(upbeat music) Hello and Welcome to "Community Connection."

I'm your host, Shelley Irwin.

We're focusing upon first responders today.

Now, let's take a look at the law enforcement side, Grand Rapids Police Department's Deputy Chief, Scott Rifenberg, deputy chief wit them.

It's a mouthful, but an important role.

Good day to you.

- Thank you, Shelley, appreciate you having me here.

- Where are you on the chain as they say?

- So there's the chief of police and then we have two deputy chiefs and I'm in charge of operations at the police department.

So pretty much anything in uniform.

- [Shelley] How long have you been with the police department?

- 27 Years.

- Why did you join?

- Getting into public service was always something that I wanted to do and being able to help people in their time of need was very important to me.

I truly like to solve problems and people don't call us on their best days, they call us on their worst days.

So if I can make that worse day just a little bit better by helping them, that's what's important to me and the rest of the officers at the police department.

- Let's get this talked about right away.

Do you need more policemen, policewomen, people in your department?

- We absolutely need more officers in the department.

We're authorized at 305.

Currently, I've got 274 deployable officers.

I've got 11, which is fantastic, in training right now.

They're in in-house training and then they'll go through the field training program so they'll be able to be deployed on their own in February.

- Hmm.

What's the process?

- The process it's kind of a lengthy process, which is a little unfortunate, but the standards are high in Grand Rapids and we don't wanna lower our standards just because we're in a staffing crisis so you'll go through a extensive background process.

And then if you're already been through an academy, then you're certifiable as a police officer in Michigan to be licensed in Michigan.

If you haven't, then we'll send you to academy and we'll pay for it.

You get paid a wage plus we pay your books and your tuition.

In fact, we use Grand Valley's Police Academy.

Once they complete the academy, they come back into the police department so now they've learned how to be a police officer in Michigan.

We take eight weeks in-house and we teach 'em how to be police officers in Grand Rapids, what our expectations are, what our city ordinances are and then they ride for 15 weeks with the field training officer where they're evaluated on everything that they do.

And then after that, if they complete their field training, then they're certified solo patrol.

- 'Tis a commitment.

And I'll just ask, why should someone take this first step?

- Well, it's an excellent job and it's an excellent job to work in Grand Rapids and for the Grand Rapids Police Department.

I've been doing it for 27 years and if you talk to my family, they would tell you I've spent more time at the police department than I have at home.

That's kind of trying on your family, but I truly have a second family at the police department.

These are my friends, my colleagues, we work together, we experience some of the most traumatic things that you will in life but we do that together.

At the Grand Rapids Police Department we have a culture of training and always getting better.

So we will critique things from a traffic stop to a critical incident to make sure that, you know, what did we do well, what could we have done better and what can we do next time?

And that's very important for us.

We're constantly in training cycles.

So it's a great place to work because we're always improving, we're always getting better.

And truly, through that selection process, we only select those that can hold that standard.

- Great.

Thank you again for that service.

Let's talk on a couple of, I guess, news items or reality items.

Is there a Homeless Outreach Team?

- There is.

We have a Homeless Outreach Team that's run by one sergeant and three officers, and it's in partnership with the fire department and Network180 so the team will go out and seek out people that need help, but they'll also respond to calls of people experiencing homelessness.

And the real goal is to get them plugged into city services or social services, that might be a nonprofit that can assess and assist them with the needs that they have.

Everyone's got specific needs and they're all different but the goal is to get them the help and those resources, 'cause we are a very resource-rich community, but oftentimes people don't know where to go to get those resources and this team is able to help them with that.

- And there is a new mental health co-response team.

Tell me more about this.

- Yes.

So that's a contract that we've gotten into with Network180 and we have officers who are specifically trained and we're sending them to additional training in crisis intervention training, but they partner with a social worker from Network180 and they will go and respond to people that are in mental health crisis.

And it's a great partnership because there's certain information that the police department has and certain information that the social worker can get.

They can't share that information, but they can use the information in coordination with one another to solve problems.

And if someone's already being case managed, they can help them with that.

So it's been a huge diversionary program from using the ambulance system and the emergency rooms, because if we can do those diversions during the day, we can get them plugged in right where they normally seek services.

- Yes.

Partnerships seem to be key with what you do.

- Absolutely.

We couldn't do this alone.

And truly, police department, yeah, we answer the 911 calls and the emergencies, but truly we're working in cooperation with the neighborhoods and how they want to be policed and what the problems are in their neighborhood.

My officers work 12-hour shifts so there's plenty of time that they're not in those neighborhoods and without having those relationships and those discussions with the neighbors, we wouldn't get very far at all.

- Is that what community policing is all about?

Tell me, educate me.

- Truly, community policing, I mean, in the city of Grand Rapids, we have several neighborhood organizations that partner with us in crime prevention, but community policing is really about knowing your community and that's getting out of the car, talking to those residents and making those relationships on those calls, on those worst days, showing that caring heart and caring spirit with the neighborhood and how can I truly help you?

And even if this was a bad day, what are the next steps and where are we gonna go from here?

We've just started a program, the DICE program, which is Data-Informed Community Engagement and we're running two of these programs, one in the south area with Captain Trigg and one in the east area with Captain Dixon.

And what's really important about that is we're able to get the data, the crime data, and then we're able to go to the neighborhoods and say, "This is what we see from a data perspective, from the police department and what are you seeing?

And then what can we do together?"

Not just the police department, we'll tell 'em what we could do and how many resources that we're able to put towards that neighborhood.

But the neighbors have come up with some very ingenious and creative ways to solve crime.

Down at Franklin and Eastern they had an issue with people hanging out in the bays of a abandoned car wash. And they said, "Well, why can't we just close up the car wash?"

And they got approval to do it and the neighbors did that all on their own and were able to close those bays.

And then they said, "Well, it doesn't look really nice with just plywood up there."

So then they painted those areas.

So it's solving the problem, solving the problem the way that the community wants the problem solved and they're actually doing the work.

- Yes.

Using crime mapping, right?

- Yes.

- Yes.

Cool.

How cool is that?

Tell me more about our new Chief Winstrom's recent presentation to the commission on your direction and evolution.

- So Chief Winstrom, obviously when you come into a police department as a chief, you wanna, you know, evaluate that department and where you think the department can go and how quickly you can get there.

Everybody's got their own ideas and their own vision for the police department, so Chief Winstrom really wants to use data and those relationships within the community to work together to solve crime.

I've heard him say several times, that a community deserve to be policed, how that community wants to be policed.

So we're gonna find that out by doing a lot of neighborhood meetings.

The captains have been going to those, they've also been sending their sergeants, and then the goal is to assign a specific officer to each beat in the city and then have that officer truly engaged in that smaller neighborhood, inside a service area.

- Hmm.

How are you gonna beat drunk driving?

- I don't think we're ever going to beat drunk driving.

We certainly aren't gonna do it on our own.

I think a lot of it has to do with education.

We often will get a grant through the National Highway Safety Bureau to run additional drunk driving patrols, but truly, it's in education.

And I've been on lots of accidents and most of the most serious accidents I've ever been in all involved alcohol.

In today's day and age with the multitude of other ways that you can get around, there's no excuse for impaired driving.

You've got, you know, the Ubers, the Lyfts, and then Grand Rapids has the micro mobility with the Lime bicycles and the scooters.

I'm not saying you should get on those when you're intoxicated, but it's a much smaller accident if you're on one of those.

And we also have a great bus system in Grand Rapids.

So really in this day and age, unfortunately, that's just a bad decision that people are making.

- Hmm.

Any myths you'd like to dispel when it comes to policing in this world?

- Well, I think the biggest myth, you know, and we've all seen it that, you know, that officers are heavy-handed and that they want to arrest people and put them in jail and incarcerate individuals.

And certainly there are people that are evil in this world, but that's a very small segment of our population.

Police officers wanna solve problems and they wanna solve problems the right way and have long-lasting results in that problem solving.

And that's truly our goal.

If we can solve the problem without incarcerating an individual, we're fine with that.

There's a large difference between evil people and people who make mistakes.

Good people make mistakes all the time and sometimes there's a penalty for that and you have to go to jail or you have to answer a summons or a citation, and that's okay.

That doesn't make you a bad person.

And that's truly what law enforcement officers believe.

We've seen lots of good people make bad mistakes.

- Do you need more females in the business?

- You know, this is a great thing at the Grand Rapids Police Department.

Last year, I had to expand my locker room, my female locker room because we have more females interested in law enforcement and serving the public than we do males in the academy right now.

So we increased our locker room by 28 lockers for the additional women.

Now, that being said, I can always use more.

- Yes.

So one more time, how does one become a police person?

- So you can go to JoinGRPD.

That's our recruiting website and they're extremely responsive.

There's a place where you can send questions right there on the website.

If you want more information about the police department we also have a Facebook page, or you can go to the city's website and there's a section for the police department there.

Once you call in or make contact, a recruiter will contact you.

So there's a civil service test for the city of Grand Rapids.

You take that test and you pass it, and then there are state licensing requirements also.

So there's a reading and writing and a physical fitness that you have to pass.

And then either we'll send you to the academy, or if you've already been through an academy that might speed up the process as far as hiring.

So the academies typically are 16-weeks long.

Like I said, Grand Valley has their own academy and that's the one that we're currently partnering with.

There's also an academy at the Grand Rapids Community College, which is set up a little different.

That's a semester-long academy for a two-year academy.

- Right, well, thank you for you.

If it says go 55, you want me to go 55, maybe 56?

- 55.

- Okay.

55.

Good answer.

(chuckles) One more time.

My best resources?

- JoinGRPD would be the best resource.

And then if you want additional resources about, that's for hiring, but if you want additional resources on crime mapping or which officers are working in your area or what captain's in charge, the city's website- - Will do it.

- Yep.

- Thank you for wearing the badge.

- Thank you very much.

Appreciate it, Shelley.

(upbeat music) - Continuing the theme of first responders.

Now we'll explore the medical side.

With me today, EMT Elizabeth Martinez.

Elizabeth, glad that you are here.

- Thank you for having me.

- What does EMT stand for?

- Emergency Medical Technician?

- Yes.

When did you wanna be an EMT?

- It actually started after COVID.

Kind of, from me being able to see the changes that were going on, I was trying to think of ways that I could help out and I found the world of being an EMT.

- Wow.

What were you doing before that?

- I was actually in high school when COVID hit.

I was a junior in high school when COVID hit so I was very fortunate.

I got my EMT license at the Kent Career Tech Center.

- [Shelley] Great.

- And so I was very, very fortunate to be able to have that as a opportunity for me.

- A little birdie tells me the generations have been strong in this field of first responders.

- Yes.

Yeah.

My dad is a captain with the Grand Rapids Fire Department and his father was a fire investigator with the Grand Rapids Fire Department so I kind of felt natural kind of being able to fall in line with this.

- Safe to say that you did, someone have that in your DNA.

Do you remember stories of dad as a kid?

- Oh, for sure.

It's having dad tell me stories about everything ever since I can remember.

It was always very exciting for me and everybody thought I was weird because I kind of liked the medical stories better than the fire stories.

And they're like, "You're like five, you should be thinking that the fire stories are cool."

But I always thought that the medical stuff was really like, "Oh, that's so cool," so... - And look what you've done.

- Yeah.

- And there we are, so early in your career.

Stay the course.

I know you'll continued to be in your journey, we'll talk about that, but what are the roles of today's EMT?

- For sure.

So we have a variety of roles that we perform day-to-day.

I can be acting as a therapist for people going through mental health crisis.

I can be, you know, I could be doing something simple, like putting on a bandaid or I can be doing something like breathing for a patient.

So there really is a very wide range of things that I get to do in my job and I love it.

- Tell me about your training first of all.

- Yeah, for sure.

So the training can be any different length, kind of depending on what kind of a course you decide to take, but you start out learning the basics in the classroom.

And then as an EMT, you have to go out and work.

I believe it's 36 hours on a truck as a part of your training to make sure that you're a good fit and that you can perform the hands-on skills as well.

- What is a good fit?

And I'll lead the question, you gotta be strong physically and mentally?

- Yeah, no for sure.

You get to see people at the best and the worst times in their life and it does definitely take a lot to be able to make sure that you can handle it.

But I think it's definitely great to be able to get that exposure, to make sure that you are still comfortable with what you're doing.

- You are an EMT, but you're looking to further your education.

- Yes, I am.

I'm in the Paramedic Academy at Life EMS right now.

It's about an 18-month program and I'm just a few months away from graduating.

So very excited to actually start my internship on Thursday.

- [Shelley] Wow.

- So that's a little bit more than EMT.

It's 250 hours on the truck on top of 250 in-hospital hours.

- Which leads me to the question, What is the difference between EMT and a paramedic?

- Yeah, for sure.

So a paramedic is a little bit more advanced.

There's a little bit of a wider scope as far as I can practice.

So your paramedic is gonna be who's gonna be starting your IVs.

They can give you a lot more medications.

They can give you fluids.

There's just a much wider scope as far as paramedic is concerned.

- Take me through how a call happens.

Let's say, God forbid, there's a car accident.

There's an injury, I'm dialing 9-1-1.

What happens from there?

- Yeah.

For sure.

So to my knowledge, when you dial 9-1-1, it'll go to county dispatch and then from there they will decide if you need an ambulance, then they will, it's almost like they'll conference in Life's dispatchers or whatever district you're in, they'll conference in their dispatchers.

And then they'll kind of coach you through different things to do, depending on what the call is.

And then from there, they'll decide what priority that will be coming.

So if we'll be coming lights and sirens versus no lights and sirens, if we're gonna need additional resources like the fire department or the police department, and then from there, we'll get the call.

We'll get different information in our dispatch notes.

A lot of times we'll get age, kind of location of where it is, different scene hazards that we have to be aware of.

- So you have to be ready to go at that time.

- Yes.

For sure.

- Yes, what about your advice to the caller that often is probably not in a comfortable situation.

You're relying on that phone call for a lot of information.

- For sure.

The best piece of advice I have is try to stay as calm as possible.

I know how difficult that that can be, but at the end of the day, your information is what's gonna help us get to who's ever hurt the fastest.

So if you're in a car accident, we wanna look for like big landmarks, major roadways that you're next to, and if there's anything that could hurt us, like if you're, you know, traveling in a semi truck that was carrying gasoline or chemicals, stuff like that is really important information.

- Will that question often be asked in case I'm too scattered?

- Sometimes.

Sometimes it will be.

You know, kind of different things that we have to be aware of, anything that could be dangerous, downed power lines, fires, things like that.

- Yeah.

Tell me then your advice to, as you are lights and sirens, what is legally our responsibility as drivers for you to get there safely?

- Pull over.

- Yeah.

- Pull to the right side of the road, not the left.

- Are people not pulling over?

- No.

- Really?

- No.

Unfortunately, sometimes they don't.

It's the right side of the road, not the left, not just stopping in the middle of the road in front of an ambulance.

- [Shelley] So pull over to the right as applicable.

- Yes.

Yes.

If for whatever reason, you can't pull over to the right, just pick somewhere and stop.

We do have the training to be able to kind of navigate around the cars, but it does have that extra sense of danger to everybody else on the roadway.

- Including you.

- Including us.

- [Shelley] Yes.

- Try your best to make sure that you're not blocking intersections, driveways, things like that.

'Cause at the end of the day, you maybe be blocking the driveway that I need or the road that I need, yeah.

Don't wait until the last second to pull over, because then that becomes even more dangerous if we're trying to plan around you and then you change our plan.

- [Shelley] Yes.

Yeah.

- Just try your best to make sure that you're aware of your surroundings.

If your music is too loud to hear an ambulance, you should probably turn it down a little bit.

- What about, I'm a little bit all over the map here, but what about the gawker on the other side of the street?

Those who slow down to bottleneck?

- Yes.

Well kinda like going back to what you were talking about before with the car accidents, I understand, even sometimes I'm guilty of this, of, you know, kind of, "Oh, what's going on over there," but at the end of the day, you do make things extra dangerous for us when you're doing that so try your hardest to focus on the road in front of you.

Because in doing that, you can create what's called a secondary collision or secondary crash where you're watching us instead of the road and you hit a piece of debris or you hit the car in front of you.

There have even been issues where cars hit fire trucks and ambulances, police cars, even.

So just make sure that you're paying attention to what's in front of you and trying to have an out for yourself as well.

- Yes.

Are you equipped to drive with your training?

- Yes.

I am.

- EMTs drive and prepare.

Also, what is your recommendation to the first responder, you know, that possibly is with the person that makes 9-1-1 and sees someone obviously in trouble.

- Yeah, for sure.

So for that, I guess kind of, for just like the normal, just like a bystander I guess, if you see how someone's in trouble, I always like to suggest trying to, if you are comfortable with it, approaching them first to make sure that they do in fact need help.

But if you're not comfortable, obviously call 9-1-1 and give the information the best that you're able to.

Obviously, the more information the better, but you never wanna put yourself into a situation that could become unsafe.

- Great.

So what do you have on you?

(both laugh) - I have plenty of things on me.

I have my stethoscope with me, a pen, a Sharpie, my badge, I have a pair of trauma shears, I have- - What?

Trauma shears?

- Yes.

- Let's do show and tell.

- Show and tell.

These are my trauma shears.

These can, the ones I have in particular, they can cut through pretty much everything.

I've cut through zippers with these before, boots, these ones, this one has a belt cutter on it, fruit snacks, you gotta do what you gotta do.

- [Shelley] Yes, yes.

- I have my flashlight on me.

- Things don't happen only during the day, do they?

- No, unfortunately they don't.

Unfortunately, injuries don't like to take a holiday.

But no, this is especially helpful for scenes where it's dark or having to, you know, check different things out on a patient or houses where the lights may not be working, things like that.

And then I have a pouch for extra gloves.

You never know when you're gonna have a glove break or have a glove become dirty on-scene so I always like to keep extras on me.

I have a pad of paper in my pocket for taking patient information.

Yeah, then as the day goes on, sometimes we start to accumulate more equipment.

For car accidents we have yellow vests that we'll wear, yellow reflective vests to help keep us safe.

- Yeah.

You're loaded down, which you should be.

- Oh yeah.

- What about those of us who travel with our pets, and God forbid, we're in a car accident.

- Yeah, for sure.

I mean, obviously you're gonna be the most important.

If you are- - I don't know, me or Ralphie.

Oh, go ahead.

Yeah.

(Elizabeth laughing) - If you're able to secure your pet, that would obviously be best-case scenario- - That's your request, right?

- Yes, if you're able to.

But if you're injured, you can't secure your pet, we can always contact animal control.

We can get other people there to help us.

But you, at the end of the day, you're gonna be my biggest priority.

Sorry, Ralphie, but... - It's okay.

That's all right.

Tell me about, perhaps, this crisis we're in with opioids.

Are you visiting this often?

- Yes.

Yes.

So I've worked for the company for a little over a year, coming up on a year, that I've been working on the ambulance and now more than ever, I'm seeing more overdoses.

And unfortunately we can't always help everyone.

That's just the truth of it.

Some things that people can do, obviously, if I'm always gonna, you can find resources to carry medications like Narcan or Naloxone on you.

It's an opioid reversal medication.

However, not every drug's an opioid, so we can't fix everything.

We can certainly try, but we don't have a reversal agent for everything.

- Hmm.

So back to prevention.

- Yes.

- That's a whole nother conversation.

Do we need more women in this field?

- I always say yes.

- Yes.

- I always feel like it can be helpful for patients who may not always feel comfortable around a man.

There are some procedures that we have to do that can be fairly invasive, that people would feel more comfortable having a woman doing like an EKG, or a 12-lead as we call it, about taking a look at the heart, putting stickers on the chest and being able to take a look at things.

Not every person, for whatever reason it may be, is comfortable with men doing that.

Two, it's always great to have the representation for the younger generations to be able to see that you really can do anything and be whatever you want.

- Yes, so take home message is, make sure that we remember to dial 9-1-1 as applicable and look up Life EMS as needed.

- Yep.

- Yes.

What's your best website?

- Our website is lifeems.com.

It has plenty of great resources for anybody who may be interested in anything.

- Beth, thank you for this conversation.

- Okay.

Thank you for having me.

(ethereal music)