Crime Commission pitches comprehensive plan to battle murders

Ma, you let us know when you're ready? Yeah, well, ready. Hey, good morning everyone and happy New Year. I wanna thank you all for being here this morning. I also want to thank the Crime Commission. Um, and other team members you see standing standing here with me this morning. Uh, for their work and that they've done over the last few months. And with that said, back in October, everyone. I reached out to *** trusted collection of business and community leaders. As well as medical experts and law enforcement professionals to help us come up with together addressing public safety and the gun violence epidemic plaguing our city. After 2 months of hard work, we're here. Were very clear eyed, full of resolve, and focused on making Birmingham *** stronger and safer city. The Crime Commission report highlights some key categories that I would like to share with you this morning. Strengthening our police force through increased recruitment and technology. Getting deadly devices like Glock switches off of our streets. Solidifying partnerships among agencies committed to public safety. And bolstering community violence efforts. As well as developing and supporting positive resources for teenage black boys. And jobs for young black men. I want to take *** moment to expound on that last point. Concentrated poverty. High unemployment for young black men. And our teenage black boys not attending school. Compounded with the staffing issues, police departments nationwide are struggling with. As well as *** culture of retaliation. Has created the storm. That we face Supporting our teenage black boys, as well as our young black men, especially around making sure that they are encouraged. Empowered and gainfully employed. Is absolutely, it's extremely critical to healing the generational issues that are in our community. As stated, our resolve is clear. It's time to get to work and so with that I want to invite up one of the co-chairs of this crime commission, Lee Steislinger. Come on up, Lee. Step aside. Thank you Mayor. Thank you sir. Thank you. Most importantly, want to thank the mayor. There's *** lot of thanks that goes out for the hard work and preparation that's been put together by the commission. I want to thank my co-chair Ralph Williams, Alabama Power like to thank the leadership of General Roper, um, and most importantly, all of the entire commission represented here for the hard work on this. Initiative undertaken at the request of the mayor to address the homicides throughout the city of Birmingham. In the summary, the high level focus was to look at best practices throughout the country from other cities to determine best practices we can apply here in Birmingham combined with grassroots community input. In terms of best practices and two of the key findings we came out with was the definitive need for enhanced number of patrol officers in the city of Birmingham. This has been *** nationwide issue and especially *** challenge and opportunity for us here in Birmingham. In addition, we focused on the need for enhanced lighting throughout the city and enhance uh security cameras um so those initiatives with community input from throughout the city will be part of *** comprehensive plan under the mayor's leadership to make and realize our vision which the collective commission developed this vision with the with the guidance of the community. To help make Birmingham. The safest city in America. Thank you. Thank you, Lee. Um, What an honor to be here today. Uh, I'm *** native son of Birmingham. I grew up on the on the east side of Birmingham. My name is Ralph Williams Junior, um, vice president of Birmingham division at Alabama Power Company. Uh, let me also start by thanking the mayor, uh, for his courageousness in putting this assembling this commission and also the council, uh, you know, it's not always easy to have *** group of independent, uh, volunteers to come in, uh, and critique what you've done and make recommendations, and that is just *** sign of *** best in class leader. And also, uh, let me just say how impressed we've been with, uh, city workers. Uh, every department that we've, uh, approached has been open and transparent and and *** level of willingness to, to assist in this work, uh, that has been unprecedented so I wanna thank every city employee, uh, but in particular the Birmingham Police Department, we have *** great police department, we have great police officers, great first responders, uh, and it has been *** pleasure to work with those in BPD. Um, and also, uh, in the other city departments, and I'll I'll end by saying this, Lee said, uh, captured it very well. Uh, but Birmingham is *** great city, but. Uh, we have work to do, and I think the, the level of leadership that you see in this commission, the elected leaders that we have, we all understand, uh, that we live in *** great city, this is *** great community, but. We have *** lot of work to do and we're prepared to do that work and I think this report, uh, it's just the beginning of some of the work that we're all willing to to roll our sleeves up, uh, and, and jump in and get in the game and and help. So thank you very much, thank you, thank the commission and and and all the members of the committee and also let me just say that we are so blessed, uh, not only to have *** mayor like Mayor Woodin but uh for General Roper, uh, to, to come in and and and help us with this work and lead this work. Uh, another native son who, who has served his country, served his community, and is now willing to come back and serve in this capacity, and so I wanted to make sure Lee and I have, uh, we've learned *** lot from each other, but we've also learned *** lot from General Roper as well. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Uh, my name is AC Roper. I am uh. Retired Army Lieutenant General and former Birmingham Chief of police and so it's an honor to be here and let me also start by thanking the mayor uh for putting us all together. This is *** team of amazing leaders who are committed to the improvement and betterment of the city of Birmingham and working alongside the two chairs was absolutely inspiring for me. We would meet every week and just talk about ways that we can help improve the city of Birmingham. So when the mayor asked me to serve as *** strategic advisor, uh, I had *** couple of concerns. One was the aggressive timeline. Which really spoke to the urgency of now that we've got to get moving now. The second concern I had was how do we structure this team of very talented individuals to really give us *** 360 degree multi-layered look uh at the city of Birmingham and so we were able to with the chair's approval, take this committee and break it out into 3 subcommittees or three working groups. And I want you to picture *** spotlight shining on the city of Birmingham, shining down into the communities, so we had the community input team. They really wanted to hear the voices and the lived experiences of the citizens of Birmingham. And then if you widen that spotlight we had the uh criminal justice evaluation team which really looked at the agencies partners policies and all the the friction points concerning those agencies that work with the Birmingham Police Department and if you widen that spotlight even further, I want you to think about the nation. And so we created the national models and data team which really did the research, met with other cities that have had success in lowering their homicide rates. Then we had to pull those three inputs together and once we were able to accomplish that, that's the document that you have now and so *** lot of great work. But some of the things that we really point out is when you think about the timeline and the phases of public safety, you have the intervention phase, you have the prevention phase and the transformation phase so we've made recommendations across that landscape, but the intervention phase is one that's most critical right now as we all know 2024 was *** horrific year. So what are those steps we can take, those programs and strategies we can implement to stop and slow the bloodshed now? And so those are things like focus deterrence, shooting reviews, hotspot policing, *** community violence intervention. With our outreach workers all of that is what we're recommending that the city moves out on now because we know it will take time to do some of those other initiatives so when we put it all together, I think this is *** road map it's *** road map we talk about structure and how we sustain it. Because there's there's urgency now, but we want to maintain the momentum and so we talk about structure we talk about how we coordinate how city departments and other stakeholders and community activists should work together all of that is right here in this report. So I think because of the brain power that's standing around us, uh, this is *** good report that will stand the test of time. It's not based on theory, it's based on let's get out here and do something and get to work because the difference between *** good report and *** great report is follow up. And the mayor has assured us with the council's support that there will be *** lot of actions taken based on this report. So thank you very much and I will call the mayor back up or request the mayor comes back up. Ger's your world sorry hold on Gerald. Again, I want to thank Our co-chairs and the general. As well as all the members you see standing standing here um for their. Very hard work, um, as I've shared with them. At *** moment with them to thank them. They are busy people, professionals, full-time jobs, lives and families, and so. They are concerned and they care and love their community. So again, I want to publicly express my sincere appreciation for all of you all your hard work. Um, with that said, um. Want to open up any questions you all may have. We hear from interim chief Michael Pippen about uh one of the things that you pointed out that we hear from crime victims all the time is we, we need more police presence on the streets. How do you plan to tackle that in 2025? How might that look different than what was done in 2024? I think the biggest thing um is. Um, taking this report, getting the chance to review these 69 pages, and going into the weeds, if you would, detail of those recommendations related to policing. Um, but if you step back for *** while and consider the work that we already started. Um, this past September, um, or October, the city council, thank you, um, committee chairwoman. Thank you to your colleagues as well for approving $16 million as related to an aggressive detailed recruitment and retention plan related to hiring more police as well as retaining the police we have, um, as well as some other incentives in this package um, there are multiple things we have to do. One of the things I saw at *** high level um in this recommendation is making sure the officers, um, who actually live within our city limits have take home vehicles. It's gonna be extremely important. Um, as stated by the co-chairs you've already heard, um, enhancing, um, the boots on the ground with more technology that includes, um, more cameras as well, um, but it's gonna be critical, extremely critical that we be aggressive, um, and feel, um, these, um, vacant positions as it relates to, um, more having more officers on the ground. In 2024, um, we saw the trend improve in *** positive way, um, the highest number of officers we were able to hire in 2024 versus, um, 2021, 22, and 23, and so we're already on the positive curve. Um, the next class starts in March, um, as well as there's *** current class that started this past November, and so we just wanna continue to be aggressive with recruiting. And on Friday we spoke with *** family uh who lost *** loved one, he's *** delivery driver that was shot and killed while doing his job. That was the second son in that family to lose his life to gun violence. What would you say to that family? Because when it comes down to it, this is about real people with real lives or. It's not just numbers. Yeah, well, I'm I'm glad to hear you say this is not numbers. Um, we are extremely sensitive to the plight. Of our victims' families, um, it's something that we take and we. It's something that we not only take owners of, um, but we do everything we can to bring some form of justice this is an active investigation first, so what I would say to that family is that every available resource um is being given to our investigators, um, to solve this case and arrest the person who shot took their loved one. Um, the second thing I would say it's extremely unfortunate, um, that this mother has lost *** second son. Um, there are too many grieving mothers. Too many grieving families in our community, and I think what we want to do and what we need to do. Is make sure as leaders in our community we do everything we can um to decrease gun violence in our city and so we don't have to have other grieving families um added to what's been happening in 2024. There's been 4 police chiefs under your leadership. Uh, I know we have an interim chief right now, but how soon will we see that permanent leadership and how many leaders within the police department is it gonna take under your administration to help curb the violence that we have seen go up at *** record number in 2020? Yeah, so there have been two police chiefs, Chief Patrick Smith. And Chief Thurman. And Chief Thurman, um, decided that he wanted to retire. And so with that we find ourselves in *** position of interim chief um. Interim chief Michael Pickett, um, who's leading our department now. I want to be very clear, uh, the focus is on making sure the police department has every available resource, resource 12. Is that leadership is equipped to actually lead and provide good morale for the boots on the ground and the men and women who are in patrol and other bureaus including the investigation bureau. 3, it is to do two things, provide more police presence as well as solve crime. Um, with this report again you hear focus deterrence. Identifying the people who have, who are the shooters. Making sure we have the shooting reviews and doing everything we can again from *** policing standpoint, uh, that they can take shooters off the streets. Uh, but this is more than policing. Um, I think this report shares and highlights the notion that it can't all be on the police, uh, that we have some culture issues we have to get over, that there are other branches of government that have to play their part, including the judicial branch of government, as well as something not highlighted. From *** community standpoint, from *** workforce development standpoint, from an education standpoint, what are we doing to support invest in our young boys as well as um employing young men in our community um if you or anyone else believes that it can only be on the police, uh, then we're gravely mistaken and so let's all not only support our police, let's not just give them the resources they need. But every other stakeholder group, every other adult in this community, the entire village, everyone has to play *** part as well, and I think when we all do our part, including policing, the results from you that I wanna see, the results you want to see the results our families deserve. We'll all see them. You had *** question. Yeah, um, so what about this report was new to you? *** lot of what we hear now is what we talked about more police, more like deterrence, intervention. You've been doing that. Yes, sir. What in this report is new to you and new for this community? I think one the approach, um, I am, I am flanked by some amazing people. And so we looked at it from every lane. You know, it's real easy to look at this from what is the mayor's office doing. What is the police department doing? But as you see standing around, we, we had *** lens from *** senior advisor that has seen this literally at not the national but the world level level as *** general in our army. That perspective was was extremely needed. I think too I am flanked by corporate leaders in our community, small business owners in our community, as well as community members with various walks of life, um, various industries and professions, putting all of us, putting all of them in the room to say from your lens, from your vantage point, from your perspective, from your thoughts, from your vantage point. And then putting that all together. So synthesizing all of this together, I think is new. That's 2 is this. There are some concrete things in here that I'm gonna encourage everyone to read. Um, I have to read it too, it's 69 pages. Um, I'm gonna encourage you to not just look at the executive summary. But go through the detail of, here are the solutions, here are the um best practices, here are the recommendations. You're right, we have been doing *** lot of these things, but one it's time to go from pilot to sustainability uh we have to level up. The other thing we have to do is make sure we're in *** position to financially um support these things. So *** lot of this is policing, but what you'll find in this report is that *** lot of this is not policing as well and one of the other community stakeholders responsibility in making sure we can decrease gun violence in our city. My second question is, I'm one of those fathers who has *** son who grew up, is now *** lieutenant in the United States Army. One of the things that he had coming up was Police Athletic League. He had pain. How soon can we get these programs back in our communities to have these young folks do something and we talk about police athletically, they're role models, they're police officers, they look up to black males. How can, how soon can we get some of these programs back online? It's *** very, very important question, probably the most important of all the questions that have been asked today, this morning. One, I'm like your son, I was, I was literally in pain. And so I remember Uh, PAT definitely remember, uh, these programs were tremendous in providing role models as well as *** safe haven, if you would, for our young boys in our community. The question was how soon? I believe very soon. Again. Thanks to the council now I'm looking at her, but I'm acknowledging her colleague JT Moore, um, with this ARPA funds, uh, just gave *** significant amount of funding to PAT. Um, what we wanna do, what I want to do is use my convening power, um, to one, put all the organizations in the room who, who say they provide some form of after school, some form of extracurricular for our young boys. Um, how robust are they? Are they meeting the mark? Um, are there resource, um, issues? Um, are we producing results we say we want to do? So there are *** lot of organizations that exist. Um, but I think it's time to have *** comprehensive approach to all the organizations, not just Ping, not just PAT, but every organization that exists in the city. That holds itself out as we exist to support young boys in this community. Here are the resources, activities, programmatic things we provide our youth and our boys, um, and I think it's time, most similar to this, to assess those things. Are they as robust as they need to be? And if they're not, which we can, we can assume there are gaps. Then let's take *** holistic approach to make sure every little boy elementary school. Middle school, our teenage boys in high school. What are we providing them after school, before school, during school? What are, what programmatic things are we providing them in the summer to make sure we don't lose them to the streets? Earlier you mentioned poverty and unemployment or and trying to, you know, bridge that the youth. Some of these people, you know, are wearing Gucci and driving nice cars. How do you get them to put aside the drug money, that's good money to them and get them to take other opportunities, other employment lawfully in the community. It is *** loaded question, isn't it? Yeah, I think. Let's see how do I approach your question. What I need to What I, what we, what the village needs to do. I remind our young boys and our young men in this community. And then when they go out here and choose *** certain lifestyle, it has consequences. Those consequences usually end up being more than 2 things. We know the two things to be jail, imprisonment, and or death. I think there's other losses that we have to get our young men to see. That believe it or not, They should consider And that is *** little sister or *** little brother they leave behind. That's not just to death. That's the jail or prison as well, particularly prison in *** state like Alabama. *** young man who now has *** little girl or little boy himself, he does he have to choose on his visitation list? Who can visit him, his mama? His grandmother, his child. I think we have to again empower encourage. Not just gainfully employed, but empower and encourage our young boys and men that look, we want you to put the guns down. We know there's *** culture and celebration of these so-called sticks and tools you have. But there are consequences when you live this lifestyle and so gainfully employing them is one but also letting them know their consequences consequences and so we wanna share and present to our young boys and men in the city the stick and the car uh the stick is the police we are prepared to do extreme enforcement. Not just through focus deterrence and shooting reviews. Um, but through parole and probation. Through arrests and engaging judges and the DA's office. But everything can't be *** stick. We need to offer the care and encourage our young boys to choose *** different path of life as well. If they don't want to choose that, we'll give them the attention with the stick. Young, yes ma'am. What would you say to the village you mentioned that the community to make sure our students, our young black boys are in school. You all have programs store, he, he did the program. Get rid of that in the city school system, but what about those people that see these kids during school hours? And you know nothing is done. We all have to. Yeah, again, I think this, I think this starts with one acknowledgement what's here. Um The data is clear everybody. Um, young black boys not in the school. And young young black teen boys not in school, as well as young black men unemployed, will equal um higher crime in any community. Um, we happen to have *** majority black city and we happen to have, unfortunately *** higher, higher form of concentrated poverty. Um, when you put those things together, um, that gets us to the point we're at and so leveling up on what do we do for our young boys, what we, what do we do for our young teens. And how do we gainfully employ these young men will be *** focus. I think convening on the stakeholders, which we've done will continue to do, but everybody has to take ownership and accountability of. If he's not in school, where is he? And what can we do? Is he at family court? Isn't he in an alternative program? Is he walking the streets? Is he at home? Wherever he is, we need to engage. uh, if it's young black men that are unemployed, how do we engage? This requires just *** leveling up and going deeper on our engagement. And taking, not taking, I guess, not taking no for an answer, being creative as possible to pull all young boys off the street. And get them educated and pull all young men off the street and get them gainfully employed. Mayor, what is the future of this, uh, commission? Is this *** period or *** comma? Do you see them continuing to meet to move towards follow up and next. So they already know the answer to this. Um, this is definitely *** comma. I think it's gonna be extremely important that once we take ownership of this report, digest it, read it and understand what these recommendations and best practices are. Is that we share them with every stakeholder group and so the stakeholder groups include um our corporate CEOs and CEOs and leaders include all small business owners citywide include our neighborhood officers um include community members include so many other stakeholder groups I don't have time to name and so I think we continue to roll out in detail the recommendation informations to individual stakeholder groups. I think what. Go ahead. No, I was just, no, you please keep on. Oh, you want this to be the last question? I was gonna finish he's gonna say this in the last question. So with that, uh, let me just finish the answer. It is *** comma because I think one. Because they took so much of the time away from their family, their jobs. And the things they had going to make this *** priority, we owe them follow up on *** consistent basis. And from that, from that follow up, I imagine additional resources will be needed. Um, whether it's manpower financially or whatever, and what better group to start with to say, hey, you've made these recommendations, um, here's an update, here's *** progress report, um, here are some challenges, um, these things are needed or your ideas are needed to go to the next step, next level. So Last question, um, I'm gonna let them go. I can be available for additional questions, uh, with Rick and the team, um, but I wanna again express my appreciation to all of you all. And thank you for your time again this morning, everyone, and again, happy New Year.