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Nov. 19, 2024
Leadership and Resilience with Chief Thomas Weitzel
Join us for an engaging conversation with Chief Thomas Weitzel, a retired police chief with a profound 37-year career in law enforcement. Chief Weitzel offers a detailed account of his journey, from his early days at a private-public police agency at Brookfield Zoo to his role as the chief of Riverside, Illinois. Through his personal stories and experiences, he reveals how a life-threatening incident early in his career shaped his resilience and leadership style. Discover how he maneuvered the complexities of supporting officers, and learn the vital importance of building strong relationships with both elected officials and the community.
Chief Weitzel openly discusses the hurdles of navigating police leadership amid political pressures and societal changes. He sheds light on the intricate dynamics of ensuring job security while maintaining transparency with the community.
Mentioned Article On Chief Weitzel's critical incident.
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Transcript
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Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice and encouragement they need to lead courageously.
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Welcome back to the show.
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I'm so honored you decided to spend a few minutes with us here today, and we have an awesome guest today.
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Tremendous amount of experience, I think it's really something we can all learn from, so I hope you stick with us through the entire episode.
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On today's show we have Chief Thomas Weitzel.
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He retired in 2021 for 37 years of service.
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He's a nationally certified ethics instructor.
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He holds a master's degree in criminal justice from Lewis University and is a graduate of numerous leadership schools, including session 218 of the FBI National Academy.
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His resume is long.
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He's a volunteer ambassador for the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund.
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Much more he's been involved in.
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We're certainly interested in learning from him today.
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Tom, how are you doing, sir?
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I'm doing fantastic.
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Thank you for having me sir, I'm doing fantastic.
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Thank you for having me.
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Well, you know, it's always seemed strange to me that people like us I believe you were chief for over 13 years and obviously you have 37 years of service that people just kind of retire and that's kind of it.
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And I really have often thought that there's so much we can learn from individuals such as yourself and others that have invested so much and given so much to this profession.
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But you've stayed pretty active after retirement.
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So I guess the first question is walk us through your career.
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I want to get to a seminal event about three years into your career, so maybe jump over that for now, but kind of walk us through your career and then we'll kind of get to what you're doing now.
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Yeah, so I started my career actually, for in Illinois they have a private public police agency.
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It was actually through the Chicago Zoological Society at Brookfield Zoo.
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They were fully certified police officers but it was more of a private than it was public.
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Your jurisdiction was just on their grounds.
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I started there, probably 22.
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And then I started testing locally and I ended up in Riverside, which was adjacent to Brookfield, and I worked 37 years and I've held every position there.
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I started as a patrol officer, was after 15 years, promoted the patrol sergeant.
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I did six years as the patrol sergeant, I did six years as the detective sergeant, I went to an operations lieutenant to the deputy chief and then I even did a stint as acting chief until the elected officials in Riverside decided what way they wanted to go, because there was, you know, they were going to do a national search.
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And it's kind of funny.
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They came to me and said, hey, Tom, we're going to spend these big dollars to do a national search to find a new chief.
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Would you be willing to put in for it?
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And I said nope, I've worked here for 25.
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You know me, you know.
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I said you know, I don't think that's the way to go.
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And about three days later the current, the politicians and then our city manager came to see me and said okay, what does it take for us to put you in that position?
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So then we negotiated an employment contract for me.
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But you know, initially I had a very difficult time that they were going to spend all this money and do this national search.
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Riverside is a suburban community of Chicago and I, you know, they had known me inside and out and I'm glad that they decided not to do that.
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Yeah, and it's so often that department cities do that right, it's almost to look like they're doing some national search, even though they want somebody that they take.
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So it's not the right decision to make.
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But you lasted there, I believe, 13 years as chief.
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That is not an easy thing to do.
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What was the secret?
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Because you know most chiefs are, you know they don't last that long in that position.
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Very stressful position, very tough position.
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Kind of what was the secret to your success with that lasting that long?
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Yeah, so you're right, it was a long time, especially in Illinois.
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I mean, I think that 10 years most chiefs is like four to five years, but I had a really good.
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The citizens in Riverside Illinois are very supportive of the police.
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The elected officials were very supportive in almost all cases and our village manager was as well.
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And you know, when I was first hired, the very first village president I worked on, he came to my office and he said like how are you going to make sure that we as elected officials stay updated on what's going on in your agency and in the crime but yet still have this buffer where our elected officials aren't trying to intercede in policing?
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And I said you know what, Mr Mayor?
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I said good policing is good politics.
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And he looked at me and he's like what I said, as long as my agency does its job and I keep you informed as to what is happening, probably before it makes it to the media, they always like that, you know things will work out.
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And I tell you that held true for me.
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I never had one of my elected officials ever come and try to intervene in a police-related issue, they would only ask me for information, and that's kind of a rarity in today's world.
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Yeah, unfortunately, you're right, it certainly is.
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It seems like the more they try to interject politics into it, we've gotten to where we are today, so that's been a dramatic change.
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Now, tom, I think it's very improbable.
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You led the career you had.
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You had an event that happened as a young officer that really could have derailed that.
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Talk us through that and how you came out the other end of that.
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Yeah.
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So in August of 1987, I was shot in the line of duty and I didn't really talk about it until after I retired, for several reasons I'll get into in a minute.
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But my shooting was this incident where it was 3 o'clock in the morning, we used single patrol vehicles in Riverside.
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At that time I was by myself.
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There was a car parked illegally no big deal, something I deal with every day.
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I got out of the car to go up and get a VIN number off of it because it had no license plates on it and the windows were darkened.
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And as I got out of my patrol vehicle, when I got to the front of my vehicle, the back door of that car literally rolled open and the offender rolled out like you'd see some military roll.
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And I heard the slide of the punk shotgun.
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You never, you know, you know that sound.
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And I was shot just like that.
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And I heard the slide of the punk shotgun.
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You never, you know, you know that sound.
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And I was shot just like that.
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And I was shot with birdshot.
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So it spread and the birdshot hit my bulletproof vest.
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At that time it sprayed into my eyes and mouth.
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So I had, I survived that shooting.
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But what had happened?
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It lifted me off the ground and it threw me against my squad car and I hit my head against the bumper and knocked me out.
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It also cut my police radio in half, so the portable radio that I had on me the wire connecting the radio from my hip to the lapel mic was shredded so I couldn't call for help when I woke up, like about a minute later shredded, so I couldn't call for help.
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When I woke up, like about a minute later, and I believe they walked over me and probably thought I was dead, because that was probably 10 feet between their car and where they shot me and it was point blank right in my chest, threw me up and when I woke I had to crawl back to my squad car and use the police radio that was in the squad itself and I had to call for help.
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And you know I was.
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I was amazed I was even able to do that.
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But yeah, so I was treated.
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I was taken to the hospital.
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I was treated for broken ribs, internal bleeding, eye injuries and some blood vessels had broken throughout my entire neck area and chest area.
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So I was in the hospital for about three days and then I was released.
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Wow, not many people get to tell a story like that, point blank with a shotgun Thank God that was birdshot and you had a vest on.
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But I had a friend get killed with birdshot chief close range but he was not wearing a vest, man.
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So I have to think that that probably dictated how you operated as a chief as you went through the ranks.
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You had an experience there.
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You had the aftermath of that experience with the city and the agency.
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How did that help you navigate other critical incidents that would occur when you were in leadership positions?
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Yeah, you know, riverside wasn't ready.
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It's the first police officer that ever had shot in the line of duty.
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They didn't really have good support.
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The officers were fantastic.
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The leadership just didn't know what to do, quite frankly.
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So I me and my wife kind of had to navigate this situation, and I had, as it happened, I was scheduled for vacation like three days after the shooting had taken place, so they allowed me to do that to postpone it.
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But I had to go through all this medical testing and psychological testing to return to work.
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But they didn't send me the professionals that could handle police officers.
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I was being sent to a local hospital with a psychologist that had no experience at all, and then they put me under to help try to find the offenders.
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They wanted to put me under hypnosis and I said, sure, that's fine.
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Well, they, they contracted with a doctor that had no skill at all in hypnosis and no, you know treating of police officers and first responders.
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He literally kind of tried to lead me down the road by saying stuff like the car was green right, like no, the car wasn't green, the car was green right.
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I said no, the car wasn't green and actually wrote me up as uncooperative.
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So I'll never forget that.
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And they just didn't know how to handle it.
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So I wanted to make sure, if I ever got in a position of leadership, that I would do everything to support my officers in these types of situations, any situation.
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And it changed my philosophy because there were a lot of people that told me you know, tom, you should just stop working.
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I'm like I don't know, this is my skill.
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I went to college for it, I went to school for it, I'm a police officer, I'm newly married, I'm going to have a family.
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I just can't get up and quit.
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I mean, I just can't do that.
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And even though my wife wanted me to and you know a funny story about that bulletproof vest the village of Riverside didn't provide vests.
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Back then my wife purchased me that.
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She bought me that vest when I became a police officer as a gift.
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And back then it was a point blank.
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I don't know if you remember that was the name of the bulletproof vest and a story behind that is I didn't like the way.
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So my chief came to me afterwards.
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He said hey, tom, point blank, contacted us and they're willing to get by a bulletproof vest for every single police officer free because of your shooting If you agree to do commercials for them.
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So what do you mean by that?
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He's like, well, they want you to do print ads in police magazines, police chief magazines, other magazines, where you will tell your story and they will, in turn, purchase vests.
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I'm like, I don't want to publicize this.
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This is something I'm proud of.
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And when he said, well, let them send you the script, they sent me this script, travis, this is an absolute truth.
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And they embellished the story.
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That didn't even happen.
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They made it seem like I was in some type of gunfight and this was 100% ambush.
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And I told my chief then and I only had three years on the job, I'm like no, chief, I'm not going to do this.
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He's like he got very angry at me and said do you understand?
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They will buy a bulletproof vest for every single officer If you just do this.
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I'm like, well, they're lying, they're making.
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Just do this.
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I'm like well, they're lying, they're, they're making, they're embellishing this story for their benefit.
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It's.
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I'm not going to go on any news program or I'm not going in any print magazine.
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And I'm telling you, the chief held it against me for the rest of my till he retired well, yeah, because they're in a bad spot.
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They're going to have to buy these vests and they wanted to get it for nothing, right?
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and they did end up buying them.
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You're correct oh, man, you're talking about risk management, one-on-one.
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We wait till an officer gets shot before we provide vests, my goodness.
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Um, well, yeah, I mean, I tend to agree.
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I think many people, as you know, chief, they leave the profession after an event like that and, uh, you, of course, have gotten away through it.
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You just recently started talking about it.
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There was a great article in police one earlier this year, and uh, I don't even know what to say to it.
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Obviously, it's, it's a pretty incredible story, but I'm sure, certainly it shaped your leadership style.
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But you became chief in a very unique time.
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How did you see?
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Just a minute, mel man came.
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Give it a second.
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Hey, all right here we go.
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Yeah, chief, you became Chief at a very unique time, probably a time that we would all hearken back to.
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I'm trying to go back to 13 years since you retired, but things got really weird around 2012, 2013, 2014, and we really haven't looked back.
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Just give me your take on that and how you sort of navigated that, because the chief's job went from we're going to focus on the mission, reducing crime.
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That tends to keep citizens happy of all political backgrounds right, it certainly keeps politicians happy.
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Back in the day to to a time today where you can't even find a chief getting in trouble for higher crime like the mission doesn't seem to be on the forefront.
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There seems to be all these external factors, and so maybe you were in a great situation there in riverside, or maybe you weren't, but kind of, how did you see that happening there locally, and then what you saw nationally?
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Yeah, you know I was in a good position.
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So when you know it's uncommon like when I was promoted up to chief, it's an appointment made by the city manager, the village manager, the elected officials I had one requirement that I wanted an employment contract, and they were like no, we're not going to give you one.
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You know, that's only for outside chiefs that come in, because if we don't like you in a year or two you can just go back to your civil service rank of lieutenant.
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So we're not.
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I said well, I'm not taking the job without that.
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So we negotiated a con.
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I got a lawyer, they got their lawyer.
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We negotiated every four years the contract would be up and I there was a clause that they could fire me or reduce me for just cause.
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But I wanted some protection because I didn't want to be the type of chief that was going to stay out of the fray just because my politicians didn't like it, and what I mean by that.
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It was a rough times there times.
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Riverside is an upper middle class community and most of our violent crime came from the city of Chicago.
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We were west of the city of Chicago.
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Our criminals would come west, they would commit violent crimes and flee back east.
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That was the absolute pattern.
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That would happen all the time and I was very open with the media and I would put a lot of press releases out, or my detectives would put press releases out.
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We'd release mud shots.
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We'd be very, very proactive and some of the residents and elected officials didn't like it because they thought it made the village look crime ridden Instead of giving the residents education about what's actually going on and not lying to them and giving them what's currently happening and I always was of the opinion Travis is how could you make proper safety decisions for you and your family if the police department is not putting out factual information Like how do you do that?
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So you know, I had to maneuver through that and luckily I had a very good village manager that supported me and a very good village president that supported me.
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But you know where I got a lot of the pushback was it's from other police chiefs who actually were in their position because they were politically appointed there.
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And I got to be honest with you if their mayor or city president told them not to do something, they wouldn't do it, even though it was the right thing to do, and they would get.
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I would get more pushback from my colleagues sometimes than I would from you know, my residents or politicians, and I could never figure that out, like why, why are you, why are you my worst, you know, critic?
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No, you, you hit the nail on the head right there.
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I mean, we talk about courageous leadership.
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It talks about hey, you just need to do what's right, that doesn't matter what some mayor says or what some activist says, what is right.
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And I think they're in such self-protection mode chief Me myself and I protecting what I have.
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We're seeing a an abject failure around the country because, you're right, they're more concerned about that than actually taking care of the citizens, which is extremely ironic.
00:17:41.443 --> 00:17:48.923
Yeah, you know, once when I attended the FBI National Academy in Quantico I was I went to this leadership class for 12 weeks.
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I was there, very well known in the FBI ranks of, a Very well known in the FBI ranks of, the instructor was a highly decorated helicopter pilot, Marine helicopter pilot, and saw numerous combat.
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His name was Tim Turner.
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We sat in this stadium and I'm white, so Right, and I'm at the top.
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It was alphabetical, so you so.
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You know, cops, none of us like to sit towards the beginning.
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You know how that is right.
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They don't, they don't want to sit near the front of the class, but I, they put us there alphabetically.
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And one day he looked up at me and he said Mr Weitzel, come on down here.
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And I came all the way down and he said you know how's it going?
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And I said I'm coasting, and he's, and there's like two weeks left of the academy, I had all my papers in and he said what did you just say?
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And I said I'm coasting, he's like.
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And then he let him, he, he unleashed on me in front of the whole class, which is 200 of us international students, and he said don't you ever say coasting in front of me again.
00:18:56.121 --> 00:19:02.105
He's like because you know what, Mr Whitesell, if you're coasting, you're going downhill and you want to be a leader.
00:19:02.105 --> 00:19:02.747
And he goes.
00:19:02.747 --> 00:19:05.192
You don't ever want to go downhill, do you Tom?
00:19:05.192 --> 00:19:07.863
And I'm like, oh no, I don't.
00:19:07.863 --> 00:19:09.263
And then he built me back up.
00:19:09.384 --> 00:19:21.416
After that he sent me back up and he's like he made this example of me and then, while I was walking up the stairs back to my seat, he said hey, Tom, do you think leaders are born or can we create leaders?
00:19:21.416 --> 00:19:28.272
And I said I think you can educate leaders and you can build leaders.
00:19:28.272 --> 00:19:28.580
He goes.
00:19:28.580 --> 00:19:29.701
You know, I agree with you, he goes.
00:19:29.701 --> 00:19:32.650
The one thing you can't do, Tom, is charisma.
00:19:32.650 --> 00:19:33.141
He goes.
00:19:33.141 --> 00:19:35.346
Charisma, you're born with he goes.
00:19:35.346 --> 00:19:36.890
Leaders, you're born with, he goes.
00:19:36.890 --> 00:19:39.055
Leaders, I believe we can develop.
00:19:39.055 --> 00:19:42.288
And that was like an introduction to me of leadership.
00:19:42.288 --> 00:19:44.058
I was like, well, that was really powerful.
00:19:44.078 --> 00:19:45.566
Yeah, yeah, I wasn't too far behind you.
00:19:45.566 --> 00:19:46.720
I was in 227.
00:19:46.720 --> 00:19:51.146
So my math, probably two or three years after you, and I don't have a story like that.
00:19:51.146 --> 00:19:52.506
I got stories I probably can't tell.
00:19:52.506 --> 00:19:56.722
But yeah, I don't have a story like that.
00:19:56.722 --> 00:19:57.644
I've got stories I probably can't tell.
00:19:57.644 --> 00:19:58.346
Very interesting time for sure, tom.
00:19:58.346 --> 00:20:06.287
Even though you've been gone about three years from the profession, you've got to be shaking your head at what continues to happen.
00:20:06.287 --> 00:20:08.375
We go from recruiting issues and retention issues.
00:20:08.375 --> 00:20:12.387
Is it mainly what you just said about politics that's creating this, or is there something else going on?
00:20:12.387 --> 00:20:13.451
We should discuss about it.
00:20:14.840 --> 00:20:15.723
It is politics.
00:20:15.723 --> 00:20:25.392
You know there's no one that can be listening or watching your podcast and doesn't know that the George Floyd incident affected law enforcement, without a doubt.
00:20:25.392 --> 00:20:27.065
Right, that was huge.
00:20:27.065 --> 00:20:31.140
All three of my adult children are police officers in suburban Chicago.
00:20:31.140 --> 00:20:32.503
I hear it all the time.
00:20:32.503 --> 00:20:47.133
They all have at least 10 years on the job and some of them want to leave the profession or they want to leave the department out of the metropolitan Chicago area and get farther out away into really suburban policing.
00:20:47.819 --> 00:21:07.710
And it's all because of the way that politicians are interacting with law enforcement, the way media organizations at least some of them and the public and these so-called activists who want to just have a state of like de-policing and no policing at all, let alone defund policing.
00:21:07.710 --> 00:21:13.467
And in Illinois, if any, you know, there was this recent article about well, defund the police is gone.
00:21:13.467 --> 00:21:17.413
I wrote an op ed in the paper that said it's not gone.
00:21:17.413 --> 00:21:26.369
What's happening is our politicians are defunding the police through legislation and the job is almost impossible to do.
00:21:26.369 --> 00:21:32.689
It's really Travis at times, impossible to defend yourself, because no police officer wants to be the next YouTube video.
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