The CopDoc Podcast Ep 029 Chief Jeff Tate, Shakopee Police, MN

We chatted with Chief Jeff Tate from the Shakopee Police in Minnesota. Shakopee is a suburb of Minneapolis.  The Shakopee Police have twice received the International Chiefs of Police Award for Community Policing. 

In a no-holds-barred discussion, we talked about the Goerge Floyd death, the state of policing, collaboration, the rise in mental health calls, and the importance of community relationships.   We became so immersed in the changes and difficulties in policing today, that we barely talked about the Community Policing efforts.  We have another chat that focuses on Community Policing in an upcoming episode.  

Contact us: copdoc.podcast@gmail.com 

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com

Transcript

[00:00:02.520] - Intro

Welcome to The CopDoc Podcast. This podcast explores police leadership issues and innovative ideas The CopDoc Podcast thoughts and ideas as he talks with leaders in policing, communities, academia and other government agencies. And now please join Dr. Steve Morreale and industry thought leaders as they share their insights and experience on The CopDoc Podcast.

[00:00:32.180] - Steve Morreale

Hello, everybody, this is Steve Morreale, and you're listening to The CopDoc Podcast today and another episode, we have Jeff Tate, the chief of the Shakopee, Minnesota Police Department. Good morning to you, Jeff.

[00:00:42.410] - Jeff Tate

Morning, Steve.

[00:00:43.490] - Steve Morreale

Thanks so much for being here. I wanted to tell you I wanted to tell the audience how this came to pass. The academic in me, which is which is my second career, is that we are using what we call a snowball process, a snowball effect where I'm talking to somebody who I ask who should I be talking to? And your name came up, Jeff. And one of the reasons your name came up is because Jay Sartell, a chief out here in Townsend, in Massachusetts. He said this department that chief is doing a bang-up job, just received the IACP Community Policing Award.

[00:01:14.300] - Steve Morreale

So that's what led me to you. So thank you for being here.

[00:01:17.060] - Jeff Tate

Well, it's an honor and a pleasure and happy to talk with you.

[00:01:19.790] - Steve Morreale

Tell us about the city where you are, how big your agency is, and tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:01:24.590] - Jeff Tate

Well, Shakopee is about a 20-minute drive straight south of Minneapolis. We're a booming city in terms of we continue to grow and expand. We'll be of fifty thousand population in a couple of years here, but we have a lot of entertainment. What keeps us busy is an amusement park. We have two gambling facilities, racetrack. So 24/7, we've even in the biggest blizzard. You've got people coming into town 24/7. So it's fun city to work for.

[00:01:52.970] - Jeff Tate

It's a very diverse population. It's changed a lot. I've been here since 1998, so I'm coming next. Next month is twenty-three years for me and all of it's been here in shock. And when I got here maybe we had twenty thousand people. And so the department's growing, the city's grown and there's been some growing pains with that. But there's also been a lot of opportunities both for us professionally and in the community as well. So it's just a really fun environment, fun city to work for.

[00:02:21.980] - Jeff Tate

They treat us well and the community treats us well. And we're certainly honored to get that ICP award. It's the second time we've gotten that award in the last five years. So we're very, very proud of that. And we cherish the relationship we have with the community. It's a sacred thing for us.

[00:02:38.630] - Steve Morreale

So a couple of things that I noted. First of all, I clearly screwed up. You talk about Boston having an accent. You say shock a spell it for me.

[00:02:47.780] - Jeff Tate

S-h-a-k-o-p-e-e. And yet you say Shockapee.

[00:02:53.480] - Jeff Tate

The correct pronunciation. Native American pronunciation is shock pay, but it's just become shock. AP And we have a part of our city is in tribal reservation land. And so it's a part of the culture here in our city and a longstanding culture throughout the area and specifically our city as well.

[00:03:15.140] - Steve Morreale

I have a brother that lives out there in Lake Elmo, so I'm familiar with it to a degree. But also I would like you to tell people where you are in Minnesota. I understand that you're fairly close to Minneapolis.

[00:03:26.300] - Jeff Tate

Yeah, we're a twenty-minute drive, Max, from downtown Minneapolis. We're not in Hennepin County. We're just on the other side of the Minnesota River. So the river is kind of nice and that it keeps Hennepin County a little just that arm's reach away, everything that's going on there. But it also we're close enough that we're not immune to anything that's going on in the Twin Cities area, especially in the last few years. So it's proved very challenging.

[00:03:51.260] - Jeff Tate

And like I say we're in that seven-county metro Twin Cities group.

[00:03:55.870] - Steve Morreale

OK, so how long you been the chief?

[00:03:57.410] - Jeff Tate

Just over twelve years now. Wow. I was I was very, again, fortunate to jump into this job at a time when the city was growing. There were a lot of retirements. So fortunate to have a chief that really knew the importance of professional development of staff and so sent me to all kinds of wonderful opportunities, professional. And I've tried to maintain that with our current staff and push them and send them. Obviously, just keep going to the classes, keep sharpening that saw type of the thing.

[00:04:27.800] - Steve Morreale

And opportunities happened here just because of growth and because of retirement. So I was able to get promoted and my way up in the chief, I didn't think I'd 12 years as a chief as seems like an eternity. And some days it seems like it was just yesterday when I got the keys. And let's talk about your point of view, your approach to policing. One of the things that I notice to do a bit of research I was watching actually one of the videos that you have on police department.

[00:04:54.140] - Steve Morreale

And it's interesting because you start by saying that the people, your citizens, your community are your customers. And in some cases that seems so foreign and yet so apt. Talk about that.

[00:05:07.550] - Jeff Tate

You know, that's something that's been drilled into us for well over a decade. Here we are a customer service-driven organization, and we tell everybody customer service is not a department that we send people to when they come to the police department with a complaint or a grievance or an issue that needs to be solved. It's a shared responsibility of everybody under our roof and that includes our non-sworn staff. We have 50 sworn, we have 13 non-sworn staff and they're all in the community just as much as our officers are.

[00:05:37.980] - Jeff Tate

So they are our customers and we need to walk in their shoes and treat them how we would want our family to be treated. And that includes people we arrest. Steve, it's inevitable that at some point in time and frequency can depend on your agency, but you're going to get in a fight with someone. When we're done, we tell our people, you pick them up, you dust them off and you treat them with respect. And you get a lot more things done when you treat people with respect and you look at them as if they are your customer.

[00:06:06.660] - Jeff Tate

Customer's not always right. In our profession, that kind of golden rule goes out the door. They're not always right. But I think if you have that customer, that service driven mindset, you're going to have a much more successful career down the road in this profession and last long term, a lot better down the road. I'm going to ask you some of the things that you do that are community centric. But I want to go back to something that happened in your backyard that has resonated across the world.

[00:06:33.780] - Steve Morreale

As you understand the death of George Floyd. You're so close. And here you are, a police chief and you're watching what's happening. You're watching the craziness and the reaction of people in your community. How did you salvage it? How did you speak to your officers to stay the course to understand that we have to stay on course, that we have to be customer-centric regardless of what's happening. Take us through the conversations you had with command staff and even with your troops.

[00:07:01.020] - Jeff Tate

I still remember that morning when the video was made public, or at least it went viral and everybody watched it. And I remember walking around this police station and you could have heard a pin drop, OK, there wasn't. And I've told the community this, too. I really wish you would have all seen the reaction in the facial expressions of our officers when that happened. They were sickened, maintained for a long time. There's nobody that gets more upset about bad police than the good cops.

[00:07:29.520] - Speaker 3

And we don't want to see it more than anybody else. And we all saw what that was and disavowed it. And you let your command staff and your officers know. And first of all, I made sure I was present. Obviously, this was all during the covid pandemic, things getting shut down type of thing. And so we had that to worry about as well. So there was that stress. And then you do this and you start seeing what's happening in Minneapolis and they're asking for officers to come up.

[00:07:55.920] - Jeff Tate

And we knew it was going to be bad the second we saw that video. And it was frustrating to hear some of the comments that were made publicly that paint you with a wide brush, that type of thing. And that's where you go back. Steve, and you remind people that, look, this is a community that supports us. You know, there over eighteen thousand different law enforcement agencies in the country. And every one of them have different training, selection criteria and expectations of their staff.

[00:08:22.440] - Jeff Tate

And our community supports us. The support that we had prior and after demonstrate that the amount of food that's been brought into this police department in the last year and a half is overwhelming. And you keep that focus. And you also I also tried to make sure they didn't sit either in their squatter here at the station watching riot TV and be so consumed by it that they lose sight. So that initial shock went through. Everybody refocussed. This is not what we have.

[00:08:54.240] - Jeff Tate

I mean, still to this day, there's nobody in that trial testified from law enforcement that they thought that was was good police work. It wasn't. And we disavowed it publicly. And our community, thankfully, we I think we built up enough in the bank with our community that they understood it wasn't us. But they certainly had a lot of questions, a lot of questions about do you do chokeholds, do you do this and that. So after that initial, it was very important, I felt, to be accessible to the community.

[00:09:24.960] - Jeff Tate

And that was hard during a pandemic that we were that we were facing and lockdowns and so forth. But it was important because the land under the blanket and hoping the storm passes was not going to do it. We made sure that we still held responsibly, but we held community events and that when we were asked to be somewhere, we were there. We were present. We asked, answered the hard questions, and it was I found a lot better for the cops to to get out there and explain, no, this is how we do things here.

[00:09:52.830] - Speaker 3

And that relationship that you have with the community, that open line of communication served us well. We still did our national night out. We still went out and did it, and a lot of departments did not. I think that was to their detriment, frankly, because most people wanted to either pat on the back or had a reasonable question for you.

[00:10:11.490] - Steve Morreale

And were looking, I presume, and they were looking for somebody who does it to allay their fears, especially locally. Fair statement?

[00:10:17.830] - Jeff Tate

Yeah, first statement and again, holding those community events that we did. And we took a little flak for that during call that we did. But I think the long- term end result and benefit of that, we. Again, to do it as safely as we could, but you have to be accessible to your community and you have to be able to answer questions not just when you're pinning a medal on an officer, but when things go bad to and fairly or unfairly, we are in this industry held accountable for something that happened could happen in Boston, in Minneapolis, Albuquerque, you name it.

[00:10:52.410] - Speaker 3

We tend in this profession to get painted with a pretty broad brush. That's the reality of our job. And we have to answer again, fairly or unfairly, we have to answer for the conduct of someone that could be hundreds of miles away.

[00:11:03.420] - Steve Morreale

Well, it seems to me as you're talking, I'm writing a few notes and you mention the word relationship. But much like our own relationships in life, whether it's husband, wife, children, neighbors, friends, you have to work on the relationship. It's not just one and done. And I and I suppose that to me, policing is all about relationships. And I think you have demonstrated that and it's a people oriented business. So part of I think what we do and I'm trying to figure out and I'd love to hear your perspective is how do we learn to listen?

[00:11:32.520] - Steve Morreale

How do your troops learn to listen? Because if we listen, if we ask questions, if we're curious and it's not just on car stops, but we're in the neighborhoods and we're talking to people, that feedback can be very valuable. How do you keep your finger on the pulse of what the community is interested in is worried about?

[00:11:50.670] - Jeff Tate

I think a lot of cities do the surveys. And, you know, there's there's ways you can get little bits and pieces of it. But I and maybe this is a little old school, but I prefer those community engagements where it's over a hotdog, a hamburger. You're meeting people either at their place of faith or we have our police department training room is open and free to the public and it gets used. I don't know how many hundreds of times a year in nine covered years by members of the police department.

[00:12:19.720] - Jeff Tate

So you have those conversations. I'm not a big fan of these big listening sessions where everybody's in an auditorium. I've done them before. And I think that allows folks to grandstand. I think people get caught up in the moment. And I prefer those kind of organic conversations over a meal, over a popsicle or a soda. We had a soda in the park thing just just last week where we went to the skate park with kids. And there's great video of our cops being taught by the kids how to ride skateboards.

[00:12:53.460] - Jeff Tate

No injuries, thankfully, injured on their hands. But, you know, if you do that and you're authentic with it and that's a big piece of it, I think you have to be authentic. You can't you can fake authenticity, but not for very long. People know you care and you're willing to get off a dime and solve their problem. They're going to they're going to be invested in you and trust you. And those conversations just for me, Steve, again, I know communities that did these big listening sessions and they turned into a 90 minute, you know, we hate cops fest.

[00:13:26.040] - Speaker 3

What gets solved there personally? Again, this is just me. I don't think anything gets solved in those big let's have a listening session in the auditorium and I get more. And I think our city and departments get more information when it's one on one. You spread your officers out and they have those conversations and bring back that input, what they hear from the community. And you can't just do it one night a year with night. It has to be a continuing effort for community engagement.

[00:13:55.350] - Steve Morreale

So we're talking with Jeff Tate, the police chief in Shakopee, Minnesota. So I appreciate your feedback. There's a couple of things that I'm wondering. How do you drive that through the organization? How do you obviously it's hiring its culture. It's expectations. It's asking people to do more, listening to be more accessible. And it seems to me that's contrary to what so many police departments do. How would you measure that? How do you measure those things?

[00:14:22.260] - Steve Morreale

Since we count beans, how many stops did you make? How many of those were felonies? How many of those were tickets? How many of those were warnings? How do you and your agency capture that positive community outreach?

[00:14:34.560] - Jeff Tate

I'm glad you went down this road because I think it gets to a broader question. I guess I'll circle back to later. But just internally, we have about seventy-six percent of our staff actively volunteer in the community. It'll be over 80 percent this year. It does get the hiring and it does mean that you have to be extremely selective in your hiring process, regardless of whether you like the organization or the community organization that you have, want you to keep going or you need a culture change or you need to inject some kind of change into your organization policies.

[00:15:10.320] - Jeff Tate

And some of these laws that these politicians are kicking around, I don't think are going to have the impact they they think it is. People change organizations. And our biggest struggle moving forward, without question, is going to be finding those service driven individuals, idealistic, service driven individuals, convincing them that they can have an impact and. Can have make a difference, this younger generation wants to leave a print, a footprint on what they do, they want to have a job where there's meaning and you have to tap into those individuals.

[00:15:43.040] - Jeff Tate

I'm not a big guy, Steve. When I went through the academy, I was told, Al, you're kind of short guy to be five eight. And I don't care how much hockey you played. How are you going to break up a bar fight? Right. You had to be six, too, and look like an hourglass. That's what we envision police officers as. And that's not what we hire for now. It's it's that empathetic, character driven hiring.

[00:16:05.030] - Jeff Tate

If you hire those people, that is the in my view, the number one thing that will impact your culture. Your leadership has to have buy in to that culture. It doesn't happen necessarily overnight. But if you hire the right people, you it can happen measuring in our city again, I talk about the things like our volunteer rate, our participation in certain community events. We had a picnic with the police last year in June, about three weeks after the George Floyd incident.

[00:16:34.430] - Jeff Tate

And we specifically invited our community communities of color. We have a huge Russian-speaking population, our Native American, Hispanic population, our high schools, majority nonwhite. And so we're a very diverse community and it's been a better year. So I can say this. No, no, we had over 700 people show up for that event. And during a pandemic, that to me tells me we're resonating, especially at that time, as hot as everything was, that we're resonating and we have the trust of the community.

[00:17:05.660] - Jeff Tate

When you see that kind of participation in that kind of active participation, I should say, from the community to come out to that event was the first time we did it. And this year we're doing it in August and we're looking forward to it again, without masks, I hope without mask.

[00:17:19.910] - Steve Morreale

That's a difference.

[00:17:21.770] - Jeff Tate

We'll be able to. But it just the pictures that we had and that was a therapy night for cops to including myself, it's still probably the best night I've ever had in my career was that night the number of people of color that came up to you and said, we support you, put their arm around you a little bit, understood that we need policing to function in a democratic society. We need role enforce and everybody's invested in their safety. And we have to we have to have those relationships and that trust of the community.

[00:17:50.690] - Jeff Tate

And you can see the officers that were present that night had a little bit of a bounce in their step.

[00:17:55.190] - Steve Morreale

So chief,  a couple of things.  Arresting. I understand it because I'm a second career academic. And I mean, that I had thirty years in law enforcement. And arrest is one of the things that we have. No one else has that authority. But the reality is there's only a small percentage of our time that is spent arresting. Could you make could you make an assessment of how much time out of one hundred percent of your officers time is spent actually placing hands on people?

[00:18:22.040] - Steve Morreale

Because it seems to me a very small, small ratio.

[00:18:25.190] - Jeff Tate

I know that just in crime in general, less than one third of all calls we go to involve a crime at all in our city and probably have about two or three percent that actually where you're putting the handcuffs on individuals. And when that happens, response to resistance reports that we have filled out. It's less than one half of one percent of all of those arrests where you're actually physically putting handcuffs on people involved, any type of use of force at all, so that

[00:18:52.940] - Steve Morreale

There's compliance mostly.

[00:18:54.380] - Jeff Tate

Right.

[00:18:55.040] - Jeff Tate

You know, there's compliance in terms of force. And this isn't just the shock police department. I think nationwide use of force is, you know, in particular, deadly force is historically down over time. And it is a very, very small part of what we do. The job has changed significantly in terms of mental health and those those types of calls that we go on now and the amount of time it occupies an officer's time compared to twenty three years ago when I was green and got in the squad car for the first time.

[00:19:28.340] - Jeff Tate

So that's changed. But the overall it's a small, small part of what we actually do.

[00:19:33.920] - Steve Morreale

So a couple of things that come to mind with me and we talked before we started and when we talked a couple of weeks ago, I remember saying something or asking the question how you felt, because it seemed to me that there's an awful lot of chiefs out there that are hiding that are not saying a thing, that are not reaching out, that are not reinforcing that. My police department, our police department, your police department is doing this. We don't do that.

[00:19:59.150] - Steve Morreale

We're learning from the mistakes of others. We're trying to avoid that. And I think that silence is a problem. And I'm curious to know what your feeling is. You're a you're a member of a chiefs association. And it sounds to me like you're not afraid to be outspoken and say this is us and that's not us. So talk about that, if you could.

[00:20:16.400] - Jeff Tate

That's one of the things you mentioned are Minnesota Chiefs Association that we're we've started a tactical communications committee and that I'm on just to do exactly what you said. It's time to not push back, not punch back. But it's time.

[00:20:30.340] - Speaker 2

To help set the record straight,

[00:20:32.420] 

Yes, set the record straight where it needs to go. We have to, but we're not always right, but we're not always wrong either. But I look at Gallup. Gallup still has this is what the fifth most respected profession in the country ahead of clergy. And we're historically we're down in that Gallup poll in terms of where we've been in the past and the gap when you look at the the numbers based by race, we've got a lot of work to do there.

[00:20:57.370] - Jeff Tate

But we're not going to fix problems. We're not going to move the needle forward if we're afraid to at least engage in those conversations. And there's a way, I think we can do this strategically again with the help of the community and not come across as being overly defensive. Put the shield up and it'll all get better. And for one tragedy away from everybody loving cops. Again, it's changed and it's changed forever. And we have to be able to have an active conversation.

[00:21:25.060] - Steve Morreale

That's not going to happen with some of the flame throwers that are out there. I don't want to get engaged with some of those folks that just want to stir things up. But if you're a problem solver and you invested in doing that or have an interest in solving problems and moving the needle forward, get on board the bus, because we're we want to move that that train forward. And again, like we talked about, Steve, we have to be able to get out there.

[00:21:47.590] - Jeff Tate

And I think this, again, in my opinion, this might rub some folks the wrong way, but I think we use covid as an excuse. Last year, sometimes we were handcuffed politically or handcuffed by covid, but it didn't mean we could never go out and engage in the public or we couldn't hold some meetings or we couldn't do certain things. You just had to do it safely. And there's no excuse now. And we have to get back into the community, not just one night a year kind of a thing or once every other month.

[00:22:14.530] - Steve Morreale

Well, doesn't it go back to relationships? I mean, exactly what we were saying, that you can't you can't ignore a relationship at home or down the hall by by just walking by and saying hi and not sitting down and knowing people and those kinds of things. So you have to continually work on the relationship. And when it's wounded, it seems to me that you have to kind of work on it, right?

[00:22:32.320] - Jeff Tate

You do. And you can't be afraid of the questions. You can't be afraid. Some of them are going to be hard. Look, law enforcement has not always stood on the right line of justice. Historically, we haven't. There's a lot of baggage that our young cops have now that they had no hand in creating, but they're in charge of fixing it. And it's not going to happen if we're afraid to answer the tough questions, admit our faults, but also point out some facts and some disturbing trends that are coming forward here.

[00:23:01.600] - Jeff Tate

We'll see it with some of the numbers.

[00:23:02.980] - Steve Morreale

Yeah, Covey will say seek first to understand, then be understood, which means you have to listen and you have to you have to be able to shake shake hands and and introduce yourself. So how do you do that? So let's move towards the community policing thing. It seems to me that there's been some mission creep. We have taken on things that we probably shouldn't and we keep doing it. Are these conversations that you're having in the command staff meetings?

[00:23:23.620] - Steve Morreale

That's a huff. That's a huff.

[00:23:25.630] - Jeff Tate

Well, I'm trying to remember the former Milwaukee chief Ed Flynn, had had a great comment on this, that law enforcement was never designed or intended to be the first stop for all these social services, whether it's addiction, homelessness, the mentally ill or we are. We are. I mean, look at all the co-responder models you see popping up all over the country in law enforcement. And as a society, we've walked away for decade upon decade and political leaders have thrown everything.

[00:23:54.640] - Jeff Tate

They don't want to deal with that and police officers and expected them to solve all the problems. They don't want to solve generational poverty, some of the urban poverty and crime, violent crime that plagues us. So my hope is that through all of these conversations, Steve, that moves beyond policing, that we take a broader look at what we're doing or what we haven't done for a while now on mental health. So are our officers. Shouldn't be the first call when someone refuses to take their meds.

[00:24:23.470] - Jeff Tate

There's other ways to solve these issues. We've looked at that through some of the civilian hires that we've made. Throwing a uniformed cop at the problem is not always the answer. And I think we have to balance defund, the police with now refund some of these other services. That will take a load off our shoulders. And again, that intensity and the frequency of mental health calls that we're seeing now, it's unbelievable compared to when I started.

[00:24:52.150] - Jeff Tate

It's our number one call, another one medical call, and it's not even close. So we have a lot of these in command staff meetings. We talk a lot about what's the best way to handle that problem and how can we engage the county, other resources? Are we the best? And some of those conversations have led to some pretty significant changes in how we respond to these calls. Sometimes we don't sometimes we don't go in in the house that when I started, we would have gone in and tried to we've got to get in and save that suicidal subject.

[00:25:21.730] - Jeff Tate

Well, if they're the only person in the house and they're the only ones making threats towards themselves, why are we going in? Why are we sending a uniformed armed. Into that and what are the potential outcomes? So there's a lot of you're seeing a lot of changes in terms of when do we pursue people, when do we go into these houses, risk assessment

[00:25:41.670] - Steve Morreale

And what are the alternatives, I'm sure.

[00:25:43.290] - Jeff Tate

Yeah.

[00:25:43.590] - Steve Morreale

And what are the alternatives?

[00:25:45.090] - Steve Morreale

So it seems to me when you talk about community policing, it seems to me that you can't do community policing without collaborating, you know, cooperating with us and having in your toolbox some of that, someone you can call at two o'clock in the morning. The real problem, though, Chief, is that you know, that so many of these agencies are not available on the weekends and so that the next best is call the cops. And we don't say no very often.

[00:26:07.050] - Jeff Tate

We don't.

[00:26:07.800] - Jeff Tate

And it's going to be interesting in the next few years how particularly on some of these mental health calls home, we've walked away from from suicidal subjects and the family's not been happy when that happens. And it's been resolved thankfully well down the road. But when you explain to them that depending on the study between, what, 20 percent, maybe to a third, depending on the study of officer involved shootings or suicide by cop. Yes. Why are we going into some of these calls?

[00:26:32.730] - Jeff Tate

And we have to take a hard look at what our true mission is. What should we be doing? What shouldn't we be doing? We're not experts on every disorder and addiction and those types of things. We can help facilitate conversations to someone who is and I hope that's where we go down the road.

[00:26:49.170] - Steve Morreale

You're trying to get into a situation in your agency where you can figure out where to do some handoffs, write some basically some laterals to other agencies.

[00:26:57.420] - Jeff Tate

Yeah, we're trying to develop those partnerships, whether it's at a county or a treatment facility, and there's ways to do that. One of the things I'm really proud of that our department done in the last few years is we've worked with our treatment providers for addiction, people that are addicted to either alcohol or drugs in our community. Our department is partner with five local treatment facilities throughout our our area. And if you are a resident and you want to go to treatment and are struggling to pay your deductible through grants, donations and asset forfeiture funds, our department offers scholarships and we're close to 50 scholarships to people that have taken advantage of that program in the last five years.

[00:27:37.530] - Steve Morreale

Wait a minute. Did you say scholarships for treatment?

[00:27:40.140] - Jeff Tate

Treatment, yes! Absolutely.

[00:27:41.910] - Steve Morreale

Well isn't that unique.

[00:27:41.910] - Jeff Tate

Yes, we'll pay their deductible. We helped pay their deductible. I know a lot of departments will not arrest you and take you to treatment. There's a lot of things that have. But one of the biggest hurdles we found from listening to the treatment providers, one of the biggest barriers is the financial burden that some of the folks have, whether through the doc. Usually it's their deductible. They're struggling with work and transportation, those types of things.

[00:28:06.270] - Jeff Tate

So we've created a fund that we they apply to our department. They go through a quick process and agree to sign a release. And we pay the treatment provider directly and it's up to three thousand dollars. But there's been times where people have met all their obligations and still need more help financially or more time in treatment can be inpatient, outpatient, and we help pay for that. So it's been a great partnership and I've actually made some friends over the years through these folks, so some of our officers.

[00:28:35.920] - Jeff Tate

So it's another way to skin the cat, right. Have those partnerships helped those folks that that are struggling and make sure that you're looking for a long term solution and getting rid of barriers such as the financial burden of treatment?

[00:28:50.160] - Steve Morreale

That's amazing to me. I don't think I've ever heard that before and all the people I have talked to. So that that's so admirable. You have to be proud for that. I think that's so important. Thank you for that. I want to keep chatting because this is this to me is very fascinating. Let's talk about diversity, diversity of the community and the diversity of your agency and how you work to try to diversify the people who you told me both wear uniforms or are civilians, because it seems to me also the comment that you made that you're now hiring some civilian personnel to help the agency is it's contrary to what so many other agencies do, because a union will get in and say that's a police job.  I don't want to give that up. But that seems to me to be quite radical. I see a smile. So that might have been an uphill battle at first until you bring them on. What can you tell us about that.

[00:29:36.070] - Jeff Tate

I'm smiling because we actually have the opposite here. Some of the things that are civilians are doing is exactly what the police didn't want to do with them but didn't want to do. So it kind of took some things off their plate. And I've never understood that struggle again. You can't throw in a uniform officer every single problem there are. You want to talk about benefits to the department. And this was kind of an unforeseen benefit, bringing in some of the civilian staff that we have to engage victims, community coordinators, even to help our detectives with evidence collection and things like that.

[00:30:09.270] - Jeff Tate

We have in our break room we have one hundred and fifty channels on cable, right on the TV. We only need to ESPN and Fox News. Right. Well, that's your opinion. But you're right. You're right. You're right. They're the only two that are ever on Steve, right? Yes. But we have these civilians that come from a little bit different background and educational background to. Different classes and all of a sudden the echo chamber, you realize what an echo chamber you were working in, and I think that can be to our detriment as law enforcement and we retreat to the break room or the locker room.

[00:30:42.070] - Jeff Tate

And there's times you need to do that. People do understand exactly what we do and sometimes you need to vent. I get that. But it started slowly and gradually got bigger and bigger and bigger where our civilian staff. Why do you tell me why that is? Why wouldn't you know what I mean? They interject into some scenarios that could talk around the office in the break room. And it's it's provided a a more balanced point of view. And I think that's been healthy for our organization. Absolutely.

[00:31:10.780] - Steve Morreale

That's so good to hear. So we just finished talking about the civilianization of some of your positions and it seemed to work to your benefit. I appreciate that. And I hope others who are listening can benefit in the same way from exploring that. In terms of diversity of your selection, how are you doing that? How are you doing at it? There's something, as you well know, that is a move, especially through the IACP and PERF and such and the Department of Justice, 30 by 30.

[00:31:36.190] - Steve Morreale

And what it is, is that I don't know if you've heard this, but 30 percent women in policing by 2030. And that seems to be pushing. And, you know, I show up at so many trainings for sergeants and even for executive level, and there's not a woman in there, and never mind persons of color. But I'm curious to know how you feel about that and what you're doing to try to diversify your staff, to reflect what the community is made up of.

[00:32:02.830] - Jeff Tate

I think this is the one of the biggest challenges we face moving forward is an expectation that we are going to look our staff will look like the community we serve. And I understand the desire to do that. Our applicant pool does not look like our community right now. We've done very well hiring female, finding female candidates and promoting. And we have a strong and historically known for for, well, more than a decade female leadership within the police department in our metro area here, just in Minnesota, we have several female chiefs.

[00:32:38.050] - Jeff Tate

So the thing that frustrates me when I hear that expectation come about looking like the community. We're a very white department here in shock. I absolutely admit that the problem we've tried, we try with our school resource officers to recruit. We try working a number of that recruitment angle to get those qualified candidates of color bring them into our department. However, some of the same folks that are demanding that we have a more diverse police department, these communities, we need to recruit the most communities of color.

[00:33:09.400] - Jeff Tate

The only time they ever hear from their leaders, Steve, is to crucify and vilify law enforcement. So what are we doing to any potential applicant pool? I mean, we're we're destroying it. Yet there's this expectation you need to be like this tomorrow. Well, I may only have three or four retirements a year or people leave that type of thing. I think certainly some departments may be easier based on the number of folks they hire. But right now, we need people beyond law enforcement to help us on the recruiting front.

[00:33:37.600] - Steve Morreale

That's that's actually a very good point, because recruiting and retention is an issue.

[00:33:41.620] - Jeff Tate

It's our number one issue. It's our number one way to move forward is, again, hiring those quality people. I have again, we work in a very diverse city. I don't get racial complaints because we hire people who are empathetic, not that can bench press the most, but who are empathetic, service driven individual. If we focus on that, I think a lot of the problems you see in some departments will go away. There are some very diverse police departments that have a lot of issues.

[00:34:07.120] - Jeff Tate

I always say it's not the golden ticket out of this. It's hiring the right people throughout it. But we are at an extreme disadvantage in the communities, particularly the communities we need to recruit in the most, when a lot of times the only time they're hearing from their political leaders or activists is to absolutely vilify us. And we can only hope that this is, again, part of that message about getting out right, being part of these conversations and challenging these folks that are standing shoulder to shoulder in solidarity to pick up an application.

[00:34:40.160] - Jeff Tate

You really want to solve what ails you or ails the profession. You've got to be a part of it.

[00:34:47.430] - Steve Morreale

You've got to be a part of the agency to be a part of the solution. I understand. Well, let's wind down, Chief. We're talking to Jeff Tate from Shakopee, Minnesota Police Department. So let's talk about your next fiscal year coming. And you're thinking of three things that you need to deal with. What's on your to do list? Not the top three. Reduce the top three, but what are the things you're trying to accomplish in that in the upcoming year?

[00:35:08.890] - Jeff Tate

Number one is improve our response and into medical mental health calls, have a better solution driven response that we have, making sure again that we're getting the right people there. We're taking a harder, harder look at, again, other civilian positions, co-responder models that might be advantageous for us. So that's one. We continue to grow unfortunate in this part of a lot of other cities that financially and part of that's due to growth that we are expanding, we're going to be asking for two additional sworn law enforcement officers where we're going to find them.

[00:35:42.270] - Jeff Tate

I don't know, based on some of the numbers I'm seeing other departments get in the applicant pool and then retention. Keep keep pushing our folks on a professional development level. We haven't solved everything yet. We have to keep pushing forward. And you do that department's cut their training budget to their own detriment. That's our R&D. And we have to make sure that we are developing our next the next person that's going to sit in this seat, captains seat, sergeants.

[00:36:09.960] - Jeff Tate

And maybe it's that officer that, you know what I don't want to ever be promoted. OK, but you're a pretty damn good detective or child crime investigator or those types of things. Make sure that they're being challenged and encouraged in their professional development to. So the training budget remains a focus for us. Our department is not afraid to bring in a national instructor and a fireman and make sure that it's not just quantity, it's it's quality of training as well.

[00:36:35.790] - Steve Morreale

So that's great. So we have been listening and I have been impressed with the conversation I've been able to have with Jeff Tate, the chief of Shakopee, Minnesota Police Department. So I thank you. You've been listening to Steve Morreale in Boston, Jeff Tate in Minnesota, and this is The CopDoc Podcast. Thanks so much for listening. And we'd ask that you keep listening and spread the word for us. Stand by for the next episode.

[00:37:00.420] - Outro

Thanks for listening to The CopDoc Podcast with Dr. Steve Morreale. Steve is a retired law enforcement practitioner and manager turned academic and scholar from Worcester State University. Please tune in to The CopDoc Podcast for regular episodes of interviews with thought leaders in policing.

[00:37:21.000] - Steve Morreale

Hi, everybody. A few things before you leave. First, thanks for listening. I'm so gratified to see the downloads rising in the last few months, not only from the U.S. but from across the globe. It's surprising and humbling to find students, colleagues and practitioners listening. We have a growing number of listeners in Canada, Ireland, England, Northern Ireland, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Colombia. We appreciate your time and energy and welcome feedback.

[00:37:44.460] - Speaker 2

Please feel free to reach out to me by email at The CopDoc Podcast at Gmail dot com. That's cop dot podcast at Gmail dot com. Check out our website at The CopDoc Podcast dot com. Please take the time to share podcasts podcast with your friend if you find value in the discussions. We've had so many amazing guests and more to come who have shared their wisdom, their thoughts, their viewpoints and their innovative ideas. Most importantly, a huge thank you to those of you who show up for work in policing every day, not knowing the kinds of calls that you'll be sent on or the kinds of situations you'll find yourself in, you risk your lives for people, many of whom you don't know.

[00:38:22.320] - Steve Morreale

And for that, we owe you a debt of gratitude. A big thanks. I hope you stay safe, healthy and look forward to hearing from you. And I hope you'll continue to listen to upcoming episodes of The CopDoc Podcast. Thanks very much.