Colonel Lamar Davis | Louisiana State Police | 05/24/2023

And I was trying to take this opportunity to lower your expectations.

But Hillary put me up there, so I guess I have to respond.

Good afternoon.

And really thank you all for having me.

I'm always humbled.

Quite frankly, it's always a surprise to me to be in this position, to be amongst so many people that are giving compassionate, loving and caring people.

You know, I've talked about my past.

I talked about growing up.

I talked about how my challenges actually evolved and evolved me into the man that I am today.

And I'm so thankful for God and so thankful for so many people that have come my way.

That is the theme of, quite frankly, everything that I'm about.

It's about people with me, people who have invested in me even when I didn't deserve it.

And it's because of them.

It's because of many of you's, because of Hillary and such that I'm up here.

So I'd like to start my day today with a thought of gratitude.

And that's why it's important that I thank you.

But also thank you, Mr. Wishart, for really having me and inviting me, because it's very special to me to again, be able to tell my story.

And again, hopefully that that will help someone else as we continue.

I'd like to also thank the other members of the Rotary Club for having me and really just thank you, Hiller.

I'll get you your money later.

But on a serious note, you you know, I look at other people as examples.

One of my more vivid examples is Colin Powell.

As I was growing up through the military, it was Colin Powell that talked about his mistakes in the military that helped guide me through my mistakes and his successes, that helped give me something to look forward to.

But when I look around, I see the vast amount of people that are doing great things.

It pushes me to try and be great.

It pushes me to push other people to try and be great.

And I think if we all join along that then we will all have that opportunity to be great.

It's only when we do not allow each other and we do not help each other be great that we all suffer.

So that's very important to me.

As you all have seen over the past three or so years.

State police have gone through some significant challenges.

And quite frankly, there are days that I did not know if I could withstand some of those challenges as he talked.

You know, there are some things that occurred that challenge myself.

I mean, I walked into a litany of scrutiny not only for our agency, but as far as I'm concerned.

And, you know, although a lot of it started with the death of Mr. Ronald Green, and let me tell you, my heart goes out to his family.

You know, yesterday I had a memorial at our compound and having to look into the eyes of our family members that lost someone.

It touches your soul.

I don't care who you are.

So seeing what his family went through and is going through the pain that they feel each and every day pains me.

And if it doesn't pain us, then something's wrong with us.

Nobody should have to live through it.

And I think that's why it's important that I continue to work as I do.

And we continue to work together to make sure it doesn't happen again.

But along with that, you know, we experienced many other major issues.

I mean, I walked into having to arrest troopers, having to investigate troopers, having the trooper commit suicide in front of his family and having a trooper killed through no actions of his own.

That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Or other events and incidents that really challenged my soul.

But as I've learned through all of this, that was one thing that's been a constant and that's God.

God is great.

I can tell you that my weakest moments, it was prayers from others, and it was God that held me up when I had to make decisions that touched my soul, that impacted or changed the trajectory of a family.

Again, it was God that gave me the wisdom to do so.

And when I needed a reason to push forward because there were some long days, my family, my friends, those prayers and God, they gave me the strength to carry through.

That's why I'm standing here before you.

And it's important that you know that.

It's important because each and every one of us will be going through something in our lifespan.

If you do not have that foundation, then you're going to suffer mightily.

So as I began to look and go through those experiences and I started to contemplate, you know, how was I going to make the changes necessary to move our agency forward?

I started looking at our agency and I looked at it from our objective standpoint.

And I quickly realized that there are some changes that needed to take place.

So I started the top to bottom assessment, and I've talked about this before, so I'm not going to go too in-depth.

I'll answer any questions.

But I did feel the need to start a top to bottom assessment, and I wanted that assessment to look at operations.

I wanted to look at our personnel management, but also our culture.

I want to see how we're doing things and how does that compare with best practices, But most importantly, how does that compare with how you as our community think that we should be performing our duties?

Oftentimes, I'll tell our folks that our authority derives from the community we serve, and when we do not own that authority and manage it as it's intended to be managed, then our community will make those changes.

And that's exactly what you're seeing across the nation.

We have some great women and men that are working in law enforcement, the overwhelming majority that get up each and every day that leave their families, that do not realize or think or even wonder if they're going to make it back, go out with the thought of helping others.

And even with that thought, they still go into fires, they still run off of cliffs, and they still do whatever it necessary to help people that they don't even know.

That's how great they are.

But we do have some who are there for the wrong reasons.

And it's incumbent upon leaders like myself and other agency heads to ensure that we do what's necessary to remove them.

Now, if we can coach mentor training to retrain, we do so.

But when we can't, we remove them from our profession.

I think that was some of the problems we had in the past.

No longer those days.

I can tell you and my folks can tell you we're holding each other accountable.

They're holding me accountable as they should be.

Okay.

I think I've seen it with my little, you know, speeding thing.

I have big feet, by the way.

All right.

Press down on that pedal real hard.

But on a serious note, it's important for us to hold each other accountable.

And as we do so, we learn from our mistakes, we grow from them, and then we change our behavior.

But since that time, you know, we've had some, quite frankly, very tough conversations about how we conduct our business, how we interact with our public in our community.

And no longer the days that you hear, this is my roadway.

Why are you speeding on my highway?

This is all of our highways, all of our roadways, and all of these communities are our communities.

So it's incumbent upon all of us to work together in order for us to build them.

And as we build them, then we will start to see that reduction in crime.

We will start to see those other symptoms that are plaguing our communities.

But for us as a agency, I think it was very important for us to really get an objective standpoint, objective view of of where we were.

So I brought in a company called the Bowman Group to conduct a top to bottom assessment, and that's exactly what they're doing.

And some of those conversations are tough, right, when you think that you have crossed the line.

You have done something great.

You've done something to benefit your agency or the community.

They tell you there's more to be done.

And I relished it, although it doesn't always feel well.

And it's through those assessments and through those conversations that we are growing as an agency.

And I assure you we will continue to grow.

But with regards to that, my hope and my desire in bringing those changes is simple.

It's to change our behavior in such a manner that it morphs into our interaction with our communities.

And as such, bringing about a positive result when possible of any interaction we have is a couple of different ways we do that.

Obviously, one is the enforcement, and that's the more visible one.

And quite frankly, that's the one that's more challenging to us.

And while people think that we like to go out there and like to arrest people, we don't.

I love to go out and I love kids.

Now I tell people public safety is my purpose, but people in my passion.

So I love people.

I love to go out and talk to kids because quite frankly, it brings me back to when I was seven years old, when I was ten years old, when I was 14 years old, and someone spent that time with me.

They got at me.

They gave me that information that I was longing for.

They gave me that attention and it's through those interactions that we change lives.

It's not just through enforcement.

And law enforcement is a necessary part of it.

It's not the only way.

Most preferably for me, it's the community involvement.

And I think that's a part that you're seeing that's different in state police, you know, No longer the days that you're seeing as just on the side of the highway you still see of there.

I think it's important for everybody to note, but you're also seeing us in our communities and not just the war in times of crime suppression details.

We have mentors, we have coaches, we have supporters, we have emotional support personnel that are working in the communities every day and not just in theirs.

And one of the things I challenge them with was not just working in your community.

Go work in some other community, not just the ones that your kids are growing up in.

I need you in all of the other communities because of others coming into my community.

I changed my life.

I was no longer the knucklehead that challenged bullies.

No longer the knucklehead that ran from police.

And let me tell you, you know, I had some skills back in the day at low speed, but on a serious note, not knowing what I was getting into.

I created more obstacles by my behavior and by my thought process, by my perspective.

So as others came and invested in me, as others gave to me, as others poured into me, I began to make subtle changes.

And it's through those changes that I stopped running from the police.

I stopped speaking to the police.

And while even at a moderately older age, age of 17, 18, I'm still not endearing with them, I respected them at that point.

And it's because of those criminal changes that again, I became the man that I am.

I'm no longer the one that's a problem to our society.

I am actually a part of the solution, and that's what we should all be and that's what we should all strive to do.

So those are the frameworks by which I keep as our foundation as we're going through these changes.

And I do want to talk about these changes for a minute because I think it's very important.

And while I'm not going to bore you with all of these changes we've gone through, I think some of them are very important because some of those, as we make them, they actually impact our communities.

One of them was the implementation of our critical incident community briefings as we faced our struggles and challenges and quite frankly, some of the tough decisions that we had to make.

Many times as we make those decisions, we don't think about how it impacts the community.

We do not communicate that to our community.

Then you all are left to say, okay, what happened?

What really happened?

Why did it happen?

And things of that nature.

So again, having some tough conversations that was brought to our attention and we made that change.

So we formulated a critical incident video.

We looked at some best practices from across the nation.

And as we did so, we found that by law enforcement communicating during those critical times and communicating effectively, they were able to provide the necessary information.

And while we can't provide everything, because we do have to work with our district attorney to make sure that we are prosecuting the case as is intended to be prosecuted, it is important for us to provide you all as much information as possible.

And quite frankly, you know, as we've done so with this process, we've been able to reduce the essence of discord as well as civil unrest.

And as we all know and as we've seen in many years in many cities, civil unrest can lead to loss of life.

So we need to do our part, do everything possible to reduce that from happening.

And that's in part why it was important for us to create these critical incident briefing videos.

We've had five today, one involving one of our own troopers shooting.

And what I decided to do when we have officer involved shootings, in-custody deaths or other critical incidents, they're designed to provide you all the information needed so that you can make informed decisions, but also the families of those involved.

And I think that's important.

And as we communicate that and again, I think it will really help our communities.

One of the other things for me that was important was the creation of our fourth investigative unit.

So when I came into office, one of the more legitimate concerns that was expressed to me was, you know, having folks conducting investigations or conducting operations, that they were not necessarily trained for that is not going to bring you a positive outcome.

Okay.

And when it's not done correctly, then it can lead to the perception of cover ups and things of that nature.

Or it could lead to cover ups, quite frankly.

So again, it was important that we changed that and checking with some of the other agencies that have gone through consent decrees and have gone through other assessments.

We found that the best practice was creating a dedicated unit, just like we do our internal affairs unit, that is a covert unit that is covert, because those officers and those troopers and those investigators have received the training.

They have impeccable them, impeccable integrity.

And when they don't, we remove them quick.

Just the doubt, quite frankly, is enough to remove them.

But it's incumbent upon us to make sure that we've got people that are well-trained, that conduct those investigations and do so in a fair and objective manner.

And that's what I value does.

You know, I've selected the best of the best from our agency.

I've given them the training and now they're out there conducting those investigations.

And they're not just conducting, but they're also educating, educating our communities.

They're educating our troopers, and they're doing so in the manner so that we can avoid people losing their jobs, losing days off or losing their careers.

Not quite frankly.

When we do that and we tell you that and you still violate, then you're going to lose your job, You're gonna lose days off and you may lose your career, but we're going to give you the information.

And that's what my f I you do does.

But many of those changes is important to me, and it's important that we we make those changes in the category categorically fashion so that we're not just stepping on our toes.

We're not just doing something and say we're doing it.

I thought it was important again to create a section that would steer those changes.

When you're talking about an agency that has nine troops, that has over 2600 employees, that most of those departments or state wide, it's hard to steer that ship.

You have to have people that can manage certain aspects of it and this was one of those this transformation, I'll tell you, is one of, if not the most significant transformation state police has had since the early 1930s, forties and fifties.

We're changing culture, we're changing technology, we're changing operations, we're changing structure.

I don't think we've gone through that, not in my lifetime and the manner that we're going through it.

So I created a section again that helped lead that our professional standards and compliance section.

And that section again is designed to really put all those changes in systematic manner and make sure that we're making them because we need to make them, not just because it feels good.

Another accomplishment that was very important to me is our acceptance into the act of bystander ship for law enforcement.

And while that may not seem like it's a lot, I'll just say this Minnesota George Floyd had this program been in place at that particular point in time, those officers would not have done what they did.

They would have made different decisions.

Mr. Floyd would not be there.

That's how significant this program is.

And quite frankly, it's not an easy one to get into.

Only 215 other agencies across the nation have been accepted.

It took us really working with and getting with our community organizations, getting with our communities because they're a part of that acceptance process.

We can't just write a nice pretty note and say, Hey, we really need access to it.

We need to really be committed to making change.

We need to be able to have and empower every man and woman in our agency to make significant change.

If I am doing something, we have to empower them to make that change with me.

That's how significant this program is.

This April program gives us the foundation by which we can make good decisions while we're interacting with our public.

And while many of the situations that we go through are not as static and easy, some of them are split second decisions oftentimes is what you do during those decisions that determine the outcome for many people.

So having a program such as this in place, having an empowerment for all of our people to ensure that they can feel comfortable saying, Hey, hold on, you're going too far, Let me take this, let me talk to this person.

Let's get this resolved the right way and then let me report this so that it doesn't happen again because they may not know what what's going on in my life.

I may be going through something where I need help and who's the last one to think that they need help us.

So it was extremely important for us to gain access.

We're going through that process of of implementing those changes and that program.

And we're really, you know, we're excited to see what it's going to bring across our agency.

I do want to talk about our technology enhancements because I think that's vitally important when you're talking about information flow, when you're talking about communication, which is the most one of the most important things between us and our communities, then you have to talk about the technology because we're all hit by it.

Every last one of you have an iPhone or some type of phone in your hand.

There is technology across all of our lives and there are some great benefits to technology, but we're not used properly or we're not used at all.

And it really hinders our ability to communicate.

So in 2017, I remember being assigned to one of the sections and told to research some of our technology needs, and one of them being our computer aided dispatch.

Our computer card system is the system that dispatches you to different calls and things of that nature for those that don't know.

And when I began looking at 2017 and realizing that of all of the state police highway patrol agencies in the nation, we were one of four of only four that had not had a CAD system.