Welcome everybody to Midday Magazine for this March 6th, 2024.
Have your host James J. Mail off behind the mic.
And we're going to have some fun in the next half an hour.
It will be a half an hour.
Usually when our friends at the Wood County Sheriff's Department
join us, we have an hour with them.
Had some things come up.
So today this will be an abbreviated show.
We'll just be the half an hour.
We'll have the best of for you in the second half.
Right now, though, want to welcome in Jail Captain Ted Ashback.
Ted, good to see you as always.
Good to see you again.
Thanks for being here.
And I also want to welcome in Ted Ashback.
I went, no, Ted Jr. is here with us.
Ted, good to see you.
Yes, I see you too, James.
Appreciate the time, you guys.
Thanks so much.
Right out the gate, we appreciate you.
Appreciate what you do for our community.
Have your back and anything you need.
Door is always open.
Thanks so much for being here.
Ted, Ted Sr., I'm a Jr. too.
So I have to be careful with that.
And I should know better.
I'm the fourth James, so I really should know better.
When it comes to the Jail, I want to get an update from you with that.
But we have to start right here, of course.
We have a family connection here.
Ted Jr., you're just hired as a full-time deputy
at the Sheriff's Department.
Congratulations, man.
Thank you so much.
Yeah.
Where were you beforehand?
So beforehand, I worked for the Porridge County Sheriff's
Department.
And that's kind of a funny story there, too.
Like I'm working here with my dad at Wood County.
But Porridge County is where my grandfather actually worked
and retired from.
Wow.
He finished his career so kind of a little bit of a mix
of family everywhere in the enforcement.
So that is pretty cool.
That is pretty darn cool.
So I certainly want to ask the obvious questions,
Mr. Ted Sr. here about what it's like to have your child.
Not only kind of take up what it sounds
like a bit of a family tradition,
but certainly following your footsteps in many ways.
And the added weight of that with the field that you're in.
We'll get to all of that.
But I did want to note something that my dad actually brought up.
My dad loves this show.
And he likes trading cards with Sheriff Becker and stuff.
So as soon as I said that I was going to the Sheriff's Department
on right away, he's like, oh, I've got to get
the card ready and like, well, I don't think Sean's going
to be in tomorrow, dad.
And we got talking about you guys.
And he immediately, me and my dad growing up,
one of our first things we did together
was watch Old Westerns.
Watching everything Clint East would ever did and all that.
We love Westerns.
He brought up, he's like, you know, that's kind of an old,
that's an Old West thing.
Like what do you mean?
He's like, well, that's how it used to be back in the day.
It was a family tradition that, you know,
that if your, if your family was in law enforcement,
that was pretty much where you were going.
Like farming or some other industries.
And certainly we've gotten away from that a little bit.
But I think that it's kind of,
there's an old school kind of like feel to it
that it feels right, feels good.
And I couldn't help but notice that
as we were coming into the conversation today.
I think that's kind of unique and interesting.
It's not that uncommon for, you know,
sons to follow in their father's footsteps.
But doing that in law enforcement and in this day and age,
you know this job better than most, sir.
So knowing that your son is going into it,
what is the weight of that?
What is the joy of that?
Give me it all.
Well, I guess it's kind of all everything all I want.
So I mean, you hear the radio,
you get a little bit nervous about what they're going to
and they go, oh, he's not on today.
You know, those kinds of things,
you kind of do that, but you don't know
somebody else is going to that.
But my experience in law enforcement
is it's very common for, well,
it's because you have Zerflou, Joey,
and his dad, you have Quentin Ellis
and his dad, they were both in Wood County.
So to me, it's not so uncommon,
although my aspirations for, you know,
your offspring is always to be that one step farther
than you.
And so I'd always asked them to be an attorney
because you know, he's smarter than me.
And as we'd always said, you know,
I can always use an attorney.
Sure.
Who couldn't?
My mother just this weekend was getting on me
about how much you wanted me to be an attorney.
And you're not alone, man.
You're not alone, yeah.
But it is a calling that a person has to take.
And it is quite a big step.
I mean, you are dealing with both the best
and humanity and the worst all at the same time
in the same incident in a lot of cases.
So your job is to sort through it,
help those individuals that need helping.
And then I guess work the other part
for the other people who aren't doing the right thing
and try to get them on the right path as well.
Yeah.
Ted Jr., for you, what was it about this field
that made you want to be a part of it?
Well, I think a big part of it was just,
like he kind of mentioned it.
It's that weird dynamic growing up with it, you know,
he's always around.
You know, you get the cool flashy lights,
the big loud sirens, you know, chasing bad guys,
running back and forth.
And it has a draw to it, definitely,
it definitely if somebody has like calling.
But I think the true nature of it was,
like when I came to college,
I'm like, okay, what do you want to do with your life?
I had always been telling myself,
oh, I want to be a cop,
I want to fall in my debts,
what's up, so I want to be a cop.
And then he actually sort of tried talking me out of it,
but went to college, had different aspirations.
And I said, no, I got to follow what my heart says.
So that's right, continue to this path.
And here I am now.
So it's, and especially from your perspective growing up
with it, you get certain insights
and see certain things that others don't.
So where some people might look at TV shows and movies,
oh, I want to be a police officer,
and then they get into the job and realize,
oh, it is some of that and it is some other things.
You know, there's paperwork and other things involved.
You don't see on law and order and that kind of stuff.
For you, you had little more insight to it.
Absolutely.
You feel that that is not only part of the reason
why you wanted to choose this path,
but it also helped you gave you a bit of an edge going into it.
Absolutely.
Like you said, there are a lot of people
that watch NCIS and all the other crime shows.
Like, oh, yeah, I'd be so cool to do this.
And they get into it.
And they're like, this is nothing
when I expect it and they're out of it like a year or less.
But having that insight, like knowing what the other part
of it, the 90% paperwork, you know,
I get the 2% of fun, the rest of it's paperwork.
So it's definitely a bigger insane,
the pros and cons of the job, like the ins and outs,
work and out of work, you know.
It's a job that definitely can affect you
if you don't treat yourself right
and go into it with the right attitude.
So having that secondary knowledge of that inside knowledge,
I think really helps and give me a better understanding
what I should expect when I came up with this profession.
How are you enjoying it?
How are you enjoying the position?
How are you enjoying the field?
It's awesome.
I look forward to every day I wake up and I get ready.
I'm like, I'm ready to go and try to do my best part.
Now maybe I know the joke is, you know,
I get you salty veterans, I don't even know how I just,
just waiting to go home.
But if you got, I don't know, I'm just too young yet
or, you know, naive, whatever you want to call it,
but I look forward to come to work every day
and I love what I do, so.
It's really good to hear, man.
It's really good to hear.
And I think the major, we know that,
especially locally around here,
the majority of not all of the above 100% of people
that are wearing that badge or in this position
are in it because of passion,
because they love what they do.
You know, being blunt about it,
you're not going to become a Rockefeller doing this
to kind of work, you're not going to get rich doing it.
And it's not for that, it's for something,
being a part of something bigger than ourselves.
And I see that with both of you,
I see that that's something,
it didn't just get your good hair, sir.
He also picked that up from you.
So that's pretty nice, that's pretty good right there.
When it comes to that part of things,
you mentioned hearing a call in the worry
or some of that and everything.
And I think most people out there can relate,
any parent out there can relate to that,
whether you're kids in law enforcement
or not, you know, kind of the concerns there.
There's also got to be an excitement there too
for other ends of this for more,
I don't want to say positive,
but more like a fun or positive parts of the job.
There are those when we don't get to highlight that very often
with our with our police forces.
That's true.
I mean, a lot of ours is about interacting with the public.
I mean, we're not always out there trying to arrest somebody.
We are out there as part of our public.
We're part of it too, we're that community,
I guess connection to that law enforcement.
So I know when I was on the road,
the best parts I liked about it was,
everyone was like, oh, it's the same old day.
It never was the same old day.
If you think it's that way,
you probably should be rethinking what you're doing
because that gives you not the edge of paying attention.
What's going on?
There are people you'll drive by
or just standing out in their lawn
to run and go back and talk to them.
And all of a sudden you hear about
a lewd me and problems in your neighborhood
and you just start working on them for them.
That's really kind of what it's all about.
It's about being proactive, it's about being there.
You're not always there as reactive,
which unfortunately we know laws are,
and then in hearing the radio,
you hear calls that you're like, oh my,
there's somebody off you going.
Then there's the emergency calls
where you're going to a crash
where you have absolutely an idea what you're gonna see,
so you have to prepare yourself for all of it.
And then you also have to be going through
the questions in your mind about what you have to do
when you get there,
where you have to be looking for things
you're looking for to try to piece it back together
because not all the time is an accident and accident.
Sometimes people are doing things they shouldn't be doing
and somebody gets hurt during it
and we call it an accident,
but those are things that you're always looking for.
So you have to mentally prepare yourself
as you're in that heightened, I guess,
emotional state role when you do it.
Yeah, I think that's a really insightful thing
to bring up too.
So many of us, when we think of the police force
or sheriff's department,
any of these kind of units,
we think of you sitting there waiting for crime to happen.
You know, just sitting there,
just waiting for crime all day.
Waiting for the cops, you know,
that's first off, that'd be a really boring job,
that'd be a really,
and I think some of that comes from TV and movies
again, just as a side note,
we get a lot of that from that,
but it's a great note to mention,
I think, not only of the community interaction
and how important and how much a big part of that is
of the job, but what can come of that?
Yes, that's interesting to me.
That's really cool.
When it comes to the jail, sir,
I want to get an update for the audience about that,
as we mentioned before,
Ted Ashback here, a jail captain.
How is the jail progressing?
Well, that's progressing rather quickly.
I mean, it was, when we first talked about it,
we're like, oh, you're going to see so much action
going on and so much this,
and then once the outside of the building was done,
you don't see anything.
And inside that building,
it is like an ant farm going on.
They are building like crazy,
and you walk through some of the places
where you could walk through one day before come back
the next day, and there's a wall there.
You can't go this way anymore.
So you're moving around, spaghetti of wires hanging out,
you don't realize how many wires are inside of a cell,
where you go, all these people are just in there,
concrete walls and a ceiling,
and they got a bed.
There's hundreds and hundreds of cabling
that go in to make all these things operate as well,
and you don't really see that in the movies either.
So, right, right.
Which is kind of our problem with movies.
I mean, they're both beneficial
as they show people what law enforcement can do,
but they also give them an unrealistic ideelage,
but yeah, they can solve this in a half hour.
I really wish I could.
I mean, be off right there.
That would be great.
And there's not nearly as much techno music.
And in the scenes and every, you know,
when you're figuring out,
going through evidence or anything like that,
I'll show up, I don't put my sunglasses.
Yeah, yeah.
Now, a good catchphrase, a good lady,
brisco, cat, you know, a line or something like that.
Be great.
That'd be nice.
Probably, probably asking a lot to have a writing team
on staff for you guys.
I'm a little old-school,
and I have to be more like, you know,
put a lollipop in your mouth, guys.
Oh, awesome.
Kojak, Kojak.
You know what?
Cut the reference.
All right.
Maybe the smoothest actor of all time, Teddy Smith.
Tell me, Somalis, yes.
Well done, sir.
When it comes to the work that's being done in the jail,
it's great to hear the progress.
I was talking to a listener, though,
before, who was curious about some of the changes
that are going on and why this jail
is going to be so much safer.
And I know that you and I have touched on this,
Sheriff Becker, and I have.
But maybe, you know, going over a little of that
wouldn't be a bad idea.
Just what are some of the highlights,
some of the key aspects that are going to make the jail
not only safer, but better for our community?
Well, one would be the visibility of everyone.
So I mean, we have our staff, which right now is,
you've been into our facility or current one.
It's a long hallway.
You can't see anybody in it.
You have to go to doors.
You can't communicate it all.
The inmates can't communicate with us.
So when something goes on in there,
all you hear is knocking out a door,
and you have to figure out which door they're knocking on,
running up and down.
So you have people looking.
The new one, with the design with the pods around you
and everything designs you can see
into all the corners around you,
you can see what might be going on
before the knocking would happen.
But they also have the ability to communicate with us.
We have the ability to be able to see them at all times.
And then with all those things going on,
we also have the ability to have them in a safer environment.
By right now, when somebody comes in,
if something goes wrong in their life
and they get arrested for it, they get brought in,
they're being brought into the middle of our facility
where everything is criss-crossing.
So you have people going to court, come and pass.
You got people coming back from court, come and pass.
You got other people going to programming.
You got people going to mental health appointments,
doctors appointments, all that crossing in the same place.
So who knows who, who has a beef with stone?
So those are always on your mind
because that has happened.
We had people in church,
all of a sudden, get up and start fighting.
Who fights in church?
Well, people will want to get even with somebody there too.
And these things do occur.
Yeah, anger doesn't wait for anything.
No, and anger management is a great thing.
We try to promote that to people
and coping skills to do with.
But these people have come from places
that aren't always the most environmentally sound
for themselves, so they are a product of that.
But they still have, well, even though they're
in a different environment, it's still who they are.
It means what they've been wired to do.
And it's hard to unwire some of that stuff.
Especially if you've done some of your own social medications.
Absolutely, yeah.
And all these layers to that is stuff to keep in mind,
not only for us as a community,
but for when we're talking about
and thinking about the work that you guys are doing,
the added layers to this.
Again, there is nothing that's black and white in your field.
Really in life in general nowadays,
but especially with the work that you guys do.
And I think that's really important to keep in mind.
You know, I am an actor.
It's my industry.
I like TVs and movies.
I'm not talking bad about that,
but I think you have to take all of that
with a grain of salt and understand that
that this is entertainment first.
And if you want to know the real story,
if you really want to know what's going on there,
which I encourage every single listener out there to do,
talk to an officer, talk, find out what their day to day is,
find out what their life is like,
find out what it's really like to wear that badge.
And not only do we create more empathy with that in our society
and build that bridge of community
and law enforcement stronger,
but I also think it's interesting.
It's just interesting what you guys do,
the work that you do.
It's something on paper that you step back and like,
man, this works.
Like this is how our society stays whole.
This is how we keep things in line.
This is that blue line.
That's so strong and so important in society.
I mentioned Westerns earlier.
I love Westerns.
I don't want to live in one.
I have no interest in living in the old Wild West.
I have no interest in that whatsoever.
And I don't think anybody does.
This is a video game.
Yeah, yeah, oh, now Red Dead Redemption.
Sure, I'll play that all day.
Yeah, that's absolutely.
Get going hour on hour on hour easily, absolutely.
Man, just on the horse I could.
I just tried to ride on the horse I could.
When it comes to the jail update,
one of the things that I have found from listeners
that they have appreciated the insight,
appreciated not only being able to see the building going up and stuff,
but hearing some of our conversations.
One of the other things that I was thinking about
is going to bring this up a share of Becker.
And I'm curious, are there going to be opportunities
for the community before the jail is up and running?
We'll say, I don't know how to really word that,
but for people to, again, lack of a better word
to or the jail or see some of the jail,
you mentioned before, those that have seen our jail,
our current jail.
Well, that's probably a good percentage of people out there,
but certainly not everybody.
You're not going to I would here hoping that not everybody has.
It's not something that you get, it's not the mall.
It's not even a restaurant or something like that.
So are we looking for a way for people to,
hey, see the new building, people see this?
Is there something like that in the works
or something you guys are thinking about with that?
I know that has been talked about.
I know the county board members and the, well, Sean himself
has been talking about that.
When that would occur to what degree they would be seeing,
there's a lot of places inside the facility
that aren't really designed for public to be through.
I mean, there's a construction that you make
that is public friendly.
So like stairwells and stuff and lobbies,
all are inside jails, not so much.
I mean, it's meant for someone to be there
with you, to be interacting with you
and keep you where you're supposed to be safe.
So running general public through,
they're not always the most often,
but obviously a lot of people want to see it.
I mean, it's quite interesting.
And as we were talking with some of the builders
at Samuel's group and such, there really isn't
another facility, particularly like this,
anywhere in Wisconsin at all, and maybe even further over,
because we're changing some of the ways that places
had been built were before it's like silos all together.
So you had like four columns and all your inmates
in these places.
And now we've just stacked it on top of one another
and gave us a whole different, I guess, one big column.
So we could do it a little bit more efficiently
and it all worked out mostly because of the space
we were trying to fit in.
And it actually is turning out to be quite a different project.
Yeah, that's a very different approach,
not only putting it together, the actual building
structure and such, but the way that we're going
to be housing inmates.
That's a whole different way of doing it.
It seems like with that, have you guys had to learn different
techniques or different ways of approaching putting
somebody into the cell, even as simple as that?
Yeah, and that's what we've, I've created a,
I shouldn't say simple as that, I apologize, but.
And it can be just as simple as that.
I mean, sometimes what we currently do
may actually work in the environment we're going to be in,
but giving the enormity of where you're going to be working
is going to be a little more difficult
to do some of the tasks that you could do prior to.
But we put together a transition team.
So we took people from inside our facility
who are wanting to do extra and want to be part of this project.
And now we sent them off to other jails
to learn how they do it.
So they have multi-level jails, which we don't.
So those types of things they'll bring back to us.
And then we have our meetings and then to work
through our policies and procedures in order
to figure out what will work, what could work.
And then we put it into place.
And then obviously living documented,
I'll have to be until you can, I guess, finalize it.
Yeah, and there you got it.
As a big believer in silver linings,
I personally, I think a lot of people,
the jails should have been built 10, 20 years ago.
There's plenty of things that will tell us that.
But we're here now, it's up and running.
We're going to have it up and running in the next year.
All good things.
One of the positives I do think from having the kick
in the can that happened with this was that now,
when it came to the building of it,
we have so much more data and so much more information
about a way to design a jail, a way to build a jail.
And I don't know up and down the state
necessarily all the construction that's going on.
But I'm pretty certain this is going
to be one of the newest, if not the most newest jail
in our state as far as that goes.
So the opportunity there for people to learn,
there's going to be other jails opening.
And you might have people wanting to come here to say,
hey, can we just get an idea of what you guys did
because we're designing our own?
Or the staff there wanting to have some,
hey, can we go ahead and have a run through here,
or practice here, the opportunities that are there
with that is unique and wonderful.
And I know a lot of this stems from saving money
and not having to send clients or however you want to say
to other cities and everything,
but the learning opportunities are pretty unique as well.
Yes, they are.
It is, I mean, you could sit down
and just think about it forever.
And so it really comes down to,
you have to try to figure out what you're trying to do
and then try to move towards that,
but not reinvent the wheel if you can help it,
because somebody else has already had to think this through.
So we go to a lot of what DOC, the state says.
We've had our state inspector come through
and every month walk her through and she sees things
as she sees in all the other jails
and she's talking about what we could do,
what we couldn't do.
So we're working through those projects as well
or those ideas that come from there.
We've had people from the state prison system
actually want to come and take a look at what we're building
because as they're in need of more space,
this may be kind of what they need to do too.
I mean, I suppose they're trying to look
at all the options as well.
I know Dane County is looking at building one,
almost like ours now, but multiple stories high.
So because they have against space issues down there.
So I don't know if we started it,
but we're certainly part of it
and we're glad to be part of it
and I'm glad to help other communities work through it
because that's why we're all here.
It's kind of a community as well.
Well, that comes back to one of the early conversation
Sheriff Becker and I had in this new,
this way that a law enforcement is going forward
that you and him kind of been a part of
and have been experiencing
and I think help the transition
and people like your son are gonna continue with
and that's the sharing of information.
You know, when we were kids and stuff,
there were stories all the time about this department
holding this information and not sharing it.
The Richard Romero story is famous for that.
You know, the things like that,
that stuff just doesn't happen as much anymore,
if at all.
And now it's so much about,
I don't need credit for the bust,
let's just make the bust.
Yes.
Like that's I think a really encouraging thing
for our society and just in general,
but that also goes to knowledge and sharing knowledge
and it's not just important that I know this.
It's sharing that information.
My first second favorite guitar player all time,
Eddie Van Allen.
In part because, only in part because of how Eddie was
about technique.
And making sure that other people could see it.
He didn't care if he got credit for it.
He just wanted you to see the finger tapping.
You know, he wanted people to learn,
share the information, knowledge should be free.
Sharing of information when it comes to the jail
or any of these other things
for other people opening up jails,
it's gonna just make our law enforcement
that much stronger.
Sure.
What we've seen when we toured him,
because that's what the county board
and the ad hoc committee and our department
went to multiple different places around the state
in order to see what they had done
and things that worked for them,
what they would do different.
And all that information filtered into what we're doing now.
Of course, cost being part of it too,
you're gonna wanna go,
oh, everything needs to be diamond plated.
Yeah.
Come on.
Let's not go that right.
Yeah.
But there are some places where it's necessary
to put things in high volume movement areas
you can protect those areas.
Both of you appreciate the time.
Appreciate you being here.
Thank you so much.
Safe travels out there.
Be well and thank you again for not only putting up
with me and my questions before you do for our community.
And Sean did give a request.
He would like to have a photo of all three of us.
Oh, right on.
No problem.
That's what he wants.
That's what he gets.
That sounds good to me.
Thank you again for the time, you guys.
Thank you very much.
Big shout out to our friends at Wisconsin Rabbits Community Media.
Big thank you to them and the amazing work they do.
Do yourself a favor if you haven't done it already.
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Well, a more midday magazine coming up for you right here
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