Okay, hi everybody. Welcome, welcome to our all day movie workshop. I'm Peter. I'm going to be the host today. And we have a beautiful movie for today. I'm really looking forward to and for those who are new, I'll just let you know how the day will flow. So we'll start with a movie with David. And afterwards we'll have a 10 minute break and some breakout rooms where you can share any experiences you have with the movie and any emotions you have. And then we'll have a 45 minute break. And then we'll have a closing Q&A session with me. So I'll pass it over to you now, David. Thank you, Peter. And welcome to everyone. So happy to see you. Yeah, I'm very excited about our time together today because we're going to be touching on the depths of going into spiritual awakening. And a lot of times, yes, I receive a lot of questions, comments about what is the course teach about relationships? How do I heal my relationships?  You know, sometimes I feel happy and fulfilled. And other times I feel like there's has to be more something more than this. And I don't know what that is. You know, people will say it's mysterious. Well, that's the beautiful thing of a course and miracles and the teachings of Jesus is Jesus just demystifies everything. He demystifies science. And he gives us quantum physics teachings.  And he teaches us to live in the present moment and and realize that the past is over and gone and and we were never at the mercy of the past or linear time. He teaches us we're free. He teaches us we're innocent. And we have every reason to feel joyful, every reason to feel happy every day like the birds just chirping and singing all day long. We don't even have to have a reason to sing. We because we were created in love, we can sing, sing, sing all day long. And then we have a little rest at night and we sing tomorrow morning like the birds, you know, they wake up with the sun and they're singing. So as usual, you submitted your themes for the week and I had different people writing to me and Valentina wrote to me saying, you know, I'm working on I need to demystify my relationship. Please help me. And and so this is the the movie and the themes that we're dealing with today, and this is for the whole universe. So I'll start off by just giving you the themes that you voted on. The first theme was accepting my part in God's plan for salvation. It sounds so beautiful. And it sounds like it must be kind of profound and somehow real obvious, accepting my part in God's plan for salvation. And really, in the simple terms, it's learning to come to live in the present moment. If you're living a guided life, you're accepting your part in God's plan.  You're accepting your part in God's self plan of salvation. You know, Jesus says we each have a special part in the plan. We each have to fulfill our part. But really, what he's saying is, let go of trying to control the world. Let go of trying to control the script. Let go of trying to control people. Don't plan your life out. If you plan your whole life out, that's how you make God laugh. Because God, God didn't create linear time.  Planning their future goodness and God didn't even create linear time. God doesn't know about past, present and future. So all the great mystics and saints, all the avatars have always said live in the present moment. And so we're learning how to do that together. It's like we're all joined together with one purpose. It gets a little tricky when you start to realize that the ego has a purpose as well. And this purpose is death. It's not a happy purpose at all. The ego is a death wish. And so it made up linear time. It made up bodies. And it even made up its own form of relationship, which was purely of bodies. And we call these interpersonal relationships. And we like to put them into categories. The ego likes categories.  And these are my family over here. Oh, here's my my partner for my romantic relationship. Oh, here's the guy that helps change my the oil in my car over here. Here's my postman. And here's my doctor. You see, the ego makes many different categories of relationships. And yet when you get into his workbook, Jesus is saying there aren't different kinds of love. Love is one. If you think you can divide love into different like puppy love, I love for my pet and I love for my partner romantic love and a love for my parents and a love for my children. He said, no, no, no, that's that's trying to stratify something that is pure oneness and pure love. So I think our first theme received 70 votes, but by far the most accepting my part in God's plan for salvation. And when I prayed on a movie for today, there was a lot of beautiful movies that came to mind.  There is no deeper theme ever, ever, ever in any teaching of any teaching on the planet than destiny. You know, I remember I told you one time there before I knew anything about a course of miracles before I knew anything about spirituality. I saw a quote one time many, many, many years ago, probably, maybe it was about 40 years ago or so. I was 40 years ago. And I saw it was a quote by Edward Markham and it said, there is a destiny that makes us brothers. None goes his way alone. All that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own. And I didn't I wasn't even into spirituality, but I was like, wow, that touches me. Because it was like the divine law all that we send into the lives of others comes back into our own. It was the beginning to get me into non duality to realize that love is all there is to realize that reality is oneness and love and everything else is just an illusion. It's Maya. So I'm excited because that's what Jesus is giving us for accepting my part in God's plan for salvation. He just wants to us to understand that there's a greater destiny that the Greeks talked about called know thyself. It's the greater destiny that Jesus talked about when he said I and the father are one before Abraham was I am. It's a greater destiny of Gilgenanda called itself realization. And many great teachers have called itself realization or self actualization. That's basically the goal of the course is regardless of the teacher you choose know thyself is is what the the curriculum is all about. So this movie is going to help us today to go right into the core of everything beyond all of the seeming different topics that are part of spirituality. Jesus is saying come on a trip today and let's go down to the core. Let's go way down to the core. And that's where you'll find your destiny. Also, I'd like to say to that people sometimes get destiny a little bit mixed up with time with linear time. There's a line in the workbook of the course that says the script is written. And people think, Well, maybe, maybe that's what I think destiny is. It's it's there's something. It's like fate, or there's something destined to happen to me in form. I'm destined to meet my soulmate. I'm destined to levitate or something. I don't know fill in the blank. I'm destined to have a revelatory experience or whatever. But basically, I would say that our true destiny is our Christ identity. And that is pure spirit. So that's the ultimate destiny with a capital D. That's not for David. That's for destiny as the living Christ. That's a perfect creation of God. And then there's a destiny to to reach the point of of leaping off toward that. And that's what we call the happy dream. That's what we call the forgiven world. That's what we call in science, we call this the quantum field. That's what the quantum field is where everything is unified. It's all pure energy because it's unified. It's also simultaneous. So it doesn't really involve time, but it's a leaping off point to eternity. And the goal of all the mind draining is to come back to the forgiven world for the happy dream is what Jesus calls it. That's really the goal of the course. And then Jesus says, God will take the final step. Listen, once you get to the happy dream, hold on, you're not going to be able to hold on very long, because God is not going to wait to whisk you back into heaven. God's will is for perfect happiness, and that is heaven. So if you can, if you train your mind to the happy dream, which is just a dream of non judgment, judge not, then that's what the final it's not really a step.  Okay, second, second theme that you voted on was simply following prompts versus getting stuck in a role. Oh, that's a good one. You voted for the 60 votes. That's juicy. Simply following prompts versus getting stuck in a role. This is this is the big difficulty that people face in their interpersonal relationships, because the ego is always trying to lure you into a role. Even if you have a what the world calls a partner, a significant other, a marital partner, whatever, the ego is always going to try to use that concept and say, Oh, you made it, you're married now. End of the game. No, listen, interpersonal marriage is not the end of the game. Ramana Maharshi would laugh. Jesus would laugh. Farmer Hansa Yoganana would laugh if if you thought getting married was end game. But the ego says it's end game.  And then maybe you can do like the notebook movie that's in our collection where they actually die, the man and the woman die in the same bed at the same time, or nearly the same time. Listen, this is not what we're talking about. This is not eternity. This is the ego trying to take romantic love and put it as if you can reach heaven through some interpersonal concept. And believe me, the kingdom of heaven is way, way beyond interpersonal conflict, come conflicts and concepts. And it is truly transcendent. And even the quantum field or the happy dream is not personal at all. It's just a way of looking at the world, where you don't judge it, you just see the same world that the ego presented you with with no judgment whatsoever. That's, that's what the happy dream is. Okay, and versus getting stuck in a role simply following prompts is you have to trust your intuition, you have to trust your guidance, you have to trust these little inner nudges and prompts that you get every day. And I think all of us do get these inner prompts. I don't think there's anyone here who doesn't get inner prompts, everyone, we wouldn't be together in the Zoom room, if we weren't getting inner prompts. The thing is, is the ego doesn't like these inner prompts, because the ego is going to be out of business, if you follow them, because then you will realize your destiny and then the ego is no more. But the ego says, get stuck in a role.  And you're you do this for a living or that for a living. That's all part of the self concept. That's a role. And you will find that you will never actually ever be completely satisfied in any of those roles. Because why? Because the ego invented them. And, and the ego, you don't find fulfillment in anything of the ego. But you do find fulfillment and forgiveness in releasing the past.  In fact, that's, that's the ultimate and the only fulfillment is really to know thyself. So that's why we're on the spiritual journey together, because the ego will tempt you to get stuck and freeze your identity in in a role. And all of us know there's much more than than these roles. I will say though that the Holy Spirit, if you pray, the Holy Spirit will use the roles to help you release the roles.  If you if you just try to use a mantra and go right directly into direct experience of spirit, the ego will probably make that practice very difficult. It will, it will say, it's boring. It's repetitive. You can't just say, who am I every day? For 1000s of time, you can't just affirm that your spirit, because you believe the opposite.  And just to affirm that your spirit is not going to do it, you have to undo your beliefs in time and space, you have to undo your beliefs in the body, you can't just affirm I am spirit, unless you're willing to question and undo the beliefs that block the recognition that I am spirit. So that's why the course says you go through the darkness to the light. He's not telling you to try to bring the light into the darkness. He's saying, let's work together to undo the beliefs in time and space and all these roles and concepts. Okay, the next one was giving up seeking for safety and form. Oh, this is sneaky, you know, just when you have some spiritual insights, you have some vast experiences. The ego will say to you, all right, let's get real now. Good, good for you. You had a spiritual experience. Well, goodie for you. Now who's going to pay the light bill? Goodie for you. Oh, good for you. Who's going to pay the rent? Who's going to who's going to pay, you know, the taxes and everything you see how the ego will zoom in with that. But actually, if you really give everything over to the Holy Spirit, it will all be done through you, it will be shown to you, and you will be on a great adventure, seemingly using time and space where the Holy Spirit is giving you guidance and prompts all the time. You don't have to worry about the future. How you're going to solve the future, you're you're happy to to be with God right now and have God show you the way every day. Show the way, God. Here I am. Lord, show the way. Just give it to me. Give me the guidance. I'm ready. I will follow the guidance. So you're not so interested in safety and form because you know that your inner safety, your peace of mind is what it's all about. You know your your health is inner peace. You know, fulfillment is following God. You're not interested in resumes. You're not interested in in impressing people. You're not interested in trying to build up some pride and build up some kind of image or identity to show your worth to the world. You're more interested in going into prayer and meditation and feeling that interconnection. And then that interconnection will just radiate out through you to the whole world. In that sense, that's how you save the world, not in a personal way, but by connecting with spirit and letting the love radiate through you. And then everyone feels it. Everyone feels it. Because we're all connected. We're all one mind. So if you're radiating love, you can be sure everyone deep down feels it. The next one was being truly humble. That is the most humble thing you can do is accept yourself as God created you. And seeing no barriers in or for communication. And ultimately, that's that's opening to the holy instant where you have no secrets, no private thoughts you would keep. And you just are willing to let everything be used by the spirit. If you have a private thought, you just don't hide it. You just you don't hide it anymore. Why would you hide a private thought? Why would you hide a secret? God has no secrets. So why do we need to have secrets? We're all the same one. Why would we need to keep secrets from each other? So the movie for today is is titled Only You. And it stars Marissa Tomay and Robert Downey Jr. and Bonnie Hunt. And those are I think our main three characters where Marissa Tomay plays a school teacher named Faith. So this you know, if the movie's about destiny, and the main character's name is Faith, and the main theme song of the movie is Only You. And when the movie opens, they have one of the greatest singers of all time, Sechmo, singing Only You. You know that Jesus is prepping you for something big. So this is drawing us in to an experience of vastness. He's taking us on a joy ride toward love. And I looked, I was aware of a lot of movies for the themes today. But again, if the movie is about destiny, it's a it's a joy ride. And the ultimate destination is love. And it's a comedy. Ding, ding, ding, ding. We've hit them all. This is our most enjoyable way to wake up. If we can have all that and a love story and a comedy all together, then that's spectacular. So basically, in this movie, Marissa Tomay plays Faith, and she is a teacher. And the movie will open with her teaching her class. But it's interesting, the topic that she's teaching is she's teaching about soulmates. She's teaching about reaching divine love. She's teaching about destiny in her her class. Wow, I wish I had a teacher like this and a class like this, I can't really remember. Any of my teachers teaching about soulmates, love, destiny. And I did take a I remember I took a philosophy class, but I would have loved to have Socrates as my teacher. And some of you know that everybody remembers Socrates, but one of the most famous philosophers, in fact, he's called the father of Western philosophy is Plato. Plato was a student of Socrates. And Plato was interested in mathematics, he was interested in politics, he was interested in all kinds of things, he was interested in wrestling. That's right, some of you don't know. But there was a time in his life where Plato was interested in wrestling until he met Socrates. And then when Plato met Socrates, all of his other interests fell away. And he became a philosopher. He wanted to know what is real. He wanted to know everything. And he realized that he had to let go of his other pursuits in the pursuit of truth. And what a beautiful example Plato was, to give his whole life over to the pursuit of truth. So I happened to know I was watching the this movie and I remember I saw Marissa Thame, her faith teaching, and she has the writings of Plato on her blackboard. And one of the what the writings is, is love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole. So that's what Plato wrote. That's what's basically love is the desire and the pursuit of the whole. That's what she has on her blackboard while she's teaching. I think Jesus would tweak it a little bit. His love is our reality and love is, is you don't really pursue love, because it's what is, you know, but you do pursue forgiveness. We are all we can honestly say we're all in the pursuit of the Atonement. We're all in the pursuit of complete forgiveness.  So we're in good company. He was just, he's the first one that realized that the pursuit ended in perfect love. But we're we're working towards that, that thing. So I would say forgiveness is really the, the, the name for the desire and the pursuit of the whole. We want to know the whole because the whole is the Christ. We want to know the whole because the whole is the light. The whole is love. We want to think with the whole. We want to think with God. We want to think with the mind of Christ. We want to merge with the light. That's that's our pursuit. And Jesus knows that when we believe in bodies that that the Holy Spirit is going to have to use that belief in bodies and linear time to take us to a leaping off point where we we forget time. We absolutely forget time completely. We become timeless in our true nature of spirit and light, but we have to learn how to forget time. And I think the best way to do that is you I think you have to have a passion for transcending time. Does anybody want to join me in a passion for for transcending time? I feel a passion with it. When when my eyes open in the morning, it's like, yeah. Another day to give all my passion to transcending time in space. That's a that's a pretty high calling. But why not? You know, why not go for the highest highest calling? So in in just getting ready for the movie, Jesus had me go to to the search engine of A Course in Miracles. And I just thought, well, I'm going to type in one word into the search engine for Jesus and see what he's got. I just typed in the word destiny into A Course in Miracle Search and 11 different places. Jesus talks about destiny. Oh, that's fun to watch a comedy movie about opening your heart to love and Jesus has 11 different references to destiny. That is fascinating. I mean, we're all familiar with it. We do like our destiny movies. You know, if you watch our movie Watchers Guide to Enlightenment, you'll find serendipity. There's there's a lot of good destiny movies. Some of them are soulmate movies. This is kind of a this is kind of a funny convoluted soulmate movie is what this is. Now, but we have to remember that even soulmates, those are just symbols that Jesus will use and the Holy Spirit will use to take us all the way to the light. You might say soulmates are like there's some kind of a deep vibrational connection. I think in A Course in Miracles, Jesus doesn't ever use the word soulmates, but back in the manual for teachers, he does say in the section of what are the levels of teaching, he gives three levels, your casual encounter, and then a fairly intense teaching learning situation. And the third one he gives is called a lifelong learning partner. That's what Jesus is equivalent is in A Course in Miracles of the soulmate. It's a lifelong learning partner. Then when you read what Jesus has to say, you just go you roll your eyes, because he says that these lifelong learning partners may be hostile to each other, perhaps for life. That is not exactly a typical soulmate definition. So Jesus is like saying, oh, it's more for undoing. It's more for undoing the ego.  But he does say if they decide to learn it, the perfect lesson is before them and can be learned. He also uses it for once in the course he says the teaching learning balance in this partnership, this lifelong partnership is actually perfect. So that's another term that he's just thrown out there teaching learning balance. And basically it's saying your frequency. It's your free if you're if your heart and your mind was a frequency, your frequencies are somewhat aligned so that you can go through the ultimate purification and transcend all the frequencies and go go to light go to pure light. So this movie is is going to approach the concept of destiny. And it is a concept that is believed in when it's believed in in terms of time and soulmates. It has it has a thread of truth, a golden thread of truth in it because there the ultimate aim of what we would call soulmates is to reach divine love. That's the ultimate aim of everything. In this world is to reach divine love to remember divine love. And soulmates have an aspect of that, in terms of the teaching learning balance that that goes on. So faith is a teacher, she's going to be teaching Plato, she's going to be teaching some of Plato's teaching on soulmates. And then she's going to go home and she is not only teaching this class on soulmates, but basically, there's a there's a podiatrist, a foot doctor who has proposed marriage to her and she basically is going to say, give me a little time to think on it. I think I'll say yes, but give me some time to think on it. So she's, she's contemplating she's pondering this marriage proposal. She has a best friend Kate, who is married to her to Faith's brother Larry. And I'm not going to give you too much with that. I'm just going to say that they are going to be launched on to a journey, mainly Kate and and Faith, in pursuit of the soulmate ideal. And again, that that is what happens with for human beings, you have a concept you believe in, you have passion about it, you stay open to it. And then let the spirit use it to take you to that and beyond, which is really the purpose of following spirit, you have to let the spirit use the concepts that you believe in to take you beyond those concepts to take you to higher and higher concepts and consciousness. And then he wants to take you all the way off the off of consciousness completely. In heaven, there is no consciousness because consciousness is the is the split, it has levels and you can train it. And most of us are a little familiar with consciousness. What we're not familiar with is pure light. That's, that's beyond consciousness. But that's the purpose of our, our spiritual journey is to go toward the light and to remember the light, remember God and remember our true Christ nature. Now, the movie will start off in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Has anybody here ever been to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania? I have. It's I have the body of David was born and raised in Cincinnati.  It's mostly noted, remembered as a steel town. This is where they make a lot of steel. They're kind of noted for steel. And some of you might even know their football teams called the Pittsburgh Steelers, because they're they're famous for their making factories, making steel. So we're starting out in Pittsburgh. But we're going beyond Pittsburgh, we're going to go to Venice, Italy. We're going to go to Rome. In this movie, we're going to post post a tonneau down on the coast of Italy, some of the most what the world would call most beautiful breathtaking romantic sites on the planet Earth. We're going way past Pittsburgh. So, you know, in, I always say, hold on to your hat because Kansas is going bye bye. Well, hold on to your hat because Pittsburgh is going bye bye. Now, I've got nothing against Pittsburgh, but I'm saying Jesus is going to use the symbols to take us beyond the standard, the standard things that we believe we're capable of. And take us towards something that we feel is like it takes our breath away. And and that's kind of the way the movie goes. I like how Jesus uses Pittsburgh and and these beautiful towns over in in Italy, you know, I I have been to Venice and I have been on gondola rides and and heard violence playing. And I think I had some pretty mystical experiences there in Venice. I don't think I've had too many in Pittsburgh, but I it was just simple. It was just a symbol for me. You see, I was over there riding in the gondolas with the guy going along and I'm like, Oh my God, this is like, this is like such a glorious experience. And and that's how the spirit works. The spirit has to take us where what we're perceiving is symbolizing like an expansion, a leaving behind of the past. I see Amanda and Micah are there and they were just to marry Magdalene's cave and they were sending me all kinds of photos from Mary Magdalene's cave in south of France. So I was posting them on the internet and then people started writing to me. They were saying, David, are you in France? He said, No, I'm not. But I'm enjoying the photographs from Mary Magdalene's cave. And that was like a symbol for Micah and for Amanda of this depth and expansiveness. You know, it was just a the use of the Holy Spirit using a cave and on the side of the hill with a lot of different candles and and sayings and things to to be a reflection of this deep feeling of Mary Magdalene, you know, who was very, very close to Jesus, very, very close. And in sharing the light of the kingdom of heaven. And so this movie, Faith is going to follow her passion, follow her pursuit of the soulmate idea. And it's going to take her from Pittsburgh over to Italy. I can relate to that. I remember I was doing the course and practice praying, meditating, and then suddenly Jesus arranged a trip with business class, a heck you Tiva on a on a Latin American airline to go to Argentina in 2003 for me. So I feel a little bit like faith when she's getting on the plane. When I was going to Argentina with three friends, and Jesus arranged everything to be paid for with the with the flyer frequent flyer miles. And it was it was like opening the door of my mind up to letting go of the past. I don't speak Spanish. So yeah, just going to Argentina and interacting with hundreds of Argentinians all around Buenos Aires. That was an expansive miracle for me because it was definitely beyond the self concept of David, for sure. David didn't plan that trip. And David would not be planning any subsequent trips after that either. And that's why David started to go bye bye because David wasn't involved in the planning of the trips.  That was not David's plan at all. But this is important because I think this is this movie is going to show us if you have a passion and you're willing to follow something that you truly believe in, even if your belief is not the highest belief of forgiveness, even if it takes you in the direction of forgiveness, which is trusting, following your prompts, following your nudges, trusting that there's something within you that's telling you there's so much more than you're perceiving.  But let me show you the big picture. Let me take you way beyond like that movie. Aladdin remember that movie, the theme song, I can show you the world shining shimmering splendid, you know, a whole new world, a new fantastic point of view. You know, that's what we're going for. We we want that new fantastic point of view. And all we have to do is follow the guidance to have it. It's not out of reach at all. It's it's it's our destiny. That that new fantastic point of view is a new way of looking at the world. I had a man from Japan who who wrote to me this morning, I think he might be with us today, because I invited him to join us. But he was asking me about the the he said is the script that that that Jesus gave us in the course is that the ego script. And I said, well, I wrote to them, I said, basically linear time, all of linear time is the ego script. Why? Because God didn't create time. And the ego made it up. The ego invented linear time. And then he said, he asked me about the Holy Spirit script. And I said, Well, the Holy Spirit doesn't have a script. The time to the Holy Spirit is simultaneous. It's not a script. The Holy Spirit doesn't even know what a script means. He can work with the belief in a script. And he can lead you and guide you as if you believe you're in the labyrinth, as if you believe you're in a maze, but but the Holy Spirit knows you are not in that maze, you are not in that labyrinth, and you are not in the script. You're you are created by God. And Jesus is telling us no, we're definitely not in a script. But I'll work with you, you believe in the script. He says, I once believed in the same script so I can help you. I got out. Or better yet, I realized I was never in. You see, he didn't get out because he never was in there either. He he realizes, you know, that the script isn't reality. It's it's it's fiction. It's fantasy. It's duality. It's make believe it's, you know, and sometimes you hear me talk and you you may say, wow, that must be an interesting perspective to just watch the world from from a higher perspective. I had a treat this a few days ago, a friend of mine who I met back in 1990 up at Roscoe, New York in the Catskill Mountains. Her name is Dorothy. And if some of you know, I had a lot of Dorothy parables, Dorothy parables. She was so detached from time and space that when she went back to her mobile home, and it had been trashed. So people have destroyed the inside of her mobile home. There was urine in the carpet. There was food on the ceiling, the toilet, the bolts holding the toilet down were gone. It was ransacked. And she got back to see this apartment and when she went there, her neighbor said, Don't go in there, Dorothy. Stay with me. Don't go in. Don't go in your house. The next day when Dorothy went into her house, she burst out laughing. What kind of a state of mind comes back to your house, which is ransacked and burst into laughing. She wrote me a letter that she said, David, I'm sitting on the toilet and it has no bolts anymore. So I'm sliding around. She was probably like, she was probably like in her fifties, sliding around on a toilet in a ransacked house and going, David, ha, ha, ha, ha, like 15, ha, ha, ha, ha. And I'm like, that's my Dorothy. That's my Dorothy. She is gone. She is gone from this world. Anyway, fast forward to three days ago, I hadn't heard from Dorothy. I didn't even know if she was still alive. Because I think when I met her, she was like 25 years, she was from England, she was 25 years older than me, very happy, rosy cheeks, very joyful, joyful, happy. When I met her back in 1990, 1990. Anyway, she tried, she apparently was in a major automobile accident. It was so bad it mangled her feet. She had to be the car was totaled. She had to have the whole car. She had to be cut out of the car with the jaws of life. And now she can't see in one eye. She's 89 years old. She's got a mangled foot with a black toe. And we talked for two hours. And she laughed all the way through the whole thing. She laughed at the mangled foot. She laughed at the black toe. She laughed at the automobile accident. She even lost her memory. She lost her memory. And, and, and she forgot that she was a mother. She forgot that she had two children. I'm like, Oh, Dorothy, you are sore and man, you are way up there now. She forgot that she she forgot everything. And finally, they, they, they helped her go through a period of healing. They put her back in her apartment with a wheelchair. But she doesn't even use the wheelchair.  And she doesn't care a bit. She forgets that she has a mangled foot. And so she hits the stubs it. And that's how it goes black. And she's unaware. She goes out into her garden.  And she's telling me all this as she's laughing all the way through. Anyway, she forgot about me too. That's great. She forgot about me. So finally she went to the library and she was she likes all kinds of Buddhism and course of miracles and and mysticism and everything. She she pulled a book off the library. And it was a book on a course of miracles. And it had the name David Hofmeister. And she went, I think I know this guy. I can't remember. I think I know this guy. So she goes home to one of her nurses aides that come to her house and she says, I can't use a computer anymore. I can't my mind can't figure it out. But she says have a cell phone and she says with the internet. So she said to her assistant, do you think you could look this guy up and and contact him for me and let him know I would like to talk to him. And so she did the nurse assistant found my name, made contact, I got her phone number.  She's in the same mobile home when I visited her. And she is laughing so much because she is not of this world. She is living a course in miracles, exactly as Jesus wants to live with a total detachment from the world and the body and laughing her way through every day. They send her nursing aides to help her and the nursing aides feel so blessed when they leave her house because she radiates such love. Her case worker says no, no Dorothy, they're there to help you and Dorothy burst into laughter because she's like pure love just radiating all this love. And she has very little concern. So when she talks to me she goes well, I guess I'm still here. And she burst into laughter. Now that's the kind of attitude you want. I hope that when we go through this movie you get a little taste of Dorothy because because that's where we're going. We're going with our state of mind to that state of mind where you don't have a care or concern about the body or the world or the world's conditions. And I just I had tears of joy after talking with her for two hours. So I finally I said here, I said, Can you remember a phone number? She said, Well, I quit using pieces of paper because I lose them. But I'm using one book now where I write things in that I'm supposed to remember. So I said good, well, here's my mobile number, put this down in your book in case you want to have a conversation again, I would love to talk. So this movie is going to take us on a ride away from roles away from constrictions of the past and opening our heart towards something that's greater. And even when we go deeper, we're going to see that the healing will only occur when we let go of even our ideas about deception, we have to let go of, of even our ideas about what a lie is. I mean, God didn't create deception or lies, why would we think we could know them? You know, sometimes we we have grievances where we feel somebody lied to us. Really, you know, Jesus, the angels are like, you're still holding on to those that belief and deceptions and lies. You can forgive it, you don't have to believe in these ideas. And that's kind of the progression that faith has to go through in our movie today. She has to learn to follow her passion, follow the prompts and the nudges and then start to forgive all her beliefs around everything, including destiny. So I hope you enjoy the movie, I will pop in during the movie and join you with some commentary, but just enjoy this beautiful comedy around destiny. Beautiful.


Fox Valley Technical College has put together a new manufacturing location down in Oshkosh and so they are training welders 24-7. Miller Electric itself is a manufacturer of electrical arc welding equipment as well as a cutting line of equipment. We have committed a million dollars of product to Fox Valley Technical College. We turn that product every three years with them, keeping them and enabling them to provide state-of-the-art welding training to their students. Graduates of that program have significant job offers. All over from Oshkosh truck to Marinette Marine to the small fab shops, everybody's looking for welders. Fox Valley Tech is able to meet the needs of students, employers and the community alike. They've had a tremendous impact on the overall economy of Wisconsin.


Hi, everyone. This is Carol Hinkle. We're delighted to have you with us today. This is our second lecture of the fall series already. A couple things I just want to remind you that CCTV is partnering with us this year to showcase our wonderful lectures and we thank them. Please check the emails we send out to you the Thursday before and look for information on how you might be able to help them out and send a donation to them. We would love that. Also a reminder to please access your Q&A button on your screen. You can touch the screen and that Q&A button should come up. Please tap it, type in your questions anytime during the lecture, even during the Q&A period. So we'd love to have your input. So now I would love to introduce to you our own Michael Arlansky who's going to introduce our speaker. Thanks Michael. Thank you so much Carol. And today we're pleased to welcome Brian Pete, he is the chief of police in Montpelier, Vermont. Chief Pete leads a dedicated police department of 27 full time members. This department provides wide ranging services to residents, workers and visitors to our state's capital city, which has a daytime population of more than 20,000 people. Coming to Vermont, Brian Pete served as chief of police in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Before that, he had a long record of service in the Chicago Police Department, which is the second largest municipal police department in the United States. His positions at the CPD were patrolmen, field training officer, and chief forensic audit investigator for public safety and police accountability in the city of Chicago's Inspector General's office. Chief Pete also had extensive service in the United States Air Force as an aircraft maintenance officer, and later in senior operational and investigative positions in federal law enforcement. He served in Afghanistan, coordinating us and Afghan forces encounter terrorism intelligence and force protection missions. Brian Pete earned a bachelor's degree in sociology at Southern Illinois University with emphasis on employment relations. And here in the master's degree in police psychology at every university in Chicago. The final of today's talk is the future of policing, strategic planning for community safety and partnership. Please join me in giving a warm, tripling welcome to Chief Brian Pete. Hello everybody good afternoon thank you so much Michael and Carol for that. I am excited, and I'm extraordinarily honored to be here. Again, I appreciate this privilege. My hope is just to provide my perspective on a very significant issue, which is of course policing right now in today's day and age, with everything that has gone on from our profession, and a focus on where a profession can go in the future, and I'm hoping that we have to know where we've been before we can continue to chart out what the future will be. So the again my intent is to give personal insight and opinion as to our profession. And, and again just to look to move forward and I'm hoping that this is a good discussion between all of us, a very honest and candid discussion because I'm also looking for your ideas and input, because it's not our profession that determines where we're going to go. It's the people within our communities that let us know what they demand and what they expect from us and that's, that's our north star that's our compass and where we want to go. So I'd like to share my screen and look at it. I've got a PowerPoint presentation. I'd like to know, can, can everyone see the screen. Yep. Okay. And I will. All right. And again, my name is Brian and with the Montpelier police department. Breaking it up of course into numbers the threes, what I'd like to discuss in regarding strategic planning for community safety and partnership and how we move into 21st century policing is to talk about where we've been the origins of policing to talk about where we are the current state of policing and the future where we can go from here. What I'm what the origins that I'm going to talk about the research points come from a gentleman by the name of Dr. Gary Potter, Gary Potter, I'm sorry, and Dr. Potter I believe is the is a professor at Eastern Kentucky University. And he's been in the news a lot. We're also going to talk about where we're going to talk to him on policy today regarding policing, where policing has been from. And because he's done a lot of research in the topic, and they're going to be some folks. There are some people that are out there. I think there's in getting away from politics and getting away from the chaff is to determine what in the research that we can take away as a profession, as a community, as a nation, and learn from and build on. So those are gonna be the primary things that I'd like to focus on. So according to Dr. Pott, you had in looking at policing and what started it out, there were two primary paths, one in the North and one in the South. So in the North, there was something that was called the Night Watch and that started in Boston in 1636, New York in 1658 in Philly. And it was composed of volunteers, folks who were, according to Dr. Potter were, sometimes they were a little mischievous, sometimes they were a little drunk at night. They fell asleep a lot at their posts. They were trying to avoid service within the military. So you had a group and their primary charge was to keep the community safe when it was dark, to keep an eye out who needed help if they saw trouble coming to alert the rest of the community. But that evolved into more of a constable form. And then it finalized into police agencies who were paid with taxpayer funding to provide safety to the communities. And the first police agencies were Boston, Albany, New York and Chicago. And that was from the mid 1800s. And then the second pathway was in the Carolina colonies in the South. And Dr. Potter says that that started with slave patrols and they had three primary focuses. That was to apprehend and return slaves to push back and prevent slave results, revolts and then to discipline slaves. So the big thing here, we can agree or anyone or the conversations that are happening out there within the community regarding policing in the past on what that evolution is. But unique to the conversations, the arguments out there, the information's out there. And one of the things I'm gonna hit on the most is perception and legitimacy with policing. And that's where our past is. There is a tie to that past with policing. And for me, that the common denominator and understanding and acknowledging that, the common denominator has to be in moving forward is what I've learned is the definitions and the responsibilities, the roles, just like anything else, any other profession, anywhere else that we are in history, it's defined by what the norms are, what the current pulse of society is at the time. So my take on that is that priorities are strongly influenced by societal norms. Even in the past, when policing first started in the 1830s and the 40s, society was grappling what should police have use of force? What is the appropriate amount of use of force? And that's amazing because that's where we still are right now, which will bring me to another recurrent theme. Have we learned anything from the past? And if we did, my argument is that we wouldn't be in the same situation that we are 100 years, since 100 years has passed. So with this, with the use of force and with societal norms, Potter had noted that, and I'll go ahead and just read it, is because the police were primarily engaged in enforcing public order laws against gammon and drug business, surveilling immigrants and free slaves and harassing labor unions, public opinion, favorite towards restrictions in the use of force makes a lot of sense to me because the police were involved or involved themselves. And again, it could be a sense of sign of the time, but I think leadership stands from a courage of conviction. And we were involved in political influences. We were involved in case systems. We were involved in haves versus have nots. And what were we enforcing? What were we doing? And that goes back to that whole perception in the beginning. We're enforcing slavery. If we're enforcing anything that's going to push back against somebody's human rights, there's always gonna be an upheaval. There's gonna be a revolt and have we learned anything from going there. So again, the whole point in this is to know where you've been, so you know where you're going. And what this courage of leadership is in what our department and moving it up to modern times now, our departments, our profession has to have leadership abilities. It has to have a courage of conviction. It has to have a courage to say we are going to push ourselves away from political influences and we're going to focus on what we're supposed to be doing, what we swore to do is to protect people, to keep people safe. And not to be whims of anything else. And we can't do anything that's going to erode the public trust in us. We cannot do anything that's going to promote in us versus them. And that's where we're at. And I think it's heightened even now more than ever. And we have to push back against that. And the essence of service of what police departments should be doing is there's a discussion within policing right now. You have a warrior mentality and you have a guardian mentality. And a warrior mentality says we're military, we're going to go out and there's the enemy. We have to defeat the enemy. We have to defeat crime. There's a war on crime. We have to be prepared to deal with that. And then there's a guardian mentality that says that we are charged to make sure that we keep our community safe, that we look out for the interests of everyone within the community. And there are times that one may, if there is a life or death struggle, that you may have to revert to a warrior mentality. But not everyone we meet on the street is deserving of a warrior mentality. We don't have to look at everybody suspiciously. And so when we look at things like how we train in the future, the different things that we're doing for ongoing training, for continued certification, is our training getting in the way of being part of the community that we're sworn to protect? So the current state of policing right now, of course, what we're looking at is, or what we're dealing with is what happened in Minyanapolis, George Floyd. And in that murder, that stemmed civil unrest all across the country and all across the nation even. And Vermont was not exempt from this, even here in Montpelier, which is where that image is, the demonstrations. And you had police agencies and self included grappling, just begging for positive news, for glimmers of hope that gave more of the stories that we do on a day-to-day basis that talked about who we feel we are in doing the jobs and answering what we call a calling, a purpose, a meaning, and they weren't coming.  And it's like, yeah, me too. It's like, what is going on? And so there was a lot of desperation there. And then these events spiraled up from people who said that they supported the police to the events on January 6th at the US Capitol. And on top of that, law enforcement was still struggling and dealing with the norm unfortunate of day-to-day tragedies, of mass shootings, domestic violence, homicides, and other violent crimes. And then the other tasking that we found ourselves dealing with in a post-911 era is dealing with terrorism, but not just foreign point right back to January 6th to domestic terrorism. So ultimately, in talking about our past and where we've been in the past, those who don't know history, they're doomed to repeat it. So have we learned anything? Will we learn anything now? And that's the big question. And my argument is thus far, we haven't learned anything as a profession because we're still here. It's still cyclical. So the changes that revolving around accountability, police accountability in George Floyd, I'm gonna talk a little about something, a little bit about something called the Ferguson effect. And this is something that's been coined in law enforcement circles and research circles, even in the media. So in 2014, Michael Brown was in Ferguson, Missouri. He was killed by a police officer, revolving an incident where he was suspected of stealing. And there was an extraordinary amount of scrutiny that law enforcement found. And there were political elements to it. And of course there are criminal elements to it, as there should be. But a lot of law enforcement folks felt that it's, I have no support. I don't wanna be the next viral sensation. I don't wanna be the next person on YouTube. I don't wanna be the next person to be arrested. So there is a perception that law enforcement, and I would argue that it's true that law enforcement has stepped back. And in some places it's worse than others. But law enforcement kind of stepped back and said, we don't wanna cause any waves. I don't wanna get in trouble. I wanna get arrested. Or leadership might be saying, we can't do that. We don't wanna be in trouble. I don't wanna step into anything. So police dial back a little bit. Now, whether that leads to increased crime, don't know. But the perceptions again, we have to deal with perceptions as they are reality because that's how people see things. So this Ferguson effect is what we're looking at now and how that brought us to, that it became even more significant after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis. And then again, the increased civil unrest, the demonstrations, Black Lives Matter, which was founded in 2013, had become more prominent. There were more calls for civilian oversight to the fund police agencies, school resource officers because of brand, if you will. Because of reputation, because of perception, police officers, police agencies were looked at with hyperscript. And whether or not police agencies should be existing in the first place. And then there were calls to increase policing on the other end of the spectrum. And then there's the middle. What are good jobs or what are the responsibilities that police officers should be dealing with rather than being having this ever-increasing mission creep that if there are other social agencies that are not being funded or other mandates that are coming down for whether it's a state or a national government that will ultimately fall on police agencies because for the most unfortunately, our society is currently kind of conditioned to call 911 for everything. And is it appropriate for the police to be responding to every call for service? We've seen, it's been a longstanding trend that cities and municipalities have been sued for use of force for civil rights violations. And now we're starting to see trends where cities are being sued for inadequate protections, arguably because of the Ferguson effect. Law enforcement not going out there and getting and doing what they're supposed to do. And again, that is a manifestation of what I believe is this us versus them mentality that it's society is against us or the police are against society that they're sworn to protect. And it's going to take strong courage and conviction to push back against that. So in looking back again to narratives and to transparency, has anyone ever heard of the phase? Please unmute yourselves if you can. Hands up, don't shoot. Well, so hands up, don't shoot came out of the incident with Michael Brown. There was a witness to the interaction that Michael Brown had with the officer. And according to that witness that he said Michael Brown was yelling at the police officer, hands up, don't shoot, don't shoot. And there's information out there that says that wasn't true. That the findings were that, no, that never didn't in fact happen but that narrative prevailed, that perception prevailed to serve and protect. So now even now folks are looking at police officers and like, is that what you really do? Is that what you meant to do? So there's another issue that police officers have with this whole, thinking back to the older law enforcement cartoons and police shows about nothing but the facts, ma'am, and just this very cold fact finding kind of a mission very unapproachable and a lot of law enforcement agencies popularizing this, no comment, no comment. Well, in absence of communications with the communities that we serve we allow a narrative to come up. And in an absence of that information, that perception, that narrative becomes true. And we have to be trustworthy. We have to communicate. We have to immerse ourselves in the community and we have to regain legitimacy. And what is legitimacy? Legitimacy, in starting with this conversation what gives me the right to pull you over? If you're driving along the street and you look up and you see those blue lights and your heart kind of sank, she's like, oh, what's going on now? And you see those blue lights behind you? What gives me the authority to pull you over? And we could argue that it's the law. We could argue that it's a municipal ordinance and well, that's what I've been trying to do. That's what I always do. Well, the truth of reality is what makes you stop is you. You don't have to stop. And this is the definition of legitimacy. It's respect worthiness. And I'm using a definition of a really good one that I found was the Rand Corporation and when they're doing their research on legitimacy policing. It's that police officers need to be seen as trustworthy, unbiased, neutral. It's you have to earn the respect.  That's what gets people to stop when you ask them, please stop, may ask you a question. When you're interacting with people, no one gives you authority as a police agency. You have to earn it. And that comes into another concept called the Pelean principles of law enforcement. But that's a whole another discussion. But it talks about the community is the police and the police is the community. It talks about re-engaging with the police. That's where we come from. And that's where we have to remember a humanization, if you will. So in this whole crisis that we were dealing with within our profession, we had pretty much two agencies, two types of police agencies, agencies that had legitimacy, but we were all hard hit. And those of us who had built up credit with our communities, we still were looked at with hyper scrutiny. We were still looked at that, hey, what are you doing to make sure that you're not like the other communities that we're seeing on TV? So we're using every bit of credit we got to say, no, no, that's not us. We're not like Canadian athletes. We're not like Chicago.   You've got some legitimacy built up that people are giving us the benefit of the doubt. And then you might have another department who may not have immersed themselves within their community, who may not have taken the time to communicate, to be transparent, to hold themselves accountable when something happened. And those are some of the agencies that are struggling with a lot of things right now. Consent decrees, civil lawsuits, that's where we're at. So, and as a total profession, we've all been damaged because of this. And I'm not saying it's because of something we didn't do. It's the reckoning that we're dealing with as a profession. And we've been damaged by that because we can't even recruit and retain officers or attract people to our profession anymore. And I consider that is a failure on leadership and as our profession, because again, did we know where we came from and did we take steps to keep this stuff from happening? Why is it always a pendulum swinging? Why is it always simple? So I will start and just kind of ask as like an exercise in talking about defining or perception. So a lot of police officers will complain about, hey, are we getting a fair shake in community? We can look at what the media's role is in telling a story and media wants to sell a story. But internally, again, what did we do to push back against what we, what many of us consider a false narrative? And I think that's where a huge mistake and what we've done with. So with this exercise, let's talk about the thin blue line, the blue line flag. The blue line flag, what the blue line flag itself was created in 2014 by a college student to show support for law enforcement. The blue line within, depending on the circles of law enforcement, it's pride, it is kinship. It is just a dedication to our community, it's a dedication to our profession, and it's a calling, it's a service, it's noble, it's honorable, it's a rallying cry. But the narrative has changed in certain places that now possibly depending on the community that the blue line might represent something else. So that narrative that's been allowed, that it was initially started out to be something that was supposed to be more positive and some circles are being seen as more of a negative thing. So with the same discussion, there are certain people in the community that feel that they can't raise the American flag because they'll get, there's a negative connotation to it that they don't wanna be associated with, again, I'm not trying to jump into politics, but like conversation out there, I don't wanna be accused of a Trump supporter or people who are claiming to push American ideals, let's go with January 6th, people waving the American flag, but at the same time storming the nation's capital. So that contradiction in terms, but the American flag to me means something that I've given a lot for in my service to the country, my service in the Air Force and my service as a law enforcement officer, 9-11 just happened, but there are media stories and pushes out there that talk about this narrative. Is it a progressive thing that only, that progressives, people who are democratic or Democrats or progressives, they don't like the American flag. What's that narrative? So then you have other narratives that's like even here in Barry, there are discussions locally about why didn't Barry City endorse to fly the flag on 9-11? Is it political? What is it? I don't wanna get into the politics, I'm just bringing up the whole point of perception and the whole point of what narrative do we allow ourselves to have in moving forward? So again, part of this last exercise I'd like to ask to each of you all, when you see this personally, what does it mean to you? Some folks it means support, it means solidarity, it means empathy, it means understanding the plight and other folks may see it entirely different. And then when you add the component of LGBTQ plus, now what does it mean? So all of our experiences mean something to everyone. And again, ultimately, what if we as law enforcement leaders learned about it? So in Vermont to really briefly discuss some nationwide trends. So these are some numbers that came out through the commissioner's office a few months ago. And on this chart, you'll see the number of law enforcement officers leaving Vermont has vastly outpaced, newly hired or newly certified officers. The forecast full term time officers in the coming years will show far fewer than what the departments are self-reporting in 2021. So departments are being optimistic, but statistics are showing that we're going to fall short. Is this a product of the Ferguson effect? A lot of people getting out of the profession altogether. We have slide, this slide here talks about respondent staffing totals. And we're looking at right now that available officers are down 14% when you compare it to a three year average that people are leaving this profession as soon as they can or they're not even waiting for, well, there's folks are saying I'm waiting for my pension and some folks like I don't care, I'm leaving now. Looking at this particular slide here, it talks about the attrition for the year. And you'll see here that folks who have separated and folks who have resigned and retired, what that difference is when we are in 2021 compared to the first three years compared to 2018 to 2020. This next slide here talks about full-time officers in Vermont, self-projection and what the state projects and states looking at it, we're being positive. We think we're going to come up and that's why we've got the blue dotted line and the red dotted line says, figures are showing more of a downward trend. And then this last slide here gives an idea as to how many folks who are graduating are scheduled to graduate from the Vermont Police Academy versus the attrition for officers this year. And it's projected, we're looking at, this was a couple of months ago, they've just brought a new Academy to start here in October, but without that Academy, it was projected for about 160 officers to leave this year and compare it to only 23 coming into the profession throughout the state of Vermont. So I'm going to go out and let them here. I've been through a couple of places and what I've seen in going through the training of Vermont, I think it's very trauma and victim informed. I think there is a huge emphasis in training in Vermont to weed out in us versus them mentality to talk about working within the community. That's been my experience since I've been here and I've seen other places that weren't so conducive to that 21st century style of policing. But I haven't seen significant information that suggests that Vermont has an issue of sustained significant patterns of systemic issues within the police culture. Have there been officers and staff members who have done criminal acts and who are not worthy to wear the uniform or the badge that I wear? Absolutely, absolutely. But as far as sustained constant incidences that have been going on, Vermont is not necessarily in the news as much as other states, other municipalities have been. Looking at January 6th, 2021, Montpelier Police Department itself, we've looking at based on domestic violence or I'm sorry, domestic violence elements that are in the country right now, especially what's going on, we've assessed our threat level within the city of Montpelier is elevated. Looking and these are some of the challenges again that we're facing as we're dealing with this reduced staffing. The CDC has just come out with overdose fatality data and there's been nationwide increase about 30% and Vermont OD fatalities have gone up nearly 60%. And that means that Vermont has the largest increase percentage in the United States. So Vermont is dealing with again, another opioid crisis and an uptick. We anticipate upticks in domestic violence related instances, violence to children. And this is something that we've historically been seeing and have we prepared ourselves for it? Are we ready to deal with this as we're coming out of this? And the last bullet foreign domestic, foreign terrorism and influence on civil unrest, what makes me personally upset about this is our communities need us. And as leaders, have we done everything that we could have done to prevent it from getting to this point? So real quickly, where can we go from here? We're waiting for current strategic plans or recommendations from community groups. There's an overwhelming desire here in Montpelier to re-immersion to the community, to regain that trust. And that's what we're looking for. That's what we're looking to try to do is to rebuild our legitimacy, to put that credit back into the bank, to provide training and resources to protect against the trends and the threats that we see and to look at intelligence led policing so that and to have a victim informed policing style. We look at how do we take care of our officers and our staff? How do we strengthen their resiliency and their resolve? And how do we increase morale? Where we can go from here? It's no secret sauce and training. We treat people the way we're supposed to be treated. And it's nothing but organizational psychology. So in organizational psychology, it's UID training and development needs. You design optimized work and quality of life. You formulate and implement training procedures. You just move forward. We also ask the questions, what should police be responding to? We're real with expectations internally and externally. We try to stay away from the generalizations, too much at stake. And we have to have the courage of conviction to stand up to things that are not just on either side, whether it's something going on internally or whether the police departments are being called historically to enforce things that we should not be enforcing. We look at civilian oversight and that we have to train our leaderships. We have to get them involved. We have to do succession planning. So one of my favorite quotes, leadership at the highest levels, John, not necessarily, I'm not trying to preach everybody, but John 832, the truth shall set you free. But Ben Stone Law and Order Season One, but it won't always make you happy. So with that, I thank you all again for this opportunity to be here. And I hope I didn't make too many people upset, but I am ready for any questions or any comment that I can give. All right, thank you Chief Pete. We have a large number of questions from our members and guests. So let's get right to that. One questioner asks, what ideas do you have for recruiting and retaining police officers? I think that what we need now more than ever with what society is looking for with the huge demand of justice, of social justice, of treating everybody with dignity and respect is to tap into that and to define our profession to saying that there's no more noble way to give back to your community and to come in here and the best way to fix any broken system is to be part of the repair of that system. And I think that we need to tap on that energy and challenge folks, challenge young people to come in here to bring that culture to our profession. Thank you. Another questioner asks, how many of your staff are on patrol and how do you determine how many should be on patrol for each shift and where? So there are certain formulas in certain companies that look for calls for service. Do you look at the data points, how long it takes to deal with a call for service, the more routine types of call for service, and then it looks at safety parameters and how many officers should be there. So there's a formula, but it doesn't, it's math, but when you're dealing with human dynamics, it's not always the same. So for our staff, we have 17s for and including myself. And I'm sorry, what was the rest of the question there? Officers on patrol and land and who? So unfortunately, it's, we have to guide ourselves with data and we have to guide ourselves with common sense. So the FBI does have, they do give statistics on what the averages are. Now, those are just the averages, it's not necessarily what everyone needs. There may be some communities that have arguably more police officers than they do, than they actually need. But in looking at those studies and looking at what the demands of the community are, I think that data and hard figures are a very good starting point in answering calls for service. Okay. What were some of the most interesting topics that you studied in your graduate program in police psychology? It was, it was, it was, it was resiliency and it was how law enforcement has a knack for siloing itself off from first, from our own family and friends. Well, first from our community, then our own family and friends and then it kind of leads to a downward spiral because there's a lot of negative stuff out there. And then I was extraordinarily upset with how law enforcement dealt with folks who are dealing with some very stressful situations.  Which, which makes law enforcement and sometimes in a lot of cultures, that's still prevalent, which leads to increases in suicides, divorce rates, health issues. There are a lot of police officers that die only a year or two right after they retire. One questioner asks about whether it's possible to set up a cyber task force in Vermont or cybersecurity task force. I think it's absolutely possible. What I'm going out on a limb here, Vermont has very limited resources. It's a small state. Chicago had more people in my old city than the entire state combined. But since it's a smaller state, we have smaller resources. We have smaller, you know, we have people who aren't trained as many things and we can't rely on the state police to do everything for us. So I think that we should look at different ways of regionalizing our resources, pulling our sources together, whether it's through a county system or whether it's through a Northern, Central or a Southern part of the state. And then looking at that, because every time that we're ignoring things like that, like cyber crime, that whether it's, we're looking at human trafficking or whether we're looking at people who are losing their savings account because of cyber crime, it's something that we should be focusing on. But there's a way to do it. We just have to make sure that we do it. Okay. Have you ever been involved in a hostage situation? If so, how did you and your colleagues handle it? Oh, so hostage situation, I think that that, and not looking at a hostage situation in the terms of like the old, like TV shows where you have one person, you have a bad guy here and you have one person here in their hell, at gunpoint. Not many of those. There have been those situations, but other situations in which there, you might be dealing with a family member who might be holding an infant. I've been in some of those and they're in a very angry crisis or criminal state and dealing with that, it's extraordinarily scary. And it's just finding a way to communicate with that person, to bring that person down and not acting emotionally and not overhyping or escalating that situation. Is your department responsible for any state government buildings or events? Technically, we should not be. However, anything that within the state follows anything here within Montpelier, any call for service for assistance, we're gonna be the first ones to respond. And if it's a more of a drawn out event, then the state police may step in to deal with the situation, but so we do respond to it, to provide that mutual assistance, but even though these are more or less state resources. Okay, thank you. One questioner would like to know about whether police work and firefighting work, why it seems to run in families. Do you have any thoughts about that? I don't know, it might be something in the blood, but it might have something to do with influences as young folks, because I'll tell you that my mother was a police officer, then my father was an electrician from Northwestern Railroad. And then he left that job and he became a police officer in Chicago. And then I became a police officer in Chicago. And then my brother became a police officer in Chicago. So I think where what it used to be back in the, for folks here with more life experience, the concentration was more or less, set yourself up for financial freedom and get a job that gives you a pension. And then so that's what kind of drew folks into that. But then now I got my daughter walking around the house with my hat on and wanting to ride in the police car. And it kind of scares me. Unfortunately, it might run based on that influence. Okay, one questioner asks, I understand that all new police officers who are hired by Evermont Town are trained at the police academy. Who determined the style, method, or culture of that training? Do poor practice actions of local officers arise from police academy training or other lack of training? So basically the criminal justice, it used to be the criminal justice and training council sets the parameters for training and what's required. The state also has some mandated training that officers must complete to be certified. But as far as the, as far as the, you know, there are just universally accepted standards as far as what policing is going goes through. I think that we need to have more time at the academy, but lessons learned are the culture is set by the staff.  And the first thing that the next cop, the grizzled cop tells you on when you hit the street is everything they taught you in the academy, forget about it because that ain't true. Let me tell you what the real life is, what the real street is. And that right there just throws everything that the academy has been trying to build up on culture. I have not seen that in Vermont. I've seen the academy pushing that and I've seen when folks have gotten to their departments that they're like, oh yes, you will do this, this is what Vermont is. And I think a lot of that is also baked into the law and what officers can or can't do, especially when we talk about lodging or arresting people. But yeah, I think that in as far as our training, it's peppered with mistakes and with criminal actions of what other law enforcement officers within the state and across the country have done. There's so many highlight reels that we watch on how not to do it. Okay, the next question is about community outreach. Do you reach out to communities and go door to door and introduce yourselves? Door to door, I can't because depending on the calls for service or the other requirements that I might have to do, the administrative requirements, yes, I don't do that.  Well, guess where Brian's gonna be at at that date and time? So I think that we have to make ourselves available as much as possible and that, again, law enforcement has historically been seen as very unapproachable, even internally. That's the Ivory Tower, what a lot of places call it. We have to be approachable to our staff members as well as to our community. Okay, one question has this, are you deploying mental health profession in Montpelier? Oh, yes, so my predecessor Tony Fakas and Chief Bombardier and Barry and Washington County Mental Health Services had got together, pulled some resources and now there is a social worker who separates her time half in Barry, half in Montpelier. And in Montpelier right now, we've just stood up what's called a crisis intervention team program. And we have a CIT, that's CIT and we just created a CIT steering committee with NAMI with psychiatric survivors with Karim, Dr. Mark Deppman from the hospital. And so we have stakeholders that form this, what this response model should look like when we're dealing, when we're working with people who are in mental health crisis and looking for ways to divert away from the criminal justice system and towards help for their families as well for whatever support network they have and then with an emphasis on safety of life and preservation of life. Okay, I have a question regarding is the Black Lives Matter BLM movement or organization involved in crime prevention and assistance involving suspects of color? I'm not sure how to answer that. I'm not sure necessarily that the answer to that question. I can say that I've reached out to some folks, me personally, I've reached out to some folks that I understood to be with BLM or BLM but I've gotten no response back because I'm looking to partner. I'm looking to find out what we need to do right and what are the values of our community and how do I implement those values here? Okay, what skills would you like to have in the Montpelier Police Department? Empathy, competence, life experience and just an overwhelming desire to give back to their community. Can you tell us please, what do you like most about being the police chief and what do you like the least? The hours, the work, I'd say at least in dealing with unfortunate situations, whether it's internally or whether it's seeing people and families at their worst days, that's hard. But what I like most about it is to be in the position to help people. That's my high and that's one of my reasons to live in. Okay, in the training process, is there psychological testing of potential police officers to demonstrate their mental stability? Yes, it's required from the state of Vermont to take the MMPI, I can't remember what the Minnesota, I can't remember what else, the personality inventory, I can't remember, but the MMPI too is required for here and in Montpelier, we've actually upped the ante with that one and we have another system that we brought on board called Critical Hire and Critical Hire is another psychological based profile that helps us after folks take the test, whether they fall in areas that have historically had problems with authority, complaints from the community. So we add the two together and that gives us a very good tool bag and what we need to do as far as polygraph testing and how we structure our interviews. One questioner asks, why do you think Vermont's increase in opioid addiction is the highest in the country? That's a good question. The only thing I can do is speculate, I think that Vermont is more of a rural town and there may be, I may not want to touch that one but I think that because there's rural, there's more isolation and then looking at all the mental health issues that we're all grappling with right now with COVID, depression and coming out of it and then going back into it again, I think that folks are just feeling desperate. Sure. How do you coordinate with other police departments when necessary? Become friends with them, put ego aside and that it's not remembering where we are and what we're here for. So just becoming friends with my fellow chiefs, with my fellow law enforcement officers and then instilling that trust and then when one of us has a good idea, all the rest of us jump in to do it. Are there ways in your view that policing in Vermont is different from other places where you work? Absolutely. Give you an example, there was one of the first calls I came into was a person who had committed a homicide and I come from Chicago and Chicago's under consent decree and this individual, how the state police were speaking with this person and how the other law enforcement agencies that came in were speaking to this person were more empathetic and more personal even though this person had just done something dreadful. It was more humanistic than it was in other places that I've been in. Okay, one more question just came in. Do you have visibility into a potential recruits background for those recruits that have prior policing experience? So yes, so there are two things there's that the NDI, which is the national, there's a national database index that the federal government has that looks at why officers if somebody who's been a previous law enforcement officer they've been decertified but it's one of those voluntary systems that you have to volunteer to be part of and then you would put that input in and then I could, if I knew that somebody came from the Memphis police department, if they're in the NDI I can look them up and say, oh, that person resigned under investigation or was kicked out or lost their certification. Vermont just passed a law making it a mandatory requirement that officers are supported that if someone is, we're recruiting someone or someone wants to join our ranks and their private or prior law enforcement service that they have to give us access to all their records in some places in some states. The only thing that the agencies required to do is to say, yeah, they worked here from this date to this date, that's all I can tell you but Vermont took it a step further and if that person refuses to turn over that information to give it to us, we cannot hire them. In Vermont, the concept of school resource officers that is placing uniformed police officers in public schools has sometimes been controversial. In your view, how have SROs school resource officers worked out? I'm sorry, how have they been? Yeah, what is your view of the school resource officer position? It's, I've heard various points of view as to whether it is a good thing or not to have uniformed police officers in public schools. I think that first, I think that it's a sad place that we even have to consider having law enforcement officers in a school with children. The second part of it is though, I think that some of the reputation and some of the things that we've done in our profession in the past make it difficult to get that legitimacy and to earn that trust with some of the communities but I've seen more often good than bad coming out of school resource officer positions because the type of people who are put into those roles traditionally are people who are really care and who are really good with children. And it's another layer to be able to get people and to get families help because sometimes kids don't wanna go to teachers, kids don't wanna go to the counselors. Sometimes that SRO may be the difference. It may be that another person that can help them dealing with something that they're dealing with. And another one of the good things about an SRO position is if I've dealt with a family that had a significant domestic violence issue the prior night, I could let the SRO know who can in turn go to the school and say John or Susan had a really traumatic incident last night and we need to focus our efforts and rally around him or her. This may be the last question we'll have time for. As the chief of police, do you have a daily routine? Is there such a thing as a typical day at work? No. It's administrative, it's meetings and it's just trying to get everything I can squeeze and everything I possibly can within the day. Maybe time for one more. What is the relationship between your police department and the Vermont state police? Could you tell us a bit about that? Who asked that question? No, I'm just kidding. I think that we have a very good working relationship with the Vermont state police and I think that Vermont state police is overtaxed and a lot and they're struggling with bringing staff aboard as well. So I think that we have a very good strong relationship and that we're mutually supportive of each other and I think a huge example of that is what happened on January 6th and then January 17th and 22nd when we came together to protect the state capital. Thank you. Thank you. Carol? Yes, Brian, thank you so much. My pillow is very lucky to have you. We really, really appreciate your hour with us. Thank you. See you all next week.


Kya-ya-yo, get on, little piece, know that Wyoming will be your new home. Life on the Red Horse Ranch. Exciting times at the Red Horse Ranch. Alabama lost out in his skirmish with Steve Bradford when one of Bradford's henchmen slipped up from behind and knocked him out. While Alabama lay in the back of the Danville Saloon, rustlers rode up in the night, driving away what was left of the Red Horse Herd. There's still no news from Alabama back at the ranch. We joined the boys in the bunkhouse. Find us in this little job over here. Not lead going through it before another day goes by.  We'll bring them back. Dang pronto, too. No use holding ourselves down no longer. Well, they can't say we didn't put up a fight last night to roll their trail till near daylight. Well, we'll get them. They can't drive them Red Horse cattle very far today. I guess there wasn't nothing else we could do against all that mob last night with Alabama gone and them having us outnumbered besides. Bob, I'm taking the blame with all the rest of you. They licked us, but they're not going to do it again. Well, what do you suppose we better do about Alabama? I don't know. My idea is that after Tenderfoot left him in Danville last night, Alabama was ambushed and either shot or captured, just to make sure there wasn't no hitch in their plans to rustle off them cattle. I don't see how much more could happen to this old ranch. Would be this year when Dad's so hard up for money. Ain't no chance of him holding out no longer. Yeah, and Bradford's behind this somehow. Boys, the less talking we do and the more riding, the better I'm going to feel. Oh, come on in, Dad. Anything new, Mr. Carter? Nothing more, boys. I don't suppose you've had any word of Alabama? No. Don't look like there's no use expecting for a while. No. Well, boys, I want to thank you for putting up the fight you did last night. Too bad Alabama had to be gone. I wasn't nothing to what we're going to put up, boss. I know first we must find Alabama. He may be needing us. If he's not past needing help. If I only knew that Tenderfoot had told me everything, where is he now? Well, last I saw Tenderfoot, he was wandering around down at the corral. I think that's him coming up from the barn there now. I'm going to talk with him a little more. But boys, you have your horses all saddled and ready. If anything turns up, we don't want to lose any time. Are they all ready now, Mr. Carter? That's good. Now don't wander away from the bunkhouse, will you, till I get back. Staying here ain't going to be easy. Well, boys, suppose we sing a little while we wait. Remember Lonely Valley? All right, it's a good one. That'll be a good one. Bean Valley has blue hair, swear sweet blue eyes in awe. You want to talk to me? Tenderfoot, listen. Are you sure that you told me everything you remember about what happened last night? Yes, I. Why didn't you stay in town with Alabama? Did he tell you to leave Danville ahead of him? Yes, Mr. Carter. I didn't want to, but he said he'd be long later. Now why did he want to be there alone? Well, he said there was a man he wanted to talk to. I'm afraid I can't tell you any more, Mr. Carter. Just where did you leave him in town? Well, I can't quite remember. I think in front of the saloon or. Listen, my boy, if there's anything in the world you've been holding back, you've got to tell me now no matter what it is. It may save Alabama's life. Yes, Mr. Carter, I understand. Let's get back to the rest of the boys, and we all may be writing before long. Better both lay down on the bunk for a while. Mr. Carter, you look pretty tuckered out. I'm only worried, boys. You go ahead and rest yourself. You'll feel better. Sing something, Tex. All right. The cattle, cattle, howls, howls, howls out on the great divide. Never done any wrong just singing a song. Down the trail I ride. Rattle, snake, rattle at the prey door. You hear the mournful tune. Round up time away out west when the cactus is in bloom. The light comes down the cow hand gel. Call out every man. Throw my saddle home, old cow or horse to drag my combay from a hand on the daze. Pour on the way, then I'll be back soon. Out of west when the cactus is in bloom. On the cattle's fray, and I'm gazing at them all. Round up time away out of west when you hear the cattle. That you coming in? Hasn't anyone heard from Alabama? No, I'm afraid not, daughter. Come on, boys. Eyes right out and see what we can find. Let me ride with you, please. I want to help. All right, I have Bob's hat and prints for you. Yes, I'll get him getting his horse ready now. Oh, it comes now. Why, Bob, what's happened? I'm back in a minute for you to hear a roar, Rose, but Alabama's horse. You mean Red? You've seen him? That's right. He's back now. I just saw him come in. Get going. I saw him come in. I can't tell you that. Something funny about that, too, Mr. Carter. Red's hat marks, and he's wet from running. Alabama's in a dread or run him like that for any reason. That's what I'm thinking. Seems to me somebody else tried to ride Red and what was lucky.  Sounds like we'd better get moving, don't it? Yeah. What? Now you get your horses and I'll dip the horse. I'll give you instructions. Oh, look. Look, here comes Steve Bradford. Bradford? Hey, hey, he must be well. Good morning, Bradford. Good morning, Mr. Carter. Whoa. I heard about that trouble that night. I'm terribly sorry to know you lost all the rest of your horses. Steve, it is just that it's Alabama. He went to Danville yesterday to get a red duck in without him. Oh, I love that. Now, if you really want to know where Alabama is, I think I could tell you that.  You know where it is. I've got a pretty good idea, Mr. Carter. The last time I saw him was in Danville Saloon. He seemed to be drinking quite a lot. Oh, no. Alabama couldn't have done that. I'm sorry, Rope. I wouldn't worry too much about Alabama. He'll be along as soon as it soaps up. I'll see you later. Get out. I still don't see. Oh, Steve must have been late, then. Your horses, boys, were not born. What? What? What do you mean, Mr. Carter? I heard something about Alabama. I'm afraid I have. Tender foot? Yes. You saw Alabama going to Danville Saloon last night? Mr. Carter, I'm not just sure. He did go over that way, but. That's enough. Take your horses back, boys. Dad, what about Alabama? Alabama can take care of himself. But Mr. Carter, Alabama's been who?  Steve Bradford told Mr. Carter quite a story, didn't he? It's too bad that Carter doesn't yet know the truth. There's bound to be more excitement before all this is over, so be sure to listen.


Should we risk our lives to save buildings? How do we balance protecting cultural property against human harm?  These are some of the questions I'm going to be asking in my inaugural lecture, Heritage in War, Protecting Cultural Property and Human Harm.


I am so freaking excited for this moment. Four weeks ago, I had surgery on my residual limb and it has been splinted, meaning I cannot move my knee at all for a month. But today is the day that I have been cleared by my doctor to take this off and start moving my knee. You know, like in my wildest dreams, I'll have full range of motion and it's gonna be great, but realistically, it's gonna take some rehab. Here we go. I'm gonna let it just like relax naturally and see where we get to. Okay, about right there. Nowhere close to 90, but that's okay, that is not the goal today. Oh my God. Oh, it is so stiff. I'm gonna definitely take it slow pace myself and slowly but surely start building these muscles up and getting it all stretched out again. That is not comfortable, but it is the first step to actually getting to walking again. So heck yes.


Soldiers with the 451st Expeditionary Sustainment Command took part in the Army's new Rifle Marksmanship Qualification Training on June 12th, 2021. The new qualification method is designed to better prepare soldiers for real-life combat by requiring the soldier to change their magazine and position on the fly in an effort to create a muscle memory that will better aid them in a real-life combat scenario. Better prepared soldiers generate increased combat effectiveness, thus making the United States Army a more ready and capable fighting force.