The CopDoc Podcast: Aiming for Excellence in Leadership
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The CopDoc Podcast delves into police leadership and innovation. The focus is on aiming for excellence in the delivery of police services across the globe.
Dr. Steve Morreale is a retired law enforcement practitioner, a pracademic, turned academic, and scholar from Worcester State University. Steve is the Program Director for LIFTE, Command College - The Leadership Institute for Tomorrow's Executives at Liberty University.
Steve shares ideas and talks with thought leaders in policing, academia, community leaders, and other related government agencies. You'll find Interviews with thought leaders drive the discussion to improve police services and community relationships.
The CopDoc Podcast: Aiming for Excellence in Leadership
Leading With Trust: Insights from Deputy Chief Ben Murphy
Season 6 - Episode 135
Ever wondered what it takes to lead a police department effectively while fostering community trust and engagement? Join us as we sit down with Ben Murphy, the Deputy Chief of East Windsor Police Department,in Connecticut. Dive into his journey from New Britain Police Department to his current leadership role. A third-generation police officer, Ben shares how his family's legacy and his passion for public service shaped his career, along with the rigorous training at prestigious institutes like the FBI National Academy that honed his leadership philosophy.
Gain insights into the strategies that make a successful law enforcement leader. We discuss the importance of explaining the "why" behind decisions and involving officers in the decision-making process to ensure they feel heard and valued. Ben elaborates on the critical role of sergeants as influencers and the nuances of managing diverse teams by identifying informal leaders. The conversation highlights the necessity of credibility, character, and leading by example, as well as the distinction between management and leadership in fostering a supportive and fair work environment.
Community trust is paramount in policing, and Ben Murphy shares his approach to building it through proactive engagement and transparency. Learn about initiatives like Citizens Academies and CERT teams that bridge the gap between officers and the communities they serve. We also explore the evolving nature of policing, including collaboration with social services and mental health professionals, and the importance of continuous learning and professional development. Tune in to discover how showcasing positive interactions can humanize officers and counter negative narratives, and get a peek at future episodes featuring more notable figures in law enforcement.
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
Welcome to The CopDoc Podcast. This podcast explores police leadership issues and innovative ideas. The CopDoc shares 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 Tthe CopDoc podcast.
Steve Morreale:Hi everybody. Steve Morreale coming to you from Boston today and we're going to another New England state just south of me, Connecticut, and today we have Ben Murphy who is the deputy chief of the East Windsor Police Department. Hello there, Ben.
Ben Murphy:Hey Doc, how are you sir?
Steve Morreale:Glad to have you finally. You were a student in a master of science in counterterrorism where I believe you took both border security and leadership. You were previously an officer for a long time in the acting or interim chief in New Britain, connecticut, a bigger department than you are now, and now you're in East Windsor. Talk about how long you've been, your career and what brought you to East Windsor.
Ben Murphy:Sure. So policing for me is something that's it's more than a job. You know we talk about it often. You know, with leadership as a profession, it's almost a way of life For me. I'm a third generation police officer. Grandfather, my dad, several uncles were all on the job. Side note, jumping ahead here I got an 18-year-old who's going to college for criminal justice. So I love the profession, I love what it stands for, but really don't know what you're doing. Through high school I was looking at maybe a firefighter, police officer, maybe something security or military related. Decided somewhere along my senior year I wanted to go for law enforcement. That's what I went to school for. I went for criminal justice.
Intro and Outro :At the age of 21,.
Ben Murphy:I was offered a conditional offer of employment for the city of New Britain. It was the second police test I had taken. Had a couple tilted heads at the time, because my dad and grandfather were both state troopers and, truth be told, with a lot of respect to our friends in the state, policing driving up and down the highway for at least the early onset of my career, it didn't really appeal to me as a younger officer. So I took the opportunity. I started DeRode in 2002.
Ben Murphy:I was 22 years old and I worked for 21 and a half years for the city of New Britain. I held every rank and held command in every division, including patrol, criminal investigations and professional standards had the opportunity. Probably one of the things I enjoyed most was being on a SWAT team. I served for 11 years on a tactical unit as a breacher, as a team leader and then team commander for three, and I retired in July of 2023. I served 21 and a half years for the city. As you mentioned, I had served as an interim chief for three months. You kind of know your worth and you know what your capabilities are, and so I had kind of run my course because my goal then and continue is to serve as a leader in the agency.
Ben Murphy:If I'm capped for movement, I might as well choose to go elsewhere, so I elected to retire at the time. While that was taking place, I was actually finishing up your class and taking into my last master's program for counterterrorism.
Steve Morreale:So I remember having a conversation with you where you were telling me what you might want to do, what you were going to do, what you're thinking of doing, and that you were going to retire and move into another area. And then I remember you a few days or weeks later saying I've changed my mind. You must have the bug. It's in you. You say I still have something in the tank and I want to give back. Is that what happened?
Ben Murphy:I had a couple of job offers that were paid very well, paying more than what I'd be able to make here in regards to security directors.
Ben Murphy:But what I also found out about the private industry is you're also as good as your first big incident and, unlike somewhat like policing, where you can kind of position people a little bit more, if you're a security director, you may not have any control over who for GARDA or Crisis 24, whomever one of these companies is putting as your security personnel, who you're in charge of, and so you can build your immediate team and often, when there's layers below you, if something gets dropped, you are not generating money for most companies.
Ben Murphy:You are basically a cost to them for security, whether we want to admit it or not, and so at my age 43, now 44, I wasn't comfortable with getting into that area, even with a higher paycheck. But again, it so happened at the same time I got offered the current position I'm in. I was offered the chief's position in Somerville, massachusetts, the same exact day, and I had to make a decision with my wife and kids as to do. I want to pursue this, which means moving out of state and changing up our lives, or taking this position here, which is completely divergent from city policing, is now where I'm at, a much more rural community.
Steve Morreale:During your time and obviously what I want to dig into is about leadership and how your leadership grew and what your approaches are and how our approaches in leading as young leaders change over time. They actually morph. You've been able to go to the FBI National Academy, which is amazing, smip for PERF, senior Management Institute for Policing and the Southern Policing Institute, so there's an awful lot of training and opportunities for you to hear from people from all over the country in policing. How did that attendance help you frame your leadership approach?
Ben Murphy:So I think at first, I made sergeant in 2008. I was just turned 28 years old and I had a brand new squad of young officers 21 to 24 years old and my philosophy back then was lead by example, and I still think that that's as important then as it is today. But you can't just hang your hat on that. You need to understand your people too. So I got a lot more of this training. We got to start taking these DISC assessments.
Ben Murphy:You started learning about the philosophies of leadership in regards to when is it time to be democratic, when is it time to be autocratic. Are you a transformational leader? And I know they sound like buzzwords, but when you start digging into them, they're all applicable and it's how you do it. I love the term servant leader. We heard that often, I think when I was first in Southern Police Institute in 2017, and that really got hammered home and expanded upon in the last number of years.
Ben Murphy:For me, that's what I try to model myself as best is looking at your people first, looking at the community you serve first, because they had something written on the wall and I echo this as often as I can down the DNA is that leadership is a choice, it's not a rank, and that is probably the most profound leadership quote I've seen in my 22 and a half years and I firmly believe that. And so attending these schools and talking with professionals, you know you learn a lot of things. I made friends with a lot of chiefs and deputies from agencies of 20 to 2000 plus people and some of the bigger ones out in California. The problems that we might encounter here in an agency I serve now of 28 are no different than maybe what Bridgeport, connecticut, you know, deals with 400 officers. Fort Connecticut deals with 400 officers. So leadership challenges are the same. Strategies often are the same, as how you implement them and to what scale, particularly based on your personnel and that's something I learned is there's not one size fits all.
Steve Morreale:And I appreciate you echoing that, because I believe that and the common denominator is we're dealing with people both inside and outside of the organization and there are so many mistakes that seem to be made that get called to the national and international attention. Those should be treated, in my mind, as learning opportunities and assessments to say, hey, look what just happened in Illinois, look what happened in Memphis, look what happened in Minneapolis. How are we working to avoid this from happening here? I want to dig into something. When you become a leader my own experience and your experiences it's no longer about you, but it's about your people and how you can develop your people and how you can guide your people and how you can mentor people and pay attention to those that need a little bit extra attention, keep them on the right path Over time. Here you are coming from a good-sized police department. Let's do some comparison here New Britain had how many officers?
Ben Murphy:165 sworn.
Steve Morreale:Okay, and now you have in the 20s, 28 sworn, okay, and obviously the population is much different. But you walk into a new place. You've got police experience, you've got education, you've got training, you've made your steps and missteps with being a leader, but you're walking into a place you don't know yet. Tell us what you did and what your mindset was when you came into this new position to support a chief, but to also understand the culture of the police department, so that you could understand how to approach your leadership actions.
Ben Murphy:I came in here understanding that kind of like the first pillar of 21st century policing. You have to build trust and legitimacy. Right, we know the six pillars of policing and the first one, building trust and legitimacy. Now I come in with a good resume, right, my actions have spoken for you know some of the accolades good, bad and different. You don't serve in policing for 22 plus years. You don't serve as a leader in the supervisor position for 16 plus without making missteps, but you're coming in as an unknown and one of the major differences not only population size, just for comparison from an agency of 165 sworn, where it's much lower socioeconomic population right, very poor city compared demographically to where I'm at now the policing style and the service required is different. You go from a lot of crime prevention still citizen engagement, community policing to direct customer service also crime prevention and community policing, and you have to weigh that. And so when I came in I made a concerted effort, I wanted to meet everybody one-on-one and I think the open door concept you say it at face value it's kind of BS because and I say that like this, I have no delusion that a 23-year-old kid on midnights, when I leave the door open, is going to walk into the deputy chief's office from midnight, wait an hour and come talk to me, and so I make an opportunity to go and approach them, whether it's in the lunchroom, stopping on a road job, catching them in the locker room. One of the great things about this small agency we have a wellness committee. We all get together once a month. We go kayaking, we go running, we're going to do a hiking thing in about two weeks. I put my rank aside. I'm there with the folks because, again, as a smaller agency, you see everybody and they get to know you.
Ben Murphy:I recently had the opportunity, last Saturday, of working a midnight shift. I spoke with the sergeant doing the scheduling and they were going to have to hold someone over. I said you know what? It's been 12 years since I pushed the black and white. Let me go work a midnight shift. My wife thought I was nuts. I had a blast. I made a drug arrest, I found a couple of suspicious people, I did a bunch of security checks, we stopped cars and the guys get to see me go out and do it. I don't have to do that in no capacity, you're leading by example.
Ben Murphy:You lead by example and you build some credibility, and it was enjoyable. And so the other end of it, too, is when you start getting involved. I've been here long enough where I've already handled a number of IAs. I met the union president and the union delegates although there's only a handful immediately, and I laid out my philosophy. I'm like listen, I got three approaches to discipline. If there's a problem, it could either be performance, which we can almost always get past conduct abstinent, being criminal.
Ben Murphy:We can get past it. And then there's integrity. If you have an integrity issue, there's not much I can do for you there. Let's keep it at the first two if we have to deal with it. But I'm going to be matter of fact with you and tell you this is what we have coming, this is how I'm going to handle this. There's no surprises, and that built very good bridges immediately and we've been continuing on that since I've been here.
Steve Morreale:Terrific. One of the things that I want to do is to ask you some questions about your approach to leadership, and you've already enumerated a few of them, but, by the way, we're talking to Ben Murphy. He's the deputy chief down at East Windsor, connecticut. I want to talk about some of the things that I have learned to do over time, and I speak about them in many of the trainings that I'm involved in. First thing is, whenever possible, start with explaining why. What does that mean to you?
Ben Murphy:We're seeing that today. Just go on fake book, as my father calls it. Go on social media, turn on the news. If we don't fill the narrative and give the explanation of why we're doing something, people are going to make their own. We see that I think we're the biggest victims of that of all professions in the United States. People filling in narratives, they don't substantiate their claims, whether it's use of force, facial profiling, training, education with officers, the idea of a thin blue wall Like in 2024, with transparency cameras, policies and training like that's a thing of the past. But again, people are going to believe only what's in front of them. So I think with officers, you know when you introduce a new policy, whether it's a policy, whether it's a change in directive it's not only explaining the why. But I'll even go a step further, like get them involved in the decision. At the very least, even if you don't go with what they propose, they have a say in the matter and you can explain the worst thing.
Ben Murphy:You talked about a culture. I walk into a new agency regardless of my tenure on the job and experience. Sacred cows are big things with people and they don't like you tipping them over. So if they have operations a certain way on patrol, even if they're not, if they're not reasonable or productive. If I have to make a change, I have to incrementally do that. I can't come in the next morning and say we're doing it this way, x, y, z. I want to tell them why and get my bosses on board to be surrogates of my message, because if I go out there and just say it to them, well then that's just being almost like a dictator. I'm blanket changing this, whereas if I get my lieutenants, my sergeants, to understand and buy in, then they're providing my message for me and they're essentially my surrogates.
Steve Morreale:That's, I think, how you get better buy-in. It's interesting that you say that because it seems to me that when somebody in your tenure and my tenure, somebody is driving an idea through you that you have to go through and tell people we're going to do this, isn't it better, if you understand the why, in order to explain the why down the line?
Ben Murphy:Yes, a hundred percent%. And I think being open for questions, explaining that is too. Don't just go to roll call and say, hey, we're going to start doing this for check-ins or we're going to start handling investigations this way. Here's why we're doing it, and you might have some dissension. You might have it from the person who's just comfortable with being a note taker, and unfortunately you get that in every agency, right? I'm just using it the example.
Ben Murphy:If we're going to do above and beyond, you have some officers who are note takers, you have those who are on the precipice of excelling in their career and you got others who are already your high performers. That's maybe going to change the tone of how they're doing their job, but answering the questions for them and saying this is the positive reasons why we're doing this, whether it's a state mandate, whether it's a best practice in the industry or whether it's suited for your agency, everything that works here in the East Windsor Police Department may not work to our neighboring town of South Windsor, based on their demographics, their business, their stakeholders, and so I think getting their buy-in and their feedback goes along with that. Why?
Steve Morreale:I got to agree with you there. It also seems to me, and as sergeants, lieutenants and captains are listening from all over the world to the podcast, it strikes me that no matter what the agency, we have A, b and C players, in some cases some D players, except when you were in the SWAT team, let's say we are not handed an all-star team. You know that that happened even on your midnights with the young bucks that were working in East Windsor. So the leader or the supervisor inherits a group of people that are at different levels. You understand I think you just addressed that. But since we don't have an all-star team, how do you work with identifying informal leaders to kind of push out ideas to help people understand the job the way it should be done? Talk about that, ben.
Ben Murphy:When you're at the level of a deputy or a chief, you have to rely heavily on the fact, or at least the belief, that your sergeants and lieutenants have gotten to know and grew their people. One thing, and I kind of want to walk back something not walk back, but kind of revisit the fact of chiefs and deputies make an awful lot of impactful decisions, but to a young officer the sergeant is their world.
Steve Morreale:The sergeant's the boss. The sergeant's the boss, no question.
Ben Murphy:They're the boss. If you're brand new in the neighborhood and you can only see the end of your road, that's your sergeant, that's what your life revolves around, and they around and they have such an impactful way of changing the trajectory of a young officer's career. And so I expect my sergeants to not only work with but know personally their officers. Now, that doesn't mean they have to go out and have beers or invite each other over Christmas dinner, but you should know if somebody's mom is sick, somebody re-enrolled in college, somebody's getting married down the road?
Ben Murphy:Are they having trouble financially? And I think that goes back to again starting with the mentoring programs we run being able to help those out. But you get to know from your supervisors you have to rely on them. Based on our paramilitary structure, who are your informal leaders? I can tell you from my agency.
Ben Murphy:I have a senior corporal. He is 20 years on the job, he has a lot of juice here and he is an outstanding police officer. I like to work with him to get things done through patrol, amongst other things. I identified him. So again, he's one click above officer but he carries a lot of weight with people in the locker room on the road. I know I identified a month on him.
Ben Murphy:That's a guy that they go to because he's very good at his job. He's very good with the citizens, but he's very comfortable where he's at with his rank and I understand that some people don't want more of a burden on their shoulders with the position. But what I do is that's a guy who I'm going to bring into the fold. So, like for us, for example, we're bringing on six or seven new vehicles in the next year. For an agency our size, that's quite a bit. He handles our vehicles. We give him the chief, basically grants him almost full autonomy to order vehicles, purchase vehicles, outfit them, keeping us in the loop, and that goes over well. So you keep someone like that in good graces. So I think this goes back to an I&O book I read for my sergeant's exam in 2008.
Ben Murphy:You give someone a degree of authority, you give them parameters so they don't fail and they don't get hurt in the process If they do well you give them credit. If it goes sideways, you own it as a book.
Steve Morreale:Yeah, well, you know, and that's interesting. You say, like the book and Iononi is a book that I read in 1975, for goodness sakes, I think it's still being written, but the guy died a long time ago, so somebody else is writing it for sure. But I think you're right, and there's a difference between book smarts and street smarts, and I know that. You know that. It seems to me that a leader is about developing others and creating opportunities for an agency to be sustained through its peoples, but also not impose your own singular ideas, but look for other feedback so that your own point of view grows. I'm sure that's happened, so talk about that, unless I'm striking out.
Ben Murphy:So I think one of the things I'm tasked with in my current position is being operations commander, right, essentially all things day to day, whether it's patrol, training, cid. I'm tasked with making sure that's keeping running. And one of the things I like to do is, if I identify something which I might perceive as an issue or hey, is there a better way of doing business, I pull in that sergeant or lieutenant, I pull in that detective sergeant and say what can we do better? I'm going to go with your recommendation because your boot's on the ground. I'm not investigating the robbery of the gas station. I'm not investigating the domestic violence call we just went to. So do you have a better way? And again, I'm going to give them credit and I'm going to follow their advice.
Ben Murphy:You know, I think that goes back to again as a leader showing some kind of humility and that unfortunately gets conflated often with weakness. I think humility is a strength, saying I don't know or I'm willing to acquiesce to what you think is better because you have the better practice, not advocating my responsibility At the end of the day it falls on my shoulders, but I'm going to lean on you and what you think is best for this and if I agree with that and I see it's reasonable, then we're going to go with it. And again, I think that gets going back to the why you get better buy-in from folks too. They feel comfortable that you're going to do that. I think the key where we drop the ball often as leaders is we don't follow through on it. We don't follow through if we say, hey, we're going to do the new way of handling school check-ins based on your recommendation, and we end up not. But I think getting people involved and getting them on the bus is important and keeping them there as well.
Steve Morreale:Think about the evolution from the time you were a sergeant on to lieutenant and on and on and on, and the changes that you had to undertake to understand and practice. Your leadership was different as a sergeant than as his deputy and a chief, but talk about that evolution and how long it took and how many missteps along the way. Making an assumption, maybe you never had a misstep, but I'd be curious about that.
Ben Murphy:Again for working in a larger agency. I worked for some of the most I had leaders at the time I'd walk through hell with gas boots for because I knew that they advocated for me. I go back to when I was a young officer and in 2004, I came in second place with a Buick on my Harley Davidson. Broken bones tore up my face and arms. I had a sergeant pick up my fiancee then wife, drive her code one to the hospital. I had another sergeant of mine show up at my house the next day mowing my yard. I had another check and I mean they didn't have to do that. So that was the world to me. Those were the people who set my impression on policing.
Ben Murphy:I also worked for some supervisors who were not good, moral, ethical people. Literally, you bring in an arrest and they didn't want anything to do with booking because they didn't think it was a just arrest or you would be handling a situation and they'd run two clicks above their rank without having a conversation with you to try to well, I'm going to try to distance myself from this problem without explaining whether we had a probable cause, whether it was a just arrest or there was a use of force and these are people you know. Again I wouldn't let in my house to let my dog out, let alone emulate after them for leadership. You learn that Again. I worked for people. I worked for bosses, captains who did certain things where I would never want to be treated like that again, or nor do I want to treat my people.
Steve Morreale:So, if I can interject here, it seems to me what you're saying in the long way is that we have bosses that are good and bad, and we learn what to do and what not to do, what to emulate and what to avoid. Fair.
Ben Murphy:Correct. And again, you know one of the things I think we do very poorly in this profession, particularly chiefs and deputies, and this may not be supported how somebody conducted themselves, but they don't have the fortitude to stand by that when their feet get held to the fire. And I think that's where you lose credibility with your men and women.
Steve Morreale:Your character is all you got to stand by at the end of the day. So they talk about it but they don't act on it.
Ben Murphy:Yes, it's words, not actions, and I think, if that's the type of leader that you are, I'd have a hard time sleeping at night if I'm going to say one thing and do anything other with the people who are watching me, because one thing I've learned from a sergeant all the way up people are always watching you. Yes, no matter what you do, you want to find out who's watching you. Go on your LinkedIn account on your premium, and it shows you who's clicking your views every single time, and it's very interesting to see the people who are seeing what you're doing, because there's a big difference that people checking on how you're doing and what you're doing. The first care about you and your family. The second wants to keep up on what you're doing.
Steve Morreale:Big difference. Yeah, and that's an interesting perspective, because I'm sure that you have lived in policing where, because of your abilities, because of your likability, because of your efforts to make changes in the proper way, there are people who accept you and embrace you and love having you as partner, and there's others that are threatened by you.
Ben Murphy:I think at this point in my life and in my career, right stands on its own merit. A very good friend of mine, who was a strongly religious man the DNA, said that. He said that in his Mississippi accent to me. He said Ben rot stands on its own merit, and that's as true today as it ever will be. And so if you believe in what you're doing is just and there's a better cause, then there's no reason to push forward with that. And honestly, if you let the opinion of others craft how you live your life, whether it's with your personal family, with your work family, I think you're a weak individual. For me it's. Here are my beliefs, here are my convictions, and we're going to do this. I'm very fortunate now where I'm serving under a chief who's also a good friend of mine. We went to the NA together. We attended SMIP and SPI all together.
Steve Morreale:Isn't that something?
Ben Murphy:But the good thing is his background is very heavily on criminal investigations, so when it comes to operations, training tactics really wasn't his wheelhouse. Let's me handle the things. Obviously, I keep him well informed of what's going on, but we work as a team and I think when you do that I think you have a much better running organization and I think people see that and appreciate that too.
Steve Morreale:Well, we're having a deep conversation on policing and leadership and organization and culture with Ben Murphy. He's the deputy chief down in East Windsor, connecticut. He is somebody who is, I assume, a lifelong learner. But I want to talk about your belief, about being a lifelong learner and realizing that you don't know everything and sometimes, many times, you don't know what you don't know.
Ben Murphy:Right now for me, doc, a concern, and I ask all my sergeants and lieutenants who are our next sergeants and lieutenants and this new generation wants to work, have their time off, but they don't understand that pushing the black and white for 20 years is a long career. So it's incumbent upon us to push down the importance and the utility of being a supervisor and how to impact change, because if you're not in that position, you're not going to be able to make those changes.
Steve Morreale:So, Ben, as I intimated, Mike Marquardt and Bob Tiede wrote a book which I really enjoy, and it's called Leading with Questions, and it strikes me in this way that when we are investigators, we learn how to ask questions, and the really big thing with asking questions is ask the questions and shut up, let the other person talk. I don't know that all leaders do this, but I'm curious to know whether you feel that you lead with questions, that you're in meetings and are posing questions that are probative, that are curious, that almost push the envelope to innovation and creativity, in other words, thinking about new ways to do things. Talk about that.
Ben Murphy:I think you need to decide what type of meeting you're hosting in the first place. If it's something along the lines of explaining the why, going back to that question, that needs to be more of a forum discussion. I believe staff meetings although it's important to get your messages out, your expectations, your objectives that needs to be a forum discussion. You need to discuss with folks like here's what I'm seeing from my seat I sit behind the desk all day. You folks are on the road, you're investigating the follow-ups and the CID. What am I missing? Do I have a skewed view? Am I accurate? And if there is a problem, well, how do we come to a conclusion? I need folks to understand. For example, if I'm looking to change the dynamic of how we're growing our younger officers, here are my recommendations. Why aren't you doing it? Has it been poor modeling? Do you not know how to do it or do you not want to do it? Either way, it's a problem that needs to get fixed, but I'd like to hear that consensus.
Ben Murphy:Another thing I learned very intently and I learned this from one of my sergeants early on in my career who ended up becoming a captain and then a colleague, and then shortly a subordinate before he retired was be very careful. What you consider a door to conversation. There's not too many things that are technically off the record. You can't start off having a one-on-one with somebody and say, hey, this is Ben to Steve, and then you say something that I disagree with and I put on my supervisor hat. You can't do that. You've already basically set the table for it being informal.
Ben Murphy:That also goes in line where as if that doesn't really generally go towards progressive discipline. So you need to different folks as well. This goes back to understanding with like the whole disc assessment and knowing your people. Can you have a door to with somebody? I can tell you through my career, there are a number of guys who I served with on SWAT who I could probably have a door to, whereas maybe certain other people on patrol I wouldn't dream of doing that because the message wouldn't get across as such. So I think having them having a say as well, that kind of goes back to the whole concept of procedural justice, letting people have a voice. I think your employees need to have a say too.
Steve Morreale:So what you're saying. So there's two things I want to say. So you're talking about procedural justice and you just applied it to the internal use of procedural justice, right, which a lot of people are beginning to talk about, but they don't necessarily. If we don't treat our people well inside and they go out and mistreat people outside, are we to blame, right? In other words, if they don't leave here having hope. You know, I just got my ass chewed out, but I have some hope. You know that I can go out and do the job and I'm not going to get penalized, otherwise I'm getting yelled at or screamed at, no different than getting yelled at or screamed at by my mother, my father, your spouse. It carries outside. So I like that use of procedural justice that you just suggested. But before you move too far down the road on that, explain what you mean by door two. Not all players are going to understand what you mean by that.
Ben Murphy:Sure. So I think door two is that this is an unofficial counseling session. This is an unofficial come to Jesus, as I had one boss used to say to me, basically saying we're talking about something you did, we're not going to paper on that. Don't do that again, don't make me have this conversation again. Not everybody is going to respect or appreciate that and others might take offense to that and also understand that when you do that and somebody does that again.
Steve Morreale:You can't use what you just conducted the informal unofficial conversation right?
Ben Murphy:That has to be extremely, scrupulously considered if you're going to be talking to somebody on that. I'm not an advocate of putting everything on paper. There's certain things that you can handle internally, but at the same time, you have to understand is what is the liability? What is the impact on the officer? Is this going to change their behavior? So all those things need to be considered. It's not just a one size fits all.
Steve Morreale:That's a little bit of situational leadership too, because some people are going to accept that, like you just said, without any problem and others are going to run to the union and say I know what he's going to do. He's setting me up, it's that kind of stuff. No, it was meant to be informal, and sometimes those informal conversations can bite you in the ass because they're misinterpreted, misunderstood and they're then turned around and used on you. You're shaking your head, so you understand that. So it's got to be the right person, right that you're doing the informal work with.
Ben Murphy:Yes, and I think also our employees. They want it both ways. I feel the same way. You want a boss who's not capricious. Right, someday you come in and this guy is dropping the hammers to hell, and the next day it's oh hey, you know we're holding hands and singing. You know show tunes, everything's good. You have to be consistent and I think that that's what bosses like you know.
Ben Murphy:Again, I said this beginning Doc, I'm a third-generation police officer. I'm unapologetically pro-police. That doesn't mean I have low standards. My standards for cops are higher than probably most of the hating liberal media who may not like us on certain things. My standards are very high for my officers, but I'm going to defend them until I can't defend them. There's where a big difference is and I think when people understand that and believe that, I think that's where you have that much better relationship and I think that's important. As a leader, you have to support your people. You have to believe that they're out there doing the best of intentions, because 99.9% of us are out there doing that. When you do that and your actions support that, I think that's where you get that good followership.
Steve Morreale:So, as you, we use the word sometimes. Leadership isn't misunderstood. I don't think you misunderstand it, but management and leadership are two different things. And a leader has to manage. There's no question about that. But the leader has to think big, has to think down the road, has to think broader, has to keep banging the gong about, in my mind, improving the organization and, as a byproduct of improving the organization, one of our jobs is to improve our people, to give people opportunities, new opportunities, to talk with them about what you see in them. You just said that you're asking your supervisors who the next sergeants and lieutenants might be. That's an interesting perspective, because you're asking, closer to the road, closer to the work, who do you see that has potential? How does that work?
Ben Murphy:Well, I think it's important. If you truly like and respect the organization and I'll even go a little bit more global, if you will if the profession you're not going to be in this profession, there's a timeline for all of us to hang up our duty belts. And if you truly care about the place and the people, well, someone's going to fill your seat. That's one thing often I think people forget so quickly is we're not just a number, but your seat never gets cold. Someone's chomping at the bit to get your seat. So who are the next people there and who are the right people for there? Are we going to promote somebody who's a good test taker or do we have somebody who's a leader who could maybe use a little bit more mentoring and coaching to get them up to where they can be, because they're missing aspects of that portion of their job? So I think that's vital for the health of any organization to have a good succession plan and to grow your people.
Ben Murphy:Underneath you there's a very popular chief in the state of Connecticut who just retired Chief Brian Gould. And Chief Gould said to me once he goes you know, as a chief of an organization, if you take care of your people and those people take care of the mission, then the mission takes care of itself. And I thought that was rather profound. You take care of your folks. You grow the right people. They're going to do the right things. That makes your job that much easier and that helps continue and flourish and move forward with your agency. I'm sure you can attest to it too. There's people of rank. You know the old I believe. It's correct me if I'm wrong.
Steve Morreale:The Peter principle.
Ben Murphy:They shouldn't have been where they're at and they don't know how to be supervisors.
Steve Morreale:We want to grow the right people for the right reasons. So what's your take on everything that's swirling around for policing and whether we're moving back to center along the way? Even small departments lost some public sentiment because of what other people did. I intimated earlier about using situations that crop up in the field that bring disrepute to policing and how we, I think, as a profession, need to sit with our people to talk about that, to assess that in some cases, monday morning quarterback even though we're Monday morning quarterbacking a colleague how do you see it going? Is it working better? Is it all about relationships? Think about back to New Britain and how important relationships were with all the neighborhoods and now in East Windsor with the different segments. Tell me your thoughts about that.
Ben Murphy:So I think you need to set expectations from the beginning. One of the things you know I tell any rookie cop. I explain this to my 18-year-old son, who's potentially going to be looking to get on the job in three, four years Law enforcement is a pendulum. We are also political football. During the George Floyd incident, we were the jackbooted thugs of the world. January 6th took place and we were the heroes of the nation and fill in the gap.
Steve Morreale:Yeah 9-11 happened and we were amazing and we loved America.
Ben Murphy:And so that's always going to happen, and I don't think it's going away in your or my lifetime because of the proliferation of social media, and so what I think is important is again going back to filling in the narrative and providing education on what we do. I have no scientific way of substantiating this. I'd say 90% of the community does not know what we do, what we're allowed to do, how we train and why we do what we do. So that's where your community policing comes in. We've recently just ran a Citizens Academy.
Steve Morreale:I saw that. I saw that on LinkedIn. Yes, I did see that.
Ben Murphy:And we had huge turnout and it was incredible how many people were involved and learned so much and we got rave reviews and they weren't all there yet as waving thin blue line flags. I had a handful of people at the very beginning. They were very standoffish but they wanted to know about what we did, programs like that we're starting. Actually part of my afternoon today here is finishing up. We're putting together a CERT team, a Citizen Emergency Response Team.
Steve Morreale:Oh, great.
Ben Murphy:Getting people involved. So when they serve as our force multiplier and serve in emergency situations, going to the senior center and talking to the seniors, working with police explorer programs or police athletic leagues and working with kids All of those are so important because you get to impart a little bit of what we do, but they also are not being force-fed. That you know. Again, it is us versus them. If you have an us versus them attitude in law enforcement, it's time to retire. Those days are long, long gone. There's not any model of policing which anybody supports anymore and it's counterproductive.
Ben Murphy:I think getting people involved and getting the people from the communities involved and taking some accountability for their neighborhoods and stuff too, that was a big thing which sometimes that big A word scares some folks. You need to take accountability for your actions, for your neighborhood, which means calling us, reporting things, adhering to the laws or ordinances which do apply to you, but again, being seen as somebody who's a part of your community. I don't currently live in East Windsor, but I am absolutely a part of this community. I didn't live in the city of New Britain. I was absolutely part of that community. I'm an integral part of that community and that's why I want people to see me and the officers? Because, frankly, if you're out there eight to 16 hours a day pushing the black and white or serving in the schools and SRO, you're seeing the people in this community likely more than your family during your working week. It's the way it is.
Steve Morreale:So I think we do a poor job. You probably are working towards improving that. It's a poor job of humanizing our job, of patting people on the back, of pushing officers to make friends. I mean, enforce the law when necessary, but to make friends. And, ben, as we talk about policing and we're talking generally, people who listen are in the business. Law enforcement is just a piece, a small piece of policing right the community understanding collaboration with other organizations, with social service agencies, I mean, with the rise of mental health issues, having some clinicians that are available to help us through those kinds of things. The world is changing and policing is trying to change. What are you seeing happening and how do you humanize the work of your police officers?
Ben Murphy:One of the things that we haven't done a great job in most of my career and I'm seeing the tide change is utilizing social media and media to our advantage. They're not our enemy, we can't avoid it. When I got on the job and there was a homicide, they would report on it at 5 and then they would report on it at 11 and then first thing in the morning. Nowadays it's being live streamed before the first officer puts his car in park. So getting out in front of that and being able to be open and honest as much as you can, without tipping our hat to investigations, investigations, but to humanize us using the social media. I'm going to take a quote from a good friend of mine, Quentin Williams, who runs a 501c3 dedication to community.
Steve Morreale:I saw that. Yeah, I want to talk. I want to hear about that.
Ben Murphy:Yes, Quentin is a very good friend and mentor of mine, but he always said cops don't like spiking the football. But we have to because we need to put out there when the officer stops and throws a football with a kid, we need to put out there when the officer stops and throws a football with a kid. We need to put out there if we are hosting a ice cream social, because if we're not, that's being overtaken by the guy living in mom's basement who's saying police tactics, police officers, we need to abolish XYZ. We're awful human beings. That's going out there unfiltered. So we need to be able to push out good information and accurate information on a regular basis. And so, again, working in the current community I'm at where we don't have the overwhelming calls for service bogging us down.
Ben Murphy:I stress to the officers get into the park, go to the public swimming area, stop at the skate park. I don't care if you say, hey, I'm offline doing some direct-to-patrol and you're shooting hoops with a kid, keep your radio on, but they're seeing you. And that's so important because, again, as much as I still say, this is a profession, it's not a job. The uniform comes off and people need to understand that you're still. You know I'm a dad, I'm a coach. Those are the most important things in my life. This substantiates my livelihood and I love what I do, but the community needs to see part of that as well.
Steve Morreale:So we're talking to Ben Murphy and he is a deputy chief in East Windsor, connecticut, and we're getting ready to begin to wind down policing as it is today. You tell me earlier that your son is entertaining being the fourth generation by going to a criminal justice program in college. So that implies that you are supporting your own flesh and blood to come into the business. How do you speak to young people about considering policing, given all the negativity? But there's such positivity that we can sell? How do you do that? How do you sell it?
Ben Murphy:So I think, as difficult as it is, you can't say cancel out the noise, you're not going to be able to do that but you combat things. You know, one of the things I've learned, doc, from going through my master's program and being in school for almost seven years between bachelor's and master's back to back is to critically think. And there's a big difference between anecdotal beliefs and empirical evidence saying let's talk about use of force, please go out and beat people up. Well, you know, the Washington Post is an extremely left-leaning publication. It's pushed out since 2015, 2016,. Use of force police deaths there's a thousand a year. Medical malpractice kills a hundred thousand plus people a year, but we don't talk about that. And then when you say a thousand deaths for police, well then you start taking out how many people had guns, how many people had knives, how many attacked police officers, and then you couple that with the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of contacts we have a year. We have such a minute amount of malfeasance in this profession. You got to knock that stuff down solely with logic and I think people who are able to critical think see that.
Ben Murphy:But one thing you know, whether I tell my son, I've had the opportunity of coaching football, weightlifting and girls lacrosse. So I work with young kids and I don't hide the fact that I'm a police officer. I very much promote it. I'll be honest with you. I hope some of the kids I've coached lean towards that and I got some kids with some good tendencies. That would I tell them. It's a wonderful profession. Even your worst day at some point in time you might get to help somebody. You might save somebody's life. You're going to have lousy days.
Ben Murphy:There's a lot of downsides to this profession. You can't hide that. That's evidenced by our divorce rates, our suicide rate, our health rates, our mortality. I believe for male officers it's just under 58 years old. But I think it's important to explain the positives is you get to go out there.
Ben Murphy:And I firmly believe, whether you work in New York City or you're in a 10 officer agency out West, you can have the opportunity to make the world a little bit better by what you're doing, by helping other people who can't help themselves, by defending the weak. There's some nobility behind that. I still stand by that, whether that's a pipe dream, whether that's me on the soapbox, but I firmly believe that and that's why I'm still doing it, and I'd like to do it for another decade, and that's why I have zero reservations about my son getting onto the job, because that's one of the worst things we do in this profession. If you ask nine out of 10 cops, do you want your kid to get in the job? Nope, be a firefighter. That's the tagline. I love firefighting. I think it's a very honorable profession, but I would be exceedingly proud if my son wore a shield in four years, and I'd support it as much as I can.
Steve Morreale:Yeah, that's great to hear. So, Ben. Last question what do you do to keep yourself current? What do you read? Where do you look for feeds? How do you find out what's going on? You're responsible for training. How do you drive some training? What are the things that sort of keep you curious?
Ben Murphy:One of the good things about attending SMIP we get the perf articles daily. Chuck Wexler puts these out.
Steve Morreale:I'm sure you're familiar with them. I get them too.
Ben Murphy:Very good sources of information. I read those. I look for best practices. I finished my master's degree. I'm always looking for me personally to do better. When you stop learning, you know Dr Eric Murray always tells me when you stop learning, you stop growing, and when you're not growing, you're not of any utility to your people.
Ben Murphy:I want to be a useful father. I want to be a useful leader in my agency. I want to be a useful coach. So anything I can read police one articles I think are very good. I look at the forums and I see what people are teaching and what they're learning. Just even YouTube and you see clips on policing and how equipment changes have changed dramatically in my 22 plus years. Tactics have changed operations, the mentality of officers with the community, the mental health, training. All that stuff is so important and you have to embrace it or you're going to get pushed to the side in this industry. So I think it's important and for me that's part of my morning routine. I'm up at 430, Doc. Before I go to the gym before work. It's part of my morning routine. I'm up at 4.30, Doc, before I go to the gym before work and I spend an hour a day in the morning going through online on the internet, what comes up, and so much of my feed is police related.
Ben Murphy:Yes, and it's still interesting to me and it's stuff that I can apply to my job.
Steve Morreale:So the last thing I will ask you is since you are a reader, since you are finding these things, how do you push that to the people who work for you? Do you share those things? Do you have conversations about them? In other words, trying to help them understand that they can't be complacent and they can't be static, that they always have to books as well, I think if you have that mindset of growing, your folks growing and working as a team. If you're explaining, a new concept.
Ben Murphy:It'd be great if they're on the same page with that. So I think that's important. And to the younger officers for our agency we very much push education For a smaller PD. We have a very high percentage of people with master's degrees and a lot with bachelor's as well, or vice versa. So we continue to push them with that educational pursuit.
Ben Murphy:But one of the things I tell the young officers here's a great book that came out that I read as a rookie. It's how to Survive Law Enforcement and that's one book that we actually buy and provide to them when they get on the job and say hey, listen, read this, take the time. This will actually unpack a lot of things that you're going to come across in your career. And one of the things that I always stood out for me a chapter in the book. It was the I used to chapter. I used to fish, I used to go to the gym, I used to see my friends on a regular basis, and that gets taken up by overtime and sleeping. Don't fall into the used to's because, again, if you make this job your sole life, the other things fall to the wayside. It needs to be balanced and so that's why I think it's important to continue to read and have that constant communication. Great advice.
Steve Morreale:Great advice from Ben Murphy, deputy chief, down in East Windsor, Connecticut, which is between Hartford and Springfield, Massachusetts, along Route 91. So, Ben, thank you so much for your time, for your energy. You are an impressive gentleman. I've said that before and I'm glad that I could share a person that I know with many of the listeners. So have a good weekend and I will be reaching out and talking to you. Thank you so much.
Ben Murphy:Thank you for your time and the opportunity. Doc, no problem.
Steve Morreale:Well, that is it. That is another episode of The Cop Doc Podcast on the books. Stand by for other episodes. I will tell you that I just received an email from an inspector in the UK who indicated that he'd been listening to the podcast and for every step and every promotion he took, he said I use things that I learn from the people you interview. That's why I do it. So, thank you, continue to reach out. We'll be talking to other people like Ben Murphy in the future. Have a good day, stay safe.
Intro and Outro :Thanks for listening to The Cop Doc Podcast with Dr Steve Morreale. Steve is a retired law enforcement practitioner and manager, turned academic and scholar from Worcester State University. Please tune into The CopDoc Podcast for regular episodes of interviews with thought leaders in policing.
