Andre Ewing - Violence over the holiday time off

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Kashiabato six hre of fifty five kr CEV talk station.
A very happy Monday too, and a very happy New
Year to everyone. Nice to be back to work, Nice
to be firing on at least a few of my cylinders,
and it is always great. I love this man. Brother
Andrea Ewing would call him Brother Dre. You can find
him online and Andrea Ewing. He is responsible. He's the
founder of Curse Breakers three hundred strong and Death Row Ministries.

(00:25):
He tried to help some people dealing with the prison
system to no longer deal with the prison system, to
find solutions for these people to choose a better path
in life. And in fact, former police officer was almost
we round up. We'll call him thirty year veteran since
a police officer, so he has been there. He's done
the hard work that we were just talking about with
Hamilton Township Police Chief Scott Hughes. He knows how bad

(00:47):
things can be, he knows how stressful the job is,
and he knows what it's like to be supported by
elected officials. And he also can lay witness to what
happens when our elected officials do not support police. Brother Dre.
It is great having you back in studio. Happy new Year,
my friend.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Happy new year. Brother Brian. Is so good to see you.
I'm excited about being here. It's time to go to work.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Well, we have come a long way since twenty twelve,
and I really truly you're not patting yourself on the back.
You kind of brought this this proclamation from the Hamilton
County Border Commissioners that you received in honor of the
work that you did for community service and problem solving.
It's the twenty twelve Beyond the Call Award and it

(01:30):
looks remarkably familiar. But as I see, it was signed
by Greg Hartman, Chris Monsel and Todd portun acknowledging you
for the work you did building cooperation between police and
the community. You were doing outreach work, you were doing
all kinds of you know, talking with churches, You met
with community leaders, discussed the idea of you know, enthusiastic responses.

(01:53):
You talked about the idea of police, you know, having
a better relationship. You got an award for this. This
is something that I just got off the phone with
Hamilton Township Police Chief Scott Houghston. He identified it and
I brought it up to him. Wouldn't we have a
much better city of Cincinnati if the damn elected officials
would come out and support the officers and praise them
for the work they do, Acknowledge their hard work, give

(02:14):
them the support they need, Encourage strong policing, put cameras
up where we obviously need cameras. I mean, there's a
multitude of things. The silence is deafening. You don't hear anything.
If it ain't a ribbon cutting ceremony for some new
skateboard park, you have to have purvalls missing in action.
So I mean, what happened between this time when what

(02:35):
you were awarded for, which what we're all clamoring for.
Whatever happened to these kinds of programs, they just disappear.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Called leadership once again. And you've heard me hammer at
home and smith Man was right on point. I thought
I was listening to brother Drey this morning when Smithman
was talking, So shout out to him on his passion.
I have a daughter as well. Yeah, and I understand
this process, and it's the gloves are off, and they've
always been off. But when you look at what the

(03:03):
community is developed. You have your pastors, you have police,
and you have parents, and back then in twenty eleven,
here it is a program being started, a faith based
initiative called Fact D three. We started in District three.
And ironically, guess who was the captain in District three
at that time, Captain Russ Neville, So he can witness

(03:25):
the program itself and exactly what took place. And what's
interesting is that what everybody is trying to do right
now has already been done. But you had leadership and
ego maniacs and people that are envious and jealous come
in and try to dismantle a program. And now what
do you get. You constantly get chaos, You constantly get shootings.

(03:46):
You constantly get a community who do not trust the police,
and that's a problem, and they would rather see a
little girl gunned down. They would rather see constant murders
in Cincinnati then to tell the police why there is
no relationship anymore with the police and with the parents,

(04:09):
and the pastors need to get reinvolved to re establish
this relationship so we can build trust once again.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Okay, I'm glad you brought the pastor part up because
I asked you off air, and it's been my perception
that maybe pastors don't wield any level of respect or
authority the way they at once point did a lot
of people in the old days. We all went to
church on Sunday. Children went and they were brought up.
You know, suffer the little children come unto me. You

(04:36):
bring them to church. They learn the rules, they learned
the morals, they learned the ethic, they learned the values
of Christianity or Judaism, whatever, all designed to make humanity
work together and play together better. But do kids go
to church anymore? Does a reverend or a pastor or
a minister at one of the city churches still hold
and wield some measure of influence over young people. No, ohd.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Social media is the rule. People don't really come out
to fellowship anymore at churches. Churches are hemorrhaging for young
people to come out. And this is an issue because
now most pastors have different agendas when they used to
get out into the community. Avondale has fifty two churches.

(05:21):
On every block you would go and see that there
is a church, and in every community you would go
and see that there's a church. So the church would
be responsible for their block. They would make sure that
they know everyone in the community and would minister to
that community, whether it's your house of refuge, whether you

(05:41):
need food and clothing, whether you need even counsel. Those
pastors are needed. But what has happened now today the
pastors go against the police. Now when you have strong
leaders that constantly talk about the police and only bring
up black lives matter. If the police are involved in

(06:02):
a shooting.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, and they want and the narrative is they will
cite an illustration and no one, no one can say
with a straight face that all police are all good, moral, ethical,
right people, No one is correct. I mean, you're looking
for perfect in any human being, you ain't gonna find
it right, correct, So we start from that. But by
focusing on only the worst and then telling the rest

(06:25):
of the world that all of them are participants in
this egregious behavior, you've undermined the whole thing. And when
you were talking about what the pastors used to do,
they know everybody on the block, they would engage, they
would find out, they would listen and talk. That was
kind of the role the police used to have. The
beat cop. You know, he knew the store owners said
hi to him, checking doors. That's the type of relationship

(06:47):
we need to build between police and the community. But
if the community is of the perception, then any guy
in uniform or woman in uniform bad. If that's the
first response, you're not gonna get anywhere nowhere now.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
And this is what you see in the communities that
are happening. They really are saying, hey, we don't want
the police here. We don't want you here at all.
We're not going to support that at all. And if
you're in our neighborhood now it's well, the police are
going to just arrest us and don't talk to the
police at all. So now you have this misconception. What

(07:20):
are you teaching our young people, especially our young inner
city kids that look at the uniform and say, I
despise you from jump And this is why it's important
to reunite this relationship, to really say we're not just
here to lock you up. That's not my intentions. And
that's what I wanted to prove even back in twenty eleven,

(07:41):
to say, hey, look, you're looking at the uniform, but
let me tell you more about brother Dre. And this
built the relationship that it became so strong. I was
even awarded for it. But people lost sight of the vision.
Even and like I told you before, even a Vice
Mayor Kearney, she knows about the program and things that
are implement it. And one thing that agreeges me is

(08:03):
when Miss Williams, the mother of the eleven year old,
she made a comment said, we don't even live here.
I hate this city. There's nothing but cruel people here.
Now see that right there alone as a travesty and
how they were treated at the hospital. And I know
that to be true. And that's why this program was implemented.

(08:27):
To teach pastors and have chaplains and have an emergency
care team to go to these families at the hospital,
because I've watched them just look at their loved one
dead and no one is there to support, No one
is the go between, no one to talk to them.
So I hope that intrim Chief Henny is listening because

(08:48):
I'm tired of talking about the same things. Get a
care team in place. It was dismantled back in twenty
eleven and twelve because of jealousy. We need to have
people in place that know how to talk to the
community and be a goal between.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
So a program that you were responsible for that proved
itself a worthwhile program, so much so that you got
an award for it. They dismantled it over politics.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Basically correct correct is there's always jealousy when you reach
the top. Trust me when I tell you that. And
when you are doing great things, you are a big
target and they say new levels, new devils. And so
even though the program tried to continue, they couldn't continue it.
Why because God didn't give them the vision. God didn't

(09:37):
give them to know how what to do. And the
key was it started in District three, but the goal
was to have it in every district, to have a
faith based liaison officer in all the five districts at
that time. And what you would have is now a
communication from every district in every corner and every church

(10:00):
successful in District three, which is one of the busiest
districts that we have, and so why wouldn't you want
to utilize that in every district. So they didn't continue
with the vision, and guess what happened. The relationships between
the police and the pastors separated in the community, lost
trust and here we are today.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
And then you have the George Floyd impetus behind the
Black Lives Matter movement which became a complete hate the police,
defund the police and propelling and continuing that broadbrush narrative
that all police are bad. Let's talk with more with
brother Dre andre Ewing. Fund him my line andre Ewing
on Facebook. He's just outspoken. He does a video sort

(10:40):
of a fireside chat. If I may be so delicate,
but he does a great job at it. Eight sixteen
right now, will continue, don't go away, fifty five the
talk station A twenty here fifty five kerc DE talk station.
I will correct the record. Brother Dre is in studio,
but I used Andre Ewing. It's his his web page

(11:00):
on Facebook. But he's got his own curse Breakers one
word three hundred, Brother Dre. If you just type in
curse Breakers three hundred on Facebook, you will find it.
And that's where you can be well. You can enjoy
his rants as much as I do. Each and every week.
Ox spoke and again he knows about law enforcement, having
spent almost thirty full years as a Cincinnti police officer.

(11:21):
An award winner he is for his actions in the
community trying to breach that you know, trust issue that
we clearly have, which is fomented by politicians and programs
that were successful that have been deleted or eliminated because
new sheriffs in town, new administration. All. We can't keep
around what the former guy did. We need to go

(11:42):
our own direction and take credit for that. I get
that's I get that is the impression. But going back
to the political figures, we have the pastors and the ministers,
the community leaders. And I'll throw Iris Rawley's name out
there again because she is so profoundly influential. You can
say anything you want about her. She's got a lot
of sway politically in downtown Cincinnati.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Absolutely, I mean Iris Roly and if I've said this
is powerful in the city of Cucinata in other places.
And one thing that I know, if you want to
move the needle, you put Iris Rowley and Damon Lynch
in the same room. I guarantee the cameras to be
down there the next day. You're right, Okay, Now, so
we have to deal with the elephant in the room.

(12:26):
And if you are that powerful and you have that
type of voice and you can move the needle, why
is not this happening? So what has to happen is
the community of the West End OTR other areas. They
have to now build their strong communities. They have to
literally stay consistent and come together as one. But if

(12:49):
Iris Rowley is strictly against the police and don't trust
the police, and hear Brother Dre is saying, hold on,
we can try to work this out. Let's work together.
Guess what they're gonna trust more, Ira Roly, then they
will now, Brother Dre, because I've wore the uniform. So
there needs to be a breach of mediation. And that's
why you've heard me say on my podcast, I'm not

(13:10):
here to take sides. I'm here to save lives, right.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
And I just don't understand why she is that powerful
and fine, why doesn't she use that voice and that
power for good. You heard Smithman going on about it,
you know, the Black Lives Matter out there in front
of city Hall, and he's saying, damn it, these people
do not care about black lives because if they did,
they would be working to breach this gap that exists,

(13:37):
a gap that exists primarily because someone so influential regularly
goes out in front of the crowd and says, don't
listen to those people. Police are bad, period. End of story.
And then you can't get off the ground with moving
forward with bettering the community relations and bringing about a
safer neighborhood. What is her problem with wanting a safer neighborhood?

(13:59):
Police can bring them. The physical presence of police officers
are a deterrent to crime, stopping crime before it happens. Look,
there's a cop on the corner, I'm not going to
commit a crime. Light stand right there. That works. What's
wrong with that concept? Brother Drake Well?

Speaker 2 (14:14):
I believe in just talking to a lot of individuals
in the community that if we say release the police,
then there would be mass incarceration and they'll just start
to take advantage of the inner city of police. And
that's why I said there has to be trust involved,
and you have to make sure that these police officers

(14:36):
get checked accordingly. And that's why I always talk about
mental health. That you can't just let a police officer
go twenty twenty five years, fifteen years and never have
a wellness check. That's ridiculous. And I always said every
three months they should be having a strong psychological evaluation
to make sure how their policing is done. And even

(14:59):
have individuals that understand if this particular officer consistently gets
a complaint, they're consistently stacking charges, They're consistently arresting people
that don't deserve it. This is where you have, say
the brother dres that understand why is this officer doing
what they're doing so. But now if you have it
one way, brother Brian, that says, we don't care, don't

(15:22):
trust the police, don't tell them anything. Now you have
a community that's afraid of the police and the bad guys.
That is a recipe for disaster. And this is what
you are seeing right now. No trust with the police
and I'm scared of the local bad guy.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Wow, and you know just going I asked you the
question off the air. I mean, if you could get
a straight answer poll, you go out in every single resident,
unlike an election where only twenty five percent show up.
But if you got every single resident on record with
an honest answer to the question, would you like a
stronger police presence in your neighborhood? Period? End of story.

(16:00):
I would like to think that most people would, especially
if you're in a high crime neighborhood like the West End. Well,
of course I would rather have police there. Maybe there's
some bad eggs within, but we're going to stop the
crime from happening because they're around all the time.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Correct, Correct, But being around is also just saying we
need our community officers to be more involved. And when
I was doing it, it was we were making visits
and constant community outreaches and we were involved in so
many things within the community. Absolutely, and so they looked

(16:34):
at the officer differently in the uniform based on that.
Now the officer doesn't have the time to go about that.
This is why I said, if you have experienced veteran
officers that have retired, put them into a community relations
position to go into the neighborhoods and rebuild the trust.

(16:56):
You have all this money your auditioning out, but like
I said, you're not focusing it on the right resources.
Bring back these educated officers that understand, give them the
right training, and allow them to rebuild their relationships within
the community on a regular basis. Because the cop team

(17:18):
units now they're overwhelmed with so many other projects that
they have to do.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Contingent is down too, and we need more office absolutely
work done. Absolutely, We'll continue with Andrea Ewing again Curse
Breakers three hundred Brother Jerry on Facebook A twenty seven
right now if you have KRCD talk station fifty five
krc dot com free t shirts with the question Cursebreakers
three hundred dash brother Dre on Facebook. That's where you
find the man who is brother Jery Andre Ewingion Studio.

(17:45):
Thirty years as a police officer, just shy of he's
seen it all. He's had programs that he's been behind
and got awards for them, ways of bettering community relations
between the police and the community and of course holding
those responsible for bad behavior responsible. And you know what,
the way the data is collected these days, this isn't
the old days, Drey. I mean, you can't get away

(18:07):
with stuff like you did. And the old days, the
officers all have cameras recording what they're doing when they're
on the beat. Everybody's got a camera around them. The
city's got cameras all over the place, well except for
the West end, so you know this is going to
be recorded. Police know that they aren't. This isn't the
days of the rubber hose and beating confessions out of people.
And I'm not going to excuse, you know, pulling people

(18:28):
over for driving while black or something we all know
that that puts a bad taste in people's mouths. They're
just harassing me. But I mean the idea that these
solutions that you talk to, and one of the programs
you mentioned was DARE and we used to have the
officers in school and talking about issues with drugs and

(18:48):
reaching out and getting in touch with these young people
and establishing this relationship. Now, I asked you, because that
doesn't exist anymore.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
Apparently, correct, not here in Cincinnati. It is in some
nationwide departments inside the schools and for the their program
that was the Drug Abuse Resistance Education. It is neat
especially in times of today, that is so much easy

(19:15):
access to drugs for our kids, and so it is
necessary that we educate them properly. I've talked to school
teachers and they tell you we can't even teach because
the kids come in high they are either smoking weed,
they have alcohol, and this is a major major issue

(19:37):
and we can't keep up with trying to educate them
and they constantly get left behind. And this is why
you had all these alternative and charter schools being developed.
And you look back and you don't there's a charter
school every other month coming being presented, which is absolutely ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Well did the program work? That was the question I
asked you was a follow up because you know, quite often, well, yeah,
there's a we got a new solution, let's let's fund
this program, and then we find out that the program
is funded. Yeah we've got DARE going on in the
school system. But you don't hear anything about the result.
Isn't that a program that actually bore fruit and helped
people stay off drugs and get them on the right path.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yes, it did. We have some excellent SROs that implemented
the DARE program. I mean they had a relationship with
the kids that was amazing and knew how to talk
to them in a special way. And the kids trusted
them as well, because now they are not just trying
to police, they're educating, and they're telling you the things

(20:46):
that are bad and what can happen to you if
you have drugs on you. So it was an early intervention,
and they tell you already that early intervention is part
of a problem solving these things. It isn't rocket science.
But if we don't you already have an audience when
you have kids already in school.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah, you do, and I was just laughing as you
were saying that at early intervention. Going back to getting
kids back into church again, you know, if the wrath
of God is going to come down upon you, and
you learn that at a really early age and as
a way of keeping you out of trouble a lot.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Absolutely, absolutely, And it's proven that gun violence drops when
policies are layered, but they're not extreme. I'm gonna give
you an example. So you number one, you got to
have responsible gun laws. I mean, let's make sure that
the laws definitely fit the crime. When we don't just
patch you on the back and rub you down with
some lotion and say it's okay. I mean, we got

(21:43):
to get serious. And then the strong communities that for
some reason, the communities are not strong anymore. They're broken,
and we have to find a way to redevelop the
strong communities, not after major issues happened before. And then
you have to have one again, we just said it
early intervention, and so you have that early intervention, then

(22:05):
then there has to be what Brian accountability for violent behavior.
So there's still accountability. There still has to be discipline.
We're not just going to say no, it's over. So
when you layer these things. This has been proven proven
to work. So that's why it amazes me when I
keep hearing all these thousands of programs that keep coming up.

(22:27):
And I talked to somebody after we did a youth
interaction before, and he said, if we can concentrate more
on collaboration versus competition, we could move the needle in
a strong way. And a one hundred percent agree.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
Well, it's like the hand in the cookie jar kind
of thing that we saw in Minnesota and elsewhere in
this country. You know, you create a non governmental organization
who has all these great ideas and all the best
interests of the community, and everybody lines up and creates
their own NGO. They're going to get a check and
they're on competition whatever finite number of dollars is. Is
there any follow up with any organization out there claiming

(23:04):
to do what you actually did back in twenty eleven
that is showing results, it is actually proving that it works.
I don't ever hear any follow up.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
And that's the problem is they have all these government
funds and federal funds that come out and they just
start giving away money. We want to see the proof
in the putting let's see exactly, let's measure how this
has worked and save lives and made transformations.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
A thirty six. Right now, we will continue with Brother
Dre Cursebreaker, three hundred dash Brother Dre on Facebook. Hold
on right back.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
This is fifty five karc an iHeartRadio station.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
You're see the talk station. Hey forty here fifty five
KRCD Talk station. Brian Thomas with in studio Cursebreaker's three
hundred Brother Dre Andre ewing again and thirty year police officer.
He's got some great ideas about how to repair community
relations and he got an award for these types of
ideas a decade ago, and apparently they got rid of

(24:00):
them because well, the new administration, well they weren't their ideas.
So let's toss that out throughout the baby with the bathwater.
Let's not keep what works, Let's start with something new.
And then that brings us to the challenge of you know,
is there any accountability with whatever program has been started
to correct this problem and to bring it you know, I, honestly, Dre,
I would think that correcting the misperception that police are

(24:23):
all bad that is probably the easiest of the challenges
just straight marketing. You got Purval and Michelle mc kearney,
and you've got everybody on board praising the police, saying,
don't demonize them, welcome them. They've got great resources. They
can steer you in the right direction, keep you out
of trouble. They're not there to hurt you. They're there
to help you. That's why they signed up. That seems

(24:45):
the easiest of the challenges to deal with. And you
mentioned earlier in the program, you know, these outreach programs
you try to engage parents and pastors and all these
other community leaders. The word parents. I wrote that down
because I get the impression that parents just don't seem
to really care what their kids are up to at
any given time, that there isn't that disciplinary component. I mean,

(25:10):
I don't know what you were like growing up, but
growing up in my house, the biggest concern I had
was the incurring the wrath of my dad or my mom.
I mean, that was primary discipline Number One. Didn't matter
if I got paddled in school, I was going to
get a paddle when I got home too, and it
was going to be worse than the one I got
at school. So they cared enough about my future, to
make sure I went to school, to make sure I

(25:31):
applied myself. Is that as a concept just completely disappeared, dray.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Well, let's deal with the facts, brother Brian. One of
the things that is true is when you have fatherless homes,
it has been proven fact that your kids will more
than likely, over sixty to seventy percent, will be involved
in some type of dysfunction, some type of crime, some

(25:58):
type of drug add So it is a shout out
to the real fathers that handle their business. I'm all
for you. But the ones that are out here doing nothing,
that have zero relationship with your children, that just want
to keep making babies and that's it. There is a
responsibility as men, and I can speak on the level

(26:21):
of a black father who raised his daughter had full custody.
Shout out to Moline, I love you. You know. The
bottom line is black fathers need to stand up as
well as white fathers. I don't care what race you are,
but the father in the home is important to have
that relationship. So when you have these absentee dads, it

(26:44):
has been proven that violence will increase. You have young
young men and women that just are frustrated at life
because the number one person that should be in my
life to show me some grounding is no longer there.
And now the mothers have to either work over time,
double time trying to raise these children. And so what

(27:06):
happens is the siblings and the children have to take
care of the other siblings so they don't go to
school and get the education necessary to change.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
That's absolutely well, and that's thee another seemingly insurmountable problem.
If you have abosthe fathers, they're disappeared, they're gone, they're
a jet, doesn't matter what happened to them. Then that's
a role that could possibly be filled by you know,
men like you, people who are willing to engage in
you know, programs for young people to act as that

(27:38):
mentor and to provide that fatherly figure guidance that these
children so desperately need. I mean, that seems to be
a worthy goal and a worthy idea as long as
you're not politicizing it. I mean, I want to turn
my kid over to you know, if I if I
left my young kids, if I still had young kids
who weren't adults, and I put them in the hands
of Andrea Ewing, I know they'd be taking great care

(27:59):
of I know you're message. I know what you would
be saying. I know that they would be safe and
your you know, under your tutelage. And it is possible
that there's someone out there that has this idea, but
then they'll turn it into a big political exercise and
try to convince your kids a cops suck or something
like that. But we need strong father figures to fill
in that void where they do not exist in these
young people's lives or they're destined to that percentage you mentioned.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
One hundred percent. And what's interesting is I was doing
all this on my police salary. Yeah I know, I know, Okay.
I didn't ask for give me a special amount of money.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
We brought that up there.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Give me all this financial means that I need to
make it happen. I did it within the confinement of
my work shift. And that's why I'm gonna give a
shout out to Captain russ Neville, and I'm gonna tell
you why. You know, we know I have to have
the issues with which with Chief Thieji, Okay, but Captain
russ Neville, he understood the vision at District three. He

(28:54):
saw the work that I was doing, and he said,
what do you need to make this success sucessful? And
I'll give it to you. Whether it was the days off,
whether it was the overtime, he said, I want to
make sure this happened. And the key was he was
directly involved that every pastor every community member that I met,

(29:17):
he took the time out to sit at the table
to make sure these things were going to happen. And
it was interesting because he was out of his comfort
zone going into I want to say black churches and
being in a position to speak. But it brought the
relationship together because number one, they never really seen a
white officer comeing to all black church. But I was

(29:41):
able to show him exactly how there are cultural differences,
but how we can come together. And he saw firsthand
how it worked. And the proof is in what you
see right here in the rewards that was just given.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
Well, I'm gonna pause. We'll bring it back for one
more since we had one more segment with Chris Breaker
three and brother dre he knew he talks about it now.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
I'm Stephen Curry and this is Gentleman's cut.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
I think what makes Gentleman's cut the CD talk station
happy New Year Brian Thomas with Brother Dre. You find
him online and Facebook Curse Breakers three hundred dash Brother
Dre and you'll be very entertained by what he has
to say, some enlightening comments and some very pointed criticisms
from time to time. That's why we bring him on
the program. All right, man who had successful ideas and

(30:29):
again got an award for what he was doing and
by way of outreach more than a decade ago, programs
that actually work. This was through District three of the
CINCINNT Police Department, and he was doing all of this work,
the outreach work, the efforts to you know, bring the
community together, getting the priests together, the ministers and and
and and the people of faith together to work with
the community, and all designed to you know, grease the

(30:51):
skids and oil the machine of better community relations and
also trying to have an impact on young people and
change the trajectory of their life. You were able to
do this. You had the help of the Captain of
District three who offered you the resources. No one wrote
you a check one. This wasn't a decree from the
mayor or the vice mayor or the city manager. And

(31:14):
demonstrated success. Could they do this again on their own?
The police? I mean, is there someone stopping this successful
program from coming back or re engaging it or reimagining
it along the similar lines stray.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
No, this comes down to the chief of police. Okay,
the chief doesn't need permission from the city manager. The
chief doesn't need permission from the mayor to implement programs
within the department. And that's why I say, you have
to have the right people in place that will be
effective to make these things happen. And the officer who

(31:54):
has a heart for people, that understands and care about
people when they should go through through a chaplaincy program
as well to understand that process. And that's why it
was it was good to have everyone work together, between
the parents, police and the pastors. It is it is necessary.
But the chief of police could right now if he

(32:16):
wanted to call Andre Ewing and say we want to
implement a program and re establish some things, he could
actually get officers. So if you said you don't have
the man power, you don't have the bodies, guess what
I've said it one hundred times. Bring back retired officers
that know the community, know how to talk to people

(32:40):
and can address things on a whole different level.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
And if they spring from this, you know, uh, this
belief that you have, this, you know that you haven't
lost hope for humanity. You know there's a better way.
If they're interested engaging in this type of I'll call
it a ministry for lack of a better word, You're
not going to have getting retired police officer. This isn't
like getting a lateral higher from a police department where

(33:04):
you are hiring a person to engage in law enforcement.
This would be outside of arresting people. This would be
a spokesperson, an interventionist, someone who could help spread the
resources that are available.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
Absolutely and to implement that training that's necessary so officers
can relate to the issues at hand. And one thing
that made the program even successful was going into the
Hamilton County Justice Center and having the Curse Breakers three
hundred program there and bringing in officers that never had

(33:41):
an opportunity to actually talk to those who are incarcerated
on that level. They would drop them off but not
talk to them, so they would understand and even develop
a different type of relationship with those that are incarcerated.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
Right, and you were in rooms with you know, twenty
five thirty probably murderers because if they were still locked
up in a lock up, they obviously had committed some
pretty bad crimes. But they listened to you and they
appreciated you. From what I've understand, are many conversations both
on air and off air about this. They had respect
for a man who came in, who used to wear
the uniform, who even wore the uniform. A cop is

(34:16):
sitting here talking to me. That's just highly unusual. But
the idea that it had an impact, that it actually worked.
It was not you were spinning your wheels there talking
to someone like you were talking to a brick wall.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Absolutely, because I was building the relationships Number one, to say,
when you get released, we want to make sure you
have relationships already in place, right and wherever you go
back home, it's your community and we need to work together.
And so it was teaching these young men and women
how to be responsible in their community and build these

(34:48):
relationships prior to so if they already. Number One, employment
is an issue, guess what you had, brother dre officer
ewing as a liaison talk to a employer and say,
this person has these skills and are ready to go
right now, and all of a sudden, you can implement
an interview with this person because they've had the train

(35:10):
as soon as their foot hits the ground and are released.
Guess what, They're not a menace to society, but they're
a productive person in society, and they go right to
employment and feel better about themselves.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Feeling better about yourselves, you know, the beauty of work,
quite often is that it's worth. Absolutely gives you self respect,
gives your reason to get up in the morning, and
it provides a great foundation for you to maybe have
a family and take care of your kids. Absolute, brother,
dre always a pleasure having you in my studio. You
are always welcome in my studio, sir, or even just
calling in if you have if you can't make it in,

(35:42):
and I hope that you will be available throughout the
year from time to time to have these conversations further.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
Absolutely, and once again, I'm tired of saying condolences to
families for the loss. And there needs to be responsibility
on a whole nother level. Let's not wait for another
tragedy to do what is right. And someone, my mentor
said this to me. He said, helping hands do more
than praying lips, And I said wow, because faith without

(36:12):
works is dead. So you can pray for me, but
I also want your works to prove what you're saying
with your mouth.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
That's a beautiful message under you aren't going to leave
that