Interview with Ryan Tillman, Founder, Breaking Barriers United

The Children Deserve Success Podcast, hosted by Dr. Donald English features a compelling conversation with Ryan Tillman, who shares his journey from growing up in San Bernardino County to becoming a police officer and founder of Breaking Barriers United. He reflects on the experiences that shaped his mission to bridge the gap between law enforcement and the community through trust, communication, and understanding.

Throughout the episode, Dr. English guides a discussion on practical strategies for those working with youth, emphasizing the importance of leading with love, empathy, and respect. Tillman highlights the value of building genuine relationships, using de-escalation techniques, and prioritizing connection over compliance to create lasting, positive impact.

Transcript

CDS - Ryan Tillman

Intro Music

[00:00:00] Don: Hello, my name is Don English, director of Children Deserve Success and Executive Director of the San Bernardino County Wide Gangs and Drugs Task Force. I wanna welcome you to our Children Deserve Success podcast. Once a month we will be sending out these recordings regarding all things related to child welfare and attendance, school attendance review board, foster youth services, McKinney Bento homeless programs in our county, and the San Bernardino Countywide Gangs and Drugs Task Force.

This month's focus well be an interview with Ryan Tillman, and because I do know Ryan, I do not want to tell you what his bio says. I want him to tell you, Ryan, good morning. 

[00:00:43] Ryan: Man, Don, thanks so much for having me man. It's a long time coming. You had to chase me down 'cause I, you know, my schedule's all over the place. But man, thanks for having me, man. It's an honor to be here today. 

[00:00:52] Don: Absolutely. Let's jump right into it. Please share how you got started and how you have evolved as a professional. 

[00:00:59] Ryan: Man, that, that's a very layered question because, you know, it all starts actually within this county. Man, I grew up, I'm a, I'm a county born and raised kid. Grew up in Rialto, uh, I always say Rialto and San Bernardino. 'cause in the summertime I was always with my grandma in San Bernardino, right off of 13th and Waterman, something like that. But born and raised in this county, uh, had the opportunity of going to play football at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

From 2005 to 2009 for the uh, university of Nevada, Las Vegas, like I said. And uh, when I graduated, that was, I graduated. My dad had just got diagnosed with MS. Earl Tillman and Earl Tillman was my hero. He is somebody that I am a lot alike. And so when he got diagnosed with MS, I moved back home to help my mom out and at the time I was just selling life insurance.

Uh, for Primerica, I was the one that, that weird guy that was chasing you down at the mall trying to sit down at your kitchen table. And, uh, it was great. I learned a lot from Primerica. I learned how to be a salesman. I learned how to, the art of communication and connectivity. And after that I had, I got married to my wife. Or during, while I was outgoing, I got married to my wife and we, she got pregnant with our first child, and I didn't know what I was gonna do. I knew I couldn't do, it wasn't sustainable, at least at the time. For me to do insurance. I needed a career, especially to provide for my wife and kids.

So my dad's best friend worked for at Ontario Police Department, Dexter Thomas. He was a captain over there and he was like, Hey, you should be a police officer. Absolutely not. Like I am not about to be a cop. I don't like cops. I always used to say cops are the guys that got picked on in high school. So they became cops so they could pick on everybody else. Like y'all was always my mentality.

And so I said, you know what? Whatever. So I prayed about it and I said, God, if this is what you want me to do, open the door. If not, close the door. And God just kind of threw the door off the hinges. And next thing you know, I got hired with the Chino Police Department in 2013. Went through the academy, top of my class almost as number two overall, and started the field training program.

And what's interesting around that time is I wasn't sure if this is what I wanted to do long term because I just, uh, I didn't like being a police officer. Not, not, I didn't like, it wasn't that I didn't like being a police officer. I didn't like the idea of me messing with people as a police officer. And I got off of training and then that's when I kind of realized like, wow, like I can do this job the way I wanna do this job.

I could do it the way Ryan wants to do it. So I started doing that and then fast forward shortly after that, Michael Brown is killed in Ferguson. And as a black man, I was like, man, I feel like this man in the middle where on one side I understand exactly what happened and why it happened. But on the other end, there's a lot of people that don't understand.

And so I remember having a conversation with my mom, and my mom was like, I wonder what my pumpkin would've done in that situation. She calls me pumpkin. Yes, that's true. And so I was like, you know, uh, and then she was like, but after thinking about it, I realized. That you would've did the same exact thing as that officer.

In that circumstance and that's when the trigger went off in my mind I was like, the only ways, the only reason she sees it this way is 'cause her pumpkin is a police officer. So I set out on a mission to go out there and bridge the gap and try to humanize officers. And that was kind of the birth of my organization Breaking Barriers United, which focused on bridging the gap between law enforcement and community. And it since evolved into resolving conflict across the globe. 

[00:04:15] Don: Man, that's amazing. I mean, it's so funny because you shared not always having a positive view of law enforcement, but walk us through that transformation and your personal mind shift change. 

[00:04:26] Ryan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that transformation occurred when I was now behind the seat of a police car, and I was now the one having to make those split second decisions. You know, it was easy for me when I wasn't a police officer to critique officers in what they do and how they do it. But when you actually have to make that decision, that may not be the most popular opinion or the most, you know, everybody always has something else to say that wasn't there.

That's when it really took me back and I was like, wow. Like people don't, people don't get it. And then fast forward in, I think it was in 2019 ish, I was in an officer involved shooting where I pulled the trigger of a gun, and if you would've just saw a snapshot of the video with no context. People would easily be like, oh, well this wasn't justified, but when you give the whole scenario out and break it down, it's like this is absolutely justified.

So those moments throughout my profession really, really changed my mindset, and that was the shift that occurred. And I realized that it wasn't necessarily the fault of the community for feeling that type of way towards officers. It was really the fault of law enforcement for not telling our story and telling people why we do what we do, what we do, and how we do it. And that's why I started my organization. 

[00:05:40] Don: I know you deal with youth. Many people know you from your video. You know you're dancing at, at an award ceremony or school at the high school, school at the high schools, and so on and so forth. So many of the youth that we serve have experienced broken systems and relationships. From your experience, what are the first practical steps adults can take to build trust with young people who may already feel guarded or disengaged? 

[00:06:03] Ryan: Yeah, man, such a good question and, and it's a great starting point for connection. So I have a, um, a motto that I always follow for my life, and it's lead with love, lead with empathy, and lead with respect.

A lot of educators, your leaders, you know, uh, no matter where you're at, if you're listening to this, you're probably a leader in your own capacity and you have to lead with love first, because. Love is a very, very powerful thing. I tell this story, you've, you've sit in multiple of my seminars now and I tell this story about a kid who I had a really good relationship with that I was when I was a school resource officer and, but his family was really broken.

His family didn't like police. His dad, I arrested his dad on multiple occasions and uh, so they had a very strained relationship. Well, fast forward to the summertime, that young man was shot and I just so happened to be the first officer on scene, so I'm plugging his chest trying to prevent him from bleeding out.

They rushed him to the hospital. Ultimately, that young man ended up surviving that ordeal. And so I went to the hospital after that and sat with him by his bedside. And as I sat with him, it got really interesting because his family started showing up the very family that did not like the Chino Police Department.

And so now you see a police officer like myself sitting in a room a amongst all these people that were in gangs, if I'm just being blunt. And for all, for about 30 minutes, we put all of our cat mouse games aside. I was in there laughing with them, they were laughing with me. We're joking around and I realized it's 'cause we had, one common thing is we had a love for that young man.

Adrian was his name. And so it was love that covered a multitude of sins. It's kind of a biblical principle. Mm-hmm. So if you start with love. Then you can now, that's the foundation of building a greater relationship from love. Then you now have to learn to empathize with people, and this is where people get empathy wrong.

People often think that empathy is based on experience, but empathy is based on emotional. An emotional connection. And what I mean by that is like you and I have grown up differently. You know, you may come from different walk of life and so for me to connect with you from an experiential level is probably almost impossible.

'cause we live two different lives. But people always think, you know, think about the person that's trying to fit in with somebody, or trying to be somebody that are not. You lose trust with the person. 'cause you, you, you get, you know, um. Mistaken as being, or that you get called as being, oh, you're a fraud, or you're fake.

And that's 'cause you're trying to build that empathy through experience. But if you build it through emotions like you and I, we share the same emotions, we share the same joy, we share fear, we share happiness. Those are all things that we can connect on. So if you're trying to build a relationship with the kid, you have to understand their emotional triggers.

What's triggering them, what's making them upset, what's making them happy, what's making them sad? And if you can connect with your own personal experience through emotion. Now you start to let the develop that core foundation that you need to develop rapport. And then after you develop that empathy, then you also have to realize you have to learn to respect that kid.

And this is a hard one for adults to see because I grew up in the old school, I like to say I very traditional. And it was always one of those things like, Hey, you just respect me because you respect me. Like, and, and there is I, I am very traditional in many ways. Like I do believe that there is a certain reverence that you have should have for adults as a kid.

I do believe that kids should. Give adults certain respect, but I also believe that as an adult you should also need to respect a kid and, and where they're coming from and what they do. And if, if you can lead with love, empathy, and respect, man, it will literally be the, the cornerstone of the bedrock for a new relationship with that kid. 

[00:09:39] Don: That's fantastic. You just answered my next question because really what you're, who you're talking to is these practitioners, whether that be from the education realm of law enforcement and how they need to shift their mind as it relate to working with At Promise youth, especially those impacted by foster care or homelessness.

Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:57] Ryan: Mm-hmm. 

[00:09:58] Don: In moments of conflict or escalation, and I know you're very good at this, what are some real strategies practitioners can use to respond in a way that maintains dignity and keeps the relationship intact? 

[00:10:10] Ryan: Oh man, I love this question. So, when we, as a police officer, you know, one of the things that we're taught very early on. Good police departments I'll say, 'cause there's some police departments, you watch cops or on patrol live, you're like, oh man, they some suspect police departments. But good police agencies, what they'll teach you is in a moment of chaos, slow things down. One of the first things you need to do is slow it down.

Like, you know, we have a tendency, your natural reaction, your physiological response is natural to like speed things up, and because you're not thinking. And so one of the things that I always tell educators is when you find yourself in a moment that could be very, you know, controversial suspect, whatever, slow it down.

That means slow down your breathing. When you slow down your breathing, when you inhale deep and exhale out, what it does is it starts to send oxygen to your brain and allows your brain to think a little bit more. And then when you start slowing it down, now you have a little bit more of a clear lens to react.

I use this technique, you know, I use the example of a vehicle pursuit. When you get behind a car and you go to pull it over, the natural thing is that person's supposed to pull off on the side of the road, you gonna walk. That's the natural response. What happens is when they don't pull off on the side of the road and they accelerate, you have a natural tendency to be like, oh shoot.

Like this dude is not listening to what I'm like, he's not doing what he's supposed to be doing. So your heart tends to start beating really, really fast. It goes really, really fast. Your mind starts thinking over time like, 'cause now you're starting to think all these threats. What happens if they do this? What happens if they do that? What happens if they turn there?

And one of the things that they teach us is tactical breathing. And they tell you, take a deep inhale in. Hold it for three seconds and exhale out. Do that like two or three times and now you'll be able to start to slow things down and breathe in those moments for educators.

The reason I'm using that example is 'cause it's the same. Philosophy for educators that are in situations like that, you, there was a, a video that just recently went viral. I think it was in Michigan somewhere where I just came from and a teacher basically lost her cool on some, on some kid.

She basically cussed him out and I was talking to somebody that knows this teacher and they were like, man, she's actually a really, really good teacher, but she just lost her stuff. Which again, we're all human, but in those moments, that's where you gotta learn to slow it down, right. That's when you recognize like, Hey, they're trying to bait me, right?

[00:12:34] Don: Right.

[00:12:35] Ryan: These kids are trying to get me to do something. These kids are trying to record me. These kids are trying to make a viral moment. So when you slow it down and you respond the opposite way with love, with empathy, respect, not only do you take the air out of their sails, but now you actually convey to them like, oh man, like this person is actually human.

And man, I'm telling you, that will save so many. It will not only save so much time, effort, and energy, it's also gonna save the district a lot of money. 

[00:13:02] Don: Yeah, I was gonna say save most people's jobs. That's a fact. But I do remember, uh, as a principal, you know, and you get kids coming in and they're all, oh, breathing.

And I'd just go to my desk and I'd just say, just have a seat. And then I'd pretend I was working and deescalate it that way. So what you're seeing is really true, but we have to be in control of our own selves.

[00:13:19] Ryan: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:20] Don: Uh, to have the ability to deescalate, uh, others. Systems often focus on compliance.

[00:13:26] Ryan: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:27] Don: Whether that be attendance or behavior, or you gotta follow these rules and policies. How can practitioners shift from a compliance based approach to one that is relationship centered and rooted in understanding a young person's story? 

[00:13:41] Ryan: Man, compliance is great, but you're not gonna get compliance if you don't have a relationship. And sometimes practitioners will put compliance above relationship. And so you have to realize we have to look at the hierarchy. The hierarchy is centered and focused first and foremost on relationship because if you get relationship, then you get compliance. And you know, one of the things that if you really wanna irk my nerves to be a pet peeve is when you don't know how to look outside the box and think outside the box and you want to just be so focused on dotting Is and crossing Ts.

You know, uh, a few weeks ago, my wife and I were at the beach and I remember we, we just pulled into this parking stall just for like a few minutes. 'cause there was like this poke restaurant that we wanted to try out. We weren't gonna, we weren't eating there or nothing like that.

We were just gonna be in and out. So I parked in a meter right out front the store, and I was like, all right, cool. Like, I'm gonna be in and out, go get my stuff. So order my food. I'm looking at the meter and I turn. Face to order real quick, and as I turned back, sure enough, this person was out there writing me a ticket.

So I ran out the store and I'm like, Hey man, I'm sorry, like, let me just move my car person didn't want to communicate with me at all. Person didn't want to say anything to me. They didn't want to hear me out. Now, don't get me wrong, I get it. They got a job to do. But that's a moment where you could potentially be like, you know what, like.

Man, don't you can't be here, move your car. Or even if you do give me the ticket, explain to me like, Hey, you know what? Like unfortunately, we're zero tolerance right now and we gotta crack down. But don't just be mute to me because now it comes across like, now I look at you and not, now not only do I look at you as just being like a jerk, but now I'm looking at the whole establishment as being a jerk because I'm like, you guys are all like this.

So when we talk about compliance. Always think, man, it's more important for me to develop a relationship with the person I'm dealing with first. And then you'll get whatever you want to get after that. You know, they always say there's old, say you get more bees with honey. Man, you keep, keep that honey dripping, man you'll get as many bees as you want.

[00:15:42] Don: Absolutely. And when you're in a tough position like you are, law enforcement.

[00:15:45] Ryan: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:46] Don: I, I absolutely love what you said. You know, I understand what you have to do your job.

[00:15:50] Ryan: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:50] Don: But that has nothing to do with your ability to communicate.

[00:15:53] Ryan: Communicate exactly.

[00:15:53] Don: Exactly. I appreciate you saying that. Of course. Course. You know, you've spoken about bias and perception. How can practitioners actively check their own biases and ensure there are not in unintentionally reinforcing barriers for the youth that they serve? 

[00:16:09] Ryan: Yeah, so typically this gets brought up when somebody, there's an accusation made. It's very hard to recognize a bias without a accusation. And I'll say that one more time. It's very difficult to recognize a bias without an accusation, meaning like you could be completely being biased, but if nobody says anything, how do you know you're operating with a bias?

It's usually somebody that says, oh, you're being, you're discriminating against me. You're, you're harassing me for no reason. And in those moments of the accusation, that's when you should take a step back and actually reevaluate and reassess like, am I actually doing something? Is this a coming from a place of bias? And if it is, why do I have that bias? And, but you gotta be honest with yourself.

And if you're not honest with yourself. Then you'll never, you'll be like that person that's walking around. I saw a picture the other day, uh, or there was an incident in Eastvale recently where officers responded to the Costco for some type of robbery or something, and they all got their guns drawn out. And this one guy is just literally just casually walking by, like nothing is going on. Like there's not 10 guns out right behind them. And it's like, how do you be so oblivious to what's going on behind you? Like you have no situational awareness.

So, you know, when it comes to bias, you gotta be situationally aware. If somebody's accusing you of something, then take a step back and say, okay, where is this accusation coming from? And then you can start determining whether it's valid. And the other step I always ask people is ask somebody that you trust that's gonna tell you not what you want to hear, but the things you need to hear, and if you have somebody you can go to, you say, "Hey man, like somebody accused me of being racist or discriminating against them. Have you ever noticed anything about me that might come across as being discriminatory or racist?" And if so, let me know.

And have the humility to accept it and try to change it. But you'll never know that unless there's typically an accusation that's being made. So you can do self checks, it's self-assessments before accusations.

[00:18:06] Don: Mm-hmm.

[00:18:06] Ryan: And ask people like, Hey, like, have you ever noticed anything about me? But that takes a really, really strong person to be able to do that 'cause nobody wants to hear negative things about themselves. 

[00:18:13] Don: I remember, uh, when you were SRO. So you're familiar with classrooms, et cetera, but what does a classroom actually look like? You know, I do what we call WASC visits, where we go and check the culture and climate of schools, et cetera. And I can walk in right away and tell. But, you know, what would that space look like where you feel seen, heard, valued, but not just in words, but in daily practice? 

[00:18:39] Ryan: I think, uh, through consistency. If I said hello to a student once the entire year, then that's now just words. But when I see students on a regular basis and I communicate with them, Hey, how you doing? And I get to know them, you know, Hey, how's your mom doing? It's little things like that. You know, the, the thing I'm a bring up right now is it sounds a little bit more difficult than it really is, but it's really not that difficult.

I have this philosophy that I always say like, every person has a name for a reason. And I always challenge people like, the next time you go to your local Starbucks or wherever you get your coffee from, like when you look at that person across the counter that you're dealing with and you see their name tag on, call them by their name and see how they respond and light up.

And when they, you call them by their name, something instinctually in, it's just like, kind of like stuff like, oh, like, oh wow. Like they, they call me by my name. Like, it's little things like that. So when you get to know a person and you maybe say, they tell you, oh, you know, my, my mom's name is Nancy. And you say, "Hey, how's your mom, Nancy, doing?

Those little things, those little moments go a long way. You know, I talk to a lot of law enforcement leaders across the country and I say, when you, when you greet somebody in the hallway, don't just ask, how's your family doing? Or don't just ask, how's your wife doing? Say, Hey, how's Kimberly doing?

You know, like little moments like that it makes people realize like, man, this person is actually paying attention to me. And then that's just another rung on the ladder. You know, we've been talking about co compliance, a lot of those things that this all goes together. You're building relationships. Those relationships lead to compliance. Those compliance leads to a good positive culture on your campus.

[00:20:18] Don: Yeah. I'll tell you one thing I heard you say, because, uh, as a teacher takes me back to being a teacher, and I always taught students who were expelled, probation referred in our community schools, county schools. Consistency is like number one. So every day, no matter what it was, I did the same thing every day.

[00:20:35] Ryan: Yes.

[00:20:35] Don: Now we can talk about greeting students and all that, but when it came to the program, same thing every day, because our kids don't have consistency. They yearn for it, and people don't believe that. 

[00:20:46] Ryan: They don't and and consistency is one of those traits that in no matter what you do in life, it's a key to success. When before we started this podcast today, I was telling you guys about a viral video and that I just had and that viral video, I had a viral video the other day that like, it is crazy. It had 16 million views in over 24 hours, which, it was insane. I mean, think about that, 16 million people watch this video and, um, and so it actually came across a friend of my wife's timeline.

So this person reached out to my wife and they saw my video. They said, Hey, I saw a video of a guy that I think is your husband, I'm not sure. And then they sent a follow up message. They're like, no, it is your husband. And they were like, Hey, I've been trying to build my own YouTube channel and, and social media, like, how did your husband. Just blow up like this. And my wife is like, you don't realize.

[00:21:37] Don: He didn't just blow up.

[00:21:38] Ryan: He didn't. He didn't. He's been doing this for 10 years. So when I'm talking to people about anything, I'm like, consistency is key. Quality's very important, but consistency is more important because you can have the most quality podcast, the most quality thing you want to do. And if you only do it one time, it means zero. If you keep doing things over and over and over again, I share with you guys like this was a video I least expected to go viral. I was not, I didn't even wanna make this video and it went viral, but it's only 'cause I was consistent in making it.

So it's the same thing with your relationships. When you keep having good relationships over and over and over, you don't know the seeds that you're planting that will sprout one day, you may not even reap the benefits of the seeds that you're planting today. But if you keep planting those seeds, man, I'm telling you man, somebody's gonna benefit.

[00:22:23] Don: That is so true. We, I used to always use this term stick-to-it-tiveness. I haven't used it in years. I don't know why it bounced through my head right now, but we do have to stick to it. If every adult serving at Promise Youth could commit to doing just one thing differently starting tomorrow, what would you want that to be?

[00:22:42] Ryan: Ooh, man. That's a good one. That's a really good one. If they can commit to one thing starting tomorrow, I would say focus on, identify one kid and focus on making that relationship as best as they possibly could. You know, it's easy for me to say, Hey, have a great relationship with all the students in your class, but then you'll get away from the consistency because that's gonna be very, very difficult.

But if you start with one child. And you say, I'm gonna commit to knowing their mom, their dad, their cousins. I wanna commit to knowing some of their interests. What makes them tick? You know, I, I was on our crisis negotiation team for years, our CNT team, and they have this thing called hooks and triggers.

What a hook and trigger is, is if you go on a scene of somebody who might be suicidal, maybe there's a hostage situation. It's the job or responsibility of someone on that team to go talk to somebody that's related to the person in crisis.

So say you and I are on the same team, I would say, Hey Don, do me a favor. Go and talk to mom and I want you to go and establish what the hooks and triggers of the person that I'm dealing with. So you'll come back to me and say, Hey Ryan, the guy that you're dealing with, he's a Dallas Cowboys fan. He loves jazz music. He, you know, and then he hates the Raiders. So you know, he can't stand the Raiders and he can't stand country music.

So now as a negotiator. I'm like, Hey man, you know, man, did you see that Dallas Cowboy game this weekend, man? Yeah, man. It was a crazy game, right? So that, now that's a hook that allows me to establish that relationship. So getting back to the point is like identify the things that makes a person tick.

The things that you know, the only way you're able to do that is through consistency of relationship. And I think if you do that, it's gonna make it easier for you to start establishing even greater connections with more people. But just start with one, I guarantee you'll see a, a massive impact. 

[00:24:42] Don: Ryan Tillman, the seasoned police officer in Southern California is the founder Breaking Barriers United, the host of the well-known It's Needed podcast, bestselling author, and viral YouTube sensation.

Corporal Tillman has dedicated his career to bridging the gap between law enforcement and the communities they serve, tackling biases and reforming modern policing. Ryan, thank you so much for being here. I've watched you grow, man, as a young man, and I couldn't be more excited and proud of you. I mean, genuinely you are a bridge builder, so thank you so much for being here.

[00:25:16] Ryan: I appreciate you, man, thank you for the work you're doing, man. Definitely doesn't fall on deaf ears. You're leaving a massive impact when when Don English is done one day, man, your impact will still ring loud.

[00:25:27] Don: I appreciate you. Thank you for listening. We hope you find this information valuable. If you have any topics or questions that you would like addressed, please email them directly to cwa@sbcss.net.

As always, we hope you stay well and continue to transform lives through education.