Body cam video released of a fatal shooting of a teenager by Akron police raises more questions.

Snow buried parts of the Lakeshore counties, fueled by a very warm Lake Erie.

And the Browns commissioned an economic impact study on its plan.

Brook Park Complex ideas is next.

Hello and welcome to IDEAS.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for joining us.

Video footage released Thursday raises many more questions about the shooting death of 15 year old Jasmine Tucker of Akron.

A gun was found in his zipped coat pocket after he'd been shot.

But what happened before the shooting?

Why were body cameras not turned on earlier?

And why did it take so long for Akron police to render aid?

Mayor Shamus Malik says he wants to know.

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation has the case.

The Haslam group commissioned an economic impact study of its Brown's complex proposal.

And Brooke Bark, and no surprise.

It says the development will be a bonanza for the region, including downtown Cleveland, where the team now plays.

Cleveland says it studies show a Browns move will hurt downtown.

And county officials immediately threw shade on what they called the Browns bias study.

It feels like old times in northeast Ohio this week as the snow bears down, delivering its heaviest blows on the snow belt east of Cleveland.

A high school in Ashtabula, Saybrook Township, where more than five feet of snow fell could be closed for the academic year after its roof collapsed under the weight of the snow.

And a judge blocked a drop in center and a West Side Cleveland neighborhood that would have helped teens and young adults experiencing homelessness.

Joining me for the roundtable from Ideastream Public Media reporters Anna Huntsman and Zaria Johnson, Statehouse News bureau chief Karen Kasler is with us from Columbus.

Let's get ready to roundtable Akron police have released the body cam footage from a Thanksgiving night shooting by police that killed 15 year old Jasmine Tucker.

Mayor Shamas Malik released a statement saying the videos raise more questions, including why it took so long for police to aid the teen after he was shot.

This morning, the mayor is holding a press conference, so he's going to expound on what he released yesterday in a statement.

Correct.

And the family and legal team are also holding a press conference.

So there will be much more on this today.

But as you mentioned, Mike, the the mayor, Shamas Malik so far has said that there are many questions and I've heard that sentiment from others throughout the week before the body cam was released.

I mean, people would were declining to even comment on it until they reviewed the body cam.

And I think when you see the footage, it does raise more questions actually than answers, because as you mentioned, the first part of it, there's no sound.

So that includes the actual shooting of the teen and that's by design.

When the cameras are activated, there's 30 seconds until the sound kicks off.

Any idea why?

Yes.

So this is pretty standard when any when you're reviewing any body cam footage that is released because so the cameras are always on running in the background without sound for storage purposes.

So when an officer actually go ahead and activates it, that's when the sound starts.

But the cameras are able to have the previous 30 seconds available to.

But that's going to be without sound.

Got it.

So I hope that kind of makes sense.

But as you mentioned, the mayor pointed out in his statement that the officers did not activate their cameras on their own.

So we don't really know what was going on.

I mean, we can see kind of beforehand in the moments leading out of motion.

But you never see Jasmine or Tucker, never in the video, at least like you can see after his body when they go up to him.

But as you as their eyes are running toward him.

There's also a the use in this case of a long gun.

It's a it looks like an AR 15 style rifle, which is the gun that apparently was doing the shooting.

You could see it moving, but you couldn't hear it.

But that's another question the mayor has is why police are coming up with, you know, an assault rifle instead of.

Yeah, he said that he's he thinks the community will be asking why the police used rifles instead of handguns.

And then the other concern, I guess I should say, question that he raised is the amount of time it took for the officers to go and render aid to the, you know, the teenager who was on the ground.

When the sound starts, all you really hear is police yelling, stop moving, put your hands at your side.

Just yelling that for several minutes.

And then you also hear the officer say, go check the parking lot to see if there's any victims, because the whole reason they were there, they say, is because they heard gunshots.

So there's a sense from the officers that there might be victims in the parking lot.

Meanwhile, there's they're yelling at this person who you can't you know, nothing is being heard on the on the footage.

You can't see them.

But you have to assume he's already down at that point.

You would assume, too, that a police officer shot and it's only one of several officers that were there that did any shooting, that he believed that there was a gun present and there was some comment.

There's been some comment about that.

They did find a gun after they handcuffed the teen, rolled him over, but it was in a zipped up coat pocket.

Yeah.

Yeah, you can hear it in the footage.

The officer saying he was reaching.

So I saw him reaching something like that.

But yeah, as you mentioned, they recovered a handgun in the pocket that was zipped up and it did have an extended magazine on it.

So that's kind of what we know so far.

That's really all I can safely tell you.

You know, some might say, okay, well, it zipped up then he didn't have it out, but it could easily as well have been that he put it in and was zipping his coat pocket back up.

And that looked like, you know, somebody who's going for a gun type of thing.

So a lot of questions that the mayor has said.

There are a lot of conclusions that can be jumped to.

But what we're looking at is what the facts are telling us in this case, the the police department, the chief himself, they say they stand behind having a full investigation, but they're not doing it.

Not yet, no.

Currently, the investigation is in the hands of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

That has been the standard procedure in officer involved shootings with the Akron police for a while now.

It's turned over to the BCI.

And then after that's done, the findings will be submitted to the attorney general for review and then it will go to a grand jury to see if there's any charges that could be filed.

And then the police department will do its own internal investigation as well.

The independent police auditor in Akron.

Okay.

The mayor in that city came into office on the heels of the Jalen Walker shooting by police, one in which police were not indicted, where they were found to not necessarily be at fault.

It's something that's created a huge rift in the community.

Now he's dealing with this situation.

What are we seeing from the community?

I know there have been protests or vigils that have been planned really every every night this week.

Correct.

I wonder if the weather is impacting this, because as far as I could tell, there wasn't really a big gathering last night by any means.

But yes, it is planned for tonight and tomorrow night.

I will also say, too, this is not the only officer fatal shooting this year.

There was one over the summer that was a high profile.

One of the person who was driving a U-Haul that also caused controversy when people saw that body cam.

A teenager was also shot earlier this year.

He he survived.

He was shot in the hand.

But that this has been an ongoing conversation, an ongoing rift.

And there's been a lot of criticism of of the mayor for standing by his police chief for not I mean, people were criticizing him for not being at the council meeting on Monday, even though he doesn't typically go to that.

So, yeah, this is he's he's dealing with it now, but kind of yeah, came into office on the heels of police reform and accountability calls.

I appreciate that you'll be continuing to cover that story You're going to be with the family today as they're giving their thoughts.

They had a press conference last night, didn't say much, didn't take questions.

They hadn't really and their lawyers hadn't really gone through the video.

Yeah, they said that the family was still processing and didn't have enough time to process and that the legal team didn't have enough time to really review it to the full extent.

So so we'll we'll learn more today.

And the snow is being measured in feet in certain lakeshore areas of northeast Ohio.

Lake effect snow started last week and really it hasn't let up in Ashtabula, Saybrook Township, more than five feet of snow and counting.

The roof of Lakeside High School there collapsed under the weight.

Governor Mike DeWine has declared a state of emergency in Ashtabula, Lake, Georgia, in very small sliver of Cuyahoga County.

ZARRELLA One of the roof collapses I mentioned earlier was Lakeside High School in Ashtabula County.

It looks like the students aren't coming back.

Yeah, they're going to be remote through December 9th, through December 17th after that roof collapse.

And, you know, it seems like something the school obviously wasn't expecting.

I'm not sure how the students feel about it.

They might be shouting, Yeah, a permanent snow day through Christmas break, but they'll be remote during that time.

And the school tried to avoid it, but I mean, the roof collapsed.

What can you do at that point?

It seems like it was out of their control, so it's a short amount of the superintendent there is very adamant about not wanting to have distance learning.

They've got to do it for that almost ten day period, then an early break for Christmas when they come back, it's not going to be remote learning.

They're going to different facilities.

Yeah, they're going to be splitting the students to across two different schools.

It's about $70,000 in repairs they have to do.

So that's going to take some time.

It's going to take, obviously, money.

So the students will be split going to different schools during that time.

But like I said, hopefully they'll be able to enjoy the remote break and be ready to go back in-person.

At that point, I was reading Connor Morris's coverage and they've had problems with that building since it was constructed.

They sued the contractor.

There was storm damage in 2018 from snow to the roof there.

So all kinds of issues.

Hopefully when they do get this fixed, they get it fixed to a point where it can hold five feet of snow because that's what's going to happen in Saybrook Township.

Yeah, it didn't happen on the west side, in the west suburbs.

I happen to know because I've mentioned this before on this show, but here it goes again.

Three years ago, I bought a snow blower and have never used it.

Yeah, it's like maybe an inch and I've got a shovel for that.

I used to.

There was that one winter where Christmas time I had a shovel and three layers and my wife says, listen, you're, you're on the other side of 55, it's time to get a snow blower.

And I've never used it.

Yeah, my mom and I, we did the same thing when we were living in Cleveland Heights sometime during the pandemic.

We got a pretty crazy amount of snow and we bought a snow blower from Home Depot and never had to use it.

It sat in storage for a couple of years and I don't know where it went, but it's gone now.

But we never used it.

Well, let's hope it's not needed.

Yeah, I actually fired it up this weekend.

It does work.

Good.

I'm waiting.

Yeah.

And believe me, I'll be fine if I never use it.

But it really does show you how our region has such huge differences.

Akron got hit at South is like a secondary snow belt.

Yeah, we didn't get nailed several inches or anything like that.

I will say I was driving around last night in my coverage and the roads are starting to get a little iffy downtown though.

Again, like not crazy, but it's the visibility, you know, when it gets with the winds and all that, it kind of got a little bit hard to see.

I didn't have to severely clean off my car, though, which I'm always thankful for because I have to park outside and it's a whole thing.

And just a month ago and this was like, say, in Cleveland, you know, if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes.

Right?

Just a month ago, Cleveland was enjoying record fall temperatures.

I was playing golf.

Yeah, that's the impact here where Lake Erie remains warm.

It doesn't really freeze over.

It doesn't I think it's last time at 90%, it froze over, which was long ago.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we've got a lot of this warm water that wind is racing over.

And the way the wind races, it hits that area in Ashtabula and Lake and Geoghan counties and kind of skirts a lot of the rest of it.

And a Cuyahoga County judge ruled this week that Lutheran Metropolitan Ministry cannot add a drop in center for homeless youth to its building on Franklin Avenue.

It would cater to 16 to 24 year olds experiencing homelessness and give them a place to rest, shower, seek support services.

But neighbors said they were concerned about increased crime, other negative impacts.

Zaria, the city's Board of Zoning Appeals, had greenlit the plan, but then there was a lawsuit that was filed.

The judge sided with those who were opposed to it.

Why?

Yeah, well, the the neighbors who, you know, are opposed to this project, they do cite crime.

They cite concerns with more trash, more noise, more crime in the community.

And this is a resident, a residential neighborhood where this would be placed.

But the judge who reversed the decision didn't really cite those concerns in his decision.

But he he said the ministry didn't adequately prove that if they moved the building somewhere else or if they put the center somewhere else, that it would be a hardship on their operations.

They didn't adequately prove that that would happen.

So the judge felt that they could move the center somewhere else and it wouldn't be a problem.

And for that reason, they should find a community or a neighborhood with the proper zoning codes where they could put the center without any issue.

So it seems like the judge maybe at least an insight to the neighborhood concerns as the reason for the decision.

But more so the zoning side of things.

The the community though the complaint that they have Luther Metropolitan ministry says that really has nothing to do with this shopping center.

It has to do with there is a place that serves homeless men nearby that they bought in that neighborhood.

They should know that it's an urban neighborhood.

And these issues that they are having are not related to this particular facility, nor would they be exacerbated by children, younger people who are homeless being served.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Like, I think part of the at least the ministries push back is that it seems like some of this is a stereotype for the homeless community, unhoused kids potentially bringing more crime to the area.

And some of the concerns that residents are citing in terms of like carjackings and there's some concerns about urination and defecation on the property.

The ministry saying that these aren't our clients, they are doing these things.

Our clients are not out here carjacking people or they're not out here defecating on properties.

And the ministry also says that they haven't received any sort of citation from the city about any wrongdoings or any violations.

So they're kind of saying, don't point the finger at us and don't stop us from doing this.

Potentially a good thing for the community, for these kids when we're not the problem and our clients are the problem.

And yet one of the biggest opponents of this, a neighbor, Ron O'Leary, who formerly was a housing court judge, certainly knows a lot about the process and was a bulldog in this.

Yeah.

And he's definitely leading kind of that neighborhood push in terms of preventing what they're calling a potential more crime in the neighborhood.

It seems like they definitely have good intentions in terms of not wanting more problems in their neighborhood.

But again, the ministry saying that it's not us and don't stop us from doing our good work.

Neighbors are saying, yes, do that good work, but it's not appropriate to do it in this neighborhood.

Right.

Exactly.

And the Cleveland Browns released an economic impact study Thursday that they hope will make the case for building a new domed stadium in Brook Park.

The study says it will be an economic bonanza, despite Cleveland saying it'll damage downtown and the county saying the Brown study is biased.

And of the city of Cleveland did its own economic impact study previous and said this is going to be disastrous for downtown or at least damaging.

Right.

And you could say the same thing for that.

You know, if they're going to have their study that's going to say see that sort of thing.

But this this new study comes from a maryland based real estate consulting firm.

And it said that the gains for the four coming from the Dome stadium would be 1.2 billion annually.

And that the the new stadium could attract 3 to 7 more events a year than the current open air stadium that's on the lakefront.

So the big thing here is I think concerts are the main thing.

So Taylor Swift would come.

Yes.

And they actually pointed out in the study the Detroit and Indianapolis Stadiums, a similar ish region to Cleveland.

And Swifties know, you know, she went to Detroit in Indianapolis.

So, again, a big domed place.

Now, on the flip side of that, though, you know, tour promoters are looking at many different things when they're deciding where to take a concert.

You know, how many people are in that region and how easy, easily accessible is it to other areas of the country.

So but that's that's the big thing right now.

I believe the stadium had it has ten football games ish.

And then I think like maybe three events over the last couple of years and they're saying, you know, Detroit and Indianapolis had way more in that period.

So it's interesting to do a $1.2 billion annually that this will bring in happens to be the exact amount of money that they want the public to pay for this.

Oh, that is interesting, Mike.

Yeah, I didn't I didn't I didn't pick up on that at first.

Yeah.

So that is interesting.

They do say it wouldn't just be from the stadium itself, but there's plans for an entertainment retail district around there too, hotels and things like that.

So they're saying it's going to come from that as well.

So that large amount of money that they want from the public to pay for this.

Chris Ronayne, the county executive, has said, nope, we can't do it.

The city of Cleveland has offered money if they were to stay and renovate in Cleveland.

That seems to be off the table according to what you hear the Haslam saying, but nothing's really ever off the table, I guess.

Yeah, In fact, Chris Ronayne County executive came out with a statement after the study came out saying basically that he had dug into the data yet, but that he's still completely against it and the county will not fund any of it.

The Mayor, Justin Bibb of Cleveland, says regardless of what this says, the facts are that if you take something out of downtown, it's going to hurt the downtown area.

And so he's kind of still standing by that perspective.

Cleveland and Cuyahoga County will pony up $20 million apiece for upkeep and publicly owned progressive Field and Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.

And they need that because the syntax that's covering the upkeep of the venues isn't collecting as much because good news people aren't signing as much.

I was just going to say that, Mike, People aren't sitting.

Exactly.

Way to go.

Many people.

Yeah, but where is the money coming from for the county and the city to be paying this 20 million bucks toward toward these upgrades?

The majority is coming from their general funds.

So in the city's case, that's about three fourths of their money is coming from there.

And they're also using some of their federal pandemic relief dollars for that.

And then on the county side, it's about 2 million from the general fund.

And that's, you know, general operating costs.

But then they're borrowing the rest of it.

So they're actually going into more debt.

They're taking on more debt to help pay off this debt.

Now, this is bad news because when you're going into the general fund, that's money that you needed that was going to be spent toward other things.

I mean, all of it is.

But this particularly has some acute pain.

And the councils on each side weren't particularly happy with the choice.

But they say they're their landlord, They're they're on the hook, they're the owners.

They're on the hook.

Right.

And council City Council President Blaine Griffin basically said it's going to be even worse if we don't do it, because these are very necessary repairs to things like HVAC improvements and just other repairs that would if not, I mean, maybe eventually the stadiums couldn't operate and then, gosh, what's that going to do for the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County?

So I will say city council members were a little hesitant at first.

But, you know, Griffin was also saying investments in things like this are going to bring more of an economic investment and an a boon for the region.

So they kind of were like, we have to do it.

So this isn't, though, a one off payment.

There's going to have to be a upkeep of these things unless you build new stadiums, you know, So these are going to continue for decades to come.

More money is going to have to come.

The syntax is not cutting it.

So what's the solution of the have they looked at that?

Yes, they have.

So the county has just kind of said it's kind of putting it out in out there that, hey, maybe we could we should look for different financing gateway.

You know, maybe you should think of something different.

Whereas the city is actually they had passed some sort of legislation to say maybe we start using funding from parking, charging for parking, and maybe using some different funding sources there in the future.

Fresh off the defeat of the issue one redistricting amendment, a Republican lawmaker is suggesting the fix for gerrymandering may not be in changing how the maps are drawn, But in adding to the size of the legislature, Republican State Senator Bill Blessing of Hamilton County has suggested that you expand the size of the legislature by adding seats in the House and the Senate.

Kiran, I don't think I've ever heard that, particularly from a Republican lawmaker.

But the idea of making the legislature bigger.

Yeah, And I think a lot of people who are frustrated with lawmakers would be like, why would we add more lawmakers to this if we really are frustrated with the way things are?

But Bill Blessing says that this idea would actually work, whether there's a redistricting proposal on the table or not.

I mean, Governor Mike DeWine has talked about doing a plan like Iowa's, which would put redistricting in the hands of a nonpartisan legislative agency with lawmakers having some involvement.

And he wants lawmakers to do something about that next year, because the idea of redistricting and the frustrations and concerns around how those maps are drawn is not going to go away.

Blessing says adding more lawmakers to that would actually work along with whatever else that the legislature is trying to do.

And he says that the reason it would work is because if you add more lawmakers, you get closer to the proportionality that people want to see in terms of 55% Republican, 45% Democrat, which is how Ohio voted in the 2024 election.

Interesting.

So more legislators and I would think blessing.

I would think more Republican legislatures, legislators, given the makeup of of of the body.

Yeah.

And he says that if you make the districts smaller then potentially you have less money involved in politics because people would be better known in their communities, because the communities would be smaller and you could get more people who wouldn't normally consider running for office, teachers and electricians and other people who might want to do some work in the legislature and didn't have the money to raise to go out there and become a state legislator because these races can get pretty expensive.

He also has another proposal that I asked him about for our TV show, the State of Ohio this week, about making it more making it easier to put initiated statutes out.

And these are like what we just voted on last year on the marijuana legalization.

That's a law as opposed to a constitutional amendment.

A lot of groups will not do laws because the legislature can change them immediately, which we're going to see possibly happen with the marijuana legalization thing.

He's trying to make it a little bit easier so you won't have these complaints about groups trying to buy their way into Ohio's Constitution.

Meanwhile, in Cleveland, we're not talking about having more representatives.

In fact, they are bound by their charter because of the loss in populations area to reduce the size of council.

Two of them are going to go.

That means redistricting.

And that's a bit of a sticky process right now.

Yeah, and their timeline has now kind of been rushed a little bit off the council.

So the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections is saying it needs maps by early January so it can finalize its voting precincts.

So if that's the case, then council might need to introduce and approve the maps.

Both of those things in one day in their first meeting on January 6th, the first meeting in the new Year.

And if that happens, that means that Cleveland residents would only have about three or four days to review the maps themselves and give their own input before council makes a decision that would then be set in stone for them for the next ten years and determine, you know, which council members represent each of their wards in each of their interests.

So it's a pretty big decision for Clevelanders to make, and they might have a little bit of time to review the maps, come to an understanding of them, and then give their input to council before council the very same day.

Yeah, exactly.

And I know that this I mean, we saw the council meeting where the council president, Blaine Griffin, clashed with Rebecca moore, whose district looks like it's going to be split into a billion pieces.

So there are going to be winners and losers in this process.

It's how politics is done in this.

Is it literally backroom map, drawing politics and getting a warning instead of a ticket is the kind of gift anyone would want for the holidays.

In the village of Windham in Portage County, police can offer that gift, but you need to give as well as receive.

Officers this month can offer drivers an alternative to a traffic ticket if drivers agree to drop off a new unwrapped present for a present for local children.

They can get a warning instead of a ticket.

It does not apply to anyone.

Six Christmas sales deep.

So don't.

It's not those kinds of traffic violations.

But I think maybe if you're speeding a little bit or you rolled through a stop sign, it isn't creating a dangerous area that that the police will say, all right, be a nice person.

You can't be a Grinch.

And get this.

Yeah, the life stuff.

I don't want to say like maybe like the less serious or less severe traffic violations.

You're eligible for one of these vouchers.

So don't go doing anything crazy down there.

But the program has worked out well.

This is the third year that they're they're doing it.

And they say the police department says that they distribute about 100 of these vouchers in the month of December, and people are pretty willing to come with the present and drop it off instead of, you know, getting the citation and even people they send out-of-towners come back to drop off presents for this program.

So it's working out well.

And, you know, like I said, nothing serious.

The small stuff is eligible, so keep it cute out there.

But.

So you're telling me I can't just drive the wind up and go whatever speed?

Yeah.

No, no, you won't.

You will get a citation.

Yeah.

So you get the hopes.

Don't get your hopes up too much.

Just keep it very cute and casual that make Monday on the sound of ideas on 80 97w KSU.

We'll talk about Oxford's word of the year, which is brain rot.

We'll explain what it means, why it was deemed the word of the year and why two words became one word of the year.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching.

And stay safe.