Smart Justice
Smart Justice covers the pursuit of better outcomes on justice system issues, including incarceration, foster care, and juvenile justice. The podcast is produced by Restore Hope.
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Smart Justice
Mothers Who Lost Sons Share Their Journey Through Grief and Hope
Yolanda Harrison and Tina Dobbins share raw, heartbreaking accounts of receiving the calls that changed everything—learning their sons had been shot, rushing to hospitals, and facing the brutal reality that their children were gone. Both women describe how this trauma fundamentally changed them, triggering serious health issues and requiring them to forge new identities in the aftermath of loss. "When he died, I died. I had to learn how to be someone else," Harrison explains, detailing her struggle with PTSD and depression despite her background as a healthcare worker.
From the prosecutor's perspective, Chief Deputy Kelly Ward reveals alarming trends in gun violence across Pulaski County, particularly the proliferation of illegal firearms and their deadly modifications. What once might have been teenage disagreements resulting in minor injuries now instantly escalate to homicides. Crime scenes that previously had four shell casings now regularly have fifty due to modified automatic weapons in the hands of increasingly younger offenders.
The conversation doesn't stop at describing problems—it explores solutions. Both mothers have channeled their grief into community action, founding and participating in organizations that support other grieving families while working to prevent future violence. They emphasize the critical need for early intervention with young people, teaching conflict resolution skills before conflicts turn deadly, and addressing anger management issues that, left untreated, can lead to violence.
Join us for this essential discussion about the true human cost of gun violence and the community-based approaches that offer real hope for breaking cycles of trauma. Together, we can build a future where fewer families experience the devastating grief these mothers continue to navigate daily.
#violence #justice #community #grieving #prosecution
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Pulaski County continues to explore meaningful ways to address violent crime. Leaders in the community are examining proven, evidence-based solutions like group violence intervention. The 100 Families Initiative recently hosted the second in a three-part series of public meetings aimed at creating safer neighborhoods. In this episode, we'll take you inside that conversation where voices from both the judicial system and the community came together to confront violence and consider real solutions. Around the nation, gun violence is destroying families and weakening communities, and it's becoming a leading cause of death for young people.
Speaker 1:We know that in nearly every city, only a small number of people are driving most of the violence. An approach called group violence intervention, or GVI, identifies those individuals and engages with them directly, trying to offer them a way out before the violence occurs. It's not just about stopping the shootings. It's about building a community where everyone feels like they have a shot at hope. Mothers who have lost sons to violent crime carry a perspective that can't be ignored. Their voices help us understand what's at stake and why solutions must be urgent, compassionate and effective. Among them are Tina Dobbins and Yolanda Harrison, who both know the pain of losing a child to violence. They spoke on the panel alongside Chief Deputy Prosecutor Kelly Ward, whose work focuses on finding ways to stop crime before it occurs.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone. My name is Yolanda Harrison. My son, devin Sprawling, was murdered November 30, 2018, here in Little Rock. I'll give you just a brief little synopsis of everything that happened. The whole gist of it was the young man that shot. My son said it was an accident. He said he accidentally shot my son, but I never.
Speaker 2:I do not believe it was an accident, but I got the call. My son had just left home that evening, just gotten off work, and said he was going to go meet up with some friends about some beats. So when he left the house, he told me he'll be back shortly, which I really thought that he was going to come back, but he didn't. That particular night he left and he said Mom, I'll be back, I love you. I said I love you too, and actually we were supposed to go to the movies that particular night. We always go to the movies and that was a couple of days after my birthday, so and it was Thanksgiving, around Thanksgiving, so we were supposed to go to the movies and I had a headache that particular night. But anyway, I got the call um from from from a house, from the hospital, and I didn't realize it was even a hospital. They. A lady was whispering, almost whispering, like, um, are you Devin's guardian? And it was weird. She woke me up out of my sleep. Uh, it was like two something in the morning. I said, yeah, so who is this? She said could you come up to St Vincent? I said, yeah, so what's going on? She said just come up here. So I was thinking maybe my son was in a car wreck or something like that. My son didn't have a record anything. I didn't expect anything like he robbed anything or anything like that. I just thought maybe he was in a car wreck, a fender bender, and they needed me up there.
Speaker 2:Got to the hospital, my husband got up with me. We headed up there, stopped and got my knees headed up there and when I got up there around to the ER, you know they had crime, they had blood. Blood was all on the crime scene tape and I was like, oh, something happened. Oh, you know, something happened to someone. Let me get in here and check on my son, not thinking this has anything to do with me, because I saw blood as I walked in the ER trail of blood and I'm like, oh my God, something happened to someone, being oblivious.
Speaker 2:So as soon as I stepped in the ER, the lady, the secretary, was like are you, ms Harrison? I said yeah, two police officers got me by my arm and I was looking and they took me in the room. And I work in a hospital and I also work in the ER. So you took me in a room with a chaplain. He said have a seat. I said no. I said what's going on? You know this is what we do. So I was like what's going on? Why am I here? And the chaplain was like can you please have a seat? I was like. I said just talk to me. I said because why are you asking me to sit? I said I work in a hospital. I said you can just be honest with me, whatever's going on. He said well, we'll let the doctor talk to you.
Speaker 2:So the doctor came in. She had some blood on her scrubs and I just stood there. I said ma'am, what's going on? Talk to me. She was we're working on him. I said working on him, as in coding my son. She said yes. I said take me to my son. And she said no, we can't take you in there. I said take me to my son, I work in the ER, take me to my son and the chaplain said let her go, let her go in there.
Speaker 2:I know that's probably, you know, unethical to do, but that's what I do. I code patients, but you never never my own son. But so this is what I do. So when I walked in, they were coding my son. I had an out-of-body experience.
Speaker 2:At this point I was just like gliding towards him. So when I approached him, I saw this hole in his head and they were doing CPR on him. I literally left my body. I just stood there and I was looking. I said continue to code him as if I was at work. I literally told him to continue doing CPR on him. I tried to pretend it was a patient, not my child. I didn't want to believe that was my own child. I said this is a patient of mine. I'm just going to pretend. So I was like continue doing CPR. And they looked at me. Everyone just looked at me. I remember that so well.
Speaker 2:And the doctor said you heard her, continue CPR. And they said we're going to shock him. And we all stood back. They shocked him. I watched him. He had flatlined but his heart rate came back. So I was watching the monitor. He flatlined again. I said shock him again. And she looked. She said shock him again. Literally, I didn't want to believe that was my son again. And they shocked him again the second time. They shocked him. At that time blood started coming out of his mouth and nose. I passed out. I don't remember anything else after that. So that was my experience, my last vision of my son of seeing him look like that. But from that moment on I died. That day when he died, when they pronounced him, I died.
Speaker 2:I had to learn how to be someone else. I had to adjust to this new me, this new person. And I'm still adjusting to her. As you can tell, I'm still trying to adjust who I am, even after you know these years. But this is what happens when someone loses a child, loses a, you know when you, when you lose your loved one, especially a child, the, the trauma, the, and I'm thinking about, I think about me because I do this every day. I've been doing this for 20 plus years. I go to ER, patient, die, call family. This is what I do.
Speaker 2:I can't even imagine how a mother who doesn't do what I do every day. How do they cope? I couldn't cope and I say every day I have to tell some other family we couldn't save your loved one. And then I had to do it to my son and I couldn't handle that. And so I couldn't imagine a mother who doesn't work in a hospital will have to do this all the time. How do they? How do they cope? Because I couldn't the my mental state plummet.
Speaker 2:I was at my lowest point in my life. I um counseling, counseling, counseling. I can't tell you how many, how much counseling I've had, even group counseling. So it's so traumatic. People don't understand how traumatic this is. So it's like if I started this organization so I can try to help other mothers. I'm involved with parents who murder children, healing hearts. Every organization, moms demand actions because I don't want another parent to experience what I experienced. It doesn't matter how many lives I've attempted to save or saved, it's not the same when it's your own child. I literally lost my mind. Literally I lost it. So I've been diagnosed with PTSD and severe depression. Everything and severe depression, everything.
Speaker 2:I always considered myself to be a strong person, but to have to go to the bottom of the pit of my life to feel like I didn't deserve to live anymore and it was like you know, this was my only son. It was like I did not feel like I deserved to live, continue to live Like God. You didn't love me and I'm a Christian, but my faith was tested at that moment. I said you do not love me and I'm a Christian, but my faith was tested at that moment. I said you do not love me, god, you do not. And I know he loves me.
Speaker 2:But it took years of therapy to understand, to get to the place where I know he loves me. And I was in this situation, obviously to help another mother. You know it was a. I know it sounds bad to go through something so traumatic to say that you know God had other plans for me To. Maybe this was my opportunity to save some other mother or to help some other young man not do what he did to my, the young man did to my son. So that's just a short version of my story. Thank you all.
Speaker 3:And I needed her to tell that story because I need y'all to feel what I felt the other day and thank you, Yolanda. And she has shared her story on the podcast too, on our Smart Justice. So go out and look at that when you get a minute. Okay, take a breath, and Ms Tina Dobbins my son, christopher, was murdered January 17, 2023.
Speaker 4:Chris had just left my house. He picked up his little boy, Caden, at school every day and the routine every day. He brought him to our house because his mother picked him up from our house after she got off from work. So that particular day, we were standing on the driveway and my mom was there and he put something I think the blower in the truck for my mom and they hugged and kissed and what have you? And so my mom left and Chris and I continued to talk and we were talking about how Kagan was adjusting, you know to you know, new semester, and what have you. And so he said well, mom, I'm getting ready to go. And I said okay, and he said I love you. He said tell daddy, I love him too. And I said okay, and he said I love you. He said tell Daddy, I love him too. And I said well, chris, I'll go wake Daddy up. I said he's taking a nap. I said but he hasn't been asleep that long. He said that's okay, mom. He said just tell Daddy, I love him. He said you still got some leftovers from yesterday, and I said yes. He said well, I'm going to come back by and make a couple of places to take home. And I said, okay, I went, I worked from home. I went back, started working and that was at 305 and at 343.
Speaker 4:My daughter was a teacher, um, and she was seven months pregnant at the time, and she was seven months pregnant at the time got a call on Facebook and she never answers those calls. But she knew this guy that was calling and so she answered the next call we get. She is screaming at the top of her lungs and we're trying to make out what she's saying. And she said Chris has been shot. Make out what she's saying. And she said Chris has been shot. My husband, we jumped. I grabbed shoes, I left my purse at home, everything. We jumped in the truck and his keep in mind, his eight-year-old son was there. So his eight-year-old son had to go to the scene with us. So we're driving down JFK 100 miles an hour and my husband's not saying a word. I'm online with 9-1-1. They're telling me they have all the. You know North Little Rock police has been dispatched. Uh, where are you guys now?
Speaker 4:We get to the location and my husband jumped out of the truck. I jumped out, caden gets out and I'm running and there's yellow tape already taped, and so there's a lady from MIMS and I can still see her face today and I'm running and I'm trying to jump over the tape and this lady grabs me and she says ma'am, you can't go over there. I said you don't tell me, I can't go over there. I said that's my son. I said I'm his mother and she grabbed me again really tight. Meanwhile someone had already motioned to my husband that he was gone and she said ma'am, we did everything that we could do and I said what do you mean? She said ma'am, he's gone. When she said that I had, I was just screaming at the top of my lungs and the only thing that I remember after that is that my husband and another man, basically, were picking me up off of the ground and I just continued just crying and screaming because this could not be true.
Speaker 4:I just saw him. He just left my house and so there were just people everywhere. You know so many people. You know Chris was, he was, he was well known, popular in high school and what have you. And I'm just like I'm in a daze because you're telling me that my son is dead. You're telling me that my son is dead and they continue to, you know, assess the scene and what have you? And I'm thinking, oh my God, you know, his girlfriend was seven months pregnant too my daughter and my son have babies that are three days apart.
Speaker 4:And I'm like, oh my God, somebody's got to tell her. And then I'm like, oh, my mother. And so I call my brother and he he's in law enforcement in Memphis and he said I'm on my way. He said don't call mama. Yet I said no, I'm not calling mom. And and so some of my friends had come and I was just. It was just like I was just, this was a movie, this was something that you see on TV. This is not my son, our only son at that. You know, I'm not supposed to be here, you know. And I continued and it was just like I was just in a dream and my daughter was screaming and crying and finally his girlfriend had found out and she was crying. And so they continued.
Speaker 4:The investigators spoke with us and North Little Rock reassured us they would find him. You know, they already knew who he was. Rock reassured us, they would find him. You know, they already knew who he was. And the next thing that we had to do we had to go tell my mother, who was 78 at the time, and we walk into my mom's house and this is about eight or nine o'clock now and she immediately knows what's wrong. And we had to tell her. And it was just like everybody just like stood, we were just, we were just crying. My husband was just, he's, he's very quiet anyway, but he was just, he was just quiet, like this is not real. My grandson and I'll back up. We had to call his grandparents to let them know and they, they came to get him, to pick him up, and Caden is he. He had cried that. He said daddy didn't get up. He thought that his daddy had just fell down and he was down forever.
Speaker 4:You know, and from that time up until here, pretty recently, you know, when it's your child, I lost my father in 21. That was really hard, but when I lost my child, I lost me. I went from I've always had asthma, that's always been pretty bad, but I went from having asthma to having anxiety and panic attacks, my husband calling the ambulance because my blood pressure is sky high. I'm on more medicine now than I've ever taken in my life and I'm not ashamed to admit that the loss of my son has caused this. You know, my son had a baby that was born one month after he was killed. He never got to see his baby girl and she is a twin. She looks exactly like him, but he never got to see her.
Speaker 4:So there are three children now without a father. We're without a son. My husband's had serious health conditions. He's had a double lung transplant. My son was a son. You could pick up the phone and call him. Hey, chris, can you come do the yard today? Mama, I'll be over there in a little bit. Okay, can you come help your daddy do this? I'll be over there. We could depend on him. And all of that was taken away. My daughter and my son are only one year apart. She suffered tremendously. We worried whether they were going to have these babies earlier or what.
Speaker 4:But January 17th, I not only lost my son in 2023, I lost myself. I went through therapy. I still, you know, month kind of monthly now, but I still I'm not that person anymore. I'm not the person that I was before my son was taken from me, and I'll never be that person again. And I'm still trying to figure out in my head who am I? Who am I? Because some days I really don't know. This past weekend, I just could not get going. Everything was just about I could just see Chris.
Speaker 3:Everything.
Speaker 4:And I couldn't figure out why. And I said you know, I'm just not that person anymore and I have to figure out how to accept that. You know, I have to figure out. Our lives changed tremendously because now we have to assist in raising his three children who are young, eight, four and two, you know, when he was an involved father and his life was taken. That's just kind of the short version of who I am. Thank you, tina, thank you, Tina.
Speaker 3:Short version of who I am. Thank you, Tina. So we have Chief Deputy Prosecutor Kelly Ward. Kelly, when I tell you, these ladies sang your praises and they really did talk highly of you in our meeting. Tell us what part you play in this. How did you come alongside them? So, and tell us what you do. Tina, you can share your mic.
Speaker 5:So I'm the chief deputy at the prosecuting attorney's office. I've been the chief deputy since January of 23. When Will Jones was elected, he asked me to join him back at the office as the chief deputy. I had been a deputy prosecutor from 2002 to 2019, and then I went to do private practice for three years before coming back in 2030. And so my role has changed quite a bit since the first time I was at the office and I think our office has changed quite a bit since the first time I was at the office, and I think our office has changed quite a bit since the first time I was there. And I'm going to tell a story and I hope Ms Dobbins doesn't get mad at me, but how we met.
Speaker 5:It was January. Well, let's see, it was probably mid-23, mid-23, and we had had some prosecutors who had left our office. We had come into the office with 60% more cases than we'd ever had because of the COVID backlog. We had 250 pending homicides in an office full of 50 attorneys. So we had attorney shortages. We had people leaving and I was covering a caseload, and the case of Brandon Jefferson, who was the person who killed Chris, was one of the cases I was covering one day and I went to court.
Speaker 5:I was bouncing around. Somebody, when we came in, said oh, you were. I went to the six different courts you know in Pulaski County and saw how busy it was. Well, I was bouncing around from court to court. It was just a short hearing on Chris's case. I did it, I walked out, I went upstairs and I went about my business and I got back to the office and they said there's a woman named Tina Dobbins. She would like to speak with you. She's very upset. So I said okay's, that's great, that's fine, I will speak with her. And she was very upset and she had every right to be upset because she was in the back of the courtroom with her family and I. I didn't address them when I went in to do that short hearing to cover for someone else, because I was distracted.
Speaker 5:I was thinking about all the other things I had to do and I could have said you know, ms Dobbins, I have this many cases, I'm down, this many attorneys, I have this many. But that's not what we do in our office now. That's not the Will Jones way, because he says we got to take care of these moms Kelly day. And so I sat there and I took my I'm not gonna say the word chewing and I deserved it 100%, because what we can't forget when we're doing these cases is that these are real people, these are our families, that are going through the absolute worst times of their lives. And even though I have an office to help manage and attorneys to help, and you know my family and all these other things we're trying to juggle, that's why I'm there. I'm there to help them through the process. I'm there to prosecute the case, but also to get justice for them.
Speaker 5:And so I listened and I said you're absolutely right, I am so sorry. You deserve better than that, and I'm not going to take this case and give it to the new attorney. I'm going to keep it and I'm going to handle it myself. And so that's what we did. And the more we met, the more we talked, the more I understood about how wonderful Chris was and how it affected their family to lose him. And I learned more, not just about prosecuting the case, because that's what I always did before when I was a deputy, before I was managing the cases. My goal was to win the case right and manage the people that were associated with it. That is completely 180. Now Our goal is to get justice and to be advocates for the families and to be advocates for their loved ones that aren't here anymore. So that's how I got chewed out and learned a very important lesson that day, and I'm so thankful that Ms Dobbins was brought into my life.
Speaker 3:Thank you, kelly. Thank you All right, so we're going to start our discussion. I did give you guys some questions to look over and, tina, you talked about the triple effect, or the effect that it has. Can you, from your work with families I know you tell us? First of all tell us about the work you do, and then I want you to explain to the community from your work with the families, what do you wish more people understood about the ripple effects of violent crime?
Speaker 4:First thing I will talk about the work violent crime. First thing I will talk about the work. I became involved, a member of the group of parents of murdered children after my son was murdered and that group was recommended very highly to me. But there were, there were other ladies who were basically, you know, in charge of our chapter, and so I met them. That is how I met them and from being around them, around other people. For me I needed to be with other people who had experienced, you know, as a mother, as a parent, what I went through, you know, sometimes with men I'll use my husband as an example they're kind of more reserved you know, but for me it was important.
Speaker 4:I wanted to be with like people. I wanted to be with people who I had something in common with, because you cannot understand unless you experience the average person, unless they have lost a child, and especially to gun violence. They can't understand what you're going through unless they've experienced it themselves. So when I met all of the ladies there, it was just kind of like I could feel the love. I could feel that I could be. If I was having a bad day and I was crying or what have you, there were people there that could pick me up to say we understand, At every court proceeding there was someone.
Speaker 4:There was an advocate from Parents of Murdered Children. That was with my family and I from the time that we went to court in March of 23 until the time that he was convicted, and that was March 4th of 25. Someone from the chapter was with us at every hearing. Okay, the ripple effect. You have children. I'll use our family as an example. I have three children who have lost their fathers, their father the worst thing that can happen to a child. We have so many children now who are growing up in single-parent homes. You know, and I'm not knocking that, but children there's things that they need from their mother, there's things that they need from their father. So my grandchildren have been deprived of that and shouldn't have been, because with Chris and I'll use his son as an example whatever Caden was in, whatever activity, he was there. If he had to adjust his schedule or what have you, he was going to be there. From the time that Caden was born he was there when he was Christian. Caden's grandfather is a pastor and before his congregation he said I never have to worry about Chris not being there, because he's been here from day one. They shouldn't have been robbed of that. You know. We shouldn't have been robbed of having to suffer emotionally, mentally. Our lives changed, my daughter's lives changed, you know, because someone made the split decision to pull that trigger.
Speaker 4:My health has been compromised. The ladies in the group will tell you there was times that I wanted to be there for the meetings or the event, but because I was so sick I couldn't be there. So therefore I lost who I was. Like I said, I've always suffered from asthma. But these panic and anxiety attacks and I'm going to say praise God, I haven't had one in about three months now and they're so serious that my husband doesn't know whether I'm having a stroke, whether I'm stroking out or what, Because the one time, the last one I had, my blood pressure was like 189 over 120. And that's stroke level. So he's grappling with the fact. Fact he and my daughter and my mom, are we going to lose her too? See? But I never had any of this until my child was taken, because I've never, you're never, going to get over it.
Speaker 4:I don't, I don't care how many times people will say, oh, it'll get better in time, it will get better in. No, it doesn't get better in time it does not, you figure out how to cope because you don't have a choice. I have to continue to show up as an employee. I have to continue to show up as a wife to my husband, as a mother to my daughters. I have to continue to show up. I have to continue to show up as a wife to my husband, as a mother to my daughters. I have to continue to show up. I have to continue to be Gigi to my grandchildren, a daughter to my mother who's aging. I have to be there for her, someone.
Speaker 4:It affects that entire family. It's just from one to the other, one to the other, and I'm going to say it affects their family too, because guess what? Your loved one that made that decision, whether they were mad, whether it was pride, or they feel that someone disrespected them or what have you? Guess what? You're going to suffer too, because your child, who made that decision is on their way to the Department of Corrections and their life is over too, See. So it affects both ways, but that victim's family, you're never the same, Never. And unless you have experienced it and walked that walk, you can't understand it.
Speaker 3:Thank you, tina. I saw you motion over here. Do we have some support from your organization? Are they here? Yes, thank you guys for your support. All right, thank you. Yeah, I knew this was going to be the hardest alliance meeting for me, because this is this is so hard. And, yolanda, I know you have an organization too. Mothers of Black Sons Standing Against Death. And what's your core mission?
Speaker 2:Our core mission is and the reason I started is because of the death of my son and it's for all mothers and I said Mothers of Black Sons because it's such a high rate of young black- men that are killed in homicide, but it's for all mothers.
Speaker 2:I do want to clarify that it's for all mothers. I do want to clarify that it's for all mothers. But our core mission pretty much are preventative measures, like we want to take illegal guns out of the hands of irresponsible individuals first of all, and increase the high school graduation rate of black males, decrease the pregnancy rate of black females and provoke the media to cover interracial homicides of black males at the same, with the same energy as they cover interracial homicides of black males when it comes to police officers. So they quickly cover that. But they don't cover black on black crime. But when black males kill each other, but they want to always that. But they don't cover black on black crime. But when black males kill each other, but they want to always make it a race thing. You want a white cop kill a black male when that percentage is super low, even though that shouldn't happen either, but that percentage is so low compared to the black on black crime. That should be more coverage and that should be the main focus good, which segues into our next question.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, you're welcome. Yolanda, pass it to Kelly. Kelly, speaking from the prosecutor's standpoint, and we're talking about violence. What trends in violent crimes are most concerning right now in Pulaski County?
Speaker 5:So I would say, 100% echoing what Ms Yolanda said is guns, guns, guns, guns, illegal possession of guns, illegal modification of guns and illegal gun transactions. We are seeing so many more guns in circulation than we've ever seen before and I've been doing criminal law since 2002, so 23 years. And if you look at especially possession by young people, by people under the age of 18, the instance of minor it's called minor in possession of a handgun. That's the offense that kids can get charged with for illegally possessing handguns. It has gone so far beyond what it was in 2015, 2016. I see my good friend, colleague, casey Beard, nodding over here. She's our senior deputy over our juvenile court, senior deputy over our juvenile court, and what she is would tell you and she's told me is we had kids that would prior to what would you say, 2016, 17. So about that time the majority would be um, you know the charge would be battery in the third degree. That'd be very serious. Maybe they got into a fight, you know. Maybe somebody got a bloody nose, because kids do that. You know if anyone is a parent here, you know kids sometimes might have little disagreements. That is something that you go through in childhood. But now disagreements with guns turn into homicide. Disagreements with guns turn into someone getting shot and paralyzed, or you know, it just goes from zero to 150 in about 10 seconds. And so we have to do more to get guns out of the hands of kids. And the scariest part is now they're not just regular guns, they're fully automatic guns.
Speaker 5:When I left the prosecutor's office, there was I didn't had never heard of a Glock switch in 2019. I had never heard of a Glock switch in 2019. I'd never heard of a Glock switch. I'm not saying they didn't exist, but they weren't prevalent in Little Rock and Pulaski County. When I come back in 23, they're everywhere. And a Glock switch I had to learn I didn't know is a modification. It's a tiny little piece that can be plastic used to modify a handgun to make it fully automatic. So instead of shooting, you know, pulling the trigger and one bullet coming out, you should pull the trigger and 20 bullets come out.
Speaker 5:So imagine that in the hands of a 16-year-old who is not trained, is not, you know, with firearms it's not doesn't have the life experience or anything to be able to control what's happening in the situation. And I'm not saying it's dangerous in the hands of kids. It's dangerous in the hands of everyone. We have our police officers do demo videos for us of them shooting these guns and they are, you know, trained 20-, 30-year veterans. They can't control it. Guns, and they are, you know, trained 20, 30 year veterans. They can't control it.
Speaker 5:And so now when we go to um will and I go to all the homicide scenes that happen in pulaski county when the when it occurs, because we feel like we should be there at the beginning. We should be there and see what the officers are seeing. We could be there to, to answer questions about the investigation and to also see it for ourselves instead of looking at it on a piece of paper or on the screen later. And it goes from when I did you know murder cases in the teens. You'd have four shell casings.
Speaker 5:That's what comes out of the gun. You know when the shots are fired. We'd have that four. Now we go and there's 50. You look at a scene and there will be 50 shell casings in one shooting because of these fully automatic guns. So that is terrifying. And the sale of the guns is also what promotes the violence too. We have a lot of cases where people will attempt to buy guns illegally, and then that ends up in a robbery which can end up in a homicide. So around the transaction, the possession of these weapons by kids and the illegal possession of other people.
Speaker 3:Thank you for that, kelly. How does your office deal with the criminal cases, with the victims and the offenders?
Speaker 5:How do you?
Speaker 3:deal with those families on both sides.
Speaker 5:So that's a really good question. I've already told you about my how I met Ms Dobbins, but we want to have empathy for both parties. I mean, it's never a case and I think that's kind of a it could be a misconception that we get a new case and we're like oh yes, you know, we love, we don't. We want less cases. We want to have less victims. We want to have less people that have committed crimes and then have to be held accountable for them. So I'll tell you, when I first came back in 23, not only did we have more guns, but we had more juveniles committing murder than I'd ever seen before and I took over a caseload that had several 15-year-olds charged with capital murder. And when I'm a mom, at that time my son was a senior in high school and I open up a case file and I see a 15-year-old has killed two people and it was his foster family, shot one of them in the head and the other woman in the chest. The man in the head and the woman in the chest 15.
Speaker 5:So I know what I have to do in that case, right, and the thought of what's going to happen in the future to his family, the people that love him, him. It makes me sick to my stomach as much as I feel for the family of the two people that were deceased. So our goal is to not have those cases. We don't want those cases. We want to have no kids that are out there committing violent crimes. We want to reduce all to zero. So I guess the answer is, I feel for both families. I know I'm advocating for justice, we know what we have to do in the traditional prosecution, but what we want to do is have less and in the way, these conversations, the education, letting people know what's happening, you know, in the community and then getting to, like Fitz says, that root cause and fixing it at the beginning before it gets to my desk, and then I have to make those hard decisions about what's going to happen in that young person's life.
Speaker 3:Thank you, kelly. Tina, I know you have support here today. Can you tell us how does the community wrapping around you, or have you seen community support, make a difference? For grieving families in their healing process.
Speaker 4:I think for any grieving family to know that there is support. Like I said, that healing process is forever, but when you know that you have support from the community organization that you are part of or people that you meet along the way, then it does help you to be able to go through that process. Going through the process of someone being prosecuted for killing your loved one, it's grueling. Every time that we went to court I'm in tears, I'm sick to my stomach. The person that killed my son is sitting over there smiling. I'm my husband's, you know, patting his feet because he wants to jump over there and, you know, and choke the living daylights out of the guy you can't of course.
Speaker 4:But you know, when you have people who are behind you and who are with you, it can help ease what you're going through. Like I said, it's a forever issue, but people that have something in common with you, you know that they understand where you are. And so organizations such as Parents of Murdered Children, you know it's important for people to know that there are organizations that are there to help Yolanda's organization. There are organizations there to help and to try to come up with prevention measures One of the things that I'm really big on, and I think it's because my daughter's in education. I'm really big on and I think it's because my daughter's in education, but you know some of the things she taught. She taught fourth grade for 10 years before she moved to another school. However, it begins at that age. You see that the children are disrespectful. I've heard it for myself and I'm like I told her. I said you know what I got to hang up, baby, I'm going to let you go deal with that. I said because your mother couldn't deal with that, because I didn't raise you guys, you guys knew better, you know. And so all of our organizations together, we have to start when they're young, trying to reach them, trying to prevent Even the education system.
Speaker 4:I feel that a lot of these kids just don't. They don't know how to handle conflict. When I was coming along, you had a fight. Two weeks later you guys were best of friends. But now, like Kelly said, they pick up a gun. Boom, I'm mad at you so I'm going to shoot you. You know finding ways to attack those ideas that are in their head, whether it's conflict resolution being taught in schools, whether it's dealing with anger management. You know as organizations, as community members, as organizations, as community members. You know as people in the county voters. You know, sometimes I feel maybe some of our leaders need to hear that we need to look at where we need to start, and it starts young, not just when they're older. It starts young, not just when they're older. It starts young. So, like I said, this organization has been a blessing to me, a blessing to my family, and you know I've chosen to, although my pain is great. But if you know, there's a song that says if I can help somebody, then my living will not be in vain.
Speaker 3:Amen, I thought I was in church. Okay, amen, we have one last question from me, and then we're going to open it up for discussion from you all, and then we're going to ask you guys to give us some ending points. Okay, but last question from me, yolanda and Tina, you kind of touched on it, on how to engage and mobilize the community.
Speaker 3:But can you tell us what can the community do, whether it's a big or small? What actions can everybody and every citizen, community members? How can we address the violence before it happens? What can we do as community?
Speaker 2:um, and I and I'm gonna go definitely piggyback off what tina said about starting when they're young the mentorship program, because from the research that I did on the young man that took my son's life, he had a history of anger management he had even in school he had a problem with. He had a really bad temper and then pretty much his parents coddled it all through his life. So I felt like if they had handled him then my son would still be here. He had a problem with anger and he acted out on it a lot, even in school. I did my own personal research on him and unfortunately he wasn't able to be used in court. But he had a problem and to me that made a big difference in who he was as a young man.
Speaker 2:If he had a problem when he was younger, what is going to happen? It's just going to go into adulthood and look what happened to you know my son. So I felt like if he had got control of his problems when he was a kid and his anger issues and knowing how to cope with anger, or if he's upset about something and it didn't have to be something someone directly did to him he could just be upset about something from the stories that I heard from other peers and even teachers saying that how he would overreact. And then, oops, you know, then it was an oops moment later. Oops, you know, then it was an oops moment later.
Speaker 2:So because even one teacher you know she wanted to stay anonymous she said she had begged the counselors and the principal to get you know and his parents to get him help, because they felt like she said one day, the way he would have outbursts with anger over small little things, whether he broke a pencil or whatever. His anger one day he's going to end up hurting someone and this fun house. She approached me. She said I begged. Then she said I always felt like one day he was going to snap and take a life or injure someone because of his anger issues. So to me, starting when they were young, when they're young, they need, if we see this happening in the classroom, immediately that child needs to get some help. We need to get help for that child and not just say, oh, let's suspend them and send them home, because you're not helping the problem by sending him home just sitting at home while mom is at work. He's probably home alone. So let's start with a major mentorship program with our young boys.
Speaker 1:If you haven't yet listened to the first meeting in this series, I encourage you to go back and listen to episode six. It features a powerful panel working at the intersection of accountability, rehabilitation and public safety. Each discussion in that episode adds to the momentum we need to turn ideas into action and to create lasting change. Listen to A Shot at Hope on YouTube, apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, or go to smartjusticeorg.
