Locked In with Ian Bick - County Sheriff Speaks On Jail Escapes, Crazy Arrests & Wild Contraband Stories | Sheriff John Staley

Episode Date: September 7, 2023

Sheriff John Staley has over 20 years of law enforcement experience in Central Arkansas. His father and brother also work in law enforcement, so he has strong family ties to the criminal justice system. He is passionate about the Peers Achieving Collaborative Treatment (PACT) program in Lonoke County, which seeks to aid inmates battling addiction. Sheriff Staley also gives his take on two major career events. In 2019, Sheriff Staley struck an inmate at Lonoke County Jail during a search, and footage of the incident was later released. Then in 2021, Sheriff Staley fired a sergeant who didn’t follow body-cam protocol when he approached a teen … who he later ended up shooting to death. Sheriff Staley also talks about his work as an instructor for other law enforcement officers and shares stories about his time on the other side of the law. Big thanks to Lost Trail Communications for sponsoring this episode. Get a free consultation at losttrailcommunications.com - mention Locked In for 25% off any service. Connect with John Staley: https://www.facebook.com/ElectJohnStaley/ Connect with Ian Bick:  https://www.ianbick.com/ 00:00 Intro  01:12 Lost Trail Communications (AD)  02:08 Childhood and Upbringing  05:22 Generational Criminality 09:33 Are people born Evil? 11:45 Separating Feeling on the Job 13:35 Media make the job harder? 19:43 Why is County Jail so bad? 25:58 Morals as an Officer  27:14 Unable to save everyone 31:21 Toughest aspect of the job 33:41 Lost Trail Communications (AD) 35:06 Officers that don’t comply. 37:50 Day-to-day as a county sheriff 41:07 County Sheriff vs Police Chief 44:51 Craziest Arrest  49:08 Aware of the power he holds? 53:03 Solitary Confinement  54:03 Escape attempts  58:12 Crazy Smuggling Contraband Story  1:01:33 No Intimate Relationships with Inmates Allowed  1:05:46 Message  Subscribe to our membership program on YouTube to get early access to interviews, see behind the scenes photos, live chat with Ian & more: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRvVklIft6DMelVW18M0oBw/join Powered by Q29 Productions, LLC Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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registered investment advisor. Investing involves risk to principle regardless of the strategy used. Has performance does not guarantee future results. Welcome back to the Locked in with Ian Bick. podcast. On today's episode, I have Sheriff John Staley. Guys, this episode is literally the first of its kind, and it's such a great, exciting episode in a different point of view. I got invited to Sheriff John Staley's County Jail in Lowenoke, Arkansas, where he invited me to meet some of the inmates, give a presentation on my life story, which will already be out on all platforms by the time you guys

are watching and listening to this episode, we got to get an exclusive tour of the entire county jail. And more importantly, which is what you guys are about to listen to today, I got to sit down with Sheriff John Staley, a current law enforcement officer, which is something we don't usually get to interview. And I got to go in-death about his story, about some of the key elements to being a law enforcement officer

in this day and age, and see what it's like to be the sheriff, of a county jail in Arkansas. I really, really hope you guys enjoy this episode. I'm super excited about it. The set obviously looks a little bit different, but you guys are going to love this. Also, big thanks to our new sponsor, Lost Trail Communications. They provide affordable marketing and public relations services to small businesses, startups, and creators. Book a free consultation at lost trailcommunications.com and mention locked in to receive 25 percent off service of your choice. Thanks again to Lost Trail Communications for sponsoring this week's

episode. Sheriff Staley, thank you so much for coming on the show today, inviting us to your jail, your county jail. This is my first time in a jail after getting released from prison myself. I think this is a great dynamic having an active sheriff and a former inmate talking and having this conversation. It's got to be had. We've got to change lives. Absolutely. Where are you from? Where did you grow up? Right here in Lownown County, Arkansas. Your whole entire life. Whole entire life. I worked as a dad of tech for a while and traveled the country.

And I always knew my dad was a police chief in B.B. Arkansas, which is just north of us in White County. Police chief in Warren, Arkansas. He was in law enforcement for a while. But when I was a kid, he would drove a truck. And a lot of cops get out of law enforcement to go drive a truck. It's a quiet time, I guess. You don't have to deal with so many folks. Somebody asked me the other day, what's it like being a sheriff? It's the best job ever and the worst job ever, all at the same time. Yeah.

So that's Cabot, Arkansas is where I went to high school and elementary school. And this is where I'm from. When you were a kid, did you know you wanted to be in law enforcement growing up? Yeah. From a young age, because of your father? Because my dad, my brother was a deputy sheriff as well. Is he an older brother? He is.

I have three half brothers and a half sister from my dad's first marriage. They're all quite a bit older. I think I was an oops. Because my dad, everybody thought he was my grandpa. And he was 44 when I was born. My mom was 33. So I was one of those, uh-ohs. You know, my brother was a deputy sheriff and a local law enforcement officer in one of the cities.

Ward. In the north part of our county, it's Ward, Austin, and Cabot. And that's the Cabot School District. It's just the north part of the county. And over in White County is BB, Macray, and it's kind of the same dynamics. It's just a small town. That's so interesting you said about your dad having you at a later age because my dad had me at 50. But he waited his whole entire life to have kids. He kind of did it reverse. And then he had my brother at 54. And now he's turned 78 this year. What time period did you grow up in? I was born in 79. I'm 43 years old. So I guess the late 80s and 90s. Did your dad retire while you were still a teenager?

No, when I was born, he was already driving a truck. So he had retired by that point. So, you know, it's one of those things where you get out of law enforcement sometimes. It was a positive thing. There's no money in it in Arkansas. So it's not like Midwest and up in New York in different places where they actually pay their law enforcement. And we're getting there now. It's taking some time.

I actually interviewed a former county sheriff a couple of weeks ago, Kyle Overmire. I'm not sure if you're familiar with this story. But he ended up going to prison. He was the youngest elected sheriff in the state of Ohio, and he goes to prison. And he was saying that pay at that time was like $50,000 or $60,000. This was like the early 2000s. So it's interesting to hear that perspective. And he also had a father that was the police chief.

So it's funny how the paths align to. Yeah, a lot of folks, when I go to speak to schools and different groups, I talk about generational criminality, generational wealth. A lot of our folks that we deal with that have been in crime, that have been convicted, have been to jail, it's not their family. They've learned, it's a learned, you know, they learned their, you know,

a lot of attorneys, they become attorneys. Their kids become attorneys. Well, if you've been in trouble, a lot of times your kids are going to be in trouble. There are some families that we've arrested. When I started out in 2000, as a law enforcement officer, I was arresting senior.

Then I started arresting junior. now we're resting the third. You know, it's just sometimes generational criminality happens. Yeah. I don't know if I'd made that up or not, but it's reality and it's learned. Yeah, we saw that with Jimmy McGill on his episode that we recorded. His father was in the system. Yep.

And, you know, other people that have been on the podcast. It's crazy. But it's learned. And we talk about this with our kids. My wife's a schoolteacher. and I've got three daughters and 11, 13, and 21. So it's tough whenever you're trying to protect your kids and in society you're trying to protect your kids.

It's not a given. You know, I've got three kids. One out of those three, they're going to have some issues. I guarantee it. My youngest, I can already see where you're trying to correct behavior at times and it's just, what are you going to do? You know, we don't spank our kids, and a lot of people are like, well, they're spanking with a bell.

If I'm mad until you don't do something, don't hit your sister, but I'm supposed to hit you. But how does that, I mean, what is that, there's different ways to do it. That's how law enforcement has been doing for years is let's lock people up that are addicted to drugs. It's not working. Now, I wholeheartedly agree it's your choice to start using drugs, but it changes the chemical makeup in your brain. It took me a long time to realize that and to learn that. And Jimmy showed me that. He was like, look, I don't want to be an addict.

I don't want to be in jail. But what are we going to do? We're going to start a peer recovery program. And not all law enforcement is at that level yet to see that. Right. They're not willing to have these conversations. When I was a young kid, a young officer, 21 years old, 22 years old, went full time when I was about 24. I knew, as you asked, I knew as a kid, I wanted to be when we played cops and robbers, I wanted to be the good guy.

I don't like being the bad guy. You've got to be a tough guy to do this job, and you're dealing with sometimes the worst of the works. You know, there's evil in this world, and there's a difference. Some folks are just evil. That's the murderers, the rapists, the sexual assault suspects, those that have been convicted to child molesters. There's problems there.

Some of that's not going to be changed. But those that are breaking into houses to feed a habit, we've got to change what we're doing locking them up isn't working you lock them up and they just they're not getting anything but sitting back here feigning for another hit I think Jimmy probably explained how that happened

with the three trustees yeah it took me years to realize that locking them up we can't lock up and arrest away our drug problem that's not working

you know don't get me wrong if you're doing wrong in Lono County, if you're selling drugs in Lono County, you're going to go to jail. If you're transporting it up and down interstate 40, this morning, state police stops a car, 32 pounds of marijuana. Knock it if you want. Yeah, it's weed, but if you're transporting 32 pounds of marijuana in Lono County, you're going to go to jail. It's illegal. Personal use is a different story. We've got to change. We've got to change.

that behavior and what we've been doing is not working. Do you think all people or do you think evil people are born evil and do they have the possibility to change or does something happen along their journeys that turns them evil? I think there's some folks in this world that are just evil. I think there's demons in this world. I think that's fact. I think some can't change. You know, there's some, I'm going to tell you, sex offender who targets

children who is sexually gratified by children, you're not going to change their behavior. I'm not going to walk in and tell you that whether you like guys or girls, I'm not going to change what you like. I can't change that. That's not an addiction where drugs is a chemical imbalance that causes you to change. There's just some evil folks in this world. And that's what we fight against every day. And trying to tell the difference.

Sometimes you, I mean, sometimes some are addicted to drugs too. And we've got some that get into our program that we realize just they don't want to change. They've got to want to change too. We're talking about drug addicts and actual criminals. You know, I think there's a difference. No, I've heard stories about correctional officers treating, say, the evil people like the sex offenders a certain way, is how do you treat them as someone that is overseeing these officers?

You're the sheriff, you're the man in charge. What is your opinion? How do you treat them? You treat everybody the same. You have an equal respect. You protect them. It's your constitutional duty as the sheriff to protect them. We're not going to get in there and treat anybody different.

Now, you've got to, sometimes you, and it's through training, Sometimes you have to protect those that are the worst of the worst, and people will doggy for that. I've got to protect them. The Constitution says while they're in our custody, you've got to protect them. So I've got to protect them from the other inmates as well. And, you know, I will not put up with the, we're going to treat you with respect. That's our job. Is it hard to leave sometimes your personal feelings aside from the job on these situations?

You know, it's difficult at times, but that's where you train. And with training, it becomes automatic. You know, yeah, it's tough. I mean, it's a tough job. You know, you get out there from doing CPR on a baby that's drowned, when I got in the pool, fell in a pool, you're the first one unseen. Mom and Dad's trying to do CPR, you pull up. Sometimes you save them, sometimes you don't.

And, you know, I am not the most religious person. in the world, but I do believe in Jesus and I pray, and that's what gets us through it, is prayer. What's your view on the officers that we see every day on the news that don't follow their trainings and can't leave their personal feelings at home? A lot of those are from the larger agencies. You know, when you're hiring so many people, psychological exams, Arkansas is one of the few states that require law enforcement to have psychological exams, but those are subjective.

It depends on who's giving you that test and what kind of day they've had. It's all human nature. Humans are going to make mistakes. And you just try to train so you don't make those mistakes. So you just hold them accountable. You work with them.

You try to lead by example. And we all make mistakes. We all do things we wish, oh, I wish we wouldn't have done that. You know, but you move forward from that and you learn. You grow. And that's what it takes.

Now, you know, with the, national media. It's not always great, you know, especially with law enforcement and the national media has a narrative at times and the mainstream media. That's why we want to talk with folks in situations like this and just be real. We're all human. Does the national media make your job a lot harder, a lot more maybe unneeded pressure in a way? Sometimes, you know, if they would, here in Arkansas, we have tornadoes. Okay. And the only person that usually talks about, a tornado is Jim Bob down the street not because everybody else is working on cleaning things up you may get the sheriff to talk to you but the eyewitness had seen the tornado come across

the field tornado tornado so the tornadoes you're dealing with somebody there that's only telling half the story you know and as you tell you use your cameras that doesn't show the whole story because there's other people in this room with us today talking around us, helping make sure this works. We've got to have the full story released. If we're going to release them, that's why in law enforcement, we're not allowed to release certain things during an investigation. But the media goes out and talks to Jim Bob, but it's about the tornado. And that's not what happened. You know, it didn't jump five or six houses.

And he tells the story, and they run with it. And they've got to come back. They don't come back and say, well, that may not have been completely correct. Once it's out there, it's out there, and it's going to be gold. It's going to be their information. It's fact. Yeah, I think that's my biggest issue with the media is that they're pushing one side of the story.

I know, like in criminal cases, a lot of the times it's the prosecutor's standpoint because we as the defendants don't get an opportunity to speak because our lawyers are telling us not to. And you're hearing the worst or the worst. And granted, some of that stuff could be true, but it does get twisted and it gets misconvened. That's right. So you experienced it. We experienced it every day. You know, the devil, law enforcement, they're out to just arrest everybody.

As you can see here in London County, that's not true. We're here to help. Now, we will hold you accountable and we will share the training from a peer standpoint. I can tell you all day long, don't do drugs. Well, I've never done drugs. I don't know how it changes you. But what I can equate it to is being diabetic and somebody offering you a piece of pie,

you're like, I'm going to eat the pie. If you offer me some chocolate pie right now, I'd probably eat it. But I'm diabetic and I don't need to. So I can understand to a point. But you're not going to listen to me as a drug addict saying, well, that's just the damn sheriff he wants to arrest you. I don't want to.

I want to save your life. I want you to be a productive citizen. I want you to get out and get a job. Do good things. Let's save some lives. But the media, it makes it hard sometimes. I mean, and law enforcement's human too, and that's always been a big point that I wanted to make with the podcast because we're not just giving inmates or former inmates a platform.

We want to give law enforcement officers a platform, too, to speak and share their side. Otherwise, we're no different than the media if we only show one side. Right. And I'm the last person that would ever come out and say all law enforcement's bad because that's no different than saying all. inmates are bad former inmates. It goes hand in hand with each other. But there are some bad apples in the group that I guess make the rest of them look bad. And you know, one thing I wanted to see you, like I was reading an article. There was a video of you where someone made accusations of like

an inmate getting hit or whatever, but you're not like meeting you in the first 10 seconds of meeting you and how you present yourself. You're not what the media made you out to be like in that video. Oh, that's true. You've got two minutes of a situation, and you're going to judge me based off two minutes. Even daycares are tough. You got kids in there that bite other kids. You know, everybody's like, well, you know, you would think, you've been in jail. You would think that if you get locked up, you're going to act right until you get out. This is the toughest place there is, is a county jail. Because a lot of these folks that go to jail are at But a lot of them are addicts because they're self-medicating mental health. And mental health is a main, was one of the big problems we have. But as a sheriff, you're walking through there, and there's 30 inmates, and somebody tells you, they're cussing you out, and you're yelling at you, and you've got not only those 30, but the whole jail is another 130. So you've got 160 total inmates.

You've got to keep control. Nobody wants to disrespect anybody. But whenever they're yelling at you and cussing at you and spitz flying at you, and they, they say something to you, you act. We are human. Yeah. You don't want to injure anybody. You don't want to be mean to anybody.

But, and you don't. But then three, four years later, it gets twisted. Where was it three years ago? If I'm so bad, yeah, I'm tough. I'm not going to take anything from anybody. And if you're going to threaten me and make movements towards me, I'm going to respond. That was a horrible incident. But we found the shanks, and we made sure that jail was safe at that time.

That's what we were doing, because our constitutional job is to protect all the inmates. And after a kiosk is broken, and they've taken a plexiglass and made it into shanks, as we know what they are, knives, tools to injure others, weapons, we found them and secured them. And made the jail safe. Yeah. You were doing your job. Yeah. And I urge anybody, come do a tour of the jail.

Have you done a tour yet? Yeah, it's crazy to be on the other opposite end of the spectrum. It would be horrible to be in jail. I get that. And that's why we try to understand. That's why we train our jailers to understand. But again, it goes back to pay. You're paying $15, $16 an hour.

You can make that at Walmart. I'm probably going to leave this to go to Walmart. You know, it's not as bad. Now, something about the county jail in the federal system, as a former federal inmate myself, we would always hear the worst of the worst of county jail. Like, that's a place you do not want to go. Why does it have such a bad rap? Well, they're pre-adjudicated inmates.

There are some that are convicted waiting to go to prison. Some are waiting to get convicted to go to prison and, you know, you're innocent until proven guilty. But I'll tell you this. You've been on the other side. I'm on this side. I'd say 99% of people that go to jail are guilty of what they were accused of. Now, there's some that aren't.

But when you're in the county jail, everyone, you don't want to be there. I would love for every one of those pods that we have to have a microwave and a coffee pot, everybody can wake up and they can make their coffee, they could heat up their water, heat of their soup. But I can't keep a TV in there without them trying to pop the socket to smoke green beans. At one point, we had to take green beans because they would let the green beans dry and smoke those. What good does that do? You got 30 inmates in there and you're looking up with the TV and they're getting on each other's shoulders to get up there and try to pop the socket to get a spark to light a cigarette.

Well, where did a cigarette get in? How to get in there? If it wasn't the staff, it was snuck in there. So, you know, prison pockets. anyway, the inmate sneaks it in in their cavities. And you're going to smoke that? It's like when Jimmy tells you the story about... The horse poop?

Well, I don't know about that. He told us that story. In the jail, whenever they found that drug, they found dope on the floor. I don't know if he told you about that, whenever the trustees were going in there. How do you think that came in the jail? You don't know how it came in the jail, but they're going to eat it.

That's the addiction. that they I'm not that addicted to a piece of pie. If it falls on the floor, I'm not going to eat it. If you snuck it in your pants, I'm not going to eat the pie. But that was so, he was told no, he told him no multiple times. And, you know, being a cop, it's, we're human too. We've got families. We have loss.

We have love. And we're expected to be perfect every day. And that's what the media shows. They only show the bad. we've got so many good things that go on every day going to the schools opening the doors while the kids get out talking to the kids talking to those kids who don't have a family

and a lot of our when I said generational criminality I can target the kids in my wife's classroom just by looking at who their parents are and like we need to talk to this kid we need to and not we don't talk to them about their life we just give them influence I'm a former school resource officer, a dare officer, and that's the, that was the best job I ever had, is getting to go to the school.

And I was in a school district in Jacksonville, Arkansas, and in Jacksonville Elementary, the SRO was a black officer, an older guy, retired Air Force. And when I put in to be SRO and I got Jacksonville Elementary, he told me, you're not going to fit in. I said, why? I knew he was going to say because the school was 80% African American. I was a white police officer. He goes, they're not going to trust you.

Kids trust you. They want attention. The kids don't know what they don't know you. They haven't learned that generational part of it of what uncle has been doing or what dad has been doing.

Some of them don't even know their dad. They don't know that Mom got arrested, and I'll tell you story real quick. We had two little girls, African-American little girls, the kindergartner and a second-grader. They knew me as Officer John every day. I had snot rings around my pants where the kids would run up and hug him. Well, she'd come up and the second-grader said, hey, second-grader and kindergarten.

She says, my sister don't feel good. I said, what's wrong? She said, well, my pee-p hurts. I'm a dad, have daughters, and I'm like, I don't know how to deal with that. So I go to the principal. We get the counselor and the nurse and get her to the hospital. She has a bladder infection, kidney infection, and gonorrhea.

Wow. She'd been sexually assaulted, and that's hard because they trust you enough to come to you at school. And there's no disconnect between love. they'd know if you genuinely care and that was a Friday afternoon and DHS DHS has changed it's a lot better than it used to be

but that DHS worker didn't want to come out they said well we'll follow up on Monday you heard what I just told you that we found out from the ER we had to take her to the ER I took her to the ER with the ambulance and they didn't want to come out

I said well I guess she'll just go on with me and they came out and they came out and they took her into custody. But that's what we deal with. I had arrested their uncle. We ended up arresting him again. He was sexually assaulting him.

Mom was an addict and just a horrible, horrible situation with those kids. But I just go back to what that officer told me and goes, you won't fit in. The kids love you. The kids are going to love you if you just show them, like when you walk them at me, I try to act tough, but you've seen right through it. You know, I'm a big teddy bear. But like the line on your arm there, I don't have to prove myself to anybody, right? A lion doesn't have to prove itself to anybody.

He doesn't bother with those that are nagging. Just go do good. And that's what I've learned from that day back in 2005 to the day is just do good. Do it right. Now it's easy. And do it no, it's right. It isn't always easy. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Did that incident help shape your morals as a officer going forward? Oh, yeah, because you want to protect everybody and you know you can't. So you can only protect those you can protect. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. I can't save everybody. But those that come into contact with me, I can help. And what I've learned is what hurts the most is those that are closest to you.

They'll hurt you more because you care. and you can't I can't get out of you what I'm going to put in I can't expect that out of you I may give 110% I can't expect you to do that and that's what I tell the deputies

and the jailers and the employees I don't expect you to put into this job what I put into it I don't hunt I don't fish this is my this is what I do this is my hobby this is my work

we hunt bad guys now we are the hide and seek champs do not run from Lono County because we will track you down and find you but once we run you down

and track you down I can tell you Jimmy was one of those Jeff Hammerick's one of those both of those in recovery today. They're different people. Can you tell me a story

of someone that you weren't able to save and what happened? Well, yeah, one of the trustees, Mikey with John Wilson John Louis Wilson was a trustee with Jimmy McGill. We tried to, his dad's a preacher.

We're the same age. Jimmy and I are about the same age as well. But John Wilson was 43 years old. He was a quarterback here in Lone Oak High School. His dad's a preacher. We tried to, when we started this program, he was one of the first ones we tried to get in it. And I don't know if Jimmy talked to you about that,

but he was told, to be crazy. It's not going to work. they don't care about you. It's like us against them, and it's not. Now, it's a dangerous game we play because we will, like I said, hold you accountable. As you said, the media holds me accountable for sure. Whether it's right, whether it's wrong, whether they know the whole story or not,

they're going to try to hold you accountable for what you did or didn't do. But John Wilson, I'd arrest him probably no less than 10 times. and I had to go donk on his dad's door. Him and some other guys, the guys he was with, one of them stole a camper trailer from a farm where I had my horses. It wasn't my camper trailer, but my horse trailer, my horses were there,

and the guy that lived there, it was his. Just as well to be mine, because you know the sheriff's horses are there. This guy gets out and hooks up and drives off with this camper trailer. Of course, we put it out on social media that, hey, the sheriff's trailer was stolen, and here's a picture of you from the camera. The guy's like, oh, it wasn't me. Well, it was because he had a very distinct mustache, very distinct walk.

The camper trailer got dropped off, you know, two hours later, and an anonymous call to the sheriff's house said, hey, I think the sheriff's trailer is sitting over here on one of these turn rows. Nothing's wrong with it, I promise. And they hung up and went on. Well, they were with this guy. They were out stealing stuff late at night. the county next to us is Prairie County. They got into a pursuit, the vehicle pursuit.

They lost the vehicle. They pulled away from him on a dirt road. They found the vehicle flipped over in a bar ditch. It's a, you know, it's just a drainage ditch around the farmland. John Wilson got out of that car with those others and all, everybody went to run off. Well, his friends didn't stop whenever he fell down and fell in the ditch face down. full of water. They didn't go back for him.

He wasn't found for two days because they found the car, but, you know, this farmland's pretty expensive, and he was quite a ways away, and they didn't know to look for a guy they thought they ran off, which the majority of them did. But that's John Wilson.

It wouldn't work for him, he said, and he didn't give it a chance. And he's no longer with us. So I went and knocked on the door to his dad. And he said, I can't see you in a while. And so, can I come in and talk to you? He started crying. He said, I knew this day would come.

So it's tough. How does that make you feel when you have to do things like that as a part of your job? It's tough. I get emotional. Again, being tough, it comes with emotions. and I'm not afraid to show them sometimes because people have got to realize we don't do this

I don't do this for my health for sure there's been so many I've went and knocked on the door you got to live with it you got to own it what do you think it's been the toughest aspect of this job for you throughout your whole entire law enforcement career

well the toughest, I guess it would be the last couple of years. People that judge you and they don't know you. Kind of what we first started talking about. I've always been the type that I'm not going to judge you until I know you, until I meet you. Somebody can talk bad about you. Well, he's been to prison.

Why are you going to go on that show? Well, I don't know you. I'm going to give you an opportunity to face. me because I will fail you. I'm human. I will let you down at times because I'm not perfect. We're going to do my best to help you and I guess the hardest thing in law enforcement is owning what these other deputies the mistakes they make or the choices they make because you're the boss. As the sheriff, I'm the boss. I'm responsible for you even though I have no control over your actions.

If you go out and do good, I give you credit. If you go on and do bad, I get the credit. So the toughest part is to realize that not everybody is going to put into this what you put into it. No, nor do I expect that. I just expect 10% because I know what I do every day. I just want folks to know that cops are human. and what I said earlier,

there's some humans in this world that are evil. I'm sure you've seen that. I don't know which prison did you go to. I was all over the place in the federal system. They put me through diesel therapy. Man. I went as far as Wisconsin. So they just moved you around.

They moved me around. I had dated a guard's cousin, and it was a conflict of interest. And, yeah, they ran. A cousin. It was crazy. Not the guard. No, the cousin.

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management, and public relations support. They have worked with over 100 small businesses and creators across many industries, and they will take your startup, small business, or social media presence to a whole new level. They offer several different affordable payment options, including 0.0% financing. Most importantly, these guys get the job done. Schedule a free consultation by visiting lost trail communications.com and mention locked in when booking to receive 25% off any service you choose. have you encountered and had officers under your watch that don't have that same mindset and if so how do you handle that well you try to teach them and you have them they don't

stay around long they don't they don't have the same mindset same vision as your leadership they usually go on and they'll go somewhere else and you know you just pray for them and because it is it's a tough job you know there's some that want to just go out and write a bunch of tickets I'm not about riding a bunch of tickets. I'm about each individual stop. I went to judge. I had a deputy the other day. He stops a car speeding, 71 and a 45,

coming into one of the small cities. And the guy says, I'm calling the sheriff. Well, he did. But I was taking my kids to their new school, and I was happening to be right there. Never are you in the right spot. And I pulled in, and it's a new deputy. He was like, oh, my Lord, how did you get here so fast?

Did he call you? That's a yes, sir, he called me. So let's go talk to him. I've known this guy forever. Walked up. You know, don't you all have better things you do? Catch these criminals out here? I said, sir.

I've known you for a long time. He goes, yeah. We'd be out catching criminals if you weren't speeding, passing a car. The deputy stopped you. If you'd have been respectful to him, he would have gave you a warning. I don't know what he's doing now

because it's his choice. I went back and he's like, well, I probably should write him a ticket. I said, look, I'm not going to tell you what to do. that's your choice. The deputies, that's their prerogative. I said, but here's what I do.

Every time I've ever made a stop. But I remember my brother was a deputy. My dad had been in law enforcement prior to me. And I learned from those guys. I'm going to kill you with kindness. When I walk up there and you're cussing me out, you're having a bad day. When you leave there, you're going to feel even worse

because I'm going to give you a warning. Because obviously, you're having a horrible day. I'm going to make you eat those words. No. You can call me whatever you want, but that fine, it's not going to help you change who you are. Absolutely. They may be kindness will. And that's a great way to look at it.

So that deputy's like, wow, okay. So he wrote him a warning. I don't know if he wrote him. He just walked him. I said, sir, can you slow down for me? That's all I was wanting to do. I'm training the new deputy. He's a new deputy, experience, but he's training another one.

And I said, just kill him with kindness. You know, and you can't always do that. Here's a time and place you just, you got to hold folks accountable. If you're speeding, you're speeding. If you stop me speeding, I'm ready to pay a ticket. Yeah. I don't flash a badge, but, you know, being a sheriff in Arkansas, and most everybody knows you, they're like, slow down. Yes, sir.

What's your day-to-day life like as a county sheriff? Well, mine? I heard you're here until 3 a.m. last night, too? Well, I work all the time. and I work with the guys. Leadership is about putting myself where they're at. If I'm not willing to do that job, how can I expect them to do it? So, yeah, I worked until late last night, and if there's a call come out and I'm close to it, I take it.

I'm a working sheriff. And we're big enough that I don't have to do it, but my staff, they deserve me to work with them. And now there's a line there. I've still got to be the boss. but as an officer, nothing made me feel better that to see my chief or my captain or my lieutenant out working with us because that way you don't forget where you're at,

where you come from. My day usually it goes back to not sleeping well because of what we've seen. Sometimes your dreams are tougher to deal with in reality. So I get up in the morning, listen to my kids argue. My 21-year-old daughter still lives with this. She works at the school district as a para.

My 13-year-old and 11-year-old arguing bickering. You've seen the dog earlier? It's one of our rescues. Yeah. We've got seven rescue dogs. 11 cats, three many, four many horses, three donkeys, three big horses. Three donkeys.

Three donkeys. Wow. Three vehicle horses, five ducks, and a goose named Robert. Robert. Right. Okay. I'm not a cowboy, and every one of them, but we've got about 20 acres. My kids love them.

And every one of those cats are rescues, every one of those dogs are rescues, and every one of those horses except for one, are rescues. The ducks are rescues, and the goose is a restuse. is a rescue and you can pet him too he's a little weird but you know you got to look at you sideways but my day consists of

listening to girls argue a little bit before they go to school I get dressed and one of those rescue dogs as you've seen earlier now has to come with me every day she's part of the program

she goes in there and hangs out with the office staff and the PAC program girls and the guys they give her baths and they take care of them. It gives them something to do, gives them some pride,

gives them something to look after. Then we, I take calls, starting about 7 a.m. from everybody, from speeders in their community, to protection orders needed. How do I protect my sister-in-law? Or how do I get away from an abusive spouse? Probably 150 calls a day,

just on that kind of stuff. Others, hey, I haven't seen you. You don't ever drink coffee with me. Well, I don't drink coffee. I'll come visit you at the gas stations, but that's what I do. I take calls and put out fires. I should be a fireman. What's a difference between a county sheriff and like a city police chief?

Is there a difference? There is. You know, half joking, but we're not the police. We're a sheriff's office. I get a lot of times. People are like, you know, F the police. I'm like, heck yeah, we're the sheriff's office. We're here to help you.

The difference is that in Arkansas, the sheriff is elected. It's the only elected executive that answers directly to the people. You know, the police chief is hired by a mayor who, the mayor is elected by the people, but the sheriff is elected directly by the citizens, and I'm responsible directly to the citizens of this county under the constitutional. I run the county jail, we do civil process, and we have the duty to enforce and we're responsible for all felons. And now if a city police department arrest somebody for felony, after first appearance,

their responsibility of the sheriff. So I guess the main thing, we have a very similar job as a police chief, but we're responsible for the whole county. each city. We have Austin Ward, Cabot, Carlyle, Lone Oak, England. They all have police departments. We have other communities that don't, other cities. The sheriff is the chief executive law enforcement officer in the county. And all that means in Lono County is that when we go to Cabot, do as the Romans do, when in Rome. Because you'll have citizens who call the sheriff's office because they don't like what Cabot PD told them.

Our policy is to talk to that city police department, make sure what they told this citizen was correct and legal and lawful, and then mirror it. We're not going to change it, you know, just because they want a different answer. Now, that city department was incorrect in their, and what they told that citizen, we'll talk to their supervisor and have them go correct that.

It's kind of like, you know, in real life. Yeah. We're not going to go over there and say, well, they're wrong. We're not going to get in turf wars. Our goal is to work with these cities, and we have the same goals. We have the same job. Is it like what we see on TV where it's like Sheriff's Office

on the tactical vest and they're kicking down doors and that's like the sheriff's office is like more of a, I don't know, like a tactical unit, kind of like a SWAT team in a way? Sometimes, because if you call the sheriff's office, we're zero tolerance for sure. while caring, you know, but we don't have a tactical team. But, yeah, I mean, if the sheriff's office pulls up in England, Arkansas, it's kind of

like having parents. I know my parents. I know how far to push my parents. You knew how far to push your parents. But when we were down at our friend's house, I didn't know how far to push my buddy's parents. So the city, the citizens know how far to push their police department, and they keep pushing with the sheriff's office.

officer of state trooper pulls up. They're like, wait a second, I don't, they have that same mindset. They're not sure what we're going to do. But yeah, the sheriff's office, we're here to assist all the cities, all the police departments. We work well with the state police, the federal agencies. Now I'm a constitutionalist and we're going to follow the constitution. Our federal partners that come in here, they come to the sheriff's office, they talk to us, to U.S. Marshals, you know, the FBI, the DEA, we have a guy that. We have a guy that, assigned to them, but they contact us and they work with us. It's not, we don't have the turmoil that some of the movies show you. What's like been the all-time craziest arrest you've participated in?

Wow. Like the top one. There's been so many. I don't know if I could just choose just one. Something that maybe sticks out that you'll never forget. There's so many. It's a, well, like I said, we're the hide-and-seat champs. I have one guy. He's in federal custody now, but we've chased him. Every time he get out of jail, he'd be, he went through our program. He actually did good for about a year.

I can't believe we let him in there. He's back in federal prison. But I guess the best one, I guess to tell you is Jeff Hammer. I'm going to name him and throw him out there. He's doing good now. He just went through our program, you know, 10-time felon, 20-time felon. I don't know. You guys brag about that once you start doing good.

Like Jimmy, I don't know. how many he's got, but he'll tell you. 18 or 19, I think he said. Yeah. With Jeff, he ran from us, and he ran for two days. And he has my number. He's from here. He has my cell phone number memorized. Because every once while he'd call and say, hey, are you looking for me?

No? I am now. Hold on. We'd run him. He had warrants. We chased him. Litter Rock Air Force Base is just over in Pulaski, County meets up with us. He ran from us and he ran all over the county. We chased him.

He was pinging his phone, knew where he was at. We got out to Plasky County with the sheriff's office and he jumps a fence. It's about a 10-foot chain link with bob wire across the top with razor wire. He jumps it running from us. And he gets to the guard tower because he's jumped onto the Littark Air Force Base. He knew he was chasing him. He was like, oh, my Lord, I've really messed it now. So he had to come back and scale the fence again to get away from the Air Force base. They would have been nicer. They wouldn't have done anything.

They'd have been like, hey, he's over here. He had to jump that razor wire again to get away from us. And that was one of the craziest ones. He ran onto a federal installation to get away from us. Only to hop back over. Yeah, because he's like, he didn't want to go to federal prison. So that's why he said he hop back over. Something I've been really curious about and I'm still learning as I go is how come certain jails like get put into the like say the 60 days in shows whereas like we don't see the federal prisons or some of what jail is really kind of like on the TV shows and like it even goes to today like a federal prison would never have us inside the jail to record like the way we're able to do today. How come you guys are able to do that?

Because I'm the sheriff. So that's a difference between being a sheriff. The sheriff is a constitutional officer. He runs that jail. And the 60 days in, I mean, that's a lot of liability. I don't know how they do it. Because if I, I know you sign waivers, but there's some dudes back here, like I told you. And you don't know who they are.

Some are just evil. And there's some that do things that they would never do because they're high. And if I put you in jail and you get injured, even if you signed a waiver, I'm like, no, that's not happening. You're not going 60 days into jail because I don't know. I can't keep you safe. But yeah, the sheriff, I'll tell you, the sheriff is the, he's the boss in his county. Do 60 days they never approach you to do anything? No, they haven't.

Okay. No, it's a, and I don't think our attorneys would say, yeah, let's do that. But the larger ones, I think, what is it, Atlanta? I think they had it somewhere down there in Georgia. We're so small. I say small. We have 150 beds. You got to look at your staffing level, too.

Can you keep that person safe? Because they're undercover. The other image you're supposed to not know. But you got camera crews. How do they not know? Yeah, that's what I was ordering. Are you aware of the power you hold and are you cautious of that and you keep it mindful of that on a day-to-day basis?

No, certainly. And we talk about that. You know, I second-guess every decision I ever make because you want to do it right. And a lot of folks, that's another thing. A lot of folks don't know about you. I don't know how folks go around and just think they're the boss. I have so many bosses. We have over 33,000 registered voters, and there's over 70,000 citizens in our county.

Every one of them is my boss. and every day you're weighing your decisions of and you've got to fight not to do this but you're well what is somebody going to say about this well I try not to be like that we're going to do what's right not what's easy you know a lot of our cases

you know if I have to arrest another public official it's going to happen I'm not going to you know not do my job because of a position somebody holds but it is It's very powerful and you've got to be very careful. You've got to do it through thoughtful prayer, do it with talking to your attorneys.

And it's not that hard if you just do it right now. It's easy. That's a model I've used most of my career in law enforcement. Any law enforcement, they have the authority to arrest you to take your freedom even to take your life if needed. And that's tough. That's a tough thing to realize. And I don't think some people realize that.

That's why we, when I took office in 2013, elected in 2012, I was 33 years old. And that's young. Very young. The first thing everybody told me is, you're too young to be sheriff. What? So I'd turn 34. I take office as sheriff. They're right.

I was too young. You want to get out and work? You want to get out and run and gun and arrest the bad guys? But I got lucky because my family had been in law enforcement. I got lucky. I wasn't that rookie that went out and just wanted to write a bunch of tickets. I got lucky because I have a half-brother who went to the penitentiary for selling marijuana. He was an addict when he got out.

And that's before I was in law enforcement. That's when I was... It's my half-brother. So in the early 80s, that was a little kid, little baby. But when you look back, you're like, look, I've arrested. Some of these guys back here in this jail will tell you they're my cousin. Some are? Some aren't.

But now would I arrest my mama? Five years ago yesterday, she passed away. No, I wouldn't arrest my mama. But I'll tell you another funny. We're in a group of people, and this person is telling them, well, I'm the, cousin. Sheriff's my cousin. I'm there. Sheriff's my cousin. I'm standing right there. I don't know who this is. And they're like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, John Staley's my cousin. Jim Stanley's, I'm sorry, Jim Stanley is my cousin. I said, is that the sheriff? You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm John

Staley. I'm the sheriff. That's what I meant. I'm not your cousin. I meant Plas County Sheriff. Well, his name was Doc Holliday. You can't forget that name. And so that's not even the same. So you're going to jail. And I've had, said, situations where I'm like, look, and just tell me the truth. I'm not going to take you to jail. Just be honest with me. Remember, I'm not standing there by myself. And I'm not going to lie to you, right?

I'm not going to take you to jail. But the officer's XDR. He is. That's kind of tricky around, but it works. As a sheriff, what's your opinion on, and as a sheriff that runs his own jail, what's your opinion on the use of solitary confinement? Man, the stuff I've studied on that, that's tough. Now, there's times you have some that you have to do that to

for the safety of everybody. But it's not, we don't have a, our job doesn't have a lock you away sale. It's, as you see, there's pods. We have had to retrofit a pod for one of our guys who, we have one here now. He's in court now. They're having a hearing on, is he competent?

You had, we had to put locks on the outside of the door, padlocks, because you could defeat the locks on the door with a string from the mat. Yeah, they really, I mean, every jail that's built like this one, and most of them are built like this one. But every lock can be defeated if you just take your time. Really? So do you have any escapes at all, any escape attempts? Oh, we've had two.

Do they make it out or no? Because the place is pretty secure. Look, I had one make it out. He was a misdemeanor waiting to go to Washington County. He was sitting out in our intake, or Sally Port. There's a holding cell there. He had a book. We had to do away with paperback books except for Bibles and religious, whatever your choice is.

Well, as the jailer went to walk out, fed him, he's waiting to go for a misdemeanor. He tosses the book down, the door shuts and don't shut all the way. She walks in the other door. State police drives out because that's one who arrested. He skipped out the door. He was gone for 24 hours out. behind this jail there's probably 50 minnow ponds goldfish ponds you know what comes to ponds i don't if y'all have these mosquitoes the mosquitoes down here are about the size of hummingbirds he was out 24

hours he was i mean he was eat up i don't know he would have got released for the court day after he got to Washington county got a ride home somebody could have went picked him up but he ran off Knock on wood, that's the only escape we've had that actually got out with a, well, we've had a second one. That was one of guys in the program. When we first initially started it, it wasn't the program we had today. He was a trustee. He was four days from getting out. Four days.

But his girlfriend had called him and said she was leaving him. So he changed his clothes in the bathroom and walks off. Well, we had him within 12 hours. I went to where she lived. She wasn't home. He had nowhere else to go. So I drove by, took one of the deputies home that was out looking at, and we drove back by. I got my way home.

I'm by myself. It's a little trailer with no power. The door was cracked open, and there was a sweatshirt now on the porch railing. Wasn't there when I drove by the first time, so I stopped. I'm like, hmm, we got 800 square miles. I'm just waiting for the backup to get there. I'm like, I ain't waiting anymore. So open the door said, hey, Sheriff's Office, come out.

He's hiding under a mattress. There's no bed, but he's under the mattress with his feet sticking out. You know, like when we were kids hiding under the covers. Yeah. I was like, are you going to come out? Hello? And he moves his feet up under the covers. I just moved the mattress.

Got him up, hand-cutting, walked him out, and we drove off. I'm like, what are you doing? He goes, wow, she was leaving me. And so now you've got an escape charge. And you were getting out in four days. Four days. Is it a lot of pressure for you as the sheriff when there's an escape like that? Oh, yeah.

The whole person go on lockdown. Here we go. You do a lockdown. You do a head count. Like I said, we've had two. Now we've had one that in our jail, I wasn't here when they built the jail. We would have done some things different. And I'm sure the former sheriff, he's a good guy.

He would have done some things different too because we go to the dentist. I don't ask him how he's. going to fix my tears. I just trust that he's going to do it right. Well, we had a report writing room. It's the door. Everything's secure except for that report riding room, like the ceiling you see here. If you move that, you think can get out. Well, this room you can't. But over there you could. Sealing tiles. Yeah. So he got up there in the report riding room, gets through there, falls through dispatch. Like where we're sitting here now? Yeah. Fell through dispatch, crawled back up into the and ended up at the end of the end of the

building down here. We're like, we're hearing him crawling. We're waiting until the end of the building. This is like something you see at a TV show. It is. Remember, 90%, his name is Jeffrey. I won't tell you his last name, but he fell at the end of the, in between the wall. Sometimes there's a gap.

Like this. Well, he was stuck, heads up, feet up. Help, help, help. Well, we're trying. We can't even get to you. I don't even know. how you got to where you're at. So we had to bust the wall out to get him out.

Wow. What's the craziest story for smuggling things into the prison that you've seen? I'm sure you've seen some crazy shit. Well, this is pretty simple, but we've, I'll give you two. One guy, he was a trustee on the weekends. We check you. You know we check you. Well, he had his wife so into his boxers, into the waistband,

where he could carry some peels in. So he comes in, will they change him out and guess what? They're patented, they're like, are he serious? He's like, uh-huh. Well, they threaten me. Dude, you don't even go into the back. You go out here and you eaty, and now you're going to the back because you wanted to, why? And there was a lady who snuck some in.

And methamphetamines, you've seen meth before? No, I haven't, yeah. Okay, it's crystalline. It's like a rock candy. It's like crystal. a jailer walks into my office and she's happy. I mean, she is excited that this lady had meth on her that they found during the squat and cough. And she's like, oh, look what we found.

She sets it on my desk. I don't know who all listens to this. This is going to be disgusting. It had a shade of red, like a pinkish shade to it. She snuck it inside herself while her cycle was going. Oh, my God. And it's now sitting on my desk. desk. And the female

chair says it and he was, that's a lot of dope. Yeah, can you go wash your hands real quick? Get that the hell off my desk. She's like, yeah? I was like, she goes, washes her hands kind of back in there. I said, put some gloves on because she didn't have gloves on. She'd picked it up off the floor. Isn't that a funny

color? She goes, yeah, I've never seen meth that color. It's kind of pink. I was like, and about that time it kicked in, she realized what, well, she got sick. She used their glove. I had to put It's biohazard. That was the most disgusting thing that ever happened.

But I was proud of her for finding the drugs that were smuggled in. So the squat and cough actually works? It did that day. So overall, it's an effective method? I don't think so. But it makes them think. Is it more just a dehumanize inmates? No, when you do it and you squat and call, as you're visually inspect, then most of the time you can see if there's something there.

Yeah, because I've never seen that perspective. Yeah. I don't get that view. I'm the sheriff. I don't have to. We've got employees for that. But as an officer, you might have. Yeah, we've had them down.

Well, I've never worked in the jail as a jailer. Okay. So as an officer, we drop them off to the jailers. And we know, it's a thing. It's not dehumanizing, but you do it so it's not a gun. One of our jails in Arkansas, they did that, and they saw a handle of a pistol. A handle of a pistol. A 38.

How was that even a thing? Saturday Night's special with a hammer. The worst I've ever heard of was like the little mini cell phones, but... No, that was a pistol. Now it wasn't our jail. It was where sheriffs get together, we talk. We're like, what's the craziest thing that you've had snuck in the jail? Yeah.

Ours has been dope. And now I give a speech to every jailer that we hire. Do not fall in love in the jail. With an inmate. With an inmate. Have you seen that happen before under your watch? Oh, it's happened. It's happened everywhere.

And what do you do when you find out one of your staff? I prosecute. You go right away. I don't give them a choice. I don't let them resign and go on. That's a breach of trust. And we've had jailers that would leave and have somebody meet them at the McDonald's to bond an inmate out. You're no longer a jailer either.

That's not. Our policy says, if you're going to have family members get arrested. report it to us. Say, hey, my cousin's in jail. That's part of it. You know, we've got a job to do. But yeah, that's happening in every jail. Why do you think officers risked their career and their freedom to have intimate relationships with an inmate?

No, I don't know. A lot of times it's a self-esteem issue. And the first three letters of convict is what? Con, CO. Con. A lot of them are good talkers. You hear the noises behind us. That's our kitchen.

We had a jailer one time. I'd went to school with her. She had applied. Her brother-in-law was a lieutenant here. And she was going through a divorce. It was his wife's sister. We were like, hey, go to work. We have an epitism.

I can't hire my family, but I can hire your family as long as you're not their boss. That happened. Somebody she'd went to school with, was in jail. They start talking. And you're like, it's not going to work. Do you think it's that same concept of like employment,

office, work spaces, relationships where you spend so much time with someone? Is that the same dynamic, like with the inmate and the officer? It is. You know, we've had others that work the tower. Our jail is built. You have a centralized tower that can see every, it has a window to every pod and has cameras. And you have the microphones.

And they stay on that button is what they call it. on the button. Hey, beautiful, how's your day? And that young lady who's like, that's inappropriate, move on. Hey, beautiful, how's your day? Well, she's having a bad day, maybe. Even the guys, we have females. This is a great story. God rest. Sally is no longer with us. She overdosed and passed away, but she was in our program, was doing pretty decent, had a relapse, and didn't make it out of it. She had a heart attack during that overdose. God rest her soul, but she would have, She was a character. I arrested her a couple hundred times.

She was in jail and she was pregnant. I'm talking pregnant like I am. See how big I am? You're hard on yourself. That's right. So, well, she's in there and it has a wife beat her shirt on. You know, I'm talking about the under shirt. I have the news media with me because I'm very open.

We're walking through the jail because the guy who complained that it was dirty. Well, it was dirty because the inmates are dirty. As we're walking through there and doing this story, I opened the jail door about her. quartered away and she's standing and she was, hey baby daddy. I opened the door the rest of the way and there's their camera career and the reporter with me. And she's like, I'm sorry, don't hit me. It runs off. I'm like, what the hell just happened?

Sally, come here. Tell them the truth. She's like, oh, I'm just kidding. I ain't the baby daddy this time. This time. And it was just a, you know, it was all lighthearted. But my whole thing right there was like, Jesus. What is this reporter going to say now?

She knows she's joking. I know she's joking. It's funny now, today, five years later. But my whole fear was, how are they going to twist that? That's tough that goes back to the media. It's tough. You didn't know coming into us. Well, questions we were going to ask you.

I mean, anything could be twisted. That's right. And I just hope you to don't. But that's my philosophy is I'm going to trust you. Until they give you a reason not to. You can burn me and I won't ever do it again. Sheriff Staley, one final question for you today. What's your message?

Why did you want to come on the show and speak about it in a world where a lot of current law enforcement wouldn't sit down to do an interview like this? Especially with a former inmate like myself. I'm John. I have the honorable distinction of being the sheriff in Waldo County for the last 10 years. I just want people to know that we're human too. You're human. You've made mistakes. We'll make mistakes. Nobody's perfect. We're going to do it's right. Now, it's easy. And we're going to move forward. And there'll be clips of this that will be taken from some of these folks that are haters of mine. And oh, look, he'll talk to this guy. He won't talk to me. Or look, look what he said here. They'll take snippets. I'm sure I probably said things I shouldn't have said here. But what about any active cases? And you asked about the one in the jail. Look, I was very honest. I did a video. It's out there. You can use it. I told them what I did. I'm the one that saved the video.

Somebody released it three years later. Okay. I own what I do. This is a tough job. Anybody else thinks they can do it better? There were sheriffs before me, and they'll be sheriffs after me. I truly do everything I can to help anybody I can. And anybody that knows me knows that's the truth.

whether they've said bad things about me or not. They know at one point I was the one that helped them up. Every single one of them. I was the one that provided for them and I'm not going to do anything that's illegal immoral. Stupid, maybe.

We do some silly things. Like maybe going on this show. No? No. But Ian, I appreciate you having me. I appreciate you taking the time of your guys. I'm just John. And everybody you see

I guess the main thing I've learned is everybody you see in life have the same problems we have. Some are worse. You don't know what somebody's going through at the time when you're talking to them. So just be kind. Absolutely. And the worker at McDonald's, if you go into McDonald's, they get your order wrong, just be kind.

I know it frustrates you. Just be kind. You don't know what day they're having, what they've been through, what their family's going through. Sure, sure. Your history, I looked you have a little bit into too much of background, but I'm proud of where you're at today. I'm proud of what you're doing. You're very intelligent, and just keep doing what you're doing.

Keep making a change, and that's what I want to see, and that's the reason why I did it. Jimmy said, hey, dude, let's do this. I was like, okay, let's do this. I love Jimmy. Oh, I know. It's tough. He's tough. No, he's a good guy, great guy, and I'm very grateful that he introduced us and gave us this opportunity.

And again, thank you for letting us and inviting us here today. And we're looking forward to doing the cookoff with the guys here and getting the ability to speak to them too and hopefully inspiring some of my message and change. I don't eat podlucks. You know what a podluck is, right? Of course, I don't eat at podluck. I do not eat at podlucks because I know, remember, I got seven cats. Yeah. I barely eat at my own house sometimes because we got cats.

So I'm going to do this today. Be a judge, I guess, for you. Okay. Thank you for taking your time. Let me be part of this. Don't make me look too... You want to be skinny. We got you.

Do you have like a weight limit you're looking for? You can't change beautiful, right? So I own it. No, you look great. The headphones were the touch. Was it? Yeah. I told you I have a big head.

And the only thing I've lost in law enforcement so far is, well, I've gained something, too. I lost hair and gained a forehead. Okay. It just keeps growing. I don't know where the hair is going. God bless you guys. And thank you for doing what you do, and I'm proud of y'all.