A basketball and an idea of challenging a community to do better with Chief Deputy Troy Smith

Stephen J: (00:11)
Welcome to behind the 10, a podcast that introduces you to the heroic men and women who wear the 10 while protecting our community and hearing about the extraordinary things they're doing. Their badges in their locker. Today's episode is sponsored by verify home inspections, home inspections throughout the Hudson valley. Visit verify home inspection, ny.com. Along with those guys, print.com. Those guys print for all your custom apparel needs. Visit those guys print.com. I'm Steven J the good Lieutenant here along with just 10 civilian producer. What's going on, buddy? Hey man, I gotta tell you very excited for today's guest, but before we get to that, uh, let's, let's talk about who's sponsoring our cocktails over conversation today. Ooh, like to thank George C of Charlotte, North Carolina, George C. Thank you so much for your sponsorship, Justin. Let's thank our cocktail over conversation sponsor today, who but around for us.

Stephen J: (01:03)
Ooh, that's exciting. That's George C of Charlotte, North Carolina, George. Thank you so much. And we we're being provided beer by the Hyde park brewing company. Oh wow. And today we have one of my favorites. It's a raspberry wheat. It's their barrel nine, which is their series of rotating experimental beers. And we're lucky enough to taste it. It's always a little something different, but this raspberry wheat beer is brewed with raspberry puree and a fresh lemon in lime zest. It pours slightly pinkish red with a hint of fresh lemon and lime zest in that aroma. Absolutely delicious. Can we just stop talking

Justin: (01:35)
About it and start

Stephen J: (01:36)
Drinking it? Oh, I've already started pal. Oh, perfect. Great. Pour me a glass. Well, I pour you us. And unfortunately our guest today is a, uh, is a remote guest. He's part of our network and this guy proves that one person and one idea and one act of kindness can change a community. Wow.

Justin: (01:57)
Yeah. And he's all the way out in, uh, San Antonio, Texas, right?

Stephen J: (02:01)
San Antonio, Texas. Yes, sir. This guy's story. Uh, when I read about it and got to meet him and talk to him offline, just impress the hell outta me.

Justin: (02:11)
Yeah. I don't know that. I even believe the bio that I read. I mean, there's some really impressive stuff in there and I'm really looking forward

Stephen J: (02:16)
To hearing what he has to say. Well, let's hear it straight from the horse's mouth haw in Texas and let's bring in Troy Smith. Troy Smith. Welcome to you behind the 10. Thank

Troy: (02:35)
You brother. I appreciate

Stephen J: (02:36)
It. Yeah, we appreciate you coming in, man. And we've got a lot to discuss today, but let's, let's start with, uh, Troy Smith becoming officer in San Antonio, Texas. How did that all happen?

Troy: (02:47)
It's very interesting story. I grew up in New Jersey. I'm a Jersey boy, south Jersey still sound like it. Is it one on the turnpike for those who live in that area? They all understand. Uh, my father was the chief of police in a small town and I used to run from the police so, you know, he had on a slow day, he had somebody he could put in jail.

Stephen J: (03:09)
When we used to do that thing now.

Troy: (03:11)
Yeah. You know, we, uh, I always never thought that I was gonna be a police officer. I ended up going to college in Louisiana. I learning how to fly airplanes. Thought I be in the military that didn't work out, went in the private sector for a while. Job transferred me from Dallas to San Antonio, Texas applied for the police department. Man. They hit that day. They had 3,500 people applying for the job and they only had a hundred spots. Wow. And I've always been, so I figured one of those spots was mine. So I took the test passed. And before you know it, I became a police officer in San Antonio and never looked back.

Stephen J: (03:48)
San Antonio, Texas gets the Jersey boy becomes a police officer who wanted to be flying airplanes. and now, and now you're, you're, you're wearing the badge and you're, you're helping a community. And you, you end up becoming a detective at some point in San Antonio. Yes. Yes. So what was the, what was your career like there? Cause it's a different place than, than most, right? Yeah.

Troy: (04:09)
Yeah. You know, I didn't speak Spanish first of all. Uh, so I limited even to this, to the day, make most of the people laugh. So they, they help, they work with me because they feel like I'm in such bad shape that they, they need to help me out but what I did, I started out, uh, working for a car rental company. I was the manager here and put the test for the police department. When I got into the academy, they actually made me the class president. Wow. My first year on the police department, I was involved in the shooting. I was sitting in my patrol car, got, we had gotten a call for, uh, disturbance with a gun. I go to cover the officer. He tells me, Hey, Troy, it's just gonna be a report. I put out the directions and the information in a few minutes, as soon as he start putting it out, there's the guy and he's looking at me and I'm looking at him and he person at me, what the, what the fo you looking at.

Troy: (05:03)
And before I could do anything, get out the car. He pulled the gun on me and I was able to beat him. And I shot him from sitting in my patrol car. Everything happened so quickly. Next thing you know, he's down. He's done. I go through my one year on patrol while I'm doing patrol. They start a program called where we had to get out and walk on the housing projects. So the very first day my partner and I catch some little kids, throw rocks through a window. And I asked him, why are you doing that? He goes, well, sir, ain't nothing to do. So we became like the PI Piper. I said, the next day I'm gonna bring up basketball. So we brought a basketball to work. I'm dribbling it on while I'm on the job. And we found a little basketball court divided the kids up.

Troy: (05:43)
And me and my partner referee the basketball game, the first basketball game in the housing projects for these little kids, they said, you, sir, you coming tomorrow? I said, yeah, we'll be here tomorrow. So the next day I actually went to the little mom and pop stores and asked 'em if they would gimme $50, cuz shirts were $5 of shirts. And I said, I wanna start a little basketball league and, and I want you to sponsor a team. So they gave me the $50. I bought the shirts, 10 shirts for the kids, put the, the, the name of the store on there, told the kids, Hey, that's your store. You can't let nobody tag it. Okay, sir, we'll keep an eye on it before you know it. I had a little basketball league going. We had 10 teams going in the, in the community. Wow.

Troy: (06:21)
Each one actually was a little coast about the police athletic league. So I went to my chief and I said, Hey, chief, these kids need something to do. I wanna start a program called pal started up in New York or everybody on the east coast were familiar with it. Yep. I, I came in there with all the paperwork and he says, you know what, Troy, go ahead and do it. We don't have any money, but go ahead and, and get the program started. So my partner and I, we did everything got set up as pal. And uh, the chief says, you know, we don't have any money. I said, chief, I'm not worried about the money. We'll get the money. Well, lo and behold, David Robinson just come out of the Naval academy. And uh, I talked to his father. I said, Hey, Androse, you know, we're trying to get this program called pow.

Troy: (07:04)
He says, I'm familiar with it. I used to be a Sheriff's deputy in Virginia. So he says, what do you need from me money? I said, no, sir. He goes, oh, okay. What do you need from me? I said, I need to have you on my board said, all right. He says, so what do I need to do? I said, you, you to let me use your name. So he did, I got in my car, went to S a, a told them who I had on the board. Next thing you know, I, I had USA on the board. Then I had a diamond Shamrock LA. Now I ended up getting the top 20 businesses on our board. They all knew each other at the top. And before, you know, we had $50 billion sitting in the of them.

Stephen J: (07:39)
That's amazing. And, and how many years are you on the job at this point?

Troy: (07:43)
One one it's my first year. I

Stephen J: (07:45)
Just so choice first year. Let's, let's just back up and recap for two seconds here. It's a lot happened. There here's a lot going on. You're involved in an officer involved shooting. Mm-hmm you buy a basketball and you give it to the kids and introduce them to a game. You turn that into a basically like Justin mentioned a community policing detail for yourself, where these kids are protecting their store. Right? Yeah. Then, then you've, you've reached out and you said, Hey, man, this is getting pretty popular. I know there's this program back in York called pal. Let's get that paperwork and start that you and your partner, your partner must be loving you right now. right. Fire's going, we got more work to do. All right. So we're gonna start that. Then the Admiral David Robinson gets introduced into San Antonio's, uh, basketball team. And you, you introduce yourself to his dad and him. You get them on the board. And now you're, you're talking about full-fledged police athletically and a decent sized city. I mean, San Antonio's not small. Yeah. Even in the age, 2 million people. Yeah. So now you've started this program. What'd you say 50 teams you had going,

Troy: (08:48)
No, we, we started out with 10, started out with

Stephen J: (08:50)
10. How many you ended up with,

Troy: (08:52)
Man? I tell you what we had on all four sides of the city. We had, we had so many programs going. I can't even remember. I know we had 20,000 kids in the program the first year. Oh, wow. That's how big the program got you arrested anybody at this point? Or you just playing commissioner of pal? Hey, we didn't have to no, we didn't by sports was that we would've arrested was playing sports. Well, they knew if they got in trouble, they couldn't play. We had that adage up here, kids in sports stay courts. And you you're absolutely proven that true down there. Yeah. We had, we, we started a program called we did skate with a cop. We started a program called the dive in movies. Uh, we took over the, the, uh, the swimming pools. We got, uh, those big screen TVs out of the, out of the storage unit.

Troy: (09:39)
Man on Friday nights, we, we showed movies. The kids got to swim. The parents, they had to bring their parents, the officers barbecue so that the, so that the kids had something to eat before they went home. At the end of the night, on the summertime and Fridays, we did, uh, bowling man. We had so many sports going. So many projects going on. We had a little program for the little girls, a little 13 year old girl told me she, she wanted to have a baby because she wanted somebody to love her. Oh my goodness. So my partner and I, we, we got some doll babies. We got the parents to commit that if these kids participated in the program at three o'clock in the morning and an officer was gonna come knock on their door and make sure they changed that baby's diaper .

Troy: (10:17)
So, and they did. And we had the little girls and the little boys that was dating each other and we'd set up basketball and volleyball at the same time. So the girls could see that when it was time for the boys to play basketball, they weren't gonna watch the baby wow. And then we we'd have them go through the program and sure enough, it's time to play volleyball. The little girls, like my boyfriend's not here to watch the baby. I said, well, you know, if you leave the baby, that's abandonment, you know, you're going to get arrested for that. And they get, I can't stand him before, you know it, they didn't wanna do that. They didn't want a kid anymore. so the second part of that, what we did is, uh, my partner, I had a female partner also, and she was in the Mary Kay.

Troy: (10:57)
So we talked to a, uh, a woman to teach these young ladies how to model. And most of 'em were between ages of 13 and 15 came from the housing projects, had low self-esteem and we taught 'em how to model. And then we went over to the river center mall, which is one of the malls in downtown San Antonio, where everybody all around the world going shop. And we convinced the store to give these little girls clothes and let 'em model in front of their stores. You could see the self-esteem of these little girls go up so high, that it was amazing. They started believing in themselves. They stopped wanting to have kids. As a matter of fact, about five years ago, one of the girls that, that, that the girl that actually said that she wanted to have a baby. She went to college and got a college degree. She came up and introduced me to her little girl. That's awesome. She told me, you know, because of you, I waited and man, it touched my heart to know that, that the effect that it had on one, and she told me she's stay in touch with a lot of those girls and they're doing very positive. So it's powerful, very powerful. I mean, just keeping

Stephen J: (11:53)
Kids, uh, busy outta trouble. Yeah. I mean, we we're talking, uh, late eighties, early nineties, right? At this point mm-hmm

Troy: (12:00)
Mm-hmm this was, this was actually yeah. 90 in 1990 when we started pal. So, and it

Stephen J: (12:06)
Seemed police statistics. Weren't what they are now. I don't know. Was there any comprehension of how popular this and how much of a crime reduction was happening?

Troy: (12:15)
Oh yeah. Yeah. They were tracking, the city was tracking it. They were, uh, two years after that we started midnight basketball and that was so successful. Uh, they, they actually tracked the crime statistics at night on the weekends when we had midnight basketball and man, all the officers was at the gyms because they, they weren't making calls. That's incredible. So it was very, it was very successful. They actually wanted to get midnight basketball up and going again right now.

Stephen J: (12:38)
Oh, you could see why? I mean, yeah. Proof is in the pudding,

Troy: (12:40)
Right? Yeah. And I always seemed to have the seven year itch on the department. I did that for seven years. After that I went through SWAT school, but became a hostage. Negotiator did

Stephen J: (12:50)
Host. I can't imagine why it doesn't sound like you talk well to anybody.

Troy: (12:55)
I have to get my time in because they told me I had, I was limited to a million words.

Stephen J: (12:59)
so you did. I mean, when, when you were doing Powell, you're in a, a larger department, a larger city mm-hmm did they allow you to basically run that?

Troy: (13:08)
Full-time that was, that was my full-time job. That's great. I wore sweats in the t-shirt every day. It was four officers. Me, the guy who helped me start it named Ruben. My, my partner, her name was Marty. Pretty Roach. You man love her to death. Uh, and then we had a, we had one other officer and all of us, we all worked together. We all brought something different and unique to the table and we put 'em all together and we, we constantly had programs going. It was nonstop. Right.

Stephen J: (13:32)
That's great. You talk about a, an, almost some media impact into a community. Yeah. You're coming in there and doing that. So you said seven year hitch happens, which usually we're talking about marriage. Justin's laughing at you right now. but we'll talk about it on the job for today. You, you go to, you go to SWAT school, you become a negotiator. Uh, how long do you do that for? And is there anything crazy that happens that, uh, stands out?

Troy: (13:54)
Yeah. Seven years for seven years, I was a hostage negotiator. What, what was

Stephen J: (13:58)
Your first like as a hostage negotiator? huh? What was your first year like as a hostage negotiator?

Troy: (14:05)
Uh, you know, I, I tell this story all the time, man, about an old man who, who, um, we got a call for a, a, a man holding a little girl hostage at, at gun point. So, you know, being law enforcement, your immediately, your mind is saying, take that guy out. We gotta take him out, man. You know, anybody that would do that to a kid. That's the defenseless. You know, you automatically want, they're hitting a, a tough spot in your heart. You know, get to the scene. The Sergeant tells me I'm going to have to do a face to face cuz the guy won't take the, won't take the, uh, the cell, the throw phone, cuz we had, we didn't have cell phones back then. And he's sitting on a picnic table hugging this little girl and the man had to be about in his eighties.

Troy: (14:50)
The girl couldn't have been no more than four and he's hugging her and he's rocking back and forth and she can't see the gun, but I got the SWAT guys with shields in front of me and I'm talking to this guy and I'm asking him, why, why are we here? What happened? What led up to us, getting to this point? And the guy would never look at me looking straight and they couldn't move the public back because it was, it was, it was face of face and they didn't any movement. They didn't want it to, to trigger his, getting angry and feeling this little girl. So after about five minutes of him not saying anything, I finally said, you know, help me understand what's going on. And he told me, you don't understand. I said, I know, help me understand. And he told me, he said he has a daughter. And every time she gets high on heroin and she gets addicted, she hook up with these guys that had bad. And normally they take it out on his daughter. But this time the guy she's with raped his little granddaughter.

Troy: (15:43)
Wow. And it was nothing he could do about it. And I said, wow. He said, you know, y'all, can't even catch this guy. So I asked him for the guys, his name, he told me, found out he had a warrant. You know, normally you gotta go through the protocol of getting permission to, to do things. But I just jumped on the radio, told the dispatcher, open up every radio in every channel in the city. And I told every officer what you're doing. And I told him to find this guy got back on talking to this man. And I said, you know, I could tell you love this little girl. You know, this is your granddaughter. I can tell you love her with all your heart. I still don't understand why we're here like this. And then he told me, he said, the doctor says I only have one week left to lift the cancer, spread all over my body.

Troy: (16:26)
And I promised my granddaughter that I would never let nothing happen to her. So I have to take her it with me O wow. And just like y'all said, how you guys got mm-hmm , you know, when you're negotiating, you're not alone, it's a team. And everybody's telling you stuff in your ear when he said that you could hear pin drop. Sure. And everybody's looking at me. I could feel all the eyes on me. Like, what are you gonna say to that? And I thought about it and I'm a Christian man. So I always pray before I start. So I looked at the man and I said to him, I said, sir, if you'll gimme that responsibility, because I know how much you love your granddaughter, I'll take it. And that's the first time he turned and looked at me. He said, don't say it.

Troy: (17:11)
If you don't mean it. I said, I 100. I, and he set the gun on the table, got up, walked over and put his granddaughter in my arms and said, now she's your responsibility. Wow. Nobody wanted to arrest that, man. Of course not. They arrested and took him to the magistrate's office. The mag found out what was going on and said, take that man home. We left the little girl with the rest of his family day. The next day I went to go check on him. And the man told me, Hey, my other daughter is here in town. She's going to adopt a little girl. I'm gonna relieve you of your responsibility. But what happened after he handed me, the daughter, an officer came in my ear and on the radio and says, Troy, we got the guy. And I told him, I said, sir, they got him.

Troy: (17:54)
He said, you don't have to lie to me now. And I, I gave you my granddaughter. So I unplugged my headset so he could hear it. And I asked the officer to say it again. And he says, Hey Troy, we got him. And we told the, we told the county to put him on the sixth floor with the Mexican mafia because they baby rapist. Wow. And that was one of my, it was one of my most rewarding situations that I've had as on call ups. I I've been involved in over 300 EY situations. I actually was the primary negotiator or the talker on 278. And for my entire career, I never lost one.

Stephen J: (18:30)
That's outstanding. Yeah. That's incredible.

Troy: (18:32)
So passionate man.

Stephen J: (18:35)
So we're gonna fly through those 300 callouts mm-hmm and in seven years that you, you serve there and then what

Troy: (18:40)
Happens? Mm-hmm then I tested for detective, went to a unit called rope, repeat offenders. A plain closed unit got under co went undercover, got got in with these guys who were funneling money to the Taliban so I'm selling them. Cigarettes, computers, informals, you name it. I'm selling them everything, you know? And these guys think I'm crazy because I, I, I, because the way I treat 'em the way I talk to them, you know, one of the guys, they, they had a system. If they, if they thought you were the police, they would ask you if you would take a check. Because in the past, when he did it, some of the officers said, yeah, they take a check. dropping cigarettes off. And I got this beautiful black female. That's my partner. And I tell her to stay outside because she was, she was book smart, but not street smart.

Troy: (19:26)
But I knew all the guys looked at her and, and thought she was sexy. So they weren't paying a it to me. I know they were figuring how his ugly get her . Cause I would've thought that . So I go in there and I do the deal with this guy and he says, Hey, will you take a check? I said, brother I'm with the cm B. He said, CMB like, think you looking around like, I'm a federal agency. I said, cash money brother. So he laughs and goes in the safe, pulls out this money and gives me my money. And you know, I, and you know, we always said that you either gonna be a Wolf or a sheep. And every time, if you, if you're in the, if you're being a bad guy, you always trying to get something for nothing. So I always get a case of a case of beer and he'd always ask me, Hey, your girl wants something.

Troy: (20:10)
I go ask her. Uh, so he said, you want something? She goes, may I have a Fiji water that gives you some idea how preppy she was and he go get the Fiji water, run out to give it to her man. I'm walking out the store in a case of beer and I don't drink. So all the guys after work, they got some beer we're laughing and having a good old time. And then after that, this is how Scott and I ended up meeting because I, I got on the task force with the us Marshalls, the lone star, Western district of Texas and Scott had a case and he came to San Antonio and we all got to hang out and have some fun. And you

Stephen J: (20:41)
Probably drank that free beer is what Scott did.

Troy: (20:43)
I, like I said, I was, I was the designated decoy I don't know if y'all know what that is. Oh yeah. Yeah. You go out the bar first and get all the police to follow you. right. That's right. Tell everybody, come on back. We you're good. You can come out so yeah, we did that. And uh, and that's where I finished my career at. Yeah, but your career really didn't end did it? No, it didn't. I, I went into the sector for a while. I was an executive for a major corporation in San Antonio. Did that for five years. The owner of the company, you know, he asked me when I got there, he said, Troy, if you could do anything, what would you wanna do? And I told him about my idea about designing a training center for all law enforcement.

Troy: (21:22)
So he put up $3 million and we, we created a training center. That's state of the art. Wow. It's still being used to this day with 300 degree simulators. You go into simulator. I could, I could recreate this scenario, this, this scene here, us talking and all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose out here. And I, I had smells. We had a house inside the building. We had all, it was inside of a warehouse. Nobody knew it was there. So officers got the train to get better. That's incredible. Do do be, is it just for, uh, uh, law enforcement, Western, Texas is it is expanded. Can people come from, from anywhere in the country and, and, and train there? Yeah. Anybody could, we had military, we had military coming in all the time. They, they couldn't get over how, how creative it was. We had, we had technology in there that test your skills and your abilities and decision making.

Troy: (22:07)
And we could play it back. We'd always, we'd always erase the tapes because we never wanted somebody to make a mistake and then some defense attorney get it and use it against them. Right, right. Wow. So that was the place nobody knew about, unless you were law enforcement, you got to go in there, have fun. I, I never forget the, the first time the SWAT guys came in, they didn't wanna do nothing because it was the choice to not, and I got angry with them because one of the, one of our SW officers had gotten killed. And I said, man, the, the, the house, the house address is, is, is the badge number of that fallen SW officer. And you guys are not in here being serious, you know, as we train. So shall we fight? So they did what they really would do. And they put a hole in the wall, you know, and they're looking at me like it's messed up.

Troy: (22:49)
Well, sorry. The company that I was working for was a construction company. So by the next morning, everything was fixed but you couldn't stay away. Could you? No, no, no. After, after there was it seven years you were there. How long were you there? Troy? I was there for five. Oh, was there for five kind of a little short on that one. Well, I, I had been doing went it part-time before that, but the guy kept as owner kept asking me to retire and go full time and made me an executive. And so, um, while I was, when I, when I got to the end of that career, I said, man, look, I found out in the, in the business world that some of these executives were more cutthroat than dealing with these criminals. So I said, man, look, I'm, I'm gonna get back the element that I'm familiar with. And, uh, I went into the, I went as a reserve for this organization so that I could continue to do stuff in the community with the kids. And I started a program called walk a mile on my shoes and, and because police officers get eight hour, you know what we call TCO credit, the state licensing agency credit for the training. I had to have a designated training center to that would, that would carry that. And so where I'm at now, and they carry all the officers that go through that training,

Stephen J: (24:01)
That that's just phenomenal your, your, your path that you've taken, not only helping the community, but helping the people that you serve with, uh, not only San Antonio, but well beyond, uh, it is just so admirable. And then you didn't stop there. You got involved in a bunch of nonprofit organizations as well.

Troy: (24:18)
Right? Right. I I've always done that. You know, I, I, we always did things. We had the community, we would bring the police officers and the community together. You know, we did habitat for humanity. You know, we did you name it. We did it. If they called, we had so many kids and, and, and officers that wanted to do the programs that it wasn't, it, it I'd send out an email and, and we, they might need 10 people we'd have 50. Wow.

Stephen J: (24:45)
But, but who do you think it's really helping Troy, cuz you know, I look at it two ways, one keeping the officers involved in their community, but the, the second way is really that, that community having something to do and their, their connection with, with the police officers. Who do you think it helps more though in the end?

Troy: (25:03)
I think it helped. I, I, I think as a 50 50, the reason why I say that is because the community forget that we go through the same things they go through and more so the stress level is so much higher and, and, and they don't realize that a lot of officers, you know, they, they eat their bullets. You know, there's a high, high rate of, uh, suicide and law enforcement because we don't take that. We don't take that stuff home with us. You know, when we get home, we don't wanna talk about it. That's the mentality that we have. And so the community don't really understand that. So what we did is I started this program called walk a mile of my shoes and I have the shirt on called worthy of respect. We give every officer and every community member, a shirt that says we're all worthy of respect.

Troy: (25:46)
And then what we would do is we, we put the police in the community together. I make the police, the community and I make the community, the police. So what happens is when we do the scenarios, the community show us how they see us treating them and the police show the community, how we see them, how do we see them treating us? Mm-hmm so both sides are always asking me, we don't do that. Do we? I say, yeah, you do . So then they sit down and have a conversation about how can they make things better. And I love the concept because what we do is after we do the program, what we just did, we did one on Juneteenth. And we had a kid in there that said that he hated cops. And by the end of the, he went on the news and told him that everybody need to go through this program because once he became the police officer, he saw how tough it was.

Troy: (26:35)
I asked him, I said, so tell me, how did you feel when, when you told me to take my hands outta my pocket. And I pulled out a cell phone, he goes ma'am my heart was racing. You know? And, and, and I, and, and I, I had to pull my gun out, cuz I thought you were gonna hurt me. I said, but you told me to take my hands out of my pocket. He goes, yeah, yeah. But, but you know, but man, the way, you know, the way you did it and, and I said, well, why did you even stop me? Cause you gotta call for a suspicious person. Right. And he goes, yeah. And it's 30 people in the room. They're hollering, oh, you cop killed, you know, you just wanna kill another black man. And three of us had on hoodies and I said, why'd you pick me out?

Troy: (27:06)
Because I had on a hoodie. He said, no. I said, so why did you pick me out? He said, well, cuz the way you were behaving, you were the only one who wouldn't look at, kept walking away from me. Wouldn't take your hands outta your pocket. I said, oh, so you see what the police officers see? And then the light bulb went off of his head. Oh wow. It's not what I thought it was. It was because the behavior and then he understood. And then the officers told him, yeah, you know, this is what we see. And cuz he told, he said the same thing he says, why wouldn't he just gimme some idea? And that would end up yeah. One of the things course, an eye opening experience.

Stephen J: (27:41)
Yeah. One of the things I advocate for here to get our politicians in the simulators, you know, to make those decisions, to see those things that we see, uh, because it makes a world of difference. And, and I think it's exactly what you've done. You've done it in a, a whole program. And I'll tell you, after this is over, I'm gonna ask to, to get some of that, that, uh, information into that program and introduce it here because that is a huge, and, and it's, I think people forget, especially the people that live in communities where there's active police forces because of the, the crime rate that we are human, that we are there to help them and not hurt them. Uh, and, and basically the premise of this whole podcast behind the 10 is humanizing. Whether it's cops or firemen is to show that the things that we do, especially outside of work shows you, we're just part of the community. Right? So why are we any different when we are working? Cuz we're, we're, we're given the responsibility of helping, you know, and that's the difference between us. Right.

Troy: (28:44)
But you know, you could tell them, but when you show them, it's a lot better. Yeah. I'm,

Stephen J: (28:47)
I'm loving it, Troy.

Troy: (28:48)
Yeah. So cuz actually what we did is these shirts is, is everybody's ticket to get in. I give all the officers, the shirt, I give the people that go through the program, the shirt. So then I send out an email saying, Hey, we took over a bowling alley for the day. We want y'all to come bowl with the police. So we had 400 community members. We had the LT, we had the Jewish community, we had the Muslim community. We had kids who were aging out of the, the, the uh, foster care program. And everybody said, why'd you invite those kids? I said, because if they don't have anybody, when they turn 18 to turn to, I want 'em to be able to walk up to an officer. And so they, that way they get help before they get trouble. Wow. And we took over the bowling alley and I love the story because it's it. I still laugh about it today. There was a young white officer. He was buffed and cut, you know, and he's wearing his, his badge around his neck. And he sees this black female that, that, that lives in the community that he serves is always giving him grief. So he tells me, he goes, Troy, don't put me with that. I can't stand

Stephen J: (29:45)
.

Troy: (29:47)
So she sees him and she says, don't put me with that white racist cop. I can't stand him. Right. So who do I put together? Oh, you did it quarter together. Everybody got the same shirt on that says worthy of respect. She gets up there and throws her first balls and don't throw 'em in the gutter. The second frame, she gets lucky and she gets a strike. And this is what I love about what the officer did. He took an opportunity to extend the olive branch. He took his badge from around his neck and hung around her neck and said, you get to wear the badge until someone else get a strike and she's running up and down the aisle. I got it bad. I got it bad. all excited. Now she hated him five minutes ago. Yep. And his, her little boy, I cuz I let them bring their kids so that they could see their parents having a good interaction with the police.

Troy: (30:35)
And so the little boy goes up to him and says, sir, how do I get a badge? And the officer knelt down. So he eye level with the kid and said two things. You have to do one. You have to listen to your mom. He goes, see that's right. You gotta listen to me. and number two, you have to work on your grades in school because that's going be important to become a police officer. You're not always going to get it right. But do your best. He goes, then when you turn 20 and a half, we're gonna have a spot for you on department. And I'll be waiting for you because I would love for you to be my partner. And the little boy hugged him tight. Like he was almost like he was his daddy. Wow. And it melt. And then the woman said something that blew everybody out of the water.

Troy: (31:15)
She says, I'd never bowl before. And the officer said, how can that be? So I went to the PA system and I said, everybody stopped bowl. I said, everybody in here has never bowled before. Step out on the lanes. And almost everybody that wasn't a police officer stepped out on the lane. Wow. And I said, the officer said, how can that beat where I said, because they don't have bowling alleys in their community. So experience of having fun bowling was with the police. Do you think they're gonna do now? And they think the world of you because they see you in a different light. A year later, they had a, a, a task force on that side of the city because the, the crime was so bad. And the officer called me up one night and says, Troy don't don't ever stop that program. I said, what happened?

Troy: (32:00)
He said, you remember the lady I owed with? I said, yeah. He said, she called me two days ago and told me who committed three of the murders. And we cleared the cases because of her. And I said, I said, how did that happen? He goes, I asked her, why did she call me he? And she said, you're my officer. That's right. That's incredible. Then he understood the relationship he had with that community at that point. So that's why I said it affects both sides because we tend to get, we get hard also because we get tired of getting bitched at and playing that when we go on these calls. Sure. But when they love you, you can make a mistake and they'll still support you. We had

Stephen J: (32:33)
Alonzo Manan. He's a, a deputy sheriff up in New York. Uh, who's a school resource officer mm-hmm . And we spoke about the same thing that, that relationship he's building with these kids being there every day in their high school, it's a very large high school. It's already come back to him. When there's a crime in the community where they talk to him, I can walk up and ask a question. They don't know me from Adam, but they know him. They respect him and they turn to him. That's a big deal. I, and to me, that's the heart of community policing. You guys are taking it to another level in San Antonio with these programs. But this is simply sometimes just a cop going down the block and introducing himself mentality.

Troy: (33:11)
That's it, man. That's all. When we designed it, we designed it after the beat cup mentality. When we grew up the officer that worked our beat, he knew every, everybody, he could tell you how fast you ran in track. How many points you scored in basketball. And if you got in trouble, he could knock on your door and your mom and dad didn't say why you messing with my kid. They made you come out there and you had the answer to that officer. And nine times outta 10, if it was something little, he said tomorrow, we're gonna go to this old lady's house and paint her fence. And you better be there. You know? And, and everybody respect that officer and the officer knew everybody in the community. So Troy it's

Stephen J: (33:45)
The same mindset. You, you mentioned what the cop told the young guy, the, the little kid, when he was bowling of how, how do I get to wear a badge? What would you tell somebody? Who's, you know, 20, 20, 1 years old right now, you know who, who wants to, to attain that level you've attained? What, what kind of advice would you give him?

Troy: (34:00)
First thing I would tell 'em is take the test. Don't listen to what everybody out in the feet is telling you. Be your own person. If you have leadership qualities, then you wanna consider being a police officer, because you have to be able to, to get out there and think on your feet. One, you have to wanna help the community. Even though it's sometimes it's a thankless job. I always laugh about the firefighters versus the police. A firefighter would go in there and kicking the door, throw water everywhere. And they'll bake him a cake. if we not too hard, they're calling internal affairs. That's right. I said, but you have to love that. Yeah, you, this has to be your passion, not something you're doing just to make, to get paid. If that's what you're there for. You're probably not gonna do a good job and you're probably not going to enjoy enjoy it. It has to be something you enjoy. Take a chance, try it. If it don't work out for you, figure out something.

Stephen J: (34:51)
And Troy, we ask every guest that we have on here on behind the 10, what do you define a hero as

Troy: (34:57)
Man, I define a hero as anybody that's willing to take a chance to get out and do something that most people wouldn't do in a tough situation. If you could stand up and strong and keep your values and morals, then you're a hero. And the person I'll give you a prime example. The officers in doubt, I always tell the story. Whenever I talk to the community, I said, you had white officer out there. Black lives matter. People that they knew was against them. And when the shooting started, they didn't run away from it. They ran to the trouble and officers lost their lives, saving the people that didn't even like them. Those are hero.

Stephen J: (35:38)
Well, I agree with you. And I, I, I also think that the, the people that are putting their community first that are coming up with programs and ideas, you know, you're involved in your incident and your first year in the job, I, I actually have a, a similar incident that I was involved in. That's just, that's just one incident, man. So Troy, you're a hero, man. You're a hero for what you've done in that community since almost the, the, the start. I mean, aside from your incident and I, I had a similar incident in, in the beginning of my career. I don't think those incidents define you. It doesn't define me, but what you've done in your community with the programs that you've started is that's what makes you a hero in my mind? Um, thank you for that. And, and I, I, I gotta really try to put out there that these other communities need to reach out to you and get information on how you did that so that we're not reinventing the wheel. Yeah. These things can happen right away.

Justin: (36:30)
That was actually gonna be one of my questions is, you know, you developed all these incredible programs that, uh, obviously conceptually great ideas. And then of course you had the data that the departments collected to prove that mathematically they were good ideas. Is it frustrating that it's not expanding faster and to, to more areas because it sounds like this is a model that could be used anywhere. Well,

Troy: (36:55)
Uh, I just got last week, I got off the phone with, with my city council member, because one of them had said that the police were racist. And I said, have you seen the program? And one of the TV stations had come out and they made it the top story of the, of the day because they couldn't believe how successful it was and how it was working so well. So now they wanting to make this a, a pilot program. A two year pilot program were taught about making that happen and inviting other officers in from other states and other cities to come in and actually participate. You know, see if their agency would let, 'em stay for a couple of weeks and participate in the trainings. I already have it already. It's everything I have is copyrighted. So I already have the material and they could just go out and do it. I don't, I don't charge officers, nothing for that to be able to go out and do of that in the community. But

Stephen J: (37:40)
We definitely want people to be able to reach out to you. We'll put that in the show notes, uh, about these incredible programs. Troy, just thanks for coming on with us, man. I appreciate it. So,

Troy: (37:49)
And we do, and we do this all the time and we have officers come in and go through the training. Uh, our police union president, a lot of people didn't know this at, uh, we had a tough fight on our hand to keep cause elected bargaining. This last, this last session, we only won by 2%.

Stephen J: (38:06)
Win's a win. Yes.

Troy: (38:07)
But, but what I love with the office, what the, the union president said is this female in the media came up with the, with the microphone that said, are you glad you won? You know, aren't you happy that you won? And he said that he said the right thing. He said, know if 48% or 49% of the community don't have faith in us. We have work to do sure. And he called me, he says, Hey, Troy, you ready to get that program started again? And I did, we did it. And man, we, we did the on Juneteenth. We actually did the program. And then two weeks later we took all the community and we went to this place called urban air and indoor trampoline park. And the police in the community played Dodge ball against each other. And they had so much fun. The officers had fun.

Troy: (38:49)
The community had fun and they can't wait for the next one. We were going to do one on August the 21st. Like COVID was so bad here. I didn't wanna do it. Mm. But as soon as COVID dies down again, we're taking over a movie theater, we're taking over a bowl alley. Uh, we, we continue to have the community members go through the TRO, the training program. And in two years we had over 3000 community members go through and in, uh, 300 police officers and they gave me $50,000 a grant gave me $50,000 and said, I had to get a hundred officers and 300 community members through the program. In three months, I had 700 community members and 150 officers when I ran out of money. Wow. So talking about though, man. So, so now in the city is we're, we're in talks maybe with, with, I have several people that have gotten behind it with grants and we're trying to get the city to get behind it as a two year pilot program and bring people in from all over the country, law enforcement officers, uh, city council members, so that these, uh, agencies don't have to fight with the, with the city or their, or their community to get these programs going that way, that you'll find somebody, if a city council member or somebody on, on, on politician get behind it, they'll find the money.

Troy: (39:58)
Oh sure. And they always say, Hey,

Stephen J: (40:01)
And that information's found at winner circle, ts.com. Yes. We're gonna make sure people get there. Troy, thank you so much, man. We really appreciate your time. And uh, I'm excited to, to watch and see what, what happens with these programs. Yeah. Troy,

Troy: (40:14)
What you keep doing, what you do and, and, and I'll keep you guys in the loop. Soon as I get the new worthy of respect shirts, I'm gonna send you guys some so that y'all can fly to colors.

Stephen J: (40:24)
We will, man. We will. We got something we're gonna send down to you, Troy. We appreciate you, man.

Troy: (40:27)
Hey, Hey. Thank you guys, man. Love, you guys are doing don't ever stop doing that. No, thank you for your service.

Justin: (40:32)
You guys are heroes.

Stephen J: (40:34)
Thanks Troy. Well, I think two words sum this guy up inspirational and inspiring.

Justin: (40:47)
Absolutely. And you know, it never, it never ceases to amaze me. We never know where these interviews are going. And man, what an incredibly powerful story he's shared. That was really, that was something

Stephen J: (41:00)
I, I really think that this program can be in larger communities, smaller communities, medium size communities. And just that power of involvement. You know, we talk about community policing, community policing is what policing has been since it's inception. Right? We lost it.

Justin: (41:17)
Yeah. C communities change age so fast. You know, like living here where we are in the Hudson valley, we saw, you know, in the late eighties, early nineties, the influx of people from the city, uh, then again, after nine 11, we saw an influx. And now again, after a pandemic, we're seeing an influx. I think nationwide people are just moving all over

Stephen J: (41:33)
The place and communities are changing. Uh, and it's important to kind of bring it back into a community. And I think the police officers, law enforcement officers, deputy sheriff, state troopers, knowing their community, being involved in their community is what it's all about. I mean, behind the 10, what we're doing here is highlighting people that on off duty are making a difference. Yeah. In, and this sky's it in their communities choice it, man. Well, everyone, thanks again for listening behind the 10 and hearing about how our heroes, our heroes with the 10 on and off, be sure to follow us like us share, subscribe, you know, go to behind the ten.com. Follow us on Facebook. If you know someone that should be on our, uh, send us an email behind the tenant, gmail.com. What, what does someone do if they wanna support the show? If they wanna be a sponsor, you can reach out to us at behind the tenant, gmail.com message us on Facebook. And if you wanna buy a guest, a drink or buy the crew around, you can follow links on Facebook for that as well. Awesome. Well, once again, thank you so much. Look out for one another and stay safe.