Citizens Behind the Badge founders Craig Floyd, Dennis Collins, and Bill Erfurth reveal how their 5-year mission transformed the national conversation from "defund" to "refund" law enforcement. After cities slashed hundreds of millions from police budgets following 2020, the devastating consequences became undeniable: homicides surged 30%, officers fled the profession, and response times skyrocketed.

But the pendulum has swung back hard. Minneapolis restored every dollar of their $8 million police cuts. A 53% drop in officer line-of-duty deaths proves increased public compliance. Senate resolutions now celebrate law enforcement instead of condemning it. The hosts expose how media lies about "systemic racism" crumbled against cold statistics: 99% of 62 million annual police interactions involve zero misconduct.

KEY MOMENTS:

• 2:24 - The moment defund movement triggered CBB's creation
• 13:17 - How cities went from cutting to restoring police funding
• 33:53 - ICE agents under attack: 700% assault increase
• 42:16 - Proof the pro-police culture shift is saving lives
• 49:05 - The statistical demolition of anti-police narratives

Join the movement at CitizensBehindtheBadge.org and help continue America's return to law and order.

#PoliceReversal #DefundToRefund #BackTheBlue #LawAndOrder #PoliceSupport #CitizensBehindTheBadge #LawEnforcement

Hey, a warm welcome back to Heroes Behind the Badge.

We tell real stories about real cops.

We expose the fake news about the police and we bring you the truth.

It's Dennis Collins.

It's Bill Erfurth, and it's Craig Floyd once again.

Bringing you the very best there is to offer in the world of law enforcement.

today we're gonna do something a little different.

A as this podcast is brought to you by Citizens Behind the Badge,

and we're gonna talk about Citizens Behind the Badge a little bit today.

Right?

Bill looks very comfortable there, very relaxed.

Craig is always chill.

He is always relaxed.

He is ready.

And today we just thought the three of us would reminisce a little bit.

we wanna go back, it's almost five years ago to the day

that a phone call.

I received a phone call.

Bill Erfurth received a phone call from Craig Floyd.

Craig, tell us about that phone call.

Tell us what the call was about and tell us why you made the call.

I retired in 2018, right at the end of the year, we had just dedicated

the National Law Enforcement Museum.

We had built the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.

We became a leader in promoting officer safety and wellness.

I felt like I achieved all the goals that I had set out, and it was time to

relax, have some fun, spend more time with family, and I was doing that, enjoying it.

And then all of a sudden, May 25th, 2020, something happened in this

country that changed a lot of lives, and that was the death of George Floyd.

And as we all know, right around that time, in the aftermath of his death,

there was what was called the defund and defame, the police movement.

All of a sudden, almost overnight, people were hating police officers.

These police officers were told that, they weren't doing a good job, that

we should reimagine policing, we should abolish police in some areas.

Abolish in some areas.

Yeah.

And it, it was appalling to me.

here's a guy that spent my whole life promoting law enforcement talking

about all the, great service, the extraordinary sacrifice put 24,000

names of fallen officers on the national law enforcement officers memorial,

and now people were denigrating.

the officers and the profession they served.

Yeah.

and it upset me.

It made me angry quite honestly, and I thought to myself, who knows more about

police as a private citizen than I do?

Okay.

I've met thousands of them and I wanted to do something in response

to this defund the police movement.

And the first two people I thought of when I said, Hey, let's start an organization.

That would stop this defund the police movement that would counter all the

negativity and all the lies about law enforcement that we were hearing.

So I called my two buddies, two of the people I'd worked

with proudly over many years.

we did a radio show together called Cop Net.

I knew both of you felt the way I did, and I thought we might be

able to do some good together.

So I called Bill Erfurth.

I called Dennis Collins and I said, how about the three of us start a

new organization, ProLaw Enforcement, to stop the defund, the police

movement, and we're gonna call this thing Citizens Behind the Badge.

We wanted to mobilize millions of citizens in support of law enforcement,

and we wanted to become the leading voice of law enforcement, of the

citizenry in support of law enforcement.

And I think over these last five years, gentlemen, we've done a pretty good job.

of, meeting our goals.

certainly many of them, and, doing a lot of good, I think, for

the law enforcement profession.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

these five years have gone fast.

We've done a lot of work, but, tell me what you all think about it.

Here we are five years later.

It's shocking that it's been five years because it's flown

by like nobody's business.

But I, will say, we can definitely take credit for changing that narrative

that you mentioned about the defund and defame, the police movement.

There are some exceptions to that rule going on right now.

We can look at this guy that's running for Mayor of New York.

Who wants to abolish the police.

He's saying he wants to abolish the police.

And the NYPD cops are bailing out of their left, right and sideways.

And you know what?

They're coming down to Florida.

And, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has been recruiting cops

from across the United States, paying them $5,000 bonuses to come moving

expenses in the whole nine yards.

And you know what?

Florida's a safe place to be.

It's all about law and order, and that's one of the things we can talk about.

We definitely have to talk about some of the legislative

achievements that, Citizens Behind the Badge has accomplished.

and Craig, you've done a yeoman's job.

You have been all over this and, but really good stuff.

He Continued the wonderful work that he did with the law

enforcement memorial and the museum.

And now we have actually helped to make a dent in this narrative.

and if you remember 2020, do you remember how many cities.

Actually did defund the police.

Minneapolis for sure.

I think New York was one.

Who else?

There were numerous others.

Los Angeles.

I could go down the list.

Literally Dennis.

Hundreds of millions of dollars.

We've documented this.

Hundreds of millions of dollars, was defunded from law enforcement

agencies across this country.

New York probably led the, field, but Los Angeles wasn't too far behind.

As you point out, Minneapolis is where it all started with

the death of George Floyd.

They, ironically, I love this, the hypocrisy, they cut $8 million

out of their police budget within months of George Floyd's death, and

then two years later they restored.

All of that funding to, because of their dwindling police force.

So many officers had left.

So much crime had occurred that the public just, couldn't take it anymore.

And they finally said, okay, we give up.

We're gonna give more money to law enforcement and try

to fix the mess we created.

And do you remember the whackado that was on the.

City council there for Minneapolis, and she was all about it.

She was always outspoken about defund the police.

We should have social workers respond to homes for these calls and domestics

and all this other crazy nonsense.

And then what happened?

Lo and behold, some scumbag.

Broke into her home.

I, and I don't remember the circumstances exactly, but I think was breaking

into her house or assaulted her.

And what'd she have to do?

She had to call the police.

How about that?

They came, Hey, how about.

She was lucky they were there, right?

I don't know, who knows what the response time is, but because

do you remember, here's a good example.

So Austin, Texas, and I, remember even today, Austin, Texas has turned

into a massive crime problem there.

And the DPS, the state troopers had to go in and may still be there and

are helping to police the streets of Austin because their police

department, I think is still one third.

Understaffed, but the crime that they have had in Austin has been

completely off the hook because of that.

And We're still seeing that in some places around the country.

the, states that support their law enforcement, conservative states,

conservative cities, I think that those places have rebounded and

recovered, but some other places that are liberal bastions of lunacy.

Are still reeling from it.

I like liberal bastions of lunacy.

Did you coin that phrase?

That's, is that a Bill?

I, did, I have that, on my wall as a, as my mantra.

we do know that staffing.

Is still well below, the pre 2020 level.

So we, that, that is something that is a fact about 10%.

That's something.

And we've talked amongst ourselves and Citizens Behind the Badge.

What can we do to help that?

I think the most important thing we can do is what we've done, and that is.

Get a, get hundreds of thousands of Americans to support this movement.

And I wanna talk today, Craig, about some of the things that you and we as

a group have done to help defeat this.

'cause there are some really important things.

We asked for contributions, we ask for decorations of

support, and we've gotten a lot.

I think our, fans are, the people that have contributed the wonderful

people who've, who, support this cause.

They need to know a little bit about what we've done to support them

and the people of law enforcement.

I.

Yeah.

And yeah, I bulleted-out a few of those, recently just to remind

myself all the things we've done to help law enforcement and to stop

this defund the police movement.

Let's start with, officers, as you point out, leaving the

profession in droves because they felt, unwanted, unappreciated.

They were literally putting their lives on the line for the public safety.

And yet, politicians were, berating them, crucifying them.

If they did anything, that looked perhaps like they used excessive

force, they'd be up on charges.

some of these officers were literally, charged with crimes

for simply doing their job.

So what we said is, let's send a message.

To the law enforcement officers of this country, some 800,000 plus,

and let 'em know that they are appreciated, that the vast majority of

Americans support them, respect them, and appreciate everything they do.

So we sent literally millions of letters to Americans around this country.

That's the only way you can reach, that many people.

And we got, an amazing response.

literally hundreds of thousands of these Americans have sent back.

declarations of support, oaths of support, letters of support, and

thank yous to police officers.

And what did we do?

We sent those, messages of support and appreciation to some 12,000 law

enforcement agencies across this country, so their officers would

know that the citizens they serve.

Have their backs, forget all the noise from the minority, if you will, the

few Americans who, who make a lot of noise, against law enforcement.

And we tried to mute their message and, give them a big thank you.

So that's one of the big things that I think helped to, now we're

seeing an uptick in retention and recruitment of officers.

And the other thing that I'm very proud of.

As we went to Congress and state legislatures and we gave them resolutions

of support for law enforcement, because the biggest problem for law

enforcement, I think, over the last several years has been the lack

of support voiced by politicians, by the local leadership, right?

And federal leadership.

So we went to the United States Senate, for example.

we worked with JD Vance for a couple of years, then he became vice president.

and this year we were able to get a resolution, approved

by the United States Senate.

introduced by, Senator Bill Cassidy from Louisiana that expressed support

for law enforcement in this country like you've never heard before.

We had all these, resolution clauses that said.

Law enforcement is sacrificing their lives for our safety.

Law enforcement is doing an amazing job.

There's some 24,000 names on the National Memorial and and by the

way, the United States Senate, fully supports and appreciates the

men and women in law enforcement.

And they called for full funding, and give them the resources they need to do

their job so that America can be safe.

And I couldn't be prouder of that.

In addition to lobbying for all kinds of other legislation.

At the federal and state level to enact tougher penalties against

criminals and to better protect the men and women who are out there

risking their lives for our safety.

So when you step up.

To support Citizens Behind the Badge.

You're making a pretty wise investment, aren't you?

An investment in signing a document to support police and making your

donation so that we can carry on the work as you just, told us about because

this takes one of the biggest thing.

one of the biggest things I think we've accomplished is we, launched

a national public education campaign that was directed to the American

people, but also to the legislators in this country, reminding them of

all the troubling consequences of the defund and defame, the police movement.

All the, lives that have been lost unnecessarily.

All the officers who left the profession in droves.

we, talked about, the.

Defunding hundreds of millions of dollars that, have gone elsewhere.

and public safety suffered terribly.

Okay.

We saw a major rise in crime the first year of, defund the police movement.

We saw nearly a 30% increase in homicide.

In this country, all right, there's no coincidence there.

Fewer police, slower response times, fewer homicides and violent crime

cases being closed, and cleared by police because there's fewer officers

who are out there to doing their job.

all of this was a very important part of our effort.

To turn the pendulum so it, started, swinging in the other more positive

direction because without that education, without that information

about the troubling consequences, I don't think people would've

reacted nearly as positively.

and as strongly as they did, and especially our

legislators in this country.

And we saw it in the last election, pro law enforcement, legislators,

elected, anti-police, soft on crime district attorneys replaced.

and I think we're seeing the results of, that election.

We're now seeing the pendulum swinging in the right direction.

And don't you remember we were reading about response times?

I remember reading like New Orleans.

The response time to an emergency call sometimes in New Orleans was an hour

response times in some other cities.

I'll go back to Austin, Texas again.

It was 25 minutes or some crazy thing like that, as it should be.

It's always been one cop per 1000 people, give or take the communities,

and the response time would be within several minutes on an emergency call.

The, problem that was happening was there were so few cops, it was such

a brain drain too, also, right?

It was a brain suck of, all of the knowledge, experience, and

backgrounds that so many detectives.

Special operators, cops, everybody that was working.

And, that was all gone because those people left.

And, just the response time to get to places and whatnot,

ha has been ridiculous.

But I'll tell you what's going on right now.

We've, really come a long way since the defund thing started, and we've come a

long way as an organization in these five years because we had to prove ourselves.

First of all, it's not that easy to prove yourself with other

cops because cops are question questioning and jaded and whatnot.

And then just your average citizen.

And, for the first few years there were a lot of people, what is this organization?

Are they legit?

Who are they?

Whatever there's been.

Great strides made in that particular area, especially with you, Craig, and

your outreach to all the, you've been able to now get databases of every

law enforcement agency, every chief, every congressman, every senator.

You're in touch with all of those people.

But, a TA that we work with, they've sent out millions and millions

of mailers and flyers over these five years, and I think people are

starting to really get to know us.

What everybody's backgrounds are.

And we've done all those things now.

And now we're doing this podcast.

I guess we're about, what, six months into doing this podcast, right?

Yep.

Think too.

And we actually have two pod, we have two podcasts.

Craig.

That's right.

Tell us about not only this one, but the other one.

Yeah, heroes Live Forever, is a podcast.

I started over a year ago now, I think it was May of last year.

And, basically I, for 34 years at the National Law Enforcement Officer's

Memorial Fund, I, honored the sacrifice.

Of more than 24,000 officers who've died in the line of duty.

And one of my favorite parts of that job was telling their story, not just

how they died, but how they lived.

All right, let's get to know some of these men and women so that the

American people can appreciate their sacrifice a little bit more perhaps.

And I told those stories and speeches and articles and, anywhere I went.

And so I said, you know what?

I'd like to continue doing that.

that was a passion of mine to honor these fallen law enforcement heroes.

And every week on Tuesday morning, 9:00 AM you will receive, if you're

a supporter of Citizens Behind the Badge, you'll receive a, podcast in

your email, that tells the story of a fallen American law enforcement hero.

And I just love telling those stories yesterday.

For example, I, put one out.

I was talking about the Haymarket Riot in Chicago.

Eight law enforcement officers were killed when a bomb was thrown

by an anarchist at a pro-labor.

Rally.

and they targeted police.

there were officers there in, in droves trying to help, keep the, peace.

And, this anarchist threw the bomb.

Eight officers died.

It was the third deadliest, incident in law enforcement history, back in 1886.

how many people are, talking about.

Incidents that happened in the 18 hundreds where eight law enforcement officers died.

We are all right.

And we're gonna remember and honor those fallen heroes just as we honor,

the heroes who, we lost this year and last year and, more recently.

So that's a very important part of the job.

And then obviously, heroes behind.

The badge.

I love this, podcast because we get to bring on the true

heroes of law enforcement and introduce them to the public.

Let them get to know who our law enforcement officers are, what

they're willing to do, the heroism, the courage, the compassion that

officers in this country have.

And, I think all of that is, is really helping to generate more support, more

understanding, more appreciation for the men and women in law enforcement.

Let me Craig, talk about the, just let's put, tell everybody

Substack and, the lo and the places where they can find this, though.

Substack is a great way to communicate.

I know it's new to a lot of people.

I've learned how to use it through my son, who was using it for his organization.

And the bottom line is Substack.

It offers anyone the opportunity to, communicate with a large number of people.

so basically we do op-eds, we do press releases, we do newsletters.

And we do our podcast on Substack, and we send that out to our thousands of

supporters, people that have said, Hey, I wanna hear more about what you're doing.

I, wanna be more involved.

and I want to hear these great stories about American law enforcement.

So you can sign up on Substack, you go to their, website, substack

dot com, and basically you look for Citizens Behind the Badge.

And when you do a search, you'll come to our substack page and

all you have to do is subscribe.

click a button that says I wanna be a subscriber.

And, and you'll be added to our list and you'll get everything that we send out.

usually I try not to overdo it.

we're talking about maybe one or two emails a week you might receive from

us, including, the Behind the Badge.

Heroes Behind the Badge Podcast, the Heroes Live Forever podcast, and any other

communication, pieces that we put out each week, in support of law enforcement.

So I'd encourage people to go there and they can always go to

our website, that's behind badge.

Or CitizensBehindtheBadge.org.

And, they can sign up for our Facebook.

they can be a follower on Facebook, a follower on LinkedIn, Twitter, or X now.

And, Substack, and YouTube, we all always put our podcast on YouTube and we're

getting a lot of viewers, going to our podcast, using our YouTube, website.

As well as LinkedIn.

As we've got LinkedIn as well.

So go ahead Dee.

No, I wanted to pause for a moment and if you're

new to this podcast, I invite you to go and look at the archives.

Okay.

The guests that we have had.

Wow.

What a lineup of true heroes.

we've been, and Craig.

If Craig doesn't know this person in law enforcement with his background at

the, museum and at the law enforcement memorial, if ER doesn't know him

with his 26 years of service in Miami-Dade, retired as a lieutenant.

if these two guys don't know him, they're probably not knowable.

And so we've been able to attract an amazing list of guests and they tell

their stories right here for you.

To hear and some of the stories you may already know.

And some may be new, but here's the difference.

It's in their words.

It's their words.

it's not written somewhere.

It's not some reporter interviewing them.

They're talking in their, we let them talk and they tell

what they're really thinking.

I highly encourage you to go back and look at the archives.

I also wanna remind you that this podcast, Heroes Behind the Badge is

sponsored by Citizens Behind the Badge.

That is another outreach.

We do to reach out and get the message, the right message, the

right narrative about law enforcement out to the American people.

And that's the whole purpose of this.

We, tell real stories about real cops.

We expose the fake news about the police, and we bring you the real truth.

That's the commitment that we have.

So remember, CitizensBehindtheBadge.org, I call it ORG, I guess it's a org.

Yeah, either way.

Either way.

Hey, can we talk about some current event stuff right now?

I want to throw this around.

no.

We don't wanna talk about that.

I, I, think that this is pretty important and,

we talk about this, Dennis,

I'm gonna talk about it anyway.

Billy's,

Dennis, you say this in your openings all the time about, we give

you the real truth, not the, Bs that the, media, the fake media is thrown out there

and the right, and, so let's talk about.

Let's talk about ice right now.

Let's talk about what's going on with them.

we talked earlier about, the defund, the de defame, the police thing is coming

back and, it's, getting better every year.

But, I just watched something the other day.

It was 700% increase in assaults.

And attacks on law, on, ice, on ice agents.

Right?

And this is being, and this is being organized.

I think it's really important for people to understand this isn't just some

organic, freak show of blue haired.

nose ring nut bags that are running around doing this, shit

Just offended half the population.

Go ahead.

Hey, those aren't our, that's not our population, right?

Those people are being supported behind the scenes.

there was an arrest made in LA where this guy was actually distributing masks.

He had a car load of masks and other guys riding around with a carload

of bricks and passing them out and, they're being funded, right?

They're all showing up.

Same time, same place you do realize you don't see these people.

protesting at, eight in the morning or nine in the morning because they've,

they smoke so much meth and cocaine that they, they can't, get functioning

that fricking early in the day.

Wow.

We really, but anyway, these people haven't we?

Yeah.

So let's, so besides those scumbags, how about the thing in

California at the marijuana farm, this is something that really.

Pissed me off that I want to talk about.

and it'll be funny, Dennis, because I'm, when I tell this story, and Dennis, you

used to ride with me multiple times when I was running the tactical narcotics team.

I did, yeah.

Tactical narcotics team, we'd make 35 50 arrests.

And we didn't put up with anybody's bullshit, but anyway, you can chime in

and see how you think we would've reacted.

Oh, so they're at, I already know.

Yeah, they're at this marijuana farm.

Okay.

They arrest 300 illegals, I think it was nine or 10 children, underage children.

All kinds of craziness went on.

And I think one of the points that everybody really needs to know

is, you know every, everybody's going, oh, they're migrant workers.

They're this and that, or whatever They may be okay it, it's still

illegal to come into this country.

But more importantly, I think digging deeper and digging down, people need

to know this: those people that are in this country illegally, whether they're

working on that marijuana farm, which in fact was the case or other places,

those people are supporting the cartels.

Those people are all sending money back to the Mexican cartels, and

it's an underground organized crime ring and that's going on.

Whether you believe it or not, that's happening with all of these

people because every one of them that crossed the border had to either pay.

Or are continuing to pay the cartels that smuggled them.

So those people are directly and indirectly affecting

crime and the cartels.

So that's a good point.

I wanted to say, here's the other thing.

This is,

I've never heard that, that's a theory I've never heard.

It's been discussed and I've seen it and read it in, in a

number of forums and it's, a problem.

So that's one way to,

Does Tom Holman agree with that?

Yeah.

As a matter of fact, Tom Holman was discussing that just the other day.

Okay.

And Tom Holman was discussing, this is about what I'm gonna say.

And even, Trump jumped in and said, the ICE agents gotta get out and do what

they gotta do to take care of business.

They have his full 100% support to take action against, lawlessness and crime.

So those people, those ICE guys are leaving the farm.

And those sons of bitches are out there throwing boulders and

rocks and bricks at their vehicles and exploding their windows.

And the one guy was wa running right alongside one of the vans.

And, they had tried to put a human roadblock and some bicycles there

to slow 'em down and ambush them essentially with these rocks and, bricks.

And the one guy ran right, along the side of that van and threw a massive rock.

into the passenger window.

Now, in Florida, at least it's called, hurling a deadly missile into a moving

vehicle, which is a felony and people are killed easily by people doing that.

Like stupid people throwing those things off of bridges on

highways or just throwing rocks.

Can you imagine that?

Here's my thought, and I know some people are gonna be, oh my God, this is so

over the top, but I'll tell you what, if I was driving that fricking van.

Ah, and somebody just threw a big boulder into my passenger window.

I'd have jumped out and shot him right in the face.

Wow.

And then the next ones that are throwing the, rocks and the,

bricks at the outcoming vans, they should have jumped out with a shotgun.

And blown their shit up.

You know what?

And that would've been the end of it because quite frankly, you would be

justified because that is lethal force being used against those ice agents.

And in return, a law enforcement agents agent can use lethal

force in defense of themselves.

Had they done that?

Of course the liberal lunacy media would've lost their minds, but

I'll tell you what, it would've ultimately been justified.

And what message would that have sent?

What message would that have sent, do you think?

That would've probably put an end to that because the SC

of the earth would see that.

And that would be like, I don't want that to happen.

I'm not so sure that they, care about consequences,

I can't speak for those people.

I don't think like those people, but I'm gonna guess they expect trouble and

they know they're gonna get confronted, and perhaps some of them could be.

Arrested and, killed.

they've been empowered.

They've been empowered because there hasn't been a lot of action

taken if they were getting their asses whooped, left, and sideways.

No, I've seen a lot of arrests.

I have not been at any rally, but, just watching tv I've seen I and local

authorities make a lot of arrests.

I don't know how many, but more than one.

when there's lethal force being used.

That's it.

That's the,

but, alright, let me ask you a question.

Let's say that you were in charge and you did what you just said.

What do you think the consequences of that would be?

first of all, I'm not even sure that it would've gotten

that far because if I was leading the charge, I'd have been shooting

tear gas, like rain, it would tear.

They were,

you noticed those films, there's tear gas

canisters all over the floor.

All over the ground.

Yeah.

and there were like out in the.

Farm.

But you know what?

You gotta have your recon people, you've gotta be ready.

If you've got an exit strategy and you're leaving there with people in custody

and you know that those guys are gonna be assaulting you, you gotta have your

forward advanced team and do the little bit of a recon and you gotta get out.

So those guys that were sh throwing rocks, you should have had a a, van load of guys.

And like I said, either you get out and they're throwing those rocks,

you shoot them or you just get out and you whoop their fucking ass.

Couple key points here.

One, bill, you've hit on something that, that I've always been amazed

at, quite honestly, and that is that police in those potentially deadly

situations show amazing restraint.

Absolutely.

All right.

These ice agents certainly would've been justified to use force against

the people that were throwing rocks, through their windows of their vehicles.

I saw it, on TV as well, and I was outraged and I was amazed that

the, ice agents didn't jump out.

And as you said, use.

Some kind of force, maybe lethal force, because they were trying to harm them.

There's no question about it.

But the other thing that I, think this hits on, and we saw it for

five years during the defund and defame, the police movement, and

that is the liberal voices who were more or less allowing and encourag.

Non-compliance with law enforcement, to somehow suggest that it's okay to throw

rocks at ice agents because, somehow the illegal aliens shouldn't be arrested,

and sent back home from where they came.

and these liberal voices are encouraging that type of violence.

Against police, against law and order, protest and disrespect

for the laws of this land.

And it's outrageous to me.

And they're complicit.

They're complicit legislators.

Yeah.

political leaders, people that, supposedly, have some responsibility for

the welfare of our nation are somehow encouraging this level of violence

and these attacks on law enforcement and disrespecting the laws of America.

And this has been the problem for the last five years.

it's getting better.

But as you're pointing out very clearly, we have a long way to go

because there's still a lot of nut voices out there that are somehow

allowing for this and, seemingly saying it's okay, to attack police officers.

Yeah.

And, you know what, and those people are totally complicit.

The media's complicit in all this, and they've encouraged this as,

have many of the politicians and some of the things they've said.

But let's say this, unless you're some meth head zombie.

most people have at least half a brain cell or some common sense to

know that if you throw something at a cop or you assault a cop or you

resist, something's gonna happen there.

When I went through the police academy and back in the day, back in the day,

when we, when, we were in the police academy, they literally taught us

if somebody puts their hands on you.

The rule is they go to the hospital and the thing of it is, and we used it, it

used to be like, there's this matrix use of force matrix kind of thing, right?

And, there was also this understanding that, if you were a cop and you let

some scumbag come up and verbally abuse you, and you tolerated that, okay,

you've just empowered that person.

So the next cop that they encounter now, they go and they spit on that cop.

if somebody spits on you, they should get their teeth knocked out and and if

you've just empowered that person that spit on you and you didn't do anything,

then now that same guy is empowered again, and now they go to the next cop.

So now what are they gonna do this time?

now they think, oh I've been able to verbally abuse, I've

been able to spin on him.

I'm gonna punch this guy in the face this time.

Each time because these people are being empowered.

It's the same with these SROs that are running around, at that

farm and the ice and whatever.

They just got to throw those rocks.

Hopefully those guys are being hunted down.

My only thought is the reason that The ICE agents didn't jump

out of the van at the time was because they didn't have sufficient

personnel in those vans to get out.

He had prisoners in those vans

And they had the prisoners that they had to secure.

Yeah.

and they probably only had one or two guys, and then in the

back of that van is the jail.

So anyway, my, my, point is, not, only is it seeming like policing is

coming back around, but it's, it's, The empowerment now, and, thank God that

Trump got on and said, I give a hundred percent full support and authorization

to take whatever action is necessary.

And that's what you need.

You need this.

Wouldn't, wouldn't you believe though, don't you believe?

I, think anybody who knows you, knows your views and they're very

strong views and you're saying them like it is right here, right now.

But wouldn't you also agree that policing.

Has changed.

Wow.

Clearly, dramatically, clearly somebody, curses at you or

something, or if they spit at you nowadays, that's not policing it.

You may say it should be, but it isn't.

That's not policing in the modern day.

And, unfortunately that's because of politics, politicians, and

liberal lunacy, because I still think the.

Vocal minority or the vocal minority is, or I'm sorry.

How, do we say this?

it's the vocal.

Minority that are out there that we're hearing from the silent majority are

the people that support the police.

You just don't hear from them as much.

But I, just, the people I was even with, this weekend, some people

that are ranchers and farmers, they, everybody wants the police to go

out there and take care of business.

Of course.

But taking care of business has been redefined.

You would agree with that?

and it be, and it has, it happened back in the eighties and the

nineties isn't gonna happen today, and maybe that's a good thing.

Maybe that's a good thing.

Maybe it's a good thing.

you can argue about that, about raising your kids.

Remember, it was like, okay, you got the belt or you got spanked or whatever, and

then all of a sudden we went through this, time period of, oh, that's child abuse

and it's this and that and the other.

But you know what?

There has to be a little bit of corporal punishment, and there

has to be a little bit of fear.

we talked about this all the time.

the people that are criminals, the scum of the earth, the scumbags, they don't have.

Any respect there is zero.

Zero respect for law enforcement.

You know what?

They respect violence, and it's, the respect of fear.

And fear is the only thing that they care about or that they're going to respect.

Because if they think that they're gonna get a beaten, if they

think they're gonna get shot.

That's the only thing that's drawn the line before between

the lawful and the lawless.

That's a pretty interesting line that you just.

I wanna shift gears just for a moment.

It's somewhat related, but, recently the National Law Enforcement

Officers Memorial Fund announced the mid-year fatality report.

How many officers died in the line of duty during the first half of this year?

And the news was rather positive.

All right.

42 officers died in the line of duty.

That was the bad news.

The good news is that was 53% less than the same time last year, and

it was one of the lowest mid-year fatality figures we've seen in decades.

Yes.

All right now.

Let's talk about the reasons for that.

All right.

Obviously, better training, better equipment.

We're now putting more money back to help protect and, allow our officers

to do their job safely and effectively.

But, bill, bill Alexander, who's now the CEO at the National Law Enforcement

Officers Memorial Fund, my successor.

He, he had an interesting spin on those numbers.

I saw him in a recent interview and he's saying that there has

been a shift in the culture here in America, which we've talked about,

which I think we helped generate.

All right.

and that is that now there is more respect for law and order, to your point, bill.

Whether it's because we are getting tougher on criminals, there's

definitely tougher laws now in place.

we saw California voters, one of the most liberal states in America.

Vote for tougher penalties for those that commit drug or, theft crimes.

Yeah.

in the last election, we, people are tired, sick and tired of being

criminal victims or being preyed upon by the criminal element.

And now, this shift in attitude has, maybe discouraged, some of these lawless

figures that you're referring to.

From disobeying the laws because there's no, they know there's gonna be penalties.

there's more respect for law and order, and for the police officers

out there serving, and as a result, there's more compliance.

All right?

Because you, you know better than I that every time you, do a

traffic stop or a pedestrian stop.

there's always a chance for this, unforeseen, volatile,

potentially violent moment to occur.

But if citizens that are stopped by police for whatever reason, are compliant and

basically obey whatever instructions they're being given by the officer.

There's less likelihood of anyone getting hurt or killed.

and as a result, we're seeing fewer officer fatalities.

I hope that trend continues and I think it, it, helps to, reinforce

your point, which is if there is a fear of consequences when you commit

a crime in this country, then I think there's gonna be fewer people

that are willing to commit crimes.

And hopefully there they will be, deterred.

Yeah, let's quote exactly what Alexander said.

Bill Alexander, he said, I believe his quote or something like this,

pro-police culture is making it safer for officers, right?

The message is clear.

If you step outta line, there will be penalties and persons stop by police.

There will be penalties, sorry.

And persons stopped by the police are becoming more compliant,

preventing potentially volatile encounters from occurring less

frequently, less frequently.

I think the ice thing that Billy brought up, it's real and it's wrong.

There's no question.

Okay, but let's also remember this.

The media is taking those little slices of things that

happen and blowing it up as if.

The whole, world is attacking police when it was one incident.

In one place.

I know it's been several places, but let's not overreact to that.

Okay.

I think the bigger message is that the culture is becoming safer.

Unfortunately, the ICE thing is a very emotional issue for people.

It's the, the ICE thing is maybe a bit of an outlier.

It doesn't affect law enforcement across the board, but I think it's you.

You still can't say it's just a couple of incidents because.

A 700% increase in assaults on federal law enforcement is pretty significant.

But, let's just dig deeper into this.

Craig, you mentioned about okay, there's more, respect

and, all those kind of things.

I think there's, you gotta look at, 10% of the population

roughly commits 90% of the crime.

It's the, recidivist and the recidivist crime.

Those people need to be hammered and put in jail and put in prison.

the no bond, these repeat offenders, you hear these stories time after

time about, people that have killed other people, rape, robbery,

whatever, and they're still out on the streets and they get their shots.

One other thing that plays into all of this, and maybe that

we're getting more respect.

Law enforcement or people are more compliant, as you say, Craig is.

There are cameras everywhere now, and the cops are wearing the

body cams, the dashboard cameras.

You can't walk down a street in a town or a city and you're not on a camera.

I think not only has that helped the police significantly solve crimes and

arrest people because of the cameras, but it's also made people a little bit more.

Compliant and aware.

And the funny thing about this is, when the cops first

started to wear the body cams.

All the liberal groups in the ACL U, they were all saying, this is gonna be great.

'cause now we're gonna be able to catch all of these cops

doing all the wrong things and unlawful unlawfully, brutalizing

people and all this other crap.

And you know what?

It didn't show that.

It showed just the opposite.

It showed how abusive, obnoxious, and outrageous that the people were to

law enforcement, and it completely flipped the script on them to the

point that now they started advocating to get rid of the fricking body cams.

what kind of hypocrisy there?

But you know what?

They work now.

It's become a fabric of law enforcement and it's made a big difference.

Okay.

I think too, one of the things I'm proudest of, with

CBB is that we have countered the media lies, and the, myths, the false

narrative, if you will, that's been put out there about law enforcement.

And I think that's one of the reasons why we're seeing more respect for

the men and women serving today.

Because, all those, accusations of, police being, brutal, racist.

we've totally debunked with the, data that's so clear that, just

the opposite that you know, of the 62 million interactions, between

police and the public, every year in this country, a force of any kind

is used less than 2% of the time.

It hardly ever happens.

All right, to Dennis's point, deescalation.

police aren't out there, using force, with any regularity.

it seldom happens.

And when it does, it's because a person that they're, that they've

stopped is not being compliant.

Okay.

the other issue of race, the defund, the police movement and Black Lives Matter.

Predicated on the idea that police are somehow racist.

systemic racism was charged by a lot of the liberals, in policing and,

the fact is that there is no evidence whatsoever that police are racist.

In fact.

When you look at the, all the data, it shows that, of all the people that are

stopped every year by police, initiated contacts with the public, they call it,

whether it's a traffic stop, a pedestrian, stop that 10% of whites, 10% of blacks.

10% of the Hispanic population are stopped.

All right.

There is no, statistical difference between the races or ethnicity.

police are blind when it comes to, whether the person I'm stopping

is black, white, or Hispanic.

it doesn't matter.

and all the studies have proven that out.

And, I think now that we've hit on that point over and over again, over these

last five years, it's made a difference.

Now people are willing more often to give police the benefit of the doubt,

in part because of what you said.

That we're seeing how they conduct themselves.

Of the 62 million people that were, that had an interaction with law enforcement,

they were surveyed by the Department of Justice, and it was determined that, 99%

of the people that interacted with police said, the interaction was conducted.

Properly, there was no misconduct at all involved.

and I think that says it all.

99% of the time police are conducting themselves professionally and honorably.

they're doing an amazing job, and we've finally been able to convince

the legislators, the public, the, even some of the liberal naysayers.

That, police are, doing a pretty darn good job for this country.

And that's why crime is starting to go down again, because we're giving

them the respect and the resources they need to keep America safe.

You'll never see, it's, you'll never see that stat in

the media, the stat, ah, never all

that's why we had to put it out there.

Yeah.

And that all is where the cops screwed up.

And Yeah.

There are some bad cops, guys, sorry to say it.

There are.

And they should be punished and they should be taken out.

They don't need to be policemen anymore.

Okay.

But you know that's, oftentimes, and nobody really understands

this, that's policed from within.

I was surprised myself when I was working and I was told by a friend of mine that

was working in, Internal affairs, 60% of the complaints that they got per year

in internal affairs, or whether it was just that year, I'm not sure, but 60% of

the complaints received came from within because, if I'm wearing that badge.

I don't want that badge to be tarnished or discredited by somebody that's.

A criminal, those people are washed out of those, out of the, ranks.

Hopefully they whatnot.

And it's pretty well policed.

It's, much more policed than the general public realizes it is.

And I wanna go back to something that Craig just said about.

About the statistics and stuff like that and go back to the media.

'cause this was another misnomer and it was basically just a lie.

So they did these studies, during the Obama administration.

I remember that.

everyone had to fill out a form.

Every time that you did a traffic stop, whether you gave a ticket, whether it was

a verbal warning, whether it was whatever it was, you had to fill out a form.

And it was a, basically, it was a racial profiling form.

I don't know how long it lasted.

It didn't last more than maybe a year or something like that.

It was just another bunch of.

Red tape, time consuming forms that you had to fill out.

And it was all about, it was all about ethnicity and race and all

this kind of stuff like that.

And they tried to, the media and everybody else tried to skew those numbers because

let's, face it, think about this.

If you're a cop in Memphis, if you're a cop in Detroit, if you're

a cop in any inner city area, right?

And it says, oh, 90%.

The traffic stops that were made were stops against black people.

Don't, 90% of the people that live in that area aren't nine, aren't those 90% black?

same in, Miami.

Okay.

Miami, I think Miami proper is something like 65 or 60% Hispanic.

So isn't going to make sense.

Probably the vast majority of the people that you're gonna stop

within Miami are gonna be Hispanic.

So they never used that to say, okay, what are the demographics here?

So how, you know if, you're, in lily white neighborhoods, who are you stopping?

You're stopping white people.

it just, there was so many things that were misconstrued and misunderstood there.

I think.

Well guys, as always, we end up, we could talk.

On and on about this.

there's no end to, some of these topics, but there is an

end, and this is our police.

the, there is an end to the pod, this podcast, and we have come

to that point where we must end.

But guess what?

We have unearthed a bunch of topics, haven't we?

We've unearthed a bunch of topics, particularly one that's, that

I'm fond of getting into is the media narratives about police.

And we've talked about that at Citizens Behind the Badge.

What can we do to be a watchdog?

And that's part of the job that we do.

We look for the inequities.

We look for the fake news, and we expose the fake news.

So that's one of the things you can help us with by joining

us CitizensBehindtheBadge.org.

CitizensBehindtheBadge.org.

Okay.

On there you could find all, all about Bill Erfurth and his interesting career.

It's all there, all about Craig Floyd and how he, has been a, an advocate

for law enforcement for many, years.

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Okay.

Help us continue this mission.

It's starting to work.

We've been a part of it, but there's more to do.

We gotta keep the watch.

We gotta keep the watch.

As Craig says, we're one election away from possibly

going in the wrong direction.

We've gotta be vigilant and we will be vigilant.

So I'm going to say on behalf of Bill Erfurth and Craig

Floyd, I am Dennis Collins.

I'm going to say thank you for listening.

this was a little different show.

May, maybe we should do this again.

What do you think?

Give us some comments.

maybe, not.

I don't know.

What do y'all think?

Give us some comments and we'll, listen to your comments.

But this has been Heroes Behind the Badge, we tell real stories about real cops.

We expose the fake news about the police, and we bring you the real truth.

See you soon.