Episode 50-Sheriff Jerry Clayton
Brian Kruger:
Welcome to the podcast The Common Bridge with Richard Helppie. Rich is a successful entrepreneur in the technology, health and finance space. He and his wife Leslie are also philanthropists with interest in civic and artistic endeavors, but with a primary focus on medically and educationally under-served children. My name is Brian Kruger, and from time to time I’ll be the moderator and host of this podcast.
And welcome to the Common Bridge. We’re very excited today. This is our 50th episode and we’ve grown from virtually one listener and one download to nearly 40,000 downloads in less than a year. So we’re very, very excited about that. And because of that, Rich has invited a very special guest. Today we have Washtenaw County Sheriff Jerry Clayton. Now Washtenaw sits directly west of Wayne County, which is where Detroit is. And the county seat of Washtenaw County, is Ann Arbor, the home of the University of Michigan.
And I’ll let Rich and Jerry talk a little bit more about his background, and just a reminder that we’re still in the age of COVID, so this is being recorded in about three different locations. My studio today is in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and Rich and Sheriff Clayton are up in Michigan. So we’re doing this virtually so bear with us on the quality. Let’s join Rich and Sheriff Clayton in conversation now.
Rich Helppie:
We’re honored today to have with us Washtenaw County Sheriff Jerry Clayton. Sheriff Clayton is a highly regarded law enforcement professional. Today he enjoys international respect, he’s called upon for major policy initiatives and think tanks. And he’s the kind of person that I think can help us resolve so much of the turmoil we’ve got. His 30 year plus public safety services didn’t begin at the top, that he has been a front line corrections officer, a deputy sheriff, and a command officer. He was the corrections commander, the police services commander and the SWAT team commander. So Sheriff Clayton, welcome to the Common Bridge. We’re so happy that you joined us this morning.
Jerry Clayton:
Rich, I really appreciate being invited and given the opportunity to share my thoughts.
Rich Helppie:
Tell us a little bit just about your background. And I understand, you’re not quite a native of Michigan, but just about, and a little bit maybe about your professional history and what’s your job like today?
Jerry Clayton:
Born in Bessemer, Alabama, so I’m a country boy to my core, but I was raised most of my young life into my teenage years in New York, Westchester County to be specific, White Plains, Austin, places like that. My dad ended up getting a job in Detroit right before the start of my freshman year in high school. And we moved to Detroit, which was a culture shock for me, just in terms of my overall environment, from where I was in White Plains to Detroit. Spent three years there finishing high school-three and a half years, and came to Ypsilanti, Washtenaw County, a city I couldn’t even pronounce when I got my first recruitment letter from Eastern Michigan University, not even knowing it’s like 30 miles away. But came here, I met my wife, we finished school, got a job with the Sheriff’s office, fell in love with Washtenaw County. And we chose to raise our three sons here. Professionally I’ve had so many opportunities, to start off working in corrections, which what I really thought was going to be part time, just a short stop as an organizational communications major in college and a little bit of public administration. And I just thought it would be a pit stop. And at the time I was thinking about leaving, I had applied with state police, got accepted and then decided I did not want to go. And it’s funny, the reason why is because the state police-I don’t know if they still have this policy-but they had a policy of, they would not put you in a post where you came from, you’d be put in a different area. And I was thinking about, would I be put up north? Where the heck would I get a haircut? At that time, a hair cut meant something to me, it doesn’t mean anything to me now, but I decided to stay at the Sheriff’s office. And when I decided to stay. I said, you know what, I’m going do everything I can to add whatever kind of value I can. So I just was…I was so fortunate to be able to do so many different things.
And my bosses at the time really understood that you had to get outside of your organization to learn new things. And to bring those things back to the organization, something that I try to practice now. So I got to do the work with the justice department, got to do the work with a number of different outside entities, which really started my drive for what else is out there. And what else should we be thinking about?
And I’ll sort of wrap with this piece, back in the late nineties, under Sheriff Schebil, we started this initiative because racial profiling, this was a big issue at the time. And I engaged a guy named John Lambert who was doing traffic stop studies. We brought him in, he did the study. I have a background in training, design and development. I knew the sheriff said whether the stats show we’re racial profiling or not, I still need to make sure my staff is trained in a way to ensure that it’s not happening. So I designed the training program, designed the community engagement strategy. Ron Schebil lost. I went into a partnership with John Lambert with his business. And we spent well over a decade, going all around the country, going into Europe, we did an ethnic profiling study in Budapest. So that really just sparked even more of a fire in me. And then I started doing work for the justice department on consent decrees-police agencies throughout the country, where the department of justice said there was a pattern of practices of violating constitutional rights, and started to analyze the changes in policy and procedure. So all of that shapes my perspective of what I do now.
Rich Helppie:
That is a fantastic background and just, I know the tip of the iceberg. Today we’re going to spend some time talking about Washtenaw County, which is home to about 370,000 people. We’re a very diverse County. More than 12% of the residents of the county are foreign born. We represent all ethnicities, and all income levels. When I say “we”, I’m a proud resident of Washtenaw County-from being born in Washtenaw, raised in Wayne County, for those of our national and international listeners, Washtenaw County is directly to the west of Wayne County-Wayne County, of course, the home of Detroit, Michigan, the largest city. Washtenaw County has multiple universities, the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University, and other colleges as well, and a very diverse economy. Today Sheriff Clayton will be talking a little bit about some of the national issues going on, the national discussions around local policing. We’re going to hear his view on what makes good policing, especially with his approaches to dealing with disaffected communities. And I know something that is puzzling me is there’s protests, there’s civil unrest, then what appears to be anarchy. And are there clear lines among those? And perhaps if we can get him to talk about some commentary on some of the selected cities that have been in the news lately: Minneapolis, Washington, DC., and Seattle. So we can anticipate some education and perhaps a couple of policy ideas.
And so Sheriff, when I look at Washtenaw County and our County law enforcement, it’s got to be very complicated. You’ve got many local city and township police departments, University of Michigan has a police department, Eastern Michigan University, Michigan state police post, and I would imagine some federal presence someplace in there. What are some of the bigger challenges that you face as a sheriff department today?
Jerry Clayton:
I think the biggest challenge is, especially now, to where we are in this space, is really separating ourselves from the national picture of police. We’ve spent 12 years working on the culture of our agency. I know we’ll circle back to talking about what that looks like, but really defining ourselves as a customer service organization. So even if we’re arresting someone, there’s a manner in which you do that, that helps that person preserve their dignity, and we protect their constitutional rights and that’s not the narrative that’s going on in our country now. So I think that is, that is the biggest challenge. What people I hear in the community say is, look, we don’t want you to judge us on a stereotype. We don’t want you to all lump us into one as being the face of crime or any of those types of things. Conversely, police say the same thing. We don’t want you to judge us based on what you have seen other police officers do, or people that are in the profession that really haven’t held up the standards of police. So how do we differentiate ourselves? How do we make sure that the people in our community understand that we really do add value, that part of our mission statement is to help build strong and sustainable communities. And that it is our philosophy and belief that you do that by co-producing public safety outcomes. And to do that, you have to work with the community, sometimes listening and learning from them, not just talking and trying to direct those people in the community. So that is a challenge and understanding-when we say…we throw this word “community” out a lot, but it’s not just one single community. We have all these different communities that make up the larger Washtenaw County community. And we have to be nimble and flexible and creative in terms of how we engage the different communities and work with them collaboratively to develop strategies, to build their strongest, sustainable community. So the vision of a stronger sustainable community in Ypsilanti Township is going to be different than the vision of a stronger sustainable community in Manchester. Now the foundational elements are the same. What it may look like at the end of the day is different. We have to be nimble.
And the other thing I’ll say is, yes, there are-if you count the state police-11 different police entities operating in the 720 square miles of Washtenaw County-that’s a lot. What we have tried to do at the sheriff’s office is provide some leadership to coordinate some of that response. So we meet with the chiefs. And I will say this, I think the people in Washtenaw County are very fortunate that the leadership in Washtenaw County, or police stand point, share very similar philosophies in terms of how we deliver services. So there are some common policies, some common training, some common protocols that we operate under. I’ll give you just one example and then I’ll stop. When we took office, there were four different SWAT teams in Washtenaw County. I’ll just tell you, we don’t need four different SWAT teams in Washtenaw County. We just don’t. Now there’s one, and we help lead that effort to bring everything under a Metro SWAT team. So what does that mean? That means there’s continuity in thinking and policy across the county. There’s greater efficiency. We save money. There’s an integration of staff and the different agencies all coming under one roof. And that tends to spill out to the regular patrol. Look, crime doesn’t know any boundaries. The only boundaries that are associated in our system are the ones that government sets up-jurisdictional boundaries and the boundaries the elected officials put in place. But in our profession, we are tasked to operate with very limited restrictions just based on jurisdictional boundaries.
Rich Helppie:
It sounds like Washtenaw is doing really well compared to the peers. And clearly one of those reasons why is the leadership. And I love the customer service mentality and reaching out and saying, we’re not perfect every day, and don’t hold a mistake that we might make against us-I’m kind of inferring that. I know I’m not perfect in my job every day. And this is, I think, calling out why the job of being a good law enforcement officer is so difficult in that you’re going to perhaps need to be a marriage counselor, a mental health worker, a neighbor mediator, a code enforcer, first responder to a medical situation, and yet at any time be ready for a violent encounter. And I know you’ve recently been appointed to this Council on Criminal Justice, which is a very impressive roster of people. And I’m wondering, Sheriff Clayton, given the stresses on your deputies and, who must be physically and emotionally stressed all the time, and given the difficulty of the design and some of the things that are happening nationally, can we get to a place where we have a consistent understanding across the country on what makes good policing and hopefully, in those situations where physical control is necessary, that there is a set of protocols that we can all agree is fair. Is that possible?
Jerry Clayton:
I do believe it is possible for us to have a universally accepted set of standard…standard of behavior. I think is extremely difficult to have total agreement across the country because-the estimate is-we have 18,000 police agencies throughout our country. And we know that although federal government is extremely important and state government’s extremely important, we really know that the quality of our life is really impacted by local government, our local unit of government. We expect some very specific things from our local unit of government and the provision of public safety services is one of those services we expect. So to get the universal acceptance that you just spoke of, all 18,000 units of government would have to agree on this set of standards. I don’t think that’s possible, but I do think there’s the opportunity to have some agreement on a broader set.
I know at the federal level, they’re looking at having some federal legislation that lays some of the architecture around use of force policy or standards around hiring or this national database that captures use of force across the country in a national database that captures bad behavior of police officers so they can’t shop themselves all around the country. Unlike in the UK, which has-they’re really one police agency-different parts of the country have different regional police departments, but they all fall under the UK model of policing. Alright, so that’s easier. I’ve been fortunate enough to go there a couple of times in this exchange, talking about policing in the States and policing in the UK, like exchanging lessons. Two things I walked away from: they’re in a better position to have police officers that don’t have weapons, because firearms aren’t a universally accepted thing in their country. Everybody’s not walking around with firearms. So when we come back to our country and people say, well, let’s just have some police officers without weapons. I’m like, good in concept, but the fact that there are millions of firearms in our country and it’s not regulated the way it is in England, sort of puts some cold water on that. And the other thing is the fact that there’s one universal police department that allows them to have a universal set of standards. So I think we can have a general sense, and I’ll just finish with this piece, regardless of whether…whatever we do, the quality of the police services you receive should not be dependent on where you just happen to be. So I shouldn’t get better police services in Washtenaw County than I do in a different county or in Ann Arbor versus Pittsfield because I’m in that area, I’m doing business there, I’m traveling there. There should be at least a baseline that wherever I go, I should at least expect this standard of service and treatment and honoring of my constitutional rights.
Rich Helppie:
That’s very well said. And I’m going to say that if you were the police chief of Minneapolis during the George Floyd, that perhaps situation was avoided, or certainly would have been handled differently, and disciplining the officers with the duty to intervene and to render aid, which from all data available today appears neither of those things occurred.
Jerry Clayton:
Yes, I’ll just say this. I think the police chief that’s there now had not been there that long by the time that this happened. And I’ll say this Rich, we got to pay attention to the culture of the agency. So I’m in my 12th year here, it took us-in all honesty-four to five years of deliberate and thoughtful work on the culture of our agency before we felt we turned the corner to really honor our mission of creating public safety, providing quality service, building strong and sustainable community, and doing it in a way where there’s mutual respect and dignity and all of that. So it’s hard. And here’s the other piece, the average length of a chief-I think nationally-is somewhere between two and three years. So there’s no continuity of leadership. So if you’re changing out chiefs every two-so were you talking about policies that are barriers to good policing? That’s one of them-you’re changing our police chiefs every two, three, four years. How do you ever get the continuity of leadership? Somebody told me there’s continuity of leadership, but it’s not coming from the top. The continuity of leadership is coming from those informal folks in the organization, right? And if you’ve got systemic racism or systemic bias, which is systemic bad police practices, and that leadership-that’s the constant. Chiefs come and go. Those people are still there. That’s the culture of the agency. You need to have continuity of leadership.
Rich Helppie:
That makes a tremendous amount of sense. And now with this perspective, I can see kind of what happened in Minneapolis. You don’t have the right police and culture, you have a disaffected community, you have a triggering event, and then the precinct was lost. And I don’t know if that is something that would outrage a typical chief. I know that police Chief Craig in Detroit made it real clear-you’re not taking this precinct. You can protest, but we’re going to draw a line here. And in Seattle, they surrendered a precinct as well. And in Grand Rapids, the precinct was attacked. Is this a policy, a bright line people shouldn’t cross, or was it the right thing to do in some of those circumstances-just to give up the precinct?
Jerry Clayton:
So not knowing all the details associated with it, I would be hard pressed to give up a precinct in one of our communities. I’d be hard pressed. I don’t know what set of circumstances that would lead me to that decision. Just brings me to-and I’ll try to be brief here-this brings me to the difference between a sheriff and the chief of police. So think about this: chief of police is not an independent actor in all this, the chief of police works for, if it’s a strong mayor form of government-works for the mayor, or if it’s a strong city council form of government-works for probably the city manager, appointed by the city council. Elected officials, like myself as a sheriff, I work directly for the people, the board of commissioners allocates the budget, but they have no say in the policy or how we run the Sheriff’s office. So I’m not beholden to any other elected officials to carry out any of their mandates. That’s a big difference. So the chief, I think it may have been the chief in Seattle, who I know, she did not want to give up that precinct. That was the mayor’s decision, at least from everything that I know. So the chief can’t make that so [inaudible].
Rich Helppie:
That is an insight that I hadn’t considered. And when I think about the demands of, let’s defund the police-and I understand there’s some nuance to that-but it seems to me that when there’s not a police force, it lets the strongest and most aggressive take advantage of the people that are in need of protection. If we don’t have equal access to education, to healthcare, and when I talk healthcare, I do mean mental health services as well, and economic opportunity, it’s going to be reflected in our policing. And I’d love to hear your comments on mental health. We had Judge Milton Mack on several episodes ago, he spoke about the mental health crisis that we have and the lack of treatment and how often the jails and the prisons are really big mental health facilities. And that’s not what they’re designed to do. So I’d love to hear what you think about our approach to mental health in the United States.
Jerry Clayton:
First off, I’m a big fan of Judge Mack, learned so much from him about the mental health work. And I’m really impressed with his advocacy in this space, which I think has been so really needed. But here’s the point. So we would say, police officers shouldn’t be responding to mental health calls. And if you talk to a lot of police professionals, they say you’re right, we shouldn’t, that’s really not our primary role. But to your point that you made earlier, which we are counselors and clinicians and social workers and all that stuff, it’s all rolled up into that package. Whether we want to admit it or not, it’s all rolled up into that package, but here’s the point. People say, they think the simplistic, well, we should send the mental health specialist to a mental health call. Okay. We can have that model. We can work towards that model. But Rich, most of the time we get a call in dispatch. It’s not a mental health call. It’s a call of someone whose behavior requires a response. And oftentimes it’s framed in a criminal nature. The police respond. And when we start our interaction, if we’ve been trained-and we have training-there’s two things, de-stigmatizes mental health, but also gives the police officers some basic understanding of mental health issues and how someone in mental health crisis, how that manifests itself in the behavior. So now the police officers, holy cow, this person, now this behavior, is driven more by a mental health issue. So very rarely do we get just straight, I got someone in mental health crisis. So if that was the call, yes, send a mental health person, but oftentimes we get a different kind of call, and we discern that as a mental health issue once we get there. And in many places across the country, they have a model-we do in Washtenaw County-well, now we can call a crisis team. This person’s in mental health distress-is obviously in mental health distress. We’re not going to rush in and try to establish control, that person shouldn’t get physically hurt or emotionally damaged or psychologically damaged by us because we’re rushing in. Let’s create time and space. Let’s just talk to him. As long as everybody’s going to be safe. Let’s call our crisis team. And Washtenaw County has a great crisis team. Crisis team arrives, then they engage. We provide support. In some jurisdictions, they have their mental health folks riding with the police officers. So there are models there. I don’t believe in this either or approach. There might be…we might be able to get to a place where you have 24/7-365 mental health clinicians on the job. So that might be something. Then we start to train even more. We’re doing this with our dispatchers, but we’re getting even more. So we start to train the dispatchers when you get that call here, the additional questions you have to ask to see if you can better discern whether it’s a mental health crisis or something else, when it’s a substance use disorder issue. So the dispatchers now can start to be a little more specific in the questions that they ask. So now maybe they do dispatch a mental health team versus a police team. And I’ll add this last piece. There are many mental health clinicians that’ll tell you they don’t want to go into some of these situations in the middle of the night, in certain locations where they may be in danger without any kind of police support. So then people will say, alright, well, let’s just train them in use of force and give them weapons. Well, aren’t you just doing the same thing?
Rich Helppie:
Exactly. But I think I understand too, that if the call comes into dispatch and it says, my family member is off their meds and they’re acting out, well, sounds like it’s mental health. On the other hand, if you call and say, hey, there’s a guy out in front of my building screaming and he’s waving a sword over his head. Well, probably mental health, but also he’s got a sword. So it’s two different responses.
Sheriff, this is fascinating. I know we want to get into today that we’re looking at peaceful protests. And then we look at civil unrest and then we look at extremism and anarchy, and, frankly, I think we can all understand the peaceful protests that say we are addressing our government with our grievances, for redress. That’s our constitutional right to do that. I came of age during the Vietnam war protests and that was tremendous division in the country. And also the civil unrest we had in the cities, particularly Detroit, in the late sixties. And I’m trying to understand, is there-I’m going to ask a bunch of questions here and let you free form this before we begin to wrap up-what would be the dividing line between those peaceful protests versus a civil unrest versus a planned anarchy? Who’s doing it? If it’s spontaneous or is it opportunistic or is it planned, and is there intelligence available? Because I know that I’ve looked at some of the video and said, gosh, that’s curious that I see the same t-shirt, same signs, same weaponry, like railroad spikes being used. And I’ve managed a lot of things and that takes some planning. And then you hear that there are people that are from out of town, but then that’s retracted. So when you think about what’s occurring today across our country and in other locations around the world, is it all about George Floyd or are there broader issues waiting for a spark, or is it opportunists or something else? What do we know today?
Jerry Clayton:
So Rich, I think is all of the above. I think you nailed it in terms of the three different categories, the peaceful protests, which we totally support. I think we’ll agree that our country was built on that, right? People rising up and challenging governments saying no taxation without representation-all of those things-women’s suffrage, civil rights movement. I mean, that’s how we have been built, that’s the fabric of our country. And people in that space, there are now though, there are folks that will either spontaneously go beyond that peaceful, the message that people were trying to, or plan. I think it’s a little bit of both. And here’s how we try to manage it. Of planned protests, well, let’s designate one of our staff to reach out to the protest organizers-let’s have a plan. Look, we’re here to protect your right to peaceful protests, here’s what that looks like. Give us as much information about what you want to do and how you want to do it. And guess what? We’ll create the space for you to do it. Oh, by the way, here are the things you can’t do. Here’s when you’re crossing that line from peaceful protest to civil unrest, here’s where you start to put yourself at risk, the community at risk. By the way, we have a value-we’re always going to value people over property, right? So that’s important, but we can’t stand by and let you just destroy the infrastructure of a community. So you have those kinds of conversations.
Rich Helppie:
I really appreciate that insight and that we’re on such common ground or a common bridge in understanding that we do want to protect the rights to peacefully protest. But you break a window, you set a fire, or you deface property, there’s going to be a consequence. And I’m glad to know that there’s intelligence being gathered on some of these groups. I don’t know where they came from, but I agree that it looks like they’re just bent on destruction. And in the history of the country we rooted out the gangsters, we rooted out the organized crime mafias and such. I think that we can take care of these folks too.
Sheriff, this has been fantastic. And before we wrap up, just to the lightening round, and real quick, in our state, we had protesters on the grounds at the Capitol in Michigan, displaying weaponry. There was one group there, predominantly white group, that looked like they were operating with impunity. A similar group of black men came. They said, hey, we’re coming and we’re carrying weapons so don’t overreact. So lightning round: is carrying automatic or semiautomatic rifles into a protest on the Capitol grounds…doesn’t seem to me like it’s a great idea at about eight different levels, but how does a police force look at that?
Jerry Clayton:
I think it is a horrible idea. And I’ll be like, try to be lightening quick. Listen, there is no right that we have that is absolute. None. We talk about free speech. There’s certain speech you can’t use, right? The example we give is you can’t go into a crowded theater and yell, fire, fire, fire, and cause panic-you will be held accountable for that. So I respect, again, I respect the second amendment rights. I respect people’s right to bear arms. There are restrictions there. I do not believe you should be allowed to bear arms on the Capitol grounds where it is intimidating, you have public officials making public policy and you can make that connection. I don’t think that public officials should be in any more danger than anyone else-I think it is a bad idea. I think it sets up the potential for misunderstanding of miscalculation that could result in the death of a number of people. And so anyway, I’ll end there.
Rich Helppie:
Our governor has issued a number of executive orders in restricting movement, closing certain businesses, gyms and the like. What’s the proper response to a police department? I know that she went to court, tried to get these handled as felonies, that didn’t work. Does a citizen expect that police are going to be called if they’re not following one of the governor’s executive orders?
Jerry Clayton:
Yes, so we’ve been pretty clear in our communication, but our response is mostly let’s educate. I believe, especially in this state, members of our state has been pretty respectful as well, I’ll say in Washtenaw County, they follow the rules. Usually our staff can respond, we can educate and they say, well, I wasn’t sure I got it, if not, we can come back and we’ll cite. And we’re not, it’s not our intent to arrest people, we just spent too much time trying to get people out of our jail as it relates to…because of COVID, and to put people in jail for violation of the order-so we don’t, I don’t want to issue a citation-some of the citations were up to a thousand dollars, in a time where people were economically stressed. So we’re trying to engage and educate. I see it as part of my responsibility to help enforce the executive orders because I believe if we’re all socially responsible, we can beat this COVID and then we can get back to life and economic prosperity.
Rich Helppie:
Well, I’m very much with you on that. And I had my first legal haircut, in fact, my only haircut, as soon as it opened up and trust me, I was, I could have been ticketed for just excessive public ugly before they cut it. And then my gym over in Ann Arbor, Wildly Fit, they do a great job with restorative and recuperating and getting your physical fit over by the distillery. I want to get those good people back to work as well.
Sheriff, when we think about who’s culpable, and this might be more than a lightning round, but are we looking at the-we talked about the mayors-what about the governors? What about the president? And if you dare, if we change presidents, is that going to change anything?
Jerry Clayton:
I, yes, I do dare. Listen, at the end of the day, I don’t care who’s president, just be responsible.
Rich Helppie:
When I think about culpability, we’ve got New York city having massive social unrest, Washington DC., Seattle, Grand Rapids and so forth. Is it a local problem or are the governors culpable, is the president of United States culpable? And it would changing that change that public reaction into civil unrest?
Jerry Clayton:
I think the president has helped set the tone. I think we’ll go back to the George Floyd moment. I think that sparked something in folks that was not going to get walked back. I think this has had to run its course. It was going to run its course regardless of who the governors are, who the local officials are. I think how we respond to it, then yes, there’s culpability at all levels. So if we respond to it thoughtfully and at the end of this there’s good public policy, great. If we respond to it because we just want to make political points, then those people that are just trying to make political points, they’re culpable. And guess what? We’ll be right back at this in another decade or 20 years because we didn’t solve anything.
Rich Helppie:
I concur. So right before we wrap up, I had a friend of mine today…I said, I’m going to be speaking with the sheriff. I said, what question do you want me to ask him? And he said, ask him how he feels about a dispensary on almost every corner in downtown Ann Arbor. And I reminded him that Ann Arbor, I believe, was the first place in the country to decriminalize pot a long, long time ago. Does that change policing at all? It made it easier, harder, no change?
Jerry Clayton:
No it’s posed different challenges, right? So we had to go from worrying about people just operating under the influence of alcohol, I mean, from trying to assess it. And if you are operating on the drugs, there was no question, it’s illegal, let’s take the next step. So now it’s legal to smoke marijuana, it is still illegal to operate under it, but it just-there’s just more things for us to consider. And the way the marijuana laws have been rolled out, and what you can and cannot do has been very, very confusing. The enforcement of it’s been confusing. So we’re working our way through it. It’s change, it is something different, but the way our staff has handled it, it is what we have to deal with. We didn’t make the law, we’re not going to repeal it. So let’s just handle it the best way we can.
Rich Helppie:
Sheriff, you’ve been so generous with your time this morning, and just if there’s anything that we didn’t cover or any policies that we can think about would be best or worst, or even actions that you’d recommend people might take today, just any closing thoughts. I know that our listeners would really enjoy hearing you just free form. What would you like to tell the upwards of 40,000 listeners now to the Common Bridge?
Jerry Clayton:
So first I’ll say Rich, I really appreciate being invited and given an opportunity to share my thoughts. And I appreciate you giving me a little bit of time to talk, because these are complicated issues that the 20 or 30 second soundbite, I don’t think, does justice. I’ll be Captain Obvious and say that we’re in very, very challenging times. We are at a crossroads. And I think from our country’s perspective, how we choose to proceed will, I think, have the chance to fundamentally change the fabric of our country. And my hope is that we’re thoughtful in how we consider police reform and social reform and criminal justice reform. I am an advocate of mission and outcome: drive strategy, drive structure; that we should not be seduced by anyone that says they have the simple, short answer to these complex problems, that we commit to being thoughtful in how we deal with these things, that we commit to working together on these things. I’ve been so proud and honored to be the sheriff here for 12 years and have tried to use where I’ve been placed to further what’s good public policy that’s the best for everybody involved. I think that’s the role of a public official, a public servant, but we are just one part. We represent the people. So the people have to get engaged. The people have to push us and they need to be very comfortable challenging the status quo, and be very comfortable saying here’s how we see things. And then we have to be receptive to that. So again, thank you for giving me an opportunity to share my thoughts. It’s really good fun.
Rich Helppie:
We’ve been talking this morning with Washtenaw County, Michigan Sheriff, Jerry Clayton, really, I think, someone that demonstrates the nobility of the law enforcement profession. I know gives me a lot of encouragement that we will work through these issues as long as we keep discussing them. This is what the Common Bridge is about. It’s not about one extreme on one side and another extreme on the other, but it’s coming together and talking about our common interests and our common way of solving problems and seizing opportunities. This is Rich Helppie. I’m signing off today on Richard Helppie’s Common Bridge.
Brian Kruger:
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