What am I mean intentions for this podcast is to find really interesting people with great stories and life lessons and Sasha Larkin definitely fits. She's an impressive woman. She's a police captain outside of Las Vegas. She's got almost 200 officers underneath her a great career and a lot of really good human stories about what it's like to be her. I liked this episode a lot and I think you will too is one issue with it, which is the audio quality. I did this over the internet and I've done my best to have that fixed. So if
you notice anything there apologize in advance, but it's definitely worth listening to I hope you enjoy it.
We know you're police officer, but that's as much as we know so far. So why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself
born and raised in actually the home of Bugs Bunny, you know where Bugs Bunny was born seven, California, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Actually, that's why he always says in his cartoons. I should have taken a left at Albuquerque. He was born in
Albuquerque.
Okay? Yes a little useless trivia fact where you but that's where I was born and raised to a single mother who is a
a horse of a little fiery Hungarian woman that runs to this day an urgent care clinic and Ballroom dances six nights a week at least before covid. She did and I grew up dancing. I was a ballerina and thought that I was going to go to the New York City Ballet and have this illustrious dance career and I dislocated my hip dancing one day when I was about 12 and all of my dreams shattered, you know at that ripe age of that you think you have it all figured out and so my
Put me in martial arts. They toughen me up a little bit. So I started doing karate Kempo Karate to be specific and fell in love with it. And I decided okay, I'm going to go this route. I'm going to go to the Olympics in karate. And at the time they didn't have they didn't have that being a big family had Taekwondo, but I did martial arts for just shy of two decades and that my third degree black belt and always carried around a very quiet passion, which was to be a police officer.
You did since what age three when I was three years old. I fell in love with the show. You might know called chips. It has very catchy theme song that you probably singing in your head right now, but I just it was something Primal about the show that reached my soul in yoga. We call it what you're born with your Dharma Dharma. Is that which is your sold unique purpose that only you can fulfill and being a police officer was my Dharma is my daughter.
And I've never looked back. And so I really focus my life once I got in martial arts to just figuring out how I could be the best police officer and you know at 12 you don't really understand what the career is. I thought I was going to be like Agent Scully on X Files but it turns out it was a little bit different. So that was the preparation to get me where I am
today. So, how'd you end up from there to actually wearing a badge?
So it's a little bit of a complicated path, but I think there's no accidents in the universe
right? You're the best ones are
That's what
I've learned totally and I went to college at the University of New Mexico. I majored in biological anthropology and forensic science again, making the best what I needed to be an investigator in the police department and with a minor in theater, and I know that doesn't make much sense, but I didn't really put a lot of thought into it. I knew I loved asking I loved being on stage and I loved police work. So somehow is going to make those two things work together. When does fate would have it? I was at a karate tournament in Las Vegas when I
In college my junior year sophomore junior year in college and I fell in love with Vegas and I went to a show at the Stardust Hotel and the theater manager there. His name was John Masada. He now has gone on to be my surrogate father for the last 25 years, but he for whatever reason took a shining to me and he said you should dance in our show. They had a show they're called enter the night which was at the time one of the longest-running classic Vegas shows, you know, like feathers and headdress.
Isis yeah, here's how I could kind of tie the loop of my unfulfilled dancing career and moved to Vegas and be a police officer. So after college, I moved to Vegas and they hired me to start us to work in the show as a ballet dancer and I worked at a restaurant during the day and I danced at night and was trying to get into graduate school.
How do you tie dancing as a showgirl with being a police
officer? I know it doesn't make much sense.
As for your bones, I promise you I'll make more sense. Okay, I think it one of the things with being in law enforcement is you realize the value of each day, right? Like, you know that it could be your last when you walk out those doors and you go to work, you know that you might not come home and that's true for any public service right? Please fire medical, you know that there's a higher risk. I always just believe that I would live each day to the fullest and dancing and that show and being on stage really just fulfill.
Build that passion for me since I never got to go to New York and be a dancer and so the other thing it taught me was present how to present myself how to have that sense of confidence and that has really paid dividends now in a law enforcement career. So I was working one day at the restaurant that I used to work at and the recruitment team for the police department that I work for came in and had lunch and they said you have a college degree will hiring and I said, oh, yeah, but I think I want to go to the FBI. I'm trying to go to graduate school and I want to go there.
Guys, and they said well we'll pay for you to graduate school like really? Okay. So I signed up and tested and got hired in December of 98 and never looked back
see if a police officer for 22
years. Yes. Yes. Wow, it feels like five years right like that. That's a Tony time will like it I would have told you I was still 28 my head, but my children remind me otherwise because all of a sudden they age and they don't stand still.
Remember that you two are getting older. So it's an interesting time
work. So you get hard and then you go to the police academy. How long is that?
Please Academy six months and then you do 6 months of training on the street with a call field training and you know, it was a different time back then it was really interesting because in the late 90s Vegas was booming and we were hiring it was the fastest growing city in America. People were moving here by the droves. There's a lot of draw here. There's no state tax in Nevada. So you get a lot of people from California and you know other
He's nice places that want to come here and during that time our economy was doing really well and it was pre Y2K. So people were a little freaked out about Y2K, but then once we realized the world wasn't going to explode when we hit zero zero everybody was okay and they were going out and they were spending money and the strip is just thriving and it was really a magical time to work here and you know, it was different though because please work with different there was a good guy bad guy understanding back then we were still
11 but we were still paying the price a little bit of incidents around the country like Rodney King and a couple of other things that really have painted police that a bad life, but I had it on got on the street and so by 2000 it was pretty stable. Were
there a lot of female police officers and the force there? No,
and when I hired my Academy class at a hundred and twenty recruit six of which were female. What was that like well back then they said oh, yeah.
Is going to be on the police department that's fine. You can have the same standards as the men. We're like, yeah, of course we want that right you go, right and I said that's fine. He will cut your hair and wear your hair just like the boys. Well having been a showgirl and a ballerina my whole life. I had hair to my waist all one length long very hippie like care and that was a true sacrifice. I knew if I cut my hair by the way, I shaved my head. Wow. Yes that I was committed and there was nothing they could do to me and that's Lisa.
Academy to get me to quit and that was my motivation like, oh no you guys made me cut my hair. You're not getting rid of me with a little yelling and push-ups. I'm here. I'm committed and nobody thought I was going to make it to show rule that comes through really like how tough is she and that was great motivation for me to prove all of the naysayers wrong and it really was a great Wind Beneath My Wings to get me through some of those hard times just different time though women weren't widely accepted my first female mentor on the department Kathy O'Connor. She had 30 years old.
She retired and they hired on they used to wear skirts and things were very different and she was one of like two females on and so she revolutionized a lot of what we now enjoy as equality on our police department and I hope to continue to do the same as I push forward and paved the way for the girls coming behind
me. So current class would have liked what percentage of women in on average
now, you know, it's interesting call. They're all so different every class, you know, because obviously we're very committed to recruiting and filling a police department, too.
Resent the community that we serve. So we really we push African American Hispanic Asian and female. So it just depends where we're recruiting problem or who wants to stay on the line right now. Our Police Department is the route 10 percent female which is above the national average and it's about what we should be. Of course. We'd love to see it grow. But 10% is respectable is kind of what the feds say. We should be the Department of Justice and as long as they're able to fill positions across the
Then it's good and I'll give you an example right now for the first time. We have a female SWAT Commander, which is so cool. And she's a blue. That's pretty cool it is and she's the young lady that I got to put through the Police Academy when I was a trainer there and it still makes me so proud We have female was headed to have the most female Captain's right now that we've ever had and it's really a testament to our Sheriff's and our undersheriff because they support women in law enforcement. They provide the opportunities and really make it known that they support us equally and that's what
others and that's what you need in order to make those changes and the community loves it. They see women. They see us in these roles and they love it. So it's been great in a good decade for us in policing.
So then you graduate from the academy. How did that feel you've been wanting to be a police officer? Since you were a kid
one of the best days of my life June 18th 1999. It was amazing. It's funny though, because now in my career all my friends are retiring all the people I went to the academy with all of my peers are
Tiring and moving on or you know, it's the strange time in your career when you have more behind you than you do in front of you. So I try to go to work every day and just love the heck out of it still and push forward and make as much change positive change as I can because now is the time the community is hungry for positive law enforcement change and I think that we have a really incredible opportunity to do that. What's your rank? I'm a captain. So that means I oversee a bureau or area command.
And right now I oversee an area command in Las Vegas called Summerlin area command. I have just shy of 200 police officers and civilians that work for me and we have 70 square miles that we cover which is about 280 thousand residents and then a lot of commercial areas and we go all the way to the base of Red Rock. So it's really a gorgeous diverse incredible area. Wow,
and yeah beautiful country over there.
Yeah. Yeah.
Unique now, so that's
really impressive where you are now, but going back to where you started. So like you graduate and one of the best days of your life you actually achieve your dream now you're police officer, but then what happens after the academy,
well, you ought to feel training six months and then you wont to walk the street right? You learn how to be a patrol cop we call it pushing a black-and-white answering calls for service making stops and just learning how to do the job and it was awesome. Some of the funnest most incredible years of my life.
Well, what's an example
Of a fun
experience. Well, you know you answer calls for service anything from a domestic violence call to dead bodies to people that need help children as obviously having a background in forensic science. I was super interested in learning about dead people and how the investigations went. Obviously when we saw at least I'll speak for myself when I signed up. I saw a police officer in those days. I was going to drive fast Chase bad guys take him to jail and do it all over again. Right and that's what I saw.
Your chip and being these high-speed Pursuits every day. Well the truth is there was some of that but the truth is it was more human connection and the more I learned about human connection and the need for it the more I understood what the root of policing really is. And I think as a young cop and I worked very low income neighborhoods. I'm pretty good at speaking Spanish. So I worked a lot of racially diverse neighborhoods, which I loved and we had a blast we worked a lot of gangs we
Work a lot of Narcotics. I worked undercover in the vice unit. Which you can imagine for Vegas is pretty
interesting. Are you going to have to tell me stories from that before the
end? Well, let's just say that there's never a lack of anything to it was always a very busy unit especially back in those days when the economy was thriving.
Which is teaching the kids after they come out of the academy how to be cop and that was probably one of my favorite jobs. I had a squad of folks that I work with her about three and a half years and we really I felt made a difference in the neighborhood. We worked we worked a really low income government subsidized housing. We did a lot of foot patrol. We really got out and started from there in the community. It's where I understood how to talk to people to get them to trust us because if they trusted us they would then call us and report suspicious activity or crime.
I'm but that's just something you have to learn organically, right? You can learn it from a book or from an academy class, but it's not until you develop a relationship with someone and then they call you at 2:00 in the morning and go. Hey, I just saw a murder and you're like what and because of you and that relationship you were able to help someone, you know, those are the early days and and let's say I see someone do a drug deal on a corner. I'm going to get out of my car try to stop them and they're going to run.
They will rot and being the police will chase them. We have probable cause we saw a hand-to-hand drug transaction, right? We have probable cause that a crime has been committed. So we going for Pursuits we take them and we take them into custody safely. If we don't catch them, we'll catch them another day, but there was never any drama on the other end of that. There was never any at least where I came from the squad that I worked on. I'm sure other cities around the country tell very different stories, but during that time where I worked we didn't you
Is excessive force we didn't treat people different because they were black or brown or any other color. We treated everybody the same we believed in our training and our tactics and we treat people with respect and because of that that good guy bad guy understanding pay dividends and I'll give you an example one day I get a foot pursuit with this guy exactly what I was telling you. I knew he sold and used a lot of methamphetamine and on this particular day. I saw him selling to somebody I hopped out of my car I go after him I grabbed them and
he's like you know it takes a second he did give me a good chance I'll give you that I was pretty winded but I catch him he was faster than I was but we catch him we take him into custody and pushed it in there and I dust them off and I'm like he's like hey I'm thirsty I'm like me to a man so we got some water I gave him some water we've got him up and put him in the shade or waiting for the transport for John Cobb but we treated him with respect right we talk to him we made a phone call for him to tell his wife he was going to jail we did all those things right we didn't have to but you know what
and that was that he went to jail a couple days later I'm sitting at a stoplight and this guy comes across the street and he had it's so funny because of the damn fish of course okay I didn't know much about case Justice white in my career this guy was just needed a Phish concert and he was high on every kind of drug you can imagine so he starts banging on the hood of my police car and so I hop out of the car and I don't realize that he's on
P which just gave was like the super human strength, right? And I thought I was strong in pretty good shape. But this guy the fight was on and we're going for it. Right and I'll be honest. I
was just you and him me and you versus him. Yeah, and then
okay other girl that I knew pulled up and she wasn't very helpful at the moment. She was in shock the guy grabbed my radio and he threw it he grabbed my patottie through it like off my belt. I can't call for help and Tangled Up in Sky. I'm trying to protect my guns. He doesn't get it out of the holster because I knew I could take
a few shots, but I a few hits but I didn't want to get my gun and the guy that I had arrested a few days previous he comes walking by and he sees me and he stood there for half a second. He's realized it was me and he goes, oh my God officer. Do you need help and I said, yes grab my radio because his throne it kind of in the middle of the street. So the guy went and grabbed my radio and I said, press the button on the side and tell him and so he did he
And rest of the cops were able to come and render Aid and he told me later. He said, you know, you treated me with such respect. He goes, I'm very happy. I got to say that favor back and I never forgot this beautiful. That is the value of treating people, right? Yeah. That's a core human nature is goodness. I believe I'm
with you. It's actually interesting. I wonder about that because there's a police officer you go out every day and your job is to go deal with the worst of society has to offer and does that change your view of humanity. Does it change your view of just how?
People are and how do you keep in mind that people are ultimately good. I
love the u.s. Night and I don't think enough people ask that question. I think that it's very easy to become jaded. It really is because day in and day out you do see the worst. I mean the worst of humanity but I will tell you that I think truly would save me is my yoga and spiritual practice because in the practice that I studied my lineage is called SRI Vidya SRI means divine video means science. It's just divine
Science of human understanding and soul right our soul, which is pure it's light at the purusa. The the very light of our soul is goodness. So even though we go through life is that circumstances we make bad choices. Our soul is still pure love and I think practicing yoga at the time six seven days a week as he had cop gave me that constant reminder and it helped me stay focused and grounded and not get caught up in the negativity because it's very easy to do very easy.
Did you go to yoga before your police officer or after you became one?
When is a nice lie, actually while I was testing to go through the police academy. I got rear-ended in a car accident on the freeway pretty substantially and I started going to a chiropractor to having lower back issues. She said you're too young to come to a chiropractor. She said I don't think you need this. She said I think you need yoga and I was like, I don't do yoga. I do
karate
great workout. Just try it.
all right so I went to this yoga school it was for uh Sean yoga a strong I mean eight limbs and fell in love I was like oh this is my new martial arts this is it I'm in and I started going six days a week and it healed my back if healed my mind is healed my soul to this day it's like my Prozac right that's what I do in order to feel calm and stable and have both feet on the ground
is this something that's common among police officers this kind of practice or is this more
or just you
you know there are some that do it and you know when I was
When I was at a conference during training officers Academy, I instituted a yoga program and to this day all the kids. I flipped through the academy still talk about it because it's most people don't have that exposure right or it feels kind of weird or whatever, but it's not until you start to connect your breath to the movement and you really start to put energy in parts of your body that don't normally get it. Do you feel change and listen to it directly relates because when we're out on the shooting range and let's say we're target practice.
Seeing our quality and with our qualifying with our handgun. It's that Breath Right that inhale exhale squeeze the trigger slowly that teaches you timing it teaches you how to bring your cortisol levels down and honestly the life expectancy of a police officer after we retire is not good because of the
stress. What is it?
Well, it's all based on studies. But they say if you do 30 years your life expectancy is five years. If you do 25 years is between five and seven and if you do 20 years, it's the
In five and ten, depending on
is this just health or is this
self-inflicted? Well, very high suicide rates even more in the last decade. But then it's also look they eat on the run, you know fast food or what if you don't plan you're working shift, so you're not sleeping, right and just the constant adrenaline dumps because you think two or three times a day running code, right your lights and Sirens going on these hot calls. Your cortisol is constantly getting manipulated up and down.
So it has to have some sort of Outlet. We always say our cup gets full of all these experiences and if you don't have some way to empty the cup out it will overflow. We really have made a push the last few years to encourage officer Wellness to make sure our cops understand that getting help getting a therapist is a good thing and it's nothing to be embarrassed of especially after the incident we had on October 1st at Mandalay Bay. We really really work off their Wellness on our
agency. What was that incident
you on October 1st?
Teen I'm sure you thought of the news there was the Route 91 Music Festival where Stephen Patty? Oh, yeah kill 58 people are cops were devastated. Obviously. I mean that was hands down the most traumatic event our agency never been through active shooter event and people are still really suffering. There was a lot of people right in the heart of that storm and it's it was very chaotic and very stressful and then they all here's the thing has been compounded by the fact that they have to go back to work and
You can pass along.
Talking about is is having that outlet, you know, the thing in Israel and I spent a week and a half there last year and just really learning how they handle these incidents because in one day they'll deal with two or three terrorist incidents, they'll deal with crime. They have religious upheaval. It's constant. So a lot of what they talked about for us was having that way to empty our cup having a way to process the information or what they call assimilated. One thing. They said that really resonated with me is everything you see think here feel.
I'll do or say imprint in your body on a cellular level. So be mindful of the TV you watch of the friends you hang out with the social media you scroll because all of that is in printing in your body and it changes your cellular makeup. It actually changes your biology and who you've heard people say that they have to take a social media break or they can't watch 24 hour news anymore. He's overwhelming and it really becomes too much for us to assimilate so they talked about it a lot. Like how do you digest all of the things that you
Or hear on a daily basis. And so they gave us tools everything from breathing exercises to meditation to just how to debrief our folks appropriately after these incidents happened and get them that immediate help and that immediate outlet and it was really powerful and just to hear that, you know, we're not unique all around the world people are struggling and it was the really great perspective for us to gain after a traumatic incident like
that. So I was thinking, you know, you're a mother you have three children. How did that change?
View as a police officer because I'm sure that when you go out to work, it's different being a mother. Now you have these little ones they're
different. You know, it's funny. I didn't have kids until very very late in my career. I was 34 and I had my son and 37 when I had my twins, so I didn't the agency, you know, 15 years plus and I had my feet on the ground. I'd already promoted I think see when I had my son. I was a sergeant I was working the streets at a area command and when I had the twins I was actually
I've seen to be a lieutenant. So the day that I took my lieutenant test. It's like a 10-hour practical exam where you go in you actually do scenarios and have to do written products because 10 our process and at the end of that 10 hours. I went into labor. Wow. Yeah, 38 and a half weeks with my twins. And so it was it was good that I waited. I couldn't have done it early in my career when I was running and gunning and having a lot of fun. I was glad I did it later in life. I felt like I had more to offer them. I was more focused in my twenties. I was all over the place.
Face, but it changes in that you go out into the world a little bit more unselfishly. I was glad I had ranked by then at that point. I was a lieutenant when I had the Twins and it allowed me the ability to navigate things differently. It really just gave me perspective on what was important. I wasn't as Reckless slow down driving, you know, all of those things because I recognized they needed me around and I wanted to make choices to ensure I was around as much as I could be for
them now. Have you ever had?
Use your fire.
Unfortunately when I was working the streets in 2004, I was involved in two separate officer-involved shooting one was April 1st, and one was Thanksgiving night. It's the worst day and I know the media paints a very different picture, but I tell you this from the bottom of my heart. It's the worst day in police officers life. Nobody wants to take somebody else's life or use deadly force. You just don't it's so quick and final and for me that's
virtual heaviness was almost overwhelming and I was blessed to have a spiritual teacher that helped me through it. But my first one was a man that was at a smaller Casino off the Las Vegas Boulevard. It was tucked away in a little bit lower income neighborhood and he was trying to cheat the slot machine at the bar and the bartender told him that he couldn't help it if he's like, I'm sorry. I don't have access to the slot machine and the man got very angry because you'd lost all his paycheck gambling and he went out to his car.
And he got his gun and he came back in and he told the bartender gunpoint. He told him that he needed to help him get his money back in the bartender was like I can't help you. I don't have access to the slot machines. So at that time there was a royal mounted Canadian police officer that had just retired from 30 years of service in Canada who was sitting at the bar watching this unfold and he bravely stood up and grabbed the man's the gun and put his arms around him like in a bear hug and the man with the gun switch.
And with his done and reached behind him and shot that police officer assassinated him shot him twice in the stomach. And once in the head. Wow. Yeah, and I was in the parking lot. I didn't know I was in a parking lot on unrelated person stuff. I've been dispatched out on a suspicious man. And I was a couple feet from the front door and had this guy stopped in front of my car. I could not hear the gun shots from outside, but people started running out of the casino screaming some people covered in blood. They said there was an active shooter inside the casino.
And I started to run towards the front door to go in and they said no no, he went out the back door. So my partner holds up at the time and I told him we were there was a shooting and so weak he went around the back and as we circled around the man had the gun in his hand and shot a couple times that my partner and then turned his attention to me and we exchanged gunfire and we were able to unfortunately returned fire and put him down which was the worst day of my life and he died there on scene sadly.
And unfortunately and that was that was my first shooting and I was Google News television and I never wanted to go through that
again. So, how do you deal with that? How did you deal with
that? Well day by day I didn't sleep for weeks. I worked out a lot because you're off work then. I think I'm going to work six weeks seven weeks. I ran a lot. I went to spin class. I don't really want to talk to you about it. You can't really talk to your friends about it right there.
I'm sorry, I can't relate Gina was tough and then people at work or busy and it was a very lonely time for me is very lonely. And you know, you're just trying to rationalize it did I do the right thing? Was there something else? I could have done? I mean, you know, he pointed a gun at after he pulled the trigger at us. So I magically know there was nothing else that could have been done and he had tried to kill the bartender. He shot the bartender and it's somehow didn't kill him which was by the grace of God and then he kills them assassinates is poor which heard police officer and I'll never forget and so on.
Interestingly because the universe is I truly believe it's connected last October or November. There was a Sikh officer in Houston that was murdered on a car stop it made national news. So one of my friends from work her and I flew out for the funeral for the speak officer Houston, and there was police officers from all over the world there and there was hundreds of thousands of people this funeral and he was the first Peak officer. I believe in the United.
To lose his life in the line of duty and
we says seek you mean like Indian Sikh.
Yeah. Yes, Sica. Okay. Yeah, so we went and while we were there there was probably 30 or 40 World mounted Canadian police officers there and I'm talking to this guy who had this incredible big Gray beard and I'm talking to us. No I said I knew or well, I didn't know him, but I said I had an experience. I told him about my shooting and he got all teary-eyed. He said that was my training officer and I thought how interesting right that the
Universe brought that full circle for me and in a way it kind of gave me some closure. So I got to talk to him about you know, he got to tell me what an amazing man. He was and how he wasn't surprised at all and his bravery and it was good closer to me on one level.
Yeah, that's beautiful. You mentioned you what's helped you in your career as your yoga and your spiritual practice. What's his pressure practice?
Well, I see our lineage. We do a lot of meditation and I've been to India four times and I just have a truce both of connection with you know, the divine.
Understanding that light and that that presents never really feeling like I had to put one specific label on it, but just knowing that I was connected to it and connected to that sense of being and that sense of loud and it's not the goodness and so that medication and pranayama that breathing practice has carried me through the hardest days of my life and bhagavad-gita and all the other teachings that are very traditional have really given me a lot of the foundation a lot of the way we raise our kids and a lot of the information that they get as a sound.
Nation as
well, you know, the Gita is so interesting. I went to India. My grandmother was passing away and I lived there for a year when I was a kid. So it's very close to her and I was by her side and in that tradition they read the Gita to you when you're dying, and so I got to read it to her and I remember thinking but this lineage I got to participate in that I'd really didn't even know I was connected to right because I'm American and I've grown up here and just reading it and the wisdom there is in that just a profound.
However, Century old wisdom there is in that and so to make it a practice of your life that's impressive. I kind of haven't read it since honestly that's
impressive. Yeah, but I think it's still a part of you right I mean for you it's in your DNA. It's a part of you no matter what you could go away from it, but it's still part of you. I think there's three places. I've been in my life where I felt God and I know if you ever had that experience where you just you feel like God is there India was the first one specifically there's a city called comacchio.
As in I think it's called a thumb and it was this really incredible place that has these shrines that he's rituals that we got to do and it was insane. I've never felt such a presence of God. And then the second one was when I went to Jerusalem last year Israel stole my heart. I can't wait to go back. I left a piece of me there for sure. There's something about that place that concentrated energy of all of those States together. That was life-changing.
And then the third one for me is Santa Fe which is a little city just about 60 miles north of Albuquerque and New Mexico. That is got this old Indian novel Apache energy. That was its visceral you go into somebody's old chapels that have been around for two three four hundred years. You can just feel God. I don't know how to explain it. You have to feel it. I
guess. Well, what does it feel like when you feel good
for me? I feel like like I'm free like I feel understood completely.
Should I feel calm I feel like my feet are on the ground yet and completely floating. I just feel connected. I just know maybe it's I've been there before or some sense of connectedness and something bigger than myself and I think at the end of the day that's what all humans long for that connection to something bigger than ourselves, which is why the internet has been such an interesting phenomenon for people because it's increased us for social isolation and it's decreased human connectivity yet. We
On for it. I think more than
ever that is so true. Right that is so true. Yeah. So wow, you act like you're really interesting. I'm very much enjoying this. Thank you for doing this. I'm honored
you. Let me talk about the things. I love the most.
Yeah, I told in the beginning. I have no interest in bringing politics into this, you know, I just wanted to the human story behind what people are and then we were talking beforehand when we started this I said, like look, I never even imagined a police officer. This is how dumb the my mind can be like I did never even
I'm a police officer having a yoga practice. I just assumed you'd be doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in your time up. So this is actually really good for me. Now. I remember you you telling me when we first met that you've been part of the community policing program and Las Vegas and what that's done for that City and I would love for you to tell me more about that and how you develop that
well now you're just trying to butter me up because this is the thing. I love to talk about. I mean almost more than please do. Okay like we
About a few minutes ago. When I signed up. I thought the Polly Harper's may be driving fast and being in these, you know shootouts and having some wild Experience day in and day out but at the end of the day, I think in the last two decades the community has demanded and rightly so that police work Encompass more than that what we figured out and I think around the country is fair to say what we figured out policing is we can't arrest our way out of problems anymore.
What we call the broken windows Theory which is a brilliant Theory Bill Bratton put into practice. I want to say when he was the chief. It's a transit system in New York where he believed and he was right that if there was spray paint on the trains and their windows were broken out in these neighborhoods that it would allow crime especially lower end crime to happen because it meant that nobody cared and nobody was paying attention. But if you fix the broken windows and you paid attention to the little things it would deter crime. So we
Lisa yeah, Malcolm Gladwell met the story popular anyone who wants to learn it can go read his essay on it.
Yeah, exactly. And that's the theory that we really police with is that if somebody was jaywalking and a high crime neighborhood, we stopped them and took him to jail and you know, we did all these things and for a while before jail overcrowding was an issue and before race and all these other issues came into play. We thought we were making a difference like that, you know, because if they were in jail and they weren't on the streets commit a crime with the truth is we weren't impacting the right.
People we were taking good people to jail people that were just trying to make their way. So we had to police smarter not harder and listen, if you told me 20 years ago, this is what I was going to do with my career. I would have never believed you right before I had my son. I was a sergeant in a neighborhood that was mostly African-American and Hispanic and there was two mosque in this neighborhood one was a Sunni mosque that was mainly at the time a convert or
Mosque where the parishioners they're found Allah while incarcerated not all of them but a good majority of it and there is another mosque about 3/4 of a mile away and Nation of Islam mosque and at the time 2007-2008 these two months didn't necessarily get along they didn't fight with Feud but they didn't hang out together. They didn't commingle. So one day I was running a squad of guys. I had eight guys on my team and we were working this neighborhood.
On foot patrol often because that's how we were able to kind of make relationships and talk to people and we had this drug dealer that was wreaking havoc for us day in and day out we knew he was moving. Yes huge amounts of weight but a substantial amount of drugs in the neighborhood and we couldn't touch him he was fast and he was evasive and he was just we couldn't get him and one day we were set up and we saw him walking down the street and we knew we knew we had him.
So, of course he runs and we chase after I'm going to force he was faster and he runs into the Sunni mosque. He runs into the fence and goes into the mosque and basically speaks to turn out on us and runs into there because he knew we were going to follow and my team said Sarge, what do we do?
I don't know I said I I don't like places and I was embarrassed your am the leader of a team and I wasn't able to make an accurate informed educated decision as to if we were supposed to chase this guy or not. Could we go in there or not? Who is in there? I didn't know so I went home that night embarrassed and bowing to myself. I would never let that happen because where I spelled Kemal was that I didn't know who made up the neighborhood that I was policing.
That's a failure.
And is that more common than not? Well, listen, I
can only speak for my jurisdiction now, it's common practice but back then we just chased people bad guys and put him in jail. I didn't take the time to learn who is in my community and that was a mistake. But now we teach our young sergeant that we teach our young lieutenants that we teach our young cops that we teach that the first thing you have to do is learn who makes up your community or how do you police them properly? How do you know what they want?
Or need if you don't ask them.
So I went woman who willed what is what is the Muslim? What is Islam? Because I didn't know what is the mosque what are the rules and I read everything I could I put a plan together and it was a very high speed plan. So I hope you're ready for it. Huh? I came back to work next week. I had my weekend and I said, okay, here's what we're going to do you guys and I thank you guys. I said your guys's job is to drive by the mafia every day. I said, hey they have this thing where they pray five times a day and hears the prayers.
I want you guys to go by when prayers getting out and I want you to say hi to people just drive by and say hi. They were like what I go. No, that's the plan. They go. Should we stop people should we write and take it to make no no no.
No. No.
No, you're just gonna say hi and they thought I was crazy. They're like, sorry. You lost your mind. I'm like, I know I said, let's just try it. Okay, let's figure out who these people are and so they did for two months. They drove by every day at the end of prayers during our shifts its doors to prayers that happened during our shift.
And its first they were petrified of us. They wouldn't even look at it and then 3 times they started to wave back in it. And then one day the Imam the head of the mosque, I think he was amused by us. He stopped one of my guys and he said hey, how you doing? Oh my God. I was so happy to talk to you is like talking to me like yeah, my guy gets out of his car is like, I'm great sir. How are you?
He said I see you drive by every day. He does. Do you guys want to come in and he was like, yes. Yes I do and he calls me like for her to get over here. And so I go home over and they let us come into the mosque. We took our shoes off which my guys were not happy about they're like, why do you take our shoes off? I'm like why can't you that's the question is is it going to hurt anything? So we got a tour of the mosque and lo and behold they were not harboring any criminals. There was no nefarious activity and I was
I was like, huh? Okay. Well, I don't I don't really know. I don't understand. So I told him I told you Mom what happened? I told him about the drug dealer. We were chasing that we were really confused as to what was happening there and how we could help them. And so we ask them, how can we help you? And he said really are you really asking we're like, yeah, I was really asking and so he says to my officer he said well if you look outside our doors and we come out the mosque at the end of Prayer.
R see that abandoned boat and car in the lot across the street and my guy was like, yeah because it's been here for like three years. It's such an eyesore. He goes. I called the city. He said I've called the county. He said nobody will help me and there's always like drug dealers and prostitution happening over there. He goes. It's really really nice for and like no problem. We got this. So my officer went back to the station that night. He made a few phone calls three days later.
Gone. So in that moment, that was my first step in community of real community policing because what we did was we learned a grain of trust. He trusted us because we asked for nothing in return.
And that's where I understood that we couldn't help these folks if we didn't ask. So that was my certain community policing and it has just grown by football field monumentally sense. Then how's that? Listen at that point? We were like, maybe there's something to this and so we spent a lot of time.
And we got to learn about that which was really an exceptional experience. The first time police officers had ever been involved in Ramadan and the breaking of the fast and it's hard dinner and they had us over every, you know, we would come to prayer and then they would feed us and the cops are like this is crazy. But we love it and they started to switch was that they went from saying why are the cops here? Right. We're uncomfortable why these cops here. And remember this mosque is mostly filled with people that
At found this religion in jail, which means we the police took their freedom away and put them in jail, right? So understand how huge this is that they accepted us. They got to see a different side of the uniform and if the bad and they got to trust us and we got to earn some of that trust back that had been taken away maybe earlier in our life so we became fixtures there and they became accepting of us and we became nor it became normal to see us around and so over the fall.
Year, they started calling us in suspicious activities. They would call my officers or me and they would say hey not to nothing. But there's this guy he just showed up. He's from Ohio or New York and he's spouting this really extreme rhetoric and he's making us uncomfortable. So we would go and talk to the person and there's a few times they broke some pretty huge cases and it became this incredible partnership and they loved it and we loved it all of a sudden were doing something in our jurisdiction that has ever been done.
And at the time I then got pregnant with my son, so I was going to go towards the later part of my pregnancy. I was going to be pulled off the street because I couldn't wear a uniform they don't make them that big and they said will you build this program for the entire department? Will you put it on paper? You legitimize it and ended up department-wide like oh, yeah. Okay. So I got transferred to the fusion center with a couple of my guys and that began the beginning of the outreach program for our police department and we built it.
More in the beginning just for Islam at the time we had about nine mosques here in Las Vegas. And so we made relationships in every one of them and we were well steeped and well in bed and all of those mosques and not for any other reason other than Outreach we weren't asking for information. We weren't spying on them. We weren't looking to be a CI. It was all aboveboard and we went and uniformed so there was no denying who we were there is no hiding in 2012 in Wisconsin. You might remember there was a active shooter and seek to
people and five or six people were killed and four were
injured was this because the 911 well, we were in a post
9/11 World. Yeah, but this peak shooting with 2012. I want to say that the shooter had some parasitize but I can't remember off the top of my head what his name was so that I can shooter happens. And I remember the sheriff called them infusion center and said, hey have passion her folks go out and seek Temple and make sure that our community because we have a large see Community here is all right, and so
Hold me. Hey, you guys go to see couples and reach out where like you see
couples
again II epic failure on my end because we've been so focused on building these relationships in the Muslim Community that we hadn't really opened our eyes to the full community. So again, I went home and was like, man, I can't believe that I was thinking so myopically I need to build a program that reaches everyone that is inclusive of everyone. So the next day actually the same
You guys that helped me in the mosque. I said I want you guys to go to the seat couple. There's two of them. I want you to go with your hat in your hand and apologize that we haven't been there sooner and I want you to tell them that we are committed to building relationships and that we should have been here long before there was tragedy but we're here now and see if they'll accept them and they did and that's probably one of our strongest relationship head of the Sikh Community sits on our car used to force board. He sits on our Outreach Council. He's a huge huge contributor to our Police Department.
Had me he's amazing and then we started learning about every other religion the Baha'i Community the Jewish Community the Buddhist Community Hindu community and we went into every one of those and I will tell you that 12 years later. We have relationships in pretty much every religious establishment in the city and it's probably the thing I'm most proud of is my life's work because here's the truth come out if people feel alone isolated and socially dejected.
David that morning for connection will prevail and so that's where you see online radicalization happen. That's where you see the recruitment. It's a terrorist activities. I'll even argue that for you see gang recruitment recruitment by 10 they get girls to work for them because people are Longing To Be noticed heard connected to so it's our job is the police department to open up our lines of communication and give them that connection so they don't get it on the other side. Does that make sense?
Makes perfect sense.
So that's really the goal
reminds me of Benjamin Franklin, you know was a founding father and he had this thing where Philadelphia and now we're going back a long long time just literally founding father of time and he would contribute to every different religious group in Philadelphia and he caught some flak for it because keep in mind we're going back to 1700 s right, right, but his thing was I just want to come because this was their place a community a place of worship and I will respect them all and
I remember reading that thing and that's pretty impressive. So, where are you now with your community policing program,
you know, it's funny because network is really just set the stage for the rest of my career and I'll be honest I could not have done it without my team. They did all the hard work. I had four guys that hits all of the Outreach to did all the relationship development and where the magic and the sheriff and the undersheriff the executive staff. Look Sheriff Joe Lombardo that we have right now is committed to this transparency and
Community relationship building and none of these programs we possible without him saying yes, I support this do this and are under sure because they see the big picture that if we don't do this we will end up with a city burning to the ground when Ferguson happens. Our department was like, oh my gosh, we got to make sure that this doesn't happen here. Right? So we had already had these Community relationships in place. We reached out and said Hey, listen in 2012. Our department said we think that we have room for improvement so we called.
The Department of Justice and we said hey, we want to go through the reform process. It's called the collaborative reform process. So the Department of Justice came in collaborative form came in and there's a woman she's now a deputy chief on our agency killings May Hills. She led this program and put us through the reform process of really looking at what we did well and where we fell short and how investigate officer-involved shootings and use of force was one of the places we knew we needed to improve and the long run was going to earn Better Community Trust because
We drive our legitimacy from Community Trust and without it we don't have legitimacy. So we went through that reform process and continued building these community-based relationships and it has really set the stage then for us to not have a Ferguson like incident to not have our city burning to the ground like Portland God forbid and now during a time of civil unrest it's more important than ever between that time and now I worked a few various assignments I worked
In Internal Affairs for a little bit and then I got promoted to Lieutenant and I went back to the street and had a great time working the street for about three years as a lieutenant that I went to the gang unit. And when Sheriff can borrow that elected he decentralized a lot of decentralized investigative bureaus and the gang unit with one of them to got decentralized. So I was working with the undersheriff at that time about how we could really expand this community outreach tough because I had left it to go to the others - but I couldn't stop doing it I couldn't.
Thinking about it. I said what if we built an umbrella that encompasses all of the community work that the department is doing and put it on steroids and with his support. We were allowed to build this unit called the office of community engagement. It took us about two years to build it integrated stand it up train the department on it get the community involved and now it's one of the leading Outreach Euros in the country because we do everything from Refugee integration to religious Outreach lgbtq Outreach and involvement.
I mean you name it. There's not a community in Las Vegas that I don't think we have touch tone with which is incredible. Right and now it's part of our culture. It's part of our DNA from the kids going through the academy to the show who buys in wholeheartedly.
What's it like being a police officer these days walking around uniform because of all that's going on in 2020. Does it feel different?
No, I mean I know what the news says. I know what people think of us, but I also believe again maybe naively that at the heart people know that we're in it.
Right reasons are there police officers that make bad decisions out there? Yes. Have we had those police officers on our Police Department? Yes, the differences and I tell you this with every fiber in my being that I believe it we hold them accountable is a police officer used excessive force. If they do something that they weren't trained to do if they violate somebody's right any of those things, we hold them accountable which means we take them off the street. We put them to the investigative process and
if it's proved that they did the think we fire them and now in the age of body-worn cameras, it's become a lot easier for us to have the proof and the evidence one way or another and I will tell you time and time again. Our department has no issue holding people accountable and firing them and I'm proud of that. I'm proud of the fact that we stand up and we live our values we can talk about the I care values which is integrity courage accountability respect and Excellence. We live those values from the very first day you're on the Department's of the very last day and I will tell anybody in the
Community that I see a hundred percent we uphold those doesn't mean we're perfect and it certainly doesn't mean we don't have room for growth which we do but we're trying to improve every single day and we do hold those accountable. They don't make a
decision. That's great. So actually I want to go back to something that I still want to know because I said this to you earlier in the interview that I would like you to share if you're okay with it a fun undercover story. I was wondering what that's like, what's it like being undercover and you're a woman you're attractive when heck yeah.
You're a showgirl at one point. So people can just picture that right and your police officer. What's that?
Like, it's Unique when I worked undercover. I still had really short hair. They told you I shave my head the academy and I thought it looked like a little boy. It is so funny. Actually. It's the timing of your question is funny because having been a showgirl I have a box full of wigs blond wigs red wigs black wigs short long and my daughter's actually found them the other night. We were running around the house wearing my wig for the funny, but I you
Wear these wigs when I was undercover and it was such an interesting cross-pollination of my two lives, but we will go undercover as posing as a prostitute in different neighborhoods. Sometimes we would work lower-income neighborhoods and we would be really grungy like it would shower or shade and be kind of dirty and we're low and close and we'd work those neighborhoods and then other times we get dressed up super fancy and we would work the higher end the strip or any tire and casinos. So it was a really interesting looking to you.
In nature human sexuality what people will say to each other when they're strangers. What did you see what you hear? I think that everybody has three sides your public side your private side and then that secret pie and posing in a row like that. You kind of get a glimpse into somebody Secret side because they will say things to you or want things from you that they would never say to their wife or their girlfriend because they're embarrassed or they don't want to be judged but they feel with a total stranger. There's no harm no foul. And so you would get very high.
Businessman or people that worked in politics, they would ask for what we would normally who you think is crazy escapades and you know, you got to keep a straight face and you have to act like you're not shocked I think Jay it and on the other hand small it was sad because you realize how lonely people are in the girls that worked in that no young girl wakes up and goes. Yeah. I think I want to sell my body to strangers and the truth is now we look at prostitution very differently and we treat
the girls as the victim because they really are and we've been doing a lot of work in human trafficking and really trying to change the pendulum on the victim awareness and getting them out of the Life Giving Them the resources and the support to get out of the life. So I guess it's just been interesting to kind of see that Evolution because back then we were doing a big push on HIV and AIDS awareness because the amount of HIV working prostitutes at that time and the early 2000s was really high so we would get the John's or the guys asking
Services, and after we busted them out or after we took them into custody first listening for the purposes of prostitution. We would explain to them Hey, listen, the reason we're doing this work is because there's x amount of HIV working prostitutes in Clark County. And so you should know that when you go back to Middle America your chances of taking home to your wife some disease or HIV is higher and so a lot of it was education and awareness, which I really enjoy doing because I wanted to help people. I wanted to make sure that we weren't reading
A disease and that people understood the risks of what was going on out there, but it was hard right it was sad because you're in this life the CD kind of Underworld of it's something that you would never otherwise be exposed
to what was your first undercover assignment
Vice working as a prostitute on downtown Las
Vegas. How do you transfer that
briefly you through undercover classes where you learn the safety word and what to do and how to talk to the person what you have to do legally to get the charges of soliciting on it's
All about safety body positioning so your team can see you and a lot of the trial and error because you got to get out there and that's where my theater background really came in was getting out there and learning how to talk to people learning how to keep a straight face learning how to work through uncomfortable situations and it's all human Dynamic and yeah, I'm glad I did it early in my career. It's not something I would ever want to do now, especially with kids or you know, it's just and it's very different now because it's all done online and do apps and back then you have. Oh, really? Oh, yeah.
Yeah back, then you had to drive down the street and pick up a girl in your car where now you can get on an app or whatever and find some little bit easier.
Yeah, I think the biggest Cipher that has run out of Vegas actually. Yeah, I'm sure funny enough. Yeah, I'm sure yeah. So what next your police captain you have 200 people under you. I mean a large large area what's next for you?
So interestingly enough. I'm getting transferred in a couple of weeks to a unit that oversees the internal oversight and constitutional policing we are
See police reform we oversee the use of force investigations as it relates to officer-involved shooting and something. I feel really honored to be a part of and to get to lead for the next year or so. However long they want me to be there. So it'll be a great experience take me out of my comfort zone a little bit. I've been at an area command just shy of four years. It'll be a great learning experience. There's phenomenal people they're working now and I'm going to be a part of a really neat team that hopefully we'll keep our
T keep the transparency that is so Paramount to our agency moving forward and find new ways to bring the community in so they understand that we're on the right side of these things. Even where we have to use Force out on the street. It's Justified and it legal lawful and necessary. That's the thing. Sometimes we can be justified. But is it necessary? And I think that's where the community really wants us to focus our attention and rightfully so so I'm really excited to get to be a part of
that.
Right. I can't wait to talk to you later and see what effect you had. Yeah, thank you. So the Sasha who graduate from the police academy what 22 years ago? If you could for the experience you've had and all that you've seen and experienced. What would you tell her? What would you wish you had known as a new police officer?
Well, it's funny every once in a while. I'm told some of the young women that I Mentor when I hired on I thought I was going to go to squat. That was my whole gig. I knew a woman who's never been there before and I loved training. I love shooting.
And I loved working out right now. That's where I want to go. Well, I never took this one says because my husband said at the time you can't take the slot test and we can't have kids like you can't do those two things simultaneously and he was right was like, oh, yeah, you're right. They wouldn't be fair either way. So engine testing for sergeant. But at the time when I was in the Academy, I didn't see myself any different than the boys. I mean, I understood I used a different locker room, and I looked a little bit different but in my head I was just like
And I wanted to be just like them. I want to be accepted by them. I want to do the same job they did and that be treated any different.
And about six months into my training when I was on the street had a female training officer and she saw my passion and my drive and my hunger and she said to me one day she said, you know, you're never going to be a void and it's like what she goes. You never have the same equipment same Jenna tell you that a man has
Why don't you maximize or figure out what your strengths are? Why don't you use your strength for you and stop trying to get into theirs?
Where's and at the time you know, I'm 23 years old. I was like, okay, whatever. I didn't it didn't really resonate with me and about six months later. She died. She died on the operating table having a hysterectomy.
And I will never forget her words and it wasn't until years later that I understood what she met that it was okay for me to go through this career as a woman and that I was going to bring something different to the table and that was a good thing and I've always told women and anybody that I was helping that going through a career in law enforcement as a woman is neither better nor worse. It's just different and we bring something different to the table and if we learn how to really capitalize
Maximize that then it's a win right? We can reach a demographic of the community that the men can't we can offer different strengths and skills and knowledge and abilities and that's why we need that partnership men and women right black and white hispanic all of us together to serve a community that looks like a or vice versa and I guess I'll go back and tell myself to be okay being who I
am beautiful voice for all of us
great. It's but it's a hard life
lesson.
Isn't it though? That's the best thing irony right it is and
hopefully having two daughters. Hopefully I can give that to them early in life and they can love who they are early in
life. Yeah. Well, I know your husband well and given you to those are going to be two very special girls. I think this has been a real pleasure of really enjoyed this. Thank you for being a part of this and sharing your
journey. Well me to thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Hopefully some young girls and people that aspire to go into law enforcement know that it's still a
Amazing career regardless of what the media takes us out to be and we hope that people continue to stand in line to be cops because it's an amazing career and I've never been sorry never not one day in my life and I hope that the Next Generation coming in behind you will love it as much as I had and we'll take it to be even better and more respectable than we have and I really hope that the community will see through our lens that were on the right side of things regarding for what the media
says. Perfect beautiful having you here. Thank you, Sasha. Thanks Kamala.
And that's another episode. I'm glad you're here. If you're enjoying this podcast, please review and rate it I'd love that and if you want to learn more just go to cures Kamal.com.
