- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- A new plan for downtown safety tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by Bill Gibbons, who is the Executive Director of the U of M Public Safety Institute, and as well as many other roles.

But thank you for being here again, Bill.

- Glad to be here.

- Lawrence Green is Director of Safety and Hospitality for the Downtown Memphis Commission.

Thanks for being here.

- Thank you, thank you.

- Mike Rallings is the former, retired Director of Police for Memphis.

Police Chief, as we used to say.

Thanks for being here again.

- Thank you.

- Along with Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

I guess I'll start with you, Bill, and you are also head of the Memphis Shelby County Crime Commission or been on in that capacity, former Shelby County DA, Former Director, Head of Department of Safety for the State of Tennessee.

The Downtown Safety Plan has some 40 suggestions from things like better lighting to more cameras, to more police, to enforcement of curfews, to things like walk-ability and getting more people downtown, and so on.

And we won't be able to walk through all 40 of these suggestions, but it is a complicated plan in that it takes a lot of parts, and pieces, and people to get it done.

And it is also, as we talk about this Downtown Safety Plan, a lot of what you all put together and recommend is probably applicable to every neighborhood in Memphis, right?

I mean, in some form or fashion.

Can this plan be done?

How do you bring all the parts, pieces, people, agencies together to make this sort of complicated plan work?

- Well, that's the big challenge.

I think the Downtown Memphis Commission will be the leading entity, and, of course, Lawrence is here, and can speak to that.

But there are a lot of other key players in this too, city government obviously.

And Paul Young is going to be the new mayor, and he's gonna have to play a very important role in this, but also the private sector, Beale Street merchants, for example.

Owners and managers of multistory garages.

So there are a lot of key players.

But the way I see it, and Lawrence I think will agree with me, that the Downtown Memphis Commission is gonna have to really be the leading part of this in order to pull everybody together and really move the ball down the field.

- Well, let me bring in Lawrence.

I mean, the Downtown Memphis Commission has a lot of authority, but it doesn't run downtown, right?

It is not the mayor of downtown.

It is not the czar or whatever you wanna say.

How do you coax, prod, or make people and businesses and all the various entities do the things that are recommended here?

- Well, I think it starts with, I mean, the overall goal is to make downtown Memphis the destination to live, and to work, and play, and invest, and a downtown you know, that's welcoming for everyone.

I think when we start with that, you know, other entities that are players of this will get on board.

You know, we partner with the University of Memphis and the Public Safety Institute and we've put together a team of subject matter experts to conduct focus groups and a Qualtrics survey, and evaluating data, and evaluating practices that are current just to, you know, and, of course, this is wrapped in the cocoon of public safety, but to make recommendations.

And so, you know, if we keep the goal in front of us of making downtown more welcoming, more inviting, more vibrant, then the stakeholders, and businesses, and entities will get on board.

- How long in your mind does it take to implement this plan, to get to the plan working the way you want?

I mean, it's not a month, but is it two years?

- Well, I think it varies, I think it varies.

You know, some recommendations in the plan are already kind of being implemented, and some of the recommendations are a little ways away.

So, it's kind of hard to specifically say a timeframe.

It's a working plan.

And so, we just have to, you know, deal with the low-hanging fruit that we can do now, and then work toward things that are a little bit further out.

- Let me bring in Mike Rallings.

You were on the show I think a couple times back when you were a police director.

We were talking about before the show, from 2016 to 2021.

- Yes.

- I think I have that right.

And then, many, many years as a police officer before that.

I remember one time, a number of things you said when you were on the show as police director, which one was, "The police can't be in the room when the crime happens."

You know, "if it's between two people who are in a fight, we are gonna be responsive."

That we have to be, these are my words, not yours, realistic about what the police can do, because often they are responding.

And I think anyone we've had on the show talking about crime has said that.

That police can't stop it all, because they are inherently reactive to many things.

But when you look at this plan, what do you see the police part, the effective ways that police can be used, and again, maybe begin to broaden that out to other neighborhoods and other areas of downtown?

What sort of policing works in a proactive way, not just after the fact way?

- Yeah, so I think you brought up a great point.

You know, police need to be reactive 'cause we respond to calls, but you also need to be proactive and intervene prior to incidents happening.

So the police are all over this plan, because it's a safety plan.

And so, you know, my focus was mainly the Beale Street Entertainment District.

And so, you know, what can police do?

Well, first police need to make sure the plan is read.

I think that there's a lot of plans, but when Lawrence and Bill talked about, you know, we need to, you know, first, make sure everyone reviews the plan and takes their piece of the plan, police, when we talk about police presence, you know, understanding law enforcement's role and kind of pulling everything together and enhancing safety is critically important.

But we need to stick to something, and I think that's the other challenge.

How long will it take to do the plan?

I'm not sure, but it's gonna take a little while because there are a lot of moving pieces.

But police can be one of those big cheerleaders, like the Downtown Memphis Commission, in promoting the plan, educating the plan, and making sure, you know, the law enforcement role is preserved.

So training, you know, pulling crime data, making sure we're putting officers in the right place at the right time, making sure resources are allocated correctly, and making sure that we really work hard with the police officers that are assigned to the Entertainment District and the police officers downtown to be more responsive to what's occurring downtown.

- And before I go to Bill, the current police chief, C.J.

Davis, did you consult with her?

I mean, define your role in putting this plan together, I should have done that up front.

And then, how much consultation took place with the current leadership at MPD?

- So we met with leadership early on.

We also met with a number of officers, middle managers, street-level officers to kind of get their insights on what they thought the challenges were and what could be done.

'Cause often, you know, those individuals, you know, they're working with the challenge every day, they know the solutions.

So MPD was definitely involved in, you know, finding solutions.

But really I think my summary of it is we really wanted to put forth the best practices that have been implemented all over the world, definitely in the United States.

But when we look at our most challenged cities in the United States, and Memphis being one of those, looking at things that have worked in other large metropolitan jurisdictions that have an entertainment district, to put those things on the table where we can focus on those.

- And bring in Bill Dries.

- Is this a mix of behavior by crowds who come downtown and people who come individually downtown?

Is it a mix of behavior and enforcing behavioral practices, and then the law breaking or infractions part of it as well do you think?

- It could be a mixture of all of it.

As you just said, I mean, I think it's all of it.

I don't think it's one faction.

It's a mixed bag, you know?

- Yeah, and the reason I bring it up is because people have talked about crowds gathering on Beale Street or around Beale Street on the perimeters of it.

And gathering is not illegal, per se, or being outside of the night clubs, line dancing in the street and not going in the clubs, that's not illegal either, but there are times when that can become a problem, that might lead to some violations, right?

- Well, that's right, and with regard to the Beale Street Entertainment District in particular, one recommendation is that alcohol not be sold after 2 a.m., 'cause a lot of bad things happen kind of in the early morning hours on Beale Street.

So it's not the total answer, but if we can shut down alcohol sales as of 2 a.m. Actually, we heard a number of people say it ought to be shut down even earlier.

But that's just an example of something that could be done to kind of control the crowds on Beale Street a little bit better.

But another thing, Bill, that I think is very important, while arguably sometimes we have almost too many people crowded onto Beale Street, there are other parts of downtown where we don't have enough people, enough law-abiding people.

And one thing that we really felt was that if we can increase the amount of pedestrian traffic throughout downtown, just law-abiding folks who wanna be downtown, enjoy downtown, that can have an impact on public safety.

So we have a fairly active part of downtown on the south end, fairly active on the north end, not as much as it needs to be, but in between, there's not much going on.

We have a very long, narrow downtown.

So one thing we looked at is trying to increase pedestrian traffic, increase good activities in the middle, which gets into the pedestrian part of Main Street, Main Street Mall, increasing activity there, is really a key to public safety.

- Mhmm, Director, you dealt with Beale Street during your tenure, but before your tenure there.

What lessons do you feel like you learned during your tenure with MPD about the nature of the Beale Street Entertainment District?

- So, first, it's a challenge.

And so Bill mentioned something I think is really needs to be looked at, and that's the late-night alcohol sales.

You talked about the gathering, well, gathering on Beale Street is what we want, but we don't want people in the streets, in the other surrounding streets, gathering late at night, you know, unless those streets are closed.

And so I was a supervisor on Beale Street.

When I was a police officer, I patrolled Beale Street.

And then, you know, all throughout my career I've had, you know, interactions with Beale Street.

So Beale Street is a challenge.

And so staffing is a issue, making sure we partner with the business leaders to hear their voice.

We partner with our visitors.

We learned a lot from talking to a group, a focus group of high school students, that shared, you know, their perceptions.

I was shocked that they said, "We want more police presence."

You know, "We want to feel safe downtown."

You know, "We want more things "for kind of controlled activities that youth can do and enjoy Beale Street."

And so me and Bill were kind of shocked by some of the things we got.

But I just really wanna focus on like three simple things.

You know, the officers always talk about security, and there's contract security, and we really want contract security, and I'm speaking for the police officers, I put my police hat back on, to remain the entire time that people are on Beale Street.

And that way you don't have a time when they shut down and the street gets kind of wide open, so to speak.

You know, the CPTED, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design.

So that's where the lighting and making sure we're dealing with dark spaces, opening the spaces up so people feel safe.

Bill talked about activating the spaces.

So, you know, a lot of places you have more people, the space is activated, you have more contract security, police officers, everybody's really kind of doing their part to keep kind of the entertainment district safe.

But I think one challenge is that we gotta make sure that our leaders, our elected officials, City Council, we're all lockstep together, the mayor.

And, you know, if we talk about the prosecution of crimes, all of it matters, because if there are infractions in the entertainment district and they're not being dealt with, if people, you know, feel like there are no consequences, then we have a serious challenge.

- Let me bring up, and I'll go to you, Lawrence, and really all of you on this is guns.

And with open carry, you know, just this past week we're taping this on Wednesday, so I think it was maybe Monday that two schools in midtown, middle of the day went into lockdown or a form of lockdown because there was report and there was a man walking down the street carrying a gun.

When it first appeared, maybe assault rifle, maybe it was a handgun with some kind of extension.

It was a gun.

And it was called in, MPD responds, and it's completely legal to walk down Peabody or Central, whatever, or Cooper, whichever street he was on with a gun now.

For your folks, and I'm gonna come to Mike on this as a former police officer, I would imagine 10 years ago if you saw someone on Beale Street with a gun, there would be a call made, and there'd be, "Hey, what's going on?

Why are you carrying a gun on Beale Street?"

or in any part of downtown potentially.

Now it's fully legal.

So how do you address that as head of safety and security?

- There's still no weapons on Beale Street.

- Okay, so let's go right off Beale Street.

- Right.

- Fair enough, fair enough.

So right off Beale Street, on the edge of Beale Street, where it is perfectly legal, what do you do?

- That's a great question, it's a tough challenge.

And before I answer that, I wanna touch on one thing real quick.

So when Bill and Mike were talking about creating more density, pedestrian traffic in downtown, that's what the Downtown Memphis Commission is doing currently is to make the area more vibrant, and with activations and family-friendly activities to increase the population and increase the density of downtown, because definitely we feel more density leads to a lesser crime.

Now to answer your question, it's tough.

I mean, the gun laws are the gun laws.

And so, you know, that's a whole different entity, and a whole different challenge, right?

But, you know, it's those bad actors that come downtown to create that chaos and that havoc, honestly.

- Let me talk to you again.

How long were you a police officer?

(Mike) - Thirty-one years.

- Thirty-one years as a police officer.

I'm sure, I'll use my scenario, and we'll stay off Beale Street, because guns not allowed on Beale Street.

But a man walking downtown 20 years ago with a long rifle, the way you, as a police officer, would've responded to that would've been very different ten, twenty years ago based on the laws than now.

- Without a doubt.

- And how do police officers manage that situation?

A person walking down the street with a gun, you're trying to create safety, you're trying to be family-friendly.

You want people out and walking and enjoying things.

Some people are comfortable with a man walking by, or a person walking by with a gun.

A lot of people are not, I'm one of them.

What do police officers do in that sort of situation?

- So I'm not sure the response has changed a whole lot because, you know, law enforcement is going to respond, you know, we don't wanna just not take anyone walking down the street with a AR-15 or AK-47 not seriously, because that is a potential threat.

The challenge becomes is what happens after the police respond?

And if this person is, you know, not prohibited from carrying a weapon, if, you know, I always say if the weapon's not stolen, they're not stolen, it's a challenge.

But, you know, two people at this table argued before the state legislature to not expand the gun laws.

And it's really a difficult pill to swallow right now.

- Right, and I say a couple of things, I mean, one, we surveyed last spring, you know, attitudes about gun laws in Memphis and Shelby County, outside of Memphis.

And overwhelmingly people said, we want restrictions, we want common-sense gun reform.

And we've talked with you a bunch, Bill, and had Brent Taylor, Senator Brent Taylor on.

I'm not gonna stick with guns with you, because we've talked about it a lot.

But one thing that's in here in the plan is information sharing, data transparency about what's going on, and collaboration between groups.

And one of the things that is a huge challenge for us, not just in the news business, but just informing the public about what's going on, and, again, we've talked to you about this before, is a common set of data about the number of incidents, what happened, how many people are released, all those kinds of things.

What kind of information transparency and information sharing would you like to see come from this just within downtown?

- Well, there's a lot of activity going on downtown, but what we found out is there's not adequate information sharing about everything that's going on and being able to convey that to the public.

Of course, it goes beyond downtown in terms of this whole issue of information sharing.

Interestingly, later today, I've got a meeting on that issue.

I've got another meeting with the sheriff and the police chief next Monday on that issue.

So there's a lot of talk about improved information sharing.

But we really found out in the case of downtown in particular, there's so many activities going on, but the information is not being adequately shared.

- Activities, the safety activities?

- Well, positive activities, safety concerns as well.

So, you know, both.

If I could mention one more quick thing.

- Sure.

- We have a lot of positive things going on downtown, unlike a lot of downtowns.

I mean, you look at San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Philadelphia, they don't have much of anything positive going on.

We have a growing tourism and entertainment industry, a growing residential base.

We're doing a great job of converting former office space into new uses, the 100 North Main Building, the Sterick Building, being great examples that are hopefully gonna occur soon.

We've got the reimagined Tom Lee Park.

We've got downtown surrounded by a growing medical community.

And we have an asset that very few other cities have, and that is a group of entrepreneurs, philanthropists, businesses committed to the success of downtown, so those are very positive things.

But all of that momentum can be jeopardized if we don't address the public safety concerns that people legitimately have.

- Five minutes here, oh, Lawrence, did you wanna add something, and then, I'll go to Bill.

- Just real quick and to piggyback on Bill, you know, absolutely a lot of positive things.

And one of the things that some downtowns do not have is a public safety ambassador team, which we have here, the Blue Suede Brigade.

And so with that, I mean, now they're not weaponized, and they deal with hospitality, and they deal with nuances so that the MPD doesn't necessarily have to get involved.

Nuances, for instance, like maybe unhoused and outreach with them, and panhandling, and things of that nature.

But that is a tremendous asset that Downtown Memphis has that other downtowns don't.

- Bill.

- How has the reopening of Tom Lee Park and the new design and people coming there, and it has lighting so that it can accommodate people after sunset, designed specifically for that in some cases, how has that changed what the DMC does, safety wise?

- Well, it adds to it.

And Tom Lee Park, they have a team, I believe it's the Rangers, I think that's what they call them, that patrols Tom Lee Park, and certainly the Blue Suede Brigade does it as well.

But, you know, Tom Lee Park is beautiful.

And so that's just a tremendous asset for downtown.

How does it change the safety aspect?

It's hard to say.

I mean, now we have a beautiful park, and I think it gets more visibility and it brings more people downtown, which is what we all want, is certainly the DMC wants.

So I think it just helps increase and enhance the safety perception of downtown with the additional opening of Tom Lee Park.

- Right, right.

We are a long way from May when Beale Street is full and downtown has a lot of activity going on.

But on the other hand, we have the Liberty Bowl coming up, not too distant future.

We've got the St. Jude Marathon coming up this particular weekend as well.

Are those kind of checkpoints to see how this strategy works out kind of a ramp up to the big season that everybody recognizes in the spring and summer downtown?

- Short answer, yes.

[everyone laughing] St. Jude Marathon, you know, that is the creme de la creme.

I mean, downtown is just full of people on race weekend and race day specifically.

I can yield to Mike on the- - Well, I was gonna go slightly, I mean, those are those moments where all these people are brought downtown.

And when we talk about Tom Lee and we talk about these things, there was, right, I mean, coincidentally, and sadly, right after the plan came out, a father, wife, child walking downtown, and he was killed to what looks to have been down on sort of the south end of downtown, about a block from our office actually, in a residential neighborhood, you know, a high-income residential neighborhood, a very walkable, well-lit neighborhood.

I'm not putting this on you, Mike, but I just want your perspective as a former police officer and police director.

When you see that happen, this seemingly random act of violence, a robbery that turns into someone dying, as a police officer, you look at that and say what?

- Well, first, it's heartbreaking.

You know, we want people out, we want people to feel safe.

And when a family is victimized in that way, and a family member's murdered in front of them, it's tragic.

However, it should be a wake-up call for everybody involved in this entire process, from the mayor to the DA, to the juvenile court judge, to people that live downtown, to all of our other elected officials, to say that we need a plan to where we're all working off the same sheet of music.

And so, you know, our response should be in honoring that family's loss, is to actually do something positive and to reengage our efforts to really make downtown safe.

And I'm downtown periodically, I have family members that live right around the corner from that tragic incident, and we all have to stay engaged.

You know, as a retired police officer, retired director, I'm still engaged.

And we really want that same level of commitment from anyone that has a dog in the hunt.

- I'll ask you again, former DA, former head of security for safety for the whole state, and so on, when you see that incident, that random act of violence, and you're trying to bring people downtown, and a certain number of people now aren't gonna come downtown because of that incident, what can be done?

- There's no easy answer, Eric.

I mean, of course, we have incidents like that not just downtown, but in midtown, east Memphis, north Memphis, Whitehaven, and every incident like that is tragic.

And there's no one answer, but I think there are some things we can do.

We talked earlier about the loosening of our gun laws, which it just means more and more guns on the street.

There's been a lot of talk about holding juveniles more accountable, because a big part of our violent crime problem does involve juveniles.

So there's some things we can do, and a number of us are gonna be very active in the coming legislative session to try to address that.

- I didn't give you enough time to answer a complicated question, but we've talked about those issues in the past, so people can go back and see other episodes where Bill Gibbons has been on.

And we'll be talking about these issues in future episodes as well, but that is all the time we have this week.

Thank you all for being here.

Thank you very much, and we'll see you next week.

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