Stay Tranquilo - City of Miami Officer City Ralph & The Power of Social Media - Stay Tranquilo

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

In this episode of Stay Tranquilo podcast, powered by Stay Tranquilo, we are joined by City of Miami Police Officer, Ralph Orta, aka City Ralph. We get into: the path to becoming a police officer the current landscape of being police how social media has grown and how it impacts the police department AND MORE Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I'm not going to lie and say that I didn't have fun doing it. It's a lot of fun. I'm in a fun unit where I'm blessed to be able to have fun, but there is a purpose. Of course. It's not just fun just to be a cop that's just going around having fun. And the purpose is to now get all those view. I want to say that week we gained over 100, not 100, 10 to 15,000 followers in a week. And most of it was tourists.

Because what happens is the people that now were in Miami are like, oh, wait, this is the page that I'm going to need to follow. Exactly. To get my information, where can I park, what's going on. So we, and then after I came the parking videos, and so we kind of like do this video for fun to get the attention on the page and then follow it with your traditional police content that you got to put out, which is like, hey, where you can park, where you can park, what's not allowed in the venue, what's allowed, you know, the bags, this, that,

all these important things that people need to know before going to a big event like that. All right, what is going on, everybody? Welcome back to another Stay Tranquilo episode. We are here with Ralph from the City of Miami Police Department. Thanks for coming on here. Thanks for having me. I'm excited. Shout out to Ila for being able to put this together.

Absolutely. Let's get into a little bit of your story. Yeah. I think people will be even more inclined to maybe want to go once they learn a little bit. A little bit about yourself. So let's rewind, like you were kind of telling us a little bit before we started recording. when you were in high school and you were thinking about going to college,

you were talking about how maybe being a doctor was something, you said you did a little bit of, you do music and that was something that you were doing back then. So talk about that whole process of before you became a cop and how it kind of progressed into becoming a cop today. Yeah, for sure. So like everyone, when I was in high school,

I had, you know, ambitions and my dreams and what I wanted to do. I always know I want to do, I wanted to do something in the medical field. My, like, shooting for the stars was, like, I don't know, I was always very intrigued by being a neurosurgeon, a dog, I don't know, it was very intriguing to me. And, you know, for a while there, my senior year,

I was like, okay, that's what I'm going to go do. At the same time, since I was a little kid, I always wrote poems. You know, that's just kind of like a way I expressed myself, you know. And it sounds, you know, saying it now is just, not that it's weird, you know, it's just a little unconventional, you know, I felt a certain way, I was into writing, you know, I was a writer. That was your thing, yeah. And that transition to my junior senior year, I had a friend who was a rapper, and he was like, hey, you know, let's write a song, one thing led to another, I wrote a song, got into the hands of somebody else, next thing I knew,

I was getting flown to Canada by Acon. That's great. And literally the following week, I was up there performing on a stage in Canada. So my life kind of, shifted from going to college to the music world. And I was 18 at the time. So the next eight years of my life was dedicated to music. And I was having the time of my life. You know, I was 18, 19, 20 years old. I was writing for the artist. I was a rapper, a pop singer, whatever, myself, too. I was really involved. I worked with ACONs people. Locally, I did work a lot of people. A part of, like, Pibble's camp. Never with Pibble specifically, but I worked with a lot of people. So I was, I was like full blown into like chasing that dream.

But I always knew in the back, I have an uncle who's been a police officer. He's still with the county. Nice. For reason, I want to say he's approaching 20 years. He's more like my brother. We lived together. I always pick his brain about police work. So I always knew I wanted to be a cop also.

So after about eight years with the music and I had, you know, some success. And, you know, it's hard. Entertainment business, it's cut through. It's difficult. So one day I said, you know what? that that's in my past. I'm ready to get my career as a police officer and I applied with the city and I got on with the city.

And at the time I was 26, little did I know, you know, eight years later, I would be in the social media unit now for the police department where I'm doing music and video again. More video because we do, like I was telling you before, we have a YouTube series that we do. But definitely a lot of experience and a lot of, and a lot of things that I did and accomplished with the music before becoming an officer.

It's all like, you know, it's all part of what I call, like, you know, your arsenal, like these little things that you learn and you take with yourself going forward and builds the person you are. And then I get into this unit and I'm able to, you know, whether it's talking on camera, doing what we're doing right now, you know. I did a lot of that as an artist or whether it's editing the videos that I edit, you know, being in the social media unit. So we have a podcast.

So for those, and for those people that don't know, because I'm talking about podcasts and series of the, because you guys know because I told you, but for the people that are watching that have no idea,

we have a social media unit where we have officers assigned to it, and we are basically in charge of just running the social media, the Instagram, the Twitter, the Facebook, the YouTube, and it's been very successful.

I have to give props to the person who started it, which is my partner, Nick, at Nick off duty. He, It was him and Sergeant Reyes at the time had the idea to start a Miami Police vlog. If you go on YouTube and search Miami Police vlog, you can go back to the history of it.

The vlog was extremely successful. Back in 2016, I'm talking about millions and millions of views getting mail from all across the world. I watched the vlog before becoming an officer. It's what attracted me to the city to work there. So they kind of like set the framework. So then it evolved into. a whole different thing that just grew and grew and grew to the point where they needed another officer

because it was getting too big and then they needed another one and then here I come and now it's three of us that are assigned to the unit we have one civilian, Anisa. A shout out to her, she does our analytics. We have a full functioning social media unit. We take it very serious

because we see and we see the importance of being active on social media as a department and the benefits that it has to basically get ahead of the information that's being put out there. If there's a video going viral or there's something that we can address, or if there's something we could be a little bit funny and transparent with and really connect with the people on social media in a lighthearted way.

We use it for everything. And I'm blessed to be in that unit. So it's a creative unit. So you have to be able to sit down and brainstorm, hey, you know, we need to, for example, we'll get tasked with a video that says, hey, we want to put out a video just talking about, you know, pedestrians. We've had a lot of pedestrians being hit on A Street on Coyote, which happens unfortunately,

Little Havana a lot. That's why you see on A Street by like, you know, the area of like Ball and Chain or that area over there. There's a lot of those crosswalks because, for whatever reason, A Street and Flagler. So we'll brainstorm and we'll put the message out there in a very social media friendly way, whether it's a real, whether it's, you know, a video, a podcast style. we have our podcast. So we use all those strategies that any private company or any private person that's trying

to grow their page. Would you use it in that way for the department also? Yeah. I mean, we were talking about it before. It's a great way to connect with the everyday folk, right? We are the ones that we're on our phones all the time, you know? And if we come across a clip and you're like, oh, shoot, you know, like, I didn't know this was a thing.

So it's a great way for it to be relevant, but for us also to say. stay informed in a way that we're used to consuming content. For sure. Because the days of just putting a post on and saying like, hey, just watch out with the crosswalks on 8th Street. Like, someone's going to blow right by that, you know? 99% of people will blow right by it. So you guys create something that's more relevant, then people are going to be like,

oh, shit, you know what? I'm maybe going to be more cautious when I walk around there or inform people that I know that are always around that area to be more cautious around there. For sure. For example, I'm sure everyone here, if you live in Miami, you've seen this. the kids on the bicycles that are doing the wheelies and they come at the car and then the last second they turn the wheel and they're like causing havoc on the streets and um you know they're young kids for the most part you like high school kids and so we're like hey let's you know let's do a video

to talk about hey the importance of following you know the rules and it was actually a really funny video you know my my partner you know got dressed up my partner nick you know he's he's a very talented um he's a videographer and he's he was a comedian in the past and he's he was a comedian in the is very funny, he's very creative, and he's good at what he does. So he dressed up as, you know, like as a teenage kid, and he was doing wheelies, and then I came and gave the message. So we do it in a way for people to be like, again, what would be the alternative? Either, like I told you earlier, come out and just do a talking video, no one's going to listen to?

Or what, put a bunch of flyers, like, hey, this won't, you know, I want to post them on polls. And if you look at it numbers-wise, if that video got 100,000 views, you just got 100,000 people to look at a video about kids doing bikes on wheelie. There is no amount of officers you can hand flyers to that they will hand out 100,000. And not just hand out, get the people, because how many times you've been handed a flyer that you're like, oh, thank you so much. And it's meaningful. Yeah. So not just hand out the flyers, but how would you get 100,000 people to actually consume that information and say, oh, man, this is something.

So that, when we see the number, that's something that we don't take lightly because it shows. And then when you go out there and you see people, hey, man, I saw that video. I saw it. So, you know, it's nice to know the work that you're putting in. It's being watched. It's being consumed. Absolutely. It's, there's no way in the social media world to know the direct impact. You know, we can't say, hey, look, you know, we have had this month 10 less pedestrians hit by a car. It's for sure because of the video. There's no way to gauge it, but I guarantee you and anyone that follows our pages knows, like, it definitely is necessary from a police department standpoint to be ahead of these trends and some of these dangerous trends and some of these things that you just got you know if the

police department isn't going to address it then no one is so we need to be the ones that are that are in front and on top of that yeah tell them a little bit about the video that you guys did for ultra oh yeah the ultra that was that was a fun video so ultra maybe like two three years ago we me and my partner went viral dancing on the sidewalk and um it was it was again ultra's coming up we sat in an office just like this hey we got it was maybe it was maybe mid-february because ultra's at the end of March and we're, hey, we got to start gearing up for OUCHO, because Ultra is, we know how big Ultra is in the city. We take in hundreds of thousands of tourists coming from all over the world.

And these people, you know, it's like, they come here. They don't know where to park. They don't know. Some of the laws are different from their countries. True. You know, it's just a big, from a department standpoint, it's a monster to have to cover from off, from the officers that are needed on the ground and at Ultra, staff, to the PR standpoint, public relations, getting that information out there in real time,

if God forbid there was any type of crisis situation. So it's a lot that goes into it. So we're thinking about, you know, what are we going to do? We got to get the people's attention to really. And so we did the video dancing on the sidewalk. And it got the attention, you know, went viral. We got millions, millions of views on the dancing video. It's fun.

I'm not going to lie and say that I didn't have fun doing it. It's a lot of fun. I'm in a fun unit where I'm blessed to be able to have fun. but there is a purpose. Of course. It's not just fun just to be a cop that's just going around having fun. And the purpose is to now get all those view. I want to say that week we gained over 100, not 100, 10 to 15,000 followers in a week.

And most of it was tourists. Because what happens is the people that now were in Miami are like, oh, wait, this is the page that I'm going to need to follow. Exactly. To get my information. Where can I park? What's going on? And then after I came to. the parking videos.

And so we kind of like do this video for fun to get the attention on the page and then follow it with your traditional police content that you got to put out, which is like, hey, where you can park, where you can park, what's not allowed in the venue, what's allowed, you know, the bags, this, that, all these important things that people need to know before going to a big event like that. Absolutely. So that's on the social media side, right? Yes.

You're also in the process or now it's season two, I think you were telling me. Yes. Of that series, that's more of like the day of the life of a cop. Yeah, so last year, 2003, like I told you guys earlier, I had the Miami Police vlog was always that that is what started our YouTube channel. And it's still, and it's still getting, you know, plays. The Miami Police blog was very successful. So then my thing was like, you know what? I want to start, you know, a series.

And I wanted to make it more like, you know, the show cops where it was just going out there and showing the patrol guys. because we cover a lot of the specialized units because we have a lot of really cool units. We have our aviation detail, our horses, our canine, our SWAT, our Marine Patrol, our boats. Working as a police officer in the city of Miami, we really do have everything. If you ever wanted to be an officer, shameless plug for recruitment, but if we ever wanted to be an officer, we have something for everybody. And sometimes it's just natural to overlook the most important people,

which are the patrol people, which are the ones that are answering, the 911 calls, the ones that are first, the first ones there. So I, when I sat, I was like, man, I want to create something for them. And that's where the city series came. If you go on YouTube, it's called the city, Miami Police Patrol.

And, man, I have so much fun to them. I'm recording season two now, and I really, really enjoy it because I could see when I go, when I go to the roll calls and they see that I'm there, I see the excitement. Because I remember being that patrol officer, working midnight on a Saturday in, you know, in Little Haiti or in Coralway

and no one ever sees you and you're not out there like looking for recognition. You're doing this job because you love it. It takes somebody else to come and be like, you know what, let's recognize these people. So I like filling that gap for the department right now. Thankfully we have a chief and an administration that's given me the

green light to do it. And I just take my camera out there and I just go for the ride and sometimes we have a crazy shift and sometimes it's a quiet shift. And that's how it is. I don't try to make it anything else by editing. No, I record the episode of the shift of that officer.

And it's got a really good feedback in the department for morale. It is good because it's something that the officers see. Like, oh, man, you know, they're out there. They're seeing, you know, what we're doing. And then outside of the department, I was sunny earlier, I get stopped. Since I started doing this, it was really shocking to me how much I got stopped by people in the street that want to be officers or that really just enjoy watching it. Like, hey man, keep on doing what you're doing.

And all that stuff is, it motivates you. Because when you have a nine-year-old come up to you, that's like, you see his eyes light up when he sees you. It's like you're, and especially when they, I already know where they saw me from if they call me the city Ralph. Because no one calls me the city, right? My name is Ralph or Ralphie or, you know. But when I hear people, hey, the city Ralph, I'm like, oh, that person knows me from

the series. And it's been happening more and more frequently. And it's really cool to see that, that one, it's being consumed. People are watching it and people enjoy it. So it's just all around been a good thing. Like I said, for the officers, for the community. And I'm in the middle recording season two. I've got like three episodes done.

I'm going to plan to start putting them out. We're like mid-October right now. I want to say I want to start putting them out like beginning of November. Okay. So it's coming out soon. And it's already got some good stuff on there. And I enjoy doing it. And you got body cam footage on there.

Yeah, I got it's everything. Body cam camera. So like, and to give the people an idea that I haven't seen it. and maybe after this you can go search it up. Like I said, the first season was seven episodes. This one was going to be more. You know, the first season, like anything, it was kind of like feeling it out,

how I'm going to do it and stuff like that. Yeah. But basically I'm there with a camera, vlog style, you know, selfie style. I'll introduce the officers and we go on the row. We start answering the patrol calls. And at the end day, I'm an officer as well. So I have a body cam.

If a hot call goes out, I drop the handheld camera and I go body cam and you get to see firsthand me working as an officer and the officer that I'm with working as well. And it could be, it could, it's very interesting because it could be anything from like last season we had a stolen truck that flipped over. You know, and that's like crazy call, right? And I flipped over right in Winwood. It's like the guy turns and flips over the train track.

He tries running out. We have him at gunpoint and everything. Got all this on camera. So yeah, you're going to have those calls, but then you get your calls that are more a landlord-tenant dispute. You're going to get a call of someone that says, you know, he hasn't been paying me my rent. I want him out of here today. And then you're just explaining the process of an eviction process. you know and for some people that's very interesting some people are like man you know i always wondered

they don't really know can they really just kick me out or how does they go so again it's it's beneficial to see you know the high speed you know work and the amazing job because i i say it all the time our our department um whether it's training um whether it's the the hiring department our recruitment we have going out there on patrol for the last year and a half and um because i have been off patrol for a bit going out there and seeing the motivation and seeing the morale, it excited me. It got me motivated to go out there

and really start recording with them more because they do amazing work and they're like humping calls. Miami's, you know, we all know Miami's growing. There's international city. And it's growing, like it's growing right now as we're talking. There's five buildings probably were just built

since I got here. So it's growing so fast. So as a police department, man, those cops get out there and they're just nonstop. It's not like working a smaller department. It's not like working on Miami Springs or like nothing against those departments.

It's just not. You know, the amount of calls you're going to handle as a Miami police officer in one year. It's similar to what some officers will handle in five years. So you do build a lot of experience, and you become a seasoned officer here very fast. And I see these guys doing amazing work. And, man, that's what I love showing on the city series, because we get to calls that, I remember when I first started, you get to the car. And it's always like, it's what we would call a cluster. You know, it's like, you got this person screaming, he's over there,

and this person, this person, this and you got like a million things going on, and you're there, and you're there, and it's on you. So, like, and then these officers get out there, and it's just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, here, down the checklist, who's, first, who's the threat, and man, I record and get, I'm able to show all of that. And police work to me, and I'm not saying this just because I'm a little biased, but it's one of, if not the hardest job in the world, because you cannot train for every situation.

Right. It's impossible. Yeah. there's scenarios that you will never have trained for because, like you said, we're humans and there's just, there's no way to train for it. So a lot of times you're going into a situation, you could have been on for 10 years, but this might be the first time you see that and you have to be able to handle it in, and it could be a life or death situation. Right. Some, someone's life is on the line. So I'm saying all of this because, again, that's why I really enjoy doing the

city series, because it shows the patrol aspect, who are the first ones there. Not to take away from our investigations, from our detectives. from our specialized units from on because it's like it's a domino effect from all from patrol all the way back so our we're at historic lows with crime rates because our detectives are doing amazing work closing cases our specialized units are doing amazing work so i'm i'm proud of the department right now for sure top the bottom i think a few things off of that right i mean i think the first thing is one the transparency that you're able to provide through something like that people are able to see exactly what's really you know going on in a in a live situation right you

kind of, you know, you turn on the news and you might hear like the end of a situation or an ongoing situation, but you're not really seeing what's happening in between the weeds, right? Which, like, the show cops obviously is like a great representation of kind of like that component of it. And it's entertaining, but it does give you perspective, right? Obviously, one of the things that has been a looming discussion for the last couple years is this whole police brutality and everything that's been going on, right? But here you are and you're able to show, hey, you know, we're doing our job.

And you don't really understand what the hell goes into our job when we're going through a chaotic situation. I don't know how else to put it, right? Yeah, for sure. It's chaos at some points. And I'm sure you know better than anyone, right? So for me, it's always good to be able to show that because people kind of need to see, yo, like, this is what's really going on. And you can have your opinions and all these, you know, all these things. But how can you really have a true opinion on something if you don't really know what's happening?

So you doing that gives people perspective on things. 100%. And that's what we want to, we want to be as transparent as possible. And that's why, like I said, going all the way back to 2016 when they started this unit, we were ahead of the curve for police departments on social media. Now you see police departments are on social media. You've got share of departments on TikTok, going viral. Yeah, that's true. It's like, you know.

And I'm proud of it. I'm like, yes, we need to. You need to be on there. Your community needs to see you as a police department active on social media because that's where people are consuming their information. It's like the days of just like putting on the Channel 7 news at 5 p.m. Are kind of gone, especially with the younger generation. So, yeah, being transparent and showing the officers that have to make split-second decisions

that come with so many repercussions. And when you become an officer, you understand that. And that's why you have to take this job. very serious because again, you get put in situations where the call is on you. You know, your sergeant or supervisor, you're getting, hey, you know, should I do this? Should I? No, like the call's on you. In that moment, life or death situation, and you always have to make sure that you are prepared

for it. And again, we are all human and that's why there's always room for error. And in those errors, as long as you are acting in good faith, because you go back into police brutality and you go back into the bad apples. That's something that we don't shy away from, and I won't shy away from. It exists. Of course, yeah. It's like anything.

It's like any occupation. Any occupation you're going to have your bad apples, whether it's a doctor, whether it's a reporter, whether it's, you know. But the problem is in the police world, we can't afford it because, like I said, sometimes it's a life or death situation. And there's not many professions that your mess up could lead to the death of somebody. Right. You know, so that is why it's so amplified as a police officer. and, you know, and those are, and the ones who are, you know, abuse or take advantage of the badge, 99.9% of the officers, and I can speak, I can speak for them all because they'll all agree with me right now.

We can't stand the bad ones just as much as you can't. Yeah. Because they're the ones that put the stain on the profession for the ones that are out there doing the amazing work that I see every single day. Absolutely. And that's where I come in to show that. Because at the end of the day, what's going to go viral or what's going to really make the headlines, it's unfortunately, not to say that the media doesn't cover some of the good stuff, but it's like anything. It's their business and they're going to and whatever is a story. And if you have an officer doing something wrong, that was fired, that was found this, that it's a story.

Yeah. And so that's going to get amplified. So we take it upon ourselves to be like, okay, well, we need to be the. the voice for the other 99% that are out there doing good work. That's why we have our podcast, the Manaple's podcast. That's why we are Instagram. We're on reels. We're every holiday community event.

We're just, we're out there because we want the community to be able to see, you know, and they do. And they do. I want to say in Miami, I can't speak for other departments and other cities in the country because I've only worked for Miami. But I can say without a doubt that we are one of if not the best with, just being transparent on social media because we have, we have been in the forefront of it since,

since the inception. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. Before we get into the next topic, you brought up something that I figured out, and I don't know if you can answer it or if you have anything on it, but because we do so much in the sports world and you're a Finn's fan. Yeah, yeah, the office fan.

I got to ask about that whole RIC situation. Oh, my God. What were your thoughts on that? I mean, it was super unfortunate. Yeah. Listen, I've got Tariqil on my fantasy. team. I'm like, let them go. But, but no, you know, like going to those county officers and those that were there. That was Miami-Dade, right? That was Miami-Dade. And it's something, again, it goes viral

on social media with no context. Exactly. And all respect to Tyreek and our respect to the officers that were there, it's something that whenever I see something like that, I reserve my opinion. And not just my comment, because people say, oh, I'm not going to comment. No, I really reserve my honest opinion until I know the facts. Yeah. Because until I know the facts, I can't, because you can't look at something and be like, oh man, this looks like this, but you don't know what the backstory was. I'm glad that I think in this situation, I think Tyrieg ended up coming out,

and so then the department and like kind of like smooth things over. Because at the end of the, we just, you know, and I can speak for them and us saying that. We just want a good relationship with the community, especially our dolphins players. Yeah. You know. Absolutely.

So yeah, but that is a crazy situation. That was a crazy situation. I'm like, this would be the way the dogfense season starts. Right, right? It would. It's a movie with these guys. But, you know, we're used to it. We're used to the roller coaster ride as dolphin fans.

Wouldn't have it any other way. Let's see. Hopefully, you know, Tua can come back and we'll see. Hopefully soon. We win this weekend. I think we're in a good place. Yeah, because we just had our buyout. What are we, three and two and three?

Two and three. We'll be back to 500. Essentially, Tua should come back after that week. And I'm a glass hat full type of person. I'm optimistic. I go to most, I'll be at all Dolphin games this year. I was there when Tua. got hurt. I was there the last, was it a Thursday night game? What was it like, I guess the Titans?

That was a Monday night. I was there. And I'm going to be at the Cardinals game, which is our next home game. So if you see me out there, you know, say hello. Yeah, I love my dolphins, man. I grew up. I had pictures three years old with the dolphins jersey on. I'm a tribute to my dad. My dad was it. So same. We could do a whole podcast about the dolphins. Bring me back and we'll have a whole Dolphins podcast. Hell yeah. But something we were talking off offline and is one, a big topic that we like to talk about. and obviously relevant with the hometown heroes event and just the day to day of your occupation and the first responders.

Yeah. Mental health, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So obviously you see a lot, you deal with a lot. First responders see a lot and deal with a lot. How do you, you know, you were talking about a story on your first week of the job of, you know, a circumstance that you ran into. How do you deal with the day to day of the job and protect your mental health with some of the things that you deal with? Yeah, it's definitely something that I'm glad over.

the years has come to the forefront because it's something that I want to say traditionally maybe like back in the days with police work you know a lot of officers didn't want to seem weak you know or reach out for help because they felt it would it would look like if they were weak and like at the end of the day first respond like I said first responders firefighters healthcare workers and there's some other professions too but for the most part you see things that the normal person won't see you see things that you signed up to see so that other people don't have to see it. And does it affect you?

Sure, 100%. And that's when you have to know the resources that are available to you and always, you know, we have a saying within the department too, you know, sometimes officers still maybe kind of like more introvert and keep things themselves, but always check on your partner, always check on your buddy, especially, you know, they went through a traumatic situation and we're constantly checking on each other. and we have we have a lot of resources we have chaplains available to us we have you know therapists we have our peer support program we have many many many resources that if you do ever find yourself in a

situation where you're like man you know this call really can't get it off my mind you know and you know whether it be involving a child or whether it be you know a crash that was really bad or or a shooting or an incident where at least you always have somewhere to go somewhere to turn to and and it's imperative for the officer because it's one thing having the resources but we really try to stress is don't just know the resources are there but use it. Utilize them. Yeah. And just because you use it doesn't make you weak. It actually makes you strong. Yeah. It actually makes you strong minded and believe it or not. And when I got I got it, I was talking about my incident, you know, first, first week on the street, I get into a shooting

and thankfully was able to save a 27-year-old girl who was about to be murdered. Um, unfortunately had to take someone's life in the situation. You know, the guy was stabbing the girl. There was really not much time for talking because the moment I got there, he was already in the act of murdering her. So as a rookie officer, you know, going through that, yeah, absolutely. I went to, I use our peer support. I went to the therapy.

And it doesn't, and I don't say that because I was completely distraught. I say that because you go through something that not many people see. And that you yourself, you know, when you become a cop. that you're going to see something, but it's one thing knowing, but then when it happens, you know, that's when you're like, okay, you know, this, it's part of the job. So this, this job, I wouldn't trade it for the world. It has its beautiful, amazing side, the hometown heroes parade, the community relations, the, the life lasting relationships that you build. And then it has this ugly side of policing and the ugly sides consists of, you know, you're going to see

death. You're going to see homicides. You're going to see, you know, situations involving children. You're going to see. And that's why I wear the badge with pride. And that's why I'm very proud of every other officer that made that decision because you make that decision knowing that you're going to see some crazy stuff and you still do it. So to me, that says a lot about your character. And the type of person, it truly is a calling. It truly is a job where I felt from a very young age, I wanted to do something that would help people. And I didn't know it was going to be a cop. I thought maybe I'll be a firefighter until I had to do I went to EMT school and I was like I don't really like the medical aspect of stuff too much. So maybe the doctor thing I was talking about before. We're going to work out anyways. So once I just decided it wasn't a firefighter route, the police trial ended up being home for me. You know, and it's it comes with its good side, it's bad side. And you do have to utilize, you know. And going back to the hometown heroes parade, yes, we are, we want to really, really appreciate the first responders. But all. also at the same time bring awareness to the mental health aspect of it.

I talked a lot about police, but the firefighters and the health care workers too, because the fire department, they see just as much or maybe even, you know, worse stuff than us. And then the health care workers that are there at the hospitals, you know, they're the ones that are there. They see, you know, so they all, I'm sure, have their, you know, resources to them as well. I think it's a cultural thing that has grown in the last few years with mental health. Across the world really, not just in law enforcement. I want to say mental health as a whole has really come to the forefront of things. And it should be because it's life is hard.

Life is hard. We all go through things. We all go through financial struggles, family struggles. So imagine being that cop or not just that cop. Let's not just focus on police. Imagine just being that person that had that crazy day at work or that officer that maybe just all homicide, but then you get home and you got financial and family struggles as well. And it's just all falling apart.

So mental health, it doesn't mean that you're weak. It just means that you need some help and reach out and get the help that you need. It's there. Absolutely. That's great to hear that, you know, the resources there are available and that you guys are using them, right? Yeah, I think obviously you have a different kind of perspective of what your day job looks like compared to, you know, myself and people may be listening to this, right? Yeah. But to your point, mental health doesn't, it doesn't.

it doesn't just target first responders exactly it's across the board it's applicable to everybody absolutely and yeah life is tough and we all have problems and you know I think there is a vulnerability that comes with you know being paying attention to your mental health you know it consists talking to people it consists maybe going to therapy it consists of a lot of different things but you have to do the part just like you take care of your physical fitness

you got to take care of your your mental fitness and your mental health right and that takes time effort, energy, and everybody's kind of approach to it, I think is different. But it is important. And hearing it come from a cop or a first responder or a firefighter, I think it's powerful, right? Because they're the ones that you're like looking at them and people look at them as heroes, right? But people also see like, damn, you know, if they're doing that and they're going through it, then maybe I should go through it too and know that I can go see a therapist and I can overcome whatever I'm kind of dealing with. Yeah, absolutely. You know, there's, there's, there's,

many things that we all deal with in life across the board and reach out, reach out to the resources that you have and speak to family and speak to friends, use everything that's at your disposal. And yeah, it's something that, like I said, I'm glad it's come to the forefront. I'm glad we're talking, we're having this conversation about mental health. And it's necessary. You nailed it saying that, that especially, you know, Miami, I want to say we are like the fittest state, a city in the country. You know, and it's a, you know, and it's a, culture here of working out. Right. You know, I want to say when my, my parents, you know, I was born in, I'm an age my son right now. I am 37 years old. I was born in 87 and, you know, I want to

say, and those times, I'm not going to say that no one was fit back then, but very different culture. But very different culture than right now, it's like, I think everybody I meet works out. Yeah. Like everyone that I meet. I barely meet anyone. Not to say anything about the people, those of you that don't work out. You don't. You should. It's very good for you. But just as important as that physical being in the gym and being there is the mental aspect. And sometimes they both intertwine. They do. Because the physical fitness does- Is key to your mental health. It's key to your mental health. Like my thing is my, like some people like to live heavy weights. You know, some people, my thing is running. I love to jog. I've been running miles and miles and miles for years now.

I grew up playing sports and I run because I love it, number one, but I run number two because I have two daughters. I have my job. It's my, it's my 30 minutes to just detach, put my AirPon, and just kind of like drift, you know, and just really like take it all in and like refocus myself for the next day. And that's my thing. Everyone is going to have their different thing, you know, fishing, basketball, you know, you're going to have and all those things, find what for you is your piece. And that does help your mental health. You need to get, sometimes we're in a rut and you need those outlets. 100%. For me, running has been a big thing. The gym is definitely another one.

and golf has been a huge thing for me too. Oh yeah, I did see. I came on your page. I saw you guys were big on golf. Yeah, yeah. I could do some golf lessons. I got you. So once I played sports my whole life, golf is the only sport.

Golf is fucking hard. That I have trouble with. It's so hard. Not to say I'm great in all the other ones, but I can at least hang. Right. You know, I go play golf with my boys. I have two, a friend of mine who's a firefighter and another friend and they play golf and I'm like, I can't hang with them.

I can't. And they're not the greatest, you know, but I just suck. It's hard. hard, bro. And you're not the only one that, like, people play sports their whole life and then they get to picking up a club. And it's just like, I will say the older we get, the harder it is for me to go play basketball. So I need to learn golf. Exactly. Because I'm getting older. That was my thing, too. I would love to go play, you know, five on five with the boys and just, it would always be a great time. But then we started getting to that age where a guy was rolling his ankle

and then he was out like, he was like, he can't go to work now because his fucking ankle is like this big, you know, and we're like, we're at that point where it's just not worth it. Yeah. And we kind of again play and recover the same way we used to. No, if I go, and I do still play a lot of basketball. So, but I will say this, if I go a couple months off playing basketball, after playing that first game, I'm like sideline for a week. Like, everything hurts.

It's true. Because basketball, you're just kind of like moving everything. Or football, same thing. We used to play flag football all the time. I went to play flag football every day. I couldn't move for a month. Yeah. So it's like, so then you realize, oh, this is why everyone starts playing golf?

Because, you know, when you're younger, you're like, why these guys play golf? You know, like the older guys, you know, my grandfather, my dad. But now it all makes sense because we all like that. If you played sports, like that competition, that competitiveness of playing a sport. You don't lose it. You got to use it somewhere. Once you've done in your whole life, you're like, I got to find a way. So I will say that in my future, I am going to be practicing a lot more golf.

For the time, I can still hang with basketball a little bit, but I'm getting, you know. It's therapeutic at some capacity, you know, but then you start getting hard on yourself because you get frustrated. The competitive nature comes out. Exactly. Exactly. But that's what makes it fun. A few questions that I want to ask. You're asking kind of like rapid fire style before we kind of wrap it up.

My first question to you is what's been your favorite memory as an officer? Oh, my favorite. And I'm sure you probably got a few of them. If you had to pick one. If I had to pick one, I mean, as I'm thinking about it, this just stands out so much. It was the incident that I got into. Obviously not the shooting aspect, but the saving aspect. Right.

Because when I became an officer, you always do think about. man, maybe I can save someone's life one day. Maybe, and to do it so early on, and this girl was 27 years old, I just moved from Cuba six months before that, happened to be my neighbor. You know, she had moved in with her sister. She was having issues with the ex, who's the one that tried to kill her. So, you know, I get put in this situation where I definitely don't believe it was a coincidence. I believe I was put there in that moment for her by the man up above.

because in where I live in Miami Lakes, you know, like just the coincidence of me getting there at that moment was too much. So I really hold that incident near and dear to my heart. It happened very early on, but I have a lot of amazing memories in my eight years on. I really do. But that to me is something that I'll take with me forever. You know, there's a girl out there right now walking around, living her life because I was there that day. And I say that in the most humble way possible. Not tweeting my own horn, like, oh, I'm a hero.

No, I say that. You are. To really, to really, like, tell you how crazy it feels that when you, when going through it, just being like, man, if I wasn't there, she would have died. Yeah. And on the holidays, they send me pictures, you know, like, she'll send me pictures with her family on Christmas, on the New Year's, you know, thank you. And it's just, man, like, I'll take that with me to the day that I die.

So that's definitely my, I hold that incident near and due to my heart. Yeah, I mean, it's a powerful moment. And it's something that, like you said, you'll never going to forget that. because like you said, you save someone's life and that to me, I think, I don't know if there's anything better. When you become an officer, I guess that's the top. You know, you just want to help people and saving somebody is like, that's like winning the Super Bowl.

You know, you save the life. And hopefully through all my career, you know, and I say this. I know this was supposed to be rapidized. No, right, you're good. But there are, yes, I saved the life, but there are so many incidences where that word was wrong incidents where lives are saved, but we'll just never see it or know it because the officer got there in time or the officer did something that avoided a whole situation that would have

happened. Right. So there's many, many, like all these officers, you know, mine just happened to happen, but there's a lot of lives being saved daily that we don't never know about. It's a good thing that we don't know about it because it never happened. It didn't get to happen. Yeah. Like you said, divine timing put you there and you were there in the right place at the right time. For sure. What, uh, so your next question, what's your favorite Finn's memory? Ooh, my favorite Finn's memory. Man, let me tell you, I'm sure you agree with me. I think we're similar in age maybe.

I'm 30. Or 29. I'll be 30 in August. So you like me, last year was our funnest year as a Dolphins fan. I agree. I mean, it was like. In our lifetime? In our lifetime.

Watching those games just being like, we're going to 40. You had Marino, so I didn't really watch too much Marino? Yeah, but Marino, I was, I mean, he retired like, what, 99? 99, yeah. Yeah, I was 12. So yeah, I do kind of remember it, but I didn't really enjoy, that was when he retired. I didn't really enjoy the years that he was putting up numbers to see an offense last year that me and my boys are watching the games and we're just like, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, 80-yard bombs, 70-yard bombs.

Like, Waddle, Tyreek, A-chan, every, and I was at the Denver game that we scored. That game was insanity. So, that's one of the funest games I've ever been to. I sat in my seat and I want to say I was standing up every five minutes because we scored a touchdown. I was like, what is happening? Yeah, that's so true. So I want to say my greatest memory as a Dolphins fan, aside from who was it,

who was the one that caught a Camarillo that stopped us from going one in 15? It was Cameroero. And Cleo Lemon, you know, they saved us from going all in 16. But obviously the Wildcat year was fun. But, man, last year just, I want to say as a whole, it sucked the way it ended,

but as a whole, it was such a fun year. And it's something that, as a dolphin fan, we never felt anything like that. For a minute there towards the end, we were number one in the whole conference. We were number one in the conference. I hadn't seen nine. Like whatever, we wore nine and three

and we were like above Kansas City. So you know, hopefully it's a sign of things to come. I hope so too. I actually went to the Kansas City playoff game. Oh, you did? Negative 26 degrees or whatever the hell.

And you know, I think about that and it's like if we would have just won, what is it? I know. We would have had the Tennessee. Had the home field advantage. We had the Tennessee game

and the Buffalo game. Those last two games, always to do was one of them. And we wouldn't have had to go on to play in the cold. We would have had the home for the advantage could have been a whole different story. That's, that's the biggest problem with the face. It's hard to ask any team, let alone us to go into Kansas City.

In negative 26th. Against my homes. With injuries. It's tough. It was tough for them. But that's why the regular season is important when it comes to that home for the advantage. Yeah. So last year as a whole was a good memory.

That's a good memory. Usually people say the Miami miracle. Oh, that was, I mean, that's up there. That's crazy game. But I mean, in terms of significance, I agree. Yeah, that was like, it was a fun moment. But then you're kind of like, yeah, but we're still. Whatever.

Yeah. Yeah, at least last year was like we were legit. Yeah. You know. I'm high as a Finn fan fan right now. Me too. Me too. I'm optimistic too.

I think, you know, it's been a struggle, but we still have a solid team. Yeah. I still think since I've been a Dolph fan, the best team that we've had. 1,000 percent. So. Yeah. We definitely got to do a Finns pod, though. Yeah, yeah.

For sure. I'm down. I can talk dolphins all day. And I know my history. I know my Dolvin's history. Yeah. So we'll have fun. So last question is, obviously, podcast is stay tranquil.

Uh-huh. Usually I ask, what does it mean to stay Tranquilo to you, but I want to kind of change the question around a little bit. Okay. How can you apply the term Stay Tranquilo to the life as an officer? You know, it's funny. It's really funny you ask this question because when I was in the car on the way here, I had said to myself, and I'll do this, you know, when I know I'm going on something,

I'm kind of start, you know, going through scenarios in my head, if I'm going to say, and I remember, I like the name, first of all. Thank you. Stay Tranquiva, great, great name. And then I was like, you know what? that's like half of my life as a police officer telling people, oh hey, tranquil, stay tranquil.

And in English, just relax. As an officer on the street, that's what you're telling people half the time. Hey, just relax, just relax. You sit down, just relax. So it really does resonate with a police officer. And man, and in life also, it's just, it's a great name

because sometimes we're going back to talking about how life can be so difficult. But sometimes you just got to stay tranquil. And sometimes you just got to realize, that for all the hardships we're going through, never forget all the blessings that you have too. Because for all the hard times, sometimes just relax,

take a step back and say, yes, this is a little difficult right now, but I've got my two-year-old, I've got my four-year-old, I have a home over my head, I have a career, I have a family,

I have all these things that we just, we're used to having it, so we're going to focus on that one bad thing. So sometimes stay tranquil. I live by that, not specific mantra, but in the same way of just kind of saying, you know, sometimes just relax and take life easy because we're here one minute, we're gone on the next. And the time that we're here, make sure you enjoy life and don't live life.

Just don't stumble through life, just focusing on all the hard. Because you know what? What I've learned, there's always going to be something. You got what I'm saying? Like, there's always going to be, you can be the richest, you can be the poorest. You can be, the richest people have problems. The poorest people have issues. The middle class of it, like, there's always, we're humans and there's always going to be something that.

is bothering you or that's difficult, whether it's a relationship, a love life, a family, or something. So sometimes it's just you got to put that to the side and really enjoy life for what it is. And number one, if you're healthy, it starts right there. Because there's many people that the healthcare workers are out there dealing with that would kill to have your and my health right now. So just waking up is a blessing right there. And the rest is a perspective after that. Yeah, I love that. Sure.

I big reason why I started it to begin with was those you know that kind of exact mentality sometimes we get caught up in things and problems in life that are inevitable but sometimes we just need a kind of level ourselves out a little bit and just say hey everything's going to be all right everything's good. Bob Marley was a big inspiration you know to this and sometimes you just need that perspective shift in your head because sometimes we're in that hamster wheel and need someone to knock you off and be like like come down and then on top of it the Miami people also. need to come down a little bit on the streets out there. And it's been pretty good lately.

It's been good. That's good. Well, appreciate it, bro. No, thank you for having me, man. It was a ton of fun. And we definitely got to do another one for some sports talk. Yeah, yeah, let's do it. Yeah. Whenever we could do something else. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it. Appreciate it, bro. Thank you, sir. Yeah.