August 19, 2024 • 20 mins
Pastor Ed King with The Hope Center for Kids has been working with Omaha's teens for nearly 30 years, working to give them a better path for their lives. What does he think about the recent crime trends, and what can be done to help these youth, their families, and our community? (Sadly, a technical glitch prevented us from capturing the last few minutes of our conversation this morning, but here is most of it.)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott Vordies, the spiritual development coordinator at the Hope Center
for Kids. Pastor ed King, Welcome to eleven ten ksa pak.
A little bit of background on you. How was it
that you came to be associated with our good friends,
the late Pastor Tye and Terry Schenzel at the Hope
Center and being a part of this mission to reach
(00:21):
out to youth in the community. You have no hope
in the future to try and instill in them some
hope to not commit some of the crimes that we're
seeing on the streets today.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, years ago, Touch ends and I we were part
of a racial round table. Out of that, we got
the opportunity to know each other really, really well, and
we both had a heart for kids, wanted to see
the best in kids, and so out of that, you know,
he started the Hope Center and he said God put him,
put me on his heart to join him, and we've
been been rolling ever.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Since the racial round table.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Racial round table years ago, probably twenty seven, thirty years
ago ago, almost thirty years ago.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
So what was I mean, what were the issues that
we were looking to address thirty years ago versus where
we are now? Because you talk about not having any hope.
It can look like sometimes like, wow, we've been working
on this for three decades. I don't know if we've
made a dent.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, thirty years ago with Race Roundtable, it was blacks
and whites coming together trying to have a better understanding
of each other for the sole purpose of living in
harmony with each other. You know, you fast forward thirty years,
you know, some of those problems are still there, but
most of it now is there are young people. You know,
the concern for our young people. You know, we you know,
(01:39):
being around this ministry, we've had the opportunities to see
the good and the bad, and unfortunately we're going through
a season of younger and younger young people committing these
crimes and those type of things, and it's heartbreaking for
the community, is heartbreaking for everybody that cares about our kids.
But you know, we feel like that we have to
turn up the heat in terms of not giving up
(02:01):
on them and going after them a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Let's just walk through how this works. You've got young
people in the community, and it's not like you can
really go door to door and stick your head in
there and go, hey, anyone about to start committing crimes
and getting into a real bad way here as young
as eleven years old in this house. So how do
you even start to come in contact with these youth
(02:25):
you're trying to reach?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, I mean we when you look on the news,
of course you hear and you see a lot of that.
And I feel like for those of us that work
actually in the community, that's that's face to face with
a lot of those kids. It's number one recognizing you
know the problem, recognizing you know their needs. I feel
like that, you know, in a lot of conversations with
(02:47):
the mothers. You know, our mothers Scott are tired. You know,
they're raising out of these young men by themselves, and
you know, it's hard when you get to be you
know even I mean thirteen fourteen, and you're taller than mom,
and you you know, you feel like Dad's not around.
And I hate to say that, but it's true for
many of our young men you know that are committing
these crimes. You know, the fathers are not around for
(03:07):
whatever reason, you know, and and you know how it is.
You know, when when dad is not around, there's that
that part of you that's missing, that that structure that discipline,
you know, all those things that a father brings to
the table. And I thought about this when I saw
the young man on TV the other night. You're eleven
years old. Why are you out that that time of
(03:28):
the night? Why are you and where's you know? I've
have kids of my own, and you know, my kids
are you know, older now, but I can remember them
being that age. There was I didn't I always knew
where they were. Not to say I was a perfect parent,
but they didn't get to go and do things without
us knowing about it and coming in the house and
being out in the wee hours of the morning. There
(03:50):
was no way I would tolerate that.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
No, And this is a school night. This hassed school
last week. School's already in session around the community at
that time, and these guys are out, you know, around midnight,
one o'clock, you know, later in the morning. And they
were finally arrested near four o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Four o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
And you know, I'm not asking you to speak specific
specifically to this kid or this kid's family, but you've
seen this type of situation. So in your experience, when
you got an eleven year old a fourteen year old kid.
These kids are running around with a couple of older kids.
They've stolen a car, they have guns, they just shot someone.
What is going on at home there? And how can
(04:31):
you try and see this happening in our community and
try and stop it before it gets to this point?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, you know, coming from where we come from, I
have to have to say this. You know, when God
is removed, you know where the Lord is not in
that house? A guide, a spiritual guidance. When it's not there,
you're not taught those principles of loving your neighbor as
yourself and being kind to one another. And I see
so many of our kids now they don't I mean
(04:58):
as far as God, they have no concept of that.
So it spills over, you know, into the community. You know,
when you when you disrespect in the community, Well where
does that start? Well you come to find out what, Hey,
you're disrespecting your mom at home? You know mom. You
get to the point to where you know, you know,
Mom can't tell you anything. You know, then you hear
it spilling over into the schools. The teachers are frustrated
(05:18):
because you know, they can't get you to do anything,
and it's like, you know, so what it does the
older guys. It's what I've seen so much that the
older guys in the community that are doing the negative things,
they're recruiting these younger guys to to, you know, to
do a lot of the crimes and things that we see.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
You pull the trigger. Nothing will happen to me, not
much anyway, and nothing's going to happen to you. They
can't even detain you.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
At eleven years old. We were talking to a group yesterday,
a group of men yesterday, and we were saying that
it was a running debate about should those younger kids
be detained? And I feel like, if you commit an
adult crime, you ought to be detained. I'm not saying
that you can't go in and still help once they
are locked up, but it's like the reality is these
guys are families are devastated and hurting because of the
(06:00):
acts of these kids. And it's like, you know, we
felt like this, We said, Okay, what are we gonna
do about it? Are we gonna continue to sit on
the sideline? Which the group that we different organizations that's
work with kids. We all got together and so what
are we gonna do? Are we gonna continue to sit
on the sideline. There's a there's a fear element to that,
because when you don't have relationship with these kids sometimes
(06:21):
it's kind of hard to just walk up to them
and speak to them. But we were determined that hey,
you know, we we we can't sit back and allow
our community to continue to have this type of thing
going on that's been going on in the last couple
of weeks. And you know, so one of the things
that we said we were gonna do, we felt like that.
Then I thought that was very important. You know, we said, hey,
(06:41):
for the for the faith leaders, we have to get
together and we have to see God's wisdom. Lord, God
has the answer, and we need you to show us
how to minister to this generation of kids, you know.
And so we got together and we started trying to
do a little bit more of that, and then we
talked about Scott, the importance of us working together. No
one organization has all the answers for for everything. There's
(07:02):
things that the Hope Center does well that the Boys Club,
you know, they do a little bit better job. So
all of that, we know the importance of just coming
together with all the kids in the community. There's enough
or I feel like there's enough organizations around there where
we should be making more And I say this respectfully,
that we should be making more of an impact on
These are eleven year old. You mean to tell me
(07:23):
that we can influence a eleven year old? And it
breaks my heart, It really breaks my I look at
those kids, and I look at my sons and my
grandkids these and they look like babies, but in reality,
they are hardcore criminals that will will take your life
given the situation, you know. And so we talked about
the importance of working together, you know, getting back out
(07:46):
there and just you know, you know, noticing hot spots,
you know, where where where are the kids hanging out at?
You know, so we'll go where they're hanging out at.
You know, it just you know, for the purpose of
trying to to build those relationship, you know, the importance
of building and once those relationships are building, and it
takes time. Once those relationships are built, it opens up
the door for you to be able to speak more
(08:08):
into their lives about the things that are really going
on inside of their hearts.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
I want to drill down a little further and more
specifically on this because a lot of what we hear
about comes from actions taken by the legislature over the years.
So here we're not talking about eleven year olds. We're
talking about adults in Lincoln who have the influence on
these In some cases, these juvenile court judges as to
what they can and can't do based on different ages.
(08:35):
And obviously there are some people that say you can't
do anything to touch one little hair on their heads.
These guys are innocent, little babies, they're eleven years old.
You can't do anything. Send them back home, which is
what happened with this kid. And then you've got those
that say, you know, throw them in solitary confinement and
you know, shut the door behind them and swallow the key.
Somewhere between those very different ideas is what we should
(08:58):
be doing. I want to hear your thoughts on it.
As we rejoined this conversation with Pastor ed King with
the Hope Center for Kids.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Next Scott Voices News Radio eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Pastor Ed King with us here on news radio eleven
ten KFAB. We were just looking here at the plight of,
among others, this eleven year old kid. He's now they
arrested in connection for murder. But he's just arrested about
a week or two ago, had gun crimes for an
eleven year old, and the juvenile court judge let him
(09:31):
go right back to the home that I think you
could make an argument was failing him to begin with.
He's right back on the streets. Now he's wanted in
connection for murder after just a few days. And there
are a lot of people that say, he's eleven. In
the state of Nebraska, you can't do anything. You can't
detain him, you can't put him anywhere, you can't do anything.
(09:52):
What would you like to see done? What in your experience,
Pastor King, is going to help this situation?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, when Scott, when I think about Island crimes and
the effect that it has on the community and the families,
I don't care how old you are when you commit
those crimes. I feel like that if you commit that
adult crime to the point to where a life is taken,
I feel like that you need to be detained. Now
how long that is I don't know, but I do
(10:19):
feel like this. I said, but letting a I don't
care if he's fifteen, eleven, ten, If you let a
kid out that has committed a crime like that. Without
properly helping them, You're you're almost turning them back over
to wherever that community is that you let them out
to you you're exposing the community back to that person
(10:43):
that can commit another crime. And I hear so much
in our law enforcement the frustration of trying to you know,
you pick up a kid John Doe kid, you know,
he has seven felonies of things that he's committed, but
because he's under age, you know, they slap him on
the hand and they turn around, they let him back out.
I feel like with all of the youth service agencies
that are trying to help those kids. You can go
(11:05):
in the youth prison and help them while they're in there,
but they need to be locked up because it's not
going it'll protect the community, most definitely protect community, and
most definitely for them. The whole would be that while
they're detained, that they can receive those services that will
help them for whatever it's time for them to release.
You know, they'll be better people. But you can't. You can't.
(11:27):
I don't. I mean being a criminal, I mean it
doesn't have an age limit on it. And you know,
and It's like when you commit a crime like that,
there has to be more than just you know, hey,
you can't go to jail because you're eleven years old.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Right, You got an eleven year old kid, you know,
he swipes a couple of candy bars or something like that, right,
you know, he gets caught and you know, vandalizing something,
you know, maybe throwing a rock through a window. You
deal with that. This is this is gun crimes, this
is grand theft. This is murderous we're talking about here.
And it doesn't start there. There are a number of
things going on, whether it's communication with police, whether it's
(12:03):
activity in the school, fighting moved all of around the community,
because keep fighting every school you're in there where adults
fail this kid, and in some instances you've even got
the mama there in the home saying I can't do anything.
I need help, and there's no resources or nothing seemingly
available in some instances here, Yes, so what do you do?
Speaker 2 (12:23):
We you know, that's a great, great question that we
have to keep doing the things that we know to do.
And that's in terms of when you see those troubled
kids when they're struggling in school, for example, and the
teachers can't do anything with them. You know, if they
don't have a parental support, good parent parental support at home,
then I feel like it's our job to fill in
(12:45):
that gap. And that's hard, but it's like I'll use
when Johnny random Johnny. If Johnny is struggling in school,
he's not listening to nobody. If you, if Scott build
that relationship with Johnny at the basketball court or at
the correct center, then then Scott, you'll you'll go up
to the school and check on him. Johnny. I'm coming
up here to kind of keep you accountable. Hey, how
come you're late to school every day? How come you're
(13:06):
missing days? You know, how come you're leaving early? Johnny
has to have somebody that he has to answer to
in order to help him, to help guide him through
his life so he doesn't be hanging So he's not
hanging out on the streets, hanging out with people that
most definitely want to get into, you know, to do
serious crimes and those type of things. Johnny needs to
know that this way of living only going to lead
(13:28):
you one or two places. Deaf for the grave, I
mean the prisoner of the.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Grave, right and you've you've been with the Hope Center
now for almost thirty years. You've seen the former director,
the founder of the Hope Center, Pastor ty Shenzel, you know,
white guy from Fremont who would sit down and reach
out to gang members and say, I just want you
to know I care about you and I want to
(13:54):
see you know, a better future for you.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
That's right, you know that.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
You know when when people look at the Hope Center
and go, you guys are doing you know, roller skating
and basketball after school stuff for kids who are already
great kids, you know you're you're missing, you know, being
there for the rest of these kids. You guys have
gone out there, You've you've infiltrated those areas in those
youth who need the most influence in their lives. You've
(14:22):
saved a lot of lives. Does it still frustrate you
that you can't be there for all of them? That's
some of them. Maybe they've even had points of contact
with the Hope Center growing up, and it's still for
whatever reason, didn't take.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
That's a great question for me. The frustrating part. If
it's one murder, if it's one kid that dies, to me,
is one too many. So as much as we celebrate
the ones that are that are that did make it through,
that are doing well, our hearts are still always bent
toward the ones that are not. And I feel like,
you know, like you say, eleven years old, Scott, eleven
(14:56):
years I mean I just in my mind at eleven
years old, to me, you're still to be in the
bed by nine o'clock, you know, if you were living
in my house. But the fact that eleven year old
eleven year olds are out in our streets with no guidance,
when nobody's there keeping them accountable, that says to me,
the places like the Hope Center and the Boys Club
and U Turn and Maize and all those youth service organizations,
(15:20):
they'll always have a job because there's so much work
that still needs to be done.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Pastor ed King from the Hope Center for Kids online
at Hope Center for Kids dot com. Pastor King is
nice enough to spend a lot of time with us
here in the studio. We've been talking for the last
half an hour here about this popular refrain, well it's
an unpopular refrain here in community. What do you do
with these very young kids, some not even old enough
(15:48):
to be called teenagers getting involved in very dangerous and
adult type of crimes specifically, and this is thankfully not
a normal case, but we've seen some of this here recently,
kids eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old who have been
charged with gun crimes, murder, grand theft, all the rest
of this stuff. We've been kind of talking about how
do you reach them And a lot of times when
(16:11):
the Hope Center ends up being involved there intervening in
a young person's life, you've got to go have that
conversation in the home with the parents of parent caregivers,
and I'm guessing you're probably not always well received. You
probably have a parent there, you know, say, how dare
you question whether or not I'm a good parent for
(16:31):
this young man? You know, how do you go about
trying to have that conversation.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
You know, Scott, establishing relationships, building relationships over the years
is very important. Once you have that or establish that,
it opens up the door for you to be able
to have those tough conversations with families and parents and
those type of things over the years. When it was
the opposite and we didn't know the parents as well,
they were not really receptive to us telling them things
(17:01):
that we saw in and about their kids. Well, the
beauty of it is once you do build those relationships,
you know, and they know that as an organization, hey,
we've been here, We're going to continue to be here.
You know, we care about your kids, you know. And
I've had to have some hard, hard conversations about things
that I saw and with parents about the things that
their kids were doing. I remember talking to a mom.
(17:23):
She had no idea her kids were involved in the
gang life until I showed her his Facebook page. And
then on his Facebook page there were guns and drugs
and money, and she had no idea that her son
was into that type of lifestyle. And it opened up
the door for her to know there was a cry
out for help. And we were able to that particular kid.
(17:44):
We were able to work with him and talk with
him to kind of tice to say, he says, to
the one that lives in hopelessness, consequences mean nothing. And
when you don't care about consequences, you know, the reality
is your life is going to end in a bad
or tragic way. Versus it's taking that kid that don't
care and trying to get them to care again. Has
always been our mission and our challenge, and so you know,
(18:06):
we try to, you know, share with them, Hey, you're
more than this. Life doesn't have to be this way.
And I know things are appear to.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Be a young person that lead them down that path.
And you can find two kids that kind of grow
up in the exact same circumstances. They're exposed to the
exact same things. Whether it's the neighborhood, whether it's the
pop culture references with music, whether it is the accessibility
of drugs and guns, whether it's violent video games, you know,
whatever it is. You got two kids kind of do
(18:35):
the same thing and one of them ends up doing great,
the other one ends up, as you said, in jail
or in the grave. Do you see some factors that
tend to have more of a negative influence on youth
than anything else and to the point where parents need
to do something about it or is it just the
lack of parents doing anything about it is the biggest factor.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
The people you hang around. Mother, you to always say, hey,
you got to be careful with the company that you keep.
And in today's time, you know when you go to
school and the drug guy is in the school, or
the guy that has the gun is in meeting you
at the school. The influence is greater now, and it's
like it's even more so if I was raising teenagers now,
(19:19):
you know, in today's time, I would pull my hair
out because you know they're you know when they when
your kid leaves out of that door, whatever you didn't
instill in them, they're going to be faced with things
that we weren't face to that we wasn't faced with
social media. We didn't talk about social media, but the
influence of social media and the pressures of having to
build a name for yourself through social media. I heard
(19:39):
a guy say one time, and they were talking about
kids nowadays they get glorified for killing someone, and it's like, wow,
back in our day, we was glorified and we were
honored because we had nice tennis shoes a week where
we were good in sports. Fast forward these kids now,
you mean to tell me, if you kill someone, you
got street cred. And the mindset it's changed, and that mindset,
(20:01):
that that sick mindset of our of this generation of kids.
And it's like I feel like that as we're working
with the parents and all those other youth service organizations
is huge in terms of it takes a village, you know,
in terms of just surrounding those kids with opportunity and
options of hey, if you want something different, Hey you
can go here, you can go there. These people are
(20:23):
are here for you, waiting for you. You need a call,
if you if you're experiencing, you know, the opportunity to
do something wrong that can cost you your life, Call
someone and we'll come to where you are, no matter
what time it is. And you know, that's just the
times we live in now.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Scott Voyes Mornings nine to eleven on news radio eleven
ten KFAB
Scott Vordies, the spiritual development coordinator at the Hope Center
for Kids. Pastor ed King, Welcome to eleven ten ksa pak.
A little bit of background on you. How was it
that you came to be associated with our good friends,
the late Pastor Tye and Terry Schenzel at the Hope
Center and being a part of this mission to reach
(00:21):
out to youth in the community. You have no hope
in the future to try and instill in them some
hope to not commit some of the crimes that we're
seeing on the streets today.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, years ago, Touch ends and I we were part
of a racial round table. Out of that, we got
the opportunity to know each other really, really well, and
we both had a heart for kids, wanted to see
the best in kids, and so out of that, you know,
he started the Hope Center and he said God put him,
put me on his heart to join him, and we've
been been rolling ever.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Since the racial round table.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Racial round table years ago, probably twenty seven, thirty years
ago ago, almost thirty years ago.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
So what was I mean, what were the issues that
we were looking to address thirty years ago versus where
we are now? Because you talk about not having any hope.
It can look like sometimes like, wow, we've been working
on this for three decades. I don't know if we've
made a dent.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, thirty years ago with Race Roundtable, it was blacks
and whites coming together trying to have a better understanding
of each other for the sole purpose of living in
harmony with each other. You know, you fast forward thirty years,
you know, some of those problems are still there, but
most of it now is there are young people. You know,
the concern for our young people. You know, we you know,
(01:39):
being around this ministry, we've had the opportunities to see
the good and the bad, and unfortunately we're going through
a season of younger and younger young people committing these
crimes and those type of things, and it's heartbreaking for
the community, is heartbreaking for everybody that cares about our kids.
But you know, we feel like that we have to
turn up the heat in terms of not giving up
(02:01):
on them and going after them a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Let's just walk through how this works. You've got young
people in the community, and it's not like you can
really go door to door and stick your head in
there and go, hey, anyone about to start committing crimes
and getting into a real bad way here as young
as eleven years old in this house. So how do
you even start to come in contact with these youth
(02:25):
you're trying to reach?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah, I mean we when you look on the news,
of course you hear and you see a lot of that.
And I feel like for those of us that work
actually in the community, that's that's face to face with
a lot of those kids. It's number one recognizing you
know the problem, recognizing you know their needs. I feel
like that, you know, in a lot of conversations with
(02:47):
the mothers. You know, our mothers Scott are tired. You know,
they're raising out of these young men by themselves, and
you know, it's hard when you get to be you
know even I mean thirteen fourteen, and you're taller than mom,
and you you know, you feel like Dad's not around.
And I hate to say that, but it's true for
many of our young men you know that are committing
these crimes. You know, the fathers are not around for
(03:07):
whatever reason, you know, and and you know how it is.
You know, when when dad is not around, there's that
that part of you that's missing, that that structure that discipline,
you know, all those things that a father brings to
the table. And I thought about this when I saw
the young man on TV the other night. You're eleven
years old. Why are you out that that time of
(03:28):
the night? Why are you and where's you know? I've
have kids of my own, and you know, my kids
are you know, older now, but I can remember them
being that age. There was I didn't I always knew
where they were. Not to say I was a perfect parent,
but they didn't get to go and do things without
us knowing about it and coming in the house and
being out in the wee hours of the morning. There
(03:50):
was no way I would tolerate that.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
No, And this is a school night. This hassed school
last week. School's already in session around the community at
that time, and these guys are out, you know, around midnight,
one o'clock, you know, later in the morning. And they
were finally arrested near four o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Four o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
And you know, I'm not asking you to speak specific
specifically to this kid or this kid's family, but you've
seen this type of situation. So in your experience, when
you got an eleven year old a fourteen year old kid.
These kids are running around with a couple of older kids.
They've stolen a car, they have guns, they just shot someone.
What is going on at home there? And how can
(04:31):
you try and see this happening in our community and
try and stop it before it gets to this point?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, you know, coming from where we come from, I
have to have to say this. You know, when God
is removed, you know where the Lord is not in
that house? A guide, a spiritual guidance. When it's not there,
you're not taught those principles of loving your neighbor as
yourself and being kind to one another. And I see
so many of our kids now they don't I mean
(04:58):
as far as God, they have no concept of that.
So it spills over, you know, into the community. You know,
when you when you disrespect in the community, Well where
does that start? Well you come to find out what, Hey,
you're disrespecting your mom at home? You know mom. You
get to the point to where you know, you know,
Mom can't tell you anything. You know, then you hear
it spilling over into the schools. The teachers are frustrated
(05:18):
because you know, they can't get you to do anything,
and it's like, you know, so what it does the
older guys. It's what I've seen so much that the
older guys in the community that are doing the negative things,
they're recruiting these younger guys to to, you know, to
do a lot of the crimes and things that we see.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
You pull the trigger. Nothing will happen to me, not
much anyway, and nothing's going to happen to you. They
can't even detain you.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
At eleven years old. We were talking to a group yesterday,
a group of men yesterday, and we were saying that
it was a running debate about should those younger kids
be detained? And I feel like, if you commit an
adult crime, you ought to be detained. I'm not saying
that you can't go in and still help once they
are locked up, but it's like the reality is these
guys are families are devastated and hurting because of the
(06:00):
acts of these kids. And it's like, you know, we
felt like this, We said, Okay, what are we gonna
do about it? Are we gonna continue to sit on
the sideline? Which the group that we different organizations that's
work with kids. We all got together and so what
are we gonna do? Are we gonna continue to sit
on the sideline. There's a there's a fear element to that,
because when you don't have relationship with these kids sometimes
(06:21):
it's kind of hard to just walk up to them
and speak to them. But we were determined that hey,
you know, we we we can't sit back and allow
our community to continue to have this type of thing
going on that's been going on in the last couple
of weeks. And you know, so one of the things
that we said we were gonna do, we felt like that.
Then I thought that was very important. You know, we said, hey,
(06:41):
for the for the faith leaders, we have to get
together and we have to see God's wisdom. Lord, God
has the answer, and we need you to show us
how to minister to this generation of kids, you know.
And so we got together and we started trying to
do a little bit more of that, and then we
talked about Scott, the importance of us working together. No
one organization has all the answers for for everything. There's
(07:02):
things that the Hope Center does well that the Boys Club,
you know, they do a little bit better job. So
all of that, we know the importance of just coming
together with all the kids in the community. There's enough
or I feel like there's enough organizations around there where
we should be making more And I say this respectfully,
that we should be making more of an impact on
These are eleven year old. You mean to tell me
(07:23):
that we can influence a eleven year old? And it
breaks my heart, It really breaks my I look at
those kids, and I look at my sons and my
grandkids these and they look like babies, but in reality,
they are hardcore criminals that will will take your life
given the situation, you know. And so we talked about
the importance of working together, you know, getting back out
(07:46):
there and just you know, you know, noticing hot spots,
you know, where where where are the kids hanging out at?
You know, so we'll go where they're hanging out at.
You know, it just you know, for the purpose of
trying to to build those relationship, you know, the importance
of building and once those relationships are building, and it
takes time. Once those relationships are built, it opens up
the door for you to be able to speak more
(08:08):
into their lives about the things that are really going
on inside of their hearts.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
I want to drill down a little further and more
specifically on this because a lot of what we hear
about comes from actions taken by the legislature over the years.
So here we're not talking about eleven year olds. We're
talking about adults in Lincoln who have the influence on
these In some cases, these juvenile court judges as to
what they can and can't do based on different ages.
(08:35):
And obviously there are some people that say you can't
do anything to touch one little hair on their heads.
These guys are innocent, little babies, they're eleven years old.
You can't do anything. Send them back home, which is
what happened with this kid. And then you've got those
that say, you know, throw them in solitary confinement and
you know, shut the door behind them and swallow the key.
Somewhere between those very different ideas is what we should
(08:58):
be doing. I want to hear your thoughts on it.
As we rejoined this conversation with Pastor ed King with
the Hope Center for Kids.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
Next Scott Voices News Radio eleven ten KFAB.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Pastor Ed King with us here on news radio eleven
ten KFAB. We were just looking here at the plight of,
among others, this eleven year old kid. He's now they
arrested in connection for murder. But he's just arrested about
a week or two ago, had gun crimes for an
eleven year old, and the juvenile court judge let him
(09:31):
go right back to the home that I think you
could make an argument was failing him to begin with.
He's right back on the streets. Now he's wanted in
connection for murder after just a few days. And there
are a lot of people that say, he's eleven. In
the state of Nebraska, you can't do anything. You can't
detain him, you can't put him anywhere, you can't do anything.
(09:52):
What would you like to see done? What in your experience,
Pastor King, is going to help this situation?
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Yeah, when Scott, when I think about Island crimes and
the effect that it has on the community and the families,
I don't care how old you are when you commit
those crimes. I feel like that if you commit that
adult crime to the point to where a life is taken,
I feel like that you need to be detained. Now
how long that is I don't know, but I do
(10:19):
feel like this. I said, but letting a I don't
care if he's fifteen, eleven, ten, If you let a
kid out that has committed a crime like that. Without
properly helping them, You're you're almost turning them back over
to wherever that community is that you let them out
to you you're exposing the community back to that person
(10:43):
that can commit another crime. And I hear so much
in our law enforcement the frustration of trying to you know,
you pick up a kid John Doe kid, you know,
he has seven felonies of things that he's committed, but
because he's under age, you know, they slap him on
the hand and they turn around, they let him back out.
I feel like with all of the youth service agencies
that are trying to help those kids. You can go
(11:05):
in the youth prison and help them while they're in there,
but they need to be locked up because it's not
going it'll protect the community, most definitely protect community, and
most definitely for them. The whole would be that while
they're detained, that they can receive those services that will
help them for whatever it's time for them to release.
You know, they'll be better people. But you can't. You can't.
(11:27):
I don't. I mean being a criminal, I mean it
doesn't have an age limit on it. And you know,
and It's like when you commit a crime like that,
there has to be more than just you know, hey,
you can't go to jail because you're eleven years old.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Right, You got an eleven year old kid, you know,
he swipes a couple of candy bars or something like that, right,
you know, he gets caught and you know, vandalizing something,
you know, maybe throwing a rock through a window. You
deal with that. This is this is gun crimes, this
is grand theft. This is murderous we're talking about here.
And it doesn't start there. There are a number of
things going on, whether it's communication with police, whether it's
(12:03):
activity in the school, fighting moved all of around the community,
because keep fighting every school you're in there where adults
fail this kid, and in some instances you've even got
the mama there in the home saying I can't do anything.
I need help, and there's no resources or nothing seemingly
available in some instances here, Yes, so what do you do?
Speaker 2 (12:23):
We you know, that's a great, great question that we
have to keep doing the things that we know to do.
And that's in terms of when you see those troubled
kids when they're struggling in school, for example, and the
teachers can't do anything with them. You know, if they
don't have a parental support, good parent parental support at home,
then I feel like it's our job to fill in
(12:45):
that gap. And that's hard, but it's like I'll use
when Johnny random Johnny. If Johnny is struggling in school,
he's not listening to nobody. If you, if Scott build
that relationship with Johnny at the basketball court or at
the correct center, then then Scott, you'll you'll go up
to the school and check on him. Johnny. I'm coming
up here to kind of keep you accountable. Hey, how
come you're late to school every day? How come you're
(13:06):
missing days? You know, how come you're leaving early? Johnny
has to have somebody that he has to answer to
in order to help him, to help guide him through
his life so he doesn't be hanging So he's not
hanging out on the streets, hanging out with people that
most definitely want to get into, you know, to do
serious crimes and those type of things. Johnny needs to
know that this way of living only going to lead
(13:28):
you one or two places. Deaf for the grave, I
mean the prisoner of the.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Grave, right and you've you've been with the Hope Center
now for almost thirty years. You've seen the former director,
the founder of the Hope Center, Pastor ty Shenzel, you know,
white guy from Fremont who would sit down and reach
out to gang members and say, I just want you
to know I care about you and I want to
(13:54):
see you know, a better future for you.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
That's right, you know that.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
You know when when people look at the Hope Center
and go, you guys are doing you know, roller skating
and basketball after school stuff for kids who are already
great kids, you know you're you're missing, you know, being
there for the rest of these kids. You guys have
gone out there, You've you've infiltrated those areas in those
youth who need the most influence in their lives. You've
(14:22):
saved a lot of lives. Does it still frustrate you
that you can't be there for all of them? That's
some of them. Maybe they've even had points of contact
with the Hope Center growing up, and it's still for
whatever reason, didn't take.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
That's a great question for me. The frustrating part. If
it's one murder, if it's one kid that dies, to me,
is one too many. So as much as we celebrate
the ones that are that are that did make it through,
that are doing well, our hearts are still always bent
toward the ones that are not. And I feel like,
you know, like you say, eleven years old, Scott, eleven
(14:56):
years I mean I just in my mind at eleven
years old, to me, you're still to be in the
bed by nine o'clock, you know, if you were living
in my house. But the fact that eleven year old
eleven year olds are out in our streets with no guidance,
when nobody's there keeping them accountable, that says to me,
the places like the Hope Center and the Boys Club
and U Turn and Maize and all those youth service organizations,
(15:20):
they'll always have a job because there's so much work
that still needs to be done.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Pastor ed King from the Hope Center for Kids online
at Hope Center for Kids dot com. Pastor King is
nice enough to spend a lot of time with us
here in the studio. We've been talking for the last
half an hour here about this popular refrain, well it's
an unpopular refrain here in community. What do you do
with these very young kids, some not even old enough
(15:48):
to be called teenagers getting involved in very dangerous and
adult type of crimes specifically, and this is thankfully not
a normal case, but we've seen some of this here recently,
kids eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old who have been
charged with gun crimes, murder, grand theft, all the rest
of this stuff. We've been kind of talking about how
do you reach them And a lot of times when
(16:11):
the Hope Center ends up being involved there intervening in
a young person's life, you've got to go have that
conversation in the home with the parents of parent caregivers,
and I'm guessing you're probably not always well received. You
probably have a parent there, you know, say, how dare
you question whether or not I'm a good parent for
(16:31):
this young man? You know, how do you go about
trying to have that conversation.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
You know, Scott, establishing relationships, building relationships over the years
is very important. Once you have that or establish that,
it opens up the door for you to be able
to have those tough conversations with families and parents and
those type of things over the years. When it was
the opposite and we didn't know the parents as well,
they were not really receptive to us telling them things
(17:01):
that we saw in and about their kids. Well, the
beauty of it is once you do build those relationships,
you know, and they know that as an organization, hey,
we've been here, We're going to continue to be here.
You know, we care about your kids, you know. And
I've had to have some hard, hard conversations about things
that I saw and with parents about the things that
their kids were doing. I remember talking to a mom.
(17:23):
She had no idea her kids were involved in the
gang life until I showed her his Facebook page. And
then on his Facebook page there were guns and drugs
and money, and she had no idea that her son
was into that type of lifestyle. And it opened up
the door for her to know there was a cry
out for help. And we were able to that particular kid.
(17:44):
We were able to work with him and talk with
him to kind of tice to say, he says, to
the one that lives in hopelessness, consequences mean nothing. And
when you don't care about consequences, you know, the reality
is your life is going to end in a bad
or tragic way. Versus it's taking that kid that don't
care and trying to get them to care again. Has
always been our mission and our challenge, and so you know,
(18:06):
we try to, you know, share with them, Hey, you're
more than this. Life doesn't have to be this way.
And I know things are appear to.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Be a young person that lead them down that path.
And you can find two kids that kind of grow
up in the exact same circumstances. They're exposed to the
exact same things. Whether it's the neighborhood, whether it's the
pop culture references with music, whether it is the accessibility
of drugs and guns, whether it's violent video games, you know,
whatever it is. You got two kids kind of do
(18:35):
the same thing and one of them ends up doing great,
the other one ends up, as you said, in jail
or in the grave. Do you see some factors that
tend to have more of a negative influence on youth
than anything else and to the point where parents need
to do something about it or is it just the
lack of parents doing anything about it is the biggest factor.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
The people you hang around. Mother, you to always say, hey,
you got to be careful with the company that you keep.
And in today's time, you know when you go to
school and the drug guy is in the school, or
the guy that has the gun is in meeting you
at the school. The influence is greater now, and it's
like it's even more so if I was raising teenagers now,
(19:19):
you know, in today's time, I would pull my hair
out because you know they're you know when they when
your kid leaves out of that door, whatever you didn't
instill in them, they're going to be faced with things
that we weren't face to that we wasn't faced with
social media. We didn't talk about social media, but the
influence of social media and the pressures of having to
build a name for yourself through social media. I heard
(19:39):
a guy say one time, and they were talking about
kids nowadays they get glorified for killing someone, and it's like, wow,
back in our day, we was glorified and we were
honored because we had nice tennis shoes a week where
we were good in sports. Fast forward these kids now,
you mean to tell me, if you kill someone, you
got street cred. And the mindset it's changed, and that mindset,
(20:01):
that that sick mindset of our of this generation of kids.
And it's like I feel like that as we're working
with the parents and all those other youth service organizations
is huge in terms of it takes a village, you know,
in terms of just surrounding those kids with opportunity and
options of hey, if you want something different, Hey you
can go here, you can go there. These people are
(20:23):
are here for you, waiting for you. You need a call,
if you if you're experiencing, you know, the opportunity to
do something wrong that can cost you your life, Call
someone and we'll come to where you are, no matter
what time it is. And you know, that's just the
times we live in now.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Scott Voyes Mornings nine to eleven on news radio eleven
ten KFAB
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