Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: I'm Alex Stone, former military service member and law enforcement officer, now CEO of Echelon Protected Services, one of the fastest growing private security firms on the west coast. And this is ride along, where our guests and I witness firsthand the issues affecting our community.
You, I believe our proven method of enacting meaningful change through compassion and understanding is the best way to make our streets a safer place and truly achieve security through the community.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Is Damien Bunting.
[00:00:51] Speaker C: I'm a security guard and a local gun rights activist and an activist for the security industry in general. Looking forward today to being a part of the Ride along podcast talking with Alex.
[00:01:03] Speaker D: Hey, Alex Stone. Welcome back to the ride along.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Our co host today is Damien Bunting, security professional. Absolutely amazing guy.
[00:01:10] Speaker D: Knows what he's doing.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Prior law enforcement and security. Also Air force veteran. Damien's here right now in the studio. Damien, how you doing, brother?
[00:01:22] Speaker E: Good to see you.
Come on in, man.
[00:01:24] Speaker C: Absolute pleasure, man.
[00:01:25] Speaker E: Thank you.
[00:01:26] Speaker C: Thanks for having me.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: So here, sit down, bro. How do you like the studio?
[00:01:32] Speaker B: I love it, man.
[00:01:33] Speaker E: I love it.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: I love this table.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Oh, thanks, bro.
[00:01:36] Speaker D: This table.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: My brother, he worked down at Warcom on the SEAL teams down there, and he talked to the skipper and said, hey, you got some lumber over there, I see. How about I get some of that lumber? I built a viking war table.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: And this is what he made.
[00:01:54] Speaker D: I've had it for several years.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: He passed away 2017, and it started splitting. So we had some epoxy work done. I put his trident in here. He was a member of task unit bruiser, very well known task unit.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: I believe the most highly decorated seal unit that served in Iraq got the challenge coins in there. So, yeah, man, this was his ops table, so I thought it'd be appropriate to kind of repurpose it for the podcast.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: May I pay my respects?
[00:02:22] Speaker D: 100 bill.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: You're a veteran.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Get after it.
It's hard. Anytime I'm around you and your brother even comes up, man, it's hard to not get emotional. So, as a veteran, as a patriot, and as an American, what I feel for your family and for your brother and his contribution to this country, it is so emotionally overwhelming. So I'm honored, honored to be sitting here. Very honored to be able to touch that. Just so you know, anybody that comes in here, you ask first. This is something very special to you and your family into this country. So I would never think to even reach out and touch that without asking your permission first.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: I appreciate that, d. Thanks, man.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: So you have this amazing podcast studio. You got all this cool, memorable in here. You got the lighting, the cameras. What's going on here? This is amazing.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: The ride along podcast.
Just in Oregon alone, there's, I think, 4500 sworn police officers, law enforcement agents, and there's 30,000 security guards.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: I am aware.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Yes. I'm on the board down there for private security at the department of Public Safety. And having been in this industry, owning a security company, working alongside amazing professionals such as yourself, I decided it was time that we highlight the good work that people in security are doing what you needed. You've done the same thing. You have a podcast.
[00:03:43] Speaker E: Right?
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Tell us about that.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: I started basically a YouTube channel to document my entering the security realm about three years ago. I was in the military for six years in the air force and worked in various aspects of law enforcement. I was a state constable. I worked as a county corrections officer.
[00:04:05] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: Went into state corrections. But as of about 2015, 2016, I was pretty much done with law enforcement, to be honest with you.
[00:04:13] Speaker E: Why?
[00:04:13] Speaker A: What led to that decision?
Because I made that decision as well.
[00:04:18] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:04:19] Speaker A: So what was the key factor in that decision?
[00:04:22] Speaker B: I think that for a lot of people that get into that line of work, there's three types of people, right? Number one, whether it's military or law enforcement, you have the legacy. This is someone whose father was in the military.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Definitely law enforcement.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Their grandfather, their great grandfather. It's in their blood. It's what they know, right?
[00:04:41] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: You also have another group of people where maybe they weren't as popular or they didn't develop properly, and so being in a position of authority or having the ability to legally carry a firearm or legally impose your will on people, good, bad, or indifferent, some people gravitate to that. Then you have those people in the middle that are searching for.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Would you call that second group bullies?
Or people just who see injustice and feel as if they're the one that should be in the gap, stopping that injustice?
[00:05:16] Speaker B: Well, you know the line.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: It's kind of a double sided coin.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. Because it's two wings of the same bird. The line between Batman and Joker is very thin.
[00:05:27] Speaker E: Right.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: The person that is doing the right thing for moral reasons that align with the societal outlook of moral reasoning and the person that's doing the right thing for the right reason to them. Right. So, unfortunately, in law enforcement, in the military, you do have people that come into that situation and say, look, for instance, let's take the attack of September 11, right? There's people that joined up that said, look, the people that did this need to pay.
[00:06:00] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: That is a very admirable cause. But if you look at it in the scope of morality, not morality as to what does it mean to be an american, but morality across the board in a worldview that can be seen as a little bit of a jaded reason to join the military, right.
It's needed and it's necessary, but depending on which side of the moral aisle you look at something like that, it can be seen as being jaded. And I think that happens a lot of time in law enforcement. Look, we live in Portland, and I've had this conversation with so many people in the last couple of weeks because we deal with the homeless community, we deal with people who are addicted to drugs. We deal with people who are suffering from mental illness. And depending on which day it is, which week it is, which month it is, our leadership here in Portland might or might not address any of those issues. So for the people that live here in Portland that are just trying to go about their day, trying to raise their family, trying to provide for their family, there might not be a lot of resources for those people to deal with the situations that are brought to them that are of no reasoning of.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: Their own, no resources available.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: So what can happen in that situation is you have two types of people. People that say, I hate this community, and I'm going to do anything and everything I can to drive these people out, or do what your company with echelon, with what you're doing with loving one another is doing, where you say, look, we have a problem, but we can address this problem from a compassionate, from a moral, from a societal community approach. Right. It's the same thing. You're saying that, look, the people that are occupying the streets right now, the people that are underneath these bridges, the people that are inundating the sidewalks, the people that are causing some of these real problems for Portland, whether it's of their own fault or not, the ultimate goal is to get them off of the street and into a different situation. Someone with a more nefarious view would go at that in a much darker way of doing it than what you're doing. You're approaching it from the light. So when I talk about those three types of people, your legacy, your people that get into it with this attitude of, I am going to impose my will on the bad guy, whether it's a bad guy from Iraq or that's a bad guy in the inner city.
[00:08:29] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: But then you have that third group, that last group, which is what I think that I aspire to be a part of this group. I think that you aspire to be a part of this group where you say there is a need for someone to stand in that gap, whether we're talking military or we're talking security. There's a need because right now, the people that work within a retail setting, the people that are at a bank, the people that are at a grocery store, the people that are at a gas station, if they need help in that immediate moment, the best intentioned police officer cannot get there in the moment that the problem happens. And that's where security.
[00:09:08] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: Nationwide, you're talking about a seven to eight minute response time, if you're lucky. And that's to a major crime, 100% shootings. And we're almost at 15 minutes now.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: Funny that you said 15 minutes. I had a gun pulled on me last Monday at a local retail establishment that I was working. Nice.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Very classy.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Yes, but no. We called the cops after we initiated the emergency response, and it took the police 15 minutes to get there. 15 minutes.
[00:09:34] Speaker E: Right.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: To respond to someone who.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: An active threat with a firearm.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Active shooter.
[00:09:38] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: So, Damien, there's these three types of people that joined for law enforcement. You're in that third category. You were in law enforcement. Why did you leave?
[00:09:53] Speaker B: I think that that was a long way of getting to this answer. When I got into the military and when I joined any aspect of law enforcement, what I was looking for was not only camaraderie and the brotherhood. Yeah, the Brotherhood, that's right. But also I was looking for, I think, organizations that were merit based and free of politics and bureaucracy.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: And you joined the air force?
[00:10:21] Speaker B: I joined the military and I joined various levels of law. You know, it took me a long time as a person and as a man to understand that there's no area that is free of politics and bureaucracy.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: Very true, especially in a country as politically based as America.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: So that was hard for me. The military was very, very difficult for me because being in the air force, you're not placed. And I went in 96. I'm dating myself here. But going in pre 911, there wasn't a lot for us to do.
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Nothing.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: So in terms of, like, budgets were cut. Yeah.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: You couldn't even get workout equipment back then.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: Yeah, for the most part, we were just trying to find ways to stay busy. So, in the air force, a lot of your promotion at that time was based off of testing. So for the guys who were working, I worked on the b two stealth bomber system, the guys who were working on the flight line, and primarily those are going to be your lower enlisted ranks, your airmen first class.
So I'm in basically a supervisory role as a senior airman and placed in a position where there's a number of us who are working the flight line while the senior airman who was there before us, because it's all based on your time and service time and grade. So someone that was there a month or two months before I was able to arrive to that station was able to stay in the office as a lead supervisor and study and be able to just study and take that test and place for sergeant. And I had this misconception that when you went into the military that your promotion and your rank was going to be merit based. But pre 911, if you're not in a war type situation, it's hard to put on rank. And I know people right now, it's.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: Hard to build merit.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: It's hard to build merit, right. And so that was very frustrating to me. And unfortunately, I didn't have people in leadership roles to say, hey, man, this is life. If you leave the military and you.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Go into the private sector, that mentorship piece wasn't there.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: The mentorship piece wasn't there.
And I think that could have been maybe the base that I was at. It could have been the system that I was working on. And this is no shot against anybody. It's not somebody else's responsibility.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: Of course, military is great.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: We love the military 100%. Looking back, I would have made a lot of different decisions, but I also found that in law enforcement, you were.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Eager and you wanted to go out and crush it 100%, and you wanted to go out and just destroy and then conquer and make those gains, because.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: You grow up watching movies, and it's like the guy that Captain America, he jumps on what he thinks is the grenade, and it's like, that's the guy. And they put rank on him. And you think that if you work hard, you're going to be equally rewarded. Unfortunately, in life, that's not how Life works. And it doesn't matter if we're talking about the military or law enforcement or entrepreneurship. There's a lot of people that work really hard as entrepreneurs. They're not successful. It's not for any lack of effort or any lack of trying. Life is just not fair. And it takes a long time for some people, me included, to come to grips with that. In terms of the law enforcement, one of the things that I really had a hard time with.
I started working for a county correctional unit and again went into it.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: So county jail?
[00:13:37] Speaker B: County jail went into the sheriff's department.
This county jail was separate from the sheriff's department. It was run by the local county commissioners.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Oh, interesting.
[00:13:49] Speaker E: Yeah. Okay.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: That's an interesting system. Were they all county beds, city beds, or were they shared federal beds?
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Honestly enough, this location had a certain set number of county beds. They also did holding for people who were transferring feds from the state system, going to the feds. So they would house them there. And then we had a gym.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: What percentage? I'm just curious.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: We had a gym that housed about 150 ice detainees.
[00:14:14] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: So much money really getting into the ice game.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: We should come back and have a separate discussion about this.
[00:14:19] Speaker F: Of course.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: But so many of these county budgets for jails are being propped up by these federal dollars, 100% federal beds. And it makes it difficult. Once you get to capacity at the jail and you need to book someone for a misdemeanor, you can't. Even though there's 85, 90 ice detainees and the local community really needs access.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: To that bed, 100%.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll talk about that later. But that's just an interesting dynamic.
[00:14:45] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: I think that everyone out there in law enforcement, you know, Bob, I'm going.
[00:14:48] Speaker B: Into the correctional side of things. Maybe ten years post my military career.
[00:14:54] Speaker E: Wow.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: And so, again, getting into it with.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: A little bit smarter, a little bit smarter.
[00:14:58] Speaker D: Understand.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: A little bit more mature. But one aspect. I went into a rural county jail system, and during training. During training, the sergeant that's going through the baton training, he says to me, well, he says to the class, this baton we call the nigger be cool.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: Stick, because it's a white deputy.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: This is a white sergeant. He says, because when we break these out.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: So direct line supervisor.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Direct line supervisor.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: Drops the n word.
[00:15:32] Speaker D: You're the only black dude.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: Drops the n word. Like he's saying it's Tuesday.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, you're the only black man.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: I'm the only black person in the class.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: You moved to Portland.
[00:15:43] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: I don't know where you're from.
[00:15:47] Speaker D: I had to know.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: So this was in Pennsylvania, but rural Pennsylvania. Rural Pennsylvania.
[00:15:52] Speaker D: So western Pennsylvania.
Okay. We don't have to talk.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: We don't have an area in Pennsylvania.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: Non disclosures have been signed with multiple law enforcement says.
[00:16:01] Speaker B: He says, this is the nigger be cool stick. Because when we break it out, every nigger on the block knows they better fucking calm down. Excuse my language. And that set off a series of events and to cut this story and make it a lot.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: This is in the 2000s. He said this in the 2000s.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: But I have a view that, and I have found this to be true in my anecdotal situations, that in law enforcement, if you are a black officer, there is only two types of black officers that are allowed to be on a law enforcement department. These are anecdotal thoughts that I have from people that I know that are currently in law enforcement.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: People have been in law enforcement, bring.
[00:16:44] Speaker B: It, aspire to be in law enforcement. If you are a black officer, you have to either a completely shut down any thought process, any conversation, any discussion of racism, societal racism, potential oppression, and how that can affect you. You have to be completely devoid of any aspect of that. You cannot embody it, wear it, think about it, talk about it. It can't be there.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: What happens if you do?
[00:17:14] Speaker B: You either will not be hired or you will be ceremoniously kicked out of the service.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: Those services, or probably you'll never make promotion.
[00:17:20] Speaker C: You'll never make promotion.
[00:17:21] Speaker E: Right.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: The other type of officer is a black officer that comes in and goes to the nth degree on the opposite side of that, to completely devalue and to completely shut down and to completely speak out against anyone who has that thought process. And that's a vast generalization.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: So they swing, just to be clear, they swing more towards the ACLU. You're saying they become a civil rights organ?
[00:17:53] Speaker B: No, I would say they swing more towards.
More towards a racist view, towards the black society, black community.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: So they're putting down their own community?
[00:18:06] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: I mean, you've heard that ice cube quote in some of the NWA songs where he says, the black cops showing out for the white ones, those are the cops that we, growing up, had more fear of almost than anybody else. You look at the situation down in Memphis where the scorpion squad that's attacking that guy, I think there were some personal issues behind that, but I feel like, damn, we're in a time right now where we talk about 21st century policing.
[00:18:34] Speaker E: Right.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: What is 21st century policing? My opinion? 21st century policing is understanding the historical and the societal issues that plague any aspect of the community that you might interact with.
[00:18:48] Speaker E: Right.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: So for a white police officer to pull over a young black male, there is a perception. I'm not saying that this is true, but there's a perception of a power imbalance, right?
[00:19:01] Speaker E: Correct.
[00:19:01] Speaker B: There's a societal perception of that. So for any officer to be placed in that situation, he needs to be cognizant. He should be cognizant of all of the things that are the underlying issues of the optics of that and how that can potentially be perceived, how any part of that interaction could affect the department, the city, 100 state. And so I talk about this 21st century policing aspect in terms of security. I'm six foot two, I'm 270 pounds. If I interact with a woman who's five foot five, homeless, mentally disabled, 100 pounds soaking wet, even if I'm interacting.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: With her in a just that power imbalance is present.
[00:19:45] Speaker B: The optics of that power imbalance. Do I have a lot of authority as a security guard? No, I have a very small amount of authority, a very small scope of what my job is. But the optics of me standing over her.
[00:19:58] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:19:58] Speaker B: And everything that goes along with that 21st century policing is understanding that, but at the same time, still knowing that you have to do your job. I think that too many people now that are under the age of 35, 30 years old, when they get into law enforcement and they're being taught about 21st century policing, Dei, all of these buzwords, they're focusing too much on that social issue and forgetting that you still have a job to do as an officer. You should be aware of that power imbalance, you should be aware of the historical context, you should be aware of the systemic issues that these people might feel they're dealing with that should turn your volume up or down based on what you're doing. But you can't not police. And I think that we're seeing in a lot of places, a lot of liberal states, where the police are just saying, well, in the effort to be more inclusive, to be less oppressive, to be less systemic, we're just not going to police and there's no place for that. So that's where we've come in.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: And I'm glad, guys, we are audience. We did not know that this was going to be the topic. Damien and I, we always just banter back and forth like this.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: Stop if you need me.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: No, I think we're going to park here and stay here for a little bit. So what I've noticed to be true, because I was in law enforcement, but I was in rural law enforcement. Now, it was a major drug thoroughfare from different interstates. It's an interstate exchange, of course, that highway. So the DEA would call, we would get pretext stops, things like this. But what I've come to realize is that there's a very large portion of the black population in the states that live in urban settings. Of course, yeah, people that live in urban settings are automatically over policed 100% because the per capita ratio within a city, you're talking one to 1000. Oh, of course, where I worked, it was one to 10,100%. So the likelihood that someone's going to see me driving around and feel oppressed, they're happy to see me because they're like, oh, good, we haven't seen a cop in a week.
[00:21:59] Speaker E: Right?
[00:21:59] Speaker B: And we've got twelve acres out here. And so.
[00:22:01] Speaker C: And so.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. But if you're a black man and you're in downtown Portland, living in a historically black neighborhood, you're going to see 20 cops a day and you're going to feel like, you're going to feel targeted whether you are or not. And I do think there are historical injustices. I think there are a lot of great police officers in Portland. I don't think that, by and large, cops do not want to target a certain group. But at the end of the day, the job of law enforcement is to violate people's civil rights to a degree. To a degree. I mean, this is what we got hired to do, right? I mean, we're supposed to do it legally, ethically, and morally sound. But our job is to make that stop, which is a rights violation. Legal.
Escalate that into moving from reasonable suspicion to probable cause.
[00:22:50] Speaker B: 100%.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: Hey, I believe I smell the odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from your vehicle.
[00:22:55] Speaker C: Marijuana.
[00:22:55] Speaker D: I smell.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: How many drinks have you had this evening?
[00:22:59] Speaker E: Right to.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: Excuse me, can you please step outside? I need you. Roars admonishment I need you to conduct these standard filterbrighty tests.
[00:23:07] Speaker E: Right.
[00:23:08] Speaker A: And so we're always escalating. And so when they say we need cops to de escalate, we need cops to not escalate situations. You're literally tell them, you're telling a police officer, try not to make as many stops. When you make stops, try not to escalate that into an investigation.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Right.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: If you get into an investigation, don't really detain them.
If you have to detain, that's fine, but only make an arrest if you have to. And we have all these booking requirements now where there's no point to even make an arrest because the jail doesn't take them. And so it is kind of counterreactive. It's this counteraction occurring. And in the larger cities, I served with the FOP, the fraternal order police, and I don't speak with them by any means, but the term that's used a lot is blue flu.
[00:24:00] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: Right. Have you experienced that when you were.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: I have. One of the things that. My first real interaction with it was during the riots. The company that I was working for at the time, we were providing executive protection for one of the news organizations.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: Our job, all the media companies have private security.
They talk about you in the newspapers, and they hate private security, but yet they all hire armed guards.
[00:24:28] Speaker D: Absolutely. It's the weirdest.
[00:24:30] Speaker B: So we're trying to establish safe routes to get into certain locations where they could set up their cameras in, because.
[00:24:38] Speaker A: We'Re protecting their freedom of press. Of course, we're civil rights activists.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: The second amendment protects the first.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: It protects all of the amendments.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: So being down there, and I was working, I believe, six days a week from around August through the election.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: Oh, you went through it then?
[00:24:57] Speaker B: All the way through time. Me moving from Missouri and coming into all of this, everything that was going on with the riots and the protests, the issues with the commissioners and the district attorney going against the police department, all that started well before I got here. So when I'm working downtown, I had never seen large scale riots or protest up close at all.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: Not in Missouri, no.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: Yeah, they have something called the National Guard that they will quickly roll through.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: There, and that'll happen in the south.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Doesn't happen. Different approach, watching the police. And again, I don't want any of what I'm saying to come off like I'm anti police. If you are a good cop and you are doing what you're there to do in terms of service to the community, my hat goes off to you. And I support law enforcement 100%. Give that disclaimer. This is nothing against them. I'm just telling you what I saw. I saw the police just kind of standing there and watching. I saw buildings burn down. I saw people destroying property. I saw people doing all kinds of things. And I get it that the police.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: So reasonable suspicion, probable cause exists. There are actions that are occurring, that arise to the levels that a police officer could take notice and then make an action, a stop, an investigation. And that wasn't happening.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: It wasn't happening. It wasn't happening downtown. And so that was kind of the first time that I had seen, but I wasn't aware.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: What was your first reaction?
[00:26:33] Speaker B: Shock.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it was shocking to me, too.
[00:26:35] Speaker E: Shock.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Just utter, utter.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: Because when that was happening, I was technically still a police officer because I moonlighted until I started the company, and I was technically still know through the department of Public Safety. And I thought, oh, they'll have all this figured out in about a week. Yeah. And then two weeks later, three weeks later, a year later.
[00:26:58] Speaker B: You have to understand, like, I'm shocking at this point. Now I'm pushing 45, right? But I've grown up first generation, post Jim Crow. My parents grew up in Jim Crow, Arkansas. They grew up in the. Went to school. They went to segregated schools. Like, by law, my parents had to step off the sidewalk when, of course, white people approached. When you see the videos and the pictures of the little Rock nine that are integrating Little Rock Central High School, my dad knows some of those people. So growing up and being, like, under the thumb of parents who under no circumstances did you talk back to the police, did you question the police if.
[00:27:44] Speaker A: You were pulled over, no windows down?
[00:27:47] Speaker B: Not in the south, no. Because there were literal.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: You show your hand. Even in Texas, I would put my hands out the window 100%. They could see your hands as.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: Listen, you and I are talking about the level of.
I don't want to say obedience, but.
[00:28:04] Speaker C: That'S the only word that comes to.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: Mind, the level of obedience in terms of how you relate to police. You and I are talking about the same thing from two different perspectives. Number one, in the south, it doesn't matter what color you are growing up in. The cops were. They were under a different.
[00:28:23] Speaker D: They were going to get that mindset.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: It wasn't going to happen.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: They were going to get their pound of flesh.
[00:28:27] Speaker E: Right.
[00:28:27] Speaker B: And that was no matter what color you were. But then I had the added issue of my parents history.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: And that conditioned you? That conditioned as a black man in 100%.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: So then imagine me going through that, working alongside law enforcement officers in Pennsylvania.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: Rural Pennsylvania, the north, which is supposed to be the enlightened north, rural Pennsylvania.
[00:28:52] Speaker B: And when I say this, I don't mean in terms of either aspect of the south or the north being racist. I'm just saying that the attitude of the police and how they interact and would respond to any sort of levels of disrespect or threat, I was very well conditioned to understand what that would be inappropriately. So me being in my coming to Portland and seeing people throw rocks and frozen water bottles and Molotov cocktails and get into a shoving match with the cops and be able to just walk.
[00:29:23] Speaker A: Away, they blinded federal law enforcement and local law enforcement with russian lasers and permanently blinded them, causing. I mean, these are real assault, an aggravated assault, 100%. And it's amazing.
[00:29:39] Speaker B: It's rare with what I've experienced in life and where I've been, what I've been through, that I'm shocked. But I literally was shocked to just be like, yeah, and you can walk away from that. It's like, well, the cops aren't. We're not arresting people.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: Burning down federal buildings.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it was crazy.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: We went whole.
[00:29:57] Speaker D: I know.
[00:29:58] Speaker A: This is what the ride along is about, because it's just like, when you're out on patrol, you never know where you're going to get into. Right? So speaking of that, maybe we should just go hit the streets now. Let's hit the streets, man, because we talked a lot.
[00:30:09] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: And we can talk about this in the car while we're patrolling. And let's go catch up with Spence. Let's look at that community engagement model. Let's do it. And let's see how that works on the street.
[00:30:20] Speaker E: Let's do it. Sounds cool.
Let's go.
[00:30:23] Speaker D: Let's roll.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: This is where we live, bro.
[00:30:33] Speaker D: Portland, Oregon, right here.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: Old town Chinatown.
[00:30:36] Speaker C: Seems a lot cleaner down here than it was a couple weeks ago.
[00:30:39] Speaker D: Oh, for sure.
These are all of our properties. Obviously, the majority of these properties are.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Clients of echelon, and we spend a.
[00:30:50] Speaker D: Lot of time doing outreach down here.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: We've been averaging 100 transitions, people living in the streets and getting them into a shelter, some type of detox, situation.
[00:31:01] Speaker D: Unity, some type of mental health therapy.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: Program, or directly into housing. We had two people transitioned into tiny home housing.
[00:31:11] Speaker C: Just recently, we were back at the studio, and we were talking about the protests and the riots. And one of the things that I noticed early on, you were asking, what did I notice about the interaction of the police? One of the things that I noticed early on was that the model that.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: The news organizations were using to send.
[00:31:32] Speaker C: In a camera crew and to send in a reporter, by the time they were able to set up, get their camera station, get their lights up, the kids who were up front in the.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Middle of everything that was going on.
[00:31:45] Speaker C: They were already actively live streaming this information. These were the protests and everything that was going on. So Twitter was just completely full of threads of information and intelligence that was far faster and earlier than traditional media. And as we made that turn back there, I saw another company that had a patrol vehicle and a guy in a uniform. Your typical security as uniform.
[00:32:14] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:32:15] Speaker C: And how much do you look at that and see that as, like, an outdated model? Because you and I both know it's outdated if you're not interacting with these people and getting to know them and meeting them where they are. This model of driving around in a marked car with that uniform on, it just seems like they're very much kind of behind the curve of what it takes to actually provide security.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: 100%.
So last week we had Matt Castile, he's a former lieutenant colonel, Oda, so Green Beret. And we discussed this very thing.
[00:32:49] Speaker D: The model that we chose, that Reed.
[00:32:51] Speaker A: And I chose to develop was this.
[00:32:53] Speaker D: Okonis overseas intelligence security model, where it's a full spectrum approach.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: You're using intelligence, so investigative services, you're.
[00:33:06] Speaker D: Using security apparatus because you got to.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Protect and hold, but you're also using community engagement. You're changing the social dynamic or you're creating a social dynamic.
[00:33:20] Speaker E: Right.
[00:33:24] Speaker A: And you're doing that in such a way that is reigniting the community.
[00:33:30] Speaker E: Right.
[00:33:31] Speaker A: The whole purpose, the whole goal is community transformation.
[00:33:35] Speaker D: Community transformation.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: Well, how do you transform communities?
[00:33:38] Speaker C: You have to be a part of it. You have to get in there.
[00:33:40] Speaker D: You have to be embedded, embed, 100%.
Hey, these are victory outreach people. This is part of our engagement team. These guys here?
[00:33:50] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:33:52] Speaker D: What's up, bro?
Get some.
[00:33:56] Speaker F: Yeah, me and my boy went over.
[00:33:57] Speaker E: And got something to eat.
[00:33:58] Speaker F: Nice.
[00:34:00] Speaker D: Alex, filming today, we're doing a little documentary work. Montreal. You're a movie star. I can see it. So for people watching, they come once a week, right? The big medical band?
[00:34:10] Speaker F: Yeah, once a week.
[00:34:11] Speaker D: Basically a free clinic. And so that's actually going to draw a crowd here. So you're always going to have an influx of more tents when you have stuff like that available to call you. It is the best thing for the people on the street because it allows group like groups like us to come out, engage them on the street level, and hopefully convince some of them that maybe they should get into a shelter, maybe they should check into a hospital, get some medical issues dealt with, maybe check into unity for some mental health care, things like this. Very easy. We just radio cab them. We use a local company, we have an account.
So that's kind of what we're doing here. It's easier to fish when the fish are schooling together, right? You just use a net.
Everyone knows. Spence, Spence, what do you want to do? What do you want to hit up?
[00:34:58] Speaker F: No, we just came down and gave like 50 sodas out and some fruit to right here.
And then obviously we just walk.
[00:35:07] Speaker D: I mean, nice.
[00:35:08] Speaker F: We just want to walk. We can just walk down. We can walk wherever you want to go. It doesn't matter to me.
[00:35:14] Speaker D: You can drive it down there, bro.
[00:35:15] Speaker F: Hey, Jen?
[00:35:16] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:35:17] Speaker F: I'll come back and talk to you in a bit.
[00:35:18] Speaker E: Okay.
[00:35:19] Speaker F: All right.
Did you get a smoke?
[00:35:24] Speaker D: I do.
[00:35:25] Speaker F: I appreciate you watching over my truck.
[00:35:26] Speaker D: But if you want, you can have Adrian drive it down maybe or come in beside you.
[00:35:30] Speaker F: Nobody gets in my truck beside me, bro.
[00:35:33] Speaker D: It's sad, right?
[00:35:34] Speaker F: Make sure nobody fucks with it. Keys it like 04:00 thank you.
[00:35:37] Speaker D: And I got you 420. And you know what's happening.
But it's 420. And the question always is whenever we're. And this one too, the producer and the camera guys are saying, is our car going to be safe? I mean, there's 50 people around. That's the main concern. He said, is our car safe?
[00:35:55] Speaker F: Our cars are safe. I asked them if they're safe. They said they're fine. They're watch over them. I've been down here for three years, knock on wood. They know my vehicles. I've never had my vehicle broken into once. I've never even had stuff stolen out of the back of my vehicle.
[00:36:08] Speaker D: That's right, never.
[00:36:10] Speaker F: Not once.
[00:36:10] Speaker C: I will say that for a community, the Portland homeless community in general, they are pretty loyal to their work. And that goes 100 conversation. It's that street we were having is that once you create that rapport, that impact now anything could happen. But I know Spencer and yourself, you guys have been down here doing a lot of good for a long time and that goes a long way with these people. I mean, they really do appreciate it. And for the most part, you can take them at their word. I've never had 100 not be a man of their word. When they've told me they're not going.
[00:36:41] Speaker D: To do something, that's the only thing they have left is their word. If you get burnt on the streets, then you're done. You can't even be on the street anymore.
[00:36:49] Speaker C: Alex, I was going to ask you the aspect of people that want to be, you know, this is something that I've grappled with and had issues with in my personal feelings and advocacy. In terms of this situation or discussion, when you encounter people that just want to be like, what do you do? Do you guys just kind of cut your losses or are you still trying to advocate for them to move to a better situation?
[00:37:16] Speaker D: Spencer's the best at answering this, but I used to be homeless as an adult and as a child. And you never cut your losses?
[00:37:24] Speaker F: Never.
[00:37:25] Speaker D: Spencer had a relationship with a guy and this was an OG. This dude was an Og, like straight up, 18 years, 20 years on the streets, three year relationship. And it led to him reuniting with his family in New York. Back in New York, I actually just.
[00:37:39] Speaker F: Heard from him too, and he's doing well. See he's got a job. He's got his own place now.
[00:37:43] Speaker D: This dude was pimping and selling dope here in old Town for 18 years.
[00:37:50] Speaker F: And the reason that it happens is because I caught him on a bad day.
[00:37:54] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:37:55] Speaker F: And so all the other days he was doing this thing, he wasn't really interested. I caught him on a bad day where he's like, man, I can't do this anymore, man. And so that's why we try to contact people on a daily basis. So we contact them 100 times. 99 times they tell us I'm good. That 100 times they're like, and I.
[00:38:13] Speaker E: Can'T do this anymore, man.
[00:38:15] Speaker F: What can I do? Can you help me? I'm like, yes. So what we do is we go around, we just plant seeds, man. That's all we do.
[00:38:20] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:38:21] Speaker F: And sometimes those seeds grow, and sometimes they don't. But at least we plant that seed. So when you're ready, because I can't make them be ready. When they're ready, they know we're here.
[00:38:30] Speaker C: How do you keep your desire for what you want to create as a business and as a model and your desire to see someone do better, how do you keep that in line with also? I don't want to say free will, but allowing someone to also walk the path that they want to walk. I know you say that you can't make them do it, but if you're constantly putting them in a position where you're there to be a crutch for them to get up, ultimately, at some point in time, you will catch them on a bad day, and they might take that. But my concern is that if someone hasn't done the work that's necessary for them to be self sufficient when they leave this area where you guys have constant interaction with them and they get to another area, how do you help to ensure that they don't just backslide or fall back into the same situation, and now they're in a place where they don't have the resources of what you guys are trying to offer.
[00:39:23] Speaker D: I think that we've been very intentional about the strategic partnerships that we built in the private and nonprofit sectors. So we work again, like city team, Bibby Lakes, Hope Center, Gospel Rescue Mission Union Gospel Mission, Blanche House right behind us. These are proven programs that have 80% to 90% effective rate of non recidivism. So people stay in the program, graduate, and stay off drugs for up to 510 years forever. And so dealing with getting these people into shelters, that's why currently we're working on a shelter. But we don't have a shelter.
[00:40:02] Speaker E: Right.
[00:40:03] Speaker D: What we're trying to do is we're trying to fill up all the awesome shelters that already exist.
[00:40:07] Speaker F: So we've turned away 29 people this way because of lack of bed.
[00:40:11] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:40:11] Speaker F: Ability this week alone. But on the positive side to that, in the last two days, I've gotten three bus tickets for people to go home, be with their families.
[00:40:19] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:40:19] Speaker F: The best way for somebody to be successful is to get them out of this area and get them around people that love them. That's the hard part about working down here sometimes, too. When I first started working down here, so many times we fail, fail over and over and over again. Not really necessarily as a seat, as a failure, but you see these people that you want to help, you want to help, but until they're ready to help themselves, there's nothing we can really do. All we can do is show love. And the thing is, it's not about even giving them things. So when we want to help somebody, I will say, listen, I'm going to take five steps towards you. I just need you to take one step towards me. One step, so I know that you're ready to make another step. I'm willing to do the majority of the work until you could get on your feet enough to do most of the work.
[00:40:59] Speaker D: And we're just trying to get people into shelters. We're trying to save lives.
[00:41:02] Speaker C: It's like, what is the goal?
[00:41:03] Speaker D: We narcanned a guy.
[00:41:04] Speaker E: What? Yesterday. Today? No, today.
[00:41:06] Speaker F: Yesterday.
[00:41:07] Speaker E: Yeah. Yesterday.
[00:41:07] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:41:09] Speaker D: That's like the 9th person in six days and just old town that we narcanned, and it was over here, second in pine. And it's like, there's no politics involved in getting someone Narcan, there should be no politics involved in getting someone into a shelter. If they're a Muslim, we call the imams. We have someone on staff here that's a Muslim. They call, and they try to work in that community to get the best options for that person. If they're from the asian community, we reach out to our friend at IPAC and say, hey, is there anything in the asian community that can help? If they're lds, if they're a Baptist, if they're a Catholic, we're saying, what kind of help will you receive?
[00:41:53] Speaker F: The model doesn't work unless you have people that really believe you have to buy into it. You can't even buy into. It's just got to be who you are. It's got to be in your heart.
[00:42:03] Speaker C: We were talking back at the studio about the three distinct types of people that get into law enforcement and the military. And you've got like your legacy people. That's one area. The second is the person that wants to have some level of control or authority. To me, that's the most dangerous. And then you have the person that wants to be that sheepdog, wants to be that protector.
[00:42:22] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:42:22] Speaker C: And it's like you're one of those three. The guy that's the legacy can become either a two or a three. You know what I mean?
But I have a hard time believing that the person that's in that middle can go either way, the other direction.
[00:42:36] Speaker D: Does that make sense?
[00:42:37] Speaker C: That person who they're still wants to control people.
[00:42:40] Speaker D: It's an ego thing. Their ego gets in the way. Career, the rank.
[00:42:44] Speaker C: Never going to be that sheepdog who's doing it for the right reason. So you're saying it has to be.
[00:42:50] Speaker D: When your ego comes first. You can't do anything for the right.
[00:42:52] Speaker C: Reason, but you can't have a model. And this speaks to a bigger idea about policing in general. You can't have a model that is putting its thumb on the people and putting its thumb on the people's rights unless you have someone who's that second guy.
[00:43:07] Speaker F: Does that make sense?
[00:43:08] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:43:08] Speaker C: So you can't do your job and what you guys are trying to accomplish down here. If you're that second guy, you've got to be the person that's doing it with the right reasons and the right intentions. But I can see how that's difficult because there's just not a lot of people that cannot be that middle guy.
[00:43:24] Speaker D: We have a security guy, man. Like, he's the nicest guy. Nicest guy. Now he looks like a beast. He's a former MMA guy, army Ranger, and he's the nicest guy, though. He never gets into any use of force. But one day some guy was pissed off and took a gallon jug of urine and poured it on him and threw it in his car. Yeah, threw it in his car. And did he retaliate? No, he backed down. He didn't hit the guy. He didn't touch the guy. He called for law enforcement. Law enforcement came, arrested him.
But, yeah. You really have to want and desire change for the people out here. Your love and care for the people out here has to be greater than your need to feed your ego. Once that ego takes over, you can't.
[00:44:05] Speaker F: Help nobody man, you gotta let it go.
[00:44:08] Speaker D: Spencer got hit because he was trying to hand a guy a coat. It was freezing, it was middle winter.
[00:44:12] Speaker F: Punched me in the face, swole my eyes shut.
[00:44:14] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:44:14] Speaker D: And he was like, and then switch goes, you're still going to need this.
[00:44:18] Speaker F: Coat after they arrested him.
[00:44:20] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:44:20] Speaker F: So listen, I'm not saying that I'm some kind of pushover, because I'm not a pushover. You know that. He knows that. But here's the thing. There's wolves and there's sheep. Down here.
We know who the wolves are. And I don't mind being a sheep dog with a little bit of wolf in me, you know what I mean? So we try to do, we don't even look at the bottom line. What we look at is the people. We're out here doing this because it's what we love to do. If you're in this for the money, you're in this for the wrong reason.
[00:44:46] Speaker D: Oh, for sure.
[00:44:48] Speaker F: There's no money in this.
[00:44:49] Speaker E: No.
[00:44:49] Speaker F: Right. And when we started the nonprofit, I told Alex I was a little overzealous. And I said, hey, man.
Because I heard about only, like, 10% of what it actually goes to. To nonprofits actually go to what they say goes to. I was like, we're doing like, 75%. And they were like, well, we got to be realistic because we have overhead. I'm like, then this is all I care about. Then transparency is what I care about.
[00:45:10] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:45:11] Speaker F: I want to be so transparent that people know exactly where all dollars are going, because this is not about money for us. This is about down here trying to help people, trying to help the community, help the city. I know it sounds cliche, but that's really what it's about.
[00:45:24] Speaker D: It's that easy. Community transformation.
And you do that one person at a time.
[00:45:32] Speaker F: We just had two people in the last two days die in the pit.
[00:45:36] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:45:37] Speaker D: Right over here.
[00:45:38] Speaker E: Yes.
[00:45:38] Speaker F: Canine just died two blocks away, and it's just new trank stuff coming out. And it's sad to me that this is what's going on in a community that I grew up in, and nothing's.
[00:45:50] Speaker E: Being done about it. So let's just walk. Yeah. Let's get it.
[00:45:56] Speaker D: Going back to what you said. The paradigm is so new, this type of security approach.
I call it nation building.
It's time that we spent billions of dollars overseas. It's time we look inward on ourselves and we rebuild our nation. And we start in the inner city and we rebuild our nation back to what? It could be something that's thriving for everybody, right?
[00:46:20] Speaker F: This is a lot of work.
[00:46:21] Speaker C: It is a lot of work.
[00:46:23] Speaker D: It's a lot of work.
[00:46:24] Speaker F: And I don't think they realize that how long it takes to build these relationships. I've been down here three years. Alex has been down here three years. Reed's been down here three years. I've been here since the beginning, and it's taken a long time. I'm not kidding you. There's times we come to work, we didn't know if we were still going to be there or not.
[00:46:41] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:46:41] Speaker F: We never knew it was going to knock on our door and try to trip us up a little bit.
We were like, you know what? We're going to do the right thing for the right reasons. And whatever happens, happens.
[00:46:51] Speaker C: If someone can't elevate in their subreddit, if someone can't move up, and then you also take away subreddit any ability for them to actually do anything, then what's the point?
[00:47:00] Speaker E: How are you doing, baby?
[00:47:02] Speaker C: Nice to meet you. You got the cool coke, Jersey?
[00:47:06] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:47:07] Speaker C: Nice choice.
[00:47:09] Speaker D: Chilling.
[00:47:12] Speaker F: Another day. There's always a need right down here.
[00:47:18] Speaker D: What's going on, man?
[00:47:19] Speaker F: Everybody doing with canine gone?
[00:47:22] Speaker A: Damn.
[00:47:23] Speaker D: It's a lot more tents down here.
[00:47:25] Speaker E: Than just last week.
[00:47:26] Speaker C: Where are these tents coming from? Where are they moving from?
[00:47:28] Speaker D: Everywhere.
People are here from out of town, different states.
[00:47:34] Speaker C: Are they coming from, like, certain areas that are cleaning out?
[00:47:37] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:47:38] Speaker D: So this is an odot property.
It's actually been slated for a pretty.
[00:47:43] Speaker F: One in the relationship.
[00:47:47] Speaker D: I've been that for three years, I think.
[00:47:49] Speaker F: Was it?
[00:47:52] Speaker D: This doesn't really get cleared as much because it's obviously not affecting the pedestrian ADA rules that were set in place. It's not really affecting the flow of traffic, vehicle traffic.
So it allows people to come here, gather together and, you know, there's safety in numbers, especially on the street.
[00:48:11] Speaker G: What's sex life between the homeless?
[00:48:13] Speaker F: What?
[00:48:14] Speaker G: What's the sex life between homeless people?
[00:48:15] Speaker F: Sex life between homeless.
[00:48:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't.
[00:48:20] Speaker D: That's good. That was good, bro.
[00:48:22] Speaker F: But he's looking fly today and acting fly today.
[00:48:26] Speaker C: I campaigning over here.
[00:48:28] Speaker G: Campaign every day for the red team.
[00:48:29] Speaker C: There you go.
That's what's up.
[00:48:32] Speaker G: Bounty hunter.
[00:48:33] Speaker E: You know what I'm saying?
[00:48:34] Speaker G: La, Boston, California.
Strong it up.
Everybody know that.
[00:48:39] Speaker E: That's what's up.
[00:48:40] Speaker D: So, Red, since you're here, I'm going to ask Red a question.
[00:48:43] Speaker E: Is that all right? Yeah. Okay.
[00:48:44] Speaker D: And you're welcome to chime in, too.
How many times do you see cops down here?
[00:48:50] Speaker G: Well, hey, not too hardly met at all, but yesterday they came in six deep, automatic weapons. Come right here like they're doing like this.
[00:48:58] Speaker F: I was like, oh, shit.
[00:48:59] Speaker G: You see every scatter, they're looking for somebody, I guess. I don't know. I didn't pay them no mind because.
[00:49:04] Speaker F: I know that's the first time you see them down here in a while.
[00:49:06] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:49:06] Speaker G: Then they split up. They went three on each side. I'm like, oh, shit. I don't them with somebody. Then they bailed. So I don't know who they looking for, but they came out like the marines.
[00:49:19] Speaker F: What's the mood been like since they've had, what, two pass away down here in the last week?
[00:49:23] Speaker G: It's been kind of with that OD.
[00:49:26] Speaker D: Has it been blues or whites? Like, what has the.
[00:49:30] Speaker F: It's been that trank, the ketamine plug on Saint.
[00:49:32] Speaker E: Oh, for real? Yeah.
[00:49:33] Speaker G: Sick boys are all painters and shit right now.
[00:49:34] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:49:56] Speaker D: So all these drugs and chemicals are produced in China. The cartels take their money.
What's up, Kev folk, they take their money, they take it to China. They launder the money there, they keep it in China, and then the Chinese sell these chemicals back to the cartels down in Mexico, and then they bring it all back up. And so this is a new.
Bro, you doing good? Where's your lady?
[00:50:23] Speaker C: She's over there, man. She's sick right now. She got cancer's kicking her ass.
[00:50:27] Speaker D: Oh, no shit.
Where are you staying at?
[00:50:35] Speaker C: Over there.
[00:50:37] Speaker D: But you're in housing, right? You're not on the tent?
[00:50:40] Speaker E: You're not in a tent?
[00:50:43] Speaker D: No shit. All right, give me a call tomorrow.
I'll come by.
[00:50:48] Speaker C: I can't even use my phone.
[00:50:50] Speaker F: I mean, my phone is just.
[00:50:55] Speaker D: Okay, where are you going to be tomorrow?
[00:50:57] Speaker E: Here?
I don't know.
[00:51:00] Speaker D: I can't tell you.
[00:51:02] Speaker F: Yeah, well, if you do come down to the market to the security officer, just ask for one of us tomorrow. We'll come down and take care of you.
I do. I got one.
[00:51:15] Speaker C: Damien, by the way.
[00:51:22] Speaker F: You need something to eat?
I got you.
It's up for you and your wife, too, man.
[00:51:29] Speaker A: Overnight grub.
[00:51:33] Speaker F: All right?
[00:51:36] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:51:37] Speaker F: I'm sorry you're going through.
[00:51:38] Speaker D: Hey, you got blankets or bedroll? Jill, you got any blankets or.
[00:51:43] Speaker E: Bedroll?
[00:51:43] Speaker F: She getting too thin.
Let's walk this way. I'll be back in a second.
[00:51:50] Speaker E: Okay?
[00:51:51] Speaker D: All right, we'll go hit it up, and we'll drop it off later. We're going to go to the resource center. And then we'll make sure. Yeah, you'll have it tonight.
[00:51:58] Speaker G: Okay.
[00:51:59] Speaker D: That's on skin, baby.
[00:52:00] Speaker E: I got you.
[00:52:02] Speaker F: Oh, she's inside, you're outside.
[00:52:04] Speaker A: And so Jill's working, probably trying to get into a shelter.
[00:52:08] Speaker D: Every shelter has a different intake process. There isn't one process, nothing streamlined. There isn't even a bank of beds. The county has 2000 beds, the city has 200, but no one knows where the openings are currently right now. There's no central tracking.
[00:52:23] Speaker F: Come down here tomorrow.
[00:52:31] Speaker C: Why is this the county reaching out?
[00:52:34] Speaker F: You're a shaver and.
[00:52:38] Speaker D: We'Re trying to do that, but you're staying on the. We're doing that through people who have that are more important than us. We'll say it that way. Former CEO types are making that bridge.
[00:52:50] Speaker C: We clearly have one of the major.
[00:52:53] Speaker F: Blankets of shit to stay warm.
[00:52:54] Speaker C: Happening in Portland is the homeless.
[00:52:56] Speaker E: Okay, we'll come tomorrow.
[00:53:00] Speaker C: Available in multi county, of course, and continually. We have a mayor and we have city council that can't decide which direction to go to make change. What's the conversation?
[00:53:12] Speaker D: I don't know. I'm not in those conversations.
[00:53:15] Speaker C: Have you attempted to reach out directly to the people that could facilitate you guys working with the organizations to help you guys do this on a bigger level?
[00:53:23] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:53:24] Speaker C: What's the answer?
[00:53:26] Speaker D: We're thinking about it. We're planning. We're in planning stages.
[00:53:29] Speaker E: Budget?
[00:53:29] Speaker D: Oh, it's a budgetary process. It's budget season. And so people are budgeting.
There's like 20 different companies or agencies or nonprofits that are like this. And they hand out a lot of money to a lot of people, but there's no concerted effort. Now I think the mayor, Ted Wheeler, I think he's coming up with a know these larger shelter systems, getting those in place, and hopefully that's more of a refugee style center where people know, sign up to vote, get a GED, get education. Maybe there's going to be some physicians assistance and nurses there, a pharmacy there. So more of a full wraparound in house service center. But until we have something like that.
[00:54:16] Speaker C: What's the number of homeless in Portland chronically?
[00:54:20] Speaker D: 4500.
In transition to another two.
[00:54:24] Speaker C: I've been here for going on three years. It'll be three years next month.
[00:54:27] Speaker E: Okay. Yeah.
[00:54:28] Speaker C: And for the entirety of the three years, everyone from the mayor to the city council.
[00:54:33] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:54:33] Speaker C: To the county council has been talking about planning, talking about budgeting, talking about coming up with an idea. My opinion, look, no vacations, no weekends. You have a problem. You're running businesses out of downtown. People are leaving in droves by the thousands. You have people that are dying on the street.
[00:54:54] Speaker E: That's right.
[00:54:54] Speaker C: You have people that are getting access. The big problem right now, according to many people in Portland, is the firearm issue. You have people getting access to firearms illegally due to the drug issues that are on the street. I don't see what the conversation is about. Get your people in office.
Link up with companies or organizations like yours who are down here, who are in the trenches, who have the minds and the hearts of the people that are most affected, and come up with a plan, even a peripheral plan of this is what we're thinking we can do within six to eight weeks. But there should be a timeline by now.
[00:55:30] Speaker D: I know, man.
[00:55:31] Speaker C: If I didn't have an idea of how I was going to pay my child support, my wife ain't trying to hear no, it's due. So there's a bill that is due to the people of Portland, in my opinion, whoever. Sit down with you guys to figure out a way to do this.
[00:55:45] Speaker F: I'm done here.
[00:55:46] Speaker D: I can meet you and I'm going to just go there. I don't really get into politics, but I think that there's an element right there. Is she in the van?
[00:55:54] Speaker F: Can you.
[00:55:55] Speaker D: Extreme libertarianism bring you back some blankets? So if you go too far right or you go too far left, you end up in this weird stream of libertarianism field.
[00:56:03] Speaker E: Right.
[00:56:04] Speaker D: And people think that this is freedom for these people. Right. They don't see this as slavery. They see this as freedom. And I think that over time, as it's gotten worse, people are realizing this isn't freedom.
[00:56:18] Speaker C: But is that the majority or the.
[00:56:19] Speaker D: Minority that thinks that's the minority? But it's a very vocal minority. Yeah, it's a very vocal minority that says, hey, no, people should be naked and be able to have sex, do drugs, and live in a tent in public space, and that should be fine. It's an extreme form of libertarianism.
It's not a traditional liberal idea. They don't understand that being homeless causes PTSD.
[00:56:41] Speaker C: Right.
[00:56:42] Speaker D: You can get a mental disorder just from being houseless.
[00:56:45] Speaker C: Well, I've talked to some of these women and what they experience when they first become homeless. That leads to a lot of.
[00:56:51] Speaker D: Yeah, and currently on the streets, 20%.
Ten years ago, 5%. 20% of the homeless are currently female on the streets of Portland. And these women are being trafficked for sure. They're being prostituted against, raped against their will of sexually assault all the time.
[00:57:09] Speaker F: It's not a matter of if it's just wind down.
[00:57:11] Speaker D: It's just wind. It's just wind.
[00:57:14] Speaker F: Very sad.
[00:57:15] Speaker D: It's extremely sad. And I think that's another reason, I hate to say it. A lot of people don't want to come down here because how much stress does this put on your heart? As a man who has a big heart, who loves people and cares to come down here every day and deal with this, for me, it's a mental stress.
There's an emotional and spiritual stress.
[00:57:36] Speaker E: Absolutely.
[00:57:37] Speaker D: I think a lot of people, they can't handle it. I don't even know if a politician could actually handle being here all day doing it. I think they'd go home and cry.
[00:57:46] Speaker A: Themselves in the shower.
[00:57:49] Speaker D: The amount of mental fortitude and groundedness and moral groundedness. You have to have to be down here and to make friends with people that you know are going to die of an overdose. These are our friends now. This isn't people we serve. This is our community. We love these people, and these people are going to die next week. Someone that we just met is going to die.
And to be in a community where you're constantly losing your friends, that is painful. It's extremely painful. And it reminds me of being in the military when people are constantly dying. And it's that type of stress.
[00:58:29] Speaker C: Do you guys worry at all before we move on? Do you worry that because of the fact that you're providing services to people who otherwise would suffer a fate of not having those services or have to seek them out, do you feel like by offering those services, that you're facilitating something that is bringing more people in, as opposed to maybe not having something here to where they wouldn't come to this area? Are you guys making it to where it's.
[00:59:01] Speaker D: No.
[00:59:02] Speaker C: It's acceptable for people to be in this situation?
[00:59:04] Speaker D: No. So there is the argument that these institutional, nonprofit programs, they have buildings, we call it the field of dreams model. If you build it, they will come. Well, if you build it, they do come.
There are a lot of instances where there are larger congregations of houseless that will take over or be in certain areas because of the services they're receiving from nonprofits. But we don't have a physical location. We have a resource center, but we go to people where they live. If all these tents disappear, if they come and clear the pit and they have multiple times, we go to where they go.
So we're not a nonprofit that's saying, hey, we're going to have this building, and we want you to come and bring all your tents and surround it, right. We're saying, hey, we're going to meet you where you live. Number one, when people are homeless, they don't have a sense of self worth and agency.
And so when you tell people, meet me where I am, you're saying, I'm better than you. I'm more important than you. When you meet people where they are, you're saying, you're so important. I came here to talk to you today. And so you're automatically giving them a sense of self worth and that relationship and doing it every day over and over and over, giving them options. Hey, you want to go to shelter? This is Bobby Lakes over here. City team's great. When you're giving people these options, you're building in them the idea that they can choose their own life. You're creating self agency for them.
[01:00:35] Speaker F: And we're not coming down here.
We're not coming down here to give them things. We're coming down here to try to help them, give them a little bit of hope, help them change, help transform their lives a little bit. That's our goal. Our goal isn't to just. Yes, the daily temporary things are important, right? People need food.
[01:00:53] Speaker A: They need.
[01:00:54] Speaker F: They need clothes. But, man, our goal, man, is to put ourselves out of business. That's our goal. If we put ourselves out of business.
[01:01:02] Speaker E: That's right.
[01:01:02] Speaker F: Then all these people are getting the things that they need.
[01:01:06] Speaker D: Red needs some sleeping bag or a bedroll someone puts in his tent.
[01:01:10] Speaker F: I think Jill's going back to get.
[01:01:11] Speaker D: Him one right now. All right, cool. Well, we can chill here a little bit longer. We can keep walking.
[01:01:16] Speaker F: Just walk?
[01:01:17] Speaker E: Yeah, walk this way. Hey, Red.
[01:01:20] Speaker F: Hey, Red. Is she going to go get you a.
All right.
[01:01:25] Speaker D: You know this building across the street? I mean, it had a window shot.
[01:01:30] Speaker F: Know, look at those windows that have been shot out. Up those windows.
[01:01:34] Speaker D: Those are bullet holes.
[01:01:37] Speaker F: See that University of Oregon over there had windows shot out.
And it all comes from. Most of it comes from the pit right here.
[01:01:43] Speaker E: Yep.
[01:01:45] Speaker D: Resources.
[01:01:48] Speaker A: They have showers there, like, once or twice a week.
[01:01:50] Speaker D: They give out meals there.
[01:01:54] Speaker C: That's where they do live, in the yards page and.
[01:01:57] Speaker D: That's right. Yeah, they lived over there.
[01:01:59] Speaker C: So, like, when I visited in March of 2020, just came to visit.
[01:02:04] Speaker E: That's right.
[01:02:04] Speaker C: And so I walked over and I'm.
[01:02:06] Speaker E: Like, what is this?
[01:02:06] Speaker C: We hand out sleeping bags and they.
[01:02:08] Speaker D: Can shower, and they take cans and bottles.
[01:02:10] Speaker E: I was like, this is crazy. Yeah.
[01:02:12] Speaker D: So that's why the pit's here because Jesse. Well, some of the community members were like, can't you just.
[01:02:18] Speaker F: Was supposed to be a skate park at one point.
[01:02:20] Speaker D: It is. It's been slated. The money's waiting in the account somewhere. And they're like, well, if you all got hired, could you move these tents? And we're like, no, because all the resources are across the street.
[01:02:30] Speaker F: We don't move tents anyway.
[01:02:32] Speaker D: No, I'm saying trespass them off the property because they're technically on property. But no. And we're like, no, these people were always going to be here because of the resources offered across the street, which is what you were talking about earlier.
[01:02:43] Speaker E: Right.
[01:02:46] Speaker C: I have a real issue with the homeless community personally.
I'm like a lot of people in Portland. I'm just tired.
[01:03:01] Speaker D: It's tired.
[01:03:02] Speaker E: It's tired.
[01:03:02] Speaker D: And you know what? The politicians are tired.
[01:03:04] Speaker C: I watched this movie about a month ago. I was going to allude to this.
There's a movie called soft and quiet.
And in the movie soft and quiet, there's a group of five female friends, and they get together and they have this meeting, and they all have this racist undertone. Right?
[01:03:26] Speaker E: Yeah.
[01:03:26] Speaker C: The whole point of the movie is that if you allow even the slightest bit of bigotry to seep into your heart under certain circumstances, that spark can ignite a flame. And it's like you get into a situation that you can't come back from.
[01:03:41] Speaker E: That's right.
[01:03:41] Speaker C: And I see that so much with the homeless community. People are so tired of there not being something done to address it. And so it seeps in this animosity and this negativity about the entire community. And I see a lot of security guards when they finally get into a situation, unfortunately, where they have to go hands on that animosity and that negativity bleeds through. So they're no longer doing their job.
[01:04:07] Speaker B: At that point in time.
[01:04:08] Speaker C: They're extracting a little bit of revenge almost.
And I don't want that for myself, and I don't want that for our community. So how do you guys address your officers and make sure that while they're down here in these situations where someone is pouring urine on them, that they don't allow that to color the professionalism of their job so that when they're still interacting with people, they're not allowing themselves to slide into this area of anger?
[01:04:36] Speaker D: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. When it comes to echelon, it begins at the hiring process. So we do write alongs, and part of the ride along process is getting people to speak freely, to understand what they really believe.
[01:04:50] Speaker C: Loosen them up a little bit.
[01:04:51] Speaker D: That'll loosen them up. Just like a regular investigation. And you're like. You'll take someone out and be like, hey, man. So, yeah, look at that guy over there. Look at him, man. What do you think about that?
[01:05:00] Speaker C: Oh, fucking.
[01:05:01] Speaker D: I hate the homeless, so I can't stand the homeless. Okay, red flag. No go, right? So we actually no go a lot. We red flag a lot.
[01:05:08] Speaker F: Well, we actually hired a guy, and within 24 hours he fired because we found out he did something to houseless people down by Delta park.
[01:05:14] Speaker E: That's right.
[01:05:15] Speaker F: Within 24 hours, he was hired and fired. And the thing is, I see where people get frustrated, too. The frustration is real. And I think that most of the time, listen, the city's created this monster.
Okay? I don't know how you go back on unless you make some tough decisions.
[01:05:32] Speaker E: Right.
[01:05:33] Speaker B: I don't think the people that live.
[01:05:34] Speaker C: Here are willing to face.
[01:05:37] Speaker D: I think they are. I'm actually hopeful.
[01:05:40] Speaker C: Like the actual.
[01:05:41] Speaker D: The city government. Yeah, I believe it.
[01:05:43] Speaker E: Yeah.
[01:05:44] Speaker D: Now, you got to remember, some new people have been just elected.
Elections have consequences. Famous line by Obama, which is true. Elections have consequences. And I think that the people that are in office now, they're tired of this, but they want to do it in a unique and transformative way, like the way we're doing it. I think that they want to engage the community.
They want to engage the community in such a way that gets people into shelters. One little thing would help, if we just had YouTube videos of 32nd commercials of the shelters that we could show the people, hey, you thought about going here. Here's a testimonial of someone that went through the shelter program. If we could have resources like that, if there was a central tracking system for beds, if we just knew what shelters had beds available.
[01:06:33] Speaker E: Right.
[01:06:33] Speaker D: And those beds had access to anyone, anyone could call and get a shelter bed for a homeless person.
[01:06:38] Speaker E: Right.
[01:06:40] Speaker D: It's the ability to get people transitioned, the ability to understand where they are, where these beds are.
[01:06:46] Speaker E: Right.
[01:06:48] Speaker F: Make no mistake about it, man.
[01:06:50] Speaker D: All that red tape, it's tough.
[01:06:52] Speaker F: Anybody comes down here and says it doesn't weigh on them, it's lying to you, man.
[01:06:56] Speaker E: Yeah.
[01:06:56] Speaker C: It weighs on everything that we've been doing for the. It weighs on security.
[01:07:02] Speaker F: And I don't know necessarily if the government wants to do anything about it. What they need to do is they just need to have the funding and put the money in the right place and let private sector go ahead and do it.
[01:07:11] Speaker E: Yeah.
[01:07:11] Speaker F: Private sector needs to go ahead and clean this up.
[01:07:13] Speaker C: What do you think the unwillingness to do that is?
[01:07:18] Speaker F: I don't know.
I think the homeless industrial complex is so big now. You know what I mean?
[01:07:27] Speaker D: There's a lot of people in the nonprofit world that are no longer trusted by people in government because they don't deliver results, but they don't have different avenues to put the monies in.
[01:07:40] Speaker E: Right.
[01:07:40] Speaker D: Another problem is, and this is a larger systemic issue, is the Boise rule in the 9th district. You had police officers in Boise who moved some homeless people. They said it was an 8th amendment violation, which is cruel and unusual punishment. They said, hey, it's cruel and unusual to do this. You need to give them time and you got to have a place to put them. So when that happened, the pendulum, out of fear and concerns of millions and millions of dollars of lawsuits, there was a pendulum swing so far towards libertarianism within city governments, not just in Portland, but all across the 9th district, that there was, hey, an attitude of, we're just going to let people do what they do, and we'll see if it gets worse. And it's gotten worse.
[01:08:28] Speaker C: Congratulations.
[01:08:29] Speaker D: It got worse. And it got to the point where they eventually had to push back and say, okay, maybe not on sidewalks, maybe we allow ADA access since it's federal statute. Right. And so these things eventually have changed. And I think that that pendulum is now coming back and people are overreacting to the Boise rule, and they're getting to the point where they're like, hey, I think that we actually can help some people now, but it takes time.
[01:08:55] Speaker E: Well.
[01:08:58] Speaker D: Busy day, man.
[01:08:59] Speaker F: Very busy day. We got six into shelters today.
[01:09:03] Speaker A: That's crazy.
[01:09:04] Speaker D: That's crazy, man. That's good.
[01:09:06] Speaker F: Two greyhound busting is home. Six shelters and ten tent relocations. People moving to safer areas.
[01:09:14] Speaker D: Does that include JJ's Bibby Lakes folks?
[01:09:15] Speaker E: No.
[01:09:17] Speaker D: So that's eight Bybee Lakes folks. He got two into Bibi Lakes.
[01:09:20] Speaker F: Oh, no, Bach did. Yeah, up there.
[01:09:23] Speaker E: Malt 205.
[01:09:24] Speaker D: JJ drove them.
[01:09:25] Speaker F: So that would be eight.
That'd be eight.
[01:09:29] Speaker D: That's dope. We got eight people into shelter today, bro.
[01:09:31] Speaker C: That's crazy.
[01:09:33] Speaker F: And there was crazy. Six turned away because of lack of shelter.
[01:09:37] Speaker E: Yeah.
[01:09:37] Speaker F: So what we've learned to do is you have to call 930 when it opens up right away, you got to get them in. And then if somebody asks after 01:00. 02:00 are there restrictions on the shelters?
[01:09:49] Speaker C: Like, you can't bring on something?
[01:09:51] Speaker D: Yeah, medium mocha, medium well.
[01:09:55] Speaker F: There are some shelters like Bibby Lakes, which is the most desirable. You have to. Haven't had anything in your system for 24 hours.
[01:10:02] Speaker D: No alcohol, high barrier.
[01:10:03] Speaker F: High, very high barrier. But they also have, once you get in there, if you stay, they have partnerships with FedEx, Amazon, UPS.
[01:10:11] Speaker D: They have childcare there.
[01:10:12] Speaker F: It's out there, right by all their hubs.
[01:10:14] Speaker D: They have their own daycare there. Daycare with a playground, pet center, pharmacy.
[01:10:20] Speaker F: Eventually what they want to do is be able to grow their own food.
Most of them are not like that.
[01:10:26] Speaker A: I love your hat, but most of.
[01:10:27] Speaker D: Them are like, you can't do drugs.
[01:10:28] Speaker F: In here, but you can go outside, new them and then come back in.
[01:10:33] Speaker C: We talked about, that's a great example of how a shelter is bringing people in and utilizing them in a positive way.
[01:10:43] Speaker E: That's right.
[01:10:43] Speaker C: You guys ever had any thoughts of.
[01:10:46] Speaker B: Having someone that you've helped come back.
[01:10:48] Speaker C: And then work for your company?
[01:10:49] Speaker D: Yeah, we do that all the time.
[01:10:53] Speaker F: The guy that we saw down there, he worked for us.
[01:10:56] Speaker D: I don't know if we can use his name, but yeah, his wife has cancer. We've known them five years.
And he used to be a hellraiser.
[01:11:03] Speaker A: On one of our properties.
[01:11:04] Speaker D: I mean, the biggest problem, he was.
[01:11:07] Speaker F: A big dude back.
[01:11:08] Speaker D: Mean, I remember when PPB came to arrest him for like an assault and he was going to fight PPB. He said, I'll let stone me. I'll let Stone put handcuffs on me, but I ain't going to let y'all touch me unless y'all want to fight. And they looked at me and goes, do you mind putting his handcuffs on? I was like, no, it's okay. Click, click.
[01:11:25] Speaker F: No. We've had a lot of good success stories. We have people that want to volunteer for our nonprofit all the time.
[01:11:32] Speaker E: That's awesome.
[01:11:32] Speaker F: So as soon as we get that going, that will help as well.
[01:11:37] Speaker D: A lot of churches and just working with victory outreach. All those guys at Victory outreach, we work with every day. There are people that have been in the gang life.
They've been in prison, prison, state, federal prison. And these are guys, it's like a golden, we call it, you know, this you. We're all law enforcement, golden handcuff programs where, hey, you have two years left on your state time. We'll give you a year, or you can go to this program and do a year.
[01:12:07] Speaker E: Right?
[01:12:08] Speaker D: And so, yeah, these guys are great victory outreach. So a lot of these guys are from that life and they come out here and they know what they're doing. These guys aren't idiots.
[01:12:15] Speaker F: They know a lot of people out here, too.
[01:12:17] Speaker E: Yeah.
[01:12:17] Speaker C: A little bit of outside the box thinking, and it really be of great service to people. I hope that the people in power can utilize.
[01:12:29] Speaker E: Cool, man.
[01:12:29] Speaker D: I got to go out of here. All right, brother.
[01:12:31] Speaker C: Always a pleasure.
[01:12:33] Speaker D: The street commander right here.
[01:12:34] Speaker F: Appreciate you guys. All right, see you.
[01:12:37] Speaker E: Bye.
[01:12:38] Speaker A: So, obviously, there's constant drug dealing just right behind us.
[01:12:42] Speaker E: Right.
[01:12:42] Speaker D: Always handoffs. You look around, you were in that law enforcement life, and so you're always seeing the handoffs. But I think we spend enough time down here. I think maybe we should go hit a special spot.
[01:12:53] Speaker E: Out. What do you think? Yeah, let's go. All right. Let's hit it. Go.
[01:12:57] Speaker A: Hey, man, this is a great place. We're here because tonight we're actually conducting some surveillance at this location.
[01:13:05] Speaker D: There's a couple of criminal organizations that.
[01:13:06] Speaker A: Have really targeted this garage, and we want to put an end to that. Also, we have a property across the street. It's all boarded up, and a criminal organization has chosen that block to make it their block to sell dope. So we're going to be conducting surveillance there.
[01:13:22] Speaker E: So let's go and get out. Yeah, that's.
[01:13:26] Speaker D: Now, again, the traditional security model is you're going to be in a uniform.
[01:13:33] Speaker A: You're going to be in a car, a marked car that says security.
[01:13:37] Speaker D: And the idea is to be a scarecrow.
[01:13:39] Speaker E: Right.
[01:13:39] Speaker D: Right. And that's the wrong model, because what really is going to stop someone from doing, from engaging in crime on this property is catching them, identifying them, and notifying them. I know who you are.
[01:13:52] Speaker C: Right.
[01:13:53] Speaker D: You know that. I know who you are. If you come back, you're trespassed. I'm going to arrest you.
[01:13:59] Speaker E: Right.
[01:14:00] Speaker D: And that level of interdiction, that changes the property, it makes it safe. Not driving around in a marked car. Absolutely.
[01:14:07] Speaker C: 100%.
It's quite a different perspective up here, seeing Portland from this high up.
[01:14:13] Speaker E: Yeah, absolutely.
[01:14:16] Speaker D: So just the other day, we had 97 people around the perimeter of this block.
[01:14:21] Speaker C: Yeah. This area is nefarious for the activities. I mean, it's been cleaned multiple times, I think, in the last couple of months. And you can just look at it and see that's no real deterrent. But, yeah, I really think that everything that I've seen from what you guys are doing in terms of the approach, it's thinking outside of the box. In a place like Portland and places that are dealing with similar issues, the solution is going to come from taking some risks in terms of how you're addressing it. So I'm really impressed.
[01:14:55] Speaker E: With what?
[01:14:56] Speaker D: You taking some risks, having a mindset of discovery. Hey, let's go explore. Let's try some new things. Thinking outside the box.
[01:15:06] Speaker E: Exactly.
[01:15:07] Speaker C: Having an attitude of service.
[01:15:09] Speaker D: That's good, man. We're always learning, no matter who you are, you could be the most squared away operator, you could be the most squared away CEO, business leader. And there's always another chapter in that book that can be written.
Do you see those handoffs earlier?
[01:15:28] Speaker E: Yeah, 100%.
[01:15:31] Speaker D: So people are selling dope here. Open market drug dealing. I mean, it's crazy, right?
[01:15:39] Speaker C: Well, I mean, alex, look, we've been standing here for five minutes. We haven't seen one police car drive by in a major city.
[01:15:48] Speaker D: No, that's unheard of. Yeah, it's very rare to see law enforcement patrolling, and I can't dog on them. They're critically understaffed.
[01:15:59] Speaker F: They are.
[01:16:00] Speaker C: And they're doing what they're being told. I get it.
[01:16:02] Speaker D: According to FBI stats or recommendations, Portland is only staffed at a 34% force strength level.
So they're two thirds lower than they should be.
[01:16:16] Speaker C: It's like 100 officers for every 100,000 people.
[01:16:20] Speaker E: Yeah.
[01:16:20] Speaker C: That's insane.
[01:16:21] Speaker E: Yeah.
[01:16:22] Speaker D: In the south, in a typical town or city, you're one for 1001 to 1500, and they go call to call. They're always down three to four calls, call to call.
[01:16:40] Speaker C: I don't want to say a merging or a meshing of security and law enforcement, but do you ever see law enforcement utilizing security in lower level deputy fashion?
[01:16:55] Speaker D: I know a security company that just got deputized for the southern border in Arizona.
I think smaller towns that no longer have the budget, you can run a full security operation in a small town for a third of the budget you would for law enforcement.
And they can still make arrest if they see a crime. If they witness a crime that 100% probable cause, witnessing the crime, they can make that arrest. So, yeah, I think it's possible. I also think that they can be used in roles that law enforcement currently engage in that are so, you know, we're both a part of the professional security association of Oregon.
[01:17:36] Speaker E: Right.
[01:17:36] Speaker D: And I want to lead the effort in legislative efforts in getting laws passed that allow security guards to transport newly arrested persons. So law enforcement, someone makes an arrest, it's signed off on the pc affidavit or probable cause affidavit for a long term detention at a jail is filled out by law enforcement, and then they hand that off to a private security company. That private security company then can transport to the jail we currently have that.
[01:18:07] Speaker C: Now with security companies that are doing federal contracts for prisoner transport.
[01:18:11] Speaker D: Correct, exactly. And all of this stuff makes no sense. They don't do it on the street.
[01:18:14] Speaker C: You and I could sit here for the next 2 hours and we could come up with 100,000 different ways that private security could be utilized to help offset a lot of the issues that just Portland is dealing with. But again, it's going to come down to people being willing to have these conversations, to offering seats at the table for discussions. And I think that you have far exceeded any expectation that people would have of a normal security company. So hopefully that opportunity is present it to you. I think that it's needed and it's necessary.
[01:18:46] Speaker D: I don't think it's going to be presented. I think we're going to seize it. We're going to take it.
[01:18:49] Speaker C: That's your only option.
[01:18:50] Speaker D: And we're going to do jobs that law enforcement will keep law enforcement on.
[01:18:54] Speaker C: The streets doing their job, which is what we need.
[01:18:56] Speaker E: Yeah, that's what we need.
[01:18:57] Speaker D: At the end of the day, bro, that's what it's about.
[01:19:00] Speaker C: Absolutely, man.
[01:19:00] Speaker D: I love it. Thanks for doing the ride along, man.
[01:19:02] Speaker E: Absolutely.
[01:19:02] Speaker A: My pleasure, bro.
[01:19:03] Speaker D: I want you to come back, co host a couple of shows. I think that you're a great guy, and I think people need to hear what you have to offer.
[01:19:08] Speaker C: I appreciate that.
[01:19:09] Speaker B: It's going to some of your questions.
[01:19:11] Speaker E: Absolutely.
[01:19:11] Speaker D: Bros, get out of here.
