah, it's a whole other level of risk. Yeah, what advice do you have for anybody looking to get into the law enforcement career? Law enforcement career as a whole. I think law enforcement in itself is a very complicated career, and I think that you have to be able to, if I could give it anyone like the ability to communicate, is going to save your butt a lot of times, or if you can't communicate, it's going to end or you. And I think communications, one of the foundation things in law enforcement that kind of gets overlooked, I think if you can communicate, you're going to have a long and successful career, and if you can't, and if you're very authoritative and you're not empathetic and, you know, you're very rigid, I think that's going to be going to have some problems during it. And as an aspiring cop, if you can, I'm not talking about like a go to speech class, and I'm like literally just learn how to communicate with everyone, like go to restaurants and just like sit down and talk to people. Like something as simple as that, go to the mall and just say hi to people and start at the small conversation. I was very introverted and I didn't have that ability in high school or college or anything. So once I started to be a bartender, like I had to force myself out. And once I was able to get out of that routine where I was very introverted, like it has helped me out tremendously. I never thought, if you'd told me in college, that I was going to go speak in front of a thousand cops, I would have the ability to do that. I'd like you're out of your mind, you're crazy. A thousand people in general, like I couldn't even, I think I got like a DM, I speech class, because I was so miserable. But once you're able to like kind of get over that threshold and kind of fight back that urge, it's so much more rewarding for me. Knowing that I'm an introvert and I don't, it's a challenge, I don't know. I like challenges, like yes. Yeah, yeah. You think some of, I hate to say this, but like the newer officers or maybe the younger generations and stuff like that are kind of a disadvantage with communication because they communicate through technology so much. I mean, there is, I think there would be a challenging point, but I think throughout history there's always been challenging things when it comes to communication, but I do think the way we text and the way through messengers and all these other things, I feel like that is most people communicate that way and I do think that if you do not force yourself to have one-on-one face-to-face conversations, I think that in this field alone, it's going to be problematic. I mean, there might be other places that you could kind of have one-on-one conversations and kind of other careers, I mean, and have one-on-one conversations and kind of avoid, but when you have, when you're forced in, you know, difficult situations and then you have to communicate, I think that if you've only had those difficult communications through text or some other way besides face-to-face communication, I think that will be problematic for the newer generation. Yeah, yeah, I agree with the I.C. They don't have as many, I'd say sometimes like life, I don't know, skills or life events that have happened to bring them like force and communication, you know, out of them that they're just very, a lot of them are very interbred and that's the best way for them to communicate, unfortunately, but that's not, I'm so more amazing communicators, but definitely. Yeah, I agree there. I think that like, as a whole, I think I think that overall, I don't think it would be, but I do feel like you'll have some that have never had like an argument or, you know, even a disagreement like face-to-face, it's going to be a text or something and I feel, I feel like that's where you'll have the problem. But I also mean, I mean, there's some people that we have hired that's never driven out of real-world drive car and then all of a sudden they get that misnull and it's like, I don't know, like it's, so I feel like as long as you train yourself and you understand like, I think that you'll be fine, it's just you're going to have to put yourself in those uncomfortable situations and I would do it prior to having to go and do it someone that you have to now like try to talk off the ledge, pull it and quote, not necessarily the ledge, but you know, someone that's angry and you know, argue-manative and now you're trying to deal with that and you're in a law enforcement capacity. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Do you have any advice for people that maybe seem like drugs being ran or, you know, or something like that, like, what would you advise them to do? Like a civilian life? Yes, a civilian life. I mean, if they seem to have colleagues, they can always, you know, reach out to me. But I mean, overall, I mean, I think once you get to a certain level, I don't think that these organizations are very isolated, so I don't think that it's going to be very common knowledge. They're only going to, you know, let people that they trust see it, so, I mean, if someone else saw it, just like a Walmart or something, I don't even know, like, please call me, but I just don't think that they're going to be that careless once they get to that level. Yeah, once they're trafficking high volumes of drugs, yeah, that does make a lot of sense. Yeah. What are, do you have any other training tips that you've kind of learned over the years? I'm trying to think. I don't know. The introduction in itself is, and it comes as a lot of things. So I feel that once I started working in a addiction, I had to look up a lot of case law to know what I can and can't do. And when you're out there on the highway, you know, with one partner that, you know, or sometimes, you know, you're just on an island, you don't have a lot of resources to lean on. So I feel like as a young officer, case law is going to save you a lot of time and with that you're going to feel a lot more comfortable knowing what you can and can't do. So if I had anything, I would give that to, you know, aspiring or even young officers. The communication aspects huge and to know, case law, so you know what you can and can't do, know your SOPs, so know what you can and can't do. And all that's going to do with all three of those combined, you're going to feel very comfortable going into pretty much any situation because you already know what you can and can't do. And now you're not going to second guess yourself. You can guess yourself and get you in a lot of, if you're hesitant and in a situation can cause a lot of problems in this one second can kill your life or you can take your life, you know, so or get you, you know, punch in the face and no one wants to get punch in the face. Right, right. Anywhere can people find you and follow you? So the street cop, the SWWW.com.com is the street cop page. I have my own Instagram, which is red underscore ninja, one to loving. I'm on Facebook and TikTok and LinkedIn and all those good things. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on today. I really enjoyed the conversation. I think you hit it on the head like the big focus of his, you know, communication. Like it makes it our lives better and every manner. Yeah, I can, I mean, yeah, if I could get anything across that, that would be the biggest thing for me, it's communication in any realm is going to make your life a lot easier. Yeah, before I let you go, what kind of things can people find for our training on the street cop site? So if you, if you go to the street cop page, you can look up, introduce a mastermind or red ninja, particularly. I can throw out some dates out there. I'll be out in Utah and in October of next year, Cleveland. Ohio, September, Portland, Maine, August, New Jersey, and June, Maine, Georgia, Colorado, Wyoming and April, and so on. Wow. You've got a busy schedule. Yeah, I tried to travel once a month to teach. Where are you going to be at in Utah by chance? If you want second, let's say. Yeah. And on this, the street cop site, they teach a lot of different trainings, not just drug introduction. Is that right? Yeah, I think there's 40 different instructors and there's everything. Some of the guys there are attorneys, but still work in law enforcement and they know case law, Dennis knows case law amazingly. Those are some of the foundational pieces, I think, as any young officer, Tom Brazil teaches amazing leadership class. I talked about Brad doing traps. Tommy Brooks talks about, he's a Boston cop, he's been there forever, he's a lieutenant, he talks a lot about, he teaches three different classes about guns and gangs. He's absolutely amazing. Mike Fakero teaches like hotel motel airport type introduction type stuff. I mean, anything you can think of, I'm pretty sure Dennis has it, has it covered with the street cop umbrella. I will be in colville. Utah. Okay. That's a small, small-ticket. Small town. Yeah, maybe the bringing a lot of people from the surrounding areas. Hopefully. It'll be my first time out there. Yeah, it's beautiful out here. Enjoy yourself and safe travels and thank you for being on the podcast and please stay safe out there and keep kicking butt on the streets and getting those drugs off there. Use a lot, push your your having me. All right, take care. Thanks again for listening. Don't forget to rate and review the show forever you access your podcast. If you know someone that would be great on the show, please get a hold of our host, Jerry Dean Lund, do the Instagram handles, at Jerry Barron Fuel or at Enduring the Badge podcast. Also, by visiting the show's website, Enduring the Badge podcast.com for additional methods of contact and up-to-date information regarding the show. Remember, the views and opinions expressed during the show, solely represent those of our host and the current episodes.

KennyProfile Photo

Kenny

Kenny

Professional Experience:
HOBART POLICE DEPARTMENT - Hobart, IN
Police Officer – Patrolman (2007 to 2017)
Corporal (2017-2019)
Sergeant (2019-Present)
Additional Responsibilities
Active member of the K-9 Unit (02/2015 to present)
Active member of a Domestic Highway Enforcement Team (05/2012 to present)
Originating Officer in Hobart Criminal Intelligence Unit (09/2016 to present)

Education:
2001-2006
Indiana University Northwest
Gary, IN
Bachelor degree of Science; Criminal Justice

1997-2001
Hobart High School
Hobart, IN

Training/Certifications:
(10/2022) DEA DUCA class 82
(07/2017-Present) DIAP and EPIC Instructor
(02/2015-Present) K-9 Handler
(03/2011-02/2015) Member of Northwest Regional SWAT
(04/2008) Northwest Indiana Law Enforcement Academy

Achievements:
(2020) National Criminal Enforcement Association Interdiction Officer of the Year
(2019) Desert Snow Royal Knight Award
(2018 through 2021) Desert Snow Award winner for numerous seizures and Interdiction Team of the Year
(2018) American Police Canine Association “Sniff Off” Champion
(2017) National Criminal Enforcement Association Award Winner for Interdiction
(2016) American Police Canine Association “Sniff Off” Semi-finalist
(2015 through 2019) American Police Canine Association interdiction team of the year
(2012) "Officer Recognition" Outstanding Northwest Indiana Law Enforcement Officers awards
(2010) "Officer of the Year" Hob…