- (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.

- Memphis Mayor Paul Young, tonight on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I am Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian Thanks for joining us.

We are joined tonight by Memphis Mayor Paul Young.

Thanks for being here again.

- Thank you for having me as always.

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

We'll start tonight talking of course about the DOJ report that came out, I guess a week ago-plus now with some really disturbing incidents that it documented from Memphis Police Department.

It was an outgrowth of the killing of Tyre Nichols.

You and your administration, I'll let you speak, have pushed back some against this.

But again, for folks who've read about the report or skimmed or read the whole report, there are a series of really, obviously, I think disturbing incidents described with young people, with people who've called the police to report abuse.

And then they are, according to this report, were abused by the police.

The DOJ report talks about certain patterns and incidents.

There's, I will say, I'm curious your take on, do these incidents and the findings of the report say to you that there is a deep-seated problem in MPD or are these rare incidents that have been highlighted?

- Well, you know, I'll let the attorneys go through the report and get into that level of granularity, but for me, I try to stay solution focused and what are the next steps?

- Yeah.

- And I think the statement that we made last week when the report was released was that we are not interested in entering into a consent decree.

We are always interested in continuous improvement.

And I think we use this as a call to action to develop our own plan locally.

And we invite DOJ to be a part of that and determine what things we can do as a community together to ensure that all citizens are respected.

- For you, I know you're not a lawyer, but define a consent decree and why that specifically is so concerning to you.

- Yeah, so a consent decree is an agreement with the DOJ that comes with monitors and just a lot of things that cause a lot of cost to the city.

And I think that we can apply those potential dollars towards the solutions.

If you look at some of the other cities, we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars that they have spent while under the consent decree and it hasn't been proven to reduce crime or address the issues that they're intended to address.

And so our goal is to develop our own local plan and hold ourselves accountable in partnership with the community.

And I think that's something that we can do.

And I invite DOJ to be a part of that.

- You've been in office a month come, excuse me, a year.

Coming up on a year and the Tyre Nichols incident was, what now?

Coming up on two years ago in January.

- Yeah.

- Interim Police Chief Davis, who you've kept, and we'll circle back to her, but before I go to Bill, what, since you've become mayor, what changes have you made at MPD, if any, that address incidents of misbehavior, of abuse, of illegal behavior on the part of officers?

- Well, Chief Davis has been continuously working on this front.

I think there are over 125 officers that are now frontline supervisors.

Those second lieutenants that you've heard about.

There's over 700 edits to about 150 policies from MPD that have been edited.

They have strengthened the disciplinary matrix.

So when there are incidents or things that take place, it's ensured that the disciplinary procedure is followed.

And so I think those are things that she has already done, and we certainly are ready and willing to do all that we can to ensure that everybody gets the respect and dignity they deserve.

- Bill.

- Mayor, has any other city done this, said "We don't consent to a consent degree.

We'll come up with our own plan for our police department."

- Well, over the past 4 years, we've had 12 cities that have been through similar situations, and I think 10 of the 12 actually entered into the agreement to agree to a consent decree.

But 0 of the 12 have actually executed a consent decree.

And so I think all of those cities are still, you know, figuring out their way and we're just coming out the gate saying, we wanna figure out a different path on the front end.

- You talked about changing policies.

Usually the first thing that happens with something like this or some kind of review that cites these kind of problems is let's change the training, let's change the policies.

Is there a reform that exists that can bridge the gap between what police officers are trained to do and then what they wind up doing when they're on the street?

- Yeah, I don't know if I know the answer to that.

I know that training is always a part of things that you want to do to make sure your officers are up to speed.

Our goal is to launch our own effort to create our own task force to bring minds together to identify what the path forward.

I'm always going to be solution focused and looking towards the future on how we're going to ensure that the future of our community feels the dignity and respect from the police department and that we've mend trust in something that police departments across the country, this is not just a Memphis thing.

Nationally, we know police departments are striving to strengthen those relationships between their police departments and the community, and we're gonna create our own path to do that.

- Is this task force something that your public safety director will be a part of?

- I'm sure there'll be a lot of people that are a part of it.

Not necessarily ready to release all of the details, but know that we're working towards building something that I think it will be comprehensive and respect and listen to all of the voices that we have in our community on this front.

- Alright.

As mayor, you've had the zero zone, what's it called?

- Code Zero.

- Code Zero.

- Yeah.

- Sorry, the Code Zero crackdowns.

Do those continue or does the report raise possibly some concerns about those-- - And would you define the Code Zero policy process?

- Yeah, so, Code Zero is an initiative that we started early on in our tenure where we have officers that are executing warrants in specific zones.

We have officers that are going by businesses and talking to them about how they can strengthen their safety by clearing environmental hazards, cutting down bushes, things of that nature, and also doing traffic stops.

And I think that that will continue.

I think that it is an effort that has proven to produce results.

We are looking at the first reduction in crime that we've seen in a number of years, and we want to continue the trend and it has been a part of the formula to do that.

- A couple quick, and we can talk a lot about these, but a couple quick questions.

One, do you think by resisting the consent decree you could be punished by DOJ?

- I'm hopeful that we won't.

I mean, we're not saying that we don't want to work with DOJ.

I want to be very, very clear.

We want to work with DOJ.

We actually have a meeting with them next week.

- Okay.

- To continue the conversation.

We want to ensure that we are carving our own path and consent decree does not have to be the answer.

- Right, and to be clear, for those maybe haven't, this is the United States Department of Justice.

There's obviously about to be a big change come January, February.

Do you, I mean people, some people have said, well, the administration can kind of run out the clock on the current administration and hope that a Republican administration is gonna have a different approach to these things.

I mean, is that part of your calculation?

- No, I mean, and I said this during the press conference and I was really serious about it.

Our posture would be the same regardless of who the administration would be in January.

- Do you think, again, a couple more questions on this and we'll move on to some other issues, but, so from your point of view, I hear you saying, and you can correct me, that you don't see there's a systemic problem in MPD?

- No, I'm not speaking to that part of it.

I'm speaking to what do we do moving forward to ensure that we have trust amongst MPD and the community.

- Right.

There is, and will segue to this, and I'm not sure how much you can talk about it, there's an active civil lawsuit by the Tyre Nichols family against the city.

There's been talk of hundreds of millions of dollars in a settlement or damages.

How much does that, I mean there, people have talked about, hey, this could bankrupt the city.

I mean, given the amount of money that could be paid out to the Nichols family.

Without talking about the merits of it, does that case weigh on you and your administration in terms of how you are approaching this DOJ report?

- Yeah, well, I'm gonna let the attorney speak to all of the things regarding litigation in that front.

My goal is to make sure that we carve the path forward that respects the members of our community and mends those relationships that I spoke about earlier.

- I said I was gonna kinda move on, but one more question that's related, but I do wanna kinda segue out of specifically the DOJ and the Tyree Nichols case.

Do you have numbers?

I mean, in terms of the number of settlements that the city enters into via MPD or actions of MPD?

Are those number of incidents up, down, about the same in the last year, I mean?

- I don't have those numbers.

- Okay, and I appreciate that.

Let me, crime is falling, you talked about that.

You talked about Code Zero, but still, crime is an issue.

It's fallen from historic highs.

- Right.

- It's coming down around the country in general.

Beyond Code Zero, what is working from your point of view and what do you want to do more of, especially as you go into next year in reducing crime?

- Yeah, well first let me say, because I've heard the narrative, well crime has going down around the country, so of course it's happening here.

But for the last couple of years we've defied that.

- Yeah, fair.

That's fair.

- Crime has gone down across the country, but we were still inclining.

And so there is reason to believe that the efforts that we've had underway are working.

And I mean, I think we've had a number of initiatives like Code Zero, but I think the biggest focus for us has been capturing the bad guys.

This fugitive task force that MPD put together over the last couple of months where we've went and apprehended hundreds of individuals that have had warrants for a number of years.

We are going after the people that have already shown themselves to have a propensity to create violence in our community and we're trying to get them off the streets.

- Yeah, and as I go to Bill, I'll say that next week we have District Attorney Steve Mulroy on to talk about some of these issues 'cause I'm sure some people are like, well, the city arrests them and then some of them get released and so on.

We'll talk Steve Mulroy about that next week, but Bill.

- Mayor, if you can, talk a little bit about public reaction to crime and balancing that with the Justice Department report, because those incidents in the report, nobody is coming out and saying, yeah, those were justified, or yeah, that's what we want to see.

But yet people also want crime to be down.

Talk a little bit about the balance of it.

- Yeah, I mean, as a black man that's grown up in this community, I'm the first to tell you, I wanna make sure that every citizen is respected and we demand that every citizen gets that.

And when I say that, it's not just incidents from the police to the community, it's also the community, amongst the community and individuals in the community.

Everybody wants to feel safe.

And I've heard it since I started the campaign in 2022.

Every room that I've gone into, public safety comes up in some form or another.

And so we know that it's something that we have to continually work towards creating a safer community.

And it's going to happen from a myriad of ways.

It's not just our police officers that bring that safety, it's our community groups.

It's getting to the young people and making sure that they know that they have other alternatives than a life of crime.

And it's going to take that dual-pronged approach that I talk about every time, which is ensuring that we are getting the offenders off the streets.

And then also making sure that we're giving options to others.

It's why we formed our Joint Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement in partnership with Shelby County Government.

It's why we issued a million dollars in grants to about 40 organizations that are doing work in the community.

And we're gonna continue that work and we're gonna ensure that our community continues to become safer.

- There's no shortage of groups working on violence intervention specifically.

In fact, there are so many groups at least talking about it, that there's some discussion about some kind of shakeout, figure out who's duplicating what.

Where do you see that?

- Well, I think it really comes down to coordination.

There is a lot of need in our community.

There are a lot of young people that need the support and there are a lot of organizations that are doing work with limited resources.

And so we have to identify who's working in what geographies, what resources are they accessing?

How do we avoid duplication of services and ensure that if there's an area that's not covered, how do we get this organization active in this community where these young people can benefit?

And that is the benefit of having a Joint Office of Neighborhood Safety because they are working with that list of organizations and working to get that kind of coordination using the data that comes from MPD and other sources to identify where are the things happening, where is the need in the community, and then getting those organizations active in those places and aligning resources to come along with it.

- Is the city's role to kind of shepherd all of those efforts or is there a direct role the city should play in intervention?

- I think it's the city's role to create a safer community.

And in order to create a safer community, you need both.

You need these organizations to be successful so that we don't have to interact with them on the policing side.

And so I feel firmly that we should play a role in it, which is why we are stepping up in that way.

- Let's talk about, segueing, a little bit more about crime, but also segue into development and some other issues here with 10 minutes left in the show, you've talked about a downtown safety plan.

There is, right or wrong, there's a certainly a perception that there have been obviously documented incidents in downtown, but also a perception that it's not safe or that you can get broken into if you go to the Grizzlies game.

Businesses have talked about this, you know?

What does it, the Grizzlies have talked about it, as very much a part of their, whether or not they're gonna extend their lease and stay in Memphis for however much longer.

All of that, part of it is downtown safety.

What's the downtown safety plan and what does it take, and also what do you need from the legislature, if anything, to get the plan fully implemented?

- Yeah, so, downtown safety is definitely important.

We know that incidents, when they take place downtown, they have an outsized impact on the city.

Meaning that the narrative around those incidents are bigger and our downtown is core to our regional economy.

So we wanna make sure that it's safe.

We want all communities to be safe.

So one part of the downtown safety plan is also a part of the broader plan, which is a state-of-the-art camera network.

We've identified 550 intersections all throughout the city of Memphis where we will be able to connect high-def cameras to our fiber network.

So it'll come through at a 4K level.

This is about 10 times better than any cameras that we have in our city.

Sixty-three of those will be downtown.

And what we will allow with those cameras is AI that'll be able to detect objects.

So if it's a black Mazda that committed a crime and someone's getting the way that committed a crime, we'll be able to push a button and track that black Mazda anytime they cross any of those intersections.

We know that cameras don't stop crime, but what they do is help us identify and capture criminals quicker.

So that's a part of downtown.

We're also looking to put a downtown command center where we'll be able to review those cameras.

The Downtown Memphis Commission is looking at some different ways of deploying what is now the Blue Suede Brigade in different ways to add eyes and ears on the streets.

And you know, we wanna do all that we can to make sure that we are creating safety so that those businesses in downtown can thrive.

- Where do things stand with the big ask from the legislature that I think in part is to fund this?

- Yeah, so, we're still coming up with the numbers and determining exactly what the ask will be, but we're gonna be looking at security infrastructure.

Right now you have bollards and things that could come out of the ground, but we have cones and it's very unattractive.

And so we wanna put in the type of infrastructure that allows us to direct traffic and do the things that make that happen.

- Are we talking about a $10 million ask or hundreds of millions?

I've heard numbers all over the place in terms of the ask of the legislature for all of this.

- Well, we'll come back with a number, but.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

[Eric laughing] We'll identify the number.

- We appreciate you'll, I'm sure you'll come back, - Somewhere in that range.

- And we'll talk.

- Somewhere in that range.

- Somewhere.

- Yeah, somewhere in that range.

- From 10 to 200 million.

- Before I go back to Bill, there was a lot of talk, I mean we talked about this I think a couple months ago when you were here, but do you hear from the legislature continued anger that Memphis went forward with and passed the gun reform ordinances that are not really ordinances, they're just kind of in waiting, if the state changes its mind, that the leadership at the state said don't do it.

We'll withhold sales taxes, we will punish you.

Are you still hearing that kind of stuff?

Anger from that vote?

- I hadn't heard much about it recently.

- Okay, okay, Bill.

- Mayor, in the spring, budget season will be here.

The City Council has recently had a series of budget amendments.

And the way your Chief Operating Officer, Antonio Adams, described it was, he said, look, we're going to be here to make what seemed like some rapid changes in the budget when money becomes available because that's kind of the way to deal with this.

You know, so if something's not able to happen, that money may move to something else.

Is that a longstanding method of trying to get things done quicker?

- I didn't hear those comments from him so I'm not quite clear what he was talking about, but I think that it is normal for you to have movements and adjustments during the year as you are moving forward with your budget.

Some things are going to be a little bit more expensive than you thought and some things aren't going to be.

And so you wanna move the dollars to the areas where you have need.

And I think there has been back and forth as there should be with the Council and the administration on some of those movements, but we have the same goal and I think they understand that we have the same goal.

We wanna make sure that we operate within our means and we are committed to doing that.

- It might also be that you're telling them, whereas before maybe they didn't get told, the money just got moved.

- We are definitely working to be as transparent as possible and make sure that they understand when we are moving dollars, how we're moving dollars.

I think we are trying to ramp up the frequency of those discussions so that there's clarity and there's no surprises.

I think, you know, I've learned a lot as mayor and what I learned during last budget season is that Council doesn't like to be surprised.

And so as difficult as some of those conversations can be, it's better for us to have these discussions now and not be talking about it in May.

- With 4 1/2 minutes left here, we'll kind of race through some things that we could talk about much, much more.

But recent, talking about taxes, downtown, it's not just downtown, but there were reforms made to, or changes made to the PILOTs, the tax incentive program, the changes in 2023, the PILOT program was changed to available terms that were, that used to be 15 or 20 years were reduced to 10 years.

Now going back to 15 to 20 years.

When we talk about the budget and taxes, first of all, some people listen and say, yeah, we're giving these tax giveaways to developers, kind of, but I think you gotta address that, but also why these changes and do you think that will jumpstart development particularly downtown?

- We certainly hope so.

Remember, I was at Downtown Memphis Commission when we made these changes, I think it was 2022, maybe the top of '23.

We made these changes, but when we were making those changes, we didn't know that the pause that we were seeing in the market was gonna last as long as it has.

And none of the projects that had been approved for PILOTs have actually moved forward because the markets have been pretty difficult.

They're now starting to unlock and we want this next three to five years to be the era of growth and development in the city of Memphis.

And we think that going back for a period of time may be just enough to kickstart some things and get some more development happening.

- Do you, again, going back to your time at DMC and also when you were at Housing & Community Development, you were in and around a lot of these issues.

Do you think that these incentives, and I guess Tom Intrator, who bought up a whole lot of properties downtown recently has sold them, they sat, I don't think much of anything was ever development.

And when you look downtown, it's not just a crime issue, it's a blight issue.

It's an uninviting issue.

Do you worry that these incentives, and again now that you're in the mayor's seat, incentivize developers to just sit on blighted properties and there are more you want to do to try to move things forward in terms of some of these empty buildings?

- Yeah, we definitely wanna move.

I think that we should be looking at our incentive process and figuring out if there's a way for us to incentivize later, such that we know that the project is moving forward.

Right now, developers come and they ask for the incentive and then they start working on getting all the things that they need to get in order to make the project happen.

If we can approve the incentive later in the process where it's more guaranteed, I think that will address some of the fatigue that the public has with seeing projects approved but not moving forward.

- Well, speaking of one of those, and I'll go back to Bill for a minute, is the Fairgrounds, and then that was actually a big project you worked on back maybe even starting at HCD?

Definitely.

- HCD, yeah.

- At HCD.

- Yeah.

- The sports facility, the city's sports facility has been built and is active.

- Up and running.

- And so on, up and running, absolutely.

But not much has happened in terms of the kind of retail and the development.

I think some apartments and the hotel.

What is it gonna take to move that forward?

And the city is now losing money on that.

It's having to cover some of the cost of it.

- Well, the city had already structured the bond such that they could be covered from the reserves that were established and we are getting to the point where those reserves will be exhausted after the next year.

And so it's important that we get the development moving forward.

Council approved the lease for the apartments and the retail that'll be going on the site.

And I think that will be the catalyst to really get things moving forward over this next year.

- Leaving just a minute here for Bill.

- The Greater Memphis Chamber had a big announcement at its annual Christmas luncheon, holiday luncheon, and that was the possible coming to the city of a lot of tech companies drawn here by xAI.

How real is that?

- I think it's very real.

I mean, we've seen the first phase of xAI is up and running and my understanding is they just finished the second phase, like last week.

And so it is a very real investment for our community.

Two hundred thousand microchips, billions of dollars that have been invested in building the world's largest supercomputer and more development to come.

I think it's important that we capitalize on the narrative of having this type of technology and tech center in our community and allow the young people in the workforce to be able to dream, innovate and come up with more ways to capitalize on that type of innovation in our city.

- There are a bunch of things we didn't get to, but we appreciate you coming back.

I think we were talking before the show that you've been on, I think three times this year.

We really do appreciate you coming on and talking about all these things, but that is all the time we have this week.

Thank you, Bill, thank you, Mayor.

As I mentioned earlier, coming up next week, Shelby County DA Steve Mulroy.

If you missed any of today's show, you can get it at wkno.org, The Daily Memphian, or wherever you get your podcasts or video such as YouTube.

Thanks very much and we'll see you next week.

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