EP 4: Making a Difference

Episode 4 00:00:00 Tpr. Corey King: Welcome back to the Kentucky State Police Podcast. Today, we pick up with Captain Robert Purdy to discuss more about his career and experiences. Captain. Welcome back. Thanks for having me. So you started out as a road trooper just like all of us do. You come out of the academy? You start out as a road trooper. How long were you a trooper on the road? 00:00:23 Capt. Robert Purdy: So I worked the road for about five or five and a half years. During my early career, I probably had three and a half, four years in. They asked if I had any interest in going into investigations and I didn't. I enjoyed working nights. I enjoyed the thrill of the job. I enjoyed arresting, uh, impaired drivers. Me and another trooper at Toby Coyle at the time we, uh, we competed. So for, you know, whoever has the most DUIs at post over the year, that's to go get an award. And, uh, I think I was working Estill County kind of at the start of that. And, and I was arresting a lot of DUIs and and he said, do you think you can beat me? I said, yeah, Toby, I do. He said, well, dog, many people have tried and everyone's failed. And I said, I think I'm going to give you a run for your money. Going into about the last week and a half, I was about four DUI arrests ahead of him. And I was going in, uh, nearing my dose. And, uh, he said, dog, uh, I've never arrested this many. That's how he talks. He said, I've never arrested this many DUIs in a year. Um, do you think that maybe we could tie. And I said, we can tie. And I'll help you if you'll concede that you lost. He said, you got me, dog. You won. And then I helped him arrest some DUIs. And it was my last day. I think I was off and he was working. I said, you better not get a DUI, because, uh, I didn't I didn't give you any to go up there to lose at the end. No. So we both both went and got the award with ninety five. Very good. You know, and so that that one county, I mean, just between the two of us, we arrested about one hundred and ninety DUIs. And so it's, it's impossible to know the amount of lives that were saved. And the, the people who are still here just by getting out work and, and by showing up every day, um, a simple competition, uh, made a lasting impact, no doubt, on our community. 00:02:21 Tpr. Corey King: Oh, absolutely. You know, I tell you, I was a reconstructionist for many, many years. And you see the aftermath, what families have to go through with people involved, uh, and intoxicated drivers. And you see that and it's how that, how lasting that is. And so I still speak to some of the families, uh, to this day. And that's something that's has impacted them for the rest of their lives, for sure. They very well may have never touched an illicit drug a day in their life, but yet drugs or alcohol has impacted their life for the rest of it. And so I think it's certainly you guys did a fantastic job getting those and kudos to you. Did you both work the same counties? 00:03:01 Capt. Robert Purdy: We did. 00:03:02 Tpr. Corey King: Uh, so Madison County, yeah. 00:03:04 Capt. Robert Purdy: So I transferred to Madison not long after we, we started that year, you know, and a lot of people, I think, you know, you talked about Bubba Botkin and you're in one of your last podcasts. He and I were working Estill County together, and I want to go to Madison because it was busy. Um, I was young. I got into law enforcement. I didn't want an office job. Now I'm in one, but I wanted to be able to get out. Um, I wanted to go where I wanted to go, do what needed to be done to please my communities. Um, and so that's, that is frankly why, why I wanted to go to Madison. You know, I think growing up, my grandfather was a trooper with the Oregon State Police, uh, in the sixties and 70s until he died in the line of duty in nineteen seventy five. Um, and hearing the stories about how he helped people really set in motion me at a young age that, hey, someday I want to have a career path, that I have the opportunity to help people make a difference. 00:04:01 Tpr. Corey King: Fantastic. You know, just to back up about Toby, for those who don't know him, you're one hundred percent correct. Everything is dog with him. He addressed like, hey, dog, you know, that's just how he is. And he's always been that way. So he came out of my class in the year two thousand, him and Bubba Barkin. Uh, but in fact, we were roommates. Bubba and I and went to the same post together before he transferred out to your area. Yeah. And, uh, what a fun person to to patrol with. 00:04:29 Capt. Robert Purdy: You know, Bubba's a lot of fun. And Toby, he has got the biggest heart. He did so many great things for our shop with a trooper program there at post. Um, I mean, we would take, you know, one hundred and thirty kids shop in a year. We would take kids to Trooper Island. He was on the Trooper Island board and actually may still be, I don't know if he's still doing that or not, but really has a heart and a love for people. And that's the neat thing about this career path in this agency. While we are all doing different things, the the heart behind it is just to make our communities a better place and a safer place, and to help people in a time of need. And, uh, you know, there's very few career paths that you can take that every day. You get to lay your head down on the pillow and say, and today, today I made a difference. I made an impact. People are safe at home because of the job that I did. And that's probably the most rewarding thing about this career. 00:05:23 Tpr. Corey King: Oh, sure. And I think anybody who's considering that you too will have those feelings if you're getting out here and making a difference in your own community. And that's what that was. The selling point I had when I go to career fairs is those folks who want to go to their local city police, the sheriff's departments, I implore anybody to look into those agencies. However, what makes us so unique and different is exactly where we're going and what we're talking about. Csap is one of those agencies that you have a multitude a multiple ways. Pathways to change essentially your career, but yet still with the same agency. Meaning you can laterally go to different positions with their agency as a road trooper like everyone does. So you go, you apply, you get accepted, you're conditionally accepted into the state Police Academy. Everyone has to go through that. You start out as a probationary trooper. Everyone starts out as that. Then at that point, once you're off probation, it's just open. You can do different things. Like you and I took the path of public affairs side and, and, you know, here you are. And we'll talk about all the various places you have gone in your career that you will not see necessarily with other smaller agencies. So when you are hired as a patrol officer in a very small PD or wherever, you very well could be patrolling for the rest of your career, chasing tail lights, essentially, you are making a difference. And we, uh, our hats off to all those people who do that. But for people like us, we like that change. We like the variation to go to executive security, marijuana, irad different, uh, places within our very own agency. And so that's what I enjoy about our career is just that I didn't go quite as far as you didn't want to, but that was my choice. And I was glad to see someone like you that has so much experience have come from so many different places, uh, in the position that you're in today. So you went Monroe Trooper patrol many years and it was it then. Did you decide that you wanted to go to the public affairs branch? 00:07:28 Capt. Robert Purdy: You know, I early in my career, I didn't know what exactly what I wanted to do. I think I had about three, three and a half years on. Uh, I tried out for the special response team. And so I, in college, I, I went to Murray State, I was on a rifle team. And so I thought, hey, this is going to mesh well with, uh, you know, some of the things that I think I'm, I'm good at. And the things that I've, I've trained at for a long time tried out. I was getting ready to, to join the team. Some things were going on personally that I thought, now's not probably the best time for me to to be gone and to go do that. And so it was probably one of the hardest conversations I had. I had to call then Sergeant Jeremy Slinker and say, hey, I really appreciate the opportunity to to come and join your elite squad of troopers, but I can't do it right now. And so I, with about five or five and a half or six years on, I actually transferred to recruitment. I started helping recruiting with Cadet Class eighty eight. And frankly, at that time getting there, I was a I was a young trooper and I saw that we were recruiting like it was the nineteen seventies or nineteen eighties. Uh, we actually had a, a Velcro trifold board. I remember that with, uh, pictures from the eighties and early nineties that we were using to recruit new people in twenty ten. And I thought, man, we've we've missed the mark. And so it wasn't anything big. I was like, we're done with this trifold. We're getting a TV. We're gonna. 00:09:05 Tpr. Corey King: Even. That's outdated. We're gonna write a lot better than. 00:09:07 Capt. Robert Purdy: We're gonna create a DVD of Academy classes and show what it is that we do. And so that would play on, on a real, you know, social media was probably in its infancy stages. We didn't do a whole lot of things on social media, but, uh, got out and recruited. I went to, uh, military bases colleges, and it was really an awesome opportunity for the first, uh, I'd say year and a half, I got to go tell people why I loved being a trooper. I got to share my stories of helping people, of saving lives, of why I wear the badge that I do. And frankly, there's, there's tons of people in this agency. Now that I remember going and talking to them at some of those colleges, some of those events. In fact, one of my former supervisors, Joey Vorbeck, he's the academy commander. I recruited him in that cadet class eighty nine and helped him get ready for the the written test. And so it's neat seeing it come full circle. You know, I've got lots of friends, Jack Gabriel, um, and so many others that, that were a part of that. And so Scotty, I think you all talked about his, his workout group that he has done. So that's when I was in recruitment and he and I started that together. Eighty nine class eighty nine was the first group of guys that came through. And, uh, everybody that came through our workout graduated the academy. It was, it was really an incredible kind of thing. And so it's been neat to see Scotty continue to take that, to grow that, to develop it. I don't show up nearly as much as I used to, but he has held on. And the people who are in this agency today that he's impacted is really neat. So I did, I worked in recruitment for two and a half years. And honestly, you know, for the first year and a half, it was cool because I got to talk about all the stuff that I had done and had recently been doing, but after about a year and a half, those were old stories. Yeah. And I was at that time, Alaska State Troopers was on TV, and I used to watch that at night. And I thought, I'm going to go apply to be an Alaska State trooper. And one day I woke up and I was like, hey, you're a Kentucky state trooper. You're working in recruitment. And I was so far removed from the job that I actually loved. I was now in an office and I made the decision, hey, I want to go back to post. And I was able to transfer back to the Richmond KSP post and got out and picked up where I left off. I was, I was fresh, I was hungry, and I got to serve the community as a, as a trooper for a few months before getting a call and having the, the public Affairs office, um, or officer position Open up. 00:11:45 Tpr. Corey King: Well that's interesting. You had mentioned that you watched in which I have to by the way, what was the allure to making you want to apply to Alaska State Police, for example? Now, and I'm really I'm saying that only because did that really did it dawn on you at some point that there was that appeal that they had that maybe we can move it here. What was that appeal? Was there something was it just being there? Was it the nature? Was it how they advertised based on that? Because the reason I say that is, was that part of the was that an integral moment for you to where you said, okay, now we we need to take a hold of social media and do something with, with this. 00:12:29 Capt. Robert Purdy: You know, I think that, uh, you know, later on in social media, I use some of those things that I saw to try to try to, you know, work towards that. But frankly, seeing troopers troop and watching guys on TV do the job that I grew up wanting to do and that I had been doing and hadn't been doing for the last two and a half or two years at that point. Um, it just made me realize like, hey, there's a, an impact that those guys are making. And, and I'm telling you, it was like one day I woke up and it clicked and I went, I can go back to the road, right? Like I'm a Kentucky State Police trooper. Um, we've got a vast agency post has positions open. All I need to do is put my transfer in and I can go back and I can go do the job that I love. 00:13:16 Tpr. Corey King: So your heart was still geared toward the backbone of every police agency, and that's on the road helping people in that moments of crisis. 00:13:24 Capt. Robert Purdy: Absolutely. I think I think that, you know, it's probably cliche, but most people that get into law enforcement, um, when I've sat on, on oral interview boards for new hires, they want to help people. They want to make their community a safer place. And the only place to really do that is boots on the ground, in the trenches, responding to calls and being able to have that satisfaction of I helped this person today. Um, you know, most of the other areas of our agency, whenever you start getting into, into administrative work, you start becoming removed from it. You're helping, but in a different way. You're helping put people in the positions that they need to be in to help people. You're helping outfit the people with the resources that they need your, you know, whatever it might be. But the, the best satisfaction that I've ever had in this career probably came from being a the rank of trooper and getting to be able to, to just help people. 00:14:24 Tpr. Corey King: Yeah, I agree with that. Can you from the years of in recruitment and still having that urge and that desire to be on the road, making that difference, does that translate with when you are out recruiting? And I know generations change with the new generation of applicants. What is what are you seeing either as a selling point to that generation, or have you seen a change in what they see in an agency that perhaps you and I saw differently? Is there something that you, when you're at these recruiting fairs, what is it that brings them to your table to talk to you? 00:15:06 Capt. Robert Purdy: You know, I think, uh, you know, right off we've got a lot of tradition in this agency, especially with our uniform. They kind of draw somebody in and goes, hey, what is it that you do? You know, and from there, it's just the ability. And I took a young man, he's now a trooper, um, and I to keep from embarrassing him. I won't say his name, but he, you know, whenever I left recruitment and went back to post, I, he was an intern at post and I took him out in the middle of nowhere. Uh, we were at a Maple Grove road. It was a gravel road. And I said, hey, this is, uh, this is why I wanted to do the job that I do. Back up is fifteen or twenty minutes away, right? Like if we see something out here, we're going to and we can stop it. We'll stop. We'll figure out what's going on. And he said, uh, sir, that's, uh, that's why I want to go work for this Metro law enforcement agency. And now fast forward a couple years. He, uh, he called me and he said, hey, I think I, I think I wanted to want to possibly be a trooper. Can I come do some more ride alongs? And we got him in and, and he's a trooper today and does incredible work. Um, he's a hard charger. Um, and he's the same guy now that I was kind of at that point, just willing to get out and beat the bushes, see what's going on and, uh, make a difference. 00:16:30 Tpr. Corey King: So him being exposed to riding with you, seeing where you police is, what sold him essentially, is that differences. And I think that's maybe that's a misconception to some, I don't know. I think I always knew what I was getting into, but I knew the autonomy for the one trooper and the one car probably patrolling that one or two counties by themselves. There's some freedom with that, but for some it's intimidating. 00:17:00 Capt. Robert Purdy: Yeah, there's freedom. It can be intimidating, and there's a lot of responsibility. I think that's probably the biggest the biggest thing like it is it's on your shoulders to make the difference, make the impact. 00:17:11 Tpr. Corey King: Right. And exactly why the academy is the way it is. It's really to test you because you will be tested out there in the middle of a cornfield, in the middle of a ditch, somewhere on the side of the street where your neighbors back up is thirty, forty five minutes away. You need to handle that situation and preserve lives as best you can, for sure. Certainly your own. But I think we all have been in those situations where you really wish you had somebody close by, but you knew your training was going to help you in that moment. And it does. Muscle memory means everything, right? Uh, so I certainly implore anyone who is accepted to the state police Academy, hang in there. There's a reason for it, and you will see it later. It will absolutely save your life. When you're in a situation where you are alone and you need where you need that backup, the training is going to help out immensely. 00:18:05 Capt. Robert Purdy: Yeah. You know, I, I've heard academy instructors say, and I think there's a lot of truth to it. We don't weed people out. We weed people in. 00:18:12 Tpr. Corey King: I like it. 00:18:13 Capt. Robert Purdy: Um, you know, and I can think back to the first incidents that I was involved in where someone was supposedly armed. They take off running and I have to chase them down a hill and up another hill, through creeks and over fences and through briar bushes and catch up to them. And your training then, because we we do it in a stressful situation and the situations we're in. On the road or high stress, you have to train in a high stress situation in order to perform in a high stress situation and in your training kicks in and and hats off to our academy staff. They care, they work hard. They probably lose lots of sleep at night thinking about the situations that some of these guys are going to be in. Um, and they just want to make sure that people are prepared to do the job. And frankly, law enforcement has changed over the last twenty years, you know, always looking for new avenues, new tactics, utilizing new technologies in order to, uh, a, keep their community safe and B, keep themselves safe. 00:19:17 Tpr. Corey King: We still have a lot to cover. So please join us next time as we continue our conversation with Captain Robert Purdy. Until then, stay safe, Kentucky, and buckle up.