Reforming A Career Of Avoidance By Embracing The Unknown

00:04
Brent Hinson
Between the lines with Virtual Academy. We all have a story to tell. Hello, and welcome to another edition of between the Lines with Virtual Academy. We’re a podcast going beyond the bads to allow members of law enforcement public safety and first response a place to tell their stories and also talk about the cases that have impacted their lives. How you doing? I’m your co host, Brent Henson, and today we have a guest who has truly made law enforcement one of the centerpoints of his life, ultimately becoming Chief of Police of the US. Supreme Court for 14 years. This past February, he released a book using stories from his career to help illustrate how law enforcement agencies can create a culture grounded in accountability in order to restore an environment of trust, confidence, and cooperation between the public and the police. And Michael Warren, we’ve been fortunate to welcome some remarkable guests over our 75 episodes.

01:03
Brent Hinson
I have to believe today’s guest is at the top of that list.

01:07
Michael Warren
I would agree with you. We’ve referred to the other podcast that you do several times, and I always find it interesting. I’ll think I know something about an artist or about a band, but then I listen to the podcast and it’s like, son of a gun. I had no idea. And I think that’s what we’re going to find about a part of policing that I think I know about. But I’m probably going to find out. I am woefully ignorant in that area.

01:31
Brent Hinson
Man I was doing some research on our guest today and some of the things that some of the quotes that I was reading, some articles that he’s written, I want to know more because he has some interesting takes on things.

01:43
Michael Warren
And I’ve said it before, I admire people that think deeply and I enjoy the conversations with them because the truth of the matter is, law enforcement is complex. We live in a complex country, and that requires deep thinking. It’s not something that’s going to be fixed or solved or made better with shallow responses. So hopefully today we’re going to get an idea of what that looks like.

02:09
Brent Hinson
I believe so. Well, our guest today has a similar story to a lot of our guests. He is the son of a police officer, grew up in the world of law enforcement, and so after graduating from the University of Maryland, he joined the Washington, DC. Police force in 1973, where he was sworn in as one of only ten officers with a college degree in a force of nearly 5000. Over the next 43 years, he rose through the ranks, ultimately becoming Deputy Chief of the DC metro Police Department. And then, as I mentioned before, chief of Police of the US. Supreme Court, where he remained for 16 years. Earlier this year, he released a book, ethics Based Policing solving the Use of Excess Force. We’ll have that in the show. Notes for you folks. It’s our distinguished honor to welcome Chief Ross Swoop to the podcast.

03:03
Brent Hinson
Thanks so much for taking some time to talk with us today, Chief.

03:06
Ross Swope
Much appreciated being here, and I’m flattered by the compliment that you both paid.

03:12
Michael Warren
Well, Chief, I want to talk about your dad for a second, if we could. Where was he?

03:16
Ross Swope
A police officer in Washington, DC.

03:19
Michael Warren
Washington, DC. So you can’t say that when you joined up with the force that you didn’t have an inkling of what it was going to be like to police in our nation’s capital then.

03:31
Ross Swope
Well, I had more than an inkling because I was one of the fortunate few in PG County in Maryland where I grew up that had great men to mentor me. And back then, the solidarity between police was very solid and my family’s whole social network was with police. They were courageous, brave, kind family men, not prone to violence, but not confrontation adverse either. And I learned a lot of things from them. And that’s why I gravitated. That’s why it was my mission to make the difference in communities and neighborhoods just like they did back then.

04:16
Michael Warren
That brings up an interesting thing, at least to me, because you talked about working with DC. Metro Police, but you talked about neighborhoods. The vast majority, the overwhelming majority of Americans who visit Washington, DC. Never see the neighborhoods. They see the museums and they see the government buildings. But it’s a city, I mean, an actual city that has gas stations and grocery stores and like you said, neighborhoods. It’s almost like they’re hidden from the public.

04:49
Ross Swope
Well, you’re right there. The tourists come in. The commuters come in vast numbers, doubling the size of the city every day. And they travel major arteries and go to their work, or they go to the museums and monuments and pay tribute there, but they don’t go where people live and shop and do business. I worked in predominantly the lowest socioeconomic status neighborhoods there, but there are people there, their neighborhoods, their communities. And that’s what I saw it as. It was my job to protect and serve those in need most, and those in those neighborhoods were in need the most.

05:33
Michael Warren
And I think that’s true in most of our big cities, that the people most in need of protection are the ones who can’t afford to leave. And in many cases, I hate using the term stuck, but they’re stuck there. They can’t afford to move someplace else. They can’t afford to move someplace safer. And as a society and as a profession, we have to be there to provide what protection we can.

05:59
Ross Swope
I agree with you, protection. But I was also there to serve it’s. Protection for them, yes, but also police service. We do a lot of other things besides lock criminals up. We look for missing children. We help people out with their requests because this is what happens in those neighborhoods. They can call other DC government agencies, and they’re notoriously unresponsive. So they turn to the police for everything. When they turn to me and my colleagues and my subordinates and my superiors, we took it as a police matter and got things done for those residents in those communities.

06:37
Michael Warren
It’s funny, people, especially younger officers, will ask, hey, why are people calling us about problem with their water service on Saturday night? Because we’re the one department they know that they can call, and they’re going to get the phone answered because the water department may not be working on Saturday night. And so we need to go I live in Michigan, and we need to go during the winter to make sure that somebody’s house isn’t being flooded because a pipe is burst. They can’t get a hold of some of these other services, these other agencies that provide services. So they depend on the police. And I would propose that as a profession, we need to get back to that, because in society today, we have made the word servant mean less than. And I believe that being a public servant is one of the most noble things that somebody can undertake.

07:27
Ross Swope
Well, the intrinsic rewards that I receive from my occupation and my profession cannot be exceeded. Every day I left work, I felt like I accomplished something. My subordinates did, my peers did. We all left work feeling like we accomplished something and did something good. That’s the whole goal of a job for me. A man that likes his job never works a day in his life. I never did. I did things there. It was the best profession I could have chose.

08:00
Michael Warren
I couldn’t agree more. But I want to ask you a couple of questions here, if I could, just to get a sense of what policing was like when you first came on the job. When you first came on the job, america was a country in turmoil. We were at the tail end of the Vietnam War. There were a lot of protests going on across the country, and you’re working in the nation’s capital, and so it seems like there’s almost a dichotomy of requirements for you. You’ve got to keep public order when it comes to protests and the things that are going around the government buildings, but you also have the neighborhoods that need service. What was it like being a police officer during that time in DC?

08:44
Ross Swope
It was always, to me, exciting and rewarding. Always. Now, DC Metropolitan Police, then, as in now, are the nation’s experts on handling mass demonstrations, whether they be violent or peaceful, mass arrests if they’re necessary, and keeping these demonstrations in hand. They are the experts. We handled more demonstrations there than any other city in the United States in front of the White House. Every single protest down there we handled. And they were massive, many of them, because people come from all over the country to demonstrate there whether it be the right to life, whether it be gay rights, whether it be against a war, a battle, Desert Storm, we had lots of demonstrations, whether it be with another country. We were the experts there, and they were all handled superbly. We knew how to do it. We were practiced, confident, and competent. So when those things happened, went down there and handled them.

09:53
Ross Swope
When they weren’t happening, we did other things. We policed the neighborhoods, and we did that with empathy, and we did that with caring. At least the men and women under my charge did, because that’s the way it should be done. And I led by example and gave them direction and guidance.

10:11
Brent Hinson
I saw where you wrote an article on LinkedIn earlier this year that I found just really fascinating. It was you found yourself always going to events, no matter what they were, in order to learn from them, to gain an experience. And through those times, through those experiences, it kind of took away fear and anxiety because, and I’m going to try to quote you here, it says, I was able to control this situation or event instead of it controlling me. So how early in your career did that start for you?

10:48
Ross Swope
So I discovered one thing. I call it a career of avoidance. Now, police work is dangerous physically, but when you start making rank, there’s a different type of danger. There’s danger to your performance evaluation, what your superiors are going to say, what the new media is going to broadcast about you, what your subordinates see. So if you don’t go to a scene, there’s no chance to be criticized or ostracized. Many of my peers engaged in what I call a career of avoidance. I learned that when I was assigned my first demonstration in front of the State Department with 500 demonstrators down there, and me taking 60 officers go down there and telling me to handle it, I didn’t like that. I didn’t like it because I was.

11:39
Brent Hinson
Uncomfortable out of your comfort zone, as.

11:42
Ross Swope
You said, I don’t want to be uncomfortable. I found out early on, by repetition on these things, I became very comfortable. So every demonstration, shooting, serious incident, bombing, bomb threats, barricaded, armed subjects, I went. And if I didn’t take charge, I watched who was and learned things. So you can imagine after my first demonstration, my second one was a little easier. By the time I got to my 10th, I was competent and confident. By the time I hit my 20th, I knew exactly how to handle everything. The officers knew me, they’ve seen me work. And when I pulled up, it was, everything’s fine. I went to everything to learn these things and get out of my comfort zone. I wouldn’t have to do that anymore. So by the time I was 20 years deep, virtually wasn’t anything I didn’t feel good about going to. And if I did, I forced myself to go now.

12:42
Ross Swope
My colleagues from time to time would call me on the radio and say, hey, Ross, I got a barricade over here. Do you think you can slip by? I said, sure, and other ones would say, if the demonstration gets hot here, can you come over? Sure. We’re all working together. I mean, you chose your pay if I chose mine.

13:04
Brent Hinson
But at what point? It’s almost like a parent child situation. Do you say, no, you have to handle this one so you can learn on your own?

13:12
Ross Swope
I didn’t really do that because most of the times that they were calling, it was critical.

13:17
Brent Hinson
Okay.

13:18
Ross Swope
When you have an armed gunman barricaded in a house, I can’t risk telling them, handle it. If there’s a violent demonstration that they’re wigged out about, I can’t deny them assistance because they don’t know what they’re doing, because people can get hurt, property can get damaged. So I agree with you. I wish there was a point where I could have told them to handle it, but they’re calling me on critical situations that they’re very uncomfortable with.

13:46
Michael Warren
We had Sergeant Justin Witt previously here on The Podcast He works with the Louisville Metro Police Department, and he talks about the time they had all of the protests going on in their city. And he says, to be very honest with you, we hadn’t prepared our people for what they were going to have to do. And he said the best that we could do at that point was as we’re sending them out to the front lines, we would say, Be careful. And you mentioned it several times there. You talked about, I trained for this, I was prepared for this. And because of that, I was confident that I could handle this. That’s one of the things that I think that is missing in many agencies is that we can foresee these events that our people are going to have to handle. And we often do a poor job of preparing the people that actually have to go out and handle it.

14:40
Michael Warren
And I’m not just talking about the frontline people, I’m talking about the frontline supervisors. When we’re confident because we’re competent, we get much better results from our people than if we just have to send them out. As Justin said, be careful.

14:56
Ross Swope
Oh, I agree with you 100%. And training is key. Supervision, management and leadership is key. But also officers have to be immersed in these events from time to time because they’re going to be out of their comfort zone. Now, you can survive and do well in demonstrations if you have good supervision and leadership and you don’t know what you’re doing as an officer. But there’s other experienced officers there. So when were doing this with the DC police, we had what’s called the Civil Disturbance Unit, and they had contingents in every district from patrol officers. Now, all these patrol officers were trained for mass demonstration, civil disobedience and barricades so they could always be called on. But as you made rank, you stayed there. So you were in this unit, CDU Civil Disturbance Unit, as an officer, sergeant, lieutenant, and captain. So you rose up the ranks, you knew everybody, you worked together, and new people would come in and they would watch you and you would talk to them and train them on the job training while it was happening.

16:04
Ross Swope
And it worked well. I’ve been in some real dicey battles with officers who were just been in these events as many times as I had, and they were as cool headed and calm as you would ever see anybody be. And I work with them and I admired them and sergeants that work with me under my charge. It was a team and it worked well, but it was training, leadership and experience.

16:33
Michael Warren
Absolutely. My twelve year old is playing football and so on. The team that he’s on is a team of 7th and 8th graders, and Connor is playing linebacker, but he’s one of the only 7th graders in the linebacker core. And I so enjoy watching when he goes out there and the 8th graders, he’s there as part everybody else, an 8th grader, and they’re helping to direct him. He knows what his responsibility is, but they reposition him just a little bit, so he’s better ready to handle the play. And that’s what I think that is missing in many agencies. And you call it the career of avoidance, where the people that have that experience, that have that institutional knowledge, that have that expertise, refuse for a variety of reasons to step up and help direct the people that don’t have that level of expertise and experience.

17:28
Ross Swope
Yet my mantra in that position was, I am there to serve. And my service is not just to the communities and neighborhoods, my service is also to my subordinates and peers. So when they needed something, it was my job to serve. And my service included training, talking to them, giving them confidence, showing them the ropes, being with me, or being with other men and women that they could learn from. I’m there to serve.

17:59
Michael Warren
I love the term service and I love the term serve. I’m there as a leader to help, to teach them, to help guide them along this pathway. But I think that a lot of leaders would better on that side of things if they also had a service of learning where I’m willing to learn from those that I work with or that are my subordinates, but have more subject matter, expertise in a particular matter. And I am a big proponent of lifelong learning. And it just seems like we have professionals, quote unquote, that get to a certain point where they think that they’ve been there, done that, and there’s no longer a need for them to improve their knowledge, skills and ability.

18:47
Ross Swope
My whole life has been harmony. I agree with you 100%. I have a whole section in that book about knowledge, the essential knowledge in police that is experiential knowledge and book learning knowledge. So I knew my general orders, police manual, traffic rigs, municipal rigs, us code, DC code, backwards and forward. I studied it my whole life. I always did. Knowledge is important. Laws change. Things become felonies to misdemeanors to felonies. Some become criminalized. Some become decriminalized. If you don’t stay on top of that, you can’t serve book learning. That’s what that is. Experiential learning is, as I said, getting out there and doing it and seeing it and finding out what works best. I have a whole section on that. My whole life has been learning. I got my last degree at Cambridge in England at 52 in applied criminology.

19:45
Brent Hinson
And I believe, just to point out, you’ve got three masters, am I correct?

19:49
Ross Swope
I do.

19:50
Brent Hinson
Lifelong learner right there.

19:51
Michael Warren
If you were made chief of all police in America, how do we go about instilling that need for lifelong learning? Where do we start? What does that look like? So that people come into this profession not only with an understanding that they need it, but a mandate that they actually do that? How do we make that part of our professional culture?

20:16
Ross Swope
I guess the way I always did. Thing is getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it. There’s got to be some type of motivational factor there. Now, I tried to set the best example. No matter what position I was in, when I was a sergeant, I worked with the officers. This is what this means. This is what this means. And I was a subject matter expert on the laws and rules and regulations, but you should be those two. And when I was a lieutenant, I did it to the sergeants. As a captain, I did it to the lieutenants, and as a deputy chief, I did it to the captains. So I was trying to, by example, show them how powerful knowledge is, and powerful in that you are better to serve not just the public and the residents in the neighborhood of the communities, but you better serve your subordinates, your peers, and your superiors.

21:17
Ross Swope
It makes your department look better. So it’s a matter of conveying the motivation, then letting them see this is not just a benefit for the department or people you serve. It’s a benefit for you personally, because you learn, you will better. That will be recognized. You will be recognized. You’ll be recognized by the citizens of being a smart cop, not a slap, stupid, lazy ass police, okay? But you’ll be a top cop. And I write a lot about being top cop. I’ve got a lot of secrets to tell these officers, and I tell them being a top cop takes effort. But if you put forth the effort, the rewards are there for you. Personally and professionally in your performance evaluations, promotions, selection processes. So for example, if you were selecting somebody to be a detective, everything’s the same except for one thing. This one person is smart in the books.

22:17
Ross Swope
He knows everything. All things being equal, which one are you going to choose? I try to use examples like that. I’m making a selection. Everything’s equal except for one thing. One person is very knowledgeable and knows everything about the laws, policies and procedures. Who are you going to choose? We all know who’s going to get chosen. That could be you. So personally and professionally, there’s nothing but upside to learning. Now, you all know that cops have downtime from time to time. Even in Washington, DC. On a Tuesday night at 03:00 in the morning, the calls for service are not coming in. Take that half hour, read something. General orders, policy and procedures, laws, I did it all the time, and they served me well, enabled me to serve my community and subordinates and peers well, too. Knowledge is powerful.

23:08
Michael Warren
All right, so a couple of things to piggyback on what you said. If we truly want our people to serve the community, and I think we should, then from a leadership perspective, I think we need to model that behavior by serving those who are subordinate to us. I’m a big believer that the way that our people handle the public is a direct reflection of how they’re handled internally. And I love the way how you keep describing how, hey, I was there to serve my subordinates, I was there to serve my peers. It’s not a matter of giving away your authority, it’s a matter of pouring into somebody else so that they in turn can pour into the community.

23:50
Ross Swope
Like I said, I tried to set the best example I could, and I never gave direct orders except in exigent circumstances. So when I had somebody, I needed something done, I said, hey, could you do me a favor? Would you mind doing this for me? I never said, go out and do this. I talked to subordinates like they earned my level. They’re men and women I respected, and I wanted them to respect me. So I treated them with dignity and respect. I never hollered at them or screamed or dropped F bombs all over their head. It wasn’t necessary. We had an understanding. They knew me, I’m direct and honest and straightforward doing that. I was showing them by example how we do this. The only time I gave direct orders was when were taking rocks and bottles or somebody was going to get seriously hurt or killed.

24:40
Ross Swope
Then there was no time. It has to be direct orders. Other than that, it was a team effort. Management. That’s participatory I called subordinates in when there was time to make decisions and talk things out. Now, I don’t like yes men around me, okay? I tried to avoid them, so captains or lieutenants or sergeants that work with me, under me. I listened to them. They knew they could speak up and speak their mind. I wanted to hear it. Sometimes I disagree. Sometimes they come up with good stuff. Now, I know a lot of cop work stuff. I’ve done it for 43 years. But there’s always, as you said, things you don’t know because you don’t know. And I listen to them and learn. It’s continual learning. You’re 100% right. I agree hands down.

25:29
Michael Warren
So you used the phrase a career of avoidance. And so I wanted to kind of get an idea. How does that figure in what part does that play in this concept that we’ve heard over the past several years, this called depolicing, where it seems like there is in some agencies, perhaps a bit of a culture of if I don’t go out and do things, then I can’t get in trouble because I’m not doing anything. I can’t have a citizen complaint if I don’t have contact with citizens. I can’t get in trouble for excessive force if I’m not arresting people. How do those two fit together?

26:09
Ross Swope
Well, I agree with you. There is, in my experience, a lot of agencies that are in that culture right now. The officers are not keen on going out and doing what they really should be doing. This is what I’m being told by the officers themselves and the officials above them. My take on it is this it’s not because they’re necessarily frightened or scared, always getting in trouble. But that’s part of it, as you identified. The other part is the community and police relations are suffering. Right now. My shield is tarnished because of the deeds of a few bad cops. So the public is not in a good relationship with the police in many of our communities. And that has to be turned around and changed. It’s going to take leadership and management and supervision to instill the what I call police core virtues. And it’s the sergeant’s responsibility to hold his subordinates accountable for ethical behavior.

27:23
Ross Swope
Once that ethical behavior is instilled, the community relations will improve. And with additional cooperation between the police and community, things can get back. I know they can get back. I’ve tested it. I’ve tried it. It’s in my book. This is what needs to be done. And like I said, it’s been practiced and tested.

27:48
Michael Warren
It’s been my experience, and I get to go to a lot of agencies and speak and train and that type of thing. If you have supervisors who are practicing avoidance, if they’re not addressing behavior that is questionable or borderline, that type of thing, that’s the supervisory version of depolicing. And if I, as a subordinate, see that my boss is unwilling to do their job because it makes them uncomfortable to have that difficult conversation with somebody who’s not doing their job or is doing something they shouldn’t, then why should I be expected to go and have that conversation in the community. Again, we go back. We cannot overstate the importance of solid, positive ethical leadership within our organizations until we have that. It’s going to be very difficult to improve those community relations externally until we fix it internally.

28:47
Brent Hinson
But don’t you think that there’s a responsibility on both sides, accountability on the community, to say, well, wait a minute. We need to look at the officer’s point of view, and then also the officers to say, well, wait a minute. We need to look at the community’s point of view? Because personally speaking, being just an observer that’s not in law enforcement on this podcast, doing these episodes has really changed my perspective on the law enforcement career. So I think there’s got to be a point where in order to get to some solution, each side has to say, we need to look at the other side’s point of view, and that’s how we can go forward.

29:31
Ross Swope
Well, my opinion is I’m not putting my responsibility on the community. If I build it, they will come. If I build an ethical culture, which I did in all of my commands, the public came, not came to the police, but the relationship was improved dramatically because of the police conduct, performance of duty and service to the community. It was recognized. They saw this and they came and we worked together. It can be done. And you are 100% right about the supervisor’s responsibility to build that culture and to change hearts and minds. I’ve identified, like, three basic sergeant positions. One of them is laissez fair, does nothing. The other one is Mr. Popularity. He tries to take care of everybody no matter what they do until he’s forced to hold somebody accountable. And then there’s the ethics based official holds officers accountable for the performance of their duty in two ways consequences for bad, rewards for good.

30:49
Ross Swope
You follow me on this.

30:50
Michael Warren
And I couldn’t agree more. When I was in the military, my squad leader, I was a fire team leader said, listen, your people’s personnel files should hold four good things for every bad thing that’s in there. It’s lazy as a leader to only punish the bad and never reward the good. It seems like we become that, where we’re constantly looking for that got you moment, instead of saying, you know what? That was excellent. The way that you handled that call, the way that you listen to that citizen is exactly the way that we should do it when the circumstances allow it to be done safely. I wish the rest of the ship could have been here to watch you do that. And it seems like we’re so quick to point out when we do something wrong and so reluctant to point out when our people do things right.

31:44
Brent Hinson
But it also kind of bookends what you said earlier, doing so, being ethically based, it takes you out of your comfort zone because sometimes you’re. Looked at as the bad guy.

31:54
Ross Swope
So in my book, I’ve got what’s called continuums, and one of them is the reward continuum. It starts off with a nod of approval. Then it comes out. Minor words great job. Then he’s recognized powerful motivator recognition, more so than money and rewards. You call him out in roll call. I want you all to know what went on yesterday. This was good police work. There is an informal commendation put in his jacket, a note put in his performance evaluation. He’s recommended for overreward. He’s rewarded by major recognition. So there’s a continuum. These all need to be exercised continually by the good supervisor because it’s powerful and it not only rewards him, but other folks see what’s going on, don’t they?

32:49
Michael Warren
Absolutely.

32:50
Ross Swope
I want some of that recognition. I want some of those good words. I want to be called out in a roll call. So then it’s contagious, because they see the positive aspects of that sergeant holding the officer accountable for good work, and they wanted some of that. They want to do that. So they gravitate to the ethical policing culture. That’s how it’s done.

33:14
Michael Warren
It’s funny, because you’ll get people in organizations say, I don’t like the recognition, and stuff like that. Listen, we are wired as human beings. We want to be appreciated. Listen, if you don’t believe it, look at the number of award shows there are. I mean, for crying out loud, the number of awards and award shows that are out there. People want to be recognized. That shouldn’t be the driving motivation for why we do things. But listen, I’ll raise my hand here, even though it’s part of my job, helping out with the laundry around the house, man, when I do the laundry, I want my wife to recognize the fact that, hey, thanks for doing that today. And that right there is enough for me to do it again the next time. But if it’s ignored, why would I keep doing something?

34:02
Ross Swope
It can be done. It can be done.

34:05
Michael Warren
But it requires work, and it requires work. And to me, that’s part of the service that we provide to our people is through that type of recognition.

34:15
Ross Swope
These things take effort. If you don’t have the wherewithal to put forth the effort, maybe you should find another profession. This is serious, critical business. If you’re not up and in, you need to get out.

34:31
Michael Warren
All right, Chief. So DC. Metro, you end up retiring from there. I cannot tell you how excited I am for you to tell us what it’s like to be the Chief of police for the Supreme Court of the United States. What in the world is that all about?

34:51
Ross Swope
The Supreme Court, united States Police provides protection and security for the chief justice and associate justices. So if you follow that, we do the Secret Service function for them. We also protect 400,000 visitors to the court a year. We do policing of the area around the Court and Capitol Hill. We enforce laws, we screen, and if there’s major demonstrations, we handle them.

35:27
Michael Warren
I’m going to show my ignorance here. All right, you ready for this? It doesn’t take it happens pretty regularly here. But anyway, you talk about, hey, our job is to protect the Justices, right? And the goings on the proceedings, if you will, for the United States Supreme Court. But then in the next breath, you say, and also the 400,000 people that visit every year, it would seem that the easiest way to accomplish mission number one is to cancel mission number two, which is not letting anybody in the building. Why is it so important from a law enforcement perspective, for our people, our citizens, to be able to see buildings, to be able to see these things that go on that have direct impact on the way and the manner in which they live their lives? Why is it so important that we open it up so it can be seen?

36:20
Ross Swope
I classify and title that as human nature at work. It’s one thing to hear about something. It’s another thing to allow the public in and see the actual workings of our government. I think that’s very important. And public was let in for these Supreme Court arguments whenever they had them. It’s a right almost interaction when you’re there watching this going on, it’s an amazing thing. You see the Justices, the Chief Justice, and the lawyers discussing the case and arguing their point. A big important thing to me that there’s interaction between our public and our highest ranking government officials to see them at work.

37:09
Michael Warren
I would be overwhelmed being that close to that type of decision making where you can actually hear arguments that are going to decide how your chosen profession must conduct themselves from here on out. That just had to be humbling, being that close and recognizing the importance, the historic importance of what’s going on right in front of you.

37:37
Ross Swope
Yeah. I, from time to time would go in and sit it in the courtroom and listen to cases and what was the arguments to and for and against. And it was interesting. It was interaction between the Justices and the lawyers. They went back and forth and asked questions and talked, and those poor lawyers had to fend for themselves, so to speak, because some of the Justices tuned them up. But anyway, it’s interesting to watch the workings of that. And I’m sitting in there watching. There were not that many criminal cases, to tell the truth, right. Law that I was involved in and things like that, like search and seizure and things. There wasn’t that many of those because that’s pretty well settled when they did. It was interesting to see and interesting.

38:26
Brent Hinson
To listen to you’re in this unique position to where these cases, landmark cases, are being decided. And you have to have some sort of opinion either way on the outcome, but yet you have to put on your law enforcement hat and take that personal, how you feel about the case, and put that aside, because there’s going to be protesters outside and you have to maintain order. How difficult was that to do?

38:54
Ross Swope
To tell the truth, I didn’t find it that difficult. It’s like when I was in DC. There were some laws that I didn’t agree. You know, when somebody had to be arrested for a violation of that law. I was not determining what laws I’ve enforced and whatnot. Now, granted, I used a lot of discretion. I’m sure you fellas know about discretion, but the public doesn’t necessarily understand police discretion, and I exercise that all the time for benefit of those that I served, public and officers. And the same thing here. When they had a major case that happened, and there was demonstrators out on the plaza, and my job is to keep the plaza cleared. So I went out there and they weren’t violent or not listening. I just went into the crowd and says, hey, we have to clear the plaza. And they were all happy and celebrating.

39:53
Ross Swope
I said, Just move down to the sidewalk. And they cooperated. I always go to easy route and they cooperated. I didn’t rest anybody. That was discretion. I was exercising it. I didn’t necessarily agree with a finding on the case, but they’re celebrating. I’m exercising my discretion. I’m not locking anybody up. I’m asking them to move off. It took me 15 minutes to clear the plaza. That’s the way I handled it.

40:18
Michael Warren
All right, so, Chief, you brought up discretion. And that, I’m hoping, is going to take us into the next part of the conversation. Because in law enforcement, there are very few thou shouts where you are lacking discretion. When it comes to the way in which you handle a case on a local level, domestic violence is one of the ones that most laws say that if you’re able to determine who the aggressor is, then you shall make an arrest, and it takes away the discretion. There are a lot of you cans, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to. So when it comes to discretion, I want to talk about your book. Your book starts off ethics based. Discretion is almost always better when it’s based on an ethical foundation. What was it that led you to write the book? How long you been thinking about doing, and what did you hope the outcome was from somebody who read your particular book?

41:24
Ross Swope
I sort of have a little bit of cred, so my peers knew I did things and accomplished things and changed things. And as police status and positive communication with the public has deteriorated over the last few years, they said, Ross, you’ve got to sit down and write this book. You’ve got to sit down and write this book. You don’t want to kenya have to do it so I sat down and wrote it. I’m sort of knowledgeable in the field of ethics. When I was teaching at Hopkins, I had a professor come to me and he said, ross, are you going down to that national Symposium on Police Integrity janet Reno is hosting next week? I said, I didn’t hear anything about it. So he connected me with the coordinator of this thing, and I said, yeah, I’d like to come down and see it. And he says, yeah, sure, you can come down.

42:21
Ross Swope
And this was powerful academics, guys I studied in graduate school, powerful. I think it was about 200 of them. So it’s a three day conference, and I go down there on Sunday morning and I go in and I get the program, and I’m reading it. It said, 02:00 Monday, ross Swole Keynote Speaker I go grab the coordinator by the Lapels and said, what are you doing? He said, well, you said there was no police here speaking. Now you are. So I take off out of Lafont Plaza like a scalded dog and go.

42:57
Brent Hinson
Talk about getting out of your comfort zone.

43:00
Ross Swope
So I take off and go up to the station where there’s the only computer and I knew what I had been doing my whole career. So I banged it out. The police corps. Virtue bell curve. I know that scares the bejeevies out of you, but here it is. So I go down and give my speech that Monday and I get this sit down and shut up. Not literally, but figuratively. I’m just a cop. These are all academics with books all over the place. So it was about a year later. Rampart Division of LAPD Scandal I don’t know whether you are familiar with that nationwide scandal. The Rampart Division was robbing drug dealers, stealing drugs, reselling them, beating people up, robbing them and all this. It came out. There was a major investigation. I get a call a few months after that investigation is initiated. Deputy Chief cosmet says chief Swope.

44:07
Ross Swope
I said, yeah, how are you doing? He said, we just want to let you know that our 300 page report on the Rampart corruption incident is being published tomorrow, and you are prominent in it. I said, okay, so what’s with that? We got Janet Reno’s book of all those speeches. She published every one of them in a book. Mine was in there. We went through that whole book, and the only thing we found applicable to our problem and you hit the nail on the head was what you said.

44:45
Brent Hinson
Wow.

44:45
Ross Swope
So that was a big deal. So that things exploded after that with ethics based policing and me and the Police Corps Virtue Bell Curve and so many talking heads out there using that theory now. But I don’t care. It’s all good. So that’s how it all started. And I’ve just been carrying the torch since then with other people lighting torches off mine.

45:09
Michael Warren
All right, so then if were talking, and we’re talking here about your book, who in the law enforcement profession should read it? Is this for executives? Who’s this for?

45:22
Ross Swope
It’s for sergeants and above. Sergeants and lieutenants is who I’m aiming it at to have this knowledge. Now I’ll tell you why it’s sergeants and lieutenants. So I don’t know of a police department in a nation that doesn’t have some type of mission statement, general order, policy or procedure on you will behave ethically, you will do this, you will do this, you will be kind, empathetic, don’t drop F bombs, everything. They all have a policy and procedure mandated by the chief of police, all of them. But if that policy and procedure and what the chief is saying is not enforced by the first line supervisors, it doesn’t mean a thing. And that’s how this use of excessive force came about. There’s officials down there, sergeants and lieutenants that did not hold subordinates accountable when they were doing bad. It’s their responsibility to hold their subordinates accountable no matter what the policy.

46:27
Ross Swope
Procedure is atop if it’s not enforced down at the lowest level. Sergeants are the last men and women touch the mail, right?

46:35
Michael Warren
Yes.

46:35
Ross Swope
Understand. They’re the last one to interact with the officers when they go out and do patrol, whether you go to street, whatever they’re going to do, they’re the last ones to do it. They’re the one that needs to set the ethical culture in that department. Chief of police can say what he wants. Those are the ones are our ethical gatekeepers. Those are the men and women that I want to read this book and understand what I’m trying to tell you and understand the benefit it’s going to do to your department, and everybody to the community that’s who is geared at. I know when I made sergeant, I went to sergeant school, first line supervisors and lieutenant, the same. It’s my wish that big departments that have this would adopt that book. And little departments can teach people to train their sergeants. Teach people to train their sergeants.

47:33
Ross Swope
So it doesn’t cost a lot of money, it doesn’t take a lot of time, it can be done in house and it works well.

47:40
Brent Hinson
This book has been out six or seven months now. What’s the reaction been? What’s the response been? Have people come to you and given you feedback after reading it?

47:50
Ross Swope
I’ve got tremendous amount of feedback. I’ve got 2000 people following me on LinkedIn. I post something and three days later I’ve got 1500 impressions because I tell stories and write things. I put them out there. This is not in the book, it’s just my experiences and knowledge and I put it out there. And it’s not just police that are picking this up, it’s the military, the fire department. It’s men and women that are citizens are reading this stuff and saying wow. And the feedback is, I’m buying your book. I’m buying your book. Your book was the best. I’ve got reviews of other cops, chiefs of police talking about how essential this is, how to the point it is and this things we have to get done. So I’m so flattered and pleased by the feedback that I get from men and women in my profession, but also those that aren’t in it.

48:48
Ross Swope
It’s important to them. And I’m overwhelmed by the response that I’ve received so far.

48:54
Michael Warren
Chief, I want to throw this at you here as we’re coming to a close. I think one of the things that we have to do is reframe the perspective that being ethical doesn’t restrict you. Being an ethical police officer actually frees you to serve in the manner that your oath said. You’re going to know, wrote the book, discipline equals freedom. Being disciplined doesn’t mean that you have less freedom. It frees you to do what needs to be done. And to me, that’s the way that ethics work. Ethics doesn’t mean it doesn’t restrict me from doing my job as a police officer. It frees me to do the job the way it should be done.

49:40
Ross Swope
I agree with you 100%. It does indeed do that.

49:44
Michael Warren
It frees supervisors to ensure that their people are well taken care of. Because taking care, just like taking care of my kids doesn’t mean I let my kids do whatever they want. It means that I serve them by guiding them along the path that is going to serve them well so that they can serve others.

50:04
Ross Swope
Exactly. And that is all police want to be part of a high performance, disciplined, rewarding organization and that is what ethics based policing is part of. You build that culture, these officers are going to be high performance. There’s going to be a spree of core. They’re going to work together, the public is going to see it. They’re going to serve more efficiently and effectively.

50:31
Michael Warren
And the side benefit is that we have improved community relations. And when we have improved community relations, it’s a cycle. When we have those improved community relations, they’re talking more with us, we’re talking more with them. It actually improves our performance. It just keeps getting better and better. Or in the terms of some of my good friends, it just keeps getting gooder and gooder.

50:55
Ross Swope
It’s a self fulfilling prophecy, is it not?

50:59
Michael Warren
It is.

51:00
Ross Swope
So I want to stress the importance of the personal rewards that one gets out of this. And that’s the thing. The intrinsic rewards, when you finished your shift and are driving home and you just did something that was really good, that stays with you and you want to do it again because it feels good, it’s a reward, intrinsic reward. Nobody said anything, but you know, you accomplished something good. And that’s a big motivator for me and I think for a lot of men and women in our profession.

51:37
Michael Warren
Chief, they talk about that. When a person leaves the career, the regrets, that when we’re thinking we’re alone, it’s nice having the regrets of, man, I just wish that I would have been able to do more instead of, boy, I wish I hadn’t done that. I wish I hadn’t behaved that way. Those personal rewards go beyond the career. They make us happier. They make us healthier in our home lives. They make us happier. They make us healthier in our retirement lives. If we live and work in an.

52:12
Ross Swope
Ethical fashion, I couldn’t be in more agreement. We need to build the culture and policing based on ethics board ethical behavior.

52:23
Michael Warren
Model ethical behavior both internally and externally, and we are much better off as a profession and as a society.

52:32
Ross Swope
Couldn’t agree more.

52:34
Michael Warren
As we wrap it up, folks, I know that the chief said this is for sergeants, and up I would go. And I would add that if you aspire to be a leader in your organization, whether formal or informal, this is a great place to start. And all you have to do is look at the title ethics based policing. Everything you do should be based upon an ethical code. And this provides some realistic, some practical ways of doing that. So, chief, I want to personally thank you for taking the time to write down your thoughts and write down your experiences so that others can learn from them. We’re going to include in our show notes how people can access the book. Again, thank you for your service, and thank you for what you’ve done in your book here.

53:24
Ross Swope
I had a great time today, I’ve got to say. A lot, and I learned a lot, too. I appreciate both of you having me on the show.

53:32
Michael Warren
Know, brent, policing in our nation’s capital is something I never did. I can only imagine that some of the unique challenges that are faced there have to have served the chief well in his experiences that he shared in the book.

53:49
Brent Hinson
Yeah. And learn from people who have been there before you. It’s like the chief said earlier, if you find yourself where it’s maybe a slower night and you’ve got some time, get the book available on kindle, available in a paperback form and thumb through some pages and learn something so you can better yourself. And we’re going to allow that opportunity by putting a link to his book in the show notes so you guys can check it out and learn more about the Chief, because I think he has a fascinating story, a fascinating life, and we could not be more grateful that he took the time out of his day to join us. So, chief, thank you so much for being a guest with us today, and we wish you nothing but the best.

54:34
Ross Swope
It was thoroughly my pleasure. Thank you both.