Eric Doden: Indiana Gubernatorial Candidate

Well, it is not every day you get the opportunity to sit down with a Gubernatorial candidate to discuss the future of policing.  So, when opportunity knocks, open the door.  In this case, I was grateful that Eric Doden opened his door for me so we could sit down and talk about policing in America, specifically Indiana.  I might add, try to say “Gubernatorial” without practice and see what happens.  You'll understand once you listen to this week's episode of The Coptimizer Podcast.  

Eric Doden grew up in a small town.  Not Seymour, like another famous Hoosier, but not unlike it either.  Without getting into the nitty gritty of his background, I’ll cover a few things quickly to help set the stage.  Eric earned his B.A. in business finance from Hillsdale College and his J.D. degree from Valparaiso School of Law.  He and his wife, Maci, and their five children, including their adopted daughter from Rwanda, proudly call Ft. Wayne, Indiana, their home.  I mention this because his love for his family, Indiana, and his small-town roots are clear motivators for him to move on from a successful career in business to the challenge of governing an entire state.

One of his priorities will be to restore Main St., not just one of them, but as many as he can.  He has had practice; in fact, he co-authored a book about it—the Restoration of Van Wert, Ohio.  The subtitle, How Local Leaders Flipped the Script on Downtown Decline, lays the foundation for many of his ideas about how to move Indiana forward.  

We jumped in and hit on many important issues facing Indiana, and America.  Eric touched on his plans, including creating an infrastructure Capital Zone encompassing the mile square of our state capital city of Indianapolis, and what he hopes to accomplish by doing this.  A recurring theme of many different topics was “partnerships,” not just in a policing sense, but in providing resources that are the foundation of community health and prosperity. 

Some specific policing subjects we touched on were his support for maintaining the protections of Qualified Immunity for police officers.  Also, developing new prosecutorial tools to remove violent criminals from our streets, and providing adequate resources for training, equipping, and maintaining a professional police workforce.

It was a fast episode and we touched on many things that police officers in Indiana, and others, will want to hear.  I left the interview with a much better idea about who Eric Doden is, and what type of positive impact he could provide Hoosiers if elected Governor!  I think you will as well!

 You can watch this podcast on our YouTube channel by clicking here.