Submitted photo Persayus Davis-May, 10, was one of two people shot to death early Wednesday on Youngstown’s South Side.

YOUNGSTOWN — A July presentation on police body cameras at East High School opened a few citizens’ eyes to the reality of what Youngstown police officers routinely encounter.

Malik Mostella, community liaison for the Youngstown Police Department, and other officers played a Youngstown body camera video that showed how a traffic stop for a man with an expired license plate turned into a foot chase with an armed man.

A woman in attendance expressed her amazement at how quickly the man changed from cooperative to potentially deadly.

“Something tragic could have happened within the blink of an eye,” the woman said.

“We run into that on almost a daily basis,” said Mostella, a beat cop for many years.

Mostella noted that the man was taken to jail and a report was written. But within 90 minutes, the officer who made the traffic stop was “right back out there doing it all over again. It doesn’t stop with the one.”

When Youngstown sees a streak of violent episodes like the shootings of eight people on Wednesday, including the murders of a 10-year-old girl, Persayus Davis-May, and Michael Callahan, 40, on the South Side, stress levels rise.

Mostella said violent episodes like these can take an emotional toll on officers. “But it’s what you sign up for, and you train for it,” he said.

“The job, of itself, is a stressful job. There are situations and circumstances that can change in the blink of an eye. You have to make decisions right on the spot. So it can be very stressful,” he said.

SEEKING COUNSEL

When stress builds up, officers sometimes speak to local pastors who form the police department’s Chaplains Corps. The department also has a relationship with mental health counselors.

“There’s counseling available. There are things in place for us when we have to deal with anything — not just shootings — when we have a lot we have to deal with, that are very stressful, that can wear on your mental health,” he said.

Mostella said one of the things that has caused stress is the way the killing of black Minneapolis resident George Floyd on May 25, 2020, by white police officer Derek Chauvin set off protests across the country.

“But the national narrative is not the local narrative,” Mostella said of Youngstown. “We don’t have that type of relationship with our public, but it still wears on you. When you go out every day, and your job is to help people and because of the national narrative, people look at you like you’re the enemy. And in all honesty, we’re not the enemy. We’re trying to help people whenever we can. So yeah, it gets stressful, and it can wear you down.”

He noted that George Floyd’s death was the “linchpin” that forced society to say something needs to be done. “But we’ve always felt that way,” he said of the Youngstown Police Department.

“All of the reforms that all of the other departments are making around the country, we’ve already had policies like that in place now for about 10 years. So to have to deal with how people perceive you to be, and you’re not really like that — yeah,” he said.

“You still go out and do your job the way you are supposed to do it,” he said. “When other departments around the country talk about they now have to have ‘use of force’ forms and write down every time they have to use force to deal with somebody, we’ve been doing that on our own,” he said.

‘WE NEED HELP’

Addressing any crime surge in Youngstown is made more difficult by the shortage of officers in the Youngstown Police Department brought on by retirements and people leaving for new jobs, he said.

It results in officers having less opportunity to be proactive on the job because of the need to answer calls.

“We’re reacting” instead of being as proactive as officers would like to be, he said.

“We can get it stopped, but we need the community’s help,” Mosella said of the current violent surge. “If we don’t have witnesses who are willing to come forward, willing to testify, you can’t press charges,” he said.

That’s a message that police Chief Carl Davis and Mayor Jamael Tito Brown stressed during a news conference Wednesday.

Mostella said people may not understand that even though officers pick up lots of information from the public, under the law, that is typically “hearsay” and not admissible in court.

“You can’t arrest people on hearsay. You can know everything that’s going on, but if you can’t prove it, if you don’t have people who are willing to step forward to testify to it, we can’t arrest people for that,” he said.

The American system of justice prevents most hearsay evidence from being used in court to protect everyone’s rights, he said.

“You can’t just arrest someone. You have to have the actual proof. You have to be able to justify it. Freedom is a precious thing,” he said. “It’s frustrating to be in a position where you want to do more than what you can, but you have to follow the rules. We’re doing what we’re supposed to do, but we need help.”

Feeling certain that you know who is responsible for a crime such as a murder — but not having enough evidence to prove it in court — also adds to officer stress, Mostella said.

“It’s very frustrating to see a situation, know what’s going on, but not be able to do anything to stop it,” he said. “Without help from our public, a lot of the stuff that happens, we can’t do too much about it unless we are right there when it happens to see it ourselves.

“When you see us driving around, you are less likely to try to do something you shouldn’t do because there is a greater likelihood you are going to get caught,” he said.

“It’s huge that we get out of those cars and talk to people in the community so they know us and we know them,” he said. “It builds trust, and it’s something in all honesty on both sides we need to do a better job of.”

CHAPLAINS CORPS

The Rev. Lewis Macklin II, pastor at Holy Trinity Missionary Baptist Church, is one of 11 pastors in the Chaplains Corps. He said the corps makes 24/7 help available to officers in the police department and their families.

“Officers are not immune to stressors. Because we are a small, tight-knit community, oftentimes officers know family members who are affected by the crimes, so they have to keep their professional guard always in place, but it does weigh on them, like anybody,” he said.

“We are available to assist and support them, as appropriate. We offer prayer, we offer support, kind of a listening ear. One of the things we value is the ability to share with us knowing it will be held on confidence. That is critical, which allows them to reach out to us when they need us, not when we want to be available.”

Macklin said he thinks it’s important that the public supports police officers in their work “as they have placed their lives on the line, especially during a time when police community relations in some communities are stressful. They don’t want to be painted with the brush of being a bad officer.”

He added: “They are oftentimes going into situations unknown and very dangerous to restore not only the safety of those who are victimized, but the community.”

Capt. Jason Simon of the Youngstown Police Department said the department’s staffing level is down about 10 percent from two years ago in spite of swearing in five new officers Aug. 13.

Mostella said being down so many officers “just means we just have to work more than what you should. And after a while you get tired, you get burned out, which is dangerous for us. Because when you’re tired and you’re burned out, you lose focus. You can be killed or someone else can be killed,” he said.

MORE RECRUITS

The city will give a civil service exam in October in an effort to find new recruits. In some cases, the department has paid for the new officers’ police-academy training, Mostella said.

“We have people retiring, which is normal, but our problem is we are losing our younger ones to other departments because of the pay. Our entry pay needs to be raised up. You can basically go to Sheetz and make more than what we do at the beginning, so we need to raise our starting pay,” he said.

Mahoning County Sheriff Jerry Greene gave the same rationale recently for increasing the starting wage for deputies from $17 to $23 per hour in a new collective bargaining agreement that takes effect Jan. 1, 2022.

Mostella added that the public may not understand that raising wages for new officers can’t be done with lightning speed. It involves negotiations with the union and approval by Youngstown City Council.

“A lot of people think it’s as simple as the mayor saying, ‘OK we’re going to raise it up.’ It doesn’t work that way. It’s not the mayor’s decision. The mayor wants to see us being financially competitive, but it goes to city council as well. It has to be negotiated. It’s not just one person signing a piece of paper to make it happen.”