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- Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland tonight, on Behind the Headlines.
[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian, and thanks for joining us.
I am joined tonight by Mayor Jim Strickland.
Thanks for being here again.
- Thank you for having me.
- Along with Bil Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.
We'll talk a lot tonight about crime.
Crime obviously, is huge on people's mind.
It's a national increase.
It's a very disturbing local increase.
We may touch a bit on the Young Dolph shooting, the rapper who was shot Wednesday.
I should note that we're taping this on Thursday morning, so there could be other things that develop in that, because obviously it's a fast-moving story.
Let me start big picture, and we had Amy Weirich, Shelby County District Attorney on, I think last week, talking about some of these issues.
There's a three year increase in violent crime.
It's up 30% since 2018.
Murders are up 80% since 2018.
Aggravated assaults up 50%.
There are some categories of crime that are down, which I think sometimes surprises people, but you ran on, you're now in your second term, what, you're six years in give or take, ran on fighting crime and addressing the crime problem.
Going back, let's go back with a hypothetical here to the beginning of your term, if you'd known a couple of key things, if you'd known that hiring, that increasing the size of the police force would be so difficult.
It's really basically been static, and it's been static nationally, right?
It's been a huge national problem hiring police force, losing police members.
If you'd known the legislature was gonna increase access to guns so dramatically, and those are legal ways, but every law enforcement person who has come on the show over the last five years has said, Those legal guns are ending up in the hands of criminals through theft, and so on and has created a huge amount of gun crime.
And if you'd known the impossible, which that this kind of societal pandemic and the upheaval of the last two years would happen, looking back at the crime strategies you all have implemented, what would you do differently?
- Well, first let me reframe it a little bit.
Not only crime was reduced in 2017 to 2018, 2018 to 2019, and we were hiring more police officers and crime was going down, then the pandemic hit.
You kind of framed it around 2018.
I'm moving up to 2019.
Pre-pandemic, we were heading in the right direction, and I think everything that we've done has been correct.
If I did anything differently, I wish we had started violence interruption earlier.
- What is violence interruption when you say that?
- That is a program that other cities have used where it's high touch intervention with the young people who are in gangs or thinking about getting in gangs or in some kind of groups, now that's the new theory, groups.
They aren't official gangs and intervene with them, high touch, meaning often, several times a week.
- With police, with social-- - Well, it's people trained, non-police, trained to do that kind of intervention to pull them outside the life of crime.
- Private sector or are those city or county employees?
- They are a nonprofit.
Those are nonprofits.
- So working with nonprofit centers.
- Yeah, we've had it for awhile, but they only had 13 employees.
We use some of the federal money that we got and to bump that up, and July 1, we started and gave them more money.
They've hired up to 25 now, and they're going up to 50 here before Christmas, and I would have liked to have started that earlier.
Pre-pandemic, Oakland, California, reduced gun violence by 50% through this program, or one of the things.
- Through that program, okay.
But again, looking forward, COVID time warp.
You've got a year and a half left and you're termed out?
- Two years and one month.
- Two years and one month left, sorry about that.
I'm not trying to get you out sooner.
[Jim laughing] I just don't have good time anymore.
It seems unlikely though that the, I mean, the level of police force is kind of chugging along at around 2000.
Again, I mean, that's a national phenomenon and what happens next with getting the crime rate back down?
I mean, is it just getting back to the things you were doing before, or is there a new world with post-pandemic and the rise in juvenile crime?
I assume you feel it.
I hear it all the time.
I mean, it is a catastrophe.
- I do live in the city, so I do feel it, and I've been concerned about this and working on it for almost six years, and even before that on City Council, so this is not new to me.
Let me talk about police and then the big challenge we have.
Police, we had gotten down to almost 1900 police officers early in my term.
We had increased that in 2019 to 2,100, a net increase of almost 200 officers going into the pandemic.
Since the pandemic, we've had a net decrease of about a hundred, or maybe even more than a hundred.
The pandemic has really devastated our recruiting and retention efforts.
We've had more retire and more resign over the last year and a half.
I don't-- - Was it the George Floyd protests?
- Yes.
- People say that.
I don't know if you see that.
- I think that's obviously negatively affected, people don't want to be police officers now.
So, we're down under 2,000 officers now, and we've wanted to get to 2,500.
S,o pre-pandemic, we were at 2,100, in the right direction, pandemic, other things have happened.
The big challenge though that we have is state law is weak.
State law allows easy and widespread access to guns, while it does not punish the wrongful use of those guns.
- But is there any reason to believe that will change?
- The second part, maybe.
I mean, no, we're not gonna be able to pull back the lack of gun regulations, but for instance, when they allowed guns in cars, theft from guns skyrocketed.
This year alone, we've had about 1500 guns stolen out of vehicles.
People are not stealing guns to go hunting.
They're stealing guns to then commit more crimes.
People must lock up their guns.
Let's go to the second issue, state law.
This is some examples of state law.
I shoot a gun at you, then don't hit you, no mandatory jail time on me 'cause of weak state laws.
Somebody charged with first degree murder got out on bond that should never be allowed to get out on bond.
Somebody convicted for eight years.
They get out in two years.
The third year, they commit a murder, and I'm gonna write about that in this week a weekly update.
State law is weak and young people are laughing at the situation.
201 Poplar's a revolving door.
Juvenile court is even more of a revolving door, and juvenile court needs more money to do more intervention with these young people instead of just revolving door.
- Let me get Bill in here.
- Mayor, let's talk about some immediate stuff as we record this the day after the shooting and killing of Young Dolph.
Some folks have called for a curfew of some kind.
Should there be a curfew?
- Well at this point, no, but you know, you always keep that option.
It was a horribly tragic event, what happened to Young Dolph, but it was a targeted killing.
And with targeted killings, what we try to do is to avoid the retaliation, and that's a limited number of people.
That's not a city-wide emergency situation where you'd have to do a curfew.
So what we do is the police, the gang unit, the interveners that I talked about earlier, try to intervene to try to stop a retaliation.
There's a limited number of people, limited number of places.
We did have an increased police presence in those targeted areas that we thought were needed last night, and that will continue.
Now, we always have the option, but we just didn't think, and overnight really, nothing happened associated with that case.
- And let me also clarify again to people that we are recording this Thursday morning.
The shooting was Wednesday, just so you don't, 'cause again, this will air on Friday.
Go ahead, Bill.
- Did your counselors with the group violence intervention effort that we've been talking about, did they have an opportunity to go out after the shooting and do some work?
- Yes, I talked to the lead, and they were onsite, and then they were elsewhere, trying to tamp down any retaliation, but so were our police officers.
- There were two other attempts on this young man's life in different cities.
Are the areas that you're looking at to watch and try to avoid any retaliation, are these people who are suspects in this shooting or do you know at this point?
- I don't know, I don't know all the places where we have increased police presence, but there's two groups, as I understand it, who have a beef with each other, and there are many members associated with those groups, and all are being talked to as much as they'll allow to be talked to, and there are certain areas that could be hotspots that have increased police presence.
- Let's talk about hotspots, I guess and another element of crime that I hear about constantly from people and see it some, which is the state of the highways and the streets in terms of drag racing, reckless driving.
And one of the things I accidentally joked with DA Weirich last week, but I meant it actually, which was that I was driving out here to the studio out east on the highway, and I thought to myself, well, if I drive 75, I might get a ticket.
If I go up to a hundred, I'm not gonna get a ticket, because right now the police force has said, by and large, they're not gonna chase down people doing a hundred.
And as I was driving out last week, multiple people passed me going clearly 90 to 100 miles an hour, just based on what I could see.
There's a moral hazard in there, that people know they're not gonna get pulled over, and so it seems to be a vicious cycle of more people speeding, more people doing dangerous things.
The word is out that they're not gonna get chased.
How does that, and that's even separate above the shootings that are going on, on the highway.
So how do we get control of the highways again?
- Well, we have good news recently, just in the last couple of weeks.
I think Bill actually was the first one to write the story.
We've been asking for years that the state take ownership of the state property, which are the interstates.
Those aren't city streets, but through tradition, the city has been leaned on to patrol them, respond to accidents and all that.
We had no permanent presence of highway patrol officers.
- And haven't for decades.
- For decades.
So we're getting that now.
There's 12, not long ago, it was about 6 highway patrol officers, it's up to 12.
It's gonna be 16 this summer and more beyond that, and what you'll see is the highway patrol officers there instead of us, and then we can have more patrolling the streets.
- I've heard Chief Davis, now 103 months, the new Police Chief, speak about the need for more technology and IDing cameras, cameras on the highways, and I guess maybe potentially on the streets that ID the license plates, and you try to track the people down later, versus chasing them down the highway.
- Well yeah, let's talk about why we don't chase.
- Yeah, yeah, please.
- Because I do get some questions about that.
We don't do high speed chases and other police departments too, like Bartlett, I know for sure it doesn't do it, unless it's a dangerous felon, and that's a different story.
But if it's just someone speeding, you chase them, there some chance that they're gonna lose control and hurt somebody and kill somebody, and it's happened-- - And the police officer could lose control and hurt somebody and that's been a problem-- - But the more likely thing is the untrained driver, often young people, will lose control and hit somebody and kill them, and that's where it's not worth it.
But, until last spring, cameras on the interstate to do the license plate reads was illegal.
We got a law changed to allow that, because it's state owned property.
Now that's allowed.
We're pricing it out.
- Okay, and those will be city run or in partnership with the state?
- We haven't decided yet.
- Okay, switch to the city streets, [stammering] what do you do?
It's the same rules for people speeding down Poplar or speeding down Union or speeding down the Airways, so-- - Obviously, it's cost-- - Of the cameras to ID them.
- Yes, and we have thousands of cameras out right now.
- The SkyCop cameras?
- The SkyCop cameras.
- But they don't ID license plates, I mean there just kinda low res surveillance cameras.
- All police vehicles have license plate readers, and what you're talking about is putting license plate readers elsewhere, like a permanent, it's just a cost, so we'll see how much it costs.
- Is there anything else before I go back to Bill, like in city streets, that can be done to regain control of the streets?
- Oh, we've probably put a thousand or more speed humps down Riverside Drive, other places, not just downtown, other places to try to slow people down.
- Are they working?
- Yeah.
I mean, in the places where they have it.
- Yeah, okay, Bill.
- Several City Council members have talked about going back to the residency issue on police and where they live.
Is there gonna be a push for that, before the Council I should say?
- We'll see, I hope so.
It may be a first start with a private behind the scenes push before it's public, but it ought to be.
I mean, remember, like I said, 2018, 2019, we were low on crime.
2020, we said, "Let's widen the residency rule."
They said, "No," and then we've seen what's happening to crime.
Now, I'm not saying it's a direct correlation, but I think I said to you or someone, "The Council's vote not to allow the public to vote on widening residency has not aged well."
I mean, we see what happened to crime.
We see what's happened to our police ranks, which has shrunk since then.
We need help.
We need to be able to hire.
Most every major city in the country is allowed to hire officers outside the county, and we need the help.
We should be able to do it.
- If the Council reverses course on it, and the votes were there on the Council to not only rescind the referendum, but also to override your veto of this, it's gonna take some time.
Is it enough to say, "Let's increase the number of police," given how long it's going to take?
Do you need a plan B to that?
- Oh, we're already executing on that.
That's why we have a $15,000 signing bonus for all new police officers, $10,000 moving expense if somebody comes in from in out of town, fifteen thousand dollar home purchase assistance, if they buy a house in Memphis.
That's more money than any city in the world.
We're aggressively going out there to different cities.
We did a 9% bonus for police officers and firefighters.
We're now, I think we're in the first year, and then two more years of 9%.
We've raised their salary.
We will continue to do all we can to make it a good place to work to recruit those officers.
- But we're holding steady.
I mean, this seems to be a larger problem than it seemed.
- Oh, there's no doubt.
It's kind of what Eric and I were talking about.
Fewer people are applying to be police officers.
Almost every police department across the country is struggling to hire and to retain.
So many current officers are deciding they want a different way to make a living.
And then the general, it's hard for the FedExs and the AutoZones to hire.
Everyone is having a hard time hiring people.
City government, non police and fire, we're having-- - Online local newspapers are struggling to hire, I mean, really.
- Yeah, and I never worried about firefighters and recruiting and retaining firefighters.
In the last six months, seeing the numbers, it's the first time I've really started to worry about that.
- The interesting thing to me about the discussion the Council had is that you have Council members who believed that police officers should live in the city that they work in or live in the county where they work in.
But they've also said, "Yes, I think we need more police officers."
I mean, you had a majority on the Council who agreed with the goal of going up to 2,500.
So, is this not necessarily about the number of police, but is it about a larger issue of police officers should live where they work?
- Well, that's what they say, but that's an example of the challenge that we face with crime overall.
Because when a crime happens, the camera always comes to me, "Strickland, what are you gonna do about crime?"
And I'm not saying it shouldn't.
I've totally welcomed that.
But y'all never go to the Council immediately after a crime, and say, "Do you regret limiting our police force?"
And that's what it was, it was limiting our police force.
No one ever goes to state lawmakers and state government, "Do you regret these weak state laws?"
And y'all never go to county government and say, "Y'all are a hundred percent responsible for juvenile justice, a hundred percent," and I'm not saying y'all, I don't mean Daily Memphian.
I mean general in media.
I'm not trying to point you out.
- That is fair.
- But no one goes to the county government, which is a hundred percent responsible for juvenile justice, a hundred percent.
Juvenile crime has skyrocketed over the last six, seven years.
It actually dovetails to when the consent decree was placed, and I'm not disagreeing with the thought of the consent decree, but if you're not gonna take more into custody, and you're gonna push people away from court, juvenile court needs more money to intervene with these young people who are doing bad things and no longer coming into court, but no one asked them, no one.
It's always, "Strickland, what are you gonna do about juvenile court?"
And please continue to push us, me personally.
I take responsibility for it, but I don't have a hundred percent authority on all these different areas.
And that's why it's easy for a council member to say, take those positions.
We need more police officers, but let's not go outside the county, because nobody pushes them.
- Yeah, I mean, we got defensive, and it is an interesting conversation.
Over time, on Behind the Headlines, and we've had Floyd Bonner on recently, the Sheriff.
We've had the juvenile court, Judge Michaels, on in the past.
We haven't been able to get him on again, Amy Weirich last week, the DA.
We've talked to Council members and county commissioners about this, and next week we're talking to two local state legislators and among many things, including the gun laws.
And, it is complicated and to some degree, you begin to get the scale of the diaspora of entities that have their fingers in this without, I mean, if you listen to all those conversations, you realize all the complexities of this.
- First of all, I need a dictionary to look up that word you just said.
- Diaspora, yeah.
- Yeah.
- I'm not sure if I even used it right, but it sounded really important.
- But Judge Michael, I'm glad y'all talk to him, but he needs more resources.
It's the County Commission that needs to give him more funding.
If you're pushing kids out of the system, where are you pushing them to?
- So let's talk more-- - They're getting no interaction.
- We've talked a ton, We've mentioned a little bit about intervention, about efforts other than policing and locking up, so let's talk a little bit more about that.
I mean, what in the short term, I think everyone vaguely, generally agrees, good families, good education, interventions at young, those are lifetime choices and long-term choices and interventions that hopefully keep kids on a better path.
I mean, people are like, "What are we gonna do next week?"
And what are the non-policing, non-lock them up strategies that the city, that your part of this diaspora can tackle that work.
- The thing I'm so most excited about is Boys and Girls Club.
When I took office in 2016, and even the campaign, I talked about, kids need something productive to do when they're not in school, I said it all the time.
We did more in our community centers, more in our libraries, more in our summer jobs program, more in our parks, we did.
Boys and Girls Club was the next step.
I could never come up with extra money, 'cause it cost millions, using the federal stimulus money.
What we're doing at Craigmont High School was the only school that Boys and Girls Club was in afterschool programming, and the kids don't have to go to a club, don't have to go to a community center, just stay at school.
They close at 8:00, and they've done it for about four years.
Y'all should have the Principal of Craigmont on.
She will tell you that a hundred percent of the kids in the Boys and Girls Club program, a hundred percent graduate high school, and a hundred percent of those go on to college, get a job or join the military.
We have 30 public high schools in Memphis.
A program, a partnership with Joris Ray and City Council, we're gonna expand that with 10 new schools, and that's what we need.
We need every middle school and every high school to have afterschool program, intense.
It doesn't have to be Boys and Girls.
- Okay, I was gonna ask, are there other-- - Intense afterschool programming 'till 8:00 at night or so in the school, the kids don't have to leave and wouldn't it be great if a hundred percent of kids graduated high school and then went on to a successful?
Then all these other problems disappear.
- Is it a realistic goal?
A hundred percent is a lot.
- Yeah, and I can't guarantee you it's gonna continue that, but it's a lot better than what's going on now.
- Just two minutes left, Bill.
- Well, let me ask you a technical question about ARPA, the American Rescue Plan Act funding, that there is kind of a conversion of those funds, because the resolutions that the Council passed on this say that the money goes to replace lost revenues from the city, and then we see the ARPA budget that has the programs, so there's a bit of a conversion in that federal money from what it's intended for and what it's used for.
I think I phrased that wrong- - I don't think I understand your question.
it's allowed to replace lost revenue for cities, and it's allowed to make these big life-changing programs, like Boys and Girls Club, so we've used it for both.
City government was not exempt from lost revenue, like businesses were.
We lost revenue, and this allowed us to be whole basically.
We didn't have to lay off.
We didn't have to cut.
And the federal money helped a lot, but we're also able to do the Boys and Girls Club, the broadband internet, which is really important, and these other big programs.
- Because the lost revenue was going to go to programs and personnel for those programs.
- For personnel for sure.
But to me, the lost revenue helped us just to maintain the status quo, and then this other money, let us do something more than that status quo.
- Just a minute left.
You ran the first time I think, it was, "Brilliant at the basics," and being brilliant at the basics, and I think if it was not the formal tagline, we had "Memphis has momentum."
Do you feel like you're brilliant at the basics when it comes to things like roads, solid waste?
We talked about litter when you were reelected that that was a priority.
Did you feel that you are being brilliant at the basics?
- With as much money as we have, yes.
If we were to pick up all the litter that's out there, that you and I and other people throw outside, and I don't mean you and I literally-- - God, you're just blaming me for everything today, it's unbelievable!
- But, we human beings are the ones who put it out there.
The city government is not littering.
It's human beings put it out there.
But if we were to come behind all the human beings and pick up their litter and cut private property grass, once a month, it would cost 15 more, we'd have to raise taxes.
- Fifteen million?
- Fifteen million dollars.
And I put it out in one of my weekly emails.
So, we've gotten better on picking up garbage, paving streets, it's lack of workforce.
- Okay, we're gonna get you back sooner, thank you so much.
lost a light bulb.
We were so excited today.
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