Thursday, June 18th, 2015, Stacy's training session project of the past couple of months finally was held.
Stacy had gotten information about a popular speaker for our line of work that would be in our general area and was willing to speak for an afternoon for any and all we could get to attend his talk.
It had been very stressful for Stacy getting the guy and then dealing with all the incidental details that go with a talk like this. The place to have it, which went back and forth, what to have for refreshments, how many will attend, lunch or no lunch?
Stacy had been under a lot of stress building up to it and even the day of the event.
Boise Police Officer, Jermaine Galloway, has a website, www.tallcopsaysstop.com, and he has been teaching all over the country for over the last 11 years.
He teaches drug and alcohol lifestyle and use recognition for law enforcement personnel as well as with church or family groups.
If you should ever see an event where he'll be speaking in your area, you definitely should go! You will not be sorry, and you will learn things you never may have known!
Oh, and he's the Tall Cop because he's 6' 9" tall, so yes, he is tall!
This wasn't the first time Stacy and I had seen him speak as he often speaks at the Juvenile Justice Conventions that we usually attend. This was the first time Stacy had an opportunity to have a person with such a renowned and known speaking history speak in our area. We were able to have representatives from other agencies as far as two hours away from the surrounding area as well as representatives from Canada also in attendance.
Stacy had 60 in attendance for this event, an excellent number considering our area population.
With visual aids, like the photos below of items on the tables, and with video clips, some he's taken at public events with the openness and often no fear of being caught from the people he's talking to, as well as some videos from YouTube and various local newscasts, he teaches what to look for in the subtle ways people involved in the continually evolving and expanding drug culture can give that "wink, wink, nod, nod" to others that most people wouldn't think to notice or have any idea what it meant.
Many of the items below include hidden spaces for keeping a "stash" so cursory examination might not even detect the illegal substance hidden in it.
All these things that so many kids, and adults, now wear to prove to others that they're one of their expanding club of "party people".
EVERYTHING in the above and below photos has a drug related use and/or meaning!
Would you recognize it if your kid or their friends came over wearing these things? Many are also known advertising images or slogans with changed lettering or slightly changed images so most wouldn't notice it now means something totally different from the original product.
He spoke for about 4 hours, in a building at our local fairgrounds. It was a pretty warm day and most of the buildings, due to the age of the fairgrounds, have NO air conditioning! I found out when I was searching for any a/c vents since I turned the heat / A-C controls all to 'cool', yet it wasn't getting any cooler! The maintenance guy at the fairgrounds was a nice enough guy but apparently a newer employee and was not much help as pretty much with every question I asked, the answer was "I don't know".
I finally found out that there was no airconditioning to turn on! So at a break I opened all the windows in the place. Even warm air blowing through was cooler than the stagnate air being heated up with people.
All in all, every paper grading this event was very positive, the Canadian people I talked with, who had been taking copious notes during the talk, were wishing they had classes like this in Canada.
A very great feather in the cap for Stacy!
And a "whew, it's over" for me!
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