Several Teens Charged with Murder

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gary s Adelmayer Jamrow is welcoming Douglas County Sheriff Aaron
Hansen back to the program. Sheriff, Good morning, good morning,
great to have you back. Horrible story about these kids
accused of killing sixty four year old man up in
ninety fourth and Katie the other night. I can't even
get it, but what is it? Three of them arrested,

(00:21):
four of them, and there may be two other suspects,
and one of them is only eleven. This is just
a brutal story. And these kids are known to you right.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yea, known to law enforcement in general. And I think
that's what's so frustrating, you know. I think there's probably
not a city, probably not a metro area in the
nation that has been as successful as the Omo metro
area and combating violent crime. But I think that's relegated
to adult violent crime. I think it's probably not a
better police chief than touch matter retooling his agency, regardless

(00:51):
of the staffing challenges, to be able to defeat and
combat and prevent adult violence. But this juvenile violence spike
that we're dealing with, it is something beyond law enforcement's control.
State lawmakers have tied the hands of judges, parents, prosecutors,
law enforcement. We have to do something about it.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
What are you dealing with in terms of what the
state has done that you say ties your hands.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, pick for example, you know, you take the four
kids that were just booked, and I do think the
news is reported, we can probably anticipate more. You know,
we have an eleven year old who had been arrested
once a month since May for everything from multiple stolen
cars to guns, and because of his age, we were
not allowed by law to keep that young man detained

(01:44):
because nonprofit entities and activist entities convinced state senators that
it's too traumatic to kids to be detained. And it's
a similar story with many of these kids involved in
this case. The another similar thee is that these kids
are just either cutting their ankle monitors and running, letting
their ankle monitors die and run, or running from unsecure,

(02:09):
unlocked alternates to detention. And I want to make sure
when we know, when we talk about these unsecure alternatates
to attention, we know they're good people, they mean well,
but they're operating within the same state laws that we
were handed by the state legislature. And again, we need
everyone to be honest about where we're at. There are
folks at the city leadership level, county leadership level, and

(02:32):
state leadership level that were quite frankly well intended but
naive when we implemented these laws. It's time we don't
have the point fingers at who made a mistake, but
we have to come to grips with where we are
and how we need to swing that pendulum back to
the middle a little bit more when it becomes a.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Juvenile justice Donga with Sheriff Aaron Hansen. Aaron, my understanding
is from the account of this and what don Klin,
the county attorney said, h if that eleven year old
walked up to that man and shot him and killed him,
which she might might have been the one, we can't
do anything. You said, let him go. Is that actually true?

Speaker 2 (03:07):
That is true? Well, the eleven year old, the eleven
year old, and the thirteen year old. There is no
other option to be charged in juvenile court. The thirteen
year old can be detained to some extent, but we
know the laws are retooled and it can tell them
to be released. The eleven year old cannot be detained

(03:27):
by law. And that's why when prosecutors and law enforcement.
When senators like Senator Vargas and Senator padding Pens and
Brooks were promoting these changes, and again we know they
believed it in their hearts, but we warned them these
changes would be naive. It would result in violence. And
not only violence, it's going to result in kids that
are going to commit more serious crimes as juveniles and

(03:50):
then in adults. And we're going to be settled at
that as well. So when I look at it, we
need three things. We've got to change the law to
allow these alternatives attention to be locked. That's number one.
Number two, we have got to peel back, clawback the
juvenile justice reforms to give Untie the hands of judges, prosecutors, parents,

(04:11):
probation officers. And number three, and this is big, there
is no parental consequence component in current law. We have
to hold these parents accountable. Some parents try hard and
they just can't control their kids, and that's why we
have to fix the other parts of the laws. But
there are some parents that are extremely negligent and don't care,
and they don't care if there aren't kids that are

(04:32):
running around breaking into gun stores or shooting in US
and people or not.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, And apparently the thirteen year old had been in
front of the same juvenile court judge four times, but
the juvenile court judge couldn't do anything about it. I mean,
where am I going to send him? There is no
place where I can lock the door behind him. So
he had to let him go. And I'm sure he's
and he's getting a lot of flack on social media
right now, which is unfortunate because the judge and I

(04:56):
don't know this judge, but the judge says, what do
you want me to do? I don't make laws unlike Washington, DC.
Courts don't make laws in Nebraska. So we really just
have to do what the forty nine full brides allow
for us to do. And it seems to me we
just need some locks on doors, Aaron. If we got
the facilities, we just need to lock them up.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
And we need people to be honest too. We need
people that are in the system. They can't be shirking
violets on this. I know it's a sensitive topic to
talk about when we talk about kids, okay, And I
know there's a lot of very powerful interests in town
that if you have real conversations about these things. They're
not going to be happy. But it's okay because we
have to value these kids, and we have to value

(05:38):
innocent people like mister Jama. And to fix these policies,
we need everyone to be honest, whether it's a judge,
whether it's a prosecutor, a public defender, or a parent.
And because we have no alternative in my mind, now,
are there options? Can we put tougher GPS monitors on
kids in the meantime, sure? Can we have more robust
alternatis's attention with more staff. Sure, But we have to

(06:01):
fix these state laws.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
No doubt. Is there a movement in the legislature. Well,
obviously not in this special session, but going forward to
this comming session this winter to do something about this.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
Well, as a matter of fact, I am traveling down
to Lincoln today to meet with the Attorney General. He's
very concerned. I do sit on the statewide Sentencing Reform
Task Force trying to find solutions to these many challenges,
and I can tell you a common theme through my
Public Safety subcommittee is the fact that the juvenile justice system,

(06:34):
the reform juvenile justice system, is a feeder to the
adult criminal justice system in its current form. And I
want to make sure I say this. Some of juvenile
justice reform has worked for low risk kids, yes, but
the one size fits off of these high risk kids,
it does not work and it's making them worse.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
A man, sheriff, thank you, Always going to have you on.
Douglas County Sheriff Aaron Hanson