Reimagining Policing: Mental Health & Change with Jeff Wenninger on The Healers Café & Manon Bolliger

the citizens they serve. Yeah, in there. But then you also have to look at circumstances where they don’t disclose information because it may compromise the investigation. Yeah, the investigation completely legitimate. Yeah. Then they also have to make decisions relative to the disclosure of some information that perhaps, if the public knew about it, it would cause them to have fear and have paralysis. And perfect example of that was back in nine after 911 I was with the LAPD, and was was privy to a lot of information that the general public did not have access to and had they had that information, they wouldn’t have been going out of their homes to their shopping malls and to sporting events and those sorts of things, because the threats that are out there, I will say This, the successful intelligence and counter terrorism measures that occur the general citizens never hear about. And it’s it’s that way for a reason. So there are some legitimate reasons why law enforcement doesn’t approach things with 100% transparency all the time, but it’s the first one that I spoke of that is, is, is of concern, and we have to understand that it’s we have to, we have to reimagine what we view our role as being right, right. And part of your question was like, Who do we hire? People? Oftentimes say, you know, we need to hire the right people. And I’m not sure that’s really the question. It may be, how we hire is the question,

Manon Bolliger  07:30

right? And who are they working like? Who’s their oath to? You know, I took a medical oath, right? And that oath was not to my department of health, or to my department, my board, it was to the patient, right? So to me, it’s very clear what my allegiance is. So if I took that oath, that’s what I’m standing behind. So if there is information that I’m not so comfortable with that, or I have doubts about or I need more information, or something like this medically, then I will actually inform because I believe in informed consent. My patients, you know that I’m I’m suggesting to hold off or to look into it. Let’s wait and see. Let’s get more research and, you know, etc, etc, right? So it’s like, it’s the same thing the military. I mean, they’re all different, right? But the military, who is their oath to is it to the people or the governments that are currently in charge? Or how does that work? Same with the police. Who is it the political party that you know is in place, or is it actually the people

Jeff Wenninger  08:55

there’s there’s the the police ethics that you’re you swear to uphold and and kind of guide your actions and your behaviors. But let’s be honest, and I’ve got a saying that culture training for lunch, so regardless of what your oath is, no matter what you’re trained or what the policies and procedures are, if the culture of the organization that you work with is not aligned with those things, right? The actions you’re going to see manifest in the officers is going to be more closely aligned with the actual culture than what they’re they’ve sworn to do, how what they’ve been trained to do, and what the policy and procedure actually requires of them. And that’s, that’s where there’s a huge breakdown. Yeah, and why that? Why is that concerning? You know, it’s been like in 1996 Congress gave Pentagon the ability to provide law enforcement agencies throughout this country with no. Military equipment, from uniforms and gear of that nature to planes and helicopters and everything in between. And you see about $390 million a year of equipment going to local law enforcement agencies in this country. And I would assert that since 911, my 33 years in law enforcement, I saw an increased element of the militarization of law enforcement. Where was it’s not just in the tools and the equipment and their appearance in uniform, but even more importantly, it’s those things then therefore, that influence their mindset and what they view their role as being. And we’ve gone from what I would say was the predominant mindset of being a guardian when I came on the job 33 years ago to now being a warrior. And although there is a time and a place where you need to be a warrior in law enforcement or in the military or what have you, the primary role that you have on a daily basis is one of a guardian, and you have to really measure and determine what exactly it is that your function and role is at every single incident that you respond to, and critically is the dealing of people that are suffering from a mental health crisis. Law enforcement across this country does a horrible job with that. Yeah, so a statistic, statistic that is very frightening is that 36% of officer involved shootings involve somebody that’s experiencing a mental health crisis, and law enforcement in general is not very self aware of how their their presence right, their deployment of their weapons, and less lethal weapons, like the beanbag and shotgun as well as the Taser and those sorts of things will impact the person that they’re trying to obtain voluntary compliance from. Right. I don’t understand that their actions are actually escalating the problem. Yeah, and unfortunately we have these we’ve used de escalation tactics. Well, just having the presence of a less lethal option, which would be a beanbag shotgun or a taser or what have you, does not equate to de escalation, multiple people yelling and giving directions to somebody when their mental health crisis is not de escalating. Watch these body worn videos of these incidents. I just sit there and shake my head going, did you think there was going to be any other outcome than this tragic outcome that we just saw occur based on how the police department was responding. Yeah. So even more concerning with that is that LAPD is in the forefront in combining law enforcement resources with Lap Can you just LAPD the Los Angeles Police Department, okay? Thanks, just to be sure, yeah, the Los Angeles Police Department, they’re in the forefront of combining law enforcement resources and personnel with mental health practitioners, and they work together under the the mental evaluation unit. The problem here is that they’ve been doing this for nearly two decades. Their data is no different, right? They’re still about 1/3 of their officer involved shootings involve somebody suffering from mental health crisis. Now that’s a lot, because we’re talking about about 1050 people on the average a year are shot and killed by the by police in this this country. So 36% of that approximately 380 and now I’m not here to tell you that police officers need to be pacifists. There are, unfortunately, times when they’re required, and it’s necessary that they use lethal force. So I’m not saying that all of these shootings can be avoided, but the data that I just gave you is the data of fatal shootings. Right? There’s estimates of 2500 to 3000 additional shootings that don’t result in a fatal consequence, but it’s an officer involved shooting nonetheless. So about a third of the shootings are fatal, but in total, you’re talking about about 4000 over 4000 shootings a year, and a third. That that’s a lot, lot of opportunity for law enforcement to do a better job, yeah, to, you know, have a more humane outcome where there’s lives that are saved too often, you hear the mentality of, you know, you play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. You know that’s and that is, in part, a justification that this person brought it on themselves, but it’s also part of that armor that law enforcement really tries to protect themselves with, where they want to believe that for their own mental health, because it’s things that occur. It’s policies and procedures that can help protect officers from the long term effects of the trauma and the chronic stress that they’re under down the road. It’s, you know, this just shocking police officers two to have two to three times more incidents of suicide than the general population. Yeah, and we’ll, we’ll train officers for tactics. But the reality is, about 60 officers a year in the United States die at the hands of a suspect. Approximately 200 a year kill themselves.

Manon Bolliger  16:21

Wow, that’s, you know, I don’t have the statistic with me, but it’s actually kind of similar to the to the medical establishment, as far as suicides and that. And I wonder if it isn’t a a parallel, but different similarity in that there’s the white coat syndrome, which puts you in this kind of weird situation where it’s different, right? I’m not trying to say it’s at all the same, but there is something going on where it’s like the that the perceived authority and the protection that it gives you is kind of phony, because in the end, you have your own conscience to deal with.

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Manon Bolliger  18:20

Right? So even if you could do the job and you’re sort of protected, it’s really a false armor.

Jeff Wenninger  18:29

Well, I think, I think the similarities between the two, you probably have similar type personalities, if you get into the medical, law enforcement, I would hope that one of your motivating driving forces for making that choice is your desire to help people,

Manon Bolliger  18:47

right? Of course,

Jeff Wenninger  18:50

over and over and over again, you’re confronted with these circumstances and you realize there’s nothing you can do. Yeah, yeah. Can’t make a difference that due to your your personality makeup, you then Harbor that, yeah, type of reality, which then can manifest itself as in PTSD, or, you know, depression, where you irritable, you have sleeping issues, you begin to have substance abuse issues,

Manon Bolliger  19:22

which they do, right? It’s very similar, yeah,

Jeff Wenninger  19:26

so it’s, I’ve seen it, you know, unfortunately in my career, I would say there’s about four people that I worked closely with that made that decision to kill themselves. Wow. And, you know, it’s, it’s unfortunate and but by and large, it’s, it’s, I would state that it’s primarily the stigma associated with somebody stepping forward saying that I’m having a problem, and we’re not there yet, right with the City of Los Angeles, we have the behavior. Science services, and you can go, go see them, and they, they will help treat you, but they’ll tell you, don’t tell your commanding officer that you were here. Do not disclose that I’m diagnosing you with PTSD, because your career will be over. Yeah. So you’re viewed as a liability, yep, and they really don’t have measures in place to help take care of you and get you right where you can continue to be a productive employee with with the organization, and they see it as a liability, where they need to protect themselves from from you and the problems that you’re, you’re, you’re addressing through your mental health. And you know, I’ve seen it. I had a friend of mine that was was forthright, and went and got the help he needed, and the next thing he had it. Everything was made worse because they took his gun from him. And now everybody knows he’s in the rubber gun squad. And you know the humiliation of that, and the stigma associated with that, and the hurdles that he had to go over to in order to be allowed to have his his service weapon reissued to him. And it’s, it’s that, in itself, is almost more devastating than the problem you went to go get help with. Yeah, so, you know, we really need to figure that out. And it’s, and it’s part of the culture, you know, we, we right now. You know the cultures go sit at the bar, yuck it up, have a few drinks. You know that that’s how we solve everything. And it’s, it’s not a resolution whatsoever. You’re walking down a path of a lot of bad habits that are going to magnify whatever problems you may have. Because the reality is this, nobody was designed to see what law enforcement officers, especially in large law enforcement agencies, see on a regular basis, and it’s not long before your your cup is full. Yeah,

Manon Bolliger  22:00

I imagine. Wow. So you have a book coming out on thin ice. What do you have some recommendations that you could share with us from maybe, or Yeah, and

Jeff Wenninger  22:16

I’ll share with you what my book is about, because it’s I had to share my personal background, because it’s really unique, and you have to understand my personal background, so you’ll understand how I perceived my law enforcement career and why I have the recommendations that I have. Okay, I was, I was born to a teenage mother, and I was put up for adoption, and my parents were were married for 12 years, trying to have children, and they were not having any luck. They wanted four kids each, one year apart, so they said, Let’s try adoption. Lo and behold, as life often has it, my mother became pregnant with my sister, but they also decided to go ahead and follow through with adoption, and they adopted me. Then he adopted my brother. He’s Japanese, and then I had a foster sister who’s black, and I grew up in Ohio in the Midwest in the 60s and 70s. Very unique experience compared to my peers in law enforcement that I worked with down the road. So it was those experiences that I that provided the lens in which I looked at my law enforcement career, especially when I was policing these, these diverse communities in the black and brown communities that are marginalized in Los Angeles. And I had some insight into that. I then I talk about my professional experiences and what occurred during my career that helped foster my development and my decisions and my judgments and and also how it incorporated how I view things And what I felt was the priority for law enforcement, and I talk about my practical insights, then ultimately, my actionable solutions and what I believe needs to be done for law enforcement to be successful moving forward. Now, there’s no secret why I called it on thin ice. Law enforcement is on thin ice in my estimation, and I bleed blue. I love law enforcement and the books. The point of the book is to enlighten the reader, to make the reader feel empowered and ultimately hopeful for the future of law enforcement, but to have the courage to have these challenging conversations in the book, His purpose is to create some dialog where it’s never about being right, it’s about getting it right, and that requires that we have diverse opinions at the table when we’re making decisions about how to proceed on any critical issue. Do. And unfortunately, law enforcement has become so insular that they need to open up their minds to bringing in civilian command staff, personnel who have better training and expertise in various areas. And I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about. I worked for Chief William Bratton with the LAPD. He was, prior to coming to LAPD, he was the Commissioner of the New York Police Department in YPD, and he came to us, and I he’s he’s a rock star. He’s a Chief of Police rock star. And one thing that he did was he implemented bringing in civilian command staff level personnel. So during that time, we were under a federal consent decree, and he brought in attorney Jerry chaliff to be the commanding officer of the consent decree bureau. He brought in Luanne Pannell, who worked at behavioral science services as a psychologist, brought her into work training and to create training for the Academy, as well as in service training for the LAPD, not someone from outside the organization, but a civilian. Right. He brought in Mary Grady, who had decades of experience working in the media in Los Angeles, and she provided him counsel on how to to master the media and control the narrative, and things that he needed to consider relative to what information do we need to give out, what information should we withhold, And what type of response can we expect in both of those circumstances? He was genius in his willingness to use these civilian experts who are exceeded the expertise of anybody within the organization to handle those roles. And I believe that law enforcement needs to start moving in that direction where we’re not afraid of people that aren’t sworn personnel. So that’s that’s one thing that I that I talk about. The other thing I talk about is, I mentioned it earlier. It’s not necessarily who we hire, but it’s how we hire. Right now in the United States, our process is a de selection process. So if you’ve committed a crime or you’ve got bad finances, those sorts of things, you’ll be excluded, but otherwise you’ve got a good chance of being hired. So that’s probably not the best way to go about it, right? If you if we look outside of how, outside of our own country, and how they do things in the Nordic countries, they put these people through two and three years of training, which is an equivalent to an undergraduate degree, which is important. And also, why is that important? Because the research and the empirical evidence suggests that people with four year degrees or higher in education in law enforcement, although they have the same number of contacts with suspects out in the field and conduct the same number of searches out in the field, they have 40% fewer incidents of force, wow, as complaints. So you’re you’re almost negligent if you’re not pursuing hiring people with with these educational levels. The statistics tell you this. It’s not my opinion. The data is telling you. So that’s what they do over in the Nordic countries. It’s something that we should look at here. Unfortunately, we’re seeing law enforcement agencies because of this desire to hire so many people that they’re even dropping whatever educational mandate they have, like Dallas, PD, they used to require 45 hours of college credit to become a police officer. They now just, they just recently dropped that within the past couple months, and it’s to try to broaden the pool of people that they can recruit from, right, right? Not sure that’s the answer. Yeah, yeah. You know, we need to be looking. We need to be hiring people that have empathy, critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, moral reasoning, self awareness, those are all characteristics that I don’t believe anybody, regardless of your political ideology, is going to say that we want police officers to demonstrate on a daily basis. But for what are we doing to ensure that the people we’re hiring have these skill sets, and what they do over those Nordic countries is, during that training, you’re not officially a police officer until you’re done that at that point is when you’re selected. So those two and three years, they’re evaluating you the entire time and assessing you. Do you possess these characteristics? Are you open to your training? Do you have an open mind? Are you responsive to your training? And it’s those sorts of things that will get you a better candidate. And so

Manon Bolliger  30:18

I wish they did this with medicine too. I mean, it’s, it’s really, it’s the same need, you know, it’s opening the doors. Like I’m talking about conventional doctors. I’m a naturopathic doctor, even there, I would say the same process, right? Like the moment, you kind of, the establishment almost has an ego. We have to unego it and bring in the collective knowledge that’s out there to ensure that that it’s really working. We’ve become all insular, you know. So I love what you’re saying. I mean, I agree with it so much. It’s very, very important our time is up. I can’t believe that went so fast. I’m going to leave you just the last, the last word, and just want to thank you for sharing all all of this. Oh,

Jeff Wenninger  31:11

thank you very much. I appreciate you having me. It’s a very this is, it’s very critical topics, and it’s, it’s not something that law enforcement should be left to figure out on its own. It’s a societal issue, and whether you’re a suburban housewife or you’re a legislator or somebody actively involved in law enforcement, we equally have a responsibility to navigate this path forward, to ensure that we are maximizing our ability to be the most professional institution of law enforcement in providing the service to our diverse communities in this country.

Manon Bolliger  31:50

Well, that was a very inspiring discussion with Jeff weddinger, and food for thought. This is more towards the medical establishments, whether it’s allopathic medicine, naturopathic medicine and any alternatives that have boards, you know, it’s it’s about change. How do we how do we work with our our governing boards, so that we don’t lose them, the heart and the soul, and that actually got us into the profession in the first place. And I think these are questions that we really need to be asking on on a large basis, what are those boards for? Is it the the protection of the public, as they so claim? And what happens then to the the you know, to the professionals themselves, if they see that their boards may have acted in their associations, may have acted against the best interest of the the practitioners and in discussing further on the police side of things, you know, often the biggest disappointment is the DIS of all the traumas, because obviously they see a lot of deaths, they see a lot of abuse, they see all kinds of things. And we get triggered differently by different traumas, but it’s also being rejected by your own your own board, because you wanted to do something that was slightly more humane or slightly more individualized, or that you didn’t fall into the you know, the the belief systems that you know, that were forced upon you outside of your oath, which you took, for example, right? So, anyway, very interesting questions. You know, as as we are reinventing our future and deciding how we want to go and what we need to change and what we need to redo, I think this is very inspiring, and I look forward, personally to reading this book. So when this comes out, you’ll be able to get the book as well

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