Lafayette's police department, talking through the job in plain terms.
Inside The Squad is the Lafayette Police Department's own podcast, built from unhurried conversations among officers, staff and the community partners they work alongside. Guests range from a child advocacy center and a clinical psychologist to a college intern who did ride-alongs on weekend nights.
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Inside The Squad is the podcast the Lafayette Police Department makes about itself, and it sounds like it: officers, sergeants and staff talking through the job with the microphone on. Episodes open on a burst of dispatch-style radio code before the line that serving and protecting is a mission, not just a motto. After that the formality drops away. Voices rotate from one conversation to the next. Sergeant Sean Verma welcomes guests in some, Sergeant Matthew Santerre is introduced as a host in another, and Officers Cole Anderson and Music sit in on another, with MK keeping things running in the background. The ribbing is mild and familiar. When an officer handles the intro smoothly, the sergeant beside him is told he has been replaced. The real appeal is the local, practical detail. Asked for his badge number, one officer gives it, then admits Lafayette was the only application he put in as he neared graduation from Western Illinois University. The hiring and training path runs through ILEA, Indiana's academy down in Plainfield. A Purdue intern explains how her internship class places students across the criminal justice system, from Indiana State Police to the coroner's office and the courts, and why a department open around the clock let her do about half of her ride-alongs on weekend nights. Much of the rest belongs to guests and partners. Chad Krockover of Big Brothers Big Sisters sits down with law enforcement mentors, including West Lafayette's police chief, to explain the Bigs in Blue and Bigs with Badges programs. Dr. Dardene, a clinical psychologist, describes a practice built around first responder agencies, covering pre-employment testing, wellness training and support after critical incidents. Nora talks about taking on the department's Victim Services Coordinator role, a position the city created, after years as a YWCA legal advocate. The team from Tippecanoe County's child advocacy center walks through forensic interviews with children, including why they will not force a child to talk before the child is ready. These are grave subjects, and the show treats them seriously without turning them into spectacle. That same conversation still closes with a plug for a local musician booked for an event with food and live music. The tone moves between warm and dry, with asides about adjusting from nights to day shift and someone apologizing for being horrible with names. Acronyms get explained, and the questions tend to be the practical ones a curious outsider would ask. For how someone becomes a Lafayette officer, From Recruit to Officer: The Training Journey is the natural place to begin. For the harder side of the work, try The Mind Behind the Badge: Mental Health in Law Enforcement.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants the practical, local texture of police work in Lafayette, Indiana, from hiring and academy training to victim services. Also fits anyone weighing a law enforcement internship or career who wants to hear officers describe the path in their own words.
What sets it apart: It comes from inside the department itself, with officers, sergeants and staff doing the talking alongside local partners, so the detail is firsthand and specific: badge numbers, ride-along hours, the academy in Plainfield. Heavy subjects like child forensic interviews and first responder mental health get the same plain, conversational handling as the recruiting talk.
INSIDE THE SQUAD is brought to you by the Community Outreach Unit of the Lafayette, Indiana Police Department. From crime statistics, to crime prevention and everything in between, this is your inside look into what’s happening at the LPD.
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Inside The Squad explains local policing through candid, process-focused conversations with department personnel, community partners, interns and retiring officers.
Inside The Squad turns the work of the Lafayette Police Department into accessible conversations about how a local public institution operates.
A police chief explains the hiring funnel; you get the questions a recruitment poster leaves out.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A local look at how child advocacy work meets investigation, interview timing, and family support.
Inside The Squad centers on Hartford House, Tippecanoe County's Child Advocacy Center, and the work it does for children who have experienced abuse or witnessed a crime.
LPD's internship program gets a plainspoken look at class credit, ride-alongs, and the hours behind them.
Inside The Squad opens season five with LPD's college internship program and a new host in Sergeant Matthew Santerre, who is settling into day shift after nights while talking with Purdue students Alex Amato and Carissa Aiello.
A practical look at hiring math, retention pressure, and who falls out before the process is done.
The episode frames police hiring as a pipeline issue with retention at its center. It links recruitment and retention to a department's ability to serve its community, and it highlights the Lafayette police department's significant decline in applications over the last five…
A retirement conversation that lands hardest when it reaches one juvenile case and the years around it.
Inside the Squad uses Kurt Wolfe's pending May 13 retirement to look back on 35 years on the Lafayette Police Department and on the toll the job can take. The early stretch stays light, with vacation timing, yoga, and a dog that, by the sound of it, does plenty of walking.
A practical year-opening look at safety, staffing, technology, and Lafayette's direction.
The episode opens 2019 with Chief Patrick Flannelly looking back on 2018 and laying out the year ahead through hiring, retention, new technology, and the department's new analysis and response center.
Raw police talk, rough edges intact.
Policing headlines argued from the street level.
Fringe stories, strange evidence, open lines.
Hartford House starts with the child.
Season five starts at the internship table.
Big Brothers Big Sisters CEO Chad Crocover describes the Bigs in Blue program as matching local officers with children for one-to-one mentoring.
Dr.
Lafayette Police Department officers describe how the LPD combine shortened hiring from a drawn-out sequence to about three months.
The Lafayette Police Department introduces their new Victim Services Coordinator, Nora, who discusses her background and role in supporting crime victims and working with officers.
Episode three gets down to business quickly.
Chief Patrick Flanley discusses the impact of COVID-19 on LPD operations and shares personal experiences of working from home.
Retirement is close.
Inside The Squad starts the year with Chief Patrick Flanley.