National Police Association Podcast with Guest, Lt. Daniel Byram (ret) Consultant, Collaborator, Speaker, Author
Hi. This is sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith with the National Police Association, and this is the National Police Association podcast. I have somebody on today, he's kind of my neighbor. He just lives an hour and a half up the road, but he has such, he's led a fascinating life, continues to lead a fascinating life, has an amazing background. In fact, when I printed out his resume, I had to go box of paper to put in my printer because he has done so much, so much for this profession, not just locally, but nationally.
Betsy Smith:And this is the guy who's been there, done that, and I knew you needed to meet him. Lieutenant Daniel Byram, welcome to the show.
Lt. Daniel Byram:I'm so pleased to be here with you, Betsy. Thank you.
Betsy Smith:So, LT, you started as a county deputy in the Midwest in the 70s. You were a baby, talk to me about that.
Lt. Daniel Byram:I was a kid, about 20 years old. I was just about to turn 21 when I got hired. And it was a tiny little sheriff's department. Was, you know, everybody had county codes. It'd be DC, whatever.
Lt. Daniel Byram:Was DC seven, so that's how many bodies they had. And we patrolled 600 square miles of mainly rural farmland, but it was adjacent to Dayton, Ohio. So when we had crime, it was usually crime coming from the city over out into the farmland and so forth. And it was a great learning experience and helped me appreciate what a small department goes through. A lot of officers that work in a large police department, they don't get it.
Lt. Daniel Byram:That when you're one officer and you have 600 square miles or whatever it is that you're patrolling and you're by yourself and there is no backup except maybe a highway patrolman or city constable somewhere, your skills develop in a geometric way and you learn a lot, you know a lot, and it may not be as glamorous as working in the city, but it's very, very important people count on you. I just love small agencies and love working with them and helping them in any way I can.
Betsy Smith:Why did you decide to become a cop?
Lt. Daniel Byram:I was of the age where I needed to make a career decision at some point. And at the time I was delivering furniture and doing construction and working at a light mechanical at a gas station. We remember what those were when you went out and pumped gas and worked on cars. But I happened to deliver furniture to the county sheriff's home and he was an old World War II vet and kind of a crusty old guy. And I said, you know, I've always thought I'd like to get in law enforcement.
Lt. Daniel Byram:What would it take? And he says, well, you know, you can lift up a couch and stuff you're strong enough. That was back when they wanted to cop a good fight and clean out a bar out in, you know, roadhouse out in the middle of nowhere. And he says, Come on up and see me. So over a period of about a month, he finally said, You know what?
Lt. Daniel Byram:We could use you and you can come on board. He says, I got one opening. So I got into it through the sheriff there and he was as tough as they come. He was a very fine man and I was always indebted to him for letting me get started and let me get my foot in the door. But it was just something I wanted to do.
Lt. Daniel Byram:I was inspired by, you know, one of the kids in school, her dad was a highway patrolman and I knew him and always looked up to him. And I do remember one time, I'll share this brief story. This is the county I worked in. I was a kid, loud party, farmhouse. Must have been a hundred, hundred and fifty of us out there.
Lt. Daniel Byram:You know how back then, pre electronics kids just get together, you build a bonfire out in the middle of nowhere and all your hot rods and everything are out there. So Plymouth Fury three comes down this dirt road, down this dirt lane where we're at. And all of sudden the car just leans to the side is this behemoth. He must have, four hundred pounds. His name was Shep.
Lt. Daniel Byram:I knew him later. Deputy sheriff gets out with a 12 gauge pump in his hand like a little Tinker toy. Walks up. I think you kids need to settle down out here. And I'm like, I wanna be like that guy someday, you know?
Lt. Daniel Byram:Had a face like Oskarite kind of a looking guy. And that was another part of it. But you know, those were the people that you remember crossing. Think that's the way it is with a lot of people. They'll meet a police officer, they'll have an interaction with a police officer.
Lt. Daniel Byram:And every minute you're on the street, it matters. You're done PR, you're recruiting whether you know it or not.
Betsy Smith:That's such a good point. I always make that point to my students because I too grew up on a farm and the cops in the county, the sheriff's deputies, the town cop, the state trooper who was a real big deal in our county, those were your heroes. Those were the people that you looked up to. And at that time, the 70s, you, what were we seeing on TV? You're seeing things like Dragnet and Adam-twelve and those police shows.
Betsy Smith:And then here are these real live heroes like that deputy you're talking about.
Lt. Daniel Byram:And you
Betsy Smith:think, Yeah, man, I wanna be that guy.
Lt. Daniel Byram:Yeah. Yeah. When you see that six foot four, four hundred pound deputy step out of a car, you know, it's like impressive, you know, when you're a kid. And he wasn't he was in shape. He was just a big man, you know?
Lt. Daniel Byram:And leaves an impression on you. And his uniform was sharp, you know, he was just squared away and it was really cool. You know, I thought, That guy's cool. I'd like to try to be like that.
Betsy Smith:And you did, and you ended up going West and having an amazing career. What led you from the Midwest to the West?
Lt. Daniel Byram:Oh, a lot of things. One was a winter in 'seventy seven. It was so cold and I had a, it was just one of those historic blizzards, extremely cold. And they told us back then it was gonna be like that forever. And I remember I went one night to a traffic accident, a guy driving a snow plow was hit by a train and the plow was driven like a mile down the tracks.
Lt. Daniel Byram:And myself and a highway patrolman and some old auxiliary man, he had had to go recover the person. Turned out to be a very close friend of mine, lifelong friend. I didn't know it till we got down there and found him. But walking along the tracks chest deep in snow and trying to carry that guy back and then the old auxiliary man had a heart attack on the way back and had to drag him out. You know, there's no ambulances or anything back in.
Lt. Daniel Byram:It was a local funeral home guy who would come out. That was your emergency response back then. And I thought, I think there's a better way where it's warmer than I'm not gonna have to deal with it. But I never was so cold in my life. And I don't know if it was in my head or, I mean, was 75 below zero chill factor, but it inspired me to go to warmer territory.
Lt. Daniel Byram:And I thought, well, you know, got construction skills if I can't do anything else. So I know they're building like crazy in Arizona. I had a buddy that moved out here, so I came out and just started applying to all the police departments and finally got, a couple of calls and it worked out that I landed at Mesa PD and they generously gave me a job. So, very grateful for that.
Betsy Smith:Well, in Mesa PD, Phoenix suburb, I mean, you were there for the explosive growth that Mesa has experienced. What was the population when you started?
Lt. Daniel Byram:I think we went from like 100,000 to 400,000 like that, you know, a little below that. There was maybe 100 officers, and we wound up with like 900, you know, and it was fast. Otherwise, I'd have never probably made Lieutenant if they didn't hire hundreds of guys. At least that's what I tell people. I mean, it was amazing growth and it was a shock to the system because, you know, when I drive through it now after being gone for so many years, I still can't believe the expansion of the Metro Phoenix area.
Lt. Daniel Byram:I don't want to bore all your national audience with our local real estate stuff, but it's still real.
Betsy Smith:It's The growth is just explosive. You're living that growth as a law enforcement officer, just constantly learning new streets and there's new people and all of that. It's really extraordinary. You work your way up to lieutenant, and you did all the things, right? You did patrol and you did intelligence and you end up running the police academy.
Betsy Smith:I've trained there many, many times. It's a beautiful academy. And you end up touching young hearts and minds, as we say, right?
Lt. Daniel Byram:Right. Yeah. It was a lot of fun. A lot of my time was in special ops or covert ops stuff, and I had somehow fallen into that. I think I had such a baby face when I was younger.
Lt. Daniel Byram:Back east, they sent me to some group in DEA basic training in Washington, D. C. And a bunch of other stuff. And I wound up doing undercover work back there before it came out. And, you know, that got picked up by the powers that be.
Lt. Daniel Byram:And they said, Oh, you kind of know about all this investigative stuff. So I wound up in that track and, you know, did all the stuff. But the academy was the pinnacle. I was a training sergeant in the mid-80s and then was able to go back as a lieutenant. As a sergeant, I got to help design that facility.
Lt. Daniel Byram:You know, we were out there every day with, you know, figuring out how it was going to look, imagining all the buildings and everything and the track. It's nice to see that it came, you know, became something so important and so many officers were able to go through there. But, yeah, I love the academy and love being out there. It was so much fun.
Betsy Smith:So you kind of developed this talent, or you were probably born with it, would guess, but for the written word. Now, cops, especially cops when you and I came on in the late 70s early 80s, we had to be good writers. You really couldn't be a cop and be a lousy writer because we didn't have the internet we had to do everything by hand or on a typewriter, Google it kids. And we had to tell a story and I'll never forget that in my own police academy having my report writing instructor say, you have to tell a story and you have to tell it so that a judge three years from now reading a report is put right in that place where you are right now. And I thought, wow, that's a great way to put it.
Betsy Smith:And you have a talent for that and you took that talent as a police officer and you've utilized it and continued to do so in a couple of different ways. One is academia and training and information. The other is fiction. So let's talk first about the textbook side of things and how you came into that.
Lt. Daniel Byram:I had been teaching at the community college as an adjunct. I did that for thirteen years. And I guess, let me back up and say, I got into writing. Once I wrote a 300 page wiretap affidavit, I thought, this is as big as a book. Maybe I could write a book.
Lt. Daniel Byram:So I stuck in my head and eventually I went that route. But I got into the writing game, I guess, later on. I should probably get into that. And with the teaching and I had, I got involved in a lot of different things. Let me just say that in the private sector, in the public sector, in academic and training things, especially after nineeleven, I got involved in a broader sense.
Lt. Daniel Byram:I was very fortunate to be able to do some things and be part of that. So there was a need for textbooks because there were no textbooks per se on homeland security because no one ever heard the word before. And so we started writing and I was lucky enough to work for the three largest publishers in the world, textbook publishers. And I got published in all three of them multiple times and either writing, ghost writing, or contributing to textbooks on a variety of topics. And I wound up being very involved in that and then I started a company in California in which I had a variety of things.
Lt. Daniel Byram:I designed lab kits, actual courtrooms, furniture and everything to build an entire courtroom for colleges and we sold a bunch of those and we built lab kits, forensic kits for students, lab kits for teachers to teach forensics. And we sold books and we sold online. I got involved a lot in online. And anyhow, all this time though, I had still been dabbling in telling stories. As you say, you tell a story.
Lt. Daniel Byram:And in police work you learn, you know, start at the beginning, tell each piece the way it happened, and tell it in a way that assumes that your reader has no idea what you're talking about. They have no backstory. You know, you're telling the entire thing. So I got to writing and I wrote a number of books. And during my academic time, a lot of the fiction work I did, and I did probably 20 of them, did under student, you know, I didn't use my own name.
Lt. Daniel Byram:Because probably action adventure stories, don't want to hear the guy that wrote your, you know, introduction to, you know, whatever also wrote, you know, some action novel with some crazy title on it.
Betsy Smith:Is your pseudonym like a cool name?
Lt. Daniel Byram:Yeah. The Bronco Hammer books. That was one of them. I've done others too, but that was
Betsy Smith:I want people to know that.
Lt. Daniel Byram:Yeah, they're pretty wild. They're pretty wild. So now I'm back to writing under my own name again. And I'll probably be converting some of the mystery series I wrote back into my own name and republishing and reselling those. At one time, I wrote a West, I started out writing a Western novel probably in the 90s, historical fiction about Cochise County in around 1910.
Lt. Daniel Byram:And that was probably still my favorite book because I love Westerns and it was a Western story and that one's still floating around out there. For people who love Arizona and love Western lore and love the horses and the horse cavalry and the Arizona Rangers, it's all basically true stories fictionalized into one storyline. I wanted to memorialize some of those guys in a certain way. Perhaps not like some of our academic colleagues do, but in a way maybe people would read and enjoy and want to learn the academic piece of it. But no, my first, love those pulp novels, you know, like Mike Hammer and Mickey Splane and I love Raymond Chandler.
Lt. Daniel Byram:You know, he was a San Diego guy for many years and his house was there, the famous mystery writers. And so I'm
Betsy Smith:And I just, I have to say, as one of your readers, you are, I don't even know how to explain it. You really tell a story. It's more than telling a story. You drag people into that story where I found myself, if I put one of your books down and I kind of look up, I'm surprised that I'm in 2025 and I'm here in Tucson, Arizona and all that. I mean, that is the mark of an extremely talented fiction writer.
Lt. Daniel Byram:I appreciate your generous statement, Betsy. I am learning every day, I try to be better at it every day. It's a lot. I'll tell you a fun thing about the writing. This morning I was sitting in my garage and I get up about four and I'm sitting out there at six a.
Lt. Daniel Byram:M. Editing a police article for a guy who's going to be blogging some police articles and he wanted an editor. So my fiction writing gets to drag me back into the real writing too. And I'm grateful that you think that they pull you in. That's the intent, to take people to a different time and a different place.
Lt. Daniel Byram:And when I write a police story, I really hope that people understand what police work is and how the dark humor keeps everyone on track. You know, if you don't laugh, you'll cry kind of a thing. You know, let me
Betsy Smith:ask you about that because cops of our generation, really Gallows humor was how we got through, right? We didn't have a lot of peer support and counseling opportunities and things like that. Do you think we're kind of missing that in the new generation? Again, I don't mean to be insensitive, but do you think a little more gallows humor and maybe one or more choir practices might help the mental health of our young generation?
Lt. Daniel Byram:My academic side of this says, yes, we need it, because that's what diffuses the tension. Everybody had a horrible nickname that could not be used today in today's culture. Everybody had it. At least one terrible nickname. It was insulting, demeaning, you embraced your nickname and eventually you love your nickname.
Lt. Daniel Byram:And, you know, the name, just the way we talked to each other was awful. But we loved each other, you know, out in the street, our patrol squads and our special ops groups and everybody else, you know, these people who would lay down their lives for each other.
Betsy Smith:But you
Lt. Daniel Byram:talk trash and it's terrible. But what it does is diffuses all that other static, the noise, the tension that can creep in on you because the world will bombard you with that relentlessly. And an officer who can't let it go, keep it in perspective, is going to be doomed to feeling the stress of it someday. This is one of the tools, the gallows humor, the dark humor, the nicknames, the relaxed approach to social norms, guess, of polite society. That's one of the ways that we manage it.
Lt. Daniel Byram:And the horrible things you see, the terrible things that you have to witness or clean up, you know, it's all If you don't take that approach to it, there is no safety valve in many cases. And, you know, when there is no safety valve, when there is no release and it's organizational wide, I strongly believe that the complaints go up for citizen interactions because the friction has no release. So you'll have your excessive force. You'll have your, you know, citizen attitude complaints and those kinds of things. I may be wrong.
Lt. Daniel Byram:That's just an opinion, but I just think we've really buttoned ourselves up too tight.
Betsy Smith:Well, yeah, it's an opinion steeped in knowledge and experience.
Lt. Daniel Byram:Yeah. Well,
Betsy Smith:yeah. That's one of the thousand reasons that I wanted to have a conversation with you. Because, you know, tell me what you are kind of on that vein. What do you see looking forward for our profession, 2025 and forward?
Lt. Daniel Byram:I
Betsy Smith:am not a, you know,
Lt. Daniel Byram:no one can see the future. And I hate to predict the future, but we could be on the cusp of coming back where the public opinion comes back. It's always been, you know, everything is in waves that happens. And at one time you can look at our media and entertainment industry to see that the vigilante cop, the lone wolf cop of the 80s and the 90s, you know, that's what people wanted. And they wanted justice.
Lt. Daniel Byram:They wanted to see, you know, the bad guys held accountable at any cost, you know. Not any cost, but you know, they supported law enforcement. And then we went into the anti law enforcement era around, I guess, 02/1030 it started. I used to, I spent a lot of time in Los Angeles, Downtown Los Angeles, and I went and watched all the Occupy groups. And when they would demonstrate in San Diego, I'd go over there and I videotaped them.
Lt. Daniel Byram:I got a ton of video of all these guys and studied them and what was going on. I think they're going to lose, you know. Think we'll make our comeback. If we could take Los Angeles and hold it and bring stability to Los Angeles and the public opinion in spite of the waves of negative media that seem like automatically thrown up before anyone has any facts, I think maybe the tie will turn because it's just not gonna sell. And that's the bottom line.
Lt. Daniel Byram:The public wants to see the good guys win.
Betsy Smith:Think you're absolutely right about that. And our polling tells us that, you know? Most people appreciate their cops. Most people don't want their police department defunded. Most people care about our mental well-being and our physical health.
Betsy Smith:And I think now in mid-twenty twenty five, when we're seeing the riots, we know who it is, to start these riots and bring us back into 2020 or 2014 or even 1992. And it doesn't seem to be taken hold in the way that I think the subversives really thought it was. Part of that's due to, I mean, it's many, many reasons. First of all, I think people are sick of being crime victims for the last four or five years. I also believe that with alternative media and social media, people get a better story, a bigger picture than they did when we just all had to watch three networks in the 90s, right?
Betsy Smith:And a couple of cable news channels.
Lt. Daniel Byram:Yeah. Well, Betsy, if you're from the farm life, you know, like I am, you know that we're rooted in skepticism and skepticism is a trait that's lost on many nowadays. And we need skeptics out there to look at every piece of it. And that's one thing that's beautiful about law enforcement. It's there, you know.
Lt. Daniel Byram:They may claim there's cover ups and stuff and there may be the occasional rare anecdote, you know, of things that are not proper. But for the most part, nothing is more transparent than your police department. And everything is out there. You know, the officers are even wearing cameras and people can see what they do, hear what they say, And they're starting to make their own decisions. Hope, you know, that skepticism if that comes back and where they look at if someone says, Oh no, the cops are awful.
Lt. Daniel Byram:They look how they tormented this individual. And then you go back and look and say, Yeah, you know, that guy was kind of giving the officer a rough time. Maybe he did need to get handcuffed and taken to jail. And, you know, I don't know. I just have that feeling that the tide is turning.
Betsy Smith:I hope you're right. I so hope you're right. I got to tell you, LT, I could just talk to you for hours. But let people know you've got some epic social media out there. Where can people find you, your social media, the books?
Betsy Smith:Give us all of that.
Lt. Daniel Byram:If you get on danielbyram.com, you will see a link tree, it's called, and it has access to where all the books are. Can I show a book?
Betsy Smith:Yes, heck yes.
Lt. Daniel Byram:I got, you know, a couple. This is my latest mystery. I don't know if this will show up inverted or A mystery. This is a rehash of a 1990s police story that I'm working on a sequel to now.
Betsy Smith:Oh, excellent.
Lt. Daniel Byram:Forty years after this book took place. Cold Blue Darkness. But anyhow, these are a couple that are still under my name or released under my name and my Order of Vengeance, my Western book that I'm very proud of. It's a good story. But yeah, if they can look that up, I'll be there.
Lt. Daniel Byram:And you know, I try to interact with as many people on social media as I can and talk to people and joke with people as much as possible and try and have a, you know, make new friends. And, you know, I don't have readers. I have customers. I want to write stuff that they want to see and make them happy, you know, give them a good adventure, a good exciting story, maybe a little over the top sometimes.
Betsy Smith:I tell you, I'm so grateful that you share your wisdom and your talent and your humor and your opinions with the rest of us. You've just made such a contribution, not just to our profession, but on so many other levels. And I can't thank you enough. And I can't thank you enough for spending time with us today. And if you'd like more information about the National Police Association, you can visit us at nationalpolice.org.
Lt. Daniel Byram:Every day,
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