March 25, 2025 • 17 mins
A downtown business owner joined me on the radio last week to complain about the repeat criminal offenders within Omaha's homeless population, and the city's lack of appropriate response. Police Chief Todd Schmaderer joined me this morning to discuss.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott Vorgiez. Last week on the program, we welcomed into
the studio a business owner. He's got some downtown hotels
and apartments, and he said the homeless problem downtown is
out of control. He's got people doing all sorts of
horrible things going and he talked about people exposing themselves
in front of families, or there was one big knife
(00:22):
fight he mentioned in the lobby of one of his hotels.
His name was Kurt Trevetti. And here's a portion of
that conversation from the other day.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Law enforcement themselves is not the issue. They are phenomenal.
But the problem is law enforcement is the reaction, and
that's just how they're designed. Let's prevent it before it occurs.
And when law enforcement does get involved, it's not the
officers themselves that are not doing the equal enforcement. You
(00:50):
can easily tell they have gotten messages from above to
to treat law abiding citizens differently than criminal activity by
the homeless. That has been evident for over a decade. Explain,
for example, when we have situations and you're gonna ask
me about those particular situations and we call law enforcement,
(01:14):
it's already after the fact. The damage is done very
Rarely do they ever get arrested. Very rarely do they
go to the source of the problem.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
How do you know that.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I've been a business owner downtown Oma for twenty years.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
So someone comes along, he's exposing himself to kids in
the lobby of your hotel. The police go up and say, hey,
put that away and then leave.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yes, and they say they create a problem. Do a
ban and bar, sir. We are hospitality operators. We are
not professionally trained people when it comes to handling dangerous
activity by the homeless population or any other criminal.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Those were the comments of Kurt Trevetti last week here
on news radio eleven ten KFA. B Omaha Police chief
Toatschmater joins me now in the studio, So when you
hear an Omaha business owners say that, what's your response?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
First of all, good morning to your listeners. I always
like being in the studio here do that every couple
of times a year. You know. First of all, I
don't like to be pitted against our business owners, But
in this particular situation, I'm you know, I'm going to
stand up for my officers on this. We spend quite
a bit of time in that area down there, and
when there's a crime that that has occurred, we will
(02:25):
investigate and we do make an arrest. There is no
edict from the top to treat people differently. We investigate
every crime that we come across. For instance, on the
issue in his lobby that if law enforcement were called there,
they'd probably ask to look at the cameras, they would
do an investigation. If they had the problem cause they
will make the arrest. And you got to understand that
(02:48):
two things. One, law enforcement we the investigators of the facts,
where we try to do the legal aspect of things
and try to make an arrest if it is there.
It is not the the business owner's responsibility to do
our job. We will do that and make that determination.
(03:08):
The second piece of that is we're not getting the
same sentiment from a lot of the business owners down there,
a lot of them. The owners will tell us that
things have gotten quite a bit better in that area,
and I suppose that, I'll suppose all out. A third piece,
it's it's a very it's a difficult environment. I do
understand where mister Trevetti's coming from, but there is a
(03:29):
hotel that he that he built right next to our
epicenter and that's the homeless shelter in the city of Omaha.
And if you go down to his hotel, it's a
nice place, it's a nice facility, it's a nice street,
and it's a great place.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, we're talking about kind of that area, maybe just
north of the ballpark downtown, and he owns a couple
of different properties down there. Now, he brought up an
interesting point, and that is, if he is a business
owner goes into a hotel and exposes himself and of
a family, it's on the news, local business owner, blah blah,
blah blah blah. If a guy who lives on the
(04:06):
street does it and the police come and arrest him,
it's it's obviously not a big story. We don't hear
about this on the news. And I know that you're
not judge, jury and executioner on things like this, but
we do see that these individuals, there's only so much
you can do. It's not like this guy is going
to jail for years and years. Oftentimes you're cited and released.
(04:29):
Some of these individuals are right back in the hotel
lobby doing the same thing over and over again. True.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Sometimes sometimes I mean, obviously, what gets attention. Obviously, if Scott,
if you and I wouldn't exposed her some somewhere, we're
gonna be all over the all over the media. But
if somebody anonymous, I have times that I have time today.
If you I'm busy, so you're on your own on that.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Check it out, that's under you.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
But we do, we do make arrest all the time
for for loot conduct and things and things like that,
and of course that's not going to be newsworthy.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
But some of these guys, they're not showing up for
court hearings. They're right back living in a tent down
the street from here, right.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I mean, the homeless situation is a very tough situation.
It's got a lot of complex layers to it. It's
got the one thing that always sort of amazes me
this last year or so, it's just the outright shock
that the home that there's homeless in the city of Omaha.
Coming out of the pandemic of twenty twenty and twenty
twenty one, it was a natural assumption that a couple
(05:31):
in the couple of things would start to go up
in every city across the country, and cities that were
prepared took measures to try to address that. One is
juvenile crime, because you took school and you took all
their stability out of the system, that was bound to
go up. And the other one was the homeless situation. Obviously,
coming out of a potemic, they're going to be affected
more than anybody. So the City of Omaha had the
(05:55):
foresight to hire a homeless coordinator about over three years ago,
try to get a landscape what the homeless situation looked
like and to address it. And it's stressed from a
lot of different areas. But the one thing I also
say is a thirty year police officer, Scott, I've seen
this ebb and flow many times throughout my career, and
I always felt the homeless situation was far worse when
(06:18):
we had the Greyhound bus line in the city of Omaha.
If you remember those days prior to twenty twelve.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, I lived up the street from it.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Yeah, And so we had those going and the city
took measures to address it. There was a time when
we had panhandlers on every corner, every intersection, and so
we took measures to address that as well. The city
had the forest sight to get in front of this
homeless situation I'm comfortable with the approach that we're taken
to it. And the shock that that homelessness is available
(06:49):
in the city of Omaha is almost incredulous to say
that people should be shocked at that. But also, if
you look at Omaha, you go to any other major city,
you'll come right back and say, I'll take the situation
here all day.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
So other people look at what's going on in Omaha
and they see if they go off the beaten path
a little bit, if they look under the overpasses or
see what's going on in some of the wooded areas
near neighborhoods around the community, You're going to find people
living in there. You're going to find a large group
of people, especially now as the weather gets better, living
on the streets around the Sienna Francis House, which is
(07:22):
what the business owner brought up time and time again.
You look at this and say, yeah, but think how
much worse it could be.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Now. I don't look at that way. I point that
out because there's a lot of hysteria around this subject.
I look at it as what we will need to
do to address it, and we address it from a
law enforcement perspective. When crimes are committed, but we also
address it from a whole new perspective because, as you
said earlier, you make one arrest, they could be out
(07:51):
the next day. You have to look at every aspect
of this. How many encampments that we have in the
city of Omaha, where can we disperse them to there's
drug alcohol, mental health problems associated that debt drive some
people's mindset, not where they're going to live. And there's
a number of homeless people that don't want to be
in the shelters. All of these things are very nuanced
(08:12):
and have to have a master plan to address all.
What I'm saying is Omaha it has got a master plan.
It is a priority for us here in the City
of Omaha. But it does not do this portrait any
favors when things are exaggerated, when ten year timeframes are
condensed into one week, and when the true terrain of
what's going on it is adequately articulated.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Do you wish that Omaha police could do more or
something different when it comes to those living on the streets.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
It depends. It depends because law enforcement, when we make
an arrest, we are short term measure. It's the affordable
housing piece it's how do we get resources to these
individuals so that they are not repeat and perpetually homeless.
And that's a very unique, hard thing to get a
handle on. But if you're a city leader, you put
(09:02):
that as a priority, and that has been done here
in Omaha with the anticipation that this could go up
after the pandemic that took place. So from what I've
seen is the planning has been in place. It's been
really impeccable, and we're trying to get a handle on
this situation. But let's not act like this situation is
egregious to the core. And I'm gonna get a little
(09:25):
tired of hearing about that. Call it like it is.
That's my job as police chief, good or bad, to
say what the train is like. And this situation has
gotten a little bit more attention than probably it deserves.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Last thing here on this situation, he said, he's not
the only business owner who feels this way. He talks
to business owners downtown and they all feel this way.
But he's the only one brave enough to speak out
your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Well, that's mister Trevetti's viewpoint, and nobody else has come
forward to share their viewpoints. So I don't think it's
fair to the other business owners to be called scared.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Is Omaha Police Chief totchmatter. We'll talk about the disruption
in downtown Omaha the other day with what was alleged
to have been three hundred youths out of fighting, and
also speaks to the question that has come up here
in this political campaign about staffing shortages within Omaha Police.
More with Chief Schmader next Scott. Spring thaw was underway
(10:19):
over the weekend and that brought the Robbins back to Omaha.
I got buds on my magnolia tree and we had
three hundred youth in the gene Lea. He mall out
there fighting the other night. It's truly spring in Omaha.
So you guys get a call with the Omaha Police Department,
what like four five police officers show up. There's three
hundred teenagers out there. How does this work?
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Well? The way it works in the jen Lea, MA
we do staff. We do staff the park, of course,
and we also have a real time operation center that
monitors by video pretty much everything that's going on. What occurred,
I think it was last weekend, was a large number
of juveniles in the park, Mecca, who provides security and
(11:02):
oversight of the park, and and the mall police. We
saw some skirmishes go a few things I wouldn't I
wouldn't call this a full scale fight or anything like that,
but we decided, based on what we're seeing kind of
around the gene leahy Mal that it was time that
we just closed it down, close it down before is
normally set to close. And we did that for a
couple reasons. One, we did that to prevent anything on
(11:24):
that particular night, but we're also trying to set a
tone going into summer. If you recall last summer, this
crept up for several weeks in a row until finally
the crowd gooer started realizing, we're going to shut it
down if certain things occur. So consider what that action was.
There was a preemptive setting a tone, but also setting
(11:44):
a tone for that night as well, so as short
and long term plan going on there.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
You and I both grew up around hill Maha. This
was a problem when we were teenagers. It was yeah,
just youth, not old enough to get into the bars.
It's pretty late at night. You're looking at this going
h come their parents aren't picking these kids up. This
happens for every generation.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Is it.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Is it worse now though, because it seems like teenagers
are more app to bring guns and weapons and some
really bad illicit drugs to their gatherings.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
I don't. I don't see it as as being worse
as far as the gatherings. And and please, I encourage
everybody to go to the downtown area of the Geen
Leahy Mal. It's a fantastic venue and it's safe, and
we're gonna we're going to ensure that the Omah Police Department.
The one the thing that I see with juvenile crime
right now in our city. And you probably call this
(12:37):
a product of the pandemic as well. Juvenile crime is
the violent crime has been on the rise now, it
decreased last year, so we're starting to make the turn.
But what I see is the recidivism problem. And for you,
for your listeners, Scott, that is when when the omal
Police Department arrested juvenile, they go into the juvenile court system,
(12:58):
when they get out, they commit the same crime or
another crime right over again. And that's what we're seeing
right now the om All Police departments. We're doing our
part we're making those arrest, but then those juveniles are
getting right out and doing those violent crimes again. So
something's going on in our system as police, courts and corrections.
There's something going on in the rest of the system
there that's not getting a very good handle on the
(13:20):
rehabilitation aspect of the juveniles. And that's not necessarily a
function of the omal Police. But as chief in this
city and as the and the mayor will tell you
as well, it's our job to lead on these issues.
So we do try to provide an influencing voice on
this particular subject because the recidivism is just way too
(13:41):
high right now.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
A synergy of influencing voice on this Yeah, we did
that a few months back. We got a few minutes
left here with Omaha Police Chief touched matter. You guys
are trying to be this component of safety in our
community while all we hear about is we could use
a lot more police officers. Is there a staffing problem
(14:03):
in the City of Omaha.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, well, let me categorize. First of all, City of
Omaha is the historic lows. Every single crime index we have,
I mean everyone from the property crimes to the violent
crimes is lower than what it was twelve years ago,
every single one, and coming off of last year's lows,
we are right now at pretty much historic lows. Not
just for homicides, although you look at our homicides compared
(14:28):
to every major city, we are the absolute lowest per capita,
but so all the crimes, it's just all down. And
so the mayor, in my opinion, has done an incredible
job of prioritizing public safety. My officers have done a
very good job of implementing and executing a strategic plan,
and I'm telling you theyre are highly professional. Here's how
(14:50):
I categorize the staffing situation Omaha Police compared to other cities,
our size, maybe a little bigger, maybe a little smaller.
Everybody's down about twelve percent, and so are we. We're
down on that twelve percent average just as well. I
refer to it more as all hands on deck because
it's a crisis. Would imply to me that public safety
was in jeopardy. Omaha is in its best state ever
(15:13):
with public safety right now that I can recall. You
can go back thirty years, find me a better timeframe
than now for public safety, and you're not going to
be able to find it, So I considered it all
hands on deck because I do get concerned about officer burnout.
I do get concerned. I want to maintain these low
levels that we continue to have, and so staffing is
(15:34):
very important components Scott. When you look at that, you
have to look at three things. How many applicants are
you getting through the door, are you retaining your current staff?
And then there's third piece that's very seldom talked about,
and that is has there been workload mitigators to streamline
your operations to free up the officers? And I can
(15:56):
tell you this, twenty five thousand calls a year are
diverted to our telephone response system, so the officers don't
have to respond to those. Our real time operations center
has been extremely efficient, probably reduces about one hundred calls
a month for the officers. And so the officers that
you see out on the street right now, if you
(16:17):
look at their time out of service addressing matters, it
is no greater now than it was five years ago.
But what you're seeing is less officers out on the street.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Well, it ends up being a bigger conversational point because
maybe you notice there's city elections coming up here at
the primary on Tuesday, one week from to day. You're
not a political animal. It seems like you've had a
good working relationship with Omaha Marriageing Stothard, Yet the Omaha
Police Officers Association and some people think this is you
and your police officers are supporting a different candidate. What
(16:52):
level of migraine headache does this all create for you.
You're not a part of the police union, not this
organizational structure anyway.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Right, Well, well, after you know, I've been in this
seat almost thirteen years now, so I've been through several elections,
and I you know the beauty of experiences. You kind
of know how things will go and you know how
the reactions will be. And obviously we everybody knows in
this country. And that's what the one thing I appreciate
about Omaha. It's a very educated population base.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I got thirty seconds.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
They know that crime is very low in the city
of Omaha, and they know during this time of year
things are designed to be made look as bad as possible.
And so I the one thing that I try to
do is just continue to be chief during this time.
Is because I know our population base is intelligent and
can see through a lot.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Of this and is Omaha Police Chief touch matter. Always
appreciate the conversation. Thank you very much for coming in.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Scott Voyes mornings nine to eleven, Our News Radio eleven
ten KFAB
Scott Vorgiez. Last week on the program, we welcomed into
the studio a business owner. He's got some downtown hotels
and apartments, and he said the homeless problem downtown is
out of control. He's got people doing all sorts of
horrible things going and he talked about people exposing themselves
in front of families, or there was one big knife
(00:22):
fight he mentioned in the lobby of one of his hotels.
His name was Kurt Trevetti. And here's a portion of
that conversation from the other day.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Law enforcement themselves is not the issue. They are phenomenal.
But the problem is law enforcement is the reaction, and
that's just how they're designed. Let's prevent it before it occurs.
And when law enforcement does get involved, it's not the
officers themselves that are not doing the equal enforcement. You
(00:50):
can easily tell they have gotten messages from above to
to treat law abiding citizens differently than criminal activity by
the homeless. That has been evident for over a decade. Explain,
for example, when we have situations and you're gonna ask
me about those particular situations and we call law enforcement,
(01:14):
it's already after the fact. The damage is done very
Rarely do they ever get arrested. Very rarely do they
go to the source of the problem.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
How do you know that.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I've been a business owner downtown Oma for twenty years.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
So someone comes along, he's exposing himself to kids in
the lobby of your hotel. The police go up and say, hey,
put that away and then leave.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yes, and they say they create a problem. Do a
ban and bar, sir. We are hospitality operators. We are
not professionally trained people when it comes to handling dangerous
activity by the homeless population or any other criminal.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Those were the comments of Kurt Trevetti last week here
on news radio eleven ten KFA. B Omaha Police chief
Toatschmater joins me now in the studio, So when you
hear an Omaha business owners say that, what's your response?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
First of all, good morning to your listeners. I always
like being in the studio here do that every couple
of times a year. You know. First of all, I
don't like to be pitted against our business owners, But
in this particular situation, I'm you know, I'm going to
stand up for my officers on this. We spend quite
a bit of time in that area down there, and
when there's a crime that that has occurred, we will
(02:25):
investigate and we do make an arrest. There is no
edict from the top to treat people differently. We investigate
every crime that we come across. For instance, on the
issue in his lobby that if law enforcement were called there,
they'd probably ask to look at the cameras, they would
do an investigation. If they had the problem cause they
will make the arrest. And you got to understand that
(02:48):
two things. One, law enforcement we the investigators of the facts,
where we try to do the legal aspect of things
and try to make an arrest if it is there.
It is not the the business owner's responsibility to do
our job. We will do that and make that determination.
(03:08):
The second piece of that is we're not getting the
same sentiment from a lot of the business owners down there,
a lot of them. The owners will tell us that
things have gotten quite a bit better in that area,
and I suppose that, I'll suppose all out. A third piece,
it's it's a very it's a difficult environment. I do
understand where mister Trevetti's coming from, but there is a
(03:29):
hotel that he that he built right next to our
epicenter and that's the homeless shelter in the city of Omaha.
And if you go down to his hotel, it's a
nice place, it's a nice facility, it's a nice street,
and it's a great place.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, we're talking about kind of that area, maybe just
north of the ballpark downtown, and he owns a couple
of different properties down there. Now, he brought up an
interesting point, and that is, if he is a business
owner goes into a hotel and exposes himself and of
a family, it's on the news, local business owner, blah blah,
blah blah blah. If a guy who lives on the
(04:06):
street does it and the police come and arrest him,
it's it's obviously not a big story. We don't hear
about this on the news. And I know that you're
not judge, jury and executioner on things like this, but
we do see that these individuals, there's only so much
you can do. It's not like this guy is going
to jail for years and years. Oftentimes you're cited and released.
(04:29):
Some of these individuals are right back in the hotel
lobby doing the same thing over and over again. True.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Sometimes sometimes I mean, obviously, what gets attention. Obviously, if Scott,
if you and I wouldn't exposed her some somewhere, we're
gonna be all over the all over the media. But
if somebody anonymous, I have times that I have time today.
If you I'm busy, so you're on your own on that.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Check it out, that's under you.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
But we do, we do make arrest all the time
for for loot conduct and things and things like that,
and of course that's not going to be newsworthy.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
But some of these guys, they're not showing up for
court hearings. They're right back living in a tent down
the street from here, right.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I mean, the homeless situation is a very tough situation.
It's got a lot of complex layers to it. It's
got the one thing that always sort of amazes me
this last year or so, it's just the outright shock
that the home that there's homeless in the city of Omaha.
Coming out of the pandemic of twenty twenty and twenty
twenty one, it was a natural assumption that a couple
(05:31):
in the couple of things would start to go up
in every city across the country, and cities that were
prepared took measures to try to address that. One is
juvenile crime, because you took school and you took all
their stability out of the system, that was bound to
go up. And the other one was the homeless situation. Obviously,
coming out of a potemic, they're going to be affected
more than anybody. So the City of Omaha had the
(05:55):
foresight to hire a homeless coordinator about over three years ago,
try to get a landscape what the homeless situation looked
like and to address it. And it's stressed from a
lot of different areas. But the one thing I also
say is a thirty year police officer, Scott, I've seen
this ebb and flow many times throughout my career, and
I always felt the homeless situation was far worse when
(06:18):
we had the Greyhound bus line in the city of Omaha.
If you remember those days prior to twenty twelve.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, I lived up the street from it.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Yeah, And so we had those going and the city
took measures to address it. There was a time when
we had panhandlers on every corner, every intersection, and so
we took measures to address that as well. The city
had the forest sight to get in front of this
homeless situation I'm comfortable with the approach that we're taken
to it. And the shock that that homelessness is available
(06:49):
in the city of Omaha is almost incredulous to say
that people should be shocked at that. But also, if
you look at Omaha, you go to any other major city,
you'll come right back and say, I'll take the situation
here all day.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
So other people look at what's going on in Omaha
and they see if they go off the beaten path
a little bit, if they look under the overpasses or
see what's going on in some of the wooded areas
near neighborhoods around the community, You're going to find people
living in there. You're going to find a large group
of people, especially now as the weather gets better, living
on the streets around the Sienna Francis House, which is
(07:22):
what the business owner brought up time and time again.
You look at this and say, yeah, but think how
much worse it could be.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Now. I don't look at that way. I point that
out because there's a lot of hysteria around this subject.
I look at it as what we will need to
do to address it, and we address it from a
law enforcement perspective. When crimes are committed, but we also
address it from a whole new perspective because, as you
said earlier, you make one arrest, they could be out
(07:51):
the next day. You have to look at every aspect
of this. How many encampments that we have in the
city of Omaha, where can we disperse them to there's
drug alcohol, mental health problems associated that debt drive some
people's mindset, not where they're going to live. And there's
a number of homeless people that don't want to be
in the shelters. All of these things are very nuanced
(08:12):
and have to have a master plan to address all.
What I'm saying is Omaha it has got a master plan.
It is a priority for us here in the City
of Omaha. But it does not do this portrait any
favors when things are exaggerated, when ten year timeframes are
condensed into one week, and when the true terrain of
what's going on it is adequately articulated.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Do you wish that Omaha police could do more or
something different when it comes to those living on the streets.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
It depends. It depends because law enforcement, when we make
an arrest, we are short term measure. It's the affordable
housing piece it's how do we get resources to these
individuals so that they are not repeat and perpetually homeless.
And that's a very unique, hard thing to get a
handle on. But if you're a city leader, you put
(09:02):
that as a priority, and that has been done here
in Omaha with the anticipation that this could go up
after the pandemic that took place. So from what I've
seen is the planning has been in place. It's been
really impeccable, and we're trying to get a handle on
this situation. But let's not act like this situation is
egregious to the core. And I'm gonna get a little
(09:25):
tired of hearing about that. Call it like it is.
That's my job as police chief, good or bad, to
say what the train is like. And this situation has
gotten a little bit more attention than probably it deserves.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Last thing here on this situation, he said, he's not
the only business owner who feels this way. He talks
to business owners downtown and they all feel this way.
But he's the only one brave enough to speak out
your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Well, that's mister Trevetti's viewpoint, and nobody else has come
forward to share their viewpoints. So I don't think it's
fair to the other business owners to be called scared.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Is Omaha Police Chief totchmatter. We'll talk about the disruption
in downtown Omaha the other day with what was alleged
to have been three hundred youths out of fighting, and
also speaks to the question that has come up here
in this political campaign about staffing shortages within Omaha Police.
More with Chief Schmader next Scott. Spring thaw was underway
(10:19):
over the weekend and that brought the Robbins back to Omaha.
I got buds on my magnolia tree and we had
three hundred youth in the gene Lea. He mall out
there fighting the other night. It's truly spring in Omaha.
So you guys get a call with the Omaha Police Department,
what like four five police officers show up. There's three
hundred teenagers out there. How does this work?
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Well? The way it works in the jen Lea, MA
we do staff. We do staff the park, of course,
and we also have a real time operation center that
monitors by video pretty much everything that's going on. What occurred,
I think it was last weekend, was a large number
of juveniles in the park, Mecca, who provides security and
(11:02):
oversight of the park, and and the mall police. We
saw some skirmishes go a few things I wouldn't I
wouldn't call this a full scale fight or anything like that,
but we decided, based on what we're seeing kind of
around the gene leahy Mal that it was time that
we just closed it down, close it down before is
normally set to close. And we did that for a
couple reasons. One, we did that to prevent anything on
(11:24):
that particular night, but we're also trying to set a
tone going into summer. If you recall last summer, this
crept up for several weeks in a row until finally
the crowd gooer started realizing, we're going to shut it
down if certain things occur. So consider what that action was.
There was a preemptive setting a tone, but also setting
(11:44):
a tone for that night as well, so as short
and long term plan going on there.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
You and I both grew up around hill Maha. This
was a problem when we were teenagers. It was yeah,
just youth, not old enough to get into the bars.
It's pretty late at night. You're looking at this going
h come their parents aren't picking these kids up. This
happens for every generation.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Is it.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Is it worse now though, because it seems like teenagers
are more app to bring guns and weapons and some
really bad illicit drugs to their gatherings.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
I don't. I don't see it as as being worse
as far as the gatherings. And and please, I encourage
everybody to go to the downtown area of the Geen
Leahy Mal. It's a fantastic venue and it's safe, and
we're gonna we're going to ensure that the Omah Police Department.
The one the thing that I see with juvenile crime
right now in our city. And you probably call this
(12:37):
a product of the pandemic as well. Juvenile crime is
the violent crime has been on the rise now, it
decreased last year, so we're starting to make the turn.
But what I see is the recidivism problem. And for you,
for your listeners, Scott, that is when when the omal
Police Department arrested juvenile, they go into the juvenile court system,
(12:58):
when they get out, they commit the same crime or
another crime right over again. And that's what we're seeing
right now the om All Police departments. We're doing our
part we're making those arrest, but then those juveniles are
getting right out and doing those violent crimes again. So
something's going on in our system as police, courts and corrections.
There's something going on in the rest of the system
there that's not getting a very good handle on the
(13:20):
rehabilitation aspect of the juveniles. And that's not necessarily a
function of the omal Police. But as chief in this
city and as the and the mayor will tell you
as well, it's our job to lead on these issues.
So we do try to provide an influencing voice on
this particular subject because the recidivism is just way too
(13:41):
high right now.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
A synergy of influencing voice on this Yeah, we did
that a few months back. We got a few minutes
left here with Omaha Police Chief touched matter. You guys
are trying to be this component of safety in our
community while all we hear about is we could use
a lot more police officers. Is there a staffing problem
(14:03):
in the City of Omaha.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah, well, let me categorize. First of all, City of
Omaha is the historic lows. Every single crime index we have,
I mean everyone from the property crimes to the violent
crimes is lower than what it was twelve years ago,
every single one, and coming off of last year's lows,
we are right now at pretty much historic lows. Not
just for homicides, although you look at our homicides compared
(14:28):
to every major city, we are the absolute lowest per capita,
but so all the crimes, it's just all down. And
so the mayor, in my opinion, has done an incredible
job of prioritizing public safety. My officers have done a
very good job of implementing and executing a strategic plan,
and I'm telling you theyre are highly professional. Here's how
(14:50):
I categorize the staffing situation Omaha Police compared to other cities,
our size, maybe a little bigger, maybe a little smaller.
Everybody's down about twelve percent, and so are we. We're
down on that twelve percent average just as well. I
refer to it more as all hands on deck because
it's a crisis. Would imply to me that public safety
was in jeopardy. Omaha is in its best state ever
(15:13):
with public safety right now that I can recall. You
can go back thirty years, find me a better timeframe
than now for public safety, and you're not going to
be able to find it, So I considered it all
hands on deck because I do get concerned about officer burnout.
I do get concerned. I want to maintain these low
levels that we continue to have, and so staffing is
(15:34):
very important components Scott. When you look at that, you
have to look at three things. How many applicants are
you getting through the door, are you retaining your current staff?
And then there's third piece that's very seldom talked about,
and that is has there been workload mitigators to streamline
your operations to free up the officers? And I can
(15:56):
tell you this, twenty five thousand calls a year are
diverted to our telephone response system, so the officers don't
have to respond to those. Our real time operations center
has been extremely efficient, probably reduces about one hundred calls
a month for the officers. And so the officers that
you see out on the street right now, if you
(16:17):
look at their time out of service addressing matters, it
is no greater now than it was five years ago.
But what you're seeing is less officers out on the street.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Well, it ends up being a bigger conversational point because
maybe you notice there's city elections coming up here at
the primary on Tuesday, one week from to day. You're
not a political animal. It seems like you've had a
good working relationship with Omaha Marriageing Stothard, Yet the Omaha
Police Officers Association and some people think this is you
and your police officers are supporting a different candidate. What
(16:52):
level of migraine headache does this all create for you.
You're not a part of the police union, not this
organizational structure anyway.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Right, Well, well, after you know, I've been in this
seat almost thirteen years now, so I've been through several elections,
and I you know the beauty of experiences. You kind
of know how things will go and you know how
the reactions will be. And obviously we everybody knows in
this country. And that's what the one thing I appreciate
about Omaha. It's a very educated population base.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I got thirty seconds.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
They know that crime is very low in the city
of Omaha, and they know during this time of year
things are designed to be made look as bad as possible.
And so I the one thing that I try to
do is just continue to be chief during this time.
Is because I know our population base is intelligent and
can see through a lot.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Of this and is Omaha Police Chief touch matter. Always
appreciate the conversation. Thank you very much for coming in.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Scott Voyes mornings nine to eleven, Our News Radio eleven
ten KFAB
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