Transcripts For CSPAN Mayors 20240705

Countr recoil in horror at the tragedy and at the senseless taking of lives. People are gunned down going about their daily business. And in the city where it happens, it is local police and other Emergency Personnel who are first on the scene and generally right behind them is the mayor. I think most of us feel this is the hardest part of what we do. From the initial shock to shorting out facts of what happened, making sure the suspect or suspects have been apprehended, if theyre still alive. Identifying the victims and providing information and comfort to their a phenomenals and information and reassurance families and tphfpgs and reassurance to the people at large. Mayor lucas with us today are five exceptional mayors who do great work each day in every realm of leading in their cities. But theyre also five mayors who have dealt with high profile Mass Shootings. Three of whom just in the last 10 weeks. Atlanta mayor andre dickens. One person was killed and four others wounded in midto urpb atlanta. Louisville mayor. On april 15, five people were killed and five more wounded at the Old National Bank building in their doantown area. And since then there have been three other mattings in louisville Mass Shootings in louisville in which three more people were killed and 12 more injured. Injured. From nashville mayor jon cooper a marsh try seven, six people three of them nine from nashville, mayor cooper. The other two mayors with us this morning coped with Mass Shootings several years ago. And have had time to reflect on both the immediate and longer term aftermath of those shootings. What they learned from them and both have made it a practice to reach out to mayors whether a mass shooting occurred to console them and to help them manage the aftermath. Aftermath. Former dayton mayor august 4, 2199 people were killed and 17 wounded to the entrance to a bar in this district. The orlando mayor on june 12, 2016 in incident many of us remember and about many of us still grieve 49 people were killed were three more were wounded in the post nightclub shooting. Mayors what is your biggest take away from the experience and what advice do you have for other mayors . Thank you for that question. This we were all sharing this is a panel none of us wanted to be on. Unfortunately violet struck our communities. The first thing to answer your question as it could happen anywhere. You realize once that happens in your city fellatio it can happen anywhere for this is a national issue. It happens almost 200 times already this year as taub said more than one per day. The grieving that happens with the families, the conversations youve witnessed the incident in the Overall Community fear is youre trying to make sure you apprehend the suspect and bring them to Justice Without violence to them. On and on it is a complicated issue. This answers everybody throws at you. We dont Mental Health is a big part of that. Being able to make sure we invest more in Mental Health. Stabilization and support across this country. More guns in the hands of people in my opinion is not the answer. To lead to a reduction in gun violence. Violent crime in atlanta is down this year significantly. This incident puts everybody at fear. One incident overcomes all the good work thats been done crime is been going down to happen anywhere at time in this nation. Ours is a medical facility is a sad situation. Mayor greenberg. On the things i have reflected on had to deal this a couple times. It was not a mass shooting an individual walked into my Campaign Office on valentines day of last year and fired six gunshots directly at me. Plan the less fortunate people in this room in this country to be here with you today. That was a very similar situation in hindsight dealing with the aftermath of the mass shooting we had an Old National Bank building. The importance of communication and transparency in the immediate aftermath for all the reasons were just talking about the fear, the concern, what is happening next . With the Community Wants to know focus is peoples attention on Something Like this. Down the answers being willing to stand in front of the cameras and talk and say what you do know. So you cannot tell people. But just be accessible is critically important. To press conferences on the day of the Old National Bank shooting. The next day at five this letter we had unfortunately two individuals were killed in a park on a saturday night. So at 11 00 p. M. On a saturday night we did one as well just to keep the communication going. And that said weve got to let the police do their job first. I purposefully did not rush to the scene too quickly. There was nothing i couldve done at the time. You need to make sure everyone is safe the situation is secured and hopefully they have preserve the crime scene so they can. That is some in the immediate aftermath of whats proven to be affected. One other thing i did not think out which is important fred went to think of is ensuring you have the relationship if you a Level One Trauma Center in your city, to make sure your Police Department, your Emergency Services and hospital at all on the same page and are well practice for what to do in the event this happens. Because they save lives. There is no doubt our police officers, our ems responders save lives. Some of the doctors and nurses in the medical professionals save lives. And finally i would say keep talking about it. Do not stop. We know we are all here because we care about these issues. Everyone in this room, everyone in our cities reduce the Violent Crime in our cities for Something Like this happens in your city do not stop. It might not be appropriate to talk about what youre doing on the day it happens but do not wait longer. I have found in the stories yet to be written what happens in kentucky with the state legislature when they reconvene next year. But i am hopeful the local nature of what has happened it might change things. It would opportunity to get legal changes under state law to reduce the amount of Violent Crime. Mayor cooper. I am grateful. I was on a panel like this a few years ago. She was very helpful. The playbook is very helpful. In terms of the shooting in nashville we have had a lot of disasters, tornadoes, bombing, this is unique. And in terms of the intensity with the community and hundred nine yearolds can bring your city together. So what did i learn in this incident . Wed go home and practice. Actually, last fall we had an incident. I dont think its been reported in East Nashville someone broke into a school. The principals arm was broken and getting them out of the building. It reveals a relatively poor response. Not the perfect response. On the body camera footage. The 911 operator did not prioritize at the Fire Department came. They would not be able to go inside until the police came to the police came late, other teachers rallied to the principal. So it led to me and our extremely fine police chief which is the second part of this. Get a great chief. Get a great chief. Now, get a great chief. And practice. We had an responses that a little bit driven by the mayors concern 26 exercises, School Shooting exercises. Sixteen of them and one particular middle school prior to the covenant response. Please have the body can finance officers who had never met each other, roleplaying perfectly as they come in the building that is the product of a huge amount of work that went in before. I other advice is, again, it comes from dans work is youve got to immediately be involved in things like the reunification center. Take control of the space. A lot of bad active like getting near that space. The bright spotlights kind of change everything. And then have a community vigil. Understand the power of the community to be expressed in some constructive way and go do that. Do that as soon as you can. Have it be a big event the community actually needs it for healing. But nothing replaces the Police Department. Not every shooting is going to go as well. Terms of the Police Response the almost perfect, each school has the practice as well. Covenant was deeply practice. The results of their wait till after action reports. Severed many did a perfect job and you still had six deaths. So the thing about covenant everybody realizes it could have been 100 with no problem. With that level of firepower being easily available in the public and the last three Mass Shootings in nashville all, even a vague Mental Health prohibition for unrestricted access to weapons, would have prevented these three individuals from having guns. It is a gun violence safety master it is not really guncontrol. I fear is its going to happen to you, and practice. We had a bad incident that made us really practice. It was part of a very good response that happened in the covenant shooting. Mayor . It is so tough to hear the stories. You always hope you are the last semester shooting. What happened in your community will not happen again. And it continues to happen again and again and again. I was looking at buddy when your time about the reunification center. Buddy tommy from his shooting that would pass on cited that mass shooting playbook in her belly at the tree of life shooting about nine months before dayton. Said to some folks i do not know my job is in this role. That made us put together the messaging protocol. So if you do not have it yet will get it to you now. You should not wait for shooting to happen for me too call you a few minutes after the so let me send protocol to mayor cooper is point you need to practice. She practice for National Disasters we practice for all kinds of things. This is going to happen in your community am sorry to tell you. Need to be prepared to make sure you are police chief has to be great if you were on the same page. A crisis happens mayor is the communicator in chief. And so you to make sure you are communicating. You want to protect the victims identity and till the families get told thats going to require you to talk to that media so they dont go looking somewhere else. So that is your job during this process. You let the police to your great job you are the communicator to your community and sometimes to the nation about what is going on. I encourage mayors to be vulnerable and this. This is a vulnerable time. People need to see their leaders are feeling what they are feeling. How could this happen to my community . What if my daughter was there . My son was there. They need to see that you know what they are feeling. Whats indifferent that it Natural Disasters interesting in dayton two months before we had 14 tornadoes that rolled through. You have a Natural Disaster you can tell people to go pick up the stuff. Oh lets go get the chainsaws out. We can help clean up. In a mass shooting you cant do anything. The helplessness that your Community Feels during that time is palpable. Mayors cooper points, make sure you have your event planner staff ready to do a really strong vigil. Let me tell if the city does not do it somebody else is. Its probably not going to be as well done is if you did with your leadership. These are the actions you have to take in those first 24 hours. One mayor told me i had to get to the first 24 hours. I would say this organization got me through my mass shooting. Over 50 mayors text or call me that day. It was a sunday. Particularly betty and bill where they keep key folks to me that morning they had gone through this. They give me great advice and attack. Producer reminded me this first 24 hours were about the victim you must protect the family so they can get to know the victims ours because it is terrifying a lot of times if you can imagine you do not know where your loved one is. You want to make sure they hear that from a professionals rather than the media. That is your work in this 24 hours but it is longer than 24 hours. In dayton i am no longer mayor. Mayor jeff is still dealing with the aftermath of the shooting of nine people dead and 17 injured in 32 seconds were our Police Department was perfect too. We have got to make some changes it is complete that we are having this conversation right now. [applause] we are coming up on the seventh year do not like to call anniversary but marking the seventh year. When post happened i bet you could reflect on and remember all of the Mass Shootings that had occurred in 10 years prior to that. I cannot tell you all the Mass Shootings occurred this year or maybe not in the last month for that matter. The world has changed. Its a important to other mayors is its going to happen. Its not a matter is its going to happen . Its a matter it is going to happen and how its going to happen we be prepared for . Every mayor and think in the first week in office should start thinking about what if this happens to my city . How am i going to respond . It has been reiterated planning for and practicing for is important. You are probably going to have in most cases a very good Law Enforcement response. They practice all the time on that piece of it. Its the piece after they finish what they are doing that you have to prepare for. You will roll its going be communicator in chief. One of the things i learned after the fact is your communitys going to respond and generally to waste thats with either fear or not knowing what is going on is Something Else going to happen . Or hatred toward the group or individual that is because event. Our case not even knowing that we try to redirect our response from the very First Press Conference after that we had a particular couple of communities that were affected and the lgbtq and are left in x community. But we talked about responding not with hatred about love, compassion, unity and our community really took that to heart. As did really the country and the world. It was two weeks i guess before u. S. Conference of mayors in indianapolis were asked to come up and speak to the conference as a whole. It was an opportunity for me because i, like all of you had gotten 100 Text Messages or voicemails from mayors you just really didnt have the time to respond to give me an opportunity to speak the mayors and thank them for what they had done to support our community and our city. Everybody came up with a slingshot of their light up city embodiment. Take that back home and showed everybody proceed i felt i was doing that and everything. The outpouring of love and support. You are the leader. The mayor sets the tone for what that response is going to be. Just a couple things being prepared where your Victim Center going to be wheres the Family Unification Center going to be . Do you have a notforprofit if people want to give money to the victims and how youre going to distribute that . Have that set up beforehand we circuiting checks the next they do not assume her to take it. There are Little Things like that the one i learned most is we set up our original family reunification centered in a place that was not secure. The press had access. Had not thought about that before. The families were getting hounded by the press trying to go in and figure out if your lover was alive or not. That was another lesson learned. Practice, practice think about how youre going to communicate. Christlike at this question yesterday from erin cincinnati. Im going to change up our order and ask this of all of you. Mayor mentioned empathy and vulnerability. How do you personally deal with not just the tragedy on the day of but the effects long after . You are the communicator in chief. You are strong, talking to your Police Department and others. But there is a traumatic situation in the city that you all love. How do you process that . How do you continue even if we are seven years out will start with you. And probably going to take a little bit of the other side of that. About a week and i got a call when she asked me how are you doing . I said im doing fine but i dont feel like i am as sad or recognizing the tragedy as it should. Im not being effective that way. She said you cant be. You have a role, you have to leave you cannot break down. You can show empathy but you cannot be the one thats crying onstage or behind the mic you have to show strength and leadership to the whole process. And i say that also about getting help for your staff. The members of your city team are going to take on roles they had not thought of they are being affected by that. Joint counseling session about two weeks and after that were all of our staff there are people doing jobs they never thought they might be involved in. We brought counters and so we could do it as a group. Told the story i just did three of my Staff Members rates their hand and said thank you for showing that mayor because we feel the same way. I am not feeling as sad as i think i should have. Or people involved with helping other people. I think two buddies point the it is a perverse situation youre completely in the spotlight over such sad loss. For may 2019 was a wild year. Dayton is not as big as any of the cities and i thought what was happening . I got to see a therapist earlier in the year. A member of the fourth day after the shooting i got up and said to my husband im really worried about everybody releasing these terrible things in a place that such happy memories im worried about the bar staff the hundreds of people at work in the district im going to announce that i see a therapist for going to announce it that would like if she is standing here and she is going through this and she is seeing somebody that maybe i should see somebody two. For me its about everyone of of us are different. We lead differently. Your folks know when youre full of it or not so showing who you authentically are at least very vulnerable times is what im talking about with being vulnerable. The other thing we did because we know again like we did that last week and its done, we met with Dave Chappelle 40000 people showed up two weeks later to celebrate we were worried about the space being taken away from our community. We did a vigil that night. We had an open door for four months in the district to people who could just walk into get Mental Health services. Those kind of things knowing it can last a while and trying to use this terrible situation to normalize Mental Health support is really important opportunity for your community too. But look this is to your point is getting really, really hard over and over. If you are in a bigger city you are dealing with a mass shooting every day. So for me i took that pain and have been dogged about supporting other mayors to go through this and working as much as i can to get an assault weapons ban. To change the policy so mayors of the future will not have to have this conversation. This will be a part of our history that once was and is no more. Thats how i keep on going this keeps on happening i get so down. I cannot read stories of what happened in atlanta and nashville i call the mayors but i really cannot read the pain. Because it just keeps going over and over again. Until he could change so we do not have to have this conversation i will strive for that everything helps my Mental Health cracks mayor cooper . One, want to thank the mayor for her honesty. It is not only important for people in dayton to say you and your therapist, i think its probably useful for us to recognize its more challenging and we are ever allowed to let on. Listening to your question also and what did i do . Even the funerals were really hard. You have become a bit of an actor in this whole tragic scene. And in our case the funerals which are also massive events, were very helpful to the community. But what could be more devastating than the pastor of Covenant Church who lost his daughter conducting the eulogy for his daughter . You have the full support of the community in nashville so the music of the events of each funeral was remarkable. And the courage of the family members is so inspirational it makes a mayor going like i cannot claim any extra resources. But the truth is you probably do in your community sure does. I do not know what the journey is. Were only a month or two in its. It is clearly a longterm scar. In confronting the reality of evil that people would break into a school and murdered nine years old as a goal . Is are we really in the society that has evil so presents . In the ongoing challenge in our state all this is been pushed into efforts on gun violence. Because the governor himself lost two Close Friends he is sponsored a special session does not seem they are going to conclude the thinnest improvements in the legal situation. But its not way a bad way of putting energy to commemorate the victims by trying to make some progress in that. I am grateful by the honesty of leaders and say we get scarred a little bit to along the way. Cracks mayor greenberg you are a newer mayor comparatively but already dealing with the situations. How would you address the question . I agree what nan said and the others. It is important to be yourself. Trying to play some tough guy role because you think that is what the hollywood movie would have you portraying in that situation, if that is not authentically you will, be yourself. You need preparation you did a great team executing so everyone can focus on what they need to do in the aftermath. But it wasnt a mass shooting but the night of the shooting attempt when i did that happen at 10 00 a. M. In the morning i was physically down. I shed tears during that event. It was not planned. The emotions of the experience is where i went. The Old National Bank shooting i lost a very close friend. One of the five victims was a close friend of mine. My wife happen to be with me that morning what happened. She had gone off to the hospital and was with his wife at the time we are doing our First Press Conference. So the personal emotions on top of what i was dealing with as mayor was overwhelming for myself and the governor of kentucky who was even a closer friend of tommy. I think being a normal person is okay. But see your point we need to make sure we are executing on the plan as well. I think thats a people want to see. That is what makes everyone in this room the leader that they are. So i would encourage you to keep that in mind. But also keep talking about it. As you just said its not just Mass Shootings. And louisville already this year that approximately 70 homicides. Under tenant as a result of Mass Shootings. The other 60 are gangrelated, driveby, targeted shootings the result of domestic violence. As mayors we have got to do something about this. And i understand a lot of this, like myself are in states where there is a republican super majority of the does not want to talk about guns. But we have got to do something about reducing urban violence. Their shortterm solutions are longterm solutions and longterm we dont know things like universal prek addressing the root cause of poverty. Investing more in Mental Health. All of that is critical and we have to do all of that. But if we dont do things like extreme protection orders like waiting periods, the person of the Old National Bank shooting but his gun just a few days before the shooting. The person who tried to kill me but the gun one hour before he came into my Campaign Office and tried to kill me. Waiting periods will save lives. Extreme Risk Protection orders will save lives. There are so many things we can do. Every one of us has an obligation to continue talking about this. All of us want everyone in the world to think our city is the safest city in the world. I got that. But if we do not talk about this locally. We dont talk about this at the state level nothing will happen and that clearly is not working. [applause] yes applaud that. When our incident happened you go through this backandforth of grieving for the individual that is loss of their life. Two families and praying for the four others in our case that were at the hospital in the emergency room. And at the same time trying to find the suspect. Ours was an eight hour manhunt. It went across our jurisdictional lines and went into the county and thank god for our camera systems we are able to track the license plates in the clothing the individual was wearing. We were following him into a huge construction site he hid out there and we found about eight hours of trying to inform the public. Putting in a stay in place order around these areas and people big afraid. Can we come out . Im tweeting and sending out messages. Not only messages of the suspect but we are trying to do to bring him to justice but also her rate one persons already. One person is on the mend grieving but at the same time giving a sense of support and thankfulness to the staff at her Level One Trauma Center. Our incident happened and a Medical Center where people go for normal things. But they were transported to Level One Trauma Center in the form roman that were shot for survived in one impartially didnt. The things you learn from mayors and u. S. Conference of mayors texting me saying hang in there you doing a good job we are praying for you guys et cetera, et cetera extremely helpful. And now, ours did not involve young people it involved five adults all five women. What if it happened at a school . What if it happened in a Grocery Store . No we are in a practice mode a preparation mode thinking more and more about incidents we have learned of and the solutions these mayors have given. We did have a vigil widely attended particularly the one for the medical workers this was at a medical facility. All the staff were afraid to go back to work. And on and on trying to take best practices to do this better in the future. One best practice for sure is to make sure we push our state legislature and the nation for background checks and for waiting periods and for bands or reductions on access to assault weapons. This is got to stop in and the city of atlanta we are communicating that to our state legislature we arent open carry state go anywhere people have guns concealed carry is the thing in georgia. We are thankful Violent Crime is down this year because we are doing various things around anti violence, anti retaliation just Mental Health support and healing. But these escalated disputes people have access to a gun. We are having roommate carol roommate, boyfriend, girlfriend text message turns into a fight, turns into a shooting. Violence is begetting violence crime is not just for only people who are criminal intent but its neighbor on neighbor escalated. The guns are a problem and our nation is deafly a problem in the city in the state of georgia which makes it difficult for the mayor any of these metropolis cities. I want to say thank you all for sharing your own stories and your community stories. Common theme i heard you saw from the wonderful mayors is authenticity for yourself and for your community. Something else i appreciate a lot i grew up with tornadoes being the big challenge. Never act like this has to be normal. Never. I appreciate all your china change responses, policies and empathy in ways that help the whole country. Ladies and gentlemen thank you to our panel tonight. Thank you. Want to thank all of these mayors for what they have been through in god hope none of you have to go through [captioning performed by thenat, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. 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