Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
To start out the show though, we are currently being
joined in the studio by Captain Steve Meister from the
Omaha Police Department. Captain Meister, thanks so much for being
here with us today.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I we're gonna start with the Bud Crawford traffic stop
just because this is the number one story and you guys,
as a police department, have a statement just for clarification purposes.
The department isn't speaking too much more beyond just the
statement you guys have released.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Right right, So we're aware of the incident. Obviously, the
chief was made aware of the Mayor's office very early
yesterday morning. We did work on putting out a statement
that is online for people to see. That is an
ongoing investigation right now that we're actively looking into. Yeah,
and if you're wanting to hear from Chief Motter, he
actually was on with the guys in the morning Gurry
(00:53):
and Jim in the morning show today. So if you
want to go find that, go to kfab dot com
and the KFAB Morning News podcast page. You'll be able
to find that interview with Chief Monitor. But it's information
also that's within that statement now. I wanted to talk
to a police officer today before we even knew that
was a thing that was happening, Because you guys are
(01:13):
are really solid with these events.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I talked about like the Memorial Park concert, you know,
a few months back, and just how how do people
feel safe in that environment? Because I know there's so
many things that people feel unsafe sure going and doing publicly.
So when you know the plan comes out on a
couple of weeks, notice that, Hey, our guy Terence Crawford
(01:37):
has won another unispeeded championship. We want to celebrate him
with the parade downtown. What are the discussions that the
police department has of how to secure the area in
which this parade is going to be happening and what
your guys's presence will look like.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Sure, so, normally with some of these events, with the
major events like our College Old Series, our Berkshire Sinko
to MIO, we know about those months in advance. I
know when they're going to be next year, in twenty
twenty eight, etc. This one came up a little bit quicker,
which is fine. It was an all hands on deck operation.
But the main thing that we focus on with this
is communication across all platforms, all stakeholders. So we start
(02:14):
off with meetings with everyone from the Mayor's office to
public Works, our partners at the fire department, with Mecca,
and really get in a room and sit down and say, look,
here's the route we want to use. What are the
logistical issues we see with it, what are issues that
could come up along the way, and how do we
mitigate those problems? And then we start looking independently at
our own police department, fire department, etc. We start looking
(02:36):
at staffing equipment, what do we want to have there
to make sure it's safe, What does the fire department
need there to make sure if there's any medical emergencies?
Can public Works do anything to mitigate construction, parking meters,
things like that? So really it's just getting people in
a room more than once in this case, in fact,
several times within about a ten day span, and working
through any issues we see that could come up, and
(02:58):
then starting to plan for those.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
The route was decided. They've had parades down town or
many times before, even for Bud Crawford himself, but now
it is a little bit trickier because there's a ton
of construction down there. I was driving around with my
parents who are from out of town, and I was
trying to find a place go to a restaurant. Totally
missed some of the roads being closed created a very
(03:23):
long wait and a difficult scenario just to try to
navigate around the construction that's going on down there. For
the street car, how did that come into a factor here?
Knowing that you were likely to see thousands and thousands
of people descending on downtown on a Saturday morning and
trying to work people in and out while still making
sure everybody feels like they're.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Safe, right, So we wanted to make sure that we
had a route that could accommodate a large number of people.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
So we worked with public Works.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
We wanted to find out, look, where's the construction going
to be, how do we better secure that area to
make sure we do not have pedestrians walking through construction zones?
And then we started looking at Okay, we're going to
use this street or this street, we're going to hood
all the meters.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Now where do we put people that want to park?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
So we started talking about opening public parking garages, and
Connagro was able to open some of their parking as well.
And really trying to make it so that it's not
a burden for people to come down and celebrate this event.
We want to make it as free and as open
for people to come down, be able to find somewhere
to park, be able to walk to the events, and
feel safe at the event. But again, those are conversations
that we had to have early on regarding construction because
(04:26):
there is a lot going on and it's ongoing, and
the fact that even while we were in the planning stage,
there were some lanes that were still being actively altered,
so we needed a plan for that, like, look, what
is this going to look like on Saturday, Not so
much the Wednesday before, the Monday before, but on Saturday morning,
where is it going to be closed and for how long?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
We're joined by Captain Steve Meister from the Omaha Police Department.
So Saturday came and went. Didn't see anything as it
relates to any safety issues.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I did.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
My brother in law lives in one of the apartments downtown,
had no idea what was happening. Looked at his windows like,
I guess I'm not going to leave my apartment for
a while, because he saw he's right along the route
of the parade, and so you do have people that
are just unaware of what's happening downtown. You do have
cars that are likely trying to figure out a way
to kind of operate through downtown on the morning of
(05:19):
when you're trying to get everything lined up and make
sure that the people who are trying to be downtown
for the parade can get there, but also not have
to worry about people trying to just kind of move
around downtown. Otherwise, what does the day look like leading
up to the couple hours before when people start to arrive.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Sure, So in an operation like this, especially downtown, when
we're talking about restricting a major roadway with a lot
of parking, the night before Public Works will go out
with our parking plan. They'll start to restrict the meter
bags and things like that, so we don't have cars
that are parked there. We'll usually sweep the route at
about four or five in the morning, make sure that
there's no vehicles. A parade this size, so say this
(05:56):
one Saint Patrick's Day, sink go to mile that utilizes
multiple lanth because they're so large, we don't want to
have cars that are parked on the side. We want
to make sure that we get those moved out. So
we'll go down, we'll sweep the route. Sometimes cars will
need to be either towed if they're parked illegally after that,
or moved off of the route. At that point, we'll
start bringing in some of our other units, such as
(06:17):
our bomb dogs, who will conduct sniffs of the area
free air sniffs, and then we'll move into our road closures.
We'll start getting the barricades ready, our traffic unit will
start getting in place for a hard closure when everything
is finally buttoned up and closed, and then we're looking
at our briefings with our patrol officers, with our mounted units,
with our bike officers and things like that. Really just
making sure everyone's in place, everyone knows what their role
(06:38):
is that morning, any questions are answered, and obviously things
are going to come up from time to time, so
we're out and about addressing those as well. We I
think people want to know that they're safe in a
situation like this, and we mentioned this as it happened.
I was sitting as one of the many things that
have gone on during my show. I sat here and like, oh,
(06:59):
there's a shooting happening here. There's a school shooting happening here. Well,
a couple of winters ago, when these Kansas City chiefs
are celebrating their Super Bowl victory, there was a shooting
at that parade, and a lot of people on social
media just said, we can't even go to parades anymore
and feel like we're safe. Well, you want, like you mentioned,
we want people to come down and celebrate what's happening
(07:21):
in Omaha, celebrate Bud Crawford and what he's achieved. What
you know, when you start getting the people there, you
mentioned you now you've got a clean perimeter. Now you've
got the route secured. What about when people are actually
showing up and getting there knowing that you're an open air,
outdoor event and it's just difficult to know who has
(07:44):
what at what time. Sure, No, that's a great question. Look,
we can't, you know, have everyone go through a metal detector.
We can't wand everyone. We know that people are coming in,
we know that people are allowed to carry firearms. That's
that's where we're at right now. So we have assets
in place. We utilize our real time Operation center, a
lot that was fully staffed that's got traffic camera access
(08:05):
to the city We had numerous drones that the police
department popped up that we were able to monitor things,
and then we also had officers that were monitoring from
rooftops in the area, so.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
We did have that overwatch capability.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
We do encourage people be never any adage see something,
say something. People were seeing things that were suspicious up
on rooftops parking garages. They were calling it in and
we were able to respond quickly. So there's a lot
of things, especially at a parade like this, that we
want to be very robust. We want people to see us.
We want them to think, wow, there's a lot of
cops here. Everywhere I look, there's a cop on a corner.
(08:38):
That was our goal for this event and for all
these large parades. But there's a lot of things that
people won't see. They won't see, say the undercover officers
that we have in playing clothes that are walking around
inside the event because they're listening to what people are saying.
They're watching for anything that's suspicious. Maybe somebody's hanging out
kind of back watching things. So we have other capabilities,
mostly that people will see, but also some that they
(09:00):
won't see. But we do want people to feel safe.
There's immense planning that goes into this preparation and really
pulling all the pieces together and make a safe event.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Captain Steve Meister from the Omaha Police Department. Last thing
for you, Captain, I the event in and of itself
this time. What was the kind of number? I don't
know if you can give me like an exact number,
but you know, this was, you know, a few blocks
of you know, high traffic area with a lot of people.
(09:31):
And I'll be honest with you, I'm always so impressed
when I go down to like the LeJean lelah he
Mal just to hang out with my wife and my dogs,
just how much of a presence it feels like, because
it's nice to feel like there are people there that
if something were to get a little hairy downtown help
isn't too far away. And so for people who are
(09:51):
kind of curious about just how many officers, I think
people surprised how many officers are in the Omaha Police
Department in general, But can you give me kind of
a rough estimate of how many people are, you know,
involved in this type of operation. And then also what
Saturday looked like by the end of it was in
when the cleanup happened. You know what was kind of
(10:11):
your guys's interpretation of the event itself and the safety
that you guys were able to provide.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Sure, So I would say from the police Department's side,
I would just leave it with there were dozens of
officers on hand. I don't want to give an exact number,
but there were there were a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
This would rival.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Any other large event that we have in Omaha, including
the College World Series, easily. I mean we're talking from
twentieth all the way down to Ethan Harney, very large route.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
We had officers on.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
The route with our traffic unit, we had our perimeter officers,
and then a bunch of all other officers that were
there on standby as well.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
So it was very very well staffed as far as.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, basically, how did you guys assess the safety of
the event as a whole as it was finishing up?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
The event was was very well at ten there were
no major issues with it. We had a couple of
lost kids that sometimes happens at parades when kids kind
of wander away. They were all found very quickly, but
looking back, we always do a little bit of a
debrief for and after action, afterwards find out what went well,
what we need to tweak for next time. So we've
already had those conversations that we were always adapting. We're
(11:19):
always amending what our operation was so that it's going
more fluid in the future. But overall it was a
very good event.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Well, I can say this, I feel incredibly safe going
downtown and it's because of the presidence of the Omaha
Police Department no matter what the situation is, whether it's
for a gigantic event or we're just down there to
hang out for fun. Captain Steve Meister with the Omaha
Police Department, thank you so much for the transparency and
for coming in today.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
We really do appreciate it. Thanks for eight time.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
I appreciate it, but did want to finish talking about
this Bud Crawford situation before we get to the bottom
of the hour, and I really do appreciate. I got
in contact with Chief Todd Schmoterer today. I know he
was on with the morning show guys today and you
can hear his interview with Gary and Jim and you
(12:04):
can find that on the kfab dot com website. Just
find the KFAB Morning News there and Chief Smoter talking
about the There was no arrest, but it was the
traffic stop that involved Bud Crawford, which took place on.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Over the weekend.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
It was technically Sunday, so Saturday is a great day.
Bud has the parade and he is you know, he
speaks to the media. He really is Omaha's favorite son
in so many different ways. But there was a video
that circulated on social media after the traffic stop on
(12:44):
Sunday morning and it was like one thirty am or so,
and this is what they said that beyond Chief Spotterer
joining the morning show guys today, there really hasn't been
a whole lot from the police department about what they
want to say about it. And it's an investigation that
(13:06):
is going to continue as to like how it was
handled and everything.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
But the.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Kind of the here's officers working in the downtown area
saw a vehicle driving recklessly near North twelfth and Capitol Avenue.
So if you visualize where that is, Capital is, you know,
string of businesses, Tenth is the street crossways that is
going through construction right now with a street car, but
it is it goes right next to the arena and
(13:35):
all the way down it kind of slices the arena
and the ballpark downtown into two, so that's tenth and
then if you just like go backwards eleventh and twelfth,
this is like right in the heart of downtown and
Capitol and twelfth. They conducted a traffic stop at Cass Street,
which is a little bit to the north of where
(13:55):
this was. Right while speaking with the driver, the officer
observed the firearm on the driver's side floorboard. For safety,
all four occupants were ordered out of the vehicle at gunpoint,
and that's what the video looks like, right, like they
pull their firearms, they draw their weapon. The police officers
just for the safety of knowing if there are weapons
(14:18):
in the vehicle, they want to see them make sure
that nobody's going to make a move towards them for
their own safety. That is normal police protocol. So on
the video, if you watch it, and I saw it
shared by Omaha Scanner, like it was, you're kind of
sitting there, it's like, wow, this is high intensity. Driver
(14:43):
was identified as Terrence Crawford. Among verification of his driver's license,
he was issued a citation correctless driving. One passenger, who
was a member of the security team for Bud Crawford
was found to be carrying a legal firearm. Police confirmed
all occupants were legally permitted to carry firearms. And again,
(15:06):
these are guys who are kind of in the security
detail of a high profile individual lives in Omaha. If
I had security people, you know what, every single one
of them would be armed. If I if I was
of that caliber of individual and I wanted to make
sure I was being taken care of and I was safe,
I would not have just a bouncer per se, somebody
(15:28):
who can, you know, just protect me in today's day
and age, I'm absolutely wanting to make sure that the
people that I have, you know, on my security team,
they're going to be able to deal with any sort
of threats that we have and protect me and protect
the people that are around me. Also, the police supervisor
(15:49):
and lieutenant responded to the scene at Bud Crawford's request, so,
you know, just basically saying hey, can more people come
down here? They obliged. There's certainly going to be a
an additional review on this. We are certainly going to
hear more about what exactly occurred with this. And then
(16:10):
it didn't help that the heads of security of Bud
Crawford kind of came out to local news entities and
basically said, I was afraid for our lives. I helpe
marriage on ewing, and I hope the police department, after
a thorough review and when they can share more information,
can try to kind of quell that. Maybe there can
(16:30):
be a little bit more transparency from everybody, because that's
a that's a tough message to hear when police officers
are simply attempting to do their job when they see
a vehicle it tends to be driving recklessly. They are
not thinking, Okay, well, if this is a famous person
or a high profile person, then I'm not going to
(16:53):
pull them over. I mean, you see a vehicle at
one point thirty in the morning driving recklessly, your first
incline as a police officer should be to initiate a
traffic stop. And that's what happened. And Terrence Crawford didn't
run away. He pulled over. And it was when eye
contact was made on the firearm that then police officers
(17:15):
drew their own firearms just to make sure that they
were safe, telling everybody to exit the vehicle and have
the opportunity to make sure that everything was secure.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
And safe.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
That's what took place. It can be I would imagine
a harrowing experience to be in that situation.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
But as far as.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Especially when you know how things sometimes can go with
traffic stops and with people who are not interested in
cooperating with law enforcement, things can get awfully sticky and
very dangerous for law enforcement themselves. So by everything in
the book, as far as protocol goes, I don't think
anything was wrong here. And I hope people who read
(17:58):
into the security guy's words of Bud crawtform me he said,
you know, we were afraid for our lives. You know,
hopefully he's they understand he's saying that out of the
fear in the moment, not that anything was being done
unfairly to anyone in that situation. It was just kind
of a weird scenario, and police have to do what
(18:22):
they do based on what they're seeing and the danger situation.
And nobody got it put in jail, nobody was arrested
for anything. So as far as I I can tell,
and I'm no expert, things seem to be done well.
I just hope that Omaha police gets the credit that
(18:43):
they deserve for being able to diffuse the situation and
making sure everybody gets home safe like they did on
early Sunday morning. I guess overnight Saturday into Sunday
To start out the show though, we are currently being
joined in the studio by Captain Steve Meister from the
Omaha Police Department. Captain Meister, thanks so much for being
here with us today.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
I we're gonna start with the Bud Crawford traffic stop
just because this is the number one story and you guys,
as a police department, have a statement just for clarification purposes.
The department isn't speaking too much more beyond just the
statement you guys have released.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Right right, So we're aware of the incident. Obviously, the
chief was made aware of the Mayor's office very early
yesterday morning. We did work on putting out a statement
that is online for people to see. That is an
ongoing investigation right now that we're actively looking into. Yeah,
and if you're wanting to hear from Chief Motter, he
actually was on with the guys in the morning Gurry
(00:53):
and Jim in the morning show today. So if you
want to go find that, go to kfab dot com
and the KFAB Morning News podcast page. You'll be able
to find that interview with Chief Monitor. But it's information
also that's within that statement now. I wanted to talk
to a police officer today before we even knew that
was a thing that was happening, Because you guys are
(01:13):
are really solid with these events.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I talked about like the Memorial Park concert, you know,
a few months back, and just how how do people
feel safe in that environment? Because I know there's so
many things that people feel unsafe sure going and doing publicly.
So when you know the plan comes out on a
couple of weeks, notice that, Hey, our guy Terence Crawford
(01:37):
has won another unispeeded championship. We want to celebrate him
with the parade downtown. What are the discussions that the
police department has of how to secure the area in
which this parade is going to be happening and what
your guys's presence will look like.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Sure, so, normally with some of these events, with the
major events like our College Old Series, our Berkshire Sinko
to MIO, we know about those months in advance. I
know when they're going to be next year, in twenty
twenty eight, etc. This one came up a little bit quicker,
which is fine. It was an all hands on deck operation.
But the main thing that we focus on with this
is communication across all platforms, all stakeholders. So we start
(02:14):
off with meetings with everyone from the Mayor's office to
public Works, our partners at the fire department, with Mecca,
and really get in a room and sit down and say, look,
here's the route we want to use. What are the
logistical issues we see with it, what are issues that
could come up along the way, and how do we
mitigate those problems? And then we start looking independently at
our own police department, fire department, etc. We start looking
(02:36):
at staffing equipment, what do we want to have there
to make sure it's safe, What does the fire department
need there to make sure if there's any medical emergencies?
Can public Works do anything to mitigate construction, parking meters,
things like that? So really it's just getting people in
a room more than once in this case, in fact,
several times within about a ten day span, and working
through any issues we see that could come up, and
(02:58):
then starting to plan for those.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
The route was decided. They've had parades down town or
many times before, even for Bud Crawford himself, but now
it is a little bit trickier because there's a ton
of construction down there. I was driving around with my
parents who are from out of town, and I was
trying to find a place go to a restaurant. Totally
missed some of the roads being closed created a very
(03:23):
long wait and a difficult scenario just to try to
navigate around the construction that's going on down there. For
the street car, how did that come into a factor here?
Knowing that you were likely to see thousands and thousands
of people descending on downtown on a Saturday morning and
trying to work people in and out while still making
sure everybody feels like they're.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Safe, right, So we wanted to make sure that we
had a route that could accommodate a large number of people.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
So we worked with public Works.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
We wanted to find out, look, where's the construction going
to be, how do we better secure that area to
make sure we do not have pedestrians walking through construction zones?
And then we started looking at Okay, we're going to
use this street or this street, we're going to hood
all the meters.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Now where do we put people that want to park?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
So we started talking about opening public parking garages, and
Connagro was able to open some of their parking as well.
And really trying to make it so that it's not
a burden for people to come down and celebrate this event.
We want to make it as free and as open
for people to come down, be able to find somewhere
to park, be able to walk to the events, and
feel safe at the event. But again, those are conversations
that we had to have early on regarding construction because
(04:26):
there is a lot going on and it's ongoing, and
the fact that even while we were in the planning stage,
there were some lanes that were still being actively altered,
so we needed a plan for that, like, look, what
is this going to look like on Saturday, Not so
much the Wednesday before, the Monday before, but on Saturday morning,
where is it going to be closed and for how long?
Speaker 1 (04:45):
We're joined by Captain Steve Meister from the Omaha Police Department.
So Saturday came and went. Didn't see anything as it
relates to any safety issues.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I did.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
My brother in law lives in one of the apartments downtown,
had no idea what was happening. Looked at his windows like,
I guess I'm not going to leave my apartment for
a while, because he saw he's right along the route
of the parade, and so you do have people that
are just unaware of what's happening downtown. You do have
cars that are likely trying to figure out a way
to kind of operate through downtown on the morning of
(05:19):
when you're trying to get everything lined up and make
sure that the people who are trying to be downtown
for the parade can get there, but also not have
to worry about people trying to just kind of move
around downtown. Otherwise, what does the day look like leading
up to the couple hours before when people start to arrive.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Sure, So in an operation like this, especially downtown, when
we're talking about restricting a major roadway with a lot
of parking, the night before Public Works will go out
with our parking plan. They'll start to restrict the meter
bags and things like that, so we don't have cars
that are parked there. We'll usually sweep the route at
about four or five in the morning, make sure that
there's no vehicles. A parade this size, so say this
(05:56):
one Saint Patrick's Day, sink go to mile that utilizes
multiple lanth because they're so large, we don't want to
have cars that are parked on the side. We want
to make sure that we get those moved out. So
we'll go down, we'll sweep the route. Sometimes cars will
need to be either towed if they're parked illegally after that,
or moved off of the route. At that point, we'll
start bringing in some of our other units, such as
(06:17):
our bomb dogs, who will conduct sniffs of the area
free air sniffs, and then we'll move into our road closures.
We'll start getting the barricades ready, our traffic unit will
start getting in place for a hard closure when everything
is finally buttoned up and closed, and then we're looking
at our briefings with our patrol officers, with our mounted units,
with our bike officers and things like that. Really just
making sure everyone's in place, everyone knows what their role
(06:38):
is that morning, any questions are answered, and obviously things
are going to come up from time to time, so
we're out and about addressing those as well. We I
think people want to know that they're safe in a
situation like this, and we mentioned this as it happened.
I was sitting as one of the many things that
have gone on during my show. I sat here and like, oh,
(06:59):
there's a shooting happening here. There's a school shooting happening here. Well,
a couple of winters ago, when these Kansas City chiefs
are celebrating their Super Bowl victory, there was a shooting
at that parade, and a lot of people on social
media just said, we can't even go to parades anymore
and feel like we're safe. Well, you want, like you mentioned,
we want people to come down and celebrate what's happening
(07:21):
in Omaha, celebrate Bud Crawford and what he's achieved. What
you know, when you start getting the people there, you
mentioned you now you've got a clean perimeter. Now you've
got the route secured. What about when people are actually
showing up and getting there knowing that you're an open air,
outdoor event and it's just difficult to know who has
(07:44):
what at what time. Sure, No, that's a great question. Look,
we can't, you know, have everyone go through a metal detector.
We can't wand everyone. We know that people are coming in,
we know that people are allowed to carry firearms. That's
that's where we're at right now. So we have assets
in place. We utilize our real time Operation center, a
lot that was fully staffed that's got traffic camera access
(08:05):
to the city We had numerous drones that the police
department popped up that we were able to monitor things,
and then we also had officers that were monitoring from
rooftops in the area, so.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
We did have that overwatch capability.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
We do encourage people be never any adage see something,
say something. People were seeing things that were suspicious up
on rooftops parking garages. They were calling it in and
we were able to respond quickly. So there's a lot
of things, especially at a parade like this, that we
want to be very robust. We want people to see us.
We want them to think, wow, there's a lot of
cops here. Everywhere I look, there's a cop on a corner.
(08:38):
That was our goal for this event and for all
these large parades. But there's a lot of things that
people won't see. They won't see, say the undercover officers
that we have in playing clothes that are walking around
inside the event because they're listening to what people are saying.
They're watching for anything that's suspicious. Maybe somebody's hanging out
kind of back watching things. So we have other capabilities,
mostly that people will see, but also some that they
(09:00):
won't see. But we do want people to feel safe.
There's immense planning that goes into this preparation and really
pulling all the pieces together and make a safe event.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Captain Steve Meister from the Omaha Police Department. Last thing
for you, Captain, I the event in and of itself
this time. What was the kind of number? I don't
know if you can give me like an exact number,
but you know, this was, you know, a few blocks
of you know, high traffic area with a lot of people.
(09:31):
And I'll be honest with you, I'm always so impressed
when I go down to like the LeJean lelah he
Mal just to hang out with my wife and my dogs,
just how much of a presence it feels like, because
it's nice to feel like there are people there that
if something were to get a little hairy downtown help
isn't too far away. And so for people who are
(09:51):
kind of curious about just how many officers, I think
people surprised how many officers are in the Omaha Police
Department in general, But can you give me kind of
a rough estimate of how many people are, you know,
involved in this type of operation. And then also what
Saturday looked like by the end of it was in
when the cleanup happened. You know what was kind of
(10:11):
your guys's interpretation of the event itself and the safety
that you guys were able to provide.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Sure, So I would say from the police Department's side,
I would just leave it with there were dozens of
officers on hand. I don't want to give an exact number,
but there were there were a lot.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
This would rival.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Any other large event that we have in Omaha, including
the College World Series, easily. I mean we're talking from
twentieth all the way down to Ethan Harney, very large route.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
We had officers on.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
The route with our traffic unit, we had our perimeter officers,
and then a bunch of all other officers that were
there on standby as well.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
So it was very very well staffed as far as.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, basically, how did you guys assess the safety of
the event as a whole as it was finishing up?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
The event was was very well at ten there were
no major issues with it. We had a couple of
lost kids that sometimes happens at parades when kids kind
of wander away. They were all found very quickly, but
looking back, we always do a little bit of a
debrief for and after action, afterwards find out what went well,
what we need to tweak for next time. So we've
already had those conversations that we were always adapting. We're
(11:19):
always amending what our operation was so that it's going
more fluid in the future. But overall it was a
very good event.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Well, I can say this, I feel incredibly safe going
downtown and it's because of the presidence of the Omaha
Police Department no matter what the situation is, whether it's
for a gigantic event or we're just down there to
hang out for fun. Captain Steve Meister with the Omaha
Police Department, thank you so much for the transparency and
for coming in today.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
We really do appreciate it. Thanks for eight time.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
I appreciate it, but did want to finish talking about
this Bud Crawford situation before we get to the bottom
of the hour, and I really do appreciate. I got
in contact with Chief Todd Schmoterer today. I know he
was on with the morning show guys today and you
can hear his interview with Gary and Jim and you
(12:04):
can find that on the kfab dot com website. Just
find the KFAB Morning News there and Chief Smoter talking
about the There was no arrest, but it was the
traffic stop that involved Bud Crawford, which took place on.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Over the weekend.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
It was technically Sunday, so Saturday is a great day.
Bud has the parade and he is you know, he
speaks to the media. He really is Omaha's favorite son
in so many different ways. But there was a video
that circulated on social media after the traffic stop on
(12:44):
Sunday morning and it was like one thirty am or so,
and this is what they said that beyond Chief Spotterer
joining the morning show guys today, there really hasn't been
a whole lot from the police department about what they
want to say about it. And it's an investigation that
(13:06):
is going to continue as to like how it was
handled and everything.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
But the.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Kind of the here's officers working in the downtown area
saw a vehicle driving recklessly near North twelfth and Capitol Avenue.
So if you visualize where that is, Capital is, you know,
string of businesses, Tenth is the street crossways that is
going through construction right now with a street car, but
it is it goes right next to the arena and
(13:35):
all the way down it kind of slices the arena
and the ballpark downtown into two, so that's tenth and
then if you just like go backwards eleventh and twelfth,
this is like right in the heart of downtown and
Capitol and twelfth. They conducted a traffic stop at Cass Street,
which is a little bit to the north of where
(13:55):
this was. Right while speaking with the driver, the officer
observed the firearm on the driver's side floorboard. For safety,
all four occupants were ordered out of the vehicle at gunpoint,
and that's what the video looks like, right, like they
pull their firearms, they draw their weapon. The police officers
just for the safety of knowing if there are weapons
(14:18):
in the vehicle, they want to see them make sure
that nobody's going to make a move towards them for
their own safety. That is normal police protocol. So on
the video, if you watch it, and I saw it
shared by Omaha Scanner, like it was, you're kind of
sitting there, it's like, wow, this is high intensity. Driver
(14:43):
was identified as Terrence Crawford. Among verification of his driver's license,
he was issued a citation correctless driving. One passenger, who
was a member of the security team for Bud Crawford
was found to be carrying a legal firearm. Police confirmed
all occupants were legally permitted to carry firearms. And again,
(15:06):
these are guys who are kind of in the security
detail of a high profile individual lives in Omaha. If
I had security people, you know what, every single one
of them would be armed. If I if I was
of that caliber of individual and I wanted to make
sure I was being taken care of and I was safe,
I would not have just a bouncer per se, somebody
(15:28):
who can, you know, just protect me in today's day
and age, I'm absolutely wanting to make sure that the
people that I have, you know, on my security team,
they're going to be able to deal with any sort
of threats that we have and protect me and protect
the people that are around me. Also, the police supervisor
(15:49):
and lieutenant responded to the scene at Bud Crawford's request, so,
you know, just basically saying hey, can more people come
down here? They obliged. There's certainly going to be a
an additional review on this. We are certainly going to
hear more about what exactly occurred with this. And then
(16:10):
it didn't help that the heads of security of Bud
Crawford kind of came out to local news entities and
basically said, I was afraid for our lives. I helpe
marriage on ewing, and I hope the police department, after
a thorough review and when they can share more information,
can try to kind of quell that. Maybe there can
(16:30):
be a little bit more transparency from everybody, because that's
a that's a tough message to hear when police officers
are simply attempting to do their job when they see
a vehicle it tends to be driving recklessly. They are
not thinking, Okay, well, if this is a famous person
or a high profile person, then I'm not going to
(16:53):
pull them over. I mean, you see a vehicle at
one point thirty in the morning driving recklessly, your first
incline as a police officer should be to initiate a
traffic stop. And that's what happened. And Terrence Crawford didn't
run away. He pulled over. And it was when eye
contact was made on the firearm that then police officers
(17:15):
drew their own firearms just to make sure that they
were safe, telling everybody to exit the vehicle and have
the opportunity to make sure that everything was secure.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
And safe.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
That's what took place. It can be I would imagine
a harrowing experience to be in that situation.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
But as far as.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Especially when you know how things sometimes can go with
traffic stops and with people who are not interested in
cooperating with law enforcement, things can get awfully sticky and
very dangerous for law enforcement themselves. So by everything in
the book, as far as protocol goes, I don't think
anything was wrong here. And I hope people who read
(17:58):
into the security guy's words of Bud crawtform me he said,
you know, we were afraid for our lives. You know,
hopefully he's they understand he's saying that out of the
fear in the moment, not that anything was being done
unfairly to anyone in that situation. It was just kind
of a weird scenario, and police have to do what
(18:22):
they do based on what they're seeing and the danger situation.
And nobody got it put in jail, nobody was arrested
for anything. So as far as I I can tell,
and I'm no expert, things seem to be done well.
I just hope that Omaha police gets the credit that
(18:43):
they deserve for being able to diffuse the situation and
making sure everybody gets home safe like they did on
early Sunday morning. I guess overnight Saturday into Sunday
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