A Lake County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office lieutenant is looking to change the way the community views law enforcement through the creation of a new podcast series dedicated to showcasing the men and women behind the badge.
Lieutenant Fred Jones, a 25-year law enforcement veteran, said his goal with the series is to rebuild trust between police and the public.
“We’re not far removed from the Civil Rights Movement, you know, where our job was to beat people who were peacefully marching,” Jones said. “What have we done in this profession to say, ‘This is not who we are anymore?’ People don’t just give you their trust. No, we have to earn this every single day.”
Jones’s podcast, It’s Alright With Fred Jones, available on Spotify, aims to explore the off-duty lives of officers through in-depth interviews and conversations. His latest series of episodes is titled “The Human Behind the Badge.”
“I want to talk about the human behind the badge, that’s a lot of what’s missing when we see law enforcement behavior on TV,” Jones explained.
The first episode featured Lake County Master Deputy Evan Rosenstein.
“We’re going to get into not so much his job but his personal life and who he is when he is not wearing the badge,” Jones told News 6.
In the episode, Jones asked his colleague about his hobbies.
“I love glamping,” Rosenstein answered. “Camping but I’m going to have air conditioning. So, I get to do that with the family.”
Jones also asked Rosenstein about his dog.
“His name is Thanos, because I’m also a huge Marvel fan,” Rosenstein said. “He is a 100-pound baby that is terrified of cardboard even though he is a big bad 100-pound pit.”
Jones said that he wants the public to realize that officers have families and pets to get home to at the end of the day. He also said that one of his goals is to get officers to deal with mental health issues and trauma that they experience on the job.
“Imagine 12 hours of dealing with nothing but crises,” Jones said. “Since 2016, I do a lot of reading on mindfulness and stuff like that. Every time I left a call, I would get in my truck and do my breathing exercises, release all that negativity and then move on to the next call.”
