Endless Thread - Us vs. Them vs. Andy

Episode Date: May 6, 2022

From a young age, "Andy" wanted to be a police officer. But in 2021, after 15 years on the job, he quit. Andy wrote about his decision in the r/OffMyChest community on Reddit — a choice that left him  "half-heartbroken and half-relieved". In this episode, Andy talks about the ethical dilemmas that led him to leave law enforcement for good.

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Heads up. This episode briefly mentions suicide. Okay, here's the show. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. So when I told my wife, she was the most supportive person that could ever be in that type of situation when, you know, your significant other announces that they're quitting their job.

This is a guy we're calling Andy. About a year ago, Andy threw in the towel. He stepped away from a lifelong career that had been an important part of his identity. And even in an era when lots of people are reevaluating their life, their work, their life's work, Andy felt like he was making a huge move. Actually, I texted my wife.

I wrote up my resignation, and I took a picture of it and I texted it to her. And she said, what's this? And I said, my resignation. And from there, just her response was just so positive. She was like, I love you. I'm here for you. This is the right decision.

This is what's best for you. You're going to feel so much better. Like, don't worry. We'll figure everything out. And there was a lot to figure out. He was in a line of work where it's hard not to bring your work home with you, where your colleagues often form a strong network even beyond the day job. Andy's day job was the only line of work he had ever known.

I just couldn't do it anymore. He was also leaving the family business in a way, three generations deep, and he still hasn't told them all why. Oh, no, yeah, no, not at all. But we know why, and so do thousands of strangers on Reddit, because Andy spelled it all out in a post in the off-frey. My Chest Community, an online space where people go to confess things anonymously. The title of that post?

I did it. I just resigned from my career in law enforcement after 15 years. I'm Ben Brock Johnson. I'm Amory Severson, and you're listening to Endless Thread. We're coming to you from WBUR Boston's NPR station. Today's episode, Us versus Them. Versus Andy. There's something we need to say before we go further. The person you're hearing from today was very concerned about physical attacks from former colleagues.

And considering his line of work, we felt that granting him anonymity was important. We did independently verify as former employers, his full name, proof of employment, etc. His Reddit post was made from the username Andy's Toy 1027. For the sake of simplicity, we decided to keep it simple. My name's Andy, and I am a former police detective. And right now I live in the southeastern United States up in the mountains. And before, I worked in both the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area as a police detective. And I also worked in the metropolitan Boston area as a police investigator.

Andy's in his 30s. He's married. He's got a family, a brand new puppy. And up until recently, he had the job he'd grown up dreaming about. one in which he believed he could really help people, protect them, save them. To trace the roots of Andy's interest in law enforcement, you have to go back two generations. It was your grandmother who was a police person, right? Yes. Can you talk about her a little bit?

My grandmother was a deputy, and then she was an investigator, for a small little agency in the South. And she was a first woman at the agency. And my grandmother is about six foot tall, back when she could walk around a very imposing figure. Growing up, I would hear stories about my grandmother and how she would put all the men in their places. She was a very strong presence in my life. And one of my biggest supporters when I wanted to go into law enforcement. Andy got plenty of support from his parents, too.

my father and mother actually met on duty working for the same agency. And so that's sort of been, you know, part of my blood really that's felt like that. There's a big connection to identity in law enforcement. And I was so excited because in my head and in my experience, I mean, when I talked about police, first recently, responders, I was talking about my family. I was naive. I mean, there's no way around that. Andy says he was naive because he didn't really realize how his view of his new job might not be the same as others in the outside world. So when I first got hired, I worked for a department that

patrolled an area that that was not very good. There was a high crime area. And before I went to the police academy, but after I was sworn in, I knew. needed a haircut. So I went to the barber shop that was a couple of blocks from the police headquarters. A couple of things here. One, if your ears just perked up when Andy said he was sworn in as an officer before he went to the police academy, ours did too, this is pretty common, it turns out. The rules are different state by state, even agency by agency. And two, we don't know the demographics of the area he was patrolling. But for what it's worth, Andy is White. Back to the barbershop. And I went in and I just, I couldn't wait to talk about how, you know,

oh, I'm a police officer. You're going to be seeing a lot of me. I work for the city now. And I got a haircut. And I couldn't understand. I just thought maybe, maybe something I said was off or something because the guy cutting my hair and the other people in there just, you know, they were not as excited for me as I was for myself. And after I left and after I gained. some experience that year, I realized that the barber that cut my hair with somebody that had, you know, multiple run-ins with the local police. And, you know, it was just the wrong audience to talk about how excited I was for that. But in my mind, I hadn't seen anybody be negative about the police at all in the culture that I grew up with. I just thought, oh, you know, it's just like being

a firefighter, just like being a paramedic or something. So, yeah, I felt very naive about that. As Andy started to be incorporated into the police force, he says his eyes were open to realities he hadn't really considered previously. For one, a lot of the policing he saw was based on emotion. If somebody had any type of attitude with my field training officer when I was in training and, you know, say on a traffic stop, you know, any type of attitude other than yes or no sir,

than there would usually, you know, be some type of, you know, retribution for that, whether it was a ticket or, you know, deciding to take longer to fill, you know, fill out the ticket to inconvenience the person or trying to talk themselves into the car to search the car, even though they knew there was nothing in it just to, again, to inconvenience them to show them who's boss. This didn't really jive with the law enforcement family Andy had grown up with. All these things that I had never. heard my parents talk about or my grandmother talk about, you know, but now I was seeing it. And so it really put me in a position where I felt, you know, like an ethical dilemma.

You know, how much is the job that I'm supposed to be doing? How much is it the actual job and how much of it is, you know, a rulebook made up by the officers that I work with to assert some type of control? As Andy was coming out of minimal training and grappling with what he was learning about how the law was enforced, he was thrown into the deep end. His first real night on the job

was an experience that would echo through the next 15 years of his work. I'm in my shiny police cruiser in a uniform that had never been worn before everything was polished and I was just, I was so happy. I felt like I had accomplished something and I was, you know, here I am, you know, and I'm a cop now and this is going to be great.

And I was patrolling in a neighborhood and there was a car or truck that was stopped in the middle of this residential road and had the brake lights on and I pulled up to it and, you know, turn on my lights thinking that maybe it was a disabled vehicle. And there was no response. So I walked up to the side of the window and I saw a guy on the inside about my age that was passed out. Andy could see empty beer bottles inside the car. He woke the guy up, and it was clear he'd had too much to drink. So Andy arrested him for driving under the influence. I just thought I had made it. It was the easiest DUI. You know, a guy passed out, you know, that said, I'm sorry, I'm drunk. It's perfect. So I was feeling real good about myself, and I arrested him, and I put him in my

car. And on the way back to the station, you know, he started pleading with me saying, please, please don't do this, please don't arrest me, please just bring me home. You know, I shouldn't have done this, but, you know, I just got my life back in order. And, you know, I was like, well, sorry, it's too late now. You should have thought about that before. Andy drove him to the police station, where the guy continued to plead with him. He told him he was supposed to leave for Air Force training in a few days. He couldn't get arrested.

He couldn't let his family down like that. From there, Andy had the choice of either bringing the guy down to the jail to sober up overnight, or releasing him to a family member. He chose the latter, sent the guy home with his uncle. After he left, I was finishing up the paperwork, and I got a call. And the call was for suicide in progress. And so I jumped in my car, followed the address,

and I pulled up, and I ran to, it was like a detached garage behind the house. And I ran there, I heard people screaming, and there he was the same guy that I had arrested. He had gone home and directly home, and he had hanged himself. And I was the first one on the scene there, and I actually, I was the one that cut him down. And I did CPR, and he was still warm. I mean, it just happened.

I don't know how they heard, but it just happened. And then the paramedics got there, and they called it. The man had written a suicide note. On it was Andy's name. And then one of his family, I think it was his brother, came up and, you know, screaming at me and, you know, why did you do this? You know, he's a good kid. He's a good kid. And, you know, at that point, I just, I obviously couldn't do anything. But, I mean, just an overall, a very traumatic experience for my first arrest.

And Andy says he felt really guilty for charging the guy, even though it was his job to do that. And he felt guilty for sending him home with a family member, which was acceptable protocol. But Andy never did that again after this night. Anybody that I arrest for DUI is going to go to the jail and sober up before. I'm not going to really send anybody to family members. That was my first takeaway. His other takeaways were less clear-cut, more lingering, festering even. Because while Andy was racked with guilt, some of his fellow officers had a different

take. You know, I had co-workers that were joking with me the next day about it, making just, you know, really off-color jokes about it and, oh, look, Andy, he killed a guy last night, you know. I had somebody else to me, oh, you'll get used to it. You know, people die every day. And for me, I think it was a shock to me that, you know, people could just be so cold, I guess, when talking about a human life. And, you know, I was told that, you know, because I was upset about it, obviously, I was told that I would grow out of that. The more experience I had, I'd end up being able to be a little less emotional. But Andy didn't grow out of it.

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the Creative Studio from WBUR's business partnerships team. Become a thought leader. Recruit new talent. Reach new audiences. Whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org slash creative studio. The former police officer we're calling Andy had a rocky start on the job. And he had conflicted feelings about the attitudes and approach of some of his fellow officers.

And none of that really went away. It just got a little quieter as he was. got promoted and moved around in his field. From patrol officer in the small rural town he started in. To detective, investigating major and violent crimes. To a position in the community engagement unit. To the Special Victims Bureau, investigating domestic violence cases and child predators. Even to the Financial Crimes Bureau and a federal task force, these later positions were in a major metropolitan area. Andy says he felt like he was excelling. But at the same time, he was witnessing things he thought were unacceptable, being, well, accepted.

The problem started several years ago. I observed an officer getting into an argument with a suspect in handcuffs. It escalated, and when the subjects had something about the officer's wife, the subject was thrown to the ground. This is from Andy's Reddit post, the one in the off-my-chest community, where he announced that he'd just submitted his resignation after 15 years on the job. He read the whole thing to us. The officer jumped on top of the suspect and began punching him in the face while he was handcuffed. I interviewed and stopped the officer and then reported what happened. Instead of being fired, the officer was allowed to resign and he wasn't charged.

I knew I did the right thing, but I always felt like it was mishandled. The supervisors started nitpicking everything I did. I was denied promotions despite having an absolutely stellar record. My other officers refused to work with me since I reported what. happen. I was transferred to a position that limited me in using my abilities. And as things arose in the news over the past few years about bad policing, I noticed a change in how the rank and file did their jobs and interacted with the public. There was an overwhelming sense that police weren't appreciated. And that set up officers for negative interactions because they'd show up just waiting

for someone to start filming them, calling them pigs, etc. Even though this rarely happened. But from the times it did happen, it created an us versus them mentality. Andy says morale was low, and some of the uses started becoming them. And while we're just telling his story here, national data corroborates some of his experiences. For instance, according to the police executive research forum, a survey of about 200 police departments nationwide showed that between April of 2020 and April 2021, officer retirements were up 45% and resignations were up 18% from the year prior. And Andy says recruitment at his agency was down, which meant the new recruits they did have received less scrutiny in the hiring process, sloppy training, and also found themselves

in enough tense situations with the public that his department started losing credibility. Final straw for me happened earlier this year. When the capital insurrection happened, I was shocked at how many apologists there were who defended the action. of the mob there. Politically, if you weren't conservative, you were a cop hater. Having always been a little left of center, I'd insert my opinion in conversation based on what I believed were facts. Then it gets shut down because I was addicted to, quote, fake news of NPR and CNN.

I was even reported once for, quote, hurting morale and was lectured about talking politics, even though everyone else did and my views were different than theirs. Then, a few months after the insurrection, a verdict came down in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the now former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd during an arrest. Guilty. Suddenly, from so many decision makers on the department, he was some type of martyr. Having been a tactical controls instructor myself, I knew that his actions were in direct violation of all standard policies for the past 25 years.

Still, people wanted to justify. it in some way that made the police martyrs who were publicly crucified for their bad decisions. The day I submitted my resignation, I was called into my division captain's office. The captain brought up a recent conversation I had while training new recruits and basic tactical controls. I made at a point when talking about restraints to point out how chauvin's tactics were exactly what we were trying to avoid when restraining. One of the recruits filed a complaint saying I was, quote, promoting liberal politics and training. I explained my position to the captain who listened to what I had said, and then he replied,

Andy, you need to choose what side you're on, either the police or the media. All the work I've done for the last 15 years, all the pedophiles and murderers I've helped to catch, all the lives I've saved, including other officers, was reduced to an us versus them mentality. I was disgusted and walked back to my office. I typed up my resignation. I typed up my resignation and returned 20 minutes later and handed it to the captain. I don't know what I'm doing next, but I know that I couldn't take one more minute in that environment. I began my career to help people, and now the mission is to preserve the profession instead of serve the public. I haven't told anyone the real reason I've quit. I don't want to get

caught up in debates about the merit of my decision. All I know is that I'm free. Andy wrote that post about a year ago. It took us months to get him to agree to talk to. to us. It started with several long phone conversations, pretty open conversations, though there was some hesitation from Andy. Even as he was walking out the door, he was still involved in wrapping up some cases, and he needed to testify in court. He wanted to talk, but he was also worried about how his fellow officers were going to take his honest assessment. To a lot of them, Andy was going to look like the enemy, which is part of the reason Andy was leaving. He felt like there wasn't enough self-reflection in the force.

It was in us and them attitude. And if you were a member of a department who was acknowledging that there were problems, you weren't in us. You were one of them. But we finally spoke to Andy last November, just before Thanksgiving, and about six months after he left the force.

It's been a while since you wrote that. Reading it back, what does that make you think of? You know, I think that the first thing I realize is that I made the right decision. At the time, it felt like the right decision, but I didn't know how things were going to turn out for myself and my family. And I didn't know if, you know, it was just this emotional decision that I made. And, you know, I had this idea that if I got out, I'd feel free

from all that. And I might be able to help it in another way. And so leaving has opened up opportunities for me to at least be available to those that want to see change come. Today, Andy runs a consultancy business. He says he works with local governments and police agencies to bring their policies and community engagement initiatives into the 21st century. But he also helps community groups advocate for better training of law enforcement officers,

things like mental health education for first responders. The one thing that I've tried to remember for both myself and the people that I've trained in my job is the day that you are coming into contact with somebody may be the worst day of their life. They might be going through an experience that is the worst of their life. Nobody ever sees the police on a good day. And it's very important.

There's a very high responsibility to ensure that not only are you doing what's the lawful action for that person, but you're showing empathy and you're treating them like a person because they're going to look back at that moment, you know, a year, five, ten years from now. And they're going to remember what happened. And it's going to inform how they move on from there and how they interact with the police possibly in the future, too.

Do you think other people share that same mentality? Like, is that an original word of wisdom that you're passing to other people? Or is this something that is a widely shared sentiment among your needs? department or departments? I've never heard anybody else say that. I've heard, you know, treat people the way you want to be treated and, you know, in training and whatnot. But when it comes to, you know, the job of law enforcement, no, other officers might have different experiences.

But in my experience, that was not a widely, you know, held belief. So Andy, a guy who left the police force because of what he calls moral and ethical struggles he faced inside the field is now trying to improve law enforcement from the outside. But that's not the way he explained his career shift to his father, who still works in law enforcement, pretty high up at the federal level. I framed it in a way where I said, hey, you know, I'm putting, I think I'm going to start a consultancy business, I think. I think that's what I'm going to do. The money's in the private sector. You know, I tried to sort of pivot it into a way that this, like, this is a smart financial

decision, which it really wasn't. And his response really surprised me. He said, oh, man, I, he said, if I had to start my career today, there's no way that I would have done it. And, you know, I think it's good for you to get out. I think it's going to be safer for you. And he was a lot more supportive than what I had thought. As for his grandmother, the person who inspired Andy to work in law enforcement in the first place, the first question that she asked me is, well, are you quitting or are you retortive? hiring. The answer, it turns out, is both.

Andy put in enough years to receive some of the protections of a retired police officer, like the right to carry a concealed weapon. But he left five years short of being able to collect the financial benefits of official retirement from the force. As far as we know, his grandmother still doesn't know that detail. Yeah, it definitely wasn't as sort of open and honest as I was with my wife. I was definitely afraid of what the response was going to be. It sounds like some dogs want to get in.

And with that, our time was up. Andy's dog started barking. His wife and daughter had just gotten home, and we had to wrap, feeling in some ways like we had a much richer picture of the former police officer behind the anonymous Reddit post. And in others, like we had just skimmed the surface. Andy felt surprisingly satisfied. Oh my gosh.

This is so cathartic for me as well to talk about this. I'm glad. Oh, good. Yeah, well, we really appreciate you being willing to talk about it with us and for being so open. We plan to pick our conversation back up after the Thanksgiving holiday. Andy said he would even talk to his dad and grandmother about speaking to us, which we were excited about.

But again, he hadn't told them the whole story at this point about why he left. the force. We don't know how those conversations went, or if they happened at all. Because right after this, Andy ghosted us. We haven't heard from him in months. I've sent texts, Reddit messages, I've called, left voicemail. I even contacted him on LinkedIn. Nothing. He even seems to have disappeared from Reddit. And we have no idea why. Talking to us was another big step among the many Andy's taken over the last year. We hope he's okay. We hope he hears this episode

and maybe even sends it to his dad and grandmother. And maybe they'll all be willing to talk together. Us and them. Three generations of law enforcement officers reflecting on how the profession has changed or not. Either way, Andy, Andy's dad, Andy's grandma.

We're ready when you are. Endless Thread is a production of W. BUR in Boston. Want early tickets to events, swag, bonus content. You can join our email list, and you can find that at WBUR.org. slash endless thread. By the way, we would love for you to review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. If you've made it this far, hopefully you like listening to the show.

And let me just read a few of our recent reviews on Apple Podcasts. Emery, you want to read one and I'll read the other one? You ready? Okay. Started off pretty good. but now it's more about professing their ideological purity and leaning more and more toward the political correctness on everything. I understand that Twitter justice is swift and can be very unfair,

but what happened to courage? Here's another one. I'm out of here by Upstate New York 14-428. Two insufferable holier than now know-it-all liberals that inject their politics wherever they can. These pompous idiots are perfect for each other. Aww. That's kind of sweet in a way.

You know what I mean? We're perfect with our... I couldn't agree more. Upstate New York 14-483 or whatever your name is. Anyway, please review our show. Especially if you like the show, we would love to get some reviews from you. Yes. What else do we need to say, Amory?

This episode was written and produced by me, a pompous liberal idiot, apparently. No. and co-hosted by another pompous liberal idiot, Ben Brock Johnson, aka me. Mixed in sound design by Paul Vicus. Our web producer is Megan Cattel. The rest of our team is Norrisax, Dean Russell, Quincy Walters, and Grace Tatter. Endless thread is a show about the blurred lines between digital communities and the real, awesome, beautiful, sometimes terrifying and troubling, but always worth it, world.

If you've got an untold history, an unsolved mystery, or a watcher, story from the internet that you want us to tell, hit us up. Email endless thread at wbUR.org. Or pompous idiots perfect for each other at gmail.com. Okay. All right. See you later, folks.