Chief Tom Wetzel - University Circle, OH Police

The CopDoc Podcast - Season 10 - Episode 170

EPISODE SUMMARY

What happens when a police chief walks into his first department meeting and tells the staff, "I'm here to serve you — not the other way around"? For Chief Tom Wetzel of the University Circle Police Department in Cleveland, Ohio, that statement was not a slogan. It was a commitment he has carried through three decades of policing, from dispatcher to lieutenant to chief.

In this conversation, Tom shares a leadership philosophy built on servant leadership, dignity, and what he calls the "sweet spot" between accountability and motivation. He is direct about what he has seen: too many police departments creating more stress for their officers inside the building than on the streets. The politics, the gossip, the nitpicking, the heavy-handed discipline — it follows officers home, sits with them at the dinner table, and follows them to bed. He believes that is not just a morale problem. It is a leadership problem, and it is fixable.

Tom also discusses his book, A Cop and a Coffee Cup, a short, practical blueprint for police supervisors and leaders. The concept is simple: imagine a wise, seasoned officer sitting across the table from a young leader, with one cup of coffee and one shot to pass on what matters most. That is the book. It covers how to develop inspired and accountable officers, how to handle discipline with grace and discretion, and why the word "clemency" belongs in every chief's vocabulary. If you lead people in blue — or aspire to — this episode will give you a great deal to think about.

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

Intro 0:00

Welcome to the Cop Doc Podcast. This podcast explores police leadership issues and innovative ideas. The cop dog shares thoughts and ideas as he talks with leaders in policing communities, academia, and other government agencies. And now, please join Dr. Steve Morielli and Industry Thought Leaders as they share their insights and experience on the Cop Doc Podcast.

Steve Morreale 0:32

Hey everybody, Steve Morreale coming to you from Boston, Massachusetts on this chilly spring day, and we're heading to Ohio to talk to Tom Wetzel. He's a chief of police, has been in two or three different places in Ohio, and I'll let him tell his story. He wrote a book, A Cop and a Coffee Cup. And very interesting, very simple, short book, but very meaningful. I took I took a look through it. I've talked to him about why he did it. So good morning to you. Good morning, Steve. Thanks for joining us. And you know, you came to my attention on LinkedIn, of course, and that seems to be a place where we share ideas and and sort of com make commentary about the state of policing and how we can improve it, and certainly that's one of the things that you're about. But why don't you tell us a little bit about how you started in policing? I want you to talk about your dispatch days. It strikes me that people who have been a dispatcher or corrections officer come at policing in it with a completely different perspective. So start there.

Tom Wetzel 1:34

Absolutely. And I had the privilege while I was in college to go on work for our local police department in Richmond Heights as a police dispatcher. And it allowed me then to go to classes during the day, and then I would work the 3 to 11 uh dispatch shift. And I did that for about two years and really enjoyed it because I'll tell you, to your point, when you're in that seat, it's incredibly intense at times, and especially when you're a single operation, you're answering the phones, you're answering the radio, you're you're taking multitasking to another level. And I think it provides an appreciation then when you become a police officer to realize when you're a police officer, you just have a single operation. You're on a call, that's the only thing you're worried about, you're handling that situation. And I think if you've been a dispatcher before, you understand that that's not how it is for the dispatcher. They're going through a lot at that moment, could be answering 10 different calls, listening to other officers, managing multiple scenes and situations. So I think it gives individual officers an appreciation. It certainly did for me to have some patience and understanding and give grace where I could. And then I had the privilege to get hired in the Beechford Police Department, which is a suburb of Cleveland, an outer ring suburb as Richmond Heights is. And I spent 31 years there and really enjoyed it immensely. It got a little rough towards the end with politics and things, but for the most part, it was really an enjoyable experience. I worked up to the rank of lieutenant. I had a lot of different responsibilities. A big thing I was really heavy into was I was a training coordinator, and I also spent a lot of time developing community policing for our agency, taking it to a level it hadn't had before. And I also was on our SWAT team. I was in charge of it for a short while before we became a regional team and just enjoyed it immensely. And then I had the opportunity to ironically go back to the same police department that I was as a dispatcher, and I was able to come back as the chief of police there, and I worked there for four years and then had a retire, you know, the way our pension system is designed. I had this special opportunity to work in University Circle Police Department, which is actually in Cleveland, and it's a private agency, and it is really unique. You see things from a different perspective this way. We've got, you know, world-class museums, elite colleges, hospitals, Cleveland Clinics, which are really big throughout not just the country, the world. And it's really neat. It's a 1.219 square mile area right in the heart of this culture of district, and it includes a little Italy area. During the day, you may have 50 plus thousand people packed into this little area. But it's really neat because it's very diverse, and you have a chance to really experience a lot of different things, and it's allowed me to continue to enjoy my career, and it's been really nice. But it was neat coming back to Richmond Heights, you know, in those two different roles and uh have a chance to lead there as well.

Steve Morreale 4:24

So yeah, from the bottom to the top. Not that I'm saying dispatcher is a bottom, but but so many people start in dispatch. Some are lifelong and ad love that job, but some are using it as a stepping stone. It certainly does change a perspective. I think you're absolutely right with that. So thank you. So let's talk about your idea of leadership. When you walked in to back as the chief, it lasted for four years, which is uh which is uh unusual because the average of a police chief is three years, although I talked to some that have been at it for 17 years, the crazy fools. But you you you have a a unique perspective on leadership. And as you came through the ranks, I'm sure you saw good leaders and bad leaders, what you would emulate and what you would avoid. Talk about that.

Tom Wetzel 5:10

My style of policing is based off a book I read on servant leadership, and it really just struck me in a profound way as that's really what this should be about. And when I went to Richmond Heights, uh, one of the first things I did, we had a department meeting, and I wanted to convey to them that I'm actually here to serve you. It's not the other way around. I really believe when you have that type of style, you recognize that your job is to serve others. And we have taken that even to another level here with that servant leadership mindset, is we actually put a large rock in front of our station that says servants heart. And it is something that sits there right at the front by the main lobby, and it was designed that way deliberately, because every time our police officers, myself included, pull in and out of the station, this is the message that meets them all the time to remind them that we are here to serve others in this beautiful role we have as public servant guardians or police officers, whatever term you'd like to use, but we are serving others when we're doing that. So it's a constant reminder to us, even subliminally, that that's what we're here for. But it also has a secondary value. And every person that comes to the station, whether it's to pay a ticket, whether it's to make a police report, file a complaint, whatever it is, that's the first thing that greets them. And I really feel that's important because it sends a critical message to them that again, the people you are meeting here have this attitude. This is the culture of this agency. And we've really tried to uh impress upon our personnel here that that's the way we need to think about things. And by doing that and having that attitude, I really believe it allows us to provide our personnel, you know, with enriching experiences, good leadership. They recognize that we're there for them. And it's just a healthy way to be. And it allows them to recognize that you know we're taking care of them both inside the walls of our station here, but also outside of them as well. And it also is the way I want them to treat other people as well, that when they're making traffic stops, when they're interacting with people, they're just always remembering that we are here to serve them, it's not the other way around.

Steve Morreale 7:17

So we're talking to Tom Wessel, and he is in Ohio today. Uh but I want to s suggest this that when you're saying that you walk into a new job, and whether it was your first j job as a police chief or your third job as a police chief, and your approach and the culture that you look at, the culture that you build, the culture you have to build with others, because you can't do it on your own. When you walked in and and said to them, you know, my role here is to serve you, not the other way around, I can't believe that that wasn't a unique perspective. How did people react to that?

Tom Wetzel 7:55

I think there probably was an initial head scratching uh because I they're not used to hearing that. Police chiefs don't generally say something like that. And I think there might have been maybe some guarded, you know, pessimism, like, you know, is this is he just you know talking this or is he you know, but I I think that's the first thing is this guy for real?

Steve Morreale 8:17

Yeah, there's some probably some. Because my sense would have been that that was such a unique approach, and that not a lot of people play that play that role and take take on that role. So it was unique. So what there was hesitancy, but how did you have to prove you were serious?

Tom Wetzel 8:33

The next part then is you know, that you speak the message, but then you have to deliver on that message. And we did it in a way, or I did it in a way, that was very you know, and you're out you're already probably picking up on it, is you you rarely would hear me use the words I or me. That was really quickly. I use the term we a lot, even though if it's something maybe I initiated, I still look at everything as this group mentality, this this teamwork attitude, and I think that sent a lot of a good message as well, is they were recognizing that you know I wanted them to have this credit again with that servant leadership mindset that I wanted them to be taken care of. So I did it in a way just through my messaging, through my informal and formal contacts with personnel. I think they started to recognize that that he was actually speaking truth here, that that is how he really believes and acts. I think it was seen through the programming that we provided to our community, the way we treated personnel, particularly in the area of discipline and correction. They recognized that we, you know, we had an open mind and we were looking at the full picture. We wanted to balance things when we were evaluating any kind of action where they might have strayed outside their lane, we would guide them back into their lane. Ideally, we did it in a gentle way, but sometimes you'd have to be firmer. But it was done in a way where we always had dignity and respect involved with our personnel, and we really feel that when we treat our personnel with dignity and respect consistently, that they know that's the way it is, they're gonna go out on the streets as well and and hopefully continue that that attitude or that perspective.

Steve Morreale 10:08

Based on how you're treated, it will very often turn around on how you treat others, right? That whole procedural justice. We're driving that through. It's procedural justice, procedural justice to the outside. And sometimes we forget we need procedural justice inside the organization to treat people the same way as we want them to treat others. React to that, Tom.

Tom Wetzel 10:30

Well said. We really feel too, Steve, that you know, our officers, sometimes the most intense stress and problems they have, unfortunately, take place within the walls of their police department and the way they're treated. That's where you see a lot of the backstabbing or even really the front stabbing. All the politics, inner office politics, the game playing, you know, the the the rumors and the gossip mills that get so incredibly intense with police officers, unfortunately. And I think, you know, by having an attitude or perspective that we're looking out for them inside these walls, this is where, in my view, Steve, officers need to be able to let their hair down. They need to feel the safest within their police station and their headquarters. But unfortunately, I will tell you, watching and talking to cops for many years is the most stress created for them are within their own police stations. They can handle the stuff on the streets, they know what they're doing. They've been trained, they have academy-intensive, you know, FTO programs, they get really good at the job. And not that they're not gonna make mistakes, but for the most part, they can handle that stuff. Unfortunately, it's when they come back here where it causes a lot of the pressure. And when our leadership rides a level of leadership that, again, I use this word a lot, is with dignity and respect, our personnel know that we're looking out for them, and we're also gonna try to do things in a fair and balanced manner. Because if you have a supervisor that is riding an officer in an aggressive manner and just nitpicking and micromanaging them and trying to bring them up on charges all the time for minor stuff, they don't realize that they're in actually affecting not just that officer, but his entire family. And I say that because when they take off that police uniform at the end of the day and put it in their locker, they only shed the uniform. They don't shed the stress that came with them that day. They take that home when they're sitting at their dinner table with their family. It's running through their mind. Why is this sergeant or chief messing with me? What did I do? What are they gonna try to fire me? How serious is this that they're gonna, this discipline that they're gonna meet out to me? They may go to their kids' ball games or activities, their choirs, all the different things that they do with their families, and they're gonna be sitting there still thinking every now and then, what's going on? And sadly, when they go home and when they lay their heads down in bed, some of the last things that they may think about before they close their eyes and really fall asleep is, Am I in trouble? Why are they doing this? I didn't sign up for this, this is not right. And that causes that drip, drip, drip effect of stress on them, which is so wrong. We need as leaders to do a better job of taking care of these matters in a quick manner. What I have found is oftentimes an officer may do something wrong and they'll just let this sit on their desk and get to it when they get to it. That's wrong. Our watches and our time is different than their time. Well, it is a big deal to them. They don't know what you're up to. And we need to be more timely in our discipline application because I have seen that stuff just drag on and on and on, and that's just to me so wrong for them. They don't they deserve better from their leadership.

Steve Morreale 13:35

Talking to Tom Wetzel once again, he is uh the chief of police in Ohio. And one of the things you said is is fascinating to me, and it does come up occasionally on the podcast, and that is looking at mistakes with a clearer view rather than constantly looking to sanction somebody and to change the mindset whenever possible from punitive to corrective. And that takes a a leader to say, well, time out was it really that bad? Was it a felony? Was it fatal? No, it wasn't. Okay, how can we correct this behavior? But that's a change in the mindset and the practice of so many organizations. Tell me how you came to that idea. Because Tom, what I'm trying to figure out is this when you walk into this p new police department, you're a chief, and you've got a command staff that has been operating in an old way, you know, maybe an autocratic way, because that's what the boss expected, a top-down way. You come in and you begin to I I love to say this that you've got a frozen organization, you begin to thaw it somehow. You begin to throw some seeds, so you know, so that you plant some seeds to see what will germinate, but you have to change the mindset of the people who have practiced the punitive side. Do you want you understand what I'm saying? How do you begin to break that trend?

Tom Wetzel 15:10

One of the first things I think you need to do, and I do a lot of teaching for this police organization, a training organization. So I get a chance to teach lots and lots of policemen, probably thousands or over, well over a thousand over the years, on leadership and supervision. And one of the first things I think that needs to be done, Steve, is they need to have a reality check about how humans work. And I know that sounds kind of odd, but we are mistake pro we're mistake prone. I mean, there's going to be mistakes every single ship. And I actually tell these young sergeants and lieutenants when they have these, when they come to these supervision and leadership classes, that they need to come in. I know this sounds strange, but again, this is that reality check I'm talking about, where they come in and realize every single day they show up, they should expect to find mistakes. It may be something as simple as a typo on a police report, or something as serious as the wrong address on a search warrant. But they need to address it. It doesn't mean we're ignoring these mistakes. We fix them, we mitigate them, we hopefully learn from them. There's some growth that takes place, we address it, no question about it. But we have to be realistic about these mistakes. And I've seen some bosses get so angry when they find mistakes, and it's like, what is wrong with you? I know personally, because I was your supervisor, you made plenty of mistakes, and we didn't treat you like this. I tell these new bosses, Steve, when you come in one day and if you don't find any mistakes anywhere, check your breath against a mirror because you died. Someone just shot you, you didn't even know it, and you've suddenly woken up in management nirvana where there's no mistakes. This is amazing. I can't believe it. Of course you can't, because it doesn't happen. It doesn't exist. And in 38 years, I have watched all the time officers making mistakes. And if we're going to get so frustrated that every time they do it, and again, that's part one, is what I'm getting at, is the reality check. They need to understand we're we're gonna be, we're gonna make mistakes. Secondarily, we need to provide more of a counseling perspective because I have found that we have been able to do that, especially when I was in Richmond Heights, where I was the you know, pretty much the final call on discipline. We were able to start very low on mistakes that officers would make when we're talking about any correction. It could have been something as simple as a counseling uh issue or a verbal reprimand, which is kind of often your first step in that tier of discipline. There's, I guarantee you, there's a lot of chiefs that would have probably said when they looked at something I had where I started low like that, they'd be, well, I would have suspended them or I would have fired them. Well, it's like, well, good for you, because we didn't. And what we found is they didn't make that same mistake again. These are grown men and women that carry guns and they have to make split-second life and death decisions. If we can't give them a little grace sometimes when they make these mistakes, it's unconscionable to me. And we also a word that you won't hear chiefs often say is the word clemency. How many times have you heard chiefs of police talk about clemency? Well, we need to have clemency. Yeah, we need to apply it. And the strange part is everyone else is applying it, but for some reason, no one wants to do it for the first responders. Here is the case in point. Officers, they do it with the public all the time. They give verbal reprimand or verbal warnings, they cut people brakes all the time. The court systems do it. They they dismiss cases just even when the person's completely guilty. They'll just dismiss it or they'll give them no fines. They do this all the time. They give them probation or they give them community control. They don't send them to jail, even though this person is dead wrong and guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. They still do that. But for some strange reason, a lot of police managers and chiefs don't want to extend that same clemency to what I'm hearing is it uh I use a different word and it's the same thing.

Steve Morreale 19:02

I know you've sat down with people. Say you could have used your discretion here. You didn't have to write that ticket. You didn't have to arrest that person, you didn't have to escalate. There are other ways to do it. So you have discretion. I want you to understand that I will back you up for discretion. And we allow that in the field, but we forget it inside the building sometimes. Would you agree?

Tom Wetzel 19:23

We do, and I think sometimes there's pressure coming from the people above these chiefs, and then you have these community groups and different ones that really want a zero tolerance for their police personnel. And to me, they're completely missing the point because what you're gonna do is you're gonna have officers that are gonna be very cautious about doing anything, and that is a terrible return on that tax investment that they're spending so much money for. Historically, Steve, and I know you know this, society has always given the benefit of the doubt to police officers. They understand there's a certain threshold they would give them, and for good reason. If a if a if a man or woman call and say, There's a prowler in my backyard at 3:30 in the morning and it's dark back there, if the policeman goes back there by himself and this guy resists arrests, and the officers say had to have five strikes involved, whatever they may be, while this person's resisting arrest. Historically, people be like, You're the one in the backyard in the dark. If you felt you needed to do that, we trust you for having to do that. You're the one that has the guts to go back there and address this person. Now, with body cams and other and other things, you're having them say, Well, the first four strikes were okay, but that fifth one was not, and we're gonna indict you. Indict them. It's insane in these split second, quarter of a second decisions that they're making that they would actually want to pursue that. And you're seeing that, and that's the difference we're seeing where policemen have always been liable for for lawsuits and stuff. When I was brand new, that was pounded in our head about liability. The difference now, though, is we're at a place where people want to go a step further. And what you're gonna have is an officer now may go in that backyard and just flash his light around, scare the person away, and yeah, maybe technically he addressed and mitigated it for that moment. But is that really a good return on that tax investment dollar? I say no, because the guy is still out there and could cause harm somewhere else. But can you blame these officers sometimes if there's some reservation about getting too involved? I'm not saying it's right, but I understand where they're coming from and why they would feel the way they do.

Speaker 1 21:27

Yeah, because we I think we react to uh the current climate in a lot of ways, and and uh when we go back to Floyd and and all of the slaps that we were all broadbrushed with, you begin to retract. And that's an uncomfortable situation. It's certainly not the expectation of police by any means. I wanna I want to move for a moment. You you wrote a book, Cop and a Coffee Cup, and it's uh relatively new, and it's a short book, Tom, and I've looked through it and I've been able to read it, and I love. I love your vignettes, your stories. Tell us about this particular book and what drove you to do so.

Tom Wetzel 22:08

Part of the reason, and I don't mean it with any hubris, Steve, I just feel we've been coming up short when it comes to leadership within policing right now. We're really not delivering. And I'm not saying there's some excellent chiefs, there certainly are, but I have found that a lot of them are very mediocre. The leadership, and it could be not just the chief, it could be captains and different people. They might have gotten maybe one more point on a promotional test, or they might have had a part of the good old boys' clubs, or they just got lucky. But there are some people that have been put in these positions of tremendous power that are really falling short. And I just felt we needed some kind of short, easy blueprint that leaders can follow and recognize this is the way you want to treat your men and women in blue. And I put this book together because, again, over the years, whether it was in college or whether it was taking police promotionals, I've read a lot of leadership and management books, some specific to just general leadership and management, and then others that are very topic-specific to policing. Some of them are very thick tomes. And I will tell you, Steve, I remember almost nothing from those things. I might have remembered a thought or two because I had to read that book nine times. But for the most part, they really kind of came up empty. And I know how cops are today, they don't have a lot of time to read long books. They're so busy with their lives, rotating shifts, juggling their family deep, you know, responsibilities. So I wanted to have something that I thought they would actually read. And then again, I always found in my career that some of the things I remember the most were little pieces of advice that veterans gave me early on in my career. They stick with me to this day because they were kind of profound, they were unique to the circumstances, and they've sat with me to this day. Yeah. And this book was designed.

Steve Morreale 24:05

Very often it's short and to the point, kid, right?

Tom Wetzel 24:07

You're totally right. And this book was designed that if you can imagine maybe an old wise sergeant or some chief that's on his way out the door. If he or she had a chance to sit down with an up-and-coming supervisor, someone that wants to get into leadership, and he had one chance to say as much as he could over a long cup of coffee, what should that supervisor say? This book, Steve, is what he should say or what she should pass on to that officer. Because, again, it's really designed so much of this book is how do we take care of our personnel? How do we develop inspired and accountable officers? And it's critical that you have both of those because motivation and discipline are two of the biggest enchiladas that we have in this line of work. And we've got to have officers that still want to go out and catch bad guys, but they also know they have to stay in their lanes. And if they go outside their lanes, they're going to be corrected and pushed back in their lanes. Um, so again, that's what society expects. They want us to have accountable officers. We've got to treat our officers in a way, and I actually showed and developed a diagram of what I like to refer to as a sweet spot. And it's where you basically are in the center there, where you've found that perfect blend or that ideal blend of discipline and motivation. When you have that, you're gonna have that, you know, thing. And when you have it, you'll have high productivity, you'll have good morale, you'll have strong esprit decor, and most importantly, Steve, you'll have healthy cops because they're gonna feel good about what they're doing, and they've got a uh management or leadership team that has their back. Now, if you go too far to the right where you've got these overly aggressive, micromanaging, uh nitpicking agencies that write officers up for everything, constantly pounding them, what you're gonna have is low productivity because they're not gonna want to take any chances. Risk aversion is a safe harbor to take when you're under this kind of pressure. They're just like I was explaining with the walking in the backyard. You're also gonna have officers that are gonna be really union heavy, and there's nothing wrong, I strongly believe in our police unions, but they're gonna be filing grievances forever for everything. They're gonna make constant HR complaints because this is the only two they have left. They're so frustrated because these people are writing them up for everything. They have no choice sometimes. Um and you're also gonna have demoralized officers, and here's what's important too: you're gonna have unhealthy and stressed-out cops. They can't work like that. That's causing that's causing sickness. I saw a statistic at some training one time that said the average American lives to like 78.6 or something. It was going down because the opioid epidemic and suicides, and now it's probably even lower because of COVID or at one time. But they showed a statistic that said that the average American police lifespan is 66 years. We're giving up 12 years as a rule, and I'm not surprised by that with all the vicarious trauma that we're exposed to, all the rotating shifts, the unhealthy eating. We have a high divorce rate. It's almost 70% of police marriages end in divorce. It's sad because you could actually go to a police marriage or you know, you get invited to a wedding, and you could be sitting at your table like, well, it's probably not gonna last. It's sad, but it's true. I mean, you want it to last, but you know, statistically, it's probably not gonna. We have high alcoholism rates, we have high, you know, prescription drug use problems, all of that. Now, if you go too far the other way, which is very dangerous too, where you get where you're too easy, too lenient, that's a bad thing too, because you also have now lazy cops because there's no motivation to do anything. No one's paying attention, no one cares one way or the other. You're basically gonna have unmotivated police officers, um, and you're gonna have officers that are just flat out lazy, and then this is where the real danger comes in. When you're on this end of the scale, where no one's paying attention, they're asleep at the wheel. This is where you get the where you get the scandals, you get the ramp art division scandals, you've got the the Serpico things in New York City and their 70s, I think, and then all the ones that followed that. And it's not surprising when you see that because what is often found to be the problem is no one's paying attention or they're looking the other way, and that's a problem. So, again, ideally what we want to be in is this center spot. And this book really promotes that mentality of finding a healthy balance and getting as much as you can from your personnel, which is critical. This book is about the officers as much as it is about the leaders, about taking care of them and recognizing what they have to bring to the table, which is so much.

Steve Morreale 28:47

So there's a few things that you have said and a few things you have written that I want to raise. And you were talking about having a counseling mindset. And as much as anything, I think the role of a of a good chief and a good leader is to develop others and to pave the way for others to step in and replace you. There are a couple of things you've said here and there. Reflection is so important, and I know that's a mainstay of you, sitting back and thinking about how I did, how can I do better, slowing down with something else. But there was one chapter that starts the book and it's saying, Become an idea incubator, which is quite interesting. Well, let me ask you this. As a leader that has evolved over time and has been playing in the sandbox for a while with different agencies, do you find that you lead with questions, just posing thoughtful questions in your meetings to get other people to think, to get other people's input?

Tom Wetzel 29:49

Absolutely, and I really want our solutions to come from them. They have so much to offer, and they've got great ideas if only given the opportunity. I talk about this in the book, and it was really it really affected me in a very profound way. I was at a leadership class once, it was like a three-week intensive program, and they brought in all kinds of different speakers, flew them in from all over the country. And there was one in particular that I remember so well, and it's a big part of this book's mindset, is this teacher came in and we're all sitting there. There's probably about 32 of us that were like sergeants and lieutenants from all over Ohio. This was a statewide program. And he stood in front of the class and he basically held up a styrofoam cup in front of the class, and he said, You have 10 minutes. I want you to write 10 things you can do with this styrofoam cup. You have total creative freedom or license to do whatever you can think of. You can write on it, you can smash it up, you can, you can just anything you can think of, you can do with this cup. But I want 10 answers. So I remember everybody's, you know, digging their heads in there and writing ideas. And I remember writing at one point, probably got up to about seven. I don't even know if I got to ten. But one of the things I said is, you know, you could break it up and use it as a shim. I'm thinking, oh, I'm so smart, you know. And it was, it was just one idea I had, you know. So I don't even know if I got done. At the 10 minute the bell rings. But while we're all writing things down, he is walking around the class with these big long tear-off sheets. He's sticking them to the wall and he's got a big marker. And when the time hit, he goes, Okay, stop. And he starts, say he starts with me. He goes, Okay, Tom, give me your 10. And I write, if I even had 10, I wrote them down. And then he'd go to the next guy and he'd ask him, Okay, give me your 10. And that, you know, man or woman would give their 10. Maybe four or five were exactly the same as mine, and he would hash mark those. But there were then another five that were totally different. And he went around the entire class and he literally was able to fill up 30, you know, all these sheets with all these ideas. And I will give you some of them, Steve, are a little bizarre, you know. But like one guy said, you know, I'd I would melt it and use it like Nate Palm and throw it at somehow, you know, and it was, it got a little strange. But they all had a lot of incredible ideas. A lot were similar, like use it like a planter or change holder, you drink out of it. We got a lot of those. But what was so there was definitely this like aha moment, and I think that was by on purpose by him. He wanted to send a message to us is listen, you don't have all the answers. And ironically, you have this treasure chest of great ideas and suggestions and recommendations that will come from the personnel that you are directing. But you've got to be willing to listen. You've got to be able to ferret those ideas out and then give them the autonomy to run with those ideas so that they can actually do it instead of micromanaging it, and then you're just like injecting yourself in it. Obviously, you have to have some natural oversight in any of these projects, but you got to give them a chance to do it. So that philosophy that I applied as a chief in Richmond Heights, and I'm telling you, and I'm doing it here as well. These men and women are coming up with fantastic ideas, and they are delivering programming that is totally new and unique, and we're giving them the ability to run those programs. They take ownership on them. The success of these programs are their success, but it's the entire agencies and the community that we serve, they benefit from that as well. So to me, it's so important, like you were asking earlier, if you start these meetings off. I want them again to come up with the solutions. There's only so much. Even as long as I've been in this business, I don't have all the answers. I'm sharp enough to recognize, though, that others do, and I need to be I need to be willing to listen to those ideas.

Steve Morreale 33:38

So when we're talking to Tom Wetzel, and he is at the University Circle PD in Ohio, and he has written a book, but it's a copy of a copy of it. It's available on Amazon, and it's a very short read. But it it's interesting. One of the chapters is small, and I don't mean that in the negative, but it it says look forward to mistakes, which reinforces what she said. Expect that you're gonna A, disappoint people when you make a decision, because you're not gonna please everybody, number one. But number two, look forward to mistakes. Mistakes happen, they're going to happen. And the way you handle those mistakes is no different than with our kids. You know, every time our our our children have done something wrong doesn't mean that it's going to be a timeout or it it's going to be a a loss of some right that they have. That it's a teachable moment. And think we miss that. That that we do have, and even as a professor, I'm always saying to other faculty members, that wait, wait a minute. What are you supposed to be? I'm a teacher. Okay? All right, you you're a professor, you're a teacher. Are you making this a teachable moment? Or do you have to use your discretion to show who's in charge? It's the same thing about dealing with other people. I see your you shaking your head. I have the benefit of seeing you on video. What are you thinking?

Tom Wetzel 34:50

You know, as you're talking, I literally wrote down these are learning opportunities. And as a professor, I know you certainly appreciate that you're a learning institution. But our our field, you know, our cruiser, all of these things are basically classrooms for us, and we can learn from them and have an opportunity. And those mistakes can do that. And one of the things, too, I want to touch on is that a lot of times bosses, if they have the right culture and the right mindset of an agency that has that balanced mentality and applies, you know, empathy and compassion, clemency to their personnel while still following the rule of law or policies and procedures, you can still have all of that covered, but you don't have to literally write someone up every time they make a mistake. A lot of times, you simply can have a conversation with the officer that just says, listen, don't let that happen again. And I'm telling you, they won't want to disappoint you. They will recognize that you cut them some slack if I found that way. When I'd make mistakes and I had a boss that just kind of like, hey, that was wrong. Let's learn from this. Don't do it again. I really wouldn't, Steve. I was like, man, I value what you did. And those are the kind of officers that are going to run through walls for you because they know you could have done more. You didn't have to. That's the beauty of discretion. We can't have such a rigid system that if an officer does this, oh, we're automatically doing this. You need to look at the full picture. Is this a 25-year veteran that's had an exceptional career, or is this a two-month officer that's starting to show some concerns? Of course, you're going to apply things differently. And this idea that you would not look at all these other factors is absolute naivety, and no one can live and work in an environment like that. We have to apply good judgment and common sense to these decisions. And unfortunately, what we're seeing right now is not that. And I wanted to share with you something too. Uh shortly, uh, one of the officers I used to work with in one of the departments has been incredibly frustrated there. And he, I had shared an article that the Cleveland.com did about this book that I wrote. And it was a real nice article in the paper, and I sent it to him. I thought he'd enjoy it. And he sent me this text back, which was really just such an eye-opener. I want to share it with you if you're okay with that. He gave me permission to do that, and it really just is so strong. And here's what he said. I won't share it all, but a lot of it. He said, I like the article. Unfortunately, in my 34 plus years in this business, I have seen the unthinkable, been through the unbelievable. I have seen the life drained from men and women. And here's the most powerful part about this, Steve, is the way he finishes. He says, and that's without leaving the building. Totally to my point about how these toxic environments within these police departments, they're killing these officers. He went on to say, I have little hope for our profession. And this is sad to hear this. For every good chief like you, there are 10 more that are not good at leadership. Above them, it gets worse. And he's so right about this. From mayors to law directors and human resource managers, the politics is poisoning our profession at a rate far too fast to recover from. They are the problem that we'll never see that they are the solution. And then he goes on to hit them up a little bit more, a little bit more personal. But then in the end, he says, I have fought every battle that was brought to me and I won them all. It's time to go. And then says a few more lines. But this is sad that a guy that has given 34 years of his life, risking his life in service to others, would feel this way after three decades of service. And not just for him, but for those he sees around him. And this is why this book is so important, because this is not specific to that agency. This is what I'm seeing in discussions and trainings with so many different police officers. This is a problem across the board. I think Police One just did a recent study or a recent survey where they found that a lot of police officers are not leaving because of the money on their agencies, they're leaving because the leadership that is screaming a problem. This book can provide that solution that is so critical. And the interesting part is after this officer uh heard some things I had said, he felt that it was time to go. And he just recently, I think it was a week ago, finally retired. And now he's doing different things and he feels fantastic. It was almost like this was a little bit of the push that he needed to say, and it was cathartic for him with me. And he and he moved on. And what he said really to me defines what the problem is. This is a leadership problem. There's you know, there's other issues and politics and the game playing, but unfortunately, this is a leadership issue and it could be fixed. And it doesn't take a ton of it.

Steve Morreale 39:57

And being not being afraid to face yourself. When you sit down with people, new officers coming in and officers that have been around an awful long time, and you're sitting with a cup of coffee. What one thing do you often ask them to confront about themselves, to understand better about themselves?

Tom Wetzel 40:20

It's a good good question. I I'm not sure how I've kind of would have angled that, but I think in doing so in these discussions, I think one of the most important things is probably the golden rule, treat others the way you'd want to be treated. But I also want them just to look at the bigger picture. I want our personnel, when they're going on situations or they're dealing with infractions with the public, is just ask yourself, just kind of walk a day in their shoes if you can. I know that you know you can only do so much, but a good example of this is I try to you know really instill in them the understanding that just a simple traffic citation could actually destroy a family. And I know that sounds weird when you first hear that, but let me hear me out. Is if an officer pulls over, say, a single dad rushing to work or a single mom that's trying to get her child to daycare, they then get to work, and maybe she's you know 11 over or something, and a police officer pulls her over and he writes her a ticket. That ticket could actually cost $250 to $300, depending on the court costs and the other stuff that's involved with that. They a lot of people don't have $300 just sitting around. They have to pay their rent and their car payment. And what often happens is what we've seen is they don't pay the ticket. They they blow it off, they hope they don't get caught or they stall. Because they have to make the rent. They got to live in a place, they got to make their car payment so they can drive to work. So what inevitably happens is they get a warrant for their arrest and then they get stopped again, maybe for something minor, or the officer just ran the plate. Who knows? Whatever it is, they're stopped again. Next thing you know, they're now in handcuffs, posting a bond, getting a secondary uh group of tickets now, which could be for an infraction plus an under suspension situation, and then the cost with all the warrants and stuff like that. Then on top of that, their car gets towed. Now, now they can't even get to work. One little ticket could put them in such a rabbit hole of despair and frustration. Now there's, you know, we all know money can cause a lot. I know myself, you know, sometimes if you're if there's money issues or you're arguing and cause marital problems because you're frustrated, you can't come up with the funds. So now there's tension there and it could cause breakups of marriage. I mean, it sounds like extreme, but it could be the thing that the straw that broke the camel's back is I just want officers to understand if you can take an approach that's more educational and clemency-based, we can do more good and allow us to build bridges of trust with those we serve when we apply that behavior. Because what it's saying is it's a we thing. It's not an us versus them. You know, historically in studying this business, how much that can be dangerous, that attitude of us versus them. It's not. It's a we. We are gonna solve this problem together.

Steve Morreale 43:01

So, Tom, how do you pass down your mindset and how do you watch that happening with people who are working for you, other leaders that are working with you? Uh maybe trying to change the mindset of somebody who was strict and stern to somebody who is a bit more forgiving and coaching and counseling and giving people grace. How do you move the needle there?

Tom Wetzel 43:31

That's a great question. And what I have done historically is that is done through ongoing, and this is key, reinforced communications, whether it's through uh verbal conversation, spoken word, or whether it's through email correspondence or directives through this office. But it's this ongoing thing of this is the culture we're gonna have. But now, words are only gonna go so far, especially when you describe someone who has a different perspective and Wants a more aggressive or just tends to want to penalize personnel more, is the results. What we do is we study and show that we handled these situations and these infractions did not get worse. That are that we're going to have empirical evidence to support why this style of policing and leadership works. Because what we're going to see is when we have that ideal sweet spot, is we're going to have all those positive things that we would have, and we're able to show it that these officers are delivering results. And the ones that we had to correct and we took a more counseling or a lower level approach, they are delivering still, and they're not making those additional mistakes. So we're there's proof in the pudding. It's like, look it, they're they're not messing up. You didn't have to give them a three-day suspension. This lower approach actually worked, and we're still getting officers that are getting out there and producing, and we'll have numbers to support that. So I think it's a matter of just a constant reinforcement of this messaging through this office and through our personnel and those that are jumping on board, because at some point they're going to be able to see that, hey, this actually does work. And then we'll also have surveys, Steve, that would support it, internal surveys. We need to ask the officers, and we should make it anonymous as often as we can. How is this working? Is this delivery of services, this professionalism that we brought to here, is it good? Is it working? And we're going to see that as well. So I'm a big data guy. I like to show numbers, I like to show results, and that's how you're able to make your case. Because at some point, it's going to be kind of hard to argue. You know, you've got the facts on your side, and someone can say, Well, I still want to do this. Well, good for you, but we're not. And this is how it's do, and this is how we're doing it, and we're actually getting these kind of results. And we've got, again, good morale, high productivity. You notice what you had on that diagram I talked about earlier. On both ends, you had low productivity. We're just not getting the best return on this tax investment. And people are spending more on their taxes for policing than they ever have historically. Our police budgets are generally the biggest budgets there are. If they're not, they're right up there at the top. I want our customers to feel good about this investment that they're making. And when we lead in the right way, we're going to give them that best service that they ever had. If we do this right and provide the right leadership that we don't have right now, we will have to have a better delivery and we'll have better, happier customers as well. Happy cops equals happy customers. Not the other way around.

Steve Morreale 46:27

What is your reflective practice? What do you do? How do you find time to sit back and think about what have I done? How have I accomplished it? What can I do better? What's next?

Tom Wetzel 46:38

For me, Steve, u to get right to it is is, I take my spirituality seriously, and I really feel that I'm answering to something bigger. And that's part of this cause, is that, you know, I really feel this mission of changing policing throughout this nation, although it may sound audacious, I really believe a simple book like this actually could do that if people actually read it and followed it, because it's worked for the places that I've been with, and I know I have the results to show it. And we're very close to showing it here as well, in a lot of the things that we're doing. So to me, if I can make this better for people and police officers, and then they're gonna treat the public better, it's just gonna be a better nation. It's gonna be a better thing. And this is a again a chance for me to deliver for the Lord. It's a spiritual thing for me, is doing the right thing because I truly feel that you know, everything we do, we have to be accountable for. And I I just feel this is really important. I want to do this. I really believe that, especially the places I've been, we had the right vision and we had the right people to actually show this works.

Steve Morreale 47:48

So as soon as you finish a book, and I know this experience I've had this experience a couple of times myself. There's something you wish you had put in a book. Is there a second version of this book? In other words, is the are there more conversations uh with the sit-downs you'd have with a coffee cup that you would add?

Tom Wetzel 48:08

I do. It's funny, my father-in-law was like, why don't you call the next one a cop and a donut? I'm like, come on. So anyway, but I do think I could uh could expound a little bit more on on some of the things. I would like to just uh maybe flesh them out a little bit more. But again, I I just thought at the first blush, the first attempt is just knowing we we live in such a bumper sticker society, Steve, you know, that people they just even on their like if you're looking at a post and you have to tap the finger that says read more, a lot of people like I don't care. And they move on to the next thing you see, just you see this constant scrolling. That's all I need. A lot of them just go any further than that. You know, so to me, my first thought, but I would like to write something maybe a little more comprehensive to show more of the data and the evidence to support it. Here I just speak from my own knowledge and observations, but something further I would just like to maybe develop and flesh it out a little bit more with more examples that I've seen throughout my experience. But again, the purpose of this one again was just, you know, if you had a long cup of coffee with someone and be about the time it would take to read this, it's not long. It's just chock full of wisdom, in my opinion, and and and perspectives and things that I've seen that work and things that I've seen that don't work. And uh this you know gives you the blueprint. It gives some guidance for a lot of young leaders, but also those wise and you know, oh long in the tooth, or as my my dear friend Jim McBride would say. We can always still learn. I mean, I I studied the martial arts, and I always remember, you know, no matter how advanced you got, you're always a student. And and and and and we're all students of leadership, and we can always continue to learn. So I think another book that would go in that perspective also would just be that just the fun that we have on this job. I'd love to share more about how fun this job really can be. And that would be maybe some perspective I'd want to go in or direction, some of the humor, because it really cops sitting around a roll call table can be some of the funniest people I've ever been around, and and my side split because we're reviewing the last 24 hours of the madness of humanity, and these guys, you know, they got they got working material to go with, and they they really can be funny. So it's it's a good time.

Steve Morreale 50:18

It's like a comedy. It is, but it's a comedy. So there are two particular chapters here that that seem to play into one another, and want you to discuss it as we begin to wind down. Don't be afraid to face yourself and challenge inward. What does that mean?

Tom Wetzel 50:34

I think a lot of that is facing your face. Sometimes we do have some shortcomings. I know I have weaknesses, of course, and I always try to play to my strengths because I think it's the best thing I can do to get the most bang on my best return on what I'm trying to deliver. But facing your fellow face sometimes is I want them to understand do those surveys, let yourself get some feedback from other people. Because oftentimes what happens is these guys get in these leadership positions, especially like these CEOs of organizations or mayors, where they start to believe their own press clippings that they wrote. They just think they're more than they are. And we've got to realize, you know, at the end of the day, this is a role we're playing, and it's a great opportunity, a special opportunity as police officers and police leaders to do so much good. But we got to be willing to realize sometimes how can I personally do better? And when I say challenge inward, we've got to keep pushing ourselves. We have got to be doing our own coffee cup, exploring our own ideas. We have a lot to still offer. I love the idea of getting the most as we can from our personnel. But we also, especially based on our time and the job and our experience, really should be pushing more forward. We shouldn't get into that retired on duty mentality where you're just kind of putting your time in. Because I have found when when I look back at some of the work I've seen from people that were like that, man, it was just, it just, they're just filling time and they were not delivering. So we've got to be willing to accept sometimes that there's maybe a better way for us to do things. I know there's better ways I can do things. So part of that as a leader is to avoid getting that hubris where you think you're all that because you're not, and you've got to be able to kind of look at yourself sometimes and say, how can I do better? And then how can I challenge myself? Because I don't want us to get stale. We've got to be ready. This we're in a world that's changing constantly, and our traditions are so important, Steve. You know that. And you know, that these foundational things that have brought us to where we're at now, respect for the rule of law, honesty, integrity, treating others with with dignity and respect, those are critical and should have always been there. We don't want to change those. Those are like our Ten Commandments, but we certainly can build off that and and give our my hope is that people reading this book and and leading organizations, they will be able to have you know their magnum opus moment. They can deliver a police department that is going to be its best version ever. And their police officers are gonna be their best version also. We're gonna get the most from our human capital, which is all of us. You know, how can we get the most out of each one of us? This book presents ideas and ways to think about giving that best best delivery of services to you know those that we serve.

Steve Morreale 53:13

Terrific. So as we get to the end, Tom, and we've been talking to Tom Wetzel. He is now the chief of police at University Circle PDF within Cleveland, actually. What have you not accomplished that you're working on now? Oh, that's a good question. Right now, for me personally, I have made it our tagline here that this institution here, we're we're aspiring to be an elite police institution and national model of excellence. And we're very close. We're not there yet, but we're seriously closing in every single day, every single shift, every single contact we have with someone, we are getting close to being what I really believe in my mind is going to be a national model. And I want police departments throughout the country, if they're if they're questioning or someone, a citizen's asking, how if you want to know how to do it the right way, look what this little private police department in Ohio managed to do. So whether you have a 10-man department or whether you have a thousand-plus man department, a lot of these same principles will all apply. And I really feel like what I'd love to see accomplished is this organization be a beacon for not just our nation, but really the world and how to treat your personnel and how to treat those we serve. And if we do it right, when we have institutions like this, we will be building bridges of trust, Steve, that will withstand hurricanes, one steel girder at a time. We need to build those things so that they can sustain. And my hope is also that what we're passing on now doesn't stop when we leave these offices. If we do this right and we have an agency that's found the sweet spot, as I like to say, it will it will go long beyond the time they're even in the profession. They'll be gone and dead. And hopefully, these principles and these practices and this attitude will long outlive them so that we can continue to deliver a level of service that we've just never done before. And and that's that's I guess is what I'd love to see accomplished. That's terrific. So we've been talking to Tom Wetzel, and he is an author. And he's where would a book, a cop, and a coffee cup. How do they get in touch with you, my listeners?

Tom Wetzel 55:33

They can reach out to me via my email. I'd love to hear from people. It's wetzel7 at gmail.com, Wesselfam7. That's W-E-T-Z-E-L-F-A-M, the number seven at gmail.com. And they also can get this book online at different outlets. I think one of the best ones right now is just the Barnes and Noble links. And I just love to have people, you know, this is what's nice about it's available on Amazon.

Steve Morreale 55:58

That's where I got it.

Tom Wetzel 55:59

I'm pushing more for the Barnes and Noble link, which is working well. But also I just want people to understand that this book can be appreciated by people that aren't police officers. If you're just interested in what the cultures are like and what the thought process is of a police department and how it should be for your community, you should read this book and then share it with your mayors and chiefs because they need to read it and may not even be aware of it. So it's it's open to anyone that wants to just learn about policing and the best way to deliver that service.

Steve Morreale 56:29

Well, terrific. It's been a pleasure to talk with you. I appreciate it. I think you've got an open-minded view and a forward-thinking view, which is so important. And so I want to thank you for being with us today.

Tom Wetzel 56:41

No, thank you. It's a privilege to be on here.

Steve Morreale 56:44

Well, that's another episode of the Cop Talk Podcast in the can. I want to thank you again for listening. The listenership is going up and up and up. I appreciate it. We're being heard by people in 147 different countries, which just blows my mind. And I think it's 4,200 cities and towns across the globe. So thank you for that. If you have an idea of somebody I should be talking to, somebody who is progressive, is innovative, and is doing great things, please share with me any ideas. I'll reach out to them and see if they're a fit. So thanks very much. Have a good day. Take care of your people. Thanks for listening.

Outro 57:21

Thanks for listening to CopDoc Podcast with Dr. Steve Morreale. Steve is a rtired lw enforcement practitioner and manager, turned academic and scholar from Webster State University. Please tune in to the Cop Doc Podcast for regular episodes of interviews with hought leaders in policing.