This week on the Thoughts from the Crawlspace podcast, Jamie Miller, CEO of Gold Key Home Inspections, Inc., speaks with Chief Carlos Jasso from the Shipshewana Police Department. Carlos shares his inspiring journey from a challenging childhood in Mexico City to becoming a law enforcement leader in a small town. He emphasizes the importance of home safety and personal security, providing practical tips for homeowners on how to protect their properties and themselves, especially when leaving and returning home in the dark. Giasso also touches on self-defense laws in Indiana, explaining the rights residents have to protect their homes and families.

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Episode Highlights

• Homeowners should prioritize securing their homes with proper locks and lighting.
• Situational awareness is crucial for avoiding dangerous situations and potential threats.
• Prepare your home with automatic lights to deter unwanted intruders when you are away.
• Self-defense laws in Indiana allow homeowners to protect their property and family.
• Training with firearms is essential to ensure safety and effective use in emergencies.
• Homeowners should always call 911 if they suspect a break-in or threat.

Timestamps

(00:00) Welcome to Thoughts from the Crawlspace

(00:45) Introducing Chief Carlos Giasso

(01:18) Carlos Giasso's Journey to Law Enforcement

(02:57) Overcoming a Violent Childhood

(08:08) Becoming a Police Officer and K9 Handler

(23:34) Self-Defense and Home Safety Tips

(28:46) Understanding Your Rights in Indiana

(30:26) Preparing for Emergencies: Firearm Safety

(38:48) Conclusion and Resources for Homeowners

Welcome to thoughts from the Crawlspace, a podcast where our goal as home inspection experts is to support and serve our community.

Whether you're a homeowner, home buyer, real estate agent, or investor, we believe everyone deserves solutions to their home ownership, challenges and inspiration along the way.

Your path to success starts here.

Welcome, everybody, to another episode of thoughts from the crawlspace.

Today we have a figure that really meets all the criteria for what we want on this podcast.

We want inspirational figures.

We want insight into overcoming obstacles.

We want people that can inspire us.

We want people that can give us tips on being safe homeowners and things like that.

Today we have Chief Carlos Giasso from the Shipshewana Police department who is going to be here to share his incredible story.

He's not going to be here.

He is here to share his incredible story and.

And just give you some tips on how to protect your home, how to protect yourself, how to maybe set up your home when you're gone so it's not as likely to be a target and things like that.

So, first of all, chief, thanks for coming in today and taking time out of your busy schedule.

Well, thank you for having me.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, you're very welcome.

I've looked in your bio a little bit, and things didn't necessarily start off easy for you in life, but that's kind of led you to where you're at today.

So just give us a little insight into your background, where you came from, and kind of what shaped you into becoming a police officer.

Okay.

Definitely not an easy start, I would say, but I'm definitely grateful that things happened the way they did.

Obviously, there's always.

There's a plan for each of us, and my plan seems to have worked out for me very well.

So I was born in Mexico City, which is one thing that when people ask me where I'm from, they think about my background originally, where are you from?

From Lagrange or Shipshawana.

So, yes, I was born in Mexico City, grew up there, attended school when I was younger at a private school, which is completely different than my experience after that.

And back then, I believe Mexico City was one of the largest cities in the world.

The third largest, I want to say.

That's what I was thinking while you were talking.

That's one of the largest.

Yes.

So my experience living in the states, definitely, I can see differences from my childhood growing up there and then living in the states.

So I grew up in Mexico City.

I want to say, if I remember correctly, we lived somewhere in the northern part that's what I remember.

Just to recap on that real quick, I was the product of a violent family, obviously.

My dad was very an aggressive person.

And I really, truly believe that that's what drove me to law enforcement.

That, along with other minor pushes in life, throughout life and experiences.

But growing up in a violent home, it showed me what I did not want to become.

For sure.

At a young age, I remember moving around.

My mom was.

She's an excellent, very strong woman, excellent person.

And I believe she saw what was coming if we stayed with my dad.

So it was important for her to get us out of that life.

So after moving around the city, she made the decision to move to the states that we needed to relocate and move.

So we ended up moving to the states where we had relatives who have lived here all over, really, and stayed with them for some time before she made a home for us.

Wow.

Well, that sounds unlike a lot of childhoods out there.

I mean, here you are moving around one of the largest cities in the world, trying to avoid violent tendencies from your father.

Yes.

So you go from one of the largest cities in the world and you end up settling in Shipshewana, which is one of the smallest populated cities around.

I guess you couldn't call it a city.

Yeah, a little town.

But eventually, yes.

So originally we lived in Lagrange.

Originally.

And not much bigger.

No, not much bigger.

But it was definitely a change.

Leaving everything, everyone who I knew behind just for an opportunity to be happy, to be, I guess, in peace.

Yeah.

So you left everything you knew, you left a huge city to come to a small town, and you left a warm climate to come to, not a warm climate.

Yes.

You could say as a child, I never.

I never knew all those things.

It was all presented to me when we arrived and we were greeted at the airport by family members who had lived here before, you know, and definitely seeing snow for the first time.

That was awesome.

That was great.

I'm like, what is this?

This is great.

I've seen it on tv, but never really experienced it, so.

But yeah, I think that that part of my life, my childhood, I give a lot of credit to that because of the.

That has made me.

I feel that has made me the person who I am today.

Yeah, well, I love your outlook on that.

We talked before we went on air, that you made the conscious decision you did not want to be like that.

Like your father was.

That's correct.

And so, so many times we see generational patterns where they follow each other and they keep.

They keep going that way.

And so that's an, that's just an incredible accomplishment to make that conscious decision.

You don't want to be like that.

So eventually that led you to IUSB, where you took some.

You majored in criminal justice or something like that.

Right.

So I attended Lakeland High School.

I graduated from there.

And I remember having the interest in law enforcement back then through shows, old shows that I don't think they're around anymore unless you find special channels.

But through watching, there was a show called Rescue 911 and also stories of the highway, California Highway Patrol, and a lot of those were reenactments.

There weren't many videos like there are today in car videos or body cameras.

So after graduated from there, I didn't immediately go to college.

I took some time off.

But then, yes, I attended IUSB, and I went into criminal justice.

Like a police officer, someone aspiring to be a police officer would do.

Yeah, well, that's funny that.

Some of those shows you mentioned.

I remember some of those, yes.

And I think my favorite is Andy Griffith show.

That wasn't part of it, was it?

I remember watching that, too.

Yes.

That didn't want them.

It didn't make me want to be a police officer.

But it was very entertaining.

But it was great.

It was so funny.

I loved it.

And for some reason, those old shows always had something to teach, something that you.

Something good that you got out of those.

I remember that exactly.

Yeah, no doubt.

So I was reading through bio, some of the things that you have been instructed in overall, I guess first we should start.

When did you join the police department?

In Shipshewana.

So this happened while I was still going to college.

I joined the Shipshewana police department.

Reserve unit.

And what that is, is that volunteers who qualify to be police officers, but they are not paid.

So it's a unit that most people who would join that are people who are interested in law enforcement, they would like to see what it's like before they make the decision to do it full time, or people who have experience and volunteer to help their community.

So in my case, it was great because I got the opportunity to go to school, learn theory, but also come back in working as part of the reserve department to get practical application of it.

So I loved it.

It was great.

It was like double dipping and learning.

It was great.

That made me realize that this was something I wanted to do in the future, you know, back then, thinking.

That's when I joined the reserve department.

Okay.

My intention was to attend the Indiana State Police Academy.

That's what I wanted to do.

So I thought that while I learned being a reserve officer and while I was in college, I would get some experience to do that.

Yeah.

Awesome.

So throughout the years, you have let me put my glasses on so I can read some of this, but.

And just touch a little bit on these and what this means.

What kind of, you know.

Well, these certifications have krav maga.

Oh, Krav Maga and close quarter combat.

Yes.

So once I attended the.

The academy, I graduated.

I actually went to a class to become an instructor, an Indiana law enforcement academy instructor, so I could certify officers.

Well, there are certain skills that you have to.

That you can become a trainer on or instructor.

So psychomotor skills where you can teach physical tactics, which.

That's where the Krav Maga falls into.

You can become a firearms instructor or an emergency vehicle instructor.

All those three are the major ones.

So what I decided to do was go into physical tactics, defensive tactics.

So Krav Maga is one of the second schools that I went to or went through to be able to teach that martial art, close quarter combat.

It's very basic stuff that police officers can learn and teach for self defense and to be able to effect arrest.

So that's one thing I did.

I received certifications in that.

I believe I was the only one at that time, during that period of time that had the certifications to train our police officers in that.

So nice.

You also mentioned, and you shared a story that you wouldn't mind sharing again, you were a k nine officer.

Yes.

So I don't know if that's what it's called.

The officer.

Is that the actual dog, the canine officer, or is that the handler?

Yeah.

So it would be a k nine handler.

Okay.

Most people will say, oh, are you a canine officer?

And yes, the truth is, yes.

So canine would be the title for the police police dog.

Yeah.

So you've done that a few times, actually.

Yeah.

So I got the opportunity to attend the police canine academy in Allen county with my first dog.

Now, if you don't know this, police dogs are or dogs that are going to be used in police work, they come from overseas.

Oh, I did not.

So they are not bred in the states.

There's not many breeders that do that, and the reason why they do that is because they want to keep the bloodline as pure as possible.

So my first dog, his name was Xander, and he was what we call in police work a green dog.

He wasn't trained.

He had some experience with biting, which dogs do, but what I mean is in an aggressive manner.

So he was introduced to, okay, this is a bite sleeve.

But there was no control.

There was no training to control the dog, to control that, when to tell the dog when to buy or when not to.

So you get a green dog.

And I was actually very fortunate to go through the police canine academy in Allen county with the first group of state troopers to go through for the state police to get police work all around police dogs, meaning that they do everything they do human traffic or tracking, not trafficking, human.

Human tracking.

They will do evidence search, aggression control, which that's the important part of it.

You can teach a dog how to bite and what to do when they bite, but you also have to be able to control them and tell them when to let go.

Right.

So they're an all around police dog.

So it was really awesome because I went through that school with troopers for the first time, the state police was doing having police canines that way.

Nice.

Yeah, well, I think a lot of people see tv shows and they see how they react, but it's nice to meet someone that's actually worked with them and knows the ins and outs of dogs.

Yes.

Of the canine dogs.

And it took me a while.

I was learning along with the dog as well.

My first time going through this, I had to learn.

We actually went through two full weeks of classroom before we even, we received the dogs.

I want to say for the first five weeks, once we got the dogs, we didn't get to take them home.

They had to stay at a kennel in Allen county because, and this happens to most canine handlers going through the program, a lot of times those dogs, your own dog will bite you because they haven't taken on you.

They haven't accepted you as the alpha.

But yes, and they're awesome, amazing, very intelligent dogs, especially german shepherds.

And as I mentioned earlier, they are like kids.

They like to, they do a lot of things like two or three year old kids, and they definitely like to push the line so well.

And you had mentioned off air about one that you were training in the winter and it was eight below or something, and the dogs jumped out and jumped right back in the car.

Yes.

He was like, not today.

So on that occasion, it was very funny, and it was the first time that I really had the question marks hovering over my head.

So the dogs have a kennel in the back of the police vehicle where they have plenty of room.

So that morning, we had training.

We had to track.

Someone had already walked through that path, leaving their scent behind for us to train, for us to track, for the dog to be able to get the scent.

So that morning, it was so frigid.

I remember that I was cold.

And when it was time to start tracking, I had my master trainer with me.

I got the dog out, so I got him.

I'm like, all right, come on.

He jumped out of the back and immediately he gave me that look like, I don't want to do this.

And he jumped right back in.

He didn't want to do it.

So I looked at my canine master instructor and I was like, okay, what do I do?

And he was like, well, you have to make him.

He's like, he doesn't want to do it.

It's too cold.

You have to make them.

So same thing.

I'm like, come on, you got a track, let's go.

He jumped outside and almost went back in again immediately.

But I stayed on him and I was like, nope, track.

Track.

And I walked probably, I don't know, 100ft before he finally put his nose down and said, fine, I give up.

I'm doing it.

And he did.

He did great.

But it was one of those things where I immediately realized, yes, they are like humans.

And there are times, yeah, sometimes they don't want to do something, but if you stay on them, they finally like, okay, fine, I'll do what you're asking me to do.

That's funny.

So you became a corporal in zero six and a canine handler.

Yeah.

And so some of your other certifications are the vehicle crash investigator.

Yes.

Less lethal instructor, a computer voice stress analysts analyst.

And you also mentioned also the emergency response team.

Yes.

For Lagrange county.

And the Rad instructor, which is self defense for women.

So talk about that just a little bit.

Yeah, what that is.

So I've been an instructor for Rad for a while.

And what that is is basically self defense for women.

We teach that.

We assist the Westview Police Department at the Westview High School every year, teaching young girls.

Normally it's freshmen, 9th grade, but I believe this year we're actually teaching the 8th graders.

Since we were a large amish community, a lot of those girls leave school by, that's their last year, 8th grade.

So we're trying to get to them before they're done with school, which I believe is going to be very helpful.

It's a great idea.

So that is a program that, where we teach basic self defense techniques, but also we educate a lot of the prevention because that's one of the things that most people don't think about.

I've been asked before, so what do I do in this situation?

And usually my response is, well, you're looking at it wrong.

You're looking at it like, okay, things already happened, I'm in it.

We should be looking at things way before that.

How do I prevent getting in, being in that situation?

That's.

That's better.

Definitely.

You.

You have time for that.

You.

You can allow, if you prepare that way and think ahead, then you're not in that situation.

Then you don't have to think about that situation.

Obviously, there.

There's situations that you can't avoid.

Things are gonna happen, people will do things.

So then at that point, that's where your response comes in as far as the self defense.

But we do talk about things like, okay, preparing for leaving the house, preparing for your return at home.

If you're returning late at night when it's going to be dark, what do you carry with you?

How do you walk?

What do you do if you suspect someone's following you?

Things of that nature.

So I think more than anything, it boils down to being aware of your situational awareness, being aware of where you're at and everything around you.

And one reason I bring that up is because this podcast goes to a lot of real estate agents and real estate agents, I'd say the bulk of them are ladies.

Yes.

And many times they're alone, they're with a.

But, you know, someone is trying to buy a house, so they're showing them houses could be in remote locations and so forth.

And so we teach a lot of safety regarding that.

And so that's essentially what you're saying is, let's prepare ahead of time so we don't get in situations where it's life or death or, you know, or some kind of violent attack like that.

That's correct.

I think definitely preparation is better.

And one thing that I like about preparation is that once you've thought about something or you have a plan, you don't think about it in the process all over again because you've thought about it.

It's already.

You've created that mental path.

Well, this is what I'm gonna do if this happens, right?

Or let's just say simply leaving the house.

You leave early in the morning, making sure your vehicle, if you don't have a garage that your vehicle is visible, that there's lighted.

Maybe you have a post light outside that should be turned on when you return home.

Do you have automatic lights that will turn on automatically as soon as it's dark enough or at a preset time?

The curtains.

Curtains in the house, should you have those open?

Should you have them closed if you're returning home, if you have the light on, just paying attention to those things, you're going to be able to see.

Okay.

Well, the house looks, everything looks normal.

It looks like I left it.

But then you're not surprised by dark areas thinking about those things ahead of time.

Like, okay, if I came home, if somebody wanted to sneak up on me, could they do it?

Where could they do it?

What areas am I concerned about?

Just thinking about things like that will definitely put you ahead of the game.

Evil loves darkness.

It does.

So get that light in more than one way.

Nowadays.

Everything is so much accessible.

Cameras, automatic lights, anything like that.

It's so easy to get that.

And they're not very expensive, but they do make a big difference.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No one likes to be detected.

Yeah.

Ironically, when they're doing things.

I know, isn't it crazy?

I immediately think of cockroaches when you turn the light on and they all scatter.

That's what makes me what I think of when I think about automatic lights.

Well, criminals, period.

Yeah.

Like, why would you do that?

Briefly, let's touch on life here in Shipshewana.

What are some of the biggest challenges that you find leading your force in a town of 850 but that swells to thousands on particular days?

Yes, definitely the numbers that we get.

We're such a small town.

And when I say such a small town, man, I don't know if we're even 2 sq mi of the size of our town with only 850 some residents, actual residents.

When our numbers are showing that we have, on average, when we have flea market days, up to 15,000 visitors a day, with that, we have so many events in shows and venues.

For artists to come for concerts is just planning.

There's a lot of planning on what I do, and using the resources that we have is definitely challenging to be able to say, okay, so what are we doing this week?

What major events do we have?

How do we prepare for that?

Do we have what we need?

Yes, we're a small town, but we have big city problems, I'd say.

Well, I remember back to the Andy Griffith days.

They would deputize people when they needed extra help.

Yes, just sign us up.

No kidding.

Of course.

But let's talk a little bit about homeowners.

Yes.

Maybe you're gone a lot.

You work a lot.

You're, you know, coming up.

Our hours are getting kind of.

Our daylight hours are limited.

Yes.

Right.

So let's say you leave in the dark, you come home in the dark.

What are some things a homeowner can do to.

Well, you already talked a little bit about with rad, what you teach people to do.

But what are some practical things homeowners in this town, or any town can do to protect themselves in that situation?

Okay.

So some of the things that come to mind is, first of all, if you were leaving early, right.

Making sure that your house is secure, locking the doors.

I can tell you that here in Shipshawana.

It's an awesome town.

I love it.

It's great.

There's always a sense of security when you're in Shipshewana.

You're like, you know, most of us would like to think that nothing ever happens here.

Unfortunately, I'm on the side where I get to see everything that happens.

Right.

So there are things that happen.

So we want to prepare.

We want to think.

Well, first line of the fence is going to be your locks.

Door locks.

Okay.

You want to make sure that everything's.

Or the doors are locked.

Windows are locked.

If you don't expect to come back until late, then I would say set up some type of lighting.

The automatic lighting is perfect.

I love it.

I use it.

I actually have one of those assistants at home.

I don't want to say the name because if I say it and someone's listening to this, it's going to turn all their lights on.

But you can set those things to be automatic.

Mine, as soon as it detects that it's dark enough, all the lights outside the house come on.

And even my living room.

Okay.

It's a good way to maybe deter people who might be thinking about us doing something, because, hey, it looks like somebody's home, right?

Sometimes I do that with music.

I'll have the music turn on for my pets so that you can hear that someone's at home.

Right.

So you remove that opportunity of maybe the person who.

By opportunity, just by being there and seeing that there's an opportunity there, maybe you take that away, you know, like, okay, not this house.

Someone's there, or it's too light.

I don't want to be seen.

So locks, lights and noise.

Yes, definitely would be.

So that would be leaving the house.

Now, if you have a garage.

Obviously, it's.

That's helpful.

You can always come in and go out and close it behind you.

But if you don't, I think a lighted driveway, that would help, because then you can see coming back, you can see everything.

And that's very helpful.

I like to say that we're usually surprised by the things that we don't see.

That's what's going to surprise us.

I mean, things that we're not expecting.

So if we can see, the more we can see, the better.

Returning home.

Right.

Returning home.

Then at that point, everything's lighted.

You can see everything.

Your doors, your windows.

I would say that the moment that you see something that doesn't seem right, okay.

I would not go into the house.

I would back up.

And if you see your door's been busted in, it's broken, the locks are broken, a broken window, something out of place, I would contact the police department immediately.

Hey, I think something's going on, because your local police department will come out and check it out for you, make sure that everything's safe.

It could be nothing.

Maybe on the way out, the person forgot to completely close the door or the window, which is fine.

I'd rather come out and check it out and find out that nothing happened, then not get a call and have something happen.

Yeah.

I think it's easy in a town like this to have us.

Your senses get dulled a little bit.

You don't expect things like that.

I know just from personal.

When we built our house 20 years ago, the day before our garage doors got installed, somebody broke in, stole every tool I had that was building house with.

And they did that to the neighbor next door, stole all their appliances one night before they moved in.

I do remember that.

You remember that would have been right when you were here.

Yes, I do remember that.

And so, you know, that puts you on edge just a little bit.

But then there's been other times where you forget to close your garage door at night, or you leave your car outside and you left stuff in it and you didn't even lock it, and you come out in the morning and you're like, good thing I live in Shipshawana.

Yeah.

You know, but it's still only takes once.

Exactly.

And I think with.

With everything.

And obviously, this is not meant to put everyone on edge, and we should always be looking at every corner.

But if you put yourself, if you make yourself work up to the point where, like, you're taking a second look or you're verifying things twice.

You know, that puts you ahead of the game.

It's not as easy to become a victim of someone who's just waiting for that opportunity.

So, with regards to self defense, we touched a little on some of the questions I had posed to you.

What you write is a homeowner if there's an intruder.

So, worst case, all the things that we just talked about don't work.

Somebody is bent on doing damage to you or taking something from your house.

They kick in your front door in the middle of the night, or when you're there alone or with a family.

What are the inherent rights that we have, especially maybe in Indiana, that we can rely on?

Yes.

So Indiana does provide a statue for self defense.

So in order to protect yourself, I mean, any Indiana resident has the right to defend their home.

Okay?

Their home.

Not only their home, but anything attached to their home.

Their porch, their garage, anything that.

Any building that someone might be living in.

So like a dowdy house, something that may not be attached to the building, but it is part of the property if someone's living there, and a vehicle, if it's occupied, then you have the right to defend that as well.

In what Indiana statutes basically states, is that you have the right to protect yourself by any means.

If someone's trying to commit to attack you, if someone's committing a felony against you, a crime, in this case, somebody breaking in.

Right.

Somebody breaking in the middle of the night.

You hear noises, the window breaking.

Yeah.

So obviously, being in Lagrange county, we have many firearm owners in case which.

That would be one of the options.

The one thing that I would say is, if there is time, this is my suggestion, if there is time, call 911.

Okay.

Obviously, there may be a situation where it takes.

It's gonna take us a couple minutes to get where we need to be.

Right?

Right.

So you may be your own defense, you may be your own protection at that point.

So firearms, they are a viable option.

What I would say is definitely be familiar with the firearm, be familiar with the use.

There are police departments who put on courses for civilians to learn basics about their.

Their firearms.

Our police department does that.

And I believe we're going to be doing that at the start of the next year.

So that would be great.

I know, I love that point you bring up, because the training I've done, when you're in a stress situation, you know, when somebody breaks in and you have to resort to that, your fine motor skills disappear.

And the only thing that you have is your training.

You rise to the level of your training and stressful situations.

So if you have that firearm that you inherited or somebody gave you or you bought and you've never practiced with it, you're better off not even trying.

Right.

I believe in that scenario, get away is the best option, obviously.

But if you're in that situation, you need to be moderately trained, at least.

Yes.

Definitely have an understanding of how fire firearms work, how guns work.

And I.

The other thing I would suggest that I would definitely emphasize is know your target, know who it is that you're using that firearm against.

Right.

We need to be aware of what's going on, but also take the time to identify who it is.

Could it be someone surprising you in the middle of the night?

Someone who you maybe didn't expect, a relative, a kid getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom?

So we have to be very cautious of our target and what's beyond that.

So definitely, I would suggest anyone who owns firearms that they.

If they don't have any experience with them, to take a class, even if you have experience with it, you know, hone in your skills.

That's great.

Yeah.

I think it's like anything else you want to be good at.

You need to do it regularly.

Yes.

You know, you could take all kinds of training, and then if you quit for a couple of years, you've.

That's a skill that you need in a pressure situation.

So real quick, we're not going to dive too much into every scenario possible, but if someone comes into your house, you get up, you may present a firearm, and they turned around and leave.

You don't have the right to shoot them in the back.

Right.

That's.

That's a very important.

That's a very important point.

So since we do have the right to defend ourselves in Indiana, but defending yourself is not chasing down the intruder out of the home, out of the.

Into the yard, out to the street.

That's where I have seen.

Not in our area, but I have read and watched videos of homeowners getting in trouble for that, because at the point that you chase someone who's retreating, that's no longer self defense.

You can't use the defense of self defense at that point because you're actively chasing somebody down.

So the moment that you're no longer.

That threat is no longer against you, then your use of force should cease.

Okay.

Should be at that point, like, okay, he ran out the window.

Perfect.

You should still take precautions.

Stand by, get on the phone.

If you haven't with the police, 911 is the fastest way, obviously, someone's going to pick up that phone.

You know that, right.

So 911, there's people who will call, maybe the business line, and that should not be happening.

That's emergency.

Any emergency.

I would say 911.

If you think you have an emergency but you're not sure, I would still call 911.

911 might tell you.

Okay.

Yeah, that's really not an emergency.

So call this number.

Yeah.

Your pizza's late.

It's okay.

It's not an emergency.

Right?

Yes.

I'd rather people call 911 if they believe something's happening to get us there.

I mean, it's gonna take us a little bit to respond, you know, certainly call has to go through dispatch.

Dispatch has to type in all the notes and get us en route.

But definitely as soon as your life is not in jeopardy anymore, then your use of force should subside.

Yeah, I think there's that instinct, especially in a lot of guys, that I'm gonna protect my home.

You scared us.

I'm gonna take care of you.

But you can't do that or you'll be in trouble.

You'll end up being the one in jail instead of the person.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And that's definitely something we don't want.

Yeah.

So the average.

The stats I've read, the things I've trained with, the average gunfight is within three yards, three shots, and takes about 3 seconds.

Yes.

Very fast.

Yeah, it's very fast.

That's why your training has to be.

I mean, you just rise to your natural, natural level.

But if that's not happening, they're taking off.

And I like what you said earlier about the vehicle.

If you're in it, you can defend yourself, but if someone's breaking into your car out in the driveway, you can't just take a shot at them, right?

Yeah.

Once.

You always got to think about it this way.

Is my life or somebody else's life in danger?

At this point, if the answer is no, then you're done.

That use of force should stop.

It shouldn't continue even in a vehicle, because we have that.

We've seen a rise in road rage.

People are very angry anymore.

They drive fast, and they get into arguments and situations where they will use violence.

So if that's no longer a threat, somebody's trying to break it in your car, and you have your kids with you.

I mean, if that happened to me, obviously I'm going to have to defend my family.

Right.

But the moment that that person retreats and leaves, okay, then at that point, it's done.

You're no longer defending yourself.

Yeah.

And so I think the one of the best aspects of a firearm is just deterrence.

Yes.

We hope we, no matter how much training, we never want to have to use it, but it's a great deterrent.

So touch again on the class that's coming up in the spring, or you're planning on doing the class.

We're still in the planning stages.

I'm going to have a meeting with some of my officers, who will be the instructors.

They are firearm instructors, so I would listen to them.

We've had this before.

A couple years back, we held two different courses, and so we will advertise it.

We'll use the town of Shipshawana's webpage and other venues to put it out there.

So there is a fee involved.

It's not much, but there is some cost involved in putting these courses together.

But it will include some classroom time where we become familiar with their weapons, some of the laws that are in place, which in this case, we would talk about the self defense and using firearms in the functionality of handguns.

We've seen everything in those two courses we had.

We've seen people who just purchased a firearm and also people who had some experience, and they just wanted to get more, be able to get some trigger time.

We will use the range, our range, to get some practice done, and so I think it's very good.

The reviews we had were positive, and they gave us some guidance to where we can make the next courses even better.

Awesome.

Well, I really appreciate you coming in today.

This has been very insightful and helpful, and your story is incredible.

I love that you've been here 20 years.

People don't stick around in jobs like that.

I know it's crazy to think that since my plan was to go to the state police, but I found church wanted to be the place I wanted to be in, so.

Yeah, well, and you need help.

If there's someone out there thinking of a career in law enforcement, this is a great place to come.

I can speak from experience.

Never been in that field, but it's been a great place to live.

It's quiet the bulk of the time, and if you don't like the traffic, stay home.

Don't go out on Tuesday and Wednesday, flea market days.

But we appreciate everybody listening today.

Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions regarding any aspect of this training courses, home defense, personal defense, anything like that.

We can direct you to Carlos in the police force in shipshewana.

So thanks again, and everybody have a safe day.

Thank you for listening.

This week.

You can catch up on the latest episode of the thoughts from the Crawlspace podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts and YouTube.

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