61: Chief Rafael Padilla: Transforming Law Enforcement 4 years later .

Join us as Chief Rafael Padilla of the Kent Washington Police Department opens up about the profound changes in policing and community relations over the course of four transformative years. Against the backdrop of nationwide racial reckonings, the George Floyd protests, and the global pandemic, discover how Chief Padilla's perspective on law enforcement has evolved, prioritizing values like service, integrity, and professionalism. We navigate the complex journey of adapting policing practices to better serve and protect communities, ensuring that every officer is a beacon of compassion and accountability.

The episode takes a critical look at pressing social issues threatening community safety, particularly the rise in youth violence and the devastating fentanyl crisis. Chief Padilla sheds light on the socio-cultural dynamics at play and the urgent need for comprehensive strategies to tackle these challenges. We also tackle broader topics such as immigration and border challenges, highlighting the humanitarian aspects and real-world implications for local communities. Throughout, we emphasize finding peace in chaos, encouraging hope and proactive community engagement as pathways to reconciliation and progress.

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Chapters

• 2:24 Policing and Community Engagement Progression
• 18:21 Community Engagement Programs in Law Enforcement
• 26:55 Youth Violence and Fentanyl Crisis
• 33:55 Challenges in Law Enforcement Operations
• 41:34 Immigration and Border Challenges
• 51:17 Finding Peace and Reconciliation in Chaos

Transcript

Grantley Martelly: 2:24

Welcome to Above the Noise, a podcast at the intersection of faith, race and reconciliation, and I'm your Gr antley Martelly. In this episode of Above the Noise, we'll be looking backwards and looking forward. Our guest is Chief Rafael Padilla of the Kent Washington Police Department. He was with us four years ago in the middle of the pandemic, in the middle of the racial awakening going on around the world, in the middle of police being criticized, in the middle of the George Floyd issues. There were calls to defund the police and the Kent Washington Police Department was struggling with how to adjust to this new normal. Here we are, four years later, and we're having a conversation about how things have changed, where they are now, the new challenges facing the city, facing the world, and how policing is adjusting, and how he and his team are adjusting to serve our communities better, and how he is doing as a person and as a person of faith, serving in a totally dynamic and ever-changing role.

Grantley Martelly: 3:47

Welcome, chief. It's been a while since we got together. I just went back and looked at our episodes and it was from episode 11 back in 2020, when we last get together Four years. Lots of things have happened since then and I'm sure we've got lots to talk about, but I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today. Before we get started, just let's talk about your family. How are you doing? How's your family doing?

Chief Rafael Padilla: 4:13

Well, first off, it's my pleasure and thank you for the invitation. I look forward to the discussion, as I did four years ago. My family's doing great. We're blessed. We're in a season now where our kids are all adults and three of them still live with us, but they're doing their adult stuff. You can see they're moving into that phase where they're going to be on their own, married and hopefully not too soon, but soon enough grandkids will be on the way right.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 4:46

Yeah, so Tracy and I are very blessed and starting to enjoy our adult life back again, with the kids doing their own thing more and more.

Grantley Martelly: 4:57

That's great, I'm glad. It's good when your family is doing good. That's one less thing you have to worry about, absolutely. And you're still chief today, four years later, and that must be good. To be still here at Kent city of Kent, yes.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 5:11

It's very good. You know, most of your listeners are probably not aware that the average tenure of a chief is three to five years. And so I've got six under my belt now. So I feel very fortunate that that is the case, and I still feel that there's a lot of work that I want to get done. I see some things we went through. We'll talk about the last four years, but now that we're coming out of that, there's a refocusing on some longer-term goals that I had that I'd like to see come to fruition.

Grantley Martelly: 5:40

Well, now that we're coming out of that, there's a refocusing on some longer term goals that I had that.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 5:42

I'd like to see come to fruition.

Grantley Martelly: 5:44

Well, that's great, so let's get right into it. So in 2020, we're in the middle of what I call the racial awakening. The George Floyd issues and the protests were all going on around the country. Some started in Seattle, ended up here in Kent a couple of protests as well. We were in the middle of pandemic and wearing masks and immunizations and all of those kinds of things, trying to feed people up the hill here at the church. We're trying to feed about 500 people a week who were without able to provide for their families. Have you seen things change and have you think we made any progress?

Chief Rafael Padilla: 6:24

Yes to both of those. I felt like that entire period was constant change on multiple fronts. I think the way that we lived, the way that we interacted as human beings, our ability to gather and worship the growing need for people in our community and how that went up.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 6:45

And then also a big you know, obviously a big part of my perspective is the changes, the constant change in law enforcement, and so I feel that coming through that while not necessarily a pleasant experience for a lot of that looking back absolutely necessary for us to be where we are now, where I feel we were in a much better position than we were in terms of meeting the needs of our community.

Grantley Martelly: 7:12

Okay, well, let's get into that. We talked back then in Episode 11 about your views on policing and why. My question was why you thought some of the things in the country were happening the way they were. You know, it seems to be not unique to any one community and you had some pretty strong views on policing back then. Have your views changed or have they matured?

Chief Rafael Padilla: 7:37

No, I would say they've matured. My views have not changed and the values of law enforcement have not changed the values of service integrity and professionalism are there. It is now the way that we make those things present in our community, the way we go about ensuring that we're living up to those values that the community expects of us.

Grantley Martelly: 8:05

It's been operationalized in a way that comes through, so that we are not just relying on our good name in law enforcement.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 8:16

We're actually demonstrating that we're living up to those values. So my views haven't changed. Some of my views have been actually more solidified, if you will, I believe, for a very long time that the authority that's granted law enforcement from the public has to be given to those that are worthy of it.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 8:37

Given to those that are worthy of it, those that have the right temperament, personality, compassion for people, in addition to the courage to stand and you know be in harm's way to protect people and when we don't invest right in the training and development of our law enforcement officers and we don't recruit and retain the best and brightest people in our community. You can see how the stress of this type of job can result in tragedy. I still believe that, I will always believe that which is why I think we're very blessed here in. Kent Our officers get exceptional training, get exceptional support here here.

Grantley Martelly: 9:25

So we had you know, at that time we, we you talked about you know we had some of the tragedies going on as well, but you talked about some of the things that you've been doing. You know what are some of the things that you've done specifically in the department since then to try to ensure the things that you just spoke about.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 9:40

There's been so many things. I'm worried you're not going to have enough time on this podcast, but let me touch on some of the highlights. First, we really took a long, hard look at our operations, our policies, the way we conducted business, from top to bottom, and overlaid that with an important focus on were we doing things equitably and without discrimination? Were we serving in a fair and impartial way or were we allowing our personal biases to permeate how we did things and how we served, and so that was a very long process.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 10:21

I stood up a new position. We have a diversity, equity and inclusion officer. Currently that's Officer Eric Doherty. He's got college degrees related to this field. He's an exceptional ambassador and I elevated him to the office of the chief, so he works directly for me. And so he has gone through all of our policies, our hiring procedures our training and has really brought that lens and input from the community directly, along with our longstanding network of community groups that advise us and tell us what we should know and how we should do things.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 11:00

So I would say that we started with our policy and operations.

Grantley Martelly: 11:03

The second part was we really looked at our hiring.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 11:07

We were like all law enforcement agencies probably in the country where the demographic hire every year was over 70% white male and there's nothing on white males great police officers. But we weren't really living up to the goal of representing our community to the best of our ability. Let's face it, not everybody wants to be a cop, right? So it's easy to say, oh, you should look more like your community. Well, a lot of our community won't have anything to do with police work or so um, so we have to break through that. But we put huge investments in our recruiting and hiring.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 11:43

We got strong support from the mayor and the council in terms of our salary and benefits package is the best in the state, which makes us one of the best in the country money where our mouth is and went out there and I'm very proud to look back and see that for 2022 and 2023.

Grantley Martelly: 12:06

Over 50 percent of the people we hired were from underrepresented communities wow, that's good.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 12:10

And and historic highs in terms of hiring women, um, and they're really exceptional people. So that's one um, and the last thing I'll hit on is that we really elevated our capturing and analysis of data to understand we really knew what was going on through our body-worn camera programs through our drone programs, through our fixed cameras programs to our drone programs to our fixed cameras, really elevating how intensely we examined and reviewed what our people were doing to ensure they were meeting up to our standards.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 12:51

That has opened a lot of things, including, you know, working with the union in terms of process and discipline, but also it's opened our eyes to we do some incredible work out there too and we need to be able to tell that story.

Grantley Martelly: 13:05

That's the power of data, right? You see the good and you see the not so good and you see the things you need to change if you look at it objectively and let the data tell the story. But that is powerful. One of the things that has changed also since then and, by the way, to our listeners, it was episode 11 on our podcast, where we interviewed Chief Padilla first back in 2020.

Grantley Martelly: 13:33

But since then, at least for some people of color. The thing that has really happened significantly is that we've had three police officers in this country convicted of crimes from murder to assault because of their work, and actually one here recently, just in the city south of us, yes, which to many people are saying that is unheard of. I heard some people say I didn't think I would live to see that in my lifetime. Has that impacted how you do your job or how your officers see themselves, or even impact recruiting? You seem to have a pretty great recruiting record as far as diversity is concerned.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 14:21

Yes, so you're referring to Officer Jeff Nelson's conviction for murder Right? Just down here in our neighboring city of Auburn. You know, the good news, I think, for us is that we as a department did not sit back and either try to dig our feet in to defend how we were doing things. We didn't push back on what was being demanded of us. We took the tack of trying to embrace it and looking for how we could really change the things we needed to change.

Grantley Martelly: 14:59

You mentioned in your statement that many people felt like they'd never see that in their lifetime.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 15:04

Well, I will assure you, many officers felt the same way, but for a different reason, because if you ask our women and men that work here, they truly believe, because they're doing it, that that could never happen, right that an officer to murder someone would never happen. And so it has happened, and you're seeing the accountability level go up. And what's changed is there have been some modifications to the law that changed the threshold for being able to convict an officer. So, prior to 2021, the standard of proof that the government had to prove to convict an officer was that they had malicious intent.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 15:47

So this is an extremely hard mental state to prove. You have to prove that the officer went into it absolutely just wanting to kill somebody.

Grantley Martelly: 15:55

That's basically how it was Specific legal definition.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 15:59

And so that got modified to what is now the reasonable officer standard, where the officer has to act in good faith, and what we saw recently is that there is a process where the things that lead up to the lethal use of force matter.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 16:23

So, how the officer responded. Did they de-escalate the situation? Did they look for alternatives other than using force to remedy the situation? You know, was the threat immediate? So that it is concrete that, yes, everything leading up to that shows that the officer was or was not justified, and so that has changed the way we look at things.

Grantley Martelly: 16:49

If you can imagine if you're in this law enforcement profession and one of your colleagues from another agency gets convicted of murder. That gets everybody's attention.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 17:00

So we and I want to say this too we respect the decision of the court and the rule of law Right. How we feel about the outcome of that, you know, I happen to know some of the family members from former Officer Nelson and I feel bad for a family as I would feel bad for a family whose father was convicted of murder, that I didn't know it affects more than the office it does.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 17:25

It's yes, the family's there, the department's left. So I want to say we respect the decision of the court and the rule of law, but I also know that we're studying that, so we've pulled the records, we are doing a very deep dive on how they, what the prosecutor had to say, what the defense was, what the jury felt and what their comments were, and we are in the process currently of developing lessons learned for leadership lessons learned for protocols and procedures, because the one thing I want to make sure in terms of making answering the question for the officers which is, could that be me Is, well, here's the, here's what you need to know.

Grantley Martelly: 18:09

right, arm them with the tools and the information and they'll do very well.

Grantley Martelly: 18:14

So the challenge we face I was thinking about this the other day the challenge we face and how to say, is you know, we about this the other day? The challenge we face and how to say is you know we? Nobody in society argues that we don't need law enforcement. Right, we need the rule of law, and in order to do that, we need police officers, we need people who are specialists and experts that help us through that process. Then there are times when things happen when people say, well, you know, this shouldn't have happened. We started in this conundrum. We need them, we need officers, we need law enforcement and we need to learn to work together. And so you see things like that and it causes everybody to pause and say, wow, you know, this can happen. And we also think about the family of the people right who passed away, who died as well.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 19:00

Absolutely.

Grantley Martelly: 19:07

But one of the things that you're doing is in this vein of trying to change the community perception, and working with the community is, first of all, just for our listeners as well, and our viewers. At a time we talked back in 2020, kent with the ninth most diverse city in the United States, and I looked last week and I think it was like up to six or something like that.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 19:25

Yes, the statistic I saw is five, five.

Grantley Martelly: 19:29

Okay, five In the entire country, In the entire country. So you have a city that is extremely diverse, and that means you have a lot of people there who and we talked about this in the first episode you have a lot of refugees. You have people, asylees, people who come from countries where the police are not seen as friends, as neighborhoods, and you're trying to create a neighborhood-friendly police department that represents them, which I commend you for. So one of the things that you started since we talked was Coffee with the Chief. Yes, and that's one of your attempts of showing the more humane face of law enforcement and trying to bridge some of those gaps. So how is Coffee with the Chief going and are you satisfied? You're making progress.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 20:19

So Coffee with the Chief is still going very well. We still have a great attendance. We just had an event up north in our city last week and it was really well attended.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 20:33

But I want to be really up front. That event draws some of our underrepresented communities, but not many. It's pretty people that have been you know what I'll say just more mainstream in terms of communication and establishment in the city, attend those events. But there is a program that I think is really making an impact in our community. So when we talked last, I believe we were just starting the Community Immersion Law Enforcement Program.

Grantley Martelly: 21:04

Oh yeah.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 21:05

And it has grown. It took a long while. That trust issue made a lot of organizations hesitate getting in partnership with us.

Grantley Martelly: 21:15

Right.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 21:16

But we've been able to break through that. So we started with World Relief. You mentioned asylees and refugees, and our officers were assigned for people that are not aware of the program. When you get hired as a new police officer in Kent, you get assigned to work with one of these community-based organizations and you just go and serve, you're assigned to them. They mentor you. You get an indoctrination in working with multiple cultures and ethnicities. Are they in uniform or not? No, they're not in uniform and it's before they get any training whatsoever. Their role is to start serving Because, you know me, one of my biggest things when I hire someone is they have to have a heart to serve, and so they're living up to that.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 22:07

So World Relief was first. They got on. They've been awesome. If you remember when the um, when the the crisis in afghanistan, we had our officers were showing up at the airport, picking them up, taking them to medical appointments, taking them to their housing, um, and then so that's grown. It took a while, but then vine maple Place came on board right Helping more so with our diverse community there and volunteering. And most recently, we now place our officers with the YMCA and they spend over 400 hours just serving their community before they ever put this uniform on, that is making a tremendous difference.

Grantley Martelly: 22:41

Lots of basketball and baseball and background. Yes.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 22:47

And going to get food, runs and clothing, shelter, and it's been incredible. And so we, our partners, like I said, were very hesitant to start. And now you know, their only complaint is we're not able to provide them as many officers. Oh, Because we've gotten caught. The other good thing is we've gotten caught up in our. We've stabilized our hiring. We're one of the few departments anywhere that has all their positions filled.

Grantley Martelly: 23:18

Oh, you have a okay that's great.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 23:20

But, the other side of that and I want to be clear we're still way understaffed. I need another 35 officers. Okay, yes, for sure.

Grantley Martelly: 23:27

Yeah, well, that is a great program. I heard about that and you talked about it and my wife talked about it when she worked at World Relief to help launch that program and I was wondering how it was going. Relief to help launch that program and I was wondering how it was going. How is the officers find it after they go through it? I assume some of them go into it pretty hesitant.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 23:46

But yeah, I think there's. I think most of our young people are very excited. You know, when we were launching the program and developing it, one of the concerns we had was how would it impact our recruitment? Because, let's be honest, most people don't get in law enforcement to go volunteer at by mabel place right um, but that it really is a component, like I said, that the the to now live the values and not just say we have them um, it has turned into being a powerful recruiting tool

Chief Rafael Padilla: 24:16

wow any of our young people say this was a deciding factor for me to come to Kent that you do this because it shows who you are, so that's been excellent. University of Washington has conducted two rounds of studies on this. The second one is being completed now. The initial study showed that the officers both felt like it enhanced their competency in the DEI space and it also was a fulfilling enrichment, thing that they personally enjoyed to do, wow.

Grantley Martelly: 24:46

I expect that this second survey will reinforce what the first survey said. You know and I'm here thinking also, you know, from the civilian standpoint it also establishes relationships with community members before they even put the uniform on. That they may encounter then when they're our officers and like we talked about in the first episode, we did, you know, the need to have that pre-existing relationship before a crisis happens, especially in those diverse communities where there's that fear of the uniform, especially in those diverse communities where there's that fear of the uniform. Now it seems to me like this is helping in terms of some people have actually met this person who they're now going to see in a uniform. It's like, oh, I know you, you played with my kids at the YMCA or you picked me up at the airport when I first came here. Now they're seeing the person rather than the uniform because of that pre-established relationship, right?

Chief Rafael Padilla: 25:47

yeah, that's powerful. That is at the core of why we're doing it. Yeah, um, that officer that's playing soccer at the ymca this week, um 10 years from now, when that that kid? Who was six is now 16 and they're in the community. That connection is there.

Grantley Martelly: 26:05

They're going to remember. Yeah, see, that's a powerful thing. I'm going to look forward to that University of Washington study and see how it comes out. Some exciting news We've added two new features to the podcast. Now you can send me a text directly from each episode while you're listening. If you like what you're hearing, just go to the show notes and click on the link send text While you're there. You can also now support the show and buy me a coffee. Do this by clicking on the link support the show, or you can go to your browser and type in buymeacoffeecom. Forward slash above the noise and thanks for your support.

Grantley Martelly: 26:56

So let's change a little bit and say you know, we are in a different world right now. We've talked, we started on that premise and we have a whole bunch of new challenges now. And we're not saying that, you know, the racial issue has been completely solved or the pandemic issue. We think it's been solved, but now they say there's a new strain and a new vaccine. You know, I don't think that'll ever be gone, but we're facing some new challenges right now in the community. What are some of those current challenges that you're seeing right now that are occupying a whole bunch of your time?

Chief Rafael Padilla: 27:33

so, um the main thing that um is front and center right now is the explosion of violent crime with youth offenders and youth victims okay, that is right now at the top and the center of my focus? Um, we, there's a lot that goes behind it, and I think we're in the process of of recentering some of our systems to address the need.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 28:03

We did a really deep push towards the restorative measures of the offender, interdiction and prevention, which I think are good, and I want to continue to see us work in those efforts, and I think there's room for improvement there in terms of data collection and really making sure we're hitting the mark on helping our youth. So that's there. But at the same time we really moved away from the accountability piece and none of us, as a father of four, want to see any of our youth incarcerated. But I have to tell you, you know, just last week we had three youths that we have now that three of them in custody that

Grantley Martelly: 28:47

that for no reason whatsoever shot and killed a 13 year old.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 28:51

Wow, you know, in the last month in this this region, there's been, I think, six teens murdered by other teens. Wow, and the numbers are pretty staggering. So while we're starting to see a more, leveling out with our adult offenders.

Grantley Martelly: 29:14

the youth crime is going through the roof, and so that's a really big challenge right now.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 29:18

To address it, we're in partnerships both with the. Regional Gun Violence Reduction Team. We are launching a pilot with the King County Prosecutors Office, specific for Kent. We're with Community Passageways for the outreach work that needs to be done for the intervention. So we're doing all of that and at the same time we're investing in the resources to investigative tools and resources to get out there. So we minimize the time from tragedy to identifying and arresting people and it sounds horrible and it is horrible.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 29:56

A teen is more likely to be shot than they are to die in a car accident. That can't. We can't stay this way. So we really have to examine why it is that we're here and how to address it. And I agree, if it is a health issue, then let's follow what the doctors do. The doctors don't allow cancer to grow. The doctors they quarantine someone who has an infectious disease and doctors work to prevent with early testing and intervention. And so, if it is really a medical crisis and I agree, we need to look at it that way and make sure we're applying the strategies that doctors use.

Grantley Martelly: 30:39

Yeah, I mean, that is a tragedy. We hear about it every day. Is there any research going on with your department or the university about trying to identify what are some of the reasons that we see in this spike?

Chief Rafael Padilla: 30:51

So our systems don't capture the social components of why this is right, yeah. So that that work I hope I know is being done by others. We we can. You know, an easy thing to point to is the socioeconomic situations of our city, but anecdotally, what we're seeing is that there is there's a trend amongst our youth that they feel like they have to have a gun.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 31:21

So where you and I grew up, you know we have a district screaming at school. We go to the playground, we settle it. A fight's going to remain a fight. Right In today's youth culture, that fight very seldom, very rarely, remains a fight. That fight quickly becomes a shooting. And where even even youth that are not involved in crime rarely remains a fight, that fight quickly becomes a shooting. And even youth that are not involved in crime their school surveys are showing they feel as though they have to be armed because if they're not and they run into a problem, they're going to be the only one without a gun. So we have to address that. We really have to address that, and I don't have the solution for that.

Grantley Martelly: 32:04

Another question, though, another challenge we are seeing right now also is the fentanyl crisis. How is that impacting your city?

Chief Rafael Padilla: 32:14

So it has been a devastating impact regionally, and we're no exception to that. The mortality or the lethality rate of fentanyl is unlike anything I've ever seen.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 32:27

So back in the 90s, when I could grow hair um I um, I was an undercover narcotics officer and then the tail end of the crack epidemic was was coming and the emergence of methamphetamines were coming out. Crystal methamphetamine was really starting to emerge in Hawaii and as I went out and did my job and arrested dealers and traffickers and saw the devastation, even in my own family, that drug of methamphetamine affected my family huge in Hawaii.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 33:03

I thought I'd never see anything worse than that. I thought there's nothing that could be a bigger affliction to people than this, and I was wrong. Fentanyl is far different and far worse. I have seen people recover from meth from heroin from crack from cocaine, many substances. I am not seeing very many people and I've not met any person who has recovered from fentanyl. It is something that alters the way the brain chemistry works and pain receptors chemistry works and pain receptors.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 33:45

It's dangerous to try and quit cold turkey from fentanyl because there's health implications that come with that, and so it is a very scary and real thing In 2022,. According to the DEA, 110,000 plus people died from fentanyl overdose, wow, 110,000.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 34:06

And I look at that and it and my law enforcement hat goes on and says well, what would we do to an organization like a terrorist organization that killed 110,000 Americans? What would we expect our government to do? I think we all would agree, we would expect our government to go remove that problem, get rid of it. And so that's a question for me, because the fentanyl is coming clearly from two cartels Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels in Mexico. The Jalisco and Sinaloa cartels in Mexico and the chemicals that are used to make the drug, the precursor drugs, come from China. We know where it is, we know where it's at and yet there seems to be this really big reluctance to go in.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 34:57

And take care of the problem and I don't understand. And so there's that. So until that gets worked out, you know we're pouring as much resources as we can into treatment and when we arrest someone, so remember that we could not arrest anyone for for openly using drugs, including fentanyl, for about two and a half three years. The laws have changed now where it's a misdemeanor, and so when we arrest someone, they immediately get diverted to treatment, and if they complete treatment, their arrest record or conviction record gets expunged.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 35:36

And we're starting to see people make a good faith effort to try and complete treatment.

Grantley Martelly: 35:42

It's small, but it's an improvement over three years ago, for sure. Okay, I also heard that part of the challenge is that there's not enough treatment beds and stuff when we try to get people into treatment.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 35:57

Yeah, that is absolutely true. There is not enough treatment beds for people who don't have the means to pay for it. So it's the same issue. You know, if there's a money, there's a way, but so many of the people that we incarcerate don't have the means for that medical treatment, and so government is trying to facilitate that, and we are woefully woefully behind.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 36:24

There's been improvement, there's been money put into budgets to elevate that and it's getting better, but what compounds things is that many times, substance use disorder and mental health are overlapping issues for people and mental health are overlapping issues for people, and so one of the challenges is that if you have someone who has both substance use disorder and mental health, there are very few facilities that are available are set up to handle both of those situations simultaneously.

Grantley Martelly: 36:58

Okay, yeah, that may be a part of the issue. It's a challenge as we continue with how things have changed. Another item that seems to have changed is the country seems to be really polarized, you know, politically and socially. Now it seems like, you know, the middle ground is getting smaller and smaller, or that's the way it seems. Yes, has that affected your department, or has some of this political polarization and cultural classes affected the way you have had to do your work?

Chief Rafael Padilla: 37:35

I would say that, like any segment of the population, officers are right in there, right. In terms of those polarizing issues, what we really strive for here and what we had to do a better job of doing is getting back to neutrality, in that, when you wear this uniform and you have the authority that's granted law enforcement our role is to stay neutral right and stay consistent with laws and the Constitution and how we do our job and not allow our personal biases or political biases to get in there.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 38:12

But they have impacted. I think we're leveling out of that may have. May have focused more on on some of the political decisions being driven that become law and moved away from really just saying our job is to to make the law work, not to really be upset about we didn't like that law right, and so I think we've matured that way quite a bit so. So we try to keep our officers and our messaging free of political rhetoric, free of political bias, and just say here's how you do your job the right way.

Grantley Martelly: 38:53

Okay. So another issue is immigration and asylum issues. Our election year and that's front and center, and we've had over the last four years, lots of debates about immigration and everybody expected that there would have been a bill to revive the immigration policies of the country. And there was a bill and then it didn't get support so it died and now we're all back to where it is. But people keep coming and we have these groups that has been busing people around and you know so many things going on. I mean, we again pre-covid, we never heard about you know, shipping bus loads of people to cities and stuff. So that has also changed.

Grantley Martelly: 39:38

And, as um and I'm sure that k Kent's not immune from some of those issues of you know, people coming in, people showing up and trying to figure out how to. Eventually some of it's going to spill onto your plate because people are going to call and say, hey, chief, what are you doing about this? And these people here and those people there. Have you seen some of those issues that are also creeping up on your door?

Chief Rafael Padilla: 40:03

Absolutely, and this is going to fall into that category. We could take a whole episode to discuss this, so I'll try to keep it specific. So we have a robust asylum seeker camp on the north side of our city. They're off of Central Avenue.

Grantley Martelly: 40:17

It's been there for a little over a month.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 40:20

The property there is controlled by King County. The asylum seekers came from the church in Tukwila Riverton. For a little over a month the property there is controlled by King County. The asylum seekers came from the church in Tukwila Riverton and they moved here and they really thought that if they came here we would open the hotel for them and they could move in there. And that property is controlled by King County. It's privately owned, controlled by King County. Both King County and Kent agree that that is not a great location.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 40:48

There's issues with the hotel, but just the location itself and the suitability of that right. And, mind you, there was no pre-budget for any of this.

Grantley Martelly: 40:58

There never is Right. This is unexpected, yeah.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 41:02

And so what I do want to report is that, you know, over 169 people now have been placed in housing. We're trying to continue that, and but I also want to be clear that that camp is unlawful under city code and is against our use, our city use laws as well. But we're doing the compassionate thing. Our officers are in that camp every day doing walkthroughs, ensuring people are safe we call them welfare checks, checking on the welfare people there and so we've been doing that. This really comes down to a federal issue. Cities, states, counties are not equipped to do this. It's questionable whether or not the nation is equipped to do this. Questionably, uh, it's questionable whether or not the nation is, is, is equipped to do this right, so, and I don't, so I won't. This is not a political statement, but I think it's your, your um audience would appreciate some of the perspective I had.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 41:56

so a few months back I went with um, members of the federal law enforcement community and some of the local chiefs here I'm the chair of the HIDA board. It's high-intensity drug trafficking areas and the purpose of the board is to facilitate operations and task forces to go after the cartels and the drug traffickers nationwide. So I'm on this board. We're doing a meeting down in San Diego really to go down there to learn about how San Diego is dealing with the influx of fentanyl and.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 42:35

I found out I was going to learn a lot about the human element of people coming across the border. On my visit there we sat at the San Ysidro border crossing and met and got to go and see and I was amazed to hear that it's tens of thousands of people just at that one border crossing are coming into the country and that, yes, fentanyl is coming in. But I sat and literally sat and I watched Chinese people come in, Venezuelans we watched I believe they were from Georgia, the Republic of Georgia, come in, and I had lived in San Diego for part of my life and so I expected we were going to see Mexicans coming across the Mexican border. There was still that, but it was a lot of international people coming through the border which makes you scratch your head.

Grantley Martelly: 43:35

Oh, so there was a lot more diverse people on the border now than you were living there and so you know.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 43:42

so we talked about it and there was a policy shift to where the agents that work at the border, if they cannot adequately process someone seeking asylum, they let them in. So there's criteria based on international law of how you qualify for asylum, what it means, and that has kind of been overrun because there's not systems to adequately screen people, and so the default is if you can't screen them, let them in. And even if every one of a day coming into our country, I think a legitimate and objective question is how do we sustain that? How do we pay for it? Even if we could get on board that we all wanted to do the same thing, which we're not, obviously we're polarized. Just the sheer volume makes me go. How do we we, how do we even afford?

Grantley Martelly: 45:02

to do it. So they're saying this is about a hundred thousand people a day.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 45:09

Well, at the border at times at times at times. So at the border crossing we were at it's in the tens of thousands that. So the way the director put it to us was about 50,000 people cross in for work and other things and about 20,000 go back or 30,000 go back Um, they're seeing um anywhere from um uh, 1,200 to 5,000 people come in and seek asylum on certain days and they have the capacity to process 300. Wow, and so you see where this is going. There is a significant human smuggling process. This is, you know, we got to see the tunnels.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 45:53

I was in the tunnels. We got to see them come on land and again, our nation was built on immigration. I am here because somewhere, and my great-great-grandfather came and joined the US, calvary and that's how our family got here. We immigrated here, like so many of our families immigrated here like so many of our families. So it is not a departure from um, from the value of immigration and the awesome components of that. For me, it comes down to now just a practical how do we, how do we pay for it, how do we sustain it?

Chief Rafael Padilla: 46:31

how do we, you know? Because that kind of growth is not something that our economy is even prepared to keep up with.

Grantley Martelly: 46:38

Most of us civilian people. We hear about immigration and we have our perspective on it, but I'm not sure we truly understand the full magnitude of the issue at the borders and what's going on at the borders and what's going on and I would assume it's probably a little bit different in Arizona from San Diego and the Canadian border To get a true picture of what's really happening.

Grantley Martelly: 47:06

It's really really difficult to know, the news tried to do it in 30-second sound bites and it's not a 30-second sound bite thing and it's probably not a 15-minute 2020 thing. It's probably a bigger discussion that needs to take place in trying to be responsible and, at the same time, trying to be compassionate and trying to do things. The challenge for a city like yours, for people like me as a minister, when people appear at your door, you've got a situation, you've got a deal with it, right. So you have all the stuff at the border going on that we don't understand. You get a glimpse of it here and there, but then you wake up one morning and there's it could be five, it could be 50, it could be 100 people that says we need help, and then you've got this situation saying what do we do about this group that's in front of me right now, which I think is where most people get their touch to it, right, dealing with that microcosm in front of them at the time.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 48:14

Right, well, and what we have learned in our own experience here this last month and a half.

Grantley Martelly: 48:24

Is that the scope of the issue is such that when you do help people more people go.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 48:31

That's where I'm going to go. Yeah, the word gets out, the words get out. They go here and these people are compassionate, they'll help you. And Kent doesn't have. I'll be really clear Kent doesn't have the budget for any of this. None of this exists and we're talking millions of dollars now. You've got a house fee, clothes, medical. It's a huge deal.

Grantley Martelly: 48:50

You've got children.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 48:53

And I didn't touch on this because it is, but it is a thing I want our community to know. At the same time, you know, there's the humanitarian issue and the sustainability of that, but as the chief of police, I also have to be really cognizant of not every person coming here is going to be good. There are bad actors that will come here, and what is that? How do we guard against that when we don't know who they are? Right there's, we don't know who they are, and so that makes us vulnerable, and I think there's room for us to be compassionate and do our part in the world and, by the way, I think other countries should do their part too but also be wise in ensuring that we're not inviting people that want to do us harm.

Grantley Martelly: 49:45

Yeah, so that's one of the polarizing issues now that has changed us and we are seeing these issues going on in our community. We talked about the gun violence. We talked about the fentanyl issues. How's your faith holding up these days? It's good.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 50:02

You know it's interesting that for me during the pandemic and most of that, I got the opportunity to reconnect with my faith and be more regularly attending my church, because I slipped back a little bit. I wasn't going all the time but I got back in there and it's good. I think attending church is a big component to staying connected, staying growing and hearing the word and being part of the community. I'm a Christian, so Christian community I mean. It's easy to kind of detach from that. My belief and my faith in God and Jesus is never wavered. My discipline in following what I'm supposed to be doing is something I'm always working on.

Grantley Martelly: 50:57

Well, that's great. I'm glad to hear you're holding up, because you face lots of different things in your job and having that community around you that's not necessarily people in your profession is important.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 51:12

I always welcome prayers so that's great.

Grantley Martelly: 51:17

So what recommendations or tools would you have to give to people who may be listening to this and saying you know, there's so much things going on around us, I don't know what to do. You know, we came through the pandemic, thought we'd have a lull. Now we're back up with all of these other things. And how, how am I dealing? How can I find peace and reconciliation and not just always feel like the world around them is about to explode?

Chief Rafael Padilla: 51:46

You know, I don't know that I'm an expert in this, but what has worked for me is to really try to make time to focus on the things that are going well, really focus on the positive things in your family and life, the things that you're working on, the things that you have some control over as well, and be mindful to set aside time to do that, whether it be prayer and meditation and reflection or even just connectivity with friends and family or a mentor and focus there.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 52:28

It is easy and almost human nature to look at the negative of everything and you can really get focused on that.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 52:38

Um, particularly I have found, if you're, if you're spending way too much time on media, whether traditional media or social media, um, and so, for me, I have to look at social media because it's I'm the police chief and I have to pay attention to what's going on.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 52:54

But I gotta tell, to tell you, when I don't have to to mess with social media, I don't. Um, I think people get upset. They wish me happy birthday and my birthday's in March and sometime around October I might see it because I don't pay attention to it. Uh, my personal stuff it's just work related, but and then also I, you know, I would ask people to to always ask why and question if they are seeing something and if it's related to our department, you know, send me an email, call me. The good part of social media is that we do put a lot of our communication information out on social media. So I don't know if that helps, but I think that we are a city that benefits greatly from its faith-based community, and so as long as we have that we have awesome faith-based community here, I think we're going to be okay.

Grantley Martelly: 53:53

Thank you, remind the audience just for how they can get in touch with you. You have that website or you have that email that people can get in touch with you or the city.

Chief Rafael Padilla: 54:04

Yes, so if you go into your search engine and just put City of Kent Police, Washington will come right up For my email. It's rhadia. My last name, P-A-D-I-L-L-A. Washington will come right up for my email. It's our idea. My last name P A D I L L a at Kent w agov. And you can also call our main line, which is two, five, three, eight, five, six, five, eight, zero, zero, and ask for me. I get a lot of emails, I get a lot of phone calls. I so give me some time to get back, but I always make it a point to get back or to get you to the person that you should be speaking to.

Grantley Martelly: 54:45

Yeah, well, thank you for that. I've always been impressed how open you are to speak to people, to talk to people, to respond to emails Some police chiefs are really hard to get a hold of, but, as busy as you are, and the things that you've got going on, I've always been impressed about how you take the time to show up in places to respond to emails or phone calls or, like you said, to even make sure people get referred to the right place. And from the time we met you, we've always been impressed with your openness to conversation, have conversation with people. Thank you Well, thank you again, Chief. I really appreciate it and we will get this out there and hopefully, you know, people will learn from what was shared and see that there is hope, that we are, we are improving.

Grantley Martelly: 55:40

Uh, the world may be changing, but constantly focus on, like you said, the things we have control of, what is positive. Even the bible reminds us of that right. What is just, what is what is positive? What is um know, think on these things and help, and we can all be a help in helping change our community. And it's not always up to law enforcement or the government or the federal government, but part of the issue is what can I do as a regular citizen to help me and my community better? Remember to subscribe and leave us a rating. Ratings are very important to helping our podcast succeed in the podcast universe and helping it become known to other people. Email us your comments at AboveTheNoise24 at gmailcom. Abovethenoise24 at gmailcom. And follow us on Instagram and Facebook at AboveTheNoise24. Thank you for listening and please share this episode with a friend. We'll see you next time.