EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,010 words- 0:00 – 15:00
... one. (claps) Hello,…
- JRJoe Rogan
... one. (claps) Hello, Nancy.
- NPNancy Panza
Hi, Joe.
- JRJoe Rogan
How are you?
- NPNancy Panza
I am doing well.
- JRJoe Rogan
Thanks for being here.
- NPNancy Panza
Thank you for having me. Thanks for letting me come and talk.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, my pleasure. Uh, so, tell everybody what you do.
- NPNancy Panza
So, I am... Well, my day job, I'm a professor in the psychology department at Cal State Fullerton, and in my side gig, I am a forensic and police psychologist.
- JRJoe Rogan
That is a very appropriate subject-
- NPNancy Panza
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... for the strange times we find ourselves in right now.
- NPNancy Panza
Indeed.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, as you are watching all this play out, from the George Floyd murder to where we're at right now, um, w- what, what has this been like for you since this is your field of study?
- NPNancy Panza
It's a weird place to be and you're kind of, (sighs) uh, for me, caught in between two worlds it seems. Um, (smacks lips) I mean, my job is to take care of police officers. So, keep them healthy, keep them well, to make sure that they can do a good job doing their jobs. Um, (smacks lips) and so the first thing I see is, oof, we got a mess on our hands. Um, for me, when I see a lot of the videos that end up, you know, on, on TV, my initial reaction is, "Well, let's have a look. Is there something really to be upset about here?" And, (scoffs) well, obviously in seeing the, the video of George Floyd's murder, there's a whole lot to be upset about here. And so, you know, heartache comes from that. Um, and then my, you know, my next response is to kick in is, "Okay, we've, we've got problems on both sides." We need to n- not only figure out why such things are happening and prevent them, 'cause that's not good. Nobody wants bad policing, even the police don't want bad policing. On the other hand, how do we also take care of our officers who are out there, who now have to go out and continue doing their jobs in a really, (sighs) difficult and overwhelming environment?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, it's such a strange time because on one hand, you, you got all these people that are calling out for defunding the police, and, you know, this is... Here's a point of view that, uh, Ben Shapiro had when he talked about the protests. He said, um, he said, "Saying they're mostly peaceful protests is like saying O.J. Simpson had a mostly peaceful day when he killed Nicole Simpson 'cause he was only violent for a couple minutes. The rest of the day, he was m- it was mostly peaceful."
- NPNancy Panza
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And he's like, "That's a, a good way to describe the protests." I think you could also say the same thing about the police department. The police department and police officers are mostly good people doing a good job.
- NPNancy Panza
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But the problem is when one, out of all these millions of interactions, when one goes bad or there's a bad officer, people see that, they highlight that, and then they say, "This is the cops. These are the cops." I don't think that's true. I've met a lot of great police officers. I know a lot.
- NPNancy Panza
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs) And it's an insanely difficult job. I don't think they get paid enough. I don't think they get respected enough. I don't think they get trained well enough. Um, I had Jocko Willink on here, who's a former Navy SEAL commander, and-
- NPNancy Panza
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
... his perspective is very clear. He's like, "They do not train enough." He goes, "If I was in control, they would be trained 20% of their time, 20% of their week would be spent in training."
- NPNancy Panza
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
"Deescalation drills, safety drills, how to handle things if one o- one of your partners is losing his cool. All, all, all sorts of drills that they should be doing, that they do do in the Navy SEALs, that they should be doing in the police department as well."
- NPNancy Panza
Yep. I listened to your, uh, your podcast with Jocko on it and I was, I was blown... Actually, I listened to it twice. (laughs) I listened to it the first time and was like, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes." I loved everything that he had to say.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, he's a real leader.
- NPNancy Panza
He's so good. He's so good. And, and his idea about training was, I mean, I'm in full agreement and full... The 20% training thing would be, would be super hard, especially n- now where we are, 'cause money's going away, not coming in-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- NPNancy Panza
... 'cause that would mean 20% of the force would be off training and we'd need that many more officers and that many people on duty, you know, to fill in the active ro- So, you know, uh, while that would be a dream, and I think he's right, all those skills that you need, if you're not actively, you know, if you're not-
- 15:00 – 30:00
Sure. …
- NPNancy Panza
to be out there, we wanna take care of them and get them healed before they're... But at the same time, this is someone's livelihood, this is their, this is their being, this is who they are. And to take that away haphazardly or carelessly or needlessly is, is really scary.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- NPNancy Panza
And so they, they really do need to have that front. So that's why, you know, like the mandatory debriefing is so important-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- NPNancy Panza
... because if it's, "Oh, we're gonna pick you and you and you, the rest of you guys are fine," then they've been singled out-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's, it's also-
- NPNancy Panza
... and in the spotlight.
- JRJoe Rogan
... it's a subjective judgment call.
- NPNancy Panza
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
So that's where it gets weird. I mean, and I can make a comparison to, uh, refereeing in fights. Some referees stop fights, where other referees would let the fights go on. Like-
- NPNancy Panza
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and it's really ... And it makes people so angry when they stop a fight quickly. If someone comes in and says, "This guy's not ready, he can't go back on the force," and the guy's like, "What are you talking about? I'm fine."
- NPNancy Panza
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And maybe he is fine, and maybe the guy just has a weird sense of people. And so like when you have judgment calls like that, like what criteria are they using? Are they using just their own personal opinion? Do they have to fit a, a set of guidelines? Like what ... When they say, "This guy's not fit to go back on the street, he's seen too much, he's too shaken up by this murder scene," like how do th- how do they make that call?
- NPNancy Panza
So it kinda depends on what scenario you're making that decision. So there, and there's two different levels that are most likely. So the, the debriefing is usually ... unless the person is completely shaken. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay. Let's, let's, let's ru- let's do a scenario.
- NPNancy Panza
Okay.
- JRJoe Rogan
Let's say guy pulls some guy over, um, the guy, uh, reaches for a gun, shoots at the officer, the officer shoots the person, kills them. You know, big investigation, news, the whole deal, the guy's on television, they show the body cam footage. And then this guy has to do an evaluation and then go back to work again. How would one decide whether or not that guy's okay to go back to work?
- NPNancy Panza
Probably gonna look at multiple factors. Mental state, basic mental state is our starting point.
- JRJoe Rogan
And how do, how do they make that call?
- NPNancy Panza
So questions, um, in the debriefing, we're unlikely to pull into our bag of tests, which, you know, in the other scenarios, big psych evals, we're gonna dig into our tests, that's what we do as psychologists.
- JRJoe Rogan
When you say tests, you know, like, fMRIs or anything like that, you know?
- NPNancy Panza
No, like the, like MMPI, let me throw out other letters.
- JRJoe Rogan
What is that?
- NPNancy Panza
Like the personality tests and tests that show different levels-
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- NPNancy Panza
... of, you know, of pathology or clinical issues and problems, um, anxiety, depression, you know, bodily dysfunction.
- JRJoe Rogan
You do-
- NPNancy Panza
All those things.
- JRJoe Rogan
... a physical examination, check their heart rate, blood pressure?
- 30:00 – 45:00
Mm-hmm. …
- NPNancy Panza
like, they're gonna, they're gonna see that somewhere in that digging around.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- NPNancy Panza
So the, the, the blatant racist folks are likely weeded out during a good background process. Let's say maybe they're not as openly 'cause, you know, we all know that people know better than to admit to such things most of the time these days and it could be more subtle. So at that point, what comes next, you've got oral interviews with, you know, police administrators, um, a polygraph, you know, coming along in there. And once they pass all of that, that's when they come to the last, they get their conditional offer of employment. So they're basically like, "As long as you get through these last two steps, you're, you're good to go for the academy." And the last two steps are the medical evaluation and the psych eval. So by the time we get them, they have been heavily vetted, poked around, you know, and, and, and, and looked through in their past, and we get a, we get a pretty clean group of people. But then we get to do more digging and we get to ask questions at this point that they're not able to ask before, so about mental health and background and psychological treatment and history.And so, you know, by the ... And then if they get through these evaluations, then they go on to the academy. So for us, that vetting process, that psych eval, is a really important place. And I've had a lot of conversations with other psychologists, you know, in the past few months, like, "What are we missing?" I've had ... I, I taught a workshop a couple months ago for other police psychologists on, you know, some of the things we do in these pre-employments and had someone say, "How do we screen out the cops who kill?" And I said, "We can't." (laughs) And that was not a good answer. Uh, that we can't. We, we can't because we have to ... What we're doing here is predicting the future, right? We're, we're saying, "How do we know who is going to be that person who does that later?" Predicting the future's incredibly hard. Figuring out who may be un- uh, you know, subtly racist or biased is also incredibly hard. So y- that said, we do a whole lot of things. We've got our psychological test that we give. We ask a lot of crafty questions and we dig as deep as we can to try to, again, weed out anyone who we think could potentially become that person down the road who could be a cop who kills or who, you know, is racist and biased and is treating people improperly. So, uh, you know, that's one big thing that we wanna be very cautious and make sure we're doing a good job of screening up front. But I would say, um ... And so much more to say about the tests and the screening, but gets really nerdy and, and detailed. I would say that the officers who end up having the most problems are the ones who, once they get on, are in a department where that is the culture. That is, that, that, that those types of behaviors are acceptable. And that's bad.
- JRJoe Rogan
So as a young officer, they learn at that... Have you ever seen the documentary, The 7-5?
- NPNancy Panza
I have not.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a great documentary about Michael Dowd-
- NPNancy Panza
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... who has been a guest on the podcast, who was a ... He was a terrible cop. And talks openly about how he was corrupted and how his first day on the force, he, he witnessed corruption and was told to shut his mouth.
- NPNancy Panza
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, and further went on to become a drug dealer and robbing drug dealers and just ... It's a crazy documentary. You would enjoy it.
- NPNancy Panza
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Particularly from a psychological perspective, 'cause he's talking about it after having served time.
- NPNancy Panza
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, just showing the, the images from the time and telling the stories. It's ... The culture of each individual department is different.
- NPNancy Panza
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And some are great. There's a great video of, uh, Floyd- uh, Flint, Michigan where, um, these police officers, after the George Floyd death, they show up for these protests and tell these people that are protesting, "We're gonna march with you." Like, "We're a part of this community too."
- NPNancy Panza
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, "We are, we're your friends." Like, "We are police officers but we are not the person who did that thing."
- NPNancy Panza
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
"And we wouldn't do that thing."
- NPNancy Panza
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
"And we, we wanna show you that we support you and that we're here to help."
- NPNancy Panza
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
"That's what, that's what really we want." And it's beautiful.
- NPNancy Panza
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's so cool to see them all march together and they're hugging. Um, that's what we want, right?
- NPNancy Panza
It is.
- JRJoe Rogan
But-
- NPNancy Panza
And, and I think that one of the biggest things when we ... You know, how do we prevent these, these issues is we need to look at the individual officer level. But-
- JRJoe Rogan
We need to look at the culture.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Mm-hmm. …
- JRJoe Rogan
know how to shoot a gun." And I wouldn't believe him except I've seen so many cops that are so fat and so sloppy, and I'm like, "How are you gonna defend yourself?" Like y- y- the idea of you serving and protecting, like, dude, if someone throws you on the ground, you're not even getting up. Like, how does that happen? How do they not have standards for y- like, being able to shoot a gun, knowing how to handle it properly, being accurate, being consistent with your training, and also physical fitness? Like, that's... The job of a police officer is dealing occasionally with violent criminals. When you have no capacity to defend yourself, how are you able to help people? Your only he- like, if you're in a situation where there, something turns physical, if you have no ability to defend yourself physically other than firearms-
- NPNancy Panza
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... y- a, a, a situation that could be deescalated turns into a violent encounter because you have to shoot someone.
- NPNancy Panza
So, a couple things that come to mind. So, y- you know, imagine that police officers do get annual firearms training. They do get a, have to pass, in most places, an annual physical fitness test. And you're saying, you know, already you're seeing-
- JRJoe Rogan
How is that possible?
- NPNancy Panza
... you're seeing people who are out of shape and overweight and physically not in great condition, and you're seeing people who can't shoot well. But yet those are regular, there are regular firearms trainings, annual firearms trainings, and there are-
- JRJoe Rogan
Everywhere?
- NPNancy Panza
... regular physical fitness tests.
- JRJoe Rogan
Everywhere, though?
- NPNancy Panza
Um, most states have a minimum inf- initial training, and, uh, again, i- it, there's so much variety that I'm sure not everywhere.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- NPNancy Panza
But most departments have annual, you know, service that you, y- inservice training you gotta go through and do. And so, if we're still seeing that, people who are out of shape yet they've passed a physical fitness test and who can't shoot but are p- Imagine their mental health, imagine what that looks like.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- NPNancy Panza
And there is no annual mental health training, mental health check-in. And I promise you that the job erodes that over time, so just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah.
- NPNancy Panza
... if, if the things we can actually see, (laughs) that the shooting isn't on par and the physical health isn't on par, the one we can't see, what's going on on the inside, imagine how messy that might be.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- NPNancy Panza
And there's nothing. We have no oversight and no regular check-ins there. So, that's, that's one thing that sort of stands out as like... But, but imagine that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- NPNancy Panza
Um, you know, the other thing is firearms training, obviously it is super important if you're going to carry a weapon to be able to use it and to use it well, but it's also not something that you're going to encounter on a regular basis on the job. There are officers who go through their entire career without ever pulling a weapon.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that's great.
- NPNancy Panza
Right? That is great. And when you do, it, it should be few and far between because there are other, other ways to manage situations. There are... You know, that's lethal force, and then we've got a variety of, of, you know, non-lethal force, whether it's something hand, you know, physical, hand, uh, you know, hand-to-hand kind of thing-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- NPNancy Panza
... or whether it's a taser or baton or whatever else they may be using or having on their, you know, their tool belt. So, there are, there are other options there. So, hopefully, you know, the, the continuum is, is set from verbal, deescalation, communication. When that doesn't work and it's still a danger, then you, you know, there are certain criteria. And, and obviously officers are taught their continuum of force and what needs to be necessary to move up that level-... with deadly force, you know, or lethal force being the highest. So, i- i- it's so rare that, to me, there's so much else that comes before that, that if we're doing a good job, that almost is never an issue, because these other tools work better.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wait a minute. What's almost never an issue?
- NPNancy Panza
Having to sh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Being able to use a weapon?
- NPNancy Panza
Having to shoot someone. Having to get to where you're breaking a strap and you're pulling your weapon and you're firing at someone. That should... I, I mean, that is a, that is the last, last, last... It doesn't happen on a daily basis.
- JRJoe Rogan
But isn't that entirely dependent-
- NPNancy Panza
It's-
- 1:00:00 – 1:11:32
Was he the senior…
- NPNancy Panza
how one wouldn't intervene and say, "Okay, that's, that's enough. Let's back off now." I, I can't-
- JRJoe Rogan
Was he the senior officer?
- NPNancy Panza
Um, I don't know. It sounded like... 'Cause I know they said two of the guys were pretty new on the job, um, and the other one, the one that you can see kind of standing in front had also been on the, on the force for a while. But I don't, I don't know which of the two had been on longer.
- JRJoe Rogan
The w- uh, the way the culture is... (clears throat) Excuse me. The way the culture is, the, the two that were new, if they saw him do that, it's not really... Is it... Is that a thing that they can say? If you're a new guy and you've been on the job for a couple months and there's a guy who's been on the job for 20 years and you see him doing something, is it your place-... I understand it's-
- NPNancy Panza
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... your place as a human being.
- NPNancy Panza
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
But w- how does the culture work?
- NPNancy Panza
It is a paramilitary environment where if someone is your superior, it is very hard to speak out against that person. So, that is m-... that is definitely a problem and something that, you know, to act out... And, and, and the culture in the department would be, yeah, if that's somebody who either is a higher rank than you or who's been on longer, mm, you know, especially if they're brand new and that's like their field training officer, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- NPNancy Panza
... you're, you're not gonna step in and tell them not to do that. That's not-
- JRJoe Rogan
And it kinda has to be that way.
- NPNancy Panza
It's not the way it's done. Yeah. Tha- that's, that's that paramilitary model. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
So if you are, uh, shit out of luck and your superior officer is a psychopath-
- NPNancy Panza
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and he's doing something like that-
- NPNancy Panza
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... if he doesn't kill that person and there's no complaint, what recourse does that person have? If they go to-
- NPNancy Panza
The person who was the victim-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. (laughs)
- NPNancy Panza
... or the other officer?
- JRJoe Rogan
The oth- um, the other officer that's there. Like, what recourse does that officer have if you're seeing someone abuse someone and you're new on the job, can you go to internal affairs? Like... And if you do, there's a stigma attached to that, correct?
- NPNancy Panza
Yeah. S- e-... There are ways to report fellow officers, yes. But would most people do that? It's a tough call. Yes, it happens, and some people do the right thing. But yeah, there's a cost that comes with that. I think one of the-
- JRJoe Rogan
The code of silence.
- NPNancy Panza
Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- NPNancy Panza
One o- one of the interesting reforms that lots of folks are talking about and some cities are passing is this requirement for other officers to say something. And, um, this is an interesting one. There's a lot of these piecemeal reforms that kinda make me go, "Ugh." Like, "Okay, it's fine, but I don't know that that's gonna make much change." Um, this one makes me stop and think and I, I wonder if maybe it will. Maybe it will. I, I don't know. I, I, uh, I see it could go both ways, where it could be something that's helpful if there's a safe mechanism for people to report. But, you know, i- in that situation, you know, thinking about the, the George Floyd situation, you know, if those... i- if two of those officers had said, "Hey, you need to back off," and again, still if they're inferior to him, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
What happens in the culture?
- NPNancy Panza
... what are the odds- Yeah. What are the odds that he's not gonna tell them, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
Episode duration: 1:54:52
Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript
Transcript of episode 6adKh-LYk3s
Get more out of YouTube videos.
High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.
Add to Chrome