speaker-0: Welcome to Impairment Perspectives, where science, law and the world experience intersect. Our purpose is simple, to cut through the noise and bring clarity to a complex world of alcohol and drug impairment. I'm your host, Joey Jones, a forensic toxicologist, crime lab director and educator. Today, we're joined by a guest who perfectly bridges the gap between frontline law enforcement and the academic world of criminal justice. None other than Aaron Botts. Aaron is a corporal with the Denver Police Department's DUI and DRE enforcement unit. He brings over 17 years of experience and a record of thousands of impaired driving arrests to the table. But he isn't just out there making stops. He's also a highly sought after instructor teaching everything from standard field sobriety tests, DRE, intoxilizer, and LIDAR operation courses. But beyond the badge, He's an adjunct professor at the Colorado Community College System. And he recently made waves in the national law enforcement community this past July with an article in Police Chief Magazine titled Detection in 60 Seconds. He also has several specialized courses available on the drug impairment.com website. Some examples are virtual monographs, a deep dive into lack of convergence, modified Romberg, and finger to nose, data-driven approaches to impaired driving investigations, and finally, making the call, training officers to use their real-world experience to complement their formal training. And so whether he's talking strategy at a DUI checkpoint or showcasing his very impressive board game collection in his home studio, Aaron's going to bring a very unique, practical, and incredibly insightful perspective to our field and our... to our discussion today. And so with that, Aaron, I want to welcome you to Impairment Perspectives, my friend. ⁓ Nice to have you. Well, what a treat. ⁓ I really do want to thank you, especially now. You know, I know that our schedules have been so tight lately, but certainly thank you for being able to work out your schedule and join us today. So big treat to have you here. I'll let the cat out of the bag up front because I said it in your introduction.
speaker-1: Thank you. a pleasure.
speaker-0: But clearly you have one of the more unique recording setups that we have probably ever seen. Tell me a little bit about this board game collection and your background.
speaker-1: So I probably started as a kid, know, with all the board games that kids have, Candyland, Monopoly, Mousetrap, that kind of stuff. But in college, I got introduced to Dungeons and Dragons. And then from there, kind of went into board games. So behind me, this is just a little snippet of a whole case that goes to my sides of over 200 different board games. And just say during the pandemic shutdowns, me and my family were not bored.
speaker-0: I absolutely, but I've never seen anything like it. I grew up playing a lot of board games, but usually ours are so torn apart and in pieces and I have little kids and so my guess who is destroyed. There's only like maybe half of the staff still that you could flip cards to. Well, I guess maybe we can go with a slew of questions here. I would imagine most common is gonna be your favorite. So I'm gonna avoid that. But for a DRE. For you, if you are a DRE on a Friday night, which one of those is your go-to game?
speaker-1: So I get asked this question a lot and I can't pick just one because there's so many different people and groups and numbers you play games with. So I actually picked out three of various different kinds. So I got them behind me here. I'm going to show you the first one. ⁓ most heavy game that I have that I really like is called Viticulture. And so it's a worker placement game. And you're making wine and selling the wine and growing the grapes and making different things. And it's actually my wife's favorite game. She's not a big gamer, but I get to, ⁓ play that with her and the family. And it's pretty, it's a little rules intensive, but it's a good four to five player game takes about an hour and a half. And it's a good adult one. And then the next one I have right here, this is probably my favorite for party. So if you have family coming over, it's called. hive mind and this one you can play with. It says 12, but you could do even more. And the goal is to get people to answer questions the same. And it seems super simple, but what it does is it'll say name four colors. And so everyone goes around and names four colors and you get more points for every, you're trying to name the same ones as everybody else. And then really where it gets interesting is when different things come into play, they'll say name for holidays. And so like, okay, Christmas, but then once he start getting down past the less known holidays, becomes real interesting. And it's good with kids, good with adults, and it's a really good time. And my favorite part about it is there's no winners. There's one loser. It's the first bee kicked out of the hive. And then the game's over at that.
speaker-0: Oh, I love it. That's the listen. I wrote that down. I'm going to have to pick that up. It'll make our Christmas and Thanksgiving a little bit more interesting with the extended family. You know, it's interesting, I guess, with maybe our my kids. have have kids. I would imagine years are playing board games, but I remember that was such a pivotal point in my life growing up and with kids today, everything so digital that you just don't have.
speaker-1: I got three.
speaker-0: I just, the hands-on approach to everything was great.
speaker-1: We actually just had a really good night. A few nights ago, we had one of those power public safety shutdowns. So we turned on the gas fireplace and pulled out a board game and the whole family played a board game while the power was out under flashlights.
speaker-0: Wow, that's incredible. Fantastic. know, in preparing and kind of going through some of the material you had, it's unique because I think both of us, started our careers while totally different fields, so to speak, right about the same time. And so I would imagine we've got similar life experiences growing up in this country together. I really grew to appreciate your background. You kind of wear multiple hats. And I was impressed. to be a corporal with the DUI, a DRE unit, but also you're a teacher and to teach not only on this platform, but with some of your work at the community college system in Denver, I would imagine it takes quite a unique skillset to be able to transition from training officers on a daily basis to a college student. Tell me a little bit about the differences that you see in those two communities and what you do to maybe put the new hat on.
speaker-1: The background really helps because I went to college for music education. So I was actually going to be a high school band director until I got to student teaching. And I realized teachers work way too hard for too little money. So then that kind of shifted where I wanted to work, got into law enforcement and really my first real teaching gig started with police officers and the adult learning. And so I really got into, right. teaching not only Academy recruits, but officers, it maybe got expired and had to retake classes, which that is a whole different ball game in getting participation, getting buy-in for, you know, a 50 year old guy who's been through the same class three times and was ordered to go there. But I think I got pretty good at drawing those people in, getting them engaged, helping the new students. That turned into teaching Academy recruits, which are, you know, just after that college age. So seeing the differences over the last probably 15 years of the new generation that's coming into the officers, think helped in seeing what their learning style is, seeing how they ask questions, how they challenge authority compared to the older generation and kind of working with that to stay within their. A model that they're going to learn at. And then from there. I got into the community college system. I'm in my fourth semester. I just finished that up teaching and so fairly new, but got a few classes under my belt. And since I'm doing online learning, cause I'm still on a graveyard shift, not doing in-person classes at the college. So it's all online, which is its own challenge, but working with those students there, the 18 year olds fresh out of high school. And actually there's a few high schoolers that are a co-enrolled and doing the college classes at the same time. The writing challenges have been interesting as well as the AI challenges in writing papers and how to overcome and, you know, not necessarily ban AI, but how do you use it appropriately and being able to put the ethics together in those going into criminal justice into, right, you're going to write a paper for a college class. I understand you might not have the writing skills necessary, but how do we use this new technology ethically in a
speaker-0: Oh, I bet that is a very unique challenge. You probably don't know it and the rules are probably going to change week to week as you start seeing it more. I just got into this discussion this morning with someone we were talking about, you know, for authors that utilize this. I love making a ⁓ table of contents or ⁓ outlines and having that kind of dictate the direction that I'm going to go with writing or helping me simulate character names or something like that. know, does that need to be disclosed? You know, probably, right? And I would imagine for the student coming up that they to be very, very careful. And how much they're using and really try to figure out like what's the percentage of content that really is AI driven behind. What an interesting and complicated field. you see, I mean, is it blatantly obvious to you? yeah. This is, is Chad GPT.
speaker-1: Because I use chat GPT. So I know what the output looks like. I usually start the semester and I've got three or four that are just generating the con putting the question in and having chat GPT generate that content. And then I have to work with them to be like, Hey, here's how we use it. You need to write your own thing and then you can have AI edit it. And so they need to send me their prompts. And so by doing that, I can say, all right, here's how you're using it appropriately. We're not generating your ideas from it, but using it to edit the ideas that you're getting from the lectures and from the class.
speaker-0: Yeah, offer clarity, perhaps. ⁓ That's got to be really interesting. Most people in my field in forensic science, it's somewhat unique because you get into the crime lab setting and most of the people that work here, that was either the major they chose. And so they had this like decision, maybe a freshman or sophomore year. that then resulted in them getting a job in that field. Likewise, I would imagine for law enforcement, they enter the police academy or they want to become a police officer so that the end result is to be a police officer. And so there's a little comparable there, but in the middle, you have college students that might not necessarily know, and I'm assuming... what a criminal justice degree is going to lead to down the road for them. They might have an idea, but do you notice that difference in your students versus maybe your colleagues that you're training?
speaker-1: The direction and understanding, think, especially with law enforcement being so in the media, either watching cops or live PD or any of the drama shows they've seen. And then we do this introduction to criminal justice. And I've had students go both ways where they say, hey, in my introduction, I want to be a police officer. And by the end, say, you know what, I think I might want to go in and be a paralegal track because confrontation maybe isn't what I'm comfortable with, but I do like the legal aspect of the work. And then vice versa, people who are want to be lawyers realize that's not as exciting as I thought, or I can't be in front of a jury. So maybe I'll go into the helping mode of police officer and kind of how that works. So I think that intro to criminal justice, while you don't need a criminal justice degree to be a police officer, I mean, I'm an example of that. I went in with a music back. I learned everything in the academy. What I needed to know as a beginning police officer going through that criminal justice program, especially for students who are maybe on the fence is really like, okay, here's what the job is outside of TV and media so that they can decide where they maybe want to take that.
speaker-0: I think that makes perfect sense. You led into something else that I wanted to ask you because I think it like, got it. We got to get a straight answer on this music musician, I would assume wanted to be a band director. What ⁓ cataclysmic change happened in your life where you're like, Nope, police it.
speaker-1: So after I decided I didn't want to go into music and education, I was out of college and I was like, well, now I don't have a plan and I need a job. And I had a buddy who worked for a security company. And so he was like, Hey, I got a job for you while we wait. I was like, okay. So I got a job as a security guard at a Dillards at a mall here in Colorado. And through that, I met police officers and I said, Hey, that looks like fun. So I started applying and I think I put in eight applications back in 2008 and ended up getting hired by a suburb of Denver for my first police job in about four to five months. And I think what really drew me to that line of work was a lot of my background as a Boy Scout, where I wanted to be outdoors. I wanted to help people and I wanted something different every day. And I think that combination's what's led me to stay in it for 17 years is I am going to work. And while there's a lot of things the same, you never know what's going to happen. And I kind of thrive on that unknown at the start of each shift.
speaker-0: You made a great choice. I'm glad you did. It sounds like it panned out well for you because certainly looking at some of the things that you've done recently, even over this past year, they've really had a positive change or maybe a positive effect on law enforcement and the we approach impaired driving investigations. This past July, You had a an article and I believe it was the police chief magazine. was reading through it this morning called Detection in 60 Seconds. Incredible, really incredible. I know this also kind of led to one of the courses that you have on drug impairment.com, which we'll talk about later here. But will you explain to some of the listeners if they haven't had a chance to read this article, if they haven't had to see you on the traveling circus talking about detection in 60 seconds, what is the detection in 60 seconds philosophy that you propound?
speaker-1: So in a nutshell, it's a screening system for officers to efficiently evaluate whether they should let a driver go down the road or have the driver step out to continue with impaired driving investigation. And kind of how that developed is I had been working as a primary DUI car for several years and then the pandemic hit and we had to do traffic stops with our N95 masks on. And that's when I realized in the guys on my team that we relied so much on our smell and now having to wear this mask that was taken away. So now we had to rely on what we could see and responses of drivers. And so we started asking questions and started noticing a pattern and said, all right, why don't we work on this together? Figure out, is there a great way to order these questions? Is there a way on getting different answers from the people we arrest? compared to the people we let go. And can we be more efficient? Because here where I work, all the bars let out at 2 a.m. And so if you spend 20 minutes on the side of the road at 1.55 and you don't make that arrest, well, how many drunk drivers have already passed us during that time? And we're kind of wasting our time that way and inconveniencing a sober driver. So it kind of started as that exercise in efficiency and then realizing that pattern. And really what it turned into was it became something that was more effective than what we had been doing. And we found that we would initially contact a driver and in the first five seconds, you're making your judgment on where this is going to go. And initially you'd think I'm probably just going to be giving a warning and letting them go down the road. But then we'd go through these questions in this system and realize, okay, there's actually something a little off here. Let's do an impaired driving investigation, pull the person out. the road sites, get our clues of impairment, make the arrest, and someone we thought we were going to be letting go initially ends up blowing twice the legal limit. And so this screening system really became effective in getting impaired drivers off the road that otherwise wouldn't.
speaker-0: fantastic. It was a great read. ⁓ I appreciated and hopefully you can you feel comfortable sharing this in your course on our on our website the data-driven approaches that that was kind of what the impairment 60 seconds became correct. You shared a story
speaker-1: Yes.
speaker-0: that not a whole lot of people are comfortable kind of, I guess, being as humble as you are and saying, listen, I made a mistake. And so because of this, I want to share this with you. You share a story about a miss of a guy who I believe he was in a neck brace. And in that particular story, I think it happened at midnight where you administered HGN, I think you said with your finger, was on there. you share for the listeners here a little bit about that story and kind of your early prior to this knowledge approach?
speaker-1: I think this very much encapsulates the idea. Maybe you know the name for it, but the idea that you gain a skill and you get confident in it, and then you realize you don't actually know that much. So you don't hear, and then you go back up and you get true mastery. And so this occurred on that first slope where I'm like, I'm pretty good at this. I've been doing this a long time. I'm an instructor. got this. And when I responded to this crash, I was like, you know what? I'm a DUI car. I'm an instructor. I'm a, it's before I was a DRE, like I'm going to go and I'm going to help. And the driver who had been coming off the highway, heading towards downtown Denver, there's a big curve in the road and his car did not curve. It just went straight onto this big grassy median rolled over and crashed. I get in the ambulance because our patrol officers had already been on scene. I talked to the driver and I get a little bit of smell and he agrees to let me check his eyes for the horizontal gaze and stagmas test. And the passenger, was a lot of distractions going on who was yelling. The medics were trying to do their thing and I'm just using my finger. And I think I see nystagmus, but I'm not sure. And how we train in the basic class is if you think you see it, it doesn't count. So I said, I'm not sure. So I ended up stepping out of the ambulance, looking around and there's open beer cans in the car. There's obviously a pretty significant crash due to speeding. And so I'm like, all right, let me go back and do some more. I turn around and the ambulance is gone. So I'm like, all right, I went to the hospital. Let me go to the hospital. I go to the hospital. My goal is to go talk some more. Well, turns out he'd been medically sedated, so there's no talking going on. So I'm like, okay, well, based on what I did and saw there, ⁓ I don't have enough. We're done here. This is just a regular crash. ⁓ well, we have an officer assigned to the hospital and There is kind of the HIPAA law and some of the privacy laws are that we can't use the medical records without a subpoena, but a lot of times we overhear things and the officer there at the hospital said, Hey, just so you know, that guy's at a 0.18. I think it was. And I was like, well, I can't use that. We didn't get that information the proper fashion. So I can't use that in my decision. He's unconscious. There's nothing I can do. And so after that, the next day I get word that, you know, At that time, officer bots missed this DUI. We know he was more than double the legal limit and officer bots went in there, did a nystagmus test, did an impaired driving investigation and didn't make the arrest. You know, he's not very good. And so those rumors started to hit. And at the time I had a great sergeant, a great supervisor who I consider the shoulders that I stand upon. And he really helped get me say, all right, let's take a look at your body cam video. All right, here's the issue. The one thing I tell officers that the easiest and simplest way to be a better impaired driving investigator is to get a pen. So I bought a stream light, pen light blue in color, and that really lets the eye focus and not be distracted by anything in the background with other types of nystagmus that we talk about in our training and really lets that eye focus on there so that that's all they can see. And if the nystagmus is present, it really helps you see it. And So he got me that and he said, Hey, let's get you into DRE school. Let's increase your training. And that's when I said, okay, I'm not as good as I thought I was. I'm going back down the slope. And then from DRE school started to build myself back up. And so that's the story I tell when I do these trainings to tell officers, Hey, you're gonna mess up and you can either quit or you can make yourself better.
speaker-0: Yeah, it was a great way I thought to lead into a course and for anybody who wants to watch that, I'd highly recommend it just because it was effective, you know, and I think we're in a world where everybody is so quick to be like, I'm the greatest. You need to listen to me because I'm the greatest and just be appreciative because you're in the presence of the greatest. And it was, was, it was refreshing. love on this podcast, most of our guests, we always kind of lead to a similar story. Where ⁓ most of us that are on here, we have been carried along the way by a lot of great people. And in some cases it was after being humbled. And in that case, it made us better in the long run. And so it's an opportunity for us to thank those people as well and realize that we didn't just show up one day. A lot of us were made by a lot of other people that had their hands in the work. And I thought it was effective. Again, I'd highly recommend anyone to check out that course on the website. Improves the relationship between police and the community.
speaker-1: The idea and kind of known fact that most citizens will only have police contact once every few years, if even that much. And so that interaction that they get once every few years sticks with them and they make their judgment on that police department or even police officers as a whole across the country based on that interaction. And so by making the process more efficient, You make that interaction better if someone actually truly is sober, because a lot of times what we see, especially in the smaller jurisdictions is I was kind of putting this together. I was kind of pulling the DUI community on Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups that I'm a part of. And a lot of the smaller agencies who are slow said, Hey, I just pull over anything that moves, you know, if I have probable cause for a violation and I'll do a full DUI investigation just to see. Say, okay, that's a valid approach and it's legal, but think of it from the citizen's point of view. If you haven't been drinking and you get asked to step out of the car and go through the full roadside battery test for seven to 10 minutes on the side of the road, what is that person thinking? This officer's on a fishing expedition. They got nothing. They're just seeing if they can find anything to arrest me. Whereas if you go through the screening process, I pose, they've maybe admitted to drinking within the last few hours. They've maybe given a two one to one to 10 scale for how intoxicated they might be. And so as the officers go through the questions, the person themselves are giving answers that say, Hey, okay, maybe I understand why the officers having me get out to do the roadside. So that makes sense. And so it takes it away from that. Officers are just looking for any reason to arrest somebody to, okay, I can see why this is happening. And I understand.
speaker-0: Incredible. You also, maybe it's already out right now, but I had been told a rumor that you're going to be featured in the roll call section of Police Chief Magazine. Is that out now or is it December of this year?
speaker-1: Yes, so it's this month's I know it's online. I'm still waiting for my hard copy print to get here probably slowed down for the holidays, but I have seen it on
speaker-0: Well, that's exciting. without being without giving too much away, can you tell us a little bit about what that is about?
speaker-1: I mean, that's more kind of a personal expose on my thoughts on law enforcement. So there's a lot of different questions on how I got to where I'm at thoughts on the current state of policing, some personal things like what are my favorite leadership books or people that got me to where I am. And so it kind of gives this personal background on who I am and how I got.
speaker-0: Well, this is a big deal. This is what a month for you then. I mean, to be featured in Police Chief now twice next to Joe Rogan, the impairment perspectives podcast is probably the second biggest thing in the world. So, I mean, this is a huge time for you, right, my friend?
speaker-1: It's pretty cool. Yeah.
speaker-0: good, I'm good. Didn't I just say something about humble? ⁓ that's funny. Well, listen, here's what I'd like to do. I'd like to be able to share my screen and for people who are watching this podcast visually, show a little bit about what's available on the website, your course instruction. I wanna show them the three courses that you've recorded really quick. So bear with me, I'm gonna go ahead and share right now this screen maybe. All right, fantastic. And so ⁓ there you are, how about that?
speaker-1: Right? ⁓
speaker-0: Very nice, a little bit about your background here. I like this because if anyone sees this on the website, you can read about Aaron's background. But the reason I did this was at the bottom, it lists all of the different courses that are available from him. so the first one, Aaron, that I wanted to talk about, I guess I'll just go left to right here, is the virtual monographs here. Let's talk about this course that you have that discusses the lack of convergence, modified Romberg. and finger to nose. For an officer on the side of the road or someone in an impaired driving investigation, why are these tests so important, so vital to the investigation?
speaker-1: This is the, what we commonly call the A-ride tests. So it's the advanced roadside impaired driving enforcement course that the officer can use if they suspect drug impairment, because these three tests are not in the standardized field sobriety test battery, the three validated tests. But there has been significant scientific research, not only in the original studies, that found them to be effective in discerning alcohol impairment. But a lot of them, particularly the finger to nose has been very particular in marijuana or cannabis impairment. And so having these three tests under an officer's belt, especially in today's age is going to be crucial for that officer. If they don't see typical indicators on the main three battery tests to then be able to have a tool to use to discern if someone's safe to drive.
speaker-0: Fantastic. So whenever you recorded this in total, it was a little bit over an hour. And so as I was looking through today, this is one that I haven't done because candidly as a scientist, I don't do these, but I'm familiar with them through some efforts with the DRE program. It's divided into four different classes and so I guess for the officer that maybe is the target on this, this is something that ideally in four, 15 minute or 20 minute blocks they can. get through and then get a certificate there at the end. Is that right?
speaker-1: Yes. And kind of when I was putting this together, I was looking for material for someone who was not yet a DRE and had been through the A-ride course because there's not a lot of training in that kind of intermediate gap there. And so this is really good for that officer who is maybe interested in going to DRE or maybe not necessarily interested, but still wants to do impaired driving enforcement to give them a deeper understanding of those tests. And I do want to give a plug here because a lot of this ideas and a lot of this came from my work with the Colorado district attorney's council. I do a lot of consulting for our traffic safety resource prosecutor, Jen Knutson. And we had done a lot of work on these three tests and diving into the science, the court, all the stuff that goes with it and putting it together. So I want to give a shout out to her and to the Colorado district attorney's council. It really helped me put all this together.
speaker-0: That'll be fantastic. Jen's going to be another guest on our podcast too. So I'll let her know that you said, thanks for that. Also, I, this is what I started this morning that we talked about briefly before, but your second course data-driven approaches to impaired driving investigations. In this one, in your writing, you use data from years of arrest to kind of refine the techniques. There were three things that I thought were interesting in this very first lesson I listened to this morning. where you talked about successful DWI detections or detectors, I like the theme, was to, one, know what to look for and listen for, two, have the skills to ask the right questions, and then three, who choose and use the right tests. You mentioned in the course that this particular course focused on those first two things. How does this course help officers kind of move away from just trust in their gut to a more objective and data-backed investigation?
speaker-1: I think a lot of officers get the basic SFST course either in their academy or shortly after. And they're kind of spoon fed the information from a lot of scientific studies and they say, okay, I know I'm supposed to know the numbers from the San Diego study or these driving behaviors. But when I'm teaching it live, when I do that section, I pull the audience and say, how many SFST instructors are here? And I see Several hands go up at the conferences I'm doing this at. And they say, all right, keep your hand up if you've read the administrative guide for the SFFT course. And usually in a room of about 300 to 400 people, I only have about two hands that are still raised. And so my challenge is that statement you talked about on what makes a good DWI detector is taken directly from that administrative guide. I say, okay, if you notice The SFSTs are only one part of this. If we don't do these other two, you're never going to get to the standardized field sobriety tests. And so we need to make sure we're teaching people how to detect by asking the right questions, by knowing what to look and listen for. And then once we do that, we dive into the studies that say, hey, in the 1980s, there was a study done of 13,000 stops that say if you see this action in a vehicle, if you see the driver do this, you have a 60 to 75 % chance the driver is impaired just based on that alone. And not only does that help with the detection, but then when the officers do make the arrest, they can go into court and say, all right, the vehicle was weaving or they can say the vehicle was weaving and based on this scientific study, I knew from that there's a 60 to 75 % chance the driver was impaired before I even contacted. driver. And so diving into that information not only helps with detection, but also with the articulation and convincing that to a judge or jury.
speaker-0: I absolutely love that portion of the course. even back to our earlier discussion where you're talking about officers that just do random stops, which is what within their, you know, wheelhouse of things that they can do. You offer a very startling statistic that only 3 % of those work whenever you do that. And you want to talk about a waste of time. If I went at anything and I knew 97 % of my time was going to be a complete waste, I'm not doing it.
speaker-1: .
speaker-0: So again, I love this. This is a great place for anyone that's interested in this to start. Highly recommend. And then this last course, baking the call, using experience to complement your training. We've all seen the book versus the street. How do you teach an officer to trust their experience without deviating from validated training that we know holds up in?
speaker-1: That was definitely a challenge. And this course, I thought, okay, what information, this was really for the post DRE. You've had the DRE trading, you're out there doing that. And then what is thereafter? And a lot of the stuff we get is, well, DRE is expected to stay up with the scientific studies that come out. Well, what happens when our scientific studies don't jive with or even contradict that basic training? Because we're getting a lot of contradiction that we need to be able to prepare for because the defense and court is going to bring that up and say, Hey, this scientific study from 2023 is contradicting your matrix. That's based on information from the eighties and nineties. What do we do with that? And so really what it is is we've got DREs who've been doing it for 10, 20 years. Why should they be restricted? to only talking about what's in the book when they have all this experience. So then how do we get them to say, all right, I've got all this experience. How does that compliment the book or contradict? And so what this course goes into is actually two examples that I go through. One is there's a contradiction to our DRE matrix that is listed in the book that talks about the downside effect. When The body is trying to counteract a drug. And when the drug wears off, the counteraction, the body is putting into the system makes the body develop symptoms that are opposite of the drug that was produced. So we know that that's a contradiction in there and talked about. So I go into that a little bit because that kind of gives that basis of foundation. Then I go into a new study that talks about the effects of cannabis, particularly these high doses of THC. and what that's going to do on the body that doesn't necessarily coincide with what we see in our cannabis matrix. So then if we're seeing this, how do we compliment that to that basic training? And really what I go into is we've got scientific studies, but nowhere in law enforcement are we taught how to evaluate if a scientific study is valid. And so the basis of that is When you have a scientific study, either one you find or one the defense wants you to read, how do we evaluate that that's either a valid study, it's credible, and it's something that we should base an opinion on. And so I dive into that science part, you know, me not being a scientist myself, but wanting to reach out and find that extra information to give these officers that, Hey, you've got this basic knowledge. You've got this experience in the field. If you find a study that can link those two, then that can help you articulate your reasoning, help you make your decisions better, and then articulate that to a judge.
speaker-0: What its opportunity to put this course out there and make it a priority, ⁓ I agree completely with you. I was just having this conversation the other day that I would imagine it's difficult to find a study at the public library right now that is even relatively close to what a Colorado driver does to themselves. But it makes sense, you know, I mean, there's limitations to what we can do in controlled environments in academia, whether that's through. IRB boards, but I mean, if you think about it, we might be able to study one drug, you we might be able to study alcohol, but the frequency of poly drug occurrences in our impaired driving cases, it's just hard to, you're not going to find that study here. We were just talking about Gabapentin in the laboratory the other day. If you look at our laboratory since 2021, D6 point something percent of our DWIs that contain Gabapentin. are never gabapentin by itself. It's gabapentin plus something. It's gabapentin plus another CNS depressant, gabapentin plus a narcotic analgesic, gabapentin plus meth. It's always plus something. And that's great because everybody wants to know what gabapentin does to the body. And I think we can probably explain that, but I don't know how useful that is because your case is going to be gabapentin plus something, except for that one case we've had over the last five years. Right? And even talking about downside effects, you we make the mistake of thinking in these poly drug cases that everyone did these drugs at one moment, stopped and then noted that with their watch and then stopped for the sake of science. Right. You know, and so sometimes you see multiple things that are happening and it's because the timing of the drugs was there. What a great course.
speaker-1: And the same with the dosages is, you know, our scientists are limited by ethics on doing therapeutic, whereas in the street you get these recreational doses that we could never produce in the lab because it's unethical to give someone that much.
speaker-0: Yeah, it is really unique and especially in this DRE community that we have. The truth is we probably have one of the most robust ongoing longest scientific studies ever occurring, you know, of what real world application is. Maybe we're just not the best at gathering that data together, but it really is the real world and it's a large study group that we have here. I'm glad you did that course. think again, I would recommend to anybody to check those out. or to follow you on the road as you're always traveling and teaching now. There's something unique about you that we haven't discussed. And as we're kind of getting to the end of this podcast, you know, I want to definitely get us and work us towards closing, offer you an opportunity to share anything that's going on that maybe we haven't had the opportunity to discuss. And then you will be subject to the rapid fire round that we put every single guest through here. And so I'm just letting you know that the pressure pot is already boiling, waiting for that. But we have not discussed this Eagle Scout mentality and you might be the only guest that we're gonna talk to that has this, but you have earned the rank of Eagle Scout. You've got a background as a volunteer firefighter and EMT. You're like a Swiss Army knife Aaron, this is insane. How does that always prepared mentality and mindset serve you whenever you're at a DWI checkpoint at 2 a.m.?
speaker-1: Background of that scouting. So my dad was an Eagle Scout. He pushed me and I was in scouts my entire life. I'm my son's a scout leader as well. So add to that. I'm the Cubmaster for their pack, but that background I think really started my journey in leadership because the scouting program, I truly believe in it, despite all the stuff that's been going on over the years really teaches that leadership and self-sufficiency and That journey led me into music where I was drum major, the marching band at Colorado State University, which then led me into law enforcement where that leadership and that public speaking and being out in front of people and willing to take the chance. so I think really where that has brought me to the point where I'm here today is taking the chance and going out there and saying, here's something I've noticed and seen. I'm going to go out and ask people about it and see if I can make a change. Whereas many officers will say, you know what? I get paid if I do that or not. And that's true. But I think my background in that scouting is always going out and searching. And when I go to court and I'm asked a question that maybe beyond beyond the scope, I want to know the answer and I want to be able to answer. And so if the judge lets me answer, I've got that answer in my back pocket, even though that's not. something necessarily that we need to know. And so even pulling that into the road of when I go through this screening process on a traffic stop, you never know where the conversation is going to go. And being able to talk to people kind of where I talked about, you know, most people only have a conversation with a cop once every few years. I want to leave that good impression. And so I've had that where I always ask where you coming from. And someone says, ⁓ I'm coming from the Denver performing arts pavilion. ⁓ okay. What did you see? And they tell me some opera. I say I love that opera. And they're like, what, you know, operas, like, yeah, that's my background. And so you get to develop this quick relationship, get this demeanor out there and really help not only your particular situation, but law enforcement as a whole.
speaker-0: It reminded me when you were talking about another person. Absolutely adore in this life is Mike Rowe and many people don't realize Mike Rowe is an opera singer. He's got this, course, everybody knows his incredible talking voice, but he's got an even better opera voice. If you ever get a chance to sing, it's good. It's good to be a Renaissance man in today's world. ⁓ Aaron, you've got three courses that are available right now on, the website, on drug impairment.com. I'm hopeful you're going be able to record some more and do some more work for maybe a new officer or someone who just is getting to meet you through this podcast or just looking at courses. Looking at those three courses, what's one thing that maybe you'd want every officer to take away from them?
speaker-1: You don't have to be satisfied with what your instructor teaches you. Always be hungry for more information. And if there's anything I've found is that diving into what is presented beyond the classes, because NHTSA puts together a great program for us. But when you realize that's the basics and there's so much more behind it and there's so much more information that you can learn from those scientists that did the original studies that just didn't make the cut to make the slide into the NITSA presentation. Be hungry for that information and be able to use that. And then not only will that help you as a better road officer, but then when you get into teaching and you start to use that in your instruction, not only will that help you in your instruction, but that will help your students stand on your shoulders to get even
speaker-0: Well stated my friend, I really appreciate that. I think that'll be a good placeholder to wrap up the critical portion of the podcast, but you're not done. As I said, most people, they wait until the absolute end because this is where we really get to know people and we get to know how they operate when put under pressure. And so you are officially in the rapid fire question round, Aaron. Are you ready for this?
speaker-1: Bring it on.
speaker-0: All right, so I've got a handful of questions here. They usually have a general theme. As we've recorded more over this year, I've kind of modified them mainly to help myself, but the rules are simple. I'm going to ask you a question and you got to go with your gut here. And I think with the diversity and certainly the Renaissance style that you have, we're to get some good answers today. And so the first thing that I want to ask is our number one question we ask all guests, night shift fuel. You kind of led to this answer.
speaker-1: I start with one cup of coffee and then I do lemon water.
speaker-0: Well played. Coffee then lemon water. My dad did something similar with that. I can appreciate that. It's unique to me because most of the time, if I get a chance, I teach quite a bit of physiology sections in our DRE schools across the country. And so I usually try to add up the amount of caffeine that each officer is pounding throughout the day through energy drinks and then try to express the damage they just did to all of their heart. and cardiac system through that. So I expected energy drinks, but well played my friend.
speaker-1: Well, it used to be and then the kidney stone switched me to lemon water.
speaker-0: Fair enough. I think that's a cautionary tale. I'm gonna them in water right now. All right, good. So this is one that is unique to you. We're gonna talk about soundtracks, knowing that you studied music education at Colorado State, knowing your background in music. If you're going to design a patrol playlist right now, what songs are on that playlist?
speaker-1: Well, I have to go with my year interview view from Spotify and my number one played artist was Volbeat kind of in the realm of Metallica classic rock is mostly what I listen to as I drive.
speaker-0: That's quite humorous. think if you looked at mine, preface, I have an eight-year-old daughter. It is K-pop.
speaker-1: K-Pop Demon Hunters. Yep, that was on there too.
speaker-0: And I might like it a little bit, just a touch, but I'm ashamed. Good deal. All right, we're gonna switch now to the gear. You mentioned a big critical point in your career was changing from the finger to the pin light. What is the one piece of equipment in your bag that you'll never go on your shift with?
speaker-1: I would have to stick with that pen light that actually replaced the ballpoint pen in my pocket is I keep that right there and then I reach elsewhere for my Pen, so I am always with my blue stream light
speaker-0: like it. Better title, Detection in 60 Seconds or the Impairment Whisperer?
speaker-1: sticking with the humble side, I'll go with the Depearate in 60 seconds.
speaker-0: I like it. And then probably more of an applicable question. Hardest category in your experience as a DRE, which of the seven categories is the most stubborn for students to master?
speaker-1: This might seem like bit of a dichotomy or misnomer, but the cannabis category, because the tolerant user has the clinical indicators of impairment, but not necessarily the physical indicators of impairment. And being able to convince a jury that clinical indicators of impairment are just as dangerous to driving as behavioral is quite the challenge.
speaker-0: Yep, we're, I was actually writing a paper right now and this is similar discussion is going on as to a behavioral impairment and it still could be there. And I hear you. think that's a pretty wise thing. I would imagine with your experience in Colorado and the commercialization land, this is probably a daily occurrence with you in these important situations. I've got two more questions for you. One's going to be about teaching style, online classes, like what you mentioned you're doing right now with the community college system or hands-on training.
speaker-1: Hands on in person by far. love the interaction, the ability to not only ask questions, but get questions in real time back. And that's definitely been the hardest part of virtual learning is if I do get a question, I got to wait for an email days later. So I love in person.
speaker-0: Yep, I'm similar. ⁓ And then finally, one word, you get to look in the crystal ball and look into the future, perhaps. What is the future of impaired driving enforcement?
speaker-1: Accountability. As I've found traveling the country, there is a similar problem everywhere where it's only a small portion of officers in any agency that are truly going out there and looking for impaired drivers. Most, unfortunately, will only do it if they won't get in trouble. And so if we increase accountability, we can make a huge impact in impaired driving enforcement.
speaker-0: Wow. Wise words, Swiss army knife, musician, DRE, Eagle Scout, jack of all trades. And it's been an honor having you on impairment perspectives. And certainly, ⁓ I wish you the best. I hope you're safe over the holidays that we have here. Thank you for all you're doing to help educate the community. And it's been an honor to get to spend, you know, the last 55 minutes with you. To anyone who wants to see these courses again, I highly recommend check out drug impairment doc. ⁓ and look for these courses. And thank you again to drugimpairement.com for sponsoring this. And until next time, we'll see you guys.
speaker-1: Thank you. a pleasure.
speaker-0: But clearly you have one of the more unique recording setups that we have probably ever seen. Tell me a little bit about this board game collection and your background.
speaker-1: So I probably started as a kid, know, with all the board games that kids have, Candyland, Monopoly, Mousetrap, that kind of stuff. But in college, I got introduced to Dungeons and Dragons. And then from there, kind of went into board games. So behind me, this is just a little snippet of a whole case that goes to my sides of over 200 different board games. And just say during the pandemic shutdowns, me and my family were not bored.
speaker-0: I absolutely, but I've never seen anything like it. I grew up playing a lot of board games, but usually ours are so torn apart and in pieces and I have little kids and so my guess who is destroyed. There's only like maybe half of the staff still that you could flip cards to. Well, I guess maybe we can go with a slew of questions here. I would imagine most common is gonna be your favorite. So I'm gonna avoid that. But for a DRE. For you, if you are a DRE on a Friday night, which one of those is your go-to game?
speaker-1: So I get asked this question a lot and I can't pick just one because there's so many different people and groups and numbers you play games with. So I actually picked out three of various different kinds. So I got them behind me here. I'm going to show you the first one. ⁓ most heavy game that I have that I really like is called Viticulture. And so it's a worker placement game. And you're making wine and selling the wine and growing the grapes and making different things. And it's actually my wife's favorite game. She's not a big gamer, but I get to, ⁓ play that with her and the family. And it's pretty, it's a little rules intensive, but it's a good four to five player game takes about an hour and a half. And it's a good adult one. And then the next one I have right here, this is probably my favorite for party. So if you have family coming over, it's called. hive mind and this one you can play with. It says 12, but you could do even more. And the goal is to get people to answer questions the same. And it seems super simple, but what it does is it'll say name four colors. And so everyone goes around and names four colors and you get more points for every, you're trying to name the same ones as everybody else. And then really where it gets interesting is when different things come into play, they'll say name for holidays. And so like, okay, Christmas, but then once he start getting down past the less known holidays, becomes real interesting. And it's good with kids, good with adults, and it's a really good time. And my favorite part about it is there's no winners. There's one loser. It's the first bee kicked out of the hive. And then the game's over at that.
speaker-0: Oh, I love it. That's the listen. I wrote that down. I'm going to have to pick that up. It'll make our Christmas and Thanksgiving a little bit more interesting with the extended family. You know, it's interesting, I guess, with maybe our my kids. have have kids. I would imagine years are playing board games, but I remember that was such a pivotal point in my life growing up and with kids today, everything so digital that you just don't have.
speaker-1: I got three.
speaker-0: I just, the hands-on approach to everything was great.
speaker-1: We actually just had a really good night. A few nights ago, we had one of those power public safety shutdowns. So we turned on the gas fireplace and pulled out a board game and the whole family played a board game while the power was out under flashlights.
speaker-0: Wow, that's incredible. Fantastic. know, in preparing and kind of going through some of the material you had, it's unique because I think both of us, started our careers while totally different fields, so to speak, right about the same time. And so I would imagine we've got similar life experiences growing up in this country together. I really grew to appreciate your background. You kind of wear multiple hats. And I was impressed. to be a corporal with the DUI, a DRE unit, but also you're a teacher and to teach not only on this platform, but with some of your work at the community college system in Denver, I would imagine it takes quite a unique skillset to be able to transition from training officers on a daily basis to a college student. Tell me a little bit about the differences that you see in those two communities and what you do to maybe put the new hat on.
speaker-1: The background really helps because I went to college for music education. So I was actually going to be a high school band director until I got to student teaching. And I realized teachers work way too hard for too little money. So then that kind of shifted where I wanted to work, got into law enforcement and really my first real teaching gig started with police officers and the adult learning. And so I really got into, right. teaching not only Academy recruits, but officers, it maybe got expired and had to retake classes, which that is a whole different ball game in getting participation, getting buy-in for, you know, a 50 year old guy who's been through the same class three times and was ordered to go there. But I think I got pretty good at drawing those people in, getting them engaged, helping the new students. That turned into teaching Academy recruits, which are, you know, just after that college age. So seeing the differences over the last probably 15 years of the new generation that's coming into the officers, think helped in seeing what their learning style is, seeing how they ask questions, how they challenge authority compared to the older generation and kind of working with that to stay within their. A model that they're going to learn at. And then from there. I got into the community college system. I'm in my fourth semester. I just finished that up teaching and so fairly new, but got a few classes under my belt. And since I'm doing online learning, cause I'm still on a graveyard shift, not doing in-person classes at the college. So it's all online, which is its own challenge, but working with those students there, the 18 year olds fresh out of high school. And actually there's a few high schoolers that are a co-enrolled and doing the college classes at the same time. The writing challenges have been interesting as well as the AI challenges in writing papers and how to overcome and, you know, not necessarily ban AI, but how do you use it appropriately and being able to put the ethics together in those going into criminal justice into, right, you're going to write a paper for a college class. I understand you might not have the writing skills necessary, but how do we use this new technology ethically in a
speaker-0: Oh, I bet that is a very unique challenge. You probably don't know it and the rules are probably going to change week to week as you start seeing it more. I just got into this discussion this morning with someone we were talking about, you know, for authors that utilize this. I love making a ⁓ table of contents or ⁓ outlines and having that kind of dictate the direction that I'm going to go with writing or helping me simulate character names or something like that. know, does that need to be disclosed? You know, probably, right? And I would imagine for the student coming up that they to be very, very careful. And how much they're using and really try to figure out like what's the percentage of content that really is AI driven behind. What an interesting and complicated field. you see, I mean, is it blatantly obvious to you? yeah. This is, is Chad GPT.
speaker-1: Because I use chat GPT. So I know what the output looks like. I usually start the semester and I've got three or four that are just generating the con putting the question in and having chat GPT generate that content. And then I have to work with them to be like, Hey, here's how we use it. You need to write your own thing and then you can have AI edit it. And so they need to send me their prompts. And so by doing that, I can say, all right, here's how you're using it appropriately. We're not generating your ideas from it, but using it to edit the ideas that you're getting from the lectures and from the class.
speaker-0: Yeah, offer clarity, perhaps. ⁓ That's got to be really interesting. Most people in my field in forensic science, it's somewhat unique because you get into the crime lab setting and most of the people that work here, that was either the major they chose. And so they had this like decision, maybe a freshman or sophomore year. that then resulted in them getting a job in that field. Likewise, I would imagine for law enforcement, they enter the police academy or they want to become a police officer so that the end result is to be a police officer. And so there's a little comparable there, but in the middle, you have college students that might not necessarily know, and I'm assuming... what a criminal justice degree is going to lead to down the road for them. They might have an idea, but do you notice that difference in your students versus maybe your colleagues that you're training?
speaker-1: The direction and understanding, think, especially with law enforcement being so in the media, either watching cops or live PD or any of the drama shows they've seen. And then we do this introduction to criminal justice. And I've had students go both ways where they say, hey, in my introduction, I want to be a police officer. And by the end, say, you know what, I think I might want to go in and be a paralegal track because confrontation maybe isn't what I'm comfortable with, but I do like the legal aspect of the work. And then vice versa, people who are want to be lawyers realize that's not as exciting as I thought, or I can't be in front of a jury. So maybe I'll go into the helping mode of police officer and kind of how that works. So I think that intro to criminal justice, while you don't need a criminal justice degree to be a police officer, I mean, I'm an example of that. I went in with a music back. I learned everything in the academy. What I needed to know as a beginning police officer going through that criminal justice program, especially for students who are maybe on the fence is really like, okay, here's what the job is outside of TV and media so that they can decide where they maybe want to take that.
speaker-0: I think that makes perfect sense. You led into something else that I wanted to ask you because I think it like, got it. We got to get a straight answer on this music musician, I would assume wanted to be a band director. What ⁓ cataclysmic change happened in your life where you're like, Nope, police it.
speaker-1: So after I decided I didn't want to go into music and education, I was out of college and I was like, well, now I don't have a plan and I need a job. And I had a buddy who worked for a security company. And so he was like, Hey, I got a job for you while we wait. I was like, okay. So I got a job as a security guard at a Dillards at a mall here in Colorado. And through that, I met police officers and I said, Hey, that looks like fun. So I started applying and I think I put in eight applications back in 2008 and ended up getting hired by a suburb of Denver for my first police job in about four to five months. And I think what really drew me to that line of work was a lot of my background as a Boy Scout, where I wanted to be outdoors. I wanted to help people and I wanted something different every day. And I think that combination's what's led me to stay in it for 17 years is I am going to work. And while there's a lot of things the same, you never know what's going to happen. And I kind of thrive on that unknown at the start of each shift.
speaker-0: You made a great choice. I'm glad you did. It sounds like it panned out well for you because certainly looking at some of the things that you've done recently, even over this past year, they've really had a positive change or maybe a positive effect on law enforcement and the we approach impaired driving investigations. This past July, You had a an article and I believe it was the police chief magazine. was reading through it this morning called Detection in 60 Seconds. Incredible, really incredible. I know this also kind of led to one of the courses that you have on drug impairment.com, which we'll talk about later here. But will you explain to some of the listeners if they haven't had a chance to read this article, if they haven't had to see you on the traveling circus talking about detection in 60 seconds, what is the detection in 60 seconds philosophy that you propound?
speaker-1: So in a nutshell, it's a screening system for officers to efficiently evaluate whether they should let a driver go down the road or have the driver step out to continue with impaired driving investigation. And kind of how that developed is I had been working as a primary DUI car for several years and then the pandemic hit and we had to do traffic stops with our N95 masks on. And that's when I realized in the guys on my team that we relied so much on our smell and now having to wear this mask that was taken away. So now we had to rely on what we could see and responses of drivers. And so we started asking questions and started noticing a pattern and said, all right, why don't we work on this together? Figure out, is there a great way to order these questions? Is there a way on getting different answers from the people we arrest? compared to the people we let go. And can we be more efficient? Because here where I work, all the bars let out at 2 a.m. And so if you spend 20 minutes on the side of the road at 1.55 and you don't make that arrest, well, how many drunk drivers have already passed us during that time? And we're kind of wasting our time that way and inconveniencing a sober driver. So it kind of started as that exercise in efficiency and then realizing that pattern. And really what it turned into was it became something that was more effective than what we had been doing. And we found that we would initially contact a driver and in the first five seconds, you're making your judgment on where this is going to go. And initially you'd think I'm probably just going to be giving a warning and letting them go down the road. But then we'd go through these questions in this system and realize, okay, there's actually something a little off here. Let's do an impaired driving investigation, pull the person out. the road sites, get our clues of impairment, make the arrest, and someone we thought we were going to be letting go initially ends up blowing twice the legal limit. And so this screening system really became effective in getting impaired drivers off the road that otherwise wouldn't.
speaker-0: fantastic. It was a great read. ⁓ I appreciated and hopefully you can you feel comfortable sharing this in your course on our on our website the data-driven approaches that that was kind of what the impairment 60 seconds became correct. You shared a story
speaker-1: Yes.
speaker-0: that not a whole lot of people are comfortable kind of, I guess, being as humble as you are and saying, listen, I made a mistake. And so because of this, I want to share this with you. You share a story about a miss of a guy who I believe he was in a neck brace. And in that particular story, I think it happened at midnight where you administered HGN, I think you said with your finger, was on there. you share for the listeners here a little bit about that story and kind of your early prior to this knowledge approach?
speaker-1: I think this very much encapsulates the idea. Maybe you know the name for it, but the idea that you gain a skill and you get confident in it, and then you realize you don't actually know that much. So you don't hear, and then you go back up and you get true mastery. And so this occurred on that first slope where I'm like, I'm pretty good at this. I've been doing this a long time. I'm an instructor. got this. And when I responded to this crash, I was like, you know what? I'm a DUI car. I'm an instructor. I'm a, it's before I was a DRE, like I'm going to go and I'm going to help. And the driver who had been coming off the highway, heading towards downtown Denver, there's a big curve in the road and his car did not curve. It just went straight onto this big grassy median rolled over and crashed. I get in the ambulance because our patrol officers had already been on scene. I talked to the driver and I get a little bit of smell and he agrees to let me check his eyes for the horizontal gaze and stagmas test. And the passenger, was a lot of distractions going on who was yelling. The medics were trying to do their thing and I'm just using my finger. And I think I see nystagmus, but I'm not sure. And how we train in the basic class is if you think you see it, it doesn't count. So I said, I'm not sure. So I ended up stepping out of the ambulance, looking around and there's open beer cans in the car. There's obviously a pretty significant crash due to speeding. And so I'm like, all right, let me go back and do some more. I turn around and the ambulance is gone. So I'm like, all right, I went to the hospital. Let me go to the hospital. I go to the hospital. My goal is to go talk some more. Well, turns out he'd been medically sedated, so there's no talking going on. So I'm like, okay, well, based on what I did and saw there, ⁓ I don't have enough. We're done here. This is just a regular crash. ⁓ well, we have an officer assigned to the hospital and There is kind of the HIPAA law and some of the privacy laws are that we can't use the medical records without a subpoena, but a lot of times we overhear things and the officer there at the hospital said, Hey, just so you know, that guy's at a 0.18. I think it was. And I was like, well, I can't use that. We didn't get that information the proper fashion. So I can't use that in my decision. He's unconscious. There's nothing I can do. And so after that, the next day I get word that, you know, At that time, officer bots missed this DUI. We know he was more than double the legal limit and officer bots went in there, did a nystagmus test, did an impaired driving investigation and didn't make the arrest. You know, he's not very good. And so those rumors started to hit. And at the time I had a great sergeant, a great supervisor who I consider the shoulders that I stand upon. And he really helped get me say, all right, let's take a look at your body cam video. All right, here's the issue. The one thing I tell officers that the easiest and simplest way to be a better impaired driving investigator is to get a pen. So I bought a stream light, pen light blue in color, and that really lets the eye focus and not be distracted by anything in the background with other types of nystagmus that we talk about in our training and really lets that eye focus on there so that that's all they can see. And if the nystagmus is present, it really helps you see it. And So he got me that and he said, Hey, let's get you into DRE school. Let's increase your training. And that's when I said, okay, I'm not as good as I thought I was. I'm going back down the slope. And then from DRE school started to build myself back up. And so that's the story I tell when I do these trainings to tell officers, Hey, you're gonna mess up and you can either quit or you can make yourself better.
speaker-0: Yeah, it was a great way I thought to lead into a course and for anybody who wants to watch that, I'd highly recommend it just because it was effective, you know, and I think we're in a world where everybody is so quick to be like, I'm the greatest. You need to listen to me because I'm the greatest and just be appreciative because you're in the presence of the greatest. And it was, was, it was refreshing. love on this podcast, most of our guests, we always kind of lead to a similar story. Where ⁓ most of us that are on here, we have been carried along the way by a lot of great people. And in some cases it was after being humbled. And in that case, it made us better in the long run. And so it's an opportunity for us to thank those people as well and realize that we didn't just show up one day. A lot of us were made by a lot of other people that had their hands in the work. And I thought it was effective. Again, I'd highly recommend anyone to check out that course on the website. Improves the relationship between police and the community.
speaker-1: The idea and kind of known fact that most citizens will only have police contact once every few years, if even that much. And so that interaction that they get once every few years sticks with them and they make their judgment on that police department or even police officers as a whole across the country based on that interaction. And so by making the process more efficient, You make that interaction better if someone actually truly is sober, because a lot of times what we see, especially in the smaller jurisdictions is I was kind of putting this together. I was kind of pulling the DUI community on Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups that I'm a part of. And a lot of the smaller agencies who are slow said, Hey, I just pull over anything that moves, you know, if I have probable cause for a violation and I'll do a full DUI investigation just to see. Say, okay, that's a valid approach and it's legal, but think of it from the citizen's point of view. If you haven't been drinking and you get asked to step out of the car and go through the full roadside battery test for seven to 10 minutes on the side of the road, what is that person thinking? This officer's on a fishing expedition. They got nothing. They're just seeing if they can find anything to arrest me. Whereas if you go through the screening process, I pose, they've maybe admitted to drinking within the last few hours. They've maybe given a two one to one to 10 scale for how intoxicated they might be. And so as the officers go through the questions, the person themselves are giving answers that say, Hey, okay, maybe I understand why the officers having me get out to do the roadside. So that makes sense. And so it takes it away from that. Officers are just looking for any reason to arrest somebody to, okay, I can see why this is happening. And I understand.
speaker-0: Incredible. You also, maybe it's already out right now, but I had been told a rumor that you're going to be featured in the roll call section of Police Chief Magazine. Is that out now or is it December of this year?
speaker-1: Yes, so it's this month's I know it's online. I'm still waiting for my hard copy print to get here probably slowed down for the holidays, but I have seen it on
speaker-0: Well, that's exciting. without being without giving too much away, can you tell us a little bit about what that is about?
speaker-1: I mean, that's more kind of a personal expose on my thoughts on law enforcement. So there's a lot of different questions on how I got to where I'm at thoughts on the current state of policing, some personal things like what are my favorite leadership books or people that got me to where I am. And so it kind of gives this personal background on who I am and how I got.
speaker-0: Well, this is a big deal. This is what a month for you then. I mean, to be featured in Police Chief now twice next to Joe Rogan, the impairment perspectives podcast is probably the second biggest thing in the world. So, I mean, this is a huge time for you, right, my friend?
speaker-1: It's pretty cool. Yeah.
speaker-0: good, I'm good. Didn't I just say something about humble? ⁓ that's funny. Well, listen, here's what I'd like to do. I'd like to be able to share my screen and for people who are watching this podcast visually, show a little bit about what's available on the website, your course instruction. I wanna show them the three courses that you've recorded really quick. So bear with me, I'm gonna go ahead and share right now this screen maybe. All right, fantastic. And so ⁓ there you are, how about that?
speaker-1: Right? ⁓
speaker-0: Very nice, a little bit about your background here. I like this because if anyone sees this on the website, you can read about Aaron's background. But the reason I did this was at the bottom, it lists all of the different courses that are available from him. so the first one, Aaron, that I wanted to talk about, I guess I'll just go left to right here, is the virtual monographs here. Let's talk about this course that you have that discusses the lack of convergence, modified Romberg. and finger to nose. For an officer on the side of the road or someone in an impaired driving investigation, why are these tests so important, so vital to the investigation?
speaker-1: This is the, what we commonly call the A-ride tests. So it's the advanced roadside impaired driving enforcement course that the officer can use if they suspect drug impairment, because these three tests are not in the standardized field sobriety test battery, the three validated tests. But there has been significant scientific research, not only in the original studies, that found them to be effective in discerning alcohol impairment. But a lot of them, particularly the finger to nose has been very particular in marijuana or cannabis impairment. And so having these three tests under an officer's belt, especially in today's age is going to be crucial for that officer. If they don't see typical indicators on the main three battery tests to then be able to have a tool to use to discern if someone's safe to drive.
speaker-0: Fantastic. So whenever you recorded this in total, it was a little bit over an hour. And so as I was looking through today, this is one that I haven't done because candidly as a scientist, I don't do these, but I'm familiar with them through some efforts with the DRE program. It's divided into four different classes and so I guess for the officer that maybe is the target on this, this is something that ideally in four, 15 minute or 20 minute blocks they can. get through and then get a certificate there at the end. Is that right?
speaker-1: Yes. And kind of when I was putting this together, I was looking for material for someone who was not yet a DRE and had been through the A-ride course because there's not a lot of training in that kind of intermediate gap there. And so this is really good for that officer who is maybe interested in going to DRE or maybe not necessarily interested, but still wants to do impaired driving enforcement to give them a deeper understanding of those tests. And I do want to give a plug here because a lot of this ideas and a lot of this came from my work with the Colorado district attorney's council. I do a lot of consulting for our traffic safety resource prosecutor, Jen Knutson. And we had done a lot of work on these three tests and diving into the science, the court, all the stuff that goes with it and putting it together. So I want to give a shout out to her and to the Colorado district attorney's council. It really helped me put all this together.
speaker-0: That'll be fantastic. Jen's going to be another guest on our podcast too. So I'll let her know that you said, thanks for that. Also, I, this is what I started this morning that we talked about briefly before, but your second course data-driven approaches to impaired driving investigations. In this one, in your writing, you use data from years of arrest to kind of refine the techniques. There were three things that I thought were interesting in this very first lesson I listened to this morning. where you talked about successful DWI detections or detectors, I like the theme, was to, one, know what to look for and listen for, two, have the skills to ask the right questions, and then three, who choose and use the right tests. You mentioned in the course that this particular course focused on those first two things. How does this course help officers kind of move away from just trust in their gut to a more objective and data-backed investigation?
speaker-1: I think a lot of officers get the basic SFST course either in their academy or shortly after. And they're kind of spoon fed the information from a lot of scientific studies and they say, okay, I know I'm supposed to know the numbers from the San Diego study or these driving behaviors. But when I'm teaching it live, when I do that section, I pull the audience and say, how many SFST instructors are here? And I see Several hands go up at the conferences I'm doing this at. And they say, all right, keep your hand up if you've read the administrative guide for the SFFT course. And usually in a room of about 300 to 400 people, I only have about two hands that are still raised. And so my challenge is that statement you talked about on what makes a good DWI detector is taken directly from that administrative guide. I say, okay, if you notice The SFSTs are only one part of this. If we don't do these other two, you're never going to get to the standardized field sobriety tests. And so we need to make sure we're teaching people how to detect by asking the right questions, by knowing what to look and listen for. And then once we do that, we dive into the studies that say, hey, in the 1980s, there was a study done of 13,000 stops that say if you see this action in a vehicle, if you see the driver do this, you have a 60 to 75 % chance the driver is impaired just based on that alone. And not only does that help with the detection, but then when the officers do make the arrest, they can go into court and say, all right, the vehicle was weaving or they can say the vehicle was weaving and based on this scientific study, I knew from that there's a 60 to 75 % chance the driver was impaired before I even contacted. driver. And so diving into that information not only helps with detection, but also with the articulation and convincing that to a judge or jury.
speaker-0: I absolutely love that portion of the course. even back to our earlier discussion where you're talking about officers that just do random stops, which is what within their, you know, wheelhouse of things that they can do. You offer a very startling statistic that only 3 % of those work whenever you do that. And you want to talk about a waste of time. If I went at anything and I knew 97 % of my time was going to be a complete waste, I'm not doing it.
speaker-1: .
speaker-0: So again, I love this. This is a great place for anyone that's interested in this to start. Highly recommend. And then this last course, baking the call, using experience to complement your training. We've all seen the book versus the street. How do you teach an officer to trust their experience without deviating from validated training that we know holds up in?
speaker-1: That was definitely a challenge. And this course, I thought, okay, what information, this was really for the post DRE. You've had the DRE trading, you're out there doing that. And then what is thereafter? And a lot of the stuff we get is, well, DRE is expected to stay up with the scientific studies that come out. Well, what happens when our scientific studies don't jive with or even contradict that basic training? Because we're getting a lot of contradiction that we need to be able to prepare for because the defense and court is going to bring that up and say, Hey, this scientific study from 2023 is contradicting your matrix. That's based on information from the eighties and nineties. What do we do with that? And so really what it is is we've got DREs who've been doing it for 10, 20 years. Why should they be restricted? to only talking about what's in the book when they have all this experience. So then how do we get them to say, all right, I've got all this experience. How does that compliment the book or contradict? And so what this course goes into is actually two examples that I go through. One is there's a contradiction to our DRE matrix that is listed in the book that talks about the downside effect. When The body is trying to counteract a drug. And when the drug wears off, the counteraction, the body is putting into the system makes the body develop symptoms that are opposite of the drug that was produced. So we know that that's a contradiction in there and talked about. So I go into that a little bit because that kind of gives that basis of foundation. Then I go into a new study that talks about the effects of cannabis, particularly these high doses of THC. and what that's going to do on the body that doesn't necessarily coincide with what we see in our cannabis matrix. So then if we're seeing this, how do we compliment that to that basic training? And really what I go into is we've got scientific studies, but nowhere in law enforcement are we taught how to evaluate if a scientific study is valid. And so the basis of that is When you have a scientific study, either one you find or one the defense wants you to read, how do we evaluate that that's either a valid study, it's credible, and it's something that we should base an opinion on. And so I dive into that science part, you know, me not being a scientist myself, but wanting to reach out and find that extra information to give these officers that, Hey, you've got this basic knowledge. You've got this experience in the field. If you find a study that can link those two, then that can help you articulate your reasoning, help you make your decisions better, and then articulate that to a judge.
speaker-0: What its opportunity to put this course out there and make it a priority, ⁓ I agree completely with you. I was just having this conversation the other day that I would imagine it's difficult to find a study at the public library right now that is even relatively close to what a Colorado driver does to themselves. But it makes sense, you know, I mean, there's limitations to what we can do in controlled environments in academia, whether that's through. IRB boards, but I mean, if you think about it, we might be able to study one drug, you we might be able to study alcohol, but the frequency of poly drug occurrences in our impaired driving cases, it's just hard to, you're not going to find that study here. We were just talking about Gabapentin in the laboratory the other day. If you look at our laboratory since 2021, D6 point something percent of our DWIs that contain Gabapentin. are never gabapentin by itself. It's gabapentin plus something. It's gabapentin plus another CNS depressant, gabapentin plus a narcotic analgesic, gabapentin plus meth. It's always plus something. And that's great because everybody wants to know what gabapentin does to the body. And I think we can probably explain that, but I don't know how useful that is because your case is going to be gabapentin plus something, except for that one case we've had over the last five years. Right? And even talking about downside effects, you we make the mistake of thinking in these poly drug cases that everyone did these drugs at one moment, stopped and then noted that with their watch and then stopped for the sake of science. Right. You know, and so sometimes you see multiple things that are happening and it's because the timing of the drugs was there. What a great course.
speaker-1: And the same with the dosages is, you know, our scientists are limited by ethics on doing therapeutic, whereas in the street you get these recreational doses that we could never produce in the lab because it's unethical to give someone that much.
speaker-0: Yeah, it is really unique and especially in this DRE community that we have. The truth is we probably have one of the most robust ongoing longest scientific studies ever occurring, you know, of what real world application is. Maybe we're just not the best at gathering that data together, but it really is the real world and it's a large study group that we have here. I'm glad you did that course. think again, I would recommend to anybody to check those out. or to follow you on the road as you're always traveling and teaching now. There's something unique about you that we haven't discussed. And as we're kind of getting to the end of this podcast, you know, I want to definitely get us and work us towards closing, offer you an opportunity to share anything that's going on that maybe we haven't had the opportunity to discuss. And then you will be subject to the rapid fire round that we put every single guest through here. And so I'm just letting you know that the pressure pot is already boiling, waiting for that. But we have not discussed this Eagle Scout mentality and you might be the only guest that we're gonna talk to that has this, but you have earned the rank of Eagle Scout. You've got a background as a volunteer firefighter and EMT. You're like a Swiss Army knife Aaron, this is insane. How does that always prepared mentality and mindset serve you whenever you're at a DWI checkpoint at 2 a.m.?
speaker-1: Background of that scouting. So my dad was an Eagle Scout. He pushed me and I was in scouts my entire life. I'm my son's a scout leader as well. So add to that. I'm the Cubmaster for their pack, but that background I think really started my journey in leadership because the scouting program, I truly believe in it, despite all the stuff that's been going on over the years really teaches that leadership and self-sufficiency and That journey led me into music where I was drum major, the marching band at Colorado State University, which then led me into law enforcement where that leadership and that public speaking and being out in front of people and willing to take the chance. so I think really where that has brought me to the point where I'm here today is taking the chance and going out there and saying, here's something I've noticed and seen. I'm going to go out and ask people about it and see if I can make a change. Whereas many officers will say, you know what? I get paid if I do that or not. And that's true. But I think my background in that scouting is always going out and searching. And when I go to court and I'm asked a question that maybe beyond beyond the scope, I want to know the answer and I want to be able to answer. And so if the judge lets me answer, I've got that answer in my back pocket, even though that's not. something necessarily that we need to know. And so even pulling that into the road of when I go through this screening process on a traffic stop, you never know where the conversation is going to go. And being able to talk to people kind of where I talked about, you know, most people only have a conversation with a cop once every few years. I want to leave that good impression. And so I've had that where I always ask where you coming from. And someone says, ⁓ I'm coming from the Denver performing arts pavilion. ⁓ okay. What did you see? And they tell me some opera. I say I love that opera. And they're like, what, you know, operas, like, yeah, that's my background. And so you get to develop this quick relationship, get this demeanor out there and really help not only your particular situation, but law enforcement as a whole.
speaker-0: It reminded me when you were talking about another person. Absolutely adore in this life is Mike Rowe and many people don't realize Mike Rowe is an opera singer. He's got this, course, everybody knows his incredible talking voice, but he's got an even better opera voice. If you ever get a chance to sing, it's good. It's good to be a Renaissance man in today's world. ⁓ Aaron, you've got three courses that are available right now on, the website, on drug impairment.com. I'm hopeful you're going be able to record some more and do some more work for maybe a new officer or someone who just is getting to meet you through this podcast or just looking at courses. Looking at those three courses, what's one thing that maybe you'd want every officer to take away from them?
speaker-1: You don't have to be satisfied with what your instructor teaches you. Always be hungry for more information. And if there's anything I've found is that diving into what is presented beyond the classes, because NHTSA puts together a great program for us. But when you realize that's the basics and there's so much more behind it and there's so much more information that you can learn from those scientists that did the original studies that just didn't make the cut to make the slide into the NITSA presentation. Be hungry for that information and be able to use that. And then not only will that help you as a better road officer, but then when you get into teaching and you start to use that in your instruction, not only will that help you in your instruction, but that will help your students stand on your shoulders to get even
speaker-0: Well stated my friend, I really appreciate that. I think that'll be a good placeholder to wrap up the critical portion of the podcast, but you're not done. As I said, most people, they wait until the absolute end because this is where we really get to know people and we get to know how they operate when put under pressure. And so you are officially in the rapid fire question round, Aaron. Are you ready for this?
speaker-1: Bring it on.
speaker-0: All right, so I've got a handful of questions here. They usually have a general theme. As we've recorded more over this year, I've kind of modified them mainly to help myself, but the rules are simple. I'm going to ask you a question and you got to go with your gut here. And I think with the diversity and certainly the Renaissance style that you have, we're to get some good answers today. And so the first thing that I want to ask is our number one question we ask all guests, night shift fuel. You kind of led to this answer.
speaker-1: I start with one cup of coffee and then I do lemon water.
speaker-0: Well played. Coffee then lemon water. My dad did something similar with that. I can appreciate that. It's unique to me because most of the time, if I get a chance, I teach quite a bit of physiology sections in our DRE schools across the country. And so I usually try to add up the amount of caffeine that each officer is pounding throughout the day through energy drinks and then try to express the damage they just did to all of their heart. and cardiac system through that. So I expected energy drinks, but well played my friend.
speaker-1: Well, it used to be and then the kidney stone switched me to lemon water.
speaker-0: Fair enough. I think that's a cautionary tale. I'm gonna them in water right now. All right, good. So this is one that is unique to you. We're gonna talk about soundtracks, knowing that you studied music education at Colorado State, knowing your background in music. If you're going to design a patrol playlist right now, what songs are on that playlist?
speaker-1: Well, I have to go with my year interview view from Spotify and my number one played artist was Volbeat kind of in the realm of Metallica classic rock is mostly what I listen to as I drive.
speaker-0: That's quite humorous. think if you looked at mine, preface, I have an eight-year-old daughter. It is K-pop.
speaker-1: K-Pop Demon Hunters. Yep, that was on there too.
speaker-0: And I might like it a little bit, just a touch, but I'm ashamed. Good deal. All right, we're gonna switch now to the gear. You mentioned a big critical point in your career was changing from the finger to the pin light. What is the one piece of equipment in your bag that you'll never go on your shift with?
speaker-1: I would have to stick with that pen light that actually replaced the ballpoint pen in my pocket is I keep that right there and then I reach elsewhere for my Pen, so I am always with my blue stream light
speaker-0: like it. Better title, Detection in 60 Seconds or the Impairment Whisperer?
speaker-1: sticking with the humble side, I'll go with the Depearate in 60 seconds.
speaker-0: I like it. And then probably more of an applicable question. Hardest category in your experience as a DRE, which of the seven categories is the most stubborn for students to master?
speaker-1: This might seem like bit of a dichotomy or misnomer, but the cannabis category, because the tolerant user has the clinical indicators of impairment, but not necessarily the physical indicators of impairment. And being able to convince a jury that clinical indicators of impairment are just as dangerous to driving as behavioral is quite the challenge.
speaker-0: Yep, we're, I was actually writing a paper right now and this is similar discussion is going on as to a behavioral impairment and it still could be there. And I hear you. think that's a pretty wise thing. I would imagine with your experience in Colorado and the commercialization land, this is probably a daily occurrence with you in these important situations. I've got two more questions for you. One's going to be about teaching style, online classes, like what you mentioned you're doing right now with the community college system or hands-on training.
speaker-1: Hands on in person by far. love the interaction, the ability to not only ask questions, but get questions in real time back. And that's definitely been the hardest part of virtual learning is if I do get a question, I got to wait for an email days later. So I love in person.
speaker-0: Yep, I'm similar. ⁓ And then finally, one word, you get to look in the crystal ball and look into the future, perhaps. What is the future of impaired driving enforcement?
speaker-1: Accountability. As I've found traveling the country, there is a similar problem everywhere where it's only a small portion of officers in any agency that are truly going out there and looking for impaired drivers. Most, unfortunately, will only do it if they won't get in trouble. And so if we increase accountability, we can make a huge impact in impaired driving enforcement.
speaker-0: Wow. Wise words, Swiss army knife, musician, DRE, Eagle Scout, jack of all trades. And it's been an honor having you on impairment perspectives. And certainly, ⁓ I wish you the best. I hope you're safe over the holidays that we have here. Thank you for all you're doing to help educate the community. And it's been an honor to get to spend, you know, the last 55 minutes with you. To anyone who wants to see these courses again, I highly recommend check out drug impairment doc. ⁓ and look for these courses. And thank you again to drugimpairement.com for sponsoring this. And until next time, we'll see you guys.
