Teen Violence: Are we making progress?

Brian Steel, President of the Columbus FOP covers a range of topics, from teen violence to recruitment

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's go over to the Legacy Retirement Group dot com
phone line and check in with our buddy from Columbus
FOP Lodge nine.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
It's Brian Steele. Mister Steele, how are you, sir.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
Joe outstanding and too blessed to be stressed?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
How you I'm very good man, appreciate the time.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Man.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good to hear your voice and checking in this morning.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
So I wanted to talk to you about well crime,
what else, but specifically teen crime. The Mayor gave his
State of the city last night and this week he
was on record and saying that the teen violence, incidents
of teen violence is on the decline in the city
and that could very well be true. I don't have
the stats in front of me, Brian, but the optics

(00:39):
look terrible. After a weekend where you've got now a
third teenage boy has been charged with murder and the
shooting death of a fourteen year old boy in the
South London neighborhoods, You've got two fifteen year olds, a
sixteen year old being held on murder charges of a
fourteen year old boy. It just maybe the Mayor's communications
team to revamp a little bit, because having that story

(01:03):
come out and then the mayor says, well, teen crimes
on the decline, That doesn't square for me.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
What do you say?

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yeah, so I can tell you the stats say that
crime does appear to be down, but that doesn't mean
we're going to start celebrating yet and waving our victory flags. Look,
we're not out of the woods yet. We're still double
from about a decade ago. We still have a problem
with the broke, broken juvenile justice system. And the system
is broken. The system is flawed. I'm not telling you
the judges are flawed. Some of these judges are handcuffed,

(01:31):
which is why I continue to pitch the idea that
we have a court, a juvenile court, simply for violent crime. Listen,
a lot of us are lock and step right now.
City attorneys at Klein and I we talk regularly. We're
both under the belief that it is a small amount
of individuals that commit crimes. We have to remove them,
we have to target them. The judges have to do

(01:53):
their part, the prosecutors have to do their part, and
we could finally eradicate this, but it takes everybody involved.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
How are the judges handcuffed? I mean, do they are?

Speaker 3 (02:02):
They not?

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Able to throw the book at some of these kids.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
We've had some juvenile justice reform. There's this theory about
ten years ago that one day incarceration will lead a
kid to more violence. I don't know if that even worked.
That was a study ten years ago. Let's look at
what we're doing and seeing if that works. I believe
a child should be rehabilitated. And I've said multiple times,
you steal a candy bar from a store, we don't

(02:28):
put you in prison. If you do a drive by
shooting at fourteen, you're a gang member and you murder somebody,
there is no rehability in you. You have to go. Unfortunately,
you were failed, whether the schools failed you, lack of
parenting failed you, the government, you name it. You were
obviously failed. But it's too late at that point.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Brian Steele, President Columbus FOP Lodge nine, talking about teen violence,
is that is throwing the book at a kid. Is
the punishment really a deterrent anymore? Because it seems like
they don't care. They really do not give a if
they get caught doing a bad thing that you know,
their lives are so miserable, their parents are absent, they

(03:07):
have nothing, to live for in their minds that they
go out, they commit crime after crime, They get caught,
they get thrown on a probation for eighteen months, they
behave for maybe twelve of them, and they go out
and they commit another crime, and they don't care. Does
punishment really is that really a deterrent anymore? Or do
we need to focus more on prevention.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
For some of these individuals. It does not matter your career.
Fender does not care about jail. They've been in and
out of jail. It's a normal, everyday citizen with a
moral compass. They're terrified at jail, and that's what keeps us,
other than our moral compass, from committing crimes. We've lost
the prevention. We have to get in there early now,
think about it. We removed police officers from schools, We

(03:47):
eliminated their programs. You have to get to these kids early, right.
If I was in charge for just one day, we
would have cops, counselors, mentors at every school starting at
first grade, letting these kids know driving home moral values.
Thou shall not steal, thou shall not kill, and et cetera.
We seem to be missing that.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
How's your staffing because we had talked and we always
I think, and you and I agree on this all
day and twice on Sunday Brian Steele from the FOP
Lodge nine that we need more police officers on the street.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
We've talked about that.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
You know, you've begged for more resources and to get
more guys and gals on the street for that very
purpose of prevention. Are we in a better spot now
than we were maybe a year or two ago.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
We are still critically short. I will tell you what
we're doing good. The Chief of Police, Elaine Bryant, is
doing a great job with her and a recruiting team.
They are trying to recruit. We're still feeling some of
the facts of five years ago when you' villainized this profession.
It's very hard to recruit. Now. I think we are
getting better. The pendulum is swinging back. Listen. My job

(04:53):
is to advocate for public safety. My counterpart on the
fire side, Steve Stein, his job is to advocate for
public safety. So whether it's a shortage of fire trucks
which we're seeing, or shortage of police officers, we're going
to keep beating that drum and try to fix these problems.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
It's funny you brought up Steve Stein.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
I was just going to ask you about him, and
he's the head of the fire union in Columbus, because
we had him on a couple of weeks ago talking
about the lack of upgraded fire vehicles and apparatus.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
How's your fleet? How do we are?

Speaker 1 (05:22):
We good with police cruisers and everything you need to
get the job done.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
So I can't speak to the fire how what they're
shortage is. I know we had some issues of manufacturing.
We've used the same cruiser forever. Maybe those cars weren't
going to be used anymore. There was kind of a
push to go to a different model, maybe a hybrid model,
electrical monicle. Our our fleet is still pretty short, but
they are doing a good job. It's they're ordering these cars.
It just takes so long to outfit a cruiser, and

(05:48):
a cruiser used to be twenty to thirty thousand dollars.
Now they're upwards to seventy or eighty. Like anything, the
costs of just skyrocket and it's not so much the
actual car, it's all the equipment, the computer, the cameras
that got put in. That's so expensive.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
But you're not getting the pushback from the city though,
because that's what's happening with the fire is there.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
People in the city are going, No, you're good.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
You know, those fire engines have a shelf life of
ten to fifteen years, and you're on year number thirteen.
It's going to take two years for us to order
this vehicle and get it outfitted, as you point out,
So even if you order new fire trucks today, you're
not going to get them for a couple of years.
So you're not getting any getting any pushback from the
city as far as your requests are you.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
We are not, And it's a little bit different obviously.
I mean, I can tell you what the fire truck
costs or how long it takes the build, but no,
we're not in the same boat. I can tell you
we stand with them, and we also advocate to get
those trucks to where they need to be.

Speaker 1 (06:39):
How's your recruit class, you guys getting enough people young
folks wanting to be police officers these days?

Speaker 3 (06:44):
You know, thankfully that we still have individuals come in.
It might not be as much as they used to,
but anybody that takes this job of my hat's off
to you. One of the most dangerous jobs, one of
the hardest jobs, and we still get men and women
every day. And I tell guys, even though this is
one of them most challenging times to be a police officer,
this is one of the best times to be a
police officer. I'm going to go down to Franklin Township today.

(07:06):
They just hired two officers that are going to swear
them in, and as FLP president, I show up and
I welcome them. Hey, welcome to number one, one of
the greatest fraternities there are welcome. You're about to be
a part of the greatest show on earth. There is
nobody more emerged in a community than a police officer.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Well, Brian, listen, we back the blue here at WTVN.
You know that you're the right guy at the right
time and the right job. We appreciate your voice. So
you're free and welcome to come on anytime. You got
something you want to get off your chest and let
the folks at Columbus in Central Ohio know about Let
us know, man, I'll put you right on.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
I just before I leave, I got to tell you
the public support from our elected officials, we are in
such a better place. And I truly believe that has
something to do with crime. Mayor Ginther, whether we agree
and disagree on some issues, he's publicly supporting his police.
We're seeing elect officials publicly support your police, and that
is helping officers morale.