Chuck Rylant: Shots Fired

Transcript

[0:00:33] Charlie Hoehn: You’re listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about books with the authors who wrote them. I’m Charlie Hoehn. Today’s episode is with Chuck Rylant, author of Shots Fired. What do you think of cops? I mean, what do you really think of cops? A lot of people are anti police but Chuck believes that the media has created a perception of police shootings that’s very different from reality. Here’s what you need to know about Chuck. He was formerly on the SWAT team, he was a cop and detective for 15 years. He covered homicides and he’s now a use of force expert which basically means that the defense will show him what a cop did and they’ll ask him if it’s excessive force or not. In this episode, you’ll hear some of the stories that police officers don’t get to tell and you’ll have a better understanding of how complicated shootings are and how the consequences are far greater than you imagine. Now, here is our conversation with Chuck Rylant.

[0:02:00] Chuck Rylant: The moment actually really kind of decided this, was I was in a college class in some kind of business class or paralegal class is what I think it was and I was the guest speaker for this class and usually, they ask all kinds of very fascinating questions because they’re not police officers and it’s usually about something topical in the media. They’ll bring up the controversial shootings and things that the media’s arguing about and this one particular class, it was a very mixed group of people of all different races and sexes and different socio groups that I’m typically around. I was kind of on the “defense” with this group because they saw me as a police officer even though I’m not currently a police officer. They were just kind of venting their frustration with what they had seen in the media. In that moment, I’m trying to explain the both sides of the story because there’s usually three sides of every story, right? His, her’s and then somewhere in the middle is the truth and so I’m trying to explain what these officers are going through when they’re doing these shootings or these other things that are high profile in the media. I realized, it’s just really difficult to do either online where most people have these debates which is the worst if – or even in a setting where there’s multiple people, asking multiple questions and people are getting emotional and getting heated and frustrated. I realized, the officers never really get a chance to tell their side of the story and what they go through both before, during and after a shooting. I wanted to write a book where I’m able to explain what they go through from their point of view versus the perspective that’s shown in the media quite frequently in an edited video clip.

[0:03:43] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, police officers, I’ve commented with my friend several times. Man, is there an organization that is in more need of PR right now.

[0:03:56] Chuck Rylant: Badly, in fact, I think I’m a supporter of law enforcement, obviously I’ve been in that field and I’m still working in that field in different ways but I’m also a critic because I don’t deny that there’s some problems. I think PR is the number one problem and this might help people understand. The reason for the PR failure is because, they’re not allowed to talk, they, being the police administrators, the officers, they’re not allowed to speak until the investigation is over. For what would appear to be obvious reasons to a lot of people but it’s not always obvious is there’s a criminal investigation going on where somebody could face prison time and loss of their job. There’s a very detailed investigation. You say come on. When a video clip comes out on the TV, it’s usually maybe there’s 30 minutes of an incident that happened and a video shows 15 seconds of the most horrific part and the public has all these great questions, very valid questions. Why did the officer do this and that? And then the failure on law enforcement is they come out and say, “No comment.” That’s a complete disaster because in law enforcement, when police officers interview somebody and they say, “You have the right to remain silent” and then the suspect says “I want a lawyer.” The officer immediately in his mind says, “Guilty.” But yet, the public is doing the same thing to us, right?

[0:05:20] Charlie Hoehn: That’s the smartest thing…

[0:05:20] Chuck Rylant: Right, we assume guilty but then the police department does the same thing when the media and the public ask them for comment on the shooting. They say “No comment” and so the public assumes guilt. Yeah, that’s a PR failure in my mind, I agree with you completely.

[0:05:37] Charlie Hoehn: You know, one of the other things that I took away from your book is how damaging it is to jump on top of the 15 worst seconds and make all these assumptions that this officer was a racist or a sociopath or whatever. When in reality, this could have been the third or fourth killing that they’ve happened to be a part of. That the PTSD, the residual, emotional damage that it’s done on this officer has made them numb or overly paranoid. All these effects that are going on in the officer’s day to day life, we don’t even see.

[0:06:24] Chuck Rylant: Yeah, you brought up so many complicated subjects in one statement and it’s very fascinating and it’s a complicated issue. The first thing you brought up was race. Whereas, today’s narrative in the media is if it’s an officer who is white and a suspect who is black and he gets shot. The automatic assumption is it was racially motivated. That may have not be true for some incidents but for 99.9% of them, it’s not, it’s based on the action that the suspect was – that he was behaving in. But then there’s much more complicated thoughts where there’s beliefs that some people will automatically assume that a black person is more dangerous than a white person. There’s so many issues at stake but in my opinion and I think this is supported by evidence, it’s unfair to automatically assume race without knowing the whole story. We need the whole story before I think those kind of accusations could be made but those stories sell clicks online, right? That’s where click driven media, click driven world now, so it works for their purposes.

[0:07:34] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah. Tell me about your book, Chuck? The subtitle is The Psychology Behind Officer Involved Shootings, can you tell me what the big idea is in this book? The one thing that you’re really trying to impart upon. Is it the general public you want to know about this or is it psychologist? Who are you aiming for?

[0:07:59] Chuck Rylant: Yeah, I had three audiences when I wrote it. The first would be the public, to help them understand just how complicated it is for an officer and how much of a consequence there is to the officer after he pulls the trigger, he or she. That was one audience, the second audience was for the officers that actually have shot somebody because they’re really isolated, they’re alone, they’re not able to talk to anybody and when you read the book, you’ll see, they’ve gone through some hardships and they feel alone. Feedback I get from those guys is “Wow, I didn’t realize I wasn’t the only one going through these stuff” and they’re usually ashamed to admit a lot of the problems they have. Then the third, I teach at the police academy and there’s no training for these officers before they get into a shooting. Sometimes there’s a guy in the book who shot somebody after he’d been working only a few months and then he’s being advised of his Miranda rights and it’s very shocking to a young officer that doesn’t know to expect that they’re doing their job, they think they do everything right and now they’re being treated like a criminal so it’s very startling. I wanted it for those three people, all of those combined.

[0:09:09] Charlie Hoehn: It always shocks me when industry doesn’t prepare – I’m thinking about the parallels in the military for instance, there are some parallels there with not preparing these officers for an essential, the worst case scenario, in one of the most essential components of their job. What is the big idea that you really hope people take away from this? Let’s say somebody who listens to this interview three to six months from now, what do you hope sticks with them?

[0:09:44] Chuck Rylant: Well, I guess I’d give you three answers for the three different audiences. I really hope the public reads it and the feedback I’m getting from them is really what I hoped, the idea of “Wow, there’s so much more to this, I had no idea.” That that’s the feedback I get and that’s what I hope the civilian will take away is to read it and when they see a video online or on the news to just not necessarily ump to judgment but just pause and say: “You know, there’s probably a lot more to the story and I should get the whole story before I jump to judgment.” For the officers, I kind of mentioned it previously, I’m hoping that they get that ‘Hey, I’m not alone in this and that these experiences that I’m going through are “normal” for somebody who has gone through this kind of traumatic situation.”

[0:10:31] Charlie Hoehn: What happens to the officers who do kind of stay in their own head? Why is it so important that they need to have this reassurance?

[0:10:44] Chuck Rylant: Well, if you look at the culture of law enforcement from day one in the police academy, they’re conditioned to shut down their emotions to now show their emotions so you’ve all seen the drill sergeants type situation on TV where they’re yelled and screamed at and they’re tired and exhausted and stressed and in normal circumstances, people get upset when someone’s screaming at them. They’re conditioned to hide emotions to not show emotions and that’s a necessary part of the job. They can’t be at a call where a baby has been murdered and be upset about it. They can’t show that they’re sad or if they are being yelled and screamed at in a riot situation which we come and see on news, they can’t show that they’re angry or that they’re frustrated or whatever. They can’t show it, they have to be constantly stoic. That’s the culture in law enforcement where everyone is pretending that everything’s okay all the time. When things are not okay because everybody in law enforcement is a human being, right? They’re going through their own ups and downs, they’re getting divorced, they’re having alcohol problems. They’re having stress with their kids, deceased parents, all of the normal stuff that we go through but they’re conditioned to not show it and to say everything’s okay all the time. That’s the worst possible thing somebody can do when they’ve gone through some sort of trauma, they need to be able to talk about it, they need to be able to open up and talk with other people and seek out help and tell people, “Hey, I can’t come in to work today because I’m not sleeping at night.” But they don’t, they hide it because that’s the culture of the business and it magnifies the problem, it makes it worse. I’m hoping where these stories are more out, where maybe it will change the culture a little where it’s okay to talk about it, okay to see a psychiatrist, okay to get help, you know?

[0:12:32] Charlie Hoehn: Or at the very least, okay to hand somebody your book after they go through something like that. Let’s talk about the stories in the book. What’s one that you want listeners to walk away with?

[0:12:46] Chuck Rylant: They’re all different, they all add a different component but one interesting thing was one of the very first story about this guy, Adam Ramos where he wasn’t actually involved in the first shooting. It’s a long complicated story but there was a big fight between a drug dealer who had a gun and several officers and he didn’t have a bullet proof vest. It’s a long story because he was working under cover. But he wasn’t actually one of the shooters but a couple of his partners got shot, and one who was a close friend of his, he thought had died. He had in that split second, he thought he had died because he was laying on the ground bleeding. But he had to continue chasing these other drug dealers into the house. He started to kind of have a breakdown while this happened because he thought his partner had died. In the end, the partner lived and everything. And everything worked out but he had severe PTSD that caused him a lot of marriage problems, alcohol problems. Problems with his job and it was a result of what they call survivor’s guilt which was really interesting to me because this was something I hadn’t heard of before this. Where the people who survive, they start blaming themselves for mistakes that they may or may not have made. Then later, he got into a shooting after a considerable amount of time, he got into his own shooting and he had no trauma as a result, it was a very clean shooting, clean mean, there was no controversy at all, he had no trauma as a result of that particular shooting. That was really interesting as sometimes the survivors have much more trouble than the people actually involved.

[0:14:25] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah. You know, it’s funny, I hadn’t really heard much about survivor’s guilt myself. I’d literally just heard it an hour ago from a woman I was talking to on the phone who said she ran into – or she knows a doctor who was in Las Vegas during that shooting and he was in that casino and he was kind of scurried off and taken away. He was really suffering with survivor’s guilt because he felt he could have contributed and helping people but he wasn’t able to. This is something that’s applicable to – across the board to anybody who goes through these types of traumas but police especially must be dealing with this all the time.

[0:15:11] Chuck Rylant: Yeah, probably all first responders, right? Like paramedics, they show up fire fighters, soldiers, probably a lot more, right? They’re facing a lot more of that stuff. Maybe even in the medical profession. I’m sure that’s common too where a patient doesn’t make it or whatever, right? It’s interesting, kind of this sad subject.

[0:15:32] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah. Well, are there any stories in the book. I mean, I think it’s this kind of like – I hope you’re not offended by the comparison but the Chicken Soup For The Police Officer’s Soul who has been through like awful stuff, right? Is there anything in the book that leaves the reader feeling wow, hopeful, uplifted or at least filled with compassion?

[0:15:59] Chuck Rylant: There’s another guy in the book named Chad. In fact, my police academy was talking about this yesterday, where this was an unintended result to this book where several of these students in my class, they all got the book. Somebody had donated money to give all the students in the class a book which was really neat. They came back two or three of these 25 kids, I call them kids, they’re adults but they’re kids to me. More than one of them had given it to their spouse to read and I had never even considered, the spouses were looking at this from a spouse’s perspective and the spouses were bringing up the risk to their marriage. That all of these officers had faced, right? They looked at it from a very different point of view. There’s one guy in here who is an extremely type A guy, he’s a really amazing guy. Everything he does is to the top, he was in the special forces in the military doing some really crazy top secret stuff. He got a PHD, professional MMA fighter. I mean, everything he does is in extreme. He’s one of these over achiever kind of guys. His marriage melted down and they were on the edge of divorce and his wife came up to him and said, “You know, you excel in everything you do, you’re the best in every single thing you do.” “You do nothing halfway except your marriage.” He was on the edge of suicide when she said that and so that really rocked him. He turned around, now they work together, they have a great marriage, they work together doing counseling for PTSD for other couples, they’ve written a book on marriage and stuff. They’re definitely a success story that was in this book and I’m impressed with what they’ve done, it’s pretty amazing.

[0:17:44] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, that’s beautiful. I can’t imagine, I’ve met a number of veterans and soldiers’ spouses and they described what you’re talking about which is just how challenging it can be, especially after something difficult happens and it does not surprise me at all that they would find – the spouses would be the ones to read this book first.

[0:18:10] Chuck Rylant: Notice that part of it, right? I hadn’t even considered, because I remember the cop for 15 years and I was married during much of that and I think you lose sight as the officer of what they’re going through, sitting in bed at night because as the officer, you feel some degree of control even if you’re not in as much as control as you think you are. You feel some sort of control whereas the spouse is just sitting at home just with the unknown having no idea what’s happening, right? Not knowing if the spouse is going to come back in the morning or not. I would imagine it’s a completely different side of the stress. I hear the same thing with dispatchers, you know, you’re in a foot chase or a car chase or some tense situation and for the officer, it’s somewhat of a calm, you’re in the zone when you’re in those kind of stressful situations. But meanwhile, the dispatcher is sitting over there blind. They have no idea what is happening and they have a lot of stress as well, probably similar to the survivor’s gilding. They just don’t know what is happening, they have loss of control.

[0:19:13] Charlie Hoehn: Right, so what’s some advice that you would give to an officer? Actually before I ask that, why did you leave law enforcement?

[0:19:24] Chuck Rylant: I got into a fight with a robbery suspect and we fell over fencing, I ended up hurting my neck and I got permanently forced to resign. Not resign, retire, I got medically retired. So I had done 15 years. That was actually kind of a blessing to be honest, I wasn’t ready financially to make that move at that time and it was kind of forced on me but around the 10 year mark for most cops, they’re pretty well burned out. They’re pretty jaded. They really changed emotionally and I’m glad that happened to be honest. I mean I don’t like the pain in my neck that I live every day but it was time you know?

[0:20:07] Charlie Hoehn: Author Hour is sponsored by Book in a Box. For anyone who has a great idea for a book but doesn’t have the time or patience to sit down and type it out, Book in a Box has created a new way to help you painlessly publish your book. Instead of sitting at a computer and typing for a year, hoping everything works out, Book in a Box takes you through a structured interview process that gets your ideas out of your head and into a book in just a few months. To learn more, head over to Bookinabox.com and fill out the form at the bottom of the page. Don’t let another year go by where you put off writing your book. And is there any way to preserve? Because I know attorneys go through the same thing where if you’re constantly dealing with people’s messes, it’s hard to retain a holistic view of human nature. How do you retain that healthy, normal perspective that this is the minority of people and I’m catching them at the worst moment of their life?

[0:21:19] Chuck Rylant: Yeah, that’s such an interesting topic. Multiple things, answers to that question. I think part of the problem is a lot of officers go into their extremely idealistic. I can talk from personal experience. So they have an idea of the world that maybe they learned from TV which is there’s good guys and there’s bad guys and the world is just not that way. There’s just people right? And like you said, everyone goes through ups and downs. And some people more than others and some people make dumber choices than others but as you said, they’re at their worst moment, right? And so you’re right, the officer is dealing with people at their worst moment every day all day. So it’s easy to see every single person like that. Eventually officers, they separate themselves with us versus them meaning us being cops and everyone else. It doesn’t take long to arrest. Here is an example, I arrested a school principal, a female school principal, a high school principal for having sex with kids, right? And she’s a beautiful girl and you see somebody like that and you think a beautiful, got an education, she’s the principal of the school. So you automatically assume they’re the “good guys.” But then they are making these bad decisions and so it is very easy to say, “Okay everyone is bad.” Everyone does these things, right? And then on top of that, especially in today’s society, everybody is anti-cop. It’s kind of the in-thing to be and so cops even separate themselves from the public even more because they don’t want to be bashed on or be around people that don’t understand them. Okay, the first thing would be to not separate yourself and I imagine this applies to lawyers and soldiers and every one of these, don’t separate yourself. Whereas it’s very comforting to disconnect from society and only be around police officers. For example because it is so comfortable, they understand you, you can talk your own language but I think that’s the worst thing. Is to isolate yourself from these other people. The other thing is not to have such an overly idealistic perspective which I think comes from you, right? It’s when we are young, we’re little overly idealistic and we grow up and realize the world’s grey instead of black and white. So maybe just understand that everyone has their ups and downs. Has their highs and lows and try not to categorize people as “good or bad.” Try to be understanding. It’s definitely easier to do with age because you have been through your own ups and downs. And then I think the third and most important part probably is balance which is a common phrase in all self-help stuff but it’s really important to not let your identity come from your job and so as young cops often you get introduced to social parties as a cop. Whereas a UPS driver does not get introduced as a UPS driver. They get introduced as John or Hector or whatever, right?

[0:24:17] Charlie Hoehn: Right.

[0:24:18] Chuck Rylant: I think it’s important to separate your identify from your job and let your identity be, “Hey, I’m a surfer”, “I’m a father, I’m a church going guy,” whatever. Whatever your real interests are, I think that’s important. I think it’s a very healthy thing to do.

[0:24:33] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, I’ve got a few questions for you Chuck. So before I ask the next one, in terms of the anti-cop thing, the dynamic that is going on right now I mean obviously there are reasons for that. On a personal level, I take the standpoint of this is a person who I probably – like a police officer is a person I only needed in an emergency and any interaction I have with them could potentially hurt me and not help me otherwise, right?

[0:25:07] Chuck Rylant: I agree a 100%.

[0:25:09] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, so I feel it’s such a strange dynamic because I know underneath the uniform, they’re a person. A human with feelings; that they struggle with anger, fear, all the normal stuff and they are required to be stoic but I feel like or I know it just wouldn’t benefit me to interact with them. What do you suggest for normal civilians in their interactions with law enforcement? Do you suggest hey, legally it’s not going to help you to interact with them?

[0:25:47] Chuck Rylant: Well that’s an interesting question because I agree with these people in their right. The cops are not there to be your friend and I think it’s a mistake where society is expecting that and police departments are caving into it and trying to give that appearance which is fake. So you have a lot of these nonsense where officers are pulling people over and giving them ice creams and stuff. It’s just nonsense, right? It’s as seen.

[0:26:17] Charlie Hoehn: That’s the extent of their PR?

[0:26:20] Chuck Rylant: Yeah, I don’t know if you have seen these and they have these officers doing these. They are in their uniforms and they’re dancing. It’s just fake nonsense but they get a lot of likes on Facebook, right? People are like, “Oh look at these great officers, they are dancing good officer there” and it’s not a good officer because as you said, if you’re going to interact with a cop it’s because you did something wrong or suspected of it. That’s pretty much what their role is, their job is law enforcement right? Their job is to not give you a pat on the back and give you an ice cream and so I think pretending they are something that they’re not is a mistake and we should just accept that that is their role is when somebody screws up, that’s what they do. But on the flipside of it, I don’t know of a single incident in the US history and I am sure there are some outliers. But when somebody is literary obeying the law, sitting there, cooperating when the officer contacted them and the officer started shooting at them. I don’t know that that has ever existed. Usually what’s happening is the person did something that the officer perceived was illegal, whether the officer was correct or not, we don’t know. It doesn’t really matter, if the officer had the legal right to interact with that person, then the person needs to cooperate and do the fight. Or the disagreement in the court room, that’s what it’s made for so if you get pulled over and you put your hands on the steering wheel, you say “yes sir, no sir” and you do exactly what you are told, 99% of the time there is no problem. But when people fight the police and argue with them and disagree and all, that’s when all of these problems occur and it’s very complicated why the officers are reacting the way they do. I can explain it but it’s a very long story but if they just cooperate and be polite. I mean police officers are human too. I mean if you pull someone over and the guy’s a jerk, the cops immediately are going to be a jerk too and if the person in the motor vehicle is polite, the officers generally going to be polite, or at least not mean. But I have been pulled over too and most cops are, I don’t know if we’re allowed to cuss on here but they are not always friendly, right? And so I agree with that but acting like an idiot definitely is making the problem worse. And so, I think if people just put their hands on the steering wheel and roll the windows down, “yes sir, no sir” and cooperate. But having said that, I agree with you. I wouldn’t voluntarily go out of my way to make their job easier as far as getting you in trouble, right? They say, “Can I search you?” and you say, “Well I am not going to give you permission. I don’t want you to search me. If I had a choice the answer is no.” But when he says, “Well get out of the car I’m searching anyway” then he has the legal right, go along with the program, right?

[0:29:10] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, I appreciate you taking the time to answer that question because I want to stay on your book and the effects it has but yeah, there are not enough opportunities to speak with police officers whether they are active duty or retired. So I’m sure this interview could go on much longer than it needs to just asking other questions just about the profession. But I am curious Chuck, tell me more about have there been any other surprise reviews of your book, people that is touched in some way?

[0:29:47] Chuck Rylant: Well definitely the marriage thing was news to me. That one really surprised me. Most of the feedback that I have gotten was what I anticipated. I had some questions in my own mind that I wanted answered that I don’t think the public will pick up on but things that I’ve got from other people were what I expected. The very common thing I have heard from many, many people is civilian saying, “Wow I didn’t know that that’s what it was like.” And then the officer saying, “You know that was very helpful to me. I felt I was alone” those are the common things that I’m getting from people and kind of what I anticipated hearing from people. What I didn’t get which I was really expecting in today’s world and maybe as the book gets out there more is the hatred. I was expecting to get a lot of negative stuff. I really anticipated that.

[0:30:37] Charlie Hoehn: Really?

[0:30:38] Chuck Rylant: Yeah, I thought that there would be more anti-cop feedback and maybe it’s just that the people who feel that way aren’t going to pick up this book and read it. But I really expected more of that and I haven’t gotten a single piece yet. So maybe when I hear the first one, I’ll be happy. I don’t know.

[0:30:54] Charlie Hoehn: Well Chuck, I’m happy to get on Amazon right now and give you some grief. Yeah, I mean your book has got a long life ahead of you so don’t worry. That will come I’m sure. So I’m curious, could you give our listeners a challenge maybe, what is one thing that they can do after this conversation that I don’t know might make their relationship with law enforcement in their mind a little bit healthier? Apart from reading your book and listening to this interview, do you have something you can challenge our listeners with?

[0:31:35] Chuck Rylant: Yeah, that’s a great question. I never thought of it. So thinking on the fly, I would like to hear from people who generally are “anti-cop,” or are against a lot of the things that they’re seeing in the news, I would challenge them to hopefully read my book and maybe hear a side they haven’t heard but what I would challenge them is to watch those things that come on the news and challenge them to look deeper into it and not take on face value the thing that you want to hear. So for example, to do a parallel if you are a republican and you hear something pro-Trump you believe it because you want to believe or if you’re a liberal and you hear something anti-Trump, you believe that because that’s what you want to believe just as a parallel. So, if you correlate that to some law enforcement incident, try to step out of your own beliefs which is really hard for us to do, for all of us and try to just say, “You know this is the narrative they are selling me because this is going to sell clicks and create controversy and all of that.” But there’s probably a little more to the story and before you go clicking share on Facebook and venting and all of that, dig a little deeper and ask somebody. Reach out to a police officer and say, “Hey I saw this video, it concerns me, maybe you could explain it from your point of view” and dig a little deeper. Rather than just automatically accepting the narrative that maybe you want to believe is true. I think if we all did that, it would be a much different world than what we are living in now, right? But that would destroy the media business if we went down that path.

[0:33:18] Charlie Hoehn: Yes, seriously. This is separate, but I am curious, have police departments considered reputation management firms? Not PR firms but reputation management, so PR is really what you push out to the public, the message that you push out and you want people to believe. But reputation is what people believe and so it’s more of managing that in shoring up against, getting out of control.

[0:33:52] Chuck Rylant: I am not aware of that. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I am not in management in law enforcement but from what I am aware of it does not exist but when you look at the reason why, it makes sense. If you were to compare Apple to say your local police department, Apple has an incentive. I am just using Apple as an example, it has an incentive to manage their reputation. If there is bad things being reported, it’s going to come down to dollars and cents for them. So, they have a motive to do that kind of thing to hire somebody like that. Now when you contrast it to government, they are there whether you like it or not. They don’t go out of business. There is nothing that’s going to hurt them. Worst case scenarios, they get some controversy in the news that only last until the end of the news cycle, so 48 hours or whatever. They’ll be a lawsuit later, the city will pay out the lawsuit most of the time. They’ll settle out of court and if you look at who makes the decisions within these government agencies, they’re all self-serving like we’re all self-serving but they are even more. So you look at the mayor just wants to get re-elected, the police chief or sheriff, they just want to keep their position and you go down the whole line, they don’t have a lot of incentive to invest money and time into that kind of thing because they are often very short sighted in comparison to a big company. They are kind of forced to, right? They have to.

[0:35:14] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, I mean I guess the worst case scenario would be you get a Netflix series made about a case that you were a part of.

[0:35:25] Chuck Rylant: Yeah, that’s true but in the end, right? So I think I know the one you are talking about which was interesting but then what? They don’t go out of business, there’s no change, right? Nothing happens, they’re so good right? So good so there’s not a lot of motivation to do that kind of thing which is unfortunate.

[0:35:44] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, well Chuck this has been great and I really am a huge fan of anything like this that can serve normal people who just normally don’t get the compassion that they deserve just by their circumstances. They are in a difficult profession or they’re on the fringe somehow in society or whatever. So, thank you for making this book, I think even though you are forced to leave law enforcement this is a great like a see piece so thanks for writing it and thanks for doing the show.

[0:36:19] Chuck Rylant: Well I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me and asking interesting questions. It’s been fun.

[0:36:25] Charlie Hoehn: Many thanks to Chuck Rylant for being on the show. You can buy his book, Shots Fired, on amazon.com. Thanks again for listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about books with the authors who wrote them. We’ll see you next time.