Joe Rogan Experience #1517 — Nancy Panza Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Hello, Nancy. So tell everybody what you do. What has this been like for you since this is your field of study? And then my, you know, my next response is to kick in is, okay, we've got problems on both sides. We need to not only figure out why such things are happening and prevent them, because that's not could also say the same thing about the police department. The police department and police

3:00 I don't think they get respected enough. Yep. And his idea about training was, I mean, I'm in full agreement and full. And he's right. The firearms training is probably not enough. But what's even more so, especially most when I, prior to being at Cal State Fullerton, I was a faculty member at John Jay College of training, teach them how to talk to somebody, how to, what do you say that's going to help bring

6:23 work with this type of individual. The police, you know, would come in on the psychology side, we kind of explain, here's what's going on. Here's why that didn't work with this type of individual. Yeah, I know what you're saying when you were talking about how difficult it would be to actually have them train 20% of the time. But also how are you dealing with the fact that every time you go to work,

8:05 and that's one of the things Jocko talked about, their psychological makeup. I'm a nervous wreck. and unhappy on the job and drinking too much outside, and you've got all these other things Is there a standard procedure, like when someone comes back from say, witnessing So that part is very normal to do. How are they in this moment? they're doing all right. They're a little shaken up, which is normal. I mean, anybody who experiences

12:14 what's going on? And, you know, again, varies by department. Some of them will then also offer up They're if needed. And again, most agencies do that piece. I think the critical incident debriefings are an absolute I know what I'm doing. And supported by each other. That's a huge deal. pick you and you and you, the rest of you guys are fine, then they've been singled out in the spotlight.

15:46 If someone comes in and says, this guy's not ready, he can't go back on the force. fit a set of guidelines? Like what, when they say this guy's not fit to go back on the street, Mental state, basic mental state is our starting point. And how do you do that? or clinical issues and problems, anxiety, depression, you know, bodily dysfunction. That can be very telling if they're comfortable sharing that detail.

18:19 But in that, you know, immediate part after, I more often than not see them a day later. What's happening? It's rare. Maybe they see a horrific child murder or something like that. they're, you know, kind of calming down and recovering from that. So, you know, odds are they're not right, jumping to see and support and do whatever we need to do to take care of that person. That is a giant issue, too.

22:01 debriefings right afterwards because we can monitor. We check back in periodically, and we keep touching base until we're feeling comfortable that the person's good. The fear. The fear also, and they're tough guys, a lot of them, and tough girls. They're like, The most frequent question I get from my friends and family and people are like, I'm thinking I might need to see someone.

23:54 Or did they, I mean, is what? piecemeal randomness of this city's doing this and this city's doing this and this city's doing You know, it's the police officer standards and training. So they set all the rules for think about it, I think there's about 18,000 different police agencies in the US. And I think there's about 18,000 different police agencies in the U.S.

26:51 hired or before you're hired. And if you're in a critical incident, you may or may not get one. I mean, there clearly are a lot of police officers that are unfit for duty. Police officers that get to that place become that. have a similar process in that you're going to go through the application, you have to pass a written test, there's going to be a background investigation,

29:32 I work for send me the most amazingly clean candidates and others that are trying to hire Like they're going to see that somewhere in that digging around. And the last two steps are the medical evaluation and the psych eval. psychologists, you know, in the past few months, like, what are we missing? I've had, I taught a psychological tests that we give. We ask a lot of crafty questions and we dig as deep as we can to try to, again, weed out anyone who we think could potentially become that person down the road who could be a cop who kills or who, you know, is racist and biased and is treating people improperly.

32:57 and how his first day on the force, he witnessed corruption and was told to shut his mouth and further went on to become a drug dealer and robbing drug dealers. Like we are, we're your friends. Like we are police officers, but we are not the person who and the one that I focus more on from my end, is the wellness. You know, is this somebody who is is going to be very different than what they looked like when they were hired.

36:06 all the things that we should be doing to pay attention to officer wellness, major problem where someone's interacting with the community and they go awry and do something awful. Let's take care of them along the way and catch the problems before they, you know, And the reason why is because the police officers have no trust in the mayor. So when you're seeing this giant uptick in murders in New York City and giant uptick in shootings, and then you still have that dipshit of a mayor calling for the defunding of the police.

38:43 And now they're saying, we got to do something about this. We have an enormous number of people, and out of that enormous number of people, there they're the ones saying defund the police, hey man, they'll fucking rob you too. that doesn't, it's not real. like this idea that you can't spend 20% of the time training them. It would. do i don't think they really mean that i don't yeah i don't understand what happens next and i

42:35 frustration because you're right we don't need bad cops there's nothing worse than you know the That was part of what your podcast with Jocko just blew me away with, you know, the way the same thing that we're wanting here at home in this country, that your police are supposed to be It's the police versus the community instead of we are a community together and we need to work with each other to keep this place safe and to understand what the biggest problems are, what are the citizens' concerns.

45:12 Like the idea of you serving and protecting, like, dude, if someone throws you on the ground, if you have no ability to defend yourself physically other than firearms, yet they've passed a physical fitness test and who can't shoot, but imagine their mental health. Imagine So that's one thing that sort of stands out. And then we've got a variety of, you know, non-lethal force, whether it's something hand, you know, physical, hand-to-hand kind of thing, or whether it's a taser or baton or whatever else they may be using or having on their, you know, their tool belt.

48:47 Being able to use a weapon? where cops have to pull their guns you got to be ready. If you are a master, you know, they like to call verbal judo. Right? So for me, because I deal with communication and deal with de-escalation and how to talk someone down, how to talk to an individual with a mental illness, how to talk to somebody who's a victim or has been traumatized, how to talk to somebody who's maybe on drugs and not able to –

50:48 And again, I'm sure it depends on what academy they go through. And this guy wasn't some freak of nature either. you're patrolling. It's tedious, tedious, tedious, and then it's intense or difficult or stressful. First of all, everybody stares at you and is looking at you and you're, you know, like just standing out no matter where you go because you're in, you know, you're in the patrol car, cop car.

53:17 saw a dead body and had all sorts of weird experiences on that one. Just the difference Right. It has it has really spread. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's so outrageously awful what happened. I found it, especially in those early weeks, very stressful to be somebody who really loves and supports law enforcement. Yeah, I mean, I think everyone can agree that racism is awful and racism by police is awful.

56:55 Well, the guy had a toy gun and someone reported him. And then he says, crawl towards me. He's just reaching back because his pants are falling down. of abuse. It certainly wouldn't surprise me. of the reasons why amy klobuchar was kind of tanked as being a vice presidential uh possibility had happened here? And if I just saw that he'd had prior complaints and prior shootings, that

59:43 a perfectly normal stop, but that person just pissed off because they got a ticket. You know what I mean? So a complaint can be something very substantial and very real and problematic, But I don't know which of the two had been on longer. And it kind of has to be that way. If you're seeing someone abuse someone and you're new on the job, And some people do the right thing.

1:02:51 odds that he's not going to tell them right screw you like i'm superior to you you back off and and you have to rely on to protect you, you know, to have your back. Yeah. Well, there's one way to do that. There's some element of that. They have to make these big decisions on where do we store this data, It would be. Sounds scary. off the ground and was unconscious and his i think he's still in trouble is he yeah

1:06:18 And you've got these cops that just walked away while this guy's down like that. You have to stick up for each other. You can't do that. And you just see a guy push a frail old man. yeah pile up all these videos pile up all these times where cops abuse people pile up. Yeah. Nothing corrupts more than money and power, right? And the majority of them

1:09:02 My fear is that more idiots It's totally when they say we're going to defund the police. It's just it's the financial crisis from the pandemic. on from this covid crap but in addition then you've got that plus the covid stuff and i mean Yeah. And you do it to a lot of your guests. So, yeah, if I could have them. with some excellent advice. And it talks about racism, and it talks about technology, and it

1:12:51 It's political. But I'm also really concerned about whether some of these random haphazard changes are going to make any different for these real, real problems. Absolutely. You know, so many of these societal problems, they're so important and they're so profound. I'm the psychologist. You know, we would have solved them. there's not clear cut solutions. And the problem of law enforcement to me is akin to the problem of education in that there's not a lot of money in it, but it's an incredibly important part of the world, incredibly important part of our society.

1:15:58 Yeah. That's probably not exactly right, but that's close. Best book I've ever read on police mental health. We're up. You're recovering. But what happens within 24 hours? Well, you go back to work again. And you never get that recovery time to get back to a of become their police self and they lose their personal self. And so this is, I love Gil And so one of the things is you protect your off time and you use

1:20:41 And so here's maximum security setting. you're just kind of hard. Like, you know, and I thought, no, like she's, she's, and, and I'm, steel up, get tough, be ready for anything, have eyes in the back of my head, because I was working monitor if they want to stay balanced. The best of the cops that I know, and I know a lot of really They're mentally, you know, sharp.

1:23:56 Yeah, the description of that cycle is so important for people to recognize that, you know, Don't you think that a lot of these cops are Right. You might be in trouble. I'm going to pull all of those things, all the work that has already been done, and I'm going to tell all those angry political folks that are fighting with each other to hush, to stop fighting, that we've got really smart people who have already given it.

1:26:26 and to get people who are actually healthy, well, physically fit, as well as emotionally and mentally healthy, doing, but to pull in the academic piece as well and to say, hey, yeah, but we've been doing all Yeah. their constituents. It's so dangerous. And it's such a weird thing to hear coming out of mainstream politicians mouths be if someone was mentally ill, they went to the hospital and basically stayed there, right?

1:29:57 Crime rises. But I don't know any clinician that wants to do that by themselves. So if you defund the police as a team, but Well, and you've got the evidence right now. cops that worked on that who decided, you know what, retirement is the right thing for me right now. Again, it's just – it's a politicized perspective. Medication's politicized. He goes, I just don't want to be sick.

1:33:25 That's when you know we've gotten to a really messed up place. I gave kind of my practical answer. Yeah, I'm thinking in that. we aren't us and them we're humans yeah. We are people. We are victims of our circumstance. What would happen if we did that? They're a real problem. It would be to just start healing and putting people together and finding common ground and pulling us back together as a society.

1:36:39 You've got a whole group of things here. discussions about what should we look for? And, you know, in today's culture, and, you know, some more dramatic than others, but that we, we are made as humans that we have these implicit biases. And And it's really fascinating. And you have to respond according to instructions for keystrokes. And the notion is

1:39:31 But the thing is, it's not life. You could like go, oh, I know what they want me to do. I'm not advocating and saying it's perfect. Right. it to change it and decrease it and that's a great notion but they're trying really hard to But the problem that I see that makes me most nervous about it or reluctant to kind of jump on board here is that you really – it takes a lot of effort.

1:42:18 I've been to maybe two that were amazing. And if you do this, you're wrong. Because it sounds biased. So it seems like something that they have to do to show they're doing something. accusatory, but, you know, here are some of the things that, that folks who are really interested this group and that group. I just feel like trying to fix that in a seminar

1:46:36 What else you got in that paper that we didn't go over already? Yeah. Weird to hear your own voice in your ears. Totally weird to hear my own voice in my ears. So, you know, if there are cops out there listening and they're like, Oh wow, And then combine that with just this pervasive anti-cop and all of that, that that really could push people into into a dark place.

1:49:18 Suicide in general is high, so I can only imagine. stuff we talked about before feeds into that tough culture, not going to ask for help. In most cases. you got to be like the furniture. And I'm like, what does that mean? She's like, in the department, present. So things that have been suggested, you know, have a one day a month, have, you know, It's becoming familiar.

1:52:56 Thank you. so much of themselves into it i've just always had that soft spot um i'm glad you do and so yeah Yeah. Uh, I'll give you social media that people can go for. Yeah, that's why I say I function off email.