Off the Cuff - With Dickinson PD
Communication between a police department and citizens is so important these days. Tune in as officers of the Dickinson Police Department (North Dakota) step up to the mic and delve into the inner workings of crime in Bakken country. Each episode features monthly crime updates, an officer feature segment, and on special episodes, major case/crime mystery reviews!
Off the Cuff - With Dickinson PD
EP25: Enduring Enforcement - OFC Anthony Mauser
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Oғғ ᴛʜᴇ Cᴜғғ Pᴏᴅᴄᴀsᴛ | Eᴘɪsᴏᴅᴇ #25
"Enduring Enforcement" - OFC Anthony Mauser
Our 2024 Traffic Safety Officer of the Year, OFC Anthony Mauser, joins us in studio for a compelling take on the importance of traffic enforcement. OFC Mauser traces his career path from tracking ospreys as a biologist to hunting DUIs as an officer—not for numbers, but for prevention. He breaks down how real DUI detection works at night: the “rhythm” of intersections, subtle cues that precede violations, and calm conversations that reveal more than a flashlight ever could. He’s blunt about the stakes—kids in cars, ruined lives, and the toll on first responders—and equally clear about the mission: visible presence to change behavior before a key turns in the ignition. Along the way, he shares field-tested stories from his US Park Ranger days, including a lost-hiker rescue and a bison goring triage that show how calm judgment and simple tools save lives.
Timecodes
00:00:21 - Milestone 25 & Busy Summer
00:01:28 - Launching the Safe Exchange Zone
00:03:38 - Budget Priorities: Fleet & Tech
00:05:01 - Introducing My90 and Axon Ecosystem
00:07:20 - AI Report Writing: Draft One
00:09:11 - Breaking Down the Carrolls Shooting Case
00:12:10 - Tech Stack: Cameras, LPRs, Body Cam Evidence
00:14:36 - Teamwork, Public Tips, and Rapid Arrests
00:17:32 - DUI Trends and DOT Recognition
00:18:36 - The Red Corvette Crash Story
00:21:18 - Hard Truths: DUI Harm and Prevention
00:24:02 - Meet Officer Anthony Mauser
00:26:03 - From Ospreys to Law Enforcement
00:29:07 - Campus Policing and Finding a Niche
00:32:21 - First Nights in Dickinson
00:35:11 - How DUI Detection Really Works
00:39:28 - The Two Tracks: Admin vs Criminal
00:42:07 - Presence Over Punishment: Why It Matters
00:45:29 - Kids in Cars: The DUI Line You Don’t Cross
00:49:16 - The Human Cost of DUI Crashes
00:53:20 - Staying Motivated and Mentoring Through Competition
00:56:22 - Advice for New Recruits
00:59:10 - Park Ranger Stories: Lost Hikers
01:02:33 - Park Ranger Stories: Bison Goring
01:16:56 - Speed Cuffing & Close
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#offthecuff
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All right, from Western North Dakota, the men and women in blue are coming back at you. We're straight Off the Cuff. Mike, welcome to episode 25.
Speaker 02:25, quarter century.
Speaker 00:Yeah, milestone episode 25 here. It's been it's been a few weeks, maybe a little over a month uh since we've been in here. We've got a lot to chat about. We've uh we've been busier than we've like we'd like to be, I think is probably the best way to put it.
Speaker 02:Right, yeah. Yeah. Summer usually picks up. Now we get into the slow time typically, but we're seeing that's not even the case this year for some reason. It's been uh the last week has been pretty crazy for the for the police department for sure.
Speaker 00:Yeah, that's what I would say too. It was um, you know, honestly, the summer we kind of got handed a uh dealt a deck of cards that we were very manageable, I would say, was was kind of the best way. But I would say probably even maybe more than a week ago, you know, we've we started to see um school resource officers get busier, patrol officers being busier, and then as we'll get into here in the in a second, here our investigations team has been Yeah, something's in the water.
Speaker 02:I don't know, water department, try to figure it out.
Speaker 00:Full moon can't go away, I guess, or something along those lines. But let's start with something that's a little less heavy. Um so since we've been since we've been out, we've we've had a couple of things pop up. Uh one of those would be uh Sergeant Frederick was tasked by Chief Cianni, a pet project of his that he really looked at the community needs and he thought, well, why don't we have a spot? There's a lot of you know, whether it be Facebook marketplace or whether it be you know BisMan sales, things like that. Let's give people a spot in town that they can feel safe to exchange products so we don't have to constantly do it in the dark dollar general parking lot in the middle of the night, stuff like that. But um yeah, just kind of just chat about that real briefly, Mike.
Speaker 02:Yeah, it it's it's uh brilliant in its simplicity, I mean, for what it is. A lot of other uh departments across the nation have been uh get uh catching on to these uh concepts of uh community exchange zones, safe exchange zones. Uh so like you said, Sergeant Fridrich was kind of spearheading that project. Um ultimately what that is, is that's just a designated uh parking space or two here at the Public Safety Center at 2475 State Avenue North, north part of town here. And yeah, uh citizens can uh uh meet up there for you know child custody exchanges and uh like you mentioned, you know, marketplace exchanges, that's obviously a big uh you know online type stuff that people are really gravitating towards. So having this capability out there for people to feel just a little bit safer uh in in an environment here up at our neck of the woods here. So it's just uh pulling into the parking lot right underneath their public safety sign, you'll see two designated spots, um, which we do have to give a shout out to uh Straight Site Solutions, who's a company here in town that uh volunteered uh their time, their their uh paint products to repaint the ground and and and the parking spaces on there to designate the spot. And then uh this the signage uh uh is associated up on the side there as well.
Speaker 00:It's not hard to find. Once you come into the parking lot, you will definitely see it with the signage and the painting and things. But I do gotta I gotta say, when it when the when it was first pitched at me that that this was gonna be the project, I didn't realize the success story that it was going to be. Right? As soon as as soon as Mikey put it on uh Facebook and we watched the amount of people just kind of uh praising the police department for for getting something like this done, I I would have been wrong in this. So kudos, kudos to everybody involved in that project.
Speaker 02:Yes.
Speaker 00:We've had the admin team has been real busy. We just had first reading of the 26th budget here just this last uh commission meeting. A lot of lot of things inside of that one that uh were crucial for our needs. We were able we've been noticing that for like fleet operations or just something simple, we've been noticing that our fleet rotation of what we had had in years past just wasn't keeping up with demands. Um of it comes into needing more vehicles, some of it comes into just repair. Our repairs are taking longer. Unfortunately, the car qualities are just not quite what we would like them to be at times, and this is not a slam against any particular maker, it's just kind of what the world we're dealt in right now. So we kind of we did some work on that. We did some work on um technology was a big piece um in the forward movement of our budget. You know, we have a lot of we have a lot of tools at our disposal now. Um I think that we're almost getting too good at figuring out how to operate our police department with like 44, 45 people instead of the 49 that we were that were allotted. And uh some of that blessing though has been, you know, we've really explored how to how to make the the job more palatable, make it a little easier on us, and and kind of doing that was technology. You know, we've got a lot of really cool tools in here, we've got a lot of trained people that know how to use those tools. Um one of the new things though that we've got on the on kind of the upswing is uh just an interesting project that I think the community is really gonna like once we get it off the ground, and it's called My90. Um just a very brief version of what My90 would be is it's it's a way for us to tap into our records system that we already currently have to give updates. Um it can also give some instructions to 911 callers at times. If we, you know, we it can give arrival notes to individuals, it can give them case numbers. Um it it also could, if we think we want to send out surveys on how our dispatchers are doing, how are our first responders doing on a certain call so that we can kind of modify our tailor our service to our community? Right. It's got all those kind of capabilities in it.
Speaker 02:Right. And and to even back up just a step further, now this is gonna be under the umbrella of our Axon contract. So Axon is our our body cameras, in-car videos, taser, um interview cameras. Interview cameras, yeah. There's uh they they have definitely um done a very good job marketing nationwide uh to law enforcement, and and they do have products and ecosystems that are just phenomenal. And and they've been doing a tremendous uh uh job for us, uh increasing our productivity, increasing our accuracy. Um so and part of this, what you're saying with the with this My 90, this is now introducing that section to where we can engage the public even more and and really refine our how we're delivering our product more or less if it's how you can look at that. So I I was really intrigued with uh the capability of it being able to, like you mentioned, surveys. This is it's almost like leaving a Yelp review for an officer. And you know, so at you know, a couple days after the the closure of a call. So for instance, if you're reporting a uh you know theft of your storage unit burglary, uh officer would come on scene, take your information, and then a couple days later um give you a follow-up message to be able to you know rate your officer and then provide any other uh further information or if if you have any other questions or or you need a case number, something like that. It's just that added step of uh service that um I don't want to say is necessarily lacking right now, but it just we just get so busy from call to call to call that having the officer manually do it is is a bit cumbersome to where we can introduce this tech technological component and now uh just making that extra um form of service back to the public. I it and I think it'll officers I I think will will enjoy it too because uh you know it gives them positive feedback, you know, and and and uh how how they're delivering their service on the street as well.
Speaker 00:It's similar in nature. I guess we've been using this for years now. Um it's got an evidence request feature inside of the ecosystem of Axon. And if anybody's ever asked the police department to help them solve crimes or anything like that, they probably have received one of those text messages or emails. Yep. And uh it really does kind of just bridge the gap between you know, you you may have a ring camera, you may have a cell phone video, you may have pictures, uh screenshots, and it just kind of bridges that.
Speaker 03:Right.
Speaker 00:And uh so Axon knows how to you know market things, and they've been very they've been excellent to work with as far as their customer service and things like that too.
Speaker 02:Right. And another component of that too, coming after the first of the year, and I we we might have briefly touched about uh this uh a couple episodes ago, but the uh draft one capability for the report writing. So this is this is pretty remarkable. It's it's uh leveraging the power of AI, artificial intelligence. Uh basically, uh, once an officer uploads their body cam footage uh to the system, it can basically transcribe and write a report based on you know the sentiment of the call and and what was said, you know, the verbal exchanges. There's obviously some checks and balances in there that have to happen to make sure we're not just you know robots pumping out police, you know, critical police reports, but at the same time, this is going to shore up so much more time for that officer to be out there fighting crime and yeah and doing what they do best.
Speaker 00:Yeah, and the biggest difference between draft one and what most people use is you know, chat GPT style, is those are all open AI networks. Right. You know, it feeds off of everybody everywhere around the world kind of pumping into it, to where this version is a very closed network. It it does not grab anything outside of that case number. So it's not recreating or giving anything artificial.
Speaker 02:Exactly.
Speaker 00:It's just kind of I would say it's taking all of the pieces to the puzzle that the officer has laid out on the ground and it kind of puts it together a little bit more effectively right now. Right. When we talk about technology, um, and then I mentioned at the beginning that we've been busy. Let's kick it off with uh earlier this week you had press releases that came out, and I know that Facebook kind of blew up about the situation where we had um you know a really heinous, heinous incident happen that we just don't see a lot of here in Dickinson. Um originally we were thinking and we we had gotten notified that it was a drive-by shooting of sorts. And when you actually break down the investigation and start looking into it, I mean you really have something that might even be worse than that, or where you're looking at multiple parties just exchanging gunfire in the street while it's still sunlight out. And uh so again, kudos to everybody involved, all the first responders that arrived on scene and kind of protected the integrity of that, our investigations team. I guess the reason that we talk about this is one to highlight the good work that has been done. We just, before going live here, probably minutes before we went live, we had another arrest on this situation, which driving that total up now. I think we're at seven arrests on top of this thing. Um but we would want to highlight technology and and how technology can help piece this thing together. And it's not it's not the CSI style stuff that you see, but it's it's interesting, good police work, and just the way that they can do it. And we're not talking about just our sworn staff because um, you know, you would have seen that you would have seen for a few minutes, I guess. We were looking to try to identify somebody. We were looking for the public's help to do something uh yesterday. And I know it got confusing at a time, but we were, you know, we as things were ongoing. Our Intel analyst, who is fantastic, and she was actively working the situation and it just popped on her and she yelled at me and she goes, Hey, I think I found him. And so we had to we had a modifier post um that came out on Thursday. But this is the type of technology we're talking about is the body cams, being able to couple that with intersection cameras and LPRs and different things. And uh, for those people that just don't know what what some of this stuff is or its capabilities, Mikey, you you're more of a tech guy than me. Just kind of give a brief overview.
Speaker 02:Yeah, I can I can nerd out for a minute here. And in the uh in the grand scheme of things, you have to look comparing it now to the capabilities that we have to leverage technology and and everything that's out there uh that we just have to uncover, versus 10, 15 years ago, where this same call 10, 15 years ago, would have taken us days to probably get to the point we're at right now. So this the the call uh down in uh in the Carrolls trailer court that we're referring to here, that that occurred at about uh what, seven, seven o'clock in the evening? Yeah, right before seven o'clock. Uh by the time we had uh detectives down there and um you know cordoning off the scene and starting to interview witnesses doing uh you know the ballistic trajectory tracing and and uh compiling all that and then backtracking it and now starting to tap into some some more of our uh tech resources like our intersection cameras. We have intersection cameras on on uh certain uh roadways in town here that we're able to backtrack the movement of of our potential suspects and backtracking it all the way up to um I I I believe even uh utilizing Walmart for for uh surveillance video from Walmart and being able to access that right away and and getting that into the case file. Um and it just continually going that next step um you know that rec uh harkens back to like you know the Boston Marathon bombing is the other one, how that was leveraged so much with uh you know surveillance technology and stuff to be able to trace the route of of the bombers all the way back. Obviously, not not not quite as the same situation, but the same principles apply. Correct.
Speaker 00:That's that's that's the key, is like just how you described that. If anybody ever watched the documentaries or the movie on what they did for that, that's a really good example of it.
Speaker 02:And so from seven o'clock that evening, uh our detectives and and they were a little short back there. I think they only had three of the three of the five uh working. Uh yeah, so so they were kind of taxed out a little bit, but they uh were able to, during the overnight hours, get some search warrants, eventually uh detain uh three of the ultimate seven here that we've arrested so far just that night. The following morning, um they they identified uh two additional players in this whole incident based off of the the use of uh um of footage and then just good old police work, our patrol staff out there. And we got one of the other guys sitting across the table here. We'll talk about here in a little bit, uh, really good at knowing names, knowing faces. And they were able to to uh to find two of these uh additional suspects out on the street within the early morning or you know, the mid mid-morning uh of of uh Wednesday. Wednesday. Yeah, we we put uh uh uh got those people in custody. So um ultimately everything just just fell in in into it. Very seldom do cases like this seem like they they work out, but it was it was a constant win after a constant win, coupled with outstanding uh you know intuition, detective intuition, patrol instincts, and and just uh good old-fashioned teamwork. And and these people are in custody um yeah, with within 24 hours. It's amazing.
Speaker 00:Yeah, I mean uh we harp on teamwork a lot inside the police department, and when you take you start with the dispatchers and them receiving the call and just how effectively um I mean we even got we even got kudos from civilians that had called in and just just appreciated the way our dispatchers are under stress and still still hearing about the customer service that they had had, to the responding officers got that got there, to the detectives that came out, to our to our background players, which would be like our intel analysts and our evidence tech and all the processing. But like you said, like all the search warrants that that come into play with this, and it's it was uh I think Sergeant Weiler was a was a part of this, and he was the one that said it similar to you, where he doesn't ever remember in his 20 years of being on this job where things actually worked. You you you you had a hurdle, you cleared it, you go to the next one, and it just things kept working. That that it really was uh it's it's been a good success story for us here.
Speaker 02:Exactly. And from an administrative standpoint, you couldn't be more proud of the of the people we got working for us here too. We we got some strong uh um strong decision makers and able to get it done. And then in this case, too, even even the public in the sense, too, yeah, even though we did send out the we had a sixth suspect outstanding, um, and like you like you had outlaid just uh minutes after I sent the release out, she uh yep, ended up finding it. Uh even that that short amount of time that that we were requesting a public assistance, we had two phone calls uh with tips that corroborated, yep, this is exactly who it is. And so that that just helps bolster the case even more. So even from the public standpoint on this case, it was very much a success story. And now we hope to get some uh uh pr uh pretty good efforts in prosecution off of this with the state's attorney's office and and and sending a message that this this type of violence, this type of behavior, we do not tolerate in Dickinson at all.
Speaker 00:Yeah, I mean that that that is the that's the leg right now that we're gonna lean into because I think the public has now seen and they've I don't know that we ever lost any trust in the in the in the public, but when you look at a situation like this and you can think that this happened on Tuesday evening, and some of these some of these charges that are on the um you know on the wrap sheets that you were we're sending out on our press releases are hindering. This doesn't necessarily like not somebody physically restraining a cop from grabbing somebody. These are people that are making your job more difficult. They're they're people that are lying to you, people that's gonna write to steer you into the wrong direction. And we've had patrol officers and investigators having to tread those waters and get to the truth of things, and they're gonna see uh once the case kind of comes open as like how difficult some people made it, yes, but ultimately the success story is you know, everybody's hands that have been inside of this, whether you were actively committing violence or you were assisting in trying to keep somebody from being apprehended, um, within three days. We've got seven people in custody. So kudos to everybody involved in that. Yeah, well said. Investigations also, and this one's we don't need to spend as much time on this so we can get to our guests, but you know, our investigations team has been taxed this week. Last week they had two other groundbreaking pieces where you know gross sexual imposition is one of those cases that it's really weighing on an investigator. You know, they really do try, um they become very close to victims. And you go and talk to any of our investigators, there's a real relationship that gets built between a victim and an investigator. And we had two pretty high-profile arrests last week when it came to um you know adults having inappropriate um relations. And when you start talking about GSI, you know, a felony type arrests, these are major, these are major type incidences, and we had two of those last week. This is we haven't even gotten into what patrol's been busy with. You know, and and this is not new to anybody. Um, I think that Lieutenant Hanel and I, we've been talking about drunk driving. I mean, I bet you it's been about every episode that we're on here that's right.
Speaker 02:Highlighting something, yeah.
Speaker 00:That we highlight something. We're like, we're watching the trends go in the wrong direction, and we seem to be something is happening, something's in the water. And and since our last time, I had uh we had our audit on our DOT grants, which would be like your clicketer ticket, your drive sober, get pulled over. So much so that the DOT has recognized the efforts of our patrol staff in here when it comes to DUI enforcement. We're having them recognize the amount of intoxicated drivers. And it's it's not in your face until it's in your face. Right. And I think you would be best, maybe of anybody, to talk about this because um, you know, the press release that came out, the pictures on that situation, they tell a story, but you talk about a guy being at the the right place at the right time, and that would be Lieutenant Hanel.
Speaker 02:Yeah, yeah, yeah. The unfortunate incident that we had uh a week or two ago here with the uh the Red Corvette. I'm sure everybody's seen the uh social media post on that one, but the individual ended up ultimately arresting for uh criminal vehicular injury DUI. Um I was right in my neighborhood. Uh I was uh off duty at the time pulling in my driveway when the guy uh went past and then a high rate of speed. Uh we're talking 70, 80 miles an hour plus down a residential road, and uh ultimately T-boned a teenage girl who was just on her way after a volleyball.
Speaker 00:Yeah, headed to a team supper.
Speaker 02:Headed to a team supper, just just doing her own thing. Um thankfully uh wearing her seatbelt that that car, I don't know that that's gonna be a good plug for whatever vehicle that was. That's a good safety plug for parents. Uh what kind of vehicles will keep your kids safe. That that did its job. Um, she was a little banged up, unfortunately, uh, beyond that, but it could have been far worse. Um and the thing that kind of really just kind of makes my eye twitch in this whole thing, too, is my child uh was walking that sidewalk just a little bit before that, and and you know, what just going through the what-ifs of that situation. So um yeah, it's it's it's extremely frustrating to see people continue to make these decisions to drive impaired and stuff like that. So um that's why even though yeah, we we're getting kudos from the DOT, which obviously we we have one person in the room here to to probably thank that because he he's really championed uh this, um it's it is an unfortunate thing that we're we're having to continue to enforce it.
Speaker 00:Um in a perfect world, we don't want the DOT giving us kudos for this because we don't want the problem to exist. Exactly, you know, and it's it's one of those unfortunate pieces. Um But yeah, this this this particular incident, I think it just it goes to highlight that these crimes, uh, you know, sometimes people will say, like, oh well I didn't harm anybody or I didn't hit anybody this time. It's like, well, maybe, but guess what? At the same time, we've had uh this f uh you know horrific accident that could have easily turned into worse than it was. You know, we had a passenger with broken bones, and we had our juvenile get banged up, but it was it could have easily been worse. We had a few weeks ago, um, you know, during our gap where we had an A TV crash, yeah. A TV crash ended up taking the life of somebody.
Speaker 02:And it's DUI related.
Speaker 00:Yeah, and it's um, you know, again, like we uh we can only do so much when it comes to enforcement. And is that that maybe is the perfect way to segue into it, but before we even do that, I just again it's if you if you're gonna drink, find a way. Right, find a way to ride home, find a way to get a ride home. And it's um, you know, you have you got a whole pocket full of contacts that that can give you give you a ride. And maybe Mikey can even do a plug for certain cab rides or cab company.
Speaker 02:Yeah, I'll see if I can maybe flash something up here. Lyft, I know is is prominent in the community. There's just not an excuse. Even 20 years ago, yeah, you might have been harder because I think we had one city cab company, and it was just it was a stretch, but now the with ride here out there, there just there is no excuse anymore.
Speaker 00:Yeah. Well, we've teased a couple of times at who our guest is today. And uh what better person to bring on right after the back end of this topic? But it would be our 2024 Traffic Safety Officer of the Year. This is Patrol Officer Anthony Mauser. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 01:Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 00:Absolutely. Well, typically how we like to do this is you know, anybody that maybe has not had an interaction with you, which we hope is at least a few of the listeners, um, go ahead and just start off. Who are uh who is Anthony Mauser and uh what made you want to become a police officer?
Speaker 01:That's kind of a long story. It's it's not as straightforward as a lot of uh people that I've worked with, where they've known since they were a little kid they wanted to be a cop. Uh I actually didn't want to go into law enforcement until I was 2324. So I went to college, um I got my degree in field biology. Um and my first job, my first real job out of college was at the University of Illinois at Springfield raising, releasing, and tracking osprey. Um it was an Illinois DNR funded project because they're endangered in Illinois, at least back in 2014.
Speaker 00:I don't know what their current status is, but maybe you won the well, maybe you won the fight and they're not endangered any longer.
Speaker 01:Yeah, right? I hope so. And so my job was just to take care of these birds, feed them, and then and then uh we released them and would track them and make sure that uh they had food and stuff, so we'd still put food out for them even after we released them out of their hack box or their little site that we built for them. Um that job was what kind of turned the tides for me professionally, where I I was at the back end of an issue where damage occurred to the environment, it affected species in the environment, and now we're in the recovery stage. So I started looking into the front side of that w which is natural resource protection, which brought me to the National Park Service. Um, and I thought about it for a long while and decided I wanted to make that jump. And so I went through the Park Service Law Enforcement Ranger Training Program in Ely, Minnesota back in 2015. Oh god, almost 10 years ago. Yeah, 10 years ago now I was actually in the my first academy. Wow, that's funny. I didn't even think about that. Um so my lead instructor at that academy worked at Theater Roosevelt National Park in Medorah and gave me a reference there. Uh and so I got my first law enforcement job out in Medora in 2017, working seasonally with the park, and you know, as my life would have it, where I'm like, I think I can map out the next five to ten years and life just laughing on my face and going a different route to where I I don't I just kind of go with the flow now and even try and kid myself. Because my initial plan was to work there for two years, 17 and 18, and try and get into a different park, get more experience, keep working. Well then I met my now wife at the park, so I didn't leave until 20 end of uh 2021. Um I left the park service and at the end of 2020 worked for a sheriff's department, but during my time with the park service is when I kind of fell in love with uh traffic. I just I just had a really good time. Now, traffic enforcement in the park is very, very I mean it's it's grandma, grandpa, grandkids, parents driving through the park. 95% of my traffic stops were for speeding because they just you know, you're looking out the window, you're not looking at your speedometer. Um I only made one arrest off a traffic stop in my four summers working there made a couple thousand traffic stops, but that's where I kind of started, and then I I worked for the uh Golden Valley County Sheriff's Office where I really started kind of getting into the uh criminal side of things.
Speaker 00:And you know, so it's an i it's an interesting story though that uh that you go from this this individual who is in a biological, you know, kind of resource protection world, and that morphed you into the park service, which there's a definite connection with, but then you even kind of morph from there into well, I I like this job, but I like this part of this job. And is that kind of what made you go from the park service over to um you know, there's still law enforcement. I got no ill will towards my brothers and sisters that work in the parks department, but we do like to make fun at times.
Speaker 01:Oh, sure.
Speaker 00:But moving over to the sheriff's office, um, you know, was it was it your passion for traffic stops or was it something else?
Speaker 01:It was uh two things, partially traffic, um, but I was also interested in getting into crimes against women and children um and the particularly the violence and then like the the sexual assault side of things. Um so I was looking at jobs in the area outside of the Park Service uh and shortly, shortly after I started looking, one of my buddies uh who was with at the time Billings County Sheriff's Office got uh I don't know, hired or he won the vote to be the sheriff in Golden Valley County, Day Muckle.
Speaker 03:Okay.
Speaker 01:Uh so he called me up and said, Hey, I have a spot open, and I know you've been looking because I applied with Billings County. Um and it just kind of fell into my lap. Just kind of, you know, the next the next door opened. I didn't know as where it was or what it was gonna be, but it when I needed it, it just was there. So that was an easy transition over, and I really started getting into the because at that point then I was pretty much complete uh completely removed from the natural resource side of law enforcement, and I'm now I'm just doing normal.
Speaker 00:Right, policing criminals and protecting citizens and things. Yeah.
Speaker 01:And vr instead of going to bison gorings and search and rescues, I was going to domestics and and you know, crimes with juveniles and just the stuff that you we really just don't see very much of in the park.
Speaker 00:So you spend a short amount of time, you then you then leave Golden Valley, you go down and spend a little bit of time in Nebraska. It's kind of a small town, um, kind of a collegey town though, not totally different from Dickinson, just not quite as large. But how was that experience?
Speaker 01:So that was also very formative. Um I wasn't sure if well if I was even gonna go down there at first. So my wife got full ride for grad school down at Kearney, and initially the plan, which you know, plans go to hell right away, but or at least the best ones do, um was to just take it semester by semester. I'd go visit her when I could, she'd come up and visit when she could. Well, about two weeks in, I was like, I'm not a long distance guy. So I started looking for jobs down there. I applied with the sheriff's office down there, um and I I went down and visited her and I set up a meeting with the chief down there, and I'm like, I don't want to sound rude, but I don't want to I I want to know what this job is before I applied to it, because I I don't want to just be an RA basically, or like a kind of a rent a cop. And I'm like, I'm not trying to insult you guys, like but and he was like, No, I totally get it. And he's like, it's not like you can run traffic. There's an officer down there who loved hunting DUIs, um, and he was at least as good at it as I am now, but probably better. I mean, he'd see a violation half a mile away, and I'm like, I can barely see that vehicle. And they were drunk. He just I don't know. He kind of helped drive me in that direction. But being a college campus, I was dealing with alcohol almost every night in some sense. You know, alcohol poisoning, parties, in the dorms, uh DUIs, I mean, and they would just fall on your lap. Like you go some of the resident halls would have just one handicap, one or two handicapped parking spaces near the door. Well, there was far more students than parking spots. So sometimes students would park in the handicap just to pick friends up. So you just go knock on the window if they don't have a tag or a license plate, you just you know, you're gonna have to park across the street, your body's gonna have to walk 25 yards, you know, even in the winter hill he'll live. You know. And uh I mean you'd go up to a window and the window rolls down, the kid's half cross eyed and it just leaks of bushlight and kinky vodka, whatever cheap crap they could get a hold of.
Speaker 00:And uh it's just like really yeah, but so that's so this this officer you meet down in Kearney is kind of becomes your mentor in in really finding your niche, I'm assuming. Yeah. Um because you come you came to us, and you kind of came at the time when we were probably in the most need for our lateral program, and and we had gotten some just some great people that came in here and were were easily trained and then really made an impact almost immediately. I would say it was not soon after you had come and you had kind of gone through your training fairly quickly that we realized okay, this guy's got a niche, and we haven't seen, you know, we hadn't necessarily seen somebody with the traffic enforcement being such a passion. And I guess I was kind of curious, I didn't even know the story of like where that came from or how that came from. Some people will look at traffic enforcement and they might think, oh, this is kind of a it's a silly reason to stop a car, it's a silly reason to do that. And I used to actually teach the traffic occupant protection strategies course here in the in the state. And one thing that I say in that when I was when I would teach it is there's only there's literally one thing that you can do as a patrol officer that can make the greatest impact, and it's that it's traffic enforcement. And I'm talking about traffic enforcement from reckless driving, aggressive driving to seatbelt usage to child restraints to all of that, because that's what you're coming in contact with every single day. You talked about other heinous crimes, but thank God we don't we don't deal with those every single day. But what does Anthony Mauser deal with every single day? Traffic. And I mean it can be as simple as a fender bender, it can be as as heinous as a DUI accident. But um so specifically traffic enforcement.
Speaker 01:Yes.
Speaker 00:And and being able to kind of expand your reach because you talked about you were in Kearney. Now you get to kind of spread your spread your wings a little bit. Now you're in Dickinson, you go through the training program. What is it like having a little bit more movement? Because you came from the park service, then you went into Golden Valley, then you're in a small town. What did it feel like your first few um shifts when you're on your own and in the entire city of Dickinson?
Speaker 01:There was uh two things kind of a sense of relief of just not having uh an FTO looking over your shoulder at every single thing. Now, don't get me wrong, I had several excellent FTOs that really helped mentor me, inspire me, help me. It was great. I have no nothing bad to say about any of them. Um but there's that there's that pressure, and you're being graded, and it's good. I mean, we have to be quick and decisive, but also fair, and so I understand, and it's a very well-structured program. From I've been in four four departments in two states, and I've been through three police academies, and this was the best structured FTO I've ever been through. Um so kudos to you guys for that. Uh but there was a little bit I didn't hit traffic hard right away for a couple reasons. A, I was just a little bit, you know, apprehensive. I wasn't not confident, but I was a little nervous because when I was working down in Kearney, I worked for a university police department, um, and we went through uh some I don't know how to say, there's a lawyer got involved, so I can't say much, but uh we went through some staffing issues, I'll I'll put it like that. And and so our between me working 78 hours a week and having no backup ever, so we used to some nights we'd have three people on at once, and then it got every shift had just one officer, so they're like, you know, if you see something obviously handle it, but don't go hunting because if you get tied up on a DUI or a warrant or something, and then something happens on campus, now Kearney Police Department has to come in and take care of it versus so it I was kind of out of practice a little bit, somewhat with DUI investigations, um, but also just running a lot of traffic. Um but I got out on my own and started. I got comfortable quick. It it really maybe a week, and I was like, okay, and I started picking it up.
Speaker 03:Yeah.
Speaker 01:Um and I'm like, during those first couple weeks, I was thinking, I'm like, man, I haven't I haven't hunted DUIs in a year and a half, almost two years. Really, really hunted them. And I was nervous about I'm like, man, I have to like freshen up on all the all the commands and what to do and when to do it. And I was like, well, the best way to do that is through experience. So and I just really really started enjoying them and was also a little bit shocked just by the sheer quantity of you know, plenty of plenty of candidates here.
Speaker 02:Oh yeah. Well yeah, so it I think the public would be really uh actually interested. Maybe maybe if we can just break this down, doing a deeper dive into DUIs just in and of themselves. Can you kind of like go through to the public, just kind of explain as if you're you're kind of teaching it to them, uh, what are you looking for for DUI detection, like the you know driving habits, then when you do pull somebody over, what what are the different tests that you do? What what do they mean? And and yeah, just kind of do a deep dive on that.
Speaker 01:Yeah, so uh I've I've gotten a lot of people that have arrested for DUI not thrilled with the reason for the stop because like that's such a minor thing to pull me over for. In reality, I'm not really pulling them over for not using a turn signal, you know, rolling a stop sign at one, two miles an hour. Yeah, it's a violation, but I've let those go, even at bar close, coming out of bar parking lots. I've seen no turn signals, but I'm just not interested in the vehicle. What I'm more interested in that tells me more, especially now that word's getting out to use or turn signals and come to complete stop at stop signs, uh is how someone approaches an intersection or an interchange if they're already on a public street, how they navigate through it and how they come out the other side. Because there's kind of a it's hard to describe, but there's kind of a natural rhythm to how everybody comes up to an intersection, handles it, and then goes through, processes all the information coming at them, especially at night. There's lights. I mean, half the time we have red and blues a couple blocks down flashing, that's a distraction. So kind of how they handle it, if it looks odd, even sometimes if they don't commit a violation, I'll follow them and I'm like you'll you'll goof up at some point. And then they do, and I get up to the window. The easy the easy one at the window is smell. Um and if they're hammered, slurred speech and just garbled and then it's you know, red watery eyes and glazed over. Like that's easy. Like anyone, anyone can get that. The thing that some of the things I look for if I've I've had it, I've had D UIRS where I can't smell the alcohol until I have them step out of the vehicle is you'll see parts of certain indicators, but not the full-blown like if they're hammered. Right. Where they might have slightly watery eyes and like their air air conditioning's not on, or their heat, depending on the season, uh isn't blown in their face, it's not bright out, like there's no it's odd that they'd have watery eyes um where they're coming from, and also just uh just kind of being chatty with them and de-escalating the interaction. Because if if they know they've been drinking, they're gonna be a little more nervous and uh apprehensive to tell me the truth. And so I like to just bring it down, take a step back, and just talk to them and just see where you know what they've been up to recently, uh if I can see something in the vehicle, like a crossbow or something, not not really a crossbow, more compound bows, I guess, but you know, hunting equipment. I'll ask them about that. Just get them talking. It loosens them up and helps them relax. And and then I'll go a little bit more into you know where are you coming from? Oh, a restaurant. Okay, perfect. You know, what did you have there? I really like getting the chips and walk or whatever, right? And then uh like, yeah, I had this, and I was like, they have those those great margaritas there that I'm like, I always get one. I have my wife drive me home, and and uh he's like, Yeah, those are good. I'm like, what what flavor did you get tonight? And they're like, Oh, I got the strawberry and mango or whatever, you know. Yeah, and I'm like, perfect. Do you want to do some quick testing? And and then we roll into that. Yeah, um, so it's it's usually um I I say anybody can get that 0.24, point even one six, double the limit. Like those are if they're all over the roadway, if they crash, you know, if they're if they're really, really drunk, those are pretty easy. But if you want to get like to, I guess not the public, but to officers, like if you want to get more DUIs, it's the tiny little driving behaviors you have to watch for. Even even things that aren't violations, like I was talking about, you know, stopping for too long at a stop sign, green light coming on and not going for a hot second, that could be distracted. Driving, you'd be on your cell phone, yelling at your kid in the back. I mean, there's a thousand reasons, but it's it it's it's something. Yeah, yeah. It makes me more interested in that car.
unknown:Yeah.
Speaker 00:You know, you bring up such a good point. So two things that you brought up is really what you're doing is interdiction. You know, you're just you're trying to less lessen the tension, you're just trying to be friendly with somebody, which is what we do all the time anyway. So it comes naturally to you. The other piece is is some people might say, well, if these are minor violations, then what's what's the problem? But uh you highlight their driving is not normal. That's ultimately what the key is. That's what that's what you're what you're saying. You've watched so much traffic and and you've you hone in on what is a normal what does a normal traffic exchange look like coming through State and Villard? He knows that. That's your job. You're a professional when it comes to this. You know what it looks like when it's not. Ultimately, you have no idea what that person could do three blocks from now, two blocks from now, if somebody's coming across the street, if they took a long time to stop at a stop sign, who's to say that there's somebody walking across the street there and it takes them, you know, that extra split second to come to it, and then all of a sudden now we have a pedestrian accident. And I think that's exactly what you're trying to, the points you're trying to make is that this is a bigger, it's a bigger issue, and it's a bigger problem. And I think just some of the things you talk about in how you're detecting it is it's it's it's great for officers definitely to hear. How about this? So I know sometimes law enforcement can sometimes be fearful of the process. So there's two processes when it comes to uh a DUI. Um and this is an intimidating piece for an officer to possibly go through it because it's not like an it's not like a normal hearing or normal something, but you've become very good at this also. So why don't you talk kind of what are the two processes, what are the two legs to a uh a DUI and and how do you navigate those?
Speaker 01:So my answer might kind of surprise you. Uh, because you have the administrative side with the DOT, and that's what has to do with having your driver's license suspended or not, and then the criminal side with the courts, and and that they they run off with that if you have a history depending on the severity of why you got arrested for DUI, if it was a crash, if you killed somebody. I mean, you know, if depending on the severity, they take their thing. For me, and and this is something I went through in August, September of 2024, when I really started ramping up my my DUI hunting, is what I call it. I don't know if that's a I know people it sounds like I'm trying to trap them, but really I'm just trying to keep people safe. Absolutely. With the two two legs with the admin side and with the criminal side, I learned really quick something that makes both those really easy is to just not care. I don't care. I don't care if if you pay three, four, or five. I I really don't know how much it costs to have an administr or hire a lawyer for an admin hearing. If you pay a couple grand, give them a license back. It's not gonna stop them from driving, anyways. They're gonna have a suspended license, they're gonna drive, and out here it's kind of a necessity. Criminal side of thing, drop it to reckless, drop it all together. I don't care. Not I I don't do DY enforcement for either of those reasons. I I could care less what happens. Um I I'm in the here and now for it sounds cheesy, but it's for public safety. It's I think it's one of the most proactive things I can do to keep the public safe in general. I mean, there's there's listeners that I mean, probably half of them at least, if not more, that have horror stories of uh DUI, the effects that DUI has on the public. And um like kind of it's my personal life, not it's not my personal life. So my parents live in Minnesota, and a couple of years ago, they got a new pastor at their church who was out for a bike ride. I think it was a Sunday, but it was in the afternoon, he got hit and killed by a DUI driver. Um a drunk driver. So I mean, i that's one story of hundreds of thousands of stories. Yeah, I mean, across the country, across the world. Like it it's for me, uh DUI enforcement yeah, getting the arrest, getting that drunk off the street, uh t teaching them that hard lesson is good, but that's a very small drop in the bucket. I think the greater effect that uh running a lot of traffic has is pure is is the first level of uh the use of force on the use of force continuum, which is just officer presence. You know, if you're if you're at a bar and you're like, well, I probably shouldn't drive home, I'm I've had a couple drinks, and it it doesn't take much to get over that limit to not be safe to drive. Um but then they come out and they see two traffic stops on either end of the street, they're coming out and they're like, oh crap. And then they see you know another cop park a block or two down the road just waiting for the next guy to come out. Um it's that presence that what I'm trying to do is is like make a better decision, right? Right, giving people the opportunity to not get a DUI. Because I I don't do it for the numbers. I don't care how many arrests I have, I don't care how many licenses I suspend, I don't care how many criminal court cases I win. I lose them all. Like I it doesn't bother me. I I want to keep uh the streets safe, keep the public safe. I mean, it's everybody, it's the kids on bicycles, it's the priests on bicycles, in cars. Um so that's kind of my approach, and to officers who are nervous about the process, it's it's like just kind of zoom out and look at the priorities. If it's public safety, community service, even day shift, I mean, we don't get as m nearly as many DUIs during the daytime, thankfully. But if you're out and and they see a lot of traffic enforcement, it st it will curb, I think, the community's response and you're exactly right.
Speaker 00:So one thing, one thing that I have been tracking and trending, and LT knows this also, is aggressive driving is a problem that we see, especially on our our main streets, whether that be Villard, whether this be Third Avenue West specifically, those two are kind of the worst. What do I mean by aggressive drive? I don't mean road rage, you know, you're trying to run somebody off the road, but I mean trying to gun it to get through a red light. And then all of a sudden, um, you know, or excuse me, a green light. She shouldn't gun it through a red light, but if you're gunning it through a green light and then all of a sudden it's red, and then you just got it at the rat at the wrong time, somebody else is coming.
Speaker 02:Or merging on Third Avenue West, where goes from two lanes to the right.
Speaker 00:There you go, trying to try to try to chase that person or or or following too close to somebody. Like so many of our traffic accidents are these reasons. And again, people are like, well, why does it why does it affect me? Well, we all pay car insurance. Look at what your car insurance is nowadays. Yeah, there's a reason for this, and it's because everything is more expensive because we're continually doing the same dumb things that are causing these. But I also want to bring up you have a very healthy mindset um when it comes to the judicial system on the outcomes of your DUIs. And I think that at times patrol officers can get really invested. And I'm not talking about just DUIs, but in cases in general. And LT, you know this for sure. And we have to understand that as sworn officers, our job is exactly like what Officer Mauser demonstrated. Your job is that night to put together the best criminal package you possibly can. Have a good report, have good report, don't be a jerk, you know. So your body camera, it isn't like, well, the police officer was a jerk, he probably had a reason for doing what he did. But put together the best package you possibly can. That's all you can do. That's what your job is. Your job is not ultimately to figure out, well, how many days should this person get? Or what is the fine amount they should get? And this goes for things way beyond just traffic stops. You know, we we've seen I mean, LTI, I've seen many different officers that just can't seem to get over that hurdle. And it kind of takes them down to this hole of they become kind of jaded to the entire profession and system.
Speaker 02:Right. And and just in not taking it personal. Uh you guys have both uh highlighted it extremely well. And but you know, the, especially DUIs, young young officers, maybe it's their first couple DUIs, and they get in front of a very tenacious defense attorney, which you know that that is that that's the the the part of the judicial process, and the you know, everybody has the right to confront their accuser. And yeah, you're you're gonna have a defense attorney go through your report with the fine-tooth comb, which is all the more reason you need to be absolutely 100% on your game. You need you have to be trained up, you have to know what you're doing, you know, and uh because yeah, you get called out on the stand in front of a jury the first one or two times that happens. That's a that's an icky feeling. Yeah, and that's 100% why I think a lot of guys um uh they either don't stay in law enforcement or they just decide to scale back their their efforts of being you know maybe as proactive with DUI enforcements or something like that, which which is unfortunate when they if they were to just take more of a mindset like like uh Anthony is saying here is yeah, don't don't take this personal, it's it's that night you got somebody off the road. That should give you more satisfaction than than that. And then if and if it just means a little bit more training, well maybe we need you to get you more training and spun up on that. But there should uh yeah, just just always keeping that type of mindset. That's a really healthy way of looking at it.
Speaker 00:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and kudos to you, Anthony. You know, it's one of those ones where you don't see it in your work product, you know, this this mentality that you that you kind of highlighted. Some people could be like, well, he just obviously doesn't care. You know, you just but it's not that at all. I mean it couldn't be farther from that. Like when you look at when you look at you when you read your reports and you look at how you interact with people, it's kind of what exactly what we highlighted. Like you just you understand what your piece to this process is in the judicial system, and I think you do it fantastically. But the other one you highlight is you talked a little bit about, and this this could be maybe some of your your passion for what you're doing and kind of your drive for keeping you on it when you talked a little bit about your your family's priest that had been um struck and killed by the drug driver. And I'm curious to know have you yourself in a sworn capacity had an experience where you had a a a DUI accident where somebody got hurt or or narrowly somebody didn't get hurt or something like that that affected you that you can think of?
Speaker 01:Yeah, there's a couple that I can think of, um, but they're both for the same reason, and that's uh DUIs with minors in the vehicle. That really, you know, I mean, when it's I don't want anything bad to happen to an adult, but kids just are different. When when I pull you over, I've had it where I've pulled people over off, I think one one of them was a uh tail light out. Like something or or front headlight. It was one of the two. It was a it was a lamp violation. I don't care. I'm gonna give you a warning because half the time, especially if it's a break light, you might not even know. Right. So I've I and and my numbers support I write mostly warnings.
Speaker 00:I actually have them here. That'd be great. Yeah, so it's uh 281 warnings for the year so far, the calendar year. Okay, and you got 194 citations.
Speaker 03:Okay.
Speaker 00:So yeah, you I mean you're definitely not in it to just hang paper and make people pay fines. That's that's not what your game is. So yeah, a plug to those stats too, by the way.
Speaker 01:And I was I was actually curious about that because I don't know how to look that up in our system. So but yeah, it's like, and you know, especially at night, if I pull you over for something like that and you're sober and everything's good, I don't care. Here's your warning slow down, you know, come to stops at stop signs, use your turn signal, get your lights fixed, whatever. So but with the kids, I've had it where you know there wasn't a crash, no one got hurt, but the potential was there. I was like, you know, and and the driver in that situation was saying that it wasn't they're like, I drink just a little bit every day because I'm an alcoholic. Well, to them a little bit is uh we'd probably feel drunk. And they're way over the limit. And I'm like, I understand, and then it's it has nothing to do with like loving your kids because I know that driver wants the best for her kids, didn't want anything to get anyone to get hurt, anything like that. But the potential, you know, you have that risk reward situation, but like, yeah, it's more convenient to not find a ride. I'm just going three blocks, six blocks down the road, half a mile, whatever. You know I don't have to go very far. I'll be fine, I'll take it slow, I'll be safe. Even if you're even if you don't cause a crash, but your reaction time is slower because you're under the influence of alcohol, and then somebody uh is testing out their Thunderbird and comes ripping down and you don't see it and you can't react fast enough, and you you andor your kids get hurt because you're under the influence even if you weren't the cause of the crash. Yeah. And it's just it's uh it's that uh kind of uh viewpoint that I think I think a lot of people make excuses. It's inconvenient, it's late, whatever. I'm gonna just do this, get it done, I'll be fine. And and then there's also I've also had DY crashes with minors that got had minor injuries. Um but it's it's I'm like we're inching closer to that uh real finite result that we can't come back from. You know, thankfully the person wasn't going that much. It wasn't anything like the 70-80 with that quarterback the other day. Uh it was it was slower than that, thankfully. Um just minor, they got they were released from the hospital that night. Like not a huge deal, but the potential, it's like I mean, hell walk, like take an hour, especially if it's warm out, just don't put yourself, put your kids in that situation.
Speaker 00:And you know, I uh I know our audience likes hearing stories, and I'm sure LT's got a good story. I have a story also that I can share. So if you want to go first or I can go first, but so I was never the DUI hunter that Anthony was, but but the some of these situations when it comes to a DUI accident, they they stick with you, they hold with you. And I know that LT you kind of shared just recently this piece when you weren't even in your uniform and you kind of had one, but um, you know, one of my last one, I believe it was that I was working when I was on the street, and it it didn't impact me the way that maybe it could have, but it impacted me almost through the eyes of one of the officers that was working underneath me. I was as a sergeant. This was the circumstance when the coach from New England, the he was the basketball coach and he was on his way up to Dickinson. He had gotten across South State from 8th Street, and uh drunk driver had come through and it had absolutely obliterated two cars. And myself and two of the officers are the first ones on scene, and coach is still alive, were inside, and and we we can't remove them from the car because the car has so much damage to it that we couldn't even, we we were trying to pull the car open and we can't physically remove him. And I remember afterwards, um, because we had been holding on to him, trying to provide whatever first aid we could while he was taking his last breaths. I remember talking to the two officers that were on scene and just checking in with them later in that day, just making sure they were okay. And one of them said that that was the first time he had seen somebody die. And that impact doesn't stop, you know what I mean, like at those scenes. Like the first responders that respond to this thing, the firefighters that showed up and used the jaws to pull them out, the EMS people that that had gone on. Um, you know, I told this story. I used to I used to give talks to um the uh I believe it was it's called like the alcohol impact panel. I believe is what it's called. They used to bring me on and I would I would just kind of talk and I would always talk about this situation towards the back end of it because it was I just felt like it was it was impactful. People just sometimes kind of glaze over that piece of it. And I don't take anything away from um the family and all those things. It's a tragedy all the way around. But um State's attorney's office actually allowed me to come in and I got to testify at the sentencing hearing um to this particular case and talk about the impact that it had on first responders in that case. And I just again I think that it it highlights that this is a real problem in our community. We're not talking about an isolated incident. I mean, Mikey, I'm sure that you can go through your career and there's there's lasting scars uh you know that you can think of when it comes to these DUI accidents.
Speaker 02:Yeah, yeah. It's in and and and just the the trail of destruction it leaves, and and I I don't think I I don't think I can top much more than than that that most recent one there. But uh yeah, the the number of fatal alcohol involved crashes I've probably responded to in 21 years of doing this, definitely probably a a dozen or more. Yeah, you know, and and it's uh and the worst part in and helping uh do death notifications on some of those as well. Those those are tough. And it'd be it'd just be good if we can impart that type of experience on to people who would consider doing this before you know before turning their ignition on and trying to do it. You just you wish in that moment you could just impart that, you know, that that realization of what you know decision they're about to make, uh how that can impact uh an you know an entire generation of families uh uh down the road. So yeah.
Speaker 00:Well, we kind of introduced you as the traffic safety officer of the year. I think people now understand, you know, maybe why you you were the traffic safety officer of the year, but I want to ask you receiving that award and winning that award, and then on your attempt to try to become the first back-to-back traffic safety officer, what does it mean to you? What does it mean that uh the Dickinson Police Department um highlighted you last year as our traffic safety officer of the year?
Speaker 01:Oh, it was an honor, and honestly, I was surprised. I wasn't expecting it, and I didn't actually know that was an award until October when my sergeant was like, Hey, you're I I heard you're in the running for the traffic safety officer award. And I'm like, What's that? I mean it's pretty self-explanatory in the title, but I it wasn't it wasn't a goal that I had set myself that I had set for myself. It was just the the love of uh keeping people safe and and getting DUIs off the road. Um it it definitely propelled me in the early part of this year to really go and uh it seems like they've slowed down a little bit from earlier this year, but just this year overall, it seems like we've had a lot of DUIs. So um it it propelled me. I know it also it created some competition, which is always fun. It always helps if because if you're the only one doing something and there's no one nipping at your heels, it's not as interesting. The work is as good, but um I there's a there's a handful of us that were all competing and racing, and it's like, oh crap, this other officer got three this weekend, I need to catch up. So that kind of thing is is a lot of fun. So that me winning that award, you know, it it propelled me to to keep going, um, on top of the real reasons that I started doing that in the first place, but also it it motivated some other people to try and beat me, which is great.
Speaker 00:Yeah, you have those shifts where maybe maybe it's a Tuesday night and you're just not feeling it, maybe you didn't sleep well and it you're plugging through the night, but what you're talking about, like this competitive piece to it, is um the entire community really is benefiting because it's somebody who's staying a little bit more engaged, a little bit more proactive, and and just kind of staying more visible instead of taking a little bit of an easy route and maybe maybe doing a different version of the proactive policing. So what would what would be a piece of advice? So you're putting your recruiter hat on now.
Speaker 03:Okay.
Speaker 00:You've got you've got uh somebody who's interested in wanting to jump into the career field. You have taken an interesting journey into it, but you've been very successful at at the legs that you've been at. And I'm curious to know what would be a piece of advice that you would give an up and coming somebody who wants to jump into law enforcement?
Speaker 01:I would I I would tell them really to think about it's not a light decision. You know, it's it's something that is very fulfilling at times, but it's also very taxing. Um and you need to be ready for all sides of that. I think something that's I I got lucky 'cause I never did it, but something I wish I had done is do more ride-alongs, particularly in bigger departments. Even if you're like, I want to patrol in my small town sheriff's department, you know, of western Montana. There's a hundred people that live in the town, so the in for you know everybody, right? I would advise go to the big city, you know, what wherever that is, Billings, Bismarck, Rapid City, whatever, and try and do ride-alongs and just get an idea of kind of what you're gonna get yourself into. And also I think it's really important to identify why you want to be in law enforcement. Because if you don't have that foundation, your fire burns out quick. Yeah, it's kind of like a candle without any wax, and your wick just burns straight down because you don't have that thing to, yeah, my my wick's burning, but I have all these reasons why I'm doing this and why it's worth it, so it really slows it down. Um identify why you want to do it. You know, you don't have to be a traffic officer, a DU guy to be a productive cop that is protecting the community and being proactive. You know, we have some guys that look for drugs, we have guys that look for warrants, and that's great. Like we need those. And thankfully we have them because you know, I get a little baggie and like, what's all this crushed up Tylenol building? This is weird. But like, I don't know what that's for, but you're uh yeah, it's good, you know, to have that mix of people. So you don't have to like any one particular to, you know, if you don't like DUIs, that's fine. Find something you like. But identify why. What what is give is it a generational thing, like your your dad, your grandpa, your great grandpa, we're all cops, your your uncle's a cop. Whatever the case is, it doesn't matter, but just identify why. Because that that's what's gonna sustain you through the the rest of it. No, it's great.
Speaker 00:That's it that's it's that's fantastic advice. You know, we can we could plagiarize whether it be Simon Sinek on Find Your Why, we could plagiarize Jocko with that when it's your motivation could burn out, but if you have discipline and that's your knowing why you're doing this, it's gonna keep you engaged. So that that's fantastic advice, Anthony. Truly is.
Speaker 02:Um before we do go on, uh uh I guess the audience I think really enjoys the stories and stuff when we were talking in the park a lot uh before coming in here. And and so we're harken back to your your park service days. And I'll give you I'll give you uh Chef's choice on this one, which whichever one you want. Um because it was when I worked up to my first gig, it was up at Medora, uh Medora PD. Uh so I I I got to work alongside uh there's some really good park rangers out there at the time, Kane Seitz, uh Justin Repine. I don't know if they're watching anymore, but uh yeah, they're really good guys and they had a lot of a lot of stories because you have to be kind of uh uh you're kind of by yourself a lot a lot of times too uh in in in often senses. But um yeah, pick us pick a story or two, uh whichever one you think, and uh just let it rip for uh some of the experience you had out in the park.
Speaker 01:I'll I'll give you two stories that were both firsts. Um the first one's lighter, it's not as gruesome, so we'll kind of ease into the things. It's you know, uh so the first one was my first ever search and rescue. And I was the only my my supervisor uh at the time, Grant Geis, he's now he went from supervisor to interim chief to chief, and then he retired, and then I don't know if he's still he he got hired as a deputy in Billings County. Um I don't know if if he's still working there or if he retired from that, but um he was always great. So you're never alone because you could always get a hold of him, but I was the only one on duty. Call comes in, search and rescue. Okay, sounds good. Get the phone number, call call her back, and that's a shot in the dark. That's 25% tops that you're actually gonna get a hold of someone out in the park. Um she picks up. That's awesome. We're already in the top quarter of of this going well. So I'm like, what's going on? Where are you? She's like, I have no idea where I am, I'm out here with my kids. It was early, it was probably late May, which can get warm, but it's not like a guaranteed probably gonna be a 90-degree day. It could be cool. And this was a relatively temperate day. Um I was like, okay, where did you start? Where did you start your hike? She's like, it was at some parking lot. So that doesn't really help, but I can I'm I'm patient, I can backtrack. I'm like, what was the last thing you saw before you turned into the parking lot? And it was Peaceful Violet Ranch. Yeah. I'm like, did you make a right hand turn and go down a long dirt road with trees on the side and a little circular parking lot at the end? She's like, Yeah. I'm like, okay. So you started at Jones Creek Trailhead. Perfect. And there's only and the the trail is very defined when you leave, but uh it very quickly what people it find out is the bison make their own trails depending on what they need and want. And sometimes if the trail isn't super uh uh uh heavily trafficked by people, bison, whatever, if it's not the bison will find the simplest route, the easiest route to use the less least amount of energy. But those the bison trails will look more like the real trail than the actual trail does. Now they've they've gotten better over the last oh god, eight years ago, I guess that that was um at putting up more uh trail posts. Uh and actually just a couple weeks ago my wife was out horseback riding in the park on duty and she was putting big reflective orange stickers on every post so that if if you're at night, you can just shine your flashlight and you'll see a trail. Because one of the rules in the park or things they try to abide by is you're always line of sight to the next post. So if you get to a post, just stop and look and find the next post. Well, if if there's something reflective on it, that makes it easy.
Speaker 03:Yeah.
Speaker 01:So she's like, we started hiking, got lost, no idea where we are. Okay. I'm like, how much battery, cell phone battery do you have left? She's like, four percent. Oh crap. Okay. What I need you to do, hang up with me right now, call 911, ask them to triangulate your coordinates and send them to my personal phone. And she's like, okay. Hangs up, and I'm sitting there just waiting, waiting, waiting. A minute later, two minutes later, boom, I get the text from the dispatch. From it was uh state radio out of Bismarck. Yeah. And I was like, awesome. Well, she calls me back. Okay, so I'm like, I I've got I've got your location, stay right there because now I can hike directly to you and it's gonna be nice and fast. Well, of course, it uh that's not how fate would have it. She was we started arguing. She was like, no, I think you know, I've been thinking about the path I took in. I think I can backtrack. And I I was maybe a little rude, but I had to be direct. I'm like, if you could backtrack suc successfully, you wouldn't be in this position right now. I know exactly where you are, don't move. I'll be there in like 45 minutes because they weren't that far off the trail. And then, oh crap. So I I hustle out there, I go to the coordinates on top of the butte that you had hiked up to get cell service, gone. Yeah. Of course. So now, well, and and sound is weird in the Badlands, it can echo and be carried for a long distance, but you could also be on the other side of a ridge in this echoey range and not hear each other because your your voice is echoing this way, not going up and over. Yeah. I spent four hours hiking and I found her. Now, to her, you know, kudos to her. She was very well prepared to get lost. She had a blanket, she had snacks, water. She had a five-year-old and a seven-year-old with her. Seven-year-old girl, five-year-old boy, I think. Oh boy. And they were they were playing, they had a great time. They had no idea they were lost. They had they had like, you know, some half-eaten crackers on the on the blanket, and they were playing together, and the mom was like, Oh, thank God. I'm like, what the hell? Why you left. We I thought we I thought we discussed this. And she's like, I thought I could do it. I'm like, okay, uh, no worries, I'll lead us out. Um, and and the two kids come running over, and it was so funny. I was just like, hey, how are you guys doing? And the little boy just points and he's like, I pooped over there. And his mom's like, don't tell him that. And I'm like, it's the backcountry. Like, you the bison do it. I don't, it's fine. Like, I you I found you guys, y'all are okay, mom's a little stressed. We're fine. So we hike out, dad meets us at the parking lot, and we're all good. But that was, yeah, that was my first search and rescue. And uh so my second story is my first bison goring. Um was I'll say my first penetrating gore. Because there's a lot of headbutts and stuff, which can do catastrophic damage. I mean it can kill you, but um, it's not as you know alarming when you first show up on scene. So had a call bison goring at actually that same trailhead. It was like 25 yards from that parking lot, and that's all I had. I was like, all right, so I I fly there and I start jogging out, and we have these huge red medical bags. They're like a good three and a half, four feet long. They have a trifold. I mean, we carry an oxygen tank. They they had so much stuff because there were times where I'd be out doing first aid for 45 minutes before ambulances can't just get to you there. Yeah. And and if if Midorah ambulance was busy, we had to wait for Bellfield. Yeah. And uh but I knew, so I got the call and I called and I said, get I don't remember Sanford Air or something. Whoever the helicopter service with the park was, I was like, get them here. Because it's gonna take about 15 to 30 minutes to mobilize them, depending on where they are. Right. And then it's a 45 minute flight to the park. And if I have a bison goring, an hour and 15 minutes is a very long time. I mean, you can easily bleed out far less time. So I get I'm like, we need a bird in the air right away. I get out there and I see a female uh holding pressure on a female laying face down. And I'm like, oh crap. So I I'm jogging out there with the bag, and about maybe f 10 to 15 feet before I got to her, there were I saw in the grass very tiny little red and yellow chunks everywhere. Just everywhere. And it was her leg. Oh so I get up there and there's just blood everywhere. She's conscious, which I was a little surprised. Um I was like, what happened? Her friend was actually a trained uh first or emergency medical responder, but like wilderness specific.
Speaker 00:Interesting.
Speaker 01:Yeah, and so she knew to keep pressure and all that. So it's well, we are hiking back to the trail. They were done, they're 25 yards from the parking lot, they were done for the day. And there was it was during the rut, of course. And so the bulls are even more aggressive. And you don't want to you don't want to challenge them at any time of year.
Speaker 02:Don't pet the pet the fluffy cows.
Speaker 01:That's exactly it, yeah. And I'm I I wonder if they stitched that into her leg when they sewed her up, because I've been but uh there were two bulls who were actively rutting and fighting right on the trail. And they they stayed back and were watching, and the two bulls split about ten feet. I'm like ten feet from the trail or ten feet from each other. She's like ten feet from each other. I'm like, okay, well, I'm not a mathematician, but that would mean that there's a bison five feet on either side of this trail. Okay. And and the patient said, Well, I thought if I kept my head down and just walked with purpose, they would ignore me. I'm like, well, about 75 yards? Absolutely. Which kind of kind of not true, depends. I have another story I got chased by a bison in the uh early spring, late winter of 2020. Closest I've come to getting gored, but that's that's a different story. So she was like, if I keep my head down and split these two bison, I'll be fine. Well, she learned that was not true. What happened was the and I didn't know this yet, but the horn went in, hit her femur, and then he th the bull threw her about 10-15 feet, and she landed and rolled. Um but it it it hit her femur and scraped up and just tore all the connective tissue, the meat just blew it up. It was the worst tissue damage I'd ever seen. It was insane. So the the her friend was like, Do you want me to remove the bandaging so you can put gauze on it? Like, absolutely not. Like this is that's doing something. I'm just gonna gauze on top of this. So I'm doing my thing, and paramedics come out because we're so close, and the herd was like a hundred yards off to the side of us. Um, so we were keeping an eye on them. Uh and uh two paramedics come out, and uh uh Kyle Shockley was one of them, great paramedic. He was like, Okay, um I'm gonna lift her leg and Anthony, you're gonna I don't remember the other paramedic's name, but uh you're gonna pass this um pressure bandage back and forth with uh her, the other paramedic, and we're just gonna cinch this thing down. Awesome. Sounds like a plan. So we start doing that. We we quick we he wanted us to get a good seal on, you actually have to take the gauze off all the pressure bandaging, which is counterintuitive to first aid, but it's it's necessary to get that really good seal um on like an Israeli pressure bandage or certain kind of pressure bandages. So we do that, and and we're just sinking the pressure wrap into her leg.
Speaker 00:And incredibly painful, I'd imagine, for her. She's still conscious. She was, yeah.
Speaker 01:And she was she was letting us know. Yeah. She was she was uh not impressed. That's probably what kept the herd at 100 yards away. Yeah, they're like, oh god. I was like, it scared me. I'm like, but so so it was just sinking in way too fast. Well, what happened was her tissue started bubbling out from around the pressure bandage because there was just no so much connective tissue had been damaged, it was just bubbling out. Yeah. And so we stopped and we were taking full rolls of gauze and stuffing them into the wound on either side of the pressure bandage to keep the meat in so that we could uh put pressure on the leg to stop the bleeding. We went through all the gauze that we had, and but we got the bleeding to stop, but her I mean her legs had to be splayed like this because we had so much of just keeping her leg held together. So then they load her onto the helicopter and the herd had moved from where they were to the trail. So now we're all trapped. Well, I was thinking on my feet, I'm like, I've got a helicopter right here, and that's gonna scare the living, you know, that's gonna push them off. So I went to the pilot, I'm like, can you like fly this way and push the herd up and over the hill so that we can get out of here? He's like, hell yeah. So that's what he did. He pushed them off. They got her to the hospital, and uh we got out, but and and for like two weeks I was like, I wonder how she did. Well then there's a news interview, uh, or a a newspaper, I think. Interview with her like two weeks later. I was like, wow, okay. Yeah, she's alive two weeks later.
Speaker 02:So nicely done.
Speaker 01:But yeah, man, that that tissue damage. It's no joke. I I've I've prevented so many gorings with my vehicle where like their tail starts to go up, and like guys, I don't know why they want to get their picture like this, but they'll bring what I see all the time is they bring their lawn chair out and they'll sit with their back to the herd with like a beer and smile. Sometimes it's like 10-15 yards. And I've drove off-road in my truck to put just a blockade, and I'm like, get the hell out. Well, what are you doing? Get back in your vehicle. You're gonna you're about to get gored. You're not even you're not even watching to see if they're gonna come at you. Crazy. It's job security.
Speaker 00:Well, he's gotta give Mikey a new name that we can call this episode How Not to Get a D UI and How Not to Get Gored, I guess. That would be a good way to sum this one. Well, it's been great, Anthony. It's been great having you on. We've got one last piece that we'd like to go through here before we hit our outro. So buckle up. This one's called speed cuffing. So Mikey's gonna play some tones. I'm gonna read you something, you just hit me with the answers to it, alright?
Speaker 02:Okay. If you need to pass, feel free to pass. Here we go. 30 seconds coming up.
Speaker 00:What's better, the north or south unit of Teddy Roosevelt Park? South unit. Favorite vacation destination. Hawaii. Who invented the scuba regulator, initially known as the Aqua?
Speaker 01:Oh god, I have no idea.
Speaker 00:What stage of the HGN test usually indicates high level of intoxication?
Speaker 01:Uh, usually the end, the last yeah.
Speaker 00:Vertical. The Sioux word for buffalo is what?
Speaker 01:Sorry?
Speaker 00:The Sioux word for buffalo is what?
Speaker 01:Tatanka?
Speaker 00:There you go. How about if you're not a police officer, what would you be doing right now?
Speaker 01:Uh, probably working on the ambulance. There you go. Yep.
Speaker 00:Well, Anthony, this was this was excellent having you on, and I thought it was excellent the way that you kind of wrapped it up and talking about how if you're not wanting to be a traffic guy where we got people for everything, and and me and Mikey, we've been bringing people on that, you know, this is your niche. We brought Tiffany on who's got a different niche. We brought Todd on who's got a different niche. We had Andy and Alex, and it's just this is the beauty of the department here that we've got that uh we've got room for anybody who wants to make anything their own. So yeah, thanks for coming in. Thanks for having me.